text:
Flat Holm

Flat Holm (Ynys Echni) is a Welsh island lying in the Bristol Channel approximately 6 km from Lavernock Point in the Vale of Glamorgan. It includes the most southerly point of Wales.

The island has a long history of occupation, dating at least from the Bronze Age. Religious uses include visits by disciples of Saint Cadoc in the 5th-6th century AD, and in 1835 it was the site of the foundation of the Bristol Channel Mission, which later became the Mission to Seafarers. A sanatorium for cholera patients was built in 1896 as the isolation hospital for the port of Cardiff. Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first wireless signals over open sea from Flat Holm to Lavernock. Because of frequent shipwrecks, a lighthouse was built on the island, which was replaced by a Trinity House lighthouse in 1737. Because of its strategic position on the approaches to Bristol and Cardiff a series of gun emplacements, known as Flat Holm Battery, were built in the 1860s as part of a line of defences, known as Palmerston Forts. On the outbreak of World War II, the island was rearmed.

It forms part of the City and County of Cardiff and is now managed by Cardiff Council's Flat Holm Project Team and designated as a Local Nature Reserve, Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Protection Area, because of the maritime grassland and rare plants such as rock sea-lavender (Limonium binervosum) and wild leek (Allium ampeloprasum). The island also has significant breeding colonies of lesser black-backed gulls (Larus fuscus), herring gulls (Larus argentatus) and great black-backed gulls (Larus marinus). It is also home to slowworms (Anguis fragilis) with larger than usual blue markings.

Bronze Age
The first traces of human habitation of the island are from the late Bronze Age, 900 to 700 BC. A bronze axe head was discovered on the island in 1988, between the island's farmhouse and West Beach.

Sub-Roman
In the sub-Roman period of the 5th-6th century AD, it became a retreat for Saint Cadoc, who lived on the island as a hermit for seven years. His friend, Saint Gildas born in the Kingdom of Strathclyde but educated at the College of Theodosius (Cor Tewdws) in the Kingdom of Gwent, lived at the same time on nearby Steep Holm, and the two sometimes met up for prayers. Gildas eventually left the island to become Abbot of Glastonbury.

In June 1815, a Dr Thomas Turner visited Flat Holm in a small boat and was stranded for a week due to high winds. He discovered two Christian graves located close together in a field 23 m northeast of the island's present farmhouse; one grave had been opened and contained a male skeleton. The open grave's headstone was made of purbeck marble and engraved with a Celtic cross, but had since broken in two. A second disturbed grave, also marked with a headstone, was found to the southeast and contained a coffin constructed with iron bolts. Inside the coffin were two skeletons which had been doused in lime, indicating that the occupants had probably died from a contagious disease.

Middle Ages
Anglo-Saxons called the island Bradanreolice. Reolice derives from an Irish word meaning churchyard or graveyard, alluding to the belief that the island had religious significance as a place of burial to people at the time. However, the island's current English name of "Holm" comes from the Old Norse meaning "island in an estuary". Records indicate that a Viking fleet from the south of Brittany led by two earls, Ottir (Oter) and Hroald (possibly Ottir's king Ragnall), took refuge on the island following their defeat by the Saxons at Watchet.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 1067, Gytha Thorkelsdóttir, mother of Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, stayed on the island before travelling to St Omer in France after the Norman conquest of England. After the invasion, Robert Fitzhamon formed the Shire of Glamorgan in Wales proper, with Cardiff Castle at the centre of his new domain. Flat Holm came within the parish boundary of St Mary's, one of Cardiff's two parish churches, and was kept as a hereditary property of the Norman Lords of Glamorgan.

A survey by archaeologist Howard Thomas in 1979 unearthed a number of medieval potsherds in the vicinity of the farmhouse and found evidence of continuous occupation of the island including middens containing numerous animal bones along with oyster and cockle shells. Fragments of green glazed jugs and flagons from the late 12th to 13th century and shards of pottery from the 14th century were also found on the island. The presence of Pennant sandstone roofing tiles and a fragment of a 14th-century glazed ridge tile indicate the existence of a substantial medieval building, possibly a chapel, demolished when the present farmhouse was constructed. Property records from 1542 show that King Henry VIII granted a lease to farm the island to a gentleman by the name of Edmund Tournor. His family remained on Flat Holm until the end of the 17th century when the lease passed to Joseph Robins.

18th century – smuggling

During the 18th century, the island's location made it an ideal base for smuggling. It has been alleged that an old mine shaft on the north side of the island connects with a series of natural tunnels, and a concealed exit to the sea. Although Flat Holm was in full view of both the Welsh and English coasts, customs authorities were powerless to act as they had no boat to take them to the island. According to tradition, a small cave in the east cliff at Flat Holm was used for the storage of contraband, mainly tea and brandy.

19th century – Seafarer's Mission and Marconi

In 1835, clergyman John Ashley from Clevedon voluntarily ministered to the population of the island. Ashley created the Bristol Channel Mission in order to serve seafarers on the 400 sailing vessels which used the Bristol Channel. The mission would later become the Mission to Seafarers, which still provides ministerial services to sailors in over 300 ports. A service is held annually to bless the island.

On 13 May 1897, a 22-year-old Italian inventor named Guglielmo Marconi, assisted by a Cardiff Post Office engineer named George Kemp, transmitted the first wireless signals over open sea from Flat Holm to Lavernock Point near Penarth, Wales. Having failed to interest the Italian government in his project, Marconi had brought his telegraphy system to Britain. Here he met Welshman William Preece who was at that time Chief Engineer of the General Post Office and a major figure in the field. Marconi and Preece erected a 34 m high transmitting mast on Flat Holm as well as a 30 m receiving mast at Lavernock Point. The first trials on 11 May and 12 failed. On 13 May, the mast at Lavernock was raised to 50 m and the signals were received clearly. The message sent by Morse Code was "Are you ready"; the original paper Morse slip, signed by both Marconi and Kemp, is now in the National Museum of Wales.

The island made communication history again on 8 October 2002, by becoming one of the first areas of South Wales to link to the Internet through a wireless connection deployed by Cardiff Council as part of the Flat Holm Project. The connection is used for Internet, access to Cardiff Council's data network and VOIP telephony. Cardiff Council's communication consultant Spencer Pearson made the first telephone call from the island 108 years after pioneer Marconi's wireless transmissions.

Shipwrecks
The treacherous conditions for ships around the island led to several shipwrecks. The British passenger vessel Tapley lost seven passengers when she became stranded on Flat Holm in January 1773 on her passage from Cork, Ireland to Bristol.

On 23 October 1817, a British sloop, William and Mary, foundered after hitting the three rocky islets known as The Wolves which are not far from near Flat Holm. The ship was en route from Bristol to Waterford and sank within 15 minutes. The ship's mate, John Outridge, and two sailors made off in the only lifeboat. 15 survivors were later rescued, having clung to the ship's rigging, but 54 other passengers were lost. 50 of the bodies were recovered from the ship and were buried on Flat Holm.

In 1938 the steamship Norman Queen ran ashore on Flat Holm but was refloated, and in 1941 the steamship Middlesex was lost.

Geography
Flat Holm is located in the Bristol Channel. It is a small, almost circular, limestone island, approximately 620 m in diameter, covering 35 ha. It rises in a gentle slope from the exposed western rocky shore to more sheltered easterly cliffs, at the top of which stands the prominent lighthouse. At its highest point it is 32 m above sea level. Flat Holm is part of Wales, although it is in the English parliamentary constituency of Bristol North West, whereas the nearby island of Steep Holm is part of England. About 1.3 km northwest of Flat Holm are three rocky islets collectively known as The Wolves, measuring approximately 25 m by 20 m.

The tidal range of the Bristol Channel is 15 m; second only to the Bay of Fundy in Eastern Canada.

Geology

During much of the most recent ice ages, from 1.8 million years ago, the sea level in the Severn Estuary was some 50 m below the current level and Flat Holm was joined to the Somerset coast as an extremity of the Mendip Hills. Sometime since the start of the Mesolithic period, 15,000 years ago, the ice sheets retreated, and the flat plains surrounding the river estuary flooded; the hilltops of Mendip Hills became the islands of Flat Holm and Steep Holm.

The Carboniferous Limestone of which Flat Holm and neighbouring Steep Holm are composed forms a part of a wider Mesozoic basin extending from the Bristol and Mendip area westwards beneath the mouth of the Severn to South Wales, outcropping to the west at Sully Island and Barry, Wales. Part of the island is designated a Geological Conservation Review (GCR) Site and is a recognised Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The GCR and SSSI interest lies along the south-western shoreline from the north west point to Lighthouse Point where a wave cut portion of the limestone displays large fossil "ripple marks".

During the Ice Age, the island was covered by glacier ice on several occasions. There are abundant erratic pebbles on the beaches, mostly from Pembrokeshire, indicating that the ice that covered the island was that of the Irish Sea Ice Stream, travelling from west to east up the Bristol Channel. There are also larger erratics, including one spectacular pink granite boulder on a rocky foreshore near the farmhouse.

There are argentiferous (i.e. silver-bearing) galena deposits on Flat Holm; the pits and mounds visible on the surface of the island are a result of trial borings. A dispute over lead mining rights in the 1780s ended with John Stuart, Lord Mount Stuart making an official complaint that the lighthouse keeper was using the coals intended for the lighthouse for processing lead. Mining for lead was not profitable, however, and the works were abandoned. Red marl from the Triassic Period fills joints in the Carboniferous Limestone showing evidence of karstic (cave forming) processes during this period. Caves on the western and north-eastern sides of the island were used during the years of smuggling.

Farmhouse
Records show that monks from St Augustine's Abbey in Bristol established a dairy farm and grange on the island after Flat Holm was granted to them by Robert, Earl of Gloucester in 1150. Dr Thomas Turner, who was stranded on Flat Holm during a visit in 1815, passed the time by exploring the island. He noted that the tax-exempt abbey farm was prospering and counted "seven cows, two bulls, five sheep, one horse, two pigs and two dogs". In 1897 the farmhouse was converted into The Flat Holm Hotel, and a bar and skittle alley were added, but the hotel closed after a few years. The farmhouse has been renovated by the Flat Holm Project and is now used as accommodation for visitors.

Batteries and barracks

Flat Holm was fortified in the 1860s following a visit by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to France, where they had been concerned by the strength of the French Navy. The Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom, under direction of Lord Palmerston, recommended fortification of the coast in 1865. The defences on the island, which became part of a line of defences known as the Palmerston Forts, were completed in 1869.

Flat Holm Battery is a series of gun emplacements on Flat Holm built to protect Bristol and Cardiff across the channel. There are remains of four battery sites on the island:

 * Castle Rock Battery: three guns in two Moncrieff pits and one open-backed pit
 * Farm House Battery: two guns in one full Moncrieff pit and one open-backed pit
 * Well Battery: one gun in an open-backed Moncrieff pit. The gun was removed by Army Apprentices in 1964.
 * Lighthouse Battery: three guns in two full Moncrieff pits and one open-backed pit

These four emplacements run from the northern to the southern point of the island, along the western coast. Nine Rifled muzzle loaders (RMLs) on disappearing Moncrieff carriages were built at the Royal Gun Foundry, Woolwich. They were mounted in four separate batteries, all in Moncrieff pits, 2 m in diameter and 3 m deep, constructed of limestone blocks and bricks. These pits had the advantage of being almost invisible to shipping and also offered protection to the gun crews. The RML 7-inch 7 ton guns were too heavy for mobile land service. They consisted of a steel rifle tube surrounded by wrought iron coils, and cascabel, with an overall length of each gun is 361 cm. They used a 52.3 kg Palliser shell and were mounted on the Moncrieff disappearing carriage. The guns were never needed and were fired only for test purposes.

In 1869, stone barracks were built to sleep up to 50 men. The men were stationed on the island to keep the guns in good working order but the garrison would have been reinforced by regular artillery and volunteer troops if ever an invasion had been imminent. The barracks for the battery were located near the southernmost battery emplacement. Other fortifications included a large drainage basin, underground storage tank, an administrative building and a secure store. A "ditch-and-bank" system served to protect the Lighthouse Battery from cross-island attack. The barracks were vacated in 1901 and the buildings have now been restored by the Flat Holm Project for educational use.

Radar station
At the outbreak of World War II over 350 soldiers of the Royal Artillery were stationed on the island. Flat Holm was re-armed with four 4.5-inch guns and associated searchlights for anti-aircraft and close defence, together with two 40mm Bofors guns. A GL (Gun Laying) Mk II radar station was also placed in the centre of the island. The structures formed part of the Fixed Defences, and protected the Atlantic shipping convoys between Cardiff, Barry, and Flat Holm. These works were abandoned after the war and the island has had no military use since. Flat Holm's helipad still remains, however, at the centre of the island.

Isolation hospital

In July 1883, the steamship Rishanglys left three seamen on the island who were believed to be suffering from cholera, one of whom subsequently died. The only accommodation was a canvas tent, and the regular inhabitants of the island petitioned Cardiff council for compensation, complaining of loss of income from visitors and difficulty in selling vegetables grown on their farm at the market in Cardiff. In 1896, the Marquis of Bute, then-owner of Flat Holm, agreed to lease all the land that was not already in use by the military or the lighthouse to the Cardiff Corporation for £50 per year. The corporation then built a permanent sanatorium on the land for use by cholera patients. The building was described in The Lancet as a "pavilion" comprising two six-bed wards and a nurse's room. In 1893, three more sailors arrived in Cardiff from Marseille on the SS Blue Jacket and were suspected of having cholera. The first engineer, Thomas Smith, and able seaman Robert Doran, were deported to the isolation hospital on Flat Holm to prevent spread of the disease. The second mate, P. J. Morris, was also sent to the island as a precautionary measure, but quickly recovered. The Flat Holm sanatorium is unique in being the only Victorian isolation hospital sited on a British offshore island. The last patient to die in the hospital, a victim of bubonic plague, was cremated on the island at the end of the 19th century. The hospital finally closed in 1935 and has remained derelict since. Both the hospital main block and laundry block were Grade II listed buildings and considered to be "at risk".

Flat Holm Project
In 1975, the South Glamorgan County Council leased the island for the next 99 years. In March 1995, the county council agreed to obtain Flat Holm through a 50-year lease from the Crown Estate starting on 12 December 1995. Flat Holm is now designated as a Local Nature Reserve, as stipulated in that lease. It is managed by the Cardiff Council as The Flat Holm Project. The work of the Flat Holm Project is supported by the registered charity the Flat Holm Society.

Flat Holm: A Walk Through Time
In June 2021 Cardiff Council allocated £1.1 million (including £645,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund) to repair the Foghorn Station roof, stabilise and re-roof the Old Cholera Hospital, and create new guided tours of the island. The project was expected to take three years.

Flora and fauna
Flat Holm was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in 1972. The designation covers the maritime grassland which is mainly concentrated around the edges of the island.

There are no endemic plant species but the relative isolation of the island has allowed a number of hardy species such as bird's-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) and biting stonecrop (Sedum acre) to thrive. There are also a number of relatively rare plants, such as rock sea-lavender (Limonium binervosum), and wild leek (Allium ampeloprasum). The leek grows to 6 ft and Flat Holm is one of only five places in the UK where it is found. Related to the onion, the leek has a bulb that grows for several years producing only leaves, then blooms with large purple flowers that smell of garlic. After flowering the bulb dies and produces up to 150 bulblets.

Others plants may have been introduced by the Augustinian Community for their medicinal uses. These include dove's-foot crane's-bill Geranium molle, an anodyne plant claimed by Nicholas Culpeper to have a wide range of medicinal uses and an "excellent good cure for those that have inward wounds, hurts, or bruises, both to stay the bleeding, to dissolve and expel the congealed blood, and to heal the parts, as also to cleanse and heal outward sores, ulcers and fistulas". The wild peony (Paeonia mascula) was introduced to the island (and nearby Steep Holm), possibly by monks, and has naturalised. Thirty-seven plants were taken to the island from Steep Holm by Frank Harris, the farmer at the time, in the 1930s, many of which died during the World War II occupation and fortification of the island. One remaining plant was reintroduced by David Worall, the Flat Holm Warden, in 1982 and is protected by fencing near the path to the lighthouse. A few plants grown from seed also survive in the island's farmhouse garden.

The island has a significant breeding colony of over 4,000 pairs of lesser black-backed gulls (Larus fuscus), 400 pairs of herring gulls (Larus argentatus), 2 pairs of great black-backed gulls (Larus marinus) and varying numbers of common shelduck (Tadorna tadorna) and Eurasian oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus). The feeding habits of lesser black-backed gulls were studied in 1989, and it was shown that smaller clutches were laid than in previous years and that supplementary feeding did not increase egg or clutch size.

The island is also home to slowworms (Anguis fragilis). Flat Holm's slow-worm population has unusually large blue markings.

The island's rabbit population, introduced for farming in the 12th century, suffers from myxomatosis, which effectively contains the numbers. The island has been grazed since 1989, initially by goats, but also by sheep since 1992. In 1997 Soay sheep were introduced and as of 2008 there are 28 sheep grazing wild on the island. Numbers of Soay sheep had declined by 2022 so Boreray sheep were introduced.

Sustainability

The Flat Holm project aims to develop the island as a showcase of sustainable technologies. The original power supply consisted of several diesel generators at different properties and unconnected to each other. In 2006, underground cables were installed to form a 'mini-grid' between the farmhouse, workshops and the fog horn keeper's cottage. This was powered with a 13.5 kW inverter/charger system located at the farmhouse with the farmhouse diesel generator as back-up.

In 2007 the system was extended to include a 27 kWh battery bank charged by two photovoltaic solar arrays of 3 and 5 kW, and by a 6 kW wind turbine sited at a redundant telecommunications tower on the high point of the island.

Severn Barrage study
If a Severn Barrage were ever to be constructed it could have consequences for Flat Holm, depending on the design and the route. A number of studies have been proposed, the latest being when John Hutton, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, announced a further feasibility study on 25 September 2007 to follow on the report by the Sustainable Development Commission.

The proposed barrage would pass two miles (3 km) west of Flat Holm. The study was expected to last at least two years and would be split into two stages. The first, which was likely to run until late 2008, would reach an initial view on whether there are any fundamental issues that would preclude a tidal scheme in the Severn Estuary.

In popular culture

 * The island was used as a location for the filming of the 1941 British thriller film Tower of Terror.
 * In 1979 the BBC's Let's Look at Wales presented by David Parry-Jones featured The Bristol Channel and included the island.
 * The BBC's Countryfile programme broadcast on 17 February 2008 featured Flat Holm and the possibility of a Severn Barrage.
 * In the BBC TV series Torchwood, the March 2008 episode "Adrift" featured the island as home to a secret medical facility.
 * In BBC's Not in My Nature broadcast by BBC One Wales on 23 June 2008, presenter Iolo Williams visited Flat Holm.

title: Flat Holm


text:
Talk:Synthetic consciousness

=Proposed TOC=

Background and History

 * Making the distinction between synthetic consciousness and artificial intelligence
 * Identifying why research into synthetic consciousness is interesting/important/compelling, and including:
 * one of the main raison d'etres of academic research is to use models of synthetic consciousness to gain insights into the nature of human consciousness (and not vice versa as I think many people assume)

The future - in science fiction
=Discussion= Can we start by using citation in every instance, in order to avoid, the sort of problems that beset the other attempt? Matt Stan 15:34, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
 * A section that might get replaced with a list of implementations of synthetic consciousness in fiction or some such

So...

The term synthetic consciousness is preferred here to simulated consciousness because anything simulated is by definition not real. Some consciousness researchers (e.g. ...) believe that a synthetic consciousness will never be really conscious. Others (e.g. ...) believe that possibly some synthetic consciousness may one day be really conscious. A few (e.g. ...) believe that some synthetic consciousness is already really conscious. We may, some day, not be able to distinguish between a sufficiently sophisticated simulated consciousness and a natural real consciousness (says who?): By Leibniz's law the simulated duck, quacking like a real duck, might be considered as if it were real. But one might speculate that Leibniz's law could not be applied to a synthetic consciousness which was convincingly conscious but was of a type of consciousness unknown until that point. Whatever! The term synthetic consciousness is an inclusive term for the purposes of this Wikipedia article which allows the discussion to proceed constructively. Matt Stan 15:42, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * The sentence starting "We may" is incontrovertible. You could change it to "we may or may not" if you like.  Paul Beardsell 15:49, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * I think it is an inclusive term absolutely: Synthetic includes simulated.  Paul Beardsell 15:51, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

On the point "...which was convincingly conscious but was of a type of consciousness unknown until that point". By what yardstick would one deem it to be convincingly conscious other than by comparison with known instances of consciousness, in which case surely it's back to Leibniz? Matt Stan 15:42, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Leibniz only applies in identical situations. Leibniz is a yardstick which would only recognize a human-like consciousness.  This might answer the question wrongly as to whether the aliens pouring out of the spaceship to envelop you with love^H^H^H^Hgoo would be conscious.  Paul Beardsell 15:49, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Yes, Leibniz acts as a constraint. If I see a creature that is unlike any other I cannot call it a duck (or, at least, I could, but it wouldn't be a duck). So I encounter a phenomenon that I am trying to assess to see whether I can call it consciousness. If I can apply Leibniz law appropriately then there's no problem. I meet someone called Paul: he walks; he talks; he uses the first-person pronoun; he actually looks a bit like me and shares much of my morphology - if I hooked him up to a brain scanner I'd no doubt see patterns similar to the ones I'd see if I hooked myself up in the same way. Ergo I conclude that he's conscious (assuming I believe that I am). Leibniz doesn't, incidentally, stipulate to what lengths I should go in order to falsify any hypothesis, but provided I apply all the criteria I know, I reasonably conclude at some stage that Paul meets my paradigm of consciousness. Someone else could come along later and prove, again by Leibniz law, that Paul had some deficiency or other difference that somehow made me change my mind and conclude that he was not conscious after all - just an ordinary application of scientific method. Now Leibniz's law obviously doesn't apply if I can't make suitable comparisons. I'm unclear how one would assess consciousness in that circumstance. Matt Stan 18:58, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Should the green six legged alien converse with you directly by telepathy whenever you gazed at its luminous eye then you might consider this a persuasive demonstration of consciousness which would fail the Leibniz test. As ever we have the necessary vs sufficient contrast involved in any test.  Passing acording to Leibniz in comparison with humans consciousness is sufficient to persuade us of consciousness, but it is not necessary:  We may apply a less demanding but also sufficient test.  When we find one!  Paul Beardsell 16:06, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * I don't think your example would necessarily fail the Leibniz test. I would only conclude that the alien was conscious if I had been able to compare his manifestation with my own understanding of what constituted consciousness. I can't easily say what attributes I would use to make that comparison. If I hadn't seen a bird and didn't know whether it quacked (were I to see it) then I couldn't conclude that it wasn't a duck. I have to see it first. Same with the alien. There are obviously grey areas, and the pony example is one. You say you think a pony is conscious; others would disagree. Each is applying the Leibniz test to a different degree and people will have to agree to differ. I am just saying that if one found a manifestation to which one could apply Leibniz law, e.g. a machine that behaved axactly like a human, then there would be no reason to deny its consciousness, so Leibniz law is useful in a limited way. One would have to find other criteria to demonstrate consciousness for manifestations that failed the Leibniz test. OK? Matt Stan 18:58, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Some think Leibniz's law is only applicable in identical situations. See second para under Leibniz law.  How that would cope with a six-legged, one-eyed, telepathic green alien I am unsure.  Paul Beardsell 20:22, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * I think you are right, unfortunately! Leibniz's law would have been a useful catch-all, but, as the lerned contributors to conciousentities point out, it can only effectively by used in a symbolic context. Matt Stan 11:54, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Matt Stan's "no content" preference
Matthew, if you do not want any content here then say so. But the article at the point that I first saw it was not without POV. If you don't want to explain why it's synthetic not simulated don't do so. Why mention Liebniz at all? Paul Beardsell 16:28, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Having decided that synthetic was better than simulated it did occur to me that there was no need even to mention simulated and hence no need to explain the term, as it doesn't occur elsewhere. I could just as well have put "we're calling is synthetic consciousness rather than unicorn custard because it is uncertain whether unicorns like custard, or alternatively whether there is a recipe for making custard out of unicorn parts". Matt Stan

 * OK, so that is just another way of saying you agree. The point is that the explanation you used re synthetic vs simulated was dripping with the weak-AC POV. Paul Beardsell 18:03, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

I thought that Leibniz admirably summed up the point I was trying to make under test acceptance criteria on the other page and is, I think, vital for a true assessment of any implementation. It's the meta-Turing test, if you like. If I (or you, or anyone else) can't tell the difference between a machine implemented consciousness and a naturally occurring consciousness then one must conclude that the frmer is real (assuming the latter is real).

 * I fully understood that... Paul Beardsell 18:03, 4 May 2004 (UTC) ...the first time but I disagree with it.  You have simply found a test DESIGNED to fail non-human consciousness.  Paul Beardsell 19:32, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

However, you raise another semantic point. If the little green men from outer space are deemed conscious (by whatever criteria) then that's no guarantee that that consciousness is synthetic. paragraph break inserted

 * But then you are in an even weaker position: Using Liebniz you deny the genuinely conscious aliens consciousness.  Using Liebniz (as you insist) the aliens would have synthesized a consciousness like theirs to populate their spaceships, if they decide not to come in person, so to speak.  You will recognise no consciousness other than one which looks like yours.  We have been at this anthropomorphic stand off before.  And the aliens came to my rescue before.  Either we are alone in the Universe; or we are incapable of recognising aliens as conscious; or their consciousness is just like ours, Liebniz-like.  Or non-human like consciousness is possible and at least some examples of that will be recognisable as such by us.  Liebniz is sufficient but not necessary.  Paul Beardsell 18:03, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * No I'm not denying any genuineness here. I don't deny the genuinely conscious aliens their consciousness - I only question how one would determine whether they were conscious at all. Both naturally-occurring and synthetic consciousnesses are genuine; I was questioning how to determine whether the consciousness arose naturally or whether it was synthesised. If we are just talking about validating consciousness then the consciousness page is the place for that. I am intending that we are here talking about how to synthesise consciousness, which includes how to assess whether it has been actualised, but not how to tell whether it has been synthesised (i.e. by intent) or whether it arose naturally (i.e. without intent). Matt Stan 18:58, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * In a SF story I once read friendly aliens come to Earth and ask to be shown the richness of Earth culture. The lucky human with whom they had made contact was a talented painist and played his heart out.  Bach and Beethoven did not impress the aliens at all and they claimed to have a much richer music-like experience in their culture.  The human begged to be shown this but they initially refused saying that after 5mins his receptor circuits would be blown and he would always miss the experience he had had.  He persuaded them to wire him up.  After the 5mins were up he begged the aliens to play him some more and they did but he could "hear" nothing.  He was disconsolate.  He played the piano to cheer himself up but he was now as unimpressed with Bach and Beethoven as the aliens had been.  Paul Beardsell 19:29, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Human consciousness might be limited but a higher non-human consciousness might find a way of communicating with us. You say you deny nothing but I disagree.  And what a poor view you must have of dogs and cats.  Paul Beardsell 19:29, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Synthetic consciousness, by definition, must surely be limited to the results of some synthesis process which, I am assuming, is distinct from a naturally occurring biological or quasi-biological process (quasi-biological being my term for naturally occurring lifeforms not of this planet). Now without knowledge of the processes involved in the creation of the little green men it would not be possible to know whether they were examples of synthetic or natural consciousness, in which case surely all one could do is perhaps to deem them conscious, without regard to how that consciousness arose. So, the topic of synthetic consciousness must be limited to attempts to implement consciousness that are engineered as a result of come intent rather than to instances of consciousness that arise by other means. (I am discounting Richard Dawkins' idea here that humans are the means by which genes replicate, with the underlying assumption that genes intend to do this. I am assuming that genes are unconscious, even though they give rise to consciousness.) That's not to say that one couldn't synthesise types of consciousness which are hitherto unfamiliar, but to do so would perhaps require a broader definition of consciousness itself.

 * As I have shown: Irrelevant to the strange-consciousness issue.  However interesting it is otherwise.  Paul Beardsell 18:03, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Regarding content, I can't restrict that. I thought it unnecessary to duplicate the material on the other page without perhaps deleting it from there. I think there is a good case for a rewrite from scratch, with an article that is planned/designed on the talk page here and written in bullet-proof manner. How about starting with a table of contents? (G.T.K.T.E.H) Matt Stan 17:31, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * No you cannot restrict content. But that I am "wrecking" it does not follow.  I have also copied no material from any other page.  Paul Beardsell 18:03, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Jolly good! I'm glad to see you're K.T.E.H. Matt Stan 18:58, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Explain. Paul Beardsell 19:29, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Matt Stan 11:15, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

What to avoid
I'd like to avoid interminable discussions about weak vs stong implementations, with an emphaisis on the transitive sense of consciousness, i.e. consciousness of various phenomena, rather than the philosophical debate about whether machine consciousness is possible per se, as this is well-covered elsewhere in wikipedia, e.g. at artificial intelligence. I realise this limits the scope of the article, but this is intentional. I think the spring board for this notion is that an implementation needs to be pro-active in some respect. Perhaps a good example is an alarm clock. A clock is aware of the time - it's consciousness, if that is the correct term, springs into life when the alarm goes off for the purpose of waking me up on time. Now, most would argue that conscious is not the correct term here. But what about an alarm clock that decided for itself what time to wake me up, based on inputs that it possessed, say, by noticing whether I was in my bed, by knowing what day of the week it was, by measuring how much sleep I had had recently, by weighing my unopened mail, by listening to whether my cats were hungry, and so on? Such an alarm clock might qualify as being synthetically conscious of my sleep needs, and my relationship with it would lead me to consider it as conscious as if I had a man-servant to perform the same function. Although I fabricated the above example, there are robotic machines that perform useful functions based on awareness of their environment and on drives that are in-built. These are the models for synthetic consciousness that I have in mind here. Note also the constraint imposed by the use of synthetic in the title. Here I aim that synthetic consciousness means built with an intent, rather than naturally occurring, which arises spontaneously as a result of, say, a biological process. This disqualifies any notions of super-human consciousness, perhaps such as the all-pervading consciousness portrayed in the film The Matrix. Matt Stan 09:14, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

I very much support this approach. It lets the poor little alarm clock be built (isn't it cute?). I will know that the conscious alarm clock is really conscious and other (perhaps more rational) people will know it merely simulates a conscious alarm clock. Where is Leibniz when you need him. Essentially, what you are saying is, discussion of the reality or otherwise of the apparent consciousness is BANNED. Here. Paul Beardsell 16:10, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

 * You raise the interesting point that one's perception of an entity's consciousness might be a function of one's relationship with that entity. Children imbue their dolls with consciousness and talk to them as though they were real people. Religious people do likewise with their gods and animistic religious with various artifacts and natural objects. This means that an assesment of any implementation is not going to be child's play, as Paul illustrates with the conscious alarm clock above. The implication is that a conscious machine might be genuinely conscious as far as some people were concerned, but not as far as others are concerned. I'm not sure how one would reach consensus on this issue, without getting into an 'Oh no, it's not' / 'Oh yes, it is' - type argument. It may be that rationality has nothing to do with it but the marketing law would apply. The marketing law is "The truth is what the people believe the truth to be." In fact, I'm surprised people aren't already using synthetic consciousness as a marketing ploy for all sorts of gadgets. Perhaps it's because the common perception of machines that seem too smart is that they're a bit scary, and therefore it's better for the marketeers to play down any notion that the thing might actually be conscious. I remember being surprised, and delighted, when my new car some while ago complained (by beeping) that I'd left the lights on when I got out. There was nothing in the manual about this feature, and it did seem that the car really cared about its battery not going flat. Now I know that the car didn't really care, but it seemed so, an I was happy to go along with the idea of a car that had consciousnesses of things that I was not even aware it was conscious of. The BMW that stays in lane is a better example. Here is a car with a will to avoid crashing even when the driver goes to sleep (i.e. loses consciousness). In that event the car itself can take over an aspect of the driving. What's that, if not an implementation of synthetic consciousness? Matt Stan 08:12, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

From WP:VFD
Votes for deletion/synthetic consciousness

Redirect
Well, it's been over a year since the last discussion here and there's been nothing done with this article, whereas Artificial_consciousness has grown quite large. Does anyone still object to this page redirecting there? — Schaefer 05:05, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Synthetic consciousness


text:
2675 Tolkien

2675 Tolkien, provisional designation, is a stony Florian asteroid and extremely slow rotator from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 10 km in diameter. It was discovered on 14 April 1982, by British astronomer Martin Watt at Lowell's Anderson Mesa Station in Flagstaff, Arizona, and later named for J. R. R. Tolkien.

Orbit and classification
Tolkien is a member of the Flora family, one of the largest groups of stony asteroids in the main-belt. It orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 2.0 – once every 3 years and 3 months (1,202 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.10 and an inclination of 3° with respect to the ecliptic.

Physical characteristics
In the SMASS classification, Tolkien is a stony S-type asteroid.

Rotation period
In February 2011, photometric observations of Tolkien were taken over the course of twenty-three nights. The obtained light curve revealed that the body is potentially an extremely slow rotator, that has an outstandingly long rotation period of $9.65$ hours, or 44 days, with a brightness amplitude of $10.96$ magnitude (U=2+). In addition, the body is suspected to be in a non-principal axis rotation ("tumbling").

Diameter and albedo
According to the surveys carried out by the Japanese Akari satellite and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, the body measures 9.65 and 10.96 km, and its surface has an albedo of 0.205 and 0.213, respectively, while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.24 – derived from 8 Flora, the largest member and namesake of this orbital family – and calculates a diameter of 9.85 km with an absolute magnitude of 12.2.

Naming
This minor planet was named in honour of J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973), an English writer, philologist, and Merton professor of English language at the University of Oxford. He is best known as the author of the fantasy novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien also had a lifelong interest in astronomy. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 1 December 1982 (M.P.C. 7474).

title: 2675 Tolkien


text:
El Potro Álvarez

Antonio Enrique Álvarez Cisneros (born 9 May 1979) is a Venezuelan politician and a former professional baseball player. Born in Caracas, he played professionally under the name Tony Álvarez. Furthermore, he is commonly known as El Potro Álvarez, a moniker that he has been using since starting his baseball career at a young age.

Baseball career
Álvarez batted and threw right-handed. He was signed by Pittsburgh at the age of 16 while attending high school in Venezuela. After graduating, he joined the Gulf Coast League Pirates rookie level in 1998 and gained five promotions in the next three years.

Álvarez was a highly touted as a five-tool outfielder prospect. In addition to his playing in the 2002 All-Star Futures Game and the 2006 World Baseball Classic, he usually hit line drives into the infield or deep into the outfield, ran the bases aggressively, and crashed into walls in pursuit of fly balls. "People come out to the ballpark and pay money to watch the game", Álvarez explained in an interview. "I'm an aggressive player and it's hard for me to change. If I lose my aggressiveness, I won't be the same player", he added.

Additionally, during the same period, Álvarez found time to develop a successful but not remarkable musical career, ventured into politics and even married three times, each one of his wives being former beauty queens, which led him to achieve celebrity status in his country.

At age 25, Álvarez was ranked by Baseball America as one of the top ten prospects in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, but was never able to fulfill the potential that he showed in the Minor Leagues.

Álvarez collected a .474 batting average in the 2002 spring training and impressed the Pittsburgh organization as much with his enthusiasm and magnetic personality. "He's a high-energy guy", Pirates farm director Brian Graham said. "He plays the game hard and has the kind of attitude you want to see in a young player." His breakout season came this year, when he slashed a line of .318/.361/.483 with 15 home runs, 59 RBI and 29 stolen bases in 125 games for Double-A Altoona Curve, emerging as a leadoff hitter and playing for the World team in the Futures Game.

Álvarez succeeded despite suffering personal adversity, missing the last month of the 2002 season at Altoona to return home to Venezuela to be with his father, who was battling leukemia. Once his father showed signs of recovery, Álvarez got the call to join the big club in late October. He played at the three outfield positions in eight games with the Pirates, including seven starts, and was used in pinch-hit roles seven times. He hit an average of .308 (8-for-26) with one home run and a .500 slugging percentage, driving in two runs and scoring six times, while stealing one base. In 2003, Álvarez batted .298/.361/.470 with nine homers and 53 RBI, while stealing 22 bases in 106 games for Triple-A Nashville Sounds, significant numbers as he spent two stints on the disabled list. He opened 2004 at Nashville, batting .290/.365/.457 with 14 homers, 59 runs, 48 RBI, 19 steals in 99 games.

Álvarez was recalled by Pittsburgh during the 2004 midseason, but was used sparingly in 24 games. He hit a paltry .211 average with one homer and eight RBI but did not steal one base. He was released at the end of the season. Overall, he hit .250 and slugged 406 in 38 games for the Pirates, including 11 runs, 10 RBI and one stolen base. He then was signed by the Chicago White Sox as a free agent before the 2005 season, but failed to make the big club. After that, he played in the Baltimore Orioles minor league system in 2006, as well as for the Brother Elephants of the Chinese Professional Baseball League in 2007.

Over his nine-season Minor League career, Álvarez posted a .295 average and slugged .452 in 746 games appearances, batting 13 home runs with 387 RBI, while scoring 420 runs and stealing 217 stolen bases. In between, Álvarez played winter ball with the Leones del Caracas, Navegantes del Magallanes, Tiburones de La Guaira, Caribes de Anzoátegui, Águilas del Zulia and Tigres de Aragua clubs of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League in a 15-season career spanning 1996–2014. He compiled a slash line of .282/.318/.463 with 46 home runs and 192 RBI in 466 games, scoring 228 runs scored and 46 stolen bases. Additionally, he served as a playoff reinforcement for the Pastora de Los Llanos and Cardenales de Lara, making him one of few players to wear all uniforms in the eight-team league.

Musical career
Starting 2009, Álvarez engaged on a musical career as a reggaeton artist. Usually using the stage name El Potro Alvarez, he collaborated with various artists in a bunch of music videos taking elements from their styles in order to develop an original style. These music videos were usually directed by Venezuelan Daniel Durán and Dominican Marlon Peña (aka Marlon P).

Political career
Starting his political career in 2013, Álvarez ran as a United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV in Spanish) candidate for mayor of the Sucre Municipality, but was defeated by Carlos Ocariz.

Then, in September 2014 Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced a reshuffle of his Cabinet and appointed Álvarez as the new Minister of Youth and Sports. The minister, during his statements, explained that sport in Venezuela had been deepened as a state policy during the last 15 years of revolution.

In April 2015, President Maduro announced that Álvarez had been relieved of his ministerial duties. Álvarez was released from office due to his bid for the PSUV primary elections ahead of parliamentary elections.

Personal life
From 2002 to May 2005, Álvarez was married to Miss World Venezuela 1984 and Miss World 1984 Astrid Carolina Herrera. After they divorced, he married in December 2005 to Miss Venezuela 2002 winner and actress Mariángel Ruiz, with whom he had a daughter named Mariángel Victoria. Álvarez and Ruiz divorced in 2008. Then in 2013 he married Dayana Colmenares, a model and winner of Miss Venezuela International 2007, and this couple have a daughter, Mia Dayana, who was born in 2014.

title: El Potro Álvarez


text: User talk:148.225.2.1

title: User talk:148.225.2.1


text:
Vitali theorem

Several theorems in mathematical analysis bear the name of Giuseppe Vitali:
 * Vitali covering theorem in the foundations of measure theory
 * Various theorems concerning convergence of families of measurable and holomorphic functions, such as Vitali convergence theorem
 * Vitali also proved the existence of non-measurable subsets of the real numbers, see Vitali set

title: Vitali theorem


text:
Milford Haven

Milford Haven (Aberdaugleddau ) is both a town and a community in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is situated on the north side of the Milford Haven Waterway, an estuary forming a natural harbour that has been used as a port since the Middle Ages.

The town was founded in 1790 by Sir William Hamilton, who designed a grid pattern. It was originally intended to be a whaling centre, though by 1800 it was developing as a Royal Navy dockyard which it remained until the dockyard was transferred to Pembroke in 1814. It then became a commercial dock, with the focus moving in the 1960s, after the construction of an oil refinery built by Esso, to logistics for fuel oil and liquid gas. By 2010, the town's port had become the fourth largest in the United Kingdom in terms of tonnage, and continues its important role in the United Kingdom's energy sector with several oil refineries and one of the biggest LNG terminals in the world.

Milford Haven is the most populous community in the county, with a population of 13,907 within the community boundary at the 2011 census. When measured in terms of urban area the population was 13,582, making it the second largest urban area in the county after Haverfordwest (where the urban area extends beyond its community boundary).

The natural harbour of the Haven was known as a safe port and was exploited for several historical military operations throughout the second millennium. Campaigns conducted from the Haven included part of the invasion of Ireland in 1171 by Henry II and by Cromwell in 1649. Forces which have disembarked at the point include Jean II de Rieux's 1405 reinforcement of the Glyndŵr Rising. In 1485, the future Henry VII landed close to his birthplace in Mill Bay before marching on to England.

History
The town of Milford was founded in 1793, after Sir William Hamilton obtained an Act of Parliament in 1790 to establish the port at Milford, and takes its name from the natural harbour of Milford Haven, which was used for several hundred years as a staging point on sea journeys to Ireland and as a shelter by Vikings. It was known as a safe port and is mentioned in Shakespeare's Cymbeline as "blessed Milford". It was used as the base for several military operations, such as Richard de Clare's invasion of Leinster in 1167, Henry II's Invasion of Ireland in 1171, John's continued subjugation of the Irish in 1185 and 1210 and Oliver Cromwell's 1649 invasion of Ireland; while forces which have disembarked at the point include Jean II de Rieux's 1405 reinforcement of the Glyndŵr Rising and Henry VII's 1485 landing at the waterway before marching on England. By the late 18th century the two local creeks were being used to load and unload goods, and surrounding settlements were established, including the medieval chapel, and Summer Hill Farm, the only man-made structures on the future site of Milford.

Sir William Hamilton, the town's founder, had acquired the land from his wife, Catherine Barlow of Slebech. His nephew, the Hon. Charles Francis Greville, invited seven Quaker families from Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard to settle in the new town and develop a whaling fleet. They began by building a shipyard, and leased it to a Messrs. Harry and Joseph Jacob. In December 1796, in an unusual arrangement, the Admiralty (Navy operations) directed the Navy Board (administration and supplies) to contract Jacobs shipyard to build a frigate and later a 74-gun ship-of-the-line. However, due to a combined lack of local standing oak, access to supplies of timber from the Baltic, and local skills in volume, the Jacob operation soon went bankrupt.

In 1800, following the bankruptcy of the Jacobs & Sons, the Navy Board's overseer, Jean-Louis Barralier, was persuaded to lease the site for the Navy Board and develop a dockyard for building warships. Seven royal vessels were eventually launched from the dockyard, including HMS Surprise and HMS Milford. The town was built on a grid pattern, thought to have been to the design of Jean-Louis Barrallier, who remained in charge of shipbuilding there for the Navy Board. Between 1801 and 1803, the town and waterway were protected by temporary batteries at Hakin Point and south of St Katherine's Church, in response to the perceived threat following the Fishguard Invasion.

A church was consecrated in October 1808 and dedicated to St Catherine of Alexandria in the underdeveloped eastern side of the town, it remained a chapel of ease until 1891 when Milford became a parish, until that time competing with St Peter and St Cewydd in Steynton. By the start of the 19th century, a mail coach was operating between London and Hubberston, and in 1800 the short lived Milford and Pembrokeshire Bank was established by Thomas Phillips, operating from a branch in the town. It collapsed in 1810.

On 11 October 1809, a naval commission recommended purchase of the Milford Haven facility and formal establishment of a Royal Navy dockyard. This was, according to the report, due to the fact that Millford built-ships had proved to be cheaper due to the cheap cost of supplies and abundant labour supply. It proposed purchase of the yard at £4,455. However, as this was after the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805), when the need for naval ships was decreasing in the Napoleonic Wars, and in such a remote location, the proposal seemed perplexing. However, in light of the end of the Franco-Spanish naval engagement, and the merging of the two sides of the Royal Navy under the Admiralty Board, the fact that Frenchman Barallier would remain in charge strongly suggests to historians that the Royal Navy accepted that its ships manoeuvrability was inferior to those of the Franco-Spanish alliance. In an effort to rectify this state of affairs the Royal Navy's first School of Naval Architecture was opened in Portsmouth in 1810. Effectively then, Millford was to be set up as a model dockyard under French management, from which lessons could be learnt for implementation in other dockyards.

In 1814 the Royal Dockyard was transferred to Pembroke Dock; though, when Robert Fulke Greville inherited the estate in 1824, a commercial dock was started which became the home of a successful fishing industry. By 1849, the district of Hakin was described as a considerable centre of boat building, and by 1906, Milford had become the sixth largest fishing port in the UK, and its population rose. The Pembrokeshire Herald claimed in 1912 that "the fish trade is Milford's sole industry... the population of the town has doubled by means of it".

In 1863, the railway network came to Milford, linking it to the Haverfordwest line and beyond. In 1866, work was completed on an additional extension which provided access to the docks and ship-breaking yard on the eastern side of the town. Between 1875 and 1886 The Great Eastern was a permanent fixture at Milford Docks, remaining there for lengthy repairs. Her arrival into the docks was heralded as an example of the scale of vessel which the town could expect to attract.

In the late 1850s, work began on a network of forts on both sides of the Milford Haven estuary, as a direct result of the Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom. They were designed with the intention of defending the United Kingdom against French invasion, although were never used for this purpose. Notable examples in the town were Fort Hubberstone in Gelliswick and Scoveston Fort to the north east of the town.

By 1901, the town's population had reached 5,102, and by 1931 had further doubled to 10,104. During the First World War, the Haven was an assembly point for convoys to Gibraltar, and a base, under the command of R.N.R. Captain (and retired Admiral) Charles Holcombe Dare, to counter the activity of German U-boats off the coast of Pembrokeshire. The early twentieth century saw a period of increased urbanisation of the area; in the period from the First World War to 1937, 312 council houses were built, and public services, such as electricity supplies and sewerage, were completed. The steep gradient of the Rath was at this time constructed, and in 1939 Milford Haven Town Hall was opened on Hamilton Terrace, at that time possessing an inbuilt fire station. 1939 also saw the opening of an outdoor swimming pool on the Rath.

During the Second World War Milford Haven was chosen as a base for allied American troops, and roughly 1,000 American military personnel were housed in the town at this time. They manned an amphibious base which included a hospital built in Hakin and a docks complex at Newton Noyes. The base had a complement of 71 officers and 902 enlisted men, and played a rôle in preparations for D Day. Despite its strategic importance as the home of a large fish market, a mines depot, a flax factory, and housing numerous military personnel, Milford escaped serious damage from German bombings during the Second World War. In the summer of 1941 a bomb fell in fields near Priory Road, and later that year, a bomb damaged a house in Brooke Avenue. In neither instance were there casualties.

In 1960, the Esso Company completed work on an oil refinery near the town, which opened despite environmental objections. This was followed by similar developments by many other chief oil companies in a 10-year period, including Texaco, Amoco, Gulf and BP. In 1974, Milford could boast an oil trade of 58,554,000 tons, which was three times the combined trade of all the other ports of Wales. In 1996 the area hit the headlines internationally when the oil tanker Sea Empress ran aground, causing a substantial oil spill. By the early 1980s, the Esso refinery was the second largest in the UK.

Toponymy
Milford Haven is an Anglicization of an old Scandinavian name "Melrfjordr" that was first applied to the waterway – the Old Norse Melr, meaning sandbank, and fjordr, meaning fjord or inlet, developing into "Milford"; then later the term "Haven" from the Germanic word Haven for port or harbour was added. The town was named Milford after the waterway, and Haven was added later in around 1868 when the railway terminus was built. The Welsh for Milford Haven, "Aberdaugleddau", refers to the estuary which is the meeting point of the "White River Cleddau" (Afon Cleddau Wen) and the "Black River Cleddau" (Afon Cleddau Ddu).

In Welsh, the term Aber is the "pouring out" of a river, hence the description of the confluence of the two rivers and their forming an estuary. Also, Cleddau may make reference to the action of a weapon or tool cutting through the land.

Geography and climate
The town of Milford Haven lies on the north bank of the Milford Haven Waterway, which is a ria or drowned valley. This is a landscape of low-lying wooded shorelines, creeks and mudflats.

There has been a great deal of loss and degradation of local mudflat habitat as a result of industrial and commercial development – one study indicated a 45 per cent loss in Hubberston Pill.

The town itself has a historic late 18th and 19th centuries core based on a grid pattern, located between Hubberston Pill and Castle Pill and extending inland for 500 m. Milford Haven's 20th century expansion took in several other settlements. Hakin and Hubberston are older, and situated to the west of the main town. Steynton is a medieval village to the north, no longer separated due to the expansion of houses. Lower Priory, with the remains of a very early religious Priory, is located in a natural valley near the village of Thornton.

Milford Haven enjoys a mild climate. Its proximity to the coast contributes to wet winters, but it enjoys more sunshine than most of the UK with around 1,600 hours of sunshine a year. This is comparable to much of Southern England. The nearest official Met Office weather station is at Milford Haven Conservancy Board.

Local government
There are two tiers of local government covering Milford Haven, at community (town) and county level: Milford Haven Town Council and Pembrokeshire County Council. Milford Haven Town Council is based at Cemetery Lodge on Thornton Road, Milford Haven.

The community of Milford Haven covers an area of 1573 ha and includes the Milford Central, East, Hakin, Hubberston, North and West wards. The community has its own town council. The Mayor is Councillor William Elliott BA QTS, appointed on 13 May 2024 for the 2024–2025 municipal year, and the Deputy Mayor is Councillor Eddie Davies DipSM FJOIFF.

The six wards comprising Milford Haven community each elect one councillor to Pembrokeshire County Council.

Senedd and Westminster representation
Milford Haven is part of the Preseli Pembrokeshire Senedd constituency and UK Parliamentary constituency. The local Member of the Senedd is Paul Davies of the Conservative Party and the local Member of Parliament is Stephen Crabb, also a Conservative.

Administrative history
When development of the modern town began in the 1790s the area straddled the parishes of Steynton and Hubberston. In 1857 the Milford Improvement Act was passed, appointing improvement commissioners to run the town. Under the Local Government Act 1894 the improvement commissioners' district became an urban district in December 1894, with an elected council. The act also specified that parishes could not straddle district boundaries, and so the part of the urban district in Steynton parish became a parish called Milford, and the part in Hubberston parish became a parish called Hakin. Milford and Hakin were urban parishes and so did not have parish councils of their own; the lowest level representative body was the Milford Haven Urban District Council. The urban district council built the Town Hall on Hamilton Terrace in 1939 to serve as its headquarters. Milford Haven Urban District was abolished in 1974, becoming part of Preseli (renamed Preseli Pembrokeshire in 1987) within the county of Dyfed. A community covering the former urban district was established at the same time, with its council taking the name Milford Haven Town Council. Preseli Pembrokeshire was abolished in 1996 and the area became part of a re-established Pembrokeshire.

Economy
Milford Haven has experienced a history of boom and slump in shipbuilding, fishing, as a railhead and an ocean terminal. At the height of the fishing boom, it was said that "every day was a pay day". In 1921, 674 people were identified as working in the fishing industry, the leading occupation in the town, followed by transport and communication with 600 employees. However, at peak times, more than 200 trawlers and 2,000 people were required to service the fishing industry. The development of the oil industry also helped to boost the town's fortunes. However, the slumps have been just as severe, the area being scheduled as 'distressed' in the inter-war period. Over-fishing coupled with national economic factors contributed to a significant decline in the fishing industry, resulting in smaller catches and fewer trawlers. By 1972, only twelve trawlers were registered at the port, and 1974 saw industrial and political action to save jobs related to the industry.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the unemployment rate at times topped 30%, and the major industry of oil refining created no more than 2,000 direct or indirect jobs. Into the new millennium, its fortunes have risen, as can be witnessed in the activity surrounding the LNG terminal, and the new building works which accompanied it and its connection to the controversial South Wales Gas Pipeline. In February 2003, Pembrokeshire Council granted outline planning permission to Petroplus for an LNG storage depot at Waterston, and in March 2004, an additional site was approved at South Hook for ExxonMobil.

International tourism has also increased, with the arrival of transatlantic liners and the revenue they introduce to the town. 2012 saw 3,000 cruise passengers from six cruise vessels disembark at Milford, and the Port Authority expected 5,000 in 2013. The waterway transports 25% of Britain's requirement for motor fuel, and the port handled 53 million tonnes of shipping in 2008, making it the largest port in Wales, and the sixth largest in the UK. There are two major commercial centres: Charles Street in the historic town centre, and the Havens Head Retail Park located at the foot of the docks area. In 2012, it was announced that the Milford waterway was declared an Enterprise Zone by the coalition government, due to its importance to the energy sector. In 2014, plans by Milford Haven Port Authority were unveiled, which propose a transformation of the docks area into a residential and commercial destination, including hotel accommodation. In 2017 Milford Haven Port Authority launched Milford Waterway, which included a re-branding of the marina and aims to encourage hotel, commercial and leisure developments to the area. In November 2014 it was announced that Milford Haven Refinery, a major employer in the area, would be converted into a 'storage and distribution facility' with a loss of over 300 jobs.

Source: Bluestone Wales, Milford Fish Docks, National Statistics Sea Fisheries Annual Reports and McKay.

Tourism
Post-war Milford Haven was not considered a promising location for tourism: a 1964 study commissioned by the district council highlighted the lack of nearby beaches, proximity of the town to heavy industrialization, and a shortage of tourist facilities such as restaurants and hotels. However, in the 1980s, a series of steps to beautify certain parts of the town commenced. The outdoor swimming pool, which had remained disused for some years, was transformed into a water-garden and officially opened in 1990 by Margaret Thatcher.

In 1991, the Tall Ships Race chose Milford as its starting location, and this coincided with an overhaul of the docks. Subsequently, it was rebranded as a marina, and a number of attractions including cafes, restaurants and retail outlets sprung up. A tourist information centre is located near the retail park and the local museum, in the old custom house, focuses on the maritime history of the area.

Transport
The first railway to Milford Haven was with the completion of the South Wales Railway in 1856. Brunel had a vision of connecting London to New York via a railway through Wales and then to a commuter port. The initial plan was to terminate the line at Fishguard and to create a ferry service to Ireland, but after a failure to complete Irish rail links the terminus was changed to New Milford, (Neyland), which was completed in April 1856. The first rail link direct to Milford Haven was completed in 1863, which was originally conceived as a plan to create an impressive Milford to Manchester railway. The trains using the line were operated by Great Western Railway who had part funded the original railway.

Milford Haven railway station, the terminus of the West Wales Line, and the trains serving it, are operated by Transport for Wales Rail. Trains depart every two hours to Manchester Piccadilly via Carmarthen, Swansea and Cardiff Central.

The main road to and from Milford Haven is the A4076. At Johnston the junction with the A477 connects with Pembroke Dock and at Haverfordwest with the A40. The route to Hakin and the western side of the town is along the A4076 via Victoria Bridge over the docks.

Bus routes passing through the town are operated by independent companies and Pembrokeshire County Council subsidies. Services include a town circular, Haverfordwest and Pembroke Dock. National Express operate services to London, Birmingham and Rochdale via Steynton.

Demography
By the 1950s, the fishing industry was in decline, and unemployment in the area had reached 11 per cent. There had been a housing boom however in the years following Second World War. The District Council took advantage of recently lifted restrictions, and built over 1,000 new homes to accommodate the rising population. "A new wave of hope however arrived with the prospect of a booming oil industry. The industry however was not labour-intensive, and did not provide huge labour opportunities for locals, in the 1970s employing only 2,000 workers." The nature of large construction projects meant that workers were attracted from outside the local area, and the decline of the fishing industry was to a certain extent masked. However, this employment was not permanent. On completing the construction of construction projects such as the Esso refinery and the Cleddau Bridge, those who decided to relocate to the town were faced with what the Preseli District Council called in 1977 "the area's serious unemployment problem".

Milford Haven is not ethnically diverse, with 96.4 per cent of people identifying themselves as white, compared with 99.2 per cent in 2001. 92.9 per cent of people in Milford Central ward were born in the UK, and only 3.8 per cent of residents arrived later than 2001. 96.3 per cent of residents claim English as their first language. 1.5 per cent of residents identify as having religious views other than any denomination of Christianity, including no religion.

Welsh language
Milford Haven is located within the geographical and historic area known as Little England Beyond Wales, which has predominately used English for many centuries. Although it is the most westerly point of the country and the part of the county furthest from the English border, a relatively small proportion of the community knows the Welsh language. In the 2011 census, only 7.5 per cent of residents in the Milford Central ward claimed that they could speak, read and write the language, in contrast to the Pembrokeshire county as a whole where roughly 18 per cent of the population are able to read, write and speak Welsh, while in the neighbouring county of Carmarthenshire around 40 per cent of people express a similar level of fluency in Welsh. Local disconnection from the Welsh language was highlighted in November 2008, when Milford Haven Town Council unsuccessfully demanded the right to opt out of a scheme in which official documents had to be translated into Welsh if requested; the council was allegedly one of about 10 that opposed having to make such translations.

Architecture

Architecture in Milford Haven can be divided into roughly three broad periods of building. The number of buildings which pre-date the town's official foundation in 1790 are scarce. These include the medieval priory, and a 12th-century 'beacon chapel'.

The initial phase of construction from the late 18th century is located in the area central to the town, the three parallel streets of Hamilton Terrace, Charles Street And Robert Street. Three-storey Georgian domestic and commercial properties are set along the northern side of the main road through the town, and overlook the harbour and waterway.

By the late 19th century, the land directly above this central area was being developed. To house the growing population, rows of terrace houses were built, which slowly encompassed the area north up to Marble Hall Road, and east to Pill, examples including Shakespeare Avenue and Starbuck Road. The Great North Road took a northerly route which sliced this new district in two. Suburban owner-occupied detached and semi-detached properties grew up on land overlooking the waterway and along the course of Steynton Road. Around the start of the 20th century, there was a recognized need to provide accommodation to poorer families. As a result, much former agricultural land was bought, and new Council Housing was built. These were frequently in large estates of houses, such as Howarth Close, Haven Drive and The Glebelands Estate. They transformed previously rural areas into an urban landscape, and considerably increased Milford's area of housing. Council estates were built throughout the 20th century, one of the most recent and largest examples being The Mount Estate, which has been the scene of a number of anti-social incidents.

Landmarks
The attractions in the town include Fort Hubberstone, built in 1863 to defend the Haven as part of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom. Located in Gelliswick bay, it occupies a prominent position to the west of the town overlooking the Haven. Previously owned by Milford Haven Port Authority, the site is not currently open to the public, and has been the scene of non-fatal injuries to trespassers. In 2011 it was named as the fifth most endangered archaeological site in the UK by British Archaeology magazine. The ruins of an observatory, originally intended to be part of "The College of King George the Third founded at Milford", can be found in Hakin. Construction of the building was abandoned in 1809. Milford Haven Museum, located centrally in the docks area, is housed in the town's oldest building, the Custom House which dates back to 1797. Designed by Swansea architect, Jernigan, it was built for the storage of whale oil awaiting shipment for sale in London.

The Rath is a landscaped street on high ground, with panoramic views of the Haven. The land was used in the 18th century as a gun battery, and its eastern edge was the site of the Royalist fort constructed by Charles I known as Pill Fort. In the 1930s it became the home of an outdoor swimming pool, which was converted into a water gardens in 1990. Milford Haven Waterway forms a large natural harbour.

Culture and community
The Torch Theatre, opened in 1977 and designed by local architect Monty Minter, is one of only three repertory theatres in Wales, and possesses its own independent theatre company. The Pill Social Centre, operating since the 1950s, is a community hall and events venue, having hosted The Who and Gerry and the Pacemakers. Annual events in the town include the Milford Haven Music Festival in May, Founders Week in June and the carnival in July. Pembrokeshire Fish Week is held biannually in June. Milford Haven library, recently relocated to Havens Head Retail Park offers a full lending service and internet access. Milford Haven Museum, located in the marina, houses a collection which focusses on the maritime history of the town.

The Milford & West Wales Mercury weekly newspaper covered the Milford Haven and West Pembrokeshire area. It was founded in 1992 and following a merger of its editorial team with that of the Western Telegraph, its local office was closed in 2008. A second newspaper, The Pembrokeshire Herald, covers the Milford Haven and surrounding areas. The town is also home to several charities, including PATCH and Gwalia.

Milford Haven is twinned with Romilly-sur-Seine, France, and Uman, Ukraine.

Literature, film and television
Milford Haven appears in a number of literary works, including Shakespeare's Cymbeline as "blessed Milford", and the location where King Arthur landed from Ireland in pursuit of the Twrch Trwyth boar as part of the medieval Welsh prose romance Culhwch and Olwen. Drayton described the area in his Poly-Olbion as "So highly Milford is in every mouth renowned / Noe haven hath aught good, in her that is not found". Lewis Morris made Milford and Hakin the subject of his poem "The Fishing Lass of Hakin", and the gothic novel The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey used Milford as a key location. The town lends its name to the fictional Californian location featured in the novelisations and radio plays by author Mara Purl. Robert Watson uses the town as the principal setting in his novel Slipping Away From Milford, as did Taprell Dorling writing as Taffrail, whose thriller Mystery at Milford Haven explored the 1930s criminal underworld in the area. The town was used as a filming location for the BBC drama The Onedin Line, the 1968 film The Lion in Winter and the 1984 short cult film "Vengeance". The town's Mount Estate provided the location for a BBC documentary entitled The Mount: A Welsh Estate, which received criticism locally for its portrayal of residents. Locations in the town, including Hakin Point and Gelliswick, were used in filming for The Pembrokeshire Murders in 2020.

Sport and leisure
The town possesses a number of venues for sport and leisure. Milford Haven Leisure Centre offers various facilities, including a 25-metre indoor swimming pool, squash and tennis courts, a bowls hall and a dance studio. The Thornton Hall, located at Milford Haven School, has an indoor sports hall and artificial turf pitch. There are rugby union and association football clubs. Nautical activities are centered around the marina and Pembrokeshire Yacht Club in Gelliswick, which dates to 1923. There is a golf club on the outskirts, which was founded in 1913.

Milford Marina, the site of the former working docks, was re-branded in 1991 and offers retail facilities, the town museum and entertainment. The Marina itself houses 360 berths for private boats.

A greyhound racing track existed in the Hakin area of the town during the 1940s. It was located west of Picton Street on the Observatory ground (Rugby ground today). The regularity of the racing in unknown but it is known that the racing was independent, which means unaffiliated to the sports governing body at the time (the National Greyhound Racing Club).

Education
Primary and pre-school education in Milford Haven is served by six state infant and primary schools and St Francis, a Roman Catholic primary school. Milford Haven town is served by junior, Infant, and nursery schools. Hakin pupils can attend Hakin Community School, an amalgamation of the former Hakin Junior School and Hakin Infants and Nursery Schools and the voluntarily controlled Hubberston Church in Wales VC Nursery and Primary. Secondary education is provided by Milford Haven School, a large comprehensive school with an enrolment of around 1200 pupils including the 6th form.

The MITEC School of Boatbuilding & Marine Engineering, a branch of Pembrokeshire College located in Milford Docks, offers courses in boatbuilding and marine engineering.

Places of worship
At the 2011 census, 8,408 of the 13,907	 residents (60.5%) of the parish of Milford Haven identified themselves as Christian. The earliest known religious building in the area was the Benedictine priory, known as Pill Priory, which was dissolved during Henry VIII's reign. Other early buildings included the Catholic St. Thomas à Becket chapel, a later 'beacon church', built around the 12th century which fell into disrepair but was reconsecrated in the 20th century.

The first religious building raised after Milford Haven was founded was St. Katharine's and St. Peter's, an Anglican church, it is considered to be the town's parish church due to its central position within the town and the fact that it was built by Charles Francis Greville the founder of Milford Haven. Other Anglican buildings include St. David's in Hubberston, St. Mary's (1927) and the Church of the Holy Spirit (1971) in Hakin and St. Peter's and St. Cewydd's in Steynton. St. David's is a Norman church and is believed to be the oldest building in Milford still in regular use. St. Mary's was built in 1927 largely by funds from the local residents of Hakin.

In 2000, the church of St. Clare's in Hakin closed, leaving one Roman Catholic church in Milford Haven, St. Francis of Assisi on Priory Road. Baptists congregate at North Road Baptist Church, which is one of the older religious buildings of the community, built in 1878. The Friends' Meeting House (Quakers), built in 1811 by the original Quaker whalers who were central to the early growth of the town, is in Priory Road. Quakers travel from distances around Pembroke to worship at the Friends House.

Members of both the Methodist and United Reformed Churches now worship at Christ Church in Priory Road, formerly known as Priory Road Methodist Church, which was opened in 1902. In recent years the church has drawn together the Methodist Churches in Milford Haven, Hakin Point and Waterston as well as Tabernacle URC to form a new Local Ecumenical Partnership. The Tabernacle URC in Charles Street was built in 1910 by D. Edward Thomas & Sons. In 2011, when it closed the congregation moved to their new home in Christ Church. The Tabernacle URC was purchased by the local Islamic community and is now a fully functioning mosque.

Twin towns - sister cities

 * 🇫🇷 Oissel, Normandy, France
 * 🇺🇦 Uman, Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine

Notable people
One of the earliest notable figures from the Milford Haven area is Howell Davis, a pirate born in 1680. He was shot dead in 1719 on the Portuguese island of Príncipe. Other famous residents connected as seafarers include Isaac Davis, a former seaman who was engaged in the fur trade between the Pacific Northwest and China. He became an advisor to Kamehameha I and helped form the Kingdom of Hawaii. Milford Haven has produced, or attracted, several notable artists including Arthur Symons, poet, critic, and an art editor of The Savoy magazine, who was born in the town in 1865, and Charles Norris, topographical artist, and author of A Historical Account of Tenby, who lived in Milford Haven from 1800 to 1810. The novelist Alexander Cordell lived briefly in Milford whilst employed by the Admiralty as a quantity surveyor. Journalist John Evans Woolacott, born in Milford 1861, over the course of his career edited or assistant edited various publications including the Democrat, the Weekly Dispatch, The Economist, The Statesman, the Bombay Gazette and The Pioneer. He was elected as president of the Institute of Journalists in 1908.

Performing artists from Milford Haven include Helen Watts, a contralto who studied at the Royal Academy of Music and was awarded the CBE in 1978, and singer-songwriter Sarah Howells, founder member of the pop band Paper Aeroplanes. The painter and actor George Winter (Scum, Merlin of the Crystal Cave) was born in the town. Television producer Annabel Jones was born and raised in Milford Haven, known for her work on the science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. Actor Edward Palmer was born in Milford in 1910, later achieving television and film success in Witchfinder General, The Small Voice, Coronation Street and Upstairs, Downstairs. Novelist Sarah Waters, although born in Neyland, attended Milford Haven Grammar School. Notable academics include Sir James Frederick Rees, born in 1883 and the son of a Hakin dock worker, who became Principal of University College, Cardiff, and author of a number of historical texts, including The Story of Milford. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 1945 New Year Honours. Dorothy Meyler, born 1908, joined University College of Wales, Aberystwyth in 1925, and later enjoyed a successful career teaching in the university, in addition to publishing several academic works. Microbiologist Professor Sir Stewart Cole grew up in Milford Haven and later became the first foreign scientist to lead the world-renown Institut Pasteur, in Paris, France.

Alfred W. Szlumper was born in Milford in 1858. He was the Chief Engineer of the London and South Western Railway, overseeing the remodelling of Clapham Junction railway station and the reconstruction of London Waterloo station. He was later appointed Chief Engineer of Southern Railway. Tailor and fashion designer Timothy Everest began his professional career working as a sales assistant at a branch of Hepworths in the town. Sporting figures include Robert Hughes, who in 2005 won the Wales National Darts Championship, and Andrew Salter, a batsman for Cardiff MCC University. Footballer Tommy Best played as a centre forward in the Football League for Chester City, Cardiff City and Queens Park Rangers. Another footballer from the town was Marwood Marchant, who played for Cardiff City and Torquay United. William Davies Evans, who from 1800 resided at Castle Pill with his family, is credited with the invention of the celebrated Evans Gambit, debuted in 1826 in London at his defeat of Alexander McDonnell Rosalyn Wild, a resident of the town, achieved fame in 2011 for charity work.

Milford Haven is also connected to notable military figures, such as Charles George Gordon, a British Army officer and administrator, remembered for his campaigns in China and northern Africa. During a two-year stay in Pembroke, he prepared plans for fortifications of Milford Haven. The military naval base at Milford during the First World War was commanded by Admiral Charles Dare and during WWII by Rear Admiral Phillip Esmonde Phillips until 1942, and then by Vice Admiral Bernard William Murray Fairbairn until the end of the war. Of those born in the town, Hubert William Lewis was awarded the Victoria Cross for acts of bravery during the First World War. W.G. "Gugs" Gwilliam was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal for acts of bravery whilst serving on board HMS Exeter (68) during the Battle of the River Plate. Other residents include Robert Fulke Greville and his uncle Charles Francis Greville, who improved and expanded Milford Haven as a more commercial and modern settlement, and John Zephaniah Holwell, a surgeon employed by the English East India Company and survivor of the Black Hole of Calcutta, who owned "Castle Hall" in the 1770s. Samuel Lake is remembered for his ambitious bid to complete Milford Docks for £80,000 in a mere seven months in 1880, and his subsequent bankruptcy in 1883 which delayed actual completion for a number of years. An ecclesiastic figure to gain prominence from the town was Frederick Ebenezer Lloyd, an independent Catholic bishop who contributed to the early development of the American Catholic Church. He headed this organization as Primate and Metropolitan from 1920 until his death in 1933.

Milford Haven is the birthplace of serial killer John Cooper, who in 2011 was convicted of murdering siblings Richard and Helen Thomas at their Scoveston home near Steynton in 1985, and Peter and Gwenda Dixon on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path near Little Haven in 1989. He was additionally convicted of the rape of a teenager and assault of four others in woodland near the town's Mount Estate in 1996.

title: Milford Haven


text:
Completely fair queueing

Completely Fair Queuing (CFQ) is an I/O scheduler for the Linux kernel which was written in 2003 by Jens Axboe.

Description
CFQ places synchronous requests submitted by processes into a number of per-process queues and then allocates timeslices for each of the queues to access the disk. The length of the time slice and the number of requests a queue is allowed to submit depends on the I/O priority of the given process. Asynchronous requests for all processes are batched together in fewer queues, one per priority. While CFQ does not do explicit anticipatory I/O scheduling, it achieves the same effect of having good aggregate throughput for the system as a whole, by allowing a process queue to idle at the end of synchronous I/O thereby "anticipating" further close I/O from that process. It can be considered a natural extension of granting I/O time slices to a process.

Prior to the integration
In February 2003 Andrea Arcangeli put forward his idea for a Stochastic Fair Queueing I/O scheduler to Jens Axboe who then implemented it. Jens Axboe made improvements to his first implementation, calling the new version the Completely Fair Queueing scheduler, and produced a patch to apply it to the 2.5.60 development series kernel.

Kernel 2.6.6 (10 May 2004)
The CFQ I/O scheduler was first integrated into the mainline kernel as an optional I/O scheduler. It was possible to change the scheduler at boot time with the 'elevator' parameter to kernel.

Kernel 2.6.9 (19 October 2004)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 used this I/O scheduler as the default even though it used a kernel based on a 2.6.9.

Kernel 2.6.10 (24 December 2004)
The second release of the CFQ scheduler dubbed CFQv2 is included in the 2.6.10, improvements include better responsiveness and the elimination of some starvation issues which were present in the earlier version. The scheduler now is also switchable at run time by modifying the /sys/block//queue/scheduler variable in the sysfs filesystem.

Kernel 2.6.13 (27 June 2005)
CFQ scheduler moved to a new time sliced design dubbed CFQv3. Among other things, it implements ioprio_get(2) and ioprio_set(2) which allows user to set per-process I/O priorities, usually using ionice(1) command (although using nice(1) also modifies I/O priorities somewhat)

Kernel 2.6.18 (20 September 2006)
CFQ became the default scheduler, replacing the anticipatory scheduler.

Kernel 5.0 (2019-03-03)
CFQ has been removed. CFQ evolved into Budget Fair Queueing (BFQ).

title: Completely fair queueing


text:
Vacuum chamber

A vacuum chamber is a rigid enclosure from which air and other gases are removed by a vacuum pump. This results in a low-pressure environment within the chamber, commonly referred to as a vacuum. A vacuum environment allows researchers to conduct physical experiments or to test mechanical devices which must operate in outer space (for example) or for processes such as vacuum drying or vacuum coating. Chambers are typically made of metals which may or may not shield applied external magnetic fields depending on wall thickness, frequency, resistivity, and permeability of the material used. Only some materials are suitable for vacuum use.

Chambers often have multiple ports, covered with vacuum flanges, to allow instruments or windows to be installed in the walls of the chamber. In low to medium-vacuum applications, these are sealed with elastomer o-rings. In higher vacuum applications, the flanges have knife edges machined onto them, which cut into a copper gasket when the flange is bolted on.

A type of vacuum chamber frequently used in the field of spacecraft engineering is a thermal vacuum chamber, which provides a thermal environment representing what a spacecraft would experience in space.

Vacuum chamber materials
Vacuum chambers can be constructed of many materials. "Metals are arguably the most prevalent vacuum chamber materials." The strength, pressure, and permeability are considerations for selecting chamber material. Common materials are:
 * Stainless Steel
 * Aluminum
 * Mild Steel
 * Brass
 * High density ceramic
 * Glass
 * Acrylic
 * Hardened steel

Vacuum degassing
"Vacuum is the process of using vacuum to remove gases from compounds which become entrapped in the mixture when mixing the components." To assure a bubble-free mold when mixing resin and silicone rubbers and slower-setting harder resins, a vacuum chamber is required. A small vacuum chamber is needed for de-airing (eliminating air bubbles) for materials prior to their setting. The process is fairly straightforward. The casting or molding material is mixed according to the manufacturers directions.

Process
Since the material may expand 4–5 times under a vacuum, the mixing container must be large enough to hold a volume of four to five times the amount of the original material that is being vacuumed to allow for the expansion; if not, it will spill over the top of the container requiring clean-up that can be avoided. The material container is then placed into the vacuum chamber; a vacuum pump is connected and turned on. Once the vacuum reaches 29 inches (at sea level) of mercury, the material will begin to rise (resembling foam). When the material falls, it will plateau and stop rising. The vacuuming is continued for another 2 to 3 minutes to make certain all of the air has been removed from the material. Once this interval is reached, the vacuum pump is shut off and the vacuum chamber release valve is opened to equalize air pressure. The vacuum chamber is opened, the material is removed and is ready to pour into the mold.

Though a maximum vacuum one can theoretically achieve at sea level is 29.921 inches of mercury (Hg,) this will vary significantly as altitude increases. For example, in Denver, Colorado, at one mile (1.6 km) above sea level, it is only possible to achieve a vacuum on the mercury scale of 24.896 Hg.

To keep the material air-free, it must be slowly poured in a high and narrow stream starting from the corner of the mold box, or mold, letting the material flow freely into the box or mold cavity. Usually, this method will not introduce any new bubbles into the vacuumed material. To ensure that the material is totally devoid of air bubbles, the entire mold/mold box may be placed in the chamber for an additional few minutes; this will assist the material in flowing into difficult areas of the mold/mold box.

Vacuum drying
Water and other liquids may accumulate on a product during the production process. "Vacuum is often employed as a process for removing bulk and absorbed water (or other solvents) from a product. Combined with heat, vacuum can be an effective method for drying."

World's largest vacuum chamber
NASA's Space Power Facility houses the world's largest vacuum chamber. It was built in 1969 and stands 122 ft high and 100 ft in diameter, enclosing a bullet-shaped space. It was originally commissioned for nuclear-electric power studies under vacuum conditions, but was later decommissioned. Recently, it was recommissioned for use in testing spacecraft propulsion systems. Recent uses include testing the airbag landing systems for the Mars Pathfinder and the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, under simulated Mars atmospheric conditions.

Each arm of the LIGO detectors in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, is a vacuum chamber 4 km long, making them the longest vacuum chambers in the world.

title: Vacuum chamber


text:
User:Yggdræsil

᛭᛫ᛣᚾᚩᚹ᛬ᚺᚩᚹ᛬ᛏᚩ᛬ᚳᚨᚱᚢᛖ᛫᛭

title: User:Yggdræsil


text:
Whitland

Whitland (Hendy-gwyn, lit. 'Old White House', or Hendy-gwyn ar Daf, lit. 'Old White House on the River Taf', from the medieval Ty Gwyn ar Daf) is a town and community in Carmarthenshire, Wales.

Description
The Whitland community is bordered by the communities of: Henllanfallteg; Llanboidy; and Eglwyscummin, all being in Carmarthenshire; and by Lampeter Velfrey and Llanddewi Velfrey in Pembrokeshire.

According to the 2011 census the population was 1,792.

Despite losing its dairy and remaining high street bank, Whitland has an estimated 125 small businesses as well as Whitland Engineering, which services the dairy industry and in 2019 employed 90 people.

History
Traditionally, Whitland is seen as the site of an assembly of lawyers and churchmen, sometimes described as the first Welsh parliament, called in 930 by King Hywel Dda to codify the native Welsh laws.

Whitland takes its name from its medieval Cistercian abbey. The monastery pre-dates Tintern but now is very much a ruin. The "white land" of the name (Latin: Albalanda) may refer to the famous Ty Gwyn (English: White House) where Hywel's parliament met, to the monks' unstained woollen cloaks, or to the abbey's limestone. Whitland was dissolved during Henry VIII's conversion to a reformed church. Much of its limestone was taken and used for other buildings. The limestone itself may have been from quarries in the Cotswolds as there is no quarry of this ' White' stone in the area. The country setting of the ruin and the Abbey's layout can still be viewed just north of the A40 roundabout and turning immediately left.

Whitland has had a strong milk industry and, when the railway arrived in the 19th century, exported milk to London. Its dairy, run by Dairy Crest, eventually closed in 1994 with the loss of 100 jobs.

Hywel Dda Centre
The Hywel Dda Interpretive Centre is a publicly funded culture centre. It has a garden using reclaimed stone. Hywel Dda is considered one of the most accomplished of Welsh rulers, minting his own coins, codifying the traditional Welsh Laws, and using his diplomacy to secure Wales at a particularly turbulent period.

Governance
An electoral ward of the same name exists including the Henllanfallteg community with a total population of 2,272. The ward elects one county councillor to Carmarthenshire County Council.

Whitland also has a town council, consisting of elected or co-opted town councillors. The town council elects a mayor annually, who acts as chair of the council.

Railway
Whitland railway station is at the junction of the South Wales Main Line with two branch lines: Pembroke Dock, and Cardigan. The latter was closed as a result of the Beeching cuts in the early 1960s.

Education
There are two schools: the primary school is Ysgol Llys Hywel; the secondary is Dyffryn Taf. Whitland has many local sporting teams including Rugby union, football (soccer), cricket, short and long mat bowls, darts and billiards.

Notable people

 * William Mathias (1934–1992), composer, was born in Whitland.
 * Lorys Davies (1936–2021), Archdeacon of Bolton from 1992 until 2001.

title: Whitland