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Talk:Boulder Dash (video game)

Amstrad CPC version released as early as 1984?
I just don't think that early a release date for the CPC can be correct, as the CPC 464 wasn't launched until April 1984. Thus, the CPC platform was in its early infancy at the time BD was originally published (for the C64 etc.). I therefore took the chance of editing that part of the article. --Wernher 09:00, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Either there was a failure in Matrix, I dreamed it, or I really played Boulder Dash on my Amstrad CPC 464 (tape) back in the early 80's. I'd swear that the last option is the correct one :) More information, including a screen capture of the main menu (where you can clearly see "First Star (c) 1984") and the scan of the tape's cover --Devotee 18:15, 31 August 2005

 * I'm not so sure that the "(c) 1984" statement actually means that the game was released for the CPC in that year---I think the 1984 date is there to indicate the year of original publication. Looking at the cover scan, notice that it says "Copyrighted 1983, 1987", which might mean that the port was released during that latter year. But, I could still be wrong. Do you have any 'corraborating' info to confirm your memory?

 * Now, if we could only dig up a scan of a magazine review with a date on it, we'd be closer... --Wernher 14:02, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

 * Update: issue #1 of AA (Oct. '85) has a review of BD for the CPC. That's something, clearly. --Wernher 14:25, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Cellular automaton
The following paragraph was removed:
 * It may be interesting to note that most of the rules for game object movements in Boulder Dash can be implemented efficiently using a cellular automaton. For example, there are four different cells representing butterflies moving in different directions. On each game iteration, if the space ahead or to the right from their path is empty (space cell), the butterfly cell is moved there; otherwise, the cell is not moved, but its direction is changed to next one in counterclockwise order. The spreading of amoeba cells use the help of a pseudo-random number generator which determines the chance of infecting neighboring cells, and there is also an extra counter for the total number of amoeba cells occupied. Also, falling rock has different characteristics than stationary rock, and the transition between these two states takes one iteration. The original implementation on 8-bit computers even used in-place modification in sequential left-to-right, to-top-bottom order to save memory. Extra cell types were used to make sure that cells to the right or bottom would not be updated again.

Now, I'm aware of the Wikipedia-concepts but I think this paragraph is much more a self-evident statement than a proposition - many descriptions of the game logic (and in fact the game itself as far as i know) use the cellular automaton concept, even if they don't call it that. I vote for putting the paragraph back, maybe with a dispute-tag over it. // Gargaj 11:35, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

 * As the person who removed, I'll say... you *might* be right. Personally, I was erring on the side of caution. It might be worth waiting a day or two, seeing what everyone else thinks and then (if it's clear that's what people want) put it back without a tag. Fourohfour 14:26, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

 * To me it reads like a technical description, and as such I'm not particularly fond of it. It makes sense to me but only because I both know cellular automaton well and once tried coding Boulderdash in QBASIC from scratch (Rogue-style, of course) and failed miserably. It's also slightly ambiguous ("If the space ahead or to the right... is empty, the cell is moved there") but that can be fixed. Nifboy 14:51, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

 * As the person who wrote the original chapter, the result was perhaps too technical. Maybe it would be sufficient to claim that the game rules are remarkable easy to express in form of a cellular automaton. Are examples of rules of encyclopedic value? I do not know. Please feel free to reword. But I readily admit that the description of 8-bit implementation is original research that required disassembling the original game code. Sorry no userid.

 * Hmm. While I agree that it's related to cellular automaton, it's an entirely different application thereof, and that's what counts. Compared to the games of the time, Boulder Dash could calculate and change the state of a much larger playing field with many more dynamic objects by dividing space and time into larger "chunks". Essentially, framerate and precision were cut down to make room for much larger, dynamic levels. Nifboy 18:58, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

 * A (very belated) note from someone who has coded both cellular automata and a Boulder Dash clone: I think it is wrong to describe games of this type as cellular automata (or 'implemented as' cellular automata). There are, I think, several reasons for this.  But perhaps the most obvious is that all the cells in games of this type are not updated 'simultaneously'.  If you look at the rules for Conway's Game of Life, or Wolfram's 1D cellular automata, or Tron/Critters automata - and I think nearly all others - one thing they have in common is that the state of a given cell at time T is *entirely* determined by the state of cells from time T-1.  Conversely, it is very difficult to write Boulder Dash style games in this way.  Consider roaming 'bad guys' from one of these games.  Suppose two moving bad guys are approaching each other head on and about to both move into the same empty cell.  Usually, in the implemention of a game, one will just 'win': the one that gets updated first, probably because the game is updating the grid bottom-to-top, left-to-right (or some such).  This is one reason that these games can usually update the game state (grid) 'in place'.  Whereas cellular automata usually have to maintain two 'grids' (or, equivalently, sets of active points): each update only reads one grid and only writes into the other (which mimics simultaneous updating).  Then the two grids can be swapped, with the update process then going the other way (then just repeat).  Games like this usually have a different set of rules being applied to a given cell depending on its current 'type' (e.g. rock, diamond, exit, etc).  Cellular automata usually have a single, global rule for all cells.  Games like this also have 'action at a distance'.  For example opening the exit when a last diamond (or enough diamonds) have been collected.  This is a non-local change, unlike changes in cellular automata, which are usually local.  However, it is true that very simple games of this type - say with just a handful of 'objects' in the game - are automata-like in some respects, having cells and rules for the cells, and usually updating the 'state' of a cell in the grid, rather than 'moving' (i.e. changing the co-ordinates of) 'objects' - unlike, say, Space Invader style games.109.146.150.169 (talk) 16:26, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Fireflies and butterflies
Fireflies and butterflies don't explode directly on contact with Rockford. They explode only if they are trying to bump into Rockford, or vice versa. If Rockford only brushes against a firely or a butterfly when both are moving in parallel, but opposite directions, Rockford is safe. Unfortunately this does not happen as often as the bumping. J I P | Talk 12:39, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

No, they don't have to bump into Rockford in order to explode. The fact, that there are cases where Rockford can walk parallel to them or opposite, which in fact is not always possible but only on certain conditions, is related to the scanning algorithm. The behavior is completely forseeable, and in fact, experienced gamers know, how to do this. Also keep in mind that only the 8 bit versions as well as the CGA MS-DOS version has the original game physics. Many later ports behave quite differently to the extend that 1:1 coverted caves often don't behave like the author's intention. LogicDeLuxe 21:34, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I thought that Fireflies and butterflies have the same movement algorithm, but it's not clear from the description.
 * They are similar, but one big difference is that they have opposite pathways.LogicDeLuxe (talk) 20:17, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Here's how it really works. Objects in the cave are scanned from upper left to lower right. They are moved immediately after they are scanned. If, BEFORE moving, a firefly or butterfly is adjacent to Rockford, it explodes. Since entities do not move at the same time, Rockford is allowed to be next to a Firefly after he moves, and if he is scanned before the firefly is next frame, he can escape death with a move. If the firefly is scanned first, Rockford dies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.211.60.216 (talk) 01:38, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Rockford "home conversion"
Are we certain that the Rockford coin-op actually came before the home computer versions? Considering the fact that all of Arcadia's other arcade titles are essentially existing Amiga games modified for the Arcadia hardware (essentially an Amiga 500 modified into a coin-op), I'm skeptical that this is the case, but hesitant to change without firm release dates. Both Amiga and arcade versions are dated 1988, as far as I'm aware. Seeing as how the home ports were billed as "Rockford: The Arcade Game", I'm wondering if this wasn't a case of a simultaneous home/arcade release for the sake of cross-promotion. Moby Games does list the DOS version as being released in 1987 (as opposed to 1988 for all of the other releases, including Amiga), but I'd take that with a grain of salt. Gnu 03:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Dubious external link
Boulder Dash for Windows by ZX Games -> http://www.zxgames.com/en/boulderdash.shtml

I'm not exactly sure, but I think this link/site has a somewhat commercial motive. Should it be removed? Whats your opinion about the website? DaSjieb 20:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

 * I removed the link for now, due to the commercial motive I explained above. DaSjieb 16:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The site seems to be claimed that their games are licensed. If this is true, then it's legit, but they coudl just be lying through their teeth. Contacting First Star Software is probably in order. 74.211.58.183 (talk) 11:13, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

CFR
Removed cfdnotice, cfd has completed. --Kbdank71 17:02, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Renamed to Category:Rocks-and-diamonds games. —Frungi 00:49, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

DoomDash
Does somebody know, which Hungarian magazine it was released in? And which issue? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.98.119.245 (talk) 23:17, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Etymology
Might the title be a play on balderdash? Is this obvious to an English speaker? (If so, I'll mention it in the French page, since it's not obvious to us French.) Palpalpalpal (talk) 12:13, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it was intended as a play on balderdash, and yes, it's obvious to english speakers. It's in the Peter Liepa interview. 74.211.58.183 (talk) 11:11, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Atari original cover (First Star version)
Why's the awful NES cover shown on the main page and not the Atari original? I think that should be changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.144.39.100 (talk) 10:17, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

 * Couldn't agree more, and 7 years later I did just that. Griggorio2 (talk) 21:25, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

External links modified
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Problems with this article
The section about the objects in the game has now been deleted twice with the reason "Wikipedia is not a game guide". Then the article was tagged about not having a "gameplay" section. This seems to be contradictory - you can't remove material and ask it to be added at the same time. I have written a short basic gameplay section that doesn't list all the objects in detail.

Also, in the current state, over half of the article's length is a list of various versions of the game that were released. It takes up more of the content than the rest of the article put together. J I P | Talk 16:32, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Boulder Dash (video game)


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Aberangell

Aberangell is a village in Gwynedd, Wales.

Geography
Aberangell stands at the confluence of the Afon Angell and the Afon Dyfi, and lies within Dinas Mawddwy community. On the north side of the village, the long ridge of Pen y Clipau runs down from the summit of Foel Dinas. The Afon Mynach joins the Afon Angell just west of the village with the rounded slopes of Moel y Ffridd beyond.

Estates
During the Victorian era, three major estates dominated the village and its surrounding area. To the north lay Sir Edmund Buckley's Dinas Mawddwy estate; to the south and east was Dolcorsllwyn Hall, owned by Sir Thomas Frost. To the west lay Plas Cwmllecoediog, owned by James Walton and his sons William and Frederick.

Transport
Aberangell railway station was on the Mawddwy Railway. It was also the terminus of the narrow gauge Hendre-Ddu Tramway.

1990 onwards
Royal Mail announced the closure of Aberangell post office in October 2008. In 1993 and 2008 Aberangell won Calor Village of the Year in Wales.

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

title: Aberangell


text:
User:Rpyle731/sig

Rpyle731talk

title: User:Rpyle731/sig


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Lists of chief rabbis

Lists of Chief Rabbis cover Chief Rabbis, the leaders of the Jewish community in each country. The position is often defined by the country's secular authorities, and may also apply to leaders of the Jewish community in a given city. There may be separate Ashkenazi and Sephardi Chief Rabbis, representing the two main cultural divisions of the Jewish diaspora. There is an overall worldwide list, and specialized lists.

Lists

 * List of Chief Rabbis by country/region, worldwide
 * List of Chief Rabbis of Iran
 * List of Chief Rabbis of the United Hebrew Congregations, United Kingdom
 * List of Chief Rabbis of Israel
 * Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem

title: Lists of chief rabbis


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Institutional theory

In sociology and organizational studies, institutional theory is a theory on the deeper and more resilient aspects of social structure. It considers the processes by which structures, including schemes, rules, norms, and routines, become established as authoritative guidelines for social behavior. Different components of institutional theory explain how these elements are created, diffused, adopted, and adapted over space and time; and how they fall into decline and disuse.

Overview
In defining institutions, according to William Richard Scott (1995, 235), there is "no single and universally agreed definition of an 'institution' in the institutional school of thought." Scott (1995:33, 2001:48) asserts that: "Institutions are social structures that have attained a high degree of resilience. [They] are composed of cultural-cognitive, normative, and regulative elements that, together with associated activities and resources, provide stability and meaning to social life. Institutions are transmitted by various types of carriers, including symbolic systems, relational systems, routines, and facts. Institutions operate at different levels of jurisdiction, from the world system to localized interpersonal relationships. Institutions by definition connote stability but are subject to change processes, both incremental and discontinuous."

According to Scott (2008), institutional theory is "a widely accepted theoretical posture that emphasizes productivity, ethics, and legitimacy." Researchers building on this perspective emphasize that a key insight of institutional theory is ethics: rather than necessarily optimizing their decisions, practices, and structures, organizations look to their peers for cues to appropriate behavior.

According to Kraft's Public Policy (2007): Institutional Theory is "Policy-making that emphasizes the formal and legal aspects of government structures."

Schools of institutional theory
There are two dominant trends in institutional theory:
 * Old institutionalism
 * New institutionalism

Powell and DiMaggio (1991) define an emerging perspective in sociology and organizational studies, which they term the 'new institutionalism', as rejecting the rational-actor models of Classical economics. Instead, it seeks cognitive and cultural explanations of social and organizational phenomena by considering the properties of supra-individual units of analysis that cannot be reduced to aggregations or direct consequences of individuals’ attributes or motives.

Scott (1995) indicates that, in order to survive, organisations must conform to the rules and belief systems prevailing in the environment (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Meyer and Rowan, 1977 ), because institutional isomorphism, both structural and procedural, will earn the organisation legitimacy (Dacin, 1997; Deephouse, 1996; Suchman, 1995 ). For instance, multinational corporations (MNCs) operating in different countries with varying institutional environments will face diverse pressures. Some of those pressures in host and home institutional environments are testified to exert fundamental influences on competitive strategy (Martinsons, 1993; Porter, 1990) and human resource management (HRM) practices (Rosenzweig and Singh, 1991; Zaheer, 1995; cf. Saqib, Allen and Wood, 2021; ). Corporations also face institutional pressures from their most important peers: peers in their industry and peers in their local (headquarters) community; for example, Marquis and Tilcsik (2016) show that corporate philanthropic donations are largely driven by isomorphic pressures that companies experience from their industry peers and local peers. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and social organizations can also be susceptible to isomorphic pressures.

More recent work in the field of institutional theory has led to the emergence of new concepts such as

- institutional logics, a concept pioneered by Friedland & Alford (1991) and later by Thornton, Ocasio & Lounsbury (2012). The institutional logic perspective mostly take a structural and macro approach to institutional analysis

- institutional work, a concept pioneered by Lawrence & Suddaby, (2006). By contrast with the logic perspective, it gives agentic power to social actors, and assumes those actors can influence institutions - either maintaining or disrupting them.

A recent stream of research looks at the intersection of space and place (with inspirations coming from geography) and institutional theory. Rodner et al. (2020) mobilize Lefebvre to show how institutional work can be spatial by nature, in the context of the disruption of the cultural sector in Venezuela under Chavez. They also differentiate the institutional conception of place vs space.

Challenges in different types of economies
There is substantial evidence that firms in different types of economies react differently to similar challenges (Knetter, 1989). Social, economic, and political factors constitute an institutional structure of a particular environment which provides firms with advantages for engaging in specific types of activities there. Businesses tend to perform more efficiently if they receive the institutional support.

Deinstitutionalization
Not to be confused with the deinstitutionalization (i.e. closure) of psychiatric hospitals, this term is also used by some researchers in the institutional theory literature to think about the different ways that an undesirable institution might be disrupted. For example, Maguire and Hardy (2009) examined the processes leading to the deinstitutionalization of DDT. This might include social movements from particular groups, such as the efforts leading to prohibition to deinstitutionalize the drinking of alcoholic beverages, or the social and institutional pressures that led to the deinstitutionalization of permanent employment in Japan. Public opinion can also lead to the deinstitutionalization of a practice, at least according to Clemente and Roulet (2015).

Deinstitutionalization may also be used in partial ways, as seen in the deinstitutionalization of particular CSR concepts to make way for a new CSR construct, or in the deinstitutionalization of the practice of catching fish for sustenance.

title: Institutional theory


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Aberarder

Aberarder (Obar Àrdair) is a hamlet to the south of Loch Ruthven, Scottish Highlands and is in the Scottish council area of Highland. It lies on the B851 road, to the east of Loch Ness. After the Rising of 1745, Aberarder was owned by the Farquharsons of Invercauld.

title: Aberarder


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Aberargie

Aberargie (Obar Fhargaidh) is a village in the south eastern region of Perth and Kinross. It lies on the western edge of the old Abernethy Parish on the banks of the River Farg, from which it derives its name. Aberargie is around 2.5 km west of Abernethy, and 3.5 km southeast of Bridge of Earn.

Origin and History
Aberargie is recorded in the Pictish Chronicle as part of Nechtan's land grant in 460AD, and may have been in existence for much longer. Aberargies' place in most history books is as a small part of the bigger Parish of Abernethy, but there was at one time a thriving community, based on the utilisation of the River Farg to power water mills for various purposes from sawing timber to the milling of flax and meal. Mills have been recorded at Pottie, part of which still stands at the bottom of the Farg Glen, Ayton Farm, Mill House, Willow Bank, which also has some standing ruins, and Gowlie. The feu duty for most of these mills up until the late 19th century was payable to Balmerino Abbey Estates. The mills had all ceased production by the early 20th century, and the most complete, at Mill House, was demolished in the 1950s.

Archaeological surface finds from fields in the vicinity of the village range from neolithic flints, to the full range of Scottish Medieval Pottery and flintlock rifle/pistol flints. Further indicating an extensive period of settlement and activity in the area.

title: Aberargie


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The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), by Walter Benjamin, is an essay of cultural criticism which proposes and explains that mechanical reproduction devalues the aura (uniqueness) of a work of art, and that in the age of mechanical reproduction and the absence of traditional and ritualistic value, the production of art would be inherently based upon the praxis of politics. Written during the Nazi régime (1933–1945) in Germany, in the essay Benjamin presents a theory of art that is "useful for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art" in a society of mass culture.

The subject and themes of Benjamin's essay: the aura of a work of art; the artistic authenticity of the artefact; the cultural authority of the work of art; and the aestheticization of politics for the production of art, became resources for research in the fields of art history and architectural theory, cultural studies, and media theory.

The original essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility", was published in three editions: (i) the German edition, "Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit", in 1935; (ii) the French edition, "L'œuvre d'art à l'époque de sa reproduction mécanisée", in 1936; and (iii) the German revised edition in 1939, from which derive the contemporary English translations of the essay titled "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction".

Summary
Benjamin presents the thematic bases for a theory of art by quoting the essay "The Conquest of Ubiquity" (1928), by Paul Valéry, to establish how works of art created and developed in past eras are different from contemporary works of art; that the understanding and treatment of art and of artistic technique must progressively develop in order to understand a work of art in the context of the modern time."Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. But the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art."

Artistic production
In the preface to the essay, Benjamin presents Marxist analyses of the organisation of a capitalist society and of the place of the arts in a capitalist society, both in the public sphere and in the private sphere; and explains the socio-economic conditions of society to extrapolate future developments of capitalism that will result in the economic exploitation of the proletariat, and so will produce the socio-economic conditions that would abolish capitalism. By reviewing the historical and technological developments of the mechanical means for reproducing a work of art, Benjamin establishes that artistic reproduction is not a modern human activity, such as the industrial arts of the foundry and the stamp mill in Ancient Greece (12th–9th c. BC), and the modern arts of woodcut relief-printing and engraving, etching, lithography, and photography, which are industrial techniques of mass production that permit greater accuracy in the mechanical reproduction of a work of art than would an artist manually reproducing an artefact created by a master artist.

Authenticity
The aura of a work of art derives from authenticity (uniqueness) and locale (physical and cultural); Benjamin explains that "even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: Its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be" located. That the "sphere of [artistic] authenticity is outside the technical [sphere]" of mechanised reproduction. Therefore, in being unique, the original work of art is an objet d'art independent of the mechanically accurate reproduction; yet, by changing the cultural context of where the artwork is located, the existence of the mechanical copy (an art-product) diminishes the aesthetic value of the original work of art. In that way, the aura – the unique aesthetic authority of a work of art – is absent from the mechanically produced copy.

Value: cult and exhibition
Regarding the social functions of an artefact, Benjamin said that "Works of art are received and valued on different planes. Two polar types stand out; with one, the accent is on the cult value; with the other, on the exhibition value of the work. Artistic production begins with ceremonial objects destined to serve in a cult. One may assume that what mattered was their existence, not their being on view." The cult value of religious art is in the fact that "certain statues of gods are accessible only to the priest in the cella; certain madonnas remain covered nearly all year round; certain sculptures on medieval cathedrals are invisible to the spectator on ground level." In practice, the diminished cult value of a religious artefact (an icon no longer venerated) increases the exhibition value of the artefact as art created for the spectators' appreciation, because "it is easier to exhibit a portrait bust, that can be sent here and there [to museums], than to exhibit the statue of a divinity that has its fixed place in the interior of a temple."

The mechanical reproduction of a work of art voids its cult value, because removal from a fixed, private space (a temple) and placement in a mobile, public space (a museum) allows exhibiting the work of art to many spectators. Further explaining the transition from cult value to exhibition value, Benjamin said that in "the photographic image, exhibition value, for the first time, shows its superiority to cult value." In emphasising exhibition value, "the work of art becomes a creation with entirely new functions," which "later may be recognized as incidental" to the original purpose for which the artist created the objet d'art.

As a medium of artistic production, the cinema (moving pictures) does not create cult value for the motion picture, itself, because "the audience's identification with the actor is really an identification with the camera. Consequently, the audience takes the position of the camera; [the audience's] approach is that of testing. This is not the approach to which cult values may be exposed." Therefore, "the film makes the cult value recede into the background, not only by putting the public in the position of the critic, but also by the fact that, at the movies, this [critical] position requires no attention."

Art as politics
The social value of a work of art changes as a society change their value systems; thus the changes in artistic styles and in the cultural tastes of the public follow "the manner in which human sense-perception is organized [and] the [artistic] medium in which it is accomplished [are] determined not only by Nature, but by historical circumstances, as well."

Despite the negative effects (social, economic, cultural) of mass-produced art-products upon the aura of the original work of art, Benjamin said that "the uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being embedded in the fabric of tradition", which separates the original work of art from the reproduction. Moreover, Benjamin noted that the ritualization of the mechanical reproduction of art also emancipated "the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual", thereby increasing the social value of exhibiting works of art; a social and cultural practice that has progressed from the private sphere of life (the owner's enjoyment of the aesthetics of the artefacts, usually high art) to the public sphere of life, wherein the public enjoy the same aesthetics in a gallery displaying works of art.

Influence
In the late-twentieth-century television program Ways of Seeing (1972), John Berger proceeded from and developed the themes of Benjamin's essay to explain the contemporary representations of social class and racial caste inherent to the politics and production of art. That in transforming a work of art into a commodity, the modern means of artistic production and of artistic reproduction have destroyed the aesthetic, cultural, and political authority of art: "For the first time ever, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free," because they are commercial products that lack the aura of authenticity of the original objet d'art.

A paralipomena of Benjamin's "Work of Art..." called a "A Short History of Photography", read together with the main-essay, provide a theoretical basis for Susan Sontag's well-known monograph, On Photography.

Ideas initially presented in this article also inform Marshall McLuhan's famous slogan or conception that "the medium is the message".


text: User talk:220.239.70.232

title: User talk:220.239.70.232


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Gungriffon

Gungriffon is a series of video games developed by Game Arts and designed by Takeshi Miyaji. Gungriffon and Gungriffon II originally appeared for the Sega Saturn console in 1996, with more recent appearances in Gungriffon Blaze for the PlayStation 2 and Gungriffon: Allied Strike for the Xbox. The Gungriffon games are focused on piloting mecha—large, usually bipedal military vehicles. This game series refers to these machines as Armored Walking Gun Systems (AWGS). With the exception of the High-MACS design, the mecha in this series have a distinctly realistic design philosophy.

Gungriffon
Year Game Takes Place: 2015

Platform: Sega Saturn

Release Dates:

JP: March 15, 1996

NA: June 19, 1996

EU: July 1996

Gungriffon was developed under the working title "3D Polygon". During development, the game included a multiplayer mode with usage of the Saturn's link cable, but this was cut before release and the final game is single player only. It was released in Japan under the title Gungriffon: The Eurasian Conflict. There were plans to release the game in North America and Europe under the title "Iron Reign", but ultimately Sega reverted to using a shortened version of the original Japanese title.

According to Greg Becksted, producer of the North American version of the game, the localization team changed the game's storyline slightly to better suit the U.S. market.

Reception
Gungriffon received highly positive reviews, with critics hailing it as one of the best mech-based video games to date. The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it their "Game of the Month" award, praising the responsive controls, sharp and realistic graphics, and exciting pace of the gameplay. Though most of them criticized the way the player mech easily gets caught on buildings, they all gave the game a strong recommendation, with Dan Hsu summarizing it as "the most exciting mech sim I've ever played, including any found on the PC." Rad Automatic of Sega Saturn Magazine called Gungriffon "one of the best giant robot games ever", citing the polished graphics and the fact that missions are widely varied not just in the usual factors of terrain and difficulty, but even in elements such as tactical concept and lighting. Maximum's Rich Leadbetter praised the "very well pitched" difficulty, the impressive polygon models, and the variety of visuals. He criticized the lack of randomization and the fact that players do not need to start the entire game over when they fail a mission, but gave it an overall very positive assessment, calling it "what Krazy Ivan on PlayStation should have been". GamePro likewise said that Gungriffon "makes Krazy Ivan and Ghen War look and feel like rusted heaps of scrap iron." The reviewer was especially pleased with the player mech's ability to hover and the "Clean, almost state-of-the-art graphics". Next Generation's brief review said the game has "eclectic missions and bizarre weapons. It looks good, controls well, and would be a four-star game if not for its brevity and poor pacing."

Gungriffon II
Year Game Takes Place: 2015

Platform: Sega Saturn

Release Dates:

JP: April 23, 1998

Gungriffon Blaze
Year Game Takes Place: 2016

Platform: PlayStation 2

Number of players: 1

Release Dates:

JP: August 10, 2000

NA: October 26, 2000

EU: July 12, 2002

On release, Famitsu magazine scored the game a 33 out of 40.

Gungriffon Allied Strike
Year Game Takes Place: 2024

Platform: Xbox

Release Dates:

NA: December 14, 2004

JP: December 16, 2004

EU: April 8, 2005

title: Gungriffon


text:
Primary health care

Primary health care (PHC) is a whole-of-society approach to effectively organise and strengthen national health systems to bring services for health and wellbeing closer to communities.

Primary health care enables health systems to support a person’s health needs – from health promotion to disease prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, palliative care and more. It is essential health care that is based on scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology. This makes universal health care accessible to all individuals and families in a community. PHC initiatives allow for the full participation of community members in implementation and decision making. Services are provided at a cost that the community and the country can afford at every stage of their development in the spirit of self-reliance and self-determination. In other words, PHC is an approach to health beyond the traditional health care system that focuses on health equity-producing social policy. PHC includes all areas that play a role in health, such as access to health services, environment and lifestyle. Thus, primary healthcare and public health measures, taken together, may be considered as the cornerstones of universal health systems. The World Health Organization, or WHO, elaborates on the goals of PHC as defined by three major categories, "empowering people and communities, multisectoral policy and action; and primary care and essential public health functions as the core of integrated health services[1]." Based on these definitions, PHC cannot only help an individual after being diagnosed with a disease or disorder, but can actively contribute to preventing such issues by understanding the individual as a whole.

This ideal model of healthcare was adopted in the declaration of the International Conference on Primary Health Care held in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan in 1978 (known as the "Alma Ata Declaration"), and became a core concept of the World Health Organization's goal of Health for all. The Alma-Ata Conference mobilized a "Primary Health Care movement" of professionals and institutions, governments and civil society organizations, researchers and grassroots organizations that undertook to tackle the "politically, socially and economically unacceptable" health inequalities in all countries. There were many factors that inspired PHC; a prominent example is the Barefoot Doctors of China.

Goals and principles
The ultimate goal of primary healthcare is the attainment of better health services for all. It is for this reason that the World Health Organization (WHO), has identified five key elements to achieving this goal:
 * reducing exclusion and social disparities in health (universal coverage reforms);
 * organizing health services around people's needs and expectations (service delivery reforms);
 * integrating health into all sectors (public policy reforms);
 * pursuing collaborative models of policy dialogue (leadership reforms); and
 * increasing stakeholder participation.

Behind these elements lies a series of basic principles identified in the Alma Ata Declaration that should be formulated in national policies in order to launch and sustain PHC as part of a comprehensive health system and in coordination with other sectors:
 * Equitable distribution of health care – according to this principle, primary care and other services to meet the main health problems in a community must be provided equally to all individuals irrespective of their gender, age, caste, color, urban/rural location and social class.
 * Community participation – in order to make the fullest use of local, national and other available resources. Community participation was considered sustainable due to its grass roots nature and emphasis on self-sufficiency, as opposed to targeted (or vertical) approaches dependent on international development assistance.
 * Health human resources development – comprehensive healthcare relies on an adequate number and distribution of trained physicians, nurses, allied health professions, community health workers and others working as a health team and supported at the local and referral levels.
 * Use of appropriate technology – medical technology should be provided that is accessible, affordable, feasible and culturally acceptable to the community. Examples of appropriate technology include refrigerators for cold vaccine storage. Less appropriate examples of medical technology could include, in many settings, body scanners or heart-lung machines, which benefit only a small minority concentrated in urban areas. They are generally not accessible to the poor, but draw a large share of resources.
 * Multi-sectional approach – recognition that health cannot be improved by intervention within just the formal health sector; other sectors are equally important in promoting the health and self-reliance of communities. These sectors include, at least: agriculture (e.g. food security); education; communication (e.g. concerning prevailing health problems and the methods of preventing and controlling them); housing; public works (e.g. ensuring an adequate supply of safe water and basic sanitation); rural development; industry; community organizations (including Panchayats or local governments, voluntary organizations, etc.).

In sum, PHC recognizes that healthcare is not a short-lived intervention, but an ongoing process of improving people's lives and alleviating the underlying socioeconomic conditions that contribute to poor health. The principles link health, development, and advocating political interventions rather than passive acceptance of economic conditions.

Approaches
The primary health care approach has seen significant gains in health where applied even when adverse economic and political conditions prevail. The Alma-Ata declaration proposed PHC (Primary Health Care) goals but faced global criticism for being vague, costly, and unattainable. This led to diverse PHC approaches, including SPHC (Selective Primary Health Care), accommodating resource disparities and local health priorities

Selective Primary Health Care
After the year 1978 Alma Ata Conference, the Rockefeller Foundation held a conference in 1979 at its Bellagio conference center in Italy to address several concerns. Here, the idea of Selective Primary Health Care was introduced as a strategy to complement comprehensive PHC. It was based on a paper by Julia Walsh and Kenneth S. Warren entitled "Selective Primary Health Care, an Interim Strategy for Disease Control in Developing Countries". This new framework advocated a more economically feasible approach to PHC by only targeting specific areas of health and choosing the most effective treatment plan in terms of cost and effectiveness. One of the foremost examples of SPHC is "GOBI" (growth monitoring, oral rehydration, breastfeeding, and immunization), focusing on combating the main diseases in developing nations.

GOBI and GOBI-FFF
GOBI is a strategy of UNICEF consisting of (and an acronym for) four low-cost, high impact, knowledge mediated measures introduced as key to halving child mortality by James P. Grant at UNICEF in 1983. The measures are:
 * Growth monitoring: the monitoring of how much infants grow within a period, with the goal to understand needs for better early nutrition.
 * Oral rehydration therapy: to combat dehydration associated with diarrhea.
 * Breastfeeding
 * Immunization

Three additional measures were introduced to the strategy later (though food supplementation had been used by UNICEF since its inception in 1946), leading to the acronym GOBI-FFF.

 * Family planning (birth spacing)
 * Female education
 * Food supplementation: for example, iron and folic acid fortification/supplementation to prevent deficiencies in pregnant women.

These strategies focus on severe population health problems in certain developing countries, where a few diseases are responsible for high rates of infant and child mortality. Health care planning is used to see which diseases require most attention and, subsequently, which intervention can be most effectively applied as part of primary care in a least-cost method. The targets and effects of selective PHC are specific and measurable. The approach aims to prevent most health and nutrition problems before they begin:

PHC and population aging
Given global demographic trends, with the numbers of people age 60 and over expected to double by 2025, PHC approaches have taken into account the need for countries to address the consequences of population ageing. In particular, in the future the majority of older people will be living in developing countries that are often the least prepared to confront the challenges of rapidly ageing societies, including high risk of having at least one chronic non-communicable disease, such as diabetes and osteoporosis and conditions like hearing loss. According to WHO, dealing with this increasing burden requires health promotion and disease prevention intervention at the community level as well as disease management strategies within health care systems.

PHC and mental health
Some jurisdictions apply PHC principles in planning and managing their healthcare services for the detection, diagnosis and treatment of common mental health conditions at local clinics, and organizing the referral of more complicated mental health problems to more appropriate levels of mental health care. The Ministerial Conference, which took place in Alma Ata, made the decision that measures should be taken to support mental health in regard to primary health care. However, there was no such documentation of this event in the Alma Ata Declaration. These discrepancies caused an inability for proper funding and although was worthy of being a part of the declaration, changing it would call for another conference.

Individuals with severe mental health disorders are found to live much shorter lives than those without, anywhere from ten to twenty-five-year reduction in life expectancy when compared to those without. Cardiovascular diseases in particular are one of the leading causes of death with individuals already suffering from severe mental health disorders. General health services such as PHC is one approach to integrating an improved access to such health services that could help treat already existing mental health disorders as well as prevent other disorders that could arise simultaneously as the pre-existing condition.

PHC and hearing health
Considering that 360 million people across the world live with disabling hearing loss, including 32 million children and nearly 180 million older adults, and that chronic ear diseases, such as chronic suppurative otitis media, can lead to hearing loss and may cause life-threatening complications, the seventieth World Health Assembly on May 31, 2017 signed the resolution WHA70.13 (Agenda item 15.8) urging member states to integrate strategies for ear and hearing care within the framework of their primary health care systems, under the umbrella of universal health coverage. A World Report on Hearing (WRH) was published in response to the resolution (WHA70.13), to provide guidance for Member States to integrate ear and hearing care into their national health plans.

Barefoot Doctors
The "Barefoot Doctors" of China were an important inspiration for PHC because they illustrated the effectiveness of having a healthcare professional at the community level with community ties. Barefoot Doctors were a diverse array of village health workers who lived in rural areas and received basic healthcare training. They stressed rural rather than urban healthcare, and preventive rather than curative services. They also provided a combination of western and traditional medicines. The Barefoot Doctors had close community ties, were relatively low-cost, and perhaps most importantly they encouraged self-reliance through advocating prevention and hygiene practices. The program experienced a massive expansion of rural medical services in China, with the number of Barefoot Doctors increasing dramatically between the early 1960s and the Cultural Revolution (1964-1976).

Criticisms
Although many countries were keen on the idea of primary healthcare after the Alma Ata conference, the Declaration itself was criticized for being too “idealistic” and “having an unrealistic time table”. More specific approaches to prevent and control diseases - based on evidence of prevalence, morbidity, mortality and feasibility of control (cost-effectiveness) - were subsequently proposed. The best known model was the Selective PHC approach (described above). Selective PHC favoured short-term goals and targeted health investment, but it did not address the social causes of disease. As such, the SPHC approach has been criticized as not following Alma Ata's core principle of everyone's entitlement to healthcare and health system development.

In Africa, the PHC system has been extended into isolated rural areas through construction of health posts and centers that offer basic maternal-child health, immunization, nutrition, first aid, and referral services. Implementation of PHC is said to be affected after the introduction of structural adjustment programs by the World Bank.

title: Primary health care


text:
Kerry O'Keeffe

Kerry James O'Keeffe (born 25 November 1949) is an Australian former cricketer and a current cricket commentator for Fox Sports. O'Keeffe played 24 Test matches and two One Day Internationals between 1971 and 1977.

Playing career
He was a spin bowler, bowling leg breaks. He never quite lived up to early expectations of being the next great Australian leg spin bowler, taking 53 wickets at an average of 38.07. He made his Test debut against England in the Fifth Test of the 1970–71 Ashes series after taking 6/69 and hitting 55 not out in the New South Wales match against the tourists, but did little and was dropped. Recalled for the vital Seventh Test on the spinning SCG pitch he took 3/48 and 3/96, but it was not enough to win the game and save The Ashes. He did, however, have some success with the bat, averaging 25.76 and being called upon to open the batting in the second innings of the Centenary Test. One statistic that O'Keeffe himself uses to demonstrate his lack of penetration with the ball is that he is the bowler with the highest percentage of wickets out 'caught' in the history of Test match cricket (44 out of 53 wickets, 84%). This is typical of his commentating style of making fun of his bowling abilities. He often talks of an incident during the 1977 Australian tour of England, when he appealed against a batsman for leg before wicket, and the umpire turned him down, saying that the ball was "doing too much", meaning that the ball was spinning so much that it would have turned away from the stumps. O'Keeffe said that the umpire's comment was a sarcastic jibe at his inability to spin the ball, something he likes to mock himself about.

Post-playing career
O'Keeffe has remained involved in cricket since his retirement, including as a commentator on ABC Radio. He is known for his humorous anecdotes, told in the manner of an after-dinner speech at a cricketers club, and his distinctive laugh. He often enjoys working with overseas commentators such as India's Harsha Bhogle, whom he enjoyed confusing with his colorful Australian language. However, when he concentrated on the game, he shows insight born of a career at the highest level together with study of the statistics and history of the game.

In 2004, he released his autobiography According to Skull. He has also released a number of CDs containing some shorts of his commentating antics.

On 27 December 2013, while providing commentary on the Melbourne Boxing Day Test between Australia and England, O'Keeffe announced his retirement from commentating after the Sydney Test in January 2014 (O'Keeffe had accepted a redundancy from the ABC). However, O'Keeffe returned to cricket commentary in December 2016 as part of Triple M's new cricket coverage.

On 13 July 2018, it was announced that O'Keeffe had joined the Fox Sports cricket commentary team from the 2018–19 season.

title: Kerry O'Keeffe


text:
Aberbanc

Aberbanc is a village in the Welsh county of Ceredigion.

Aber-banc is situated on a sharp bend on the A475 approximately 4 miles east of Newcastle Emlyn. Nant Gwylan and the River Cwerchyr join the River Cynllo here and there are a number of Tree Preservation Orders along the north eastern bank of the River Cynllo. The historic core of the settlement consists of distinctive, stone-built individual and terraced properties. More recent development forms an elongated cluster on the hill rising westwards out of the valley along the A475. The settlement comprises over 25 dwellings. The Methodist Chapel is a listed building.

In 1848, a co-educational national school was built, which had an average attendance of 68 in 1904. The settlement has a primary school which serves adjacent communities at Penrhiw-llan and Henllan. The school was closed in 2016 due to opening of new super school in Llandysul. The Welsh language is in everyday use. Aber-banc relies for both everyday and major facilities on Newcastle Emlyn, and lies on a bus route serviced on Tuesday only between Llandysul and Newcastle Emlyn.

title: Aberbanc


text:
Sacramento Municipal Utility District

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is a community-owned electric utility serving Sacramento County and parts of Placer County. It is one of the ten largest publicly owned utilities in the United States, generating the bulk of its power through natural gas (estimated 35.2% of production total in 2020) and large hydroelectric generation plants (29.1% in 2020). SMUD's green power (renewable) energy output was estimated as 33.8% in 2020.

SMUD owned the Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station nuclear power plant, shut down by a vote of the utility's rate-payers in the late 1980s. Although the nuclear plant is now decommissioned, its now-unused iconic towers remain on the site. Solar arrays and the 500-megawatt Cosumnes gas-fired plant have risen in proximity to the towers.

SMUD's headquarters building, built in the late 1950s on the edge of the East Sacramento neighborhood, is notable for its mural by Sacramento artist Wayne Thiebaud. The mural wraps around the ground floor of the building and is accessible to the public. It is one of the earliest major works by the artist, and remains his largest installation to date.

History

Created by a vote of Sacramento County residents on 2 July 1923 pursuant to the Municipal Utility District Act, SMUD's ability to provide power to its customer-owners was stymied in the courts for nearly a quarter century by the investor-owned Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) of San Francisco. A court ruling eventually sided with SMUD, which began providing power at the beginning of 1946. SMUD is a public agency of the State of California, and as such is not subject to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's jurisdiction under the Federal Power Act. Echoes of SMUD's fight to fulfill its original mandate from the voters have continued in more recent turf battles with PG&E. In the 1980s, residents of Folsom voted to join SMUD, with PG&E fighting the annexation in the courts. Folsom rate-payers are now part of SMUD. In 2006, PG&E successfully convinced SMUD rate-payers and rate-payers in Yolo County to vote down an annexation proposal that would have extended the public utility's service territory to include the Yolo County cities of West Sacramento, Davis and Woodland, along with territory between the three cities.

In February 2020, 75 project customers, including the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, received permanent federal water contracts for the Central Valley Project.

Governance
SMUD is governed by a seven-member Board of Directors. Each member is elected by residents in a "ward" or constituency for four-year terms. As of January 2024 the directors were:

 * Brandon Rose, Ward 1
 * Nancy Bui-Thompson, Ward 2
 * Gregg Fishman, Ward 3, Board Vice President
 * Rosanna Herber, Ward 4, Board President
 * Rob Kerth, Ward 5
 * David Tamayo, Ward 6
 * Heidi Sanborn, Ward 7

Facilities

SMUD's electricity generation capacity derives from the watershed of the South Fork of the American River, called the "Upper American River Project (UARP)" in federal licensing documents. The project is an extensive complex of multiple retention dams, diversion dams, reservoirs, canals, tunnels and hydroelectric powerplants. The plants are run during hours of peak demand, though retaining sufficient flood control capacity dictates water releases to some extent.

From upstream to downstream, the District's UARP assets include:

 * Rubicon Dam and Reservoir, 1450 acre-ft
 * Buck Island Dam and Reservoir, 1070 acre-ft
 * Loon Lake Dam and Reservoir, built 1963, 76,200 acre-ft
 * Gerle Creek Dam and Reservoir, 1260 acre-ft
 * Robbs Peak Reservoir, 30 acre-ft
 * Ice House Dam and Reservoir, 45,960 acre-ft
 * Union Valley Dam and Reservoir, built 1963, 277,290 acre-ft
 * Junction Dam and Reservoir, 3250 acre-ft
 * Camino Dam and Reservoir, 825 acre-ft
 * Brush Creek Dam and Reservoir, 1530 acre-ft
 * Slab Creek Dam and Reservoir, 16,600 acre-ft

SMUD owns the first of potentially two natural gas power plants (the Cosumnes Power Plant, brought online in 2006 on property adjacent to the decommissioned Rancho Seco nuclear facility) as well as wind-powered and solar-powered electric generation facilities. In addition, the utility owns some small gas-fired peaker plants for meeting the highest energy demands, typically on Sacramento's notably blistering summer days.

SMUD is in the Advisory Council of the PHEV Research Center.

title: Sacramento Municipal Utility District


text:
The Gentle Touch

The Gentle Touch is a British police procedural drama series made by London Weekend Television for ITV which began on 11 April 1980 and ran until 24 November 1984. The series is notable for being the first British series to feature a female police officer as its leading character, ahead of the similarly themed BBC series Juliet Bravo by four months.

Series history
The series starred Jill Gascoine as Detective Inspector Maggie Forbes, who has worked her way up through the ranks of the police force and is based at the fictional Seven Dials police station in London. Maggie's husband, a police constable, is murdered during the first episode, leaving her to juggle her career with single parenthood, raising her teenage son.

The Gentle Touch largely dealt with routine police procedures and offered a frank depiction of relevant social issues (including racism, sexism, homosexuality, mental health and euthanasia). It was relatively low on action and violence in comparison to previous classic crime series such as The Sweeney, opting for a more realistic and low key approach. Although the series mostly focused on Maggie's professional life in a male-dominated field, it also showed her home life with her elderly father George and her teenage son Steve. Occasionally, Maggie's romantic involvements were seen which sometimes clashed with her job.

The Gentle Touch was a ratings success in the UK, where it was screened on Friday nights in a 9.00 p.m. slot (except for the final series which was shown on Saturday nights). One episode shown in January 1982 garnered over 18 million viewers and was the 5th most watched television programme in Britain that year. The Gentle Touch made Gascoine a household name, and ran for five series until 1984.

Spin-off
Gascoine returned as Maggie Forbes in the more action-oriented spin-off series C.A.T.S. Eyes (also created by Terence Feely), concerning a specialised team of female detectives in Kent who covertly work for the Home Office. C.A.T.S. Eyes lasted three series from 1985 to 1987.

Main cast

 * Jill Gascoine as Detective Inspector Maggie Forbes
 * William Marlowe as Detective Chief Inspector Bill Russell
 * Brian Gwaspari as Detective Inspector Bob Croft (1980–1983)
 * Derek Thompson as Detective Sergeant Jimmy Fenton (1980–1982)
 * Paul Moriarty as Detective Sergeant Jake Barrett
 * Nigel Rathbone as Steve Forbes
 * Kevin O'Shea as Detective Sergeant Peter Phillips (1982–1984)
 * Bernard Holley as Detective Inspector Mike Turnbull (1982–1984)
 * James Ottaway as George Taylor (1980-1982, 1984)
 * Michael Graham Cox as Detective Inspector Jack Slater (1984)

Home media
The complete series is available on DVD in the UK in five series sets from Network.

title: The Gentle Touch