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Rogues in the House

"Rogues in the House" is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine in January 1934. It is set in the fictional Hyborian Age and concerns Conan inadvertently becoming involved in the struggle between two powerful men fighting for control of a city-state. It was the seventh Conan story Howard had published. It features a fight between Conan and an intelligent ape-like hominid.

Plot summary
""When did a priest keep an oath?” complained Conan, comprehending the trend of the conversation. “Let me cut his throat; I want to see what color his blood is. They say in the Maze that his heart is black, so his blood must be black too...""

- Robert E. Howard

The story begins in an unnamed city-state between Zamora and Corinthia during a power struggle between two powerful leaders: Murilo, an aristocrat, and Nabonidus the "Red Priest", a clergyman with a strong power base. After he is delivered a threat by Nabonidus (the ear of a corrupt secretary that worked with Murilo), Murilo learns of Conan's reputation as a mercenary and turns to him for help.

Prior to the story's beginning, Conan kills a corrupt priest of Anu, who was both a fence and police informer. However, Conan was arrested after he became intoxicated and a prostitute turned him in. Languishing in a jail cell while awaiting his execution, Conan receives Murilo's visit and is proposed a bargain: in exchange for setting him free and getting him out of Corinthia with a bag of gold, Conan will assassinate Nabonidus.

After accepting his offer, Conan is given food and wine by Murilo. However, while he's eating, the jailer who should release Conan when Murilo has left (thus with an alibi) is arrested on unrelated corruption charges (corruption seems to run rampant in the city). Soon, his replacement is flabbergasted to see a prisoner awaiting execution while chomping down on a slice of beef. As he's entering the cell to confiscate it, Conan splits the man's skull with the very bone he was gnawing on and makes his escape. He briefly considers leaving Murilo on his own, but then decides to follow the original plan and keep his word.

After taking revenge on the prostitute who turned him in (he slays her new lover and throws the woman into a foul cesspit), Conan sneaks into Nabonidus's trap-filled mansion. However, he finds that Murilo and Nabonidus himself are being held captive by a mysterious third party who took control of Nabonidus's position while impersonating him. This turns out to be Thak, a primitive ape-like creature who Nabonidus had captured as a cub and trained as his personal bodyguard. The three observe Thak, via a series of hidden periscopes, and see that the creature has learned to imitate Nabonidus well enough to activate a toxic pollen trap, which eliminates yet another party of assassins (nationalistic agitators) penetrating the villa.

Finally, Conan and the other two men manage to escape from the basement and regain entry into Nabonidus's mansion. Later, Conan defeats Thak in hand-to-hand combat. The Red Priest soon betrays both Conan and Murilo; but, while Nabonidus is gloating over his plans in a villain monologue, Conan slays him with an expertly hurled stool. The surviving pair leave and go their separate ways.

Reception
In a January 1934 letter to H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith (discussing the January 1934 issue of Weird Tales) praised "Rogues in the House". Smith stated, "Conan, as usual, put on a very entertaining and imaginative show."

Publication history

 * Weird Tales magazine (Jan 1934)
 * Terror by Night anthology (Selwyn and Blount, 1934, ed. Christine Campbell Thomson)
 * Skull-Face and Others (Arkham House, 1946)
 * The Coming of Conan (Gnome Press, 1953)
 * More Not at Night anthology (Arrow Books, 1961, ed. Christine Campbell Thomson)
 * Conan (Lancer, 1967, later reissued by Ace Books)
 * Rogues in the House (Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc., 1976)
 * The Conan Chronicles (Sphere Books, 1989)
 * The Conan Chronicles, Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle (Gollancz, 2000)
 * Conan of Cimmeria: Volume One (1932-1933) (Del Rey, 2003).

Comic book adaptation
The story was adapted by Roy Thomas and Barry Smith in Marvel Comics' Conan the Barbarian #11 (Nov 1971), and by Tim Truman and Cary Nord and Tomás Giorello in Dark Horse Comics' Conan #41–44.

title: Rogues in the House


text: User talk:195.172.86.4

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

title: User talk:195.172.86.4


text: Template:Sutter County, California

title: Template:Sutter County, California


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Talk:No. 75 Squadron RNZAF

Untitled
You would "merger" 75 Squadron's history over my dead body—and those of a hell of a lot of RNZAF personnel! It is quite plain in the No. 75 Squadron RNZAF's story that its origins are in the RAF, and that there was a good reason for it to be transferred to the RNZAF. It is up to the RAF types to make their history prior up to RNZAF's period obvious and clear.

Bugger about with the RNZAF at your peril, mate.

Lin

Sorry to have to correct the English in the history details shown, but it refers to the Royal Air Force. This is quite wrong, it is the Royal Air Force and it's derivatives are similarly designated Royal New Zealand Air Force etc. I should be grateful if the text could be corrected.

Flt Lt Gary Vickers No. 4624 Sqn Royal Auxiliary Air Force Royal Air Force Brize Norton Oxfordshire England

Merger and correction
No idea why you are apologising well done for fixing it. Merger strikes me as a good idea Winstonwolfe 23:34, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Why?Moriori 22:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Because they are, at least in legal fiction, the same unit.

More realistically, the two articles clearly cover the same ground - and bizarrely, the RNZAF version has more information about the 1st World War 75 Squadron RFC/RAF, (that's my fault, I wrote it without knowing there was a 75 squadron RAF version :-).

Obviously the title would be a problem RFC, RAF, (NZ) RAF and RNZAF all being appropriate at different times.

Incidentally I talked to two 75 Squadron Wellington pilots last week - they had some fascinating stories. Winstonwolfe 05:27, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * WTF is "legal fiction"? Also, merge what with what? Moriori 08:47, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Suggested merge Suggested merge is with No. 75 Squadron RAF, (go to the top left of this page, click on article, see the merge box at the top of the article - these boxes will always have a link to the suggested mergee).

Legal Fiction To quote Wikipedia, "In the common law tradition, legal fictions are suppositions of fact taken to be true by the courts of law, but which are not necessarily true", for example that a corporation is a person, or in this case, that a squadron number always represents the same unit - in fact squadrons are frequently "disbanded" and then "reformed" as a new squadron with a different number, despite most or all of the men and machines remaining the same. By custom, and if you think about boundary issues, common sense, unit histories follow the squadron number not the men - so the wikipedia entry about 488 (NZ) Squadron RAF jumps from Singapore to Europe, with completely new dramatis personae) - though some explanation of the previous unit is often given, (so for example the Wikipedia article about 14 Squadron RNZAF includes discussion of 488 Squadron RAF/RNZAF in Singapore, because many of the men were the same).

This article As far as this article is concerned, there are two articles both covering the same ground; No. 75 squadron RAF and No. 75 squadron RNZAF. The other 6 "NZ" squadrons of the Royal Air Force are listed as "No. x squadron RNZAF" and later a redirect placed on "No. x Squadron RAF", with a cumbersome note about "RAF and RNZAF" designations. This system was adopted by accident without any real thought on the part of the ignoirant newbie author who originally did the stubs (me), but doesn't seem controversial. Unfortunately before redirects were sorted on this separate articles appeared.

''Are they really the same unit? WTF?'' A summary of the complex reality is 75 Squadron Royal Flying Corps flew in World War I. When the Royal Airforce was created it became 75 squadron Royal Airforce. It was disbanded at the end of the war. A new squadron of the same name was formed just before world war II. It was renumbered in 1939. The New Zealanders in the U.K. to collect Vickers Wellington Bombers became 75 (NZ)squadron Royal Air Force (some times called 75 squadron Royal New Zealand Air Force, but controlled and equipped by the Royal Air Force, though for most of the war, it was largely manned by New Zealand aircrew. In 1945 this squadron was disbanded.  The British then offered the squadron colours and number to the RNZAF. In New Zealand another squadron was renumbered 75 squadron. So, like many ships or army units, 75 squadron has served two masters, (three if you count the RFC).  Incidentally, some of the opponents of scrapping of New Zealand's combat force suggested the colours and number should be returned to the RAF so the squadron traditions could be continued.

Winstonwolfe 04:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

It's December and this hasn't been discussed in two months, and the article itself has been up for merger for almost a year without any apparent concensus being reach. Looks like this attempt died off. I'm removing the tags. -Warhorus 07:05, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
 * No complaints from me Winstonwolfe 07:12, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

75 Squadron Association, (Moved from Article)
Re Squadron History in preparation - "To ensure the history has everyones story and data contact the secretary". Winstonwolfe (talk) 03:03, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Ref needed for deployment to Darwin in 1999 during East Timor crisis
Is there a ref available for them being deployed to Darwin in 1999? AFAIK there were some RNZAF A4Ks on exercise in Malaysia at the time but I can't find anything to support them being deployed to Darwin so I'm not really certain this is accurate. Anotherclown (talk) 10:28, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * and - do you guys know if this is accurate by any chance? There is also this  which confirms some A4s were on standby but it doesn't give enough details to confirm or deny the information here IMO. Anotherclown (talk) 10:32, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not accurate, and I've removed it. No. 75 Squadron was placed on alert, and was held at RAAF Base Amberley for a few days on its way back to NZ from Malaysia but wasn't sent to Darwin. Nick-D (talk) 10:42, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks Nick. For the record: a book by Jim Winchester here mentions them being in Malaysia at the time (and returning via Amberley). There is also an OAG issues paper here  which mentions that the "Skyhawks were withdrawn from training exercises in Malaysia to be available for air support, should it have become necessary." Anotherclown (talk) 10:46, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Skyhawks: The History of the RNZAF Skyhawk by Don Simms and Nick Lee-Frampton says that they were stranded in Malaysia for two weeks as the RNZAF transport aircraft needed to support their return home were needed for the East Timor operation. They continued training with the RMAF during this period, and the RMAF eventually provided Hercules to help get the Skyhawks back to Australia and then NZ (which involved a very circuitous route to avoid Indonesian air space). Nick-D (talk) 11:02, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Nick has confirmed with sources what I knew. It was 82 Wing that was providing the heaviest metal waiting at Tindal... Buckshot06 (talk) 00:12, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Cheers for confirming this gents. Anotherclown (talk) 10:53, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

title: Talk:No. 75 Squadron RNZAF


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Teisco

Teisco was a Japanese musical instrument manufacturing company from 1948 until 1967, when the brand "Teisco" was acquired by Kawai (河合楽器製作所; Kawai Gakki Seisakusho). The company produced guitars as well as synthesizers, microphones, guitar amplifiers and drum kits. Teisco products were widely exported to the United States and the United Kingdom.

In 2018, the brand "Teisco" was relaunched –along with former guitar company Harmony– by Singaporean music company BandLab Technologies to produce effects units.

Company history
The brand name "Teisco" was established in 1948, and sometimes incorrectly explained as an acronym of Tokyo Electric Instrument and Sound Company. However, the exact name of company establishing and producing the Teisco brand was not that name, and rather, they had frequently renamed their company.

The company was founded in 1946 by renowned Hawaiian and Spanish guitarist Atsuwo Kaneko and electrical engineer Doryu Matsuda. The company was originally called Aoi Onpa Kenkyujo (roughly: Hollyhock Soundwave or Electricity Laboratories). In 1956, the company name was changed to Nippon Onpa Kogyo Co., and changed to Teisco Co. in 1964. In 1967, the company was acquired by Kawai Musical Instruments Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (河合楽器製作所; Kawai Gakki Seisakusho), who discontinued the Teisco brand name for guitars in 1969 (1977 in Japan), but continued to use it for electronic keyboards until the 1980s.

Guitars
Teisco guitars were imported to the United States since 1959 or early 1960, and then re-badged as "Teisco Del Rey" after 1964. From 1948 to the early 1960s Teisco products often, like many Japanese products of the period, shared several designs with American and Western European products of the time including Hagström and EKO.

However, in the early 1960s Teisco products became increasingly unique. Teisco guitars became notable for unusual body shapes, such as the May Queen design resembling an artist's palette, or other unusual features such as having four pickups (most guitars have two or three). The vast amount of controls; typically an individual switch for each pickup, plus a tone or phase inversion switch, along with as many as five tone and volume knobs gave a wide variety of sounds yet were easily switched while playing.

After Kawai bought Teisco in 1967, they started to produce all the Teisco guitars, as well as their own brand, Apollo. Hound Dog Taylor famously used a variety of these Kawai-era Teiscos, which he bought at his local Sears department store. Jim Reid of The Jesus and Mary Chain used a Spectrum 5. Also, James Iha of The Smashing Pumpkins played a K-2L, which can be seen in the music video for Rocket as well as the inside of the Pisces Iscariot CD jewel case. Ben Waugh (Scott Campbell), singer & guitarist for Apparition, The Sillies, and Scott Campbell Group played a modified ET-200 onstage and for studio recordings until it was stolen in 1985.

Many Teisco guitars had a primitive tailed bridge in their extended tail bridges with limited timbre when used in an extended technique. When the strings are attacked behind the bridge, a 3rd bridge sound is created. This is one of the reasons these guitars became popular again during the 90s among many noise artists as a cheaper alternative for the Fender Jaguar or Jazzmaster, which were beginning to attract collector interest.

Baritone guitars
Teisco also produced a six-string bass called TB-64 (or ET-320) in 1964, similar to the Fender Bass VI which was itself an uncommon instrument. Teisco six-string bass followed an unusual body shape that was used on one of their guitars. It had an off-set body shape similar to a Jazzmaster, but with an extended top horn, a 'monkey handle' cutout on the left-facing side of the bridge and a Fender-style headstock with an oversized scroll. This instrument, as well as its regular-scale guitar equivalent, can be heard extensively on Blonde Redhead's early albums of the 90s, where they used its wide range to switch between bass and guitar melodies in the course of single songs.

Also, 2 or 4-pickup baritone guitars (27 3/4 inch scale) with a tremolo, known as Demian or Orlando VN-2 or VN-4 ca.1964 manufactured by FujiGen, are often referred as Teisco models. However the formal relations between Teisco and these models are not enough verified yet.

Basses
Teisco basses are easily identified through a unique pickup design exclusive to the Del Rey series. This design consisted of a large rectangular chrome pickup with black plastic holding the four poles in one place. Other designs may vary, but are all easily distinguishable and unique among subsequent bass designs. Teisco made a short scale bass under the Heit Deluxe name. With a scale length of 23.5", it was a student or beginner instrument. It featured a single pickup, volume and tone controls and a rudimentary bridge/tailpiece.

Amplifiers
Teisco also produced numerous models of guitar and bass amplifiers which were often sold under the Checkmate brand name, but also named Teisco or Silvertone as well as Beltone and Melody. In the 1950s, early amplifier models were very basic 5-10 watt tube/valve designs. During the 1960s, more advanced and powerful models were offered, such as Checkmate 25, Checkmate 50, and Checkmate 100 featuring dual channels, reverb and tremolo effects. Teisco also made solid-state (transistor-based) models, some designed no less radically than their guitars of the time. The Sound Port 60 (60 watts/RMS) and Sound Port 120 (120 watts/RMS) amplifiers from the late 1960s were copies of Fender's silverfaced Vibro Champ and Twin Reverb.

Synthesizers
Teisco also produced a range of synthesizers, with models including the 60F, 110F, 100F, 100P, SX-210, SX-240, and SX-400.

Bands such as Hot Chip (UK), Pure Reason Revolution (UK), and Goose (Belgium) are known to use Teisco synthesizers.

Drums
Teisco marketed drum sets in limited sizes and configurations during the 1960s, sold under the brand name Del Ray. They were produced by sub-contractors to fill out the company's catalog as a supplier of combo instruments, but discontinued after the acquisition by Kawai.

PA system
Teisco monitors can be seen in The Beatles' 1966 concert in Tokyo.

title: Teisco


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Marie Tharp

Marie Tharp (July 30, 1920 – August 23, 2006) was an American geologist and oceanographic cartographer. In the 1950s, she collaborated with geologist Bruce Heezen to produce the first scientific map of the Atlantic Ocean floor. Her cartography revealed a more detailed topography and multi-dimensional geographical landscape of the ocean bottom.

Tharp's discovery of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge caused a paradigm shift in earth science that led to the acceptance of the theories of plate tectonics and continental drift.

Early life and education
Marie Tharp was born on July 30, 1920, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, the only child of Bertha Louise Tharp, a German and Latin teacher, and William Edgar Tharp, a soil surveyor for the United States Department of Agriculture. She often accompanied her father on his fieldwork, which gave her an early introduction to mapmaking. Despite this, she had no interest in pursuing a career in fieldwork as, during that time, this was understood to be men's work.

Due to the nature of William Tharp's work, the family constantly moved until he retired in 1931. At that point, Marie had attended over 17 public schools in Alabama, Iowa, Michigan and Indiana, which made it difficult for her to establish friendships. Her mother, who died when Marie was 15, was her closest female acquaintance. A full school year in Florence, Alabama, was particularly influential for her. She attended a class called Current Science, where she learned about contemporary scientists and their research projects. In addition, she undertook school field trips on weekends to study trees and rocks.

After her father's retirement, Marie Tharp moved to a farm in Bellefontaine, Ohio, where she graduated from the local high school. She spent gap years between high school and college working on her family's farm. She entered the Ohio University in 1939, where she "changed her major every semester."

Tharp graduated from Ohio University in 1943 with bachelor's degrees in English and music and four minors.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, many young men left schools and universities to join the armed forces. During World War II, more women were recruited into professions like petroleum geology, normally restricted to men. "With classrooms empty of men during the war years, Michigan—which had never allowed women into its geology program—was trying to fill seats," though less than 4% of all earth sciences doctorates at the time were obtained by women. Having taken a geology class at Ohio, Tharp attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor's petroleum geology program, where she completed a master's degree in 1944.

After graduating, Tharp began work as a junior geologist at the Stanolind Oil company in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but discovered that the company did not permit women to do nor attend fieldwork. The company only permitted Tharp to coordinate maps and data for male colleagues' trips. While still working as a geologist for the Stanolind Oil company, Tharp enrolled in the faculty of mathematics at the University of Tulsa, obtaining her second BSc.

Career
By 1948, Tharp had spent four years in Tulsa and was looking for her next career step. She moved to New York City and initially sought work at the American Museum of Natural History. Still, after learning how time-consuming paleontological research was, she looked for positions at Columbia University. She eventually found drafting work with Maurice Ewing, the founder of the Lamont Geological Observatory (now the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory). Curiously, when interviewed for the job, Tharp did not mention she had a master's degree in geology. Tharp was one of the first women to work at the Lamont Geological Observatory.

While there, she met Bruce Heezen, and in early work together, they used photographic data to locate downed military aircraft from World War II. Eventually she worked for Heezen exclusively, plotting the ocean floor. In 1964, due to a professional disagreement between Ewing and Heezen, Ewing cut off Heezen's access to Lamont data, and then fired Tharp. She continued to work on mapping projects from her home, being paid by Heezen through navy contracts.

For the first 18 years of their collaboration, Heezen collected bathymetric data aboard the research ship Vema, while Tharp drew maps from that data since women were barred from working on ships at the time. She was later able to join a 1968 data-collection expedition on the USNS Kane. She independently used data collected from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's research ship Atlantis, and seismographic data from undersea earthquakes. Her work with Heezen represented the first systematic attempt to map the entire ocean floor.

As early as the mid-19th century, a submarine mountain range in the Atlantic had been roughly outlined by John Murray and Johan Hjort. Marie Tharp also discovered the rift valley on her more precise graphical representations of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which were based on new measurement data obtained with the echo sounder. It took her a year to convince Bruce Heezen of this. Later, she also mapped the other mid-ocean ridges.

Continental drift theory
Before the early 1950s, scientists knew very little about the ocean floor structure. Though studying geology on land was cheaper and easier, the overall structure of the Earth could not be understood without knowledge of the structure and evolution of the seafloor.

In 1952, Tharp painstakingly aligned sounding profiles from Atlantis, acquired during 1946–1952, and one profile from the naval ship Stewart acquired in 1921. She created approximately six profiles stretching west to east across the North Atlantic. From these profiles, she examined the bathymetry of the northern sections of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Tharp identified an aligned, v-shaped structure running continuously through the axis of the ridge and believed that it might be a rift valley formed by the oceanic surface being pulled apart. Heezen was initially unconvinced as the idea would have supported continental drift, then a controversial theory. Many scientists, including Heezen, believed that continental drift was impossible at the time. Instead, for a time, he favored the Expanding Earth hypothesis, (now infamously) dismissing her explanation as "girl talk".

Heezen soon hired Howard Foster to plot the location of earthquake epicenters in the oceans for a project relating large-scale turbidity currents to undersea earthquakes. The creation of this earthquake epicenter map proved to be a useful secondary dataset for examining the bathymetry of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. When Foster's map of earthquake epicenters was overlaid with Tharp's profile of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, it became clear that the location of these earthquakes aligned with Tharp's rift valley. After putting together these two datasets, Tharp became convinced that a rift valley existed within the crest of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It was only after seeing that the location of earthquake epicenters aligned with Tharp's rift valley that Heezen accepted her hypothesis and turned to the alternative theories of plate tectonics and continental drift. Because of the Cold War, the U.S. government forbade topographic seafloor maps to be published for fear that Soviet submarines could use them. To circumvent that restriction, Tharp and Heezen decided to draw their maps in a more realistic style, and published their first physiographic map of the North Atlantic in 1957. Tharp's name did not appear on any of the major papers on plate tectonics that Heezen and others published between 1959 and 1963. Tharp continued working with graduate student assistants to further map the extent of the central rift valley. Tharp demonstrated that the rift valley extended along with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge into the South Atlantic, and found a similar valley structure in the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, Red Sea, and Gulf of Aden, suggesting the presence of a global oceanic rift zone. Subsequently, in collaboration with the Austrian landscape painter Heinrich Berann, Tharp and Heezen realized their map of the entire ocean floor, which was published in 1977 by National Geographic under the title of The World Ocean Floor. Although Tharp was later recognized and credited for her work on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, it was Heezen who, at the time in 1956, put out and received credit for the discovery that was made.

Retirement and death
After Heezen's death, Tharp continued to serve on the faculty of Columbia University until 1983, after which she operated a map-distribution business in South Nyack during her retirement. Tharp donated her map collection and notes to the Map and Geography Division of the Library of Congress in 1995. In 1997, Tharp received double honors from the Library of Congress, which named her one of the four greatest cartographers of the 20th century and included her work in an exhibit in the 100th-anniversary celebration of its Geography and Map Division. In 2001, Tharp was awarded the first annual Lamont–Doherty Heritage Award at her home institution for her life's work as a pioneer of oceanography. Tharp died of cancer in Nyack, New York, on August 23, 2006, at the age of 86.

Personal life
In 1948, she married David Flanagan and moved with him to New York. They divorced in 1952.

Awards and honors
Like many scientists, Marie Tharp was recognized mainly later in life. Her awards include:
 * 1978 – National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal
 * 1996 – Society of Woman Geographers Outstanding Achievement Award
 * 1999 – Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Mary Sears Woman Pioneer in Oceanography Award
 * 2001 – Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory Heritage Award

Legacy
Tharp was recognized in 1997 by the Library of Congress as one of the four greatest cartographers of the 20th century. The position of Marie Tharp Lamont Research Professor was created in her honor.

Marie Tharp Fellowship
Created by Lamont in 2004, the Marie Tharp Fellowship is a competitive academic visiting fellowship awarded to women to work with researchers at the Earth Institute of Columbia University. Women who are accepted are given the opportunity to work with faculty, research staff, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students and in the duration of 3 months, they are awarded up to $30,000 as financial aid.

Posthumous recognition
Google Earth included the Marie Tharp Historical Map layer in 2009, allowing people to view Tharp's ocean map using the Google Earth interface. She is the subject of the 2013 biography by Hali Felt entitled Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor, which was cited by the New York Times for its standing as an "eloquent testament both to Tharp's importance and to Felt's powers of imagination."

She was animated in "The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth", the ninth episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson's Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, and voiced by actress Amanda Seyfried. The episode depicts her discovery of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Later in the episode, deGrasse Tyson recognized Tharp not only as an influential scientist who happens to be a woman but also as one who should be recognized as a scientist who overcame sexism to contribute to her field. Her life story is told in three children's books, Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea: Marie Tharp Maps the Ocean Floor, by Robert Burleigh and illustrated by Raúl Colón, Ocean Speaks: How Marie Tharp Revealed the Ocean's Biggest Secret by Jess Keatting and illustrated by Katie Hickey and in 2020 MacMillan published Marie's Ocean: Marie Tharp Maps the Mountains under the Sea written and illustrated by Josie James. This picture book of Tharp's life was honored as a National Science Teaching Association Best STEM Book of 2021 and a National Council for the Social Studies 2021 Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young Readers.

In 2015 the International Astronomical Union named the Tharp Moon crater in her honor.

In 2022 the non-profit Ocean Research Project named their 72ft research schooner after her.

On November 21, 2022, Google honored Tharp by releasing a Google Doodle, which included narration, mini-games, and animations, telling the story of Tharp's discovery of continental drift and providing historical context for her work.

On March 8, 2023 (International Women's Day), the U.S. Secretary of the Navy, Carlos Del Toro, announced the renaming of a ship in Tharp's honor, becoming USNS Marie Tharp (T-AGS-66).

title: Marie Tharp


text:
Arabic chat alphabet

The Arabic chat alphabet, Arabizi, Arabeezi, Arabish, Franco-Arabic or simply Franco (from franco-arabe) refer to the romanized alphabets for informal Arabic dialects in which Arabic script is transcribed or encoded into a combination of Latin script and Arabic numerals. These informal chat alphabets were originally used primarily by youth in the Arab world in very informal settings—especially for communicating over the Internet or for sending messages via cellular phones—though use is not necessarily restricted by age anymore and these chat alphabets have been used in other media such as advertising.

These chat alphabets differ from more formal and academic Arabic transliteration systems, in that they use numerals and multigraphs instead of diacritics for letters such as ṭāʾ (ط) or ḍād (ض) that do not exist in the basic Latin script (ASCII), and in that what is being transcribed is an informal dialect and not Standard Arabic. These Arabic chat alphabets also differ from each other, as each is influenced by the particular phonology of the Arabic dialect being transcribed and the orthography of the dominant European language in the area—typically the language of the former colonists, and typically either French or English.

Because of their widespread use, including in public advertisements by large multinational companies, large players in the online industry like Google and Microsoft have introduced tools that convert text written in Arabish to Arabic (Google Translate and Microsoft Translator). Add-ons for Mozilla Firefox and Chrome also exist (Panlatin and ARABEASY Keyboard ). The Arabic chat alphabet is never used in formal settings and is rarely, if ever, used for long communications.

History
During the last decades of the 20th century, Western text-based communication technologies, such as mobile phone text messaging, the World Wide Web, email, bulletin board systems, IRC, and instant messaging became increasingly prevalent in the Arab world. Most of these technologies originally permitted the use of the Latin script only, and some still lack support for displaying Arabic script. As a result, Arabic-speaking users frequently transliterate Arabic text into Latin script when using these technologies to communicate. To handle those Arabic letters that do not have an approximate phonetic equivalent in the Latin script, numerals and other characters were appropriated. For example, the numeral "3" is used to represent the Arabic letter $⟨ع⟩$ (ʿayn)—note the choice of a visually similar character, with the numeral resembling a mirrored version of the Arabic letter. Many users of mobile phones and computers use Arabish even though their system is capable of displaying Arabic script. This may be due to a lack of an appropriate keyboard layout for Arabic, or because users are already more familiar with the QWERTY or AZERTY keyboard layout.

Online communication systems, such as IRC, bulletin board systems, and blogs, are often run on systems or over protocols that do not support code pages or alternate character sets. Thus, the Arabic chat alphabet has become commonplace. It can be seen even in domain names, like Qal3ah.

According to one 2020 paper based on a survey done in and around Nazareth, there is now "a high degree of normativization or standardisation in Arabizi orthography."

Comparison table
Because of the informal nature of this system, there is no single "correct" or "official" usage. There may be some overlap in the way various letters are transliterated.

Most of the characters in the system make use of the Latin character (as used in English and French) that best approximates phonetically the Arabic letter that one would otherwise use (for example, ب corresponds to b). Regional variations in the pronunciation of an Arabic letter can also produce some variation in its transliteration (e.g. ﺝ might be transliterated as j by a speaker of the Levantine dialect, or as g by a speaker of the Egyptian dialect).

Those letters that do not have a close phonetic approximation in the Latin script are often expressed using numerals or other characters, so that the numeral graphically approximates the Arabic letter that one would otherwise use (e.g. ع is represented using the numeral 3 because the latter looks like a vertical reflection of the former).

Since many letters are distinguished from others solely by a dot above or below the main portion of the character, the transliterations of these letters frequently use the same letter or number with an apostrophe added before or after (e.g. '3 is used to represent غ).

 * é, è, ch, and dj are most likely to be used in regions where French is the primary non-Arabic language. dj is especially used in Algerian Arabic.
 * Mainly in the Nile Valley, the final form is always ى (without dots), representing both final and . It is the more traditional way of spelling the letter for both cases.
 * In Iraq, and sometimes in the Persian Gulf, this may be used to transcribe . However, it is most often transcribed as if it were تش. In Egypt, it is instead used for transcribing (which can be a reduction of ). In Israel, it is used to transcribe, as in "ﺭﻣﺎت ﭼﺎﻥ" (Ramat Gan) or "چيميل يافيت" (Gimel Yafit).
 * Only used in Morocco to transliterate Spanish.
 * Depending on the region, different letters may be used for the same phoneme.
 * The dollar sign is only used in Jordan.
 * This use for h is also found in Morocco.
 * Capitalized D and T may be used in Lebanon.
 * The number 8 is used for only in Lebanon.
 * Less common forms for.
 * The letters t and d are used for the pronunciations, respectively.
 * Used in a Palestinian dialect where the letter is sometimes pronounced.
 * rarely spelled ⟨a⟩ as names are commonly transcribed in official documents.

Examples
Each of the different varieties of Arabic chat alphabets is influenced by the particular phonology of the Arabic dialect being transcribed and the orthography of the dominant European language in the area—typically the language of the former colonists. Below are some examples of Arabic chat alphabet varieties.

Egyptian Arabic
The frequent use of y and w to represent ى and و demonstrates the influence of English orthography on the romanization of Egyptian Arabic.

Additionally, the letter qāf (ق) is usually pronounced as a glottal stop, like a hamza (ء) in Metropolitan (Cairene) Egyptian Arabic—unlike Standard Arabic in which it represents a voiceless uvular stop. Therefore, in Egyptian Arabizi, the numeral 2 can represent either a Hamza or a qāf pronounced as a glottal stop.

Moroccan Arabic
The use of ch to represent ش demonstrates the influence of French orthography on the romanization of Moroccan Arabic or Darija. French became the primary European language in Morocco as a result of French colonialism.

One of the characteristics of Franco-Arabic as it is used to transcribe Darija is the presence of long consonant clusters that are typically unorthodox in other languages. These clusters represents the deletion of short vowels and the syllabification of medial consonants in the phonology of Darija, a feature shared with and derived from Amazigh languages.

Gulf Arabic

 * Spoken along the Persian Gulf coasts of Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, UAE and eastern Saudi Arabia

Iraqi Arabic

 * Baghdadi Arabic

Palestinian Bedouin/Triangle Region Arabic
The use of ch to represent (kāf) indicates one of the Palestinian Arabic variant pronunciations of the letter in one of its subdialects, in which it is sometimes palatalized to  (as in English "chip"). Where this palatalization appears in other dialects, the Arabic letter is typically respelled to either or.

Chadian Arabic

 * Shuwa Arabic spoken in N'Djamena, Chad.

Criticism
The phenomenon of writing Arabic with these improvised chat alphabets has drawn sharp rebuke from a number of different segments of Arabic-speaking communities. While educators and members of the intelligentsia mourn the deterioration and degradation of the standard, literary, academic language, conservative Muslims, as well as Pan-Arabists and some Arab nationalists, view the Arabic Chat Alphabet as a detrimental form of Westernization. Arabic chat alphabets emerged amid a growing trend among Arab youth, from Morocco to Iraq, to incorporate former colonial languages—especially English and French—into Arabic through code switching or as a form of slang. These improvised chat alphabets are used to replace Arabic script, and this raises concerns regarding the preservation of the quality of the language.

title: Arabic chat alphabet


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Talk:Karditsa (regional unit)

Untitled
I think this article should be named "Karditsa". That's the official transliteration, Kardhitsa is the transliteration proposed by the US Board of Geographic Names. The eponymous city is at Karditsa (city), Greece, without h. Reactions at Talk:Prefectures of Greece please. Markussep 13:06, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress which affects this page. Please participate at Talk:Arta (peripheral unit) - Requested move and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 23:01, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Karditsa (regional unit)


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Itteren

Itteren (Limburgish: Ittere) is a town in the Dutch province of Limburg. It is a part of the municipality of Maastricht, and lies about 6 km north of Maastricht.

Itteren was a separate municipality until 1970, when it was merged with Maastricht.

In 2001, Itteren had 977 inhabitants. The built-up area of the town was 0.25 km², and contained 396 residences.

title: Itteren


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Spartacus (disambiguation)

Spartacus was the Thracian who led a slave uprising against Roman slavery.

Spartacus may also refer to:

Film and television

 * Spartacus (film), a 1960 film directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier and Peter Ustinov
 * Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea, a 1985 French animated television series, originally entitled Les Mondes Engloutis
 * Spartacus (miniseries), a 2004 made-for-TV miniseries broadcast over two nights
 * Spartacus (2010 TV series), a Starz original television series
 * Spartacus: Blood and Sand, the first season of the series to be broadcast
 * Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, a series that serves as a prequel to Blood and Sand
 * Spartacus: Vengeance, the second season, serving as a sequel to Blood and Sand
 * Spartacus: War of the Damned, the third season, serving as a sequel to Vengeance
 * Sins of Rome, a 1953 film also known as Spartacus and Spartacus the Gladiator

Radio

 * Spartacus (radio play), a 1942 Australian radio play by Dymphna Cusack

Literature

 * Spartacus (Fast novel), a historical novel by Howard Fast, the basis for Kubrick's film
 * Spartacus (Gibbon novel), a historical novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
 * Spartacus (1961 book), a political history by F.A. Ridley
 * Spartacus, a fictional supercomputer in the James P. Hogan novel The Two Faces of Tomorrow
 * Spartacus Educational, a book publisher and free online encyclopedia

Music and ballet

 * Spartacus (Triumvirat album), by Triumvirat
 * Spartacus (The Farm album), by The Farm
 * Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of Spartacus
 * Spartacus (ballet) or Spartak, ballet music by Aram Khachaturian

Publications

 * Spartacus, a defunct newspaper by the Dutch resistance Marx–Lenin–Luxemburg Front
 * Spartacus, the magazine of the Greek section of the reunified Fourth International organization of Communist Internationalists Organization of Communist Internationalists of Greece-Spartacus
 * Spartacus International Gay Guide, an annual publication

Sports

 * Spartacus Rugby Club, a rugby club in Gothenburg, Sweden
 * Fabian Cancellara (b. 1981), a Swiss cyclist by nickname

Other

 * Spartacus League, the 1918 German revolutionary movement from which the Communist Party of Germany emerged
 * Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, a Macintosh computer by its development codename
 * Spartacus Trial, a series of criminal trials against Camorra
 * Spartacus Books, a non-profit, volunteer and collectively run bookstore and resource centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
 * Spartacus (ship), a dredger built in 2018
 * Spartacus (horse)
 * Spartacus (bug), a genus of true bugs in the family Miridae

title: Spartacus (disambiguation)


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Red Nails

"Red Nails" is the last of the stories featuring Conan the Cimmerian written by American author Robert E. Howard. A novella, it was originally serialized in Weird Tales magazine from July to October 1936, the months after Howard's suicide. It is set in the fictional Hyborian Age and concerns Conan entering a lost city whose degenerate inhabitants are entangled in a murderous blood feud. Due to its dark themes of decay and death, the story is considered a classic of Conan lore while also cited by Howard scholars as one of his best tales.

The story was republished in the collections The Sword of Conan (Gnome Press, 1952) and Conan the Warrior (Lancer Books, 1967). It was first published by itself in book form by Donald M. Grant, Publisher in 1975 as volume IV of their deluxe Conan set. It has most recently been republished in the collections The Conan Chronicles Volume 2: The Hour of the Dragon (Gollancz, 2001) and The Conquering Sword of Conan (Del Rey, 2005) (published in the United Kingdom by Wandering Star as Conan of Cimmeria: Volume Three (1935-1936)), as well as The Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume 2: Grim Lands (Del Rey, 2007).

Plot summary
In the jungles far to the south of any known civilized or barbarian kingdoms, Valeria of the Red Brotherhood flees persecution after murdering a would-be rapist. She is followed into the wilderness by Conan, a fellow adventurer who wishes for an alliance with Valeria as her lover. Conan's stand-off with Valeria is interrupted by a dragon (actually a dinosaur, described with the characteristics of a Stegosaurus and Allosaurus) which mauls their horses. Conan and Valeria escape the dragon by climbing onto a rocky outcropping. Though they are trapped there without food or water, Conan recognizes some poisonous fruit growing nearby. Acting quickly, he coats the tip of a spear in poison and pierces the dragon's lower jaw with a well-aimed throw. Although blinded, the enraged beast pursues the two fugitives by their scent, but dies from the poison seconds before devouring Conan.

The couple emerge from their shelter and journey towards a mysterious walled city, which Conan sighted from the hill. Without grazing livestock or cultivated fields, the city appears deserted. Conan pries open a gate, long since rusted shut, and they enter a bizarre twilight world. The city, which is known as Xuchotl, is a massive structure completely enclosed by an emerald dome. A single great hallway runs across the entire city, without other streets or open courtyards. The structure consists entirely of four levels of rooms, chambers, and passageways. Xuchotl itself is carved from jade and other exotic materials.

The two separate and search the city's empty corridors. Valeria encounters a man named Techotl, who she joins in his feud between the two factions which are all that remain of the once large population. Soon, Techotl invites Conan and Valeria into the stronghold of his tribe, the Tecuhltli, where are welcomed by the king and queen, Olmec and Tascela.

Olmec recounts that the city was built centuries before its current inhabitants arrived. One day, a slave — Tolkemec — betrayed his master and guided the newly arrived invaders into the city while slaying the original inhabitants. The conquerors were led by two brothers, Tecuhltli and Xotalanc, who ruled peacefully over their city until Tecuhltli stole Xotalanc's bride. Meanwhile, Tolkemec betrayed both sides for his own reasons and was exiled to the catacombs. Nails driven into a pillar inside of Olmec's stronghold keeps count the number of slain rivals, and provides the title for this story.

Tascela develops an interest in Valeria, and has a slave try to drug her with a narcotic plant. Valeria manages to capture the slave and interrogates her into revealing her mistress' treachery, but the slave escapes into the catacombs. Valeria's pursuit is interrupted when Xotalanc's army breaches the stronghold. Eventually, all of Xotalanc's troops are exterminated while Conan, Valeria, Olmec, Tascela, and fifteen Tecuhltli warriors remain alive. When Conan begins an expedition towards Xotalanc's stronghold, Valeria is left behind while her wounds are treated.

While Conan is away, Olmec tries to rape Valeria, but he is thwarted by Tascela. She reveals herself as a sorceress and the stolen bride who originally started the feud. Vampire-like, Tascela plans to sacrifice Valeria to restore her own youth. Olmec has secretly ordered his guards to execute Conan, but Conan kills the two warriors and hurries back for Valeria. Returning to Tecuhltli, Conan finds a bruised Olmec in a trap inside Tascela's dungeon. After rescuing him, Olmec attempts to betray Conan and is killed.

Conan faces off against Tascela, who has Valeria chained on an altar. Caught in a steel trap, Conan watches helplessly as Tascela proceeds with her ritual. Suddenly she is interrupted by Tolkemec, returned from his exile and wielding an ancient sceptre shooting lightning bolts. Desperate for assistance against her nemesis, Tascela releases Conan, who manages to grab the scepter and kill Tolkemec. After freeing herself, Valeria impales Tascela with a dagger through her heart, declaring, "I had to do that much for my self-respect!" With the last inhabitants of Xuchotl dead, Conan and Valeria depart the empty city and make for the pirate coast.

Reception
E. F. Bleiler placed "Red Nails" "among the better Conan stories," citing its "Extravagant adventure embodying a considerable amount of antiquarian lore and imagination."

Background
Robert E. Howard's stories often express the author's belief on how civilizations carry the seeds of their own destruction. Howard found in the lost city genre a vehicle for expressing these views. Howard's Puritan adventurer Solomon Kane explored the lost African city of Negari in "The Moon of Skulls", published in Weird Tales in 1930. In Howard's novella, one can discern the influence of She by H. Rider Haggard and the lost city of Opar which appears in the Tarzan novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs Howard's Negari is ruled by the seductive queen Nakari, recalling Haggard's Ayesha and Burroughs' La of Opar.

When Howard moved onto the Conan series, he began to place his own distinctive stamp on the lost city tale. In "Xuthal of the Dusk" (published in the September 1933 issue of Weird Tales as "The Slithering Shadow"), Conan and a female companion discover an inhabited lost city and encounter its resident femme fatale. Though not without merit, "Xuthal of the Dusk" is generally regarded as a second-rate Conan story. However, its themes such as the decadence of a stagnant and dying culture is clearly evident. "Xuthal" is commonly viewed as the direct precursor to "Red Nails".

The theme of cultural decadence maintained its grip on Howard's imagination. In early 1935, he remarked to Novalyne Price:

The idea that would become "Red Nails" continued to germinate in Howard's mind, and later that year he began the actual writing of the tale. It would be the last major fantasy story Howard would complete.

In 1935, Howard found himself burdened with medical expenses for the treatment of his ailing mother. Payment from Weird Tales was becoming increasingly unreliable. In early May, Howard wrote to his editor Farnsworth Wright, pleading for the money owed him. At that time, Weird Tales owed Howard over eight hundred dollars for stories already published, and payable upon publication. Wright had been paying Howard in a series of monthly installments, but these checks ceased just when Howard needed them most. Howard explained the circumstances surrounding his need and made it clear that he understood that Weird Tales was undergoing its own share of financial difficulties due to the Depression. However, he felt moved to state in no uncertain terms, "A monthly check from Weird Tales may well mean for me the difference between a life that is at least endurable and God alone knows what."

Howard received no immediate reply from Wright. A week later, he wrote to his agent, Otis Adelbert Kline, inquiring if Kline had any inside knowledge concerning the situation at the Weird Tales editorial offices. Howard was ultimately moved to concentrate on better-paying markets, primarily those for Western fiction. In a letter to H. P. Lovecraft he confided, "As for my own fantasy writing, whether or not I do any future work in that field depends a good deal on the editors themselves. I would hate to abandon weird writing entirely, but my financial needs are urgent, immediate and imperious.  Slowness of payment in the fantastic field forces me into other lines against my will."

On July 22, 1935, Howard mailed his manuscript for "Red Nails" to Weird Tales. At the time, he shared his thoughts with Clark Ashton Smith, another colleague: "Sent a three-part serial to Wright yesterday: 'Red Nails,' which I devoutly hope he'll like. After Conan yarn, and the grimmest, bloodiest, and most merciless story of the series so far. Too much raw meat, maybe, but I merely portrayed what I honestly believe would be the reactions of certain types of people in the situations on which the plot of the story hung..."

Later in the year, Howard told Lovecraft, "The last yarn I sold to Weird Tales --and it well may be the last fantasy I'll ever write-- was a three-part Conan serial which was the bloodiest and most sexy weird story I ever wrote. I have been dissatisfied with my handling of decaying races in stories, for the reason that degeneracy is so prevalent in such races that it can not be ignored as a motive and as a fact if the fiction is to have any claim to realism. I have ignored it in all other stories, as one of the taboos, but I did not ignore it in this story..."

On the verge of abandoning fantasy for more commercial concerns, Howard devoted considerable thought and effort to his final allegorical statement.

Adaptations
The story was later adapted by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith for issues #2-3 of the Marvel Comics magazine series Savage Tales. The Thomas/Smith tale was later reprinted in the 1987 black-and-white magazine Conan Saga issue #9 (Jan. 1988.) It has also been reprinted many times since then, both in black-and-white and in full color, by Marvel and more recently by Dark Horse. The story has also been adapted by publishing company Ablaze in their "Cimmerian" series of comics.

An unfinished and unreleased animated feature based on this story, Conan: Red Nails, went into production around 2005. Actor Ron Perlman was cast as providing the voice of Conan, while Tolkemec was to be voiced by Mark Hamill. The film was originally due to be released in 2010. However, production was stalled and since 2007 there have been no updates as to this film's status on its official website. IMDB still has the original listing for the (proposed) release of the film. Red Nails remains an unfinished film with no planned release.

title: Red Nails