text:
Company town

A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and recreation facilities.

Some company towns have had high ideals, but many have been regarded as controlling and/or exploitative. Others developed more or less in unplanned fashion, such as Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, United States, one of the oldest, which began as a Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company mining camp and mine site nine miles (14.5 km) from the nearest outside road.

Overview
Traditional settings for company towns were where extractive industries – coal, metal mines, lumber – had established a monopoly franchise. Dam sites and war-industry camps founded other company towns. Since company stores often had a monopoly in company towns, it was often possible to pay in scrip through a truck system, although not all company towns engaged in this particular practice. In the Soviet Union there were several cities of nuclear scientists (atomics) known as atomgrad; particularly in Ukraine those were Pripyat, Varash, Yuzhnoukrainsk among others.

Typically, a company town is isolated from neighbors and centered on a large production factory, such as a lumber or steel mill or an automobile plant, and the citizens of the town either work in the factory, work in one of the smaller businesses, or are a family member of someone who does. The company may also operate parks, host cultural events such as concerts, donate a church building to a local congregation, and so on.

A town that existed prior to the establishment of a primary business may not officially be a company town, but if the majority of citizens are employed by a single company, similar conditions may exist (especially in regard to the town's economy). Similar dependencies may exist in specific neighborhoods or areas within larger cities.

Company towns often become regular (public) cities and towns as they grow and attract other settlement, business enterprises, and public transportation and services infrastructure. However, if the primary company experiences hardship or fails outright, or the industry fades in importance – such as when anthracite mining declined due to dependence on steam locomotives to spur demand – the economic effect on the company town can be devastating. Without a source of employment, the communities lose property value and population as people leave to find work elsewhere.

Paternalism

Paternalism, a subtle form of social engineering, refers to the control of workers by their employers who sought to force middle-class ideals upon their working-class employees. Paternalism was considered by many nineteenth-century businessmen as a moral responsibility, or often a religious obligation, which would advance society whilst furthering their own business interests. Accordingly, the company town offered a unique opportunity to achieve such ends.

Although many prominent examples of company towns portray their founders as "capitalists with a conscience", for example, George Cadbury's Bournville, if viewed cynically, the company town was often an economically viable ploy to attract and retain workers. Additionally, for-profit shops within company towns were usually owned by the company, which were unavoidable to its isolated workers, thus resulting in a monopoly for the owners.

Although economically successful, company towns sometimes failed politically due to a lack of elected officials and municipally owned services. Accordingly, workers often had no say in local affairs, and therefore felt dictated to. Ultimately, this political climate caused resentment amongst workers and resulted in many residents eventually losing long-term affection for their towns; such was the case at Pullman.

Pullman lesson
Although many small company towns existed in mining areas of Pennsylvania before the American Civil War, one of the largest, and most substantial early company towns in the United States was Pullman, developed in the 1880s just outside the Chicago city limits. The town, entirely company-owned, provided housing, markets, a library, churches and entertainment for the 6,000 company employees and an equal number of dependents. Employees were not required to live in Pullman, although workers tended to get better treatment if they chose to live in the town.

The town operated successfully until the economic panic of 1893, when demand for the company's products declined, and Pullman lowered employee wages and hours to offset the decrease in demand. Despite this, the company refused to lower rents in the town or the price of goods at its shops, thus resulting in the Pullman Strike of 1894. A national commission formed to investigate the causes of the strikes found that Pullman's paternalism was partly to blame and labelled it "Un-American". The report condemned Pullman for refusing to negotiate and for the economic hardships he created for workers in the town of Pullman. "The aesthetic features are admired by visitors, but have little money value to employees, especially when they lack bread." The State of Illinois filed suit, and in 1898 the Supreme Court of Illinois forced the Pullman Company to divest ownership in the town, which was annexed to Chicago.

However, government observers maintained that Pullman's principles were accurate, in that he provided his employees with a quality of life otherwise unattainable to them, but recognized that his excessive paternalism was inappropriate for a large-scale corporate economy and thus caused the town's downfall. Accordingly, government observers and social reformers alike saw the need for a balance between control and well-designed towns, concluding that a model company town would only succeed if independent professionals, acting as a buffer between employers and employees, took a role in conception, planning, and management of these towns.

Historian Linda Carlson argues that the managers of corporate towns in the early 20th century believed they could avoid the mistakes made by George Pullman in the 1880s. She says they:
 * wanted to create a better life for their employees: decent housing, good schools, and a "morally uplifting" society. In return, they expected stable, hard-working employees who would eschew the evils of drink and, most important, not fall prey to the blandishments of union organizers.

Thus, the Pullman Strike did not kill the concept of a company town but rather initiated a new chapter in their existence. Over the next thirty years, the old model of paternalism was abandoned in favour of new professionally designed company towns with architects, landscape architects, and planners translating "new concepts of industrial relations and social welfare into new physical forms". This suited capitalists of the day who were obviously keen to avoid the experiences of Pullman. The first real example of this occurred at Indian Hill-North Village, Massachusetts, in 1915.

Decline of American company towns
By the 1920s, the need for company towns had declined significantly due to increased national affluence. Despite income inequalities and a relatively low standard of living conditions amongst factory laborers, the prosperity of the 1920s saw workers’ material well-being improve significantly. A strong post-war American economy meant installment buying was accessible to low-wage earners who could now purchase previously unattainable goods like automobiles and radios. Moreover, workers were no longer dependent on employers for healthcare and education.

By the 1920s, the wide spread of the automobile meant workers no longer needed to live near their work places, and now had access to more employment opportunities. A combination of the freedom that came with private transport and the mass communication of radio saw the isolation of company towns lessen, and the social basis of the company town become less necessary.

Furthermore, the accessibility of private transport to the working class was a step toward equality, as private transport had previously only been accessible to the wealthy. As access to surrounding municipalities increased, residents of company towns gained access to an increasing amount of government-funded public resources such as schools, libraries, and parks. Accordingly, there was no longer a need for the amenities of company towns which, prior to welfare capitalism, had previously been unattainable to the working class.

This new-found freedom saw a change in the mindset of workers, who began to look on welfare capitalism as demeaning rather than an incentive. Accordingly, many employees began to request additional pay in lieu of welfare programs. This was well received by some employers as the idea of ‘laissez-faire’ individualism, which promoted entrepreneurial virtues of hard work being rewarded rather than direct charity, began to shape new-age paternalism.

Modernization and the increase in material well-being had also lessened the perceived need for paternalism and moral reform. Consequently, the economic downturn of the early 1930s saw some businesses do away with employee welfare schemes to reduce costs. However, the Roosevelt administration's New Deal dealt the final blow to end American company towns by raising minimum wages, encouraging industrial self-governance, and pushing for the owners of company towns to "consider the question of plans for eventual employee ownership of homes". To a lesser extent the New Deal also reduced the need for employee housing by transforming housing finance to a lower-interest, lower-deposit system, making home ownership more accessible to the working class.

Model company towns

During the late nineteenth century, model company towns materialised, as enlightened industrialists recognised that many poor workers were living in appalling conditions. These industrialists wished to combat the unsanitary and congested conditions common to working class districts in order to create better living conditions for workers. Model company towns such as Port Sunlight (1888) and Bournville (1895) were influential in regards to their building and planning innovation. The ideas generated from these model towns are regarded as having a significant influence on the Garden City movement.

The model company town is concerned with creating a productive and prosperous company. Enlightened industrialists believed this could be achieved by providing a healthier residential environment for their employees. Planning a model company town involved the fusion of new notions of house design and layout. The paternalism of the enlightened industrialist was exhibited in his desire to provide an environment for his employees that was aesthetically appealing and which included well-designed residences, parks, schools, libraries and meeting halls. The industrialist also wished to contribute to his workers' well-being by providing social programs such as sporting events and functions. This, however, highlights the power and immense control possessed by the company owner, who could shape the lifestyle and activities of his employees to serve his own interests and those of the company.

Model villages for agricultural workers were founded in the early 19th century in the United Kingdom. The creation of model company towns was particularly evident in Britain during the latter half of the nineteenth century with the creation of Saltaire (1851), Bournville, Port Sunlight, Creswell and New Earswick (1901) and coincided with the housing-reform movement, which emphasized the improvement of housing for the working class. These model towns contrasted with the overcrowded conditions in British working-class districts, which were often characterized by congested housing, unsanitary conditions, and poor provision of open space and facilities. Model company towns promoted the idea of orderly, planned town development as well as the notion of planning for the needs of the community in order to provide healthier living conditions.

Model company towns in Britain
Model company towns around the mid-nineteenth century, such as Copley (1849), near Halifax, and Saltaire (1853), close to Bradford, had improved dwellings for workers, which contrasted with working-class housing in other industrial villages and cities. These model company towns prompted the creation of others, such as Port Sunlight, Bournville and Creswell, within an environment of reform.

Port Sunlight (1888) in Cheshire was established by William Hesketh Lever (later Lord Leverhulme) of Lever Brothers – a soap and tallow manufacturer. The earlier layout of this model company town was planned to suit the undulating topography of the site. Port Sunlight catered for the Lever Brothers employees with improved housing (cottages of varying designs and materials) and gardens, as well as social and community facilities, including an auditorium, a school, tennis courts and bowling greens. Port Sunlight combined the use of formal and informal planning elements, such as straight streets close to the town centre and curved streets in the residential areas. This combination of the formal and informal represented a new feature of British town planning.

Bournville (1895), near Birmingham, was established by the Cadbury brothers, George and Richard. George and Richard Cadbury chose to transfer the Cadbury factory to this new site in order to provide their employees with improved living conditions and a country environment that they could enjoy – a far cry from the busy, smoky city centre of Birmingham. The firm provided education in the form of a compulsory academic course, and workers were given the opportunity to complete commercial or technical training. The Cadburys also encouraged their workers to get involved in the social life of Bournville through the provision of sports facilities and athletic and cultural clubs, as well as social events such as summer parties. George Cadbury, a Quaker, preached Christian values, such as respectability, thrift and sobriety, and sought to unify the Bournville community through rituals such as gift giving between employer and employee. The firm also established work councils, such as the Women's Works Council, and supported trades unions.

Bournville represented the union of industry and nature as the company town boasted the attractiveness of the countryside and low-density development with well-built and visually appealing dwellings. Unlike Port Sunlight, Bournville catered for a mixed community, where residences were not restricted to the workforce only. Bournville illustrated how, towards the end of the nineteenth century, low-density development was being punctuated along with the provision of open air, space and sunlight. Bournville's gardens, parks, tree-lined streets, sense of spaciousness and country setting enhanced its aesthetic appeal and demonstrated George Cadbury's endeavour to provide workers with a healthy, beautiful and well-ventilated environment.

The Bolsover Company developed two exemplary mining communities in Derbyshire during the late nineteenth century: Bolsover (1891) and Creswell (1896). The Bolsover Company aimed to provide improved living conditions for the miners and their families in these model industrial villages. The houses at Creswell were built in concentric circles, and within these circles was a large open parkland and a bandstand. Not only did the Bolsover Company aim to provide better housing, but they also wished to improve workers' moral fibre, believing that the provision of facilities and the promotion of workers' welfare would discourage drunkenness, gambling and bad language. The Bolsover Company provided facilities deemed beneficial for employees at both villages, including clubhouses, bowling greens, cooperative society stores, cricket pitches and schools. During the early years of these model industrial villages, the Bolsover Company organized various events intended to enhance community life, such as flower shows, lectures, sporting events, concerts, teas and dances.

Industrial colonies in Catalonia
Catalonia, located in north-eastern Spain, has an especially high density of company towns, known locally as industrial colonies. They are especially concentrated in river basins along the Ter and Llobregat and their tributaries. In Berguedà, for example, within 20 km there are 14 colonies. The total number in Catalonia is around a hundred. These were small towns created around a factory or mine, built in a rural area and, therefore, separate from any other population. They typically housed between 100 and 500 inhabitants; in some cases, upwards of 1000 people lived in these towns.

These industrial colonies were an emblematic aspect of industrialization in Catalonia, specifically the second industrialization, which resulted in certain areas that were once purely rural becoming industrial. They were first created in the second half of the nineteenth century, especially from the 1870s onwards after the American Civil War ended and raw cotton once again became readily available. The last colonies were created in the early years of the twentieth century. Thus, company towns in Catalonia have a history going back some 150 years; however, in almost all cases the company that operated the colony has now shut down. The most common industry in these colonies was textiles and the most important from the standpoint of architecture, urban design the complexity of their operation. There are more than 75 textile colonies recorded; although there were also mining, metallurgy, cement and agricultural colonies.

Mostly these colonies (particularly the textile related ones) were constructed close to a river. This was because they used hydraulic power (waterwheels) to run the factory. One reason for this was that Catalonia was poor in coal and importing it was expensive. In addition, the Catalan rivers (with little volume but a very steep sloping run) provided free and almost inexhaustible energy, that was lacking only in times of drought.

The industrial colonies system began to collapse in the 1960s due to their inflexible capital structure and social changes such as the desire for workers to own appliance, cars, or their own home, the declining influence of religion and the opportunities offered by towns. The colonies gradually emptied of people even before the definitive industrial crisis, which worsened in 1978. In the 1980s and 1990s almost all the factories in these industrial colonies closed. From that moment on, many colonies became towns that were now independent of the company, others were abandoned and remain without inhabitants. Other factories were leased to smaller industries or now lie empty.

Some of the more interesting colonies include: Colònia Güell, in Santa Coloma de Cervelló, which contains several modernist buildings, such as the crypt church built by Antoni Gaudí; L'Ametlla de Merola, Puig-reig, where centenary traditional cultural activities are held, such as the representation of Els Pastorets; the three colonies of Castellbell i el Vilar: La Bauma, El Borràs, El Burés, with buildings of architectural interest; Cal Rosal, between Berga, Avià and Olvan, which, in 1858, was the first colony in the era of building large colonies in the Llobregat; Cal Vidal, Puig-reig, which houses the Museum of the Vidal Colony, or the Museum of the Sedó Colony, ideal visits for anyone wishing to learn what life was like in one of these industrial experiments.

Belgium
Having bought the mining concession of Grand-Hornu in 1810, French industrialist Henri De Gorge soon realized the need for accommodating the growing workforce of his expanding business. He commissioned architect François Obin and, after his death, Bruno Renard, to build a functional complex in a neoclassical style. Grand-Hornu became one of the world's first purpose-built company towns. It was abandoned in 1954 after the closing of the mine and currently houses a museum of contemporary art as well as temporary exhibitions. Grand-Hornu is one of the four industrial sites in Wallonia that were listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 2012.

Brazil
Fordlândia was established by American industrialist Henry Ford in 1928 as a prefabricated industrial town in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil. Intended to be inhabited by 10 thousand people, it failed; and the city was abandoned in 1934.

Canada

Arvida, Quebec was developed in 1927 as a company town. The town grew to have a population of about 14,000 inhabitants, four Catholic parishes, and many other denominations, parishes and schools. It was known as "the City Built in 135 Days".

Batawa was set up by the Bata Shoe Company as a planned community around a shoe factory. The factory opened in 1939 and closed in 2000.

Chile
Two of Chile's UNESCO World Heritage Sites correspond to former company towns.

Humberstone was a settlement dedicated to the extraction of saltpeter during said commodity's boom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The town was founded and administered by James Thomas Humberstone's Peru Nitrate Company, later acquired by Compañía Salitrera de Tarapacá y Antofagasta (COSATAN), before turning into a ghost town by the 1960s due to the steady decline in the global price of nitrates caused by the development of chemically engineered fertilizers.

Sewell was a mining town intended as both a residential and industrial hub linked to the nearby El Teniente copper mine. Founded in 1906 by the Braden Copper Company, it came to house over 16,000 inhabitants at its peak, despite its remote location in the slopes of the Andes. The difficult geography on which the town was erected led to its distinctive appearance, with steep staircases and the absence of streets for vehicular access. Although the El Teniente mine remains active, the town itself began to be dismantled and abandoned by the late 1960s as the maintenance of a remote on-site town was no longer financially viable. Some industrial activities still take place on the grounds of Sewell, but workers have largely been relocated to nearby urban centres.

Finland
Kuusankoski in Finland, formerly also known as "the paper capital of Finland", is a prime example of the decline many company towns have had to deal with when the company itself struggles. The town relied on three paper mills owned by Kymmene Corporation from the 1870s until 2005 when two mills, Voikkaa and Kuusaa, were shut down, leaving only the Kymi mill operating. An estimated 5% of the local population had been employed by the two closed mills and Kymmene's decision left the town in socioeconomic chaos. Kuusankoski's independent status ended in 2009 when the town was consolidated into the regional capital, Kouvola.

France
The French city of Le Creusot is a company town.

Germany
Leverkusen was founded in 1861 around Carl Leverkus' dye factory that later became the headquarters of Bayer. The city of Ludwigshafen has been dominated by BASF's plants since the chemical company moved here in 1865. The neighbouring municipality Limburgerhof emerged from housing estates for BASF workers as well. Neuölsburg, built since 1875 for the workers of Ilseder Hütte, was a separate municipality until 1964. Many other companies, especially in the mining and steel industry built housing estates for their workers near existing cities, rather than separate company towns. A notable example is Siedlung Eisenheim in Oberhausen from the mid-19th century, once home to 1200 steel smelters of the Gutehoffnungshütte, which is now protected as a historic monument. The mining settlements built around the coal pits of the Ruhr region were called Zechenkolonien ("pit colonies").

Wolfsburg was created as a planned city in 1938 to host the Volkswagen plant and its workers. A similar Nazi-era planned town is Salzgitter, built around the Reichswerke Hermann Göring that later became the Salzgitter AG. In 1950s East Germany, Eisenhüttenstadt ("ironworks city", initially Stalinstadt) was built from scratch, housing the workers of the Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost ironworks.

Ireland
In 2024, Ryanair bought most of the houses on a new estate in Swords, Dublin to house its workers, citing the Irish housing crisis and the lack of affordable rented housing as a major impediment to hiring staff.

Japan
In Japan, an equivalent to company towns are "Kigyō Jōkamachi" (企業城下町, Company castle town). However, these differ from company towns in that the companies do not own nor have developed these towns themselves. Instead, the term refers to towns where a specific company has a major influence on the town's economy as a result of that company or its subcontractors employing a significant part of the town's population. An example is Toyota, Aichi (豊田市), where the "castle" company is the automobile manufacturer Toyota. In some cases, such towns can be named after the company. For example, the Toyota City changed its name from Koromo City and named the area of the town where Toyota's headquarters is situated "Toyota-machi" (トヨタ町, note that katakana is used here to reflect the company name) in 1959.

Mexico
During the Porfiriato, American-owned mining towns that settled areas mostly uninhabited areas included Cananea, El Boleo, Nacozari, Navojoa, Copala, Concordia, Santa Eulalia, Santa Rosalía de Camargo, Batopilas, and Esperanzas. Americans and Mexicans were segregated, with the 1906 Cananea strike precipitating the Mexican Revolution.

Namibia
Oranjemund was privately owned by De Beers until 2017, and thus governed by the diamond mining company's administration. In 2011 the political administration was handed over to the government which proclaimed it a town. It is now governed by a town council that has seven seats.

Poland
Widzew, a suburb of Łódź in Poland, had been a textile company town before the Second World War.

Slovakia
Svit in Slovakia was founded in 1934 by business industrialist Jan Antonín Baťa in accordance with his policy of establishing well-organized model communities for his workers and other employees. This town (like other Baťa's company towns) was also an example of social engineering.

Sweden
The mining city of Kiruna in Sweden was originally, around 1900, built by the mining company in an unpopulated area. Many buildings, including the church, were built by the company. There are also many smaller towns that were built and even planned by companies. Skoghall in Värmland is such an example where Stora AB owned a papermill and contained a city-planning office.

Ukraine
The city of Pripyat in Ukraine was established in 1970 solely to house the workers at the adjacent Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and their families. It was one of several "nuclear cities" constructed by Soviet nuclear power firms throughout the latter half of the 20th century. All amenities, stores, and employment was conducted through each nuclear city's power plant administration.

United States
At their peak there were more than 2,500 company towns, housing 3% of the US population.

The rate of company owned housing however was higher, the Bureau of Labor Statistics surveyed a sample of 213 companies for 1916, a full 34.4% of their workforce lived in company housing. However the survey covered primarily manufacturing (textile, iron & steel mills) and mining towns.

The companies that ran the towns were mainly labor-intensive companies such as coal, steel, lumber and various war industries. Most of the people living in these towns were immigrants new to the country. The tight, paternalistic control exerted by companies over the residents' behaviour and even opinions caused issues and concern.

Segundo, Colorado, was a company town where the CF&I coal company housed its workers. It offered adequate housing and promoted upward mobility through its sponsorship of a YMCA Center, an elementary school, and some small businesses, as well as a company store. However, air pollution was a constant health threat, and the houses lacked indoor plumbing. As demand for metallurgical coal declined, the mine laid off workers, and Segundo's population declined. After a major fire in 1929, CF&I left town, and Segundo became practically a ghost town.

One famous company town was McDonald, Ohio, which was created by the Carnegie Steel Company to house and serve the needs of its employees in the Youngstown, Ohio, area.

Marktown, Clayton Mark's planned worker community, was an example in northwest Indiana.

In the present-day United States, it is relatively rare for any place in which a single company owns all the property to be granted status as an incorporated municipality. Rather, companies will normally prefer their wholly owned communities to remain unincorporated, as this permits administration of the community to be carried out by appointed company officers rather than elected officials. However, there are incorporated municipalities that are heavily dependent upon a single industry or organization and may be loosely considered a "company town", even though the company does not technically own the town.

Scotia, California is a company town, previously owned by The Pacific Lumber Company, and is being dismantled through PLC's bankruptcy process.

Cass, West Virginia, is a former company town that is now a state park. Originally founded in 1901, the town of Cass served employees who cut and processed lumber from the surrounding mountain slopes. Some of the remaining houses are available for rental; other features are the company store and an operating railway.

Bay Lake, Florida and Lake Buena Vista, Florida are controlled by The Walt Disney Company.

Bryce Canyon City, Utah is a current company town incorporated in 2007, consisting solely of the property of Ruby's Inn and the Syrett family, its third-generation owners.

In 2021, the governor of Nevada, Steve Sisolak, announced a plan to launch so-called "Innovation Zones" in Nevada to attract technology firms. The zones would permit companies with large areas of land to form governments carrying the same authority as counties, including the ability to impose taxes, form school districts and courts and provide government services. The measure to further economic development with the "alternative form of local government" has not yet been introduced in the Legislature. Sisolak pitched the concept in his State of the State address on January 19. By allowing tech corporations to establish their own governments, the plan is hoped to bring in new businesses at the forefront of "groundbreaking technologies" without the state cutting taxes or paying economic rent that previously helped Nevada attract companies like Tesla Inc.

In March 2021, Elon Musk announced plans to incorporate the Boca Chica area of far southeastern Texas, the site of a SpaceX rocket manufacturing and launch facility, as the city of "Starbase". Some have labeled the plans, and SpaceX's existing operations in the area, as an example of a company town.

United States

 * Clark Jr, John W. "Historical and Archaeological Resources of Riverdale, A Company Town in Goliad County, Texas". Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State 1984, no. 1 (1984): 16ff.
 * Green, Hardy (2012). The Company Town: The Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills That Shaped the American Economy. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0465028863       (excerpt and text search)
 * Kurie, Peter. In chocolate we trust: The Hershey Company town unwrapped (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).
 * Roemer, Kelli F., and Julia H. Haggerty. "The energy transition as fiscal rupture: Public services and resilience pathways in a coal company town". Energy Research & Social Science 91 (2022): 102752. In Montana.
 * Wlasiuk, Jonathan. "A company town on common waters: Standard Oil in the Calumet". Environmental History (2014); near Gary, Indiana.

title: Company town


text:
Roderick MacKinnon

Roderick MacKinnon (born February 19, 1956 ) is an American biophysicist, neuroscientist, and businessman. He is a professor of molecular neurobiology and biophysics at Rockefeller University who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Peter Agre in 2003 for his work on the structure and operation of ion channels.

Early life and education
MacKinnon was born in Burlington, Massachusetts and initially attended the University of Massachusetts Boston. MacKinnon then transferred to Brandeis University after one year, and there he received a bachelor's degree in biochemistry in 1978, studying calcium transport through the cell membrane for his honors thesis in Christopher Miller's laboratory. It was also at Brandeis where MacKinnon met his future wife and working-colleague Alice Lee.

After receiving his bachelor's degree from Brandeis University, MacKinnon entered medical school at Tufts University. He got his M.D. in 1982 and received training in Internal Medicine at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He did not feel satisfied enough with the medical profession, so in 1986 he returned to Christopher Miller's laboratory at Brandeis for postdoctoral studies.

Career
In 1989 he was appointed assistant professor at Harvard University where he studied the interaction of the potassium channel with a specific toxin derived from scorpion venom, acquainting himself with methods of protein purification and X-ray crystallography. In 1996 he moved to Rockefeller University as a professor and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics where he started to work on the structure of the potassium channel. These channels are of particular importance to the nervous system and the heart and enable potassium ions to cross the cell membrane.

Scientific contributions
Potassium channels demonstrate a seemingly counterintuitive activity: they permit the passage of potassium ions, whereas they do not allow the passage of the much smaller sodium ions. Before MacKinnon's work, the detailed molecular architecture of potassium channels and the exact means by which they conduct ions remained speculative.

In 1998, despite barriers to the structural study of integral membrane proteins that had thwarted most attempts for decades, MacKinnon and colleagues determined the three-dimensional molecular structure of a potassium channel from an actinobacterium, Streptomyces lividans, utilizing X-ray crystallography. With this structure and other biochemical experiments, MacKinnon and colleagues were able to explain the exact mechanism by which potassium channel selectivity occurs.

His prize-winning research was conducted primarily at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) of Cornell University, and at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) of Brookhaven National Laboratory.

MacKinnon was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2005. In 2007 he became a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Awards and recognition

 * 1997: Newcomb Cleveland Prize
 * 1998: W. Alden Spencer Award
 * 1999: Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award
 * 2000: Rosenstiel Award
 * 2001: Gairdner Foundation International Award
 * 2003: Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
 * 2003: Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Business activities
MacKinnon is co-inventor with his friend and scientific collaborator, neurobiologist Bruce Bean of Harvard Medical School, of a dietary supplement for treating and preventing muscle cramps; they tested it in clinical trials and are co-founders a company to commercialize their invention, Flex Pharma. Christoph Westphal and Jennifer Cermak were co-founders as well. The company undertook drug development of a formulation of supplement as a drug candidate for neuromuscular disorders like ALS, and raised a $40 million Series A round. The company had an $86 million initial public offering in 2015. In 2016, the company launched "HotShot" as a dietary supplement for endurance athletes. In June 2018 the company halted clinical development of the drug candidate due to tolerability issues, cut its workforce, and said it was considering its strategy. In July 2018 MacKinnon resigned from the board of directors.

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

title: Roderick MacKinnon


text:
Kamitsuga District, Tochigi

Kamitsuga (上都賀郡) was a district located in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan.

As of 2003, the district had an estimated population of 20,718 and a population density of 52.44 persons per km2. The total area was 395.11 km2.

Towns and villages

 * Ashio
 * Awano
 * Nishikata

Mergers

 * On January 1, 2006 - the town of Awano was merged into the expanded city of Kanuma.
 * On March 20, 2006 - the town of Ashio, along with the city of Imaichi, the town of Fujihara, and the village of Kuriyama (both from Shioya District), was merged into the expanded city of Nikkō.
 * On October 1, 2011 - the town of Nishikata was merged into the expanded city of Tochigi. Kamitsuga District was dissolved as a result of this merger.

title: Kamitsuga District, Tochigi


text:
Chicago Coin

Chicago Coin was one of the early major manufacturers of pinball tables founded in Chicago, Illinois. The company was founded in 1932 by Samuel H. Gensburg and Samuel Wolberg to operate in the coin-operated amusement industry. In 1977, Gary Stern and Sam Stern purchased the assets of the Chicago Coin Machine Division as it was then called to found Stern Electronics, Inc. They also produced various arcade games during the 1960s to 1970s.

History
Sam Gensburg founded Chicago Coin Machine Exchange with brother-in-law Sam Wolberg and third partner Lou Koren, a company which had a business of trade-ins for coin-operated games. In 1931, Sam Genburg's brothers Louis Gensburg, David Gensburg, and Meyer Gensburg had founded Genco as an amusement manufacturer and Samuel decided to enter that business by establishing Chicago Coin Machine Exchange (later renamed Chicago Coin Machine Company). The company started off by making replacement boards for early pinball games before creating the table Blackstone (1933) which was manufactured by a partner named Stoner. In 1957, the company changed its corporate name to Chicago Dynamic Industries, retaining Chicago Coin as a label of the company. Genco would remain a competitor with Chicago Coin until the companies merged in 1959.

Though never a technologically-driven or innovative company, Chicago Coin was highly successful in the years preceding and immediately succeeding World War II. Their pinball table Beam-Lite (1935), which featured a lighted playfield, sold 5,703 units and their flipperless game Kilroy (1947) sold 8,800 units which was the highest selling pinball table up until the 1970s. The company also diversified in later years, creating sports tables and shuffle alleys.

1960s

They later manufactured various other electro-mechanical games (EM games) for amusement arcades. In 1969, they manufactured Speedway, a licensed North American version of racing game Indy 500 (1968) from Japanese company Kasco. It resembled a prototypical arcade racing video game, with an upright cabinet, yellow marquee, three-digit scoring, coin box, steering wheel, accelerator pedal, and pseudo-3D first-person perspective.

While Kasco's original Indy 500 had sold over 2,000 arcade cabinets in Japan, Speedway went on to sell over 10,000 cabinets in North America, making it the biggest hit arcade game in years, and setting an arcade sales record that was not surpassed until the arrival of arcade video games in the 1970s. Like Sega's Periscope (1966), Speedway also charged a higher US quarter price point per play, further cementing quarter-play as the standard for North American arcade games for over two decades. Chicago Coin also adapted Speedway into a motorcycle racing game, Motorcycle, in 1970.

Speedway had an influence on Nolan Bushnell, who as a college student worked at an arcade where he became familiar with EM games such as Speedway, watching customers play and helping to maintain the machinery, while learning how it worked and developing his understanding of how the game business operates. When he founded Atari, Bushnell had originally planned to develop a driving video game, influenced by Speedway which at the time was the biggest-selling game at his arcade, but ended up developing Pong (1972) instead; Atari eventually developed a driving video game later on, Gran Trak 10 (1974).

1970s
In 1973, Chicago Coin was one of the many companies who created Pong (1972) clones with TV Ping Pong (1973). In subsequent years, the company took to licensing games from other manufacturers including TV Goalee (1974) from Australian Leisure & Allied Industries, Super Flipper (1975) (originally UFO) from Model Racing of Italy, and Destruction Derby (1975) from Exidy of California. As a result of entering the video game market, in 1974 Chicago Dynamic Industries was one of the many companies sued by Magnavox regarding patents related to the Magnavox Odyssey (1972).

Chicago Coin's TV Pingame (1973) was a digital video game adaptation of pinball that had a vertical playfield with a paddle at the bottom, controlled by a dial, with the screen filled with simple squares to represent obstacles, bumpers and pockets. This inspired a number of clones, including TV Flipper (1973) by Midway Manufacturing, Exidy's TV Pinball (1974), and Pin Pong (1974) by Atari, Inc. The latter replaced the dial controls with button controls.

Following subsequent financial trouble, Chicago Dynamic Industries sold the assets of Chicago Coin which were incorporated into the new company Stern Electronics, Inc.

Notable pinballs
Chicago Coin tables are often lesser known than those made by Gottlieb, Williams, and Bally. Nonetheless, there were several Chicago Coin tables which stood out amongst the larger market.

 * Sun Valley (1962)
 * Bronco (1963)
 * Stage Coach (1968)
 * Casino (1972)
 * Hee Haw (1973)
 * Riviera (1973)
 * Hi Flyer (1974)
 * Gold Record (1975)
 * Red Baron (1975)
 * Hollywood (1976)
 * Sound Stage (1976)

title: Chicago Coin


text:
Ichikai, Tochigi

Ichikai (市貝町) is a town located in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 11,684 in 4507 households, and a population density of 180 persons per km². The total area of the town is 64.25 sqkm.

Geography
Ichikai is located in eastern Tochigi Prefecture.

Surrounding municipalities
Tochigi Prefecture
 * Mooka
 * Nasukarasuyama
 * Mashiko
 * Motegi
 * Haga
 * Takanezawa

Demographics
Per Japanese census data, the population of Ichikai has remained relatively steady over the past 30 years.

History
Ichihane and Kokai villages were created within Haga District on April 1, 1889 with the creation of the modern municipalities system. The two villages merged to form Ichikai village on May 3, 1954. Ichikai was elevated to town status on January 1, 1972.

Government
Ichikai has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a unicameral town council of 12 members. Ichikai, together with the other municipalities in Haga District collectively contributes two members to the Tochigi Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of Tochigi 4th district of the lower house of the Diet of Japan.

Economy
The economy of Ichikai is heavily dependent on agriculture. It is also a bedroom community for nearby Utsunomiya, Mooka and Haga.

Education
Ichikai has three public primary schools and one public middle school operated by the town government. The town does not have a high school.

Railway

 * Moka Railway – Mooka Line
 * Tatara - Ichihana - Sasaharada

title: Ichikai, Tochigi


text:
Haga, Tochigi

Haga (芳賀町) is a town in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 15,661 in 5,658 households, and a population density of 220 persons per km2. The total area of the town is 70.16 sqkm. .

Geography
Haga is located in southeastern Tochigi Prefecture. The river Gogyō, a tributary of the river Kokaigawa flows through Haga.

Surrounding municipalities
Tochigi Prefecture
 * Utsunomiya
 * Mooka
 * Ichikai
 * Takanezawa

Demographics
Per Japanese census data, the population of Haga has declined in recent decades.

History
Ubagai, Minatakazeawa and Mizuhashi villages were created within Haga District on 1 April 1889 with the creation of the modern municipalities system. Ubagai was elevated to town status on 1 November 1928. Ubagai merged with Minatakanezawa and Mizuhashi to form Haga on 31 March 1954.

Government
Haga has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a unicameral town council of 13 members. Haga, together with the other municipalities in Haga District collectively contributes two members to the Tochigi Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of Tochigi 4th district of the lower house of the Diet of Japan.

 * Town Mayor: 見目匡 Tadashi Kenmoku (Eighth Mayor of Haga, Mayor since 18 May 2015)
 * Town Deputy Mayor: 上野哲男 Tetsuo Ueno (13th Deputy Mayor of Haga, Deputy Mayor since 15 June 2015)
 * Superintendent of Education: 見目政子 Masako Kenmoku (Seventh Superintendent of Education, Superintendent of Education since 1 November 2012)

Economy
Major companies located at Haga-machi industrial complex include:
 * Honda R&D Co., Ltd.
 * Honda Engineering Co., Ltd.
 * Kawasaki Microelectronics, Inc.
 * Showa Corporation
 * Marujun Co., Ltd.
 * F-Tech Inc.
 * Yanagawa Seiki Co., Ltd.
 * AutoTechnicJapan Co., Ltd.
 * Kandenko Co., Ltd.
 * Kotobukido
 * Sannotec

Education
Haga has three public primary schools and one public middle school operated by the town government. The town does not have a high school.

Railway
Haga is since August 2023 served by Utsunomiya Light Rail.

Highway

 * Tochigi Prefectural Roads: 61, 64, 69, 154, 156, 165, 255, 388.
 * Roadside stations: Roadside Station Haga.
 * Roadside stations: Roadside Station Haga.

Buses
JR Bus Kantō: Sakushin Gakuin-mae – Twin Ring Motegi via Utsunomiya Station and Motegi Station, Sakushin Gakuin mae – Saga-Onsen Roman no Yu via Utsunomiya Station.

Heliports
Tochigi Heliport

Local attractions

 * Haga Tenman-gu shrine

Notable people from Haga

 * Yukiko Akaba, long distance runner.

title: Haga, Tochigi


text:
Opisthoteuthis californiana

Opisthoteuthis californiana, also known as the flapjack octopus, or flapjack devilfish is a species of umbrella octopus.

Description
Flapjack octopuses usually appear pinkish. They have fins above their eyes, similar to those found on some species of squid. Their maximum size is 20 cm mantle length. They have eight arms (like any other octopus), but these affixed together in an umbrella shape. However unlike other octopus, they are unable to camouflage by changing skin color and texture. They have a gelatinous body, which spreads into a parachute shape when maneuvering through dimly lit water. They swim by moving their fins, pulsing their webbed arms, pushing water through their funnel for jet propulsion, or all three at once.

Distribution
O. californiana has a distribution in the northern and northeastern Pacific Ocean, ranging in the west from off central Honshū (Japan) and the Sea of Okhotsk, its northernmost range is the Bering Sea, and its eastern range is along the western coast of North America as far south as Eureka Bar, California (the type locality, at 350 m depth). The depth at which the species occurs typically ranges from 124 to 823 m, but more recent records indicate that they may occur down to 1500 m. Lives at the muddy seafloor off coast of the northern pacific ocean.

Reproduction
Opisthoteuthis species (like other cirrate octopuses) use continuous spawning, where the female lays one or two large eggs at a time over several years (rather than a large batch near the end of her lifespan). These eggs have a hard, protective outer shell (unlike the eggs of incirrate octopus) and are not brooded or protected by the mother, the hatched young undergo direct development (lacking the paralarvae stage of incirrate octopus) and are likely benthic.

Mature O. californiana females carry about 1400–2380 eggs in their ovary, with the individually spawned mature eggs measuring 11 mm long. Estimations of egg hatching time (using water temperature and egg size) for O. californiana are up to 1.4 years at 4°C.

Mating has never been observed in O. californiana; the males lack the hectocotylus of typical octopus, instead having a series of enlarged suckers that presumably have a role in mating or competition. Males move seasonally, and occur in shallower waters during the summer.

Classification
O. californiana is one of 14 species in the genus Opisthoteuthis, these species are also collectively known as the flapjack devilfishes (due to the anterior-posterior compression of their bodies). O. californiana is morphologically very similar to Opisthoteuthis albatrossi, and they may be the same species, but the two have never been critically compared (due to the latter being historically placed in the genus Stauroteuthis). If they are conspecific, O. californiana would be a synonym of O. albatrossi (as the latter was described first in 1920, the former in 1949). Another undescribed Opisthoteuthis species may occur in the north-east Pacific, overlapping the distribution of O. californiana; this species is still being described, but in the media was given the name 'Opisthoteuthis adorabilis ' (but this is not yet a valid scientific binomial name, as it lacks a published description).

Diet
The stomach contents of eight members of O. californiana were found to contain small benthic/epibenthic crustaceans, including copepods, isopods, mysids, and small shrimp (crangonid or hippolytid). From observations of other Opisthoteuthis species, the extensive arm webbing is possibly used to trap small crustaceans, with the cirri and suckers moving small prey items towards the mouth (a fairly low-energy feeding strategy compared to shallow-water octopus).

In popular culture
In the Finding Nemo franchise, one of Nemo's classmates, Pearl, is a flapjack octopus. Flapjack octopuses also appear in ABZU along the sea floor.

Recent research
Currently, in Monterey Canyon, research is going on with scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, with several  Opisthoteuthis sp. specimens (including a fertile octopus) that resemble O. californiana (in media these were given the informal name Opisthoteuthis 'adorabilis '). Due to the challenges of mimicking their deep sea environment in captivity, some of the octopuses lived only for a few months, but some hope remains, as some of the eggs from the octopus have been incubating for a year (as of 2015) and they may yet hatch.

title: Opisthoteuthis californiana


text:
Once Upon an Era

Once Upon an Era is the first demo album by the Northern Irish Celtic metal band Waylander. It was recorded at Hillcrest Studios Lurgan, County Armagh and released in 1994. It is notable for being the only Waylander recording to feature original bassist Jason Barriskill.

Band line-up

 * Ciaran O'Hagan - vocals
 * Dermot O'Hagan - guitars
 * Jason Barriskill - bass
 * Den Ferran - drums

title: Once Upon an Era


text:
Dawning of a New Age

Dawning of a New Age is the second demo by the Northern Irish Celtic metal band Waylander, released on cassette in 1996.

Band line-up

 * Den Ferran - drums
 * Ciaran O'Hagan - vocals
 * Dermot O'Hagan - guitars
 * Michael Proctor - bass
 * Clive Culbertson - keyboards

title: Dawning of a New Age


text:
Mibu, Tochigi

Mibu (壬生町) is a town located in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 39,158 in 16,149 households, and a population density of 640 persons per km2. The total area of the town is 61.06 sqkm.

Geography
Mibu is located in south-central Tochigi Prefecture. The town is situated in the northern portion of the Kanto plain and is mostly flat terrain with an elevation of 50 to 100 meters above sea level. The Kurokawa River flows through the town. The is about 90 kilometers north of Tokyo metropolis, and is bordered by the prefectural capital of Utsunomiya to the north. Approximately a third of the land area of the town is covered in rice paddy.

Surrounding municipalities
Tochigi Prefecture
 * Utsunomiya
 * Kanuma
 * Tochigi
 * Shimotsuke

Climate
Mibu has a Humid continental climate (Köppen Cfa) characterized by warm summers and cold winters with heavy snowfall. The average annual temperature in Mibu is 13.8 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1385 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 26.1 °C, and lowest in January, at around 2.4 °C.

Demographics
Per Japanese census data, the population of Mibu has remained relatively steadily over the past 30 years.

History
The remains of many burial mounds from the Kofun period can be found in Mibu. During the Edo period, the area was controlled by Mibu Domain under the Tokugawa shogunate. The jōkamachi which grew up around Mibu Castle was Mibu-shuku a post station on a branch the Nikkō Kaidō connecting Edo with the shrines at Nikkō. After the Meiji restoration, Mibu town and the villages of Inaba and Minami-Inukai were created within Shimotsuga District on April 1, 1889 with the creation of the modern municipalities system. Inaba merged with Mibu on November 3, 1954 followed by Minami-Inukai on July 28, 1955.

Government
Mibu has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a unicameral town council of 16 members. Mibu contributes one member to the Tochigi Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of Tochigi 4th district of the lower house of the Diet of Japan.

Economy
The economy of Mibu is heavily dependent on agriculture; however, the town is increasingly becoming a commuter town for neighboring Utsunomiya.

Education

 * Dokkyo Medical University
 * Mibu has eight public primary schools and two public middle schools operated by the town government. The town has one public high school operated by the Tochigi Prefectural Board of Education.
 * Tochigi Prefectural Mibu High School (栃木県立壬生高等学校)
 * Mibu Municipal Mibu Junior High School (壬生町立壬生中学校)
 * Mibu Municipal Minami Inukai Junior High School (壬生町立南犬飼中学校)

Railway
Tobu Railway – Tobu Utsunomiya Line
 * Mibu - Kuniya - Omocha-no-Machi - Yasuzuka

Highway

 * – Mibu Parking Area and Mibu Interchange

Local attractions

 * Mibumachi Toy Museum
 * Site of Mibu Castle
 * Atagozuka Kofun, National Historic Site
 * Kurumazuka Kofun, National Historic Site
 * Ushizuka Kofun, National Historic Site
 * Azuma Kofun, National Historic Site
 * Chausuyama Kofun, National Historic Site
 * Mibu Ichirizuka, National Historic Site

Noted people from Mibu

 * Ennin, noted Buddhist prelate
 * Yuko Oshima, actress and singer
 * Tsutomu Sato, politician
 * Kazuyoshi Saito, singer-songwriter

title: Mibu, Tochigi


text:
Trashcan Sinatras

Trashcan Sinatras are a Scottish Indie Rock band that were formed in Irvine, Scotland in 1986. The band's music makes frequent use of pop harmonies and wordplay.

Formation
The band members met through the club/pub music scene in Irvine. The original band members included Frank Reader (bass), Davy Hughes (guitar and vocals), George McDaid (guitar) and Paul Forde (drums).

By late 1986/early 1987, the line-up had changed to include Paul Livingston (guitar), John Douglas (guitar) and Stephen Douglas (drums), along with Frank Reader moving to vocals and Davy Hughes to bass. While the band has included other members for short periods of time over the years, this is the line-up that would record the bulk of the Trashcan Sinatras' music to date.

Cake era
The band was spotted by Simon Dine in 1987 and quickly signed to Go! Discs. Using their signing advance, the band purchased a recording studio in Kilmarnock, naming it Shabby Road. Work began on their debut album, which was eventually released in 1990. Cake featured the band's largest worldwide hit single, "Obscurity Knocks" as well as a couple of other alternative music hits ("Only Tongue Can Tell" and "Circling the Circumference"). The band were often compared to The Smiths and the success of Cake in the United States, where it spent three months in the Billboard 200, led to extensive touring in both the UK and North America in support of the album.

I've Seen Everything era
The follow-up record, I've Seen Everything was released in 1993. The song "Hayfever" made an appearance on the MTV animated series, Beavis and Butt-head. The band released two singles ("Hayfever" and "I've Seen Everything") and toured the UK, North America and Japan in support of the album.

A Happy Pocket era
The band's third album, A Happy Pocket, followed in 1996. AHP was released in the UK and Japan, but was unavailable in the U.S. after the band's American distributor declined to release the record. The band released four singles from AHP ("The Main Attraction", "Twisted and Bent", "How Can I Apply...?" and "To Sir, With Love", a cover of the 1967 Lulu #1 hit). The Trashcans did not tour in North America, only the UK and Japan.

Their record label, Go! Discs, had made a successful short film for the band Portishead and greenlit the production of Spooktime, a film of stories based on characters from The Trashcans' lyrics. The 15-minute film was to be shown in cinemas before screenings of Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys.

After their record company Go! Discs was acquired by Universal in 1996, the band was dropped from the label and subsequently forced to sell their Shabby Road recording studio and declare bankruptcy. The Trashcans kept a low profile in the following years.. not playing any concerts until early 1999 (in Japan and Ireland). The Japanese concerts occurred at the same time the band was recording a new single, "Snow" (a cover of the Randy Newman song), which was released by Sony Japan in December 1999.

Weightlifting era
In March 2000, the band set up camp in Hartford, Connecticut to record their fourth album. Between March and June, the band recorded around a dozen songs and played a handful of shows in the northeastern United States, their first shows in America since 1993. After returning to Scotland, the band decided to scrap the album.

The band only performed four concerts in the UK in 2001. Instead they focused on writing additional songs and recording demos for their fourth album. In March 2002, recording began at Riverside Studios in Glasgow. The band recorded a dozen songs on and off over the course of a year. In 2003, the band started to raise its profile by playing concerts and festivals in Scotland. They hired New York City based record producer and musician Andy Chase (of the band Ivy) to mix the new album tracks, which was completed by the end of the year.

With a new album ready for release, the Trashcans stepped up their activity in 2004. The band played in Spain and London, before heading to the United States in March. They appeared on the Morning Becomes Eclectic radio show with Nic Harcourt in March, the day of their sold out show at the Troubadour in Los Angeles California (their first appearance on the west coast of the U.S. in 11 years). From there, the band headed off to Austin, Texas for five appearances at the South by Southwest music festival. The Trashcans garnered quite a bit of press (Billboard staffers named the Trashcans one of the top 10 acts at SXSW) and record label attention.. which led to a licensing deal with New York-based spinART Records.

The Trashcan Sinatras finally released their fourth album in August 2004. Weightlifting was warmly received by critics and the band completed a 25 date U.S. and Canada tour in September and October 2004. They had follow up U.S. tours in December 2004 and in April and May 2005, while also extensively touring Scotland, England, Ireland, Japan and Australia during 2004–2006. The Weightlifting album included the song "All the Dark Horses", which was featured prominently in the first episode of the ABC Family Channel series Wildfire.

In the Music era
The band's fifth studio album, In the Music, was recorded with producer Andy Chase between November 2007 and February 2008, at Stratosphere Sound in New York and in Martha's Vineyard. In July 2008, Carly Simon recorded backing vocals for the song "Should I Pray?" The single "Oranges and Apples" was released as a download-only single on 13 October 2008. The song was inspired by Syd Barrett, one of the founding members of Pink Floyd. The single was released in connection with The City Wakes, a festival in tribute to Syd Barrett that took place in Cambridge and London in October 2008.

The album was released (with bonus track "Astronomy") in Japan on 22 April 2009 (on Victor Entertainment), in the United Kingdom on 14 September 2009 (on Lo-Five Records) and 27 April 2010 in North America (also on Lo-Five Records, with digital distribution by Ingrooves and physical distribution by Fontana Distribution). The North American release includes eight live bonus tracks, which are live acoustic recordings taken from the band's November 2009 UK tour. Lo-Five also released a limited, numbered deluxe edition of the album in July 2009, which featured two additional bonus tracks ("I Can't Stand Tomorrow" and "I Just Don't Know How") and an in-depth booklet of liner notes, photos and a listing of everyone who pre-ordered the release.

The album received strong reviews from print and online media with The Guardian describing it as "Gentle, grown-up popcraft that reveals more with each listen", and the BBC calling it " . . . tender, affecting music which impresses with increasing listens." The band supported the 2009 album release with nearly 40 concerts and promotional appearances in the United States, Japan and the United Kingdom between July and November 2009, and with a follow-up tour of Japan in March 2010. On the follow-up Japanese tour, the band was supported by Japanese act Sunny Day Service, with whom they also recorded and released English-language and Japanese-language versions of the single "Town Foxes/yume iro no machide". The band also completed an 11 date USA promotional tour in June 2010.

A live acoustic album Brel (recorded in Glasgow in 2009), a follow up to the band's 2005's acoustic live Fez (recorded in New York City). Brel was released on 9 November 2010. This was set to be followed by the release of Earlies... a 4 album box set marking the 20th anniversary of the release of Cake, comprising the 3 Go!Discs albums and Weightlifting, digitally remastered with additional tracks and packaging including mementos reflecting the band's distinguished career. However, to date Earlies... has not been released.

Wild Pendulum era
In October 2014 the band announced through social media that it would begin recording its sixth album in the coming months and offered fans the opportunity to pre-order it through PledgeMusic with a series of "exclusives" offering unique content, merchandise and updates throughout the recording process. On 21 October 2015, the first track, "Best Days On Earth," was released to the band's PledgeMusic supporters in a project update on the site. In the same update, the band confirmed that the new album would be titled "Wild Pendulum."

In an August 2015 project update, the band announced that the new album would be released in January 2016. A second track, "Ain't That Something," was later released to PledgeMusic supporters, and the album's release was pushed back. On a 1 March 2016 project update, the band announced that a digital download of the complete album would be made available to supporters on 22 April 2016, with the album's release on physical CDs and vinyl to follow.

Other activity
In 1996, the band contributed a cover version of The Smiths' "I Know It's Over" to the tribute compilation The Smiths Is Dead.

In 1998, the band recorded a song "Duty Free" under the pseudonym The Cat Protection League. The song was included on a compilation of local Kilmarnock/Irvine-area artists as part of a university music class project.

John Douglas wrote "Wild Mountainside", which was recorded by Eddi Reader for her 2003 album Eddi Reader Sings the Songs of Robert Burns. This song was later recorded by the Trashcans and released as an EP in 2005. John Douglas wrote two songs, "Should I Pray?" and "Prisons", which appear on Eddi Reader's 2007 album Peacetime. The Trashcans have also recorded these songs for In the Music. In 2013, Douglas and Reader were married, shortly after which he was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease, ulcerative colitis, which necessitated surgery and a lengthy convalescence.

In 2006, Francis Reader sang a cover of The Beatles' "Got To Get You into My Life", which was featured in an advertisement campaign for the U.S. telecommunications company Qwest Communications.

The band collaborated with writer Ali Smith on the song "Half an Apple", for the album Ballads of the Book, released in March 2007.

Reader also contributed vocals in 2007 to Kevin Ayers' album The Unfairground.

30 May 2010 for the start of their 2010 tour The Trashcan Sinatras played in Mike Chandler's Portland OR living room. This was billed as an experimental show and gained much media attention with stories in USA Today, Wired Magazine's blog The Underwire FOX News and The Oregonian. Tickets sold out in less than 36 hours, purchased by 50 fans who traveled from all over the west coast. The band played for three hours and over 30 songs with several songs seldom heard live over the past 20 years.

In 2010 the Trashcan Sinatras recorded a version of the Beatles song "Hello, Goodbye" for use in a promotional video campaign by Narita Airport in Japan. The video is expected to run in the airport, on board aircraft, and on Japanese media for at least one year.

In 2018 and 2019, the band completed three-piece acoustic tours of North America. The 2018 tour featured songs from Cake and I’ve Seen Everything. The 2019 tour featured songs from A Happy Pocket and Weightlifting.

Members

 * Stephen Douglas – drums, vocals
 * Francis Reader – vocals, acoustic guitar
 * Paul Livingston – lead guitar
 * John Douglas – rhythm guitar, vocals
 * Davy Hughes – bass

Session/touring members

 * Frank DiVanna – bass (2009–present)
 * Stevie Mulhearn – keyboards (1998–2000, 2006–present)
 * Roddy Hart – keyboards, acoustic guitar (2003–2005)
 * Jody Stoddart – guitar (2007)
 * Grant Wilson – bass (1998–2000, 2002–2003, 2006–2008)

Former members

 * George McDaid – bass (1986, 1989–1991)

Other releases

 * Senses Working Overtime (1992)
 * Zebra of the Family (demos/alternate takes/unreleased songs) (2003)
 * Fez (live – unplugged) (2005)
 * Midnight at the Troubadour (DVD) (2006)
 * Live Series Radio Sessions Volume 1 (2009)
 * Live Series Radio Sessions Volume 2 (2010)
 * Brel (2011)

title: Trashcan Sinatras


text:
Ishibashi, Tochigi

Ishibashi (石橋町) was a town located in Shimotsuga District, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan.

As of 2003, the town had an estimated population of 20,283 and a density of 904.28 persons per km2. The total area was 22.43 km2.

On January 10, 2006, Ishibashi, along with the town of Minamikawachi (from Kawachi District), and the town of Kokubunji (also from Shimotsuga District), was merged to create the new city of Shimotsuke.

title: Ishibashi, Tochigi


text:
Compensation winding

A compensation winding in a DC shunt motor is a winding in the field pole face plate that carries armature current to reduce stator field distortion. Its purpose is to reduce brush arcing and erosion in DC motors that are operated with weak fields, variable heavy loads or reversing operation such as steel-mill motors. When flux from the armature current is about equal to the flux from the field current, the flux at the field pole plate is shifted. Under a fixed load, there is an optimal commutation point for the brushes that minimizes arcing and erosion of the brushes. When the ratio of armature flux to field flux varies greatly or reverses, the optimum commutation point shifts as result of the varying flux at the pole face plate. The result is arcing of the brushes. By adding a compensating winding in the pole face plate that carries armature current in the opposite direction of current in the adjacent armature windings, the position of the flux at the pole face plate can be restored to the position it would have with zero armature current. The main drawback of a compensation winding is the expense.

Figure A. shows a cross-sectional view of a two pole DC shunt motor. Armature windings (A), field windings (F) and compensation windings (C) use the dot and cross convention where a circle with a dot is a wire carrying current out of the figure and a circle with a cross is a wire carrying current into the page. For each wire in the armature that is next to the field pole face plate there is a wire in the face plate carrying current in the opposite direction.

Figure B. shows the flux caused by the field winding alone.

Figure C. shows the flux caused by the armature winding alone.

Figure D. shows field flux and armature flux being about equal. The result is that the center of flux in the gap between the pole face plate and the armature has shifted. For a more detailed drawing, see Richardson. Figure E. shows compensation wires in the field pole face plate that are carrying current opposed to the current in the armature wire adjacent to the gap. The flux in the gap has been restored to the same condition as the case where there is no armature flux. Even though the armature wires are next to wires carrying current in the opposite direction, the wires of the armature still experience magnetic force from interaction with the field flux.

title: Compensation winding


text:
Reawakening Pride Once Lost

Reawakening Pride Once Lost is the debut studio album by the Northern Irish Celtic metal band Waylander, released in 1998 by Century Media. The album was re-released in 2006 by the Irish label, Midhir Records. This pressing came with two bonus tracks - A Hero's Lament and Sunrise - both taken from the Dawning of a New Age demo.

Band line-up

 * Ciaran O'Hagan - vocals
 * Dermot O'Hagan - guitars, backing vocals
 * Michael Proctor - bass
 * Den Ferran - drums, percussion, bodhrán, tambourine
 * Mairtin Mac Cormaic - tin whistle, bodhrán, backing vocals

title: Reawakening Pride Once Lost


text:
Kokubunji, Tochigi

Kokubunji (国分寺町) was a town located in Shimotsuga District, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan.

As of 2003, the town had an estimated population of 17,373 and a density of 835.24 persons per km2. The total area was 20.80 km2.

On January 10, 2006, Kokubunji, along with the town of Minamikawachi (from Kawachi District), and the town of Ishibashi (also from Shimotsuga District), was merged to create the new city of Shimotsuke.

title: Kokubunji, Tochigi


text:
Navy Marine Corps Intranet

The Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) is a United States Department of the Navy program which was designed to provide the vast majority of information technology services for the entire Department, including the United States Navy and Marine Corps.

Overview
The largest internal computer network in the world, NMCI served more than 707,000 sailors, marines, and civilians in 620 locations across the continental United States, Hawaii, and Japan as of March 2008. The network's 4,100 servers handle over 2.3 petabytes of data.

NMCI established an interoperable command and control network that provides the IT platform necessary for transitioning to a net-centric environment. Acting Department of Defense (DoD) CIO Terry Halvorsen described NMCI as a "forcing function within the DON to attend to our legacy infrastructure of applications, servers and networks. ” While recent statements by the Navy have been very positive about NMCI, a 2007 survey of users reported it unstable, slow, and frustrating.

"NMCI has been a hugely successful program for the Navy," Weller said during a press briefing with reporters [14 October 2010]. "It has been a cost-effective way to deliver unprecedented level of service. We learned a lot about how to do it and how not to do it."

"Anytime you transition from where you have a high degree of localized control to a high degree of centralized control, there will be some disgruntled folks," Weller said. "I think since we already are in that world, about 70 percent of the Navy's IT infrastructure, we are in a world where the Navy has complete control and authority over how we operate the network. That has allowed us to maintain extremely high degree of security, which is frankly our number one issue. The only way that we are aware of you can do that is to have tight configuration management and tight central control. So that is where a lot of the complaints came from. To that note, what have we done to lessen blow in future? I think the answer is we don't need to because we are already there."

On 30 September 2010, the NMCI contract ended and the new Continuity of Services Contract (COSC) began. Under the COSC, the Navy retains the same scope of NMCI services with HP, but the network becomes a government-owned, contractor-supported, managed services environment.

This is a paradigm shift because under the original NMCI contract, the government managed the network at a distance and did not own any IT assets used in the program. Rather, they were owned by the prime contractor, and services are provided to the government on a per-seat basis. Pricing is primarily assessed on a per-machine basis that includes security services, help desk support, and periodic technology upgrades; however, fees for additional services (such as classified connectivity, mission-critical service, additional user accounts, software installation, seat moves, remote access from mobile devices, etc.) did apply. Videophones that provide equal access for Deaf employees are not permissible under NMCI regulations. As of October 2007, the per-seat price for all of NMCI was reduced by 15 percent. Desktop PCs and laptops as well as other network components are being continually upgraded in order to enhance performance and security.

NMCI is the first large-scale federal government IT centralization and outsourcing project. Its lessons have informed other government agency efforts to consolidate and outsource IT services. According to industry analyst Warren Suss of Suss Sonsulting, "In the long run, government agencies will come to see the need for similar types of solutions, and I think they'll look to NMCI for lessons learned."

The NMCI program is managed by the Navy's Program Executive Office–Enterprise Information Systems (PEO-EIS).

History
On 6 October 2000, the NMCI contract was awarded to Electronic Data Systems (EDS), now HP Enterprise Services (HP). Secretary of the Navy Gordon England summed up the Navy's IT Environment prior to the commencement of NMCI: “We basically had 28 separate commands budgeting, developing, licensing, and operating IT autonomously. It was inefficient and from the larger Department perspective, produced results that were far from optimal.”

NMCI consolidated roughly 6,000 networks—some of which could not e-mail, let alone collaborate with each other—into a single integrated and secure IT environment. HP updated more than 100,000 desktop and laptop PCs in 2007. The program also consolidated an ad hoc network of more than 8,000 applications to 500 in four years and 15,003 logistics and readiness systems to 2,759 over a two-year period.

Sub-contractors to HP include: HP also provides the security services once provided by Raytheon.
 * Apple Inc., Cisco, Dell, DTech, McAfee, Microsoft, Oracle Corporation, Sun Microsystems, and Symantec
 * Harris Corporation (which acquired Multimax formerly known as Netco Government Services and WAM!NET), which provided enterprise network infrastructure design and support until its contract expired in 2014.
 * Verizon, which provides wide area network (WAN) connectivity.

HP also has worked with more than 400 small businesses, with 5 percent for small disadvantaged businesses, 5 percent for women-owned small businesses and 1.5 percent for HUBZone small businesses. Since its inception, NMCI has exceeded the minimum 40% small business objective set for the contract.

NMCI quickly suffered some widely publicized setbacks, including rollout delays that caused HP financial losses. Today, NMCI is described in documents from the Navy's chief information officer as "the core enterprise network for Navy and Marine Corps forces in the United States and Japan, providing secure access to integrated voice, video and data communications."

In 2009 NMCI became the first network to deploy the Global Address List (GAL), a multiservice address list that increases interoperability by enabling Navy and Marine Corps users to access the Defense Information Systems Agency's Joint Enterprise Directory Services (JEDS) contact list.

Additional improvements to network performance are also underway with the deployment of the Network Operations Common Operating Picture (NetOps COP). The tool helps provide enhanced situational awareness via increased information sharing and collaboration to commanders by giving them a common picture of network performance. Commanders can see scheduled maintenance tasks and other issues impacting the network, giving them the option to defer work that might affect the flow of critical information from the battlefield.

Work in 2008 has increased NMCI's ability to respond to security issues and the program was the first network to implement fully the Department of Defense information assurance standards in both classified and unclassified environments. Among the enhancements were the deployment of Websense content filtering, an information assurance tool designed to inspect and block inbound Web traffic containing malicious code with little impact to the user. According to NMCI public affairs, "Websense allows the Network Operational Commands to set a tailored blocking policy by content such as gambling, hate speech or adult content, rather than blocking specific sites or URLs only. This allows the network operators to block sites much more efficiently and outsources the fight against the growing amount of inappropriate content."

According to the Navy, Websense enables users to block or unblock sites, based on emerging and/or dynamic threats. The NMCI blocking policy is determined by various operational commands, such as the Naval Network Warfare Command, and enforced by the Global Network Operations Center, based in Norfolk. Blocked sites are redirected to a notification page which then links to a page on NMCI's homeport Web site. On this site, a user can submit a request that a site be unblocked in order to support mission requirements.

In addition, NMCI is upgrading existing servers with Bluecoat proxy servers, which provides better capacity and traffic management functions. According to NMCI's own data, a few users account for the majority of NMCI's bandwidth usage, mostly attributed to streaming internet radio and video. New servers will allow bandwidth usage monitoring, down to a command or user level.

The security upgrades have been well received by the Navy. On 31 March 2009, Rear Admiral (Ret.) John A. Gauss, Acquisition Director for the NGEN System Program Office (SPO) said during a press conference that "NMCI is the most secure network within the Navy."

The Navy and HP measure end-user satisfaction through a series of quarterly satisfaction surveys. End user satisfaction has steadily improved, reaching a high of nearly 86% in February 2008, as compared to 80% in December 2006. This is largely due to the upgrade of nearly 112,000 desktop and laptop computers in 2007, and a combination of network enhancements that are improving speed and reliability. HP is on track to upgrade another 120,000 seats in 2008 at Navy and Marine Corps bases in the US and Asia.

Working in tandem with the technology refresh are the virtualization efforts on the network. NMCI is on track to move from 2,700 servers down to roughly 300. The efforts are expected to save more than $1.6 million per year in electricity costs. Additionally, the decrease in the number of servers being refreshed will lower the cost of updating the equipment, leading to a potential savings of at least $1.5 million over four years.

A highlight of the Navy's virtualization efforts was its win of InfoWorld's 2009 Green 15 Award, which honors 15 companies and/or organizations for their green IT projects. Ted Samson, Senior Analyst for InfoWorld said of the honorees, "This year's Green 15 winners demonstrate, once again, that green IT projects can be a win-win proposition. These organizations have not only helped the planet by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, preserving trees, and keeping e-waste out of landfills. They've also reaped measurable business benefits, such as significantly lower electricity bills, fewer hardware refreshes, and postponed datacenter-expansion projects – along with gains in efficiency and productivity."

In 2006, the NMCI program office was criticized for its annual customer-satisfaction surveys. Officials refuse to release the raw data, leading to accusations that their conclusions are overly sunny. One NMCI director, Rear Admiral James B. Godwin III, said releasing the results would challenge the "integrity of our data."

The Department of the Navy has shown no desire to scale back or cancel the program. On 24 March 2006 the Navy exercised its three-year, $3 billion option to extend the contract through September 2010.

In April 2006, users began to log on with Common Access Cards (CACs), a smartcard-based logon system called the Cryptographic Log On (CLO). In October 2008, NMCI's prime contractor HP posted a set of procedures so Apple Mac users can access NMCI's public-facing Web services, such as the e-mail and calendar functions, using their CAC readers with their Macs. The workaround also works with other Defense Department CAC-enabled networks. Alternatively, NMCI and all other CAC-authenticated DoD websites may be accessed using LPS-Public.

After early challenges, the Navy is pleased with the performance and security of the NMCI network. According to Captain Tim Holland, program manager for the Navy's Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN), "NMCI is very robust today—we have good security with it, very good performance." In an interview the DoN CIO Robert J. Carey stated, "The plan is that NGEN  will be in place before the NMCI contract expires because it is not a renewable contract. According to the Navy, NMCI will serve as the baseline from which it will transition to NGEN.

The Navy's confidence in NMCI today marks a significant turnaround from the challenges cited in the GAO’s report of December 2006. The report states that " NMCI has not met its two strategic goals—to provide information superiority and to foster innovation via interoperability and shared services." The document also goes on to evaluate HP's performance, "GAO's analysis of available performance data, however, showed that the Navy had met only 3 of 20 performance targets (15 percent) associated with the program's goals and nine related performance categories."

In contrast are the more recent comments from Vice Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr., deputy chief of naval operations for communication networks (OPNAV N-6) and deputy chief information officer, Department of the Navy. "I believe that NMCI in 2008 is achieving much of what we had hoped NMCI would achieve. It's leveled the playing field for security. It's allowed us to do things like push security patches that go through the whole enterprise that's on NMCI. If you look at NMCI historically, it was probably the first step for the Navy to move into what was then called Joint Vision 2010 and now is Joint Vision 2020. It's actually done that, and it's moving the Navy toward the U.S. Defense Department's goal of information superiority. So, I see a lot of good things with NMCI."

NMCI works today and it continues to improve as user needs evolve and technology opportunities arise. During the final two years of the contract, technology initiatives included new hardware, applications, and services to support the Navy and Marine Corps' advanced IT needs. HP will install more than 110,000 new laptops and desktops, and will push more upgrades to improve end-users' IT capabilities through upgraded machine capacity, new operating systems, and new service lines.

Today
The Naval Enterprise Networks (NEN) program office, in collaboration with NMCI partner HP, which manages the CoSC program, is deploying a number of new Navy initiatives, including: Tablet laptops for Navy recruiters Hosted Virtual Desktop (HVD) capability Expanded support for smartcards Enterprise-wide operating system upgrade and improved end-user hardware delivery times
 * The NRC began rolling out Hewlett-Packard (HP) Elitebook 2740p Tablets to recruiters in early September 2011.
 * Thin-client HVDs using network storage will replace bulkier traditional workstations.
 * Two-factor authentication using a SIPRNET smartcard token will be used to confirm the identity of NMCI users.
 * New five-day seat deployment initiative aims to speed up the delivery time of new workstations.

Next steps
On 31 March 2009, the Department of the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare System Command announced its intention to negotiate a Continuity of Service Contract (COSC) that would allow HP to continue to provide IT services during the transition from the existing contract (NMCI) to the proposed next contract, known as Next Generation Enterprise Network Solution (NGEN).

Under the new contract, HP will continue NMCI services, support the transition to NGEN (which includes various engineering services), and give the Navy licenses for the network's operations and infrastructure. A chief goal of the new contract is to ensure that the network remains up-and-running while the Navy pursues the goals of NGEN.

As Rear Admiral John Goodwin, assistant chief of naval operations of NGEN notes, "My responsibilities are to synchronize the efforts of the operations, the policy, the programming, the resources and the acquisition piece," Goodwin said.

Network security and functionality
In November 2007, a quarterly user satisfaction rating between both the United States Marine Corps and the United States Navy revealed that 83.8 percent of the military members who submitted the survey said that NMCI was satisfactory. Some of the 17 percent who were not satisfied were vocal in their disapproval.

Disgruntled users nicknamed NMCI "No More Contracted Infosystems," according to an article in the Marine Corps Times. Some users also complain that they are not able to access all the Web sites they want, like box.net and npr.org. Senior officers said they enacted the worldwide ban on these types of sites out of concern that the rapidly increasing use of these sites threatened to overwhelm the military's private Internet network and risk the disclosure of combat-sensitive material.

NMCI's (per DoD requirements) need for security results in longer boot-up times for computers on the network than on non-network computers. HP claims to be accelerating its technology refresh activities which include deploying new, faster computers which should improve performance while maintaining tight security.

Though technical support has improved dramatically, and though HP's help desk earned high praise from many survey respondents in 2007, some NMCI users felt that their wait times were excessive when they called the help desk. Further, because NMCI's first priority was to rein in the counterproductive customization and proliferation of applications and networks, users are not given permissions to change computers’ settings. Some servicemen and women are unhappy with the fact that they are not given permission to administer the system from the user level.

NMCI requires that only network administrators perform all maintenance and support to ensure uniform security and capabilities across the network. Some users find that requirement cumbersome and claim that wait times to resolve even the smallest of issues are too long.

Despite early challenges, NMCI will be the foundation on which the Navy and Marine Corps can build to support their broader strategic information management objectives.

The U.S. Naval Institute reports that "Complaints about NMCI speed and reliability are near-constant" and a wired.com piece quotes an NMCI employee as saying:

"I still work for the NMCI and I have to say that I honestly have a hard time looking sailors in the eye when I’m out and about because I’m so ashamed of the job that’s done. I’ve never seen more disregard for the well-being of a customer than I have at HP. We’re given sub-standard tools and people that are hired off the street that have NO computer knowledge. There is absolutely no incentive or upward advancement, and on top of that, there have been pay cuts since HP took over. They aren’t retaining any talented individuals, and it shows. We’re understaffed. We were working mandatory overtime for almost a year (10-11 months). Now that’s been eliminated since it’s no longer cost effective to care about the users for the remainder of this contract seeing as how the new contract has been signed and made official...Stretched for resources as they are, people like me are pulled from their normal duties (dealing with customer issues, training agents, and completing order requests) to just answer basic Service Desk calls. When this happens, we worsen our situation because there’s a major loss in training and resolution time. Agents that I know that have been resourced to working e-mail backlog have said that there is a 15 day turnaround time for nothing more than a response back...We’re digging ourselves into a hole that we can’t possibly hope to get out of ethically, and I shudder to think of what it’s going to take to even restore ourselves back to the position of a semi-effective source of troubleshooting and support for our customers."

Additionally, a govinfo.gov article mentions several perceived NMCI inadequacies, e.g. "NMCI response time is slow both on- and off-site" and " 'reach back' to legacy systems through NMCI is slow, sometimes taking 45 minutes to open a document."

It was reported that NMCI was breached by Iranian cyber warfare efforts. NMCI's performance and reliability has been criticized by its user base, as evidenced by sailors and marines initially claiming that the acronym stood for “No More Computer Information.”

In terms of transparency relating to NMCI's user satisfaction surveys, unofficial US government IT news site gcn.com reports "Since the surveys began a few years ago, the NMCI program office has steadfastly declined to release a complete copy of the questionnaire, instead just issuing a release about the results."

title: Navy Marine Corps Intranet


text:
The Light, the Dark and the Endless Knot

The Light, the Dark and the Endless Knot is the second studio album by the Northern Irish Celtic metal band Waylander. It was released in 2001.

Band line-up

 * Ciaran O'Hagan - vocals
 * Dermot O'Hagan - guitars
 * Peter Boylan - guitars
 * Mairtin MacCormaic - tin whistle
 * Michael Proctor - bass
 * Bo Murphy - drums


text:
Nogi, Tochigi

Nogi (野木町) is a town located in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 25,050 in 10,153 households, and a population density of 830 persons per km2. The total area of the town is 30.26 sqkm.

Geography
Nogi is located in the flatlands in the far southeast corner of Tochigi Prefecture.

Surrounding municipalities
Tochigi Prefecture Ibaraki Prefecture
 * Oyama
 * Tochigi
 * Koga

Climate
Nogi has a Humid continental climate (Köppen Cfa) characterized by warm summers and cold winters with heavy snowfall. The average annual temperature in Nogi is 14.3 °C. The average annual rainfall is 1317 mm with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 26.4 °C, and lowest in January, at around 3.1 °C.

Demographics
Per Japanese census data, the population of Nogi has recently plateaued after a long period of growth.

History
During the Edo period, Nogi-shuku was a post station on the Nikkō Kaidō highway connecting Edo with the shrines at Nikkō, located within Koga Domain. After the Meiji restoration, the area of Nogi was initially part of Ibaraki Prefecture, but was transferred to Tochigi Prefecture on November 14, 1871. Nogi village were created within Shimotsuga District on April 1, 1889 with the creation of the modern municipalities system. It was elevated to town status on January 1, 1965.

Government
Nasu has a mayor-council form of government with a directly elected mayor and a unicameral town council of 14 members. Nogi, together with the city of Oyama collectively contributes five members to the Tochigi Prefectural Assembly. In terms of national politics, the town is part of Tochigi 4th district of the lower house of the Diet of Japan.

Economy
The economy of Nogi is heavily dependent on agriculture; however, it is increasing becoming a commuter town due to its proximity to several metropolitan areas and is regarded as belonging to the Greater Kanto metropolitan area. The commuting rate is 18.8% to Koga, 13.1% for Tokyo metropolis, and 12.4% for Oyama per the 2010 national census. There are also several industrial parks in Nogi.

Education
Nogi has five public primary schools and two public middle schools operated by the town government. The town does not have a high school.

Railway
JR East – Tohoku Main Line (Utsunomiya Line)
 * Nogi

Local attractions

 * former Shimotsuke brickworks Hoffman kiln (national Important Cultural Property)
 * Nogi Jinja

Noted people from Nogi

 * Wakana Sakai, actress, writer and gravure idol

title: Nogi, Tochigi


text:
Category:American football trophies and awards

This category organizes trophies and awards found in the sport of American football.


text:
Ōhira, Tochigi

Ōhira (大平町) was a town located in Shimotsuga District, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan.

As of 2003, the town had an estimated population of 28,368 and a density of 712.76 persons per km2. The total area was 39.80 km2.

On March 29, 2010, Ōhira, along with the towns of Fujioka and Tsuga (all from Shimotsuga District), was merged into the expanded city of Tochigi.

title: Ōhira, Tochigi


text:
Fujioka, Tochigi

Fujioka (藤岡町) was a town located in Shimotsuga District, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan.

As of 2003, the town had an estimated population of 18,472 and a density of 305.57 persons per km2. The total area was 60.45 km2.

On March 29, 2010, Fujioka, along with the towns of Ōhira and Tsuga (all from Shimotsuga District), was merged into the expanded city of Tochigi.

Famous people

 * Toshiaki Kawada, All Japan Pro Wrestling champion
 * Tochigiyama Moriya, 27th yokozuna in sumo

title: Fujioka, Tochigi