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List of game designers

 * This page primarily is meant to list non-video game designers. Please see list of computer and video game industry people for a list of well-known video game designers.

A game designer is a person who invents games at the conceptual level. Most game designers are "unsung"; for example, no one knows who invented Chess or Hearts.

However, many public figures in game design, include commercial game developers and game-inventing mathematicians.

Some game designers include:

Role-playing game designers

 * Dave Arneson - Co-designer of Dungeons & Dragons, an early influential role-playing game
 * Frank Chadwick - Co-founder of Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) and designer of over 50 war and role-playing games, including Twilight 2000 and the Assault series
 * Troy Christensen - Designer of Phantasm Adventures, a 1980s role-playing game published in Japanese and English
 * John Horton Conway
 * Monte Cook
 * Jim Dunnigan - Founder of SPI Games and designer of over 100 wargames, including the PanzerBlitz/Panzer Leader system
 * James Ernest - president and lead game designer for Cheapass Games
 * Richard Garfield - collectible card game (Magic: The Gathering) and board game designer
 * Andrew Greenberg
 * Ed Greenwood
 * Gary Gygax - Co-designer of Dungeons & Dragons, an early influential role-playing game
 * Larry Harris
 * Stieg Hedlund - Started in pen-and-paper games before moving on to electronic games
 * Steve Jackson (UK)
 * Jeff Kinney
 * Albert Lamorisse
 * Andrew Looney
 * Marc Miller Co-founder of GDW and designer / writer of Traveller and several board games
 * Mark Rein-Hagen
 * Mike Selinker
 * C.A. Suleiman
 * Jonathan Tweet
 * Michael J. Varhola
 * Mark H. Walker
 * Jordan Weisman
 * Tom Wham
 * Skip Williams

Word game designers

 * Erik Agard
 * Will Shortz, puzzle designer for the New York Times crossword

Board game designers

 * William Attia (Caylus, Caylus Magna Carta)
 * Alfred Butts (Scrabble)
 * Milton Bradley (The Checkered Game of Life), founder of Milton Bradley Company
 * Inka Brand (Rajas of the Ganges, Village, Exit Series)
 * Markus Brand (Rajas of the Ganges, Village, Exit Series)
 * Richard Breese (Aladdin's Dragons, Keythedral, Reef Encounter)
 * Kris Burm (Batik, GIPF, ZÈRTZ, DVONN, TAMSK, YINSH, PÜNCT)
 * Allan B. Calhamer (Diplomacy)
 * Leo Colovini (Clans, Carolus Magnus, Cartagena, Doge, The Bridges of Shangri-La, Magna Grecia, Inkognito)
 * Julian Courtland-Smith (Escape from Atlantis)
 * Franz-Benno Delonge (Big City, Manila, Dos Rios, TransAmerica, Fjords)
 * Rudiger Dorn (The Traders of Genoa, Louis XIV, Goa)
 * Stefan Dorra (For Sale, Pick Picnic, Medina, Tonga Bonga, Linie 1, Turn the Tide, Intrige)
 * Bruno Faidutti (Citadels, Mystery of the Abbey, Terra)
 * Friedemann Friese (Power Grid, Fearsome Floors, Fresh Fish)
 * Mac Gerdts (Imperial, Antike)
 * Paul J. Gruen
 * Elizabeth Hargrave (Wingspan)
 * Dirk Henn (Alhambra, Atlantic Star, Metro, Wallenstein, Timbuktu)
 * Steve Jackson (Ogre, The Fantasy Trip, Car Wars, GURPS, Hacker, Illuminati)
 * Philippe Keyaerts (Evo, Vinci)
 * Michael Kiesling (Azul, Heaven & Ale, Tikal, Vikings)
 * Reiner Knizia (Ra, Modern Art, Tigris and Euphrates, Samurai, Lost Cities, Schotten Totten, Blue Moon, The Lord of the Rings)
 * Wolfgang Kramer (El Grande, Java, Mexica, Tikal, Princes of Florence, Torres)
 * Alan R. Moon (Capitol, Elfenland, Union Pacific, Ticket to Ride)
 * Christian T. Petersen (Twilight Imperium, A Game of Thrones (board game), World of Warcraft (board game))
 * Paul Randles (Pirate's Cove, Key Largo)
 * Alex Randolph (Twixt, Raj, Geister, Enchanted Forest, Inkognito, Ricochet Robots)
 * Ken Rolston, part of the core team at West End Games
 * Charles S. Roberts (Tactics II (first commercial board wargame)), founder of Avalon Hill
 * Uwe Rosenberg (Agricola, Bohnanza)
 * Sid Sackson (Acquire, Can't Stop, Kohle, Kies & Knete)
 * Michael Schacht (Web of Power, Dschunke, Industria, Hansa)
 * Karl-Heinz Schmiel (Attila, Die Macher)
 * Emiliano Sciarra (Bang!)
 * Andreas Seyfarth (Manhattan, Puerto Rico)
 * Daniel Stahl (Pirate's Cove)
 * Vital Lacerda (Vinhos, Kanban EV, CO2: Second Chance, The Gallerist)
 * Gertrude Strohm ("Popping the Question"; "Novel Fortune Telling")
 * Jerry Taylor (Hammer of the Scots, Crusader Rex)
 * Klaus Teuber (The Settlers of Catan, Adel Verpflichtet, Entdecker, Löwenherz)
 * Martin Wallace (Liberte, Age of Steam, Struggle of Empires, Princes of the Renaissance)
 * Klaus-Jürgen Wrede (Carcassonne)

title: List of game designers


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Open House

Open House or Open house may refer to:

Events

 * Artists Open House, similar to an Open Studio but held at a residential venue
 * Doors Open Days, allowing free access to buildings of historical or architectural interest not normally open to the public
 * Open house (school), at a school
 * Open House Chicago, an annual architecture festival in Chicago, Illinois, US
 * Open House London, an annual architecture festival in London, UK
 * Open House Brno, an annual architecture festival in Brno, Czech republic
 * Open house, held by a volunteer fire department
 * Open house, by a real estate agent to show a listed residential property to any interested parties; See Real estate transaction

Film

 * Open House (1987 film), a horror film starring Joseph Bottoms
 * Open House (2004 film), an independent film
 * Open House (2010 film), a film starring Stephen Moyer
 * Open House (2018 film), a Netflix film

Literature

 * Open House, a 1941 collection of poetry by Theodore Roethke
 * Open House (novel), a 2000 novel by Elizabeth Berg

Albums

 * Open House (album), a 1960 album by jazz organist Jimmy Smith
 * Open House!, a 1963 album by jazz organist Johnny "Hammond" Smith
 * Open House, a 1992 solo album by Irish folk fiddler Kevin Burke and the band that later took its name from the album
 * Open House (EP), a 2007 EP by Jaci Velasquez

Other music

 * Open House (band), a musical group led by Kevin Burke
 * "Open House", a song by Lou Reed and John Cale on the 1990 album Songs for Drella

Episodes

 * "Open House" (American Horror Story), a 2011 episode of the television show American Horror Story
 * "Open House" (The Americans), a 2015 episode of the television show The Americans
 * "Open House" (Breaking Bad), a 2011 episode of Breaking Bad
 * "Open House" (Pee-wee's Playhouse), a 1987 episode of Pee-wee's Playhouse

Series

 * Open House (1957 TV series), a 1957 Australian television series
 * Open House (1964 TV series), a 1964 British series that aired on BBC
 * Open House (1989 TV series), a 1989–1990 American sitcom that aired on Fox
 * Open House (2007 TV program), a 2007-present American luxury real estate program produced by LXTV and aired on NBC
 * Open House (2009 TV program) or Your Bottom Line, a 2009–2010 CNN weekend financial news program
 * Open House (Canadian TV series), a 1952 Canadian television series
 * Open House (Irish TV programme), an Irish daytime chat show
 * Open House with Gloria Hunniford, a UK daytime chat show
 * 'Open House, the Great Sex Experiment' Channel 4 series, 2022.

Other uses

 * Open House (FP7), a project launched by the European Seventh Framework Program
 * Jerusalem Open House, an Israeli gay rights organisation
 * Open House (Australia), a live talkback Christian radio show

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

title: Open House


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User:Mav/images/Grand Canyon area

Photos I took of the Grand Canyon area in April 2004.

title: User:Mav/images/Grand Canyon area


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Venn Young

Venn Spearman Young (16 February 1929 – 14 January 1993) was a New Zealand politician. He was a member of the National Party, and served as a Cabinet Minister in the government of Robert Muldoon. He is known for his failed attempt to legalise "homosexual acts" in 1975.

Early life
Young was born in Stratford, Taranaki. He attended primary school in Stratford, but received his high school education in Nelson, at Nelson College from 1942 to 1944. He then returned to Taranaki, becoming a dairy farmer. He gained some distinction as a rugby player, representing Taranaki. He was also active in the Anglican Church.

Member of Parliament
In the 1966 election, Young stood as the National Party's candidate for the Egmont electorate, and was successful. He was to hold Egmont in the next three elections, gaining a straight majority each time. At the 1978 election, the Egmont electorate was abolished, and Young successfully contested the new Waitotara electorate. He remained the MP for Waitotara until his departure from politics.

Private members' Bill
In mid 1974, Young attracted considerable controversy by putting forward a private members' bill to legalise private "homosexual acts" between consenting adults. The proposed age of consent was twenty-one, and although this was later reduced to twenty by a select committee, a number of homosexual lobbyists criticised it on this count. By far the most vocal criticism, however, came from conservatives, including many of his National Party colleagues. On 4 July 1975, the bill was defeated, with 34 votes against and 29 votes in favour. There were 24 abstentions.

Cabinet minister
Despite having alienated many of his party colleagues, Young entered Cabinet when National won the 1975 election. Robert Muldoon, the new Prime Minister, appointed Young to the Lands, Forests, and Environment portfolios, which he held for two parliamentary terms from December 1975 to 1981. In 1981, Young was moved to the Social Welfare portfolio, which he retained until National's defeat in the 1984 election.

In the 1990 New Year Honours, Young was appointed a Companion of the Queen's Service Order for public services.

Later life, death, and legacy
In 1986, Young voted against the Homosexual Law Reform Bill (promoted by Labour's Fran Wilde), after an amendment he had proposed setting the homosexual age of consent at 20 was rejected.

Young retired from parliament at the 1990 election.

He died in January 1993 following a heart attack, and was buried in Hawera Cemetery. He was survived by his wife and nine children, including Jonathan Young who served as the National MP for the New Plymouth electorate from 2008 to 2020.

title: Venn Young


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Magnifying glass

A magnifying glass is a convex lens that is used to produce a magnified image of an object. The lens is usually mounted in a frame with a handle. Beyond its primary function of magnification, this simple yet ingenious tool serves a variety of purposes. It can be employed to focus sunlight, harnessing the Sun's rays to create a concentrated hot spot at the lens's focus, which is often used for starting fires.

In another innovative form, the magnifying glass can manifest as a sheet magnifier, employing numerous slender, concentric, ring-shaped lenses. These are collectively known as a Fresnel lens, which, despite being significantly thinner, operates effectively as a single lens. This particular design finds its utility in applications such as screen magnifiers for TVs, offering a lightweight and efficient solution for enlarging visuals.

The cultural impact of the magnifying glass extends far into the realms of literature and pop culture, symbolizing the pursuit of truth and the uncovering of secrets. It is famously associated with the investigative work of fictional detectives, with Sherlock Holmes being the most iconic figure to wield it, cementing its status as an emblem of detective fiction. Through its various forms and functions, the magnifying glass remains a tool of both practical utility and significant symbolic value.

History

"The evidence indicates that the use of lenses was widespread throughout the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin over several millennia". Archaeological findings from the 1980s in Crete's Idaean Cave unearthed rock crystal lenses dating back to the Archaic Greek period, showcasing exceptional optical quality. These discoveries suggest that the use of lenses for magnification and possibly for starting fires was widespread in the Mediterranean and Middle East, indicating an advanced understanding of optics in antiquity. The earliest explicit written evidence of a magnifying device is a joke in Aristophanes's The Clouds from 424 BC, where magnifying lenses to ignite tinder were sold in a pharmacy, and Pliny the Elder's "lens", a glass globe filled with water, used to cauterize wounds. (Seneca wrote that it could be used to read letters "no matter how small or dim". ) A convex lens used for forming a magnified image was described in the Book of Optics by Ibn al-Haytham in 1021. After the book was translated during the Latin translations of the 12th century, Roger Bacon described the properties of a magnifying glass in 13th-century England. This was followed by the development of eyeglasses in 13th-century Italy. Building on this foundation, in the late 1500s, two Dutch spectacle makers Jacob Metius and Zacharias Janssen crafted the compound microscope by assembling several magnifying lenses in a tube, marking a significant advancement in optical instruments. Not long after, Hans Lipperhey introduced the telescope in 1608 and Galileo Galilei improving on the device in 1609, employing the magnifying lens in an innovative manner, further extending the application of optical technologies developed through the ages.

Magnification
The magnification of a magnifying glass depends upon where it is placed between the user's eye and the object being viewed, and the total distance between them. The magnifying power is equivalent to angular magnification (this should not be confused with optical power, which is a different quantity). The magnifying power is the ratio of the sizes of the images formed on the user's retina with and without the lens. For the "without" case, it is typically assumed that the user would bring the object as close to one eye as possible without it becoming blurry. This point, known as the near point of accommodation, varies with age. In a young child, it can be as close as 5 cm, while, in an elderly person it may be as far as one or two metres. Magnifiers are typically characterized using a "standard" value of 0.25 m.

A magnifying glass operates as the simplest form of optical instrument. It is essentially a hand-held lens that converges light to produce an enlarged, upright image that appears to stand where light doesn't actually converge, known as a 'virtual' image. To view an item in greater detail, it is positioned between the lens and its focal point, and the optimal observation occurs when the image is at the closest distance at which the eye can focus comfortably. The lens's magnification is the ratio of the image's apparent height to the object's actual height, correlating to the proportion of the distances from the image to the lens and the object to the lens. Moving the object nearer to the lens amplifies this effect, increasing magnification.

The highest magnifying power is obtained by putting the lens very close to one eye, and moving the eye and the lens together to obtain the best focus. The object will then typically also be close to the lens. The magnifying power obtained in this condition is MP0 = (0.25 m)Φ + 1, where Φ is the optical power in dioptres, and the factor of 0.25 m represents the assumed near point (¼ m from the eye). This value of the magnifying power is the one normally used to characterize magnifiers. It is typically denoted "m×", where m = MP0. This is sometimes called the total power of the magnifier (again, not to be confused with optical power).

However, magnifiers are not always used as described above because it is more comfortable to put the magnifier close to the object (one focal length away). The eye can then be a larger distance away, and a good image can be obtained very easily; the focus is not very sensitive to the eye's exact position. The magnifying power in this case is roughly MP = (0.25 m)Φ.

A typical magnifying glass might have a focal length of 25 cm, corresponding to an optical power of 4 dioptres. Such a magnifier would be sold as a "2×" magnifier. In actual use, an observer with "typical" eyes would obtain a magnifying power between 1 and 2, depending on where lens is held.

Practical uses
A magnifying glass can serve as a fire-starting tool in survival situations. Any transparent lens with significant magnifying ability, such as a standard magnifying glass or a jeweler's loupe, can concentrate sunlight to ignite tinder. The technique involves positioning the lens to focus a small, intense spot of light onto the tinder, awaiting ignition with patience. The advantage of this method is the simplicity of the lens and the minimal effort required. However, its effectiveness is contingent upon clear, strong sunlight, which may be inconsistent depending on geographic location and time of year.

Beyond survival uses, magnifying glasses are invaluable tools for jewelers and hobbyists. Jewelers rely on them to scrutinize the quality and authenticity of precious gems, ensuring accurate evaluations. Hobbyists, from those engaged in sewing and needlework to stamp collectors, depend on magnifying glasses for detailed work, enhancing both precision and enjoyment. This versatility underlines the magnifying glass's enduring utility across a spectrum of activities, from professional assessments to leisure pursuits.

Advanced digital magnifiers and apps have emerged as modern alternatives to traditional magnifying glasses, offering features such as variable magnification levels, high-contrast modes, and text-to-speech for visually impaired users. These tools not only magnify text and objects but also enhance readability and accessibility, making them invaluable for daily living and educational purposes.

Alternatives
Magnifying glasses typically have low magnifying power: 2×–6×, with the lower-power types being much more common. At higher magnifications, the image quality of a simple magnifying glass becomes poor due to optical aberrations, particularly spherical aberration. When more magnification or a better image is required, other types of hand magnifier are typically used. A Coddington magnifier provides higher magnification with improved image quality. Even better images can be obtained with a multiple-lens magnifier, such as a Hastings triplet. High power magnifiers are sometimes mounted in a cylindrical or conical holder with no handle, often designed to be worn on the head; this is called a loupe.

Such magnifiers can reach up to about 30×, and at these magnifications the aperture of the magnifier becomes very small and it must be placed very close to both the object and the eye. For more convenient use or for magnification beyond about 30×, a microscope is necessary.

Fresnel lenses are used as magnifiers, for example for reading printed text.

Use as a symbol
The magnifying glass icon (🔍), represented by U+1F50D in Unicode, has evolved into a universal symbol for searching and zooming functions in digital interfaces. Originating from its practical use for detailed examination and discovery, it has been adopted by modern computer software and websites to denote tools for users to find information or closely inspect content. The right-pointing version, U+1F50E (🔎), continues this theme, often used to initiate searches. The integration of these icons into user interface design reflects the intuitive connection between the physical act of magnifying to see more clearly and the metaphorical act of searching for information in the digital space.

Beyond its digital symbolization for search functions, the magnifying glass also holds a place in educational symbolism, often representing curiosity, exploration, and the quest for knowledge. Educational institutions and programs frequently use the magnifying glass in logos and materials to emphasize the importance of inquiry and discovery in learning.

title: Magnifying glass


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Chao

Chao may refer to:

People

 * Chao (surname), various Chinese surnames (including 晁 and 巢, as well as non-Pinyin spellings)
 * Zhou (surname) (周), may also be spelled Chao
 * Zhao (surname) (趙/赵), may also be spelled Chao in Taiwan and some countries/regions in South-East Asia.

Places

 * Chao, Virú, Peru
 * Chao District
 * Chao Valley
 * Cerro Chao, or Chao volcano, a lava flow in Chile
 * Chao Lake, in Hefei, Anhui Province, China
 * Chao (state), a minor state of the Chinese Bronze Age
 * Ilhéu Chão, in the Madeira archipelago

Other uses

 * Chao (currency) (鈔), the banknote used in Mongol Yuan Dynasty in China
 * Chao (Sonic the Hedgehog), a fictional species
 * Chao method, a way of indicating Chinese tones devised by Yuen Ren Chao
 * Chǎo technique (炒), a Chinese stir frying technique
 * Chao, part of several Thai royal ranks and titles
 * Chao (monarchy), a title of the Lan Na royal family members
 * Cháo, the Vietnamese version of congee

title: Chao


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User:MacGyverMagic/Discussions

Looking for Wikipedia pages
(from the Village Pump) I'm looking for the page that directs the "Did You Know?" section on the front page. Who decides what we see there?

I also want to know if there's a New pages patrol, just like the RC patrol.

Anyone with info please contact me hear or at my talk page. MGM 10:20, May 15, 2004 (UTC)

 * Template:Did you know is shown in the main page, and Recent additions is the history thereof. The rules are in the corresponding talk page MediaWiki talk:Did you know. New pages patrol is for the new pages patrol, but it's rather quiet over there. -- Chris 73 | Talk 02:01, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Lipoproteins
User:MacGyverMagic/Discussions/Lipoproteins

School
User:MacGyverMagic/Discussions/School

Egyptian cat
It's probably an odd question, but I'd really like to know. Ancient Egyptian could simply use the drawing of a cat to represent the word cat, but suppose they used the hieroglyphs to represent the sounds of the ancient word for cat, what glyphs would they use? Mgm|(talk) 11:28, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

 * The hieroglyphs for cat, miw, combine the glyphs for m, i and w with a picture of a cat.  For a picture, see here (search for "picture of a cat"). - Nunh-huh 01:58, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Thank you. Much appreciated! Mgm|(talk) 10:07, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

 * I thought I'd chip in that Wikipedia can deal with Egyptian hieroglyphs: the word for cat is:

which must have sounded remarkably like 'miaow'! --Gareth Hughes 23:32, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Dalek modulation
What kind of program do I need to use the plugin on? I think I can dig up a microphone to use... - Mgm|(talk) 13:34, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
 * That's probably where you are going to have to experiment a little. The straightforward answer is pretty much any version of Cubase, but they can get expensive. Cubase VST is available on a demo license. However, although the VST plugin protocol was developed by Steinberg its now quite widely supported on Mac and PC music software. According to the VST article there are even Linux based VST hosts now, but I don't know whether plugins always work accross platforms.
 * Basically all you should need is a simple recording environment that supports VST plugins. Record your voice, then experiment with applying the ring-mod plugin to it. A search for 'free VST host' leads me to MiniHost which might do the job - it appears to have the right features, but the screenshot doesn't look like anything I would expect though it might be showing an example of hosting a synth plugin.
 * There must be other alternatives too. You could probably find a free Ring Modulator for other plugin standards like DirectSound that should work with Windows sound programs such as MediaPlayer. -- Solipsist 15:07, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Yup, a Combination of MiniHost and the BJ Ringmodulation plugin works quite well. I had to also download the ASIO4All drivers mentioned in the MiniHost documentation to get my weird DSP microphone to work, and for some reason I only get a bunch of sliders instead of the pretty control panel for the Ring-mod, but it gets the job done. Now I can sound like a dalek in real-time and also record the results. To be honest I'm not sure whether I sound more like a dalek or a cylon, but with a reference sample, a bit of tweaking and a bit of acting you can probably get quite close. -- Solipsist 18:01, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

I've got the program up, but it doesn't see any input channels. I've got an ancient mic that's labelled "MDE Uni-directional Dynamic Mic Impedence 600 Ohm DM - 202". Do you know of any drivers for the thing, or is it too old to be computer compatible. (No I don't have any manuals for the thing anymore). Thanks for the help so far! :) (Once we're done, please copy this to my discussions archive page (User:MacGyverMagic/Discussions), or leave it for a while so I can do it). - Mgm|(talk) 20:15, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure. The mic itself probably doesn't matter so much. I guess you are plugging it in to the mic input on your sound card. So you really need the ASIO driver for that make of sound card. If it is a hi-tech sound card the manufacturers might produce their own ASIO drivers, but if it is a SoundBlaster or generic motherboard soundcard the ASIO4All driver will probably do it. There is a link to ASIO4All in the MiniHost documentation. Although even then it didn't work at first for me - I think I had to select the right input and output driver on the ASIO menu of MiniHost.
 * I also downloaded a simple VST instrument plugin so that I could generate sounds from inside MiniHost, which made it a little easier to tell when I had got the sound card/driver settings right. -- Solipsist 20:28, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

The text below is a personal copy of a mass image deletion request I posted on June 20, 2006.

Streaming video capture

 * Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 May 13

Identifying child stage actor
Who starred as the Artful Dodger alongside Gwion Jones and Jodie Prenger in Children in Need 2008? - Mgm|(talk) 19:35, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
 * This link seems to suggest it was Robert Madge (a Google search of "Robert Madge" Oliver brings up a load of stuff). I was browsing the Reference Desk roughly ten minutes ago and saw this question, but couldn't answer it.  I went onto the other (linked) site and suddenly saw the post!  Booglamay ( talk ) - 20:13, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Stunt kids
I'm not sure if it's even legal. Occasionally, kids perform their own stunts when they appear in a tv show or a feature film, but are there any kids employed as professional stunt performers anywhere in the world? And if so, who is the youngest one? - Mgm|(talk) 19:35, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
 * This link says that there's an 11-year-old in Australia who does stunt work. This claims that there was a 3-year-old stunt performer in the 40s and 50s in the US named Thom Bresh.   Little Red Riding Hood  talk  21:51, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Children in dangerous acts
Reference_desk/Archives/Entertainment/2009_March_26

title: User:MacGyverMagic/Discussions


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Newtown St Boswells

Newtown St Boswells (Newtoon; Baile Ùr Bhoisil ) is a village in the Scottish Borders council area, in south-east Scotland. The village lies south of the Eildon Hills on the Sprouston and Newtown burns, approximately 40 mi south-east of Edinburgh. It is the administrative centre of the Scottish Borders, and was historically in the county of Roxburghshire.

History
Newtown St Boswells is an old settlement, well-established by the 16th century. The town has been known at various times as Newtoune, Newtown of Eildon, Neuton and Newtown of Dryburgh. It lies split between the civil parishes of Melrose and St Boswells.

Historically, Newtown St Boswells was a centre for milling grain, with watermills on its burns. It became a regional centre of communication and an exporter of livestock after the opening of its railway station. This importance has declined since the closure of the station in 1969.

Roxburghshire County Council established offices at Newtown St Boswells in 1896, and subsequently moved its meeting place there from Jedburgh in 1930. A large new building was added to the site in 1968. From 1975 to 1996, the offices served as the administrative centre for Borders Regional Council. Since the 1996 the offices have been the headquarters of Scottish Borders Council and known as the Council Headquarters.

Education
The village is served by Newtown Primary School, which is a feeder school to Earlston High School, about 5 mi away in Earlston. The primary school also has nursery provision for preschool-aged children. A Borders College campus at the southeastern tip of the village specialises in agricultural education.

title: Newtown St Boswells


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Olm

The olm or proteus (Proteus anguinus) is an aquatic salamander which is the only species in the genus Proteus of the family Proteidae and the only exclusively cave-dwelling chordate species found in Europe; the family's other extant genus is Necturus. In contrast to most amphibians, it is entirely aquatic, eating, sleeping, and breeding underwater. Living in caves found in the Dinaric Alps, it is endemic to the waters that flow underground through the extensive limestone bedrock of the karst of Central and Southeastern Europe in the basin of the Soča River (Isonzo) near Trieste, Italy, southwestern Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Introduced populations are found near Vicenza, Italy, and Kranj, Slovenia. It was first mentioned in 1689 by the local naturalist Valvasor in his Glory of the Duchy of Carniola, who reported that, after heavy rains, the olms were washed up from the underground waters and were believed by local people to be a cave dragon's offspring.

This cave salamander is most notable for its adaptations to a life of complete darkness in its underground habitat. The olm's eyes are undeveloped, leaving it blind, while its other senses, particularly those of smell and hearing, are acutely developed. Most populations also lack any pigmentation in their skin. The olm has three toes on its forelimbs, but only two toes on its hind feet. It exhibits neoteny, retaining larval characteristics like external gills into adulthood, like some American amphibians, the axolotl and the mudpuppies (Necturus).

Etymology
The word olm is a German loanword that was incorporated into English in the late 19th century. The origin of the German Olm or Grottenolm 'cave olm', is unclear. It may be a variant of the word Molch 'salamander'.

Common names
It is also called the "human fish" by locals because of its fleshy skin color (translated literally from človeška ribica, човечка рипка, čovječja ribica, čovječija ribica, човечја рибица), as well as "cave salamander" or "white salamander". In Slovenia, it is called močeril (from *močerъ 'earthworm, damp creepy-crawly'; moča 'dampness').

External appearance
The olm's body is snakelike, 20 – long, with some specimens reaching up to 40 cm, which makes them some of the largest cave-dwelling animals in the world. The average length is between 23 and 25 cm. Females grow larger than males, but otherwise the primary external difference between the sexes is in the cloaca region (shape and size) when breeding. The trunk is cylindrical, uniformly thick, and segmented with regularly spaced furrows at the myomere borders. The tail is relatively short, laterally flattened, and surrounded by a thin fin. The limbs are small and thin, with a reduced number of digits compared to other amphibians: the front legs have three digits instead of the normal four, and the rear have two digits instead of five. Its body is covered by a thin layer of skin, which contains very little of the pigment riboflavin, making it yellowish-white or pink in color.

The white skin color of the olm retains the ability to produce melanin, and will gradually turn dark when exposed to light; in some cases the larvae are also colored. One population, the black olm, is always pigmented and dark brownish to blackish when adult. The olm's pear-shaped head ends with a short, dorsoventrally flattened snout. The mouth opening is small, with tiny teeth forming a sieve to keep larger particles inside the mouth. The nostrils are so small as to be imperceptible, but are placed somewhat laterally near the end of the snout. The regressed eyes are covered by a layer of skin. The olm breathes with external gills that form two branched tufts at the back of the head. They are red in color because the oxygen-rich blood shows through the non-pigmented skin. The olm also has rudimentary lungs, but their role in respiration is only accessory, except during hypoxic conditions.

Sensory organs
Cave-dwelling animals have been prompted, among other adaptations, to develop and improve non-visual sensory systems in order to orient in and adapt to permanently dark habitats. The olm's sensory system is also adapted to life in the subterranean aquatic environment. Unable to use vision for orientation, the olm compensates with other senses, which are better developed than in amphibians living on the surface. It retains larval proportions, like a long, slender body and a large, flattened head, and is thus able to carry a larger number of sensory receptors.

Photoreceptors
Although blind, the olm swims away from light. The eyes are regressed, but retain sensitivity. They lie deep below the dermis of the skin and are rarely visible except in some younger adults. Larvae have normal eyes, but development soon stops and they start regressing, finally atrophying after four months of development. The pineal body also has photoreceptive cells which, though regressed, retain visual pigment like the photoreceptive cells of the regressed eye. The pineal gland in Proteus probably possesses some control over the physiological processes. Behavioral experiments revealed that the skin itself is also sensitive to light. Photosensitivity of the integument is due to the pigment melanopsin inside specialized cells called melanophores. Preliminary immunocytochemical analyses support the existence of photosensitive pigment also in the animal's integument.

Chemoreceptors

The olm is capable of sensing very low concentrations of organic compounds in the water. They are better at sensing both the quantity and quality of prey by smell than related amphibians. The nasal epithelium, located on the inner surface of the nasal cavity and in the Jacobson's organ, is thicker than in other amphibians. The taste buds are in the mucous epithelium of the mouth, most of them on the upper side of the tongue and on the entrance to the gill cavities. Those in the oral cavity are used for tasting food, where those near the gills probably sense chemicals in the surrounding water.

Mechano- and electroreceptors
The sensory epithelia of the inner ear are very specifically differentiated, enabling the olm to receive sound waves in the water, as well as vibrations from the ground. The complex functional-morphological orientation of the sensory cells enables the animal to register the sound sources. As this animal stays neotenic throughout its long life span, it is only occasionally exposed to normal adult hearing in air, which is probably also possible for Proteus as in most salamanders. Hence, it would be of adaptive value in caves, with no vision available, to profit from underwater hearing by recognizing particular sounds and eventual localization of prey or other sound sources, i.e. acoustical orientation in general. Behavioural (ethological) tests have shown that its sensitivity for detecting underwater sound waves reaches into the area of frequencies of sound waves between 10 and more than 12,000 Hz, while the greatest sensitivity is reached between 1,500 and 2,000 Hz.The ethological experiments indicate that the best hearing sensitivity of Proteus is between 10 Hz and up to 12,000 Hz. The lateral line supplements inner ear sensitivity by registering low-frequency nearby water displacements.

A new type of electroreception sensory organ has been analyzed on the head of Proteus, utilizing light and electron microscopy. These new organs have been described as ampullary organs.

Like some other lower vertebrates, the olm has the ability to register weak electric fields. Some behavioral experiments suggest that the olm may be able to use Earth's magnetic field to orient itself. In 2002, Proteus anguinus was found to align itself with natural and artificially modified magnetic fields.

Ecology and life history

The olm lives in well-oxygenated underground waters with a typical, very stable temperature of 8-11 C, infrequently as warm as 14 C. There have also been observations in northeastern Italy where they swim to the surface in springs outside the caves, even in daylight, where they occasionally feed on earthworms. The black olm may occur in surface waters that are somewhat warmer.

The olm swims by eel-like twisting of its body, assisted only slightly by its poorly developed legs. It is a predatory animal, feeding on small crustaceans (for example, Troglocaris shrimp, Niphargus, Asellus, and Synurella amphipods, and Oniscus asellus), snails (for example, Belgrandiella), and occasionally insects and insect larvae (for example, Trichoptera, Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Diptera). It does not chew its food, instead swallowing it whole. The olm is resistant to long-term starvation, an adaptation to its underground habitat. It can consume large amounts of food at once, and store nutrients as large deposits of lipids and glycogen in the liver. When food is scarce, it reduces its activity and metabolic rate, and can also reabsorb its own tissues in severe cases. Controlled experiments have shown that an olm can survive up to 10 years without food.

Olms are gregarious, and usually aggregate either under stones or in fissures. Sexually active males are an exception, establishing and defending territories where they attract females. The scarcity of food makes fighting energetically costly, so encounters between males usually only involve display. This is a behavioral adaptation to life underground.

Breeding and longevity
Reproduction has only been observed in captivity so far. Sexually mature males have swollen cloacas, brighter skin color, two lines at the side of the tail, and slightly curled fins. No such changes have been observed in the females. The male can start courtship even without the presence of a female. He chases other males away from the chosen area, and may then secrete a female-attracting pheromone. When the female approaches, he starts to circle around her and fan her with his tail. Then he starts to touch the female's body with his snout, and the female touches his cloaca with her snout. At that point, he starts to move forward with a twitching motion, and the female follows. He then deposits the spermatophore, and the animals keep moving forward until the female hits it with her cloaca, after which she stops and stands still. The spermatophore sticks to her and the sperm cells swim inside her cloaca, where they attempt to fertilize her eggs. The courtship ritual can be repeated several times over a couple of hours.

The female lays up to 70 eggs, each about 12 mm in diameter, and places them between rocks, where they remain under her protection. The average is 35 eggs and the adult female typically breeds every 12.5 years. The tadpoles are 2 cm long when they hatch and live on yolk stored in the cells of the digestive tract for a month.

At a temperature of 10 C, the olm's embryonic development (time in the eggs before hatching) is 140 days, but it is somewhat slower in colder water and faster in warmer, being as little as 86 days at 15 C. After hatching, it takes another 14 years to reach sexual maturity if living in water that is 10 C. The larvae gain adult appearance after nearly four months, with the duration of development strongly correlating with water temperature. Unconfirmed historical observations of viviparity exist, but it has been shown that the females possess a gland that produces the egg casing, similar to those of fish and egg-laying amphibians. Paul Kammerer reported that female olm gave birth to live young in water at or below 55 F and laid eggs at higher, but rigorous observations have not confirmed that. The olm appears to be exclusively oviparous.

Development of the olm and other troglobite amphibians is characterized by heterochrony – the animal does not undergo metamorphosis and instead retains larval features. The form of heterochrony in the olm is neoteny – delayed somatic maturity with precocious reproductive maturity, i.e. reproductive maturity is reached while retaining the larval external morphology. In other amphibians, the metamorphosis is regulated by the hormone thyroxine, secreted by the thyroid gland. The thyroid is normally developed and functioning in the olm, so the lack of metamorphosis is due to the unresponsiveness of key tissues to thyroxine.

Longevity is estimated at up to 58 years. A study published in Biology Letters estimated that they have a maximum lifespan of over 100 years and that the lifespan of an average adult is around 68.5 years. When compared to the longevity and body mass of other amphibians, olms are outliers, living longer than would be predicted from their size.

Taxonomic history
Olms from different cave systems differ substantially in body measurements, color, and some microscopic characteristics. Earlier researchers used these differences to support the division into five species, while modern herpetologists understand that external morphology is not reliable for amphibian systematics and can be extremely variable, depending on nourishment, illness, and other factors; even varying among individuals in a single population. Proteus anguinus is now considered a single species. The length of the head is the most obvious difference between the various populations – individuals from Stična, Slovenia, have shorter heads on average than those from Tržič, Slovenia, and the Istrian peninsula, for example.

Black olm
The black olm (Proteus anguinus parkelj Sket & Arntzen, 1994 ) is the only other recognized subspecies of the olm. It is endemic to the underground waters near Črnomelj, Slovenia, an area smaller than 100 km2. It was first found in 1986 by members of the Slovenian Karst Research Institute, who were exploring the water from Dobličica karst spring in the White Carniola region.

It has several features separating it from the nominotypical subspecies (Proteus a. anguinus):

Proteus bavaricus
The debated species Proteus bavaricus is a close relative of the olm. The species was described from a single bone, by George Brunner, and the holotype is housed in his private collection. It was found in Bavaria's Devil's Cave, in the Pleistocene layer. In his 1998 book, J. Alan Hollman described the species as a "problematic" taxon, saying that Brunner's drawing of the bone does not adequately show the differences between P. bavaricus and P. anguinus.

Research history
The first written mention of the olm is in Johann Weikhard von Valvasor's The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola (1689) as a baby dragon. Heavy rains of Slovenia would wash the olms up from their subterranean habitat, giving rise to the folklore belief that great dragons lived beneath the Earth's crust, and the olms were the undeveloped offspring of these mythical beasts. In his book Valvasor compiled the local Slovenian folk stories and pieced together the rich mythology of the creature and documented observations of the olm as "Barely a span long, akin to a lizard, in short, a worm and vermin of which there are many hereabouts".

The first researcher to retrieve a live olm was a physician and researcher from Idrija, Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, who sent dead specimens and drawings to colleagues and collectors. Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti, though, was the first to briefly describe the olm in 1768 and give it the scientific name Proteus anguinus. It was not until the end of the century that Carl Franz Anton Ritter von Schreibers from the Naturhistorisches Museum of Vienna started to look into this animal's anatomy. The specimens were sent to him by Sigmund Zois. Schreibers presented his findings in 1801 to The Royal Society in London, and later also in Paris. Soon, the olm started to gain wide recognition and attract significant attention, resulting in thousands of animals being sent to researchers and collectors worldwide. A Dr Edwards was quoted in a book of 1839 as believing that "...the Proteus Anguinis is the first stage of an animal prevented from growing to perfection by inhabiting the subterraneous waters of Carniola."

In 1880 Marie von Chauvin began the first long-term study of olms in captivity. She learned that they detected prey's motion, panicked when a heavy object was dropped near their habitat, and developed color if exposed to weak light for a few hours a day, but could not cause them to change to a land-dwelling adult form, as she and others had done with axolotl.

The basis of functional morphological investigations in Slovenia was set up by Lilijana Istenič in the 1980s. More than twenty years later, the Research Group for functional morphological Studies of the Vertebrates in the Department of Biology (Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana), is one of the leading groups studying the olm under the guidance of Boris Bulog. There are also several cave laboratories in Europe in which olms have been introduced and are being studied. These are Moulis, Ariège (France), Choranche cave (France), Han-sur-Lesse (Belgium), and Aggtelek (Hungary). They were also introduced into the Hermannshöhle (Germany) and Oliero (Italy) caves, where they still live today. Additionally, there is evidence that a small number of olms were introduced to the United Kingdom in the 1940s, although it's highly likely that the animals perished shortly after being released.

The olm was used by Charles Darwin in his seminal work On the Origin of Species as an example for the reduction of structures through disuse:

"Far from feeling surprise that some of the cave-animals should be very anomalous...as is the case with blind Proteus with reference to the reptiles of Europe, I am only surprised that more wrecks of ancient life have not been preserved, owing to the less severe competition to which the scanty inhabitants of these dark abodes will have been exposed."An olm (Proteus) genome project is currently underway by the University of Ljubljana and BGI. With an estimated genome size roughly 15-times the size of human genome, this will likely be the largest animal genome sequenced so far.

Conservation
The olm is extremely vulnerable to changes in its environment, due to its adaptation to the specific conditions in caves. Water resources in the karst are extremely sensitive to all kinds of pollution. The contamination of the karst underground waters is due to the large number of waste disposal sites leached by rainwater, as well as to the accidental overflow of various liquids. The reflection of such pollution in the karst underground waters depends on the type and quantity of pollutants, and on the rock structure through which the waters penetrate. Self-purification processes in the underground waters are not completely understood, but they are quite different from those in surface waters.

Among the most serious chemical pollutants are chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides, fertilizers, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which are or were used in a variety of industrial processes and in the manufacture of many kinds of materials; and metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and arsenic. All of these substances persist in the environment, being slowly, if at all, degraded by natural processes. In addition, all are toxic to life if they accumulate in any appreciable quantity. The olm is nevertheless noted for its capability of surviving higher concentrations of accumulated PCBs than related aquatic organisms.

The olm was included in annexes II and IV of the 1992 EU Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC). The list of species in annex II, combined with the habitats listed in annex I, is used by individual countries to designate protected areas known as 'Special Areas of Conservation'. These areas, combined with others created by the older Birds Directive were to form the Natura 2000 network. Annex IV additionally lists "animal and plant species of community interest in need of strict protection", although this has little legal ramifications. Areas inhabited by the olm were eventually included in the Slovenian, Italian and Croatian parts of the Natura 2000 network.

The olm was first protected in Slovenia in 1922 along with all cave fauna, but the protection was not effective and a substantial black market came into existence. In 1982 it was placed on a list of rare and endangered species. This list also had the effect of prohibiting trade of the species. After joining the European Union in 2004, Slovenia had to establish mechanisms for protection of the species included in the EU Habitats Directive. The olm is included in a Slovenian Red list of endangered species, thus its capturing or killing is allowed only under specific circumstances determined by the local authorities (e.g. scientific study).

In Croatia, the olm is protected by the legislation designed to protect amphibians – collecting is possible only for research purposes by permission of the National Administration for Nature and Environment Protection. As of 2020 the Croatian population has been assessed as 'critically endangered' in Croatia. As of 1999, the environmental laws in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro had not yet been clarified for this species.

In the 1980s the IUCN claimed that some illegal collection of this species for the pet trade took place, but that the extent of this was unknown: this text has been copied into subsequent assessments, but by now the anecdotic claims are not considered to be indicative of a major threat. Since the 1980s until the most recent assessment in 2022 the organisation has rated the conservation status for the IUCN Red List as 'vulnerable', this because of its natural distribution being fragmented over a number of cave systems as opposed to being continuous, and what they consider a decline in extent and quality of its habitat, which they assume means that the population has been decreasing for the last 40 years.

Zagreb Zoo in Croatia houses the olm. Historically, olms were kept in several zoos in Germany, as well as in Belgium, the Netherlands, Slovenia and the United Kingdom. At present they can only be experienced at Zagreb Zoo, Hermannshöhle in Germany and Vivarium Proteus (Proteus Vivarium) within Postojnska jama (Postojna Cave) in Slovenia. There are also captive breeding programs in places like France.

Cultural significance
The olm is a symbol of Slovenian natural heritage. The enthusiasm of scientists and the broader public about this inhabitant of Slovenian caves is still strong 300 years after its discovery. Postojna Cave is one of the birthplaces of biospeleology due to the olm and other rare cave inhabitants, such as the blind cave beetle. The image of the olm contributes significantly to the fame of Postojna Cave, which Slovenia successfully utilizes for the promotion of ecotourism in Postojna and other parts of Slovenian karst. Tours of Postojna Cave also include a tour around the speleobiological station – the Proteus vivarium, showing different aspects of the cave environment.

The olm was also depicted on one of the Slovenian tolar coins. It was also the namesake of Proteus, the oldest Slovenian popular science magazine, first published in 1933.

title: Olm


text:
Proteus (disambiguation)

Proteus is an early Greek water god.

Proteus may also refer to:

People

 * Charles Proteus Steinmetz (1865–1923), German-American mathematician and electrical engineer
 * Peregrinus Proteus (died 165), Cynic philosopher, from Parium in Mysia
 * Proteus (Greek myth), name of multiple mythical characters
 * Proteus of Egypt, an ancient Egyptian king who was associated with the island of Pharos

Characters

 * Proteus (The Two Gentlemen of Verona), a character from William Shakespeare's play The Two Gentlemen of Verona
 * Dr. Paul Proteus, the main character in Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut
 * Prince Proteus of Syracuse, a character in the 2003 DreamWorks Animation film Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
 * Proteus, the Prime Minister in The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw
 * Proteus IV, a villainous supercomputer in the Dean Koontz novel and film Demon Seed
 * Proteus, the second monster created by Victor Frankenstein in the TV show Penny Dreadful

Characters in comics

 * Proteus (Marvel Comics), a Marvel Comics mutant
 * Proteus (DC Comics), a DC Comics super-villain, enemy of the superhero the Creeper

Biology

 * Amoeba proteus, the most famous species of amoebae
 * Proteus (amphibian), a small cave-dwelling amphibian genus, also known as the olm
 * Proteus (bacterium), a genus of Proteobacteria responsible for many human urinary tract infections
 * Proteus, a cultivar of Clematis introduced in 1876

Medicine

 * Proteus syndrome, a very rare congenital disorder known mostly for its most famous sufferer Joseph Merrick (the Elephant Man)
 * Proteus-like syndrome, a condition similar to Proteus syndrome, but with an uncertain etiology

Science

 * Proteus (alchemy), a term for the "first matter" (prima materia)
 * Proteus (moon), a natural satellite of Neptune
 * Proteus (satellite), a French multimission satellite platform

Software and hardware

 * Proteus (programming language), a fully functional, procedural programming language created in 1998 by Simone Zanella
 * Proteus (proteomics software), a software using Trans-Proteomic Pipeline technology
 * Proteus (video game), an exploration video game created in 2013
 * Proteus Design Suite, a proprietary software tool suite used primarily for electronic design automation

In media

 * Proteus (play), a satyr play by Aeschylus, part of the Oresteia
 * "Proteus" (X-Men episode), an episode of the X-Men animated series
 * Proteus (video game), a 2013 video game developed by Ed Key and David Kanaga
 * "Proteus", an episode of the television series Person of Interest

Films

 * Proteus, a 1995 film by director Bob Keen
 * Proteus (2003 film), a film by Canadian director John Greyson
 * Proteus (2004 film), an animated documentary by David Lebrun

Novels

 * Proteus In The Underworld, a science fiction novel by Charles Sheffield and published in 1995
 * The Proteus Operation, a science fiction novel written by James P. Hogan and published in 1985
 * "Proteus" (Ulysses episode), an episode in James Joyce's novel Ulysses
 * Proteus, a novel by Morris West and published in 1979

Vehicles

 * Bluebird-Proteus CN7, a wheel-driven land speed record-breaking car
 * HMS Proteus (disambiguation), several ships
 * Proteus (watercraft), an experimental vessel developed by Marine Advanced Research
 * Scaled Composites Proteus, an experimental aircraft
 * USS Proteus (disambiguation), several ships
 * A type of diver propulsion vehicle; there are at least two makes called Proteus:
 * Protei-5 Russian diver propulsion vehicle
 * Proteus replica Jaguar C-Type car, manufactured in the UK by Proteus sports and racing cars
 * Saturn (Russian Navy), a class of Russian tugboats

Fictional vehicles

 * Proteus (submarine), the miniaturized submarine in the 1966 movie Fantastic Voyage
 * Proteus, a derelict spacecraft infested with alien spiders in the 1998 film Lost in Space
 * Proteus, a Strategic Cruiser class ship from the MMORPG Eve Online
 * Proteus, a new US Navy warship in a season 2 episode of New Captain Scarlet entitled Proteus
 * Proteus, a legendary narrow gauge steam locomotive from Thomas & Friends

Engines

 * Bristol Proteus, a turboprop engine

Organisations

 * Proteus-eretes, the largest student rowing club in Delft, Netherlands
 * Proteus Gowanus, an interdisciplinary gallery and reading room founded in 2005 in Gowanus, Brooklyn, New York, United States
 * Krewe of Proteus, the second oldest parade krewe at New Orleans Mardi Gras

Companies

 * Proteus Airlines, a French regional airline with its head offices in Saint-Apollinaire, Côte-d'Or, France, near Dijon, and in Saint-Étienne
 * Studio Proteus, a Japanese manga import, translation and lettering company

Other

 * E-mu Proteus, a series of sample playback synthesizers
 * Proteus, a board game by Steve Jackson Games
 * Proteus effect, an effect that appears when the behavior of an individual conforms to their digital self-representation
 * Proteus phenomenon, the tendency in science for early replications of a work to contradict the original findings, a consequence of publication bias

title: Proteus (disambiguation)


text:
Plumbaginaceae

Plumbaginaceae is a family of flowering plants, with a cosmopolitan distribution. The family is sometimes referred to as the leadwort family or the plumbago family.

Most species in this family are perennial herbaceous plants, but a few grow as lianas or shrubs. The plants have perfect flowers and are pollinated by insects. They are found in many different climatic regions, from arctic to tropical conditions, but are particularly associated with salt-rich steppes, marshes, and sea coasts.

The family has been recognized by most taxonomists. The APG II system (2003; unchanged from the APG system of 1998), recognizes this family and assigns it to the order Caryophyllales in the clade core eudicots. It includes ca 30 genera and about 725 species.

The 1981 Cronquist system placed the family in a separate order Plumbaginales, which included no other families. The Dahlgren system had segregated some of these plants as family Limoniaceae.

Genera
21 genera are accepted.
 * Acantholimon Boiss.
 * Aegialitis R.Br.
 * Armeria (DC.) Willd., the thrifts or seapinks
 * Bakerolimon (Hook.f.) Lincz.
 * Bamiania Lincz.
 * Bukiniczia Lincz.
 * Cephalorhizum Popov & Korovin
 * Ceratolimon M.B.Crespo & Lledó
 * Ceratostigma Bunge, the leadworts
 * Dictyolimon Rech.f.
 * Goniolimon Boiss.
 * Ikonnikovia Lincz.
 * Limoniastrum Heist. ex Fabr.
 * Limoniopsis Lincz.
 * Limonium Mill. (syn. Statice), the sealavenders
 * Myriolimon Lledó, Erben & M.B.Crespo
 * Muellerolimon Lincz., synonym of Goniolimon
 * Neogontscharovia Lincz.
 * Plumbagella Spach
 * Plumbago Tourn. ex L., the leadworts or plumbagos
 * Psylliostachys (Jaub. & Spach) Nevski
 * Saharanthus M.B.Crespo & Lledó

Cultivation and uses
Chalk glands are found in this family. The family includes a number of popular garden species, which are grown for their attractive flowers.

title: Plumbaginaceae


text:
Vervet monkey

The vervet monkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus), or simply vervet, is an Old World monkey of the family Cercopithecidae native to Africa. The term "vervet" is also used to refer to all the members of the genus Chlorocebus. The five distinct subspecies can be found mostly throughout Southern Africa, as well as some of the eastern countries. These mostly herbivorous monkeys have black faces and grey body hair color, ranging in body length from about 40 cm for females, to about 50 cm for males.

In addition to behavioral research on natural populations, vervet monkeys serve as a nonhuman primate model for understanding genetic and social behaviors of humans. They have been noted for having human-like characteristics, such as hypertension, anxiety, and social and dependent alcohol use. Vervets live in social groups ranging from 10 to 70 individuals, with males moving to other groups at the time of sexual maturity. Studies done on vervet monkeys involve their communication and alarm calls, specifically in regard to kin and group recognition, and particular predator sightings.

Taxonomy
The vervet monkey was previously classified as Cercopithecus aethiops, now renamed 'grivet', and reclassified as Chlorocebus. The vervet and malbrouck have also been considered conspecific, or as subspecies of a widespread ''Ch. aethiops''. The different taxa are distinguished by coat colour and other morphological characteristics. The characteristics of ''Ch. aethiops graduate into Ch. pygerythrus where their ranges meet, and thus deciding if the vervets commonly known to occur in Kenya are actually Ch. aethiops is difficult; animals in the same pack may be classified as one species or the other, and Ch. pygerythrus may also interbreed with Ch. tantalus'' where their ranges meet.

Colin Groves recognised the below five subspecies of vervet monkey in the third edition of Mammals of the World:

 * Chlorocebus pygerythrus excubitor
 * Ch. p. hilgerti from southern Kenya
 * Ch. p. nesiotes
 * Ch. p. pygerythrus from South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, and Eswatini.
 * Ch. p. rufoviridis from Mozambique and Uganda has a distinctly reddish-coloured back, which is darker towards the base of the tail.

Groves used ''Ch. p. hilgerti for all East African vervets except the insular subspecies Ch. p. excubitor and Ch. p. nesiotes''. The name ''Ch. p. centralis has been suggested to have precedence, and that Ch. p. hilgerti'' should be restricted to the population of southern Ethiopia.

Synonymy
''Ch. p. pygerythrus, as Cercopithecus aethiops'', was also formerly divided into four subspecies:

 * C. a. pygerythrus, from South Africa (Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape and southern KwaZulu-Natal), and Lesotho; is said to have pale-colored limbs and white hands and feet (though the hands are also said to be black with a scattering of greyish hairs), and a greyish body colour with an olive sheen.
 * C. a. cloetei, from northern KwaZulu-Natal, Eswatini, and northern South Africa; is darker, with greyish-brown speckles and dark feet.
 * C. a. marjoriae, from southern Botswana and the North West Province of South Africa; is pale in colour (light ash-grey).
 * C. a. ngamiensis, from north-eastern Botswana and the Okavango; has pale feet and a yellowish back and the tail is darker (especially towards the tip) than in other southern vervets.

These subspecies are no longer recognised and are synonymous with ''Ch. p. pygerythrus''.

Natural habitat
The vervet monkey ranges throughout much of Southern and East Africa, being found from Ethiopia and extreme southern South Sudan all the way down to South Africa. It is not found west of the East African Rift or the Luangwa River, where it is replaced by the closely related malbrouck (C. cynosuros) species. The vervet monkey inhabits savanna, riverine woodland, coastal forest, and mountains up to 4000 m (13,100 ft). They are adaptable and able to persist in secondary and/or highly fragmented vegetation, including cultivated areas, and sometimes are found living in both rural and urban environments. Annual home range size has been observed to be as high as 176 ha, with an average population density of 54.68 animals/km².

Introduced
Vervet monkeys that are naturalised (introduced by humans) are found in Cape Verde, Ascension Island, Saint Helena, St Kitts and Nevis, and Barbados. Dania Beach, Florida, is home to about 40 introduced vervets.

Physical description
The vervet monkey very much resembles a gray langur, having a black face with a white fringe of hair, while its overall hair color is mostly grizzled-grey. The species exhibits sexual dimorphism; the males are larger in weight and body length and may be recognized by a turquoise-blue scrotum. Adult males weigh between 3.9 and 8.0 kg, averaging 5.5 kg, and have a body length between 420 and 600 mm, averaging 490 mm from the top of the head to the base of the tail. Adult females weigh between 3.4 and 5.3 kg and average 4.1 kg, and measure between 300 and 495 mm, averaging 426 mm.

Social behaviour
When males reach sexual maturity, they move to a neighboring group. Often, males move with a brother or peer, presumably for protection against aggression by males and females of the resident group. Groups that had previously transferred males show significantly less aggression upon the arrival of another male. In almost every case, males migrate to adjacent groups. This obviously increases benefits in regard to distance traveled, but also reduces the amount of genetic variance, increasing the likelihood of inbreeding.

Females remain in their groups throughout life. Separate dominance hierarchies are found for each sex. Male hierarchies are determined by age, tenure in the group, fighting abilities, and allies, while female hierarchies are dependent on maternal social status. A large proportion of interactions occurs between individuals that are similarly ranked and closely related. Between unrelated individuals, female competition exists for grooming members of high-ranking families, presumably to gain more access to resources. These observations suggest individual recognition is possible and enables discrimination of genetic relatedness and social status. Interactions between different groups are variable, ranging from highly aggressive to friendly. Furthermore, individuals seem to be able to recognise cross-group vocalisations, and identify from and to which monkey each call is intended, even if the call is made by a subadult male, which is likely to transfer groups. This suggests the members within a group are actively monitoring the activity of other groups, including the movement of individuals within a group.

Within groups, aggression is directed primarily at individuals that are lower on the hierarchy. Once an individual is three years or older, it is considerably more likely to be involved in conflict. Conflict often arises when one group member shows aggression toward a close relative of another. Further, both males and females may redirect aggression towards individuals in which both had close relatives that were previously involved in a conflict. This suggests complex recognition not only of individuals, but also of associations between individuals. This does not suggest recognition of other's individual kinship bonds is possible, but rather that discrimination of social relationships does occur.

Alarm calls and offspring recognition
Vervet monkeys have four confirmed predators: leopards, eagles, pythons, and baboons. The sighting of each predator elicits an acoustically distinct alarm call. As infants, vervets learn to make the variety of calls from observation alone, without explicit tutelage. In experimentation with unreliable signalers, individuals became habituated to incorrect calls from a specific individual. Though the response was lessened for a specific predator, if an unreliable individual gives an alarm call for a different predator, group members respond as if the alarm caller is, in fact, reliable. This suggests vervet monkeys are able to recognize and to respond to not only the individual calling, but also to the semantics of what the individual is communicating. Vervet monkeys are thought to have up to 30 different alarm calls. In the wild, they have been seen giving a different call when seeing a human being approaching, leading researchers to believe that vervet monkeys may have a way of distinguishing between different land and flight predators.

Mothers can recognise their offspring by a scream alone. A juvenile scream elicits a reaction from all mothers, yet the juvenile's own mother has a shorter latency in looking in the direction of the scream, as well as an increased duration in her look. Further, mothers have been observed to help their offspring in conflict, yet rarely aid other juveniles. Other mothers evidently can determine to which mother the offspring belongs. Individuals have been observed to look towards the mother whose offspring is creating the scream.

Kin relationships
Siblings likely provide the prevailing social relationships during development. Within social groups, mother-offspring and sibling interactive units are distinct groups. The sibling interactions are heavily supportive and friendly, but do have some competition. Contests primarily involve postweaning resource allocation by the common mother. For example, siblings have conflict over grooming time allocated by their mother. Offspring are usually not born in extremely close time proximity due to the interbirth period of the mother. This time can be reduced by use of an allomother. The clarity of the familial and sibships within a group may act as a form of alliance, which would come at relatively low cost in regards to grooming. Other alliances are shown through conflict with aggressive individuals that have acted against a closely related sibling.

Allomothering is the process when another individual besides the mother cares for an infant. In groups of vervet monkeys, infants are the target of a tremendous amount of attention. Days after an infant is born, every member of the group inspects the infant at least once by touching or sniffing. While all group members participate in infant caretaking, juvenile females that cannot yet menstruate are responsible for the majority of allomothering. The benefit is mutual for the mother and allomother. Mothers that use allomothers are able to shorten their interbirth periods, the time between successive births. At the same time, allomothers gain experience in rearing infants, and had more success in raising their own offspring. Juvenile females discriminate in preference for the infant they choose to allomother, and usually choose siblings or infants of high-ranking individuals. When a mother allows her juvenile daughter to become an allomother for a newborn sibling, the mother decreases her own investment in the infant, while increasing the chances of successful rearing of her immature daughter.

Grandmothers and grandchildren share one-quarter of their genes, so they should be more likely to form affiliative relationships than unrelated members in a group. Not only do infants approach their grandmothers more often than unrelated members, but they also prefer their grandmothers compared to other adult female kin, not including their own mothers. Additional research has shown grandmothers show no preference over the sex of their grandchild. Interest in the grandchild spurred from the rank of the grandmother within a group. Higher-ranking grandmothers showed more interest in caring for their grandchildren when compared to low-ranking grandmothers. The presence of grandmothers has been associated with a decrease in mortality of infants.

Spite
Spiteful actions are extremely rare in the animal kingdom. Often, an indirect benefit is gained by the individual acting 'spitefully', or by a close relative of that individual. Vervet monkeys have been observed to destroy a competitor's food source rather than consume or steal it themselves. While energy is being lost on destroying the food, an advantage is obtained by the individual due to an increase in competitive gain. This would be pertinent for a male that could be displaced within his group by immigrating males.

Reproduction
Female vervets do not have external signs indicating estrus, thus elaborate social behaviors involving reproduction do not occur. Typically, a female gives birth once a year, between September and February, after a gestation period around 165 days. Usually, only one infant is born at a time, though twins can occur rarely. A normal infant weighs 300–400 g.

Diet
The vervet monkey eats a primarily herbivorous diet, living mostly on wild fruits, flowers, leaves, seeds, and seed pods. In agricultural areas, vervets become problem animals, as they raid bean, pea, young tobacco, vegetable, fruit, and grain crops. Animal foods of their diet include grasshoppers and termites. Raids of cattle egrets and weaver bird nests have been observed where the vervets eat the eggs and chicks.

A list of some natural food plants and part of the plant eaten, in South Africa:

 * Acacia erioloba – seeds and pods
 * Aloe spp – nectar (flowers)
 * Celtis africana – fruit
 * Colophospermum mopane – seeds
 * Deinbollia oblongifolia – fruit
 * Euphorbia ingens – fruit
 * Euphorbia tirucalli – fruit
 * Ficus abutilifolia – figs
 * Ficus sur – figs
 * Ficus sycomorus – figs
 * Grewia caffra – fruit
 * Harpephyllum caffrum – fruit
 * Hyphaene coriacea – fruit
 * Phoenix reclinata – fruit
 * Protorhus longifolia – fruit
 * Rhus chirindensis – fruit
 * Sclerocarya birrea – fruit
 * Strelitzia nicolai – soft parts of the flowers
 * Ximenia caffra – fruit
 * Ziziphus mucronata – fruit

Relationship with humans
The monkeys are used for biomedical research. Many people living in close proximity to vervet colonies see them as pests, as they steal their food. Heavy fines in some areas discourage the killing of vervet monkeys.

Its status according to the IUCN is "least concern".

This species was known in ancient Egypt, including the Red Sea Mountains and the Nile Valley. From fresco artworks found in Akrotiri on the Mediterranean island of Santorini there is evidence that the vervet monkey was known to the inhabitants of this settlement around 2000 BC; this fact is most noted for evidence of early contact between Egypt and Akrotiri. Excavations dated to the end of the 1st century AD from Berenike, a Roman-Egyptian port-town on the Red Sea coast, demonstrate that vervet monkeys must have been kept as pets at that time.

title: Vervet monkey


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alcoholica

 * Merge into Metallica and Delete Burgundavia 08:23, May 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete and merge with Metallica. DO'Neil 08:25, 16 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Rather merge and redirect. (Deletion policy says merge and delete isn't an option anyway.) -- Jao 09:47, 16 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Trivia: there's been at least one band called Alcoholica, from Buenos Aires - - that's a GeoCities page that doesn't exist any more.
 * Agree with merge on delete, under no insulting redirects. Meelar 17:20, 16 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - no redirects. -- Cyrius|&#9998 22:00, May 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect. If it's a valid nick it deserves at least a redirect. --Starx 01:44, 17 May 2004 (UTC)


text:
Heather Mallick

Heather Mallick (born 1959) is a Canadian columnist, author and lecturer. She has been a staff columnist for the Toronto Star since 2010, writing a news column on Saturday and on the opinion page on Monday and Wednesday. She writes about feminism, news and politics. She has previously written for the Toronto Sun, The Globe and Mail, and the Financial Post.

Early life and education
Mallick was born in Norway House, Manitoba, to an Indian Bengali father from Kolkata and a Scottish mother. She was raised in the Northern Ontario town of Kapuskasing, and in other remote communities where her father worked as a physician. During her childhood, she very much enjoyed reading. At the age of nine she had finished Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and when she turned 11 she read Lucy Crown by Irwin Shaw. Mallick attended the University of Toronto where she received a bachelor's and Master of Arts degrees in English Literature. She also earned a bachelor's degree in Journalism from Ryerson University after attending Seymour Hersh's lecture about Vietnam War's My Lai Massacre and studying there for two years. While studying, she worked for the local student newspaper, The Ryersonian and during her late university years worked as a summer intern in coveted reporting for The Globe and Mail. Mallick is an atheist.

Career
After graduation, she got another summer internship at the Toronto Star, while maintaining a freelance reporter position at The Globe. In 1988, she was employed at the Canadian financial daily newspaper Financial Post where she first worked as a copy editor and later became a news editor. She left Financial Post in 1991, after marrying Stephen Petherbridge, a senior British/Canadian journalist.

She first came to public notice in Canada during the 1990s as the book review editor and writer for the Sunday edition of the Toronto Sun, where she won two Canadian Newspaper Association National Newspaper Awards for critical writing in 1994 and feature writing in 1996. Mallick had quit the Sun in 1999 with a quote "I could not bear the thought of turning 40 and working there."

Mallick later wrote for The Globe and Mail where her left-of-centre political opinion column "As If" was a regular part of the paper's Saturday edition until December 2005. She also wrote major and minor pieces for the newspaper on lifestyle and other issues as well as Chatelaine magazine. She joined the Toronto Star in August 2010.

Mallick's first book, Pearls in Vinegar, was published in September 2004, in Canada. She published a collection of new essays for Knopf Canada in April 2007, entitled Cake or Death: The Excruciating Choices of Everyday Life.

In October 2007, Mallick gave the second annual Mel Hurtig Lecture on the Future of Canada, at the University of Alberta.

Themes
Shortly after joining The Toronto Star in 2010, Mallick wrote an article describing her "painful sordid history" with Fox News, "with rancour on their side and disgust on mine."

In 2010, Montréal, Québec-based Quebecor Media Inc., owned by Pierre Karl Péladeau (PKP), who is also president and CEO of Quebecor Inc., and Sun Media Corporation, was applying to the CRTC, then under the direction of Konrad von Finckenstein, for a "special CRTC-granted status" that would give Sun TV News a "'mandatory" cable deal'". Mallick reported that, according to Péladeau, without this concession, the channel would "collapse". This much sought-after special status would mean the mandatory inclusion of Sun TV News in "one tier, or cable package[s]".

In 2008, after Sarah Palin was selected as the U.S. Republican party's Vice-Presidential candidate, Mallick, among other things, labelled Palin as "white trash" and an "Alaskan hillbilly" and likened her to a "toned-down ... porn actress" in a column for the CBC. The column aroused fierce criticism. Jonathan Kay, writing in the National Post, accused Mallick of "childish vulgarity" and "hypocrisy" and said that her writing "is haunted by hateful hang-ups about Americans, country-dwellers and the political right. Some of her obsessions are downright weird — such as her prurient insistence that male conservatives embrace bad policy because they are impotent and horny." An investigation by the CBC ombudsman found that "many of her most savage assertions lack a basis in fact", and that her aspersions on the sexual inadequacy of Republican men "would easily be seen as, at best, puerile" if "applied to any other group". The publisher of CBC news, John Cruickshank, apologized for publishing Mallick's column, which he called "viciously personal, grossly hyperbolic and intensely partisan".

The July 22, 2011 Norway attacks, in which dozens of people, including participants of a youth camp in Norway, were perpetrated by Anders Behring Breivik, who was later convicted of mass murder and terrorism. According to a July 26, 2011 article in The Guardian, about 90 minutes before his attacks, Breivik emailed his 1,518 page manifesto, called "A European Declaration of Independence" to 1,003 email addresses with the greeting "Western Europe patriot". In her July 28, 2011, article, in The Toronto Sun, entitled "What to do when a monster likes your work", Mallick described the recipients of the emails as a "small but select crowd of people in Canada, the U.S. and Europe", as "agitators who woke up last Saturday to find that the Norwegian monster Anders Breivik liked them."

A British journalist mentioned in the column, Melanie Phillips, promptly commenced legal action. The Star printed an apology, stating in part, "The column made reference to Ms. Phillips' writings in an entirely misleading and inappropriate manner." The paper also removed the column from their website, and settled with Phillips for full legal costs, plus a donation to a charity of her choice in lieu of damages.

Works

 * Pearls in Vinegar: The Pillow Book of Heather Mallick (2004) ISBN 978-0-670-04462-7. This is a collection of her short essays on many different subjects, personal, social and political, as a modern version of the 10th Century Japanese Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon.
 * Cake or Death: The Excruciating Choices of Everyday Life (2007) ISBN 978-0-676-97840-7.

title: Heather Mallick


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Calcination

 * DeleteDict def Burgundavia 08:27, May 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete, dicdef. DO'Neil 08:30, 16 May 2004 (UTC)


text:
User:Mav/images

Images
NOTE:: All of the below images were uploaded before I had an account at Commons (most uploaded before Commons existed). Many have since been deleted b/c they were orphans or uploaded to Commons and slightly renamed. One day, I'll get around to uploading higher resolution versions to Commons. Until then, many of the below images will be red links.

All images in galleries 1-13 were taken by me and are released under terms of either the GNU FDL or the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. It is up to you which license to choose.

Image galleries
 * 1) Zion National Park
 * 2) Idaho
 * 3) Mono Basin
 * 4) Lassen Volcanic National Park
 * 5) Lava Beds National Monument
 * 6) Death Valley National Park
 * 7) Grand Canyon area
 * 8) Eastern Sierra
 * 9) Yellowstone National Park
 * 10) Yosemite National Park
 * 11) Bryce Canyon, Fossil Butte, Grand Teton, and others
 * 12) Cities

More at Commons:User:Maveric149/Gallery

title: User:Mav/images


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Black dog

 * Merge into britsh slang. Burgundavia 08:27, May 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete, dicdef of a slang term. DO'Neil 08:37, 16 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete or merge. -- EuroTom 13:01, 16 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Actually, "Black Dog" is a Led Zeppelin song title. You may want to make a note of that on the page. --Beelzebubs 15:51, 16 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Many disambiguations now. --Zigger 23:03, 2004 May 16 (UTC)
 * Keep - it seems to be getting enough work done on it to make it useful enough to retain. --Tagishsimon 23:13, 16 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. -Sean 08:10, 17 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Useful now.  I've also added a couple of links to black dogs in mythology. --Suitov 15:40, 17 May 2004 (UTC)


text:
Battle of the Year

Battle of the Year, commonly referred to as BOTY, is an annual international breakdancing competition that began in 1990. It has been regarded as the premier b-boying competition in the world and has been referred to as the "World Cup of B-Boying". Regional qualifying tournaments, also known as preliminaries, are held worldwide culminating in the BOTY International, the world finals event which is currently held at Sud de France Arena in Montpellier, France.

For the first twenty-three editions, Battle of the Year was a crew competition; in 2013, a one-on-one competition was added. Since 2014, the one-on-one portion of Battle of the Year is one of ten tournaments that are a part of the World BBoy Series.

The competition spawned the 2007 documentary Planet B-Boy as well as a 2013 eponymously named feature film Battle of the Year, both directed by Benson Lee. It has also gained attention for positive promotion of hip-hop culture and social unity.

Past Battle of the Year results
In 2006, 2 semifinal battles were implemented, with the winner of each battle advancing to the finals. The losers of the semifinal battles do not battle each other; therefore, there is no longer a fourth-place award.

Until 2006, one battle was held solely for first place and one battle was held solely for third place.

Past Battle of the Year Bgirl Champions*
The event is a 2 on 2 battle, but was a solo battle in 2018 and 2019.
 * The event was called We B Girlz until 2015.

2016 World Finals results
Best Show: 🇫🇷 Melting Force

2016 International 1 on 1 Battle results
Bruce Almighty earned a bid to the Undisputed World BBoy Series in Prague at the end of the 2016 year by winning BOTY Solo.

2015 World Finals results
Best Show: 🇪🇸 Doble KO

2015 International 1 on 1 Battle results
Menno earned a bid to the Undisputed World BBoy Series at the end of the 2015 year by winning BOTY Solo.

2014 World Finals results
Best Show: 🇰🇷 Fusion MC

2014 International 1 on 1 Battle results
Alkolil (🇷🇺) earned a bid to the Undisputed World BBoy Series at the end of the 2014 year by winning BOTY Solo.

2013 World Finals results
Like in 2012, Battle of the Year 2013 included an additional semifinals placer to add additional battles to the tournament. Six crews qualified after the showcase stage of the competition consisting of the two highest scoring crews automatically qualified for the semifinals and four crews competing for the two remaining places against them.

Best Show: 🇯🇵 The Floorriorz

2012 World Finals results
Battle of the Year 2012 included an additional semifinals placer to add additional battles to the tournament. In 2012 six crews qualified after the showcase stage of the competition consisting of the two highest scoring crews automatically qualified for the semifinals and four crews competing for the two remaining places against them.

Best Show: 🇫🇷 Vagabond Crew

Crew List for 2012 World Finals
kamikaz crew Algeria

2011 World Finals results
Best Show:  🇫🇷 Vagabonds

2010 World Finals results
Best Show:  🇯🇵 Mortal Combat

2009 season
For the first time in the Competition's history, a 1 on 1 Tournament was held for b-boys who weren't competing as a part of a crew. The first 1 on 1 Battle of the Year final saw Lilou of Algeria defeat Morris representing the U.S..

2009 World Finals results
Best Show: 🇯🇵 All Area

2008 World Finals results
Best Show: 🇷🇺 Top 9

Crew List for 2008 World Finals
This list is in chronological order by date qualified.

2007 World Finals results
Best Show: 🇯🇵 Turn Phrase Crew

Crew List for 2007 World Finals
This list is in chronological order by date qualified. Preliminaries that have not occurred yet have a colored background.

2006 World Finals results
Best Show: 🇫🇷 Vagabonds

World Finals Format
The format comprises firstly a showcase round in which all crews perform a routine of no more than six minutes in length demonstrating their ability in the different styles of breakdance. Judges rank all competing crews by evaluating certain criteria based on the shows.

Following the showcase round, the top four crews are selected to take part in a crew-vs-crew battle playoff. In the semifinals, the top-ranked crew battles the 4th-ranked crew and the 2nd-ranked crew battles the 3rd-ranked crew. The winner of each semifinal then battle each other for the championship.

An award, "Best Show", is also given to the crew that had the best-scoring showcase.

Scoring Criteria
Judges evaluate the showcase round on two main elements, artistry and technicality, each of which includes several criteria. The artistry element includes theme, music, synchronicity, and choreography, among others. The technicality element includes toprock, uprock, footwork, and power moves, among others.

Qualification and Preliminaries
The champion of the world finals is always invited directly to the following year's world finals to defend their title. All other crews qualify via preliminary tournaments, although historically there have been a few instances of directly-invited crews (usually when there is no preliminary in that crew's region).

Qualification is moving towards a two-step system consisting of individual country preliminaries followed by regional preliminaries. Historically, each country had an individual preliminary and sent one crew to the world finals; however, countries have become more and more regionalized over the years. For example, starting in 2007, there is a new BOTY Asia regional preliminary that will send the top 3 finishers to the world finals; in 2006 and years prior, Asia region countries such as South Korea, Japan, China, and Taiwan had their own preliminaries and sent one crew each to the world finals.

The following is a chart showing the regions and countries in the region, as well as number of crews sent to the world finals, for the 2007 season.

* Winner of BOTY India will participate in BOTY Asia from 2011

* BOTY North East Europe regional preliminary was canceled. On July 10, 2007, it was announced that BOTY North East Europe member countries would be allowed to enter BOTY Scandinavia.

** On September 7, 2007, the BOTY USA 2007 qualifier was announced; however, it was canceled less than one month later.

World Finals Format History
Prior to 2006, the current championship playoff system was not used. Instead, there were only two battles: two crews would compete for first place, while two other crews would compete for third place. While a "Best Show" award was still granted based on showcase performance, the judges would also rank the crews as to who they thought should participate in the championship battle. This resulted in frequently-occurring situations where the crew that received the "Best Show" award was not even able to compete for the championship, as they were picked for the third place battle instead of the championship battle. Examples include three "Best Show" winners in the final five years under the old format: Break the Funk (2004), Fire Works (2003), and Visual Shock (2001). The change to the playoff system also brought the world finals format into line with some of the qualifier formats, such as the BOTY Korea Preliminary, which has been using the four-crew playoff system for years.

Starting in 2004, a strict 6-minute time limit per crew on the showcase was enforced for the world finals, with scoring penalties assessed for going over time. This was enacted so that the world finals event would finish in a shorter time period. The 6-minute limit was quickly adopted at preliminaries.

In 1990, when the event was known as the International Breakdance Cup, there were only shows and no battles. From 1991-1996, there were battles resulting in a crowned champion, but no "Best Show" award was given.

Media
An official DVD documenting the event is usually released a few months after the tournament. It is a perennial best seller on breaking and hip-hop media retail web sites.

Several documentaries have been produced based on the competition, including the 2007 feature-length documentary Planet B-Boy. The film premiered at the 2007 TriBeCa Film Festival and was released on DVD on November 11, 2008.

A movie based on this competition, called Battle of the Year, was released on September 20, 2013. The film was directed by Benson Lee, who produced Planet B-Boy, and featured famous artist Chris Brown in the primary role.

On occasion with the annual competition, a CD/LP titled "The Official Battle Of The Year Motion Soundtrack" is released since 1998. It features some of the leading B-Boy Funk artists such as Mr. Confuse, Cosmic EFI, DJ Nas'D, Esone, Def Cut, Cutmaster GB, and DJ Phantom. The cover artwork is drawn by Graffiti artist Mode 2.

title: Battle of the Year


text:
Control point

Control point may refer to:

 * Control point (mathematics)
 * Control point (orienteering)
 * Control point (rail)
 * Control points (video games)
 * Counting point (logistics)
 * Geodetic control point
 * Port of entry
 * Border checkpoint
 * Kilometre zero or mile zero, a point from which road distances are measured

title: Control point


text:
User:Murph

Hello I am new to wikipedia, just getting my feet wet on the Eric S Raymond page, which I found while googling for esr essays. I don't really have any special qualifications other than I read alot and am interested in most everything. I also enjoy things written in a npov as I like to make up my own mind, although it seems the more I read the less certain I become.:)

Hi murph, I got your message. I'm a bit stuck for time, but here's a story about ESR changing the Jargon file in his own image, including making changes without mentioning them in the changelog.

http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-06-06&l=34#l This also made slashdot

ESR has written "An Apologia", which is meant to address peoples criticisms, but if you read it you can see that while people criticise him for rewriting history, he only address the unasked question that "the effort necessarily "rewrites history" in a way that would misrepresent the attitudes and ideas of PDP-10 fans now and in the past. The criticism I usually hear is that he's rewriting the present, not the past, so as to create a more ESR-centric past for the next generation.

Anyway, must dash, delete this comment whenever you like. or not.Markvs

Hi murph -- It looks like you, I, and User:LazLong have all been editing the same part of the Heinlein article. Want to talk about it on the article's talk page? --Bcrowell 21:52, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

title: User:Murph


text:
User talk:Mav/images

Template:Mavs_images

title: User talk:Mav/images


text:
User talk:Zeeshanhasan

As anyone can see, my main interest is in religion, particularly Islamic liberalism. Many Islam-related articles are written from either Islamophobic or conservative Muslim POV; am trying to restore neutrality wherever I can.

Proposed deletion of Sirah (Bajoran)
A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Sirah (Bajoran), suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the  notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised because even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 23:29, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

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Kazi Zahural Huq College moved to draftspace
An article you recently created, Kazi Zahural Huq College, does not have enough sources and citations as written to remain published. New articles generally need at least two (but preferably more) references from reliable sources that are independent of the subject that discuss the subject with significant coverage (trivial mentions do not contribute to notability).(See Rule 42) Information that can't be referenced to reliable sources should be removed from the draft because verifiability is necessary for information added to Wikipedia. I've moved your draft to draftspace (with a prefix of  before the article title) where you can work on the article with minimal disruption from other users while you improve it. When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline and thus is ready to be published, you can move it back to the article space yourself. However, I recommend that instead of moving it yourself that you follow the prompts on the Articles for Creation template that I have added to the page. This submits the article to be reviewed by experienced editors that specialize in helping new editors write their first articles. —  Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)  14:15, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

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title: User talk:Zeeshanhasan