Blog Archive

Friday, November 30, 2007

Zamora, Ecuador
For other uses of the term, see Zamora
Zamora is a city in southeastern Ecuador, capital of Zamora-Chinchipe province and cantonal head of Zamora Canton.
Zamora is the second populous city in Zamora-Chinchipe after Yantzaza. It is located in the foothills of the Andes mountains at 970 m above sea level, on the convergence of the Zamora, Bombuscaro and Jamboé rivers.
Zamora has experienced a boom in growth in recent years, attributed to the discovery of gold in the surrounding region, by this has been known as Mining Capital of Ecuador and actually as well as City of Birds and Waterfalls, referring it to the constant presence of various types of birds and several waterfalls which emerge from the streams that surround the city.
The city stretches from west to east towards Cumbaratza. It is connected by several bus and coach trips to other cantons and provinces.
Zamora, Ecuador

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Memphis blues
The Memphis blues is a style of blues music that was created in 1920s and 1930s by Memphis-area musicians like Frank Stokes, Sleepy John Estes, Furry Lewis and Memphis Minnie. The style was popular in vaudeville and medicine shows, and was associated with Memphis' main entertainment area, Beale Street. Some musicologists believe that it was in the Memphis blues that the separate roles of rhythm and lead guitar were defined. This two guitar concept has become standard in rock and roll and much of popular music.
In addition to guitar based blues, jug bands, such as Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers and the Memphis Jug Band, were extremely popular practitioners of Memphis blues. The jug band style empasized the danceable, syncopated rhythms of early jazz and a range of other archaic folk styles. It was played on simple, sometimes homemade, instruments such as harmonicas, violins, mandolins, banjos, and guitars, backed by washboards, kazoo, Jews harp and jugs blown to supply the bass.
After World War II, electric instruments became popular among Memphis blues musicians. As African-Americans left the Mississippi Delta and other impoverished areas of the south for urban areas, many musicians gravitated to Memphis' blues scene, changing the classic Memphis blues sound. Musicians such as Howlin' Wolf, Willie Nix, Ike Turner, and B.B.King performed on Beale Street and in West Memphis, and recorded some of the classic electric blues, rhythm and blues and rock & roll records for labels such as Sun Records. These musicians had a strong influence on later musicians in these styles, notably the early rock & rollers and rockabillies, many of whom also recorded for Sun Records.
"Memphis Blues" is also the title of a song published by W.C. Handy in 1912 . It is not the first blues published, but was an important early blues-influenced hit. Handy based it on his earlier political campaign song, "Mr. Crump Don't Like It."

Wednesday, November 28, 2007


Anime Weekend Atlanta (AWA) is both the name of an anime convention geared towards Japanese animation and comics held in the Atlanta, Georgia area, and also the name of the LLC that operates it. Since the first convention in 1995, AWA has become one of the most populated/attended anime conventions in the United States. The event is held for 3 days in the fall, starting on a Friday and concluding the following Sunday.

Anime Weekend Atlanta Current

The convention has changed venues multiple times primarily to accommodate ever-increasing attendance. So far, only AWA 1 has been held within the actual Atlanta city limits.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Continental crust
The continental crust is the layer of granitic, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks which form the continents and the areas of shallow seabed close to their shores, known as continental shelves. It is less dense than the material of the Earth's mantle and thus "floats" on top of it. Continental crust is also less dense than oceanic crust, though it is considerably thicker; mostly 35 to 40 km versus the average oceanic thickness of around 7-10 km. About 40% of the Earth's surface is now underlain by continental crust.
As a consequence of the density difference, when active margins of continental crust meet oceanic crust in subduction zones, the oceanic crust is typically subducted back into the mantle. Because of its relative low density, continental crust is only rarely subducted or re-cycled back into the mantle (for instance, where continental crustal blocks collide and overthicken, causing deep melting). For this reason the oldest rocks on Earth are within the cratons or cores of the continents, rather than in repeatedly recycled oceanic crust; the oldest continental rock is the Acasta Gneiss at 4.01 Ga, while the oldest oceanic crust is of Jurassic age.
The height of mountain ranges is usually related to the thickness of crust. This results from the isostasy associated with orogeny (mountain formation). The crust is thickened by the compressive forces related to subduction or continental collision. The buoyancy of the crust forces it upwards, the forces of the collisional stress balanced by gravity and erosion. This forms a keel or mountain root beneath the mountain range, which is where the thickest crust is found.
The thinnest continental crust is found in rift zones, where the crust is thinned by detachment faulting and eventually severed, replaced by oceanic crust. The edges of continental fragments formed this way (both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, for example) are termed passive margins.
The high temperatures and pressures at depth, often combined with a long history of complex distortion, mean that much of the lower continental crust is metamorphic - the main exception to this being recent igneous intrusions. Igneous rock may also be "underplated" to the underside of the crust, i.e. adding to the crust by forming a layer immediately beneath it.
It is a matter of debate whether the amount of continental crust has been increasing, decreasing, or remaining constant over geological time. One model indicates that at prior to 3.7 Bya continental crust constituted less than 10% of the present amount. By 3.0 Bya the amount was about 25% and following a period of rapid crustal evolution it was about 60% of the current amount by 2.6 Bya (Taylor and McLennan, 1995). The growth of continental crust appears to have occurred in spurts of increased activity corresponding to five episodes of increased production through geologic time (see graphic at Butler). New material can be added to the continents by the partial melting of oceanic crust at subduction zones, causing the lighter material to rise as magma, forming volcanoes. Also, material can be accreted "horizontally" when volcanic island arcs, seamounts or similar structures collide with the side of the continent as a result of plate tectonic movements.

Monday, November 26, 2007


Coordinates: 47°14′35″N, 06°01′19″E
Besançon (pronounced /(bəz.ã.'sɔ̃)/ in French and Arpitan; German: Bisanz), known as the greenest city in France, is the capital and principal city of the Franche-Comté région of northeastern France, with approximately 220,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 1999. Located close to the border with Switzerland, it is the préfecture (capital) of the Doubs (Dubs in Arpitan language) département.

History
Sited with three sides within an oxbow of the Doubs River (a tributary of the Rhône River) with the fourth side closed by a mountain, in the first century BC through the modern era, the town held a significant military vantage point aided by the fact that to the immediate south, the Alps rise abruptly presenting a significant natural barrier. In historic times the town was first recorded in the journals of Julius Caesar as the largest town of the Sequani, a smaller Gaulic tribe, in his commentaries detailing his conquest of Gaul; he gave the name of the town as Vesontio (possibly Latinized) and mentions that it was surrounded by a wooden palisade.
Over the centuries, the name permutated to become Besantio, Besontion, Bisanz in Middle High German and gradually arrived at the modern French Besançon. The locals retain their ancient heritage referring to themselves as Bisontins (feminine: Bisontine).

Ancient history
As part of the Holy Roman Empire since 1034, the city became the Archbishopric of Besançon, and was granted the status of Imperial Free City (an autonomous city-state under the Holy Roman Emperor) in 1184. In 1157, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa held an Imperial Diet (Reichstag) in Bisanz. There, Cardinal Orlando Bandinelli, (the future Pope Alexander III, then adviser of Pope Adrian IV), openly asserted before the Emperor that the Imperial dignity was a Papal beneficium (in the more general sense of favour, not the strict feudal sense of fief), which incurred the wrath of the German princes. He would have fallen on the spot under the battle-axe of his life-long foe, Otto of Wittelsbach, had Frederick not intervened; the Imperial Chancellor Rainald of Dassel then inaugurated a German policy which insisted upon the rights and the power of the German kings, the strengthening of the Church in the German Empire, the lordship of Italy and the humiliation of the Papacy. The Archbishops were elevated to Princes of the Holy Roman Empire in 1288. The close connection to the Empire is reflected by the city's coat of arms.

Besançon Middle Ages
In the 15th century, Besançon came under the influence of the dukes of Burgundy. After the marriage of Mary of Burgundy to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, the city was in effect a Habsburg fief, which took it from Austrian to Spanish influence. In 1526 the city obtained the right to mint coins. It continued to strike coins until 1673. Nevertheless, all coins are in the name of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. The Spaniards originally built the main defense complex, "la Citadelle" from 1668, following a design by the French military architect Vauban. In 1674, French troops took the city and Vauban himself got to upgrade its fortifications, which took some 30 years. At the Treaty of Nijmegen the city was awarded to France.
Surrounding the central city are walls built in that era, and between the train station and the central city is a complex moat system through which traffic has been directed. All of these fortifications are built with Vauban's classic star points. Surrounding the city a large number of fortifications were built at the time of Vauban, including the Fort de Trois Châtels, Fort Chaudanne, Fort du Petit Chaudanne, Fort Griffon, Fort des Justices, Fort Beauregard and Fort de Brégille, but the crown jewel of these is la Citadelle.
Built upon a mountaintop, bounded by sheer cliffs on one side, the Doubs river on the others, and the Boucle or Shield, the city centre surrounded by the Doubs, giving it a fantastic defensive stance. Upon this hilltop, Vauban built the largest of his structures in the region. The Citadelle has a dual dry moat, with an outer and inner court. In the evenings, the Citadelle is illuminated and stands above the city as a landmark and a crowning achievement to Vauban's ingenuity.

Renaissance
The Citadelle was used by the Nazis during World War II. Nevertheless, action was limited to a bombing of the railway complex in 1943 and four days of ultimately futile German resistance to US attacks in 1944. Across the Doubs sits the Forts Brégille and Beauregard. The Brégille Heights were reached by a funicular built in 1913. It passed from private ownership during its usage to the SNCF until 1987 when it was finally shut down. To this day the tracks, stations and even roadsigns of the funicular remain in place.

Modern Europe

Geography and climate
Besançon is located in the north-east quarter of France on the Doubs River. It is about 325 km (215 mi) east of the national capital of Paris, 100 km (60 mi) east of Dijon in Burgundy, 125 km (75 mi) northwest of Lausanne in Switzerland, and 100 km (60 mi) southwest of Belfort in Franche-Comté. It is located at the edge of the Jura Mountains.
The city initially developed in a natural meander (or oxbow loop) of the Doubs River with a diameter of almost 1 km (3,281 ft). The flat inner loop has an elevation of about 250 m (820 ft) and is bounded to the south by a hill called Mont Saint-Étienne, which has a maximum height of 371 m (1,217ft). The city is surrounded by six other hills which range in elevation from 400 m (1,312 ft) to 500 m (1,640 ft).

Climate
As of the French Census of 1999, the population of the City of Besançon was 117,733, lower than the historical peak of 120,315 in 1975. As of February 2004 estimates, the population of the city proper was 114,900. The Besançon agglomeration or urban area (unité urbaine) covers 122 km², 11 municipalities (communes) and has a population of 134,376. The metropolitan area (aire urbaine) covers 1,652 km², 234 municipalities (communes) and has 222,381 inhabitants. It's the 37 of France. It increased by 11.4% between 1990 and 1999.

Demographics
Besançon is the capital of the Franche-Comté région of France, a région including the four départements of Doubs, Haute-Saône, Jura and Territoire de Belfort. As such, it is the seat of the Franche-Comté regional council, and the regional préfecture (government offices).
Mayor of the City of Besançon is Jean-Louis Fousseret.

Government and Politics
The city is famous for its microtechnology and watch industries. It is host of the biannual Micronora trade fair, one of Europe's major events in the field of microtechnologies. The city has a little-known specialty, automatic ticketing machines for car parking, airports, date stamping etc.
The watch industry, for which Besançon remains the French capital, endured a major crisis in the 1970s when the advent of far-eastern quartz watches knocked out the traditional watch industry in the space of just a few years. This industrial crisis was epitomised by the famous "Lip" affair, by the name of one of Besançon's most prestigious brands of watches. Refusing to be beaten, the workers of Lip took over their factory and set it up as a worker's cooperative. The event branded Besançon as a city of the radical left, and though it produced a lot of notoriety and sympathy for the workers, it did little to help revive the watch industry, the cooperative going out of business after a short period. The city took a long time to recover from the collapse of the watch industry and its other major industry of the industrial age, artificial textiles.
Since the 1980s, Besançon's watch industry has clawed its way back on the basis of its historic reputation and quartz watches, establishing itself in a number of niche markets including customized watches, high quality watches, and fashion articles. Since the 1990s, the town has developed a reputation as one of France's leading centres technology in all fields, including telecommunications and biotechnology.

Economy
Besançon is the seat of the Université de Franche-Comté. As of 2006, there were approximately 20,000 students enrolled at the university, including around 3,000 foreign students. The city is also home of the École Nationale Supérieure de Mécanique et des Microtechniques (ENSMM), a technological school with a strong reputation in the fields of microtechnology and mechanics and the worldwide famous Centre for Applied Linguistics which teaches ten languages to non-native speakers (French, Arabic, Chinese, English, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish) and any other known language on request and which welcomes more than 3000 students every year from all over the world.

Education

Culture
The city has one of the most beautiful historic centres of any major town in France. The old town, "la Boucle", is enclosed in a broad horse-shoe of the river Doubs, which is blocked off at the neck by Vauban's imposing Citadelle. The historic centre presents a remarkable ensemble of classic stone buildings, some dating back to the Middle Ages. Among the most visited historic monuments are:
Besançon also has one of the finest city art galleries in France outside Paris. The Musée des Beaux Arts has a collection built up since 1694, and expanded over time by a remarkable series of bequests. The building itself was totally rebuilt in the 1960s by the architect Miquel, a pupil of Le Corbusier, its interior taking the form of a gently rising concrete walkway that takes visitors up from classical antiquity to the modern age. Among its treasures are a fine collection of classical antiquities and ancient Egyptian artefacts, as well as a very rich collection of paintings including works by Bellini, Bronzino, Tintoretto, Titian, Rubens, Jordaens, Ruysdael, Cranach, Zurbaran, Goya, Philippe de Champaigne, Fragonard, Boucher, David, Ingres, Géricault, Courbet, Constable, Bonnard, Matisse, Picasso and many others. Perhaps the most remarkable of the city's masterpieces is the massive Virgin and saints altarpiece in the St. Jean cathedral, by the Italian Renaissance painter Fra Bartolomeo.

the 16th century Palais Granvelle, built by Cardinal Granvelle, chancellor to the Habsburg emperor Charles V [Palais:[1],[2]
Vauban's citadel and remarkable riverside frontage
the St. Jean cathedral, dating largely from the 12th century [3]
several Roman remains, notably the Porte Noire, a triumphal arch and the Square Castan. Sites of interest

Museum of Fine Arts and Archeology
Museum of Time
Museum of French Resistance and Deportation in the Vauban's Citadel of Besançon.
Museum of Franche-Comté traditions
Museum of Natural history: zoo, aquarium, insectarium, noctarium, climatology Museums, aquariums, and zoos

Parc Micaud
Parc de la Gare d'Eau
Parc de la Citadelle
Promenade Granvelle
Promenade Chamars
Place de la Révolution
Place du Huit Septembre Parks and squares

Opéra Théâtre: construit par Ledoux de 1778 à 1784
Grand Kursaal
Nouveau Théâtre - Centre Dramatique National
Cirque Plume
Théâtre Bacchus
Théâtre de la Bouloie
Théâtre de l'Espace Performing arts centers
Several major events occur annually in Besançon. One of the best-known is the Besançon Franche-Comté Music Festival, taking place in September, one of the oldest and most prestigious Classical music festivals. Besançon hosts other music festivals such has the Musiques de Rues Festival (street music) in October, the Franch Country Festival (country music) in August, the Jazz en Franche-Comté Festival in June or the Herbe en Zik Festival (french rock and variety) in May.

Annual cultural events and fairs
The major sports in Besançon are handball and basketball. Soccer is important also but the city's club, called Besançon Racing Club, plays only in the fourth national division.

Sports
Besançon is situated at the crossing of two major lines of communication, the NE-SW route, following the valley of the river Doubs, and linking Germany and North Europe with Lyon and southwest Europe, and the N-S route linking northern France and the Low Countries with Switzerland. A key staging post on the Strasbourg-Lyon (Germany-Spain) route, it also has direct high-speed train (TGV) links with Paris, Charles de Gaulle International Airport, and Lille. Unusually for a town of its size, it does not have a commercial airport, though two international airports, EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg and Lyon Saint-Exupéry International Airport, can be reached in about 2 hours.

Transport
As well as being famed as one of France's finest "villes d'art" (art cities), Besançon is the seat of one of France's older universities, of France's National School of Mechanics and Micromechanics, and one of the best known French language schools in France, the CLA. It is also reputed to be France's most environmentally-friendly city, with a public transport network that has often been cited as a model. On account of the topography, the historic city centre lies at the edge of the modern city, and hiking tracks lead straight from the centre and up into the surrounding hills. The city council has been in the hands of the Socialists and parties of the left since the Second World War. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands is also Dame of Besançon.

Miscellaneous
Besançon was the birthplace of:

Claude Goudimel (1510-1572) - Musician, Teacher of Palestrina. Composer of the music for Protestant hymns
Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (1517-1586) - Cardinal, statesman and humanist. Counsellor of Charles V, Viceroy of Naples
Jean Mairet (1604-1686) - Dramatist
Charles Fourier (1772-1837) - Inventor of socialist "phalansteries" (vast communal buildings surrounded by a highly cultivated agricultural area)
Charles Nodier (1780-1844) - Writer. Leader of the Romantic movement
Jean Claude Eugène Péclet (1793-1857) - physicist, gave his name to the Péclet number
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) - Writer and poet
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865)- Journalist (Le Peuple) and author of world-renowned socialist theories
Hilaire de Chardonnet (1838-1924) - Inventor of artificial silk
Louis-Jean Résal (1854-1920) - Engineer who built the Pont Mirabeau and the Pont Alexandre III in Paris
Auguste and Louis Lumière, (1862-1954) and (1864-1948) - Inventors of cinematography
Tristan Bernard (1866-1947) - Journalist and Humorist
Jean de Gribaldy (1922-1987) - Professional racing cyclist and directeur sportif
Morrade Hakkar (1972- ) - Boxer Births
[1.38] When he had proceeded three days' journey, word was brought to him that Ariovistus was hastening with all his forces to seize on Vesontio, which is the largest town of the Sequani, and had advanced three days' journey from its territories. Caesar thought that he ought to take the greatest precautions lest this should happen, for there was in that town a most ample supply of every thing which was serviceable for war; and so fortified was it by the nature of the ground, as to afford a great facility for protracting the war, inasmuch as the river Doubs almost surrounds the whole town, as though it were traced round it with a pair of compasses. A mountain of great height shuts in the remaining space, which is not more than 600 feet, where the river leaves a gap, in such a manner that the roots of that mountain extend to the river's bank on either side. A wall thrown around it makes a citadel of this [mountain], and connects it with the town.
Eventually he saw the white walls beyond the distant mountain; it was the citadel of Besancon. "What a difference," he said, sighing, "if I could come into this fine city as a sub-lieutenant of one of these regiments of the post." Besancon is not only one of the prettiest cities in France, but it abounds in brave and intelligent men. Julien, however, was only a little peasant, without any means of approaching distinguished personages.
This century was two years old. Rome was replacing Sparta; Already Napoleon was emerging from under Bonaparte. And already the First Consul's tight mask Had been split in several places by the Emperor's brow. It was then that in Besancon, that old Spanish town, Cast like a seed into the flying wind, A child was born of mixed blood -- Breton and Lorraine -- Pallid, blind and mute,... That child, whom Life was scratching from its book, And who had not another day to live, Was me.

Julius Caesar, in his account Commentarii de Bello Gallico give a description of the antique city of Besançon, named Vesontio (first book, section 38):
In Stendhal's novel Le rouge et le noir, Julien Sorel, the main character, studies for a while at the catholic seminary from Besançon (first book, chapters 24 to 30):
In the poem This century were two years old (Les Feuilles d'automne), Victor Hugo evokes his birth in Besançon:
Besançon is where the Touché! series, an Australian series of books that teaches people French, is set. The series is about an Australian boy called Nick, who moves to a street in Besançon called rue Cézanne after his parents are separated. He befriends a French girl called Marianne, who introduces him to other residents of rue Cézanne, such as Ahmed, Annick, François Petitpain, Émile Mesquin, Monsieur Fric, Madame Boulin and Mademoiselle Moh. The first two books of the series take place in Besançon, whilst in the third, Nick visits his uncle in New Caledonia. In the fourth, Nick stays in Quebec, Canada. After the fourth book, Nick returns to Besançon.
Julian Barnes' novel A History of the World in 10½ Chapters features as chapter 3: "Wars of Religion"--a fictional manuscript reportedly from the Archives Municipales de Besancon. Popular culture

Tver (Russia)
Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany)
Kuopio (Finland)
Huddersfield - Kirklees (England)
Bielsko-Biala (Poland)
Neuchâtel (Switzerland)
Bistriţa (Romania)
Pavia (Italy)
Hadera (Israel)
Douroula (Burkina Faso)
Man (Côte d'Ivoire)
Charlottesville - Virginia (United States) See also

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Riverdale, Edmonton
Riverdale is a river valley neighbourhood located just east of the downtown core in the city of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It's boundaries on the east and south are the North Saskatchewan River. Immediately across the river to the south is another Edmonton river valley neighbourhood--Cloverdale. Riverdale shares the approaches to the Low Level Bridge with a third river valley neighborhood, Rossdale. To the north, is the neighbourhood of Boyle Street. Riverdale's boundary with the downtown core runs approximately along Grierson Hill Road.
The neighbourhood was a popular site with early residents of the city of Edmonton, and soon had both a lumbermill and brickyard with fuel supplied by coal mined from nearby cliffs in the river valley.
Today, approximately one residential dwelling in four dates from before 1946. Most of the rest of the homes were built over the next 40 years, with only one dwelling in ten dating from 1985 or later.
There is one school, Riverdale School, located in the neighbourhood.
The neighbourhood also has several parks: Allan Stein Park, Dawson Park, Louise McKinney Park, and Louise McKinney Riverfront Park.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Messaging spam
Messaging spam, sometimes called SPIM, is a type of spam targeting users of instant messaging services.
The increase in messaging spam may be motivated by its rise in popularity as well as the many steps to crack down on spamming since the late 1990s.

Using privacy options to guard against messaging spam
The free AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) service allows users to 'warn' other users. The warning decreases the number of messages an account can send, slowing down spam, and shows the AIM address as warned to other users that it may try to message. This feature does have the potential for abuse, although such cases are minimal.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Electoral region
The constituency was created at the same time as the Scottish Parliament, in 1999, with the name and boundaries of an existing Westminster constituency. In 2005, however, Scottish Westminster (House of Commons) constituencies were mostly replaced with new constituencies.
The Holyrood constituency covers a western portion of the Falkirk council area. The rest of the Falkirk area is covered by Falkirk East, which is also within the Central Scotland electoral region.

Falkirk West (Scottish Parliament constituency) Member of the Scottish Parliament

Thursday, November 22, 2007


Irish orthography has evolved over many centuries, since Old Irish was first written down in the Latin alphabet in about the sixth century AD. Prior to that, Primitive Irish was written in Ogham. Irish spelling is mainly based on etymological considerations, very much like English orthography, although a spelling reform in the mid-20th century simplified the relationship between spelling and pronunciation somewhat.
There are three dialects of spoken Irish: Ulster (now predominantly in County Donegal), Connacht (Counties Mayo and Galway), and Munster (Counties Kerry, Cork, and Waterford). Some spelling conventions are common to all the dialects, while others vary from dialect to dialect. In addition, individual words may have in any given dialect a pronunciation that is not reflected by the spelling (rather like the English word colonel, whose spelling denotes its pronunciation quite poorly).

Consonants
The following chart indicates how written vowels are generally pronounced. Each dialect has certain divergences from this general scheme.

When e, é, i, or í come after or before a consonant, they make the consonant slender.
Between a consonant and a vowel, or vice-versa, e and i are usually silent, and just indicate that the adjacent consonants are slender. However, they may be pronounced in the digraphs ei, ia, io, oi, ui.
The accented letters é and í are always pronounced.
In digraphs and trigraphs containing a vowel with an acute accent (known in Irish as a fada or síneadh fada), only the accented vowel is normally pronounced. Irish orthography The epenthetic vowel
In verb forms some letters and letter combinations are pronounced differently from elsewhere.
In the imperfect, conditional, and imperative, -dh is pronounced /tʲ/ before a pronoun beginning with s-:
Otherwise it is pronounced /x/:
In the preterite impersonal, -dh is pronounced /w/:
-(a)idh and -(a)igh are pronounced /ə/ before a pronoun, otherwise /iː/:
In the future and conditional, f (broad or slender) has the following effects:

mholadh sé /ˈwɔɫ̪ətʲ ɕeː/ "he used to praise"
bheannódh sibh /ˈvʲan̪ˠoːtʲ ɕɪvʲ/ "you (pl.) would bless"
osclaíodh sí /ˈɔsˠkɫ̪iːtʲ ɕiː/ "let her open"
mholadh an buachaill /ˈwɔɫ̪əx ə ˈbˠuəxəlʲ/ "the boy used to praise"
bheannódh na cailíní /ˈvʲanoːx n̪ˠə ˈkalʲiːnʲiː/ "the girls would bless"
osclaíodh Siobhán /ˈɔsˠkɫ̪iːx ˈɕʊwaːn̪ˠ/ "let Siobhán open"
moladh é /ˈmˠɔɫ̪əw eː/ "he was praised"
beannaíodh na cailíní /ˈbʲan̪iːw nə ˈkalʲiːnʲiː/ "the girls were blessed"
molfaidh mé /ˈmˠɔɫ̪hə mʲeː/ "I will praise"
molfaidh Seán /ˈmˠɔɫ̪hiː ɕaːn/ "Seán will praise"
bheannaigh mé /ˈvʲan̪ˠə mʲeː/ "I blessed"
bheannaigh Seán /ˈvʲan̪ˠiː ɕaːn/ "Seán blessed"
After vowels and sonorants (/ɫ̪ lʲ mˠ mʲ n̪ˠ nʲ ɾˠ ɾʲ/) it is pronounced /h/:

  • molfaidh /ˈmˠɔɫ̪hiː/ "will praise"
    dhófadh /ˈɣoːhəx/ "would burn"
    déarfaidh /ˈdʲeːɾˠhiː/ "will say"
    It makes a voiced obstruent (/bˠ bʲ vʲ d̪ˠ g/) or /w/ voiceless:

    • scuabfadh /ˈsˠkuəpəx/ "would sweep"
      goidfidh /ˈgɛtʲiː/ "will steal"
      leagfadh /ˈlʲakəx/ "would lay"
      scríobhfaidh /ˈɕcɾʲiːfˠiː/ "will write"
      shnámhfadh /ˈhn̪ˠaːfˠəx/ "would swim"
      It is silent after a voicless obstruent (/k c x ç pˠ pʲ sˠ ɕ t̪ˠ tʲ/)

      • brisfidh /ˈbʲɾʲɪɕiː/ "will break"
        ghlacfadh /ˈɣɫ̪akəx/ "would accept"
        But in the future and conditional impersonal f is often /fˠ, fʲ/

        • molfar /ˈmˠɔɫ̪fˠəɾˠ/ "one will praise"
          dhófaí /ˈɣoːfˠiː/ "one would burn"
          scuabfar /ˈsˠkuəbˠfˠəɾˠ/ "one will sweep"
          brisfear /ˈbʲɾʲɪɕfʲəɾˠ/ "one will break"
          In the past participle th (also t after d) is silent but makes a voiced obstruent voiceless:

          • scuabtha /ˈsˠkuəpˠə/ "swept"
            troidte /ˈt̪ˠɾˠɛtʲə/ "fought"
            ruaigthe /ˈɾˠuəcə/ "chased"

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Aspley, Nottingham
Aspley is a suburb of the city of Nottingham. It is located within the boundaries of Nottingham City Council.
It adjoins the nearby estates of Broxtowe and Strelley. Akin to both, at one time it had a dubious reputation for social problems associated with crime and poor housing, but has benefited in recent years from regeneration and redevelopment work. Including the recent regeneration near the Aspley lane shops, where new carparking spaces have been added as well as the pavement and road surfaces being resurfaced. This includes the whole of Melbourne Road.
Aspley was formerly almost entirely comprised of council-owned houses. Since the 1980s, however, most of the houses have passed into private ownership. Aspley has a good selection of shops and good transport links (by bus) with Nottingham city centre and surrounding areas. There are several schools in Aspley of varying degrees of excellence, among them Trinity Roman Catholic Comprehensive School [1], The Nottingham Bluecoat School and Technology College. It also had the since demolished William Crane school which in 1999 finished joint bottom in the GCSE league tables. When William Crane school was closed it caused controversy over the remaining students that needed to find a new school.
It also contains Melbourne Park, just off Melbourne Road, King George's Park which lies between Beechdale Road and Aspley Lane, and until 2004 the Commodore, which has now been demolished and replaced with a local Sainsbury's.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Widowers' Houses
Widowers' Houses (1892) was the first play by G. Bernard Shaw, the famous Irish playwright and Nobel Prize winner.
It is one of the three plays Shaw published as Plays Unpleasant in 1898, because its purpose is not to entertain its audience - as the traditional Victorian theatre was supposed to - but instead to raise awareness of social problems and serve as a criticism of capitalist behaviour. The other two plays were The Philanderer and Mrs Warren's Profession.

Sunday, November 18, 2007


This is a list of Major League Baseball franchise postseason and World Series droughts. Those teams which have never made it in franchise history are listed by the date they entered the leagues. The list includes only the modern World Series between the American League and the National League, not the various 19th-century championship series.

MLB franchises with the longest current post-season drought
* Year does not indicate a pennant, but rather the team's first year of existence.

MLB franchises with the longest current league pennant drought
* Year does not indicate a championship, but rather the team's first year of existence.

Cities waiting for their first World Series crown
List begins with 1903, about the time the current configuration of National League and American League stabilized. Note that no pennants were won in 1994 due to strike. This list only shows droughts of 20 or more years.
* Year does not indicate a pennant, but rather the team's first year of existence or the first year of this list (1903).

Major League Baseball franchise post-season droughts Longest major league pennant droughts through history
The first World Series was played in 1903. Note that no World Series was played in 1904 or 1994. This list only shows droughts of 30 or more years.
* Year does not indicate a title won, but rather the team's first year of existence or the first year of this list (1903).
Bold is active drought.

Longest World Series crown droughts through history

World Series in which both teams were making their first Series appearance

Major League Baseball franchise post-season droughts World Series in which both teams were ending 20-year-plus pennant droughts
* Note: In 2002, the Giants had been in San Francisco for 45 years; in 1995, the Braves had been in Atlanta for 30 years; in 1972, the Athletics had been in Oakland for 5 years.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

High Court of Justice
For the Cameroonian court by this name, see High Court of Justice (Cameroon), for the Israeli court of this name, see Supreme Court of Israel. The Court of First Instance of Hong Kong was also known as the High Court of Justice before 1997.
For the English Civil War court, see High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I.
Law of England and Wales This article is part of the series: Courts of England and Wales
Administration
Ministry of Justice

Secretary of State for Justice
Her Majesty's Courts Service
Civil courts
Privy Council
House of Lords

Lords of Appeal in Ordinary
Court of Appeal

Master of the Rolls
Lord Justice of Appeal
High Court of Justice

Chancellor of the High Court
President of the Queen's Bench
President of the Family Division
High Court judge
County Courts

County Court Bulk Centre
District Judge
Criminal courts
House of Lords

Lord of Appeal in Ordinary
Court of Appeal

Lord Chief Justice
Lord Justice of Appeal
High Court of Justice

President of the Queen's Bench
High Court judge
Crown Court

Circuit Judge
Recorder
Magistrates' Court

District Judge
Justice of the Peace
Criminal justice
Attorney General
Director of Public Prosecutions

Crown Prosecution Service
Barristers and solicitors
Bar Council

Barrister
Law Society of England and Wales

Solicitor

Solicitor Advocate
Her Majesty's High Court of Justice (usually known more simply as the High Court) is, together with the Crown Court and the Court of Appeal, part of the Supreme Court of Judicature of England and Wales (which under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, is to be known as the Senior Courts of England and Wales).
It deals at first instance with all the most high value and high importance cases, and also has a supervisory jurisdiction over all subordinate courts and tribunals. Appeal from the High Court in civil matters lies to the Court of Appeal and thence to the House of Lords, except when the High Court is sitting as a Prize Court when appeal lies to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
The High Court is based at the Royal Courts of Justice on The Strand, in central London. However, it also sits as 'District Registries' all across England and Wales and virtually all proceedings in the High Court may be issued and heard at a district registry. It is headed by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. By convention, all of its male judges are made Knights Bachelor, while all of its female ones are made Dames Commander of the British Empire.
The High Court is split into three main divisions: the Queen's Bench Division, the Chancery Division and the Family Division. The Supreme Court Costs Office is the part of the High Court that deals with legal costs and falls outside these divisions.

Chancery Division
The Family Division deals with matters such as divorce, children, probate and medical treatment. Its decisions may concern life and death and are perhaps inevitably regarded as controversial. For example, it permitted a hospital to separate conjoined twins without the parents' consent; and allowed one woman to have her life support machines turned off, while not permitting a husband to give his severely disabled wife a lethal injection with her consent. The High Court Family Division has jurisdiction to hear all cases relating to children's welfare and interest, and exercises an exclusive jurisdiction in wardship cases. The head of the Family Division is the President of the Family Division Sir Mark Potter. Its most senior court is the Principal Registry of the Family Division which is based in First Avenue House, Holborn, London.
The Family Division is comparatively modern, having been formed by combining the Admiralty Court and probate courts into the then Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court, or Wills, Wrecks and Wives as it was informally called.

Judges
Historically, the source of all justice in England was the monarch. All judges sit in judgement on her behalf (hence why they have the royal coat of arms behind them) and criminal prosecutions made by the state are generally made on her behalf. Historically, local lords were permitted to administer justice in Manorial Courts and other ways. Inevitably, the justice administered was patchy and appeals were made direct to the King. The King's travelling representatives (whose primary purpose was tax collection) acted on behalf of the king to make the administration of justice more even. The tradition of judges travelling in set areas of the country or 'circuits' remains to this day, where they hear cases in the district registries of the High Court.
It is also on behalf of the monarch that the Queen's Bench Division oversees all lesser courts and all government authority. Generally, unless other appeal processes are laid down in law, anyone who wants to challenge any decision of a lesser court, tribunal, government authority or state authority brings a claim for judicial review in the Queen's Bench Division. This is a special procedure in the Administrative Court of the Queen's Bench Division. A single judge first decides whether the matter is fit to bring to the court (to weed out frivolous or unwinnable cases) and if so the matter is allowed to go forward to a full judicial review hearing. This is not a jury matter. Appeals are to the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) and then to the House of Lords, or in criminal matters, directly to the House of Lords.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Why Don't We Do It in the Road? Inspiration
On 9 October 1968, while John Lennon and George Harrison were working on two other songs for the album, McCartney recorded five takes of the song in Studio One at Abbey Road Studios. Unlike its heavy blues result,

Recording
Lennon was unhappy that McCartney recorded the song without him. In his 1980 interview with Playboy, he said:
Playboy: "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?"
Lennon: That's Paul. He even recorded it by himself in another room. That's how it was getting in those days. We came in and he'd made the whole record. Him drumming. Him playing the piano. Him singing. But he couldn't—he couldn't—maybe he couldn't make the break from the Beatles. I don't know what it was, you know. I enjoyed the track. Still, I can't speak for George, but I was always hurt when Paul would knock something off without involving us. But that's just the way it was then.
Playboy: You never just knocked off a track by yourself?
Lennon: No.
Playboy: "Julia"?
Lennon: That was mine.

Credits

Lowell Fulson covered the song on his 1970 album In A Heavy Bag.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Western Women's Hockey League
The Western Women's Hockey League (WWHL) was one of two women's hockey leagues in Canada. The league was established in 2004, and consisted of teams in Canada (some former National Women's Hockey League teams) and one from the United States. The league office was in Vancouver, British Columbia and managed by Recreation Sports Management Inc.
On July 13, 2006, the NWHL announced it would absorb the WWHL's teams into its new West division. However, scheduling conflicts between the 2007 Women's World Championships and the WWHL championship game saw the merger collapse.
In 2007, Hockey Canada announced it would revamp the Esso Women's Nationals, with the WWHL champion and finalist meeting the Canadian Women's Hockey League champion and finalist.

WWHL Franchises
The champion of the WWHL is given the WWHL Champions cup.
A list of WWHL winners (winner is in bold):

2007 - Calgary Oval X-Treme
2006 - Calgary Oval X-Treme vs Minnesota Whitecaps in Lumsden, Saskatchewan
2005 - Calgary Oval X-Treme vs Saskatchewan Prairie Ice in Calgary, Alberta

Wednesday, November 14, 2007


Celsius is, or relates to, the Celsius temperature scale (previously known as the centigrade scale). The degree Celsius (symbol: °C) can refer to a specific temperature on the Celsius scale as well as serve as unit increment to indicate a temperature interval (a difference between two temperatures or an uncertainty). "Celsius" is named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701 – 1744), who developed a similar temperature scale two years before his death. 
Until 1954, 0 °C on the Celsius scale was defined as the melting point of ice and 100 °C was defined as the boiling point of water under a pressure of one standard atmosphere; this close equivalency is taught in schools today. However, the unit "degree Celsius" and the Celsius scale are currently, by international agreement, defined by two different points: absolute zero, and the triple point of specially prepared water. This definition also precisely relates the Celsius scale to the Kelvin scale, which is the SI base unit of temperature (symbol: K). Absolute zero—the temperature at which nothing could be colder and no heat energy remains in a substance—is defined as being precisely 0 K and −273.15 °C. The triple point of water is defined as being precisely 273.16 K and 0.01 °C.
This definition fixes the magnitude of both the degree Celsius and the unit kelvin as being precisely 1 part in 273.16 parts the difference between absolute zero and the triple point of water. Thus, it sets the magnitude of one degree Celsius and the kelvin to be exactly equivalent. Additionally, it establishes the difference between the two scales' null points as being precisely 273.15 degrees Celsius (−273.15 °C = 0 K and 0.01 °C = 273.16 K).
Some key temperatures relating the Celsius scale to other temperature scales are shown in the table below.
(precisely, by definition)
(approximate)

Formatting
The degree Celsius is a special name for the kelvin for use in expressing Celsius temperatures.

Temperatures and intervals
In science (especially) and in engineering, the Celsius scale and the kelvin are often used simultaneously in the same article (e.g. "…its measured value was 0.01023 °C with an uncertainty of 70 µK…"). This practice is permissible because 1) the degree Celsius is a special name for the kelvin for use in expressing Celsius temperatures, and 2) the magnitude of the degree Celsius is precisely equal to that of the kelvin. Notwithstanding the official endorsement provided by decision #3 of Resolution 3 of the 13th CGPM, which stated "a temperature interval may also be expressed in degrees Celsius," the practice of simultaneously using both "°C" and "K" remains widespread throughout the scientific world as the use of SI prefixed forms of the degree Celsius (such as "µ°C" or "millidegrees Celsius") to express a temperature interval has not been well-adopted.
This practice should be avoided for literature directed to lower-level technical fields and in non-technical articles intended for the general public where both the kelvin and its symbol, K, are not well recognized and could be confusing.

Why technical articles use a mix of Kelvin and Celsius scales
One effect of defining the Celsius scale at the triple point of Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water (273.16 kelvins and 0.01 °C), and at absolute zero (zero kelvins and −273.15 °C), is that neither the melting nor the boiling point of water under one standard atmosphere (1013.25 mbar) are longer defining points for the Celsius scale. In 1948 when the 9th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) in Resolution 3 first considered using the triple point of water as a defining point, the triple point was so close to being 0.01 °C greater than water's known melting point, it was simply defined as precisely 0.01 °C. However, current measurements show that the triple and melting points of VSMOW are actually very slightly (<0.001 °C) greater than 0.01 °C apart. Thus, the actual melting point of ice is very slightly (less than a thousandth of a degree) below 0 °C. Also, defining water's triple point at 273.16 K precisely defined the magnitude of each 1 °C increment in terms of the absolute thermodynamic temperature scale (referencing absolute zero). Now decoupled from the actual boiling point of water, the value "100 °C" is hotter than 0 °C — in absolute terms — by a factor of precisely textstylefrac{373.15}{273.15} (approximately 36.61% thermodynamically hotter). When adhering strictly to the two-point definition for calibration, the boiling point of VSMOW under one standard atmosphere of pressure is actually 373.1339 K (99.9839 °C). When calibrated to ITS-90 (a calibration standard comprising many definition points and commonly used for high-precision instrumentation), the boiling point of VSMOW is slightly less, about 99.974 °C.
This boiling–point difference of 16.1 millikelvins (thousandths of a degree Celsius) between the Celsius scale's original definition and the current one (based on absolute zero and the triple point) has little practical meaning in real life because water's boiling point is extremely sensitive to variations in barometric pressure. For example, an altitude change of only 28 cm (11 inches) causes water's boiling point to change by one millikelvin.

The melting and boiling points of water
Throughout the world, except in the U.S., the Celsius temperature scale is used for practically all purposes. The only exceptions are some specialist fields (e.g., low-temperature physics, astrophysics, light temperature in photography) where the closely related Kelvin scale dominates instead. Even in the U.S., almost the entire scientific world and most engineering fields, especially high-tech ones, use the Celsius scale. The general U.S. population, however, remains more accustomed to the Fahrenheit scale, which is therefore the only scale that most U.S. broadcasters use in weather forecasts. This has caused some confusion in the weather of Canada. When some Americans hear 32°, they think Fahrenheit, which leads to the assumption that Canada's weather is freezing at best. The Fahrenheit scale is also commonly used in the U.S. for body temperatures. The United Kingdom has almost exclusively used the Celsius scale since the 1970s, with the notable exception that some broadcasters and publications still quote Fahrenheit air temperatures occasionally in weather forecasts, for the benefit of generations born before about 1950, and air-temperature thermometers sold still show both scales for the same reason.

World-wide adoption
Unicode includes a special "°C" character at U+2103 (decimal value 8451). One types &#x2103; (or &#8451;) when encoding this special character in a Web page. Its appearance is similar to the one synthesized by individually typing its two components (°) and (C). To better see the difference between the two, below in brown text is the degree Celsius character followed immediately by the two-component version:
℃°C
When viewed on computers that properly support and map Unicode, the above line may be similar to the line below (size may vary):
this link
Depending on the operating system, web browser, and the default font, the "C" in the Unicode character may be narrower and slightly taller than a plain uppercase C; precisely the opposite may be true on other platforms. However, there will usually be a discernible difference between the two.

See also
1) All common temperature scales would have their units named after someone closely associated with them; namely, Kelvin, Celsius, Fahrenheit, Réaumur and Rankine. 2) Notwithstanding the important contribution of Linnaeus who gave the Celsius scale its modern form, Celsius's name was the obvious choice because it began with the letter C. Thus, the symbol °C that for centuries had been used in association with the name centigrade could continue to be used and would simultaneously inherit an intuitive association with the new name.Celcius 3) The new name eliminated the ambiguity of the term "centigrade," freeing it to refer exclusively to the French-language name for the unit of angular measurement.