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Ghost Rider

Ghost Rider is the name of multiple superheroes or antiheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Marvel had previously used the name for a Western character whose name was later changed to Phantom Rider.

The first supernatural Ghost Rider is stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze, who sold his soul, to save the life of his foster father, agrees to give his soul to "Satan" (later revealed to be an arch-demon named Mephisto). At night and when around evil, Blaze finds his flesh consumed by hellfire, causing his head to become a flaming skull. He rides a fiery motorcycle and wields blasts of hellfire from his body, usually from his skeletal hands. He eventually learns he has been bonded with the demon Zarathos. Blaze is featured in the series Ghost Rider (vol. 2) from 1972 to 1983.

The subsequent Ghost Rider series (1990–1998) features Danny Ketch as a new Ghost Rider. After his sister was injured by ninja gangsters, Ketch comes in contact with a motorcycle that contains the essence of a Spirit of Vengeance. Blaze reappears in this 1990s series as a supporting character, and it is later revealed that Danny and his sister were Johnny Blaze's long-lost siblings. In 2000s comics, Blaze succeeds Ketch, becoming Ghost Rider again. In 2014, Robbie Reyes becomes Ghost Rider as part of the Marvel NOW! initiative.

In May 2011, Ghost Rider placed 90th on IGN's "Top 100 Comic Book Heroes" list. Nicolas Cage starred as the Johnny Blaze incarnation of the character in the 2007 film Ghost Rider and its 2012 sequel, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Gabriel Luna and Tom McComas portray the Robbie Reyes and Johnny Blaze incarnations in the fourth season of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., with Henry Simmons and Clark Gregg portraying original incarnations Alphonso Mackenzie and Phil Coulson.

Johnny Blaze
Following the Western comics character who originally used the name, the first superhero Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze, debuted in Marvel Spotlight issue #5 (Aug. 1972), created by Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas, writer Gary Friedrich and artist Mike Ploog. He received his own series in 1973, with penciller Jim Mooney handling most of the first nine issues. Several different creative teams mixed-and-matched until penciller Don Perlin began a considerably long stint with issue #26, eventually joined by writer Michael Fleisher through issue #58. The series ran through issue #81 (June 1983). Blaze returned as Ghost Rider in a 2001 six-issue miniseries written by Devin Grayson; a second miniseries written by Garth Ennis in 2005, and an ongoing monthly series that began publication in July 2006. Johnny Blaze was the son of Naomi Blaze and Barton Blaze. Naomi was the previous Ghost Rider.

Danny Ketch
The next Ghost Rider, a young man named Daniel "Danny" Ketch (Johnny Blaze's long-lost younger brother), debuted in Ghost Rider (vol. 3) #1 (May 1990). This Ghost Rider was nearly identical to the previous, although his costume was now a black leather biker jacket with spiked shoulder-pads, grey leather pants, and a mystic chain he wore across his chest, which responded to his mental commands and served as his primary melee weapon. His new motorcycle resembled a futuristic machine and the front of it could lower to serve as a battering ram. Like the original Ghost Rider's bike, the wheels were composed of mystic hellfire. Unlike the relationship between the previous Ghost Rider and the demon with which he was bonded, Ketch and his demon — who in (vol. 3) #91 (Dec. 1997) is revealed to be Marvel's incarnation of the Angel of Death/Judgment — are cooperative with each other. At the close of the series with (vol. 3) #93 (Feb. 1998), Ketch apparently died. The following year, however, Peter Parker: Spider-Man #93 (July 1999) revealed Ketch was still alive. Nearly a decade later, Marvel published the long-completed final issue as Ghost Rider Finale (Jan. 2007), which reprints the last issue and the previously unpublished Ghost Rider (vol. 3) #94.

Alejandra Jones
During the 2011 storyline "Fear Itself", a Nicaraguan woman named Alejandra Jones becomes Ghost Rider through a ritual performed by a man named Adam. Though she demonstrates many previously unknown powers of the Ghost Rider entity, she is deprived of its full power when Johnny Blaze takes back most of this power in (Vol. 7) #9. She was killed by Carnage during the Absolute Carnage event.

Robbie Reyes
In 2014, a new character took on the Ghost Rider mantle: a Mexican-American resident of East Los Angeles named Roberto "Robbie" Reyes, who drives a black classic muscle car reminiscent of a modified 1969 Dodge Charger rather than a motorcycle. Robbie Reyes was created by writer/artist Felipe Smith and designed by Smith and artist Tradd Moore.

Michael Badilino
Michael Badilino, an ex-member of the New York City Police Department, is one-third of an "Organic Medallion of Power"; the other two are Ketch and Blaze (the Medallion itself was never explained in any true detail). He possesses powers more in line with those of the Zarathos version of Ghost Rider, although he also possesses the Penance Stare and his motorcycle seemed to share characteristics with the Noble Kale version. His appearance is distinguished by a deep purple skull, large fangs protruding from his upper jaw, and backswept curved horns on the top of his skull.

In his superhuman form, Badilino was called Vengeance, and originally attempted to kill the Ghost Rider, believing him to be Zarathos. Vengeance later became the ally of Ghost Rider and Johnny Blaze. Vengeance also took on the role of the Ghost Rider and even semi-seriously referred to himself by that name when confronted by Spider-Man shortly after the apparent death of Ghost Rider in battle with Zarathos and acolytes The Fallen. Vengeance killed himself, along with the villain Hellgate, by triggering a massive explosion through his Hellfire, the source of the mystical flames that encompass the bones of both Vengeance and Ghost Rider.

Vengeance reappears in the last four issues of Ghost Rider (vol. 3), involved in Blackheart's plans to kill Noble Kale. Vengeance aids the Ghost Rider in the ensuing battle, destroying Blackheart and ruling Hell during Ketch's absences.
 * An Ultimate Marvel incarnation of Vengeance exists as former biker turned Vice President of the United States Robert Blackthorne and was featured as a villain in Ultimate Avengers.

Kushala
In the 19th century, while her tribe was being attacked by the U.S. Army, Kushala's parents were killed and, in an act of rage, she prayed to her creator, but instead was possessed by a Spirit of Vengeance. Then she burnt everyone until all that remained were their spirits. After becoming possessed by the Spirit of Vengeance, Kushala traveled the world seeking out and studying different forms of magic in an attempt to cure herself. Her skills in the mystic arts eventually led to her becoming the Sorcerer Supreme of her era.

Powers and abilities
The Ghost Rider is a human who can transform into a skeletal superhuman wreathed in ethereal flame and given supernatural powers. The abnormal motorcycle he rides can travel faster than any conventional vehicle and perform impossible feats such as riding up a vertical surface, across water, and leaping across great distances that normal motorcycles cannot. The Ghost Riders are virtually indestructible and notoriously hard to injure by any conventional means, as bullets and knives usually pass through them without causing pain (knives are shown to melt while in their body). It is possible that they are genuinely immortal, as it is said that God created them and only God can destroy them. Despite being composed of bone and hellfire, the Ghost Riders possess formidable superhuman strength, enough to easily pick up a truck and hurl it across a road. It has been stated that Johnny Blaze as Ghost Rider can bench press around 25 tons (50,000 lbs) (or more as seen in World War Hulk). Each Ghost Rider entity also had abilities specific to him or her.

 * Johnny Blaze: Originally when Blaze transformed into Ghost Rider, his body changed but not the clothes he was wearing. In his new incarnation, this is different and his clothes take on a different appearance with a spiked leather jacket and chains. As Ghost Rider, he can cause his motorcycle to transform and surround itself with hellfire or he can create a new cycle from pure hellfire. He is also capable of projecting hellfire as a weapon. His hellfire "burns the soul" without leaving physical injuries on the victim and its effects have been seen as similar to the "Penance Stare." In his new incarnation, Blaze is now possibly the most powerful hero on Earth. During "World War Hulk", Doctor Strange said Ghost Rider might be as powerful as the "Green Scar" persona of Hulk and could possibly defeat him. During this series, Doctor Strange also states that Ghost Rider protects only the innocent, which none of the Illuminati are. In recent comics, Blaze's Ghost Rider has been given the "Penance Stare" and mystical chain, both of which were specific to the Danny Ketch Ghost Rider. Blaze also uses a shotgun and discovered that he can discharge hellfire from the weapon when he first encountered Ketch. Now, he also has new abilities including hellfire breath, the ability to produce chains from either his throat or chest, and the ability to travel between incorporeal realms.

 * Danny Ketch: When Ketch transformed into Ghost Rider, his clothes changed with him, taking on the appearance of a spiked leather jacket with chains with a dollar, gray leather pants, and spiked gloves and boots. Likewise, his motorcycle underwent a radical transformation, changing from a conventional one into a high-tech motorcycle (this transformation was not strictly limited to the motorcycle he was found in the cemetery with as he was once seen able to transform another cycle in "Ghost Rider/Wolverine/Punisher: Hearts of Darkness"). Along with flaming wheels that allow the bike to nearly fly across surfaces, the bike included a shield-like battering ram on the front. As the Ghost Rider, Ketch used a mystical chain which responded to his mental commands. It could grow in length, alter direction while in the air, stiffen into a staff or spear, and separate into several links which can strike like shrapnel and then return to their original form. Daniel's most famous power was the Penance Stare. By locking eyes with a target and mentally focusing, the Danny Ketch Ghost Rider was able to make the target experience all the pain they had ever inflicted on anyone else. However, some beings have shown resistance to this ability, such as Venom and Carnage as their alien symbiote "costumes" do not technically have eyes; and Madcap, who is so masochistic, he claims to enjoy the experience. In the 1994 Fantastic Four animated series, this ability was shown to be powerful enough to bring down the mighty Galactus, as Ghost Rider forced Galactus to feel the pain of all those who had died as a result of his feeding on their planets; as Ghost Rider put it, "A billion souls". This display of power, though, appeared to simply be a rewrite for the animated series, as the original storyline in Fantastic Four issue 243 has Doctor Strange casting a spell that causes all of the souls of those Galactus had killed by his feedings to be visited upon him at once. Originally, this incarnation of the Ghost Rider could only be summoned if Danny was present when "innocent blood was spilled" (an innocent simply being threatened was not enough), at which time Danny had to touch the gas cap of his motorcycle for the transformation process to occur. Later, he was able to summon the Ghost Rider without touching the gas cap but still needed to wait for innocent blood to be spilled. Later still, he was able to summon the Ghost Rider by willpower alone.

 * Robbie Reyes: The ghost of Eli Morrow that inhabits Robbie's body is not, according to Johnny Blaze, a true Spirit of Vengeance. Regardless, he gives Robbie several abilities similar to that of other Ghost Riders, including the power to manifest and control chains ending in thin knives or sickles. The black muscle car that Morrow's ghost initially inhabits is linked to Robbie's Ghost Rider form, allowing him to instantly teleport to and/or merge with the car. The car can also be driven remotely, and Robbie's Ghost Rider form can pass harmlessly through it, allowing it to drive into foes. The car's trunk, when opened, acts as a portal, allowing the Ghost Rider to transport anything, including people, to any location. Though it is initially unknown if Robbie's Ghost Rider form possesses the divine powers of his predecessors, he eventually displays the ability to use the Penance Stare during a battle with Star Brand. Eli is able to take full control of Robbie's body when the teen gives in to his negative emotions, signified by a pallid skin tone and both of his eyes turning orange. His Ghost Rider form also displays the ability to change into a more powerful and demonic form when Robbie is sufficiently angered. At the end of the fourth season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., to prevent the Darkhold from being used again, he slung his flaming chains in the same manner as a Sling Ring, allowing him to travel and take the book with him for safekeeping.

Naomi Kale
Naomi Kale is the mother of Johnny Blaze, Danny Ketch, and Barbara Ketch.

Noble Kale
Noble lived in the 18th century and grew up with his abusive father Pastor Kale and his younger brother Dante.

Noble fell in love with a black girl named Magdelena. But, because of the color of her skin and his father's strong religious views, the couple kept their love a secret from the world. They were forced to tell Pastor Kale when Magdelena bore Noble's child. Noble and Magdelena were then married.

Shortly after the marriage, Magdelena discovered Pastor Kale's dark secret; he was a servant of the dark lord Mephisto. To cover up Magdelena's findings, Pastor Kale accused her of witchcraft and had her burned at the stake. Knowing that his son, Noble, would object, he had him drugged, tortured and beaten in the church cellar.

Just before Magdelena died, she used a curse to summon demons that avenge wronged women. The demons were called "Furies" and they started killing the townspeople. Fearing death, Pastor Kale struck a deal with Mephisto. In return for his safety, Mephisto got Noble's soul. Mephisto realized that Noble was attached to a piece of the Medallion of Power and he activated the piece to transform Noble into the original "Spirit of Vengeance". When Ghost Rider had destroyed the Furies, Pastor offered him human flesh - Noble's son. Noble, in the guise of Ghost Rider, was unwilling to eat his own child and he killed himself.

When Mephisto later appeared to claim Noble's soul, Mephisto's brother, the archangel Uriel, appeared and demanded that the soul of Noble Kale be spared. No agreement could be reached, and therefore a compromise was made whereby Noble's soul could not be claimed by either realm; but instead, his soul would remain in the void until re-bonded with certain members of his family.

Noble Kale was also established as an ancestor of Jennifer Kale.

Ghost / The Rider
Due to the Celestial Progenitor presence influencing human evolution, in 1,000,000 B.C., certain humans became much more intelligent than others as well as able to speak a new language. However, they had to hide that gift from their brethren for fear of being ostracized. One day, a boy that was gifted with the ability to speak is approached by a mysterious stranger that also possessed that gift, only to witness the stranger transform into a beast and devour his entire tribe. The stranger allowed the boy to live and names him "Ghost" before telling him to challenge him when he is worthy. The boy was forced to survive on his own, though he does befriend a woolly mammoth. After almost dying in the harsh environment, he is approached by Mephisto in the form of a snake, who tells him to say its name. Ghost does that and is bonded with a Spirit of Vengeance; after which he imbued his newly acquired hellfire into the mammoth. Other humans had never seen someone ride an animal before and began referring to Ghost as "the Rider". The Rider continued his search and five years later, eventually caught up with the man who devoured his tribe. The man transformed once more, revealing himself to be the first Wendigo. During the fight, the Rider took the bones of the dead that the Wendigo had killed and used them to form a weapon; the earliest version of the Ghost Rider's signature chain. The Rider fought the Wendigo until finally it and the Rider's woolly mammoth tumbled over a cliff. Afterwards, Ghost was approached by Odin and Lady Phoenix to join the prehistoric version of the Avengers.

Upon imbuing his hellfire into another woolly mammoth, the Ghost Rider assisted the prehistoric Avengers (consisting of Agamotto, Odin, Lady Phoenix, and prehistoric versions of the Black Panther, Iron Fist, and Star Brand) in fighting an out of control Celestial called the Fallen; which resulted in his woolly mammoth getting killed in action. The Ghost Rider swore revenge and assisted his teammates in defeating the Fallen and sealing it away underground in what would become South Africa. The Ghost Rider later assisted the prehistoric Avengers in fighting the First Host.

Hellhawk
During the 11th century, a Native American chieftain from the Sioux nation named Hellhawk sported the powers of the Ghost Rider. He was part of Thor's Avengers of 1,000 A.D.

During the 17th century, Hellhawk developed a rivalry with Noble Kane. He was later killed by Narcosis to serve as a warning to Mephisto by Belasco to keep his Spirits of Vengeance out of Limbo.

The last stand of the Spirits of Vengeance
Seven riders show their flaming heads for the first time in this story arc by writer Jason Aaron and artist Tan Eng Huat. Daniel Ketch returns with a new mission: to collect the powers of all the Ghost Riders for the angel Zadkiel to prevent the corruption of the powers with their human hosts. Zadkiel has other motives he keeps to himself, for which he needs the powers of the riders to tear down the walls of New Jerusalem and wage war on the heavens.

Travis Parham
A version of Ghost Rider appeared in the miniseries Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears #1–6 (April–Sept. 2007) by writer Garth Ennis and artist Clayton Crain. Set during the American Civil War, it finds Confederate officer Travis Parham avenging the murders of his friend, an ex-slave named Caleb and Caleb's family. Parham meets a horse-riding Ghost Rider who seeks the same men. Eventually, Parham learns about the deaths instrumental in helping set forth the Spirit of Vengeance.

19th century Ghost Rider
During the 19th century, an unnamed Ghost Rider was active during the American frontier. He targeted anyone who killed Native American women and children or who cut off their scalps.

Deputy Kowalski
Deputy Kowalski was a normal cop in a small town until Ghost Rider rode in one day. It was then that Kowalski was kidnapped by a local cannibal who cut off his hand. Events transpired that led to Kowalski escaping and developing a wrath against the Ghost Rider. His attention was brought to the hellfire shotgun in possession of Badilino. After purchasing the gun—and discovering to Badilino's surprise that it will work for Kowalski—Kowalski was recruited by agents of Zadkiel and told to wait in the middle of the desert for the Ghost Rider. Johnny Blaze (as Ghost Rider) did arrive in hot pursuit of Danny Ketch (as a new incarnation of Ghost Rider). Kowalski did manage to get a shot in on Blaze. Although it was a minor setback Blaze resumed his pursuit of Ketch. Left in the desert Kowalski soon found himself transformed into the new Vengeance, sporting green flames and a hook for his right hand, after Ketch returned the powers of the Spirits of Vengeance to Earth.

With a thirst for revenge, Kowalski, as Vengeance, was recruited by Blackout as a member of Zadkiel's Ghost Rider Assassination League. Kowalski was partnered with The Orb and was to stop Blaze and Ketch from reaching a monastery which contained a gateway to Heaven. Kowalski was easily defeated by both Ghost Riders and was left as a pet with the monastery's Mother Superior.

Vengeance was later freed by the Shadow Council and joins the ninth incarnation of the Masters of Evil.

Supporting characters

 * Roxanne Simpson-Blaze: Deceased wife of Johnny Blaze, revived as Black Rose by Blackheart.

 * Caretaker: An immortal man and ally to Ketch, member of the Blood.

 * Craig "Crash" Simpson: Roxanne's father and owner of one of the country's most popular motorcycle expedition shows, "Crash Simpson's Daredevil Cycle Show". One of his star performers and friends was cyclist Barton Blaze.

 * Daniel: The youngest brother of Kazaan and Malachi, loyal to God.

 * Ruth: A murderous angel from Heaven tasked to hunt and captures the rogue fallen angel Kazann.

 * Witch Woman: An Arizonan Apache Indian woman named Linda Littletrees who made a deal with Mephisto.

 * Malachi: A brother of Kazann and angelic commander. He returned the Ghost Rider to the mortal plane after being trapped in Hell to hunt down Kazaan with his brother Daniel's help and to win favor with God.

 * Shriker: Jack D'Auria, an old friend of Danny Ketch and student of Yuri Watanabe who became an unrequited ally for Ketch against his foes.

 * Sister Sara: The granddaughter of the Caretaker.

 * Mary Le Bow: A Brooklyn paranormal investigator who has unrequited love for Danny.

 * Uri-El: An angel of Heaven who is called the "bane of all demons".

 * Gabriel Reyes: The handicapped brother of Robbie who helped raise him after their mother Juliana's death.

 * Barbara Ketch: Sister of Danny and Johnny, daughter of Barton Blaze. Her death inspired Danny to become Ghost Rider.

 * Barton Blaze: The late father of Johnny Blaze and a friend of Crash.

 * Stacy Dolan: Childhood friend and love interest of Danny and Jack D'Auria, daughter of NYPD Captain Arthur.

 * Talia Warroad: A young goth agent who appeared as a new ally of Johnny and eventually became his lover.

Enemies

 * Aqueduct (formerly Water Wizard): A former soldier who gained the power to control water and was hired to kill Ghost Rider. He became a frequent opponent to the hero afterwards.
 * Black Rose: Johnny Blaze's wife Roxanne Simpson-Blaze, who was revived as a servant for Blackheart and later married Ghost Rider Noble Kale.
 * Blackheart: Mephisto's son, Blackheart, created a group of Spirits of Vengeance to battle Ghost Rider in the hopes of conquering Hell. Instead, Ghost Rider Noble Kale defeats him and takes over his portion of Hell. He is the main antagonist in the 2007 film Ghost Rider.
 * Blackout: A Lilin who worked under Deathwatch that frequently crossed swords with Ghost Rider. After the hero burned him to disfigurement, Blackout learned his secret identity and began killing his loved ones and acquaintances. Blackout appears as a henchman of Mephisto in the 2012 film Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.
 * Centurious the Soulless Man: A servant of Mephisto who sought to battle Zarathos, Centurious was the head of the Firm and targeted Ghost Rider for his association with the demon.
 * Deacon: An agent of Zadkiel given immense power to destroy Ghost Rider.
 * Deathwatch: Daniel Ketch's archenemy. A Translord from an unknown demonic dimension posing as a crime boss in New York in an attempt to murder its residents. He later died at the hands of Ghost Rider, then was resurrected as a servant for Centurious.
 * Doghead: Francisco Fuentes was an acquaintance of Danny Ketch who was murdered while walking his dog Chupi. He was resurrected by Blackheart, merged with Chupi, and became his servant.
 * Death Ninja: An agent of Centurious who infiltrated Deathwatch's ranks and frequently battled Ghost Rider.
 * Dormammu: A Faltine from another dimension who battles Ghost Rider in videogames.
 * Exhaust: A parasite that transformed into an evil version of Ghost Rider.
 * Hag and Troll: Demons under Deathwatch; they were his most loyal servants.
 * Hoss: A demon tracker. Became an ally of the Ghost Rider in search of the angel Malachi, and known for driving a red Cadillac.
 * Kid Blackheart: The future Antichrist who hoped to enter Heaven and destroy it.
 * Lilith the Mother of All Demons: An ancient immortal sorceress from Atlantis, Lilith gave birth to the Lilin over the centuries and was imprisoned until recently. Upon her freedom, she discovered many of her kind had been murdered by the Spirits of Vengeance and sought their demise. Her four most loyal children are Pilgrim, Nakota, Meatmarket, and Blackout.
 * Lucifer: Lucifer, like the other Hell-lords, sought to remove the human component from the Ghost Rider in the hope it would become a mindless killing machine that would eliminate humanity. However, Ghost Rider proved too strong and Lucifer was exiled to Perdition. Later, Lucifer would be the demon-lord charged with torturing Zadkiel for all eternity.
 * Madcap: A lunatic cursed with immortality and enhanced healing capabilities, Madcap has fought several of New York's heroes, with Ghost Rider one of his more frequent opponents.
 * Manticore: A manticore-themed supervillain with prosthetic legs.
 * Mephisto: Johnny Blaze's archenemy. A demon who posed as the devil to claim Johnny Blaze's soul. Mephisto is the one responsible for bringing Ghost Rider into Johnny's life. Ghost Rider, however, is able to resist the evil that overcame him long ago, and is now able to use his powers for good no matter what. Angered, Mephisto sought revenge against Ghost Rider, and now constantly tries to win his creation back. Mephisto appears under the name Mephistopheles in the 2007 film Ghost Rider.
 * Orb: Crash Simpson's (mentor to Johnny Blaze) partner in his traveling motorcycle stunt show, Drake Shannon lost most of his face in a challenge against Crash for the business. Given an eyeball-like helmet by They Who Wield Power that was able to hypnotize others, he returned to try and reclaim the stunt show, but was foiled by Ghost Rider. He would return as one of Ghost Rider's most frequent enemies.
 * Scarecrow: A contortionist, Ebenezer Laughton decided to use his gifts as a thief. In time, he would turn to murder, eventually being brought into conflict with Ghost Rider and nearly killed from the encounter. The Firm turned him into an undead creature, bearing superhuman abilities and able to induce fear in others (whose fear could heal his wounds), setting him upon the Spirit of Vengeance again (and becoming a frequent foe).
 * Steel Vengeance: Steel Wind's sister, Sadae Tsumura gave her soul to Centurious to save her sister after an encounter with Ghost Rider left her comatose. Sadae was turned into Steel Vengeance, a cyborg bent on killing Ghost Rider.
 * Steel Wind: Following a freak explosion, Ruriko Tsumura was remade as a cyborg by Freakmaster and challenged Johnny Blaze at the Quentin Carnival in cycling, defeating him and earning a place amongst them. However, she ran the business into the ground and battled Ghost Rider, leaving her comatose. She was rehabilitated by Centurious and used as his agent. In time, she would, instead, become Ghost Rider's ally.
 * Vengeance: A Spirit of Vengeance, Lt. Michael Badilino sold his soul to Mephisto to gain the power to destroy Ghost Rider (who he blamed for the death of his family). When he learned it was instead Zarathos, he became Ghost Rider's ally.
 * Zadkiel: A renegade archangel who sought to usurp Heaven due to his hatred for God's admiration of humanity. Using Ghost Rider to kill other Spirits of Vengeance to empower himself, Zadkiel took the throne and cast out Ghost Rider. The hero would return with the dead Spirits of Vengeance to defeat Zadkiel and imprison him in Hell for all eternity.
 * Zarathos: A demon bound to Johnny Blaze by Mephisto to become the Ghost Rider. He would, however, come to exert control over the entity, but ultimately would be separated from Blaze in the conflict against Centurious. He later renewed his alliance with Lilith.

Cosmic Ghost Rider
In an alternate reality where Thanos conquered all the universe, Frank Castle's early life was seemingly similar to that of the Frank Castle of Earth-616. However, when Thanos came to Earth, the Punisher was one of the last casualties during the last stand of the heroes and his soul was subsequently sent to Hell. Willing to give anything to punish Thanos for slaughtering his planet, the Punisher signed a demonic deal with Mephisto and became the Ghost Rider. When he returned to Earth, however, Thanos was already gone and everything on the planet was dead. Roaming endlessly and undying with no one to kill or love, the Ghost Rider spent the next countless years alone. He eventually began to lose his mind when even Mephisto fell silent to his calls. When a badly injured Galactus arrived on Earth seeking help against Thanos, unaware that the population of Earth had already been killed by him, the Ghost Rider offered the dead planet to him in exchange for the chance of punishing the Mad Titan as his herald, which the Devourer of Worlds accepted. Bestowed with the Power Cosmic, Ghost Rider became Cosmic Ghost Rider.

Ghost Rider 2099

Zero Cochrane, who in the Marvel 2099 alternate timeline is a cybernetic take on the Spirit of Vengeance, is not a supernatural being, but a cybernetic being with a digitized copy of Cochrane's mind. He encounters a futuristic counterpoint to Michael Badilino's Vengeance. The Ghost Rider of 2099 appears to drop out of existence during the consolidation of the 2099 books into a single title called 2099 World of Tomorrow. He subsequently appears in the 2099 "epilogue" book Manifest Destiny, arguing with the AI that empowers him.

Infinity Warps
In Infinity Warps, Ghost Rider is fused with Black Panther. Prince of Wakanda T'Challa was an arrogant boy who, because of his conflict with his father, was exiled from his place. He went to America where he found Jericho Simpson (fusion of Brother Voodoo and Crash Simpson) who became his new father figure and gave T'Challa a new name as Johnny Blaze. During a stunt performance, he sensed his father T'Chaka dying and got distracted which resulted in his own death. He was then revived by Zarathos, half-sister of Bast and offered to him powers in exchange of eating the souls of sinners. At first, he was reluctant. When battling his father's killers, he accepted the offer and became Ghost Panther and battled Erik Killraven (fusion of Erik Killmonger and Killraven) while riding a burning black panther.

Marvel Zombies: Dead Days
Ghost Rider is seen in Marvel Zombies: Dead Days #1 (May 2007) as one of the uninfected; he then appears briefly in "Marvel Zombies" at the point in which the zombie heroes of New York are making their assault on the Silver Surfer. He later appears in Marvel Zombies 3 as an infected while chasing Machine Man and is then easily decapitated.

Old Man Logan
During the original "Old Man Logan" story arc that took place on Earth-807128, there is a scavenging biker gang called the Ghost Riders where they ride their versions of the Hell-Cycle. They attacked Logan and nearly beat him before they were killed by Hawkeye. Logan later fought some Ghost Riders and killed several of them, as one of them had their arm eaten by Bruce Banner Jr.

Otto Blaze
During the "Devil's Reign" storyline, Doctor Octopus went into the Multiverse and started forming his Superior Four. One of them is a Ghost Rider who has chains for tentacles. He is an alternate version of Doctor Octopus from Earth-1666 whose father Torbert Blaze trained him to have his motorcycle jump through a fiery hoop.

Spider-Gwen
In the Spider-Gwen universe (Earth-65), there evidently is a version of Ghost Rider whom that universe's Betty Brant dresses as for Halloween.

Spirit of Vengeance
This version of Ghost Rider, known as the Spirit of Vengeance, debuted in Guardians of the Galaxy, set in an alternate future of the Marvel Universe. He has the ability to traverse space and fire spike projectiles from his forearms. This Ghost Rider is a religious zealot, embittered toward a church (a version of the Universal Church of Truth) proclaiming it would produce its god in the flesh. That being, the Protege, is destroyed by the Celestial Scathan the Approver. This Ghost Rider refers to himself simply as the Spirit of Vengeance, although his real name is given as Autolycus, from the planet Sarka. After answering a distress call from Firelord, the Guardians of the Galaxy help a planet in peril, this Ghost Rider eventually helps to destroy the threat. The Spirit of Vengeance joins several other powerful beings including Martinex, Hollywood, Replica, Firelord, Phoenix IX and Mainframe. The heroes, rallied by Martinex, stay together as the new Galactic Guardians.

The "Perfect" World
On Earth-11638, this version of Spider-Man is called the Amazing Spider who is rich, powerful, and popular where none of his loved ones has died. Peter runs Parker Technologies and his Uncle Ben spurs him to be the best. Upon inventing a portal technology, he unknowingly brought Earth-616's Spider-Man, Deadpool, and Hulk to Earth-11638. During a scuffle with Spider-Man in the Amazing Spider's lair called the Web, Uncle Ben was about to plug Spider-Man into the machine. The Amazing Spider was caught between the machine and was placed in a comatose state. While in a coma, the Amazing Spider's soul arrived in Hell where Bruce Banner's Sorcerer Supreme counterpart died fighting the Infernal Hulk. Though Bruce's astral form stayed alive and helped return the Amazing Spider to life with the souls of the repentant damned which gave him a second chance to live. When he awoke, he found himself transformed into a new character called the Ghost Spider. To make amends with Spider-Man, Ghost Spider transported him, Deadpool, and Hulk back to Earth-616.

Ultimate Marvel
In the Ultimate Marvel Universe, Ghost Rider made his debut in Ultimate Comics: Avengers (vol. 2) #2. Ultimate Ghost Rider's origin is explained in Ultimate Comics: Avengers (vol. 2) #4. One day while on a cross-country trip across the United States, twenty-something couple Johnny Blaze and Roxanne Simpson come across a bar where they befriend a biker gang, who ply them with beer. The gang's friendly demeanor is a ruse, as they kill the intoxicated Blaze as part of a Satanic ritual. During the ritual, they barter their souls with Satan in exchange for wealth and power. Satan grants their request, but maintains the upper hand. The deceased Blaze also makes a deal that Satan will get his soul in exchange for the assured safety of Roxanne. For 20 years, Blaze trains to become the Ghost Rider, burning away his Christian baptism, and is sent into the world to get his revenge. He tracks down and kills the members of the motorcycle gang — now rich and in positions of power – individually. In response to these deaths, the White House issues an executive order kill the Ghost Rider. The Avengers are recruited for the mission with no knowledge of the Ghost Rider except that he is 7 ft tall and has the strength of Thor. When the Avengers are unsuccessful in stopping the Ghost Rider from killing his next target, the truth behind the Ghost Rider's selection of targets is learned, and the Vice President of the United States, Robert R. Blackthorne is revealed to be the former leader of the motorcycle gang, who sold his soul to become a Ghost Rider, a.k.a. "Vengeance", into which Blackthorne now transforms. During their confrontation, the Ghost Rider drags Vengeance into a church which turns them both back into human form, allowing the Punisher to finish off the whimpering Blackthorne. After pleading his case, Blaze is allowed to leave. He is later seen in a park with Satan watching Roxanne, who was brought back to life with no memory of what happened. Satan agrees to let her live her life if Blaze continues to be his Ghost Rider, to which Blaze agrees.

What If?
In the second volume of the series in issue #45 that asks "What If Barbara Ketch Became Ghost Rider", Daniel Ketch's sister Barbara becomes the Ghost Rider after Danny is killed in the graveyard. In this version, Barbara is more vicious and ruthless as Ghost Rider. Eventually, Doctor Strange and Spider-Man team up to try to stop her with the help of Johnny Blaze.

Television

 * The Danny Ketch incarnation of Ghost Rider makes a non-speaking cameo appearance in the X-Men: The Animated Series season one finale "The Final Decision".
 * The Danny Ketch incarnation of Ghost Rider appears in the Fantastic Four episode "When Calls Galactus", voiced by Richard Grieco.
 * The Danny Ketch incarnation of Ghost Rider appears in The Incredible Hulk, voiced again by Richard Grieco.
 * Ghost Rider was going to appear in The Spectacular Spider-Man. However, after Disney bought Marvel Entertainment, Sony chose to return Spider-Man's TV rights to Marvel, cancelling the series.
 * The Robbie Reyes and Johnny Blaze incarnations of Ghost Rider appear in the fourth season of the Marvel Cinematic Universe series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., portrayed by Gabriel Luna and stand-in stunt actor Tom McComas, respectively. This version of Reyes is empowered by the Spirit of Vengeance, which Blaze gave to him in the episode "The Good Samaritan". While Blaze is not named explicitly in the episode, series star Clark Gregg confirmed the character's identity via his Twitter account. Additionally, in the episodes "Deals with Our Devils" and "World's End", the Spirit of Vengeance leaves Reyes and temporarily inhabits S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie (portrayed by Henry Simmons) and Phil Coulson (portrayed by Gregg) respectively, turning them into Ghost Riders in the process.
 * In October 2016, Luna discussed that there were plans for Reyes to feature in his own television series following his introduction in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. In later interviews, the actor stated he hoped Norman Reedus would portray Johnny Blaze in the MCU. On May 1, 2019, it was announced that a television series based on Reyes's incarnation of Ghost Rider would have premiered on Hulu in 2020, with Luna reprising his role. However, Hulu decided not to move forward with the series in September 2019.
 * An army of unidentified Ghost Riders appear in the Avengers Assemble episode "The Wastelands" as servants of the Beyonder and Ares.
 * The Johnny Blaze incarnation of Ghost Rider appears in the Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. episode "Spirit of Vengeance", voiced by Fred Tatasciore.

Film

 * The Johnny Blaze incarnation of Ghost Rider appears in a self-titled film, portrayed by Nicolas Cage as an adult and Matt Long as a teenager.
 * The Johnny Blaze incarnation of Ghost Rider appears in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, portrayed again by Nicolas Cage.
 * In May 2013, the film rights to Ghost Rider reverted from Sony Pictures to Marvel Studios, who confirmed that there were no plans to produce another film featuring the character in the immediate future.

Video games

 * The Danny Ketch incarnation of Ghost Rider was going to appear in a self-titled video game by Crystal Dynamics as a 1997 release on the PlayStation until it was cancelled.
 * The Johnny Blaze incarnation of Ghost Rider appears as a playable character in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, voiced by Nolan North.
 * The Johnny Blaze incarnation of Ghost Rider appears in a self-titled video game, voiced by Dave Fouquette.
 * The Johnny Blaze incarnation of Ghost Rider in LittleBigPlanet via the "Marvel Costume Kit 2" DLC.
 * The Johnny Blaze incarnation of Ghost Rider appears in Dante's ending in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds. He also appears as a playable character in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, voiced by Richard Grieco.
 * The Johnny Blaze incarnation of Ghost Rider appears as a playable character in Marvel: Avengers Alliance, voiced by Nolan North.
 * The Johnny Blaze incarnation of Ghost Rider appears as a playable character in Lego Marvel Super Heroes, voiced by Andrew Kishino.
 * The Johnny Blaze incarnation of Ghost Rider appears as a playable character in Marvel Heroes, voiced again by Andrew Kishino. Robbie Reyes also appears as a "Team Up" character in the Marvel Heroes 2016 rebranding.
 * An unidentified Ghost Rider appears in Disney Infinity 2.0.
 * An unidentified Ghost Rider appears in Disney Infinity 3.0.
 * The Robbie Reyes incarnation of Ghost Rider appears as a playable character in Marvel Avengers Academy.
 * The Johnny Blaze incarnation of Ghost Rider appears as a playable character in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, voiced by Fred Tatasciore.
 * An unidentified Ghost Rider appears as a playable character in Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2, voiced by David Menkin.
 * The Johnny Blaze and Robbie Reyes incarnations of Ghost Rider appear as separate playable characters in Marvel Puzzle Quest. Additionally, an original version of the character, Deadpool, who drives a taco truck, also appears.
 * The Johnny Blaze incarnation of Ghost Rider appears as a playable character in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, voiced again by Fred Tatasciore.
 * The Johnny Blaze incarnation of Ghost Rider appears as a playable character in Marvel Strike Force.
 * The Johnny Blaze incarnation of Ghost Rider appears as a purchasable outfit in Fortnite Battle Royale.
 * The Robbie Reyes incarnation of Ghost Rider appears as a playable character in Marvel's Midnight Suns, voiced by Giancarlo Sabogal and Darin De Paul respectively. Additionally, Johnny Blaze appears as a supporting character, voiced by Graham McTavish.

Collected editions

 * The New Fantastic Four: Monsters Unleashed (features a "new" Fantastic Four consisting of the Ghost Rider, the Hulk, Wolverine and Spider-Man) (trade paperback, 1992; reprints Fantastic Four #347–349)
 * Essential Ghost Rider Vol. 1 (trade paperback, 2005; reprints Marvel Spotlight #5–12, Ghost Rider (vol. 2) #1–20 and Daredevil #138)
 * Essential Ghost Rider Vol. 2 (trade paperback, 2007; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 2) #21–50)
 * Essential Ghost Rider Vol. 3 (trade paperback, 2009; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 2) #51–65, Avengers #214 and Marvel Two-in-One #80)
 * Essential Ghost Rider Vol. 4 (trade paperback, 2010; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 2) #66–81, Amazing Spider-Man #274 and New Defenders #145–146)
 * Ghost Rider Team-Up (trade paperback, 2007; reprints Marvel Team-Up #91, Marvel Two-in-One #80, Marvel Premiere #28, Avengers #214 and Ghost Rider (vol. 2) #27 and 50)
 * Champions Classic Vol. 1 (trade paperback; reprints Champions #1–11)
 * Champions Classic Vol. 2 (trade paperback; reprints Champions #12–17, Iron Man Annual #4, Avengers #163, Super-Villain Team-Up #14, and Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (vol. 2) #17–18)
 * Ghost Rider: Resurrected (trade paperback, 1991; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 3) #1–7)
 * Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch Classic Vol. 1 (trade paperback, 2009; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 3) #1–10)
 * Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch Classic Vol. 2 (trade paperback, 2010; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 3) #11–20 and Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme #28)
 * X-Men & Ghost Rider: Brood Trouble in the Big Easy (trade paperback; 1993; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 3) #26–27 and X-Men #8–9)
 * Wolverine and Ghost Rider in Acts of Vengeance (reprints Marvel Comics Presents #64–70)
 * Rise of the Midnight Sons (trade paperback, 1992; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 3) #28 and 31; Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance #1-6, Morbius the Living Vampire #1, Darkhold: Pages from the Book of Sins #1, Nightstalkers #1 and Web of Spider-Man #95–96)
 * Spirits of Venom (trade paperback, 1993; reprints Web of Spider-Man #95–96 and Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance #5–6)
 * Ghost Rider: The Hammer Lane (trade paperback, 2002; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 4) #1–6)
 * Ghost Rider: Road to Damnation (hardcover, 2007; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 5) #1–6)
 * Ghost Rider: Road to Damnation (trade paperback, 2007; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 5) #1–6)
 * Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears (hardcover, 2008; reprints Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears #1–6)
 * Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears (trade paperback, 2008; reprints Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears #1–6)
 * Ghost Rider Vol. 1: Vicious Cycle (trade paperback, 2007; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 6) #1–5)
 * Ghost Rider Vol. 2: The Life and Death of Johnny Blaze (trade paperback, 2007; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 6) #6–11)
 * Ghost Rider Vol. 3: Apocalypse Soon (trade paperback, 2008; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 6) #12–13 and Annual #1)
 * Ghost Rider Vol. 4: Revelations (trade paperback, 2008; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 6) #14–19)
 * Ghost Rider Vol. 5: Hell Bent and Heaven Bound (trade paperback, 2008; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 6) #20–25)
 * Ghost Rider Vol. 6: The Last Stand (trade paperback, 2009; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 6) #26–32)
 * Ghost Rider Vol. 7: Trials and Tribulations (trade paperback, 2009; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 6) #33–35 and Annual #2)
 * Ghost Riders: Heaven's on Fire (trade paperback, 2009–2010; reprints Ghost Riders: Heaven's on Fire #1–6)
 * Ghost Rider: Ultimate Collection by Daniel Way (trade paperback, 2012; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 6) #1–19)
 * Ghost Rider Omnibus by Jason Aaron (hardcover, 2010; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 6) #20–35, Annual #2 and Ghost Riders: Heaven's on Fire #1–6)
 * Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch – Addict (Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch #1–5 and Ghost Rider Finale)
 * Fear Itself: Ghost Rider (trade paperback, Ghost Rider (vol. 7) #0.1 and 1–5)
 * Ghost Rider: The Complete Series by Rob Williams (trade paperback, Ghost Rider (vol. 7) #0.1 and 1–9)
 * All-New Ghost Rider: Engines of Vengeance (trade paperback, 2014; reprints All-New Ghost Rider #1-5)
 * All-New Ghost Rider: Legend (trade paperback, 2015; reprints All-New Ghost Rider #6-12)
 * Ghost Rider: Four on the Floor (trade paperback, 2017; reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 8) #1-6)
 * Ghost Rider: King of Hell (trade paperback, 2019, reprints Ghost Rider (vol. 9) #1-4 and Absolute Carnage: Symbiote of Vengeance #1)
 * Ghost Rider: Hearts of Darkness II (trade paperback, 2019, reprints Spirits of Ghost Rider: Mother of Demons #1, Ghost Rider (vol. 9) #5-7 and Ghost Rider 2099 (vol. 2) #1)

title: Ghost Rider


text:
Steinefrenz

Steinefrenz is an Ortsgemeinde – a community belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde – in the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

Steinefrenz is located in the administrative district Westerwaldkreis and has a population of 803 people (Dec. 2020).

Geography
The community is located within the Westerwald, between Montabaur and Limburg an der Lahn and 25 km away from Koblenz. It is associated to the Verbandsgemeinde of Wallmerod an association of municipalities having its seat in the same-named town.

History
In 959 Steinefrenz had its first documentary mention as Brencede.

Politics
The municipal council is made up of 12 council members who are elected for a period of four years in a majority vote in a municipal election.

Economy and infrastructure
East of the community runs Bundesstraße 8, linking Limburg an der Lahn and Hennef. The nearest Autobahn interchange is Diez on the A 3 (Cologne–Frankfurt), some 7 km away. The nearest InterCityExpress stops are Montabaur station and Limburg Süd station on the Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed rail line. It has a station on the Lower Westerwald Railway Unterwesterwaldbahn from Limburg to Siershahn.

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

title: Steinefrenz


text:
Category:Gender

Gender discusses the social aspects of womanhood and manhood, as opposed to biological sex.

title: Category:Gender


text:
Julia Hartley-Brewer

Julia Hartley-Brewer is a conservative British radio presenter, political journalist, and newspaper columnist. She has hosted a radio show on Talkradio simulcast on Talk called Julia Hartley-Brewer on weekdays from 10am.

Early life and education
Julia Hartley-Brewer is the daughter of Michael John Hartley-Brewer, who unsuccessfully stood as the Labour Party's candidate in Selly Oak in the 1970 general election, and general practitioner Valerie Forbes Hartley-Brewer. Her parents divorced, and her mother trained as a GP while bringing up two children.

Hartley-Brewer was educated at the Oldfield Girls' Comprehensive School in Bath Later, Hartley-Brewer studied at Woodhouse Sixth Form College in Finchley, North London. She gained a degree in philosophy, politics and economics at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1988.

She later studied for a diploma in journalism at Cardiff University's School of Journalism.

Career
Hartley-Brewer began her career in journalism at the East London Advertiser in Bethnal Green, east London. Later, she was employed as a news reporter and political correspondent for the London Evening Standard and then joined The Guardian, staying at the latter until September 2000. She then moved to the Sunday Express as political correspondent, then political editor from 2001 until 2007 and then assistant editor (politics). She left the Sunday Express in February 2011.

In 2006, she presented and narrated two political documentaries for the television channels BBC Two and BBC Four about the history of British Deputy Prime Ministers, called Every Prime Minister Needs a Willie, and the history of the Leader of the Opposition in The Worst Job in Politics.

She was an LBC presenter from February 2011, until she left in December 2014 to be replaced by Shelagh Fogarty.

Hartley-Brewer broadcast on Talkradio, a radio station owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. She presented the mid-morning weekday show from March 2016 until 15 January 2018, when she moved to host the weekday breakfast show from 6.30am to 10am.

In September 2019, The Julia Hartley-Brewer Show was launched on YouTube under the Talkradio brand; each programme is a one-to-one interview with a guest. The show became a daily simulcast as part of the daily schedule of TalkTV that began broadcasting in April 2022.

In 2022, Hartley-Brewer referred to environmental activist Greta Thunberg's autism in a tweet, following Thunberg's criticism of internet personality Andrew Tate. The tweet was posted again without mentioning autism. Hartley-Brewer also stated in both the original and re-posted tweet that she would "choose Andrew Tate's life *every single time*" over Thunberg's. This was widely commented on online when, a day after the tweet, Tate was arrested on suspicion of human trafficking, rape, and forming an organised crime group.

She has written opinion articles and columns for publications such as The Daily Telegraph, The Mail on Sunday, and The Spectator about politics and current affairs.

Public appearances
She has appeared as a panellist on the comedy quiz show Have I Got News for You ten times, as well as being a regular panellist on BBC One's Question Time and Radio 4's Any Questions. She is a regular pundit and commentator on TV and radio, including for Sky News, the BBC News Channel, BBC One's The One Show, ITV's Tonight show, Lorraine on ITV, This Morning on ITV, The Agenda on ITV, Sunday Politics on BBC1, BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio 4's Today and PM programmes.

She was a contestant on Pointless Celebrities in October 2014, winning the prize for her chosen charity.

Views
Hartley-Brewer was a long-standing supporter of Brexit during the campaign in 2016. On 29 March 2019, Hartley-Brewer spoke at the Leave Means Leave rally in Parliament Square, London.

She has declared that she is an atheist. In 2010, she described herself as a "staunch and long-standing republican". She is an honorary associate of the National Secular Society.

Discussing the climate crisis, she said that those who believe in an imminent climate catastrophe are "part of a doomsday cult," and described Extinction Rebellion as "a sort of quasi-religious death cult." She also stated that climate models "so far have failed to predict anything correctly" and that the science of climate change is "an as-yet unproven theory" and therefore open to challenge, "which is standard practice in science."

At the Oxford University PPE Society on 20 November 2018, Hartley-Brewer gave a talk on "Political Correctness and Free Speech", in which she argued that political correctness damaged the ability to freely express political views.

Hartley-Brewer has been referred to as "right-wing" by Nick Duffy writing for PinkNews. Duffy reported that on 30 November 2018 Hartley-Brewer threatened to remove a guest from the Talkradio studio where she works as a presenter during a discussion on trans issues because the guest used the term "cis." A later article in 2021 for PinkNews by Lily Wakefield referred to Hartley-Brewer as having "openly voiced her anti-trans views" in reference to the article by Duffy.

The Royal College of General Practitioners invited her to speak in an "NHS Question Time" panel debate at its annual conference in 2019 but withdrew the invitation after over 700 GPs signed a petition complaining that her views were not conducive to the work they were doing to promote inclusivity within the profession and among patients. One of such views involved a deleted Tweet from 2016, in which Hartley-Brewer said "Powell wasn't a racist". On Enoch Powell, she said "I'm not defending Powell, I just don't see anything in the Rivers speech that he got wrong.".

In April 2021, Ofcom received over 200 complaints accusing Hartley-Brewer of trivialising racism following a TV appearance in which Hartley-Brewer commented on a family portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip taken in 2018, posing with seven of their great-grandchildren, saying "I wonder if Meghan has managed to take offence to this photograph that doesn't include her son. Well she probably thinks it's a racist photograph, taken before her son was even conceived". (Prince Archie, the son of Meghan and Prince Harry, was born in 2019).

Controversies
In June 2016, Hartley-Brewer said Owen Jones had "more in common with ISIS than he thinks" on Sky News after Jones walked out of an interview on the news channel following host Mark Longhurst's refusal to refer to the Orlando nightclub shooting as an assault on LGBT people. Hartley-Brewer also said, "neither the Sky presenter Mark Longhurst nor I said anything that was offensive, wrong or bigoted in any way" and that she would not apologise to Jones. By lunchtime of the following day of the interview and the comments by Hartley-Brewer, Ofcom had received nearly 60 complaints about the programme from viewers who said both Hartley-Brewer and Longhurst were dismissive of Jones's argument that the attack was one on the LGBT community.

In October 2017, Hartley-Brewer alleged that the then Defence Secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, had repeatedly touched her knee throughout a dinner in 2002; the allegation contributed to his eventual resignation.

On 12 August 2018, she sent a tweet containing a photo of the aftermath of the 1998 Omagh bombing with text saying that Jeremy Corbyn had paid tribute to the victims of the bombing, "including the Real IRA bombers who may have snagged a nail while planting the explosives". The tweet was criticised as insensitive by Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan was killed by the bomb. He said that while he wouldn't have "much faith" in Corbyn, her tweet was "poorly timed". Writer Lisa McGee and journalist David Blevins criticised the use of the photo. She defended her tweet as satire.

In late 2019, Jolyon Maugham accused Hartley-Brewer of revealing his home address at a time when he was receiving death threats. Hartley-Brewer defended herself by saying Maugham's address was already easily available online and that he had previously revealed it himself in published interviews.

On 14 April 2024, in the wake of the 2024 Bondi Junction stabbings in Sydney, Australia, before the suspect had been identified, Hartley-Brewer tweeted "Another day. Another terror attack by another Islamic terrorist". The press later condemned this and other misinformation that had been spread about the attacker, and she deleted her tweet after it had been viewed more than nine million times. The attacker Joel Cauchi was not Muslim.

Personal life and other activities
Hartley-Brewer married Rob Walton in 2006. They have one daughter.

She is an ambassador for Miscarriage Association.

title: Julia Hartley-Brewer


text:
Sierpiński curve

Sierpiński curves are a recursively defined sequence of continuous closed plane fractal curves discovered by Wacław Sierpiński, which in the limit $$n \to \infty $$ completely fill the unit square: thus their limit curve, also called the Sierpiński curve, is an example of a space-filling curve.

Because the Sierpiński curve is space-filling, its Hausdorff dimension (in the limit $$ n \to \infty $$) is $$ 2 $$.

The Euclidean length of the $$n$$th iteration curve $$ S_n $$ is
 * $$\begin{aligned}l_n&= {2 \over 3} (1+\sqrt 2) 2^n - {1 \over 3} (2-\sqrt 2) {1 \over 2^n},\\

&= \frac{2^{7/4}}{3} \sinh(n\log(2)+\mathrm{asinh}(\frac{3}{2^{5/4}}))\end{aligned}$$

i.e., it grows exponentially with $$ n $$ beyond any limit, whereas the limit for $$n \to \infty $$ of the area enclosed by $$ S_n $$ is $$ 5/12 \,$$ that of the square (in Euclidean metric).

Uses of the curve
The Sierpiński curve is useful in several practical applications because it is more symmetrical than other commonly studied space-filling curves. For example, it has been used as a basis for the rapid construction of an approximate solution to the Travelling Salesman Problem (which asks for the shortest sequence of a given set of points): The heuristic is simply to visit the points in the same sequence as they appear on the Sierpiński curve. To do this requires two steps: First compute an inverse image of each point to be visited; then sort the values. This idea has been used to build routing systems for commercial vehicles based only on Rolodex card files.

A space-filling curve is a continuous map of the unit interval onto a unit square and so a (pseudo) inverse maps the unit square to the unit interval. One way of constructing a pseudo-inverse is as follows. Let the lower-left corner (0, 0) of the unit square correspond to 0.0 (and 1.0). Then the upper-left corner (0, 1) must correspond to 0.25, the upper-right corner (1, 1) to 0.50, and the lower-right corner (1, 0) to 0.75. The inverse map of interior points are computed by taking advantage of the recursive structure of the curve.

Here is a function coded in Java that will compute the relative position of any point on the Sierpiński curve (that is, a pseudo-inverse value). It takes as input the coordinates of the point (x,y) to be inverted, and the corners of an enclosing right isosceles triangle (ax, ay), (bx, by), and (cx, cy). (The unit square is the union of two such triangles.) The remaining parameters specify the level of accuracy to which the inverse should be computed.

Representation as Lindenmayer system
The Sierpiński curve can be expressed by a rewrite system (L-system).

 * Alphabet:  F, G, X
 * Constants:  F, G, +, −
 * Axiom:  F−−XF−−F−−XF
 * Production rules:
 * X → XF+G+XF−−F−−XF+G+X
 * Angle: 45

Here, both F and G mean "draw forward", + means "turn left 45°", and − means "turn right 45°" (see turtle graphics). The curve is usually drawn with different lengths for F and G.

The Sierpiński square curve can be similarly expressed:

 * Alphabet:  F, X
 * Constants:  F, +, −
 * Axiom:  F+XF+F+XF
 * Production rules:
 * X → XF−F+F−XF+F+XF−F+F−X
 * Angle: 90

Arrowhead curve
The Sierpiński arrowhead curve is a fractal curve similar in appearance and identical in limit to the Sierpiński triangle.

The Sierpiński arrowhead curve draws an equilateral triangle with triangular holes at equal intervals. It can be described with two substituting production rules: (A → B-A-B) and (B → A+B+A). A and B recur and at the bottom do the same thing — draw a line. Plus and minus (+ and -) mean turn 60 degrees either left or right. The terminating point of the Sierpiński arrowhead curve is always the same provided you recur an even number of times and you halve the length of the line at each recursion. If you recur to an odd depth (order is odd) then you end up turned 60 degrees, at a different point in the triangle.

An alternate constriction is given in the article on the de Rham curve: one uses the same technique as the de Rham curves, but instead of using a binary (base-2) expansion, one uses a ternary (base-3) expansion.

Code
Given the drawing functions  and , the code to draw an (approximate) Sierpiński arrowhead curve looks like this:

Representation as Lindenmayer system

The Sierpiński arrowhead curve can be expressed by a rewrite system (L-system).

 * Alphabet:  X, Y
 * Constants:  F, +, −
 * Axiom:  XF
 * Production rules:
 * X → YF + XF + Y
 * Y → XF − YF − X

Here, F means "draw forward", + means "turn left 60°", and − means "turn right 60°" (see turtle graphics).

title: Sierpiński curve


text:
Talk:Star of the County Down

Lyrics sidebar
I've moved the lyrics to a sidebar on the right to make the distinction between the article and the lyrics clear. It stops the lyrics from overwhelming the (comparitively short) article text. —Rory ☺ 22:29, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

Structure
Corrected the description of the verse structure and rhyme scheme. What was there was technically correct (rhyming couplets with separate internal rhymes), but it didn't match the way the song is always formatted: quatrains with internal rhymes in the non-rhyming lines (first and third). Logomachon 18:39, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I just want to mention that many overzealous people are contributing to making Wikipedia worse. Having found this article before, I returned to find the lyrics again, but they were no longer there. Was wikipedia running out of space? If an article is about a song, especially a folk song (no copyright), the lyrics are one of the things that should certaily be there. and just because something can be found somewhere else does not mean it should not be on wikipedia. Regarding whole pages up for deletion, they are not in the way of people who are not looking for them. Why are people deleting any content that someone is looking for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.189.5.141 (talk) 22:53, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Whoever voted to have this article deleted is clearly ignorant of its influence on music and culture. If anything it needs more research on the history of the tune, its been co-opted for "the seven rejoices of mary" recorded by Loreena McKennitt, "the mighty winds of god" set to the same tune is regularly sung in tens of thousands of churches, also set to the same tune (how I first heard of it actually), and I am very curious as to the earliest version of it. If there is such a thing as history of tunes category, this tune could be similar to the tune most well known as "The Star Spangled Banner" but was an early drinking tune that started with "to Anacreon in heaven". Songcatcher, the movie talks about this and historology of music would benefit from a more fleshed out, linked article. I can't stress enough how small minded and petty the person(s) was for even suggesting this article should be deleted, and how much damage that kind of action does to the historic record - precisely the opposite of what Wikipedia is all about. DO NOT DELETE this article!!!Mrrealtime (talk) 14:15, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Dead external links to Allmusic website – January 2011
Since Allmusic have changed the syntax of their URLs, 1 link(s) used in the article do not work anymore and can't be migrated automatically. Please use the search option on http://www.allmusic.com to find the new location of the linked Allmusic article(s) and fix the link(s) accordingly, prefereably by using the Allmusic template. If a new location cannot be found, the link(s) should be removed. This applies to the following external links: --CactusBot (talk) 18:19, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
 * http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=17:1456995~T00B

recordings
I've heard it sung by Van Morrison (with the Chieftains) and Loreena McKennitt, and I imagine there are a hundred more (plus variants like "The Queen of Argyll"). Is something special about the Pogues' and Dylan Walshe's versions? —Tamfang (talk) 02:01, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Indeed the Van Morrison/Chieftains version is the most well-known and "classic." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.154.32.89 (talk) 04:32, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Star of the County Down


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Star of the County Down

Old discussion from VfD
Discussion concluded and article kept on June 2, 2004

Star of the County Down
Nothing but lyrics. Unless there's a discussion of the significance of the song, why keep it? RickK 02:33, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. You might want to read the article, which contains more than lyrics, and the deletion discussion resulting from its listing on 14 May, which you cut short by using a speedy delete on 14 May with the claim that this old Irish ballad was copyvio, contrary to our speedy delete, deletion and copyvio policies. After a brief discussion, the original lister changed their mind and said keep. Jamesday 02:56, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Right, this is that page, it was moved, deleted, undeleted, un-VfD'd, and now RickK is re-VfDing it. Perhaps it could be more of a page, but right now it doesn't really contain any more than lyrics. Is Wikipedia a database of lyrics? If not, as I suspect, my current vote would be to delete or transwiki to a more appropriate place. I expect the page will go through the "Speedy Cleanup" process of many VfD'd pages, though, so my vote may change. --Ben Brockert 03:13, May 26, 2004 (UTC)
 * Yes, I expect it'll be cleaned up. Short lyrics are fine so far as I'm concerned, for things like this, since we also don't want to frustrate people. Could do with more coverage of its history and repeated use in lots of other works over the years, of course. Not really a topic which interests me but I doubt we'll have a shortage of those interested in well known Irish ballads to work on it. :) Jamesday 03:45, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Is there any precedent for keeping lyrics? This song's lyrics are so prevalent on the Web, I'm not sure we need to repeat them. Anyway, my position is basically the same as on 5/14; Info about the song is plenty worthy of inclusion (more's been added already). I'd replace the lyrics with a stub notice and let nature take its course. (And not put it on cleanup--during New Pages patrol today I've left several articles much shorter as plain stubs--there's already so many needier articles on Cleanup.) Niteowlneils 04:01, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Note: The lyrics in the article may only be short because they appear to be incomplete . Niteowlneils 04:08, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Even if the lyrics were to be cut, there's a nice stub here about an important (And lyrically interesting) folk song. Snowspinner 07:14, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
 * I say we keep the article, but only the "article" part. If the lyrics are so prevalent on the web, then the article can just link to them.  blankfaze | &#9835 18:06, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep including lyrics. RossA 02:56, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Well known song, lyrics should be kept also as they ar annotated. Nikola 09:07, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Interesting song with a relevant history. And I'd like to vote that  if  a song is encyclopedic and worthy of keeping, we should keep the full lyrics at the bottom of the article.  Wikipedia is not paper.  Rossami 19:14, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * I'd like to temper this with a note that lyrics archives have historically gotten into some trouble on copyright grounds, and that we should only post complete lyrics in cases where the songs are in the public domain, or released under an appropriate license. Snowspinner 21:05, May 31, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep the page and the lyrics. The blurb provides an interesting and informative introduction to a popular song. The entire point of the blurb and the page is for the song. Without the lyrics, this is essentially pointless, IMHO. --Mud 23:32, 31 May 2004 (UTC)


text: User talk:210.215.130.38

title: User talk:210.215.130.38


text:
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology is a book about epistemology by the philosopher Ayn Rand (with an additional article by Leonard Peikoff). Rand considered it her most important philosophical writing. First published in installments in Rand's journal, The Objectivist, July 1966 through February 1967, the work presents Rand's proposed solution to the historic problem of universals, describes how the theory can be extended to complex cases, and outlines how it applies to other issues in the theory of knowledge.

Summary
Rand bases her solution to the problem of universals on a quasi-mathematical analysis of similarity. Rejecting the common view that similarity is unanalyzable, she defines similarity as: "the relationship between two or more existents which possess the same characteristic(s), but in different measure or degree."

The grasp of similarity, she holds, requires a contrast between the two or more similar items and a third item that differs from them, but differs along the same scale of measurement (which she termed a "Conceptual Common Denominator"). Thus two shades of blue, to be perceived as similar, must be contrasted with something differing greatly in hue from both—e.g., a shade of red.

Accordingly, Rand defines "concept" as: a "mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s) with their particular measurements omitted."

The monograph includes chapters outlining the Objectivist theory of how higher-order concepts are formed ("Abstraction from Abstraction"), how measurement applies to phenomena of consciousness, the nature and cognitive significance of definitions (including a defense of essence as being "epistemological" not "metaphysical"), a theory of axiomatic concepts, not axiomatic propositions, as being the base of conceptual cognition, the introduction of a "principle of unit economy" as crucial for judging and justifying and conceptual-level content, and a call for the wholesale rejection of the Kantian turn in philosophy, seeing Kant as falsely opposing the identity of consciousness to its cognitive validity—i.e., to its being conscious.

"...the attack on man's consciousness and particularly on his conceptual faculty has rested on the unchallenged premise that any knowledge acquired by a process of consciousness is necessarily subjective and cannot correspond to the facts of reality, since it is 'processed knowledge.'"

"All knowledge is processed knowledge--whether on the sensory, perceptual or conceptual level. An "unprocessed" knowledge would be a knowledge acquired without means of cognition. Consciousness (as I said in the first sentence of this work) is not a passive state, but an active process."

An additional essay by Peikoff, based on Rand's theory and edited by her, criticizes the analytic–synthetic distinction, arguing that it stems from a wrong theory of what is included in the meaning of a concept. A concept, Rand and Peikoff maintain, includes all the characteristics possessed by the referents, not just the defining characteristics.

The 1990 edition of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology includes 200 pages of discussion between Rand and philosophy professionals, culled from tape recordings of the five "Workshops in Objectivist Epistemology" that Rand conducted in late 1969 through early 1970. The most active among those questioning Rand on the meaning and implication of her theory were John O. Nelson, George Walsh, Leonard Peikoff, Allan Gotthelf, and Harry Binswanger. About a dozen others participated to a lesser degree.

Publication history
Rand's title essay was originally serialized in The Objectivist from July 1966 to February 1967, then reprinted by the Nathaniel Branden Institute later in 1967 as a booklet. Peikoff's essay was first published in The Objectivist in its May 1967 to September 1967 issues. The combined book was published by New American Library in 1979. The same publisher also put out the revised edition, co-edited by Peikoff and Harry Binswanger, in 1990.

Reception
Both the original and revised editions of the book received relatively little attention from reviewers, although there was a review in the journal Teaching Philosophy. The work has received extensive, in-depth exposition and development in: A Companion to Ayn Rand (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy) Wiley-Blackwell: 2016, Gotthelf and Salmieri (ed.), Concepts and Their Role in Knowledge: Reflections on Objectivist Epistemology (Ayn Rand Society Philosophical Studies), and How We Know: Epistemology on an Objectivist Foundation (Binswanger, TOF Publications: 2014).


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul McKeever

Old discussion from VfD
Discussion concluded and article kept on June 2, 2004

Paul_McKeever
Vanity page written by subject (ie Drdolittle is Paul McKeever). AndyL 06:47, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Neutral. May need to shorten to correlate with significance.  Request somebody with knowledge of Canadian politics to see how significant this Freedom Party of Canada is; seems pretty small and irrelevant, but deserving of a mention.  Need to clarify, and see if there's any dirt on him to be NPOV.  People's Front of Judea anyone? Dunc Harris | Talk 12:25, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. I'd never heard of the Freedom Party of Canada, which Mr. McKeever has founded, before today. Which makes sense, since they're neither registered nor running candidates in the 2004 federal election...if I just popped off with five of my friends and started my own unregistered party, would I be worthy of a Wikipedia article? The Party's page itself I'm not so strong on, but the vanity page should go. Lord Bob 14:49, May 26, 2004 (UTC)
 * The new NPOV version is much better, I must say, and I really had no idea that the FP was registered in Ontario. I'm therefore dropping my 'delete' vote. Lord Bob 18:07, May 26, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. He gets almost 1000 hits, his party almost 4000, and his mondo politico web site over 30,000. The party IS registered in Ontario, and, at least according to their web site, has been around since 1984. I have worked on the first few paragraphs of the article to format and reduce the excess blah, blah. Niteowlneils 16:34, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've reverted to a more succinct NPOV version but can someone keep an eye on the page and intervene when McKeever/drdolittle inevitably reverts it to his vanity version? I'm not going to be online a lot in the next few days and I don't have time to deal with egos. AndyL 17:00, 26 May 2004 (UTC)


text:
Talk:LUX (British film company)

Deletion discussion
''This article has been listed on Votes for deletion in the past. See /deletion for the discussion archive.''

title: Talk:LUX (British film company)


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/LUX

Old discussion from VfD
Discussion concluded and article redirected on June 2, 2004

LUX
(I think I've got this right). LUX seems to be nothng more than an advert for a website. I edited it the other day to add the magic square algorithm, but on balance this should have its own page, to be called Conway's LUX method for magic squares, which I haven't got round to creating yet.Robinh 21:13, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Get rid of the spam and write about your magic squares, but also link to Lux (disambiguation) Dunc Harris | Talk 21:53, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Just an advertisement, and the magic squares apparently belong in something completely different. - Centrx 21:14, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

title: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/LUX


text:
Software verification and validation

In software project management, software testing, and software engineering, verification and validation is the process of checking that a software engineer system meets specifications and requirements so that it fulfills its intended purpose. It may also be referred to as software quality control. It is normally the responsibility of software testers as part of the software development lifecycle. In simple terms, software verification is: "Assuming we should build X, does our software achieve its goals without any bugs or gaps?" On the other hand, software validation is: "Was X what we should have built? Does X meet the high-level requirements?"

Definitions
Verification and validation are not the same thing, although they are often confused. Boehm succinctly expressed the difference as
 * Verification: Are we building the product right?
 * Validation: Are we building the right product?

"Building the product right" checks that the specifications are correctly implemented by the system while "building the right product" refers back to the user's needs. In some contexts, it is required to have written requirements for both as well as formal procedures or protocols for determining compliance. Ideally, formal methods provide a mathematical guarantee that software meets its specifications.

Building the product right implies the use of the Requirements Specification as input for the next phase of the development process, the design process, the output of which is the Design Specification. Then, it also implies the use of the Design Specification to feed the construction process. Every time the output of a process correctly implements its input specification, the software product is one step closer to final verification. If the output of a process is incorrect, the developers are not correctly building the product the stakeholders want. This kind of verification is called "artifact or specification verification".

software product is released; though, it need not always be the case.

Software verification
It would imply to verify if the specifications are met by running the software but this is not possible (e. g., how can anyone know if the architecture/design/etc. are correctly implemented by running the software?). Only by reviewing its associated artifacts, can someone conclude whether or not the specifications are met.

Artifact or specification verification
The output of each software development process stage can also be subject to verification when checked against its input specification (see the definition by CMMI below).

Examples of artifact verification:
 * Of the design specification against the requirement specification: Do the architectural design, detailed design and database logical model specifications correctly implement the functional and non-functional requirements specifications?
 * Of the construction artifacts against the design specification: Do the source code, user interfaces and database physical model correctly implement the design specification?

Software validation
Software validation checks that the software product satisfies or fits the intended use (high-level checking), i.e., the software meets the user requirements, not as specification artifacts or as needs of those who will operate the software only; but, as the needs of all the stakeholders (such as users, operators, administrators, managers, investors, etc.). There are two ways to perform software validation: internal and external. During internal software validation, it is assumed that the goals of the stakeholders were correctly understood and that they were expressed in the requirement artifacts precisely and comprehensively. If the software meets the requirement specification, it has been internally validated. External validation happens when it is performed by asking the stakeholders if the software meets their needs. Different software development methodologies call for different levels of user and stakeholder involvement and feedback; so, external validation can be a discrete or a continuous event. Successful final external validation occurs when all the stakeholders accept the software product and express that it satisfies their needs. Such final external validation requires the use of an acceptance test which is a dynamic test.

However, it is also possible to perform internal static tests to find out if the software meets the requirements specification but that falls into the scope of static verification because the software is not running.

Artifact or specification validation
Requirements should be validated before the software product as a whole is ready (the waterfall development process requires them to be perfectly defined before design starts; but iterative development processes do not require this to be so and allow their continual improvement).

Examples of artifact validation:

 * User Requirements Specification validation: User requirements as stated in a document called User Requirements Specification are validated by checking if they indeed represent the will and goals of the stakeholders. This can be done by interviewing the stakeholders and asking them directly (static testing) or even by releasing prototypes and having the users and stakeholders to assess them (dynamic testing).
 * User input validation: User input (gathered by any peripheral such as a keyboard, bio-metric sensor, etc.) is validated by checking if the input provided by the software operators or users meets the domain rules and constraints (such as data type, range, and format).

Validation vs. verification
According to the Capability Maturity Model (CMMI-SW v1.1),
 * Software Validation: The process of evaluating software during or at the end of the development process to determine whether it satisfies specified requirements. [IEEE-STD-610]
 * Software Verification: The process of evaluating software to determine whether the products of a given development phase satisfy the conditions imposed at the start of that phase. [IEEE-STD-610]

Validation during the software development process can be seen as a form of User Requirements Specification validation; and, that at the end of the development process is equivalent to Internal and/or External Software validation. Verification, from CMMI's point of view, is evidently of the artifact kind.

In other words, software verification ensures that the output of each phase of the software development process effectively carries out what its corresponding input artifact specifies (requirement -> design -> software product), while software validation ensures that the software product meets the needs of all the stakeholders (therefore, the requirement specification was correctly and accurately expressed in the first place). Software verification ensures that "you built it right" and confirms that the product, as provided, fulfills the plans of the developers. Software validation ensures that "you built the right thing" and confirms that the product, as provided, fulfills the intended use and goals of the stakeholders.

This article has used the strict or narrow definition of verification.

From a testing perspective:
 * Fault – wrong or missing function in the code.
 * Failure – the manifestation of a fault during execution. The software was not effective. It does not do "what" it is supposed to do.
 * Malfunction – according to its specification the system does not meet its specified functionality. The software was not efficient (it took too many resources such as CPU cycles, it used too much memory, performed too many I/O operations, etc.), it was not usable, it was not reliable, etc. It does not do something "how" it is supposed to do it.

Related concepts
Both verification and validation are related to the concepts of quality and of software quality assurance. By themselves, verification and validation do not guarantee software quality; planning, traceability, configuration management and other aspects of software engineering are required.

Within the modeling and simulation (M&S) community, the definitions of verification, validation and accreditation are similar:

The definition of M&S validation focuses on the accuracy with which the M&S represents the real-world intended use(s). Determining the degree of M&S accuracy is required because all M&S are approximations of reality, and it is usually critical to determine if the degree of approximation is acceptable for the intended use(s). This stands in contrast to software validation.
 * M&S Verification is the process of determining that a computer model, simulation, or federation of models and simulation implementations and their associated data accurately represent the developer's conceptual description and specifications.
 * M&S Validation is the process of determining the degree to which a model, simulation, or federation of models and simulations, and their associated data are accurate representations of the real world from the perspective of the intended use(s).
 * Accreditation is the formal certification that a model or simulation is acceptable to be used for a specific purpose.

Formal
In mission-critical software systems, formal methods may be used to ensure the correct operation of a system. These formal methods can prove costly, however, representing as much as 80 percent of total software design cost.

Independent
Independent Software Verification and Validation (ISVV) is targeted at safety-critical software systems and aims to increase the quality of software products, thereby reducing risks and costs throughout the operational life of the software. The goal of ISVV is to provide assurance that software performs to the specified level of confidence and within its designed parameters and defined requirements.

ISVV activities are performed by independent engineering teams, not involved in the software development process, to assess the processes and the resulting products. The ISVV team independency is performed at three different levels: financial, managerial and technical.

ISVV goes beyond "traditional" verification and validation techniques, applied by development teams. While the latter aims to ensure that the software performs well against the nominal requirements, ISVV is focused on non-functional requirements such as robustness and reliability, and on conditions that can lead the software to fail.

ISVV results and findings are fed back to the development teams for correction and improvement.

History
ISVV derives from the application of IV&V (Independent Verification and Validation) to the software. Early ISVV application (as known today) dates back to the early 1970s when the U.S. Army sponsored the first significant program related to IV&V for the Safeguard Anti-Ballistic Missile System. Another example is NASA's IV&V Program, which was established in 1993.

By the end of the 1970s IV&V was rapidly becoming popular. The constant increase in complexity, size and importance of the software led to an increasing demand on IV&V applied to software.

Meanwhile, IV&V (and ISVV for software systems) consolidated and is now widely used by organizations such as the DoD, FAA, NASA and ESA. IV&V is mentioned in DO-178B, ISO/IEC 12207 and formalized in IEEE 1012.

At ESA
Initially in 2004-2005, a European consortium led by the European Space Agency, and composed of DNV, Critical Software SA, Terma and CODA SciSys plc created the first version of a guide devoted to ISVV, called "ESA Guide for Independent Verification and Validation" with support from other organizations. This guide covers the methodologies applicable to all the software engineering phases in what concerns ISVV.

In 2008 the European Space Agency released a second version, having received inputs from many different European Space ISVV stakeholders.

Methodology
ISVV is usually composed of five principal phases, these phases can be executed sequentially or as results of a tailoring process.

Planning

 * Planning of ISVV activities
 * System criticality analysis: Identification of critical components through a set of RAMS activities (Value for Money)
 * Selection of the appropriate methods and tools

Requirements verification

 * Verification for: completeness, correctness, testability

Design verification

 * Design adequacy and conformance to software requirements and interfaces
 * Internal and external consistency
 * Verification of feasibility and maintenance

Code verification

 * Verification for: completeness, correctness, consistency
 * Code metrics analysis
 * Coding standards compliance verification

Validation

 * Identification of unstable components/functionalities
 * Validation focused on error-handling: complementary (not concurrent) validation regarding the one performed by the development team
 * Compliance with software and system requirements
 * Black box testing and White box testing techniques
 * Experience based techniques

Regulatory environment
Software often must meet the compliance requirements of legally regulated industries, which is often guided by government agencies or industrial administrative authorities. For instance, the FDA requires software versions and patches to be validated.

title: Software verification and validation


text:
User:Jengod/Aaron Burr

BURR, AARON (1756-1836), American political leader, was born at Newark, New Jersey, on the 6th of February 1756. His father, the Rev. Aaron Burr (1715-1757), was the second president (1748-1757) of the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University; his mother was the daughter of Jonathan Edwards, the well-known Calvinist theologian. The son graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1772, and two years later began the study of law in the celebrated law school conducted by his brother-in-law, Tappan Reeve, at Litchfield, Connecticut. Soon after the outbreak of the War of Independence, in 1775, he joined Washingtons army in Cambridge, Mass. He accompanied Arnolds expedition into Canada in 1775, and on arriving before Quebec he disguised himself as a Catholic priest and made a dangerous journey of 120 m. through the British lines to notify Montgomery, at Montreal, of Arnolds arrival. He served for a time on the staffs of Washington and Putnam in 177677, and by his vigilance in the retreat from Long Island he saved an entire brigade from capture. On becoming lieutenant-colonel in July 1777, he assumed the command of a regiment, and during the winter at Valley Forge guarded the Gulf, a pass commanding the approach to the camp, and necessarily the first point that would be attacked. In the engagement at Monmouth, on the 28th of June 1778, he commanded one of the brigades in Lord Stirlings division. In January 1779 Burr was assigned to the command of the lines of Westchester county, a region between the British post at Kingsbridge and that of the Americans about 15 m. to the north. In this district there was much turbulence and plundering by the lawless elements of both Whigs and Tories and by bands of ill-disciplined soldiers from both armies. Burr established a thorough patrol system, rigorously enforced martial law, and quickly restored order. He resigned from the army in March 1779, on account of illhealth, renewed the study of law, was admitted to the bar at Albany in 1782, and began to practise in New York city after its evacuation by the British in the following year. In 1782 he married Theodosia Prevost (d. 1794), the widow of a British army officer who had died in the West Indies during the War of Independence. They had one child, a daughter, Theodosia, born in 1783, who became widely known for her beauty and accomnlishments. married Tosenh Alston of South Carolina in 1801, and was lost at sea in 1813. Burr was a member of the state assembly (1784-1785), attorney-general of the state (1789-1791), United States senator (179II797), and again a member of the assembly (1798-1799 and 1800-1801). As national parties became clearly defined, he associated himself with the Democratic-Republicans. Although he was not the founder of Tammany Hall, he began the construction of the political machine upon which the power of that organization is based. In the election of i8oo he was placed on the Democratic-Republican presidential ticket with Thomas Jefferson, and each received the same number of electoral votes. It was well understood that the party intended that Jefferson should be president and Burr vice-president, but owing to a defect (later remedied) in the Constitution the responsibility for the final choice was thrown upon the House of Representatives. The attempts of a powerful faction among the Federalists to secure the election of Burr failed, partly because of the opposition of Alexander Hamilton and partly, it would seem, because Burr himself would make no efforts to obtain votes in his own favor. On Jeffersons election, Burr of course became vice-president. His fair and judicial manner as president of the Senate, recognized even by his bitterest enemies, helped to foster traditions in regard to that position quite different from those which have become associated with the speakership of the House of Representatives.

Hamilton had opposed Burrs aspirations for the vice-presidency in 1792, and had exerted influence through Washington to prevent his appointment as brigadier-general in 1798, at the time of the threatened war between the United States and France. It was also in a measure his efforts which led to Burrs lack of success in the New York gubernatorial campaign of 1804; moreover the two had long been rivals at the bar. Smarting under defeat and angered by Hamiltons criticisms, Burr sent the challenge which resulted in the famous duel at Weehawken, N.J., on the 1 I th of July 1804, and the death of Hamilton (q.v.) on the following day. After the expiration of his term as vicepresident (March 4, 1805), broken in fortune and virtually an exile from New Ybrk, where, as in New Jersey, he had been indicted for murder after the duel with Hamilton, Burr visited the South-west and became involved in the so-called conspiracy which has so puzzled the students of that period. The traditional view that he planned a separation of the West from the Union is now discredited. Apart from the question of political morality he could not, as a shrewd politician, have failed to see that the people of that section were too loyal to sanction such a scheme. The objects of his treasonable correspondence with Merry and Yrujo, the British and Spanis~i ministers at Washington, were, it would seem, to secure money and to conceal his real designs, which were probably to overthrow Spanish power in the Southwest, and perhaps to found an imperial dynasty in Mexico. He was arrested in 1807 on the charge of treason, was brought to trial before the United States circuit court at Richmond, Virginia, Chief-Justice Marshall presiding, and he was acquitted, in spite of the fact that the political influence of the national administration was thrown against him. Immediately afterward he was tried on a charge of misdemeanour, and on a technicality was again acquitted. He lived abroad from 1808 to 1812, passing most of his time in England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden and France; trying to secure aid in. the prosecution of his filibustering schemes but meeting with numerous rebuffs, being ordered out of England and Napoleon refusing to receive him. In 1812 he returned to New York and spent the remainder of his life in the practice of law. Burr was unscrupulous, insincere and notoriously immoral, but he was pleasing in. his manners, generous to a fault, and was intensely devoted to his wife and daughter. In 1833 he married Eliza B. Jumel (1769-1865), a rich New York widow; the two soon separated, however, owing to Burrs having lost much of her fortune in speculation. He died at Port Richmond, Staten Island, New York, on the 14th of September 1836.

The standard biography is James Partons The Life and Times of Aaron Burr C first edition, 18.c7; enlarged edition, 2 vols., Boston and New York, 1898). W. F. McCalebs The Aaron Burr Conspiracy (New York, 1903) is a scholarly defence of the West and incidentally of Burr against the charge of treason, and is the best account of the subject; see also I. Jenkinson, Aaron Burr (Richmond, Ind., 1902). For the traditional view of Burrs conspiracy, see Henry Adamss History of the United States, vol. iii. (New York, 1890).

title: User:Jengod/Aaron Burr


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/UNaXcess

Old discussion from VfD
''Discussion concluded and article kept on June 2, 2004. For the AfD that let to this article being deleted, see Articles for deletion/UNaXcess (2nd nomination).''

UNaXcess
Vanity page for a private website. Probably should be speedily deleted, but then again, we'd miss all the fun of the debate. - Lucky 6.9 22:58, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Why has this been voted for deletion? I've not heard any justification and I only wrote the article five minutes ago! Pwaring 23:05, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Err, it's not a vanity page, it's information about a BBS dating back to the 80s. Pwaring 23:05, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Perhaps not, but an article about a bulletin board that only a few people at a college use is not, IMO, reason for inclusion. If the consensus is to keep, it wouldn't bother me.  I'm of the opinion it doesn't belong, which is why I nominated it. - Lucky 6.9 23:36, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
 * It's not something that a "few people at college" use though. Yes, it's predominantly used by current/ex CS students but that doesn't make it a minor bulletin board. Pwaring 23:40, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Comment: I don't want to "bite the newbie," as it were.  In fact, I snuck a peek at your contributions and the article you wrote for Bulletin board system looks to be absolutely magnificent at a glance.  However, I still don't believe that the UNaXcess bulletin board is noteworthy enough to be included.  Since this is a very democratic process, other users can decide whether or not it stays.  If it's as notable as you say, heck, it should stay and I'll withdraw my vote to delete in an instant. - Lucky 6.9 02:21, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Someone might encounter this term and want to know what it is -- e.g., is it a BBS or antivirus software.  If the context makes clear it's a BBS, knowing the center of gravity of its participant base (Manchester U. CS people instead of a more general cross-section of the public) might be useful information. JamesMLane 06:15, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Just to make things clear, I didn't write all of the main bulletin board system article, I just added to it, before anyone comes in and accuses me of taking credit for their work. :) Pwaring 10:36, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. I see no reason to delete this at all. - David Gerard 14:20, May 27, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep unless the information is incorrect. Abigail 21:56, May 27, 2004 (UTC)
 * Withdraw vote to delete. This is much larger and more relevant than I'd assumed. - Lucky 6.9 22:53, 27 May 2004 (UTC)