text:
Dave Tippett

David G. Tippett (born August 25, 1961) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey coach and player.

Tippett played in the NHL from 1983 to 1994 as a winger for the Hartford Whalers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers and Washington Capitals. He also served as head coach of the Dallas Stars from May 21, 2002 until June 10, 2009, and for the Phoenix/Arizona Coyotes from September 24, 2009 until June 22, 2017. As head coach of the Coyotes, Tippett won the Jack Adams Award as NHL Coach of the Year in 2010. He was the head coach of the Edmonton Oilers from 2019 to 2022.

Prince Albert Raiders (1979–1981)
Tippett began playing with the Prince Albert Raiders of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) in the 1979–80 season. In his first year with the team, Tippett scored 53 goals and 125 points in 60 games. In the playoffs, he continued with the very strong offensive numbers, scoring 19 goals and 40 points in 25 games.

Tippett returned to the Raiders for the 1980–81 season, and once again had an excellent season, scoring 42 goals and 110 points in 60 games. In 24 playoff games, he had 20 goals and 45 points.

University of North Dakota (1981–1983)
After two seasons with the Raiders, Tippett joined the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA). In his first season with the team in 1981–82, Tippett 13 goals and 41 points in 43 games. Tippett was the captain of the team, as they won the Frozen Four championship.

He played a second season with the Fighting Sioux in 1982–83, improving his offensive numbers to 15 goals and 46 points in 36 games with North Dakota.

Hartford Whalers (1984–1990)
Tippett finished the 1983–84 season with the Whalers, playing in 17 games and registering four goals and six points.

Tippett spent the entire 1984–85 season in Hartford, appearing in all 80 games, scoring seven goals and 19 points, though the Whalers failed to qualify for the 1985 Stanley Cup playoffs.

The 1985–86 season saw Tippett once again appear in all 80 games with the Whalers, as he improved his offensive totals to 14 goals and 34 points, helping the team into the 1986 playoffs. In his first post-season experience in the NHL, Tippett had two goals and four points in ten games as Hartford eventually lost in the second round of the playoffs to the Montreal Canadiens.

The Whalers won the Adams Division in 1986–87, as Tippett chipped in with nine goals and 31 points while playing in all 80 games again. In the 1987 playoffs, the Whalers were upset in six games in the first round to the Quebec Nordiques, as Tippett was held to two assists in the series.

In 1987–88, Tippett improved his numbers from the previous season, scoring 16 goals and 37 points, playing in all 80 games for the club. In six playoff games, Tippett was held pointless.

Tippett had his best offensive season in 1988–89, as he scored a career high 17 goals and 41 points, appearing in all 80 games again for Hartford, helping them into the playoffs. In four post-season games, Tippett had an assist.

In 1989–90, Tippett saw his offensive totals fall to only eight goals and 27 points, his lowest totals since his first full NHL season, while appearing in 66 games, the first time in his career that he missed any games due to injuries. In seven playoff games, Tippett had a goal and four points.

On September 30, 1990, the Whalers traded Tippett to the Washington Capitals for the Capitals' sixth-round draft pick in the 1992 NHL Entry Draft.

Washington Capitals (1990–1992)
In Tippett's first season with the Capitals, in 1990–91, he played in 61 games, scoring only six goals and 15 points, his lowest totals since 1983–84. Tippett had a solid playoff performance, however, scoring two goals and five points in ten games, helping the Capitals to the second round of the playoffs.

In 1991–92, Tippett appeared in only 30 games, scoring two goals and 12 points. He left the team to join Team Canada for the 1992 Winter Olympics held in Albertville, France. In seven games with Canada, Tippett had a goal and three points as the Canadians won the silver medal. Tippett returned to the Capitals for the rest of the regular season, and in seven playoff games, Tippett had an assist.

After the season, Tippett became a free agent, and on August 25, 1992, he signed a contract with the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions, the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Pittsburgh Penguins (1992–1993)
In 1992–93, Tippett had his best offensive season since 1989–90, as he scored six goals and 25 points in 74 games, helping the Penguins win the Presidents' Trophy. In the playoffs, Tippett had a goal and five points in 12 games as Pittsburgh lost to the New York Islanders in the second round.

Tippett became a free agent after the season, and on August 30, 1993, he was signed by the Philadelphia Flyers.

Philadelphia Flyers (1993–1994)
Tippett appeared in 73 games with the Flyers in the 1993–94 season, scoring four goals and 15 points, however, the team failed to qualify for the playoffs.

Tippett once again became a free agent at the end of the season and signed with the Houston Aeros of the International Hockey League (IHL) as a player and an assistant coach.

Houston Aeros (1994–1995)
In the 1994–95 season, Tippett, as a player-coach, played in 75 games with the Aeros, scoring 18 goals and 66 points. In four playoff games, he had a goal and three points.

After the season, Tippett announced his retirement on September 22, 1995. In 721 career NHL games, Tippett scored 93 goals and 262 points in a career lasting from 1983 to 1994.

International play
Tippett spent the 1983–84 hockey season with Team Canada, where he appeared in 66 games, scoring 14 goals and 33 points. Tippett played for Canada at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, scoring a goal and gathering an assist in seven games.

Houston Aeros (1994–1999)
Tippett was a player-assistant coach with the Aeros during the 1994–95 season, however, he decided to retire from playing, and began the 1995–96 season as just an assistant coach. After the Aeros started off the season with a 12–27–3 record, the team fired Head Coach Terry Ruskowski and named Tippett as his replacement. Tippett guided the Aeros to a 17–18–5 record, though the team failed to make the playoffs.

In 1996–97, Tippett began his first full season as head coach of the club, as the Aeros improved to a 44–30–8 record, earning 94 points, which was a 28-point improvement over the previous season. In the playoffs, the Aeros quickly swept the Las Vegas Thunder in three games, followed by a five-game series win over the San Antonio Dragons in the second round. Houston then lost to the Long Beach Ice Dogs in the Western Conference finals in five games.

The Aeros had a very solid season in 1997–98, as the team went 50–22–10, earning 110 points, which was a 16-point improvement over the previous season. In the playoffs, however, Houston was upset by the Milwaukee Admirals in four games.

Tippett returned to Houston for the 1998–99, and the team finished with the best record in the league, going 54–15–13, getting 121 points. In the playoffs, the heavily favoured Aeros had a bye in the first round, followed by a close best-of-five series against the Long Beach Ice Dogs, in which Houston prevailed with a win in the decisive Game 5. In the Western Conference Finals, the Chicago Wolves took the Aeros to seven games, with Houston winning the seventh game 4–1 to advance the team to the 1999 Turner Cup Finals. In the final round, the Aeros faced the Orlando Solar Bears, and in a series that once again went the limit, the Aeros defeated Orlando in Game 7 by a 5–3 score to capture the championship. Tippett was named the IHL Coach of the Year, while the Aeros won the Fred A. Huber Jr. Memorial Trophy for having the best record in the League during the regular season.

Los Angeles Kings (1999–2002)
After spending five years as an assistant coach and head coach of the Aeros, Tippett was hired as an assistant coach of the Los Angeles Kings by their new head coach, Andy Murray. In the 1999–2000 season, the Kings saw a 25-point improvement as the team went 39–27–12–4, helping the club make the 2000 Stanley Cup playoffs, where they were swept by the Detroit Red Wings in the first round.

The Kings had another successful season in 2000–01, as they went 38–28–13–3, getting 92 points, and a playoff position for the second straight season. In the post-season, the Kings defeated the heavily favoured Detroit Red Wings in six games in the first round, eventually losing a seven-game series against the Colorado Avalanche in the second round.

Los Angeles improved in the 2001–02 season, reaching 40 wins with a 40–27–11–4 record, earning 95 points. In a rematch against the Avalanche in the 2002 playoffs, the Kings once again lost in seven games, this time in the first round.

Dallas Stars (2002–2009)
On May 16, 2002, the Dallas Stars named Tippett as the new head coach of the team. The Stars were coming off a disappointing 2001–02, as the club failed to make the playoffs.

In his first season with the club in 2002–03, Tippett led the Stars to a 46–17–15–4 record, finishing in first place in the Pacific Division with 111 points, which represented a 21-point improvement over the previous year. In the first round of the 2003 playoffs, Dallas eliminated the Edmonton Oilers in six games, before losing in six games to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in the second round.

The Stars point total slipped in the 2003–04 season, as Dallas went 41–26–13–2, earning 97 points and a fifth-place finish in the Western Conference. In the first round of the post-season, the Stars lost in five games to the Colorado Avalanche.

The 2004–05 NHL lockout cancelled the entire season, but when NHL play resumed in 2005–06, Tippett led the Stars to a 53–23–6 record, earning 112 points, the second-highest total in the Conference and a 15-point increase over the last season. Dallas' playoff run ended quickly, however, as they were upset by Colorado in five games in the first round.

Tippett joined an exclusive club during the 2006–07, as he led the Stars to a 50–25–7 record, earning 107 points. He joined Mike Babcock (Detroit), Scotty Bowman (Montreal), Tom Johnson (Boston), Mike Keenan (Philadelphia), Glen Sather (Edmonton) and Fred Shero (Philadelphia) as head coaches who led their teams to back-to-back 50-win seasons. In the 2007 playoffs, the Stars fell to the Vancouver Canucks in seven games in the first round.

In 2007–08, the Stars once again had a great regular season, going 45–30–7, earning 97 points and finishing in fifth place in the Conference. In the 2008 playoffs, Dallas defeated the defending Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks in six games in the first round, followed by another six-game series victory over the San Jose Sharks in the second round. In the Western Conference Finals, the Stars faced the Detroit Red Wings, who ended the Stars' season after winning the series in six games.

Dallas had a tough season in 2008–09, as the team finished with a 36–35–11 record, earning 83 points and failing to make the 2009 playoffs. On June 10, 2009, the Stars fired Tippett as head coach, replacing him with Marc Crawford.

Phoenix/Arizona Coyotes (2009–2017)
On September 24, 2009, Tippett took over the coaching duties of the Phoenix Coyotes after Wayne Gretzky resigned from the position earlier that day. He took over a team that was facing a large amount of adversity about its future in Phoenix. During the previous season, Owner Jerry Moyes had secretly turned over operational control of the team to the NHL due to mounting losses. In May, Moyes tried to declare bankruptcy and sell the team to BlackBerry developer Jim Balsillie, who intended to move the team to Hamilton, Ontario. The NHL, however, successfully contended that Moyes and Balsillie had violated League rules, prompting them to take full control of the team.

In his first season with the Coyotes in 2009–10, the team overcame its off-ice troubles to finish with a club-record 50 wins, as they went 50–25–7, earning 107 points, a 28-point improvement over the 2008–09 season and helping the Coyotes to their first playoff berth since the 2001–02 season. Phoenix faced the Detroit Red Wings in the first round of the playoffs. Although the Coyotes had home-ice advantage for the first time since 1985 — when they were still the Winnipeg Jets — it was the Red Wings who came out victorious, defeating the Coyotes in seven games. After the season, Tippett won the Jack Adams Award as NHL Coach of the Year.

In 2010–11, Tippett led the Coyotes to the playoffs once again, as they had a 43–26–13 record, earning 99 points and sixth place in the Western Conference. Phoenix once again faced the Red Wings in the first round, however, and the Red Wings quickly ended the Coyotes' season with a four-game series sweep.

In 2011–12, Tippett led the Coyotes to the Pacific Division title — the franchise's first as an NHL team, and their first of any sort since the Jets won the 1978–79 World Hockey Association (WHA) regular-season title. With a 42–27–13 record and 97 points, they were the third seed in the Western Conference. They defeated the Chicago Blackhawks in six games for the franchise's first playoff series win since 1987. In the Western Conference Semi-finals, they defeated the Nashville Predators in five games, thus notching more playoff series wins than they had in their entire NHL history. Their run ended with a five-game loss to the eventual Stanley Cup champions, the Los Angeles Kings, in the Conference Finals.

The lockout-shortened, 48-game season in 2012–13 was a more difficult year for Tippett and the Coyotes. Racked with injuries and off-ice trouble, the team did not make playoffs for the first time during Tippett's tenure, finishing the season at 21–18–9, missing the post-season by five points. Despite the difficulties of the season the Coyotes re-signed Tippett to a long-term contract on June 21, 2013. In the 2014–15 season, the Coyotes finished in last place in the Western Conference, but Tippett was retained as head coach following the season.

On May 5, 2016, Tippett was signed to a five-year extension with the Coyotes to be Head Coach/Executive VP of Hockey Operations.

On June 22, 2017, Tippett parted ways with the Coyotes.

Edmonton Oilers (2019–2022)
On May 28, 2019, the Edmonton Oilers named Tippett as their head coach. He was fired in February 2022, after the team had won seven of their previous 23 games in the 2021–22 season, and poor performances in the previous two playoffs seasons.

Seattle Kraken
In June 2018, Tippett was hired by the Seattle Kraken's ownership group as a senior adviser.

Awards and honors

 * 1999 – IHL Coach of the Year
 * 2010 – Jack Adams Award

Head coaching record

 * Shortened season due to the COVID-19 pandemic during the 2019–20 season. Playoffs were played in August 2020 with a different format.

title: Dave Tippett


text:
Mike Barnicle

Michael Barnicle (born October 13, 1943) is an American journalist and commentator who has worked in print, radio, and television. He is a senior contributor and the veteran columnist on MSNBC's Morning Joe. He is also seen on NBC's Today Show with news/feature segments. He has been a regular contributor to the local Boston television news magazine,  Chronicle on WCVB-TV, since 1986. Barnicle has also appeared on PBS's Charlie Rose, the PBS NewsHour, CBS's 60 Minutes, MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, ESPN, and HBO sports programming.

Several of Barnicle's columns are featured in the anthologies published by Abrams Books: Deadline Artists: America's Greatest Newspaper Columns and Deadline Artists—Scandals, Tragedies and Triumphs: More of America's Greatest Newspaper Columns with the description: "Barnicle is to Boston what Royko was to Chicago and Breslin is to New York—an authentic voice who comes to symbolize a great city. Almost a generation younger than Breslin & Co., Barnicle also serves as the keeper of the flame of the reported column." Barnicle is also interviewed in the HBO documentary Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists as well as many documentaries on baseball, including Ken Burns' Baseball: The Tenth Inning. David Barron of the Houston Chronicle writes Barnicle's contributions to the film are among the most valuable contributions, citing specifically that Barnicle "provokes simultaneous laughter and tears on the burden of passing his love of the Red Sox to a second generation."

Barnicle, a Massachusetts native, has written more than 4,000 columns collectively for the New York Daily News (1999–2005), Boston Herald (2004–2005 and occasionally contributing from 2006 to 2010), and The Boston Globe, where he rose to prominence with columns about Boston's working and middle classes. He also has written articles and commentary for Time magazine, Newsweek, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, ESPN Magazine, and Esquire, among others.

Early career
Barnicle was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, grew up in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and graduated from Boston University in 1965. Barnicle worked as a volunteer for the Robert F. Kennedy 1968 presidential campaign in various states. After Kennedy's assassination, Barnicle attended the Requiem Mass for Kennedy at St. Patrick's Cathedral and later rode on the 21 car funeral train to Arlington National Cemetery. He worked as a speechwriter on the U.S. Senate campaign of John V. Tunney and for Sen. Ed Muskie, when Muskie announced his intention to run in the Democratic Party presidential primaries. Barnicle appeared in a small part in the Robert Redford film The Candidate. While visiting Redford's "Sundance" home in Utah, Barnicle was asked to write a column. As reported by the New York Times, the Globe's political writer, Robert L. Healy, and Jack Driscoll, the editor of The Evening Globe, recruited Mr. Barnicle to write a column. He continued to write columns for The Evening Globe, then the Boston Globe, until 1998.

The paper and its columnist won praise with their coverage of the political and social upheaval that roiled Boston after the city instituted a mandatory, court-ordered school desegregation plan in the mid-1970s. In his Pulitzer Prize–winning book Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families (1986), J. Anthony Lukas wrote that Barnicle gave voice to the Boston residents who had been angered by the policy. Lukas singled out Barnicle's column ("Busing Puts Burden on Working Class, Black and White" published in The Boston Globe, October 15, 1974) and interview with Harvard psychiatrist and author Robert Coles as one of the defining moments in the coverage that helped earn the paper the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

Over the next three decades, Barnicle became a prominent voice in New England. His columns mixed pointed criticism of government and bureaucratic failure with personal stories that exemplified people's everyday struggles to make a living and raise a family. Tapping into a rich knowledge of local and national politics, Barnicle had unique takes on the ups and downs of figures including Sen. Ted Kennedy, Sen. John Kerry, and longtime Congressional Speaker of the House Thomas Tip O'Neill, as well as Boston mayors Kevin White, Ray Flynn, and Tom Menino. In subsequent years, Barnicle's coverage expanded as he reported from Northern Ireland on the conflict and resolution there to the beaches of Normandy, from where he wrote about the commemorations of World War II veterans.

Barnicle has won local and national awards for both his print and broadcast work, in addition to contributing to the Boston Globe's submission and award of the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for public service, he received recognition for his individual contributions. Additionally he's received awards and honors from the Associated Press (1984), United Press International (1978, 1982, 1984, 1989), National Headliners (1982), and duPont-Columbia University (1991–92), and most recently the Pete Hamill Award for Journalistic Excellence from the Glucksman Ireland House at New York University (2022).. He holds honorary degrees from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Colby College.

Boston Globe resignation
In 1998, Barnicle resigned from The Boston Globe due to controversy over two columns, written three years apart. The first column, published on August 2, 1998, consisted of more than 80 humorous observations and included "a series of one-liners that had been lifted from... George Carlin's best-selling 1997 book, Brain Droppings." Barnicle first received a one-month suspension; he denied that he had ever read the book, and claimed that the jokes were told to him by a bartender. However, it was subsequently found that he had recommended Brain Droppings during a television appearance earlier that year. He was then asked to resign from the paper, though he initially refused to do so. Carlin later discussed to the incident in a speech to the National Press Club, saying, "Someone changed each of the jokes just enough, they thought, to disguise them – that part didn't work – and what they did was make them all worse. As an example, one of them was just an observation where I said: 'Someday I'd like to see the Pope come out on that balcony and give the football score'. And they changed it to baseball! Which is not as funny! For whatever reason, 'football' is funnier than 'baseball' in that sentence."

A subsequent review of Barnicle's work found a single column from October 8, 1995, which recounted the story of two sets of parents with cancer-stricken children. Barnicle said that after one of the children died, the parents of the other child, who had begun to recover, sent the dead child's parents a check for $10,000. When The Boston Globe could not locate the people who had not been publicly identified because they had died as well, Barnicle continued to insist the story was true but obtained indirectly from a nurse. Mrs. Patricia Shairs later contacted The Boston Globe to indicate that the story Barnicle wrote was about her family, although she said some of the facts were incorrect. An article about the column stated that "[...] there are more differences between the column and Shairs' story than similarities". After the emergence of this second controversy, Barnicle resigned from the paper on August 19, 1998.

The Boston Phoenix published a column by Dan Kennedy on August 20, 1998, reporting that Barnicle had plagiarized journalist A. J. Liebling in a previous article, but Kennedy also quoted in the same column The Boston Globe ombudsman Robert Kierstead as saying, "In the nine years that I did it [worked as ombudsman], I received calls complaining about Barnicle, but I never once received a call complaining that Mike Barnicle had plagiarized." The magazine Boston began a 'Barnicle Watch' in the early 1990s to try to track down other dubious Barnicle sources to which Globe Editor John Driscoll responded: "He's visible, he's on the street, he's talking to real people. He doesn't need to make things up."

Barnicle's resignation spurred reanalysis of his reporting on the 1989 murder of Carol Stuart and "most of the reporting proved solid," according to The New York Times. He and Kevin Cullen had reported that Prudential Financial had issued a check for $480,000 as the life insurance payout for his wife's policy, offering a potential motive for her husband's decision to kill her. The Boston Globe, according to a column by Adrian Walker on December 11, 2023, "stood by its reporting." The New York Times later confirmed that Carol Stuart did not have an insurance policy with Prudential but that there were other policies, including one that yielded a payout of $82,000 from the firm where she worked as a lawyer. The Boston Globe came under criticism in the 2023 documentary about the case, Murder in Boston, for the paper's reporting on Willie Bennett, the ultimately innocent man who was accused of the crime. The Boston Globe published Bennett's grade school report cards, his IQ and the fact that he did not finish the seventh grade in a column by Barnicle. After the release of the documentary, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu issued a formal apology to the Bennett family on behalf of the city.

Post-Globe career
Six months after his resignation from the Globe, the New York Daily News recruited Barnicle to write for them, and later the Boston Herald. Barnicle told reporters that he had nothing but "fond feelings for 25 years at the Globe. Barnicle hosted a radio show three times a week called Barnicle's View.

Barnicle has since become a staple on MSNBC, including on Morning Joe as well as on specials on breaking news topics and presidential elections. Barnicle interviewed all of the candidates in the 2016 presidential race. He interviewed the 2020 presidential candidates through his work on Morning Joe.

Barnicle is a devoted baseball fan and was interviewed in Ken Burns's film Baseball in The Tenth Inning movie, where he mostly commented on the 2003–2004 Boston Red Sox. He has also been featured in TV documentaries and programs, including Fabulous Fenway: America's Legendary Ballpark (2000); City of Champions: The Best of Boston Sports (2005); ESPN 25: Who's #1 (2005); Reverse of the Curse of the Bambino (2004); The Curse of the Bambino (2003); ESPN Sports Century (2000); Baseball (1994); and in the TV series Prime 9 (2010–2011) for MLB Network.

Barnicle has received many honors for his work, including the Pete Hamill Award for Journalistic Excellence from the Glucksman Ireland House at New York University.

In a 2022 Editor & Publisher feature article, Barnicle warned of the 'destruction of democracy' and talked about the plight and promise of newspapers. He mourned the "disappearance of local newspapers", suggesting that even though most states have at least one or two major metro papers, large swaths of the nation are without a reliable source of local news, and voiced his concern about the treasure trove of talent the industry has lost in recent years and all the institutional and community knowledge that left with them.

Personal life
Barnicle is married to the former vice chair of Bank of America, Anne Finucane; the couple has adult children and lives in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

Notes and references

 * Heslam, J. (November 30, 2007). "Barnicle back on WTKK". Retrieved October 6, 2014.

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

title: Mike Barnicle


text:
Trinity River (Texas)

The Trinity River is a 710 mi river, the longest with a watershed entirely within the U.S. state of Texas. It rises in extreme northern Texas, a few miles south of the Red River. The headwaters are separated by the high bluffs on the southern side of the Red River.

The Trinity River was previously identified as the stream that the Caddo called Arkikosa in Central Texas and Daycoa nearer the coast. However, in 2022, language preservationists from the Caddo Nation determined their ancestral language lacked the letter “R” sound. Arkikosa was likely a corruption or misspelling of the word Akokisa. In the vernacular of another tribe, the Atakapa who settled in the Gulf Coast woodlands, Akokisa means “river people.” French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle, in 1687, named the river, Riviere des canoës ("River of Canoes"). In 1690 Spanish explorer Alonso de León named it, "La Santísima Trinidad" ("the Most Holy Trinity").

Course
The Trinity River has four branches: the West Fork, the Clear Fork, the Elm Fork, and the East Fork.

The West Fork Trinity River has its headwaters in Archer County. From there it flows southeast, through the man-made reservoirs Lake Bridgeport and Eagle Mountain Lake, and eastward through Lake Worth and the city of Fort Worth.

The Clear Fork Trinity River begins north of Weatherford, Texas, and flows southeastward through Lake Weatherford and Benbrook Lake reservoirs. It flows northeastward, where it joins the West Fork near downtown Fort Worth and continues as the West Fork.

The Elm Fork Trinity River flows south from near Gainesville through Ray Roberts Lake and east of the city of Denton, eventually through Lewisville Lake.

The West Fork and the Elm Fork merge as they enter the city of Dallas.

The East Fork Trinity River (on old maps the Bois d'Arc River) begins near McKinney, Texas, and flows through Lavon Lake and then Lake Ray Hubbard before joining the Trinity River just southeast of Dallas.

The Trinity flows southeast from Dallas across a fertile floodplain and the pine forests of eastern Texas. The Trinity crosses Texas State Highway 31 in Henderson County, near where the first county seat, Buffalo, was established. Roughly 65 mi north of the mouth on Galveston Bay, an earthen dam was built in 1968 to form Lake Livingston.

The river empties into Trinity Bay, an arm of Galveston Bay that is an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico. Its river mouth is near the town of Anahuac, southeast of Houston.

Tributaries

 * Clear Fork of the Trinity River
 * East Fork of the Trinity River (Bois d'Arc River)
 * Elm Fork of the Trinity River
 * West Fork of the Trinity River
 * Bachman Branch
 * Cedar Creek
 * Clear Creek (confluence with Elm Fork in Denton)
 * Mountain Creek
 * Fossil Creek (Texas)
 * Johnson Creek
 * Red Oak Creek
 * Richland Creek
 * White Rock Creek
 * Rowlett Creek
 * Big Creek
 * Fourmile Creek
 * Five Mile Creek
 * Ten Mile Creek
 * Sycamore Creek
 * Marine Creek

Public works projects

Plans from the 1890s for a shipping channel along the length of the Trinity River were scrapped because it would have required extensive dredging to make the river navigable, although several overpasses were built with very high clearances in anticipation of the shipping channel. Locks were actually built 13 miles downstream of Dallas in the early 1900s. Original federal plans called for building 36 locks and dams from Trinity Bay near Houston to Dallas. The first built was Lock and Dam No. 1 in the city of Dallas at McCommas Bluff, directly west of Lincoln Memorial Cemetery. Lock construction came to a standstill in the wake of World War I, however. Only Lock and Dam Nos. 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 20 and 25 were built. There are currently no plans for addressing these old locks located in various spots along the Trinity River. However, the Corps is working nearby on the Dallas Floodway Extension Project. The DFE Project is under construction and is helping to fulfill their mission, as directed by Congress in cooperation with the city of Dallas. It is helping to lower flood risk, and provide ecosystem restoration and recreation to the citizens of Dallas.

The Trinity River Corridor Project is intended to transform the Trinity River flood zone in downtown Dallas into the nation's largest urban park, featuring three signature bridges designed by acclaimed architect Santiago Calatrava.

A similar project is planned by the Tarrant Regional Water District, City of Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Streams & Valleys Inc., and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop an area north of "downtown" as "uptown" along the Trinity River. This plan promotes a large mixed-use development adjacent to the central city area of Fort Worth, with a goal to prevent urban sprawl by promoting the growth of a healthy, vibrant urban core. The Trinity River Vision lays the groundwork to enable Fort Worth's central business district to double in size over the next forty years.

Floods and flood protection

Major flooding occurred on the Trinity River in the years 1844, 1866, 1871, and 1890, but a major event in the spring of 1908 set in motion the harnessing of the river. On 26 May 1908, the Trinity River reached a depth of 52.6 ft and a width of 1.5 mi. Five people died, 4,000 were left homeless, and property damage was estimated at $2.5 million.

"Now the wreckage of a shed or outhouse would move by, followed by a drowned swine or other livestock. The construction forces of the Texas & Pacific worked feverishly to safeguard the long trestle carrying their tracks across the stream. Suddenly, this whole structure turned on its side down-stream, broke loose from the rest of the track at one end and swung out into the middle of the current and began breaking up, first into large sections and then into smaller pieces, rushing madly along to some uncertain destination. [Approximately half a dozen of the workmen fell into the torrent at this point; exaggerated reports of their drowning swept the city.]"

Dallas was without power for three days, all telephone and telegraph service was down, and rail service was canceled. The only way to reach Oak Cliff was by boat. West Dallas was hit harder than any other part of the city—the Dallas Times Herald said "indescribable suffering" plagued the area. Much to the horror of residents, thousands of livestock drowned in the flood and some became lodged in the tops of trees. The stench of their decay hung over the city as the water subsided.

After the disastrous flood, the city's citizenry wanted to find a way to control the unpredictable Trinity River and to build a bridge linking Oak Cliff and Dallas. The immediate reaction was clamor to build an indestructible, all-weather crossing over the Trinity. This had already been tried following the 1890 flood; the result was the "Long Wooden Bridge" that connected Jefferson Boulevard in Oak Cliff and Cadiz in Dallas, but the resulting unstable bridge was easily washed away by the 1908 flood. George B. Dealey, publisher of the Dallas Morning News, proposed a 1.5 mi concrete bridge based on the design of a bridge crossing the Missouri River in Kansas City. Ultimately, a US$650,000 (US$ in today's terms) bond election was approved and in 1912, the Oak Cliff Viaduct (now the Houston Street Viaduct) was opened with festivities that drew 58,000 spectators. At that time, the bridge was the longest concrete structure in the world.

Following from the 1908 flooding, levees were first constructed in 1932. They were heightened in 1960 to the 30 ft that has been maintained to the early 21st century. Current plans to improve the existing levees are part of what is known as the Dallas Floodway Extension project and the Trinity River Project. They entail extending two existing levees and raising two others, all adjacent to the downtown Dallas area.

Downtown Dallas also suffered severe flooding in 1990. Minor flooding of the Trinity River occurs frequently, such as, for instance, in the spring of 2015 and summer of 2022.

title: Trinity River (Texas)


text:
The 12½p Buytonic Boy

The 12½p Buytonic Boy was a British comic strip, created by Robert Nixon, although Brian Walker frequently deputised when Bob was on leave. It debuted as "Half a Dollar Boy" in issue 37 of Monster Fun comic, before becoming a regular feature in the first issue of the magazine Krazy, dated 16 October 1976.

Concept
The strip was about a boy called Steve Ford, who, after buying a special tonic from Professor Nutz for 12½ pence, gained special powers. He would later be hired by the Everso Secret Service (pronounced ever-so-secret service), using his powers to interfere with the plans of the villainous spies from rival organisation the "NME" (pronounced enemy). This being the period of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the names of the agents of the NME included Boris and Ivan, and they would occasionally dress as Russians. Part of the joke involved the audience being aware that there was a contemporary British pop-music magazine, the New Musical Express, which was known in the teenage subculture by the nickname the NME.

The character's name, and the title of the strip, spoofed The Six Million Dollar Man television series, whose main character was called Steve Austin, and was known as the "bionic man". Part of the joke was that Ford and Austin were both names of popular car manufacturers in Britain. Prior to getting his powers, Steve Ford crashes his Go-kart, much as Steve Austin gets his after crashing an aircraft.

Later years
After Krazy finished in 1978, he became a Whizzer and Chips Whizz-Kid, and stayed in that comic until early 1986. Around the time the half penny ceased being legal tender, in 1981, the strip was retitled The Buytonic Boy, variously attributing to BB: Buytonic Boy and The Buytonic Boy starring Steve Ford. It would later be retitled, more permanently, to Super Steve, and, after that, Super Steve vs NME Nasties, in which readers were invited to write to the NME, care of the comic's Editor, and suggest ways of defeating Steve (which always failed).

He was also known for three weeks in 1984 as W4 during a short-lived spell when Whizzer and Chips code-number titled its characters in an attempt to attract a teenage audience.

title: The 12½p Buytonic Boy


text:
User:Eduveloper

WikipediA great thing

Try and find some easy starter (maybe van Doorne's Variomatic and Trucks), do a little contribution as appreciation.

title: User:Eduveloper


text:
Television in the Soviet Union

Television in the Soviet Union was owned, controlled and censored by the state. The body governing television in the era of the Soviet Union was the Gosteleradio committee, which was responsible for both the Soviet Central Television and the All-Union Radio.

Soviet television production was classified into central (Soviet Central Television), republican, and regional broadcasting.

History
In 1938, television broadcasting began in Moscow and Leningrad under the auspices of the All-Union Committee for Radiofication and Radio Broadcasting at the USSR Sovnarkom (Всесоюзный комитет по радиофикации и радиовещанию при СНК СССР).

On 1 October 1934, Russia's first television receivers were produced. The B-2 had a 3×4-centimetre (1¼×1½-inch) screen and a mechanical raster scan in 30 lines at 12.5 frames per second. On 15 November 1934, Moscow had its first television broadcast, of a concert. On 15 October 1935, the first broadcast of a film was made.

On 9 March 1938, a first experimental studio television program was broadcast, from Shabolovka tower, in Moscow. Three weeks later, the first full film, The Great Citizen (Великий гражданин), was broadcast. On 7 June 1938, a television broadcast was tried in Leningrad.

World War II disrupted regular television broadcasting; it was re-instated in Moscow on 15 December 1945. On 4 November 1948, the Moscow television centre began broadcasting in a 625-line standard. On 29 June 1949, the first out-of-studio broadcast, of a football match, was made, from the Dynamo sports stadium. On 24 August 1950, a long-range broadcast was made from Moscow to Ryazan.

In time for the golden jubilee year of the October Revolution, 1967, SECAM color broadcasts debuted in both Moscow and Leningrad on their local TV channels. By 1973, the Soviet television service had grown into six full national channels, plus republican and regional stations serving all republics and minority communities.

Distance and geography
The size and geography of the Soviet Union made television broadcasting difficult. These factors included mountains, such as the Urals, the Taiga, and the Steppes, and the spanning of eleven time zones. For instance, a program broadcast at 18:00 in Moscow came at 21:00 in Frunze, Kirghizia. The population density was irregular, with many more residents in the west. The Soviet Union also relayed broadcasts to other Warsaw Pact states.

Soviet television standard
The Soviet broadcast television standard used CCIR System D (OIRT VHF band with the "R" channels ranging from R1 to R12) and System K (pan-European/African UHF band), with SECAM as the color system standard. The resulting system is commonly referred to as "SECAM D/K".

Soviet television channels
There were six television channels (called "programmes") in the Soviet Union. "Programme One" was the main channel, with time-slots for regional programming (see "Regional television services", below). The other channels were Programme Two (also known as the All Union Programme), the Moscow Programme (the third channel), the Fourth Programme (the fourth channel), the Fifth programme (broadcast from Leningrad), and the Sixth Programme (sports, science, and technology).

Not all channels were available across all the Soviet Union. Until perestroika and the establishment of the Gorizont satellite network, many regions received just the First Programme and the All Union Programme. The satellite network brought all six channels to the entire Soviet Union. The new channels offered urban news and entertainment (Channel 3); culture, documentaries, and programmes for the Intelligentsia (Channel 4); information and entertainment from the point of view of another city (Channel 5); and scientific and technological content (Channel 6).

Regional television services
In addition to the national television channels, each of the Republics of the Soviet Union (SSR) and Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union (ASSR) had its own state radio and television company or state broadcasting committees. The regional company or committee was able to broadcast regional programming in Russian or the local language alongside the official First Programme schedule and was also able to broadcast additional channels for their coverage area only. Alongside them were a number of city television stations that served as retransmitters of national programming with local opt-outs for news and current affairs.

Soviet satellite services
The Soviet Union's domestic satellite television system, Orbita, was as large as Canada's Anik and the United States' satellite system.

In 1990, there were 90 Orbita satellites, supplying programming to 900 main transmitters and over 4,000 relay stations. The best-known Soviet satellites were the Molniya (or "Lightning") satellites. Other satellite groups were the Gorizont ("Horizon"), Ekran ("Screen"), and Statsionar ("Stationary") satellites. People outside the Soviet Union who used a TVRO satellite television could receive Soviet broadcasts.

Broadcasts were time-shifted for the Soviet Union's many time zones. The national television channels were only on the air for part of the day, giving room in the schedule to time-shift. There were two types of Soviet time-shifting, one based on a similar radio programme, and "Double" programs, which was composite time-shifting for the different time zones.

Only the First Programme was time-shifted on the pattern of a similar radio programme, the All-Union First Programme from Soviet radio. TV Orbita-1 was broadcast in the UTC +11, +12, and +13 time zones. TV Orbita-2 was broadcast in the UTC +9 and +10 time zones; TV Orbita-3 in the UTC +7 and +8 time zones; TV Orbita-4 in UTC +5 and +6; and the First Programme in time zones UTC +2, +3, and +4.

All other national television channels (the All-Union, Moscow, Fourth, and Leningrad programmes) used the "double" programme composite time-shifting.

Programming
Soviet TV programming was diverse and similar to that of American PBS. It included news programmes, educational programmes, documentaries, occasional movies, and children's programmes. Major sports events such as football and ice hockey matches were often broadcast live. Programming was domestic or made in Warsaw Pact countries.

The broadcasts had relatively high levels of self-censorship. Prohibited topics included criticism against the status and implementation of Soviet ideology, all aspects of erotica and nudity, graphic portrayal of violence, coarse language, and illicit drug use.

The leading news programmes used presenters with exemplary diction and excellent knowledge of the Russian language. Sergey Georgyevich Lapin, chairman of the USSR State Committee for Television and Radio (1970 to 1985) made a number of rules. Male presenters could not have beards and had to wear a tie and jacket. Women were not allowed to wear pants. Lapin banned a broadcast of a close up of Alla Pugacheva singing into the microphone, as he considered it reminiscent of oral sex. Lapin and his committee were accused of antisemitism in the television programming.

Despite these limitations, television grew in popularity. The average daily volume of broadcasting grew from 1673 hours in 1971 to 3,700 hours in 1985. A new television and radio complex, the "PTRC" was built for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The Ostankino Technical Center in Moscow was one of the largest in the world at that time.

In the late 1980s, the nature of programming began to change. Some Western programs, mostly from the United Kingdom and Latin America, were imported. Talk shows and game shows were introduced, often copied from their western counterparts. For example, the game show, Pole Chudes (The Field of Miracles) based on Wheel of Fortune. Free speech regulations were gradually eased.

Until the late 1980s, Soviet television had no advertisements. Even then, they were rare, because few companies could produce advertisements about themselves.

The Soviet Union's television news was provided by the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS).

Made-for-TV movies
At the beginning of the 1960s, television in the USSR expanded rapidly. The increase in the number of channels and the duration of daily broadcasts created a shortage of suitable content. This led to production of television films, in particular of multiple-episode television films (Russian: многосерийный телевизионный фильм)—the official Soviet moniker for miniseries. Despite that the Soviet Union started broadcasting in color in 1967, color TV sets did not become widespread until the end of the 1980s. This justified shooting made-for-TV movies on black-and-white film.

The 1965 four-episode Calling for fire, danger close is considered the first Soviet miniseries. It is a period drama set in the Second World War that depicts Soviet guerrilla fighters infiltrating German compound and directing the fire of the regular Soviet Army to destroy the German airfield. During the 1970s, the straightforward fervor gave way to a more nuanced interplay of patriotism, family and everyday life wrapped into traditional genres of crime drama, spy show or thriller. One of the most popular Soviet miniseries—Seventeen Moments of Spring about a Soviet spy operating in Nazi Germany—was shot in 1972. This 12-episode miniseries incorporated features of political thriller and docudrama and included excerpts from period newsreels. Originally produced in black-and-white in 4:3 aspect ratio, it was colorized and re-formatted for wide-screen TVs in 2009.

Other popular miniseries of the Soviet era include The Shadows Disappear at Noon (1971, 7 episodes) about the fate of several generations of locals from a Siberian village, The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed (1979, 5 episodes) about the fight against criminals in the immediate post-war period, and TASS Is Authorized to Declare... (1984, 10 episodes) about the tug-of-war of Soviet and American intelligence agencies.

Numerous miniseries were produced for children in the 1970s-1980s. Among them are: The Adventures of Buratino (1976, 2 episodes)—an adaptation of The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino by Alexey Tolstoy, which in turn is a retelling of The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi; The Two Captains (1976, 6 episodes)—an adaptation of The Two Captains by Veniamin Kaverin about a search for a lost Arctic expedition and the discovery of Severnaya Zemlya; The Adventures of Elektronic (1979, 3 episodes) about a humanoid robot meeting and befriending his prototype—a 6th grade schoolboy; Guest from the Future (1985, 5 episodes) about a boy and a girl travelling in time and fighting intergalactic criminals. In each of these, CTV-USSR co-produced them with the Gorky Film Studio.

title: Television in the Soviet Union


text:
Wiseman (surname)

Wiseman is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

 * Adele Wiseman, Canadian author
 * Bob Wiseman, Canadian musician, filmmaker, singer-songwriter, actor
 * Chad Wiseman, Canadian ice hockey player
 * Clarence Wiseman, 10th General of the Salvation Army
 * Danny Wiseman, American professional bowler
 * Debbie Wiseman, English film and television composer
 * Donald Wiseman, American military veteran he fought in world war 2
 * Donald Wiseman, English professor, archeologist and writer
 * Douglas Wiseman, Canadian politician
 * Ernest Wiseman, English comedian, stage name Ernie Wise
 * Fred J. Wiseman (1875–1961), American aviator
 * Frederick Wiseman, American film director
 * Gary Wiseman, American musician for the rock band Bowling for Soup
 * Gregory R. Wiseman, NASA astronaut
 * Howard M. Wiseman, Australian theoretical quantum physicist
 * James Wiseman (born 2001), American basketball player
 * Jay Wiseman, BDSM author
 * Jennifer Wiseman, American astronomer
 * Jim Wiseman, Canadian politician
 * John Wiseman, former SAS soldier, 1980s
 * Johnny Wiseman former SAS soldier, Second World War
 * Joseph Wiseman (1918–2009), Canadian actor
 * Len Wiseman, American film director and screenwriter
 * Lofty Wiseman, British author and survival consultant
 * Loren Wiseman, American game designer
 * Mac Wiseman, American bluegrass singer
 * Margaret Wiseman, Scottish female curler
 * Mary Wiseman (born 1961), American lawyer and judge
 * Mary Wiseman, American actress
 * Nicholas Wiseman, Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster
 * Neil Wiseman, British computer scientist
 * Paul Wiseman, New Zealand cricketer
 * Paula Wiseman, children's book publisher and founder of Paula Wiseman Books
 * Rhett Wiseman (born 1994), American baseball player
 * Richard Wiseman (1622–1676), English surgeon
 * Richard Wiseman, English psychology professor
 * Robert Wiseman, Scottish businessman
 * Rochelle Wiseman (born 1989), British singer
 * Rosalind Wiseman, American educator and author
 * Scott Wiseman, English footballer
 * Solomon Wiseman, Australian convict, merchant and shipowner
 * Thomas A. Wiseman Jr., U.S. federal judge
 * Tina Wiseman, American actress
 * T. P. Wiseman, Classical scholar, University of Exeter, England, UK
 * William Wiseman (disambiguation), multiple people

Fictional characters

 * Bernard Wiseman, a character from the OVA series Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket

title: Wiseman (surname)


text:
Single European Act

The Single European Act (SEA) was the first major revision of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. The Act set the European Community an objective of establishing a single market by 31 December 1992, and a forerunner of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) it helped codify European Political Co-operation. The amending treaty was signed at Luxembourg City on 17 February 1986 and at The Hague on 28 February 1986. It came into effect on 1 July 1987, under the Delors Commission.

A core element of the SEA was to create a single market within the European Community by 1992, when – it was hoped – the necessary legislative reforms would have been completed. The belief was that in removing non-tariff barriers to cross-border intra-Community trade and investment such measures would provide the twelve Member States a broad economic stimulus. To facilitate their removal, the SEA reformed the Community legislative process both by introducing the cooperation procedure and by extending Qualified Majority Voting to new areas. Measures were also taken to shorten the legislative process.

Anticipating the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, the SEA signatories declared themselves "moved by the will to continue the work undertaken on the basis of the Treaties establishing the European Communities and to transform relations as a whole among their States into a European Union".

Background
The SEA's signing grew from the discontent among European Community members in the 1980s about the de facto lack of free trade among them. Leaders from business and politics wanted to harmonise laws among countries and resolve policy discrepancies.

The Treaty was drafted with the aim of implementing parts of the Dooge report on institutional reform of the Community and the European Commission's white paper on reforming the Common Market. The resultant treaty aimed to create a "Single Market" in the Community by 1992, and as a means of achieving this adopted a more collaborative legislative process, later known as the cooperation procedure, which gave the European Parliament a real say in legislating for the first time and introduced more majority voting in the Council of Ministers. Under the procedure the Council could, with the support of Parliament and acting on a proposal by the Commission, adopt a legislative proposal by a qualified majority, but the Council could also overrule a rejection of a proposed law by the Parliament by adopting a proposal unanimously.

Signing and ratification
A political agreement was reached at the European Council held in Luxembourg on 3 December 1985 when foreign ministers finalised the text. Denmark and Italy raised concerns over constitutional validity. Nine countries, Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom, signed the Single European Act at Luxembourg on 17 February 1986. That date was originally intended as display of unity within the Community regarding the SEA, but this failed.

The Danish parliament rejected the Single European Act in January 1986 after an opposition motion calling for the then unsigned document to be renegotiated was passed by 80 votes to 75. The Danish opposition opposed the treaty because they said it would increase the powers of the European Parliament. The Danish government, who supported the treaty, decided to hold a national, non-binding referendum on the issue to overcome the treaty's rejection by the Danish parliament. This referendum was duly held on 27 February 1986 and approved by the Danish people by 56.2% voting in favour to 43.8% against on a turnout of 75.4%.

The Italian government delayed in signing for the opposite concern: that, in their opinion, it would not give the European Parliament enough power. Together with Greece who had also delayed in signing, Denmark and Italy signed the Single European Act at The Hague on 28 February 1986.

It had been originally intended to have the SEA ratified by the end of 1986 so that it would come into force on 1 January 1987 and 11 of the then 12 member states of the EEC had ratified the treaty by that date. The deadline failed to be achieved when the Irish government were restrained from ratifying the SEA pending court proceedings.

In the court case Crotty v. An Taoiseach, the Irish Supreme Court ruled that the Irish Constitution would have to be amended before the state could ratify the treaty, something that can only be done by referendum. Such a referendum was ultimately held on 26 May 1987 when the proposal was approved by Irish voters, who voted by 69.9% in favour to 30.1% against, on a turnout of 44.1%. Ireland formally ratified the Single European Act in June 1987, allowing the treaty to come into force on 1 July.

The employment promise of the Act
The Treaty was broadly promoted on the promise that trade liberalisation would renew employment growth. While completion of the Community's internal market in 1992 might not "be enough to bring unemployment down to the low-water mark reached just before the [1973] oil crisis", EC Commission President Jacques Delors was confident that it would be "enough to reverse the trend".

At the time of ratification, the EC appeared to be "an island of uniquely high unemployment". Over 9% of the workforce (April 1992) was unemployed – over 2% more than the 7.1% in the United States and in a different league from the 2.2% jobless rate in Japan. In the latter half of the 1980s employment had increased at a faster rate in the Community that an any time since the 1950s, but the fact that unemployment bottomed out at 8.3% suggested to the EC Social Affairs Commissions, Vasso Papandreou, that joblessness had become endemic within the Community.

Employment growth did figure prominently in "the rhetoric of '1992. The official Cecchini Report identified employment gains as the Single Market's "most important benefit". But there were important caveats. First it was anticipated that intensified cross-border rationalisation and competition in the post-1992 market, in the short-term, might lead, if not to job losses, to a competitive devaluation of employment terms and conditions. Papandreou was persuaded that in the higher-wage economies, intensified cross-border competition and restructuring would result in a further splintering of working patterns and job contracts, increasing the incidence of part-time working, outwork, and temporary employment. Given that the model of full-time, regular employment continued to underlie social-security arrangements, this suggested the possibility of serious losses in welfare and equity.

A second reservation with regard to the employment benefits of the Single Market was that projections tended to assume a reversal, or at least easing, of the then relatively restrictive macro-economic policies of the member states. The Cecchini's Reports higher medium-term estimate of 4.4 million additional jobs resulting from the removal of the remaining barriers to intra-Community trade assumed that chief among the benefits of comprehensive trade liberalisation would be a spontaneous easing of inflationary pressures and external balance of payments constraints, and that the subsequent "room for manoeuvre" would be "exploited" by a resort to "expansionary economic policies".

The SEA committed the Member States to promote "the convergence of economic and monetary policies" necessary for European Currency Union (ECU). The criteria for economic and monetary union were left to the later 1992 Maastricht Treaty. The SEA did underscore that these should "take account of the experience acquired in co-operation within the framework of the European Monetary System (EMS)". The EMS linked the currencies of participating states, and committed their governments to fiscal and monetary policies sufficiently tight to contain inflation and prevent large exchange rate fluctuations. As the so-called "Maastricht criteria" were to confirm, this set a high bar before a government might consider expansionary policies to stimulate employment. It did not anticipate a mechanism for coordinating reflation between the member states so as to ease balance-of-trade constraints.

UK interpretation and UK withdrawal
The United Kingdom, under the Conservative Party premiership of Margaret Thatcher, claimed credit for framing of the SEA. It was Thatcher's nominee to the Delors Commission, Lord Cockfield, who, as the commissioner responsible for the Single Market, drew up the initial White Paper.

For Thatcher, the Act represented the realisation of Britain's long-standing "free-trade" vision for Europe. Moving beyond the tariff-free commitment of the Common Market, the act would dismantle the "insidious" barriers to intra-Community trade posed by "differing national standards, various restrictions on the provision of services, [and the] exclusion of foreign firms from public contracts". To create a single market with purchasing power "bigger than Japan, bigger than the United States", Britain and her partners were committed to: "Action to make it possible for insurance companies to do business throughout the Community [for the British economy financial services played an outsized role]. Action to let people practice their trades and professions freely throughout the Community. Action to remove the customs barriers and formalities so that goods can circulate freely and without time-consuming delays. Action to make sure that any company could sell its goods and services without let or hindrance. Action to secure free movement of capital throughout the Community."

In promoting the Single Market, in the SEA Thatcher made compromises that a growing body of opinion in her Conservative Party were to regard as fatal. Pressured by German Chancellor Helmut Kohl she accepted the references, she had hoped to avoid, to a future European Union and to a common currency (monetary union).

Arguing that, building on these concessions the Maastricht and subsequent treaties, transcended the Single Market vision and committed Britain to an evolving "federal Europe", in 2015 Conservative "Euro-sceptics" secured a referendum on continued UK treaty accession. While presuming that Britain would remain "part" of a "European free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border", the official Vote Leave campaign and its allies proved victorious in the "Brexit" referendum of June 2016. After rejecting calls to negotiate continued membership of the Single Market or a free-trade agreement based on regulatory alignment with the Single Market, under the terms of the October 2019 Withdrawal Agreement the Conservative government of Boris Johnson withdrew the United Kingdom from the European Union, and thus from the SEA, at the end of January 2020.

title: Single European Act


text: User talk:69.158.21.244

title: User talk:69.158.21.244


text:
Alexis Infante

Fermín Alexis Infante Carpio (born December 4, 1961) is a former Venezuelan professional baseball utility infielder. Listed at 5' 10", 175 lb., he batted and threw right handed.

Born in Barquisimeto, Lara, Infante played for the Toronto Blue Jays and Atlanta Braves in a span of four seasons from 1987 to 1990.

In the 1980s, the Blue Jays called Infante its best defensive shortstop in the American League next to Chicago's Ozzie Guillén. Infante had exceptional range and enough arm to make a throw from the hole, but he was unable to help himself with the bat.

In a four-season career, Infante was mostly used as a late-inning defense replacement as well as a pinch runner. He posted a .109 batting average with 11 runs scored and one stolen base without home runs or RBI in 60 game appearances.

Besides, Infante spent ten seasons in the Toronto and Atlanta minor league systems between 1982 and 1996, compiling a .255 average with 12 homers and 249 RBI in 880 games.

In between, he played and managed for the Olmecas de Tabasco in the Mexican League, and played winter ball for the Cardenales de Lara club of the Venezuelan League.

After his playing days, Infante managed the Dominican Summer League Rangers and also has coached for a long time in his native country for the Cardenales.

title: Alexis Infante


text:
Talk:Maya calendar

Proposed merge of Daykeeper into Maya calendar
At present this is just a dictionary definition. The book source suggests that it could be expanded, but it looks as if the information would be more appropriate within the broader article on the calendar. Pam D  11:17, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think it can have an entry in the Wiktionary too. Aminabzz (talk) 15:35, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
 * From what I see the Daykeeper article is just a one line definition, I think merging it into the larger article would be fine and lose no information. DontAskMeAboutThis (talk) 00:36, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Agree with the need for a merge, but its unclear why the target would be to the calendar; perhaps Maya religion would be better, as these are shaman/priest rather than (just) timekeeper. Klbrain (talk) 14:21, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * nonononononon u fat dumb person 188.39.40.2 (talk) 15:36, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
 * the person above me is correct you fat fucking americans 188.39.40.2 (talk) 15:44, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Given the absence of a coherent objection, I've merged Daykeeper to Maya religion, where there was already relevant content. Klbrain (talk) 21:44, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Maya calendar


text: User talk:208.51.30.118

title: User talk:208.51.30.118


text:
User:Cryptfiend64/for school

You are reading Hamlet, when you recall that one of your favorite math teachers said, "On average, Shakespeare writes 1,500 words per act, with a standard deviation of 125." You count the words in each act of Hamlet, and you find that there are, on average, 1,600 per act. You find this odd, and decide to read your statistics book to see if Shakespeare decided to make Hamlet extra long. To do this, you can use the 1-sample Z-test, which requires you to know the following:
 * σ (the population standard deviation, which is 125 in this case)
 * μ (the population mean, which is 1,500 in this case)
 * $$\overline{x}$$ (the sample mean, which is 1,600 in this case)
 * n (the number of samples we took; in our case, the "samples" are each Act, and there are five Acts in Hamlet, so n = 5)

When using any Z-test, we assume that the population standard deviation (&sigma) is already known (usually not a realistic assumption). There is a nice rule known as the 68-95-99.7 rule. This rule simply states that on any normal curve, 68% of the values that $$\overline{x}$$ can take lie within one standard deviation of the population mean. For example, in the above problem, 68% of the values that $$\overline{x}$$ can take lie within the interval $$1500\pm125$$, or (1375 - 1625). Similarly, 95% of the values that $$\overline{x}$$ can take lie within 2 standard deviations of the population mean, and 99.7% of the values that $$\overline{x}$$ can take lie within 3 standard deviations of the population mean.

We look at our original problem again. In order to see if Shakespeare was being odd while writing Hamlet, we need two statistical hypotheses - $$H_0$$ and $$H_a$$. $$H_0$$ is known as the null hypothesis, while $$H_a$$ is known as the alternative hypothesis. The null hypothesis states that the population mean is equal to what was established before; in our case, it would be: $$\mu=1500$$. On the other hand, to attempt to disprove the null hypothesis (which seems to be false in our case), we must formulate an alternative hypothesis, which in our case would be: $$\mu>1500$$.

The purpose of a 1-sample Z-test is to see if we can disprove the null hypothesis. To see how that works, it's best to try a problem. First of all, the formula for an actual 1-sample Z-test is:

 * $$z = \frac{\overline{x}-\mu}{\sigma/\sqrt{2}}$$

This value z is merely a standardized value. If you look at Table A in the front of your statistics book, you will see a Z-value chart. The values down the left column indicate the z-value you want to look for (up to the tenths place), the values along the top row indicate the hundredths value. For example, to find the corresponding area for a z-value of -1.91, you'd look for -1.9 on the left column, then for 0.01 on the top. The number happens to be 0.0281. This means that at the z-value of -1.91 (which is simply a standardized value on a normal curve), the area to the left of that value on a normal curve is 0.0281.

normalcdf(-1E99,Z) will find the area to the left of a value on a normal curve

Let's look at the Hamlet problem again. Through calculation, you find that the z-value is 1.7889. If you interpret it in the chart, you find that the p-value is 0.9625. We must interpret this p-value in turn. We are assuming that the null hypothesis (that the population mean equals 1,500) is true (because our value μ is 1,500 when we did the z-test). Through inference, we found out that the values left of 1,600 (when μ=1,500) make up 0.9625 of the all values. To the right of 1,600, on the other hand, are 0.0375 of the values. What the latter value means is that if the population mean were actually 1,500, there would be a 3.75% chance that you would get values of $$\overline{x}\ge1600$$. 3.75% (or 0.0375) is the p-value. There is a value α that is used by statisticians. It generally equals either 0.05 or 0.01. If you find that the p-value is less than 0.05 (for most experiments) or less than 0.01 (for experiments of life and death, for example), then the results are considered statistically significant, and you can confidently reject the null hypothesis. In this case, our p-value is 0.0375, which is less than 0.05; there is no risk in rejecting the null hypothesis at an α-level of 0.05, so we can confidently reject the null hypothesis.

Problems

 * There is a normal curve with sample mean 10 and a standard deviation of 1. How many values lie within the values (8,12)?
 * 50%
 * 60%
 * 95%
 * 99.7%
 * 10 out of every 13
 * Say you calculated a z-score of 2.15. What is the area to the left of this value on a normal curve?
 * .9824
 * .9842
 * .9991
 * .9142
 * 9.82%

You have recoiled from your awesome discovery, and you decide to go on another quest of statistical inference. This time, you decide to work on your Culminating project, which deals with the intelligence of teachers and professors. You have each of your (non-math) teachers take an extremely hard calculus test. Their scores are the following: You wonder what the actual average score of non-math teachers in Stafford High School would be.
 * 56, 61, 46, 62, 50

If you're ever watched the news, you've seen Gallup Polls (which are covered in a later chapter). They always have a margin of error, usually around 3%. If, say, there were a poll, "do you support President Bush?" If the results were 47% yes, 53% no, due to the margin of error, the yes answers in the real population could be anywhere from 44-50%, and the no answers in the population could be anywhere from 50-56%. A confidence interval, although a little bit more complicated than that, has the same general characteristics. We need the population standard deviation, the sample mean, the number of subjects in our sample, and an upper critical value (known as $$z^*$$, or "Z star"). The upper critical values can be found in Table C in the back of your book -- if we want 95% confidence in our interval, we must use an upper critical value of 1.96. The formula for finding a confidence interval is as follows:

 * $$\overline{x} \pm z^{*}\frac{\mu}{\sqrt{n}}$$

This seems reasonable -- we start out with the sample mean ($$\overline{x}$$), and we can add or subtract the margin of error (the other stuff) to find an interval of values in which the actual population mean probably lies. It is helpful to know the statistical definition of "95% confidence":

 * If we were to take a large number of random samples from a population, and took confidence intervals on each one, 95% of those intervals would contain the true population mean.

Anyway, let's go back to our test score problem. Say we know from previous experience that the standard deviation of the population is 12. We want a 95% confidence interval for all test scores for the population (which consists of non-math teachers in Stafford High School, assuming this is a random sample) We can then define all values:
 * $$\overline{x}$$ is 55, if you calculate it
 * $$z^*$$ is 1.96, because we are calculating a 95% confidence interval
 * $$\sigma$$ is 12, as defined previously
 * n is 5, because we had five teachers take the test

So, the equation should be:

 * $$55 \pm {1.96*12\over\sqrt{5}}$$

55 is the sample mean, and we can calculate the margin of error. After calculations, the answer turns out to be:

 * $$55 \pm 10.518$$, or an interval of (44.482, 65.518)

So, if we took repeated samples, the true population mean would lie within 95% of those samples' confidence intervals. Apparently, it looks like all of the teachers failed the test.

Problems

 * Say you were a forestologist, and you decided to visit six rain forests. You computed a total of 14, 20, 21, and 37 boll weevils in each forest. However, scientific evidence suggested that there were, on average, 20 boll weevils in a rain forest, with a standard deviation of 3.4. Perform a 1-sample z-test on these values.
 * You then decided to pursue your alternative hobby of translating the Bible. After translating the Bible five times, you found 101, 210, 331, 142, and 121 mistakes in your translations, compared to the King James edition. We know that the standard deviation is about 10.2 for translation mistakes. Perform a 95% confidence interval with these values.

title: User:Cryptfiend64/for school


text:
Second fundamental form

In differential geometry, the second fundamental form (or shape tensor) is a quadratic form on the tangent plane of a smooth surface in the three-dimensional Euclidean space, usually denoted by $$\mathrm{I\!I}$$ (read "two"). Together with the first fundamental form, it serves to define extrinsic invariants of the surface, its principal curvatures. More generally, such a quadratic form is defined for a smooth immersed submanifold in a Riemannian manifold.

Motivation
The second fundamental form of a parametric surface $S$ in $R^{3}$ was introduced and studied by Gauss. First suppose that the surface is the graph of a twice continuously differentiable function, $z = f(x,y)$, and that the plane $z = 0$ is tangent to the surface at the origin. Then $f$ and its partial derivatives with respect to $x$ and $y$ vanish at (0,0). Therefore, the Taylor expansion of f at (0,0) starts with quadratic terms:

 * $$ z=L\frac{x^2}{2} + Mxy + N\frac{y^2}{2} + \text{higher order terms}\,,$$

and the second fundamental form at the origin in the coordinates $(x,y)$ is the quadratic form

 * $$ L \, dx^2 + 2M \, dx \, dy + N \, dy^2 \,. $$

For a smooth point $P$ on $S$, one can choose the coordinate system so that the plane $z = 0$ is tangent to $S$ at $P$, and define the second fundamental form in the same way.

Classical notation
The second fundamental form of a general parametric surface is defined as follows. Let $r = r(u,v)$ be a regular parametrization of a surface in $R^{3}$, where $r$ is a smooth vector-valued function of two variables. It is common to denote the partial derivatives of $r$ with respect to $u$ and $v$ by $r_{u}$ and $r_{v}$. Regularity of the parametrization means that $r_{u}$ and $r_{v}$ are linearly independent for any $(u,v)$ in the domain of $r$, and hence span the tangent plane to $S$ at each point. Equivalently, the cross product $r_{u} × r_{v}$ is a nonzero vector normal to the surface. The parametrization thus defines a field of unit normal vectors $n$:

 * $$\mathbf{n} = \frac{\mathbf{r}_u\times\mathbf{r}_v}{|\mathbf{r}_u\times\mathbf{r}_v|} \,.$$

The second fundamental form is usually written as

 * $$\mathrm{I\!I} = L\, du^2 + 2M\, du\, dv + N\, dv^2 \,,$$

its matrix in the basis ${r_{u}, r_{v} }$ of the tangent plane is

 * $$ \begin{bmatrix}

L&M\\ M&N \end{bmatrix} \,. $$

The coefficients $L, M, N$ at a given point in the parametric $uv$-plane are given by the projections of the second partial derivatives of $r$ at that point onto the normal line to $S$ and can be computed with the aid of the dot product as follows:

 * $$L = \mathbf{r}_{uu} \cdot \mathbf{n}\,, \quad

M = \mathbf{r}_{uv} \cdot \mathbf{n}\,, \quad N = \mathbf{r}_{vv} \cdot \mathbf{n}\,. $$

For a signed distance field of Hessian $H$, the second fundamental form coefficients can be computed as follows:

 * $$L = -\mathbf{r}_u \cdot \mathbf{H} \cdot \mathbf{r}_u\,, \quad

M = -\mathbf{r}_u \cdot \mathbf{H} \cdot \mathbf{r}_v\,, \quad N = -\mathbf{r}_v \cdot \mathbf{H} \cdot \mathbf{r}_v\,. $$

Physicist's notation
The second fundamental form of a general parametric surface $S$ is defined as follows.

Let $r = r(u^{1},u^{2})$ be a regular parametrization of a surface in $R^{3}$, where $r$ is a smooth vector-valued function of two variables. It is common to denote the partial derivatives of $r$ with respect to $u^{α}$ by $r_{α}$, $α = 1, 2$. Regularity of the parametrization means that $r_{1}$ and $r_{2}$ are linearly independent for any $(u^{1},u^{2})$ in the domain of $r$, and hence span the tangent plane to $S$ at each point. Equivalently, the cross product $r_{1} × r_{2}$ is a nonzero vector normal to the surface. The parametrization thus defines a field of unit normal vectors $n$:

 * $$\mathbf{n} = \frac{\mathbf{r}_1\times\mathbf{r}_2}{|\mathbf{r}_1\times\mathbf{r}_2|}\,.$$

The second fundamental form is usually written as

 * $$\mathrm{I\!I} = b_{\alpha \beta} \, du^{\alpha} \, du^{\beta} \,.$$

The equation above uses the Einstein summation convention. The coefficients $b_{αβ}$ at a given point in the parametric $u^{1}u^{2}$-plane are given by the projections of the second partial derivatives of $r$ at that point onto the normal line to $S$ and can be computed in terms of the normal vector $n$ as follows:

 * $$b_{\alpha \beta} = r_{,\alpha \beta}^{\ \ \,\gamma} n_{\gamma}\,. $$

Hypersurface in a Riemannian manifold
In Euclidean space, the second fundamental form is given by

 * $$\mathrm{I\!I}(v,w) = -\langle d\nu(v),w\rangle\nu$$

where $$\nu$$ is the Gauss map, and $$d\nu$$ the differential of $$\nu$$ regarded as a vector-valued differential form, and the brackets denote the metric tensor of Euclidean space.

More generally, on a Riemannian manifold, the second fundamental form is an equivalent way to describe the shape operator (denoted by $S$) of a hypersurface,

 * $$\mathrm I\!\mathrm I(v,w)=\langle S(v),w\rangle n = -\langle \nabla_v n,w\rangle n=\langle n,\nabla_v w\rangle n\,,$$

where $∇_{v}w$ denotes the covariant derivative of the ambient manifold and $n$ a field of normal vectors on the hypersurface. (If the affine connection is torsion-free, then the second fundamental form is symmetric.)

The sign of the second fundamental form depends on the choice of direction of $n$ (which is called a co-orientation of the hypersurface - for surfaces in Euclidean space, this is equivalently given by a choice of orientation of the surface).

Generalization to arbitrary codimension
The second fundamental form can be generalized to arbitrary codimension. In that case it is a quadratic form on the tangent space with values in the normal bundle and it can be defined by
 * $$\mathrm{I\!I}(v,w)=(\nabla_v w)^\bot\,, $$

where $$(\nabla_v w)^\bot$$ denotes the orthogonal projection of covariant derivative $$\nabla_v w$$ onto the normal bundle.

In Euclidean space, the curvature tensor of a submanifold can be described by the following formula:
 * $$\langle R(u,v)w,z\rangle =\langle \mathrm I\!\mathrm I(u,z),\mathrm I\!\mathrm I(v,w)\rangle-\langle \mathrm I\!\mathrm I(u,w),\mathrm I\!\mathrm I(v,z)\rangle.$$

This is called the Gauss equation, as it may be viewed as a generalization of Gauss's Theorema Egregium.

For general Riemannian manifolds one has to add the curvature of ambient space; if $N$ is a manifold embedded in a Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ then the curvature tensor $R_{N}$ of $N$ with induced metric can be expressed using the second fundamental form and $R_{M}$, the curvature tensor of $M$:
 * $$\langle R_N(u,v)w,z\rangle = \langle R_M(u,v)w,z\rangle+\langle \mathrm I\!\mathrm I(u,z),\mathrm I\!\mathrm I(v,w)\rangle-\langle \mathrm I\!\mathrm I(u,w),\mathrm I\!\mathrm I(v,z)\rangle\,.$$

title: Second fundamental form


text:
Alex Gonzalez (shortstop, born 1973)

Alexander Scott Gonzalez (born April 8, 1973) is an American former Major League Baseball infielder, who spent the majority of his 13-year career with the Toronto Blue Jays. Gonzalez established a career-high with 20 home runs for the Chicago Cubs in 2003 and hit 20 or more doubles eight times. He was regarded as a glove-first player, sporting a lower-than-average batting average (career .243 hitter), on-base percentage (.302), and OPS (.694) while leading the American league twice in fielding percentage. At Killian High School in Miami, Florida, Gonzalez was an All-State pick in baseball as a senior. He was drafted straight out of high school in the 14th round of the 1991 Major League Baseball Draft by the Blue Jays. He is Cuban-American and was nicknamed "Gonzo" in order to tell the difference between him and the other Alex Gonzalez, who signed with the Blue Jays on November 26, 2009; coincidentally, they would face each other in the 2003 National League Championship Series between the Marlins and Cubs.

Professional career
Gonzalez began his pro baseball career in the minor leagues in 1991 with the Gulf Coast Blue Jays. The following season, he moved up to Single-A, playing for the Myrtle Beach Hurricanes in the Carolina League. He was named the MVP of the Hurricanes as they won the South Atlantic League Championship. The Blue Jays named him the recipient of the Howard Webster award in 1992. In 1993, he moved up in the minors to Double-A, spending the season with the Southern League's Knoxville Smokies. Gonzalez made the AA and AAA all star teams. In 1994, Gonzalez played in the Venezuelan professional league during winter ball playing in Barquisimeto where he was named to the All Star team. After making the major league team to begin 1994, Gonzalez batted .151 in 15 games and was sent down to Triple-A Syracuse at the end of April because of a hamstring injury. With Syracuse, Gonzalez batted .284 as he spent the rest of the season in the minors due to the major league strike and made the all star team.

Gonzalez was the Blue Jays starting shortstop from 1995 to 2001. In 1999, his season was cut short after starting with a .290 batting average due to a torn labrum in his throwing arm. Dr. James Andrews performed surgery in August and, after a six-month rehab, he returned to the Blue Jays as their starting shortstop. Throughout his career, Gonzalez averaged around .250 with decent power for a middle infielder, but was unable to hit for high average. He made up for the lack of average with good RBI production and solid defense. He finished his career with 536 RBI and 137 home runs. He led the American league twice in fielding percentage for shortstops and he holds the American league record for assists in one game with 13, and was ranked first in 1997 with Total Zone Runs as a SS with 13. After spending eight years with the Toronto Blue Jays, he was traded to the Chicago Cubs on December 21, 2001, for Félix Heredia and minor leaguer James Deschaine. Gonzalez had two of his best seasons as the Cubs starting shortstop from 2002 to 2003. In 2003, he hit a career-high 20 home runs and advanced to the postseason with the Cubs. Gonzalez's strong point in the postseason was his offense; he batted .275 and hit 4 home runs in 12 postseason games. During the Cubs' eighth inning collapse in Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS versus the Florida Marlins, which became infamous due to the Steve Bartman incident, Gonzalez committed a fielding error on a ground ball in the hole hit by Miguel Cabrera, contributing to the Marlins scoring seven runs, five unearned, afterward in that inning.

On July 31, 2004, the day of the trading deadline, Gonzalez was dealt in a four-team trade to the Montreal Expos with the Cubs acquiring Boston's Nomar Garciaparra to play shortstop. After a brief stint with the Expos, he was sent as part of a conditional deal to the San Diego Padres on September 16. He became a free agent after the season and signed a one-year deal with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for 2005 as a third baseman, making the switch from shortstop. Gonzalez had a productive year at 3B with the Devil Rays hitting .269 and playing good defensively. After a brief, 2006 run with the Philadelphia Phillies, Gonzalez retired from baseball. However, he came out of retirement on January 12, 2007, signing a minor league contract with the Kansas City Royals. But despite a strong showing in spring training during which he batted over .400, Gonzalez failed to make the Royals' 25-man roster prior to the 2007 season, and exercised his right to become a free agent. Shortly thereafter, he signed a minor league contract with the Washington Nationals and played 5 games for Triple-A Columbus before his release.

Post-playing career
Gonzalez attended the University of Phoenix online and obtained a degree in business management. He is a principal at Miami Sports Management representing players in contract negotiations. He resides in Miami with his wife and children.

Acting
Gonzalez appeared "as himself" in an episode of Ken Finkleman's satirical CBC comedy The Newsroom in 1997.

Gonzalez has worked as an analyst for NBC Sports and MLB Network covering season news and the World Baseball Classic.

title: Alex Gonzalez (shortstop, born 1973)


text:
Talk:Boutersem

[Untitled]
My name is Stephen Bouterse. I am curious to know if my name is in any way connected to "Boutersem".

title: Talk:Boutersem