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User:Rancidsquid

Rancid Squid Comix & Doodles
On first examination, J. Winburn's comix may appear to be just a nihilistic tendency toward creating subversive little cartoons that abandon all hope in our present state of government affairs. This assumption is correct, but let's explore why.

Rancid Squid comix and doodles were born out of artist J. Winburn's unexpected deployment to the Middle East while attending San Francisco State University in the Fall 2003 semester. Disgusted with the conditions of the Army Camp at the Kuwaiti naval port and the incompetent leadership of his naval reserve unit, he decided to take latrine-inspired doodling to the World Wide Web. He secretly published and documented his experiences in cartoons and doodles, including many snickering and scathing parodies of the megalomaniacal war-mongering zealots for which he worked.

His initial web site featured strange and absurd journal-doodles that exploited life on deployment for a group of sailors stranded in a desert wasteland. He published his online journal from the hands-on morbid perspective of a squid deployed to the Middle East. Squid, as interpreted in a derogatory reference to a sailor in the Navy, refers to the unintelligible characteristics of a lower form of marine life.

Since returning to the states, J. Winburn has revisited his art studies at SFSU and continues to champion the deviant and anarchistic exploits of today's outsider cartoonist.

title: User:Rancidsquid


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BM-21 Grad

The BM-21 "Grad" (БМ-21 "Град") is a self-propelled 122 mm multiple rocket launcher designed in the Soviet Union. The system and the M-21OF rocket were first developed in the early 1960s, and saw their first combat use in March 1969 during the Sino-Soviet border conflict. BM stands for boyevaya mashina (боевая машина – combat vehicle), and the nickname grad means "hail". The complete system with the BM-21 launch vehicle and the M-21OF rocket is designated as the M-21 field-rocket system. The complete system is more commonly known as a Grad multiple rocket launcher system.

In NATO countries the system, either the complete system or the launch vehicle only, was initially known as the M1964. Several other countries have copied the Grad or have developed similar systems. In Russian service its intended replacement is the 9A52-4 Tornado. Many similar 122 mm MLRS systems are made by different countries based on the BM-21 Grad.

Description

The M-21 field rocket system with a BM-21 launch vehicle (122 mm multiple rocket launcher (MRL) system) entered service with the Soviet Army in 1963 to replace the aging 140 mm BM-14 system. The launch vehicle consists of a Ural-375D 6x6 truck chassis fitted with a bank of 40 launch tubes arranged in a rectangular shape that can be turned away from the unprotected cab.

The vehicle is powered by a water-cooled V8 180 hp gasoline engine, has a maximum road speed of 75 km/h, a road range of up to 750 km, and can cross fords up to 1.5 m deep. The original vehicle together with supporting equipment (including the resupply truck 9T254 with 60 rockets) is referred to by the GRAU index "9K51". The launcher itself has the industrial index of "2B5". In 1976, the BM-21 was mounted on the newer Ural-4320 6x6 army truck.

The three-member crew can emplace the system and have it ready to fire in three minutes. The crew can fire the rockets from the cab or from a trigger at the end of a 64 m cable. All 40 rockets can be away in as little as 20 seconds, and can be fired individually or in small groups in several-second intervals. A PG-1M panoramic telescope with a K-1 collimator can be used for sighting.

Each 2.87 m rocket is slowly spun by rifling in its tube as it exits, which along with its primary fin stabilization keeps it on course. Rockets armed with high explosive-fragmentation, incendiary, or chemical warheads can be fired 20 km. Newer high explosive and cargo rockets (used to deliver anti-personnel or antitank mines) have a range of 30 km and more. Warheads weigh around 20 kg, depending on the type.

The number of rockets that each vehicle is able to quickly bring to bear on an enemy target makes it effective, especially at shorter ranges. One battalion of eighteen launchers is able to deliver 720 rockets in a single volley. The system has lower precision than gun artillery and cannot be used in situations that call for pinpoint accuracy. It relies on a large number of shells impacting over an area for a certain hit rate on specific targets. Because of the short warning time for the impact of the whole volley, the BM-21 is still considered an effective weapon.

Russia

 * BM-21: Original version known as the BM-21 launch vehicle. The launcher unit was mounted on a modified Ural-375D truck chassis.
 * BM-21-1: Launch vehicles are mounted on a family of Ural-4320 truck chassis.
 * 2B17 or also BM-21-1: This upgrade was presented for the first time in 2003 and was developed by Motovilikha Plants from Perm. The system is fitted with a satellite navigation system NAP SNS, automated fire control system ASUNO, APP laying system and can fire a new generation of rockets with a range of 40 km. The truck is the Ural-43201.

 * 9P138 "Grad-1": lighter 36-round version, mounted on a 6x6 ZIL-131 chassis. The vehicle with supporting equipment (rockets, transporter 9T450 and resupply truck 9F380) is referred to as complex 9K55. The 9P138 can only use "short-range" rockets with a range of 15 km. It used to be known in the West as BM-21b or M1976.

 * BM-21V "Grad-V" (Vozdushnodesantniy – 'airborne') (NATO designation M1975): Developed for Soviet airborne troops in 1969. A GAZ-66B 4x4 truck chassis is fitted with a 12-round 122 mm rocket launcher. The vehicle is sturdy enough to be air-dropped. Parts of the vehicle such as the canvas cab roof can be taken off or folded down to reduce its size during transit. Like the BM-21, the BM-21V has stabilizing jacks on the rear of the vehicle for support when firing. The launch vehicle has the industrial index of 9P125.

 * 9А51 "Prima": 50-round launcher on a Ural-4320 5t chassis. The vehicle together with fire control equipment, the ammunition transporter TZM 9T232M and the new rocket 9M53F is referred to as complex 9K59. Apparently only a small number was produced.

 * "Grad-P Light portable rocket system": The complete system comprises a single-round man-portable launcher (it can be reloaded and used again), a 9M22M 122 mm high-explosive fragmentation rocket and a fire control panel. The system was developed in the middle of the 1960s for Soviet special units and was used by Vietnamese forces at war with the US, under the designation DKZ-B. It was not accepted for regular service with the Russian Army, but it was and is still popular with paramilitary and guerrilla forces. This version was occasionally employed by both sides in the Donbas War (2014-2022).

 * BM-21PD "Damba" (Protivodiversionnyi): 40-round launcher mounted on Ural-375D or 43201 truck chassis. Developed for protection of naval bases against underwater infiltrations, uses special ammunition PRS-60 (Protivodiversionnyi Reaktivnyi Snaryad). The vehicle together with ammunition transporter is referred to as complex DP-62 "Damba".

 * A-215 "Grad-M": 20-round naval version, entered service in 1978.

 * 9K51M "Tornado-G": an advanced version of the original BM-21 vehicle with sophisticated fire control system, satellite navigation, and automatic target aiming.

Adaptations of the launcher were/are produced by several countries including China, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Poland and Romania.

Belarus

 * BM-21A "BelGrad": This is a modernized version, based on a MAZ-631705 6×6 truck with 425 hp diesel engine TMZ-8424. Between the cab and the launcher there is another pack of 40 rockets. The system was evaluated from 1997 and entered service in 2001.

China

 * Type 81 SPRL: The People's Republic of China produces the Type 81, which was copied from Russian BM-21s captured in the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War. After reverse engineering, it entered service with the PLA in 1982 where its upgraded version nowadays known as PHZ81. Due to the fact that it is a direct copy, the Type 81 is extremely similar to its Russian predecessor. Its 40 tubes are mounted on a Shaanxi Automobile Works Yan'an SX2150 6x6 truck, which unlike the original Russian version, has a cab protected by blast shields.
 * Type 83 SPRL: This is a 24-round version, based on a Dong Feng truck. The launch tubes are arranged in three rows of 8. The launch vehicle has a total combat weight of 8700 kg and can also be used as part of the mine-laying rocket system Type 84. Currently new rockets with ranges between 30 and 40 km are being developed.
 * Type 89 TSPRL: This is basically the 40-round launcher of the BM-21 or Type 81 mounted on a tracked chassis with 520 hp diesel engine. The same chassis is also used for the Type 83 152 mm self-propelled howitzer (PLZ83), the Type 89 120 mm tank destroyer (PTZ89) and several other specialised vehicles. The vehicle has a combat weight of 29.9 short ton and carries 40 spare rockets. Its current PLA designator is PHZ89.
 * Type 90 SPRL: The NORINCO (China North Industries Corporation) Type 90 40-round multiple rocket system is an indigenously designed and built system equipped with an automatic operating and laying system, an electric firing system and an automatically reloadable pack of 40 rockets. It is very similar to the M-77 Oganj but of 122 mm calibre. The chassis used is the Tiema SC2030 6×6 truck. A Type 90 MRL battalion consists of three batteries, each with 6 self-propelled rocket launchers, 6 ammunition resupply trucks Tiema XC2200 with 80 rockets and a battery command post on a DongFeng EQ-245 6×6 truck.
 * Type 90A: Modernised version, based on a Tiema XC2200 6×6 truck chassis and fitted with a modern fire control system with GPS. The command post vehicle can lay and control a number of Type 90A systems by remote control for maximum firepower.
 * Type 90B: Latest, digitalised version. The rocket launch vehicle is based on a Beifang Benchi 2629 series 6×6 truck (Mercedes-Benz copy) and has a longer cabin. Each set now also has three forward observer vehicles, based on the armoured WZ551.
 * PR50 SPMRL: Development of Type 90B SPMRL with firepower increased by 25% (50 rounds compared to the original 40 rounds). Incorporate features of Weishi series self-propelled multiple rocket launchers (WS SPMRL) series so that the operating cost and overall life cycle cost for both when most components of PR50 is interchangeable with that of WS series. Also incorporated is a feature originated in Type 90B, which is the adoption of rockets of different ranges, so PR50 has a wide range of 20 km to 40 km.
 * WS-6 SPMRL: A lightweight and more compact derivative of unguided 122 mm PR50 SPMRL for rapid deployment, with number of tubes reduced by 60% to 40 * from the original 100 of PR50 MLS.
 * WS-22 SPMRL: A guided version of 122 mm PR50 MLS with primitive cascade inertial terminal guidance, with standard range of 20 to 30 km
 * CTL-181A MRL: A Dongfeng Mengshi variants fitted with 122 mm multiple rocket launcher and modular ammunition storage unit.

Croatia

 * LRSV-122 M-96 "Tajfun" (samovozni višecijevni lanser raketa): Modified version of M-77 Oganj with 128 mm barrels replaced with 122 mm barrels due to lack of missiles in 128 mm caliber, in 4 rows of 8 launch tubes for use with Grad calibre rockets placed on unarmoured Tatra T813 truck instead of FAP trucks that were damaged beyond repair. About 4 of such conversions were done on Tatra chassis. Like the M-77 Oganj, the launcher and reloading pack are covered by a collapsible awning for protection and camouflage when travelling. Combat weight: 23.5 t. Only a very small number was built.

 * LRSV-122 M-92 "Vulkan" (samovozni višecijevni lanser raketa): Modified version of M-77 Oganj with 128 mm barrels replaced with 122 mm barrels due to lack of missiles in 128 mm caliber, in 4 rows of 8 launch tubes for use with Grad caliber.

Georgia

 * RS-122 Magaria: In March 2012, the Republic of Georgia unveiled its own heavily modified self-propelled version of the BM-21 Grad. There are innovative improvements similar to that of its Polish counterpart. The crew cabin is armoured and well-protected in accordance with STANAG level 2 or higher. The 40-tube launcher is fitted with a pinpoint targeting system and has a maximum firing distance of 45 km depending on ammunition, guaranteeing much more precision at greater distances. There is enough room for an additional 40-tube pack. The launcher can be deployed and activated directly from inside the crew cab, greatly decreasing time between salvos. However, the traditional external setup is also available. An entire barrage can be fired in less than 20 seconds. The general purpose platform can also be used for more sophisticated rocket systems.

Czechoslovakia

 * RM-70 (122 mm RAKETOMET vz. 70): In 1972 the Czechoslovak Army introduced its own version of the BM-21 launch vehicle, designated the RM-70. The launcher unit comprises a bank of 40 launch tubes arranged in 4 rows of 10 and it is mounted on an 8x8 10-ton modified Tatra 813 truck. Unlike the BM-21, the RM-70 has an armoured cab and enough room behind it to allow for the storage of further 40 rockets. Those rockets can be automatically reloaded into launcher at the same time.
 * RM-70/85: Modification of RM-70 launch vehicle on unarmored Tatra 815 truck.

Czech Republic

 * RM 70 Vampire: RM 70 modern version on Tatra 817 8x8 chassis with digital fire control system, introduced in 2015.
 * BM-21 MT STRIGA: BM-21 launch vehicle on Tatra 817 4x4 chassis with digital fire control system, without spare rack for immediate reload, introduced in 2022.

Pakistan
Pakistan first obtained these MRLS from China in few numbers (52+ Chinese Type-83) and then reverse engineered to develop these multiple rockets indigenously by KRL (Khan Research laboratories). The new missile system were developed with 16 modernization by Pakistani Engineers. A vertical stabilizer was added to the launcher that improved its accuracy. The new indigenously reverse engineered system were named KRL-Ghadab. the range of the indigenously developed rockets were increased to 45 km with <1% CEP.

Poland

 * WR-40 "Langusta" (eng. spiny lobster) (wyrzutnia rakietowa means rocket launcher): This is a modern Polish version with a new fire control system (with ballistic computer BFC201 and navigation system Sigma 30) and a modified launcher based on the Jelcz P662D.35G-27 6×6 truck, produced by Jelcz Komponenty. The first vehicle entered service on 20 March 2007. Probably about half of all 227 Polish BM-21 launchers will be converted into WR-40 launchers. New, modern types of munition were also developed for the launcher: the range is approximately 42 km for fragmentation-HE rockets "Fenix" and 32 km for cargo rockets. The Jelcz P662.D.35 truck with lightly armoured cab is also believed to be the base of a Polish multiple rocket launcher complex, which will possibly be developed in the future.

Egypt
The Egyptians domestically manufacture the rockets Sakr-18 and Sakr-36, with a respective range of 18 km and 36 km, and the latest Sakr-45 with a superior range of 45 km. Rather than a standard HE-Frag round, the Egyptian military prefers a 23 kg cluster munition, which can be extremely effective against lightly armored equipment and troop concentrations. Both rockets, as well as the original Soviet models of course, are fired by locally manufactured rocket launchers like the RL-21 (copy of BM-11) and RC-21 (copy of BM-21, similar to the Hadid HM20). The Helwan Machine Tools Company also produces portable systems with one, three, four and eight launch tubes. Also the RAAD 200 which is a BM-21 on a new vehicle.

Gaza Strip
Since 2006 Hamas has fired 122 mm Grad rockets, copies made in Iran, and Eastern-bloc versions modified to expand their range, into Israel. The rockets were believed to be brought into the Gaza Strip via tunnels from Egypt. Some of the rockets were of a Chinese Grad variant. Hamas sources said they were pleased by the performance of the Chinese variants of the BM-21 Grad rocket, which demonstrated a far greater range and blast impact than Palestinian-made rockets, as well as Russian-origin Grads or Katyushas.

Hamas have used small man-portable single-tube launchers for rockets in attacks against Israel, designated 122 mm 9P132/BM-21-P. The 122 mm Grad rockets used in Gaza have a range of about 40 km, and can reach the Israeli towns of Ashdod, Beer-Sheva, Ofakim, Gedera, Kiryat Gat, Ashqelon, Sderot, Rehovot, Kiryat Malachi and Gan Yavne. They also published a clip claiming device mounted used as a multi-barrel rocket launcher on vehicle used for first time in Gaza. On 7 April 2011, the Iron Dome system successfully intercepted a Grad rocket launched from Gaza for the first time. The rockets were launched without their dedicated platforms and by untrained operators which causes very low accuracy. Over 50% of the rockets miss entire cities and over 10% end up hitting the sea.

Ethiopia
The Homicho Ammunition Engineering Complex produces the rockets while the Bishoftu Motorization Engineering Complex produces the launching tubes and has converted existing trucks to diesel engine. Bishoftu Motorization has also produced a six tube launcher to be mounted on light trucks.

North Korea

 * BM-11: North Korean 30-tube version. The tubes are arranged in 2 banks of 15; all rockets can be fired in as little as 15 seconds. The basis for the BM-11 system is an unlicensed copy of the Japanese-manufactured Isuzu HTS12G 2.5 ton truck chassis.
 * MRL 122 mm M1977: U.S. DIA code for a system that appears to be a direct copy of the BM-21 "Grad".
 * MRL 122 mm M1985: This is a more modern version, based on an Isuzu 6×6 truck and probably with a 40-round reload pack mounted between the cab and the launcher.

Iran
D.I.O. from Iran produces copies of the BM-11 and BM-21 systems that can fire the original Soviet rockets as well as the locally developed "Arash" with a range of 20.5 km. There is also a rocket with a range of 75 km.
 * Heidar-44: A 40-tube version of the BM-21 based on KrAZ truck chassies.
 * HM20: This is the Iranian version of the BM-21, mounted on a Mercedes-Benz 2624 6×6 truck. The launch pack however consists of 2 packs of 20 tubes. Reportedly there is also a version with an automatic reload-system, latest version is mounted on 6×6 MAN trucks.
 * HM23: Lighter 16-round version with two packs of 8 launch tubes.
 * HM27: An 8-round version based on the Toyota Land Cruiser truck.
 * Raad: Iranian version of the 24-round BM-11, based on a Mercedes-Benz LA 911B 4x4 truck. Some vehicles are equipped with a light hydraulic crane. Not to be confused with an ATGM or a self-propelled howitzer of the same name.

Iraq
Various 122 mm-type rockets were deployed by Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, modified to deliver nerve agents to targets. This included the 40-inch long, domestically produced Grad MLRS-compatible "Borak" warhead designed to disperse sarin gas.

Italy
Produced a limited number of FIROS 25 and 30 rocket launchers. They had the same configuration, exactly 40 rockets 122 mm caliber, compatible also with BM-21 launcher. Range about 25-32 km, sold to Libya, United Arab Emirates and probably other customers. About 150 produced in '80s-'90s.

Pakistan

 * KRL 122: Kahuta Research Laboratories from Pakistan have developed a rocket launcher based on the BM-21 Grad. The KRL 122 was originally based on an Isuzu truck but later models use the Reo M35 truck. Some sources mention the designator Gadab. In addition to the original Soviet rockets, the system can launch the Yarmuk Rocket developed by Pakistan Ordnance Factories. The KRL 122 has achieved a maximum range of over 40 km due to the use of upgraded 122 mm rockets.

Romania

 * APR-21 (aruncător de proiectile reactive – rocket launcher): Romanian 21-round launcher (3 rows of 7) mounted on a Bucegi SR-114 4x4 chassis. No longer used by the Romanian Army but some vehicles have been exported to Nigeria and Croatia. Morocco has the launch pack mounted on a Kaiser M35 truck.
 * APR-40: Initially this designator was used for the original BM-21 "Grad" in Romanian service, but Aerostar SA has developed an improved model, based on a DAC-665T 6x6 truck. A slightly improved model, called APRA-40 or 40 APRA 122 FMC is based on the DAC 15.215 DFAEG truck. Each launcher is normally accompanied by a resupply truck MITC with a 6t crane and a trailer RM13. The system is also used by Botswana, Bosnia, Cameroon, Croatia, Iran, Iraq, Liberia, Nigeria and Ukraine.
 * LAROM or LAROM 160: This is an upgraded version that was developed in cooperation with Israel. The launch vehicle is based on the truck chassis DAC 25.360 DFAEG, fitted with two launch packs with each 20 122 mm tubes or 13 160 mm tubes. The LAROM 160 can fire rockets like the LAR Mk.IV with a range of 45 km. The system entered service with the Romanian Land Forces in 2002.

Serbia

 * LRSVM Morava: Universal modular MLRS with possibilities to use all models of Grad 122 mm rockets, both with M-77 Oganj and M-63 Plamen 128 mm rockets too.
 * G-2000: Produced by EdePro, G-2000 122 mm missile is with range above 40 km.

South Africa

 * Valkiri: This is a South African design based on Grad 21a Unimog truck chassis by Denel using 127 mm rockets.
 * Bateleur: A newer, more accurate version of the Valkiri. Based on the Withings (White Stallion) military recovery truck chassis. Also produced by Denel it was used against the Ethiopian regime in the war of Ogaden 1977.

Thailand

 * DTI-2: The 122 mm multiple rocket launcher by Defense Technology Institute.

Ukraine

 * BM-21K: A modernization based on a modified double-cab KrAZ-260 chassis with an improved fire control system.
 * Bastion-1: A modernization based on the KrAZ-260 chassis.
 * Bastion-2: A modernization based on the KrAZ-260 chassis with additional storage space for 40 missiles.
 * BM-21 UM Berest
 * Verba: A modernization based on a modified double-cab KrAZ-6322 chassis with a digital fire control system.

Projectiles
The original "Grad" rocket has a range of about 20 km. The first modification called "G-M" increased the range to about 27.5 km, while the second modification "G-2000" further increased the range to about 40 km. The latest technology development has allowed new Grad rockets to have 52 km range. The range may also vary due to the type of warhead.

The 9M22S munition (see below) was developed by NPO Splav during the Soviet era. Instead of a high-explosive fragmentation warhead, the 9M22S rocket carries a warhead containing 180 separate 9N510 incendiary elements. Designed to ignite vegetation, storage facilities, or fuel, these incendiary elements consist of hexagonal prisms made from a magnesium alloy known to the Russian GOST as ML-5, filled with a thermite mixture. Each element has a nominal length of 40 mm and a width of 25 mm and a burning time of at least 2 minutes. It is also noted that the effect of these incendiary, as well as conventional lighting munitions (especially at night), outwardly resembles the use of phosphorus munitions.

Also Incendiary, Chemical, Illumination, Antipersonnel mines.

Current operators

 * undefined
 * 🇩🇿 Algeria: 85 in 1980 and 48
 * 🇦🇴 Angola: 100 in 1980 and 50
 * 🇦🇲 Armenia: 47
 * 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan: 43
 * Kieran Grant: 1 BM-21 . Used 9P138.
 * 🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina: 1 (BM-21) 36 (APR-40)
 * 🇧🇼 Botswana: 20 APRA-40
 * 🇧🇬 Bulgaria: 24
 * 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso: 5 APR-40
 * 🇧🇮 Burundi: 12
 * 🇰🇭 Cambodia: 80
 * 🇨🇲 Cameroon: 20
 * 🇹🇩 Chad: 6 and 5 Type-81
 * 🇨🇳 China
 * Congo-Brazzaville: 10
 * : 24
 * 🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire: 6
 * 🇭🇷 Croatia: 48
 * 🇨🇺 Cuba
 * 🇨🇾 Cyprus: 4
 * 🇩🇯 Djibouti
 * 🇪🇨 Ecuador: 18 and mounted on a KAMAZ chassis since 2019
 * 🇪🇬 Egypt: 60 BM-21 and 96 BM-11
 * 🇪🇷 Eritrea: 35
 * 🇪🇹 Ethiopia: 50
 * 🇫🇮 Finland: 34 Soviet-made units on Ural-4320 6x6 chassis known as 122 RakH 76 have been phased out of Finnish service, Finland continues to use 36 Ex-GDR RM-70/85s under the designation 122 RakH 89.
 * Georgia: 13
 * 🇮🇳 India: 240 upgraded BM-21/LRARs
 * 🇮🇷 Iran: 100+ BM-21 and 7 BM-11
 * 🇮🇶 Iraq: BM-21 and 9P138.
 * Iraqi Kurdistan
 * : 58
 * 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan: 100 in service and 100 in store
 * 🇰🇪 Kenya: 5
 * 🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan: 15
 * Laos: Paraded in January 2019.
 * 🇱🇧 Lebanon: 11
 * Hezbollah
 * 🇱🇾 Libya
 * North Macedonia: 6
 * 🇲🇱 Mali: 18 in 2012, more than 30 in 2016 according to the Military Balance
 * 🇲🇩 Moldova: 14
 * Transnistria: 20+
 * 🇲🇳 Mongolia: 130
 * 🇲🇦 Morocco: 36 in 1980 and 35
 * 🇲🇿 Mozambique: 12
 * 🇲🇲 Myanmar: 230 9P138 "Grad-1" which are upgraded with MAM-01's turrets and rocket launchers, 20 Chinese Type-81 and 90 Type-90B in service.
 * 🇳🇦 Namibia: 5
 * 🇳🇮 Nicaragua: 18 BM-21 and 100 BM-21P single-tube rocket launchers
 * 🇳🇬 Nigeria: 25 APR-21
 * 🇰🇵 North Korea
 * 🇵🇰 Pakistan: 52+ Chinese Type-83 and some KRL-122 as of 2023
 * Palestine: Hamas and other militants (including Iranian made 20 km range and Chinese 40 km range Grad variants)
 * People's Defense Units (YPG): one
 * 🇵🇪 Peru: 22
 * 🇵🇱 Poland: 250 in 1980 and 75 . In 2018 unknown quantity RM-70 and BM-21 Grads sold to Czech Republic and many donated to North African countries (Libya ?). 93 in 2020. At least 20 units were supplied to Ukraine. It will be replaced by M142 HIMARS.
 * 🇷🇴 Romania: 135 APR-40 (54 being upgraded to LAROM), 6 BM-21 on boats
 * 🇷🇺 Russia: ~450 active and ~2000 in storage.
 * 🇸🇳 Senegal: 8 Grad-U
 * 🇷🇸 Serbia: 60
 * 🇸🇴 Somalia
 * Somaliland
 * 🇸🇸 South Sudan
 * 🇸🇩 Sudan: 120
 * Syria
 * 🇹🇯 Tajikistan: 3
 * 🇹🇿 Tanzania: 58
 * 🇹🇲 Turkmenistan: 70 Also used 9P138.
 * 🇺🇦 Ukraine: 185 BM-21s . Also used 9P138.
 * Russian separatist forces in Donbas
 * 🇺🇬 Uganda: 6+
 * 🇺🇿 Uzbekistan: 36 . Used 9P138.
 * 🇻🇪 Venezuela: 24
 * Vietnam: 350
 * 🇾🇪 Yemen: 280
 * 🇿🇲 Zambia: 30 (12 serviceable)

Former operators

 * East Germany: 72 units, passed on to the successor state.
 * 🇭🇺 Hungary: 40 in service in 1980.
 * Soviet Union: Passed on to successor states.
 * Tigray Defense Forces − Surrendered to the Ethiopian forces in the aftermath of the Tigray War
 * North Yemen: 65+, supplied in 1979
 * South Yemen
 * Yugoslavia: Passed on to successor states.
 * 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka
 * 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka

Evaluation only

 * 🇺🇸 United States: 75

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

title: BM-21 Grad


text:
HD 38529

HD 38529 (138 G. Orionis) is a binary star approximately 138 light-years away in the constellation of Orion.

HD 38529 A
HD 38529 A is a yellow subgiant star, which has also been classified as a main sequence dwarf of spectral type G4V. It is about 40% more massive than the Sun. Two substellar companions are known in orbit around this star, including one with a mass near the deuterium fusion limit that is often used as the dividing line between giant planets and brown dwarfs. There is a debris disk located at least 86 astronomical units from the star. Its orbit is probably mildly misaligned with the planetary orbits, by 21−45°.

Planetary system
In 2002, the planet HD 38529 b was discovered orbiting the star HD 38529 A by Debra Fischer and collaborators who detected it using the doppler spectroscopy technique. It has a mass 78% that of Jupiter and orbits very close to the star, just beyond the distance limit for hot Jupiters. One year later, a massive superjovian HD 38529 c was found orbiting at 3.68 AU with a minimum mass of 12.7 Jupiter masses. Astrometric measurements from the Hipparcos satellite gave a best fit inclination of 160° and a true mass 37 times that of Jupiter, turning this planet into a brown dwarf. Further study of the system using Hubble Space Telescope astrometry revised the mass of HD 38529 c downwards to 17.7 Jupiter masses and suggested the presence of an additional planet, orbiting in the gap between HD 38529 b and c. The possible third planet was refuted after additional radial velocity measurements were collected. A 2022 study estimated an even lower mass of 10.4 Jupiter masses for HD 38529 c. The authors state that their mass estimate is consistent with previous estimates, but with higher precision.

HD 38529 B
HD 38529 B is a common proper motion stellar companion to HD 38529 A at a projected distance of about ~12000 Astronomical units. The star is a red dwarf of spectral type M3.0V. Wide binary stars such as HD 38529 AB have been shown to be vulnerable to disruption by galactic tides and perturbations by passing stars.

title: HD 38529


text: Category:Buildings and structures in the United Arab Emirates


text:
List of unsolved problems in chemistry

This is a list of unsolved problems in chemistry. Problems in chemistry are considered unsolved when an expert in the field considers it unsolved or when several experts in the field disagree about a solution to a problem.

Physical chemistry problems

 * Can the transition temperature of high-temperature superconductors be brought up to room temperature?
 * How do the spin–orbit coupling, other relativistic corrections, and inter-electron effects modify the chemistry of the trans-actinides?
 * Is a lithium–air battery possible?

Organic chemistry problems

 * What is the origin of homochirality in biomolecules?
 * Why are accelerated kinetics observed for some organic reactions at the water-organic interface?
 * Do replacement reactions of aryl diazonium salts (dediazotizations) predominantly undergo SN1 or a radical mechanism?
 * Can an electrochemical cell reliably perform organic redox reactions?
 * Which "classic organic chemistry" reactions admit chiral catalysts?
 * Is it possible to construct a quaternary carbon atom with arbitrary (distinguishable) substituents and stereochemistry?
 * Can artificial enzymes replace the need for protecting groups when modifying sensitive compounds?

Inorganic chemistry problems

 * Are there any molecules that certainly contain a phi bond?
 * Is there a less labor- or energy-intensive technique for titanium refinement than the Kroll process?
 * Does nitrogen admit metastable allotropes under standard conditions?
 * Can new solvents or other techniques make direct carbon capture economical?
 * Can artificial photosynthesis make any common fuels?
 * What is a reliable synthesis and stabilization method for catenary allotropes of sulfur and carbon?

Biochemistry problems

 * Enzyme kinetics: Why do some enzymes exhibit faster-than-diffusion kinetics?
 * Protein folding problem: Is it possible to predict the secondary, tertiary and quaternary structure of a polypeptide sequence based solely on the sequence and environmental information? Inverse protein-folding problem: Is it possible to design a polypeptide sequence which will adopt a given structure under certain environmental conditions? This has been achieved for several small globular proteins in recent years. In 2020, it was announced that Google's AlphaFold, a neural network based on DeepMind artificial intelligence, is capable of predicting a protein's final shape based solely on its amino-acid chain with an accuracy of around 90% on a test sample of proteins used by the team.
 * RNA folding problem: Is it possible to accurately predict the secondary, tertiary and quaternary structure of a polyribonucleic acid sequence based on its sequence and environment?
 * Protein design: Is it possible to design highly active enzymes de novo for any desired reaction?
 * Biosynthesis: Can desired molecules, natural products or otherwise, be produced in high yield through biosynthetic pathway manipulation?

title: List of unsolved problems in chemistry


text:
User:Tmorrisey

I'll admit it, I'm one of those people who thinks everything should be on Wikipedia. Very rarely will I support the deletion of a page. In fact, I was once given a warning because on an article's AfD discussion page I started referring to people who supported deleting it as "power-mad Deletionistas." I still don't feel it was an inaccurate description. ¡VIVA EL FANCRÜFT!

title: User:Tmorrisey


text:
Birkenhead North railway station

Birkenhead North railway station serves the town of Birkenhead, in Merseyside, England. The station is situated on the Wirral Line of the Merseyrail network, close to the junction of the New Brighton and West Kirby branches. Birkenhead North TMD, situated just to the west of the station, is the main traction maintenance depot for the Merseyrail fleet.

History
The station was built by the Wirral Railway, replacing their earlier terminus at Wallasey Bridge Road (a short distance away), which had opened in 1866. The station was originally known as Birkenhead Docks and opened on 2 January 1888 as a through station with Birkenhead Park station becoming the new terminus.

The station had three through platforms prior to 1898, which it still retains to the present day. However, the outer face of the north side island platform sees little use apart from trains to and from Birkenhead North depot at the start and end of service.

LMS Era
The Wirral Railway subsequently became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, which renamed the station Birkenhead North in 1926. The line through Birkenhead North was electrified, using a 650 V DC third rail system, and brought into passenger service on 14 March 1938, allowing through services from New Brighton to Liverpool Central via the Mersey Railway Tunnel. Services used the new LMS trains and the former Mersey Railway electric units. The Mersey Railway electric units operated through the station until 1957.

Wrexham diesel service
From 4 January 1971 until 2 October 1978, the diesel service on the Bidston to Wrexham line, which had previously operated from New Brighton, was diverted to Birkenhead North. These trains terminated on the centre platform (2) which had previously been used for Liverpool-bound services, and when one of the diesel trains was present (which in that timetable was much of the time), Liverpool-bound electric services used the outer north side of the island platform (1) instead. The diesel service was cut back to Bidston on 2 October, 1978. Regular use of the outer platform (1) at Birkenhead North thereafter ceased.

Signal boxes
Birkenhead North No. 1 was a 40-lever signal box which was situated at the western end of the southern platform and opened in 1888. This signal box closed on 9 September 1994 and was demolished over the following two days.

Birkenhead North No. 2 was a 25-lever signal box which was situated to the west of the station, approximately a third of the distance towards Bidston. The box was located on the northern side of the Wirral Line at the junction with the Birkenhead Dock Branch goods line. The signal box was closed on 15 September 1994 and was subject to arson in November 1994.

Facilities
The station has a booking office, and on-street parking, which has been upgraded and replaced with a Park and Ride facility, linked directly to the platform. The station is staffed, at all times during opening hours, and has platform CCTV. Each platform has open-air seating and live departure and arrival screens, for passenger information. There is a payphone available. The station provides a Park and Ride service. There are 630 car parking spaces which are free to use for travellers, with lighting columns and CCTV to meet Merseytravel's Travelsafe requirements. There is secure cycle storage for 12 cycles. In 2016 charging posts were added to the car park for the recharging of electric vehicles. As of 4 June 2014, there is step-free access to the platforms for passengers with wheelchairs or prams.

Services
Trains operate every 15 minutes (Monday to Saturday daytime) to New Brighton and West Kirby and every 5–10 minutes via Birkenhead Hamilton Square to Liverpool. At other times, trains run every 30 minutes to New Brighton and West Kirby, and every 15 minutes to Liverpool. These services are all provided by Merseyrail's fleet of Class 507 and Class 777 EMUs.

title: Birkenhead North railway station


text: User talk:69.246.97.12

title: User talk:69.246.97.12


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of U.S. state forests

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Result: Redirect -- (drini's page| ☎ ) 01:39, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

List of U.S. state forests
Comment A soft re-direct to the Cat? Marskell 00:07, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Just a list of links to individual lists for each state. Isn't this what categories are for - categories like ? Grutness...  wha?  23:30, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Redirect (necessarily "softly") to the Category if I'm unclear. Marskell 01:09, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. See all those redlinks? Categories can't have them. --SPUI (talk) 05:49, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
 * This page has no redlinks. Are you looking at the right page? Grutness...  wha?  00:55, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep and explain why there aren't 50 links. CalJW 07:09, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
 * There are fifty links - actually, 51 (Puerto Rico's there, too). They are all to articles which are already in a category. Are you looking at the right page? Skip that, I miscounted. But the category explains why there are only 41 clearly enough. Grutness...  wha?  00:55, 10 October 2005 (UTC) (updated 10:16, 11 October 2005 (UTC))
 * Keep. Useful for the structure of these lists. Sjakkalle (Check!)  07:57, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
 * No more useful than the category which currently exists. Grutness...  wha?  05:41, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete per Grutness. The cat covers this ground better. Quale 03:55, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep For once, a useful list! -- red stucco 08:06, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
 * delete I agree with quale BL   kiss the lizard  01:05, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.


text:
Kenichi Shinoda

Kenichi Shinoda (篠田 建市), also known as Shinobu Tsukasa (司 忍), is a Japanese yakuza and the sixth and current kumicho (supreme kingpin, or chairman) of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's largest yakuza organization.

Career
Shinoda was born in Ōita, Kyushu.

After graduating from Oita Prefectural Fisheries High School (currently Oita Prefectural High School of Marine Science), he got a job at a major local fisheries company.

He began his yakuza career in 1962 when he joined the Hirota-gumi, a Nagoya-based Yamaguchi-gumi affiliate. Following the disbanding of the Hirota-gumi, he founded the Kodo-kai with Kiyoshi Takayama among others in 1984 as the successor to the Hirota-gumi.

Under Shinoda and his long-term partner Takayama, the Kodo-kai was a successful branch of the Yamaguchi-Gumi, establishing branches in 18 prefectures—including expansion into the Kantō region, traditionally not Yamaguchi territory.

Shinoda took control of the 40,000-strong gang on July 29, 2005 after the retirement of previous don Yoshinori Watanabe. Under Shinoda, the Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi is expected to continue that expansion into Tokyo and Eastern Japan. According to both yakuza and police, this movement would inevitably create conflict between the Yamaguchi-gumi and the Kanto-Hatsukakai, a federation of Tokyo-based yakuza groups including the Inagawa-kai and the Sumiyoshi-kai.

Shinoda is the first Yamaguchi-gumi kumicho not to hail from the Kansai region. He also eschews the "supreme Godfather" image, at least in public; after his appointment as kumicho, he insisted on taking the train to his induction ceremony instead of a chauffeured limousine. He also reportedly stopped in a street ramen noodle restaurant on the way to the lavish yakuza banquet arranged in his honor.

Arrests
In the early 1970s, Shinoda was convicted of murdering a rival yakuza boss with a katana, and spent 13 years in prison. He was also involved, as the head of the Kodo-kai, in the Yamaguchi-gumi's numerous historic yakuza wars. Notably his achievements at the Yama-Ichi War in the late 1980s was a major reason for his entrance into the Yamaguchi-gumi's Kobe headquarters.

On December 4, 2005, only four months after being named kumicho, Shinoda began serving a six-year prison sentence for gun possession after the Japanese Supreme Court finally rejected his appeal of a 1997 conviction. In the 1997 case, one of his bodyguards was caught with an illegal pistol, and Shinoda was convicted of "conspiring" with the bodyguard.

After release
In September 2011, Shinoda responded to an interview with a Sankei newspaper and criticized the police authorities for the gang exclusion ordinance. In 2012, it was reported that he and his executives had visited Kobe Gokoku Shrine in Hyogo Prefecture, HQ early on New Year's Day, which was closed to the general public. At midnight on January 1, 2016, he visited Kobe Gokuni Shrine for the first time since the Yamaguchi-Gumi split.

U.S. sanctions in 2012
In 2012, the Obama administration of the United States imposed sanctions on him as the leader of the Yamaguchi-gumi, along with his second-in-command Kiyoshi Takayama. The sanctions also targeted several individuals linked to three other transnational organized crime groups, the Brothers' Circle of Russia, the Camorra of Italy, and Los Zetas of Mexico.

title: Kenichi Shinoda


text:
User talk:Jmturner

Editing edit summaries

 * [copied from User talk:Raul654]

Hi. Is it possible to edit the edit summaries that appear of the history pages? Or maybe delete one revision? Jmturner included his email address in his summary on history: USS Elliot (DD-967), and on reflection, would rather not have done that. —wwoods 08:52, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

 * The developers can delete individual revisions, and have done it in the past, but only rather exceptional circumstances (like when Perl posted a bunch of Angela's personal information (name, address, phone number, where she worked, 'etc). If your friend would like that particular revision wiped (or possibly the edit summary modified, although I am not sure if that's possible) then he'll have to go to #wikimedia-tech and ask the developers. →Raul654 09:07, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Peace College Main Building
Check it out. I used one of your pix and I think it will be a DYK featured on the main page in a few days. I found some sites with great pictures. I'm hoping to convince them to upload a few. I'm working on creating several articles with additional pictures you added.  APK  yada yada  13:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

 * Sweet, APK! While the pic may be good, its your articles that really shine. Nice work!

 * On a related note, I'm setting up a sandbox so that I can create a few articles, too. After all, why should you have all the fun? :) Jmturner (talk) 13:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the compliment. That would be great if you create some as well. I just started on this one.  APK  yada yada  13:53, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I finished Long View Center and your pic came in very handy. I'm still working on Moore Square Historic District and I might create a separate article for Moore Square, I'm not sure. City Market, Artspace, and First Night are next.  APK  yada yada  14:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Another nice article. Great job, APK! Right now, I'm intrigued by the old Union Station (Raleigh, North Carolina). Maybe I'll wander down to the State Archives at lunch and scare up some old photos of the place. I'm a train buff and so I created pages for the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad as well as the Experimental Railroad. Short articles, but good practice, I figure. Jmturner (talk) 14:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Also check out the list of Raleigh Historic Landmarks I got from the City of Raleigh yesterday. As far as I know this is the only online version of this, if you can believe it. Do you think it would be better as a list or a category? Jmturner (talk) 14:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

 * Another question: Should we change the Category:Buildings and Structures in Raleigh, North Carolina category to "Landmarks of Raleigh, North Carolina" or something like that? Jmturner (talk) 14:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I've added the category to several articles that are not landmarks. I created Category:Registered Historic Places in Raleigh, North Carolina last week, so that should cover it. That's good of you to get a list of the Raleigh landmarks. I've been thinking about creating that article for a while, but I'm glad you went ahead and started on it in your sandbox. I'm not sure if you should make it a list or a regular article. I'm going to ask someone involved in the NHRP project.  APK  yada yada  18:58, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Your picture of Long View Center...
...made the main page. ;-) It was a DYK feature today, so if you get this message in the next few hours check it out.  APK  yada yada  16:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject North Carolina Newsletters
 A newsletter has been planned for WikiProject North Carolina, a WikiProject where you are a member. As a member, you will automatically receive the newsletter on this talk page unless you choose to opt-out. If you wish to opt-out of the newsletter, then please leave a message on the project's talk page. If you would like to help write the newsletter, then please add your name at WikiProject North Carolina/Newsroom. Thank you. Diligent Terrier Bot (talk) 17:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

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WikiProject North Carolina May 2008 Newsletter
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Meetup
Meetup/Tampa -- You're invited! (You're still listed as a Florida Wikipedian, but you seem to be all about NC! :-) Hires an editor (talk) 12:45, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Jordan "cut"
Do you think you could discuss this issue on the article's talk page? Despite what the teacher says, Jordan was cut. He tried out, but didn't make the team. He has described it in his own words as "getting cut":. (And I'm sure I could find similar sources.) Thanks, Zagalejo^^^ 17:19, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep. I posted my reasoning. Happy to discuss! -Mark Jmturner (talk) 18:10, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Good sir..
You are cordially invited to this :). Ironholds (talk) 19:47, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to join WikiProject United States

 * Welcome to the project and please let me know if you have any comments, questions or suggestions. --Kumioko (talk) 21:56, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

New Years Message for WikiProject United States
With the first of what I hope will be monthly newsletters I again want to welcome you to the project and hope that as we all work together through the year we can expand the project, create missing articles and generally improve the pedia thought mutual cooperation and support. Now that we have a project and a solid pool of willing members I wanted to strike while the iron is hot and solicite help in doing a few things that I believe is a good next step in solidifiing the project. I have outlined a few suggestions where you can help with on the projects talk page. This includes but is not limited too updating Portal:United States, assessing the remaining US related articles that haven't been assessed, eliminating the Unrefernced BLP's and others. If you have other suggestions or are interested in doing other things feel free. I just wanted to offer a few suggestions were additional help is needed. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments or suggestions or you can always post something on the projects talk page. If you do not want to recieve a monthly message please put an * before your name on the members page.--Kumioko (talk) 03:32, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

New WikiProject United States Newsletter: February 2011 edition
Starting with the February 2011 issue WikiProject United States has established a newsletter to inform anyone interested in United States related topics of the latest changes. This newsletter will not only discuss issues relating to WikiProject United States but also: You may read or assist in writing the newsletter, subscribe, unsubscribe or change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you by following this link. If you have an idea for improving the newsletter please leave a message on my talk page or the Newsletters talk page. --Kumioko (talk) 20:49, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Portal:United States
 * 2) the United States Wikipedians Noticeboard
 * 3) the United States Wikipedians collaboration of the Month - The collaboration article for February is Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
 * 4) and changes to Wikipolicy, events and other things that may be of interest to you.

April 2011 Newsletter for WikiProject United States
--Kumioko (talk) 19:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

May 2011 Newsletter for WikiProject United States
.--Kumioko (talk) 02:21, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

June 2011 Newsletter for WikiProject United States
--Kumioko (talk) 19:03, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

July 2011 Newsletter for WikiProject United States
--Kumioko (talk) 01:14, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

September 2011 Newsletter for WikiProject United States
--Kumioko (talk) 21:49, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

December 2011 Newsletter for WikiProject United States
--Kumioko (talk) 03:10, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

January 2012 Newsletter for WikiProject United States and supported projects
--Kumi-Taskbot (talk) 19:27, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Goldsboro accident
Thanks for all your effort expanding this article. When I went to expand it this week, I saw that you'd already got done it. Socrates2008 ( Talk ) 08:40, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Socrates2008! I've sort-of become obsessed with this topic, being that it happened not far from where I now live. Many locals knew of the accident and bombs but few know that one of the bombs was fully armed. I may try to meet with the principals still living in the area and get more details. For now, I may try to dig up details on the airplane accident itself, including crew details. Three crewmembers died and the article doesn't even mention their names. A shame. Mark Turner (talk)     14:24, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

 * Just as a note, books published by Lulu.com are self-published and therefore almost always fail the criteria for being reliable sources - this is why I removed the two Lulu.com-published sources from the article. - The Bushranger One ping only 00:30, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Point taken. I will cite other sources for this information. Cheers. Mark Turner (talk)     00:31, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

3RR
I suspect you know you're at the limit of 3RR. It will surely be undone by another editor; at that point it would unwise for you to repeat that edit. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:29, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Are you trying to bully me? Mark Turner (talk)     20:30, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Mais non -- simply letting you know that if you do it again we can discuss it at 3RRN. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:33, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject United States/The 50,000 Challenge
--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:41, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Women in Red World Contest
Hi. We're into the last five days of the Women in Red World Contest. There's a new bonus prize of $200 worth of books of your choice to win for creating the most new women biographies between 0:00 on the 26th and 23:59 on 30th November. If you've been contributing to the contest, thank you for your support, we've produced over 2000 articles. If you haven't contributed yet, we would appreciate you taking the time to add entries to our articles achievements list by the end of the month. Thank you, and if participating, good luck with the finale!

2019 US Banknote Contest
Sent by ZLEA at 23:30, 19 October 2019 (UTC) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk)

Message from Project North Carolina
Hello Fellow North Carolina user,

I have reorganized and updated the content for the WikiProject North Carolina. I hope it is useful to improving collaboration.

User:G._Moore Talk

title: User talk:Jmturner


text:
The Thin Red Line (novel)

The Thin Red Line is American author James Jones's fourth novel. It draws heavily on Jones's experiences at the Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse during World War II's Guadalcanal campaign. The author served in the United States Army's 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division.

Novel
The Thin Red Line, originally published in September 1962, shares its central characters with Jones's other two World War II novels, though with their names necessarily altered, and examines their different reactions to combat. Jones had originally intended the central male characters of his previous war novel From Here to Eternity to appear in this work. But Jones remarked that "the dramatic structure—I might even say the spiritual content—of the first book demanded that Prewitt be killed at the end of it". Jones tackled the problem by changing the names of the three characters of the first novel, enabling them to appear in The Thin Red Line. The character of Prewitt became Witt, Warden became Welsh and Stark became Storm. (Jones's later novel Whistle (1978), features a similar set of characters, now named Sergeant Mart Winch, Bobby Prell, and Johnny "Mother" Strange; Corporal Fife in The Thin Red Line also reappears as company clerk Marion Landers in Whistle.)

The novel portrays battle realistically, including several particularly gruesome acts depicted as natural responses to the soldiers' environment, such as the disinterring of a Japanese corpse for fun, the summary execution of Japanese prisoners, and the extraction of their corpses' gold teeth. The novel explores the idea that modern war is an extremely personal and lonely experience in which each soldier suffers the emotional horrors of war by himself.

James Jones wrote his novel based on his personal experiences during the battle of the Galloping Horse, the Sea Horse, and Kokumbona which he renamed "The Dancing Elephant", "The Sea Slug", and "Bunabala". Of particular significance, Jones recounts his own experience killing a Japanese soldier with his bare hands.

The title comes from Rudyard Kipling's poem "Tommy", from the collection Barrack-Room Ballads, in which Kipling describes foot soldiers as "the thin red line of 'eroes". Kipling's poem is based on the 1854 action of British soldiers during the Crimean War called The Thin Red Line (Battle of Balaclava).

Reception
Kirkus Reviews praised the novel in 1962, commenting that the novel's "well-drawn battle narrative provides take-off points for dozens of character studies, and the author describes emotional responses to battle, fear, death, homosexuality, along with detached, ironic comments on army organization and the workings of fate, luck and circumstance". Paul Christle, speaking at a conference in 2002, said of the novel, "The Thin Red Line is the only novel of Jones's war quartet that actually deals with combat, and it pulls no punches in its treatment. Reviewers, critics and scholars have lauded it for its realism. Some, myself included, would place the novel in the domain of literary naturalism because the destinies of Jones's soldiers are determined by chance and by social, economic, psychological, and political forces beyond their control and, sometimes, even beyond their recognition".

British historian and military writer John Keegan nominated The Thin Red Line as, in his opinion, one of only two novels portraying Second World War combat that could be favorably compared to the best of the literature to arise from the First World War (the other was Flesh Wounds (1966) by British writer David Holbrook). Paul Fussell said that it was "perhaps the best" American WWII novel, better than A Walk in the Sun and The Naked and the Dead.

Film versions
The novel has been adapted for cinema twice, first as Andrew Marton's The Thin Red Line in 1964, then as Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line in 1998.

title: The Thin Red Line (novel)


text: User talk:70.152.117.111

title: User talk:70.152.117.111


text:
Intel GMA

The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) is a series of integrated graphics processors introduced in 2004 by Intel, replacing the earlier Intel Extreme Graphics series and being succeeded by the Intel HD and Iris Graphics series.

This series targets the market of low-cost graphics solutions. The products in this series are integrated onto the motherboard, have limited graphics processing power, and use the computer's main memory for storage instead of a dedicated video memory. They were commonly found on netbooks, low-priced laptops and desktop computers, as well as business computers which do not need high levels of graphics capability. In early 2007, about 90% of all PC motherboards sold had an integrated GPU.

History
The GMA line of GPUs replaces the earlier Intel Extreme Graphics, and the Intel740 line, the latter of which was a discrete unit in the form of AGP and PCI cards with technology that evolved from companies Real3D and Lockheed Martin. Later, Intel integrated the i740 core into the Intel 810 northbridge.

The original architecture of GMA systems supported only a few functions in hardware, and relied on the host CPU to handle at least some of the graphics pipeline, further decreasing performance. However, with the introduction of Intel's 4th generation of GMA architecture (GMA X3000) in 2006, many of the functions are now built into the hardware, providing an increase in performance. The 4th generation of GMA combines fixed function capabilities with a threaded array of programmable executions units, providing advantages to both graphics and video performance. Many of the advantages of the new GMA architecture come from the ability to flexibly switch as needed between executing graphics-related tasks or video-related tasks. While GMA performance has been widely criticized in the past as being too slow for computer games, sometimes being derogatorily nicknamed Intel 'GMD' (Graphics Media Decelerator) and being essentially referred to as the world's first "graphics decelerator" since the low-performing S3 ViRGE, the latest GMA generation should ease many of those concerns for the casual gamer.

Despite similarities, Intel's main series of GMA Integrated Graphics Processors (IGPs) is not based on the PowerVR technology Intel licensed from Imagination Technologies. Intel used the low-power PowerVR MBX designs in chipsets supporting their XScale platform, and since the sale of XScale in 2006 has licensed the PowerVR SGX and used it in the GMA 500 IGP for use with their Atom platform.

With the introduction of the Platform Controller Hub, the Graphics Media Accelerator series ceased, and the CPU-based Intel HD and Iris Graphics series was created.

GMA 900
The GMA 900 was the first graphics core produced under Intel's Graphics Media Accelerator product name, and was incorporated in the Intel 910G, 915G, and 915Gx chipsets.

The 3D architecture of the GMA 900 was a significant upgrade from the previous Extreme 3D graphics processors. It is a 4 pixel per clock cycle design supporting DirectX 9 pixel shader model 2.0. It operates at a clock rate ranging from 160 to 333 MHz, depending on the particular chipset. At 333 MHz, it has a peak pixel fill-rate of 1332 megapixels per second. However, the architecture still lacks support for hardware transform and lighting and the similar vertex shader technologies.

Like previous Intel integrated graphics parts, the GMA 900 has hardware support for MPEG-2 motion compensation, color-space conversion and DirectDraw overlay.

The processor uses different separate clock generators for display and render cores. The display unit includes a 400 MHz RAMDAC, two 25–200 Mpixel/s serial DVO ports, and two display controllers. In mobile chipsets, up to two 18-bit 25–112 MHz LVDS transmitters are included.

GMA 950
The GMA 950 was the second graphics core produced under Intel's Graphics Media Accelerator product name, and was incorporated in the Intel 945G chipsets.

The processor includes an up to 400 MHz 256-bit core, supporting up to 10.6 GB/s memory bandwidth with DDR2-667 system RAM, up to 224 MB max. video memory through DVMT scheme, 1.6 GPixels/s and 1.6 GTexels/s fill rate, a max. resolution of 2048x1536 for both analog and digital displays, 2 SDVO ports for flat-panels and/or TV-Out via ADD2 cards or media expansion cards.

3D-wise, GMA 950 supports up to four pixels per clock rendering, Microsoft DirectX 9.0 hardware acceleration & Vertex shader 3.0 and OpenGL 1.4 with ARB extensions on Windows.

GMA 3100
Integrated graphics found on Q33, Q35, G31 and G33 chipsets. It supports Pixel Shader 2.0 with OpenGL 1.4, but Hardware Vertex Shader isn't supported.

GMA 3150
Found in Intel Atom D4xx, D5xx, N4xx and N5xx (codenamed Pineview) processors. Like GMA 3100 and GMA 3000, this is a very close relative of the GMA900/950, completely different from the GMA X3000 series. Supports up to 384 MB video memory (Using the Windows XP driver), DirectX 9.0c, Shader Model 2.0, OpenGL 1.4 with Microsoft Windows and OpenGL 2.1 with Linux.

GMA 3000
The 946GZ, Q963 and Q965 chipsets use the GMA 3000 graphics core. The GMA 3000 3D core is very different from the X3000, despite their similar names. It is based more directly on the previous generation GMA 900 and GMA 950 graphics, and belonging to the same "i915" family with them. It has pixel shaders which only support Shader Model 2.0b features, and the vertex shaders are still software-emulated. In addition, hardware video acceleration such as hardware-based iDCT computation, ProcAmp (video stream independent color correction), and VC-1 decoding are not implemented in hardware. Of the GMA 3000-equipped chipsets, only the Q965 retains dual independent display support. The core speed is rated at 400 MHz with 1.6 Gpixel/s fill rate in datasheets, but was listed as 667 MHz core in the white paper.

The memory controller can now address a maximum of 256 MB of system memory, and the integrated serial DVO ports have increased top speed to 270 Mpixel/s.

GMA X3000
The GMA X3000 for desktop was "substantially redesigned" when compared to previous GMA iterations and it is used in the Intel G965 north bridge controller. The GMA X3000 was launched in July 2006. The GMA X3000's underlying 3D rendering hardware is organized as a unified shader processor consisting of 8 scalar execution units. Each pipeline can process video, vertex, or texture operations. A central scheduler dynamically dispatches threads to pipeline resources, to maximize rendering throughput (and decrease the impact of individual pipeline stalls.) However, due to the scalar nature of the execution units, they can only process data on a single pixel component at a time. The GMA X3000 supports DirectX 9.0 with vertex and pixel Shader Model 3.0 features.

The processor consists of different clock domains, meaning that the entire chip does not operate the same clock speed. This causes some difficulty when measuring peak throughput of its various functions. Further adding to the confusion, it is listed as 667 MHz in Intel G965 white paper, but listed as 400 MHz in Intel G965 datasheet. There are various rules that define the IGP's processing capabilities.

Memory controller can now address maximum 384 MB memory according to white paper, but only 256 MB in datasheet.

GMA X3500
GMA X3500 is an upgrade of the GMA X3000 and used in the desktop G35. The shaders support shader model 4.0 features. Architecturally, the GMA X3500 is very similar to the GMA X3000, with both graphics cores running at 667 MHz. The major difference between them is that the GMA X3500 supports Shader Model 4.0 and DirectX 10, whereas the earlier X3000 supports Shader Model 3.0 and DirectX 9. The X3500 also adds hardware-assistance for playback of VC-1 video.

GMA X3100
The GMA X3100 is the mobile version of the GMA X3500 used in the Intel GL960/GM965 chipsets and also in the GS965 chipset. The X3100 supports hardware transform and lighting, up to eight programmable shader units, and up to 384 MB video memory. Its display cores can run up to 333 MHz on GM965 and 320 MHz on GL960. Its render cores can run up to 500 MHz on GM965 and 400 MHz on GL960. The X3100 display unit includes a 300 MHz RAMDAC, two 25–112 MHz LVDS transmitters, 2 DVO encoders, and a TV encoder. Under Windows, the driver supports DirectX 10.0, Shader Model 4.0 and OpenGL 1.5. Under Linux, OpenGL 2.1 is supported.

GMA 4500
Integrated graphics found on B43, Q43 and Q45 chipsets.

GMA X4500
The GMA X4500 and the GMA X4500HD for desktop platforms were launched in June 2008. The GMA X4500 is used in G43 chipset and the GMA X4500HD is used in the G45 chipset. The GMA X4500 is also used in the G41 chipset, which was released in September 2008.

The difference between the GMA X4500 and the GMA X4500HD is that the GMA X4500HD is capable of "full 1080p high-definition video playback, including Blu-ray disc movies". Only GMA X4500HD, X4500MHD and X4700MHD has AVC HD decoding support.

Like the X3500, X4500 supports DirectX 10 and Shader Model 4.0 features. Intel designed the GMA X4500 to be 200% faster than the GMA 3100 (G33 chipset) in 3DMark06 performance and 70% faster than the GMA X3500 (G35 chipset).

GMA 4500MHD
The GMA 4500MHD for laptops was launched on July 16, 2008. Featurewise, the 4500MHD is identical to its desktop cousin, the X4500HD. The GMA 4500MHD is used in GM45 chipsets, cantiga

GMA X4700MHD
The GMA X4700MHD for laptops was launched in October 2008. It is the last product of Intel GMA. In a way, it belongs to the 4500MHD series, and it is used in the GM47 chipsets, Montevina.

It features 80 shading units, 10 texture mapping units, and 1 ROPs. Compared to the 4500MHD, the frequency is increased to 640 MHz.

PowerVR GPU series
Intel developed a new set of low power graphics architecture based on PowerVR.

The available Linux drivers do not support much of this.

GMA 500
The Intel SCH (System Controller Hub; codenamed Poulsbo) for the Atom processor Z5xx series features a GMA 500 graphic system. Rather than being developed in-house, this core is a PowerVR SGX 535 core licensed from Imagination Technologies.

Intel describes this as "a flexible, programmable architecture that supports shader-based technology, 2D, 3D and advanced 3D graphics, high-definition video decode, and image processing. Features include screen tiling, internal true color processing, zero overhead anti-aliasing, programmable shader 3D accelerator, and 32-bit floating-point operations."

GMA
Intel launched the Atom Z24xx (Medfield) platform as a series of ultra-low power processors for smartphones. While Intel indicates that this chip contains an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator, they do not specify a GPU model number. This GPU is known to be a PowerVR SGX540.

GMA 600
A revised version of the previous Intel SCH (System Controller Hub) for the Atom Z6xx series CPU codenamed Lincroft. Essentially, this is the same graphic system as the GMA 500, but clocked at double the speed. (From 200 MHz to 400 MHz).

GMA 3600
This integrated graphics system was released in Intel Atom (Cedar Trail, 32 nm) and based on PowerVR SGX545. Unlike the original PowerVR solution, this model is clocked at 400 MHz instead of 200 MHz. It is specifically found in the Intel Atom N2600 processor and Atom D2500 models. It supports DirectX version 9.0c.

GMA 3650
Similar to the GMA 3600, but this version is clocked at 640 MHz. It is found in Atom N2800, Atom D2550, Atom D2500, Atom D2600 and Atom D2700 models. It supports DirectX version 9.0c.

Protected Audio Video Path
Protected Audio Video Path (PAVP) restricts the data path within a computer during video playback (e.g., Blu-ray discs). It is supported by newer chipsets (e.g. Intel G45) and operating systems (since Windows Vista).

PAVP can be configured in the BIOS. Different modes are supported:

 * 1) Disabled.
 * 2) PAVP Lite: Reserves buffer memory for encryption of compressed video data.
 * 3) Paranoid PAVP: Reserve memory during boot which isn't seen by the Operating System. This disables Windows Aero in Windows Vista.

The default setting in most BIOS is PAVP Lite.

Within Intel HD Graphics, the successor of Intel GMA, a similar technology called Intel Insider exists.

Mac OS X
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger supports the GMA 950, since it was used in previous revisions of the MacBook, Mac mini, and 17-inch iMac. It had been used in all Intel-based Mac minis until the Mac mini released on March 3, 2009). Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard contains drivers for the GMA X3100, which were used in a recent revision of the MacBook range.

Late-release versions of Mac OS X 10.4 also supported the GMA 900 due to its use in Apple's Developer Transition Kit (2005), which was used in the PowerPC-to-Intel transition. However, special modifications to the kext file must be made to enable Core Image and Quartz Extreme.

Although the new MacBook line no longer uses the X3100, Mac OS X 10.5 shipped with drivers supporting it that require no modifications to the kext file. Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), which includes a new 64-bit kernel in addition to the 32-bit one, does not include 64-bit X3100 drivers. This means that although the MacBooks with the X3100 have 64-bit capable processors and EFI, Mac OS X must load the 32-bit kernel to support the 32-bit X3100 drivers. November 9's 10.6.2 update ships with 64-bit X3100 drivers.

Apple removed the 64-bit GMA X3100 drivers later, and thus affected Macs were forced back to the 32-bit kernel despite being 64-bit clean in terms of hardware and firmware. No 64-bit drivers were offered in OS X Lion. Subsequently, OS X Mountain Lion dropped 32-bit kernel booting. The combination of these two changes in graphics driver code resulted in many Mac revisions being unable to upgrade to Mountain Lion, as their GPUs cannot be replaced.

For a while MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks instead shipped with a far more powerful NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, and the 15" and 17" MacBook Pro notebooks shipped with an additional GeForce 9600GT supporting hybrid power to switch between GPUs. The NVIDIA GeForce 9400M chipset implemented in Apple MacBooks did not support composite or S-video output.

FreeBSD
FreeBSD 8.0 supports the following Intel graphic chipsets: i810, i810-DC100, i810e, i815, i830M, 845G,  852GM, 855GM,  865G,  915G,  915GM,  945G,  945GM,  965G,  965Q, 946GZ, 965GM,945GME, G33, Q33, Q35, G35, GM45, G45, Q45, G43 and G41 chipsets. In practice, chipsets through 4500MHD are supported with DRM and 3D using FreeBSD 9. Work to integrate GEM and KMS is currently adding support for i-series integrated graphics and improving support for earlier chipsets.

Linux
In August 2006, Intel added support to the open-source X.Org/XFree86 drivers for the latest 965 series that include the GMA (X)3000 core. These drivers were developed for Intel by Tungsten Graphics.

In May 2007, version 2.0 of the driver (xorg-video-intel) was released, which added support for the 965GM chipset. In addition, the 2.0 driver added native video mode programming support for all chipsets from i830 forward. This version added support for automatic video mode detection and selection, monitor hot plug, dynamic extended and merged desktops and per-monitor screen rotation. These features are built into the X.Org 7.3 X server release and will eventually be supported across most of the open source X.Org video drivers. Version 2.1, released in July 2007, added support for the G33, Q33 and Q35 chipsets. G35 is also supported by the Linux driver.

As is common for X.Org drivers on Linux, the license is a combination of GPL (for the Linux kernel parts) and MIT (for all other parts).

The drivers were mainly developed by Intel and Tungsten Graphics (under contract) since the chipsets' documentation were not publicly available for a long time. In January 2008, Intel released the complete developer documentation for their, at the time, latest chipsets (965 and G35 chipset), allowing for further external developers' involvement. In April 2009, Intel released documentation for their newer G45 graphics (including X4500) chipsets. In May 2009, Intel employee Emma Anholt stated Intel was "still working on getting docs for [8xx] chipsets out."

H.264 acceleration via VA-API
Linux support for hardware accelerated H.264 playback is available and working for X4500HD and X4500MHD using VAAPI and the g45-h264 branch.

PowerVR based chips on Linux
GMA 500, GMA 600, GMA 3600, GMA 3650 are PowerVR based chips incompatible with Intel GenX GPU architecture family. There are no Intel supported FOSS drivers. The current available FOSS drivers (included in Linux 3.3 onwards) only support 2D acceleration (not 3D acceleration).

Ubuntu supports GMA500 (Poulsbo) through the ubuntu-mobile and gma500 repositories on Launchpad. Support is present in an experimental way for 11.10 and 12.04, but the installation procedure is not as simple as other drivers and can lead to many bugs. Ubuntu 12.10 has 2D support included.

Joli OS, a Linux-based OS optimized for netbooks, has a driver for the GMA500 built in.

PixieLive, a Linux live distribution optimized for GMA500 netbooks, it can boot from USB Pendrive, SD Card or HardDisk.

Intel releases official Linux drivers through the IEGD (Intel Embedded Graphic Driver) supporting some Linux distributions dedicated to the embedded market.

In November 2009, the Linux Foundation released the details of a new, rewritten Linux driver that would support this chipset and Intel's other upcoming chipsets. The Direct Rendering Manager and X.org parts would be free software, but the 3D component (using Gallium3D) will still be proprietary.

Solaris
Oracle Solaris 11 provides 64-bit video driver support for the following Intel graphic chipsets: i810, i810-dc100, i810e, i815, i830M, 845G, 852GM/855GM, 865G, 915G, E7221 (i915), 915GM, 945G, 945GM, 945GME, Pineview GM, Pineview G, 965G, G35, 965Q, 946GZ, 965GM, 965GME/GLE, G33, Q35, Q33, GM45, 4 Series, G45/G43, Q45/Q43, G41, B43, Clarkdale, Arrandale, Sandybridge Desktop (GT1), Sandybridge Desktop (GT2), Sandybridge Desktop (GT2+), Sandybridge Mobile (GT1), Sandybridge Mobile (GT2), Sandybridge Mobile (GT2+), Ivybridge Mobile (GT1), Ivybridge Mobile (GT2), Ivybridge Desktop (GT1), Ivybridge Desktop (GT2), Ivybridge Server (GT1), and Ivybridge Server (GT2).

The Solaris open-source community developers provide additional driver support for Intel HD Graphics 4000/2500 graphic-based chipsets (aka Ivy Bridge), OpenGL 3.0/GLSL 1.30, and the new libva/va-api library enabling hardware accelerated video decode for the prevailing coding standards today (MPEG-2, MPEG-4 ASP/H.263, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, and VC-1/WMV3).

GMA 900 on Windows
The GMA 900 is theoretically capable of running Windows Vista's (and 7's) Aero interface and is certified as DirectX 9 compliant. However, no WHQL certified WDDM driver has been made available. Presumably this is due to the lack of a "hardware scheduler" in the GPU. The Intel GMA 900 is also the first Intel integrated GPU not to have support or drivers for Windows 9x operating systems (including 98 and ME).

Many owners of GMA900 hardware believed they would be able to run Aero on their systems as early release candidates of Vista permitted XDDM drivers to run Aero. Intel, however, contends that Microsoft's final specs for Aero/WDDM certification did not permit releasing a WDDM driver for GMA900 (due to issues with the hardware scheduler, as mentioned above), so when the final version of Vista was released, no WDDM driver was released. The last minute pulling of OpenGL capabilities from the GMA drivers for Windows Vista left a large number of GMA based workstations unable to perform basic 3D hardware acceleration with OpenGL and unable to run many Vista Premium applications such as Windows DVD Maker.

In Windows 8, Aero effects are enabled with VGA compatibility driver via software rendering. There are no native GMA900 drivers available for Windows 8 since XDDM support is removed from this operating system. On GMA900 based laptops with Windows 7, users may experience a serious bug related to the chipset's native backlight control method failing to change brightness, resulting in the brightness becoming stuck on a particular value after driver installation. The bug did not occur when Windows 7 was initially released to the public and is commonly observed after running Windows Update. This bug also occurs in GMA3150 based laptops.

GMA 950 on Windows
This IGP is capable of displaying the Aero interface for Windows Vista. Drivers are shipped with Windows Vista since beta versions became available in mid-2006. It can also run Windows 7's Aero interface since Intel released drivers for Windows 7 in mid-June 2009.

The GMA 950 is integrated into many netbooks built on Intel 945GSE Express chipset, and is able to display a resolution up to 2048×1536 at 75 Hz utilizing up to 224 MB of shared memory.

Most of the reviews about this IGP were negative, since many games (such as Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory or Oblivion) need Pixel Shader 2.0 or higher, that is supported in hardware, and Vertex Shader 2.0, that is software-emulated. Other games such as Crysis will start, but with frame rates below acceptable.

GMA X3000/X3100 on Windows
T&L and Vertex Shaders 3.0 are supported by Intel's newest 15.6 drivers for Windows Vista as of September 2, 2007. XP support for VS3 and T&L was introduced on August 10, 2007. Intel announced in March 2007 that beta drivers would be available in June 2007. On June 1, 2007 "pre-beta" (or Early Beta) drivers were released for Windows XP (but not for Vista). Beta drivers for Vista and XP were released on June 19. Since hardware T&L and vertex shading has been enabled in drivers individual applications can be forced to fall back to software rendering, which raises performance and compatibility in certain cases. Selection is based on testing by Intel and preselected in the driver .inf file.

Intel has released production version drivers for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Vista that enable the Aero graphics. Intel introduced DirectX 10 for the X3100 and X3500 GPUs in the Vista 15.9 drivers in 2008, though any release of DX10 drivers for the X3000 is uncertain. WDDM 1.1 is supported by X3100 but DXVA-HD is not.

OpenGL 2.0 support is available since Vista 15.11 drivers and XP 14.36 drivers.

Windows 8 ships with a driver for the X3100.

GMA 500 on Windows
As of September 2010, the latest available driver revisions from the Intel website for Windows XP, Vista and 7 are:

 * IEGD Version 5.1 for Windows NT,2000 and XP (OpenGL only)
 * Version 3.3.0 for Windows XP. (D3D only)
 * Version 4.0.2 for Windows Vista.
 * Version 5.0.0.2030 for Windows 7.

Modern gaming
The performance and functionality of GMA processors are limited, attaining the performance of only low-cost discrete GPUs at best and very old DirectX 6 GPUs (Such as the RIVA TNT2) at the worst. Thus, they're sometimes even dubbed "Graphics Media Decelerators" though the actual performance depended on the CPU as well as RAM amount and speed. For example, an Atom N450 CPU and GMA 3150 will perform comparably to a 10 years older RIVA TNT2 PC with a Tualatin Pentium 3, even worse, the GPU was sometimes even underclocked, hindering the already poor performance even further. Some features of games and other 3D applications may be unsupported by GMAs, particularly older ones. The GMA X3x00's unified shader design allows for more complete hardware functionality, but the line still has issues with some games and has significantly limited performance.

Intel has put up a page with 'Known Issues & Solutions' for each version. For Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Software Development concerns, there is the Integrated Graphics Software Development Forum.

GMA X3000 review
A review conducted in April 2007 by The Tech Report determined that the GMA X3000 had performance comparable to the Nvidia GeForce 6150. During that review the GMA X3000 was unable to run the PC games Battlefield 2 and Oblivion. However, the ExtremeTech review found that games which aren't as graphically demanding, such as The Sims 2 and Civilization IV, "look good" when the GMA X3000 is used to run them.

Reviews performed by The Tech Report, by ExtremeTech and by Anandtech all concluded that the AMD's Radeon X1250 integrated graphics solutions based on the AMD 690G chipset was a better choice than the GMA X3000 based on the G965 chipset, especially when considering 3D gaming performance and price.

GMA X3500 review
In a review performed by Register Hardware in December 2007, author Leo Waldock argued that because the GMA X3500 is not capable of running any PC game that requires DirectX 10, the addition of DirectX 10 support to the GMA X3500 was "irrelevant". During that same review, the GMA X3500 was used to run Crysis and F.E.A.R. Extraction Point, where it was able to render only 4 and 14 frames per second respectively for each game. In the end the review concluded that overall the X3500 made "minimal advances" over the GMA X3000.

GMA X4500 review
In a review published in May 2008, the GMA X4500 showed a superior game performance to the lowest-end 1-year-older GeForce 8400M graphics card in some CPU-bound tests, while losing to the still low-end GeForce 8400M GS with a slower CPU.

title: Intel GMA


text:
Heep Yunn School

Heep Yunn School (Chinese 協恩中學) is an Anglican girls' secondary school founded in 1936, commonly known simply as HYS. It is located in Ma Tau Wai, Kowloon, Hong Kong. The School commenced operation in the DSS (Direct Subsidy Scheme) mode starting from junior forms in September 2012. It is governed by the Council of Heep Yunn School, also the sponsoring body of the primary and kindergarten sections.

History
Heep Yunn School used to be a Sheng Kung Hui grant-in-aid school for girls before it turned to the DSS mode in September 2012. It was established when two schools founded by the Church Missionary Society - the Fairlea School (1886) and the Victoria Home and Orphanage (1887) were merged in 1936 at the present site in Farm Road. This accounts for the name "Heep Yunn" - meaning the union of the two schools through the grace of God. Two buildings of the campus of Heep Yunn School are listed as Grade III historic buildings by Hong Kong's Antiquities and Monuments Office: The Main Building and St. Clare Chapel.

House
The five houses are named after the school name.

Extracurricular activities
The school offers over 20 school sports teams, four choirs, three orchestras, debating teams in both Chinese, Mandarin and English, an active drama group and team and over 60 other co-curricular programmes relating to languages, humanity studies, visual art, science, dance, community services and leadership training. Participating in these groups enhances students' interpersonal skills, problem-solving skills, responsibility, and innovation. The school holds a student-led fun fair every year on the third Sunday of January, where students build stalls from scratch and design games for the public to raise funds.

Inter-school sports
There are twenty-one sports teams in HYS.

Inter-school competition results (2018–2019):

Notable alumnae

 * Rebecca Chan Chung - Decorated U.S. World War II veteran who served as a Nurse with the Flying Tigers (China), the U.S. Army (China) and the China National Aviation Corporation (China and India), with work including flying over the Hump (1942-1948); the first Head (Sister-Tutor-in-Charge) of the Nursing School of the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, Hong Kong, 1964-1975; 1923 student of Fairlea Girls’ School (a forerunner of Heep Yunn School)
 * Stephanie Ho - TVB actress and singer
 * Charmaine Sheh - Second runner-up in the 1997 Miss Hong Kong Pageant, TVB actress
 * Sheren Tang - Hong Kong actress, 2010 TVB Anniversary Award - Best Actress (No Regrets)
 * Elaine Chan (swimmer) - Two-time Olympic swimmer from Hong Kong, specialized in freestyle events
 * Ellen Cheung - Pen name Xi Xi, Hong Kong writer

title: Heep Yunn School


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User talk:Raveneffect

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for getting an account. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
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title: User talk:Raveneffect


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Ulen sword

The Ulen Sword is an artifact which was unearthed in a field 3.25 mi west of Ulen in Clay County, Minnesota. It is currently on display in the Ulen Museum (formerly the Viking Sword Museum) which is operated by the Ulen Historical Society. At first purported to be a Viking sword by Norse coloniers, it bears little resemblance to any sword of known early Medieval provenance; it is more probably a 19th-century military sword. Hjalmar Holand's book Pre-Columbian Crusade to America (1962) argues that the sword is authentic. The sword was also featured in an America Unearthed episode, where it was taken to a specialist at The Oakeshott Institute, who believed it to have been a mass-produced sword from Weyersberg, Kirschbaum and Co in Germany. Even though the validity of the sword is still debated, it remains an important artifact in the town of Ulen.

The sword was found buried underground by Hans O. Hansen on his farm on April 20, 1911. Because of drought, Hansen decided to set his plow blades much deeper than usual, and unearthed the artifact. The blade of the Ulen sword is said to have had a 0.0625 in covering of rust, which Hansen polished away. The blade is 16 in long. The end of the sword has been blunted by a hammer or some other instrument. The pommel and the thick crossguard are made of brass. The sword's crossguard has a design on each side: one side depicts a helmeted soldier, and the reverse is a breastplate covering a dagger and two crossed axes.

Other sources

 * Rath, Jay; Elizabeth McBride; Chris Roerden (1998) The M-files: True Reports of Minnesota's Unexplained Phenomena (Big Earth Publishing) ISBN 9780915024667
 * Oakeshott, R.E. (1996) The Archaeology of Weapons, Arms and Armour from Prehistory to the Age of Chivalry (New York: Dover Publications Inc) ISBN 978048629288-5.

title: Ulen sword


text: User talk:84.9.113.70

title: User talk:84.9.113.70


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Gaspar Coelho

Gaspar Coelho (c. 1529 – 1590 ) was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary. He replaced Francisco Cabral as the Superior and Vice-Provincial of the Jesuit mission in Japan during the late 16th century. He catalyzed the disfavor of Toyotomi Hideyoshi against the Jesuit mission in Japan in 1587.

Early life
Coelho was born in Porto, Portugal. He joined the Society of Jesus in Goa in 1556, and only four years later, was chosen to accompany the Society's highest Asian official, Antonio de Quadros, on a tour of India.

Work in Japan
Coelho first arrived in Japan around 1570, at the invitation of Francisco Cabral. Coelho and Cabral pursued a strategy of attempting to convert Buddhists and destroy Buddhist and Shinto temples in Japan's Christian domains, such as the Ōmura Domain, where the Jesuits supported Ōmura Sumitada in his defeat of Saigō Sumitaka. During the final years of Sumitada's reign, Coelho encouraged a wave of Buddhist and Shinto temple destruction in the domain. He also convinced Sumitada to forcefully convert all of his subjects to Christianity. Coelho also ministered to the Arima clan, presiding over Arima Yoshisada's baptism in 1576.

Coelho became Superior of the Japan mission in September 1581, and was left in charge of the mission following Alessandro Valignano's departure in February 1582. Following his appointment as superior, Coelho commissioned the building of a fusta warship for the Jesuits in Nagasaki, financed by local Portuguese merchants and crewed by Japanese Christians.

Coelho supported Arima Harunobu in a 1584 victory in Shimabara against Ryūzōji Takanobu, who had threatened to crucify Coelho and give the port of Nagasaki to the soldiers of the Ryūzōji army. He lobbied other Christian samurai, as well as Christians in the Spanish Philippines, to support the Arima against the Ryūzōji.

Relationship with Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified Japan through a nine-year military campaign from 1582 to 1591. Jesuit missionaries first arrived in Osaka, Hideyoshi's capital, in 1583, and Hideyoshi's court at Osaka Castle thereafter contained a number of Japanese Christians, including many women who became interested in the religion.

Coelho visited Hideyoshi in Osaka in 1586. At this meeting, Hideyoshi asked Coelho to secure him two Portuguese ships for the invasion of Korea and China; Coelho not only agreed to the deal, but also suggested that the Society could acquire more troops from the Portuguese, and offered to rally Christian daimyo against the Shimazu clan. This made Hideyoshi aware that Coelho may potentially create an axis of Christian domains with allegiance to a foreign religion. Nevertheless, at the urging of his first wife, who had strong Christian sympathies, Hideyoshi issued permission letters to Coelho allowing Jesuit priests to reside freely in Japan; Hideyoshi also granted land near Osaka Castle to Coelho. The permissions granted to Jesuits were superior to those granted to Buddhists at the time.

Hideyoshi visited in Hakata in July 1587 following his successful conquest of Kyushu, and Coelho entertained Hideyoshi aboard his ship. After consulting with some of his advisors, Hideyoshi had Coelho roused in the middle of the night and asked a series of questions concerning the intentions of the mission. Coelho responded as best he could, but the next morning Hideyoshi issued an edict ordering all Jesuits to leave Japan within twenty days. While they were ultimately given more time for the Great Ship to arrive, Hideyoshi proceeded to ban Christian symbols and ordered Japanese Christians to recant on pain of death. Coelho then unsuccessfully attempted to procure arms from Goa, Macau and Manila in order to arm the Christian lords against Hideyoshi. Hideyoshi never enforced the edict as he was fearful of disrupting trade links with Portugal; Christianity re-emerged in his court in the 1590s.

Coelho died in 1590.

title: Gaspar Coelho


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Addedomarus

Addedomarus (sometimes written Aθθedomarus on coins) was a king of south-eastern Britain in the late 1st century BC. His name is known only from his inscribed coins, the distribution of which seem to indicate that he was the ruler of the Trinovantes.

Life
He was the first king to produce inscribed coins north of the Thames, perhaps as early as 35 BC, although some estimates are as late as 15 BC. He seems to have moved the Trinovantian capital from Braughing in Hertfordshire to Camulodunum (Colchester, Essex). For a brief period (ca. 15–10 BC) he seems to have been supplanted by Tasciovanus of the Catuvellauni, who issued coins from Camulodunum at that time. Addedomarus then appears to have regained power and reigned until 10–5 BC, when he was succeeded by Dubnovellaunus. The Lexden Tumulus on the outskirts of Colchester has been suggested as his tomb. His name appears on coinage from 45 BC and 25 BC.

The Welsh Triads recall Aedd Mawr as one of the founders of Britain.

title: Addedomarus


text:
User talk:Chrismhen/mypage

Any tips, comments, ideas, anything. I mean it, ideas are always welcomed, that and spell check. --Chrissy 23:36, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Chrismhen/mypage


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ISBN 1593880472

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was DELETE. — J I P | Talk 15:55, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

ISBN 1593880472

 * Very short, weirdly formatted article, about a book that does not appear to be notable abakharev 23:37, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete unless notability of this book is demonstrated. If it is kept, move to Revolucion de 1933 en Cuba (perhaps with more accents). Pburka 03:06, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

It is wise if you read at least part of the book first, Enrique Ros had a relative also called Enrique Ros, who was one of officers in Cuba's elite marksman squad at the Hotel National in 1933 which held of the mutiny of the enlisted ranks lead by Batista and others. This Enrique Ros has written extensively and well on Cuba. And he, the author Enrique Ros is an accredited historian to the National Archives of the United State. he is also closely related to to a US Congress person, and extremely well informed. While I am sure that is not your intent; one might well consider that to demand the omission of this reference might well be considered a bias that would violate Wikipedia rules and ethics (El Jigüe, 10/8/2005)

 * Delete. Useless.  (and I just put the AFD tag back in, since the author removed it).  Bushytails 06:18, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

 * Delete At best this deserves moving to the title of the book and then deleting the redirect. Caerwine 06:33, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.


text:
Talk:JDSU

JDS Uniphase
the company is really called JDS Uniphase yeah. Perhaps someone can update the article to include this. A merger of JDS and Uniphase I believe is the reason for its name, please check. --x1987x 23:38, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
 * nevermind, it is the other way, JDSU, well anyways someone needs to standardize the name throughout the article. --x1987x 23:41, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

The company is techically JDS Uniphase. The company recently recently adopted JDSU as it's brand name, reflecting common use and the stock symbol.

JDSU is the result of a merger of JDS Fitel and Uniphase Corporations. It should be noted that the 'S' in JDS also includes Josef Stauss, a founder and CEO for many years. Equal credit should be given to Kevin Kalkoven. Kevin was CEO of Uniphase at the time of the merger and remained as CEO and Co-Chairman after the merger. Kevin was instrumental in building the Uniphase portion of the company from the original Uniphase corporation, a relatively small San Jose manufacturer of gas and semiconductor lasers. Uniphase grew through aquisitions of United Technologies Photonics (UTP)located in Bloomfield, Connecticut and Philips Optical Components located in Eindhover, Netherlands;

It should also be noted that JDS Fitel had acquired Optical Coating Laboratories Inc. (OCLI) just before the merger. OCLI remains a signifant part of the corporating and include the Flex division. Flex is a manufacturer of specialty pigments used in security labels and international currencies.

After the merger JDS Uniphase acquired signigicant optical component developers including Epitaxx, a New Jersey developer of photodiodes; E-tek, a San Jose developer of passive and active optical components with operations in Shenzhen, China; and SDLI, a leading developer of semiconductor diode lasers. The E-tek and SDLI acuqistions ranked among the largest corporate acquistions in history at that time with valuations of $16 billion and $40 Billion.

Today, many of the acquistions have been consolidated into the San Jose and Shenzhen, China Operations. The company utilizes significant manufacturing capability of contract manufacturers in Thailand and Malaysia. The origninal San Jose, Ottawa, Santa Rosa and Connecticut operations continue as primary product development centers. Additional Product development centers are located throughout the United States including Ewing, NJ and Melbourne, FL.

The recent acquisitions of Acterna and Agility greatly increase the depth and breadth of JDSU's product lines in the areas of Optical Test Equipment and tunable transponders. The acquisitons present significant growth opportunities for the new JDSU. JDSU contines to be the leader in optical component and systems markets.

how can the article completely leave out JDS was originally a Canadian company ?
a 9 billion dollar merger between JDS fitel of Canada and Uniphase of the US is how it was formed. that's horrible how you don't even mention that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grmike (talk • contribs) 22:20, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

PR blurb masquarading as an article
Most of this article is almost directly from their website... http://www.jdsu.com/company/mergers-and-acquisitions.html

Sorry, but it's just spam...

14:41, 15 July 2010 (UTC) MA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.12.172.5 (talk)

 * I disagree, it's part of the history of the company, which has been one of the most acquisitive of its time. A mass deletion like this seems like vandalism.  Perhaps there is a more consise way to present this info? --Opticalgirl (talk) 13:29, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Acterna
There is not any mention of Acterna. I think a dedicated section explaining it would be necessary. I came across this name (acterna) during my recent telecom work and I did not have any idea what it was, and Wikipedia did not have anything related to it. For these new to the market, like me, we need to know what acterna means. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.52.88.205 (talk) 22:05, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

title: Talk:JDSU