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Dungeon Siege

Dungeon Siege is an action role-playing game developed by Gas Powered Games and published by Microsoft in April 2002, for Microsoft Windows, and the following year by Destineer for Mac OS X. Set in the pseudo-medieval kingdom of Ehb, the high fantasy game follows a young farmer and her companions as they journey to defeat an invading force. Initially only seeking to warn the nearby town of the invasion of a race of creatures named the Krug, the farmer and the companions that join her along the way are soon swept up in finding a way to defeat another race called the Seck, resurgent after being trapped for 300 years. Unlike other role-playing video games of the time, the world of Dungeon Siege does not have levels but is a single, continuous area without loading screens that the player journeys through, fighting hordes of enemies. Also, rather than setting character classes and manually controlling all of the characters in the group, the player controls their overall tactics and weapons and magic usage, which direct their character growth.

Dungeon Siege was the first title by Gas Powered Games, which was founded in May 1998 by Chris Taylor, then known for the 1997 real-time strategy game Total Annihilation. Joined by several of his coworkers from Cavedog Entertainment, Taylor wanted to create a different type of game, and after trying several concepts they decided to make an action role-playing game as their first title. Taylor also served as one of the designers for the game, joined by Jacob McMahon as the other lead designer and producer and Neal Hallford as the lead story and dialogue writer. The music was composed by Jeremy Soule, who had also worked on Total Annihilation. Gas Powered Games concentrated on making a role-playing game that was stripped of the typical genre elements they found slow or frustrating, to keep the player focused on the action. Development took over four years, though it was initially planned to take only two; completing the game within even four years required the team to work 12- to 14-hour days and weekends for most of the time.

The game was highly rated by critics upon release; it is listed by review aggregator Metacritic as the third-highest rated computer role-playing game of 2002. Critics praised the graphics and seamless world, as well as the fun and accessible gameplay, but were dismissive of the plot. Dungeon Siege sold over 1.7 million copies, and was nominated for the Computer Role-Playing Game of the Year award by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. Gas Powered Games emphasized creating and releasing tools for players to use in making mods for the game during development, which resulted in an active modding community after release. An expansion pack, Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna, was released in 2003, and a further series of games was developed in the franchise, consisting of Dungeon Siege II (2005) and its own expansion Dungeon Siege II: Broken World (2006), a spinoff PlayStation Portable game titled Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony (2006), and a third main title, Dungeon Siege III (2011). A trilogy of movies, with the first loosely inspired by the plot of Dungeon Siege, were released as In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007, theaters), In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds (2011, home video), and In the Name of the King 3: The Last Mission (2014, home video).

Gameplay
Dungeon Siege is an action role-playing game set in a pseudo-medieval high fantasy world, presented in 3D with a third-person virtual camera system under the control of the player, in which the player characters navigate the terrain and fight off hostile creatures. The player chooses the gender and customizes the appearance of the main character of the story prior to the start of the game and typically controls them. The main character is joined by up to seven other characters, which are controlled via artificial intelligence; the player may switch which character they are controlling at any time. The other characters move in relation to the controlled character according to the formation and level of aggression towards enemies chosen by the player. The additional characters can be removed from the group and re-recruited at any given time.

The game world is not broken up into levels, but is instead one large area not separated by loading screens. As the player journeys through the largely linear world, they encounter numerous monsters and enemies of varying types that attack whenever the party of player characters approach. The party defends themselves and attacks enemies using melee and ranged weapons, and nature and combat magic. The player does not select a character class for the characters, unlike other role-playing video games; instead, using weapons or magic of a particular type increases the character's skill with them over time. Whenever a player gains enough experience points from killing enemies and reaches a new level in that weapon type, they gain some number of points in their strength, dexterity, or intelligence statistics, which in turn relate to the number of health points and mana that they have, and damage that they do with weapons.

Characters can equip weapons, armor, rings, and amulets, which provide attack or defense points, or give bonuses to some other statistic. There are also usable items such as potions to restore a character's health or mana. Weapons, armor, and other items are found by killing enemies, breaking containers, or by purchase from vendors. Each character has an inventory, represented as a fixed grid, with each item depicted by a shape taking up spaces on the grid. One character type, the mule, cannot use weapons or magic, but has a much larger inventory.

Dungeon Siege has both a single-player and multiplayer mode. The single-player mode consists of a single story and world; players can either create a new character when starting the story or use one created in a prior playthrough. The cooperative multiplayer mode allows for up to eight players to play through either the single-player storyline or in the multiplayer map, which features a central town hub with increasingly difficult enemies as players move away from it. Multiplayer games can be set to different difficulty levels, allowing accommodation of higher-leveled characters. Additional maps can be created by players that can allow for competitive multiplayer instead. Multiplayer matches can be created and joined via local area networks, direct IP addresses, and, prior to its closure in 2006, through the Microsoft Zone matchmaking service.

Plot
Dungeon Siege is set in the Kingdom of Ehb, a varied region on the continent of Aranna containing deserts, swamps, forests, and mountains, created three centuries earlier at the dissolution of the Empire of Stars. At the beginning of the game, the player character's farming village is attacked by a race of creatures named the Krug. The main character, a farmer with no given background who is named by the player, journeys through the Krug forces to the town of Stonebridge. Upon breaking the siege of the town, and gaining their first companion, the player character is tasked by the town's garrison leader Gyorn with journeying to the town of Glacern and alerting the Ehb military forces, called the 10th Legion, of the incursion and defeating any forces they encounter along the way. After journeying through crypts, mines, and mountains, the player character reaches Glacern, where they are informed that the Krug invasion happened the same day that the Grand Mage Merik disappeared, and are charged with traveling over the mountains to Fortress Kroth to assist the legion there. In the mountains they find Merik, who informs them that the Krug invasion is part of a larger invasion by the Seck, who destroyed the Empire of Stars before being imprisoned underneath Castle Ehb, and who have escaped and taken the castle. Merik asks the player to help recover the Staff of Stars from the Goblins. Prior to its theft, the Staff had kept the Seck imprisoned in the Vault of Eternity.

The player fights through monsters and bandits in crystal caves, a forest, a swamp, and an underground Goblin fortress filled with mechanical war machines. After recovering the Staff from the Goblins, the player character meets a division of the 10th Legion and is pointed towards Fortress Kroth, which has been overrun with undead. After clearing the fortress and fighting monsters and a dragon in the Cliffs of Fire, they march on Castle Ehb. The player characters then storm the castle and fight through the Seck forces to rescue King Konreid. He informs the party that the Seck's leader, Gom, is seeking the magical weapons from the Empire of Stars stored in the Chamber of Stars, and that the characters must secure the weapons and then defeat the remaining Seck. The player character collects the weapons and fights through lava caves and the Vault of Eternity where the Seck had been imprisoned. The player character kills Gom, defeating the Seck and saving the kingdom.

Development
Gas Powered Games was founded in May 1998 by Chris Taylor, then known for the 1997 real-time strategy game Total Annihilation. Joined by several of his coworkers from Cavedog Entertainment, Taylor wanted to create a different type of game than before, and after trying several concepts the team decided to make an action role-playing game as their first title. As well as helping create the initial concept, Taylor served as one of the designers for the game, joined by Jacob McMahon as the game's other lead designer and producer and Neal Hallford as the game's lead story and dialogue writer. Hallford was brought onto the project after it had already started; Taylor had devised the start and end of the game but left the intervening details and background story to him. The game's music was composed by Jeremy Soule, who had also worked on Total Annihilation. The development team included around thirty people during development, with changes over time, and reached forty at the project's conclusion. The development of the game took over four years, though it was initially planned to take only two.

Dungeon Siege was inspired by prior role-playing games such as Baldur's Gate and the Ultima series, but primarily by Diablo, which Taylor admired for having an experience that "concentrated on action" that players could jump into without first researching the gameplay details and settings. Taylor wanted to expand that concept into a streamlined, immersive, and action-heavy role-playing game that removed common elements of the genre that he found boring, frustrating, or slow. Taylor also wanted to make the gameplay itself simpler than contemporary role-playing games, so as to appeal to a wider audience. To that end, he asked Hallford to craft a narrative that was also fast and streamlined; he had him write a detailed backstory for the game, which would not be presented to players but would inform and inspire the developers, leaving the in-game text restrained to keep players engaged with the action. Hallford described the process of writing for the game as similar to other game projects, besides a greater emphasis on brevity, though he has said that he was brought onto the project much later than he usually is, which meant that he had to create a story that worked as a background to the set pieces that had already been developed. The plot of the game was intended by Taylor to be subordinate to the gameplay; to that end, he was unconcerned that his overall story arc was considered, even by the development team, to be somewhat of a cliché, as he felt that journeying to defeat an "ultimate evil" was very motivating to players. Taylor and Hallford discussed producing a Dungeon Siege novel to explore Hallford's story, though it never came to fruition.

Taylor wanted to further improve on the Diablo role-playing game formula by removing the concept of picking a character class at all and omitting Diablo's long loading times. The development team also tried to make the game more streamlined by removing the need to backtrack to previously visited towns to sell items, by adding inventories to companion characters and pack mules. At one point in development, they planned to have a "helper" character who would pick up items dropped by enemies to let the player avoid doing so themselves. The developers also changed some elements that were standard in role-playing games that Taylor and the other developers found frustrating, such as letting players resell items to vendors for the same price that they were bought for instead of a steep discount, and "sipping" or only partially using potions instead of always using up the whole item.

Gas Powered Games included their game development tool, called the Siege Editor, as a tool for players to mod the game. Having seen the output of players creating mods for Total Annihilation, Taylor wanted to "take that to the extreme" and provide a full set of tools to foster a community of players enhancing and changing the game after release. He felt that the tools, which could allow players to make new game worlds, characters, and gameplay, would help support a large, long-term community of players around the game. Gas Powered Games hoped that providing what Daily Radar called "one of the most comprehensive level toolsets we've ever seen" would allow players to quickly and easily create small game regions, as well as allow more serious modders the ability to develop entire parallel games using the Dungeon Siege game engine. They also hoped that this modding community would be able to enhance and extend the multiplayer gameplay beyond what they could release. Taylor attributed his enthusiasm for releasing their own development tools for modding to both his enjoyment of seeing mods for Total Annihilation produced years after its release as well as the lack of negative consequences to John Carmack and id Software's historical tendency to release the entire source code to their games. Taylor later estimated that the company spent around twenty percent of their budget on developing the modding tools.

After the first year of development, Gas Powered Games found that they were not going to be able to finish the game within the planned two years; not only was the seamless world without loading screens harder to create than they had thought, but, according to lead developer Bartosz Kijanka, they had been overambitious in choosing how many innovative features they could put into the game's custom engine, such as the wide range through which the virtual camera system could zoom in and out. Other features supported and later dropped included allowing up to ten characters at once—and therefore maintaining up to ten areas of the single-player world—instead of the final maximum of eight, and a weather system that included wind blowing projectiles off course. According to Kijanka, the developers also spent a lot of time changing technologies mid-development, such as building a custom animation editor before moving to a licensed one, and starting with the OpenGL graphics library only to switch to Direct3D. As a result, the team was required to work 12- to 14-hour days and weekends for most of the development time in order to complete the game within four years. In a 2011 interview, Taylor stated that in retrospect the final cost in development time of the seamless world may have been too high, and also that the team tried to make too large of a game for their budget; he believed that a game with closer to 35 hours of playtime instead of 70 would have been a better and more polished experience given their constraints.

By 2000, Gas Powered Games had begun to search for a publisher for the game. Taylor claims that multiple publishers were interested in the game, but he was convinced by Ed Fries to partner with the newly established Microsoft PC publishing group. Although Microsoft's publishing wing was established in part to publish games for the newly announced Xbox console, Gas Powered Games and Microsoft did not strongly consider bringing the game to the console. Taylor believes that this was due to the size of the game itself, as well as the small market for role-playing games on consoles at the time. Dungeon Siege was initially planned for release in the third quarter of 2001, before being delayed to the following year, and Gas Powered Games spent the added time tuning and polishing the game and expanding the game's items and multiplayer features. Dungeon Siege was released for Windows on April 5, 2002, by Microsoft. A version for Mac OS X on May 2, 2003, by developer Westlake Interactive and publisher Destineer.

Reception
Dungeon Siege was commercially successful, selling over 1.7 million copies. According to the NPD Group, preorders of the game in the month before its release made it the eighth-best selling computer game of March 2002, and upon release in the following month it rose to second-best selling, after The Sims: Vacation. It fell to seventh and then thirteenth place the following two months, and finished in 14th place for the year overall. By August 2006, it had sold 360,000 copies and earned $14.5 million in the United States alone. This led Edge to declare it the country's 44th-best selling computer game between January 2000 and August 2006. By September 2002, Dungeon Siege had also received a "Gold" certification from the Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland (VUD), indicating sales of at least 100,000 units across Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The game was highly rated by critics upon release; it is listed by review aggregator Metacritic as the third-highest rated computer role-playing game of 2002, behind Neverwinter Nights and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and the twenty-first-highest computer game overall for the year. The graphics were highly praised; Dan Adams of IGN called it "ridiculously pretty to watch", while reviewers for GameSpot and GamePro praised the environments as being detailed and varied. Robert Coffey of Computer Gaming World and Greg Vederman of PC Gamer similarly lauded the detailed environments, while Andy McNamara and Kristian Brogger of Game Informer and GameSpy's Peter Suciu called out the seamless world without loading screens as especially worthy of note. Suciu further praised how the freeform, seamless map was used to create areas that were not shaped like rectangular regions with a winding path filling up the space, as was typical with other role-playing games of the time. The IGN and GamePro reviewers commended the sound effects as excellent and for helping to create the atmosphere of the game, while the IGN and GameSpot reviewers also praised the "ambient orchestral score".

The gameplay was similarly lauded; the GamePro review claimed that "Dungeon Siege's gameplay is perhaps its biggest and most transparent improvement over previous titles in the genre." Several reviewers compared it favorably to Diablo II (2000), then one of the most popular computer action role-playing games, with Adams of IGN claiming that it was very similar to Diablo II with some changes and improvements, and Coffey of Computer Gaming World stating that the only thing keeping it from being directly rated as better was that the shift to a more tactical gameplay made it too different of a game to directly compare. PC Gamers Vederman, Computer Gaming Worlds Coffey, and the GameSpot reviewer praised the gameplay as being streamlined and accessible; they liked the tactical nature of controlling a party of adventurers who improved according to how they were used rather than directly controlling their actions and statistics. IGN's Adams, however, said that the gameplay could get monotonous, Vederman of PC Gamer felt that the gameplay combat choices were somewhat limited, and GameSpy's Suciu disliked the linearity of the single-player game. Adams further added that many of the tactical choices in the game were inconsequential, as all battles quickly devolved into brawls, and that the freeform system of leveling was essentially the same as four character classes as pursuing multiple tracks was ineffective.

The multiplayer content received mixed reviews: Adams praised the amount of additional content, while Suciu and the GameSpot reviewer noted that the multiplayer gameplay could easily become unbalanced between different players. The single-player plot was generally dismissed as inconsequential: the GamePro reviewer termed it "skeletal" and the Game Informer reviewers "lackluster", and the GameSpot reviewer called it "bland and forgettable" and concluded that players who wanted a "deeper role-playing game" would be disappointed. Overall, Vederman of PC Gamer called Dungeon Siege "one of the best, most enjoyable games of the year" and GamePro's reviewer claimed it "walks all over its competition with almost effortless grace", while Adams of IGN concluded that it was entertaining but had "untapped potential".

Legacy
After it was showcased at E3 2000, Dungeon Siege proceeded to win the Best RPG award from Game Revolution and Most Immersive Role-playing Game award from GameSpot. After release, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) nominated Dungeon Siege for "Computer Role-Playing Game of the Year" and "Outstanding Innovation in Computer Gaming" at the 6th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards; it did not win either category, losing to Neverwinter Nights and Battlefield 1942, respectively. The game was also a nominee for PC Gamer US's "2002 Best Roleplaying Game" award, but lost again to Neverwinter Nights. It did win the Best PC Game Graphics award from IGN.

Gas Powered Games' release of the Siege Editor did spark the rise of a modding community around the game; even before release several modding groups announced intentions to use the engine to create large-scale mods remaking games from the Ultima series of role playing games. After the game's release, numerous mods were created, including several "total conversion" mods that made wholly new games and stories such as "The Lands of Hyperborea" and "Elemental". Gas Powered Games released one mod of their own in July 2002 titled "Yesterhaven", created by six designers over six weeks, which provided a short multiplayer storyline for low-level characters wherein they defended a town from three thematic plagues of monsters. It was followed up by Legends of Aranna, a full expansion pack developed by Mad Doc Software and released on November 11, 2003 for Windows and Mac OS X by Microsoft. The expansion pack added little new gameplay besides new terrains, creatures, and items, but featured an entirely separate story from the original game. In Legends, the player controls another unnamed farmer; after the Staff of Stars is stolen by a creature called the Shadowjumper, they set off to retrieve it. After fighting their way through monsters in icy hills, jungles, and islands, the player arrives at the mystical Great Clock, a giant artifact which controls Aranna's seasons. There they defeat the Shadowjumper and retrieve the Staff of Stars. It received generally less positive reviews than the original, with critics praising the amount of content but criticizing the lack of changes to the base gameplay. At the 7th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the AIAS nominated Legends of Aranna for "Computer Role-Playing Game of the Year", though it lost to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Several other games have been released in the Dungeon Siege series, beginning with Dungeon Siege II (2005). That game received its own expansion pack, Dungeon Siege II: Broken World (2006), and was followed by a spinoff PlayStation Portable game titled Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony (2006) and a third main title, Dungeon Siege III (2011). A movie directed by Uwe Boll and inspired by the original game, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, was released in theaters in 2007; it has been described as being "loosely based" on the game, and was a commercial and critical failure. It was followed by the home video sequels In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds (2011) and In the Name of the King 3: The Last Mission (2014).

title: Dungeon Siege


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File talk:Westpapua.png

This is the first time in a couple years I've done graphics work again; had to get the Unix tools back under control. didn't have access to my preferred tool Embellish by Dadaware, free Windows and OS/2 graphics program. Anyway I've gotten the Unix tools more under for the second West Papua map westpapua1.png which will try to display where several o the hundreds of towns and mountain peaks are.

Please let me know if you feel this westpapua.png image should be updated and how it should be improved.Daeron 08:33, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

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

title: File talk:Westpapua.png


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Proper convex function

In mathematical analysis, in particular the subfields of convex analysis and optimization, a proper convex function is an extended real-valued convex function with a non-empty domain, that never takes on the value $$-\infty$$ and also is not identically equal to $$+\infty.$$

In convex analysis and variational analysis, a point (in the domain) at which some given function $$f$$ is minimized is typically sought, where $$f$$ is valued in the extended real number line $$[-\infty, \infty] = \mathbb{R} \cup \{ \pm\infty \}.$$ Such a point, if it exists, is called a of the function and its value at this point is called the   of the function. If the function takes $$-\infty$$ as a value then $$-\infty$$ is necessarily the global minimum value and the minimization problem can be answered; this is ultimately the reason why the definition of "" requires that the function never take $$-\infty$$ as a value. Assuming this, if the function's domain is empty or if the function is identically equal to $$+\infty$$ then the minimization problem once again has an immediate answer. Extended real-valued function for which the minimization problem is not solved by any one of these three trivial cases are exactly those that are called. Many (although not all) results whose hypotheses require that the function be proper add this requirement specifically to exclude these trivial cases.

If the problem is instead a maximization problem (which would be clearly indicated, such as by the function being concave rather than convex) then the definition of "" is defined in an analogous (albeit technically different) manner but with the same goal: to exclude cases where the maximization problem can be answered immediately. Specifically, a concave function $$g$$ is called if its negation $$-g,$$ which is a convex function, is proper in the sense defined above.

Definitions
Suppose that $$f : X \to [-\infty, \infty]$$ is a function taking values in the extended real number line $$[-\infty, \infty] = \mathbb{R} \cup \{ \pm\infty \}.$$ If $$f$$ is a convex function or if a minimum point of $$f$$ is being sought, then $$f$$ is called  if

 * $$f(x) > -\infty$$ for  $$x \in X$$

and if there also exists point $$x_0 \in X$$ such that

 * $$f\left( x_0 \right) < +\infty.$$

That is, a function is if it never attains the value $$-\infty$$ and its effective domain is nonempty. This means that there exists some $$x \in X$$ at which $$f(x) \in \mathbb{R}$$ and $$f$$ is also equal to $$-\infty.$$ Convex functions that are not proper are called  convex functions.

A is by definition, any function $$g : X \to [-\infty, \infty]$$ such that $$f := -g$$ is a proper convex function. Explicitly, if $$g : X \to [-\infty, \infty]$$ is a concave function or if a maximum point of $$g$$ is being sought, then $$g$$ is called  if its domain is not empty, it takes on the value $$+\infty,$$ and it is not identically equal to $$-\infty.$$

Properties
For every proper convex function $$f : \mathbb{R}^n \to [-\infty, \infty],$$ there exist some $$b \in \mathbb{R}^n$$ and $$r \in \mathbb{R}$$ such that

 * $$f(x) \geq x \cdot b - r$$

for every $$x \in \mathbb{R}^n.$$

The sum of two proper convex functions is convex, but not necessarily proper. For instance if the sets $$A \subset X$$ and $$B \subset X$$ are non-empty convex sets in the vector space $$X,$$ then the characteristic functions $$I_A$$ and $$I_B$$ are proper convex functions, but if $$A \cap B = \varnothing$$ then $$I_A + I_B$$ is identically equal to $$+\infty.$$

The infimal convolution of two proper convex functions is convex but not necessarily proper convex.

title: Proper convex function


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Wedding anniversary

A wedding anniversary is the anniversary of the date that a wedding took place. Couples often mark the occasion by celebrating their relationship, either privately or with a larger party. Special celebrations and gifts are often given for particular anniversary milestones (e.g., 10, 15, 20, or 25 years). In some cultures, traditional names exist for milestone anniversaries; for instance, fifty years of marriage may be known variously as a "golden wedding anniversary", "golden anniversary" or "golden wedding".

History and recognition
Associating a wedding anniversary with precious metals such as "gold" (50 years) or "silver" (25 years) has been documented in Germanic countries since the 1500s. In English-speaking countries, the tradition of associating gift-giving with wedding anniversaries became more prevalent in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, increased commercialization led to the inclusion of more anniversaries to a list of predetermined gifts.

In some parts of the world, couples can receive special recognition from government officials for particular milestones. In the Commonwealth realms, a couple can receive a message from the monarch for 60th, 65th and 70th wedding anniversaries and for any wedding anniversary after that. This is done by applying to Buckingham Palace in the United Kingdom or to the governor-general's office in the other Commonwealth realms.

In Australia, couples can receive a congratulatory letter from the governor-general on the 50th and all subsequent wedding anniversaries. The prime minister, the Leader of the Opposition, local members of both state and federal parliaments as well as state governors may also send salutations for the same anniversaries.

In Canada, couples can also receive a message from the governor-general for the 50th anniversary and every fifth anniversary after that.

In the United States, a couple can receive an anniversary greeting card from the president for the 50th and all subsequent anniversaries.

Catholics may apply for a papal blessing through their local diocese for wedding anniversaries of a special nature (25th, 50th, 60th, etc.).

Anniversary wishes quats :–

"Now that I have you, I don't want to lose you

I pray to God that you get my happiness too

Because I don't want to bear your sadness"

"This wedding day is very special

The sacred bond of love is tied with a sweet string

This relationship will never break even if we try to break it, it is God who has made it

7 rounds have tied us together for 7 lives."

"My madness has no limits,

I don't remember anything except your face

I am the flower of your garden

No one has any right over me except you" See more...

Commercial gifts
Some significant anniversaries have names that suggest appropriate or traditional gifts, such as a silver or platinum jubilee. Gifts may be exchanged by spouses or given by guests at parties; they may also influence an anniversary party's theme or decoration. These gifts vary in different countries, but some anniversary years now have well-established connections common to many nations; a popular analogy are the numerous jubilees thrown to celebrate anniversary milestones in the reigns of English and British monarchs, all of which are also associated with precious stones or metals.

 * 25th anniversary: silver
 * 40th anniversary: ruby
 * 50th anniversary: gold
 * 60th anniversary: diamond
 * 70th anniversary: platinum

In English-speaking countries, the fifth-year gift (wood) was cut on the day of celebration and then presented to the wife as a finished item before the next two quarter days had passed.

In 1937, the American National Retail Jeweler Association (now known as Jewelers of America as a result of an organizational merger) introduced an expanded list of gifts. The revamped list gave a gift for each year up to the 25th and then for every fifth anniversary after that.

In South India, 60th and 80th wedding anniversaries are accompanied by large celebrations similar to weddings. In Tamil Nadu, there is a famous Thirukadaiyur Temple where special pujas are conducted for wedding anniversaries.

Flower gifts
Flowers are also associated with wedding anniversaries up to and including the 50th anniversary.

title: Wedding anniversary


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Golden Quadrilateral

The Golden Quadrilateral (स्वर्णिम चतुर्भुज; abbreviated GQ) is a national highway network connecting several major industrial, agricultural and cultural centres of India. It forms a quadrilateral with all the four major metro cities of India forming the vertices, viz., Delhi (north), Kolkata (east), Mumbai (west) and Chennai (south). Other major cities connected by this network include Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Balasore, Bhadrak, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Berhampur, Durgapur, Faridabad, Guntur, Gurugram, Jaipur, Kanpur, Pune, Kolhapur, Surat, Vijayawada, Eluru, Ajmer, Visakhapatnam, Bodhgaya, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Agra, Mathura, Dhanbad, Gandhinagar, Udaipur, and Vadodara. The main objective of these super highways is to reduce the travel time between the major cities of India, running roughly along the perimeter of the country. The North–South corridor linking Srinagar (Jammu and Kashmir) and Kanyakumari (Tamil Nadu), and East–West corridor linking Silchar (Assam) and Porbandar (Gujarat) are additional projects. These highway projects are implemented by the National Highway Authority Of India (NHAI). At 5846 km, it is the largest highway project in India and the fifth longest in the world. It is the first phase of the National Highways Development Project (NHDP), and consists of two, four, and six-lane express highways, built at a cost of inr 600000000000. The project was planned in 1999, launched in 2001, and was completed in 7 January 2012.

The Golden Quadrilateral project is managed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) under the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways. The vast majority of the system is not access controlled, although safety features such as guardrails, shoulders, and high-visibility signs are in use. The Mumbai–Pune Expressway, the first controlled-access toll road to be built in India, is a part of the GQ Project but not funded by NHAI, and is separate from the old Mumbai–Pune section of National Highway 48 (India). Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) has been one of the major contributors to the infrastructural development activity in the GQ project.

History and costs
The Golden Quadrilateral Project (GQ Project) was intended to establish faster transport networks between major cities and ports, provide smaller towns better access to markets, reduce agricultural spoilage in transport, drive economical growth, and promote truck transport.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee laid the foundation stone for the project on 6 January 1999. It was planned to be completed by 2006, but there were delays due to land acquisition constraints and disputes with contractors which had to be renegotiated. In January 2012, India announced the four-lane GQ highway network as complete.

India's government had initially estimated that the Golden Quadrilateral project would cost inr 600000000000 at 1999 prices. However, the highway was built under-budget. As of August 2011, the cost incurred by the Indian government was about half of the initial estimate, at inr 308580000000. The eight contracts in progress, as of August 2011, were worth inr 16340000000.

In September 2009, it was announced that the existing four-laned highways would be converted into six-lane highways. Sections of NH 2, NH 4, NH 5 and NH 8 were prioritized for widening to six lanes under DBFO (Design, Build, Finance, Operate) pattern and more sections would be six-laned in the future. On NH 8, six-lane work was completed from Vadodara to Surat.

Route
Only National Highways are used in the Golden Quadrilateral. The four legs use the following National Highways (new numbering system):

 * Delhi – Kolkata: NH 44 from Delhi to Agra & NH 19 from Agra to Kolkata
 * Delhi – Mumbai – Chennai: NH 48
 * Kolkata – Chennai: NH 16

Length in each state
The completed Golden Quadrilateral passes through 12 states and a union territory:

 * Andhra Pradesh – 1014 km
 * Uttar Pradesh – 756 km
 * Rajasthan – 725 km
 * Karnataka – 623 km
 * Maharashtra – 487 km
 * Gujarat – 485 km
 * Odisha – 440 km
 * West Bengal – 406 km
 * Tamil Nadu – 342 km
 * Bihar – 204 km
 * Jharkhand – 192 km
 * Haryana – 152 km
 * Delhi – 25 km
 * Total – 5846 km

Corruption allegations
In August 2003, Jharkhand-based project director Satyendra Dubey, in a letter to the prime minister, outlined a list of bad faith (mala fide) actions in a segment of a highway in Bihar. Dubey's claims included that big contractors had inside information from NHAI officials, that the contractors for this stretch were not executing the project themselves (as stipulated in the contract) but had been subcontracting the work to small builders who lacked technical expertise, and that no follow-up was performed after awarding advances. Dubey's name was leaked by the prime minister's office to the NHAI, and he was transferred against his wishes to Gaya, Bihar, where he was murdered on 27 November.

The NHAI eventually admitted that Dubey's allegations were substantiated, and implemented "radical reforms" in the selection and contract procedures. After considerable Central Bureau of Investigation scrutiny, Mantu Kumar and three accomplices were arrested and charged with murder. Mantu escaped from court on 19 September 2005, but was recaptured a month later. In 2010, Mantu and two others were convicted of murder and other offenses and sentenced to life in prison.

title: Golden Quadrilateral


text:
File talk:Westpapua1.png

West Papua major cities and landmarks. Copyright 2004 Affordable Solutions Pty Ltd Aust. released under GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). I've uploaded the image in progress, I intend to add heights to the peaks shown and name the districts shown. I may increase the compression on future updates; feedback welcome.:)Daeron 08:40, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Just confirmed the boundaries were adjusted since; may also be adjusted shortly; will re-work map.Daeron 09:40, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Can something be copyright and GFDL? -- Astrokey44 |talk 11:13, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

title: File talk:Westpapua1.png


text: Template:Wikipediasister-list

title: Template:Wikipediasister-list


text:
Chalmers Johnson

Chalmers Ashby Johnson (August 6, 1931 – November 20, 2010) was an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics, and professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He served in the Korean War, was a consultant for the CIA from 1967 to 1973 and chaired the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley from 1967 to 1972. He was also president and co-founder with Steven Clemons of the Japan Policy Research Institute (now based at the University of San Francisco), an organization that promotes public education about Japan and Asia.

Johnson wrote numerous books, including three examinations of the consequences of what he called the "American Empire": Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis; The Last Days of the American Republic. A former Cold Warrior, he notably stated, "A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can't be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship."

Life and career
Johnson was born in 1931 in Phoenix, Arizona, to David Frederick Johnson Jr. and Katherine Marjorie (Ashby) Johnson. He earned a BA in economics in 1953 and an MA and a PhD in political science in 1957 and 1961, respectively. Both of his advanced degrees were from the University of California, Berkeley. Johnson met his wife, Sheila, a junior at Berkeley, in 1956, and they married in Reno, Nevada, in May 1957.

During the Korean War, Johnson served as a naval officer in Japan. He was a communications officer on the USS La Moure County, which ferried Chinese prisoners of war from South Korea back to ports in North Korea. He taught political science at the University of California from 1962 until he retired from teaching in 1992. He was best known early in his career for his scholarship on the subjects of China and Japan.

Johnson set the agenda for 10 or 15 years in social science scholarship on China, with his book on peasant nationalism. His book MITI and the Japanese Miracle, on the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry, was the pre-eminent study of the country's development and it created the subfield of what could be called the political economy of development. He coined the term "developmental state." As a public intellectual, he first led the "Japan revisionists" who critiqued American neoliberal economics with Japan as a model, and their arguments faded from view as the Japanese economy stagnated in the mid-1990s and later. During that period, Johnson served as a consultant to the Office of National Estimates, part of the CIA, and contributed to analysis of China and Maoism.

Johnson was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1976. He served as Director of the Center for Chinese Studies (1967–1972) and Chair of the Political Science Department at Berkeley, and he held a number of important academic posts in area studies. He was a strong believer in the importance of language and historical training for conducting serious research. Late in his career, he became well known as a critic of rational choice approaches, particularly in the study of Japanese politics and political economy.

Johnson is probably best known as a sharp critic of what he called “American imperialism.” His book Blowback (2000) won a prize in 2001 from the Before Columbus Foundation, and it was reissued in an updated version in 2004. Sorrows of Empire, published in 2004, updated the evidence and argument from Blowback for the post-9/11 environment, and Nemesis concludes the trilogy. Johnson was featured as an expert talking head in the Eugene Jarecki-directed film Why We Fight, which won the 2005 Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

Johnson wrote for the Los Angeles Times, the London Review of Books, Harper's, and The Nation.

Blowback series
Johnson believed that the enforcement of American hegemony over the world constitutes a new form of global empire. Whereas traditional empires maintained control over subject peoples via colonies, the US, since World War II, has developed a vast system of hundreds of military bases around the world. A longtime Cold Warrior, he applauded the dissolution of the Soviet Union: "I was a cold warrior. There's no doubt about that. I believed the Soviet Union was a genuine menace. I still think so." At the same time, however, he experienced a political awakening after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and noted that instead of demobilizing its armed forces, the US accelerated its reliance on military solutions to problems both economic and political. The result of that militarism, as distinct from domestic defense, is more terrorism against the US and its allies, the loss of core democratic values at home, and the eventual crumbling of the American economy. Of four books he wrote on the topic, the first three are referred to as the Blowback Trilogy. Johnson summarized the intent of the Blowback series in the final chapter of Nemesis.

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire
"In Blowback, I set out to explain why we are hated around the world. The concept 'blowback' does not just mean retaliation for things our government has done to and in foreign countries. It refers to retaliation for the numerous illegal operations we have carried out abroad that were kept totally secret from the American public. This means that when the retaliation comes – as it did so spectacularly on September 11, 2001 – the American public is unable to put the events in context. So they tend to support acts intended to lash out against the perpetrators, thereby most commonly preparing the ground for yet another cycle of blowback. In the first book in this trilogy, I tried to provide some of the historical background for understanding the dilemmas we as a nation confront today, although I focused more on Asia – the area of my academic training – than on the Middle East."

The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic
"The Sorrows of Empire was written during the American preparations for and launching of the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. I began to study our continuous military buildup since World War II and the 737 military bases we currently maintain in other people's countries. This empire of bases is the concrete manifestation of our global hegemony, and many of the blowback-inducing wars we have conducted had as their true purpose the sustaining and expanding of this network. We do not think of these overseas deployments as a form of empire; in fact, most Americans do not give them any thought at all until something truly shocking, such as the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, brings them to our attention. But the people living next door to these bases and dealing with the swaggering soldiers who brawl and sometimes rape their women certainly think of them as imperial enclaves, just as the people of ancient Iberia or nineteenth-century India knew that they were victims of foreign colonization."

Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic
"In Nemesis, I have tried to present historical, political, economic, and philosophical evidence of where our current behavior is likely to lead. Specifically, I believe that to maintain our empire abroad requires resources and commitments that will inevitably undercut our domestic democracy and in the end produce a military dictatorship or its civilian equivalent. The founders of our nation understood this well and tried to create a form of government – a republic – that would prevent this from occurring. But the combination of huge standing armies, almost continuous wars, military Keynesianism, and ruinous military expenses have destroyed our republican structure in favor of an imperial presidency. We are on the cusp of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire. Once a nation is started down that path, the dynamics that apply to all empires come into play – isolation, overstretch, the uniting of forces opposed to imperialism, and bankruptcy. Nemesis stalks our life as a free nation."

Dismantling the Empire: America's Last Best Hope
Johnson outlines how the United States can reverse American hegemony and preserve the American state. Dismantling the Empire is suggested reading for CIA personnel.

Evil Empire
In a 2007, during the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, Johnson gave a series of lectures titled, Evil Empire, as part of his American Empire Project, in which he summed up his trilogy, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic, and Nemesis:The Last Days of the American Republic in speeches titled Evil Empire. The books and lectures are a warning about the unintended consequences of US policy in the world. In June 2007, he gave a talk at a local Democratic Club in Fallbrook, CA which was filmed and released on DVD. It is produced and directed by Jon Monday for mondayMEDIA.

Synopsis: Johnson traces the fall of the Roman Empire as a pattern he saw in American geopolitics. The term blowback is used by the CIA to mean the unintended consequences of American policies and actions in the world. His book Blowback, which was first published in January 2001, predicted the events of 9/11 as being the result of American policy. He cites the combination of militarism, far-flung military bases around the world, unsustainable economic domestic policy, and a complacent voting population as being toxic to American democracy.

The extras in the DVD include a Q&A session with Johnson, and interview with Representative Bob Filner, and comments by Midge Costanza, who was an advisor to President Carter. The main talk is now available on YouTube.

Death
In 2010, Chalmers Johnson died after a long illness from complications of rheumatoid arthritis at his home, in Cardiff-by-the-Sea.

Audio and video

 * Audio interview March 2010 on Media Matters with Bob McChesney
 * Video/Audio: Chalmers Johnson on the military-industrial complex October 4–7, 2008 on The Real News with Paul Jay
 * Audio: Is America on the brink of destruction through imperial over-reach?
 * Audio interview April 2004 on Behind the News with Doug Henwood

title: Chalmers Johnson


text:
Departmentalization

Departmentalization (or departmentalisation) refers to the process of grouping activities into departments. Division of labour creates specialists who need coordination. This coordination is facilitated by grouping specialists together in departments.

Popular types of departmentalization

 * Functional departmentalization - Grouping activities by functions performed. Activities can be grouped according to function (work being done) to pursue economies of scale by placing employees with shared skills and knowledge into departments for example human resources, IT, accounting, manufacturing, logistics, and engineering. Functional departmentalization can be used in all types of organizations. Group activities in accordance with the function of an enterprise.
 * Product departmentalization - Grouping activities by product line. It can also be grouped according to a specific product or service, thus placing all activities related to the product or the service under one manager. Each major product area in the corporation is under the authority of a senior manager who is specialist in, and is responsible for, everything related to the product line. LA Gear is an example of company that uses product departmentalization.  Its structure is based on its varied product lines which include women’s footwear etc.
 * Customer departmentalization - Grouping activities on the basis of common customers or types of customers. Jobs may be grouped according to the type of customer served by the organization. The assumption is that customers in each department have a common set of problems and needs that can best be met by specialists. The sales  activities in an office supply firm can be broken down into three departments that serve retail, wholesale and government accounts.
 * Geographic departmentalization - Grouping activities on the basis of territory. If an organization's customers are geographically dispersed, it can group jobs based on geography. For example, the organization structure of Coca-Cola has reflected the company’s operation in two broad geographic areas – the North American sector and the international sector, which includes the Pacific Rim, the European Community, Northeast Europe, Africa and Latin America groups.
 * Process departmentalization - Grouping activities on the basis of product or service or customer flow. Because each process requires different skills, process departmentalization allows homogeneous activities to be grouped together. For example, applicants might need to go through several departments, namely validation, licensing and treasury, before receiving a driver’s license.
 * Divisional departmentalization - When the firm develops independent lines of business that operate as separate companies, all contributing to the corporation profitability, the design is called divisional departmentalization or (M-FORM). For example, the Limited. Inc., has these divisions: The Limited, Express, Lerner New York, Lane Bryant and Mast Industries.

Owing to the complexity of tasks and the competitive environment in which organisations operate, they often use a combination of the above-mentioned methods in departmentalization.

Some philosophical considerations
As March and Simon (1958) noted when tracing a first approach to departmentalization back to Aristotle (Politics, Book IV, Chap. 15), the problem of distributing work, authority and responsibility throughout an organization is hardly new. In modern times, Gulick and Urwick (1937) were the first to introduce a theory of different departmentalization strategies, which were referred to as departmentalization by purpose and departmentalization by process. ”First [organization by major process] ... by bringing together in a single office a large amount of each kind of work (technologically measured), makes it possible in the most effective divisions of work and specialization. Second, it makes possible also the economies of the maximum use of labor saving machinery and mass production. ... there is danger that an organization erected on the basis of purpose will fail to make use of the most up-to-date technical devices and specialists because ... there may not be enough work of a given technical sort to permit efficient subdivision. Is there any advantage in placing specialized services like private secretaries or filing in [process departments]? In a very small organization, yes; in a large organization, no. In a small organization, where there is not a full-time job on some days for a secretary, it is better to have a central secretarial pool than to have a private secretary for each man. In a large organization, the reverse is true.” (Gulick & Urwick, 1937)

Studying the above characterizations of the two forms of departmentalization we note that purpose decentralization is concerned with building work around specific products, customers, or geographic locations, while process departmentalization encompasses the efficiency of ”production”. March and Simon (1958) described the basic difference between the two ways of departmentalization as following: ”Process departmentalization generally takes greater advantage of the potentialities for economy of specialization than does purpose departmentalization: purpose departmentalization leads to greater self-containment and lower coordination costs than process departmentalization.”

When taking a closer look at the three ways of departmentalization by purpose–product, customer, and location–we note that there are some specific advantages related to it.

First, self-containment tends to improve the ability for internal coordination within the unit. At the same time, the need for developing and maintaining extensive external coordination mechanisms is reduced.

Second, a clearer focus on the purpose itself–serving a specific customer or market–is enabled. On the other hand, the sense of independence may result in a drift-off from the achievement of the overall objectives of the organization. Therefore, several authors have emphasized the need for establishing control systems that serve the purpose of allowing decentralized decisions, while still aligning all sub-units to the overall goals of the organization (Drucker 1954, Koontz & O’Donnell, 1964).

Departmentalization by process, on the other hand, seeks to benefit from the advantages that are found in high specialization, and tends to be very efficient in some instances. A high degree of specialization leads to the development of proficiency and professional competence, as well as it enables, and implies, the development of centralized control functions.

On the other hand, the problem of aligning individual and organizational goals remains. In addition, in this case, we would also need to consider departmental goals. Also, the high level of specialization is a barrier for the flexible reallocation of resources within the organization, i.e. people can not perform other tasks than those they are working with in their functional occupation. The most common way of process departmentalization is the division of the firm into business functions, such as purchasing, manufacturing, sales, accounting, etc.

Looking at the circumstances encompassing the use of either of the departmentalization strategies, we find that departmentalization by process generally is advantageous in cases of stable environments, while departmentalization by purpose, featuring self-containment and certain amounts of independence, appears to be the appropriate strategy for handling changing or unpredictable circumstances. Alfred Chandler (in: March and Simon, 1958) identified a correlation between the application of purpose departmentalization and the use of a diversification strategy:

”The dominant centralized structure had one basic weakness. A very few men were still entrusted with a great number of complex decisions. ... As long as an enterprise belonged in an industry whose market, sources of raw materials, and production processes remained relatively unchanged, few entrepreneurial decisions have to be reached. In that situation, such a weakness was not critical, but where technology, market, and sources of supplies were changed rapidly, the defect of such a structure became more obvious.”

Recent trends in departmentalization

 * The customer departmentalization has become increasingly emphasized.
 * Rigid departmentalization is being complemented by the use of teams that cross over traditional departmental lines ("silos").

title: Departmentalization


text:
Robinson Helicopter Company

The Robinson Helicopter Company, based at Zamperini Field in Torrance, California, is an American helicopter manufacturer. , Robinson produces three models: the two-seat R22, the four-seat R44, both of which use Lycoming piston engines, and the five-seat R66, which use Rolls-Royce turbine engines.

History
The company was founded in 1973 by Frank Robinson, a former employee of Bell Helicopter and Hughes Helicopters. Since delivering its first helicopter in 1979, Robinson Helicopter has produced over 12,000 aircraft. Robinson helicopter celebrated 50 years in business in June 2023.

Plans for production of the Robinson R66 were announced in March 2007. It is a five-seat helicopter of similar configuration to the R44, but with the addition of a luggage compartment, wider cabin by 8 in, and powered by a Rolls-Royce RR300 gas turbine engine.

In 2013, Robinson was the global market leader, selling 523 light helicopters, a 1% increase from 2012. Production in 2014 dropped to 329 aircraft. In 2015, Robinson produces one R22, four or five R44s, and one or two R66s per week, and has contracted with Rolls-Royce to supply 100 RR300 turbines per year for 10 years for the R66. The factory can produce up to 1,000 helicopters per year.

Products
The R66 is the only turboshaft powered helicopter in Robinson's lineup. Robinson also produces the Robinson Helipad, a modular helipad designed for light helicopters.
 * Robinson R22
 * Robinson R44
 * Robinson R66

Mast-bumping controversy
Mast bumping is a dangerous condition helicopters can encounter when load on the helicopter's rotor assembly is temporarily reduced during flight (for example, during a low-g maneuver or turbulent weather). The reduction of load triggers excessive flapping in the helicopter's rotor blades, which can cause the entire rotor assembly to shear off the aircraft.

Robinson helicopters use a patented design for their main rotor, with a triple-hinged rotor assembly "teetering" atop an extended mast. Several Robinson helicopters have been destroyed in incidents where mast bumping was determined to have occurred. A May 2018 article in the Los Angeles Times reported Robinson helicopters seemed to have increased susceptibility to mast-bumping incidents.

In 2016, the New Zealand Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) released a report summarizing 14 mast-bumping accidents or incidents involving Robinson helicopters in New Zealand, in which 18 people died. The TAIC report noted "Helicopters with semirigid, two-bladed main rotor systems, as used on Robinson helicopters, are particularly susceptible to mast bumping in "low-G" conditions".

In 2018, a U.S. lawsuit accused the Robinson Helicopter Company of defective manufacturing after a mast-bumping event caused the in-flight breakup of an R66 helicopter.

title: Robinson Helicopter Company


text:
List of NHL head coaches

The National Hockey League (NHL) is a professional ice hockey league composed of 32 teams, founded in 1917. Each team is entitled to one head coach who handles the directing of games and team practices, while providing direction and strategy for their players and deciding which players will play in games and the lines they will play on. In some cases, a coach will only serve on an interim basis, while some teams may have more than one coach who serve as co-coaches. Outside the team management, the coach also addresses the media.

Coaches
Note: Statistics are updated through the previous season .

title: List of NHL head coaches


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mouduge

Moved from Speedy Deletions:
 * Mouduge has zero google hits: Mouduge is a french music band created in 2004 -- Chris 73 | (New) Talk 07:13, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about this one. It can't do any harm shoving through the VfD process.theresa knott 07:36, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
 * I move it to VfD -- Chris 73 | (New) Talk 09:02, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

I am the drummer of mouduge. Your rignt, we are nonnotable yet, we will come back when we will be notable enough.
 * Still Delete -- Chris 73 | (New) Talk 09:03, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Effacement - vanité. TB 09:20, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - not listed at the All Music Guide, in all likelihood have not released any recorded work. --bodnotbod 11:29, May 2, 2004 (UTC)
 * I still say delete for this band, but allmusic isn't always very good about being definitive when it comes to non-english speaking bands. Rhymeless 19:55, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. I see no harm in keeping the stub, in case someone has heard of them. anthony (see warning)
 * If they're created in 2004, I seriously doubt they've been published. Unless someone can verify they're anything but a garage band, this should go. Meelar 23:16, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
 * McFly was created in 2004, wasn't it? I agree that they should go if they can't be verified, but 7 days is too short to verify a brand new band. In the mean time, it's not hurting anything, as only people searching for "Mouduge" will reach the page. anthony][[User:Anthony_DiPierro/warning|(see warning)
 * Yeah, McFly are cute though. Delete. The Land 15:30, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
 * delete unless someone provides evidence that they're notable. --Jiang 23:37, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: nonnotable, advert, probably vanity. Wile E. Heresiarch 13:54, 3 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete if not verified. - Fennec 15:42, May 3, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Vanity. Alcarillo 15:51, 3 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Heck, this is barely vanity if all they can claim is formation in 2004, let alone any noteworthiness. Delete. - Lucky 6.9 22:43, 3 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Cribcage 02:42, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Mouduge is also a french band, we organize concert since 2004 and some titles can be listen on the net (jamendo, univarts, mouduge official site)

title: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mouduge


text:
Talk:Gasherbrum II

Pakistan ranking
I am planning on removing the Pakistan elevation ranking from the infobox per reasons given at Talk:K2. Reply at the K2 talk page or here if there's an objection. -- Racer X11 Talk to me Stalk me  00:48, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Gasherbrum II


text:
Fritz Zwicky

Fritz Zwicky (February 14, 1898 – February 8, 1974) was a Swiss astronomer. He worked most of his life at the California Institute of Technology in the United States of America, where he made many important contributions in theoretical and observational astronomy. In 1933, Zwicky was the first to use the virial theorem to postulate the existence of unseen dark matter, describing it as "dunkle Materie".

Biography
Fritz Zwicky was born in Varna, Bulgaria, to a Swiss father (citizenship in Mollis, Glarus ) and Czech mother. His father, Fridolin (b. 1868), was a prominent industrialist in the Bulgarian city and also served as ambassador of Norway in Varna (1908–1933). Fridolin Zwicky designed and built his family's Zwicky House in Varna. Fritz's mother, Franziska Vrček (b. 1871), was an ethnic Czech of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Fritz was the oldest of three children: he had a younger brother named Rudolf and a sister, Leonie. Fritz's mother died in Varna in 1927. His father lived and worked in Bulgaria until 1945, and returned to Switzerland after World War II. Fritz's sister Leonie married a Bulgarian from Varna and spent her entire life in the city.

In 1904, at the age of six, Fritz was sent to his paternal grandparents to Glarus, Switzerland, to study commerce. His interests shifted to math and physics. He received an advanced education in mathematics and experimental physics at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic (today known as ETH Zurich) in Zürich. He finished his studies there in 1922 with a Dr. sc. nat. degree (PhD equivalent) with a thesis entitled Zur Theorie der heteropolaren Kristalle (On the theory of heteropolar crystals).

In 1925, Zwicky emigrated to the United States to work with Robert Millikan at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) after receiving the Rockefeller Foundation fellowship. He had an office down the hall from Robert Oppenheimer.

Zwicky developed numerous cosmological theories that have had a profound influence on the understanding of our universe in the early 21st century. He coined the term "supernova" while fostering the concept of neutron stars. Five years passed before Oppenheimer published his landmark paper announcing "neutron stars".

Zwicky was appointed Professor of Astronomy at Caltech in 1942. He also worked as a research director/consultant for Aerojet Engineering Corporation (1943–1961), and as a staff member of Mount Wilson Observatory and Palomar Observatory for most of his career. He developed some of the earliest jet engines and holds more than 50 patents, many in jet propulsion. He invented the Underwater Jet. An example of his WWII rocket propulsion work would be a patent on a nitromethane engine filed by a collective of Zwicky and three other Aerojet employees in March 1944, and he also published an article on chemical kinetics in rocket engines and motors in 1950.

Personal life
On 25 March 1932, Fritz Zwicky married Dorothy Vernon Gates (1904-1991), a member of a prominent local family and a daughter of California State Senator Egbert James Gates. Her money was instrumental in the funding of the Palomar Observatory during the Great Depression. Nicholas Roosevelt, cousin of President Theodore Roosevelt, was his brother-in-law by marriage to Tirzah Gates. Zwicky and Dorothy divorced amicably in 1941.

On 18 October 1947 Zwicky married in Switzerland to Anna Margaritha Zürcher. They had three daughters together, Margrit, Franziska, and Barbarina. The Zwicky Museum at the Landesbibliothek, Glarus, houses many of his papers and scientific works. Zwicky died in Pasadena, California on February 8, 1974, and was buried in Mollis, Switzerland.

Zwicky was critical of religion and considered it unacceptable to attribute natural phenomena to God.

He is remembered as both a genius and a curmudgeon. One of his favorite insults was to refer to people whom he did not like as "spherical bastards", because, as he explained, they were bastards no matter which way one looked at them.

Legacy
The Fritz Zwicky Stiftung (Foundation) was established in Switzerland to carry on his ideas relating to "Morphological analysis". The foundation published a biography of Zwicky in English: Alfred Stöckli & Roland Müller: Fritz Zwicky – An Extraordinary Astrophysicist. Cambridge: Cambridge Scientific Publishers, 2011. A review of the book is available from Acta Morphologica Generalis.

Scientific work

Fritz Zwicky was a prolific scientist and made important contributions in many areas of astronomy.

Ionic crystals and electrolytes
His first scientific contributions pertained to ionic crystals and electrolytes.

Supernovae and neutron stars
Together with colleague Walter Baade, Zwicky pioneered and promoted the use of the first Schmidt telescopes used in a mountain-top observatory in 1935. In 1934 he and Baade coined the term "supernova" and hypothesized that supernovae were the transition of normal stars into neutron stars, as well as the origin of cosmic rays. This was an opinion which contributed to determining the size and age of the universe subsequently.

In support of this hypothesis, Zwicky started looking for supernovae, and found a total of 120 by himself (and one more, SN 1963J, in concert with Paul Wild) over 52 years (SN 1921B through SN 1973K), a record which stood until 2009 when passed by Tom Boles. Zwicky did his laborious work, comparing photographic plates with the human eye, which is far more challenging and difficult than Boles accomplished using modern technology for his record.

Gravitational lenses
In 1937, Zwicky posited that galaxies could act as gravitational lenses by the previously discovered Einstein effect. It was not until 1979 that this effect was confirmed by observation of the so-called "Twin Quasar" Q0957+561.

Dark matter
While examining the Coma galaxy cluster in 1933, Zwicky was the first to use the virial theorem to discover the existence of a gravitational anomaly, which he termed dunkle Materie 'dark matter'. The gravitational anomaly surfaced due to the excessive rotational velocity of luminous matter compared to the calculated gravitational attraction within the cluster. He calculated the gravitational mass of the galaxies within the cluster from the observed rotational velocities and obtained a value at least 400 times greater than expected from their luminosity. The same calculation today shows a smaller factor, based on greater values for the mass of luminous material.

Tired light
When Edwin Hubble discovered a somewhat linear relationship between the distance to a galaxy and its redshift expressed as a velocity, Zwicky immediately pointed out that the correlation between the calculated distances of galaxies and their redshifts had a discrepancy too large to fit in the distance's error margins. He proposed that the reddening effect was not due to motions of the galaxy, but to an unknown phenomenon that caused photons to lose energy as they traveled through space. He considered the most likely candidate process to be a drag effect in which photons transfer momentum to surrounding masses through gravitational interactions; and proposed that an attempt be made to put this effect on a sound theoretical footing with general relativity. He also considered and rejected explanations involving interactions with free electrons, or the expansion of space.

Zwicky was skeptical of the expansion of space in 1929, because the rates measured at that time seemed too large. It was not until 1956 that Walter Baade corrected the distance scale based on Cepheid variable stars, and ushered in the first accurate measures of the expansion rate. Cosmological redshift is now conventionally understood to be a consequence of the expansion of space; a feature of Big Bang cosmology.

Morphological analysis
Zwicky developed a generalised form of morphological analysis, which is a method for systematically structuring and investigating the total set of relationships contained in multi-dimensional, usually non-quantifiable, problem complexes. He wrote books on the subject in 1957 and 1969, and claimed that he made many of his discoveries using this method.

Catalog of Galaxies and Clusters
Zwicky devoted considerable time to the search for galaxies and the production of catalogs. From 1961 to 1968 he and his colleagues published a comprehensive six volume Catalogue of galaxies and of clusters of galaxies. They were all published in Pasadena, by the California Institute of Technology.

Galaxies in the original catalog are called Zwicky galaxies, and the catalog is still maintained and updated today. Zwicky with his wife Margaritha also produced an important catalog of compact galaxies, sometimes called simply The Red Book.

Original thinker
Zwicky was an original thinker, and his contemporaries frequently had no way of knowing which of his ideas would work out and which would not. In a retrospective look at Zwicky's life and work, Stephen Maurer said: "When researchers talk about neutron stars, dark matter, and gravitational lenses, they all start the same way: 'Zwicky noticed this problem in the 1930s. Back then, nobody listened...'"

He is celebrated for the discovery of neutron stars. He also proposed a concept he called nuclear goblins, which he described as "a body of nuclear density ... only stable under sufficient external pressure within a massive and dense star". He considered that these goblins could move within a star, and explode violently as they reach less dense regions towards the star's surface, and serve to explain eruptive phenomena, such as flare stars. This idea has never caught on.

An anecdote often told of Zwicky concerns an informal experiment to see if he could reduce problems with turbulence hindering an observation session one night at Mount Wilson observatory. He told his assistant to fire a gun out through the telescope slit, in the hope it would help smooth out the turbulence. No effect was noticed, but the event shows the kind of lateral thinking for which Zwicky was famous.

In a talk to a Caltech PhD student Frank Malina, who experienced some difficulties working on a dissertation regarding characteristics of oxygen-gasoline rocket engine, Fritz Zwicky claimed the engineer "must realize that a rocket could not operate in space as it required the atmosphere to push against to provide thrust". Zwicky later admitted that he had been mistaken.

He was also very proud of his work in producing the first artificial meteors. He placed explosive charges in the nose cone of a V2 rocket, to be detonated at high altitude and fire high velocity pellets of metal through the atmosphere. The first attempts appeared to be failures, and Zwicky sought to try again with the Aerobee rocket. His requests were denied, until the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1. Twelve days later, on October 16, 1957, Zwicky launched his experiment on the Aerobee, and successfully fired pellets visible from the Mount Palomar observatory. It is thought that one of these pellets may have escaped the gravitational pull of the Earth and become the first object launched into a solar orbit.

Zwicky also considered the possibility of rearranging the universe to our own liking. In a lecture in 1948 he spoke of changing planets, or relocating them within the Solar System. In the 1960s he even considered how the whole Solar System might be moved like a giant spaceship to travel to other stars. He considered this might be achieved by firing pellets into the Sun to produce asymmetrical fusion explosions, and by this means he thought that the star Alpha Centauri might be reached within 2500 years.

Humanitarian
Zwicky was a generous humanitarian with a great concern for wider society. These two sides of his nature came together in the aftermath of the Second World War, when Zwicky worked hard to collect tons of books on astronomy and other topics, and shipped them to war-ravaged scientific libraries in Europe and Asia.

He also had a longstanding involvement with the charitable Pestalozzi Foundation of America, supporting orphanages. Zwicky received their gold medal in 1955, in recognition of his services.

Zwicky loved the mountains, and was an accomplished alpine climber.

He was critical of political posturing by all sides in the Middle East, and of the use of nuclear weapons in World War II. He considered that hope for the world lay with free people of good will who work together as needed, without institutions or permanent organizations.

Media persona
Zwicky's ideas captured the imagination of the public. He was widely quoted by reporters.

"The New York Times published updates of Zwicky's supernova search on a regular basis. In 1934 he was featured in Literary Digest's 'They Stand Out from the Crowd' column, ... and in 1935 he gave a Science Service Radio Talk titled 'Stellar Guests'. ..."

In January 1934, Los Angeles Times published the cartoon "Be Scientific with Ol' Doc Dabble", which had a caption describing Zwicky's research and which implicitly caricatured him as "Doc Dabble".

Some scenes of the 13th episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey depicts an actor playing Fritz Zwicky, at the same time that Neil DeGrasse Tyson talks about the importance of Zwicky's studies on supernovae.

Honors

 * In 1949, Truman awarded Zwicky the Medal of Freedom, for work on rocket propulsion during World War II. In 1968, Zwicky was made professor emeritus at California Institute of Technology.
 * In 1972, Zwicky was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, their most prestigious award, for "distinguished contributions to astronomy and cosmology". This award noted in particular his work on neutron stars, dark matter, and cataloging of galaxies.
 * The asteroid 1803 Zwicky and the lunar crater Zwicky are both named in his honor.
 * The Zwicky Transient Facility is named in his honor.

Publications
Zwicky produced hundreds of publications over a long career, covering a great breadth of topics. This brief selection, with comments, gives a taste of his work.
 * . This is the article that proposes a tired light model to explain Hubble's law. (full article)
 * , and . These consecutive articles introduce the notion of a supernova and a neutron star respectively.
 * . The idea of a neutron star, previously introduced in the supernova paper, is explained along with the idea of critical stellar mass and black holes.
 * . Zwicky argues that the shape of nebulae indicate a universe far older than can be accounted for by an expanding universe model.
 * . Zwicky was a great advocate for the use of the wide angle Schmidt telescope, which he used to great effect to make many discoveries.
 * . Zwicky did work on jet propulsion and other matters with Aerojet corporation during and after the war.
 * . In this book Zwicky gives free rein to his ideas on morphological research as a tool for making discoveries in astronomy.
 * . As well as proposing neutron stars, Zwicky also proposed unstable aggregations of neutron density matter within larger stars.
 * . Zwicky also proposed that the morphological approach could be applied to all kinds of issues in disciplines going far beyond basic science.
 * . Zwicky also proposed that the morphological approach could be applied to all kinds of issues in disciplines going far beyond basic science.

title: Fritz Zwicky


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The Beat Generation (film)

The Beat Generation is a 1959 American crime film noir from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starring Steve Cochran and Mamie Van Doren, with Ray Danton, Fay Spain, Maggie Hayes, Jackie Coogan, Louis Armstrong, James Mitchum, Vampira, and Ray Anthony. It is a sensationalistic interpretation of the beatnik counterculture of the "Beat Generation" (and is sometimes considered one of the last films noir to be produced.) The movie was also shown under the title This Rebel Age. The movie is about a "beatnik" who is a serial rapist, who is pursued by a police detective. The director was Charles F. Haas. Richard Matheson and Lewis Meltzer are credited with the screenplay.

Plot
In the opening scene, a "beatnik" named Stan Hess (Ray Danton) sits at a table in a coffee house with a woman who begs him for his affection. He scorns her, then encounters his father at another table, who announces his engagement to a younger woman who had also pursued Stan. He insults his stepmother-to-be and departs. Hess is established as a woman-hating habitué of a stereotyped and sensationalized beatnik scene.

Soon after, we learn that Hess is a serial rapist at large in Los Angeles. His modus operandi is to gain entry to the home of a married woman whose husband is away by pretending to be there to repay money loaned by the husband. Once inside, he feigns a headache, pulls out a tin of aspirin, and asks the woman for water. While she is distracted by this errand, he sneaks up behinds her, and then assaults and rapes her. He leaves the tin of aspirin behind as his calling card, leading the police to call him "The Aspirin Kid." Leaving the scene of the first assault portrayed in the film, he is nearly hit by a car. The driver, who is a police detective named Culloran (Steve Cochran), gives him a lift, and the two engage in conversation. The rapist calls himself Arthur Garret, and as the two talk, he learns that Culloran is married, and sees his address on an envelope on the car seat. After getting out of Culloran's car, he writes down the name and address, and the word "married", foreshadowing his later rape of Culloran's wife.

Coincidentally, the case of 'The Aspirin Kid' is assigned to Culloran and his partner, Baron (Jackie Coogan). Culloran is a twice married man whose first marriage has made him suspicious of women. They have a suspect, a beatnik called Art Jester (James Mitchum) who fits a description of 'The Aspirin Kid' but his alibi checks out.

Hess/Garrett calls Culloran at the police station, and lures him to a rendezvous at a night club by promising to turn himself in. Instead of coming to the club, though, he goes to Culloran's home and attacks his wife, Francee (Fay Spain), also telling her his name is Arthur Garret. Culloran becomes obsessed with catching the rapist on his own without telling his colleagues that his wife has been raped. Francee later finds out she is pregnant. The possibility that the child may have been fathered by the rapist sows discord between the Cullorans, and stokes Detective Culloran's obsession with avenging the rape. The couple argue over their ambivalence about the child and Francee's desire to have an abortion, leading Francee to turn to Baron's wife first, and then Baron for advice.

Garrett persuades Jester to try to throw Culloran off the track by committing a similar attack on a woman named Georgia Altera (Mamie Van Doren) at a time when Garrett couldn't possibly be involved. But the cops know that Garrett is their man. Jester and Altera fall for each other.

At a party near the beach, the deranged Culloran attempts to capture Garrett. After an elaborate scuba-diving chase sequences, Culloran captures and beats up Garrett coming close to killing him before Baron intervenes. Culloran comes to his senses and returns to Francee, who gives birth.

Production
It was known during production as The Beat and the Naked Generation.

Richard Matheson, who had written The Incredible Shrinking Man for Zugsmith, said The Beat Generation was based on a true story "about a guy who would meet salesmen and talk to them on the road, learn all about their houses, where they were during the day, what they did; then he would go and attack the wives while the salesmen were still on the road. I wrote it as a police procedure film. It ended up . . . well, you know how. I remember a copy of the script, many drafts in, where Zugsmith had meticulously crossed off police everywhere and had written in fuzz. It turned into absolute nonsense."

Box office
According to MGM records the film earned $400,000 in the US and Canada and $350,000 elsewhere resulting in a loss of $113,000.

title: The Beat Generation (film)


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Talk:Emblem of Yemen

Untitled
what does them yemenis coat of arms mean?

title: Talk:Emblem of Yemen


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Identity of indiscernibles

The identity of indiscernibles is an ontological principle that states that there cannot be separate objects or entities that have all their properties in common. That is, entities x and y are identical if every predicate possessed by x is also possessed by y and vice versa. It states that no two distinct things (such as snowflakes) can be exactly alike, but this is intended as a metaphysical principle rather than one of natural science. A related principle is the indiscernibility of identicals, discussed below.

A form of the principle is attributed to the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. While some think that Leibniz's version of the principle is meant to be only the indiscernibility of identicals, others have interpreted it as the conjunction of the identity of indiscernibles and the indiscernibility of identicals (the converse principle). Because of its association with Leibniz, the indiscernibility of identicals is sometimes known as Leibniz's law. It is considered to be one of his great metaphysical principles, the other being the principle of noncontradiction and the principle of sufficient reason (famously used in his disputes with Newton and Clarke in the Leibniz–Clarke correspondence).

Some philosophers have decided, however, that it is important to exclude certain predicates (or purported predicates) from the principle in order to avoid either triviality or contradiction. An example (detailed below) is the predicate that denotes whether an object is equal to x (often considered a valid predicate). As a consequence, there are a few different versions of the principle in the philosophical literature, of varying logical strength—and some of them are termed "the strong principle" or "the weak principle" by particular authors, in order to distinguish between them.

The identity of indiscernibles has been used to motivate notions of noncontextuality within quantum mechanics.

Associated with this principle is also the question as to whether it is a logical principle, or merely an empirical principle.

Identity and indiscernibility
Both identity and indiscernibility are expressed by the word "same". Identity is about numerical sameness, and is expressed by the equality sign ("="). It is the relation each object bears only to itself. Indiscernibility, on the other hand, concerns qualitative sameness: two objects are indiscernible if they have all their properties in common. Formally, this can be expressed as "$$\forall F(Fx \leftrightarrow Fy)$$". The two senses of sameness are linked by two principles: the principle of indiscernibility of identicals and the principle of identity of indiscernibles. The principle of indiscernibility of identicals is uncontroversial and states that if two entities are identical with each other then they have the same properties. The principle of identity of indiscernibles, on the other hand, is more controversial in making the converse claim that if two entities have the same properties then they must be identical. This entails that "no two distinct things exactly resemble each other". Note that these are all second-order expressions. Neither of these principles can be expressed in first-order logic (are nonfirstorderizable). Taken together, they are sometimes referred to as Leibniz's law. Formally, the two principles can be expressed in the following way:

 * 1) The indiscernibility of identicals: $$\forall x \, \forall y \, [x=y \rightarrow \forall F(Fx \leftrightarrow Fy)]$$
 * For any $$x$$ and $$y$$, if $$x$$ is identical to $$y$$, then $$x$$ and $$y$$ have all the same properties.
 * 1) The identity of indiscernibles: $$\forall x \, \forall y \, [\forall F(Fx \leftrightarrow Fy) \rightarrow x=y]$$
 * For any $$x$$ and $$y$$, if $$x$$ and $$y$$ have all the same properties, then $$x$$ is identical to $$y$$.

Principle 1 is generally regarded as an a priori logical truth. Principle 2, on the other hand, is controversial; Max Black famously argued against it.

In a universe of two distinct objects A and B, all predicates F are materially equivalent to one of the following properties:
 * IsA, the property that holds of A but not of B;
 * IsB, the property that holds of B but not of A;
 * IsAorB, the property that holds of both A and B;
 * IsNotAorB, the property that holds of neither A nor B.

If ∀F applies to all such predicates, then the second principle as formulated above reduces trivially and uncontroversially to a logical tautology. In that case, the objects are distinguished by IsA, IsB, and all predicates that are materially equivalent to either of these. This argument can combinatorially be extended to universes containing any number of distinct objects.

The equality relation expressed by the sign "=" is an equivalence relation in being reflexive (everything is equal to itself), symmetric (if x is equal to y then y is equal to x) and transitive (if x is equal to y and y is equal to z then x is equal to z). The indiscernibility of identicals and identity of indiscernables can jointly be used to define the equality relation. The symmetry and transitivity of equality follow from the first principle, whereas reflexivity follows from the second. Both principles can be combined into a single axiom by using a biconditional operator ($$\leftrightarrow$$) in place of material implication ($$\rightarrow$$).

Indiscernibility and conceptions of properties
Indiscernibility is usually defined in terms of shared properties: two objects are indiscernible if they have all their properties in common. The plausibility and strength of the principle of identity of indiscernibles depend on the conception of properties used to define indiscernibility.

One important distinction in this regard is between pure and impure properties. Impure properties are properties that, unlike pure properties, involve reference to a particular substance in their definition. So, for example, being a wife is a pure property while being the wife of Socrates is an impure property due to the reference to the particular "Socrates". Sometimes, the terms qualitative and non-qualitative are used instead of pure and impure. Discernibility is usually defined in terms of pure properties only. The reason for this is that taking impure properties into consideration would result in the principle being trivially true since any entity has the impure property of being identical to itself, which it does not share with any other entity.

Another important distinction concerns the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic properties. A property is extrinsic to an object if having this property depends on other objects (with or without reference to particular objects), otherwise it is intrinsic. For example, the property of being an aunt is extrinsic while the property of having a mass of 60 kg is intrinsic. If the identity of indiscernibles is defined only in terms of intrinsic pure properties, one cannot regard two books lying on a table as distinct when they are intrinsically identical. But if extrinsic and impure properties are also taken into consideration, the same books become distinct so long as they are discernible through the latter properties.

Symmetric universe
Max Black has argued against the identity of indiscernibles by counterexample. Notice that to show that the identity of indiscernibles is false, it is sufficient that one provide a model in which there are two distinct (numerically nonidentical) things that have all the same properties. He claimed that in a symmetric universe wherein only two symmetrical spheres exist, the two spheres are two distinct objects even though they have all their properties in common.

Black argues that even relational properties (properties specifying distances between objects in space-time) fail to distinguish two identical objects in a symmetrical universe. Per his argument, two objects are, and will remain, equidistant from the universe's plane of symmetry and each other. Even bringing in an external observer to label the two spheres distinctly does not solve the problem, because it violates the symmetry of the universe.

Indiscernibility of identicals
As stated above, the principle of indiscernibility of identicals—that if two objects are in fact one and the same, they have all the same properties—is mostly uncontroversial. However, one famous application of the indiscernibility of identicals was by René Descartes in his Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes concluded that he could not doubt the existence of himself (the famous cogito argument), but that he could doubt the existence of his body.

This argument is criticized by some modern philosophers on the grounds that it allegedly derives a conclusion about what is true from a premise about what people know. What people know or believe about an entity, they argue, is not really a characteristic of that entity. A response may be that the argument in the Meditations on First Philosophy is that the inability of Descartes to doubt the existence of his mind is part of his mind's essence. One may then argue that identical things should have identical essences.

Numerous counterexamples are given to debunk Descartes' reasoning via reductio ad absurdum, such as the following argument based on a secret identity:

 * 1) Entities x and y are identical if and only if any predicate possessed by x is also possessed by y and vice versa.
 * 2) Clark Kent is Superman's secret identity; that is, they're the same person (identical) but people don't know this fact.
 * 3) Lois Lane thinks that Clark Kent cannot fly.
 * 4) Lois Lane thinks that Superman can fly.
 * 5) Therefore Superman has a property that Clark Kent does not have, namely that Lois Lane thinks that he can fly.
 * 6) Therefore, Superman is not identical to Clark Kent.
 * 7) Since in proposition 6 we come to a contradiction with proposition 2, we conclude that at least one of the premises is wrong. Either:
 * 8) * Leibniz's law is wrong; or
 * 9) * A person's knowledge about x is not a predicate of x; or
 * 10) * The application of Leibniz's law is erroneous; the law is only applicable in cases of monadic, not polyadic, properties; or
 * 11) * What people think about are not the actual objects themselves; or
 * 12) * A person is capable of holding conflicting beliefs.
 * Any of which will undermine Descartes' argument.

title: Identity of indiscernibles