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Lwówek Śląski

Lwówek Śląski (formerly Lwów; Löwenberg in Schlesien; Ślůnski Lwůwek) is a town in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship in Poland. Situated on the Bóbr River, Lwówek Śląski is about 30 km NNW of Jelenia Góra and has a population of about 9,000 inhabitants. It is the administrative seat of Lwówek Śląski County and of the municipality Gmina Lwówek Śląski.

Middle Ages
The vicinity of present-day Lwówek Śląski, densely wooded and located on the inner side of the unsettled Silesian Przesieka within the medieval Kingdom of Poland was gradually cleared and populated by German peasants in the first half of the 13th century during the Ostsiedlung. The town was founded by Duke of Poland Henry the Bearded who designated it for an administrative centre in a previously uninhabited, borderline Polish–Lusatian territory. In 1209 Henry granted it important privileges, such as rights to brew, mill, fish, and hunt within a mile from settlement. German colonists expanded upon the preexisting settlement and in 1217 it was granted town rights by Henry the Bearded, as one of the first cities in Poland (Opole and Racibórz received town rights that same year, earlier only Złotoryja); its style of governance was duplicated by other local towns, such as Bolesławiec, as Löwenberg Rights or Lwówek Śląski Rights. In 1243 Duke Bolesław II Rogatka organized the first knight tournament in Poland in the town. The dukes then constructed a castle, documented for the first time in 1248. In the 13th century Franciscans and Knights Hospitaller settled in the town. As a result of the fragmentation of Poland, it was part of the Duchy of Legnica from 1248, the Duchy of Jawor from 1274, from 1278 to 1286 it was the capital of an eponymous duchy under its only duke Bernard the Lightsome, who took the title of a Duke of Silesia and Lord of Lwówek, and afterwards it was again part of the Duchy of Jawor, which was soon included in the larger Duchy of Świdnica-Jawor, part of which it remained until its dissolution in 1392. In 1327 the town received the right to mint its own coin from Duke Henry I of Jawor, before Wrocław. In 1329 it was one of the largest cities in Silesia. In the 13th and 14th centuries distinctive landmarks of Lwówek were built, including the defensive walls with the Lubańska and Bolesławiecka towers, the town hall (later expanded) and the Gothic churches of St. Mary and of St. Francis.

After the death of Duchess Agnes of Habsburg, the widow of Bolko II, the last Polish Piast Duke of Świdnica, the town with the duchy passed to the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1392. Löwenberg's placement on a trade route allowed it to become one of the more prosperous towns in Bohemia. In 1469 it passed to Hungary and in 1490 again to Bohemia, then ruled by Polish prince Vladislaus II Jagiellon, son of King Casimir IV of Poland. In 1498 Vladislaus II granted the coat of arms, still used today. The town remained under the rule of the Jagiellonian dynasty until 1526 when it passed with the Bohemian Crown to the Habsburg monarchy of Austria.

Modern era
During the Thirty Years' War, Löwenberg was devastated by Swedish and Imperial troops, especially between 1633 and 1643. By the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the town was largely destroyed and had a decimated population of only hundreds.

Löwenberg slowly recovered during its reconstruction, but began to prosper again after its acquisition by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1741 during the Silesian Wars. Troops of the First French Empire occupied the town in May 1813. Polish writer Aleksander Fredro joined the Napoleonic troops in the town. On August 21, 1813, the present-day district of Płakowice was the site of a battle, in which French and Polish troops defeated the Prussians, and Napoleon Bonaparte stayed in the town on August 21–23 while organizing his defenses against the Prussian troops of General Gebhard von Blücher. Following Macdonald's retreat after the Battle of the Katzbach with Blucher, General Puthod’s Division, including Vacherau's Brigade (The Irish Regiment, 134th & 143rd Regiments), became isolated from the rest of the army. The Bóbr River had risen out of its banks from the heavy rains and the bridges were underwater. The division had been reduced to six thousand men and twelve pieces of artillery. On the morning of 29 August, they reached the town of Lowenberg. It took up the best position it could find, on the narrow ridge above Płakowice, with its back to the river. All the bridges had been washed away and there was no possibility of constructing a bridge with the river flooding its banks on both sides. A combined Russian and Prussian Army of overwhelming superiority faced the Division but could only attack at the one narrow south-eastern end of the ridge. The battle began at 8:00 am and lasted until after 4:00 pm. When the Division had expended the last of its ammunition, the enemy attacked and overran its position. Most of the officers waded into the river and swam to the opposite shore. The riverbed itself was not terribly wide although the current was strong. They were able to wade about half the distance, swim a short way, and walk through the water to dry land. The total French casualties of killed, wounded, drowned and captured were more the 3,000.

Löwenberg was included within the Province of Silesia after the 1814 Prussian administrative reorganization. Like the rest of the Kingdom of Prussia, the town became part of the German Empire in 1871 during the unification of Germany.

20th century
It became part of the Prussian Province of Lower Silesia after World War I. In the interwar period and during World War II there was an economic recession.

In the last days of World War II, the medieval center was 40% destroyed and numerous Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque buildings were lost. After Germany's defeat in the war, the town became part of Poland in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement, first under its historic Polish name Lwów. The German population has been expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement and the town was repopulated by Poles, some of whom were expelled from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union, while some were settlers from war-devastated central Poland or former prisoners of German Nazi concentration camps and forced labour camps. In 1946, the town was renamed to its other historic, but more modern, name Lwówek Śląski, to distinguish it from Poland's lost city of Lwów.

Following the Korean War, in 1953, Poland admitted 1,000 North Korean orphans in the present-day district of Płakowice, however, some were relocated to Szklarska Poręba and Bardo in the following years. Remaining children returned to North Korea in 1959.

A memorial to Napoleon Bonaparte was unveiled in 2003.

Coat of arms
The coat of arms of Lwówek Śląski is a vertically divided shield depicting the red-white chessboard of the Świdnica Piasts in the sinister field and a right-facing crowned red lion in the dexter field.

Population

 * Graph of population of the city of Lwówek Śląski, over the last 2 centuries:

Lwówek's Culture Centre
Lwówek's Culture Centre is located in Przyjaciół Żołnierza St. 5. In town's culture centre there are:
 * Cinema LOK;
 * Office of providers the cable TV;
 * Art gallery Kla-Tka;
 * Dance School Vega;
 * Music room;
 * School of painting and drawing.

City events

Every year in the second weekend of July takes place Lwóweckie Lato Agatowe.
 * In January – The Kings Parade in the Feast of Three Kings(06.01);
 * In March – Lwówek talent fest;
 * In April – Nationwide Orientation Fest (III round of Polish Cup);
 * In May – International canoeing trip on the Bóbr river;
 * In May – Turist rally name Henryk the Bearded;
 * In July – Lwówek Agat Summer;
 * In July – Lwówek motocycle jamboree;
 * In September – Unusual Heritage Fairs - Napoleonic Picknic, Lower Silesian Festival Of Gifts Of The Forest;
 * In October – Lwówek Mineralogical Meeting;
 * In December – Christmas Fair, Santa Claus Run, Christmas nativity play.

Museums
The museums in Lwówek Śląski include: In the second weekend of July, when Lwówek Agat Summer lasts, visitors can access Lubańska Tower for views of the town.
 * Museum - historical facility in the town hall (Wolności Sq. 1);
 * Museum of the Brewery in the town brewery "Lwówek" (Traugutta St. 4).

Notable people

 * Nikolaus von Reusner (1545–1602), jurist
 * Martin Moller (1547–1606), mystic
 * Georg Schultze (1599–1634), jurist
 * Esaias Reusner (1636–1679), lutist and composer
 * Franz Schmidt (1818–1853), preacher, representative in the Frankfurt Parliament in 1848, fled to Switzerland, then to St. Louis, MO, USA; founder of the German Lyceum there.
 * Günther Klammt (1898–1971), major-general
 * Eberhard Zwirner (1899–1984), physician and phonetician
 * Stefan Hüfner (1935–2013), physicist
 * (born 1970), actor
 * Lucjan Błaszczyk (born 1974), table tennis player
 * Anna Rostkowska (born 1980), Polish Olympic athlete

Twin towns – sister cities
See twin towns of Gmina Lwówek Śląski.

title: Lwówek Śląski


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User:Wfco

Wikipedia used to be a resource that contained relevant and hopefully up to date information that people could as a common reference point. However in recent years it has turned into a place for: a) Nerds b) Old, impotent men and c) Old, Impotent Nerds to impose some pathetic authority over people by going and deleting articles unnecessarily with flimsy arguments and simplistic logic. These people are a waste of space and probably have not had sex with anyone who was born a woman without paying for it. Here is a list of people that by placing directly beneath the above statement I do not mean to implicate as being the types of people mentioned above DanMS Marcus22 Friday

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

title: User:Wfco


text:
YTA

YTA may refer to:
 * Pembroke Airport, Ontario, Canada with IATA code YTA
 * Youth Taking Action
 * YTA TV, an American television network formerly known as Youtoo America

title: YTA


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The Richest Man in Babylon

The Richest Man in Babylon is a 1926 book by George S. Clason that dispenses financial advice through a collection of parables set 4,097 years earlier, in ancient Babylon. The book remains in print almost a century after the parables were originally published, and is regarded as a classic of personal financial advice.

Background
The parables are told by a fictional Babylonian character called Arkad, a poor scribe who became the "richest man in Babylon". Included in Arkad's advice are the "Seven Cures" (or how to generate money and wealth), and the "Five Laws of Gold" (or how to protect and invest wealth). A core part of Arkad's advice is around "paying yourself first", "living within your means", "investing in what you know", the importance of "long-term saving", and "home ownership".

The content is from a series of pamphlets distributed by U.S. banks and insurance companies in 1920–24; the pamphlets were bound together and published as a book in 1926. The book is often referred to as a classic of personal financial advice, and appears in modern recommended reading lists on personal financial advice and wealth management,   which has kept the book in print almost 90 years after its first edition with over 2 million copies sold.

Clason himself published an illustrated hardback edition in 1930 titled The Richest Man in Babylon and Other Stories which now sells for USD 1,250.

The unusual structure of the book has inspired many modern derivative works providing further discussion and insights on the parables.

Structure
The original 1926 book groups the parables into general themes of advice, and particularly "The Seven Cures" and the "Five Laws of Gold".

Some themes can overlap (e.g. The First Cure is similar to the First Law of Gold).

Seven Cures For a Lean Purse
1. The First Cure: Start thy purse to fattening.

 * Arkad advises on saving 10% of your annual income to start building up your wealth (or purse): "For every ten coins thou placest within thy purse take out for use but nine. Thy purse will start to fatten at once and its increasing weight will feel good in thy hand and bring satisfaction to thy soul".

2. The Second Cure: Control thy expenditures.

 * Arkad advises against luxury expenditures that ultimately become confused as necessities: "The gold we may retain from our earnings is but the start", and, "What each of us calls our 'necessary expenses' will always grow to equal our incomes unless we protest to the contrary", and, "Confuse not the necessary expenses with thy desires".

3. The Third Cure: Make thy gold multiply.
 * Arkad advises to invest and to compound the investment return from these savings: "The earnings it will make shall build our fortunes ... Learn to make your treasure work for you. Make it your slave. Make its children and its children's children work for you".

4. The Fourth Cure: Guard thy treasures from loss.

 * Arkad advises against taking a risk of loss and investing get-rich-quick schemes: "Is it wise to be intrigued by larger earnings when thy principal may be lost? I say not. The penalty of risk is probable loss. Study carefully, before parting with thy treasure, each assurance that it may be safely reclaimed. Be not misled by thine own romantic desires to make wealth rapidly".

5. The Fifth Cure: Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment.

 * Arkad advises buying versus renting your principal residence, and to use your residence to establish a business: "I recommend that every man own the roof that sheltereth him and his", and, "Nor is it beyond the ability of any well-intentioned man to own his home".

6. The Sixth Cure: Ensure a future income.

 * Arkad advises on having a pension and future retirement income: "Therefore do I say that it behooves a man to make preparations for a suitable income in the days to come, when he is no longer young, and to make preparations for his family should he be no longer with them to comfort and support them".

7. The Seventh Cure: Increase thy ability to earn.

 * Arkad advises to keep developing your own skills to increase your investing wisdom and also to increase your earnings power: "The more of wisdom we know, the more we may earn", and, "That man who seeks to learn more of his craft shall be richly rewarded".

The Five Laws of Gold
1. The First Law of Gold. Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one-tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and that of his family.

 * Arkad's advice here is very similar to the First Cure, which is that saving is the start towards building wealth.

2. The Second Law of Gold. Gold laboreth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field.

 * Arkad's advice here is very similar to the Third Cure, which is that these savings can themselves grow and compound your wealth.

3. The Third Law of Gold. Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling.

 * Arkad's advice here is similar to the Fourth Cure, which is about being patient and having a long-term view.

4. The Fourth Law of Gold. Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in businesses or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep.
 * Arkad's advice here is about investing in what you know about and understand. Also, not to invest in schemes which seasoned investors would not recommend (e.g. buying based on "stock tips").

5. The Fifth Law of Gold. Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.

 * Arkad's advice here is about avoiding get-rich-quick or very aggressive wealth creation strategies.

Other parables
The final chapters of the 1926 book cover individual parables:

 * The Gold Lender of Babylon. Better a little caution than a great regret.
 * The Walls of Babylon. We cannot afford to be without adequate protection.
 * The Camel Trader of Babylon. Where the determination is, a way can be found.

There is then an unusual section where a contemporary archeologist reveals five clay Babylonian tablets (numbered I to V), whose inscriptions provide short parables.

The final chapter in the 1926 book is on The Luckiest Man in Babylon.

title: The Richest Man in Babylon


text: User talk:81.179.96.179

title: User talk:81.179.96.179


text: User talk:65.49.196.16

title: User talk:65.49.196.16


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Almodóvar del Campo

Almodóvar del Campo is a municipality of Spain, located in the province of Ciudad Real, autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha. Featuring a total area of 1.208,25 km2, it is the largest municipality in the region and one of the largest municipalities in Spain. As of 1 January 2020, it had a population of 5,983.

Geography
It lies some 14 km S.S.W. of the provincial capital, on the northern side of the Sierra de Alcudia. The city lies at about 669 metres above mean sea level.

History
The former settlement of Sisapo has been identified as the La Bienvenida archaeological site, which is located near the hamlet of the same name. The foundation mark has been pushed back to the late-8th to early-7th centuries BC. There is doubt on whether Sisapo was an Oretani city, although Plinius presented it as a Turduli city. Sisapo thrived during the Roman era on the basis of the exploitation of cinnabar, a mercury ore. The mines decreased in activity by the late-2nd to early-3rd centuries AD.

The etymological origin of Almodóvar is the Arabic al-mudawwar, meaning 'the round (one)'. In the mid-12th century, the forces of Munio Alfonso handed a blow to the Saracen forces of Texufin in the plains of Almodóvar.

Part of the Order of Calatrava's dominion in the Meseta Sur, the Campo de Calatrava, Almódovar became the headquarters of one of the order's largest encomiendas, and its economy thrived throughout the late middle ages thanks to the pastures. Almodóvar celebrated two fairs (created towards 1260), which eventually became a weekly open market from 1376 onward. Over the late middle ages, Almodóvar had minorities of judeoconversos, mudéjares and foreigners (Genoese, Portuguese, Flemish and French). Created towards 1456, in the context of the Calatravan interests to guarantee safety from banditry in the area as well as to curb the influence of the Hermandad de Ciudad Real, the so-called Santa Hermandad Vieja de Almodóvar del Campo came to exert judicial and policial powers in the area for centuries.

On the eve of the 1855 desamortización, the municipality of Almodóvar had 78,892.55 hectares of publicly-owned monte. All of them were privatized between 1896 and 1897.

The mining of Almodóvar's oil shale resources fostered the 20th-century industrial development of neighbouring Puertollano.

title: Almodóvar del Campo


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Talk:Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings

Articles merged

 * Article merged: See old talk-page for Council of Wyrms here. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:37, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Article merged: See old talk-page for Jakandor here. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:41, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Article merged: See old talk-page for Hollow World here. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:47, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Article merged: See old talk-page for Pelinore here. -Drilnoth (talk) 18:49, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Article merged: See old talk-page for Savage Coast here. -Drilnoth (talk) 18:52, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Ghostwalk
There's no publisher details listed for Ghostwalk and there's a disproportionately large amount of detail compared to the other entries. If someone agrees me with, can it be pruned back and citations added?DustFormsWords (talk) 07:11, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Two months later and no dissent, I've gone ahead and made the edit. The section's been brutally trimmed.  Revert if you feel it's necessary but what would be better is for someone who knows the setting to add publisher info, notability, and some citations, please. - DustFormsWords (talk) 06:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Nothing brutal about it! It was a merge, and sometimes merges need to be pared down; the rest of the info is always there in the edit history if we need it for some reason. 67.175.176.178 (talk) 06:12, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Non-Official Settings
I'd like to add a list of non-offical campaign setting that are designed for use with D&D, would anyone like to help? Avador 20:54, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
 * If you're thinking of adding fanmade settings, I would suggest only listing notable publisdhed settings. -Sean Curtin 04:45, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

 * Well I was actually thinking of notable 3rd party settings like Scarred Lands, or Lone Wolf. Avador 22:30, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

 * wasn't scarred lands under the OGL and, therefore official?

 * No. The "OGL" (Open Game Licence) is a licence which allows publishers to use the System Resource Document. Using this licence does not make a product a Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting. The same applies to the d20STL, which is a licence that allows you to put the "d20 System" logo on a product. This trademark indicates compatibility with the d20 System (and therefore D&D), but does not make a campaign setting a D&D setting.
 * This stuff needs to be removed from this article and put into a separate d20 System article. Big Mac 21:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Ravenloft
Ranveloft was not liciensed to White Wolf, it was liciensed to Arthaus Games, which has all of its works published under White Wolf's Sword & Soccery Label. The article should refelct this fact. Avador 17:27, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Arthaus was a studio division of White Wolf, though. oknazevad (talk) 22:22, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Al-Qadim
Unlike Kara-Tur and Maztica, Al-Qadim was not published under the Forgotten Realms label. So while Zakhara is located on Toril, shouldn't Al-Qadim be listed as its own campaign setting? If the argument is made that it's on the same world, then one could also try to argue that all settings should be listed as sub-settings of Planescape, which doesn't strike me as appropriate. But what do others think?

Please sign your comments. My personal view would be to group all of the campaigns on particular worlds, so I would put Al-Qadim with Forgotten Realms. It is a separate setting, but is partly based on the Forgotten Realms setting. As for the Planescape comments, I think that Planescape and Spelljammer are both special cases. Big Mac 21:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Each major setting should have its own page. Mergers almost always result in pruning, which means loss of usable data. And without pruning, the pages become large and unmanageable. It's a loss of usability either way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.172.224.125 (talk) 22:02, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Warcraft RPG
The original Warcraft RPG has the Dungeons & Dragons logo, though the revised World of Warcraft edition doesn't. I reckon that makes Warcraft a proper D&D setting, at least as good as KoK. Any opinions? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/1588460711/ref=dp_image_0/104-3146894-8595951?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books
 * Agreed - I don't see the harm in a heading, a brief mention of this fact, and then a link to the Warcraft page. DustFormsWords (talk) 07:12, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Kingdoms of Kalamar
Kalamar wasn't/isn't released under the OGL as the article implies, but is an official lisenced product released with the D&D logo. The section should be updated to reflect this. --Huyderman 22:59, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Topic cleanup and reevaluation
First of all, the readability of the article is very low due to the clattered look it has.

Furthermore, a more concise listing should be made.

Finally, how on Earth is "Masque of the Red Death" a high magic setting? -- RaspK FOG 19:00, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Formatting
At this time there is some formatting inconsistencies in the article; I plan to fix these within the next few days, although if anyone else wants to merge the shorter setting articles into this one first, please feel free to. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:39, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Points of Light
I raised this issue on the WP: Wikiproject Dungeons and Dragons talk page, but this actually seems like the best place for it now. Points of Light is the official core campaign setting of 4th edition, and therefor merits a fair bit of coverage in my opinion. it of course doesn't have 1/100th the extant content of Greyhawk, but it is an interesting concept that has required a fair bit of explanation (to my surprise) even to people i have met who are seemingly quite familiar with roleplaying games and world-design. should i add a section here about it? it would really just be on the essentially vague and indeterminate nature of the campaign setting, what few elements of it ARE spelled out in the core rulebooks, and what various features it takes from eberron, greyhawk, the forgotten realms, and as of this month, ravenloft. What makes a man turn neutral? (talk) 17:31, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * You can, or I can put something in once I'm done with the merging in a little while. -Drilnoth (talk) 18:33, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I've added a section; feel free to expand and modify it as you see fit. -Drilnoth (talk) 19:20, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * What do you think of my change to the section? Let me know if there's anything wrong with it. What makes a man turn neutral? (talk) 19:59, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Mystara category
This article has been put into the Mystara category, but not categories for any of the other campaign settings. It should really either be in categories for every setting or the Mystara category should be pulled. I'm not sure which of the two options would be the most appropriate thing to do. Big Mac (talk) 23:26, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

 * Since this is now the primary source for Hollow World and Savage Coast information on Wikipedia, it makes sense to have the Mystara category on this article. I'm not sure about the other campaign settings.  If this article contains important information not presented on each setting's own page, then presumably we need the category label for that world.

 * Confusing, I know, but this is what happens when minor sub-settings are confined to this main page. Thorf (talk) 04:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Supported/Unsupported Campaign Settings
I added a blurb in each section stating if the campaign setting is currently supported. I think this is kind of clunky, so would any object to me (or others) reordering the format like this?

Company Name
 * Currently Supported Campaign Settings
 * Unsupported Campaign Settings

The above format could also be used to include companies/settings other than TSR/WOC, such as Judges Guild's City State of the Invincible Overlord and others. Comments anyone? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 23:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

 * I don't think it's necessary to reorder the campaign settings by whatever is currently going on, nor is it necessary to state "this is no longer being supported" in every such case. However, I do think it's worth noting which ones are being currently supported, either by a single blurb in the article lead, or a note under each one like you have now.  I think the list should stay in alphabetical order, although I don't object to you separating the non-TSR/WotC settings into an "other publishers" section for example. 24.148.0.83 (talk) 12:10, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

 * Ok, then, when I get a chance, I'll simply add two new sections; one for TSR/WOC settings, and one for "other". Thanks for the input.  Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 23:59, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Kingdoms of Kalamar and Wilderlands of High Fantasy are really the only settings published by other companies. 24.148.0.83 (talk) 04:20, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

 * Well, there are a bunch of other settings, but now that I think about it, it would probably be best just to keep them all in one section and in alphabetical order. So, never mind.  :)  Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 06:10, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

 * I meant those are the only two currently on the list, but yeah I see what you mean. :) Also, hopefully you understood my note about the Underdark? 24.148.0.83 (talk) 03:12, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

 * Yes, I understood. I thought about making the distinction in this article, but decided against it since, given how Underdark came to be, it would take up too much space.  So, maybe I'll add it to the actual article on Underdark (if it's not already there) when I get a chance.  Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 05:17, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It's in there - I drew my explanation from a combination of my own memory and from the Underdark article. :) 24.148.0.83 (talk) 05:32, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

 * Ok, cool. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 05:37, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Conan & Historical
I recall reading somewhere about official TSR Conan supplements for AD&D. Also I remember some books describing historicals settings for AD&D (e.g. Celts, Crusades...) anybody got any info on those? —Preceding unsigned comment added by DNEP (talk • contribs) 18:29, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

 * You are correct on both counts! For Conan, there was a series of modules such as Conan Against Darkness!, Conan the Buccaneer, Conan the Mercenary, Conan Triumphant, and Conan Unchained!. There was a series of historical-based sourcebooks, but unfortunately I don't have the time to look them up at the moment. 24.148.0.83 (talk) 21:10, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Nentir Vale/points of light
Isn't the Nentir Vale just a portion of the new default setting? Most of the books use the term "points of light" (usually unofficially) or even just "Dungeons & Dragons".--Ragestorm (talk) 02:08, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Blackmoor
The OD&D Blackmoor supplement could arguably be for it's own world or one shared with Greyhawk. There was a Blackmoor release by the orginal author through a non-TSR publisher (as part of the Judge's Guild setting) and then as part of Mystara. That's three different ways it was presented. Now it exists on it's own as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.96.38.41 (talk) 23:39, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal 1
I propose that Hollow World Campaign Set be merged into Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings. It seems like the article was created back in 2010. However, there had been a previous move regarding merging for the now redirect Hollow World back in 2008; all article information was moved from Hollow World to Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings, making Hollow World a redirect to Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings. For this reasoning, I believe this merge should happen. Steel1943 (talk) 08:36, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * That article is more of a description of the boxed set's contents than of the actual campaign setting, so I am unsure that it should be merged here. We do have one solid indpendent source but there don't appear to be any reviews so I am neutral on this one; I will trust your judgment. Do try to retain the image if you do merge. 24.12.74.21 (talk) 17:18, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose and counter proposal of dermerge: The Hollow World, that got merged into the Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings article was a stub that should have been expanded. Merging it was a mistake, IMO, as it has helped to make an already long Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting article even longer. It would have been better if the Hollow World Campaign Set article was merged into the Hollow World article, so that things were more logical. If that was done, there could be a larger Hollow World article that explains more about the campaign setting, without the Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings article getting made to be any longer than it already is. Restoring that Hollow World page, pulling any other Hollow World content into it and then shortening this page would make for a better experience for readers. Big Mac (talk) 03:28, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Merger proposal 2
I propose that The Savage Coast be merged into Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings. It seems like the article was created back in 2010. However, there had been a previous move regarding merging for the now redirect Savage Coast back in 2008; all article information was moved from Savage Coast to Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings, making Savage Coast a redirect to Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings. For this reasoning, I believe this merge should happen. Steel1943 (talk) 08:36, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I have to oppose this one because that article is about an adventure module, not a sourcebook about the (much later) Savage Coast setting. If it was going to be merged anywhere at all, it should not be merged here. 17:18, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose and counter proposal of creation of an article about the Savage Coast/Red Steel Campaign Setting: The Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings article is getting too long. It would be better if campaign settings that have more than one product could get their own articles, so that the content here could be transferred elsewhere and the sections here can then be made into a shorter summary of the setting (or even just a Further information line that links to the main article. Big Mac (talk) 03:34, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "mackay2001": From Dungeons & Dragons in popular culture:  From Forgotten Realms:

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 00:20, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Unnecessary italics
Given that the campaign settings themselves are not works such as games (or movies/TV shows/books), it seems the italics for the name of each campaign setting are unnecessary and somewhat improper. Is there a reason they're italicized, or can the formatting be safely removed?

(I also removed the excessive and unnecessary bold of the setting name in each section - well, some of the sections had it bolded, at least.) V2Blast (talk) 00:25, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that the names of campaign settings do not need to be italicized. 2600:1700:E820:1BA0:49AC:FDAE:9686:BD46 (talk) 02:03, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Missing Worlds
There should probably be some mention of Mythic Earth, where the historic campaign splatbooks are set (Glory of Rome, Vikings, Charlemagne’s Paladins). Even at least a mention of the loosely sketched out settings in ‘’Creative Campaigning’’.

Moreover, though, Gothic Earth ‘’’’’should’’’’’ be mentioned distinctly. Despite being branded as Ravenloft, it’s a very ‘’very’’ distinct setting with its own set of classes and specific rules for weapons, magic, and technology.

Finally, arguments can be made for Buck Rogers XXVc being a 2nd Edition AD&D setting, including that such had been basically acknowledged by TSR in The Dragon, and by Jeff Easley working for hire in his “Worlds of AD&D” painting. 67.168.228.147 (talk) 15:10, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Were any D&D books actually published featuring the Buck Rogers world, or is that more of an inference? 8.37.179.254 (talk) 21:10, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * There was a separate. Buck Rogers game published by TSR; apparently then-TSR head Lorraine Williams had family ties to the owners of the IP. I wouldn't consider it a D&D setting.
 * Gothic Earth is the one from Masque of the Red Death, and is covered under that header. Should it be separate from Ravenloft? Well, it was published under the Ravenloft label, so people looking for it would likely look under there. I think it's in the best spot for that.
 * As for the Mythic Earth/historical reference guides from 2e, they didn't really form a campaign setting as such. They were essentially mechanics for using real-world historical paces and eras, not a setting per se. oknazevad (talk) 15:39, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Furondy
I remember hearing this is the world the drow demi-goddess Kiransalee lived on prior to becoming a demi-deity, is there anything about it, or is it just mentioned? Should we mention it here? 71.184.110.64 (talk) 04:03, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Interesting! Furyondy is a kingdom in the Greyhawk setting but some search revealed Threnody as the world of Kiriansalee's origin: . There is a short description on p. 23 of Demihuman Deities, which suggests very strongly that this is only a background detail for this goddess, not a world fleshed out in any way. As this article deals with full (more or less) campaign settings, I think Threnody does not fit in here. Daranios (talk) 12:59, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Is that homebrew, or something that was actually published? BOZ (talk) 21:34, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * That story is officially published in a paragraph of Demihuman Deities. I don't know where the "at least 30.000 years in the past" in Greyhawk Wiki comes from, though. Maybe there's more in Greyhawk material, or that factoid is homebrew? Daranios (talk) 20:42, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

structure
This page looks like an article, but really is a list article.

It lists campaign settings alphabetically, with no indication of relative importance.

As an article it should focus 90% on Forgotten Realms, which really is the only actively supported campaign world, and then mention (and link to) the others very briefly.

An alphabetical listing of campaign worlds is of course permissible, but we should then not use section headers. We should use a list or a table.

CapnZapp (talk) 09:52, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

 * I am not sure if changes in the structure/a list format would really be better. As the size of the individual sections is significant in many cases, I don't think a table is the best choice. Although, thinking about it, one advantage would be the possibility of sorting alphabetically and by time of introduction. But I do object against "should focus 90% on Forgotten Realms". Wikipedia is not concerned only with the world's situation currently, but also with the past, so no need to exclude anything based on the Forgotten Realms being the only currently supported setting. Which is not entirely true, either, as Eberron, Ravenloft and Greyhawk (Ghosts of Saltmarsh) having gotten some treatment in 5th edition, as well as new settings being introduced: Exandria, Ravnica, Theros, Strixhaven. Sure, the Forgotten Realms are, and have been for a long time, the most extensive game world. I don't object to that being reflected here, but it does not need to be in getting a dominating section, as it has it's own article to stand up for itself. As for relative importance of settings, that's not something that we as Wikipedia editors can decide (would be WP:OR, then). We would need sources. So sorting alphabetically is much safer and clear-cut. Daranios (talk) 11:13, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

 * Also object to 90% on Forgotten Realms because that hasn't been true for 5E for a while (and it wasn't even the default setting for 4E). I think keeping section headers makes sense because not every campaign setting has its own article. Reorganizing the settings to release years could be a good option because it shows the development of the game over time. Otherwise, alphabetical is a pretty standard way to organize things on Wikipedia. There's also an argument to made to change the article title to "List of Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings"; based on the age of the article (created 2005), I'm assuming that's why the article title isn't in that format. Sariel Xilo (talk) 17:28, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

sorting alphabetically is much safer and clear-cut When discussing a list article, that is appropriate. But not a regular article. For a regular article, we would, for instance, discuss the earliest settings first, using sources to discuss how "settings" took form. Then newer ones, talking about various support etc. (Or your preffered approach, this was just an example)We would definitely note how many of these settings are incredibly niche - they do not in any way shape or form merit a whole subsection of their own. It should be obvious to the layman which settings have consistently gotten the lion's share of the publisher for, what, thirty years now. Either way, the reader expects an article on the topic of Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings, as opposed to just a collection of summaries with links to settings articles! that's not something that we as Wikipedia editors can decide (would be WP:OR, then). We would need sources. We do not need sources to justify writing several sentences on a plainly more important topic and just one sentence on a plainly obscure topic. So no. Rewriting the article with focus on the important bits is our job, not something we hide behind sources for. But again, restructuring to a simple list article would be easier. CapnZapp (talk) 19:24, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

 * If you put it like that, then I think I agree with Sariel Xilo that this is in effect a list article and should be treated like that. We do have the timeline prominently displayed, so that those interested can see which ones where introduced first, even though the article content is not organized according to that. If you have a concept and enough sources for a more generalized stand-alone article Campaign setting (Dungeons & Dragons) (which can include discussion of relative importance), that could be a nice addition, go for it if you like. If sources for that should be scarce, maybe what you have in mind can improve the lead section here. I also would have no objection to shift this to List of Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings, if you'd prefer to create and name such a generalized article Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings. However, none of these solutions should replace our article here, because I think it is valuable as it is. Aside from what may be in the individual setting description, it actually does have one distinguishing indicator between more prominent and more obscure settings already: Readers are directed to separate articles for the more prominent ones. I do object against wholesale removal of sections for the less known settings. As Sariel Xilo said, the more obscure ones don't have a separate article, so their place on Wikipedia is here based on common selection critria for lists. Lastly, that of course does not mean that our list here cannot be further improved, e.g. by adding more sources, possibly including statements about relative importance, if we can find them. Daranios (talk) 11:08, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * If you put it like that, then I think I agree with Sariel Xilo that this is in effect a list article and should be treated like that. Eh... I'm the one suggesting to rework this article, such as into a list article! :-) Possibly there's a misunderstanding here... since we seem to agree? Cheers, CapnZapp (talk) 12:00, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * It is de facto a list article already, and it's structure is fine and neutral. Maybe a move is appropriate, maybe not; there's really nothing that can be said about D&D campaign settings that isn't true about campaign settings for RPGs in general and I'd expect such a separate article to be quickly brought to AFD for deletion or merger to either the general campaign setting article or this article. Regardless, the idea that it should be "90% FR" is an absolute non-starter. oknazevad (talk) 13:10, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * My point was that it was already a list article (see also the top of the this talk page which lists it as part of WikiProject Lists) and didn't need structural change. I disagree with we should then not use section headers. We should use a list or a table. There are lots of list articles in this style with section headers. We could perhaps add an overview section which touches on the more generalized parts of the development of D&D campaign settings with a Main Link to campaign settings. The biggest thing it needs is more secondary sources but that's not a structural problem. Sariel Xilo (talk) 16:18, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I agree that the article does not need a structural change. I do think that we could reorganize a bit though, so that maybe the settings which did not have actual product lines (used in three or fewer publications, only appeared in magazines or on the WotC website, etc) could be in a "other settings" subsection perhaps? BOZ (talk) 21:04, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Exandria not descriptive enough
It seems the section for Exandria is focused more on the creation of the setting and its current resources that are being released rather than on explaining what sets it apart as a setting. A small amount of space could be spent on explaining it's the setting for Critical Role, but rather than listing all the books coming out about it, why not say what makes it distinct from other settings? Abelhawk (talk) 15:46, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I had trouble finding sources which compared it to other settings. Most of what I found described it as high fantasy so I added that in. In terms of real world influences, the only sources I could find talked about that in context of Wildemount and not Tal'Dorei. If you can find more specifics (ie. comparing it to the Forgotten Realms, etc), please update the section. Sariel Xilo (talk) 18:47, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

First setting to tackle D&Ds problem with monstrous races?
Im sorry but despite the article sighted, Exandria wasn't the first setting to change how some D&D races were seen. It was actually Eberron that had given monstrous races a more favourable seat at the table. If you knew anything about the setting you'd know that. Also info on the setting is lacking, especially since it was the default setting of 3.5e and had a ton of splat books & is still updated by Keith Baker himself. Also Eberron is Magepunk not Steampunk, since all tec is still run via magic. That's why it was unique in the first place.

101.115.135.168 (talk) 16:37, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Amethyst?
I'm confused about Amethyst. Sure it used 4e's rules with the GSL, but does that really make it a setting for d&d? Or is it just it's own game with it's own setting? Plenty of games with built-in-settings use the OGL and GSL.

I ask because I'm genuinely unfamiliar with amethyst, the current information on the page isn't answering this question, and my cursory googling leads me to be unsure of any real reason for it to be considered "official". It doesn't seem to have ever been published by dnd rights-holders nor ever been officially endorsed - it just uses the GSL/OGL and by that nature is allowed to say "for use with" but I think if that's all then that set's an untenable precedent.

But I'm not going to start a dumb editing war A) because that'd be rude and unproductive and B) I recognize a massive chance that I'm just wrong and unaware of some detail. In the case of B, I think someone with relevant info should edit the Amethyst portion. HopefulHyena (talk) 19:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

 * It appears to be the result of a separate Wikipedia article being nominated for deletion, and somehow it was decided that it would be incorrectly merged into this article. I'm deleting it. Justin Bacon (talk) 13:19, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Since the content moved here was the result of an AfD merge, I've moved the content to a more appropriate article (Goodman Games) & I'm working on the associated cleanup tasks. Sariel Xilo (talk) 17:06, 4 July 2024 (UTC)


text:
Punta de Vacas

Punta De Vacas, meaning "cows point", is a hamlet in Mendoza Province, Argentina between Mendoza and Puente del Inca, not far from the border with Chile. The city was once served by the now disused Transandine Railway which ran from Mendoza in Argentina to Los Andes in Chile.

From there, the Tupungato mountain can be viewed. This mountain rises at 6800 meters above sea level. It constitutes one of the accesses to the Aconcagua Provincial Park and the ascension routes to the Aconcagua mountain.

According to the INDEC census of 2001, Punta de Vacas has a population of 47 inhabitants. In spite of its small size and reduced population, this location has gained worldwide popularity due to being the site of one of Silo's first public speeches, "The Healing of Suffering" (see Mario Rodríguez Cobos), on May 4, 1969. This site is now a Park where Silo's followers meet from time to time for study and reflection.

title: Punta de Vacas


text:
Anacreontics

Anacreontics are verses in a metre used by the Greek poet Anacreon in his poems dealing with love and wine. His later Greek imitators (whose surviving poems are known as the Anacreontea) took up the same themes and used the Anacreontic meter. In modern poetry, Anacreontics are short lyrical pieces that keep the Anacreontic subject matter but not the metre.

The Greek meter

The Anacreontic verse or anacreonteus is the eight-syllable line u u – u – u – – (where u = breve and – longum). It has been suggested that the anacreontic in its origin may be an "anaclastic" variant of the Ionic dimeter (u u – – u u – –), i.e. an ionic dimeter with the 4th and 5th syllables reversed; but whether this is so or not, the two meters have been associated since Anacreon, who often used them together in compositions.

One example of anacreontics from the corpus of Anacreon is fr. 11b PMG, which ends as follows:

In this extract, the first four lines are anacreontics, while the last is an ionic dimeter.

Persian
The anacreontic rhythm also occurs in classical Persian poetry, for example in the following example from the 13th-century poet Saadi:

 * man agar nazar harām ast * bas-ī gonāh dāram
 * če konam? nemītavānam * ke nazar negāh dāram
 * uu – u – u – – || (u)u – u – (u) – –
 * "If looking is forbidden, I have plenty of sin.
 * What am I to do? I can't stop looking!"

The syllables ast, nāh and gāh are "overlong" and count in Persian metre as equivalent to – u.

English Anacreontics
In English poetry, Anacreontics are the title given to short lyrical pieces, of an easy kind, dealing with love and wine. The English word appears to have been first used in 1656 by Abraham Cowley, who called a section of his poems "anacreontiques" because they were paraphrased out of the so-called writings of Anacreon into a familiar measure which was supposed to represent the meter of the Greek.

Half a century later, when the form had been much cultivated, John Phillips (1631–1706) laid down the arbitrary rule that an anacreontic line "consists of seven syllables, without being tied to any certain law of quantity." In the 18th century, the antiquary William Oldys (1696–1761) was the author of a little piece which is the perfect type of an anacreontic; this begins:

 * "Busy, curious, thirsty fly,
 * Drink with me, and drink as I;
 * Freely welcome to my cup,
 * Could'st thou sip and sip it up.
 * Make the most of life you may;
 * Life is short and wears away."

In 1800 Thomas Moore published a collection of erotic anacreontics which are also typical in form; Moore speaks of the necessity of catching "the careless facility with which Anacreon appears to have trifled," as a reason why anacreontics are often tame and worthless. He dwells, moreover, on the absurdity of writing "pious anacreontics," a feat, however, which was performed by several of the Greek Christian poets, and in particular by Gregory of Nazianzus and John of Damascus.

title: Anacreontics


text:
Jocko Homo

"Jocko Homo" is the B-side to Devo's first single, "Mongoloid", released in 1977 on Devo's own label, Booji Boy Records and later released in the UK on Stiff Records. The song was re-recorded as the feature song for Devo's first album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! on Warner Bros. Records in 1978. The original version peaked at No. 62 on the UK Singles Chart.

The title was derived from a 1924 anti-evolution tract called Jocko-Homo Heavenbound by Bertram Henry Shadduck, while its "Are we not men?"/"We are Devo!" call and response chant is a reference to the 1932 movie Island of Lost Souls. The song had been in Devo's setlists for several years prior to being recorded, and an early version was featured in the band's 1976 short film The Truth About De-Evolution.

Background
According to the liner notes of Hardcore Devo, "Jocko Homo" was first demoed in 1974, as one of Mark Mothersbaugh's first solo compositions for the group. The earliest known live performance of the song was on Halloween night of 1975, opening for Sun Ra. The released recording of this version is seven minutes long. However, according to a 1997 interview with Mark Mothersbaugh, they performed a half-hour rendition of the song as a joke to annoy the crowd: "We'd play 'Jocko Homo' for 30 minutes, and we wouldn't stop until people were actually fighting with us, trying to make us stop playing the song. We'd just keep going, 'Are we not men? We are Devo!' for like 25 minutes, directed at people in an aggressive enough manner that even the most peace-lovin' hippie wanted to throw fists."

Between 1975 and 1976, Devo filmed The Truth About De-Evolution, a short experimental film, part of which was set to the 1974 demo of "Jocko Homo".

Personnel
(Booji Boy/Stiff version)

 * Mark Mothersbaugh – lead vocals, keyboards
 * Gerald Casale – bass guitar, backing vocals
 * Bob Mothersbaugh – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
 * Jim Mothersbaugh – electronic percussion

(WB version)

 * Mark Mothersbaugh – lead vocals, keyboards
 * Gerald Casale – bass guitar, backing vocals
 * Bob Mothersbaugh – lead guitar, backing vocals
 * Bob Casale – rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals
 * Alan Myers – drums

Composition
The title is taken from a 1924 anti-evolution tract called Jocko-Homo Heavenbound by Bertram Henry Shadduck, where the term is defined as "ape-man".

The song's verses primarily concern themselves with the view of de-evolution, noting foibles in human society. Most versions include a bridge that begins with "God made man, but he used the monkey to do it." This is a response and reference to the Uncle Dave Macon song "The Bible's True" (1926), an anti-evolution song.

The song also contains several call and response choruses, including the repeated chant "Are we not men?/We are Devo!" Co-writer Mark Mothersbaugh has stated that the line is a reference to the 1932 film Island of Lost Souls, an adaptation of the 1896 H. G. Wells novel Island of Doctor Moreau, from which the line actually originated. Mothersbaugh says of the film: "There were like, watered down, wussy versions of it in the later Islands of Dr. Moreau stuff, but that was a really intense movie."

"Jocko Homo", in its variations, has also contained other chants between the main verses and the closing chant, including "We accept you/We reject you/One of us! One of us!", a reference to Tod Browning's Freaks (1932), and "I've got a rhyme that comes in a riddle/O-Hi-O!/What's round on the ends and high in the middle?/O-Hi-O!", a reference to a 1922 Broadway song by Alfred Bryan and Bert Hanlon, often performed by the Ohio State University marching band.

The original version of "Jocko Homo" lacks all call and response choruses except "Are we not men?", as well as the "God made man" bridge. This demo version appears on the Hardcore Devo: Volume One compilation, and the Devo's Greatest Misses compilation as well. The Booji Boy Records single version contains both the "O-Hi-O!" and the "God made man" bridge. The version on Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO! only includes the "God made man" bridge.

The song begins in the unusual time signature of time, but switches partway through to common  time for the call and response sections.

Music video
A music video for the song "Jocko Homo" was part of the short film, The Truth About De-Evolution, Devo's first music video, directed by Chuck Statler. It begins with an interstitial scene of Booji Boy running through a Cuyahoga Falls parking lot, up a fire escape, and into a building. There, he meets with General Boy, who is played by Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh's father (Robert Mothersbaugh, Sr.), and hands him papers. After an announcement from General Boy, there are a series of rapid fire cuts of the letters "D-E-V-O" set to the intro of the Devo song "Mechanical Man", and then the main video begins. In it, Mark Mothersbaugh plays a professor, lecturing to a class of students in surgical masks, caps, and 3-D glasses. As the song progresses, the class begins to riot.

Other versions
Devo recorded a muzak version for their EZ Listening Cassette in 1981, which was reissued on their E-Z Listening Disc compilation in 1987.

On the 1988 and 1990 tours, as well as at the 1996 Park City, Utah show and the 2002 Hollywood, CA show, Devo performed a drastically re-arranged and slowed down acoustic version of "Jocko Homo", which can be heard on their 1989 live album Now It Can Be Told: DEVO at the Palace.

Parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic included a portion of this song in his first polka medley, "Polkas on 45", from his 1984 album "Weird Al" Yankovic in 3-D.

title: Jocko Homo


text:
MAJC

MAJC (Microprocessor Architecture for Java Computing) was a Sun Microsystems multi-core, multithreaded, very long instruction word (VLIW) microprocessor design from the mid-to-late 1990s. Originally called the UltraJava processor, the MAJC processor was targeted at running Java programs, whose "late compiling" allowed Sun to make several favourable design decisions. The processor was released into two commercial graphical cards from Sun. Lessons learned regarding multi-threads on a multi-core processor provided a basis for later OpenSPARC implementations such as the UltraSPARC T1.

Move instruction scheduling to the compiler
Like other VLIW designs, notably Intel's IA-64 (Itanium), MAJC attempted to improve performance by moving several expensive operations out of the processor and into the related compilers. In general, VLIW designs attempt to eliminate the instruction scheduler, which often represents a relatively large amount of the overall processor's transistor budget. With this portion of the CPU removed to software, those transistors can be used for other purposes, often to add additional functional units to process more instructions at once, or to increase the amount of cache memory to reduce the amount of time spent waiting for data to arrive from the much slower main memory. Although MAJC shared these general concepts, it was unlike other VLIW designs, and processors in general, in a number of specific details.

Generalized functional units
Most processors include a number of separate "subprocessors" known as functional units that are tuned to operating on a particular type of data. For instance, a modern CPU typically has two or three functional units dedicated to processing integer data and logic instructions, known as ALUs, while other units handle floating-point numbers, the FPUs, or multimedia data, SIMD. MAJC instead used a single multi-purpose functional unit which could process any sort of data. In theory this approach meant that processing any one type of data would take longer, perhaps much longer, than processing the same data in a unit dedicated to that type of data. But on the other hand, these general-purpose units also meant that you did not end up with large portions of the CPU being unused because the program just happened to be doing many (for example) floating point calculations at that particular point in time.

Variable-length instruction packets
Another difference is that MAJC allowed for variable-length "instruction packets", which under VLIW contain a number of instructions that the compiler has determined can be run at the same time. Most VLIW architectures use fixed-length packets and when they cannot find an instruction to run they instead fill it with a, which simply takes up space. Although variable-length instruction packets added some complexity to the CPU, it reduced code size and thus the number of expensive cache misses by increasing the amount of code in the cache at any one time.

Avoiding interlocks and stalls
The primary difference was the way that the MAJC design required the compiler to avoid interlocks, pauses in execution while the results of one instruction need to be processed for the next to be able to run. For instance, if the processor is fed the instructions, then the second instruction can be run only after the first completes. Most processors include locks in the design to stall out and reschedule these sorts of interlocked instructions, allowing some other instructions to run while the value of C is being calculated. However these interlocks are very expensive in terms of chip real-estate, and represents the majority of the instruction scheduler's logic.

In order for the compiler to avoid these interlocks, it would have to know exactly how long each of these instructions would take to complete. For instance, if a particular implementation took three cycles to complete a floating-point multiplication, MAJC compilers would attempt to schedule in other instructions that took three cycles to complete and were not currently stalled. A change in the actual implementation might reduce this delay to only two instructions, however, and the compiler would need to be aware of this change.

This means that the compiler was not tied to MAJC as a whole, but a particular implementation of MAJC, each individual CPU based on the MAJC design. This would normally be a serious logistical problem; consider the number of different variations of the Intel IA-32 design for instance, each one would need its own dedicated compiler and the developer would have to produce a different binary for every one. However it is precisely this concept that drives the Java market–there is indeed a different compiler for each ISA, and it is installed on the client's machine instead of the developer's. The developer ships only a single bytecode version of their program, and the user's machine compiles that to the underlying platform.

In reality, scheduling instructions in this fashion turns out to be a very difficult problem. In real-world use, processors that attempt to do this scheduling at runtime encounter numerous events when the data needed is outside the cache, and there is no other instruction in the program that isn't also dependent on such data. In these cases the processor might stall for long periods, waiting on main memory. The VLIW approach does not help much in this regard; although the compiler might be able to spend more time looking for instructions to run, that doesn't mean that it can actually find one.

MAJC attempted to address this problem through the ability to execute code from other threads if the current thread stalled on memory. Switching threads is normally a very expensive process known as a context switch, and on a normal processor the switch would overwhelm any savings and generally slow the machine down. On MAJC, the system could hold the state for up to four threads in memory at the same time, reducing the context switch to a few instructions in length. This feature has since appeared on other processors; Intel refers to it as HyperThreading.

MAJC took this idea one step further, and tried to prefetch data and instructions needed for threads while they were stalled. Most processors include similar functionality for parts of an instruction stream, known as speculative execution, where the processor runs both of the possible outcomes of a branch while waiting for the deciding variable to calculate. MAJC instead continued to run the thread as if it were not stalled, using this execution to find and then load any data or instructions that would soon be needed when the thread stopped stalling. Sun referred to this as Space-Time Computing (STC), and it is a speculative multithreading design.

Processors up to this point had tried to extract parallelism in a single thread, a technique that was reaching its limits in terms of diminishing returns. In seems that in a general sense the MAJC design attempted to avoid stalls by running across threads (and programs) as opposed to looking for parallelism in a single thread. VLIW is generally expected to be somewhat worse in terms of stalls because it is difficult to understand runtime behavior at compile-time, making the MAJC approach in dealing with this problem particularly interesting.

Implementations
Sun built a single model of the MAJC, the two-core MAJC 5200, which was the heart of Sun's XVR-1000 and XVR-4000 workstation graphics boards. However many of the multicore and multithreading design ideas, notably in terms of using multiple threads to reduce stalling delays, worked their way into the Sun SPARC processor line, as well as designs from other companies. Additionally, the MAJC idea of designing the processor to run as many threads as possible, as opposed to instructions, appears to be the basis of the later UltraSPARC T1 (code-named Niagara) design.

title: MAJC


text:
Robust statistics

Robust statistics are statistics that maintain their properties even if the underlying distributional assumptions are incorrect. Robust statistical methods have been developed for many common problems, such as estimating location, scale, and regression parameters. One motivation is to produce statistical methods that are not unduly affected by outliers. Another motivation is to provide methods with good performance when there are small departures from a parametric distribution. For example, robust methods work well for mixtures of two normal distributions with different standard deviations; under this model, non-robust methods like a t-test work poorly.

Introduction
Robust statistics seek to provide methods that emulate popular statistical methods, but are not unduly affected by outliers or other small departures from model assumptions. In statistics, classical estimation methods rely heavily on assumptions that are often not met in practice. In particular, it is often assumed that the data errors are normally distributed, at least approximately, or that the central limit theorem can be relied on to produce normally distributed estimates. Unfortunately, when there are outliers in the data, classical estimators often have very poor performance, when judged using the breakdown point and the influence function described below.

The practical effect of problems seen in the influence function can be studied empirically by examining the sampling distribution of proposed estimators under a mixture model, where one mixes in a small amount (1–5% is often sufficient) of contamination. For instance, one may use a mixture of 95% a normal distribution, and 5% a normal distribution with the same mean but significantly higher standard deviation (representing outliers).

Robust parametric statistics can proceed in two ways:
 * by designing estimators so that a pre-selected behaviour of the influence function is achieved
 * by replacing estimators that are optimal under the assumption of a normal distribution with estimators that are optimal for, or at least derived for, other distributions; for example, using the t-distribution with low degrees of freedom (high kurtosis) or with a mixture of two or more distributions.

Robust estimates have been studied for the following problems:
 * estimating location parameters
 * estimating scale parameters
 * estimating regression coefficients
 * estimation of model-states in models expressed in state-space form, for which the standard method is equivalent to a Kalman filter.

Definition
There are various definitions of a "robust statistic". Strictly speaking, a robust statistic is resistant to errors in the results, produced by deviations from assumptions (e.g., of normality). This means that if the assumptions are only approximately met, the robust estimator will still have a reasonable efficiency, and reasonably small bias, as well as being asymptotically unbiased, meaning having a bias tending towards 0 as the sample size tends towards infinity.

Usually, the most important case is distributional robustness - robustness to breaking of the assumptions about the underlying distribution of the data. Classical statistical procedures are typically sensitive to "longtailedness" (e.g., when the distribution of the data has longer tails than the assumed normal distribution). This implies that they will be strongly affected by the presence of outliers in the data, and the estimates they produce may be heavily distorted if there are extreme outliers in the data, compared to what they would be if the outliers were not included in the data.

By contrast, more robust estimators that are not so sensitive to distributional distortions such as longtailedness are also resistant to the presence of outliers. Thus, in the context of robust statistics, distributionally robust and outlier-resistant are effectively synonymous. For one perspective on research in robust statistics up to 2000, see.

Some experts prefer the term resistant statistics for distributional robustness, and reserve 'robustness' for non-distributional robustness, e.g., robustness to violation of assumptions about the probability model or estimator, but this is a minority usage. Plain 'robustness' to mean 'distributional robustness' is common.

When considering how robust an estimator is to the presence of outliers, it is useful to test what happens when an extreme outlier is added to the dataset, and to test what happens when an extreme outlier replaces one of the existing data points, and then to consider the effect of multiple additions or replacements.

Examples
The mean is not a robust measure of central tendency. If the dataset is, e.g., the values {2,3,5,6,9}, then if we add another datapoint with value -1000 or +1000 to the data, the resulting mean will be very different from the mean of the original data. Similarly, if we replace one of the values with a datapoint of value -1000 or +1000 then the resulting mean will be very different from the mean of the original data.

The median is a robust measure of central tendency. Taking the same dataset {2,3,5,6,9}, if we add another datapoint with value -1000 or +1000 then the median will change slightly, but it will still be similar to the median of the original data. If we replace one of the values with a data point of value -1000 or +1000 then the resulting median will still be similar to the median of the original data.

Described in terms of breakdown points, the median has a breakdown point of 50%, meaning that half the points must be outliers before the median can be moved outside the range of the non-outliers, while the mean has a breakdown point of 0, as a single large observation can throw it off.

The median absolute deviation and interquartile range are robust measures of statistical dispersion, while the standard deviation and range are not.

Trimmed estimators and Winsorised estimators are general methods to make statistics more robust. L-estimators are a general class of simple statistics, often robust, while M-estimators are a general class of robust statistics, and are now the preferred solution, though they can be quite involved to calculate.

Speed-of-light data
Gelman et al. in Bayesian Data Analysis (2004) consider a data set relating to speed-of-light measurements made by Simon Newcomb. The data sets for that book can be found via the Classic data sets page, and the book's website contains more information on the data.

Although the bulk of the data looks to be more or less normally distributed, there are two obvious outliers. These outliers have a large effect on the mean, dragging it towards them, and away from the center of the bulk of the data. Thus, if the mean is intended as a measure of the location of the center of the data, it is, in a sense, biased when outliers are present.

Also, the distribution of the mean is known to be asymptotically normal due to the central limit theorem. However, outliers can make the distribution of the mean non-normal, even for fairly large data sets. Besides this non-normality, the mean is also inefficient in the presence of outliers and less variable measures of location are available.

Estimation of location
The plot below shows a density plot of the speed-of-light data, together with a rug plot (panel (a)). Also shown is a normal Q–Q plot (panel (b)). The outliers are visible in these plots.

Panels (c) and (d) of the plot show the bootstrap distribution of the mean (c) and the 10% trimmed mean (d). The trimmed mean is a simple, robust estimator of location that deletes a certain percentage of observations (10% here) from each end of the data, then computes the mean in the usual way. The analysis was performed in R and 10,000 bootstrap samples were used for each of the raw and trimmed means.

The distribution of the mean is clearly much wider than that of the 10% trimmed mean (the plots are on the same scale). Also whereas the distribution of the trimmed mean appears to be close to normal, the distribution of the raw mean is quite skewed to the left. So, in this sample of 66 observations, only 2 outliers cause the central limit theorem to be inapplicable.

Robust statistical methods, of which the trimmed mean is a simple example, seek to outperform classical statistical methods in the presence of outliers, or, more generally, when underlying parametric assumptions are not quite correct.

Whilst the trimmed mean performs well relative to the mean in this example, better robust estimates are available. In fact, the mean, median and trimmed mean are all special cases of M-estimators. Details appear in the sections below.

Estimation of scale
The outliers in the speed-of-light data have more than just an adverse effect on the mean; the usual estimate of scale is the standard deviation, and this quantity is even more badly affected by outliers because the squares of the deviations from the mean go into the calculation, so the outliers' effects are exacerbated.

The plots below show the bootstrap distributions of the standard deviation, the median absolute deviation (MAD) and the Rousseeuw–Croux (Qn) estimator of scale. The plots are based on 10,000 bootstrap samples for each estimator, with some Gaussian noise added to the resampled data (smoothed bootstrap). Panel (a) shows the distribution of the standard deviation, (b) of the MAD and (c) of Qn.

The distribution of standard deviation is erratic and wide, a result of the outliers. The MAD is better behaved, and Qn is a little bit more efficient than MAD. This simple example demonstrates that when outliers are present, the standard deviation cannot be recommended as an estimate of scale.

Manual screening for outliers
Traditionally, statisticians would manually screen data for outliers, and remove them, usually checking the source of the data to see whether the outliers were erroneously recorded. Indeed, in the speed-of-light example above, it is easy to see and remove the two outliers prior to proceeding with any further analysis. However, in modern times, data sets often consist of large numbers of variables being measured on large numbers of experimental units. Therefore, manual screening for outliers is often impractical.

Outliers can often interact in such a way that they mask each other. As a simple example, consider a small univariate data set containing one modest and one large outlier. The estimated standard deviation will be grossly inflated by the large outlier. The result is that the modest outlier looks relatively normal. As soon as the large outlier is removed, the estimated standard deviation shrinks, and the modest outlier now looks unusual.

This problem of masking gets worse as the complexity of the data increases. For example, in regression problems, diagnostic plots are used to identify outliers. However, it is common that once a few outliers have been removed, others become visible. The problem is even worse in higher dimensions.

Robust methods provide automatic ways of detecting, downweighting (or removing), and flagging outliers, largely removing the need for manual screening. Care must be taken; initial data showing the ozone hole first appearing over Antarctica were rejected as outliers by non-human screening.

Variety of applications
Although this article deals with general principles for univariate statistical methods, robust methods also exist for regression problems, generalized linear models, and parameter estimation of various distributions.

Measures of robustness
The basic tools used to describe and measure robustness are the breakdown point, the influence function and the sensitivity curve.

Breakdown point
Intuitively, the breakdown point of an estimator is the proportion of incorrect observations (e.g. arbitrarily large observations) an estimator can handle before giving an incorrect (e.g., arbitrarily large) result. Usually, the asymptotic (infinite sample) limit is quoted as the breakdown point, although the finite-sample breakdown point may be more useful. For example, given $$n$$ independent random variables $$(X_1,\dots,X_n)$$ and the corresponding realizations $$x_1,\dots,x_n$$, we can use $$\overline{X_n}:=\frac{X_1+\cdots+X_n}{n}$$ to estimate the mean. Such an estimator has a breakdown point of 0 (or finite-sample breakdown point of $$1/n$$) because we can make $$\overline{x}$$ arbitrarily large just by changing any of $$ x_1,\dots,x_n$$.

The higher the breakdown point of an estimator, the more robust it is. Intuitively, we can understand that a breakdown point cannot exceed 50% because if more than half of the observations are contaminated, it is not possible to distinguish between the underlying distribution and the contaminating distribution. Therefore, the maximum breakdown point is 0.5 and there are estimators which achieve such a breakdown point. For example, the median has a breakdown point of 0.5. The X% trimmed mean has a breakdown point of X%, for the chosen level of X. and  contain more details. The level and the power breakdown points of tests are investigated in.

Statistics with high breakdown points are sometimes called resistant statistics.

Example: speed-of-light data
In the speed-of-light example, removing the two lowest observations causes the mean to change from 26.2 to 27.75, a change of 1.55. The estimate of scale produced by the Qn method is 6.3. We can divide this by the square root of the sample size to get a robust standard error, and we find this quantity to be 0.78. Thus, the change in the mean resulting from removing two outliers is approximately twice the robust standard error.

The 10% trimmed mean for the speed-of-light data is 27.43. Removing the two lowest observations and recomputing gives 27.67. The trimmed mean is less affected by the outliers and has a higher breakdown point.

If we replace the lowest observation, −44, by −1000, the mean becomes 11.73, whereas the 10% trimmed mean is still 27.43. In many areas of applied statistics, it is common for data to be log-transformed to make them near symmetrical. Very small values become large negative when log-transformed, and zeroes become negatively infinite. Therefore, this example is of practical interest.

Empirical influence function
The empirical influence function is a measure of the dependence of the estimator on the value of any one of the points in the sample. It is a model-free measure in the sense that it simply relies on calculating the estimator again with a different sample. On the right is Tukey's biweight function, which, as we will later see, is an example of what a "good" (in a sense defined later on) empirical influence function should look like.

In mathematical terms, an influence function is defined as a vector in the space of the estimator, which is in turn defined for a sample which is a subset of the population:

 * 1) $$(\Omega,\mathcal{A},P)$$ is a probability space,
 * 2) $$(\mathcal{X},\Sigma)$$ is a measurable space (state space),
 * 3) $$\Theta$$ is a parameter space of dimension $$p\in\mathbb{N}^*$$,
 * 4) $$(\Gamma,S)$$ is a measurable space,

For example,

 * 1) $$(\Omega,\mathcal{A},P)$$ is any probability space,
 * 2) $$(\mathcal{X},\Sigma) = (\mathbb{R},\mathcal{B})$$,
 * 3) $$\Theta = \mathbb{R}\times\mathbb{R}^+$$
 * 4) $$(\Gamma,S) = (\mathbb{R},\mathcal{B})$$,

The empirical influence function is defined as follows.

Let $$n\in\mathbb{N}^*$$ and $$X_1,\dots,X_n:(\Omega, \mathcal{A}) \rightarrow (\mathcal{X},\Sigma)$$ are i.i.d. and $$(x_1,\dots,x_n)$$ is a sample from these variables. $$T_n: (\mathcal{X}^n,\Sigma^n) \rightarrow (\Gamma,S)$$ is an estimator. Let $$i\in\{1,\dots,n\}$$. The empirical influence function $$EIF_i$$ at observation $$i$$ is defined by:

 * $$EIF_i: x\in\mathcal{X} \mapsto n\cdot(T_n(x_1,\dots,x_{i-1},x,x_{i+1},\dots,x_n)-T_n(x_1,\dots,x_{i-1},x_i,x_{i+1},\dots,x_n))$$

What this means is that we are replacing the i-th value in the sample by an arbitrary value and looking at the output of the estimator. Alternatively, the EIF is defined as the effect, scaled by n+1 instead of n, on the estimator of adding the point $$x$$ to the sample.

Influence function and sensitivity curve
Instead of relying solely on the data, we could use the distribution of the random variables. The approach is quite different from that of the previous paragraph. What we are now trying to do is to see what happens to an estimator when we change the distribution of the data slightly: it assumes a distribution, and measures sensitivity to change in this distribution. By contrast, the empirical influence assumes a sample set, and measures sensitivity to change in the samples.

Let $$A$$ be a convex subset of the set of all finite signed measures on $$\Sigma$$. We want to estimate the parameter $$\theta\in\Theta$$ of a distribution $$F$$ in $$A$$. Let the functional $$T:A\rightarrow\Gamma$$ be the asymptotic value of some estimator sequence $$(T_n)_{n\in\mathbb{N}}$$. We will suppose that this functional is Fisher consistent, i.e. $$\forall \theta\in\Theta, T(F_\theta)=\theta$$. This means that at the model $$F$$, the estimator sequence asymptotically measures the correct quantity.

Let $$G$$ be some distribution in $$A$$. What happens when the data doesn't follow the model $$F$$ exactly but another, slightly different, "going towards" $$G$$?

We're looking at:
 * $$dT_{G-F}(F) = \lim_{t\rightarrow 0^+}\frac{T(tG + (1 - t)F) - T(F)}{t}$$,

which is the one-sided Gateaux derivative of $$T$$ at $$F$$, in the direction of $$G-F$$.

Let $$x\in\mathcal{X}$$. $$\Delta_x$$ is the probability measure which gives mass 1 to $$\{x\}$$. We choose $$G=\Delta_x$$. The influence function is then defined by:

 * $$IF(x; T; F) := \lim_{t\rightarrow 0^+}\frac{T(t\Delta_x+(1-t)F) - T(F)}{t}.$$

It describes the effect of an infinitesimal contamination at the point $$x$$ on the estimate we are seeking, standardized by the mass $$t$$ of the contamination (the asymptotic bias caused by contamination in the observations). For a robust estimator, we want a bounded influence function, that is, one which does not go to infinity as x becomes arbitrarily large.

Desirable properties
Properties of an influence function that bestow it with desirable performance are:
 * 1) Finite rejection point $$\rho^*$$,
 * 2) Small gross-error sensitivity $$\gamma^*$$,
 * 3) Small local-shift sensitivity $$\lambda^*$$.

Rejection point

 * $$\rho^* := \inf_{r>0}\{r:IF(x;T;F)=0, |x|>r\}$$

Gross-error sensitivity

 * $$\gamma^*(T;F) := \sup_{x\in\mathcal{X}}|IF(x; T ; F)|$$

Local-shift sensitivity

 * $$\lambda^*(T;F) := \sup_{(x,y)\in\mathcal{X}^2\atop x\neq y}\left\|\frac{IF(y ; T; F) - IF(x; T ; F)}{y-x}\right\|$$

This value, which looks a lot like a Lipschitz constant, represents the effect of shifting an observation slightly from $$x$$ to a neighbouring point $$y$$, i.e., add an observation at $$y$$ and remove one at $$x$$.

M-estimators
(The mathematical context of this paragraph is given in the section on empirical influence functions.)

Historically, several approaches to robust estimation were proposed, including R-estimators and L-estimators. However, M-estimators now appear to dominate the field as a result of their generality, their potential for high breakdown points and comparatively high efficiency. See.

M-estimators are not inherently robust. However, they can be designed to achieve favourable properties, including robustness. M-estimator are a generalization of maximum likelihood estimators (MLEs) which is determined by maximizing $\prod_{i=1}^n f(x_i)$ or, equivalently, minimizing $\sum_{i=1}^n-\log f(x_i)$. In 1964, Huber proposed to generalize this to the minimization of $\sum_{i=1}^n \rho(x_i)$, where $$\rho$$ is some function. MLE are therefore a special case of M-estimators (hence the name: "Maximum likelihood type" estimators).

Minimizing $\sum_{i=1}^n \rho(x_i)$ can often be done by differentiating $$\rho$$ and solving $\sum_{i=1}^n \psi(x_i) = 0$, where $\psi(x) = \frac{d\rho(x)}{dx}$  (if $$\rho$$ has a derivative).

Several choices of $$\rho$$ and $$\psi$$ have been proposed. The two figures below show four $$\rho$$ functions and their corresponding $$\psi$$ functions.

For squared errors, $$\rho(x)$$ increases at an accelerating rate, whilst for absolute errors, it increases at a constant rate. When Winsorizing is used, a mixture of these two effects is introduced: for small values of x, $$\rho$$ increases at the squared rate, but once the chosen threshold is reached (1.5 in this example), the rate of increase becomes constant. This Winsorised estimator is also known as the Huber loss function.

Tukey's biweight (also known as bisquare) function behaves in a similar way to the squared error function at first, but for larger errors, the function tapers off.

Properties of M-estimators
M-estimators do not necessarily relate to a probability density function. Therefore, off-the-shelf approaches to inference that arise from likelihood theory can not, in general, be used.

It can be shown that M-estimators are asymptotically normally distributed so that as long as their standard errors can be computed, an approximate approach to inference is available.

Since M-estimators are normal only asymptotically, for small sample sizes it might be appropriate to use an alternative approach to inference, such as the bootstrap. However, M-estimates are not necessarily unique (i.e., there might be more than one solution that satisfies the equations). Also, it is possible that any particular bootstrap sample can contain more outliers than the estimator's breakdown point. Therefore, some care is needed when designing bootstrap schemes.

Of course, as we saw with the speed-of-light example, the mean is only normally distributed asymptotically and when outliers are present the approximation can be very poor even for quite large samples. However, classical statistical tests, including those based on the mean, are typically bounded above by the nominal size of the test. The same is not true of M-estimators and the type I error rate can be substantially above the nominal level.

These considerations do not "invalidate" M-estimation in any way. They merely make clear that some care is needed in their use, as is true of any other method of estimation.

Influence function of an M-estimator
It can be shown that the influence function of an M-estimator $$T$$ is proportional to $$\psi$$, which means we can derive the properties of such an estimator (such as its rejection point, gross-error sensitivity or local-shift sensitivity) when we know its $$\psi$$ function.

 * $$IF(x;T,F) = M^{-1}\psi(x,T(F))$$

with the $$p\times p$$ given by:

 * $$M = -\int_{\mathcal{X}} \left(\frac{\partial \psi(x,\theta)}{\partial \theta} \right)_{T(F)} \, dF(x).$$

Choice of ψ and ρ
In many practical situations, the choice of the $$\psi$$ function is not critical to gaining a good robust estimate, and many choices will give similar results that offer great improvements, in terms of efficiency and bias, over classical estimates in the presence of outliers.

Theoretically, $$\psi$$ functions are to be preferred, and Tukey's biweight (also known as bisquare) function is a popular choice. recommend the biweight function with efficiency at the normal set to 85%.

Robust parametric approaches
M-estimators do not necessarily relate to a density function and so are not fully parametric. Fully parametric approaches to robust modeling and inference, both Bayesian and likelihood approaches, usually deal with heavy-tailed distributions such as Student's t-distribution.

For the t-distribution with $$\nu$$ degrees of freedom, it can be shown that

 * $$\psi(x) = \frac{x}{x^2 + \nu}.$$

For $$\nu=1$$, the t-distribution is equivalent to the Cauchy distribution. The degrees of freedom is sometimes known as the kurtosis parameter. It is the parameter that controls how heavy the tails are. In principle, $$\nu$$ can be estimated from the data in the same way as any other parameter. In practice, it is common for there to be multiple local maxima when $$\nu$$ is allowed to vary. As such, it is common to fix $$\nu$$ at a value around 4 or 6. The figure below displays the $$\psi$$-function for 4 different values of $$\nu$$.

Example: speed-of-light data
For the speed-of-light data, allowing the kurtosis parameter to vary and maximizing the likelihood, we get

 * $$ \hat\mu = 27.40,\quad \hat\sigma = 3.81,\quad \hat\nu = 2.13.$$

Fixing $$\nu = 4$$ and maximizing the likelihood gives

 * $$\hat\mu = 27.49,\quad \hat\sigma = 4.51.$$

Related concepts
A pivotal quantity is a function of data, whose underlying population distribution is a member of a parametric family, that is not dependent on the values of the parameters. An ancillary statistic is such a function that is also a statistic, meaning that it is computed in terms of the data alone. Such functions are robust to parameters in the sense that they are independent of the values of the parameters, but not robust to the model in the sense that they assume an underlying model (parametric family), and in fact, such functions are often very sensitive to violations of the model assumptions. Thus test statistics, frequently constructed in terms of these to not be sensitive to assumptions about parameters, are still very sensitive to model assumptions.

Replacing outliers and missing values
Replacing missing data is called imputation. If there are relatively few missing points, there are some models which can be used to estimate values to complete the series, such as replacing missing values with the mean or median of the data. Simple linear regression can also be used to estimate missing values. In addition, outliers can sometimes be accommodated in the data through the use of trimmed means, other scale estimators apart from standard deviation (e.g., MAD) and Winsorization. In calculations of a trimmed mean, a fixed percentage of data is dropped from each end of an ordered data, thus eliminating the outliers. The mean is then calculated using the remaining data. Winsorizing involves accommodating an outlier by replacing it with the next highest or next smallest value as appropriate.

However, using these types of models to predict missing values or outliers in a long time series is difficult and often unreliable, particularly if the number of values to be in-filled is relatively high in comparison with total record length. The accuracy of the estimate depends on how good and representative the model is and how long the period of missing values extends. When dynamic evolution is assumed in a series, the missing data point problem becomes an exercise in multivariate analysis (rather than the univariate approach of most traditional methods of estimating missing values and outliers). In such cases, a multivariate model will be more representative than a univariate one for predicting missing values. The Kohonen self organising map (KSOM) offers a simple and robust multivariate model for data analysis, thus providing good possibilities to estimate missing values, taking into account their relationship or correlation with other pertinent variables in the data record.

Standard Kalman filters are not robust to outliers. To this end have recently shown that a modification of Masreliez's theorem can deal with outliers.

One common approach to handle outliers in data analysis is to perform outlier detection first, followed by an efficient estimation method (e.g., the least squares). While this approach is often useful, one must keep in mind two challenges. First, an outlier detection method that relies on a non-robust initial fit can suffer from the effect of masking, that is, a group of outliers can mask each other and escape detection. Second, if a high breakdown initial fit is used for outlier detection, the follow-up analysis might inherit some of the inefficiencies of the initial estimator.

title: Robust statistics


text:
YUT

YUT may refer to:

 * Yut, a traditional Korean board game
 * Naujaat Airport, Canada (IATA Code)

title: YUT


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suicidal Monkey

 * 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 13:38, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Suicidal Monkey
This is a vanity page Kjl 20:50, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
 * This page started out as a vanity page but has since been updated so that it is not. Nevertheless, it should still be deleted as it remains non-notable slangdef/gamecruft (wikipedia is WP:NOT a gametips site, or dictionary).  Also, it is unverifiable - article mentions term coining from Medal of Honor and custom gametypes in Halo 2; a google search for "Suicidal Monkey" "Medal of Honor" returns 4 (bogus) links, as does a google search of "Suicidal Monkey" "Halo 2". Kjl 13:58, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
 * No it's not. Merge into First person shooter.  PacknCanes 22:38, 11 October 2005 (UTC)    <-Strikeout was removed by User:68.254.164.29.  I put it back. Kjl 17:07, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Have you heard of Kerrigan Joseph before? Also, if you google "Suicidal monkey" rocket or "Suicidal monkey" rpg, etc. it seems pretty clear (to me, anyways) that "Suicidal Monkey" is just some guy's handle. Kjl 23:05, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, I'll defer to people who know more about this than I do. I retract my earlier vote and abstain. PacknCanes 23:24, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete - the gamecruft, it burns. Merge it into some sort of pwnage tactics article if you must, otherwise get rid of it. WP:NOT a gametips site. Also, hopelessly POV. nae'blis (talk) 23:19, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete slangdef (with a gamecruft chaser). - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 03:03, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete per above --Rogerd 04:02, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Also, the following redirects should be deleted: 5u1c1d4l m0nk3y 5u1c1d47 m0nk3y. Kjl 03:53, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I have heard of this before and have used it. Just delete the reference to its alleged originator.
 * Don't change other people's votes. User:68.254.164.29 took out the strike-through tag on PacknCanes's "merge" comment.  Also, this IP's only contributions have been to create and modify the Suicidal Monkey page, its redirects, and links to the page from Leet. Kjl 17:19, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * abstain I think that the person writting this must have know the originator so he put in his name, but i have heard this used by my friends before. I think that if someone removes the originators name it will be fine. Plus, if you want to remove this page then remove the woot page and all other definition pages of leet. they are all in the main leet page as definitions so if the final vote is to delete this page then delete all the leet definition pages.
 * Abstain I agree with the above person. I have used it and I think that the person writting just wanted their name out or somethin'. and with the deletion- then delete woot and other leet words own pages.

 * 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:Ogilvy's

Does anyone have any additional details on the relationship with the Montreal Ogilvy's? Was there any family relationship between Charles Ogilvy in Ottawa and James Ogilvy in Montreal? Further, does anyone know where Charles Ogilvy operated his store before moving to the Rideau Street location? Skeezix1000 20:50, 11 October 2005 (UTC)skeezix1000
 * Further research indicates that: (a) there does not appear to have been any connection between the Ottawa Ogilvy's and the Montreal Ogilvy's, although both were known for their tartan boxes, and (b) Charles Ogilvy opened his store further up on Rideau. Skeezix1000 23:54, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Demolished?
Based on the geocoordinates in the article and a current satellite view of that location, it appears that this building has been demolished. Can somebody please confirm? It's mentioned in List of buildings in Ottawa and should be moved if it has been demolished. Thanx!  PK T (alk)  01:01, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Ogilvy's


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Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/The Murder of Rosa Luxemburg

Well I'm glad everyone perverted the rules and made an assumption of the bands demise in order to delete this page. Good work guys. Wikipedia Sucks

When's the article going to be restored?


text: User talk:82.19.56.79

title: User talk:82.19.56.79


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File:Ludlow Death Car.jpg

From: http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10060380+X-60380 Description: Armored car, known as the "Death Car", for harassing mining strikers in Ludlow, Colorado.

From 1913, so it is public domain, despite the fact that Denver Public Library claims copyright.

title: File:Ludlow Death Car.jpg