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Petr Nedvěd

Petr Nedvěd (born December 9, 1971) is a Czech-Canadian former professional ice hockey player who spent 15 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) between 1990 and 2007.

Early career
Nedvěd was born in Liberec, Czechoslovakia to Jaroslav and Soňa ("Sonia") Nedvěd. He left Czechoslovakia as a refugee on January 2, 1989, at the age of 17 after playing in an international midget tournament in Calgary. Nedvěd was the star of the tournament, with 17 goals and nine assists. He decided to defect to Canada because of the limited opportunities in Czechoslovakia under communist rule, which was very strict regarding athletes leaving the country to pursue professional careers elsewhere. He did not tell his parents about the decision, and with $20 and the help of another Czech who defected, whom Nedvěd refuses to identify even today, he declared his defection at a Calgary police station. In an interview in the Newark Star Ledger, Nedvěd said that the "fear of regret" was the overriding reason to defect. For ten months until the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia in the Velvet Revolution, Nedvěd's parents were forced to make calls imploring Nedvěd to come home.

Playing career
After his defection, Nedvěd played one season for the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League and was drafted second overall by the Vancouver Canucks in the 1990 NHL Entry Draft after scoring 145 points in 71 games. Expected to be an instant star in the NHL, his first two seasons were a disappointment, as he struggled offensively and earned a reputation for soft play. In 1992–93, he finished with 38 goals and 71 points including a club record 15-game point-scoring streak. Despite this, though, he struggled in the playoffs and earned the ire of Canucks fans when he asked his idol Wayne Gretzky for a game stick immediately following the team's ouster from the playoffs by the Los Angeles Kings, an action fans felt symbolized the lack of commitment to winning from a player who scored just three goals in 28 playoff games as a Canucks player.

Prior to the 1993–94 season, Nedvěd became involved in a bitter contract dispute with the Canucks which resulted in a lengthy holdout. While holding out, Nedvěd obtained his Canadian citizenship, and represented Canada at the 1994 Winter Olympics, winning a silver medal. His situation was finally resolved just before the NHL trade deadline, when he was signed by the St. Louis Blues, with Craig Janney ultimately awarded to the Canucks as compensation (and then dealt back to the Blues shortly after for Jeff Brown, Bret Hedican and Nathan LaFayette). Nedvěd scored 20 points in 19 games, but again struggled in the playoffs as the Blues were swept in the first round.

Nedvěd's stay in St. Louis would prove a short one, as he was dealt to the New York Rangers for the lockout-shortened 1994–95 season. He finished the year with 23 points in 46 games.

For the 1995–96 season, Nedvěd was on the move again, this time dealt to the Pittsburgh Penguins in a blockbuster trade. In Pittsburgh, Nedvěd would have the best years of his career on an offensive team featuring superstars Mario Lemieux, Jaromír Jágr, and Ron Francis. In his first year in Pittsburgh, he recorded career highs of 45 goals and 99 points, and also put his playoff demons behind him by scoring 20 points in helping the Penguins reach the conference finals. Included in that was a monumental goal against the Washington Capitals in a quadruple-overtime thriller, which at 79:15 of overtime was at the time the longest NHL game in 60 years. During the 1996–97 season, he enjoyed another solid year, finishing with 33 goals and 71 points.

However, Nedvěd would find himself in another major contract dispute, and miss the entire 1997–98 season, instead spending most of the year toiling for lower-level teams in the Czech Republic. He remained unsigned at the start of the 1998–99 campaign, instead starting suiting up with the Las Vegas Thunder of the IHL. The situation would finally end two months into the season when he was dealt back to the New York Rangers in a deal involving Alexei Kovalev. The lengthy holdout would turn out to be a colossal blunder for Nedvěd, as he actually ended up with less money (once the millions of dollars he'd given up by missing a season were factored in) than had he accepted Pittsburgh's initial offer back in 1997, while at the same time he ended up missing an extended portion of the prime of his career and severely damaged his reputation around the league.

Nedvěd's second stint in New York would be more successful than the first, and the six seasons he would spend with the Rangers would represent the most stable portion of his career. Although the team would struggle and miss the playoffs every year through this stretch, Nedvěd would be a consistent offensive performer, leading the Rangers in scoring twice and finishing second on another occasion. In 2000–01, playing with Jan Hlaváč and Radek Dvořák – a trio dubbed the 'Czech Mates' – he had the second-best season of his career, finishing with 32 goals and 78 points.

Suffering through a disappointing 2003–04 season, Nedvěd was dealt to the Edmonton Oilers at the trade deadline. Although Edmonton failed to make the playoffs, Nedvěd scored 15 points in 16 games as the team went on a late-season surge.

Nedvěd signed with the Phoenix Coyotes in 2004 and spent the 2004–05 NHL lockout with HC Sparta Praha of the Czech Extraliga. Returning to NHL action in 2005–06 with the Coyotes, he struggled badly, scoring just two goals and 11 points in 25 games. He was dealt to the Philadelphia Flyers, where his play improved somewhat and he scored a further 14 points in 28 games, and returned to the NHL playoffs for the first time since 1997.

The 2006–07 season again started poorly for Nedvěd, and he was placed on waivers on October 18 following a 9–1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres, and was assigned to the American Hockey League (AHL) for the first time in his career. After bouncing between the NHL and AHL for the next two months, Nedvěd was claimed on re-entry waivers by the Edmonton Oilers, who hoped he could provide the same sort of spark he did when acquired in 2004. However, he continued to struggle in Edmonton and finished the season with just two goals and 12 points in 40 games between Edmonton and Philadelphia.

On July 19, 2007, Nedvěd signed a one-year contract to return to HC Sparta Praha.

On July 31, 2008, Nedvěd, attempting to make an NHL comeback, was invited to the New York Rangers training camp on a tryout basis. He was released by the Rangers on September 26 and returned to the Extraliga, this time with his hometown HC Bílí Tygři Liberec.

On May 4, 2012, at age 40, Nedvěd returned to the Czech Republic national team in the 2012 IIHF World Championship hosted in Finland and Sweden. On May 10, 2012, Nedvěd became the oldest Team Czech Republic player to score a goal in World Championship. He scored game-winning goal against Latvia at the age of 40 years, 6 months and 1 day.

On January 6, 2014, Nedvěd was named to the Czech team for the 2014 Sochi Olympics. He played in five games as the Czech Republic finished 6th.

On March 13, 2014, Nedvěd played his last career game with Bílí Tygři Liberec in a 6–2 home loss against the HC Vítkovice Steel. He officially announced his retirement after the game.

Awards

 * 1989–90 – Jim Piggott Memorial Trophy Rookie of the Year (WHL)
 * 1989–90 – Rookie of the Year (CHL)
 * 1993–94 – silver medal (1994 Winter Olympics)
 * 2011–12 – bronze medal (2012 IIHF World Championship)

Personal life
Nedvěd married supermodel Veronika Vařeková in 2004. In early 2006, when playing for the Phoenix Coyotes, Nedvěd asked for a trade to an Eastern Conference team to be closer to Vařeková who worked primarily in New York City. However, during the summer of 2006, Nedvěd and Vařeková separated. He has since moved back to the Czech Republic. His brother, defenceman Jaroslav Nedvěd, is also an ice hockey player.

Legacy
In the 2009 book 100 Ranger Greats, the authors ranked Nedvěd at No. 71 all-time of the 901 New York Rangers who had played during the team's first 82 seasons.

title: Petr Nedvěd


text:
Rachel Jackson

Rachel Jackson (née Donelson; June 15, 1767 – December 22, 1828) was the wife of Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States. She lived with him at their home at the Hermitage, where she died just days after his election and before his inauguration in 1829—therefore she never served as first lady, a role assumed by her niece, Emily Donelson.

Rachel Jackson was married at first to Lewis Robards in Nashville. In about 1791, she eloped with Andrew Jackson, believing that Robards had secured the couple a divorce. It was later revealed that he had not, meaning that her marriage to Jackson was inadvertently bigamous. They were forced to remarry in 1794 after the divorce had been finalized.

She had a close relationship with her husband. She was usually anxious while he was away tending to military or political affairs. A Presbyterian, Rachel was noted for her deep religious piety. During the deeply personal prelude to the 1828 election, she was the subject of extremely negative attacks from the supporters of Andrew Jackson's opponent, John Quincy Adams. Jackson believed that these attacks had hastened her death, and thus blamed his political enemies.

Early life and education
Rachel Donelson was born near the Banister River, about ten miles from Chatham, Virginia, in Pittsylvania County on June 15, 1767. Her father was Colonel John Donelson (1718–1785), co-founder of Nashville, Tennessee, and her mother was Rachel Stockley Donelson (1730–1801). Her great-grandfather, Patrick Donelson, was born in Scotland about 1670. She had seven brothers and three sisters:
 * Alexander Donelson (1749–1785)
 * Mary Donelson Caffery (born 1751). Wife of Captain John Caffery. Parents of Jane Caffrey wife of painter Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl and of Donelson Caffrey (1786–1835), father of Senator Donelson Caffery (1835–1906).
 * Catherine Donelson Hutchings (1752–1835)
 * Stockley Donelson (1753–1804)
 * Jane Donelson Hays (1754–1834)
 * John Donelson (1755–1830), father of Emily Donelson, first wife of Andrew Jackson Donelson; grandfather of CS General John Donelson Martin (1830–1862)
 * William Donelson (1756–1820)
 * Samuel Donelson (1758–1804), father of Andrew Jackson Donelson and CS General Daniel Smith Donelson
 * Severn Donelson (1763– or 1773–1818)
 * Leven Donelson (born 1765)

From about 1770 to 1779, her father operated the Washington Iron Furnace at Rocky Mount, Franklin County, Virginia. With her family, she moved to Tennessee at the age of 12. Her father led about 600 people from Fort Patrick Henry to Fort Nashborough, down the Cumberland River. The Donelson family were among the first white settlers in Tennessee.

Appearance and personality
Rachel attracted much attention from suitors because she was very beautiful as a young woman, described by a contemporary as having "lustrous black eyes, dark glossy hair, full red lips, brunette complexion, though of brilliant coloring, [and] a sweet oval face rippling with smiles and dimples." Later in life, her country manners and full figure were severely in contrast with Jackson's tall, spindly form and developed genteel manners. However, her love for her husband was unmistakable: she languished when he was away for politics, fretted when he was away at war, and doted on him when he was at home. Unlike Jackson, Rachel never liked being in the spotlight of events. She would consistently warn her husband not to let his political accomplishments rule him; for example, after Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans, she warned Jackson that his subsequent popularity (on the scope of George Washington) would tempt him to value his glory over his own family.

She was a Presbyterian. She was also an avid reader of the Bible and religious works as well as poetry.

First marriage
Rachel Donelson's first marriage to Captain Lewis Robards of Harrodsburg, Kentucky, a landowner and speculator, was not happy, and the two separated in 1790. According to Marcia Mullins of the Hermitage in Nashville, Tennessee, there were rumors that Lewis Robards was cruel and jealous. Believing that her husband would file a petition for divorce, she returned to the Donelson family home.

In contrast, Ann Toplovich, executive director of the Tennessee Historical Society, writes that Rachel Donelson Robards knowingly left her husband for Andrew Jackson in late 1789, eloping to Spanish-controlled Natchez.

Relationship with Andrew Jackson
When Andrew Jackson migrated to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1788, he boarded with Rachel Stockley Donelson, the mother of Rachel Donelson Robards. The two became close, and shortly after, they married in Natchez, Mississippi. Rachel believed that her husband had obtained a divorce, but as it had never been completed, her marriage to Jackson was inadvertently bigamous and therefore invalid.

Rachel's marital status was complicated by the distances involved and the changing governmental authorities. During the process of Rachel and Robards's divorce, Kentucky became a state instead of a territory of Virginia, and North Carolina turned over management of the territory including Tennessee to the federal government. These complicating factors were understood by locals and the unusual circumstances of the Jackson marriage were not greatly discussed in Nashville society.

In 1793, Andrew and Rachel Jackson learned that although Lewis Robards had filed for divorce, the divorce had never been granted. This made Rachel a bigamist and an adulteress, as well as making General Jackson, soon a politician on the rise, an adulterer. On the grounds of Rachel's abandonment and adultery, Lewis Robards was granted a divorce in 1794. At about the same time, the legitimacy of the Jackson marriage was questioned because they were married in then-Spanish-controlled Natchez, Mississippi. The Jacksons were Protestants, and only Catholic marriages were recognized as legal unions in that territory. After the divorce was finally legalized in 1794, Andrew and Rachel wed again in a quiet ceremony at the Donelson home.

Ann Toplovich of the Tennessee Historical Society argues that the above narrative, of unintentional bigamy and unintentional adultery, has concealed the fact of Rachel's agency and exercise of self-determination, and doesn't "give this strong woman credit for choosing a better husband". Toplovich explains that this narrative was concocted during Andrew Jackson's candidacy for president in the 1828 election: in order to "combat the attacks on Jackson’s character and Rachel’s virtue, the Jackson campaign formed the Nashville Committee [...][which] published a story with a new timeline and circumstances of the Jackson marriage — the alternative facts of the Jackson campaign were that Rachel thought she was already divorced when she joined her fate to Andrew Jackson in 1791."

Children
Although the Jacksons never had biological children, they adopted her nephew in 1809 and named him Andrew Jackson Jr. When his father became president, Andrew Jr. assumed management of the Hermitage farm. He married Sarah Yorke of Philadelphia on November 24, 1831.

In 1813, the Jacksons adopted a Creek orphan boy who was found on the battlefield of Tallushatchee with his dead mother. They named him Lyncoya. Lyncoya was educated along with Andrew Jr., and Jackson had aspirations of sending him to West Point, as well. Political circumstances made that impossible, and he instead trained as a saddle maker in Nashville. He died of tuberculosis on June 1, 1828.

Around 1817 the Jacksons adopted Andrew Jackson Hutchings who was the grandson of Rachel's sister and the son of a former business partner of Jackson's. He attended school with Andrew Jr. and Lyncoya. He then attended colleges in Washington and Virginia while Jackson was president. In 1833, he married Mary Coffee, daughter of Jackson's friend John Coffee, and moved to Alabama. Hutchings died in 1841.

Andrew Jackson served as the guardian for the children of Captain Edward Butler, Adjutant General and Inspector General of the United States Army from July 1793 until May 1794, and the children of Rachel's brother Samuel Donelson's son. These children did not live with the Jacksons full time. Andrew Jackson Donelson, son of Rachel's brother Samuel, became Jackson's protégé, and served as personal secretary to Jackson during his presidency.

Election of 1828 and death
According to Toplovich, John Quincy Adams' presidential campaigns targeted Jackson's "passion and lack of self-control" in both 1824 and 1828, "making it central to the argument that he would devastate the integrity of the Republic and its institutions." One newspaper ran an article asking, "'Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband to be placed in the highest offices of this free and Christian land?'"

The publicity surrounding her and the public knowledge of what was considered a very private matter caused Rachel to sink into depression. She reputedly told a friend "I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than live in that palace in Washington." Adding to her stress, in 1828, Lyncoya Jackson died at the Hermitage. Between the scandal, her son's death, and a heart condition she spent much of the campaign depressed and crying.

She died suddenly on December 22, 1828, at the age of 61 of a heart attack, given her symptoms according to Jackson: "excruciating pain in the left shoulder, arm, and breast." That her death came immediately before Jackson left for Washington was more than an inconvenience; it was crippling. He held her body tightly until he was pulled away, and he lingered at the Hermitage until the latest possible date.

Even though her maladies began as early as 1825, and she was a cigar smoker, Jackson always blamed his political enemies for her death. "May God Almighty forgive her murderers", Jackson swore at her funeral, "I never can."

She was buried on the grounds at the Hermitage wearing the white dress and shoes she had bought for the inaugural ball. Her epitaph, written by John Eaton, who would later become involved in the Peggy Eaton scandal during the Jackson Administration, reads: "A being so gentle and so virtuous slander might wound, but could not dishonor."

Memorials
The Rachel Jackson State Office Building, in Nashville, Tennessee, built in 1985, was named for her.

Popular culture depictions
Rachel Jackson was the title character of a 1951 historical novel by Irving Stone, The President's Lady, which told the story of her life with Andrew Jackson. In 1953, the novel was made into a film of the same name starring Susan Hayward and Charlton Heston as the Jacksons. In the 1936 film The Gorgeous Hussy (a fictionalized biography of Peggy Eaton), Rachel Jackson was portrayed by Beulah Bondi, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

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

title: Rachel Jackson


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Computer-assisted translation

Computer-aided translation (CAT), also referred to as computer-assisted translation or computer-aided human translation (CAHT), is the use of software, also known as a translator, to assist a human translator in the translation process. The translation is created by a human, and certain aspects of the process are facilitated by software; this is in contrast with machine translation (MT), in which the translation is created by a computer, optionally with some human intervention (e.g. pre-editing and post-editing).

CAT tools are typically understood to mean programs that specifically facilitate the actual translation process. Most CAT tools have (a) the ability to translate a variety of source file formats in a single editing environment without needing to use the file format's associated software for most or all of the translation process, (b) translation memory, and (c) integration of various utilities or processes that increase productivity and consistency in translation.

Range of tools
Computer-assisted translation is a broad and imprecise term covering a range of tools. These can include:
 * Translation memory tools (TM tools), consisting of a database of text segments in a source language and their translations in one or more target languages.
 * Spell checkers, either built into word processing software, or available as add-on programs.
 * Grammar checkers, either built into word processing software, or available as add-on programs.
 * Terminology managers, which allow translators to manage their own terminology bank in an electronic form. This can range from a simple table created in the translator's word processing software or spreadsheet, a database created in a program such as FileMaker Pro or, for more robust (and more expensive) solutions, specialized software packages such as SDL MultiTerm, LogiTerm, Termex, TermWeb, etc.
 * Electronic dictionaries, either unilingual or bilingual
 * Terminology databases, either on the host computer or accessible through the Internet, such as TERMIUM Plus or Grand dictionnaire terminologique from the Office québécois de la langue française
 * Full-text search tools (or indexers), which allow the user to query already translated texts or reference documents of various kinds. Some such indexers are ISYS Search Software, dtSearch Desktop and Naturel
 * Concordancers, which are programs that retrieve instances of a word or an expression and their respective context in a monolingual, bilingual or multilingual corpus, such as a bitext or a translation memory
 * Bitext aligners: tools that align a source text and its translation which can then be analyzed using a full-text search tool or a concordancer
 * Project management software that allows linguists to structure complex translation projects in a form of chain of tasks (often called "workflow"), assign the various tasks to different people, and track the progress of each of these tasks

Translation memory software
Translation memory programs store previously translated source texts and their equivalent target texts in a database and retrieve related segments during the translation of new texts.

Such programs split the source text into manageable units known as "segments". A source-text sentence or sentence-like unit (headings, titles or elements in a list) may be considered a segment. Texts may also be segmented into larger units such as paragraphs or small ones, such as clauses. As the translator works through a document, the software displays each source segment in turn, and provides a previous translation for re-use if it finds a matching source segment in its database. If it does not, the program allows the translator to enter a translation for the new segment. After the translation for a segment is completed, the program stores the new translation and moves on to the next segment. In the dominant paradigm, the translation memory is, in principle, a simple database of fields containing the source language segment, the translation of the segment, and other information such as segment creation date, last access, translator name, and so on. Another translation memory approach does not involve the creation of a database, relying on aligned reference documents instead.

Some translation memory programs function as standalone environments, while others function as an add-on or macro for commercially available word-processing or other business software programs. Add-on programs allow source documents from other formats, such as desktop publishing files, spreadsheets, or HTML code, to be handled using the TM program. For an example, see MEMOrg.

Language search-engine software
New to the translation industry, Language search-engine software is typically an Internet-based system that works similarly to Internet search engines. Rather than searching the Internet, however, a language search engine searches a large repository of Translation Memories to find previously translated sentence fragments, phrases, whole sentences, even complete paragraphs that match source document segments.

Language search engines are designed to leverage modern search technology to conduct searches based on the source words in context to ensure that the search results match the meaning of the source segments. Like traditional TM tools, the value of a language search engine rests heavily on the Translation Memory repository it searches against.

Terminology management software
Terminology management software provides the translator a means of automatically searching a given terminology database for terms appearing in a document, either by automatically displaying terms in the translation memory software interface window or through the use of hot keys to view the entry in the terminology database. Some programs have other hotkey combinations allowing the translator to add new terminology pairs to the terminology database on the fly during translation. Some of the more advanced systems enable translators to check, either interactively or in batch mode, if the correct source/target term combination has been used within and across the translation memory segments in a given project. Independent terminology management systems also exist that can provide workflow functionality, visual taxonomy, work as a type of term checker (similar to spell checker, terms that have not been used correctly are flagged) and can support other types of multilingual term facet classifications such as pictures, videos, or sound.

Alignment software
The process of binding a source language segment to its corresponding target language segment. The purpose is to create a translation memory database or to add to an existing one.

Interactive machine translation
Interactive machine translation is a paradigm in which the automatic system attempts to predict the translation the human translator is going to produce by suggesting translation hypotheses. These hypotheses may either be the complete sentence, or the part of the sentence that is yet to be translated.

Augmented translation
Augmented translation is a form of human translation carried out within an integrated technology environment that provides translators access to subsegment adaptive machine translation (MT) and translation memory (TM), terminology lookup (CAT), and automatic content enrichment (ACE) to aid their work, and that automates project management, file handling, and other ancillary tasks.

Based on the concept of augmented reality, augmented translation seeks to make translators more productive by providing them with relevant information on an as-needed basis. This information adapts to the habits and style of individual translators in order to accelerate their work and increase productivity. It differs from classical postediting of MT, which has linguists revise entire texts translated by machines, in that it provides machine translation and information as suggestions that can be adopted in their entirety, edited, or ignored, as appropriate.

Augmented translation extends principles first developed in the 1980s that made their way into CAT tools. However, it integrates several functions that have previously been discrete into one environment. For example, translators historically have had to leave their translation environments to do terminology research, but in an augmented environment, an ACE component would automatically provide links to information about terms and concepts found in the text directly within the environment.

As of May 2017, no full implementations of an augmented translation environment exist, although individual developers have created partial systems.

title: Computer-assisted translation


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User:Deleting Unecessary Words

Was it George Orwell who said that writers should never use two words where one would do? Deleting Unecessary Words 14:04, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

title: User:Deleting Unecessary Words


text: Template:NCBI-scienceprimer

title: Template:NCBI-scienceprimer


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Riva (band)

Riva was a Croatian pop band formed in Zadar in 1986.

After forming in 1986, the band appeared on Zagrebfest 1988, Performing with the song "Zadnja Suza" ("Last Tear" in Croatian).

Their song "Rock Me" won the Eurovision Song Contest 1989 in Switzerland, with a score of 137 points. According to author John Kennedy O'Connor in The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History, it was an unexpected win. The band brought the first and only victory for Yugoslavia. The contest was then hosted in Zagreb, representing Yugoslav Radio Television.

After the success, they released two subsequent albums, one titled after their winning track "Rock Me" (1989) and "Srce Laneta" ("Deer Fawn's Heart" in Croatian) in 1990.

Shortly after the success of both albums, the band signed to a Swiss Agency where they started production on their planned 3rd album titled "Lude Glave, Lude Godine" ("Crazy Heads, Crazy Years" in Croatian) with Per Gessle of popular pop rock duo Roxette to be featured with whom they were supposed to be opening acts for on a world tour.

Disagreements arose when the Swiss Agency misrepresented the validity of Croatia as a then recently independent country, opting for the band to remain as being from Yugoslavia for press purposes as well as the bands performances focusing on humanitarian issues in Croatia to help victims of the Yugoslav Wars.

Feeling betrayed by the agency's portrayal of what was happening in their hometown at the time the members cut all ties with the agency, with frontwoman Emilija Kokić stating in a 2019 interview :

"We come from Zadar, our families are huddled in basements because grenades of the Serbian army are falling on Zadar, and we would act like Yugoslavians How? That would be the biggest betrayal! They would become people to whom a career means more than anything".

After the resignation, the planned album which was scheduled for release remained unreleased with only 3 songs from the album being available from their performance at the Croatian Eurovision preselection Dora in 1993.

During 1991 the band decided to have a hiatus originally planned to be short, which ended up being the end of Riva as members focused on their own personal lives with only very few small reunions taking place between 1993 and 2016.

Personnel

 * Emilija Kokić – vocals
 * Dalibor Musap – vocals, keyboards, establisher and leader of the group RIVA
 * Nenad Nakić – vocals, bass
 * Zvonimir Zrilić – guitars, vocals
 * Boško Colić – drums

title: Riva (band)


text:
User:Paul99

Last update: May 9, 2005
 * I joined exactly a year ago, on May 9, 2004.

Other less important things:
 * I live in Montréal, Québec, Canada.
 * You can see me all the time inside the Montreal Metro.

title: User:Paul99


text:
Civil parish

In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, which for centuries were the principal unit of secular and religious administration in most of England and Wales. Civil and religious parishes were formally split into two types in the 19th century and are now entirely separate. Civil parishes in their modern form came into being through the Local Government Act 1894 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 73), which established elected parish councils to take on the secular functions of the parish vestry.

A civil parish can range in size from a sparsely populated rural area with fewer than a hundred inhabitants, to a large town with a population in excess of 100,000. This scope is similar to that of municipalities in continental Europe, such as the communes of France. However, unlike their continental European counterparts, parish councils are not principal authorities, and in most cases have a relatively minor role in local government.

, there are 10,464 parishes in England, and in 2020 they covered approximately 40% of the English population. For historical reasons, civil parishes predominantly cover rural areas and smaller urban areas, with most larger urban areas being wholly or partly unparished; but since 1997 it has been possible for civil parishes to be created within unparished areas if demanded by local residents. In 2007 the right to create civil parishes was extended to London boroughs, although only one, Queen's Park, has so far been created.

Eight parishes also have city status (a status granted by the monarch). A civil parish may be equally known as and confirmed as a town, village, neighbourhood or community by resolution of its parish council, a right not conferred on other units of English local government. The governing body of a civil parish is usually an elected parish council (which can decide to call itself a town, village, community or neighbourhood council, or a city council if the parish has city status). Alternatively, in parishes with small populations (typically fewer than 150 electors) governance may be by a parish meeting which all electors may attend; alternatively, parishes with small populations may be grouped with one or more neighbours under a common parish council.

Wales was also divided into civil parishes until 1974, when they were replaced by communities, which are similar to English parishes in the way they operate. Civil parishes in Scotland were abolished for local government purposes by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929; the Scottish equivalent of English civil parishes are the community council areas established by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, which have fewer powers than their English and Welsh counterparts. There are no equivalent units in Northern Ireland.

Ancient parishes
The parish system in Europe was established between the 8th and 12th centuries, and an early form was long established in England by the time of the Norman Conquest. These areas were originally based on the territory of manors, which, in some cases, derived their bounds from Roman or Iron Age estates; some large manors were sub-divided into several parishes.

Initially, churches and their priests were the gift and continued patronage (benefaction) of the lord of the manor, but not all were willing and able to provide, so residents would be expected to attend the church of the nearest manor with a church. Later, the churches and priests became to a greater extent the responsibility of the Catholic Church thus this was formalised; the grouping of manors into one parish was recorded, as was a manor-parish existing in its own right. Boundaries changed little, and for centuries after 1180 'froze', despite changes to manors' extents. However, by subinfeudation, making a new smaller manor, there was a means of making a chapel which, if generating or endowed with enough funds, would generally justify foundation of a parish, with its own parish priest (and in latter centuries vestry). This consistency was a result of canon law which prized the status quo in issues between local churches and so made boundary changes and sub-division difficult.

The consistency of these boundaries until the 19th century is useful to historians, and is also of cultural significance in terms of shaping local identities; reinforced by the use of grouped parish boundaries, often, by successive local authority areas; and in a very rough, operations-geared way by most postcode districts. There was (and is) wide disparity in parish size. Writtle, Essex traditionally measures 13,568 acre – two parishes neighbouring are Shellow Bowells at 469 acre, and Chignall Smealy at 476 acre

Until the break with Rome, parishes managed ecclesiastical matters, while the manor was the principal unit of local administration and justice. Later, the church replaced the manor court as the rural administrative centre, and levied a local tax on produce known as a tithe. In the medieval period, responsibilities such as relief of the poor passed increasingly from the lord of the manor to the parish's rector, who in practice would delegate tasks among his vestry or the (often well-endowed) monasteries. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the power to levy a rate to fund relief of the poor was conferred on the parish authorities by the Poor Relief Act 1601. Both before and after this optional social change, local (vestry-administered) charities are well-documented.

The parish authorities were known as vestries and consisted of all the ratepayers of the parish. As the number of ratepayers of some parishes grew, it became increasingly difficult to convene meetings as an open vestry. In some, mostly built-up, areas the select vestry took over responsibility from the entire body of ratepayers. This innovation improved efficiency, but allowed governance by a self-perpetuating elite. The administration of the parish system relied on the monopoly of the established English Church, which for a few years after Henry VIII alternated between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England, before settling on the latter on the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558. By the 18th century, religious membership was becoming more fractured in some places, due in part to the progress of Methodism. The legitimacy of the parish vestry came into question, and the perceived inefficiency and corruption inherent in the system became a source for concern in some places. For this reason, during the early 19th century the parish progressively lost its powers to ad hoc boards and other organisations, such as the boards of guardians given responsibility for poor relief through the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834. Sanitary districts covered England in 1875 and Ireland three years later. The replacement boards were each entitled to levy their own rate in the parish; the church rate ceased to be levied in many parishes and became voluntary from 1868.

Civil and ecclesiastical split
The ancient parishes diverged into two distinct, nearly exactly overlapping, systems of parishes during the 19th century. The Poor Law Amendment Act 1866, which received royal assent on 10 August 1866, declared all areas that levied a separate rate or had their own overseer of the poor to be parishes. This included the Church of England parishes (until then simply known as "parishes"), extra-parochial areas, townships and chapelries. To have collected rates this means these beforehand had their own vestries, boards or equivalent bodies. Parishes using this definition subsequently became known as "civil parishes" to distinguish them from the ecclesiastical parishes.

The Church of England parishes, which cover more than 99% of England, have become officially (and to avoid ambiguity) termed ecclesiastical parishes. The limits of many of these have diverged; most greatly through changes in population and church attendance (these factors can cause churches to be opened or closed). Since 1921, each has been the responsibility of its own parochial church council.

In the late 19th century, most of the "ancient" (a legal term equivalent to time immemorial) irregularities inherited by the civil parish system were cleaned up, and the majority of exclaves were abolished. The census of 1911 noted that 8,322 (58%) of "parishes" in England and Wales were not geographically identical when comparing the civil to the ecclesiastical form.

1894 reforms
In 1894, civil parishes were reformed by the Local Government Act 1894 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) to become the smallest geographical area for local government in rural areas. The act abolished the civil (non-ecclesiastical) duties of vestries. Parishes which straddled county boundaries or sanitary districts had to be split so that the part in each urban or rural sanitary district became a separate parish (see List of county exclaves in England and Wales 1844–1974). The sanitary districts were then reconstituted as urban districts and rural districts, with parishes that fell within urban districts classed as urban parishes, and parishes that fell within rural districts were classed as rural parishes.

Rural parishes
The 1894 act established elected civil parish councils as to all rural parishes with more than 300 electors, and established annual parish meetings in all rural parishes. Civil parishes were grouped to form either rural or urban districts which are thereafter classified as either type. The parish meetings for parishes with a population of between 100 and 300 could request their county council to establish a parish council. Provision was also made for a grouped parish council to be established covering two or more rural parishes. In such groups, each parish retained its own parish meeting which could vote to leave the group, but otherwise the grouped parish council acted across the combined area of the parishes included.

Urban parishes
Urban civil parishes were not given their own parish councils, but were directly administered by the council of the urban district or borough in which they were contained. Many urban parishes were coterminous (geographically identical) with the urban district or municipal borough in which they lay. Towns which included multiple urban parishes often consolidated the urban parishes into one. The urban parishes continued to be used as an electoral area for electing guardians to the poor law unions. The unions took in areas in multiple parishes and had a set number of guardians for each parish, hence a final purpose of urban civil parishes. With the abolition of the Poor Law system in 1930, urban parishes became a geographical division only with no administrative power; that was exercised at the urban district or borough council level.

1965–1974 reforms
In 1965 civil parishes in London were formally abolished when Greater London was created, as the legislative framework for Greater London did not make provision for any local government body below a London borough. (Since the new county was beforehand a mixture of metropolitan boroughs, municipal boroughs and urban districts, no extant parish councils were abolished.)

In 1974, the Local Government Act 1972 retained rural parishes, but abolished most urban parishes, as well as the urban districts and boroughs which had administered them. Provision was made for smaller urban districts and boroughs to become successor parishes, with a boundary coterminous with an existing urban district or borough or, if divided by a new district boundary, as much as was comprised in a single district. There were 300 such successor parishes established. In urban areas that were considered too large to be single parishes, the parishes were simply abolished, and they became unparished areas. The distinction between types of parish was no longer made; whether parishes continued by virtue of being retained rural parishes or were created as successor parishes, they were all simply termed parishes. The 1972 act allowed the new district councils (outside London) to review their parishes, and many areas left unparished in 1972 have since been made parishes, either in whole or part. For example, Hinckley, whilst entirely unparished in 1974, now has four civil parishes, which together cover part of its area, whilst the central part of the town remains unparished.

Sub-divisions
Some parishes were sub-divided into smaller territories known as hamlets, tithings or townships.

Revival
Nowadays the creation of town and parish councils is encouraged in unparished areas. The Local Government and Rating Act 1997 created a procedure which gave residents in unparished areas the right to demand that a new parish and parish council be created. This right was extended to London boroughs by the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 – with this, the City of London is at present the only part of England where civil parishes cannot be created. If enough electors in the area of a proposed new parish (ranging from 50% in an area with less than 500 electors to 10% in one with more than 2,500) sign a petition demanding its creation, then the local district council or unitary authority must consider the proposal.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, numerous parish councils have been created, including some relatively large urban ones. The main driver has been the desire to have a more local tier of government when new larger authorities have been created, which are felt to be remote from local concerns and identity. A number of parishes have been created in places which used to have their own borough or district council; examples include Daventry (2003), Folkestone (2004), Kidderminster (2015) and Sutton Coldfield (2016). The trend towards the creation of geographically large unitary authorities has been a spur to the creation of new parishes in some larger towns which were previously unparished, in order to retain a local tier of government; examples include Shrewsbury (2009), Salisbury (2009), Crewe (2013) and Weymouth (2019). In 2003 seven new parish councils were set up for Burton upon Trent, and in 2001 the Milton Keynes urban area became entirely parished, with ten new parishes being created.

Parishes can also be abolished where there is evidence that this is in response to "justified, clear and sustained local support" from the area's inhabitants. Examples are Birtley, which was abolished in 2006, and Southsea, abolished in 2010.

Governance
Every civil parish has a parish meeting, which all the electors of the parish are entitled to attend. Generally a meeting is held once a year. A civil parish may have a parish council which exercises various local responsibilities prescribed by statute. Parishes with fewer than 200 electors are usually deemed too small to have a parish council, and instead will only have a parish meeting: an example of direct democracy. Alternatively several small parishes can be grouped together and share a common parish council, or even a common parish meeting.

A parish council may decide to call itself a town council, village council, community council, neighbourhood council, or if the parish has city status, the parish council may call itself a city council. According to the Department for Communities and Local Government, in England in 2011 there were 9,946 parishes. Since 1997 around 100 new civil parishes have been created, in some cases by splitting existing civil parishes, but mostly by creating new ones from unparished areas.

Powers and functions
Parish or town councils have very few statutory duties (things they are required to do by law) but have a range of discretionary powers which they may exercise voluntarily. These powers have been defined by various pieces of legislation. The role they play can vary significantly depending on the size, resources and ability of the council, but their activities can include any of the following: Parish councils have powers to provide and manage various local facilities; these can include allotments, cemeteries, parks, playgrounds, playing fields and village greens, village halls or community centres, bus shelters, street lighting, roadside verges, car parks, footpaths, litter bins and war memorials. Larger parish councils may also be involved in running markets, public toilets and public clocks, museums and leisure centres.

Parish councils may spend money on various things they deem to be beneficial to their communities, such as providing grants to local community groups or local projects, or fund things such as public events, crime prevention measures, community transport schemes, traffic calming or tourism promotion.

Parish councils have a role in the planning system; they have a statutory right to be consulted on any planning applications in their areas. They may also produce a neighbourhood plan to influence local development.

The Localism Act 2011 allowed eligible parish councils to be granted a "general power of competence" which allows them within certain limits the freedom to do anything an individual can do provided it is not prohibited by other legislation, as opposed to being limited to the powers explicitly granted to them by law. To be eligible for this, a parish council must meet certain conditions such as having a clerk with suitable qualifications.

Funding
Parish councils receive funding by levying a "precept" on the council tax paid by the residents of the parish (or parishes) served by the parish council. In a civil parish which has no parish council, the parish meeting may levy a council tax precept for expenditure relating to specific functions, powers and rights which have been conferred on it by legislation. In places where there is no civil parish (unparished areas), the administration of the activities normally undertaken by the parish becomes the responsibility of the district or borough council. The district council may make an additional council tax charge, known as a Special Expense, to residents of the unparished area to fund those activities. If the district council does not opt to make a Special Expenses charge, there is an element of double taxation of residents of parished areas, because services provided to residents of the unparished area are funded by council tax paid by residents of the whole district, rather than only by residents of the unparished area.

Councillors and elections
Parish councils comprise volunteer councillors who are elected to serve for four years. Decisions of the council are carried out by a paid officer, typically known as a parish clerk. Councils may employ additional people (including bodies corporate, provided where necessary, by tender) to carry out specific tasks dictated by the council. Some councils have chosen to pay their elected members an allowance, as permitted under part 5 of the Local Authorities (Members' Allowances) (England) Regulations 2003.

The number of councillors varies roughly in proportion to the population of the parish. Most rural parish councillors are elected to represent the entire parish, though in parishes with larger populations or those that cover larger areas, the parish can be divided into wards. Each of these wards then returns councillors to the parish council (the numbers depending on their population). Only if there are more candidates standing for election than there are seats on the council will an election be held. However, sometimes there are fewer candidates than seats. When this happens, the vacant seats have to be filled by co-option by the council. If a vacancy arises for a seat mid-term, an election is only held if a certain number (usually ten) of parish residents request an election. Otherwise the council will co-opt someone to be the replacement councillor.

The Localism Act 2011 introduced new arrangements which replaced the 'Standards Board regime' with local monitoring by district, unitary or equivalent authorities. Under new regulations which came into effect in 2012 all parish councils in England are required to adopt a code of conduct with which parish councillors must comply, and to promote and maintain high standards. A new criminal offence of failing to comply with statutory requirements was introduced. More than one 'model code' has been published, and councils are free to modify an existing code or adopt a new code. In either case the code must comply with the Nolan Principles of Public Life.

Status and styles
A parish can be granted city status by the Crown. , eight parishes in England have city status, each having a long-established Anglican cathedral: Chichester, Ely, Hereford, Lichfield, Ripon, Salisbury, Truro and Wells.

The council of an ungrouped parish may pass a resolution giving the parish the status of a town, at which point the council becomes a town council. Around 400 parish councils are called town councils.

Under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, a civil parish may be given one of the following alternative styles:

 * community
 * neighbourhood
 * village

As a result, a parish council can be called a town council, a community council, a village council or occasionally a city council (though most cities are not parishes but principal areas, or in England specifically metropolitan boroughs or non-metropolitan districts).

The chairman of a town council will have the title "town mayor" and that of a parish council which is a city will usually have the title of mayor.

Charter trustees
When a city or town has been abolished as a borough, and it is considered desirable to maintain continuity of the charter, the charter may be transferred to a parish council for its area. Where there is no such parish council, the district council may appoint charter trustees to whom the charter and the arms of the former borough will belong. The charter trustees (who consist of the councillor or councillors for the area of the former borough) maintain traditions such as mayoralty. An example of such a city was Hereford, whose city council was merged in 1998 to form a unitary Herefordshire. The area of the city of Hereford remained unparished until 2000 when a parish council was created for the city. As another example, the charter trustees for the City of Bath make up the majority of the councillors on Bath and North East Somerset Council.

Geography
Civil parishes cover 35% of England's population, with one in Greater London and few in the other conurbations. Civil parishes vary greatly in population: some have populations below 100 and have no settlement larger than a hamlet, while others cover towns with populations of tens of thousands. Weston-super-Mare, with a population of 71,758, is the most populous civil parish. In many cases small settlements, today popularly termed villages, localities or suburbs, are in a single parish which originally had one church.

Large urban areas are mostly unparished, as the government at the time of the Local Government Act 1972 discouraged their creation for large towns or their suburbs, but there is generally nothing to stop their establishment. For example, Birmingham has two parishes (New Frankley and Sutton Coldfield), Oxford has four, and the Milton Keynes urban area has 24. Parishes could not however be established in London until the law was changed in 2007.

A civil parish can range in area from a small village or town ward to a large tract of mostly uninhabited moorland in the Cheviots, Pennines or Dartmoor. The two largest as at December 2023 are Stanhope (County Durham) at 98.6 sqmi, and Dartmoor Forest (Devon) at 79.07 sqmi. The two smallest are parcels of shared rural land: Lands Common to Axminster and Kilmington (Devon) at 0.012 sqmi, and Lands Common to Brancepeth and Brandon and Byshottles (County Durham) at 0.0165 sqmi. The next two smallest are parishes in built up areas: Chester Castle (Cheshire) at 0.0168 sqmi (no recorded population) and Hamilton Lea (Leicestershire) at 0.07 sqmi (1,021 residents at the 2021 census).

Deserted parishes
The 2001 census recorded several parishes with no inhabitants. These were Chester Castle (in the middle of Chester city centre), Newland with Woodhouse Moor, Beaumont Chase, Martinsthorpe, Meering, Stanground North (subsequently abolished), Sturston, Tottington, and Tyneham (subsequently merged). The lands of the last three were taken over by the Armed Forces during World War II and remain deserted.

In the 2011 census, Newland with Woodhouse Moor and Beaumont Chase reported inhabitants, and there were no new deserted parishes recorded.

General abolition of anomalies
Nearly all instances of detached parts of civil parishes (areas not contiguous with the main part of the parish) and of those straddling counties have been ended. 14 examples remain in England as at 2022, including Barnby Moor and Wallingwells, both in Nottinghamshire.

Direct predecessors of civil parishes are most often known as "ancient parishes", although many date only from the mid 19th century. Using a longer historical lens the better terms are "pre-separation (civil and ecclesiastical) parish", "original medieval parishes" and "new parishes". The Victoria County History, a landmark collaborative work mostly written in the 20th century (although incomplete), summarises the history of each English "parish", roughly meaning late medieval parish. A minority of these had exclaves, which could be:
 * an enclave within another parish,
 * surrounded by more than one other parish, or
 * a pene-enclave, partly surrounded by sea.

In some cases an exclave of a parish (a "detached part") was in a different county. In other cases, counties surrounded a whole parish meaning it was in an unconnected, "alien" county. These anomalies resulted in a highly localised difference in applicable representatives on the national level, justices of the peace, sheriffs, bailiffs with inconvenience to the inhabitants. If a parish was split then churchwardens, highway wardens and constables would also spend more time or money travelling large distances. Some parishes straddled two or more counties, such as Todmorden in Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Such anomalies mostly arose in the height of the feudal system, when parishes evolved. Major land interests (manor proper or church lands) may have acquired non-contiguous parcels of land i.e. beyond the original parish/county bounds or what would become the boundaries of a new parish. Those extraterritorial land parcels influenced the formation of parish boundaries where the parcels were significant to the parish. Thus secular land in an exclave, almost always manor, may have been the site of a prosperous farmstead, or remained part of the manor for generations, or the lord/lady of the manor may have held the right to appoint the parish priest (advowson) or co-founded the church as its patron. The scenario may also have arisen originally as an attempt to diversify the lord's (or overlord's) interests, or from a large burial ground in an urban setting. It could also arise from a chance inheritance. It caused inconvenience to the residents of most exclaves/enclaves (where not numerous or economically significant enough to have their own chapel of ease as to religious matters and a vestry as to civil matters). They had to attend a distant church and/or the manorial court for certain tithes, rates, baptisms, marriages, funerals, or to obtain regular poor relief and most forms of education, charitable alms and hospitalry.

The end of manorial courts coincided with growing agricultural innovation, fragmentation of land ownership and housing growth. The church and vestries were reluctant to bring boundaries up to date. This meant such anomalies were irrelevant nuisances with a real economic cost in distance of administration and confusion. They began to be remedied nationally in statute by Parliament in the early 19th century in the Poor Law Reforms of 1834, and was more widely in 1844 when the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 moved most parishes which were partly or wholly in an alien county. The remaining exclaves of counties were transferred in the 1890s and in 1931, with one exception: an exclave of Tetworth, surrounded by Cambridgeshire, was removed in 1965 from Huntingdonshire.

Other acts, including the Divided Parishes and Poor Law Amendment Act 1882 eliminated instances of civil parishes being split between counties, so that by 1901 Stanground in Huntingdonshire and the Isle of Ely was the last example; it was split into two parishes, one in each county, in 1905.

The Church of England has only abolished these where locally incepted (under the Anglican and the Catholic principle of subsidiarity). This means it has essentially kept, often divided in urban areas, the original parishes. The Church's main website has an accessible map, showing parish boundaries church-by-church.

title: Civil parish


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Replay value

Replay value (or, colloquially, replayability) is the potential of a video game or other media products for continued play value after its first completion. Factors that can influence perceived replay value include the game's extra characters, secrets and alternate endings. The replay value of a game may also be based entirely on the individual's tastes. A player might enjoy repeating a game because of the music, graphics, gameplay or because of product loyalty. Dynamic environments, challenging AI, a wide variety of ways to accomplish tasks, and a rich array of assets could result in a high replay value.

Plot
A game with a linear plot will typically have a lower replay value due to the limited choices a character can make. Games that offer more choices in regard to what the player can do, such as strategy games, roguelikes or construction and management sims, tend to have higher replay value since the player might be able to make each play through different.

As a non-video game example, consider the difference between a "traditional" book and a choose-your-own-adventure book. For a traditional book the reader will read it from start to finish, and should they choose to re-read it the plot would remain constant, thus offering the same experience the second time around. The plot of a choose-your-own-adventure book, on the other hand, is more varied and different events would occur, some that the reader might not have seen the last time they read it, prompting the reader to read through the book again even if they have done so just moments before.

In the case of role-playing video games (RPGs), plots can be linear or non-linear. The plots of older RPGs tended to show little to no plot changes with each play through. A good example of an RPG with a non-linear plot is Mass Effect and its sequel, Mass Effect 2. Role playing games released in later years allow for more freedom. For instance, choosing to be ruthless instead of lenient might prevent certain events from taking place (or even cause new ones to occur). Likewise, allowing a particular character into the party could cause the plot to branch off in a new direction, if even for a short time. A good example of this point is the character Juhani in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The player has the option of killing her or sparing her life. Should the player be merciful, Juhani joins the player's party. Later in the game, the player will then run into an enemy from her past.

Multiple classes
This is the ability to play as different characters each time through the game. For example, the game Diablo allows the player to choose one of three character classes: warrior, rogue, or sorcerer. Party-based RPGs can have a good degree of replayability, even if the plot is essentially linear. The plot of Final Fantasy remained the same with each play through, but since the player was able to choose their party of four from six different classes they could choose a new party configuration with each new game. The Final Fantasy instruction manual even gave the player ideas for different types of parties (well-balanced, heavy magic use, combat oriented characters, etc.). In Final Fantasy the players can choose from the classes of Fighter, Thief, White Mage, Black Mage, Monk, and Red Mage, providing the player with 15 possible character combinations with 4 distinct classes, or 126 with repetition. In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, the player has to obtain their classes, called Blades, through a gacha system. While panned by a lot of critics, this system allowed players to replay the game multiple times and have a completely new team of blades by the end of the game allowing each playthrough of the game to be different as long as the player doesn't go for 100% and try to obtain all of them.

Multitude of classes, accompanied by a multitude of races, is another typical characteristic of roguelike games. For example, Dungeon Crawl at this moment employs 22 races and 23 classes, allowing a total of 654 race/class combinations (although about a dozen of them are disallowed due to in-game race/religion constraints). Typically, some races are more suited for some classes, and much less suited towards others (an ogre usually makes a great fighter, but a very lousy wizard). Such "unsuited" combinations may prove an extra challenge for an experienced player, yet it's not frequent for this challenge to be high to the point of the game being unwinnable.

Multiple characters
In some RPGs, such as Skies of Arcadia, the player controls the leader of a party of characters, and additional members will join the group if the player makes the right decisions. It is unlikely that a player will "collect" every possible member on their first attempt, so they may choose to play through the story again in order to acquire the full cast.

Different characters offer new ways to tackle the obstacles within the game. They may also offer unique dialogue options and opportunities to interact with other players. The SquareSoft RPG Chrono Cross was an example of this with over 40 characters available for play.

In the case of action-oriented games, there may be some areas in the game that are only reachable using a character with certain abilities. For example, in the Sega game Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the character Knuckles can explore areas that other characters cannot.

Some games might offer a wide array of characters from whom to choose to play with, but gamers are usually deterred from replaying if all characters share the same story line and function more or less the same. This is the case of Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction and its sequel: the player can choose one out of three mercenaries to play with, but the story line remains the same, and the differences in gameplay (speed, strength and stealth) are too subtle to invite further replays.

Alternate paths
Some games give the player a choice of which path they want to take through the game. Two good examples are Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse and Shadow the Hedgehog. In Castlevania III, the hero Trevor Belmont can choose which path he takes to Dracula's castle. Additionally, the route he takes allows him to encounter three different companions. In Shadow the Hedgehog, Shadow must choose to do Neutral (self-work), Dark (evil work) or Hero (Heroic Work) in a stage (i.e. choosing whether to destroy all the humans in Dark, destroy all the black aliens in Hero, or to collect the Chaos Emeralds for himself in Neutral), and depending on what Shadow does, this will affect the next stage played and the storyline. There are 10 endings in the game that range from Shadow destroying Earth to Shadow accepting he was destructive through his life and that he himself shouldn't exist. Once all endings are unlocked, a true/canonical ending is played.

The first two Resident Evil games featured two main scenarios, each with its own protagonist, supporting characters and scripted sequence of events. Choosing one character over the other usually meant following his/her own storyline, set along different routes but on the same location and occasionally crossing paths with the other character. Scenarios would differ by balancing odds and obstacles - an action-oriented scenario for the strong, male protagonist and a more puzzle-oriented scenario for the comparatively weaker, but faster female protagonist. Beating each scenario was required to get 100% completion, as well as all aspects of the story.

In the point and click game genre, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis offers three paths. The paths are called; Wits, Fists and Team path. The first two paths Indiana Jones leaves alone depending to complete mission basses on either thinking (wits) or fighting (fists) whereas in the third Sophia (team) tags along. Another example appears in the game Blade Runner, where Ray McCoy has to decide where to head and with precise timing events might occur otherwise an alternate path then must be taken. These path are random and some require time-accurate triggering.

Procedural generation in roguelike games, leads to high replayability, as no two games were alike.

Performance grading
A number of modern multi-level games, especially puzzle games, encourage players to repeat and fully master previously completed levels with a star rating or a letter-grading system, in which the player will be graded for how well they performed in finishing each level. Such a system intends to encourage players to find ways to play certain levels better than they did before and gain a sense of satisfactory completion and closure from achieving the highest performance rating for each level. This is evident in games like Angry Birds and the Candy Crush Saga trilogy. PlatinumGames are famous for this, games like Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising Revengeance have easy to play but hard to master gameplay that encourage players to try and get the highest scores possible. This is also the case for the Devil May Cry series.

Unlockable characters and content
Sometimes beating the game or completing certain challenges will allow the player to use an NPC from the game or even a new character. For instance, in Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, the drow ranger Drizzt Do'Urden is an unlockable character. Other examples of unlockable content can include art, music, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and interviews with a game's producer, artist, or voice talent. Electronic Arts' games based on The Two Towers and The Return of the King feature many different unlockables of this nature. As the player progresses through the game, he can view production stills from the movies, concept art, and interviews with some of the actors. Completing either game unlocks new characters, missions, and cheat codes.

Many games enhance replayability by unlocking a second, minor story mode once the main game's beaten. This second story or sub-scenario usually functions on the same game physics/mechanics and is set in an already explored area, and its main function is to expand on the main game's story and its unanswered questions, often focusing on a secondary character now turned protagonist, and his/her point of view. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories features a 'Revers/Rebirth' sub-scenario that differs from regular gameplay and centers on secondary character Riku rather than Sora. This story plays during and after the events of the main game. Likewise, the 'Separate Ways' mini-game of Resident Evil 4 has the player take hold of Ada Wong, whose path intertwines with that of the game's protagonist, Leon S. Kennedy. The same plotpoints and events are retold from her perspective. A reedited version of Silent Hill 2 features the 'Born From a Wish' scenario, chronicling events prior to the game's main scenario through the eyes of key character Maria.

Alternate endings
One of the most common ways to increase the replay value of a game is to offer multiple endings. These endings are often based on the choices the player makes during the game, like choosing to be good or evil. An early example of alternate endings was Metroid, having increasingly revealing endings depending on how fast the player completed the game. Later games in the series would determine the ending based on either time or completeness (sometimes both), but Metroid: Zero Mission and the Japanese version of Metroid Fusion included art galleries unlocked through getting an ending, meaning a player must obtain all endings to complete the galleries. Several games based on the Star Wars series make use of alternate endings, such as Knights of the Old Republic, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, and Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. The endings for these games are based on whether the player chooses the Light Side or the Dark Side of the Force. Some times, the endings can just be for entertainment purposes, like in Tony Hawk's Underground, when the player completes the game twice, instead of having to do Eric's line, he punches Eric and takes the tape. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is another game with multiple endings. During the course of the adventure the player will need to make decisions (such as choosing whether to save Nightcrawler or Jean Grey) or complete certain tasks (like stopping a group of mutated soldiers from destroying a computer that holds research on the Legacy Virus). After completing the game, Uatu the Watcher will give a glimpse into the future and tell the player what the consequences of his or her actions are.

Of note is how the Knights of the Old Republic games make use of several of these factors to increase replay value. In the first Knights of the Old Republic game, the player chooses one of three classes: soldier, scout, or scoundrel. Later in the game the player chooses one of the three Jedi classes (Guardian, Sentinel, or Counselor). Thus, the player has nine possible character combination choices. In Knights II, the player starts as one of these three Jedi classes and gets to choose a prestige class. Additionally, the player gains different followers depending on whether they select to be male or female and Light Side or Dark Side. Both games allow the player to customize their characters by selecting various skills and feats. Thus, a player might choose to focus on two-weapon fighting for one play through and single-weapon fighting in the next.

The Silent Hill franchise is famous for featuring at least three alternate endings per game. Often, a game will force a specific ending on the first play through, upon which new alternate endings will unlock during a replay, should the player meet certain requirements, perform certain tasks or obtain certain objects. Silent Hill 2 alone features a total of six possible endings - three regular endings, which can be obtained after the first play-through, as well as a bonus ending following a replay, and two unlockable "joke endings". Almost all games feature a joke "UFO ending", whereupon UFOs descend from the sky in an unlikely turn of events. Because there is little narrative continuity between the games, there are no canonical endings, except those of Silent Hill: Origins and the original Silent Hill (due to each having sequels which corroborate one specific ending). Because of the multiplicity of outcomes, unlockable features and the canonical blurr, these alternate endings are considered to enhance replayability.

Many RPGs feature alternate endings, depending on player choices and quests completed. To unlock the Kingdom Hearts secret ending, one must complete the game 100% by fulfilling all mini-game sidequests and collectibles, beating all tournament enemies and locking each world's keyhole. Chrono Trigger features 13 endings, which are based on when the player defeats Lavos.

Grand Theft Auto IV features two endings, where Niko Bellic is asked by his associate Jimmy Pegorino to strike a deal with his bitter enemy Dimitri Rascalov or exact revenge on him. Niko remains triumphant in both endings, and the two main antagonists, Dimitri and Pegorino, die. The main difference between the two endings is that either Niko's cousin Roman Bellic or his love interest Kate McReary end up dying. What is ironic is that the one who gives him advice is the one to end up dying. The outcome of the war in Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction depends on the player's current standing with each of the game's factions. The one who stands the friendliest with the player will be featured as the victor of the war, though the game's sequel establishes China as the canonical victor.

In S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, players are given the option of completing the game with seven different endings. Five of these are deemed false as they are determined through in-game wealth, karma, and certain choices throughout the game. The "true" endings are called so due to the unique ending which triggers a cut-scene involving the protagonist. GSC Game World, the creator the series, also came out with two other S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat offers a more varied ending path with 20 different affecting actions. Some say the game has over 200 endings.

The game Blade Runner is another example of such with as many as thirteen multiple endings. Depending on choices, timings and multiple event triggings, the player can end up with one of the many endings. Each ending doesn't have a fixed path and can be reached through by any path depending on before mentioned factors.

Online gaming
In massively multiplayer online games and other types of online game, the other human-controlled players give the gameplay a greater variety than permitted by the AI of computer-controlled bots, as well as allowing chatting and other interaction between players, thus increasing the length of time the player will spend on the game.

Other factors
Games where the map and starting position is different every time the players play it, in for example strategy games with a random map generator, also tend to have long-lasting appeal. The community-developed mods for many games also contribute to increased replayability and long life for many games. Due to the limits of AI behavior and the appeal and challenge in playing against friends, multiplayer is also often considered to increase the lifespan of a game. For example, Worms Armageddon (1999), a comparable simple and old game, is still popular online.

Variety in gameplay is not essential to replayability. Many arcade games, especially from the golden age of arcade games, are completely linear, yet people continue to play these games, even those that have been around for decades. A clear example can be seen in Tetris. The gameplay is extremely simple compared to more modern games, yet it is arguably one of the most addictive video games ever made.

Also there is the option to replay a segment of the game. Some notable games, most frequently shooters, permit this. They include History Civil War: Secret Missions, Battlefield and the Call of Duty series. These games generally have only a short singleplayer campaign and focus on multiplayer gameplay. Both the inability to replay missions and a lack of multiplayer activities proved damaging to Mafia II, a game with high expectations. The critics, most notably IGN, praised the game for its graphics and gameplay, but it fell down because of the lack of side missions and inability to replay missions.

In contrast, some games encourage replaying missions by adding time trial and time attack modes. Other games, such as the Assassin's Creed series have a secondary objective that may be difficult to complete, but necessary for additional elements to be unlocked. For instance, a mission may revolve around killing a specific NPC. The secondary objective may be to kill him in a specific way or to avoid detection. If the player fails to complete the secondary objective on the first attempt, they can revisit the mission later.

Many Japanese RPGs include a New Game+ mode which lets players replay the entire game using select items or abilities from their first play through. This is enabled after the game is finished.

Other times, players may themselves impose new special restrictions on a game to make it more difficult even if the game is linear. Examples include Nuzlocke runs in Pokémon or speed runs in a wide variety of games.

title: Replay value


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Anson Carter

Anson Horace Carter (born June 6, 1974) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey right winger who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for eight teams from 1996 to 2007, most notably with the Boston Bruins, Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks. He was last active as a player with HC Lugano in the Swiss Nationalliga A. After retiring from professional hockey, he joined NBC Sports as an analyst and is now currently an analyst for NHL on TNT and MSG Network.

Carter is also the founder of Big Up Entertainment, a record label specializing in hip hop music. He attended high school at Agincourt Collegiate Institute and attended Michigan State University where he played at the college level. He is of Bajan descent.

Early life
Anson Carter was born on June 6, 1974, in Toronto, Ontario. He is one of three children of Horace and Valma Carter, who emigrated from Barbados. He started playing hockey seriously at the age of eight. Carter received a scholarship to play hockey at Michigan State University (MSU) in 1992.

Playing career
Carter was drafted by the Quebec Nordiques in the 1992 NHL Entry Draft in the 10th round, 220th overall, after playing AAA level hockey in the Metro Toronto Hockey League.

After completing his AAA hockey career, Carter played one season in the Metro Junior 'A' Hockey League for the Wexford Raiders, scoring 18 goals and adding 22 assists for 40 points in 42 games, helping the Raiders to a league title as a result of sweeping the Bramalea Blues 4–0 in the championship final. (Incidentally, the Raiders' head coach was Stan Butler, current special advisor to the owner of the Ontario Hockey League's North Bay Battalion).

Carter went on to play four years at Michigan State University, earning himself honours on the CCHA First All-Star Team in 1994 and 1995, Second All-Star Team in 1996, as well as the NCAA West Second All-American Team in 1995.

On April 3, 1996, the Nordiques' successor, the Colorado Avalanche, traded his rights to the Washington Capitals in exchange for a fourth-round pick in the 1996 NHL Entry Draft.

Carter made his professional debut in 1996–97, splitting his time with the Capitals and their American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Portland Pirates, before being traded to the Boston Bruins on March 1, 1997. As part of a blockbuster deal, Carter was sent with Jason Allison, Jim Carey, a third-round selection in the 1997 draft (63rd overall–Lee Goren) and a conditional second-round pick in the 1998 draft to the Bruins in exchange for Adam Oates, Bill Ranford and Rick Tocchet. Both Carter and Tocchet would work together as studio analysts with the NHL on TNT nearly a quarter of a century later beginning in 2021.

After spending several seasons with the Bruins, Carter was traded (along with a conditional pick in the 2003 draft, a first- and a second-round pick in the 2001 draft) to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for Bill Guerin and a first-round pick in the 2001 draft. In his second season with Edmonton, Carter would record career-highs in assists (32) and points (60). However, on March 11, 2003, he was again traded, to the New York Rangers (along with Aleš Píša) in exchange for Radek Dvořák and Cory Cross.

At the completion of the 2002–03 season, Carter played for Canada in the 2003 World Championships. Over 14 minutes into the first overtime of the gold medal game against Sweden, Carter beat Swedish goaltender Mikael Tellqvist with a wraparound goal. The goal was contested for several minutes before replays confirmed Tellqvist had stopped the puck behind the goal line. It was Canada's first World Championship win in five years.

Lasting half a season with the Rangers, Carter was traded back to the Washington Capitals on January 23, 2004, in exchange for Jaromír Jágr. His second go with the Capitals was even more short-lived than his stint with New York, as he was flipped to the Los Angeles Kings for Jared Aulin just over a month later on March 8, 2004.

On August 16, 2005, Carter signed a one-year contract with the Vancouver Canucks as an unrestricted free agent. He played in Vancouver on the second offensive line with twins Henrik and Daniel Sedin, where the trio were known colloquially as the "Brothers Line". He set a new career-high in goals with 33, leading the team, and earned the Canucks' Most Exciting Player Award. However, he did not re-sign with the Canucks at the end of the season.

On September 13, 2006, Carter signed a one-year contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets, but was traded once again to the Carolina Hurricanes on February 23, 2007, in exchange for a fifth-round pick in the 2008 NHL draft (Tomas Kubalik).

In September 2007, Carter rejoined the Edmonton Oilers on a try-out basis during their training camp, and played one exhibition game before being released on October 2, 2007. Without an NHL job, on November 5, Carter joined HC Lugano of the Swiss Nationalliga A.

Post-playing career
After playing in the NHL for 11 seasons, Carter began his post-hockey career in 2013 with the NBC Sports coverage of NHL regular season, and Stanley Cup Playoffs games. Besides covering the professional ranks, Carter provides game analysis for NBCSN's Notre Dame's Fighting Irish college hockey. Additionally, Carter also made his debut as part of the 2018 Olympic coverage of the PyeongChang Winter games.

On Canadian television, starting in 2022, Carter was a panelist on Sportsnet's Rogers Monday Night Hockey NHL broadcasts. He continues to be on Sportsnet NHL coverage in 2024.

Carter founded the Big Up Entertainment record label in March 2005. The label's first release was from Richmond, Virginia, natives Main & Merc.

Carter now lives in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2022, Carter become the minority owner of the Atlanta Gladiators of the ECHL. He is currently seeking to bring an NHL expansion team to Atlanta, with his new group Alpharetta Sports & Entertainment, which would be the city’s third team since the departure of the Atlanta Flames in 1980 and the Atlanta Thrashers in 2011.

Transactions

 * June 20, 1992 – Quebec Nordiques' 10th round draft choice, 220th overall, in the 1992 NHL Entry Draft.
 * June 21, 1995 – Rights transferred to the Colorado Avalanche after Quebec Nordiques relocation.
 * April 3, 1996 – Traded by the Colorado Avalanche to the Washington Capitals in exchange for Washington's 1996 4th round draft choice.
 * March 1, 1997 – Traded by the Washington Capitals, along with Jim Carey, Jason Allison and Washington's 1997 3rd round draft choice to the Boston Bruins in exchange for Bill Ranford, Adam Oates and Rick Tocchet.
 * November 15, 2000 – Traded by the Boston Bruins, along with Boston's 2001 1st round draft choice and Boston's 2001 2nd round draft choice to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for Bill Guerin and future considerations.
 * March 11, 2003 – Traded by the Edmonton Oilers, along with Aleš Píša, to the New York Rangers in exchange for Radek Dvořák and Cory Cross.
 * January 23, 2004 – Traded by the New York Rangers to the Washington Capitals in exchange for Jaromír Jágr.
 * March 8, 2004 – Traded by the Washington Capitals to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for Jared Aulin.
 * August 17, 2005 – Signed a one-year, $1 million contract as a free agent with the Vancouver Canucks.
 * September 13, 2006 – Signed a one-year, $2.5 million contract as a free agent with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
 * February 23, 2007 – Traded by the Columbus Blue Jackets to the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for Carolina's 2008 5th round draft choice (Tomáš Kubalík).

title: Anson Carter


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Rum Runner (nightclub)

The Rum Runner was a nightclub on Broad Street, Birmingham. The club operated from 1964 until its demolition in 1987.

History
Originally a casino, the Rum Runner became a more conventional club in the 1970s. One of its first house bands, playing popular cover versions, went on to become the worldwide acclaimed UK Arena band Magnum featuring Bob Catley and Tony Clarkin. They left the club in 1975 to play their own material of melodic rock. Occasionally other live acts played such as Quill and Jigsaw.

Regular late night clientele were Black Sabbath, Roy Wood, Quartz and other notable Birmingham bands calling in after local gigs. Actors and staff from the nearby Central TV Studios also frequented the club.

In the late 1970s, the club was renovated by Paul and Michael Berrow, sons of the club's founder, based on ideas drawn from a visit to Studio 54 in New York City.

In 1978, local band Duran Duran brought in a demo tape, and were offered a rehearsal space and jobs around the club: drummer Roger Taylor working as a glass collector, guitarist Andy Taylor cooking and maintaining the interior, bassist John Taylor working as a bouncer, and keyboardist Nick Rhodes DJing. The group became the resident band at the club. After playing their 1983 charity concert at Villa Park, they held the afterparty at the Rum Runner. In 2006 John Taylor and Nick Rhodes released a compilation album entitled Only After Dark, featuring their favourite songs from the Rum Runner playlist.

Michael and Paul Berrow were Duran Duran's managers, and formed the Tritec Music company (named after the triangular-themed bar inside the club). The label used the Rum Runner office upstairs from the club as its official address.

In developing the club's musical identity, the club offered its rooms as free rehearsal space to bands including Dexys Midnight Runners and UB40, with The Beat filming a video for their song "Mirror in the Bathroom" in the club.

The club hosted Mulligan, Martin Degville, other members of Sigue Sigue Sputnik, and fashion designers Kahn & Bell.

In 1987, the building was demolished and the "Soloman Cutler" Wetherspoons pub was subsequently built on the site.

title: Rum Runner (nightclub)


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Joseph George Cumming

Joseph George Cumming, MA Cantab., (15 February 1812 – 21 December 1868) was an English geologist and archaeologist. His major works concerned the geology and history of the Isle of Man.

Biography
Born at Matlock in Derbyshire where his mother and father ran the Old Bath Hotel at Matlock Bath. Cumming was educated at Oakham School, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, taking the degree of MA, and entering holy orders in 1835. Joseph's elder cousin, James was Professor of Chemistry in Cambridge from 1815.

Isle of Man
In 1841 he was appointed vice-principal of King William's College, Castletown, in the Isle of Man, and this position he held until 1856. During this period his leisure time was devoted to a study of the geology and archaeology of the island. The results were published in:

 * The Isle of Man : its History, Physical, Ecclesiastical, Civil, and Legendary. published in 1848.

In this book he dealt with the mythical tales, recording the history of the island, especially the geological phenomena. He included the lithological character of the island and the disturbances which have produced the subsidence of some geological formations. Within the book he showed the images of manx crosses and afterwards he arranged for casts of these runic crosses to be distributed to museums and organisations in England and Ireland.

In 1856 he became master of King Edward's Grammar School at Lichfield in Staffordshire. In 1858, Cumming became warden and professor of classical literature and geology in Queen's College, Birmingham (which later became Birmingham University), in 1862 rector of Mellis, in Suffolk, and in 1867 vicar of St Johns, Bethnal Green, London.

1857 saw the publication of his book on Rushen Castle again about the Isle of Man. His interest did not wane and in 1861 he was instrumental in forming a committee to send examples of Manx culture and industrial products to the Great Exhibition of 1861.

Family
Cumming married Agnes Peckham in 1838. He was survived by his four sons and two daughters. He became a Fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1846, and he published papers in the journal of that society. He died quite suddenly on 21 September 1868.

Major works

 * Account of the Geology of the Isle of Man. Published in the Proceedings of the Geological Society of London. August 1846.
 * Geology of the Calf of Man, Quarterly Journal of the Proceedings of the Geological Society of London, 1847.
 * The Isle of Man. Its History, Physical, Ecclesiastical, Civil, and Legendary (see above).
 * Great Industrial Exhibition of 1861, letters showing some of the productions of the Isle of Man in connection with the Exhibition. Douglas: Printed for the Local Committee, by P. Curphey.
 * The Story of Rushen Castle and Rushen Abbey, in the Isle of Man, London: Bell and Daldy, Fleet Street. 1857. Octavo.
 * The Runic and Other Monumental Remains of the Isle of Man, London: Bell and Daldy, Fleet Street; 1867
 * ''The Isle of Man. A Guide to the Isle of Man" inc. Botany; Geology and Zoology. London: Edward Stanford, 1861.
 * The Great Stanley, or James VII, Earl of Derby, and his Noble Countess, Charlotte de la Tremouille, in their Land of Man, London: William Mackintost, 1867.
 * Antiquitates Manniae: or a Collection of Memoirs on the Antiquities of the Isle of Man, for the Manx Society by the Rev. J. G. Cumming, AI.A., F.G.S. London: 1868.

title: Joseph George Cumming


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Joseph Cumming

Joseph Cumming is a scholar of Islamic and Christian thought who serves as pastor of the International Church at Yale University and works internationally as a consultant on Muslim-Christian and Muslim-Christian-Jewish relations. He was one of the architects of the "Yale Response" to the Common Word initiative of 138 prominent Muslim leaders and scholars. He is also International Director of Doulos Community, a humanitarian organization working in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, and is past president of the Federation of NGOs in Mauritania. Cumming has published numerous articles on issues affecting relations among the Abrahamic faith communities. He has lectured in Arabic at Al-Azhar University and other Islamic institutions and has taught courses at Yale Divinity School, as well as at Fuller Theological Seminary and other Evangelical institutions. He has been interviewed in Arabic on Al-Jazeera and other Arab television networks,  and in English on American     and Canadian  television and radio, and in French and German by European and African news media.

title: Joseph Cumming