text: Krivosheev's analysis shows that 4,559,000 were reported missing (including 3,396,400 per field reports and an additional 1,162,600 estimated based on German documents), out of which 500,000 were missing and presumed dead, 939,700 were re-conscripted during the war as territories were liberated, 1,836,000 returned to the U.S.S.R. after the war, while the balance of 1,283,300 died in German captivity as POWs or did not return to the USSR. Krivoshhev wrote, "According to German sources 673,000 died in captivity. Of the remaining 1,110,300, Soviet sources indicate that over half also died in captivity". Sources published outside of Russia put total POW dead at 3.0 million. Krivosheev maintains that this figure based on German sources includes civilian personnel that were not included in the reports of the Army and Navy field forces. In a 1999 article Krivosheev noted that after the war 180,000 liberated POWs did not return to the USSR and most likely settled in other countries, Krivosheev did not mention this in the English language translation of his study. According to declassified documents from the Soviet archives 960,039 surviving Soviet military POW were turned over to the Soviet authorities by the Western powers and 865,735 were released by the Soviet forces in territory they occupied.


title: World War II casualties of the Soviet Union

text: The June 1945 force strength of 12,840,000 included 11,390,600 on active service; 1,046,000 in hospital; and 403,200 in civilian departments.


text: Krivosheev's group estimated losses for the early part of the war, because from 1941 to 1942 no surrounded or defeated divisions reported their casualties.


text: Total wounded and sick includes 15,205,592 wounded, 3,047,675 sick and 90,881 frostbite cases. Included in the total of 11.444 million irrecoverable losses are 1,100,327 died of wounds in hospital.


text: Field reports stated the number of wounded and sick as 18,344,148, while the records of the military medical service show a total of 22,326,905. According to Krivosheev the difference can be explained by the fact that the medical service included sick personnel who did not take part in the fighting.


text: Krivosheev's analysis has been disputed by independent scholars in Russia. His critics maintain that he underestimated the number of missing in action and POW deaths and deaths of service personnel in rear area hospitals. Makhmut Gareev, former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, maintains that the published information on Soviet casualties is the work of the individual authors and not based on official data. According to Gareev the Russian government has not disclosed the actual losses in the war.


text: Western scholars estimate 3.3 million dead out of 5.7 million total Soviet POW captured. According to German figures 5,734,000 Soviet POWs were taken Between 22 June 1941 and the end of the war, roughly 5.7 million members of the Red Army fell into German hands. In January 1945, 930,000 were still in German camps. A million at most had been released, most of whom were so-called ‘volunteers’ (Hilfswillige) for (often compulsory) auxiliary service in the Wehrmacht. Another 500,000, as estimated by the Army High Command, had either fled or been liberated. The remaining 3,300,000 (57.5 percent of the total) had perished.". However, according to Krivosheev the Germans claimed to have captured up to 5.750 million POWs, he maintains that the figures in Nazi propaganda included civilians and military reservists that were caught up in the German encirclement's. Krivosheev puts the number of Soviet military POW that actually were sent to the camps at 4,059,000. Krivosheev maintained that the figure of 3.0 million POW dead reported in western sources included partisans, militia and civilian men of military age taken as POWs in the early stages of the war in 1941. In addition to the German-held POW Romania captured 82,090 Soviet POWs, 5,221 died, 3,331 escaped, and 13,682 were released Finland captured 64,188 Soviet POWs, at least 18,318 were documented to have died in Finnish prisoner of war camps.


text: In 2000, published a study of Soviet casualties. From 1989 to 1996 he was an associate of the Institute of Military History of the Ministry of Defence. Mikhalev disputed Krivosheev's figure of 8.7 million military war dead, he put Soviet military dead at more than 10.9 million persons based on his analysis of those conscripted. He maintained that the official figures could not be reconciled to the total men drafted and that POW deaths were understated. Mikhalev put the total irreplaceable losses at 13.7 million; he believed that the official figures understated POW and missing losses, that the deaths of service personnel convicted of offenses were not included with the overall losses and that the number who died of wounds was understated.


text: S. N. Mikhalev included in his figure irrecoverable losses the deaths of 994,300 Soviet military personnel that were convicted of offences during the course of the war (422,700 sent to penal battalions, 135,000 executed and 436,600 imprisoned)


text: An alternative method is to determine losses from the Russian Military Archives database of individual war dead. S. A. Il'Enkov, an official at the Russian Military Archives, maintained that the "complex military situation at the front did not always allow for the conduct of a full accounting of losses, especially in the first years of the war" He pointed out that in the reports from the field units did not include deaths in rear area hospitals of wounded personnel. Il'Enkov maintained that the information in the Russian Military Archives alphabetical card-indexes "is a priceless treasure of history, which can assist in resolving the problems of the price of Soviet victory" Il'Enkov maintained it could provide an accurate accounting of war losses. He concluded by stating, "We established the number of irreplaceable losses of our Armed Forces at the time of the Great Patriotic War of about 13,850,000. Krivosheev maintained that the database of individual war dead is unreliable because some personnel records are duplicated and others omitted.


text: Critics of the official figures by the Russian Ministry of Defense base their arguments on self analyses of documents in the Soviet archives and demographic models of the Soviet population during the Stalin era.


text: Andreev, Darski and Karkova (ADK) put total losses at 26.6 million. The authors did not dispute Krivoshev's report of 8.7 million military dead. Their demographic study estimated the total war dead of 26.6 million included 20.0 million males and 6.6 million females. In mid-1941 the USSR hosted 8.3 million more females; by 1946 this gap had grown to 22.8 million, an increase of 13.5 million.


text: A 1995 paper published by M.V. Filimoshin, an associate of the Russian Defense Ministry, put the civilian death toll in the regions occupied by Germany at 13.7 million. Filimoshin cited sources from Soviet era to support his figures and used the terms "genocide" and "premeditated extermination" when referring to deaths of 7.4 million civilians caused by direct, intentional violence. Civilians killed in reprisals during the Soviet partisan war account for a major portion. Filimoshin estimated that civilian forced laborer deaths in Germany totaled 2.1 million. Germany had a policy of forced confiscation of food that resulted in famine deaths of an estimated 6% of the population, or 4.1 million. Russian government sources currently cite these civilian casualty figures in their official statements.


text: E.M. Andreev, L.E. Darski and T. L. Kharkova ("ADK") authored "The Population of the Soviet Union 1922–1991", which was published by the Russian Academy of Science in 1993. Andreev worked in the Department of Demography Research Institute of the Central Statistical Bureau (now the Research Institute of Statistics of Federal State Statistical Service of Russia). The study estimated total Soviet war losses of 26.6 million. As of 2015, this was the official Russian government figure for total losses. These losses are a demographic estimate rather than an exact accounting.


text: Another study, "The Demographic History of Russia 1927–1959," analyzed voters in the February 1946 Soviet election to estimate the surviving population over the age of 18 at the end of the war. The population under 18 was estimated based on the 1959 census. Official records listed 101.7 million registered voters and 94.0 million actual voters, 7.7 million less than the expected figure. ADK maintained that the official results of the 1946 election are not a good source for estimating the population. They believe that the total of expected voters should be increased by 10.5 million because the roll of voters excluded those deprived of their rights, in prison or in exile. ADK maintained that many young military men did not participate in the election, and an overestimation of women in rural areas without internal passports who sought to avoid compulsory heavy labor. Included in the voter total were 29.9 million "excess" women. However number of expected voters estimated by ADK the gap between males and females was 21.4 million, which approximates the 20.7 million gap revealed by the 1959 census. The prewar population of 1939 (including the annexed territories) had an excess of 7.9 million females. The ADK analysis found that the gap had increased by about 13.5 million.


text: Russian demographer Rybakovsky found a wide range of estimates for total war dead. He estimated the actual population in 1941 at 196.7 million and losses at 27–28 million. He cited figures that range from 21.7 to 46 million. Rybakovsky acknowledged that the components used to compute losses are uncertain and disputed.


text: Population estimates for mid-1941 range from 191.8 to 200.1 million, while the population at the end of 1945 range from 167.0 million up to 170.6 million. Based on the pre-war birth rate, the population shortfall was about 20 million births in 1946. Some were born and died during the war, while the balance was never born. Only rough estimates are available for each group. Estimates for the population of the territories annexed from 1939 to 1945 range from 17 to 23 million persons.


text: Rybakovsky provided a list of the various estimates of Soviet war losses by Russian scholars since 1988.


text: The contemporary nations that were formerly Soviet Republics dispute Krivosheev's analysis. In a live broadcast of 16 December 2010 ""A Conversation with Vladimir Putin"", he maintained that the Russian Federation had suffered the greatest proportional losses in World War II—70 percent of the total. Official estimates by the former republics of the USSR claim military casualties exceeding those of Krivosheev's report by 3.5 times. It is claimed by the website sovsekretno.ru that there are no Memory Books published in the USSR, Russia and the other contemporary republics in the 80s and 90s listing casualties of 25 percent of the draft or less, but there are many Memory Books with 50 per cent and more with some telling us of a 70, 75, 76 and up to 79 per cent mortality rate among the conscripted.


text: (A) The Ukrainian authorities and historians ardently dispute these figures. They put the military casualties alone may be estimated as exceeding 7 million, according to the final volume of the Ukrainian book "In the memory of posterity" and research of V. E. Korol, writes an American (former Soviet) Doctor of History Vilen Lyulechnik. Former President of Ukraine Victor Yanukovych maintains that Ukraine has lost more than 10 million lives during the Second World War.


text: (B) According to a Belorussian military historian, Doctor of History, professor V. Lemeshonok, the Belorussian military casualties, including partisans and underground group members, exceed 682,291.


text: (C) The Memory Book of Tatarstan Government contains names of about 350,000 inhabitants of the republic, mostly Tatars.


text: (D) Israeli historian Yitzhak Arad maintains that about 200,000 Soviet Jews or 40 per cent of all draft were killed in battles or captivity — the highest percentage of all nations of the USSR.


text: (I) Among the others Azerbaijanis claim military casualties of 300,000, Bashkirs of about 300,000, Mordvas of 130,000 and Chuvashes of 106,470. But one of the most tragic figures comes from a Far Eastern republic of Yakutia and its small nation. 37,965 citizens, mostly Yakuts, or 60.74 per cent of 62,509 drafted have not returned home with 7,000 regarded missing. About 69,000 died of severe famine in the republic. This nation could not restore its population even under 1959 census. The record breaking estimates of 700,000 military casualties out of a total 1,25 million Turkmenian citizens (with slightly less than 60 per cent being Turkmens) are attributed to the late President of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Niyazov. Historians do not regard them as being trustworthy.


text: Russian historian Vadim Erlikman pegs total war deaths at 10.7 million, exceeding Krivosheev's 8.7 million by an extra two million. This extra two million would presumably include Soviet POWs that died in Nazi captivity, partisans, and militia.


text: The Red Army suffered catastrophic losses of men and equipment during the first months of the German invasion. In the spring of 1941 Stalin ignored the warnings of his intelligence services of a planned German invasion and refused to put the Armed forces on alert. The bulk of the Soviet combat units were deployed in the border regions in a lower state of readiness. In the face of the German onslaught the Soviet forces were caught by surprise. Large numbers of Soviet soldiers were captured and many perished due to the brutal mistreatment of POWs by the Nazis. Earl F. Ziemke maintained high Soviet losses can be attributed to 'less efficient medical services and the Soviet tactics, which throughout the war tended to be expensive in terms of human life"


text: Russian scholars attribute the high civilian death toll to the Nazi Generalplan Ost which treated Soviet peoples as "subhumans", they use the terms "genocide" and "premeditated extermination" when referring to civilian losses in the occupied USSR. German occupation policies implemented under the Hunger Plan resulted in the confiscation of food stocks which resulted in famine in the occupied regions. During the Soviet era the partisan campaign behind the lines was portrayed as the struggle of the local population against the German occupation. To suppress the partisan units the Nazi occupation forces engaged in a campaign of brutal reprisals against innocent civilians. The extensive fighting destroyed agricultural land, infrastructure, and whole towns, leaving much of the population homeless and without food. During the war Soviet civilians were taken to Germany as forced laborers under inhumane conditions.


text: Estimates for Soviet losses in the Second World War range from 7 million to over 43 million. During the Communist era in the Soviet Union historical writing about World War II was subject to censorship and only official approved statistical data was published. In the USSR during the Glasnost period under Gorbachev and in post communist Russia the casualties in World War II were re-evaluated and the official figures revised.


text: Joseph Stalin in March 1946 stated that Soviet war losses were 7 million dead. This was to be the official figure until the Khrushchev era. In November 1961 Nikita Khrushchev stated that Soviet war losses were 20 million; this was to be the official figure until the Gorbachev era of Glasnost. Leonid Brezhnev in 1965 put the Soviet death toll in the war at "more than 20 million" Ivan Konev in a May 1965 Soviet Ministry of Defense press conference stated that Soviet military dead in World War II were 10 million. In 1971, the Soviet demographer Boris Urlanis put losses at 20 million including 6,074,000 civilians and 3,912,000 prisoners of war killed by Nazi Germany, military dead were put at 10 million.


text: Documents from the Extraordinary State Commission prepared in March 1946 not but published until the 1990s listed 6,074,857 civilians killed, 3,912,283 prisoner of war dead, 3,999,796 deaths during German forced labor and 641,803 civilian famine deaths during Siege of Leningrad. The Soviet general staff put losses at 8,668,000 dead and missing, however the General Staffs figures were not published until 1993. Also 688,772 Soviet citizens who remained in western countries after the war were included with the war losses.


text: During the period of Glasnost, the official figure of 20 million war dead was challenged by Soviet scholars. In 1988–1989, estimates of 26 to 28 million total war dead appeared in the Soviet press. The Russian scholar Dmitri Volkogonov, writing at this, time estimated total war deaths at 26–27,000,000, including 10,000,000 in the military. In March 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev established a committee to investigate Soviet war losses. In a May 1990 speech, Gorbachev gave the figure for total Soviet losses at "almost 27 million". This revised figure was the result of research by the committee set up by Gorbachev that estimated total war dead at between 26 and 27 million. In January 1990, M.A. Moiseev, Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces, disclosed for the first time in an interview that Soviet military war dead totaled 8,668,400. In 1991, the Russian scholar A.A. Shevyakov published an article with summary of civilian losses based on his analysis of the archival records of the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission, civilian dead were given as 17.7 million. In a second article in 1992, A.A. Shevyakov gave a figure of 20.8 million civilian dead; no explanation for the difference was given.


text: In 1949, Soviet Colonel Kalinov defected to the west, where he published a book claiming that Soviet records indicated the military loss of 13.6 million men, including 2.6 million POW dead. Sergei Maksudov, a Russian demographer living in the west, estimated Soviet war losses at between 24.5 and 27.4 million, including 7.5 million military dead. The Soviet mathematician Iosif G. Dyadkin published a study in the United States that estimated the total Soviet population losses from 1939 to 1945, due to the war and political repression, at 30 million. Dyadkin was imprisoned for publishing this study in the west.


text: Historians writing outside of the Soviet Union and Russia have evaluated the various Russian language sources and have offered their estimates of Soviet war dead. Here is a listing of estimates by recognized scholars published in the West.


title: Lyndon Rive

text: Lyndon Rive (born 22 January 1977) is a South African businessman known as the co-founder of SolarCity, and its CEO until 2016. SolarCity is a provider of photovoltaic systems and related services. Rive co-founded SolarCity with his brother Peter in 2006.


title: Lyndon Rive

text: Rive started his first company at age 17 before leaving his native South Africa. He then co-founded the enterprise software company Everdream, which was ultimately acquired by Dell. In his spare time, Rive plays underwater hockey. Rive is a cousin of Elon Musk as their mothers are twin sisters.


title: Lyndon Rive

text: In 2010, Rive was named in the "MIT Technology Review's" Innovators Under 35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35.


title: Lyndon Rive

text: After Tesla, Inc. acquired SolarCity in 2016, Rive announced in 2017 that he would leave the company and spend his time with his family along with further entrepreneurial activities, including working on a new startup.


title: Lyndon Rive

text: In 2013, Rive was an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award winner in the Northern California Region.


title: Sumerian religion

text: Sumerian religion was the religion practiced by the people of Sumer, the first literate civilization of ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerians regarded their divinities as responsible for all matters pertaining to the natural and social orders.


title: Sumerian religion

text: Before the beginning of kingship in Sumer, the city-states were effectively ruled by theocratic priests and religious officials. Later, this role was supplanted by kings, but priests continued to exert great influence on Sumerian society. In early times, Sumerian temples were simple, one-room structures, sometimes built on elevated platforms. Towards the end of Sumerian civilization, these temples developed into ziggurats—tall, pyramidal structures with sanctuaries at the tops.


title: Sumerian religion

text: The Sumerians believed that the universe had come into being through a series of cosmic births. First, Nammu, the primeval waters, gave birth to Ki (the earth) and An (the sky), who mated together and produced a son named Enlil. Enlil separated heaven from earth and claimed the earth as his domain. Humans were believed to have been created by Enki, the son of Nammu and An. Heaven was reserved exclusively for deities and, upon their deaths, all mortals' spirits, regardless of their behavior while alive, were believed to go to Kur, a cold, dark cavern deep beneath the earth, which was ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal and where the only food available was dry dust. In later times, Ereshkigal was believed to rule alongside her husband Nergal, the god of death.


title: Sumerian religion

text: The major deities in the Sumerian pantheon included An, the god of the heavens, Enlil, the god of wind and storm, Enki, the god of water and human culture, Ninhursag, the goddess of fertility and the earth, Utu, the god of the sun and justice, and his father Nanna, the god of the moon. During the Akkadian Empire, Inanna, the goddess of sex, beauty, and warfare, was widely venerated across Sumer and appeared in many myths, including the famous story of her descent into the Underworld.


title: Sumerian religion

text: Sumerian religion heavily influenced the religious beliefs of later Mesopotamian peoples; elements of it are retained in the mythologies and religions of the Hurrians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and other Middle Eastern culture groups. Scholars of comparative mythology have noticed parallels between the stories of the ancient Sumerians and those recorded later in the early parts of the Hebrew Bible.


title: Sumerian religion

text: Sumerian myths were passed down through the oral tradition until the invention of writing (the earliest myth discovered so far, the Epic of Gilgamesh, is Sumerian and is written on a series of fractured clay tablets). Early Sumerian cuneiform was used primarily as a record-keeping tool; it was not until the late Early Dynastic period that religious writings first became prevalent as temple praise hymns and as a form of "incantation" called the "nam-šub" (prefix + "to cast"). These tablets were also made of stone clay or stone, and they used a small pick to make the symbols.


title: Sumerian religion

text: In the Sumerian city-states, temple complexes originally were small, elevated one-room structures. In the early dynastic period, temples developed raised terraces and multiple rooms. Toward the end of the Sumerian civilization, ziggurats became the preferred temple structure for Mesopotamian religious centers.


title: Sumerian religion

text: Temples served as cultural, religious, and political headquarters until approximately 2500 BC, with the rise of military kings known as Lu-gals (“man” + “big”) after which time the political and military leadership was often housed in separate "palace" complexes.


title: Sumerian religion

text: Until the advent of the "Lugal" ("King"), Sumerian city-states were under a virtually theocratic government controlled by various En or Ensí, who served as the high priests of the cults of the city gods. (Their female equivalents were known as Nin.) Priests were responsible for continuing the cultural and religious traditions of their city-state, and were viewed as mediators between humans and the cosmic and terrestrial forces. The priesthood resided full-time in temple complexes, and administered matters of state including the large irrigation processes necessary for the civilization's survival.


title: Sumerian religion

text: During the Third Dynasty of Ur, the Sumerian city-state of Lagash was said to have had sixty-two "lamentation priests" who were accompanied by 180 vocalists and instrumentalists.


title: Sumerian religion

text: The Sumerians envisioned the universe as a closed dome surrounded by a primordial saltwater sea. Underneath the terrestrial earth, which formed the base of the dome, existed an underworld and a freshwater ocean called the Abzu. The deity of the dome-shaped firmament was named An; that of the earth was named Ki. First the underground world was believed to be an extension of the goddess Ki, but later developed into the concept of Kur. The primordial saltwater sea was named Nammu, who became known as Tiamat during and after the Ur III period.


title: Sumerian religion

text: The main source of information about the Sumerian creation myth is the prologue to the epic poem "Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld", which briefly describes the process of creation: originally, there was only Nammu, the primeval sea. Then, Nammu gave birth to An, the sky, and Ki, the earth. An and Ki mated with each other, causing Ki to give birth to Enlil, the god of wind, rain, and storm. Enlil separated An from Ki and carried off the earth as his domain, while An carried off the sky.


title: Sumerian religion

text: The ancient Mesopotamians regarded the sky as a series of domes (usually three, but sometimes seven) covering the flat earth. Each dome was made of a different kind of precious stone. The lowest dome of heaven was made of jasper and was the home of the stars. The middle dome of heaven was made of "saggilmut" stone and was the abode of the Igigi. The highest and outermost dome of heaven was made of "luludānītu" stone and was personified as An, the god of the sky. The celestial bodies were equated with specific deities as well. The planet Venus was believed to be Inanna, the goddess of love, sex, and war. The sun was her brother Utu, the god of justice, and the moon was their father Nanna. Ordinary mortals could not go to heaven because it was the abode of the gods alone. Instead, after a person died, his or her soul went to Kur (later known as Irkalla), a dark shadowy underworld, located deep below the surface of the earth.


title: Sumerian religion

text: The Sumerian afterlife was a dark, dreary cavern located deep below the ground, where inhabitants were believed to continue "a shadowy version of life on earth". This bleak domain was known as Kur, and was believed to be ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal. All souls went to the same afterlife, and a person's actions during life had no effect on how the person would be treated in the world to come.


title: Sumerian religion

text: The souls in Kur were believed to eat nothing but dry dust and family members of the deceased would ritually pour libations into the dead person's grave through a clay pipe, thereby allowing the dead to drink. Nonetheless, there are assumptions according to which treasures in wealthy graves had been intended as offerings for Utu and the Anunnaki, so that the deceased would receive special favors in the underworld. During the Third Dynasty of Ur, it was believed that a person's treatment in the afterlife depended on how he or she was buried; those that had been given sumptuous burials would be treated well, but those who had been given poor burials would fare poorly, and were believed to haunt the living.


title: Sumerian religion

text: The entrance to Kur was believed to be located in the Zagros mountains in the far east. It had seven gates, through which a soul needed to pass. The god Neti was the gatekeeper. Ereshkigal's "sukkal", or messenger, was the god Namtar. "Galla" were a class of demons that were believed to reside in the underworld; their primary purpose appears to have been to drag unfortunate mortals back to Kur. They are frequently referenced in magical texts, and some texts describe them as being seven in number. Several extant poems describe the "galla" dragging the god Dumuzid into the underworld. The later Mesopotamians knew this underworld by its East Semitic name: Irkalla. During the Akkadian Period, Ereshkigal's role as the ruler of the underworld was assigned to Nergal, the god of death. The Akkadians attempted to harmonize this dual rulership of the underworld by making Nergal Ereshkigal's husband.


title: Sumerian religion

text: It is generally agreed that Sumerian civilization began at some point between c. 4500 and 4000 BC, but the earliest historical records only date to around 2900 BC. The Sumerians originally practiced a polytheistic religion, with anthropomorphic deities representing cosmic and terrestrial forces in their world. The earliest Sumerian literature of the third millennium BC identifies four primary deities: An, Enlil, Ninhursag, and Enki. These early deities were believed to occasionally behave mischievously towards each other, but were generally viewed as being involved in co-operative creative ordering.


title: Sumerian religion

text: During the middle of the third millennium BC, Sumerian society became more urbanized. As a result of this, Sumerian deities began to lose their original associations with nature and became the patrons of various cities. Each Sumerian city-state had its own specific patron deity, who was believed to protect the city and defend its interests. Lists of large numbers of Sumerian deities have been found. Their order of importance and the relationships between the deities has been examined during the study of cuneiform tablets.


title: Sumerian religion

text: During the late 2000s BC, the Sumerians were conquered by the Akkadians. The Akkadians syncretized their own gods with the Sumerian ones, causing Sumerian religion to take on a Semitic coloration. Male deities became dominant and the gods completely lost their original associations with natural phenomena. People began to view the gods as living in a feudal society with class structure. Powerful deities such as Enki and Inanna became seen as receiving their power from the chief god Enlil.


title: Sumerian religion

text: The majority of Sumerian deities belonged to a classification called the "Anunna" (“[offspring] of An”), whereas seven deities, including Enlil and Inanna, belonged to a group of “underworld judges" known as the "Anunnaki" (“[offspring] of An” + Ki). During the Third Dynasty of Ur, the Sumerian pantheon was said to include sixty times sixty (3600) deities.


title: Sumerian religion

text: Enlil was the god of air, wind, and storm. He was also the chief god of the Sumerian pantheon and the patron deity of the city of Nippur. His primary consort was Ninlil, the goddess of the south wind, who was one of the matron deities of Nippur and was believed to reside in the same temple as Enlil. Ninurta was the son of Enlil and Ninlil. He was worshipped as the god of war, agriculture, and one of the Sumerian wind gods. He was the patron deity of Girsu and one of the patron deities of Lagash.


title: Sumerian religion

text: Enki was god of freshwater, male fertility, and knowledge. His most important cult center was the E-abzu temple in the city of Eridu. He was the patron and creator of humanity and the sponsor of human culture. His primary consort was Ninhursag, the Sumerian goddess of the earth. Ninhursag was worshipped in the cities of Kesh and Adab.


title: Sumerian religion

text: Inanna was the Sumerian goddess of love, sexuality, prostitution, and war. She was the divine personification of the planet Venus, the morning and evening star. Her main cult center was the Eanna temple in Uruk, which had been originally dedicated to An. Deified kings may have re-enacted the marriage of Inanna and Dumuzid with priestesses. Accounts of her parentage vary; in most myths, she is usually presented as the daughter of Nanna and Ningal, but, in other stories, she is the daughter of Enki or An along with an unknown mother. The Sumerians had more myths about her than any other deity. Many of the myths involving her revolve around her attempts to usurp control of the other deities' domains.


title: Sumerian religion

text: Utu was god of the sun, whose primary center of worship was the E-babbar temple in Sippar. Utu was principally regarded as a dispenser of justice; he was believed to protect the righteous and punish the wicked. Nanna was god of the moon and of wisdom. He was the father of Utu and one of the patron deities of Ur. He may have also been the father of Inanna and Ereshkigal. Ningal was the wife of Nanna, as well as the mother of Utu, Inanna, and Ereshkigal.


title: Sumerian religion

text: Ereshkigal was the goddess of the Sumerian Underworld, which was known as Kur. She was Inanna's older sister. In later myth, her husband was the god Nergal. The gatekeeper of the underworld was the god Neti.


title: Sumerian religion

text: Nammu was a goddess representing the primeval waters (Engur), who gave birth to An (heaven) and Ki (earth) and the first deities; while she is rarely attested as an object of cult, she likely played a central role in the early cosmogony of Eridu, and in later periods continued to appear in texts related to exorcisms. An was the ancient Sumerian god of the heavens. He was the ancestor of all the other major deities and the original patron deity of Uruk.


title: Sumerian religion

text: Most major gods had a so-called sukkal, a minor deity serving as their vizier, messenger or doorkeeper.


title: Sumerian religion

text: The Sumerians had an ongoing linguistic and cultural exchange with the Semitic Akkadian peoples in northern Mesopotamia for generations prior to the usurpation of their territories by Sargon of Akkad in 2340 BC. Sumerian mythology and religious practices were rapidly integrated into Akkadian culture, presumably blending with the original Akkadian belief systems that have been mostly lost to history. Sumerian deities developed Akkadian counterparts. Some remained virtually the same until later Babylonian and Assyrian rule. The Sumerian god An, for example, developed the Akkadian counterpart Anu; the Sumerian god Enki became Ea. The gods Ninurta and Enlil kept their original Sumerian names.


title: Sumerian religion

text: The Amorite Babylonians gained dominance over southern Mesopotamia by the mid-17th century BC. During the Old Babylonian Period, the Sumerian and Akkadian languages were retained for religious purposes; the majority of Sumerian mythological literature known to historians today comes from the Old Babylonian Period, either in the form of transcribed Sumerian texts (most notably the Babylonian version of the "Epic of Gilgamesh") or in the form of Sumerian and Akkadian influences within Babylonian mythological literature (most notably the "Enûma Eliš"). The Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon was altered, most notably with the introduction of a new supreme deity, Marduk. The Sumerian goddess Inanna also developed the counterpart Ishtar during the Old Babylonian Period.


title: Sumerian religion

text: The Hurrians adopted the Akkadian god Anu into their pantheon sometime no later than 1200 BC. Other Sumerian and Akkadian deities adapted into the Hurrian pantheon include Ayas, the Hurrian counterpart to Ea; Shaushka, the Hurrian counterpart to Ishtar; and the goddess Ninlil, whose mythos had been drastically expanded by the Babylonians.


title: Sumerian religion

text: Some stories recorded in the older parts of the Hebrew Bible bear strong similarities to the stories in Sumerian mythology. For example, the biblical account of Noah and the Great Flood bears a striking resemblance to the Sumerian deluge myth, recorded in a Sumerian tablet discovered at Nippur. The Judaic underworld Sheol is very similar in description with the Sumerian Kur, ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal, as well as the Babylonian underworld Irkalla. Sumerian scholar Samuel Noah Kramer has also noted similarities between many Sumerian and Akkadian "proverbs" and the later Hebrew proverbs, many of which are featured in the Book of Proverbs.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Dvorak is a keyboard layout for English patented in 1936 by August Dvorak and his brother-in-law, William Dealey, as a faster and more ergonomic alternative to the QWERTY layout (the "de facto" standard keyboard layout). Dvorak proponents claim that it requires less finger motion and as a result reduces errors, increases typing speed, reduces repetitive strain injuries, or is simply more comfortable than QWERTY.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Dvorak has failed to replace QWERTY as the most common keyboard layout, with the most oft pointed to reason being QWERTY was popularized 60 years prior to Dvorak's creation and Dvorak's advantages are debated and relatively minuscule. However, most major modern operating systems (such as Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, ChromeOS, and BSD) allow a user to switch to the Dvorak layout. The layout can be chosen for use with any hardware keyboard, regardless of printed characters on the keyboard.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Several modifications were designed by the team directed by Dvorak or by ANSI. These variations have been collectively or individually termed the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, the American Simplified Keyboard or simply the Simplified Keyboard, but they all have come to be known commonly as the Dvorak keyboard or Dvorak layout.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Dvorak was designed with the belief that it would significantly increase typing speeds with respect to the QWERTY layout by alleviating some of its perceived shortcomings, such as:


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: August Dvorak studied letter frequencies and the physiology of the hand and created a new layout to alleviate the above problems, based on the following principles:


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The Dvorak layout is intended for the English language. For other European languages, letter frequencies, letter sequences, and bigrams differ from those of English. Also, many languages have letters that do not occur in English. For non-English use, these differences lessen the alleged advantages of the original Dvorak keyboard. However, the Dvorak principles have been applied to the design of keyboards for other languages, though the primary keyboards used by most countries are based on the QWERTY design.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The layout was completed in 1932 and granted in 1936. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) designated the Dvorak keyboard as an alternative standard keyboard layout in 1982 (INCITS 207-1991 R2007; previously X4.22-1983, X3.207:1991), "Alternate Keyboard Arrangement for Alphanumeric Machines". The original ANSI Dvorak layout was available as a factory-supplied option on the original IBM Selectric typewriter.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: August Dvorak was an educational psychologist and professor of education at the University of Washington in Seattle. Touch typing had come into wide use by that time and Dvorak became interested in the layout while serving as an advisor to Gertrude Ford, who was writing her master's thesis on typing errors. He quickly concluded that the QWERTY layout needed to be replaced, as QWERTY had been laid out not with the pure intention of ease and speed, but heavily including the intention of sequentially distant keyboard strokes so that the mechanical typewriter arms did not jam. Dvorak was joined by his brother-in-law William Dealey, a professor of education at the then North Texas State Teacher's College in Denton, Texas.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Dvorak and Dealey's objective was to scientifically design a keyboard to decrease typing errors, speed up typing, and lessen typist fatigue. They engaged in extensive research while designing their keyboard layout. In 1914 and 1915, Dealey attended seminars on the science of motion and later reviewed slow-motion films of typists with Dvorak. Dvorak and Dealey meticulously studied the English language, researching the most used letters and letter combinations. They also studied the physiology of the hand. The result in 1932 was the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: In 1893, George Blickensderfer had developed a keyboard layout for the Blickensderfer typewriter model 5 that used the letters "DHIATENSOR" for the home row. Blickensderfer had determined that 85% of English words contained these letters. The Dvorak keyboard uses the same letters in its home row, apart from replacing "R" with "U", and even keeps the consonants in the same order, but moves the vowels to the left: "AOEUIDHTNS".


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: In 1933, Dvorak started entering typists trained on his keyboard into the International Commercial Schools Contest, which was a typing contest sponsored by typewriter manufacturers consisting of a series of professional and amateur contests. The professional contests had typists sponsored by typewriter companies to advertise their machines.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: In the 1930s, the Tacoma, Washington, school district ran an experimental program in typing designed by Dvorak to determine whether to hold Dvorak layout classes. The experiment put 2,700 highschool students through Dvorak typing classes and found that students learned Dvorak in one-third the time it took to learn QWERTY. When a new school board was elected, however, it chose to terminate the Dvorak classes. During World War II, while in the Navy, Dvorak conducted experiments which he claimed showed that typists could be retrained to Dvorak in a mere 10 days, though he discarded at least two previous studies which were conducted and whose results are unknown.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: With such great apparent gains, interest in the Dvorak keyboard layout increased by the early 1950s. Numerous businesses and government organizations began to consider retraining their typists on Dvorak keyboards. In this environment, the General Services Administration commissioned Earle Strong to determine whether the switch from QWERTY to Dvorak should be made. After retraining a selection of typists from QWERTY to Dvorak, once the Dvorak group had regained their previous typing speed (which took 100 hours of training, more than was claimed in Dvorak's Navy test), Strong took a second group of QWERTY typists chosen for equal ability to the Dvorak group and retrained them in QWERTY in order to improve their speed at the same time the Dvorak typists were training.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The carefully controlled study failed to show any benefit to the Dvorak keyboard layout in typing or training speed. Strong recommended speed training with QWERTY rather than switching keyboards, and attributed the previous apparent benefits of Dvorak to improper experimental design and outright bias on the part of Dvorak, who had designed and directed the previous studies. However, Strong had a personal grudge against Dvorak and had made public statements before his study opposing new keyboard designs. After this study, interest in the Dvorak keyboard waned. Later experiments have shown that many keyboard designs, including some alphabetical ones, allow very similar typing speeds to QWERTY and Dvorak when typists have been trained for them, suggesting that Dvorak's careful design principles may have had little effect because keyboard layout is only a small part of the complicated physical activity of typing.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The work of Dvorak paved the way for other optimized keyboard layouts for English such as Colemak, but also for other languages such as the German Neo and the French BÉPO.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Over the decades, symbol keys were shifted around the keyboard resulting in variations of the Dvorak design. In 1982, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) implemented a standard for the Dvorak layout known as ANSI X4.22-1983. This standard gave the Dvorak layout official recognition as an alternative to the QWERTY keyboard.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The layout standardized by the ANSI differs from the original or "classic" layout devised and promulgated by Dvorak. Indeed, the layout promulgated publicly by Dvorak differed slightly from the layout for which Dvorak & Dealey applied for a patent in 1932most notably in the placement of Z. Today's keyboards have more keys than the original typewriter did, and other significant differences existed:


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Modern U.S. Dvorak layouts almost always place codice_8 and codice_4 together on a single key, and codice_3 and codice_2 together on a single key. Thus, if the keycaps of a modern keyboard are rearranged so that the unshifted symbol characters match the classic Dvorak layout then the result is the ANSI Dvorak layout.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Dvorak is included with all major operating systems (such as Windows, macOS, Linux and BSD). Since the introduction of iOS 8 in 2014, Apple iPhone and iPad users have been able to install third party keyboards on their touchscreen devices which allow for alternative keyboard layouts such as Dvorak on a system wide basis. Starting with iOS 16, the Dvorak keyboard became available as an included system wide keyboard.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Although some word processors could simulate alternative keyboard layouts by software, this was application specific; if more than one program was commonly used (e.g., a word processor and a spreadsheet), the user could be forced to switch layouts depending on the application. Occasionally, stickers were provided to place over the keys for these layouts.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: However, IBM-compatible PCs used an active, "smart" keyboard. Striking a key generated a key "code", which was sent to the computer. Thus, changing to an alternative keyboard layout was accomplished most easily by simply buying a keyboard with the new layout. Because the key codes were generated by the keyboard itself, all software would respond accordingly. In the mid to late 1980s, a small industry for replacement PC keyboards developed; although most of these were concerned with keyboard "feel" and/or programmable macros, there were several with alternative layouts, such as Dvorak.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Amiga operating systems from the 1986 version 1.2 onward allow the user to modify the keyboard layout by using the setmap command line utility with "usa2" as an argument, or later in 3.x systems by opening the keyboard input preference widget and selecting "Dvorak". Amiga systems versions 1.2 and 1.3 came with the Dvorak keymap on the Workbench disk. Versions 2.x came with the keymaps available on the "Extras" disk. In 3.0 and 3.1 systems, the keymaps were on the "Storage" disk. By copying the respective keymap to the Workbench disk or installing the system to a hard drive, Dvorak was usable for Workbench application programs.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Versions of Microsoft Windows including Windows 95, Windows NT 3.51 and later have shipped with U.S. Dvorak layout capability. Free updates to use the layout on earlier Windows versions are available for download from Microsoft.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Earlier versions, such as DOS 6.2/Windows 3.1, included four keyboard layouts: QWERTY, two-handed Dvorak, right-hand Dvorak, and left-hand Dvorak.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: In May 2004, Microsoft published an improved version of its Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC version 1.3 – current version is 1.4) that allows anyone to easily create any keyboard layout desired, thus allowing the creation and installation of any international Dvorak keyboard layout such as Dvorak Type II (for German), Svorak (for Swedish) etc.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Another advantage of the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator with respect to third-party programs for installing an international Dvorak layout is that it allows creation of a keyboard layout that automatically switches to standard (QWERTY) after pressing the two hotkeys (SHIFT and CTRL).


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Many operating systems based on UNIX, including OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenSolaris, Plan 9, and most Linux distributions, can be configured to use the U.S. Dvorak layout and a handful of variants. Furthermore, all current Unix-like systems with X.Org and appropriate keymaps installed (and virtually all systems meant for desktop use include them) are able to use any QWERTY-labeled keyboard as a Dvorak one without any problems or additional configuration. This eliminates the burden of producing additional keymaps for every variant of QWERTY provided. Runtime layout switching is also possible.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: ChromeOS and ChromiumOS offer Dvorak, and there are three different ways to switch the keyboard to the Dvorak layout. ChromeOS includes the US Dvorak and UK Dvorak layouts.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Apple had Dvorak advocates since the company's early (pre-IPO) days. Several engineers devised hardware and software to remap the keyboard, which were used inside the company and even sold commercially.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The Apple IIe had a keyboard ROM that translated keystrokes into characters. The ROM contained both QWERTY and Dvorak layouts, but the QWERTY layout was enabled by default. A modification could be made and was reversible and did no damage. By flipping a switch, the user could switch from one layout to the other. This modification was entirely unofficial but was inadvertently demonstrated at the 1984 Comdex show, in Las Vegas, by an Apple employee whose mission was to demonstrate Apple Logo II. The employee had become accustomed to the Dvorak layout and brought the necessary parts to the show, installed them in a demo machine, then did his Logo demo. Viewers, curious that he always reached behind the machine before and after allowing other people to type, asked him about the modification. He spent as much time explaining the Dvorak keyboard as explaining Logo.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Apple brought new interest to the Dvorak layout with the Apple IIc, which had a mechanical switch above the keyboard whereby the user could switch back and forth between the QWERTY and Dvorak. The IIc Dvorak layout was even mentioned by 1984 advertisements, which stated that the world's fastest typist, Barbara Blackburn, had set a record on an Apple IIc with the Dvorak layout.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The Apple III used a keyboard-layout file loaded from a floppy disk: the standard system-software package included QWERTY and Dvorak layout files. Changing layouts required restarting the machine.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The Apple Lisa did not offer the Dvorak keyboard mapping, though it was purportedly available through undocumented interfaces.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: In the early days, Macintosh users could only use the Dvorak layout by editing the "System" file using Apple's "RESource EDITor" ResEditwhich allowed users to create and edit keyboard layouts, icons, and other interface components.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: By 1994, a package named 'Electric Dvorak' by John Rethorst provided an easily user-installable "implementation [that] was particularly good on pre-system 7 Macs" as freeware, and especially useful for Mac+ and Mac SE machines running MacOS 6 and 7.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Another third-party developer offered a utility program called MacKeymeleon, which put a menu on the menu bar that allowed on-the-fly switching of keyboard layouts. Eventually, Apple Macintosh engineers built the functionality of this utility into the standard system software, along with a few layouts: QWERTY, Dvorak, French (AZERTY), and other foreign-language layouts.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Since about 1998, beginning with Mac OS 8.6, Apple has included the Dvorak layout. It can be activated with the Keyboard Control Panel and selecting "Dvorak". The setting is applied once the Control Panel is closed out. Apple also includes a Dvorak variant they call "Dvorak – Qwerty ⌘". With this layout, the keyboard temporarily becomes QWERTY when the Command (⌘/Apple) key is held down. By keeping familiar keyboard shortcuts like "close" or "copy" on the same keys as ordinary QWERTY, this lets some people use their well-practiced muscle memory and may make the transition easier. Mac OS and subsequently Mac OS X allow additional "on-the-fly" switching between layouts: a menu-bar icon (by default, a national flag that matches the current language, a 'DV' represents Dvorak and a 'DQ' represents Dvorak – Qwerty ⌘) brings up a drop-down menu, allowing the user to choose the desired layout. Subsequent keystrokes will reflect the choice, which can be reversed the same way.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" and later offer a keyboard identifier program that asks users to press a few keys on their keyboards. Dvorak, QWERTY and many national variations of those designs are available. If multiple keyboards are connected to the same Mac computer, they can be configured to different layouts and use simultaneously. However should the computer shut down (lack of battery, etc.) the computer will revert to QWERTY for reboot, regardless of what layout the Admin was using.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Most mobile phones have software implementations of keyboards on a touch screen. Sometimes the keyboard layout can be changed by means of a freeware third-party utility, such as Hacker's Keyboard for Android, AE Keyboard Mapper for Windows Mobile, or KeybLayout for Symbian OS.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Apple iOS 4.0 and later supported external Dvorak keyboards. iOS 8.0 and later had the option to install onscreen keyboards from the App Store, which includes several free and paid Dvorak layouts. Apple added native support for the Dvorak keyboard with the release of iOS 16 in September 2022.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Google's Android OS touchscreen keyboard can use Dvorak and other nonstandard layouts natively as of version 4.1.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The traditional method for touch typing requires typists to rest their fingers in home position (on QWERTY, the "codice_12" and "codice_13" keys). The row containing said keys is called the home row. The more strokes there are in the home row, the less movement the fingers must do, thus allowing a typist to type faster, more accurately, and with less strain to the hand and fingers.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: According to letter frequency analysis, the majority of the Dvorak layout's key strokes (70%) are done in the home row, claimed to be the easiest row to type because the fingers rest there. Additionally, the Dvorak layout requires the fewest strokes on the bottom row (the most difficult row to type). By contrast, QWERTY requires typists to move their fingers to the top row for a majority of strokes and has only 32% of the strokes done in the home row.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Because the Dvorak layout concentrates the vast majority of key strokes to the home row, the Dvorak layout uses about 63% of the finger motion required by QWERTY, which is claimed to make the keyboard more ergonomic. Because the Dvorak layout requires less finger motion from the typist compared to QWERTY, some users with repetitive strain injuries have reported that switching from QWERTY to Dvorak alleviated or even eliminated their repetitive strain injuries; however, no scientific study has been conducted verifying this.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The typing loads between hands differs for each of the keyboard layouts. On QWERTY keyboards, 56% of the typing strokes are done by the left hand. As the right hand is dominant for the majority of people, the Dvorak keyboard puts the more often used keys on the right hand side, thereby having 56% of the typing strokes done by the right hand.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Awkward strokes are undesirable because they slow down typing, increase typing errors, and increase finger strain. The term hurdling refers to an awkward stroke requiring a single finger to jump directly from one row, over the home row to another row (e.g., typing "minimum" [which often comes out as "minimun" or "mimimum"] on the QWERTY keyboard). In the English language, there are about 1,200 words that require a hurdle on the QWERTY layout. In contrast, there are only a few words requiring a hurdle on the Dvorak layout (e.g. "spiky", where the "piky" is typed entirely on the left pointer finger; it corresponds to ";rgvt" on QWERTY).


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: It is claimed that words involving both hands can be typed faster than words involving only one hand, and with more hand alternation there is, the faster it can be typed. This improvement comes from splitting the workload more evenly between the two hands.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The QWERTY layout has more than 3,000 words that are typed on the left hand alone and about 300 words that are typed on the right hand alone (the aforementioned word "minimum" is a right-hand-only word). In contrast, with the Dvorak layout, only a few words are typed using only the left hand and even fewer use the right hand alone.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: However, this benefit dwindles for longer words, because one English syllable can contain numerous consonants (as in "schmaltz" or "strengths").


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: QWERTY enjoys advantages with respect to Dvorak due to the fact that it is the de facto standard keyboard:


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: In the 1960s, Dvorak designed left- and right-handed Dvorak layouts for touch-typing with only one hand. He tried to minimize the need to move the hand from side to side (lateral travel), as well as to minimize finger movement. Each layout has the hand resting near the center of the keyboard, rather than on one side.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Because the layouts require less hand movement than layouts designed for two hands, they can be more accessible to single-handed users. The layouts are also used by people with full use of two hands, who prefer having one hand free while they type with the other.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The left-handed Dvorak and right-handed Dvorak keyboard layouts are mostly each other's mirror image, with the exception of some punctuation keys, some of the less-used letters, and the 'wide keys' (Enter, Shift, etc.). Dvorak arranged the parentheses as ")(" on his left-handed keyboard, but some keyboards place them in the typical "()" reading order. Dvorak's original ")(" placement is the more widely distributed layout, and the version that ships with Windows.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Programmer Dvorak was developed by Roland Kaufmann and was designed based on code in C, Java, Pascal, Lisp, HTML, CSS and XML.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: While the letters are in the same places as the regular Dvorak layout, the numbers and most symbols have been moved. The top row contains brackets, curly brackets, and parentheses positioned in an way which makes opening and closing these symbols more intuitive. Some other common programming symbols are also placed in the top row for easy access: (codice_14). The numbers are in the top row as well but the Shift key must be used to type them like on typewriters. The numbers are arranged with the odds under the left hand and the evens under the right hand, as on Dvorak's original layout. Another notable change is the swap of the semicolon/colon key with the quotation/apostrophe key. Many programming languages require each line to end with a semicolon; therefore, it makes sense to put the semicolon in a spot which is easy to reach.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The Dvorak layout is designed to improve touch-typing, in which the user rests their fingers on the home row. It would have less effect on other methods of typing such as hunt-and-peck. Some studies show favorable results for the Dvorak layout in terms of speed, while others do not show any advantage, with many accusations of bias or lack of scientific rigour among researchers. The first studies were performed by Dvorak and his associates. These showed favorable results and generated accusations of bias. However, research published in 2013 by economist Ricard Torres suggests that the Dvorak layout has definite advantages.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: In 1956, a study with a sample of 10 people in each group conducted by Earle Strong of the U.S. General Services Administration found Dvorak no more efficient than QWERTY and claimed it would be too costly to retrain the employees. The failure of the study to show any benefit to switching, along with its illustration of the considerable cost of switching, discouraged businesses and governments from making the switch. This study was similarly criticised as being biased in favor of the QWERTY control group.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: In the 1990s, economists Stan Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis wrote articles in the "Journal of Law and Economics" and "Reason" magazine where they rejected Dvorak proponents' claims that the dominance of the QWERTY is due to market failure brought on by QWERTY's early adoption, writing, "[T]he evidence in the standard history of Qwerty versus Dvorak is flawed and incomplete. [..] The most dramatic claims are traceable to Dvorak himself; and the best-documented experiments, as well as recent ergonomic studies, suggest little or no advantage for the Dvorak keyboard."


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Although the Dvorak design is the only other keyboard design registered with ANSI and is provided with all major operating systems, attempts to convert universally to the Dvorak design have not succeeded. The failure of Dvorak to displace QWERTY has been the subject of some studies.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: A discussion of the Dvorak layout is sometimes used as an exercise by management consultants to illustrate the difficulties of change. The Dvorak layout is often used in economics textbooks as a standard example of network effects, though this method has been criticized.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Most keyboards are based on QWERTY layouts, despite the availability of other keyboard layouts, including the Dvorak.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Although DSK is implemented in many languages other than English, there are still potential issues. Every Dvorak implementation for other languages has the same difficulties as for Roman characters. However, other (occidental) language orthographies can have other typing needs for optimization (many are very different from English). Because Dvorak was optimized for the statistical distribution of letters of English text, keyboards for other languages would likely have different distributions of letter frequencies. Hence, non-QWERTY-derived keyboards for such languages would need a keyboard layout that might be quite different from the Dvorak layout for English.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Whether Dvorak or QWERTY, a United Kingdom keyboard differs from the U.S. equivalent in these ways: the " and @ are swapped; the backslash/pipe [\ |] key is in an extra position (to the right of the lower left shift key); there is a taller return/enter key, which places the hash/tilde [# ~] key to its lower left corner (see picture).


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The most notable difference between the U.S. and UK Dvorak layouts is the [2 "] key remains on the top row, whereas the U.S. [' "] key moves. This means that the query [/ ?] key retains its classic Dvorak location, top right, albeit shifted.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Interchanging the [/ ?] and [' @] keys more closely matches the U.S. layout, and the use of "@" has increased in the information technology age. These variations, plus keeping the numerals in Dvorak's idealised order, appear in the and Dvorak for the and varieties.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The Svorak ("Swedish Dvorak") layout places the three extra Swedish vowels (å, ä and ö) on the leftmost three keys of the upper row, which correspond to punctuation symbols on the English Dvorak layout. This retains the original English DVORAK design goal of keeping all vowels by the left hand, including Y which is a vowel in Swedish.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The displaced punctuation symbols (period and comma) end up at the edges of the keyboard, but every other symbol is in the same place as in the standard Swedish QWERTY layout, facilitating easier re-learning. The Alt-Gr key is required to access some of the punctuation symbols. This major design goal also makes it possible to "convert" a Swedish QWERTY keyboard to SVORAK simply by moving keycaps around.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Unlike for Norway, there's no standard Swedish Dvorak layout and the community is fragmented. In "Svdvorak", by Gunnar Parment, the punctuation symbols are as they were in the English version; the first extra vowel (å) is placed in the far left of the top row while the other two (ä and ö) are placed at the far left of the bottom row.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The Norwegian implementation (known as ""NorskDvorak"") is similar to Parment's layout, with "æ" and "ø" replacing "ä" and "ö".


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: An IcelandicDvorak layout exists, created by a student at Reykjavik University. It retains the same basic layout as the standard Dvorak but features special Alt-Gr functions to allow easy usage for common characters such as "þ", "æ", "ö" and dead-keys to allow the typing of characters such as "å" and "ü".


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: A FinnishDAS keyboard layout follows many of Dvorak's design principles, but the layout is an original design based on the most common letters and letter combinations of the Finnish language. Matti Airas has also made another layout for Finnish. Finnish can also be typed reasonably well with the English Dvorak layout if the letters ä and ö are added. The Finnish ArkkuDvorak keyboard layout adds both on a single key and keeps the American placement for each other character. As with DAS, the SuoRak keyboard is designed by the same principles as the Dvorak keyboard, but with the most common letters of the Finnish language taken into account. Contrary to DAS, it keeps the vowels on the left side of the keyboard and most consonants on the right hand side.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The Turkish F keyboard layout () is also an original design with Dvorak's design principles, however it's not clear if it is inspired by Dvorak or not. Turkish F keyboard was standardized in 1955 and the design has been a requirement for imported typewriters since 1963.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: There are some non standard Brazilian Dvorak keyboard designs currently in development. The simpler design (also called BRDK) is just a Dvorak layout plus some keys from the Brazilian ABNT2 keyboard layout. Another design, however, was specifically designed for Brazilian Portuguese, by means of a study that optimized typing statistics, like frequent letters, trigraphs and words.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: The most common German Dvorak layout is the German Type II layout. It is available for Windows, Linux, and macOS. There is also the Neo layout and the de ergo layout, both original layouts that also use many of Dvorak's design principles. Because of the similarity of both languages, even the standard Dvorak layout (with minor modifications) is an ergonomic improvement with respect to the common QWERTZ layout. One such modification puts ß at the shift+comma position and the umlaut dots as a dead key accessible via shift+period (standard German keyboards have a separate less/greater key to the right of the left shift key).


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: For French, there is a Dvorak layout. And there's also the Bépo layout which is designed based on Dvorak's method of analyzing key frequency. Although Bépo's placement of keys is optimised for French, the scheme also facilitates key combinations for typing characters of other European languages, Esperanto and various symbols.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: A Romanian version of the Dvorak layout (named "Popak" after the name of its inventor) was released in October 2008. It is available for both Windows and Linux.


title: Dvorak keyboard layout

text: Polish propositions of national keyboard layout smiliar to Dvorak were created in 1950s, but weren't introduced due to new version of Polish Norm in 1958 with modernized QWERTZ layout.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: Snakes on a Plane is a 2006 American action film directed by David R. Ellis and starring Samuel L. Jackson. It was released by New Line Cinema on August 18, 2006, in North America. The film was written by David Dalessandro, John Heffernan, and Sebastian Gutierrez and follows the events of dozens of venomous snakes being released on a passenger plane in an attempt to kill a trial witness.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: The film gained a considerable amount of attention before its release, forming large fanbases online and becoming an Internet phenomenon, due to the film's title, casting, and premise. In response to the Internet fan base, New Line Cinema incorporated feedback from online users into its production, and added five days of reshooting. Before and after the film was released, it was parodied and alluded to on television shows and films, fan-made videos, video games, and various forms of literature.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: Released in the United States and United Kingdom on August 18, 2006, the film received mixed reviews and was a "box office disappointment". Despite the immense Internet buzz, the film's gross revenue did not live up to expectations; it earned US$15.25 million in its opening weekend. The film grossed US$62 million worldwide before its release on home video on January 2, 2007.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: After witnessing a brutal murder ordered by gang boss Eddie Kim on prosecutor Daniel Hayes in Hawaii, Sean Jones is escorted by FBI agents Neville Flynn and John Sanders on a Boeing 747-400 to testify in a trial against Kim in Los Angeles. Kim arranges for a time-release crate full of venomous snakes to be placed in the cargo hold in an attempt to bring down the plane before it reaches Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). To ensure the snakes indiscriminately attack everybody without the need for provocation, he has one of his henchmen disguised as an airport ground employee spray the passengers' leis with a special pheromone which makes the snakes highly aggressive.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: The crate opens midway through the flight and the snakes make their way through the cabin, with a viper attacking an electric panel in the process, thus shutting down the power. A couple having sex in a bathroom and a man using another bathroom are the first people killed. The plane's captain, Sam McKeon, investigates the power outage and fixes an electrical short, but is killed by the viper that caused it. Co-pilot Rick, unaware of the snakes, believes Sam has suffered a heart attack and continues toward LAX. Some of the snakes attack Rick, and while fending them off he accidentally releases the oxygen masks throughout the plane, causing most of the snakes to drop into the cabin with them. Numerous passengers, including Agent Sanders, are killed when the snakes invade the cabin.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: The surviving passengers, who have made their way to the front of the plane, put up blockades of luggage in a desperate attempt to stop the snakes. Rick is attacked and the plane starts to dip downwards, causing a food trolley to crash through the luggage blockade. The passengers flee to the upstairs first class cabin before blocking the stairwell with an inflatable life raft. Flynn and flight attendant Claire regain control of the plane while Rick retakes the controls and has Flynn go into the cargo hold to restore the air conditioning/ventilation system. Flynn contacts FBI Special Agent Hank Harris on the ground, who gets in touch with ophiologist Dr. Steven Price, Customs' main source for animal smuggling cases.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: Based on pictures of the reptiles emailed to him via a passenger's mobile phone, Price believes a Los Angeles snake dealer known for illegally importing exotic and highly dangerous snakes to be responsible. After a shootout, a tactical interrogation occurs wherein the dealer is injured by a snakebite. With Harris withholding the antivenom, the dealer finally reveals that Kim hired him to obtain the snakes and adds how the latter managed to smuggle them on board the plane and make them aggressive. Price injects the injured dealer with the antivenom and commandeers his supply of antivenom for the victims on the plane based on the list given to him. Harris gives orders to have Eddie Kim arrested and tried on multiple counts of murder and attempted murder, with the death penalty as an option.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: Harris contacts Flynn, telling him that antivenom will be ready for the passengers when they land. However, Flynn discovers that the cockpit is filled with snakes and Rick is dead. After a brief discussion, Troy, Three Gs' bodyguard, agrees to land the plane based on experience playing a flight simulator. After everyone gets prepared, Flynn shoots out two windows with his pistol, causing the plane to depressurize. The snakes are blown out of the cockpit and the lower floor of the plane. Despite his lack of real-world experience, Troy makes an emergency landing and the plane makes it to the terminal. The passengers exit the plane and antivenom is given to those who need it.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: Just as Flynn and Sean are about to disembark, a remaining snake jumps out and bites Sean in the chest. Flynn draws his gun and shoots the snake, and paramedics rush to Sean, who is traumatized, but unharmed, due to a ballistic vest he wore throughout the ordeal after his rescue from Kim's henchmen. As a token of gratitude, Sean later takes Flynn to Bali and teaches him how to surf.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: The story is credited to David Dalessandro, a University of Pittsburgh administrator and first-time Hollywood writer. He developed the concept in 1992 after reading a nature magazine article about Indonesian brown tree snakes climbing onto planes in cargo during World War II. He originally wrote the screenplay about the brown tree snake loose on a plane, titling the film "Venom". He soon revised it, expanding upon the premise to include a plague of assorted venomous snakes, then—crediting the film "Aliens"—revised it once again to include "lots of them loose in the fuselage of a plane." Dalessandro's third draft of "Venom" was turned down by more than 30 Hollywood studios in 1995. In 1999, a producer for MTV/Paramount showed interest in the script, followed up by New Line Cinema, which took over the rights for production.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: Originally, the film, under the working title "Snakes on a Plane", was going to be directed by Hong Kong action director Ronny Yu. Jackson, who had previously worked with Yu on "The 51st State", learned about the announced project in the Hollywood trade newspapers and, after talking to Yu, agreed to sign on without reading the script based on the director, storyline, and the title. Initially New Line did not believe that Jackson had actually signed on to the project and had to call his agent to clarify. Jackson would later defend his choice of starring in the movie by stating


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: "it was the kind of movie I would have gone to see when I was a kid", further clarifying "I feel sorry for all those people that are going through that whole trip of 'Why would Samuel Jackson do something like this?' and 'It's lowbrow.' It's a movie. People go to movies on Saturday to get away from the war in Iraq and taxes and election news and pedophiles online and just go and have some fun and I like doing movies that are fun."


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: The film's B movie-esque title generated a lot of pre-release interest on the Internet. One journalist wrote that "Snakes on a Plane" is "perhaps the most internet-hyped film of all time". Much of the initial publicity came from a blog entry made by screenwriter Josh Friedman, who had been offered a chance to work on the script. The casting of Samuel L. Jackson further increased anticipation. At one point, the film was given the title "Pacific Air Flight 121", only to have it changed back to the working title at Samuel Jackson's request. In August 2005, Samuel Jackson told an interviewer, "We're totally changing that back. That's the only reason I took the job: I read the title." On March 2, 2006, the studio reverted the title to "Snakes on a Plane". New Line hired two additional writers to smooth out the screenplay.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: Taking advantage of the Internet buzz for what had been a minor film in their 2006 line-up, New Line Cinema ordered five days of additional shooting in early March 2006 (principal photography had wrapped in September 2005). While re-shoots normally imply problems with a film, the producers opted to add new scenes to the film to change the MPAA rating from PG-13 to R and bring it in line with growing fan expectations. The most notable addition was a revision of a catchphrase from the film that was parodied on the Internet by fans of the film, capitalizing on Samuel L. Jackson's typically foul-mouthed and violent film persona: "Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!". Subsequently, the public responded favorably to this creative change and marketing strategy, leading some members of the press to speculate that "the movie has grown from something of a joke into a phenomenon".


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: More than 450 snakes were used for filming to represent 30 different species of snakes. The different species include a Burmese python named Kitty (which the crew called Kong for film purposes), scarlet kingsnake (the non-venomous double for the eastern coral snake), milk snake, corn snakes, rattlesnakes, and mangrove snakes. The scarlet kingsnake and Pueblan milk snake stood in for coral snakes, while another species of milk snake and Florida kingsnake filled the role of the venomous Australian taipan (which attacks the couple having sex and the man using a restroom respectively). About two-thirds of the snakes seen throughout the film were either animatronic or CGI. The snakes that were real were mostly the non-venomous ones that are never seen attacking anyone. The scenes where someone is clearly bitten were often done with a mix of animatronic and animation. According to the DVD, all the snakes had production names, but only Scarface (an animated pit viper), Peanut (a cobra), and Kong are mentioned by name in the audio commentary. During filming, Samuel Jackson came into contact with no live snakes, due to a contract clause preventing snakes from being within (25 ft) of the actor. When the film was released in theaters, "pranksters" released two live western diamondback rattlesnakes at the AMC Desert Ridge 18 theater in Phoenix, Arizona during a showing of the film on August 22, 2006. One snake made its way into the lobby of the theater on its own, and the other was found in the parking lot. No one was harmed and the snakes were released back into the desert.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: An illustrated book from Thunder's Mouth Press, "Snakes on a Plane: The Guide to the Internet Ssssssensation" by David Waldon, details the Internet phenomenon and was published July 28, 2006. Waldon details various viral videos relating to the film's craze, and interviewed their producers to find out what about the film captured their attention.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: On March 16, 2006, New Line Cinema announced a contest on TagWorld and a website promoting the film. The contest allowed artists on TagWorld to have their music featured in the film. A flood of "SoaP"-themed songs were submitted by artists such as Captain Ahab (who ultimately won the contest), Louden Swain, the Former Fat Boys, Nispy, and others. In addition, a music video for the film, "Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)" by Cobra Starship, was released on July 10, 2006 on MTV2's "Unleashed". The music video appeared on the film's soundtrack as well as during the film's closing credits.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: In October 2005, Nathanial Perry and Chris Rohan recorded an audio trailer spoof, which helped fuel the Internet buzz. Perry and Rohan recorded the "motherfucking snakes" line in the audio trailer which was added to the film during the week of re-shoots. In July 2006, New Line Cinema signed a worldwide licensing agreement with the Cutting Corporation to produce an audiobook of the film.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: On August 15, 2006, Samuel L. Jackson guest featured on "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart, opening with the film's catchphrase. Keith Olbermann featured stories about the film and Internet buzz several times on his MSNBC news program "Countdown". In addition, G4's "Attack of the Show!" featured a semi-regular segment entitled "Snakes on a Plane: An Attack of the Show Investigation", and had a week dedicated to the film which included interviews and the appearance of hundreds of snakes on set.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: "Snakes on a Plane" generated considerable buzz on the Internet after Josh Friedman's blog entry and mentions on several Internet portals. The title inspired bloggers to create songs, apparel, poster art, pages of fan fiction, parody films, mock movie trailers, and short film parody competitions. On July 6, 2006, the official "Snakes on a Plane" website started a promotional sweepstakes called "The #1 Fan King Cobra Sweepstakes". The contest made innovative use of the publicity-generating potential of the Internet, requiring contestants to post links on forums, blogs, and websites and collecting votes from the users of those sites.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: Many of the early fan-made trailers and later other viral videos and commercials circulated via YouTube, and captured media attention there with such titles as: "Cats on a Plane" (which was featured in Joel Siegel's review of "Snakes on a Plane" on "Good Morning America"), "Snakes Who Missed the Plane", "All Your Snakes Are Belong To Us" (a spoof of the All your base are belong to us phenomenon), "Steaks on a Train", and "Badgers on a Plane" (a spoof of "Badger Badger Badger"). Several websites also held contests about the film in fan-submitted short films and posters.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: In August 2006, Varitalk launched an advertising campaign in which fans could send a semi-personalized message in Samuel Jackson's voice to telephone numbers of their choosing. Within the first week, over 1.5 million calls were sent to participants.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: In June 2006, New Line commissioned famed UK audio-visual film remixers and chop-up artists Addictive TV to cut and sample "Snakes on a Plane" to create trailers for the U.S. television networks. The official teaser trailer premiered before "", and the first official trailer appeared online on June 26, 2006. Another trailer circulated in July 2006, showing several of the snake attacks and a missing pilot and co-pilot. Rotten Tomatoes had video clips of the official trailers, as well as fan-made trailers.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: During a July 21, 2006 panel discussion at the Comic-Con Convention in San Diego, California, a preview clip from the film was shown to a crowd of more than 6,500 people. The panel included actors Samuel L. Jackson and Kenan Thompson, director David R. Ellis, and snake-handler Jules Sylvester.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: "Snakes on a Plane" debuted on August 18, 2006. The film opened in 3,555 theaters and had some late-night screenings on August 17. In a move meant to exploit the attention from the film, a straight-to-DVD Z-movie horror film with a supernatural twist, "Snakes on a Train", was released on August 15, 2006, three days before the film's theatrical release.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: New Line Cinema did not screen the film for critics. , review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 69% based on 178 reviews, with an average score of 6.20/10. The consensus reads: ""Snakes on a Plane" lives up to its title, featuring snakes on a plane. It isn't perfect, but then again, it doesn't need to be." On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average rating system out of 100, the film earned a score of 58 based on 31 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Reviewers reported audiences cheering, applauding, and engaging in "call and response", noting that audience participation was an important part of the film's appeal. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "B−" on scale of A to F.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: "The Arizona Republic"'s Randy Cordova gave the film a positive review, calling the film "... an exploitation flick that knows what it wants to do, and it gets the job done expertly." and a "... Mecca for B-movie lovers." Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" enjoyed the film, asking his readers "... if you can find a better time at the movies this year than this wild comic thriller, let me in on it." "Boston Globe" reviewer Ty Burr reacted to Samuel L. Jackson's performance by saying he "... bestrides this film with the authority of someone who knows the value of honest bilge. He's as much the auteur of this baby as the director and screenwriters, and that fierce glimmer in his eye is partly joy."


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying that "after all the Internet hype about those motherfuckin' snakes on that motherfuckin' plane, the flick itself is a murky stew of shock effects repeated so often that the suspense quickly droops along with your eyelids." David Denby of "The New Yorker" claimed that the film "... may mark a new participatory style in marketing, but it still gulls an allegedly knowing audience with the pseudo-morality of yesteryear."


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: Film critic and radio host Michael Medved criticized New Line Cinema for agreeing to re-shoot scenes so that the film would receive an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America to match fan expectations. He argued that the film would have grossed more revenue at the box office with a PG-13 rating, stating that the demographic most likely to be drawn to a movie titled "Snakes on a Plane" is males between the ages of 12 and 15. "My fourteen-year-old son, Danny, for instance, felt a powerful inclination to go out and see the movie with his two sleep-over friends this Sunday night," he explained, "but I wouldn't permit it. It's rated R for good reason." Medved ultimately awarded the film 2 1/2 stars out of 4 in a radio review, but said that he did so "grudgingly."


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: Due to the Internet hype surrounding the film, industry analysts estimated that the film's opening box office would be between US$20-30 million. "Snakes on a Plane" did not meet its estimates and grossed only $15.25 million in its opening days, a disappointment for New Line Cinema. In its second weekend, the film fell to sixth place with $6.4 million, a more than fifty percent drop from its opening weekend revenue. By the end of its theatrical run, the film grossed $62,022,014 worldwide.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: Robert K. Shaye, the founder of New Line, stated that he was "disappointed" that "Snakes on a Plane" was a "dud" despite "higher expectations". The press declared that "Snakes on a Plane" was a "box office disappointment", with "The New York Times" reporting that after all the "hype online, "Snakes on a Plane" is letdown at box office" and "Entertainment Weekly" reporting that the film was an "internet-only phenomenon."


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: "Snakes on a Plane" released on DVD December 26, 2006 in Region 2; December 28, 2006 in Region 4; and January 2, 2007 in Region 1. The DVD features commentaries, deleted and extended scenes, several featurettes, Cobra Starship's music video, and trailers. The U.S. Blu-ray was released on September 29, 2009.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: The film received further attention when fans noticed the U.S. TV edit of the film purposely dubbed over foul language, replacing it with bowdlerized words for family audiences. An example is Samuel L. Jackson's line toward the end of the film, "I have had it with these motherfuckin' snakes on this motherfuckin' plane!", which is replaced with "I have had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane!".


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: Black Flame published the novelization of the film, written by Christa Faust. The 405–page novel contains significant backstories for the characters and introduces other characters that were not featured in the film. Comic book writer Chuck Dixon wrote a comic book adaptation of the film. DC Comics released the two-issue miniseries on August 16, 2006 and September 27, 2006 under their Wildstorm imprint.


title: Snakes on a Plane

text: The soundtrack for the film was released on August 15, 2006. The enhanced portion of the CD contains what was considered the "best of the best" of the amateur Internet creations inspired by the film, including the songs "Snakes on the Brain" by Captain Ahab and "Here Come the Snakes (Seeing Is Believing)" by Louden Swain. The single "Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)" peaked at the 32nd position of "Billboard"'s Hot Modern Rock Tracks in 2006.


title: Bill Bryson

text: William McGuire Bryson (; born 8 December 1951) is an American–British journalist and author. Bryson has written a number of nonfiction books on topics including travel, the English language, and science. Born in the United States, he has been a resident of Britain for most of his adult life, returning to the U.S. between 1995 and 2003, and holds dual American and British citizenship. He served as the chancellor of Durham University from 2005 to 2011.


title: Bill Bryson

text: Bryson came to prominence in the United Kingdom with the publication and accompanying television series of "Notes from a Small Island" (1995), an exploration of Britain. He received widespread recognition again with the publication of "A Short History of Nearly Everything" (2003), a book widely acclaimed for its accessible communication of science. In October 2020 he announced that he had "retired" from writing books, although in 2022 he recorded an audiobook for Audible, entitled 'The Secret History of Christmas'. He has sold over 16 million books worldwide.


title: Bill Bryson

text: Bryson was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, the son of Bill Bryson Sr., a sports journalist who worked for 50 years at the "Des Moines Register", and Agnes Mary (née McGuire), the home furnishings editor at the same newspaper. His mother was of Irish descent. He had an older brother, Michael (1942–2012), and a sister, Mary Jane Elizabeth. In 2006, Bryson published "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid", a humorous account of his childhood years in Des Moines. In 2006 Frank Cownie, the mayor of Des Moines awarded Bryson the key to the city and announced that 21 October 2006 would be "Bill Bryson, The Thunderbolt Kid, Day."


title: Bill Bryson

text: Bryson attended Drake University for two years before dropping out in 1972, deciding instead to backpack around Europe for four months. He returned to Europe the following year with a high school friend, Matt Angerer (the pseudonymous Stephen Katz). Bryson wrote about some of his experiences from the trip in his book "".


title: Bill Bryson

text: Bryson first visited Britain in 1973 during his tour of Europe and decided to stay after landing a job working in a psychiatric hospital, the now-defunct Holloway Sanatorium in Virginia Water, Surrey. He met a nurse there, Cynthia Billen, whom he married in 1975. They moved to Bryson's hometown of Des Moines, Iowa, in 1975 so Bryson could complete his degree at Drake University. In 1977 they settled in Britain.


title: Bill Bryson

text: He worked as a journalist, first for the "Bournemouth Evening Echo", eventually becoming chief copy editor of the business section of "The Times" and deputy national news editor of the business section of "The Independent".


title: Bill Bryson

text: The Brysons moved around the UK, living in Virginia Water (Surrey), Purewell (Dorset), Burton (Dorset), Kirkby Malham (North Yorkshire, in the 1980s and '90s), and the Old Rectory in Wramplingham, Norfolk (2003–2013). They currently live in rural Hampshire and maintain a small flat in South Kensington, London. From 1995 to 2003 they lived in Hanover, New Hampshire.


title: Bill Bryson

text: Although able to apply for British citizenship, Bryson said in 2010 that he had declined a citizenship test, declaring himself "too cowardly" to take it. However, in 2014, he said that he was preparing to take it and in the prologue to his 2015 book "" he describes doing so, in Eastleigh. His citizenship ceremony took place in Winchester and he now holds dual citizenship.


title: Bill Bryson

text: While living in the US in the 1990s Bryson wrote a column for a British newspaper for several years, reflecting on humorous aspects of his repatriation in the United States. These columns were selected and adapted to become his book "I'm a Stranger Here Myself", alternatively titled "Notes from a Big Country" in Britain, Canada, and Australia. During his time in the US, Bryson decided to walk the Appalachian Trail with his friend Stephen Katz (a pseudonym), about which he wrote the book "A Walk in the Woods". In the 2015 film adaptation of "A Walk in the Woods", Bryson is portrayed by Academy Award winner Robert Redford, and Katz by Nick Nolte.


title: Bill Bryson

text: In 2003, in conjunction with World Book Day, British voters chose Bryson's book "Notes from a Small Island" as that which best summed up British identity and the state of the nation. Also in 2003, he was appointed a Commissioner for English Heritage.


title: Bill Bryson

text: His popular science book, the 500-page "A Short History of Nearly Everything", explores not only the histories and current statuses of the sciences, but also their humble and often humorous beginnings. Although one "top scientist" is alleged to have jokingly described the book as "annoyingly free of mistakes," Bryson himself makes no such claim, and a list of some of its reported errors is available online.


title: Bill Bryson

text: In November 2006, Bryson interviewed then British prime minister Tony Blair on the state of science and education.


title: Bill Bryson

text: Bryson also wrote two popular works on the history of the English language, "The Mother Tongue" and "Made in America"—and, more recently, an update of his guide to usage, "Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words" (first published as "The Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Words" in 1983).


title: Bill Bryson

text: In 2012 Bryson sued his agent, Jed Mattes Inc., in New York County Supreme Court, claiming it had "failed to perform some of the most fundamental duties of an agent." The case was settled out of court, with part of the settlement being that Bryson may not discuss it.


title: Bill Bryson

text: In 2013 Bryson claimed copyright on an interview he had given nearly 20 years previously, after the interviewer republished it as an 8000-word e-book. Amazon removed the e-book from publication.


title: Bill Bryson

text: In 2005, Bryson was appointed chancellor of Durham University, succeeding the late Sir Peter Ustinov, and became more active with student activities than is common for holders of that post, appearing in a Durham student film and promoting litter-collection in the city. He had praised Durham as "a perfect little city" in "Notes from a Small Island". In October 2010, it was announced that Bryson would step down at the end of 2011.


title: Bill Bryson

text: In May 2007, he became the president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. His first focus in this role was the establishment of an anti-littering campaign across England. He discussed the future of the countryside with Richard Mabey, Sue Clifford, Nicholas Crane, and Richard Girling at CPRE's Volunteer Conference in November 2007. In 2011, Bryson won the Golden Eagle Award from the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild.


title: Bill Bryson

text: Bryson has received numerous awards for his ability to communicate science with passion and enthusiasm. In 2004, he won the Aventis Prize for best general science book that year, with "A Short History of Nearly Everything". In 2005, the book won the European Union's Descartes Prize for science communication. In 2005, he received the President's Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry for advancing the cause of the chemical sciences. In 2007, he won the Bradford Washburn Award, from the Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts, for contributions to the popularization of science. In 2012, he received the Kenneth B. Myer Award, from the Florey Institute of Neuroscience, in Melbourne, Australia.


title: Bill Bryson

text: With the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Bill Bryson Prize for Science Communication was established in 2005. The competition engages students from around the world in explaining science to non-experts. As part of its 350th anniversary celebrations in 2010 the Royal Society commissioned Bryson to edit a collection of essays by scientists and science writers about the history of science and the Royal Society over the previous three and a half centuries entitled "Seeing Further".


title: Bill Bryson

text: He was made an honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his contribution to literature on 13 December 2006. In 2007, he was awarded the James Joyce Award by the Literary and Historical Society of University College Dublin. After he received British citizenship, his OBE was made substantive.


title: Bill Bryson

text: On 22 November 2012, Durham University officially renamed the Main Library the Bill Bryson Library for his contributions as the university's 11th chancellor (2005–2011). The library also has a cafe named after Bryson's book "Notes from a Small Island".