text:
Talk:General of the Armies

Not enough info
I believe General Ulysses S. Grant became a 6 star general/general of the armies after his 200th birthday. If this is incorrect, please notify me. 24.52.31.237 (talk) 13:03, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

 * nevermind. i found the part that said he was one. 24.52.31.237 (talk) 13:06, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Six star general drawings
The six-star general drawings which used to be on this article were not fakes. I see they were deleted with a long talk about how they were concocted, drawn on a computer what have you. The drawings were from the Army from around 1965, you could tell with the weathered and yellowed look that those were actual documents. That should really be fixed as its a disservice to this article not to speak about the insignia debate that happened in the 60s where the Army actually did design a valid 6-star design. Here is a link to what the drawings looked like, not the drawings themselves -  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.44.165.50 (talk) 10:58, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

 * @130.44.165.50 - An image from eBay is not considered a WP:Reliable and WP:Verifiabile source. WP:Unpublished sources can also not be used. The Army would need to make the images readily accessible before they can be added to this article. Neovu79 (talk) 21:57, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Ulysses S Grant

 * In December 2022, Congress authorized the president to posthumously appoint Ulysses S. Grant to the rank

Has he done so? Marnanel (talk) 15:42, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:General of the Armies


text:
Jenna Elfman

Jennifer Mary Elfman (née Butala, born September 30, 1971) is an American actress. She is best known for her leading role as Dharma on the ABC sitcom Dharma & Greg (1997–2002), for which she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy in 1999, and three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. After making her film debut in Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), she has appeared in Krippendorf's Tribe (1998), Dr. Dolittle (1998), EDtv (1999), Keeping the Faith (2000), Town & Country (2001), Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), Clifford's Really Big Movie (2004), and Big Stone Gap (2014).

Elfman has also played leading roles on other television comedies, including Courting Alex (2006), Accidentally on Purpose (2009–2010), 1600 Penn (2012–2013), Growing Up Fisher (2014), and Imaginary Mary (2017). She also had a recurring role on the FX legal drama Damages in 2012, and has been a series regular on the AMC horror drama series Fear the Walking Dead since 2018.

Early life
Elfman was born Jennifer Mary Butala in Los Angeles, California. She was the youngest of three children born to homemaker Sue Butala (née Grace) and Richard Butala, a Hughes Aircraft executive. Her paternal uncle is Tony Butala, lead singer of the American vocal trio The Lettermen since 1958. She is of Croatian ancestry on her father's side and was raised Roman Catholic.

Elfman attended high school at St. Genevieve High School in the San Fernando Valley for a year, before eventually graduating at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts; she then attended college at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). She trained in ballet from age five, but later gave it up when a tendon separated from bone. She studied at the Westside School of Ballet, receiving a full scholarship.

1990—1996: Early works
Elfman began her professional career as a dancer, appearing in music videos for Depeche Mode ("Halo", 1990), Anthrax ("Black Lodge", 1993), and Chris Isaak ("Somebody's Crying", 1995), and touring with the rock band ZZ Top on their 1994 tour as a "Legs Girl". After appearing in television commercials, Elfman co-starred in the made-for-television movie Double Deception (1993) and guest-starred on Roseanne, NYPD Blue, Almost Perfect and Murder One. In 1996, she was cast as a lead character alongside Molly Ringwald and Lauren Graham in the short-lived ABC sitcom Townies. The series was cancelled after one season and 15 episodes. The following year, she made her big screen debut appearing in the black comedy film, Grosse Pointe Blank.

1997—2002: Breakthrough
In 1997, Elfman was cast in the ABC comedy series Dharma & Greg playing the leading role of Dharma Freedom Finkelstein Montgomery. She received positive reviews from critics for her breakthrough performance. She won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy in 1999 for the show's second season, as well as three Primetime Emmy Awards nominations for the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Elfman also received TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Comedy nomination in 1998, as well as three Satellite Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy nominations. The show ran for five seasons until its cancellation in 2002.

During her time on Dharma & Greg, Elfman starred in a number of movies. In 1998, she starred alongside Richard Dreyfuss in the comedy film Krippendorf's Tribe. The film received generally negative reviews from critics. In 1999, she starred opposite Matthew McConaughey in the satirical comedy film EDtv. The film received mixed-to-positive reviews, with some criticizing its similarity to The Truman Show (1998), but was a box office flop, grossing only $35.2 million compared to its $80 million production budget. The following year, she starred in the romantic comedy film Keeping the Faith opposite Ben Stiller and Edward Norton (who also directed). The film received generally positive reviews and grossed $60 million. Elfman received Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nomination for her performance. In 2001, she appeared in the romantic comedy film Town & Country, a $105 million production budget box office bomb. The film was filmed in 1998, and after 12 release date changes, the film finally made it into theaters on April 27, 2001, nearly three years after filming began. It received negative reviews from critics. Elfman has also done voice-over work in the animated films Dr. Dolittle (1998) and CyberWorld (2000).

2003—present
After Dharma & Greg, Elfman played against the type role as a psychotic woman in the made-for-television thriller film, Obsessed (2002). She received positive review from Chicago Tribune for her performance. In 2003, she starred in the live-action/animated comedy film, Looney Tunes: Back in Action. The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics and was a box-office bomb, grossing $68.5 million worldwide on an $80 million budget. In 2005, she starred and produced the romantic drama film, Touched.

In 2006, Elfman returned to television with the leading role in the CBS sitcom, Courting Alex. The series was cancelled after one season. She guest-starred on Two and a Half Men, My Name Is Earl and Brothers & Sisters. In 2009, she appeared in the comedy films The Six Wives of Henry Lefay and Love Hurts. In 2011, she played Justin Timberlake's character sister in the romantic comedy film, Friends with Benefits. In 2012, Elfman and her husband Bodhi started their podcast, Kicking and Screaming by Jenna and Bodhi Elfman.

Elfman starred in another short-lived CBS sitcom, Accidentally on Purpose during the 2009–10 season. In 2012, she took a recurring role in the FX legal thriller series, Damages. In 2013, Elfman starred in the NBC comedy series, 1600 Penn and later in Growing Up Fisher, which were each cancelled after a single season. She starred in the romantic comedy film, Big Stone Gap (2014) opposite Ashley Judd, and appeared in the drama film Barry about Barack Obama's life at Columbia University in 1981. In 2017, she starred in another one-season sitcom, Imaginary Mary on ABC. Like 1600 Penn and Growing Up Fisher, the series was cancelled after its first season.

In 2018, Elfman was cast in the AMC horror drama series, Fear the Walking Dead playing the mysterious nurse June "Naomi/Laura" Dorie. She made her debut in the fourth season and stayed on show to the eighth and final season. In 2020, she starred in an episode of the horror anthology series, The Twilight Zone.

Personal life
In February 1991, she met actor Bodhi Pine Elfman (né Saboff) during an audition for a Sprite commercial. Four years later, they were married on February 18, 1995. Bodhi is of Jewish descent, and Jenna was raised Catholic. When they met, he was a practicing Scientologist. She became a Scientologist as well after her husband introduced her to its teachings.

Scientology
Elfman is a member of the Church of Scientology. By 2001 she had attained the State of Clear, and by 2020 she was on the OT VII level. Since the early 1990s Elfman had studied acting with prominent acting teacher and long-time Scientologist Milton Katselas, but cut ties with him in 2004 when Katselas had fallen into disfavor with Scientology. In 2001, Elfman opened a Scientology mission in San Francisco.

In 2005 she appeared at the grand opening of Citizens Commission on Human Rights' museum, Psychiatry: An Industry of Death. She and husband Bodhi are listed on the CCHR website as members of the board of advisers.

On May 24, 2006, she was the keynote speaker at the Human Rights Hero Award event in participation with the Scientology-affiliated groups Youth for Human Rights International and Artists for Human Rights (AFHR), an organization formed with the purpose of bringing artists together with the common cause of raising awareness of human rights around the world.

On March 27, 2008, she and actor Charlie Sheen co-hosted the Scientology-affiliated New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project charity event at Geisha House in Hollywood.

Fundraising activities
Elfman participated in fundraising activities, including donating an hour of her time for auction, donating a print of her lips, participating in a telethon fundraiser, hosting a comedy show, and asking for charity donations instead of birthday presents.

Elfman participated in awareness-raising initiatives, including modeling for a fashion show, reading to schoolchildren as part of the National Education Association Read Across America program, and hosting a party in her home to raise awareness for causes headed by the Environmental Working Group.

Elfman is on the board of directors of the Dizzy Feet Foundation.

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

title: Jenna Elfman


text:
Ordnance QF 17-pounder

The Ordnance Quick-Firing 17-pounder (or just 17-pdr) was a 76.2 mm (3 inch) gun developed by the United Kingdom during World War II. It was used as an anti-tank gun on its own carriage, as well as equipping a number of British tanks. Used with the APDS shot, it was capable of defeating all but the thickest armour on German tanks. It was used to "up-gun" some foreign-built vehicles in British service, notably to produce the Sherman Firefly variant of the US M4 Sherman tank, giving British tank units the ability to hold their own against their German counterparts. In the anti-tank role, it was replaced after the war by the 120 mm BAT recoilless rifle. As a tank gun, it was succeeded by the 84 mm 20 pounder.

Gun development

Before the QF 6-pounder had entered service, the British predicted that it would soon be inadequate given the increasing armour of German tanks. In late 1940, the design of a replacement began, and was largely completed by the end of 1941. A prototype production line was set up in spring 1942, and with the appearance of Tiger I tanks in early 1943 in the North African Campaign, the first 100 prototype 17-pounder anti-tank guns were quickly sent to help counter this new threat. So great was the rush that they were sent before proper carriages had been developed, and the guns had to be mounted in the carriages of 25-pounder gun-howitzers. These early weapons were known as 17/25-pounders and given the codename Pheasant. They first saw action in February 1943.

Fully developed 17-pounders started production in 1943 and were first used during the Italian Campaign. They became one of the most effective weapons on the battlefield, on both carriages and tanks.

The 17-pounder anti-tank guns also saw action in Korea against tanks and in general support use against bunker positions. After Korea, the gun was largely replaced in the tank role by the 84mm calibre, Ordnance QF 20 pounder, and in the anti-tank role by the BAT, MOBAT and 120 mm L6 WOMBAT series of recoilless rifles.

Adaptation into tanks and AFVs
The 17-pounder outperformed all other Allied armour-piercing guns, and was quickly adapted for use on various tank chassis. However, few tanks were capable of carrying such a large gun due to the size limitations of their turret rings. A new British tank specification, A29, was produced to meet the need for a 17-pounder armed cruiser tank. While the A29 was eventually cancelled without a successful design being produced, an amended specification, A30, reached production in 1943. The A30 specification reduced weight and enabled the use of Cromwell tank components as a design expedient. The resulting Cruiser Mark VIII Challenger had a longer hull and provided a larger turret, allowing the 17-pounder to be mounted along with space for a second loader, thought to be required for the gun's larger ammunition. However, production of the tank took time and few could be completed before the allied invasion of Normandy.

While developing the Challenger tank, the British devised a conversion for their US-supplied M4 Sherman tanks to mount the 17-pounder. This was applied in sufficient numbers to put them into service in time for D-Day as the Sherman Firefly. The gun was a modified design that was produced specifically for the Firefly, the MkIV. A new horizontal-sliding breech was designed as the usual vertical-sliding breech of the Mks I and II made loading very difficult. An additional box was welded to the back of the turret to take the radio, which was moved to allow for the breech and its recoil. A new recoil mechanism, based on the 6-pounder design, was developed and the thicker section of the gun barrel in contact with the cradle was lengthened to match the new recoil system. The original experimental Sherman mounting at Lulworth was actually rigid with no recoil system. Production of the Challenger was cancelled with only about 200 built, and 2,200 - 2,400 Sherman Is and Vs were converted as Fireflies (sources vary) and deployed in Sherman regiments Italy and NW Europe. The Challengers were deployed with Cromwell regiments.

The British also converted some of their US-produced M10 tank destroyers, replacing the 3-inch (76 mm) M7 gun with the 17-pounder; the resulting vehicles were called 17pdr SP Achilles or just 17-pdr M10C. These served with Royal Artillery as self-propelled guns.

The 17-pounder was also successfully trialled on the Australian-designed Sentinel tank, though no Sentinels equipped with this gun entered service with the Australian Army.

Efforts to fit the 17pdr on a Cromwell chassis in a better manner than the ungainly Challenger resulted in the Comet tank. However the Comet could still not take the 17pdr. The 75mm High Velocity Gun project was resurrected and redesigned to use a shortened version of the 17pdr barrel and the 17pdr projectiles mated to the cartridge of the 3 inch 30cwt anti-aircraft gun. While often confused with the 17pdr, the 77mm HV, was an entirely separate weapon and was only used on the Comet.

As the war came to a close, the 17-pdr was fitted to the new Centurion tank, then designated as a "heavy cruiser" tank until ultimately being replaced by the 20-pounder in 1949. The Centurion was the first tank designed around the 17pdr gun.

The United States Army did not use the 17-pdr. Although the gun was offered to them and tested, they chose to stick with their 76 mm gun M1. US forces did however request some Firefly conversions in March 1945 and as many as 18 were converted but the war ended before they were shipped from the UK.

Variants

 * Mark I
 * first production versions.

 * Mark II
 * intended for tank use. Removed the carrier mountings and replaced the muzzle brake with a counterweight. The brake was added back on in March 1944 with the introduction of the APDS shot. The Mk. II was used on the Archer self-propelled anti-tank gun and Cruiser Mark VIII Challenger tank.

 * Mark III
 * Royal Navy adaptation for use on landing craft, generally similar to the Mk. I, but included an automatic loading system. Unused.

 * Mark IV
 * Another tank adaptation, this time with a different breech where the block slid to the side instead of down to take up less room. Used on Sherman Firefly.

 * Mark V
 * A version of the Mk IV with different mounts to allow it to replace the US 3 in (76.2 mm) Gun M7 on the M10 tank destroyer, creating the 17pdr SP Achilles.

 * Mark VI
 * Another Mk. IV adaptation with a shortened breech.

 * Mark VII
 * Similar to the Mk. VI, yet another change to the breech.

 * Straussler Conversion
 * This was an experimental gun, designed by Nicholas Straussler that was fitted with a motorized gun-carriage. A modified ammunition limber would be attached to the gun's trails, making a four-wheeled, self-propelled vehicle and removing the need for a truck to tow the gun.

77 mm HV
The British started work on developing a gun that was small enough to fit on their tank designs—particularly the Cromwell cruiser tank then at the design stage. It was intended to fire the US 75 mm projectiles (AP shot and HE) at a higher velocity, avoiding a downgrade in armour penetration versus the 6-pounder, which the dual purpose 75 mm was replacing. The new 50-calibre long gun, known as the Vickers HV 75 mm, fired a 75 mm projectile attached to a necked down 3-inch (76.2 mm) 20 cwt AA gun cartridge through a modified breech. The larger 3" cartridge provided a greater propellant charge compared with normal 75 mm shells. Although the 75 mm HV was a promising weapon, it proved to be too big for the Cromwell tank, which was ultimately fitted with the normal QF 75 mm gun in use on other British tanks. To account for this difference, tank squadrons were teamed with Challenger and Sherman Firefly tanks armed with the 17-pounder.

When the Cromwell's replacement, the Comet, was at the design stage, the 75 mm HV concept was reworked to fire the same projectiles as the 17-pounder through a shortened 17-pounder barrel but retaining the 3-inch cartridge case firing from a standard 3-inch breech. This has the benefit of greater ease of use on tanks, many of which would not have sufficient turret space to accommodate the breech length and recoil distance of the 17-pounder. Similarly, the smaller 3"-based ammunition was easier to store and handle in the tank's cramped interior. This new gun's ammunition was not interchangeable with the 17-pounder and to prevent confusion over ammunition supplies, it was renamed the 77 mm HV—the 'HV' standing for High Velocity—although it was the same 76.2 mm calibre as the 17-pounder.

Ammunition

The 17-pounder used the following ammunition types:
 * Armour Piercing Capped (APC)
 * Armour Piercing Capped was a basic AP shell used with field guns, but was not used when the 17pdr was mounted in the Sherman Firefly tank.

 * Armour Piercing, Capped, Ballistic Capped (APCBC)
 * Armour Piercing, Capped, Ballistic Capped ammunition could penetrate 163 mm of armour at 500 metres and 150 mm at 1000 m.

 * Armour-piercing discarding sabot (APDS)
 * Armour-piercing discarding sabot could penetrate 256 mm of armour at 500 m and 233 mm at 1000 m, and allowing it in theory to penetrate the armour of even the German Tiger II heavy tank. Most sources are in agreement that APDS was not available on D-Day itself, but reached Normandy in increasing amounts by the end of June or early July 1944. It was available for the breakout battle from Normandy and the advance to the Netherlands and Germany. The weight of the enclosed shot, excluding the enclosing sabot, was 7.7 lb.

 * High Explosive (HE)
 * The HE shells for the 17-pounder had smaller bursting charges (Mk 1: 1.28 lbs, Mk 2: 1.06 lbs) than those for the 75mm gun used by the Sherman (M48: 1.47 lbs, Mk 1: 1.64 lbs).

 * Practice, Shot Mk 10
 * "The components of this practice round are similar to those of Shot APCBC, except for the projectile. The projectile is made of cast iron and is uncapped.  It is fitted with tracer."

APCBC ammunition was the standard ammunition for the gun, while APDS shot was used for about 6% of the average load of a 17-pounder-equipped British tank.

While offering greater penetration, the smaller (sub-calibre) tungsten core of APDS was considered to provide less accurate fire than APCBC ammunition at ranges beyond 500 yards. This was due to the much lesser visible impact of rounds that fell short, making it hard to spot the fall of shot and correct aim. The APDS was also considered to cause less damage to an enemy tank if it did penetrate the armour. After penetration the core usually disintegrated.

The 17-pounder produced a very large muzzle flash due to the large amount of propellant in its cartridges. Muzzle blast was also significant, described by crews of the anti-tank gun variant as resembling a hard slap on the chest.

NH = non-hygroscopic; i.e. does not absorb moisture.

HC = High capacity.

EFC = Equivalent full charge. EFC was the basis of calculating the wear effect of propellent charges. Instructions were to examine the barrel for wear after every 40 EFC.

Performance

 * FH marks the performance against face hardened armour (FHA), as opposed to rolled homogeneous armour (RHA).

Anti-tank gun
The 17-pounder was a much bulkier and heavier weapon than its predecessor. As a result, it had to be towed by a gun tractor, such as the Morris Quad, M3 Half-track or the Crusader, as it could not effectively be moved by its gun crew alone, especially on poor ground. After firing on soft ground, the 17-pounder frequently had to be pulled out of the ground due to the gun recoil burying the trail spades. After the Second World War, it was issued to anti-tank units of the Royal Artillery in the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) towed by the M3 Half Track. When the Royal Artillery anti-tank units were disbanded in 1951, it was transferred to Infantry battalions in the BAOR (six per battalion), towed by the Oxford Tracked Carrier. It was later replaced by the 120 mm BAT recoilless rifle anti-tank weapon.

Pheasant carriage
Also known by the 17/25 pounder designation, a stop-gap measure named Pheasant mated the 17 pounder gun with a modified 25 pounder carriage. This enabled the gun to be pressed into service before its own carriage design was ready.

Split trail carriage
A custom designed carriage for the 17 pounder comprising:
 * Split trail carriage, with gunshield.
 * Weight: 3 t.
 * Elevation: −6° to +16.5°
 * Traverse: 60°

Middle East
In the immediate post-war era in the Middle East, Arab national armies - Transjordan, Egypt, Syria and Iraq - mainly used British manufactured artillery, including the towed 17-pounder. The Israelis used a number of 17 pounders that they captured from the Arabs in the war of independence

World War II

 * Tank, Cruiser, Challenger (A30) - 200 built
 * Tank, Cruiser, Comet I (A34) (77 mm OQF HV) - 1,200 by end of war.
 * SP 17-pounder, Valentine, Mk I, Archer self-propelled anti-tank gun built on Valentine tank hull, 655 built
 * Sherman Firefly - Modified Sherman tank (Medium Tank M4), about 2,000
 * 17pdr SP Achilles - Modified 3-inch Gun Motor Carriage M10, about 1,100 by end of war
 * Tank, Infantry, Black Prince (A43) (experimental development of Churchill tank, never fielded)
 * TOG2 (prototype tank, never fielded)
 * Australian Cruiser tank Mk IV (prototype turret only, never fielded)

Post-war

 * Ratel IFV Concept 1 - a heavily modified South African test-bed chassis.
 * Eland Mk7 Concept 2 - a heavily modified South African test-bed chassis.
 * Alvis Saracen Concept 3 - a heavily modified South African test-bed chassis.
 * Centurion - on A41 prototype and on production Centurion Mk 1 and Mk 2.
 * SP 17-pounder, A30 (Avenger) - variant of Challenger, not available in time for war, 250 built

Weapons of comparable role, performance and era

 * 7.5 cm Pak 40 German anti-tank gun (similar form factor as Anti-Tank gun)
 * 7.5 cm KwK 42 German tank gun (similar ballistic performance)
 * 76 mm gun M1 US tank gun
 * 85 mm D-5T Soviet tank gun
 * 75 mm Reșița Model 1943 Romanian anti-tank gun
 * Ordnance QF 20-pounder

title: Ordnance QF 17-pounder


text:
Athabasca, Alberta

Athabasca (2021 population 2,759), originally named Athabasca Landing, is a town in northern Alberta, Canada. It is located 145 km north of Edmonton at the intersection of Highway 2 and Highway 55, on the banks of the Athabasca River. It is the centre of Athabasca County. It was known as Athabasca Landing prior to August 4, 1913.

History
The name "Athabasca" is of Cree origin. Early spellings: Araubaska (Peter Pond) and Athapescow (Arrowsmith). Various interpretations of the meaning: "where there are reeds" (Douglas); "meeting place of many waters" (Voorhis). The town was first called Athabasca Landing about 1889; the name changed to Athabaska in 1904, and then changed back to Athabasca in 1948. The provisional district of Athabasca was established in 1882, encompassing the northern parts of modern Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Unlike many other towns in Alberta, Athabasca predates the Canadian Pacific Railway. Athabasca lies on a southern protrusion of the Athabasca River. During the fur trade era, when rivers were the principal means of transportation, the Athabasca–Edmonton trail connected two different drainage basins. The Athabasca River flows north and is part of the Mackenzie River watershed, which leads to the Arctic Ocean. Edmonton lies across a height-of-land on the North Saskatchewan River in the Nelson River drainage basin, which empties into Hudson Bay. Edmonton was in Rupert's Land, but Athabasca was not. Athabasca was the terminus of the Edmonton to Athabasca Landing trail, which allowed goods to be portaged back and forth between river systems. Once agricultural settlement occurred, the trail continued to serve a similar purpose. Eventually, road and rail links were established following the same path.

In 1876, the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) built a warehouse at Athabasca Landing to facilitate the supply route to Lesser Slave Lake. The site was expanded in 1886 with a store, house, and new larger warehouse, and it became a full trading post. Further expansion included a stable, powder magazine, workshop and storeman's house. By 1889, it had become the HBC's headquarters of northern transport.

The North-West Mounted Police stationed officers at Athabasca Landing for the summer of 1892, due to increased traffic on the trail. Inspector D.M. Howard, and eight constables, built a permanent post in 1893.

In 1912, the HBC had the steamers Slave River and Athabasca River built at Athabasca Landing for travel on the Athabasca and Peace Rivers.

A massive forest fire in August 1913 destroyed a large portion of the town, including 30 businesses. There was no loss of life. Rebuilding of the town began immediately. The HBC post was rebuilt in 1914 and operated until 1924.

The Athabasca Heritage Society put up signs through the downtown as well as along the riverfront that explain and depict the history of the town. It has also published a historical walking tour that is available from the town office, library and visitor information center.

Lakes

 * Narrow Lake

Climate
Athabasca experiences a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb) that borders on a subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc). The highest temperature ever recorded in Athabasca was 38.3 C on July 18, 1941. The coldest temperature ever recorded was -54.4 C on January 11, 1911.

Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, the Town of Athabasca had a population of 2,759 living in 1,155 of its 1,325 total private dwellings, a change of NaN% from its 2016 population of 2,965. With a land area of 17.79 km2, it had a population density of in 2021.

In the 2016 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, the Town of Athabasca recorded a population of 2,965 living in 1,194 of its 1,313 total private dwellings, a NaN% change from its 2011 population of 2,990. With a land area of 17.65 km2, it had a population density of in 2016.

Education
The town is home to Athabasca University, a major centre for distance education and the town's largest employer.

Media
Local news is provided by the Athabasca Advocate, an award-winning weekly newspaper. The Athabasca Advocate began publishing in 1982.
 * Newspapers

Athabasca's original newspaper was the Athabasca Echo. The Athabasca Echo was published from 1928 to 1986. Athabasca is home to one FM radio station. Boom 94.1 (FM 94.1, CKBA-FM. ) is owned by Stingray Radio and broadcasts a classic hits format.
 * Radio

The CKUA Radio Network also has a repeater broadcasting from Athabasca at FM 98.3.

In literature

 * James A. Michener describes a group of pioneers arriving to the town in 1897 to buy a boat in his novel Journey (1989)

Notable people

 * Bryan Mudryk – TSN TV personality
 * Jay Onrait – TSN TV personality
 * George Ryga – playwright, poet
 * Kay Heim – All-American Girls Professional Baseball Player

title: Athabasca, Alberta


text:
Wikipedia talk:Historical archive/Logs/Offline reports/This page has a lot of red links

Very interesting list, but BTW, they are not "broken" links, they are just links to articles to be written. -- User:Docu

 * Hmm .. trying to think up a better name for them .. unfulfilled links? Potential links?  Void links ?  Please do suggest! ;)

 * "Red links" (?). As long as they are mainly lists, it's not necessarily a bad thing to have such pages. (Ok, unless it's the same word in every row). -- User:Docu

 * Ah, I like that. Red links it is, I'll sort out the naming (I need to change the language used to describe interwiki/interlingual links also) before moving these to the Wikipedia namespace.  Ta muchly - TB 15:24, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)

Note, you may want a seperate report that removes all the 'list of' articles. — Ilγαηερ   (Tαlκ)  22:07, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Report name
"Red links" is not meaningful to me. In fact, I think that there is even a web guideline that says that you should not use color as a label. How about saying what the color represents, as in: "Articles that contain a lot of links to articles that do not exist". Bobblewik (talk) 16:21, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)


text:
Alberta (disambiguation)

Alberta is a Canadian province.

Alberta may also refer to:

Australia

 * Alberta, Queensland, a locality in the Central Highlands, Australia

Canada

 * Alberta (Provisional District), a federal electoral district in the Northwest Territories from 1887 to 1908
 * District of Alberta, a former district of the North West Territories, now the southern part of the province of Alberta
 * Mount Alberta, Alberta

United States

 * Alberta, Alabama, an unincorporated community
 * Alberta, former name of Rockwood, California, an unincorporated community
 * Alberta, Louisiana, a former lumbering community just north of Roy, Louisiana
 * Alberta, Michigan, an unincorporated community
 * Alberta, Minnesota, a city
 * Alberta, Virginia, a town
 * Alberta City, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a suburb of Tuscaloosa
 * Alberta Township, Benton County, Minnesota

People

 * Alberta (given name)
 * Alberta (singer), singer from Sierra Leone

Music

 * "Alberta" (blues), several blues songs
 * "Alberta" (song), the official provincial song of Alberta
 * T-Rex Alberta, a guitar effect pedal

Other uses

 * Alberta (plant), a genus in the family Rubiaceae
 * 45562 Alberta, a British LMS Jubilee Class locomotive
 * Project Alberta, part of the Manhattan Project
 * University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

title: Alberta (disambiguation)


text: User talk:80.219.137.135

title: User talk:80.219.137.135


text:
User:Fermion

Hi.

I just graduated from a BSc/BTch (Hons) in NSW Australia. My major is physics and my minor is maths. My honours research project was in the philosophy of science education.

I have a girlfriend who had a horse called Candy.

= Quick Links = WP:PR Count edit

a user I am watching re: unconstructive external links

= Projects = I am primarily interested in the Seventh-day Adventist Church page. I have started a page on Independent ministries of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and wish to work on expanding that. To that end I started Maranatha Volunteers International. I need to write articles on Asian Aid and Good News Unlimited.

The foray to Maranatha means that I would like to see an article the music label - Maranatha! (there is no article on this label).

The Seventh-day Adventist Church page needs references put through out. There are a number of books that can be used to this end. For example Seventh-day Adventists Believe, and anything by George Knight.

Use the Seventh-day Adventist year book (do google search) to create articles for all of the universities in List of Seventh-day Adventist colleges and universities

An aricle needs to be written on Charles Perkins daughter Rachel Perkins.

= Wiki Achievements = Although I have monitored the Seventh-day Adventist Church extensively, my greatest achievement so far was to break the news of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and start the article on Richard R. Schrock, one of the recipients.

title: User:Fermion


text:
Dom people

The Dom (also called Domi; دومي / ALA-LC: ', دومري /, Ḍom / ضوم or دوم, or sometimes also called Doms''') are descendants of the Dom caste with origins in the Indian subcontinent which through ancient migrations are found scattered across the Middle East and North Africa, the Eastern Anatolia Region, and parts of the Balkans and Hungary. The traditional language of the Dom is Domari, an endangered Indo-Aryan language, thereby making the Dom an Indo-Aryan ethnic group.

The Doms were formerly grouped with other traditionally itinerant ethnic groups originating from medieval India: the Rom and Lom peoples. However, these groups left India at different times and used different routes. The Domari language has a separate origin in India from Romani, and Doms are not closer to the Romani people than other Indians, such as Gujaratis. Dom people do not identify themselves as Romanis.

Culture
The Dom have an oral tradition and express their culture and history through music, poetry, and dance. Initially, it was believed that they were a branch of the Romani people, but recent studies of the Domari language suggest that they departed from the Indian subcontinent at different times and using different routes.

Among the various Domari subgroups, they were initially part of Ghawazi who were known for their dancing and music business. Some Muslim Roma may share Dom ancestry too, because in the travel book Seyahatnâme, written by the Ottoman Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi in 1668, he explained that the Romani from Komotini (Gümülcine) believe that their ancestors originated in Ottoman Egypt. Also the sedentary Romani groups from Serres region in Greece believe their ancestors were once taken from Ottoman Egypt by the Turks after 1517 to Rumelia, to work on the tobacco plantations of Turkish feudals that were based there.

Muslim Roma settled in Baranya and the city of Pécs in southwestern Hungary. After the Siege of Pécs (1686), when the Habsburgs took it back, Muslim Roma and some other Muslim ethnic minorities abandoned Islam and converted to Christianity, choosing the Roman Catholic faith in the years 1686–1713. The Ghagar, a subgroup of the Doms in Egypt, say that some of them went to Hungary.

Distribution
The Dom people, with an estimated population of 2.2 million, predominantly inhabit regions spanning Turkey, Egypt, Greece, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran. The actual population is believed to surpass this estimate, given that some Dom individuals are left out of official national censuses, and others identify themselves using national labels rather than the term "Dom."

There is a large concentration of Doms in Jordan, where they call themselves Bani Murra. Researchers have written that "they accommodate Arab racism by hiding their ethnic identity", since they would not be accepted into Arab societies once their true identity is revealed due to the anti-Romani sentiment that is prevalent in the Arab world.

title: Dom people


text:
Talk:Frank Norris

Uncle of Chuck Norris?
I can find nothing outside of Wikipedia that validates this claim--I wonder if this is a deliberate joke or a misunderstanding over the fact that Frank Norris had a brother named Charles. It is also in the entry on Chuck Norris himself, presumably put there by the same editor. Can someone verify this? A Runyon 18:33, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Picture
A picture of Norris would add to the article. --MosheA 20:34, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Commenting v. reporting commentary
At present, the article says
 * Norris has been criticized for the apologetic stance his work seems to take ok

but there is no indication that this criticism is notable. Without a proper citation, the subsequent commentary operationalizes as that of the editor who inserted it. I have added a fact tag so that, if there is such commentary, from a notable source, then the source may be noted.

(A quotation of a criticized passage is of course not the same thing as showing that the criticism itself is notable.) —SlamDiego←T 21:28, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Antisemitism??
Norris may or may not have been antisemetic in life, but having read "The Octopus" I'm afraid I don't see the "strenuous antisemitism" that Levi seems to read into this novel. I've read the book several times and I don't believe the words "Jew" or "Jewish" appear in it at all. Nowhere is it even hinted that Behrman might be a Jew; the entire novel is a critique of unchecked Capitalism and the abuses perpetrated by the robber barrons of the Gilded Age.

In McTeague, while it's true that the character "Zerko" is described as a Jew, he's certainly not the only villain, or even the central villain in the story. Indeed, every main character in this novel has villainous traits. Furthermore, Norris strongly implies that Zerko's villainy stems not from any inherrent evil, but from insanity.

Seems like Levi is being a bit over-sensitive here, and perhaps another quote or two from other writers is in order to provide some balance and further insight on this topic? Or have we really reached the point of political correctness at which no writer dare mention the word "Jew" in anything but a 100% positive context, less he risk being labeled an "antisemite"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 19:15, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I recommend folding this subsection into a section called "Critical Reception" with the following text:

Norris’s work has not fared well with critics in the late 20th and early 21st century. As Donal Pizer writes, "Frank Norris's racism, which included the most vicious anti-Semitic portayals in any major work of American literature, has long been an embarrasment to admirers of the vigor and intensity of his best fiction and has also contributed to the the decline of his reputation during the past several generations." His work is often seen as strongly influenced by the scientific racism of the late 19th century, such as that espoused by his professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Joseph LeConte. Along with his contemporary Jack London, Norris is seen as “reconstructing American identity as a biological category of Anglo-Saxon masculinity.” In Norris’s work, critics have seen evidence of racism, antisemitism, and contempt for immigrants and the working poor, all of whom are seen as “falling by the wayside” in a Social-Darwinian struggle for existence. Additionally, his “exaggeratedly muscular novels” seem to posit women as biologically subordinate to men.

These are citations from a handful of articles collected in the Columbia History of the American Novel (1991). Perhaps the long block quote from the critic Richard Levy. Note though, that critics agree that Norris was openly antisemitic in his fiction and nonfiction writings. I haven't added the actual notes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jhunt2usfca (talk • contribs) 21:11, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Career Needs Work
The "Career" section consists mainly of a one paragraph description of a single work -- the Octopus. Seems like more depth is in order here. Or at the very least a similar-sized paragraph on Norris's most highly regarded work, McTeague. But it seems to me that a "Career" section should say less about the plots of his novels, and more about what, when, and how he published; what public reaction was to his work; his view of what he was trying to accomplish; and whether he was able to support himself with his work, had any patrons, or had to carry a "day job" like so many other artists.

74.95.43.249 (talk) 19:21, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Frank Norris. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://archive.is/20130414225936/http://www.howellssociety.org/norris.htm to http://www.howellssociety.org/norris.htm
 * Added tag to http://californialegacy.org/radio_anthology/scripts/.html
 * Added tag to http://californialegacy.org/radio_anthology/scripts/.html
 * Added tag to http://californialegacy.org/radio_anthology/scripts/.html
 * Added tag to http://californialegacy.org/radio_anthology/scripts/.html
 * Added tag to http://californialegacy.org/radio_anthology/scripts/.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 04:06, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Critical reception
The section about critical reception dwells entirely on negative reactions based on his portrayal of certain groups. The section contains nothing about how his work was positively appreciated in his time. His books sold well, so certainly there was much positive reception in his day! This section is almost entirely about very recent reactions to his work, a good example of Presentism, past events being evaluated only by present views. I hope an author with some literary knowledge adds some historical evaluation of Norris' work. Pete unseth (talk) 15:49, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Frank Norris


text:
Ordinary referendum

An ordinary referendum in Ireland is a referendum on a bill other than a bill to amend the Constitution. The Constitution prescribes the process in Articles 27 ("Reference of Bills to the People") and 47 ("The Referendum"). Whereas a constitutional referendum is mandatory for a constitutional amendment bill, an ordinary referendum occurs only if the bill "contains a proposal of such national importance that the will of the people thereon ought to be ascertained". This is decided at the discretion of the President, after a petition by Oireachtas members including a majority of Senators. No such petition has ever been presented, and thus no ordinary referendum has ever been held.

Overview
The Oireachtas is a bicameral legislature in which Dáil Éireann, the lower house, is much more powerful than Seanad Éireann, the upper house. The Seanad cannot veto bills passed by the Dáil; it can at most delay them for 90 days before they are deemed to have been passed. The ordinary referendum in theory allows the Seanad to exercise a check on the Dáil by providing a mechanism for it to prevent the passing of a bill with which it disagrees. However, the composition of the Seanad, especially the fact that 11 of the 60 Senators are nominated by the Taoiseach, means that it usually has a pro-government majority and will not oppose a government bill.

The process leading to an ordinary referendum is in several stages:
 * the Dáil passes a bill and sends it to the Seanad
 * either
 * the Seanad rejects or amends the bill; or
 * 90 days elapse without the Seanad passing or rejecting the bill
 * the Dáil passes a resolution deeming the bill to have been passed unamended by the Seanad
 * Oireachtas members petition the President to refer the bill to the people
 * the President
 * confers with the Council of State; and
 * decides to refer the bill to the people
 * the Government decides to hold a referendum
 * the referendum is held

The petition process is outlined in Article 27 of the Constitution and detailed in the Constitution (Verification of Petition) Act, 1944.

The referendum process is broadly similar to that for a constitutional referendum; both are outlined in Article 47 of the Constitution and detailed in the Referendum Act, 1994. The electorate, as for constitutional referendums and Presidential elections, consists of all Irish citizens who are either resident in the state or abroad on diplomatic or Defence Forces assignments. Both ordinary and constitutional referendums will approve a bill if a majority of votes are cast in favour of it. However, an ordinary referendum will not reject a bill unless at least one-third of voters on the electoral register vote against it. The bill will still become law even if a majority of those who vote reject it, provided the overall turnout is low. Hogan et al. call this restriction "altogether unsatisfactory", and consider it another reason why no such referendum has been held.

Process
Once a bill is passed by both houses of the Oireachtas, or passed by the Dáil and deemed to have been passed by the Seanad, it is sent to the President to be signed into law. The President must wait five days before signing, unless the Seanad agrees to an expedited signature. This gives five days for the presentation of a petition under Article 27, to "request the President to decline to sign and promulgate as a law [the Bill,] on the ground that the Bill contains a proposal of such national importance that the will of the people thereon ought to be ascertained". Such a petition must be signed by a majority of the Seanad (i.e. at least 31 Senators) and at least one-third of the Dáil (currently 53 of 158 TDs). Signatures are validated by the chief or assistant clerk of the relevant house, or by a Justice of the District Court, a Commissioner for Oaths, or an officer of the Garda Síochána not below the rank of Superintendent. Forging a signature is punishable as electoral fraud.

In considering the petition, the President must convene a meeting of the Council of State, which gives non-binding advice in the exercise of most of his discretionary powers. He may separately decide to refer the bill to the Supreme Court under Article 26 of the Constitution; in which case, he will not consider the Article 27 petition until after the Court has stated that the bill is not repugnant to the Constitution.

The President has 10 days to decide on the petition, or 6 days if there was an Article 26 decision beforehand. If he rejects the petition, he simply signs the bill as normal; if he accepts it, he informs the Taoiseach, Ceann Comhairle of the Dáil, and Cathaoirleach of the Seanad in writing. The Constitution specifies that one of two things may happen within 18 months of the decision to refer the bill to the people:
 * an ordinary referendum approves the bill; or
 * a general election is held, followed by a resolution of the Dáil approving the bill. The intervening general election is presumed to have given the same mandate for the bill that an ordinary referendum would have given.

If either happens, the President must then sign the bill. If neither happens, the bill lapses by default. The authority to decide whether to hold a referendum is vested in the Government by the Referendum Act 1994.

History
The 1922 Constitution of the Irish Free State included in Article 47 provision for a referendum similar to the current 1937 Constitution's ordinary referendum. The procedure required, first, a petition by 40% of TDs or 50% of Senators for a 90-day stay on the Governor-General's giving Royal Assent to the bill, and then either a resolution by the Seanad or a petition by 5% of voters demanding a referendum. Approval of a law under Article 47 required half of votes cast at referendum, whereas approval of a Constitutional amendment (under Article 50) required either half of registered voters or two-thirds of votes cast.

The sole attempt to invoke this was in relation to the Electoral (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, 1927, which penalised Oireachtas members who refused to take the Oath of Allegiance. Fianna Fáil TDs, who were abstentionist and refused to take the Oath, attempted to lodge a petition under Article 47; the then government introduced another bill to amend the Constitution such that only TDs and Senators who had taken the Oath would have the power to make such a petition. When Fianna Fáil subsequently entered the Dáil, the next government deleted Article 47 from the Constitution altogether in 1928.

The current 1937 Constitution included a transitional provision for the first President's first three years, during which constitutional amendments could be enacted without referendum. The President could override this and demand a referendum: unlike an ordinary referendum, no Oireachtas petition was required, although a meeting of the Council of State was. In the event, both the First Amendment (1939) and the Second Amendment (1941) were passed with cross-party support and signed by Douglas Hyde without referendum.

The 2013 bill to abolish the Seanad would, if enacted, also have removed the provision for ordinary referendums. This was given as a reason for opposing the bill by Professor Richard Sinnott, the Green Party, and Éamon Ó Cuív.

Mooted petitions
Although no petition to the President has ever been made under Article 27, there are several instances where the possibility of such a petition being made has entered the public debate about proposed bills.

Senator Michael O'Higgins intended to lodge a petition in relation to the Prohibition of Forcible Entry and Occupation Act 1971, in the light of Operation Demetrius in Northern Ireland. When in 1974 O'Higgins demanded the Family Planning Bill be rejected as not having been put to the people, Senator Mary Robinson criticised him for not advocating the Article 27 procedure instead.

David Norris launched a petition regarding the Broadcasting Bill 1990. He stated that it was unlikely to receive enough signatures, but might convince the President to refer the bill to the Supreme Court under Article 26 of the Constitution.

Abortion in the Republic of Ireland is very controversial and has been the subject of multiple constitutional referendums. The 1992 X case judgment found a limited right to abortion and a corresponding lacuna in statute law. Subsequent governments hesitated to address this for fear of voter backlash. When the 1992 government introduced a constitutional amendment to roll back the X-case judgment, John Bruton suggested instead passing an ordinary statute to regulate the situation and using an Article 27 referendum. The Irish Times in 1995 reported attempts to have an Article 27 petition on the Regulation of Information (Services outside the State for Termination of Pregnancies) Bill, which eased the ban on publication of information about foreign abortion providers. The Bill did have an Article 26 referral, which found it to be Constitutional; but there was insufficient support in the Oireachtas for a petition.

In 1997, the then government considered the possibility of using Article 27 on legislation for the X-case judgment, on the basis that the extra mandate of a popular vote would have forestalled complaints from anti-abortion campaigners if the Oireachtas had legislated in the normal manner. The proposal was criticised as a misuse of the ordinary-referendum provision, which was intended to allow a group opposed to a bill to petition the President, rather than a government supporting a bill to do so. The idea was ultimately dropped because the minimum-turnout condition would have meant that a bill passed by the Oireachtas and rejected by a majority of voters on a low turnout would become law, exacerbating the controversy the idea was intended to forestall. Instead the government proposed both a constitutional amendment and a separate non-amendment bill, the "Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy Bill", but with the latter as a schedule to the former, so that a single referendum could approve both. A court-case questioned the legality of this, arguing that the Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy Bill should instead have been subject to a separate ordinary referendum. The High Court found the procedure to be acceptable. In the event, the amendment was rejected at referendum so the Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy Bill was never introduced.

Brian Hayes said he would start a petition for the bill to trial electronic voting machines in the 2002 general election. Sinn Féin advocated a referendum on the 2009 bill establishing the National Asset Management Agency.

In 2012, the government took some time to decide whether the ratification of the European Fiscal Compact would be passed by ordinary law or as a constitutional amendment. The opposition threatened to invoke Article 27 to force a referendum in the former case, which was one factor in the government's decision to use a constitutional amendment, which was passed at referendum.

In 2013, the media reported that some government and opposition backbenchers were contemplating invoking Article 27 in relation to the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013, the government's bill to enforce the X-case judgment.

Sinn Féin, during controversy over Irish Water, called on President Michael D. Higgins to refer the Water Services Bill 2014 to the people; the Office of the President responded that without the prescribed Oireachtas petition, he was unable to do so.

title: Ordinary referendum


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The egg and the

There is already a page on the "Chicken and Egg" problem and this page just does not give much valuable information about the issue. It rather might run under chicken only.


text:
Talk:Merge algorithm

Nomenclature issue
I would like to know if it is standard nomenclature to call "merge algorithms" the ones that follow.

 * given a set of current account balances and a set of transactions, both sorted by account number, produce the set of new account balances after the transactions are applied; this requires always advancing the "new transactions" pointer in preference to the "account number" pointer when the two have equal keys, and adding all the numbers on either tape with the same account number to produce the new balance.
 * produce a sorted list of records with keys present in all the lists (equijoin); this requires outputting a record whenever the keys of all the p0..n are equal.
 * similarly for finding the largest number on one tape smaller than each number on another tape (e.g. to figure out what tax bracket each person is in).
 * similarly for computing set differences: all the records in one list with no corresponding records in another.

I checked several books on algorithms and in all of them "merge algorithm" is taking two or more ordered lists and producing one ordered list in linear time. Maybe the above algorithms could be in another article.

Pablo.cl 02:04, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

The only reference I've found so far that calls set difference a merge algorithm is Kragen Sitaker. I think the nomenclature is misleading, and that the examples in italics above, and also the middle one I copy below, should be in a separate article, tentatively called Sorted list algorithms.

I copy form kragen-hacks

Some examples of merge algorithms:
 * produce a single sorted list from multiple sorted lists. (This is the kind of merge used in mergesort.)
 * produce the set union, set intersection, or set difference of two sorted lists. [Set intersection and set difference would be moved to Sorted list algorithms.]
 * given a master file and an update file sorted in the same order, produce a new master file with all the updates applied.

Pablo.cl 01:50, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Nomenclature response
Pablo may be correct; perhaps updating a sorted master file from a sorted list of updates is not a common meaning for the term "merge", but the term "merge" does seem to be used for it in the wild ( says:

Batch Processing Batch processing occurs when files are processed off-line, i.e.  they are saved until some convenient time (e.g. at night) when the computer system is not otherwise being used. Updating files: the updates, i.e. the changed records, are "batched" together, i.e. saved, and sorted into key order. Then the master file is read, one record at a time, until a record with the same key as the first transaction is  found. This master file record is then updated and then the process is repeated. The updating is done as follows: * For magnetic tape. Put the updates in a separate file and merge the master and the update to give a new master. * For a disk, the easiest method is to associate a pointer with each record leading to the next one (linked list). Individual records can be scrubbed and replaced by reseting pointers. In general, if only one master file is available, it is not altered, but a  new master is produced by merging.

Clearly in this context the new master file should not contain both the record from the old master file and the record from the update file, which would be the necessary consequence of interpreting "merge" as "produce multiset union".)

And perhaps the Sort-merge join in Oracle and other RDBMSs' query evaluation isn't a common meaning for the term either; but certainly the merge in that case isn't concerned with producing a multiset union, but a subset of the multiset cartesian product.

Certainly when Knuth mentions "the idea of merging" on page 385 of volume 3 2ed, he's talking about merging two sorted sequences (of punched cards) to get a sorted sequence containing all the items of both sequences --- a sorted multiset union. Pages 197-207 also appear to be talking about producing the multiset union.

In any case, each of these things I called "merge algorithms" when I wrote this page can be conceptualized as the composition of some other function over sequences and the ordinary sorting merge, the one that produces a multiset union.

The kragen-hacks reference carries no weight in this case, because kragen-hacks is written by the same person who promulgated this questionable nomenclature in this Wikipedia article in the first place: me. If we decide to accept the term "merge" for this larger class of algorithms beyond just multiset union, it would have to be on the basis of documented terminology usage by people besides me. In my eyes, the fact that Knuth uses the term with a clearly more restricted meaning in mind creates a substantial burden of proof.

-- User:Kragen

Minor change to python example
The example originally had a[0] < b[0] rather then a[0] <= b[0] as the basis for using the item from the a[] array. This would not result in a stable sort, since equal elements would have been selected from the b[] array before those from the a[] array. The change ensures stability.

It's a bit of a shame that one sees so many assertions that merge sort is stable. As the uncorrected example shows, it's easily possible to write an unstable, but otherwise valid, merge sort. -- jpl

about the examples
I removed the comments about the STL merge implementation being more efficient than the presented source code because there's no guarantee of the STL's implementation performance, or approachability, for any specific task. The assertion I removed doesn't apply in all cases, and can't be presented as fact without much more context and discussion.

Meanwhile, I am wondering why the examples don't implement the pseudo code presented at the beginning of the article. The examples have no comments and don't explain what their parameters are. The C and C++ versions don't bother to check the length of the target array.

Should I add comments, and rewrite the samples to more closely match the pseudocode? Mikeblas 21:48, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Sample code
I intend to remove the sample implementations section if and when Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Insertion sort implementations is successful. It may be worthwhile to transwiki them to WikiBooks, WikiSource, or the Literate Programming wiki if anyone feels strongly about them. —donhalcon╤ 06:09, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
 * That AFD was successful, but there are still a couple of sample implementations. What's going on with requiring references for sample code in articles? -- Mikeblas 15:43, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

 * Despite the 2006 debate, sample implementations in the form of pseudo code to explain algorithms are part of both insertion sort and selection sort articles. Many other wiki articles use pseudo code as a method to explain algorithms in general, sorting, data compression, error correction code, data encryption, extended Euclidean algorithm, ... . I don't see why merge algorithm should be singled out for not having at least some explanation of the algorithm in the form of pseudo code. Rcgldr (talk) 19:00, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

BEST KNOWN MERGE ALGORITHM
I would like to know which is the fastest of knowns merge algorithms, I've read a lot... but I didn't find an answer. Trying to find an optimal sorting algorithm, I came to the conclusion that the optimal merge is a generalization of the binary search algorithm. Someone thinks that may be true, or even already known? I've writen in ADA this algorithm and if someone finds the best known merge algorithm, I will benchmark my proof of concept against. Meanwhile, I would try to compare it to clasic merge.--Azrael60 18:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

As a side note, I think a mention to Hwang-Lin binary merging algorithm should be done. Also the information theory limit for the worst case comparaison.--Azrael60 (talk) 16:05, 13 January 2008 (UTC)salem ghnaimat

Applications - statement about k-way sorts in memory
This section includes the statement: A k-way in-memory merge sort can also be constructed from a k-way merge algorithm, but his provides no benefits over the ordinary binary merge sort. On a processor with 16 registers, such as a PC in 64 bit mode, a 4-way merge sort using 10 or so pointers that a compiler optimizes by using registers for all those pointers will result in a 4-way merge sort being somewhat faster than a binary merge sort, and about as fast as quick sort. PC based benchmarks showed the 4-way merge sort was about 15% faster than binary merge sort. Rcgldr (talk) 19:19, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

 * I made the statement more precise by specifying that the number of comparisons is being counted. Q VVERTYVS (hm?) 19:55, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

 * I would recommend just removing the statement. A 4 way merge averages 3 compares for every move, versus 2 way merge averaging 1 compare for every move, but the 4 way does 1/2 the moves. So the number of compares of 4 way is 1.5 times the number of compares for 2 way, while the number of moves for 4 way is 1/2 the number of moves for 2 way. This is probably too much detail for the main article, which is about merge algorithms as opposed to sort algorithms. Rcgldr (talk) 22:26, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

 * Removed it. We might want to add a section about this to merge sort later. Q VVERTYVS (hm?) 09:49, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

 * To clarify - a k-way in memory merge sort (using min-heap, recursion, or something similar to reduce k-1 compares to log2(k) compares), has the same time complexity as a 2-way merge. For n = power of k, then complexity = n logk(n) log2(k) = n log2(n), same as 2 way regardless of k. However the statement is no benefit as opposed to same time complexity. Even with simple k-1 compare logic (3 compares per move), a 4 way merge sort of integers ends up being slightly faster than a 2 way merge sort, at least in the case of a PC in 64 bit mode (16 registers). The situation would probably be reversed if sorting an array of pointers to objects, since the compare overhead would be greater than the move overhead. The other issue is that a statement about the sort complexity belongs in the sort articles, instead of a merge article. Rcgldr (talk) 13:36, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

 * What the original source cares about (and what I sloppily summarized as "no benefit") is the exact expected number of comparisons, not the big-O complexity. Q VVERTYVS (hm?) 15:22, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

 * The number of moves is also a factor, but the total number of operations remains the same, k=2, n log2(n) compares + n log2(n) moves = 2 n log2(n) total operations. k=4, 1 1/2 n log2(n) compares + 1/2 n log2(n) moves = 2 n log2(n) total operations. On my system, Intel 2600K 3.4ghz, in 64 bit mode (16 registers), a 4 way merge sort of psuedo random 64 bit unsigned integers is about 12% to 15% depending on the number of integers (12% for 4 million, 15% for 64 million). The 4 way merge sort on integers is about as fast as quick sort. The relative performance is affected by the overhead of compares versus the overhead of moves. Rcgldr (talk) 18:28, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

 * Computational complexity is not about efficient use of registers on a particular machine. Furthermore, comparisons are usually not simple integer operations even though books on algorithms use that for clarity. Glrx (talk) 04:24, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

 * As mentioned above, the issue with the removed statement was how it was worded no benefit as opposed to same time complexity, and it probably belongs in sort algorithms and/or merge sort, not merge algorithms. Rcgldr (talk) 02:31, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Fake algorithms
A source code for  routine (consequently, for , too), added in this revision by Mia0303 under the Merge algorithm section is incorrect. It would not even compile due to at least two major errors, let alone running and producing reasonable results!

Even when fixed, it will also be dramatically ineffective. Additionally it lacks description of the parameters, so it's hard to tell how it should be invoked. One can try to guess the parameters meaning, but that would mean reinventing the algorithm rather than learning it, which strongly contradicts an encyclopedic style. --CiaPan (talk) 08:52, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

 * I've replaced the whole section by a summary of CLRS's parallel merge. Q VVERTYVS (hm?) 10:59, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Merge K-way merge algorithm article into this one
The article K-way merge algorithm largely duplicates content in the K-way merging section in this article, so I think it should be merged (this is not just a pun, I promise). I also suspect that the topic is not notable enough to merit its own article. —  P C  B  21:59, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree, the two articles have far too much overlap to be separate. Possibly if this article were expanded in a different direction the topics could be separately notable, but with the current content they are not. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:13, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

 * Oppose The article is written in appropriate WP:SUMMARYSTYLE, the K-way merging section summarize this article while this article gives significantly more details Trialpears (talk) 11:25, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Closing, given the uncontested policy-based argument. Klbrain (talk) 13:23, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Language support - C++ - std::inplace_merge
The term in place may be mis-leading here. std::inplace_merge may use auxiliary storage to implement the merge. It can throw an exception if it can't allocate enough memory. . Microsoft / Visual Studio attempts to allocate memory, but can perform the merge even if memory allocation fails. .

Possible typo
should not it be a s+1 there? (the lower line beneath): in parallel do       merge(A[i...r], B[k...s], C[p...t]) merge(A[r+1...j], B[s...ℓ], C[t+1...q])

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.47.172.117 (talk)

Difference between the merge algorithm and merge sort?
What is the difference between the merge algorithm and merge sort? The article says that the merge algorithm plays a critical role in the merge sort algorithm, but according to how the article describes the merge algorithm, it seems to me that it is the same thing as merge sort. So, what is the difference between the two algorithms, if there is a difference? I think this should be clarified early on in the article. —Kri (talk) 17:52, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

 * The merge algorithm takes two sorted chains (lists, sequences, arrays, ...) of data and creates a new chain (sometimes by copying the items of source data, sometimes by interleaving them, depending on the data structure in use), containing all items of both source chains in the proper order. Merge sort takes unsorted chain of data, decomposes it into multiple chains and successively merges them to construct a finał sorted chain of all source data. --CiaPan (talk) 20:14, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

 * Yes. The merge algorithm is a subroutine in merge sort, not the whole merge sort. It is also used as a subroutine in some other algorithms unrelated to sorting. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:14, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

 * Thank you for clarification. CiaPan (talk) 10:33, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

 * Thank you for the answers; that makes sense! I have updated the text under the image in the article to reflect that. —Kri (talk) 19:42, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

 * What David said about a 𝄪subroutine𝄪 above applies to words 𝄪successively merges them𝄪 in my answer. --CiaPan (talk) 10:33, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Merge algorithm


text:
Saint Winifred

Saint Winifred (or Winefride; Gwenffrewi; Wenefreda, Winifreda) was a Welsh virgin martyr of the 7th century. Her story was celebrated as early as the 8th century, but became popular in England in the 12th, when her hagiography was first written down.

A healing spring at the traditional site of her decapitation and restoration is now a shrine and pilgrimage site called St Winefride's Well in Holywell, Flintshire, in Wales and known as "the Lourdes of Wales", which was granted the status of National Shrine for England and Wales in November 2023.

Life and legend
The oldest accounts of Winifred's life date to the 12th century. According to legend, Winifred was the daughter of a chieftain of Tegeingl, Welsh nobleman Tyfid ap Eiludd. Her mother was Wenlo, a niece of Saint Beuno, and a member of a family closely connected with the kings of south Wales.

According to legend, her suitor, Caradog, was enraged when she decided to become a nun and when she refused his advances, he decapitated her. A healing spring appeared where her head fell. Winifred's head was subsequently rejoined to her body due to the efforts of Beuno, and she was restored to life. Seeing the murderer leaning on his sword with an insolent and defiant air, Beuno invoked the chastisement of heaven, and Caradog fell dead on the spot, the popular belief being that the ground opened and swallowed him. Beuno left Holywell, and returned to Caernarfon; before he left, the tradition is that he seated himself upon a stone, which now stands in the outer well pool, and there promised in the name of God "that whosoever on that spot should thrice ask for a benefit from God in the name of St. Winefride would obtain the grace he asked if it was for the good of his soul."

After eight years spent at Holywell, Winifred received an inspiration to leave the convent and retire inland. Accordingly, Winifred went upon her pilgrimage to seek a place of rest. Ultimately she arrived at Gwytherin near the source of the River Elwy. She later became a nun and abbess at Gwytherin in Denbighshire. More elaborate versions of this tale relate many details of her life, including Winefride's pilgrimage to Rome.

Given the late date of the earliest surviving written accounts of Winifred's life, her existence has been doubted since the 19th century. She is not recorded in any Welsh pedigree of saints nor in the 13th-century calendar of Welsh saints. There is, however, evidence of her cult from centuries before the appearance of her first hagiography. Two small pieces of an oak reliquary from the 8th century were discovered in 1991 and identified based on earlier drawings as belonging to the Arch Gwenfrewi, the reliquary of Winifred. The reliquary probably contained an article of clothing or another object associated with the saint, but not her bones. According to historian Lynne Heidi Stumpe, the reliquary provides "good evidence for her having been recognized as a saint very soon after her death", and thus of her historicity. The reliquary may even be "the earliest surviving testimony to the formal cultus of any Welsh saint".

Veneration
Veneration of Winifred as a martyr saint is attested from the 12th century. She is mostly venerated in England, not in Wales, which led Caesar Baronius to list her as an "English saint" in his Roman Martyrology of 1584.

In 1138, relics of Winifred were carried to Shrewsbury to form the basis of an elaborate shrine. The Church of St. Winifred, Stainton is a 12th century church located in the village of Stainton, South Yorkshire, England.

Cult
The details of Winifred's life are gathered from a manuscript in the British Museum, said to have been the work of the British monk, Elerius, a contemporary of the saint, and also from a manuscript life in the Bodleian Library, generally believed to have been compiled in 1130 by Robert, prior of Shrewsbury (d. 1168). Prior Robert is generally credited with greatly promoting the cult of St. Winifred by translating her relics from Gwytherin to Shrewsbury Abbey and writing the most influential life of the saint. The chronicler John of Tynemouth also wrote of Winifred.

To further enhance the prestige of the Abbey, Abbot Nicholas Stevens built a new shrine for St. Winifred in the 14th century, before then having some monks steal the relics of St. Beuno from Rhewl and installed in the abbey church. Although the abbey was fined, it was allowed to keep the relics.

William Caxton's 1483 edition of the Golden Legend includes the story of St. Winifred. The following year, he printed a separate "Life" of the saint.

The shrine and well at Shrewsbury became major pilgrimage goals in the Late Middle Ages, but the shrine was destroyed by Henry VIII in 1540.

The well at Holywell, originally formed from a mountain spring, is housed below the town on the side of a steep hill. The shrine of St. Winifride (known as Gwenffrwd or Gwenfrewi in Welsh) is regarded as one of the finest surviving examples of a medieval holy well in Britain. The well precinct also houses an 'Interpretive Exhibition', setting forth the story of the saint and her shrine in detail; the Victorian former custodians' house has also been converted to house a museum of the pilgrimage.

Another well named after St. Winifred is found in the hamlet of Woolston near Oswestry in Shropshire. According to legend, it is thought that on her way to Shrewsbury Abbey, Winifred's body was laid there overnight and a spring sprang up out of the ground. The water is supposed to have healing powers and be good at healing bruises, wounds and broken bones. The well is covered by a 15th-century half-timbered cottage. The water flows through a series of stone troughs and into a large pond, which then flows into a stream. The cottage is maintained by the Landmark Trust.

Another spring supposedly arising from the laying down of Winifred's body is at Holywell Farm, midway between Tattenhall and Clutton, Cheshire. There is a spring in the garden of this non-working farm which supplies two houses with their drinking water.

A spring on Lansdown Hill, Bath was known as St. Winifred's Spring and gave its name to nearby Winifreds Lane. There appears to be no known connection to the life of the saint, but its waters were once supposed to help women conceive.

A Norman church dedicated to St. Winifred can be found in the village of Branscombe, Devon. There is some archaeological evidence to suggest an earlier Saxon church may have occupied the site.

Roman Martyrology
In the 2004 edition of the Roman Martyrology, Winifred is listed under 2 November with the Latin name Winefrídae. She is listed as follows: "At the spring located at Holywell in Wales, St Winefride the Virgin, who is outstanding in her witness as a nun". Winifred is officially recognised by the Vatican as a person with a historical basis, who lived an exemplary religious life, but with no discussion of miracles which she may have performed or been healed by. As a 1st-millennium saint, she is recognised as a saint by popular acclaim, rather than ever being formally canonized.

In the current Roman Catholic liturgical calendar for Wales, Winifred is commemorated on 3 November, since 2 November is designated as All Souls' Day.

Iconography
Winifred's representation in stained glass at Llandyrnog and Llanasa focuses on her learning and her status as an honorary martyr, but the third aspect of her life, her religious leadership, is also commemorated visually. On the seal of the cathedral chapter of St. Asaph (now in the National Museums and Galleries of Wales, Cathays Park, Cardiff), she appears wimpled as an abbess, bearing a crozier, symbol of leadership and authority and a reliquary.

Feast days

 * 22 (24) June - death anniversary,
 * 30 October - feast day in Ireland
 * 2 November - Roman Martyrology
 * 3 November - feast day in England and Wales

References in fiction
St. Winifred's Well, termed "þe Holy Hede", is mentioned in the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (in Passus II). She also appears as a character in the 2021 film adaptation of the poem, portrayed by actress Erin Kellyman.

William Rowley's 17th-century comedy A Shoemaker a Gentleman dramatises St. Winifred's story, based on the version in Thomas Deloney's story The Gentle Craft (1584).

English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins memorialised St. Winifred in his unfinished drama, St Winifred's Well.

The moving of Winifred's bones to Shrewsbury is fictionalised in A Morbid Taste for Bones, the first of Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael novels, with the plot twist that her bones are secretly left in Wales, and someone else is put into the shrine; St. Winifred is portrayed as an important character in all the books in the Brother Cadfael series. The celebration of her Feast Day provides the setting for two of the novels, The Rose Rent and The Pilgrim of Hate. The casket is stolen from its shrine in The Holy Thief, and the campaign to find and restore it propels the action. Throughout the series, the protagonist, Brother Cadfael - a Welsh monk at the English monastery at Shrewsbury - develops a "special understanding" with the saint, whom he affectionately calls "The Girl".

Australian novelist Gerald Murnane makes reference to St. Winifred in his novel Inland.

St. Winifred appears as a spirit to Sir Gawain in the 2021 movie The Green Knight. Winifred asks Sir Gawain to retrieve her severed head from a spring, which he does. He places the head in her bed with the rest of her skeletal remains, and she provides him with information regarding the identity of the Green Knight.

Legacy
A statue of St. Winifred stands overlooking the Hudson River in Hudson, New York.

title: Saint Winifred


text:
Talk:Xi'an Jiaotong University

Untitled
''This page was listed on Votes for deletion in May, 2004. The result of that discussion was to keep the article. For an archive of the discussion, see Talk:Xi'an Jiaotong University/Delete.''

"It is one of the most important universities in Mainland China, with a recognition "China's Top5 university" in the year 2000."

What is the source of this claim? This is a vague statement lacking of credibility.

 * I've updated the claim to reflect the 2006 ranking (ie ninth), and provided an external reference. Since 1989, the Chinese government has ranked all its universities according to various cross-curricular criteria.--Quywompka 09:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Xjtu logo.jpg
Image:Xjtu logo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 08:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

i didn't add the Category:Education in Shaanxi on this page because
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CaliforniaAliBaba
 * tried to sit on my neck
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:114.233.128.193&redirect=no
 * instead of doing something useful for thousands of other pages in Wiki —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.233.128.193 (talk) 10:37, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

 * if you start anyhting here
 * be ready there will be a crowd of tralls to spoil your good work

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category_talk:Education_in_China_by_province&action=history they can it "improving Wiki" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.233.137.165 (talk) 04:20, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on Xi'an Jiaotong University. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20050922082919/http://www.xjtu.edu.cn:80/en/ to http://www.xjtu.edu.cn/en

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 16:47, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 one external links on Xi'an Jiaotong University. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20131004234244/http://www.xjtu.edu.cn/en/AboutXJTU/en5.html to http://www.xjtu.edu.cn/en/AboutXJTU/en5.html
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20140201234553/http://zs.xjtu.edu.cn/show_news.do?news_id=1384512162572 to http://zs.xjtu.edu.cn/show_news.do?news_id=1384512162572
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110615143534/http://www.xjtu.edu.cn/zsjy/lxszs.html to http://www.xjtu.edu.cn/zsjy/lxszs.html
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20090415025117/http://www.xjtu.edu.cn:8080/en/admissions/internet.htm to http://www.xjtu.edu.cn:8080/en/admissions/internet.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 21:47, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:36, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Xi'an Jiaotong University logo and wordmark in Chinese and English Characters.svg

title: Talk:Xi'an Jiaotong University


text:
Short Cuts

Short Cuts is a 1993 American comedy-drama film, directed by Robert Altman. Filmed from a screenplay by Altman and Frank Barhydt, it is inspired by nine short stories and a poem by Raymond Carver. The film has a Los Angeles setting, which is substituted for the Pacific Northwest backdrop of Carver's stories. Short Cuts traces the actions of 22 principal characters, both in parallel and at occasional loose points of connection.

The film features an ensemble cast including Matthew Modine, Julianne Moore, Fred Ward, Anne Archer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Robert Downey Jr., Madeleine Stowe, Chris Penn, Jack Lemmon, Frances McDormand, Lori Singer, Andie MacDowell, Buck Henry, Lily Tomlin, actress and singer Annie Ross, and musicians Huey Lewis, Lyle Lovett, and Tom Waits.

Plot
The film begins with a fleet of helicopters spraying for medflies, which brings various characters together along the flight path.

Dr. Ralph Wyman and his wife, Marian, meet Stuart Kane, an unemployed salesman, and Claire Kane, a party clown, at a concert Zoe Trainer performs on cello. They impulsively decide to have a Sunday dinner date. Meanwhile, Marian's sister, Sherri, is married to a cheating cop named Gene, who is having an affair with Betty Weathers, while Betty is divorcing one of the helicopter pilots, Stormy.

Among the other characters are Doreen Piggot, a waitress married to an alcoholic limo driver named Earl, and television commentator Howard Finnigan, who lives next door to cabaret singer Tess and her daughter Zoe. Jerry Kaiser, the pool cleaner, is married to Lois, who works from home as a phone sex operator. Jerry and Lois are friends with Honey, Doreen's daughter, and her husband Bill, a makeup artist.

Tragedy strikes when Casey, Howard and Anne's young son, is accidentally hit by Doreen's car. Although he initially seems fine, Casey later falls unconscious at home. The concerned parents rush him to the hospital, where he remains comatose. In the midst of this, the baker Andy Bitkower repeatedly calls the Finnigans to inform them about their ordered cake. However, Howard, wanting to keep the phone line free, abruptly ends the calls, leading to frustration on Andy's part.

Howard's estranged father, Paul, arrives at the hospital and recalls an incident from Howard's childhood, which caused the rift between them. Meanwhile, Stuart and his friends, Gordon and Vern, harass Doreen at the diner before leaving for a fishing trip. During their excursion, they discover the body of a young woman. Contemplating what to do, they decide to tie her to the rocks and continue fishing, only reporting the incident later. Stuart eventually confesses to Claire, who is appalled by their actions and visits the funeral home out of guilt.

Stormy, one of the helicopter pilots, pays a destructive visit to Betty's house while she is away with their son. Gene abandons the family dog due to its barking, but eventually retrieves it after his children express distress. The Wymans have a heated argument before their dinner party with the Kanes, during which Marian admits to having an affair. Both couples resort to heavy drinking, and the party lasts throughout the night.

A glimmer of hope arises when Casey's eyes flutter, but tragically, he suddenly dies, leaving Howard and Anne devastated. Meanwhile, Zoe, overwhelmed by her mother's alcoholism, Casey's death, and her own isolation, commits suicide by starting her car engine inside the garage. Her mother discovers her lifeless body and drinks herself into a stupor.

When Honey picks up pictures from the fotomat, she finds them mixed up with Gordon's. Honey is shocked to find pictures of the submerged body from Gordon's fishing trip while Gordon equally shocked to find pictures of Honey appearing severely beaten. Disturbed, they part ways but memorize each other's license plates. Later, at a picnic, Jerry and Bill encounter two young women they had met earlier. Bill and one of the girls walk away, only to hear her scream moments before Jerry kills her with a rock. Suddenly, a major earthquake strikes, causing chaos. The aftermath suggests that Jerry's act may be mistakenly attributed to the falling rocks during the earthquake.

Production
According to associate producer Mike Kaplan, the screenplay was first written in 1989. Filming primarily took place in Los Angeles, California. Principal photography began on July 26, 1992, and ended on October 1, 1992.

Release
The film was distributed by Fine Line Features and released in the United States on October 3, 1993. A special DVD edition was released by the Criterion Collection in 2004 and contains two discs, the collection of Carver's short stories, and an essay booklet on the film.

Reception
Short Cuts received critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 95% approval rating, based on 60 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Robert Altman's ensemble drama deftly integrates its disparate characters and episodes into a funny, poignant, emotionally satisfying whole." On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 81 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote: "Los Angeles always seems to be waiting for something. Permanence seems out of reach; some great apocalyptic event is on the horizon, and people view the future tentatively. Robert Altman's 'Short Cuts' captures that uneasiness perfectly in its interlocking stories about people who seem trapped in the present, always juggling." Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "The lives are often desperate and the characters inarticulate, but the group portrait is as grandly, sometimes as hilariously, realized as anything the director has ever done." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film four out of four stars and called it "a brilliant companion piece" to The Player. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film "is not equally involving all the time. Some performances are stronger than others, some situations more entertaining, and some choices Altman has made, like an overreliance on female nudity that borders on the exploitative, difficult to defend. But whenever interest lags, a look, a moment, a frisson of regret will cross the screen and the emotional connection is restored." Rita Kempley of The Washington Post panned the film as "a cynical, sexist and shallow work" populated with "whiny, inert and mostly unlikable characters."

Accolades
Short Cuts was named one of the best films of 1993 by over 50 film critics. Only The Piano and Schindler's List appeared on more lists.

Altman was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director (but lost to Steven Spielberg for Schindler's List) and shared a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay with Barhydt (lost to Steven Zaillian for Schindler's List). The cast won a Special Golden Globe Award for their ensemble acting. The film also won the prestigious Golden Lion and the Volpi Cup for Best Ensemble Cast at the Venice Film Festival.

Year-end lists

 * Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Mike Mayo, The Roanoke Times
 * No. 1. Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
 * No. 1. Armond White, The City Sun
 * No. 2. Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune

Book
A book was released to accompany the film, which compiled the nine short stories and one poem that inspired it. Altman wrote an introduction to this collection, which featured insights into the making of the film and his own thoughts about Carver's stories.

 * 1) "Neighbors"
 * 2) "They're Not Your Husband"
 * 3) "Vitamins"
 * 4) "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?"
 * 5) "So Much Water So Close to Home"
 * 6) "A Small, Good Thing"
 * 7) "Jerry and Molly and Sam"
 * 8) "Collectors"
 * 9) "Tell the Women We're Going"
 * 10) "Lemonade" (poem)

Documentary
Luck, Trust & Ketchup: Robert Altman in Carver County was a behind-the-scenes documentary, featuring interviews with Altman and the cast.

Unfilmed sequel
Anne Rapp, who wrote Cookie's Fortune and Dr. T & The Women for Altman, was commissioned to adapt more Carver stories into a screenplay which he did not film.

title: Short Cuts