All the Pretty Horses is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. It was a bestseller, winning both the U.S. National Book Award
and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It is the first of McCarthy's "Border Trilogy".

The book was adapted as  a 2000 film starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz and directed by Billy Bob Thornton.

Plot summary
The novel tells of John Grady Cole, a 16-year-old who grew up on his grandfather's ranch in San Angelo, Texas. The boy was raised for a significant part of his youth, perhaps 15 of his 16 years, by a family of Mexican origin who worked on the ranch; he is a native speaker of Spanish and English. The story begins in 1949, soon after the death of John Grady's grandfather when Grady learns the ranch is to be sold. Faced with the prospect of moving into town, Grady instead chooses to leave and persuades his best friend, Lacey Rawlins, to accompany him. Traveling by horseback, the pair travel southward into Mexico, where they hope to find work as cowboys.

Shortly before they cross the Mexican border, they encounter a young man who says he is named Jimmy Blevins. Blevins' origins and the authenticity of his name are never quite clarified. Blevins rides a huge bay horse that is far too fine a specimen to be the legal property of a runaway boy, but Blevins insists it is his. As they travel south through a severe thunderstorm, Blevins' horse runs off,  and he loses his pistol.

Blevins persuades John Grady and Rawlins to accompany him to the nearest town to find the horse and his distinctive vintage Colt pistol. They find both but have no way to prove Blevins' ownership. Against his companions' better judgment, Blevins steals back the horse. As the three are riding away from the town they are pursued, and Blevins separates from Rawlins and John Grady. The pursuers follow Blevins, and Rawlins and Grady escape.

Rawlins and John Grady travel farther south. In the fertile oasis region of Coahuila known as the Bolsón de Cuatro Ciénegas, they find employment at a large ranch. There, John Grady first encounters the ranch owner's beautiful daughter, Alejandra. As Rawlins pursues work with the ranch hands, John Grady's skill with horses catches the eye of the owner, who brings him into the ranch house and promotes him to a more responsible position as a horse trainer and breeder. At this time, John Grady begins an affair with Alejandra, which attracts the attention of Alejandra's great aunt, an intelligent and strong-willed widow who in her younger days defied social convention by being involved with Mexican revolutionaries. She tells John Grady about the consequences in Mexican society of a woman losing her honor, and how Alejandra can ill afford to be seen in the presence of John Grady due to its potential impact on her reputation. The aunt recounts her own story of love and loss, and says, though it might seem she would be sympathetic to her own grandniece's desire, it, in fact, has the opposite impact; she opposes their involvement.

As John Grady and Alejandra secretly become more deeply involved, a group of Mexican Rangers visit the ranch and then ride off without explanation. Alejandra returns to Mexico City, where she is in school, and John Grady plans to ask her to admit her true feelings for him upon her return. When he confides this to a senior ranch hand who has been kind to him, John Grady is surprised to learn Alejandra has returned to the ranch without coming to see him.

Somewhat later, the Rangers return and arrest Rawlins and John Grady. They are brought to a dismal Mexican holding cell where they discover Blevins is also in custody. They learn Blevins had escaped his pursuers but subsequently returned to the village where he had recovered his horse, this time to retrieve the Colt pistol. In the process of getting the pistol, he shot and killed a man.

The three boys are interrogated and beaten, and a crooked police captain threatens them. While they are being transferred from their small jail to a larger prison, the captain and police officers detour to a remote ranch. Blevins is led off while Rawlins and John Grady watch powerlessly; then they hear gunshots as Blevins is executed.

The two friends are brought to the larger prison, where the inmates test the two boys by attacking them relentlessly over a period of days. They barely survive and try to figure out how to get out of prison; an inmate with special privileges, who seems to command the respect of the other inmates, takes an interest in their situation and suggests money might solve their problem. They decline this offer of protection, because they have no money and Rawlins is soon severely wounded by a knife-wielding inmate and is taken away; John Grady is not sure if Rawlins has survived. Soon afterward, John Grady is wounded while defending himself from a cuchillero and kills the man.

After a long recovery from his near-fatal stabbing, John Grady is released and finds Rawlins has also survived and been freed. They discover that Alejandra's aunt has interceded to free them, but on the condition that Alejandra undertakes never to see John Grady again.

Rawlins returns to the United States and John Grady tries to see Alejandra again. In the end, after a brief encounter, Alejandra decides she must keep her promise to her family and refuses John Grady's marriage proposal. John Grady, on his way back to Texas, kidnaps the captain at gunpoint, forces him to recover the horses and guns that were taken from him, Rawlins, and Blevins, and flees across the country. He is severely wounded in the escape and cauterizes a serious gunshot wound using his pistol barrel heated in a fire.

He considers killing the captain but encounters a group of Mexicans who call themselves "men of the country," who take the captain as a prisoner. John Grady eventually returns to Texas and spends months trying to find the owner of Blevins' horse. He gains legal possession of the horse in a court hearing where he recounts the entire story of his journey across the border, and the judge later tries to absolve John Grady of his guilt both for killing the prisoner who attacked him and for being unable to prevent Blevins being murdered.

John Grady briefly reunites with Rawlins to return his horse and learns that his own father has died (something he has already intuited). After watching the burial procession of one of his family's lifelong employees (an elderly Mexican woman who had helped care for three generations of his family from their infancy), the last strong link to his family and his past, John Grady rides off into the West with Blevins' horse in tow.

See also
 All the Pretty Horses (lullaby)

References

External links

 Photos of the first edition of All the Pretty Horses

Novels by Cormac McCarthy
The Border Trilogy
1992 American novels
Western (genre) novels
Novels set in Mexico
Novels set in Texas
Novels set in the 1940s
Fiction set in 1949
American novels adapted into films
Alfred A. Knopf books
Books with cover art by Chip Kidd
Cuatrociénegas Municipality
National Book Award for Fiction winning works
National Book Critics Circle Award-winning works

All the Pretty Horses (novel)


An elaborate Earth-Maker Story of Creation is a myth that comes from the Native Americans of California, also called the "Story of Creation." This myth describes Earth-maker creating day and night, land, water, and all living things. Men and women were created out of soft clay into which Earth-Maker "breathed life".He also created the seas with his tears. The creation begins:

 "In the beginning there was no land, no light, only darkness and the vast waters of Outer Ocean where Earth-Maker and Great-Grandfather were afloat in their canoe... Earth-Maker took soft clay and formed the figure of a man and of a woman, then many men and women, which he dried in the sun and into which he breathed life: they were the First People." (Kroeber 1968:62).

The entire narrative is printed in the book Almost Ancestors: The First Californians by Theodora Kroeber and Robert F. Heizer. The (hardback edition) of the book does not identify the ethnic group who believed in this myth, or an exact narrator.

Sources

Kroeber, Theodora, and Robert F. Heizer. Story of creation, printed in Almost Ancestors: The First Californians. New York: Sierra Club-Ballantine Books, 1968, page 62.

Native American mythology of California
Creator gods
Creation myths

Earth-maker myth


David Michael Manson (born January 27, 1967) is a Canadian retired ice hockey defenceman. He played a career total of 1103 regular season games in the National Hockey League (NHL). He played for the Chicago Blackhawks, Edmonton Oilers, Winnipeg Jets, Phoenix Coyotes, Montreal Canadiens, Dallas Stars, and the Toronto Maple Leafs. He currently works as an assistant coach for the Prince Albert Raiders of the Western Hockey League (WHL).

Career
Before playing in the NHL, Manson played 3 seasons with the Prince Albert Raiders of the Western Hockey League (WHL). He was drafted with the 11th overall pick by the Chicago Black Hawks in the 1985 NHL Entry Draft. Manson would play 5 seasons with the Blackhawks, scoring 330 goals.

On October 2, 1991, the Blackhawks traded Manson along with their 3rd round choice (Kirk Maltby) in 1992 NHL Entry Draft to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for Steve Smith. He played parts of 3 seasons with the Oilers.

On March 15, 1994, the Oilers traded him along with St. Louis' 6th round choice (acquired before, Winnipeg selected Chris Kibermanis) in the 1994 NHL Entry Draft to the Winnipeg Jets in exchange for Boris Mironov, Mats Lindgren, Winnipeg's 1st round choice (Jason Bonsignore) in the 1994 NHL Entry Draft and Florida's 4th round choice (previously acquired, Edmonton selected Adam Copeland) in the 1994 Entry Draft. On July 1, 1996, he moved with the team when they relocated to become the Phoenix Coyotes. On March 18, 1997, the Coyotes traded him to the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for Murray Baron and Chris Murray.

On November 16, 1998, Manson was traded back to the Chicago Blackhawks along with Jocelyn Thibault and Brad Brown in exchange for Jeff Hackett, Eric Weinrich, Alain Nasreddine and Tampa Bay's 4th round choice (previously acquired, Montreal selected Chris Dyment) in the 1999 NHL Entry Draft. On February 8, 2000, the Blackhawks traded Manson along with Sylvain Côté to the Dallas Stars in exchange for Kevin Dean, Derek Plante and Dallas' 2nd round choice (Matt Keith) in 2001 NHL Entry Draft. On August 16, 2000, he was a free agent by the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Maple Leafs traded him back to the Dallas Stars in exchange for Jyrki Lumme on November 21, 2001.

On September 30, 2002, Manson announced that he was officially retiring from playing professional ice hockey. After retiring, Manson became an assistant coach for the Prince Albert Raiders.

References

Other websites

1967 births
Canadian ice hockey defencemen
Chicago Blackhawks players
Dallas Stars players
Edmonton Oilers players
Ice hockey people from Saskatchewan
Living people
Montreal Canadiens players
Phoenix Coyotes players
Toronto Maple Leafs players
Utah Grizzlies (AHL) players
Winnipeg Jets (1979–96) players
American Hockey League players
International Hockey League (1945–2001) players
Memorial Cup winners

Dave Manson


Birdwatching or birding means going outside to enjoy watching birds. It is a popular hobby.  Someone who does this may be called a birdwatcher, but more often a twitcher  or birder.  They are usually amateurs.  The scientific study of birds is called ornithology.  People who study birds as a profession are called ornithologists.

Birdwatching is very popular in countries such as Britain and the United States.  It can be especially rewarding in spring when a lot of birds are singing and building nests to raise their young.  In spring and autumn many birds can be seen as they migrate.  In winter some other kinds of birds may be visiting from colder areas such as the Arctic where there is no food in the winter.

Equipment

It is useful to have a good pair of binoculars to help to see birds that are far away more clearly. Scopes or telescopes can also be used.  These can give greater magnification than binoculars (making the birds look bigger). They need to put on a tripod because it is difficult to hold them steady steady by hand. They are useful for looking at birds that stay in one place for some time such as ducks swimming on a lake, but no use for birds flying in the air or hopping quickly from one tree to another.

Many birders like to take photographs of birds. This is difficult to do well unless one has good, expensive cameras and long lenses. Telescopes can be attached to cameras. This is called digiscoping. Modern phone cameras are very useful, and can produce good results. They are easier to use in many situations. But those who do use telescopes may need a "hide", usually a canvas tent. A hide means the birds cannot see you, and it keeps you warmer than being out in the open. Water birds are usually photographed from hides.

Also important is to have a good reference book with pictures of the  birds in your country. This is call a field guide. It tells you background information about the birds, which can be very useful. Apart from what they look like, the most basic information is what time of year they are in your area, and what kind of environment they prefer. Also they will tell you what the birds' songs and calls sound like. You will  discover that it often takes a long time to find a bird even when you know it is there from its song.

Songs and calls
Songs are longer and more complex. They claim territory and are used in courtship and mating. Calls tend to be alarms or keeping members of a flock in contact. Most birds are songbirds. Those which are not give squawks or cries, which are like calls.

Bird watching

Birdwatching (twitching) means spending one's time trying to see as many different kinds of birds as possible. Twitchers keep lists of all the birds they have seen, and if they hear that a rare bird has been seen somewhere, they travel long distances to try to see it so that they can add it to their list.

Birdwatchers are useful
Although birdwatchers are amateurs, they can be very useful, because they can tell organizations  about what they have seen. This is one kind of citizen science.  This information can be useful when discussions take place about possible damage to the environment, e.g. because of new developments (building).  It can help us to protect the birds, because we understand their needs.  Some birders help with bird ringing.  Putting a ring on a bird's foot helps us to identify it when it is seen again so that we can understand where birds go and what they do.  Birders can also take part in bird counts.  In Britain a "Big Garden Birdwatch" project takes  place one weekend each year in late January.  Over 400,000 people watch the birds in their gardens for one hour and are asked to make a list of how many they see during this time.  By comparing the results with other years this helps us to see which birds are surviving well, and which ones are becoming less common.

Code of behaviour
Birders are always reminded how important it is not to disturb the birds.  This is particularly important in the nesting season.  If birds are nesting on the ground in fields or reedbeds one should never go anywhere near them.  Some birds get used to humans being near, but others are very shy of humans.

Organizations
Some national organizations which are concerned with birds include:
In the United Kingdom:
British Trust for Ornithology
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
In the United States:
National Audubon Society
American Birding Association

References

Birds
Hobbies

Birdwatching


x86 assembly language is the name for the family of assembly languages which provide some level of backward compatibility with CPUs back to the Intel 8008 microprocessor, which was launched in April 1972. It is used to produce object code for the x86 class of processors.

Regarded as a programming language, assembly is machine-specific and low-level. Like all assembly languages, x86 assembly uses mnemonics to represent fundamental CPU instructions, or machine code. Assembly languages are most often used for detailed and time-critical applications such as small real-time embedded systems, operating-system kernels, and device drivers, but can also be used for other applications. A compiler will sometimes produce assembly code as an intermediate step when translating a high-level program into machine code.

Keyword
Reserved keywords of x86 assembly language

Mnemonics and opcodes

Each x86 assembly instruction is represented by a mnemonic which, often combined with one or more operands, translates to one or more bytes called an opcode; the NOP instruction translates to 0x90, for instance, and the HLT instruction translates to 0xF4. There are potential opcodes with no documented mnemonic which different processors may interpret differently, making a program using them behave inconsistently or even generate an exception on some processors. These opcodes often turn up in code writing competitions as a way to make the code smaller, faster, more elegant or just show off the author's prowess.

Syntax
x86 assembly language has two main syntax branches: Intel syntax and AT&T syntax. Intel syntax is dominant in the DOS and Windows world, and AT&T syntax is dominant in the Unix world, since Unix was created at AT&T Bell Labs.
Here is a summary of the main differences between Intel syntax and AT&T syntax:

Many x86 assemblers use Intel syntax, including FASM, MASM, NASM, TASM, and YASM. GAS, which originally used AT&T syntax,  has supported both syntaxes since version 2.10 via the .intel_syntax directive. A quirk in the AT&T syntax for x86 is that x87 operands are reversed, an inherited bug from the original AT&T assembler.

The AT&T syntax is nearly universal to all other architectures (retaining the same  order); it was originally a syntax for PDP-11 assembly. The Intel syntax is specific to the x86 architecture, and is the one used in the x86 platform's documentation. The Intel 8080, which predates the x86, also uses the "destination-first" order for .

Registers

x86 processors have a collection of registers available to be used as stores for binary data. Collectively the data and address registers are called the general registers. Each register has a special purpose in addition to what they can all do:
 AX multiply/divide, string load & store
 BX index register for MOVE
 CX count for string operations & shifts
 DX port address for IN and OUT
 SP points to top of the stack
 BP points to base of the stack frame
 SI points to a source in stream operations
 DI points to a destination in stream operations

Along with the general registers there are additionally the:
 IP instruction pointer
 FLAGS
 segment registers (CS, DS, ES, FS, GS, SS) which determine where a 64k segment starts  (no FS & GS in 80286 & earlier)
 extra extension registers (MMX, 3DNow!, SSE, etc.) (Pentium & later only).

The IP register points to the memory offset of the next instruction in the code segment (it points to the first byte of the instruction). The IP register cannot be accessed by the programmer directly.

The x86 registers can be used by using the MOV instructions. For example, in Intel syntax:
mov ax, 1234h ; copies the value 1234hex (4660d) into register AX
mov bx, ax    ; copies the value of the AX register into the BX register

Segmented addressing

The x86 architecture in real and virtual 8086 mode uses a process known as segmentation to address memory, not the flat memory model used in many other environments.  Segmentation involves composing a memory address from two parts, a segment and an offset; the segment points to the beginning of a 64 KiB (64×210) group of addresses and the offset determines how far from this beginning address the desired address is.  In segmented addressing, two registers are required for a complete memory address. One to hold the segment, the other to hold the offset.  In order to translate back into a flat address, the segment value is shifted four bits left (equivalent to multiplication by 24 or 16) then added to the offset to form the full address, which allows breaking the 64k barrier through clever choice of addresses, though it makes programming considerably more complex.

In real mode/protected only, for example, if DS contains the hexadecimal number  and DX contains the number  they would together point to the memory address . Therefore, the CPU can address up to 1,048,576 bytes (1 MB) in real mode. By combining segment and offset values we find a 20-bit address.

The original IBM PC restricted programs to 640 KB but an expanded memory specification was used to implement a bank switching scheme that fell out of use when later operating systems, such as Windows, used the larger address ranges of newer processors and implemented their own virtual memory schemes.

Protected mode, starting with the Intel 80286, was utilized by OS/2. Several shortcomings, such as the inability to access the BIOS and the inability to switch back to real mode without resetting the processor, prevented widespread usage. The 80286 was also still limited to addressing memory in 16-bit segments, meaning only 216 bytes (64 kilobytes) could be accessed at a time.
To access the extended functionality of the 80286, the operating system would set the processor into protected mode, enabling 24-bit addressing and thus 224 bytes of memory (16 megabytes).

In protected mode, the segment selector can be broken down into three parts: a 13-bit index, a Table Indicator bit that determines whether the entry is in the GDT or LDT and a 2-bit Requested Privilege Level; see x86 memory segmentation.

When referring to an address with a segment and an offset the notation of segment:offset is used, so in the above example the flat address 0xEB5CE can be written as 0xDEAD:0xCAFE or as a segment and offset register pair; DS:DX.

There are some special combinations of segment registers and general registers that point to important addresses:
CS:IP (CS is Code Segment, IP is Instruction Pointer) points to the address where the processor will fetch the next byte of code.
SS:SP (SS is Stack Segment, SP is Stack Pointer) points to the address of the top of the stack, i.e. the most recently pushed byte.
SS:BP (SS is Stack Segment, BP is Stack Frame Pointer) points to the address of the top of the stack frame, i.e. the base of the data area in the call stack for the currently active subprogram.
DS:SI (DS is Data Segment, SI is Source Index) is often used to point to string data that is about to be copied to ES:DI.
ES:DI (ES is Extra Segment, DI is Destination Index) is typically used to point to the destination for a string copy, as mentioned above.

The Intel 80386 featured three operating modes: real mode, protected mode and virtual mode.  The protected mode which debuted in the 80286 was extended to allow the 80386 to address up to 4 GB of memory, the all new virtual 8086 mode (VM86) made it possible to run one or more real mode programs in a protected environment which largely emulated real mode, though some programs were not compatible (typically as a result of memory addressing tricks or using unspecified op-codes).

The 32-bit flat memory model of the 80386's extended protected mode may be the most important feature change for the x86 processor family until AMD released x86-64 in 2003, as it helped drive large scale adoption of Windows 3.1 (which relied on protected mode) since Windows could now run many applications at once, including DOS applications, by using virtual memory and simple multitasking.

Execution modes

The x86 processors support five modes of operation for x86 code, Real Mode, Protected Mode, Long Mode, Virtual 86 Mode, and System Management Mode, in which some instructions are available and others are not.  A 16-bit subset of instructions is available on the 16-bit x86 processors, which are the 8086, 8088, 80186, 80188, and 80286.  These instructions are available in real mode on all x86 processors, and in 16-bit protected mode (80286 onwards), additional instructions relating to protected mode are available.  On the 80386 and later, 32-bit instructions (including later extensions) are also available in all modes, including real mode; on these CPUs, V86 mode and 32-bit protected mode are added, with additional instructions provided in these modes to manage their features.  SMM, with some of its own special instructions, is available on some Intel i386SL, i486 and later CPUs.  Finally, in long mode (AMD Opteron onwards), 64-bit instructions, and more registers, are also available.  The instruction set is similar in each mode but memory addressing and word size vary, requiring different programming strategies.

The modes in which x86 code can be executed in are:
 Real mode (16-bit)
 20-bit segmented memory address space (meaning that only 1 MB of memory can be addressed— actually since 80286 a little more through HMA), direct software access to peripheral hardware, and no concept of memory protection or multitasking at the hardware level. Computers that use BIOS start up in this mode.
 Protected mode (16-bit and 32-bit)
 Expands addressable physical memory to 16 MB and addressable virtual memory to 1 GB. Provides privilege levels and protected memory, which prevents programs from corrupting one another. 16-bit protected mode (used during the end of the DOS era) used a complex, multi-segmented memory model. 32-bit protected mode uses a simple, flat memory model.
 Long mode (64-bit)
 Mostly an extension of the 32-bit (protected mode) instruction set, but unlike the 16–to–32-bit transition, many instructions were dropped in the 64-bit mode. Pioneered by AMD.
 Virtual 8086 mode (16-bit)
 A special hybrid operating mode that allows real mode programs and operating systems to run while under the control of a protected mode supervisor operating system
 System Management Mode (16-bit)
 Handles system-wide functions like power management, system hardware control, and proprietary OEM designed code. It is intended for use only by system firmware. All normal execution, including the operating system, is suspended. An alternate software system (which usually resides in the computer's firmware, or a hardware-assisted debugger) is then executed with high privileges.

Switching modes
The processor runs in real mode immediately after power on, so an operating system kernel, or other program, must explicitly switch to another mode if it wishes to run in anything but real mode.  Switching modes is accomplished by modifying certain bits of the processor's control registers after some preparation, and some additional setup may be required after the switch.

Examples
With a computer running legacy BIOS, the BIOS and the boot loader run in Real mode. The 64-bit operating system kernel checks and switches the CPU into Long mode and then starts new kernel-mode threads running 64-bit code.

With a computer running UEFI, the UEFI firmware (except CSM and legacy Option ROM), the UEFI boot loader and the UEFI operating system kernel all run in Long mode.

Instruction types
In general, the features of the modern x86 instruction set are:

 A compact encoding
 Variable length and alignment independent (encoded as little endian, as is all data in the x86 architecture)
 Mainly one-address and two-address instructions, that is to say, the first operand is also the destination.
 Memory operands as both source and destination are supported (frequently used to read/write stack elements addressed using small immediate offsets).
 Both general and implicit register usage; although all seven (counting ebp) general registers in 32-bit mode, and all fifteen (counting rbp) general registers in 64-bit mode, can be freely used as accumulators or for addressing, most of them are also implicitly used by certain (more or less) special instructions; affected registers must therefore be temporarily preserved (normally stacked), if active during such instruction sequences.
 Produces conditional flags implicitly through most integer ALU instructions.
 Supports various addressing modes including immediate, offset, and scaled index but not PC-relative, except jumps (introduced as an improvement in the x86-64 architecture).
 Includes floating point to a stack of registers.
 Contains special support for atomic read-modify-write instructions (xchg, cmpxchg/cmpxchg8b, xadd, and integer instructions which combine with the lock prefix)
 SIMD instructions (instructions which perform parallel simultaneous single instructions on many operands encoded in adjacent cells of wider registers).

Stack instructions
The x86 architecture has hardware support for an execution stack mechanism. Instructions such as push, pop, call and ret are used with the properly set up stack to pass parameters, to allocate space for local data, and to save and restore call-return points. The ret size instruction is very useful for implementing space efficient (and fast) calling conventions where the callee is responsible for reclaiming stack space occupied by parameters.

When setting up a stack frame to hold local data of a recursive procedure there are several choices; the high level enter instruction (introduced with the 80186) takes a procedure-nesting-depth argument as well as a local size argument, and may be faster than more explicit manipulation of the registers (such as push bp ; mov bp, sp ; sub sp, size).  Whether it is faster or slower depends on the particular x86-processor implementation as well as the calling convention used by the compiler, programmer or particular program code; most x86 code is intended to run on x86-processors from several manufacturers and on different technological generations of processors, which implies highly varying microarchitectures and microcode solutions as well as varying gate- and transistor-level design choices.

The full range of addressing modes (including immediate and base+offset) even for instructions such as push and pop, makes direct usage of the stack for integer, floating point and address data simple, as well as keeping the ABI specifications and mechanisms relatively simple compared to some RISC architectures (require more explicit call stack details).

Integer ALU instructions
x86 assembly has the standard mathematical operations, add, sub, neg, imul and idiv (for signed integers), with mul and div (for unsigned integers); the logical operators and, or, xor, not; bitshift arithmetic and logical, sal/sar (for signed integers), shl/shr (for unsigned integers); rotate with and without carry, rcl/rcr, rol/ror, a complement of BCD arithmetic instructions, aaa, aad, daa and others.

Floating-point instructions
x86 assembly language includes instructions for a stack-based floating-point unit (FPU). The FPU was an optional separate coprocessor for the 8086 through the 80386, it was an on-chip option for the 80486 series, and it is a standard feature in every Intel x86 CPU since the 80486, starting with the Pentium. The FPU instructions include addition, subtraction, negation, multiplication, division, remainder, square roots, integer truncation, fraction truncation, and scale by power of two. The operations also include conversion instructions, which can load or store a value from memory in any of the following formats: binary-coded decimal, 32-bit integer, 64-bit integer, 32-bit floating-point, 64-bit floating-point or 80-bit floating-point (upon loading, the value is converted to the currently used floating-point mode). x86 also includes a number of transcendental functions, including sine, cosine, tangent, arctangent, exponentiation with the base 2 and logarithms to bases 2, 10, or e.

The stack register to stack register format of the instructions is usually fop st, st(n) or fop st(n), st, where st is equivalent to st(0), and st(n) is one of the 8 stack registers (st(0), st(1), ..., st(7)). Like the integers, the first operand is both the first source operand and the destination operand. fsubr and fdivr should be singled out as first swapping the source operands before performing the subtraction or division. The addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, store and comparison instructions include instruction modes that pop the top of the stack after their operation is complete. So, for example, faddp st(1), st performs the calculation st(1) = st(1) + st(0), then removes st(0) from the top of stack, thus making what was the result in st(1) the top of the stack in st(0).

SIMD instructions
Modern x86 CPUs contain SIMD instructions, which largely perform the same operation in parallel on many values encoded in a wide SIMD register. Various instruction technologies support different operations on different register sets, but taken as complete whole (from MMX to SSE4.2) they include general computations on integer or floating-point arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication, shift, minimization, maximization, comparison, division or square root). So for example, paddw mm0, mm1 performs 4 parallel 16-bit (indicated by the w) integer adds (indicated by the padd) of mm0 values to mm1 and stores the result in mm0. Streaming SIMD Extensions or SSE also includes a floating-point mode in which only the very first value of the registers is actually modified (expanded in SSE2). Some other unusual instructions have been added including a sum of absolute differences (used for motion estimation in video compression, such as is done in MPEG) and a 16-bit multiply accumulation instruction (useful for software-based alpha-blending and digital filtering). SSE (since SSE3) and 3DNow! extensions include addition and subtraction instructions for treating paired floating-point values like complex numbers.

These instruction sets also include numerous fixed sub-word instructions for shuffling, inserting and extracting the values around within the registers. In addition there are instructions for moving data between the integer registers and XMM (used in SSE)/FPU (used in MMX) registers.

Memory instructions
The x86 processor also includes complex addressing modes for addressing memory with an immediate offset, a register, a register with an offset, a scaled register with or without an offset, and a register with an optional offset and another scaled register. So for example, one can encode mov eax, [Table + ebx + esi*4] as a single instruction which loads 32 bits of data from the address computed as (Table + ebx + esi * 4) offset from the ds selector, and stores it to the eax register. In general x86 processors can load and use memory matched to the size of any register it is operating on. (The SIMD instructions also include half-load instructions.)

Most 2-operand x86 instructions, including integer ALU instructions,
use a standard "addressing mode byte"
often called the MOD-REG-R/M byte.
Many 32-bit x86 instructions also have a SIB addressing mode byte that follows the MOD-REG-R/M byte.

In principle, because the instruction opcode is separate from the addressing mode byte, those instructions are orthogonal because any of those opcodes can be mixed-and-matched with any addressing mode.
However, the x86 instruction set is generally considered non-orthogonal because many other opcodes have some fixed addressing mode (they have no addressing mode byte), and every register is special.

The x86 instruction set includes string load, store, move, scan and compare instructions (lods, stos, movs, scas and cmps) which perform each operation to a specified size (b for 8-bit byte, w for 16-bit word, d for 32-bit double word) then increments/decrements (depending on DF, direction flag) the implicit address register (si for lods, di for stos and scas, and both for movs and cmps). For the load, store and scan operations, the implicit target/source/comparison register is in the al, ax or eax register (depending on size). The implicit segment registers used are ds for si and es for di. The cx or ecx register is used as a decrementing counter, and the operation stops when the counter reaches zero or (for scans and comparisons) when inequality is detected. Unfortunately, over the years the performance of some of these instructions became neglected and in certain cases it is now possible to get faster results by writing out the algorithms yourself. Intel and AMD have refreshed some of the instructions though, and a few now have very respectable performance, so it is recommended that the programmer should read recent respected benchmark articles before choosing to use a particular instruction from this group.

The stack is a region of memory and an associated 'stack pointer', which points to the bottom of the stack. The stack pointer is decremented when items are added ('push') and incremented after things are removed ('pop'). In 16-bit mode, this implicit stack pointer is addressed as SS:[SP], in 32-bit mode it is SS:[ESP], and in 64-bit mode it is [RSP]. The stack pointer actually points to the last value that was stored, under the assumption that its size will match the operating mode of the processor (i.e., 16, 32, or 64 bits) to match the default width of the push/pop/call/ret instructions. Also included are the instructions enter and leave which reserve and remove data from the top of the stack while setting up a stack frame pointer in bp/ebp/rbp. However, direct setting, or addition and subtraction to the sp/esp/rsp register is also supported, so the enter/leave instructions are generally unnecessary.

This code is the beginning of a function typical for a high-level language when compiler optimisation is turned off for ease of debugging:
 push    rbp       ; Save the calling function's stack frame pointer (rbp register)
 mov     rbp, rsp  ; Make a new stack frame below our caller's stack
 sub     rsp, 32   ; Reserve 32 bytes of stack space for this function's local variables.
                   ; Local variables will be below rbp and can be referenced relative to rbp,
                   ; again best for ease of debugging, but for best performance rbp will not
                   ; be used at all, and local variables would be referenced relative to rsp
                   ; because, apart from the code saving, rbp then is free for other uses.
  …       …        ; However, if rbp is altered here, its value should be preserved for the caller.
 mov [rbp-8], rdx  ; Example of accessing a local variable, from memory location into register rdx
...is functionally equivalent to just:
 enter   32, 0

Other instructions for manipulating the stack include pushfd(32-bit) / pushfq(64-bit) and popfd/popfq for storing and retrieving the EFLAGS (32-bit) / RFLAGS (64-bit) register.

Values for a SIMD load or store are assumed to be packed in adjacent positions for the SIMD register and will align them in sequential little-endian order. Some SSE load and store instructions require 16-byte alignment to function properly. The SIMD instruction sets also include "prefetch" instructions which perform the load but do not target any register, used for cache loading. The SSE instruction sets also include non-temporal store instructions which will perform stores straight to memory without performing a cache allocate if the destination is not already cached (otherwise it will behave like a regular store.)

Most generic integer and floating-point (but no SIMD) instructions can use one parameter as a complex address as the second source parameter. Integer instructions can also accept one memory parameter as a destination operand.

Program flow
The x86 assembly has an unconditional jump operation, jmp, which can take an immediate address, a register or an indirect address as a parameter (note that most RISC processors only support a link register or short immediate displacement for jumping).

Also supported are several conditional jumps, including jz (jump on zero), jnz (jump on non-zero), jg (jump on greater than, signed), jl (jump on less than, signed), ja (jump on above/greater than, unsigned), jb (jump on below/less than, unsigned). These conditional operations are based on the state of specific bits in the (E)FLAGS register. Many arithmetic and logic operations set, clear or complement these flags depending on their result. The comparison cmp (compare) and test instructions set the flags as if they had performed a subtraction or a bitwise AND operation, respectively, without altering the values of the operands. There are also instructions such as clc (clear carry flag) and cmc (complement carry flag) which work on the flags directly. Floating point comparisons are performed via fcom or ficom instructions which eventually have to be converted to integer flags.

Each jump operation has three different forms, depending on the size of the operand. A short jump uses an 8-bit signed operand, which is a relative offset from the current instruction. A near jump is similar to a short jump but uses a 16-bit signed operand  (in real or protected mode) or a 32-bit signed operand (in 32-bit protected mode only). A far jump is one that uses the full segment base:offset value as an absolute address. There are also indirect and indexed forms of each of these.

In addition to the simple jump operations, there are the call (call a subroutine) and ret (return from subroutine) instructions. Before transferring control to the subroutine, call pushes the segment offset address of the instruction following the call onto the stack; ret pops this value off the stack, and jumps to it, effectively returning the flow of control to that part of the program. In the case of a far call, the segment base is pushed following the offset; far ret pops the offset and then the segment base to return.

There are also two similar instructions, int (interrupt), which saves the current (E)FLAGS register value on the stack, then performs a far call, except that instead of an address, it uses an interrupt vector, an index into a table of interrupt handler addresses. Typically, the interrupt handler saves all other CPU registers it uses, unless they are used to return the result of an operation to the calling program (in software called interrupts). The matching return from interrupt instruction is iret, which restores the flags after returning. Soft Interrupts of the type described above are used by some operating systems for system calls, and can also be used in debugging hard interrupt handlers. Hard interrupts are triggered by external hardware events, and must preserve all register values as the state of the currently executing program is unknown. In Protected Mode, interrupts may be set up by the OS to trigger a task switch, which will automatically save all registers of the active task.

Examples

The following examples use the so-called Intel-syntax flavor as used by the assemblers Microsoft MASM, NASM and many others. (Note: There is also an alternative AT&T-syntax flavor where the order of source and destination operands are swapped, among many other differences.)

"Hello world!" program for MS-DOS in MASM-style assembly
Using the software interrupt 21h instruction to call the MS-DOS operating system for output to the display – other samples use libc's C printf() routine to write to stdout. Note that the first example, is a 30-year-old example using 16-bit mode as on an Intel 8086. The second example is Intel 386 code in 32-bit mode. Modern code will be in 64-bit mode.
.model small
.stack 100h

.data
msg	db	'Hello world!$'

.code
start:
    mov ax, @DATA  ; Initializes Data segment
    mov ds, ax
	mov	ah, 09h    ; Sets 8-bit register 'ah', the high byte of register ax, to 9, to
                   ; select a sub-function number of an MS-DOS routine called below
                   ; via the software interrupt int 21h to display a message
	lea	dx, msg    ; Takes the address of msg, stores the address in 16-bit register dx
	int	21h        ; Various MS-DOS routines are callable by the software interrupt 21h
                   ; Our required sub-function was set in register ah above

	mov	ax, 4C00h  ; Sets register ax to the sub-function number for MS-DOS's software
                   ; interrupt int 21h for the service 'terminate program'.
	int	21h        ; Calling this MS-DOS service never returns, as it ends the program.

end start

"Hello world!" program for Windows in MASM style assembly
; requires /coff switch on 6.15 and earlier versions
.386
.model small,c
.stack 1000h

.data
msg     db "Hello world!",0

.code
includelib libcmt.lib
includelib libvcruntime.lib
includelib libucrt.lib
includelib legacy_stdio_definitions.lib

extrn printf:near
extrn exit:near

public main
main proc
        push    offset msg
        call    printf
        push    0
        call    exit
main endp

end

"Hello world!" program for Windows in NASM style assembly
; Image base = 0x00400000
%define RVA(x) (x-0x00400000)
section .text
push dword hello
call dword [printf]
push byte +0
call dword [exit]
ret

section .data
hello db "Hello world!"

section .idata
dd RVA(msvcrt_LookupTable)
dd -1
dd 0
dd RVA(msvcrt_string)
dd RVA(msvcrt_imports)
times 5 dd 0 ; ends the descriptor table

msvcrt_string dd "msvcrt.dll", 0
msvcrt_LookupTable:
dd RVA(msvcrt_printf)
dd RVA(msvcrt_exit)
dd 0

msvcrt_imports:
printf dd RVA(msvcrt_printf)
exit dd RVA(msvcrt_exit)
dd 0

msvcrt_printf:
dw 1
dw "printf", 0
msvcrt_exit:
dw 2
dw "exit", 0
dd 0

"Hello world!" program for Linux in its native AT&T style assembly
.data                         ; section for initialized data
str: .ascii "Hello, world!\n" ; define a string of text containing "Hello, world!" and then a new line.
str_len = . - str             ; get the length of str by subtracting its address

.text                         ; section for program functions
.globl _start                 ; export the _start function so it can be run
_start:                       ; begin the _start function
    movl $4, %eax             ; specify the instruction to 'sys_write'
    movl $1, %ebx             ; specify the output to the standard output, 'stdout'
    movl $str, %ecx           ; specify the outputted text to our defined string
    movl $str_len, %edx       ; specify the character amount to write as the length of our defined string.
    int $0x80                 ; call a system interrupt to initiate the syscall we have created.

    movl $1, %eax             ; specify the instruction to 'sys_exit'
    movl $0, %ebx             ; specify the exit code to 0, meaning success
    int $0x80                 ; call another system interrup to end the program

"Hello world!" program for Linux in NASM style assembly
;
; This program runs in 32-bit protected mode.
;  build: nasm -f elf -F stabs name.asm
;  link:  ld -o name name.o
;
; In 64-bit long mode you can use 64-bit registers (e.g. rax instead of eax, rbx instead of ebx, etc.)
; Also change "-f elf " for "-f elf64" in build command.
;
section .data                           ; section for initialized data
str:     db 'Hello world!', 0Ah         ; message string with new-line char at the end (10 decimal)
str_len: equ $ - str                    ; calcs length of string (bytes) by subtracting the str's start address
                                          ; from 'here, this address' ('$' symbol meaning 'here')

section .text                           ; this is the code section (program text) in memory
global _start                           ; _start is the entry point and needs global scope to be 'seen' by the
                                        ; linker --equivalent to main() in C/C++
_start:                                 ; definition of _start procedure begins here
	mov	eax, 4                   ; specify the sys_write function code (from OS vector table)
	mov	ebx, 1                   ; specify file descriptor stdout --in gnu/linux, everything's treated as a file,
                                 ; even hardware devices
	mov	ecx, str                 ; move start _address_ of string message to ecx register
	mov	edx, str_len             ; move length of message (in bytes)
	int	80h                      ; interrupt kernel to perform the system call we just set up -
                                 ; in gnu/linux services are requested through the kernel
	mov	eax, 1                   ; specify sys_exit function code (from OS vector table)
	mov	ebx, 0                   ; specify return code for OS (zero tells OS everything went fine)
	int	80h                      ; interrupt kernel to perform system call (to exit)

For 64-bit long mode, "lea rcx, str" would be the address of the message, note 64-bit register rcx.

"Hello world!" program for Linux in NASM style assembly using the C standard library

;
;  This program runs in 32-bit protected mode.
;  gcc links the standard-C library by default

;  build: nasm -f elf -F stabs name.asm
;  link:  gcc -o name name.o
;
; In 64-bit long mode you can use 64-bit registers (e.g. rax instead of eax, rbx instead of ebx, etc..)
; Also change "-f elf " for "-f elf64" in build command.
;
        global  main                            ; 'main' must be defined, as it being compiled
                                                ; against the C Standard Library
        extern  printf                          ; declares the use of external symbol, as printf
                                                ; printf is declared in a different object-module.
                                                ; The linker resolves this symbol later.

segment .data                                   ; section for initialized data
	string db 'Hello world!', 0Ah, 0            ; message string ending with a newline char (10
                                                ; decimal) and the zero byte 'NUL' terminator
                                                ; 'string' now refers to the starting address
                                                ; at which 'Hello, World' is stored.

segment .text
main:
        push    string                          ; Push the address of 'string' onto the stack.
                                                ; This reduces esp by 4 bytes before storing
                                                ; the 4-byte address 'string' into memory at
                                                ; the new esp, the new bottom of the stack.

                                                ; This will be an argument to printf()
        call    printf                          ; calls the C printf() function.
        add     esp, 4                          ; Increases the stack-pointer by 4 to put it back
                                                ; to where it was before the 'push', which
                                                ; reduced it by 4 bytes.
        ret                                     ; Return to our caller.

"Hello world!" program for 64-bit mode Linux in NASM style assembly

This example is in modern 64-bit mode.

;  build: nasm -f elf64 -F dwarf hello.asm
;  link:  ld -o hello hello.o

DEFAULT REL			    ; use RIP-relative addressing modes by default, so [foo] = [rel foo]

SECTION .rodata			; read-only data should go in the .rodata section on GNU/Linux, like .rdata on Windows
Hello:		db "Hello world!", 10   ; Ending with a byte 10 = newline (ASCII LF)
len_Hello:	equ $-Hello             ; Get NASM to calculate the length as an assembly-time constant
                                    ; the '$' symbol means 'here'. write() takes a length so that
                                    ; a zero-terminated C-style string isn't needed.
                                    ; It would be for C puts()

SECTION .rodata			; read-only data can go in the .rodata section on GNU/Linux, like .rdata on Windows
Hello:		db "Hello world!",10        ; 10 = `\n`.
len_Hello:	equ $-Hello                 ; get NASM to calculate the length as an assemble-time constant
;;  write() takes a length so a 0-terminated C-style string isn't needed. It would be for puts

SECTION .text

global _start
_start:
	mov eax, 1				; __NR_write syscall number from Linux asm/unistd_64.h (x86_64)
	mov edi, 1				; int fd = STDOUT_FILENO
	lea rsi, [rel Hello]			; x86-64 uses RIP-relative LEA to put static addresses into regs
	mov rdx, len_Hello		; size_t count = len_Hello
	syscall					; write(1, Hello, len_Hello);  call into the kernel to actually do the system call
     ;; return value in RAX.  RCX and R11 are also overwritten by syscall

	mov eax, 60				; __NR_exit call number (x86_64) is stored in register eax.
	xor edi, edi		    ; This zeros edi and also rdi.
                            ; This xor-self trick is the preferred common idiom for zeroing
                            ; a register, and is always by far the fastest method.
                            ; When a 32-bit value is stored into eg edx, the high bits 63:32 are
                            ; automatically zeroed too in every case. This saves you having to set
                            ; the bits with an extra instruction, as this is a case very commonly
                            ; needed, for an entire 64-bit register to be filled with a 32-bit value.
                            ; This sets our routine's exit status = 0 (exit normally)
	syscall					; _exit(0)

Running it under strace verifies that no extra system calls are made in the process.  The printf version would make many more system calls to initialize libc and do dynamic linking.  But this is a static executable because we linked using ld without -pie or any shared libraries; the only instructions that run in user-space are the ones you provide.

$ strace ./hello > /dev/null                    # without a redirect, your program's stdout is mixed with strace's logging on stderr.  Which is normally fine
execve("./hello", ["./hello"], 0x7ffc8b0b3570 /* 51 vars */) = 0
write(1, "Hello world!\n", 13)          = 13
exit(0)                                 = ?
+++ exited with 0 +++

Using the flags register
Flags are heavily used for comparisons in the x86 architecture. When a comparison is made between two data, the CPU sets the relevant flag or flags. Following this, conditional jump instructions can be used to check the flags and branch to code that should run, e.g.:
	cmp	eax, ebx
	jne	do_something
	; ...
do_something:
	; do something here
Aside, from compare instructions, there are a great many arithmetic and other instructions that set bits in the flags register. Other examples are the instructions sub, test and add and there are many more. Common combinations such as cmp + conditional jump are internally 'fused' ('macro fusion') into one single micro-instruction (μ-op) and are fast provided the processor can guess which way the conditional jump will go, jump vs continue.

The flags register are also used in the x86 architecture to turn on and off certain features or execution modes. For example, to disable all maskable interrupts, you can use the instruction:
	cli

The flags register can also be directly accessed. The low 8 bits of the flag register can be loaded into ah using the lahf instruction. The entire flags register can also be moved on and off the stack using the instructions pushfd/pushfq, popfd/popfq, int (including into) and iret.

The x87 floating point maths subsystem also has its own independent 'flags'-type register the fp status word. In the 1990s it was an awkward and slow procedure to access the flag bits in this register, but on modern processors there are 'compare two floating point values' instructions that can be used with the normal conditional jump/branch instructions directly without any intervening steps.

Using the instruction pointer register
The instruction pointer is called ip in 16-bit mode, eip in 32-bit mode, and rip in 64-bit mode. The instruction pointer register points to the address of the next instruction that the processor will attempt to execute. It cannot be directly accessed in 16-bit or 32-bit mode, but a sequence like the following can be written to put the address of next_line into eax (32-bit code):

	call	next_line
next_line:
	pop	eax

Writing to the instruction pointer is simple — a jmp instruction stores the given target address into the instruction pointer to, so, for example, a sequence like the following will put the contents of rax into rip (64-bit code):

	jmp	rax

In 64-bit mode, instructions can reference data relative to the instruction pointer, so there is less need to copy the value of the instruction pointer to another register.

See also
 Assembly language
 X86 instruction listings
 X86 architecture
 CPU design
 List of assemblers
 Self-modifying code
 DOS
 DOS API

References

Further reading

Manuals
 Intel 64 and IA-32 Software Developer Manuals
 AMD64 Architecture Programmer's Manual (Volume 1-5)

Books

Assembly languages
X86 architecture

X86 assembly language


In Roman mythology, Venus is the goddess of love and beauty. She was the Roman version of the Greek Aphrodite and Etruscan Turan.

Her cult began in Ardea and Lavinium, Latium.  On August 18, 293 BC, the first temple to her was built . August 18 was then a festival called the Vinalia Rustica.  On April 1, the Veneralia was celebrated in honor of Venus Verticordia, the protector against vice.  On April 23, 215 BC, a temple was built on the Capitol dedicated to Venus Erycina to commemorate the Roman defeat at Lake Trasum.

Venus was also married to Vulcan, who was the god of fire, volcanoes and blacksmiths.  Julius Caesar claimed Venus Genetrix as his own personal, divine ancestress.

Related pages
 Aphrodite - Greek mythology version of Venus.

Roman gods and goddesses
Gods and goddesses of beauty
Gods and goddesses of fertility
Gods and goddesses of love and lust

Venus (mythology)


Gregory Palamas (; c. 1296 – 1359) was a Byzantine Greek theologian and Eastern Orthodox cleric of the late Byzantine period. A monk of Mount Athos (modern Greece) and later archbishop of Thessaloniki, he is famous for his defense of hesychast spirituality, the uncreated character of the light of the Transfiguration, and the distinction between God's essence and energies (i.e., the divine will, divine grace, etc.). His teaching unfolded over the course of three major controversies, (1) with the Italo-Greek Barlaam between 1336 and 1341, (2) with the monk Gregory Akindynos between 1341 and 1347, and (3) with the philosopher Gregoras, from 1348 to 1355. His theological contributions are sometimes referred to as Palamism, and his followers as Palamites.

Gregory has been venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church since 1368. Within the Catholic Church, he has also been called a saint; Pope John Paul II repeatedly called Gregory a great theological writer. Since 1971, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church has venerated Gregory as a saint. Some of his writings are collected in the Philokalia, and since the Ottoman period, the second Sunday of Great Lent is dedicated to the memory of Gregory Palamas in the Orthodox Church and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The Byzantine Synodikon of Orthodoxy also celebrates his memory and theology while condemning his opponents, including some anti-Palamites who flourished after Gregory's death.

Early life
Gregory was born in Constantinople around the year 1296. His father, Constantine, was a courtier of the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos (1282–1328), but died when Gregory was still young. The Emperor himself took part in the raising and education of the fatherless boy and hoped that the gifted Gregory would devote himself to government service, but Palamas chose monastic life on Mt. Athos. Gregory's mother (Kalloni) and siblings (Theodosios, Makarios, Epicharis, and Theodoti) would also embrace monasticism, and the entire family was canonized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2009.

Before leaving for Mt. Athos, Gregory received a broad education at the University of Constantinople, including the study of Aristotle, which he would display before Theodore Metochites and the Emperor.

Monastic life
Despite the Emperor's ambitions for him, Gregory, then barely 21 years old, withdrew to Mount Athos in the year 1316 and became a novice there in the Vatopedi monastery under the guidance of the monastic Elder St Nicodemos of Vatopedi. Eventually, he was tonsured a monk, and continued his life of asceticism. After the demise of the Elder Nicodemus, Gregory spent eight years of spiritual struggle under the guidance of a new Elder, Nicephorus. After this last Elder's repose, Gregory transferred to the Great Lavra of St. Athanasius the Athonite on Mount Athos, where he served the brethren in the trapeza (refectory) and in church as a cantor. Wishing to devote himself more fully to prayer and asceticism he entered a skete called Glossia, where he taught the ancient practice of mental prayer known as "prayer of the heart" or hesychasm.

In 1326, because of the threat of Turkish invasions, he and the brethren retreated to the defended city of Thessaloniki, where he was then ordained a priest. Dividing his time between his ministry to the people and his pursuit of spiritual perfection, he founded a small community of hermits near Thessaloniki in a place called Veria.

He served for a short time as Abbot of the Esphigmenou Monastery but was forced to resign in 1335 due to discontentment regarding the austerity of his monastic administration.

Hesychast controversy

Hesychasm attracted the attention of Barlaam, a man who either converted to Orthodoxy or was baptized Orthodox who encountered Hesychasts and heard descriptions of their practices during a visit to Mount Athos; he had also read the writings of Palamas, himself an Athonite monk. Trained in Western Scholastic theology, Barlaam was scandalized by hesychasm and began to combat it both orally and in his writings. As a private teacher of theology in the Western Scholastic mode, Barlaam propounded a more intellectual and propositional approach to the knowledge of God than the hesychasts taught.

On the hesychast side, the controversy was taken up by Palamas who was asked by his fellow monks on Mt Athos to defend hesychasm from the attacks of Barlaam. Palamas was well-educated in Greek philosophy. Gregory wrote a number of works in its defense and defended hesychasm at six different synods in Constantinople ultimately triumphing over its attackers in the synod of 1351.

Early conflict between Barlaam and Palamas
Although Barlaam came from southern Italy, his ancestry was Greek and he claimed Eastern Orthodoxy as his Christian faith. Arriving in Constantinople around 1330, Barlaam was working on commentaries on Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite under the patronage of John VI Kantakouzenos. Around 1336, Gregory received copies of treatises written by Barlaam against the Latins, condemning their insertion of the Filioque into the Nicene Creed. Although this condemnation was solid Orthodox theology, Palamas took issue with Barlaam's argument in support of it, namely that efforts at demonstrating the nature of God (specifically, the nature of the Holy Spirit) should be abandoned, because God is ultimately unknowable and undemonstrable to humans. Thus, Barlaam asserted that it was impossible to determine from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds. According to Sara J. Denning-Bolle, Palamas viewed Barlaam's argument as "dangerously agnostic". In his response titled "Apodictic Treatises", Palamas insisted that it was indeed demonstrable that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father but not from the Son. A series of letters ensued between the two but they were unable to resolve their differences amicably.

Triads
In response to Barlaam's attacks, Palamas wrote nine treatises entitled "Triads For The Defense of Those Who Practice Sacred Quietude". The treatises are called "triads" because they were organized as three sets of three treatises.

The Triads were written in three stages. The first triad was written in the second half of the 1330s and are based on personal discussions between Palamas and Barlaam although Barlaam is never mentioned by name.

Gregory's teaching was affirmed by the superiors and principal monks of Mt. Athos, who met in synod during 1340–1. In early 1341, the monastic communities of Mount Athos wrote the Hagioritic Tome under the supervision and inspiration of Palamas. Although the tome does not mention Barlaam by name, the work clearly takes aim at Barlaam's views. The tome provides a systematic presentation of Palamas' teaching and became the fundamental textbook for Byzantine mysticism.

In response, Barlaam drafted "Against the Messalians", which attacked Gregory by name for the first time.
Barlaam derisively called the hesychasts omphalopsychoi (men with their souls in their navels) and accused them of the heresy of Messalianism, also known as Bogomilism in the East. According to Meyendorff, Barlaam viewed "any claim of real and conscious experience of God as Messalianism".

Barlaam also took exception to the doctrine held by the hesychasts as to the uncreated nature of the light, the experience of which was said to be the goal of hesychast practice, regarding it as heretical and blasphemous. It was maintained by the hesychasts to be of divine origin and to be identical to the light which had been manifested to Jesus' disciples on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration. Barlaam viewed this doctrine of "uncreated light" to be polytheistic because as it postulated two eternal substances, a visible and an invisible God. Barlaam accuses the use of the Jesus Prayer as being a practice of Bogomilism.

The second triad quotes some of Barlaam's writings directly. In response to this second triad, Barlaam composed the treatise "Against the Messalians" linking the hesychasts to the Messalians and thereby accusing them of heresy.

In the third Triad, Palamas refuted Barlaam's charge of Messalianism by demonstrating that the hesychasts did not share the antisacramentalism of the Messalians nor did they claim to physically see the essence of God with their eyes. According to Fr. John Meyendorff "Gregory Palamas orients his entire polemic against Barlaam the Calabrian on the issue of the Hellenic wisdom which he considers to be the main source of Barlaam's errors."

Role in the Byzantine civil war
Although the civil war between the supporters of John VI Kantakouzenos and the regents for John V Palaeologus was not primarily a religious conflict, the theological dispute between the supporters and opponents of Palamas did play a role in the conflict. Steven Runciman points out that "while the theological dispute embittered the conflict, the religious and political parties did not coincide."
The aristocrats supported Palamas largely due to their conservative and anti-Western tendencies as well as their links to the staunchly Orthodox monasteries. Although several significant exceptions leave the issue open to question, in the popular mind (and traditional historiography), the supporters of "Palamism" and of "Kantakouzenism" are usually equated. Thus, the eventual triumph of Kantakouzenos in 1347 also brought with it the conclusive triumph of the Palamists over the anti-Palamists.

Fifth Council of Constantinople

It became clear that the dispute between Barlaam and Palamas was irreconcilable and would require the judgment of an episcopal council. A series of six patriarchal councils were held in Constantinople on 10 June 1341, August 1341, 4 November 1344, 1 February 1347, 8 February 1347, and 28 May 1351  to consider the issues. Collectively, these councils are accepted as having ecumenical status by Orthodox Christians, some of whom call them the Fifth Council of Constantinople and the Ninth Ecumenical Council.

The dispute over hesychasm came before a synod held at Constantinople in May 1341 and presided over by the Emperor Andronicus III.  The assembly, influenced by the veneration in which the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius were held in the Eastern Church, condemned Barlaam, who recanted.  The ecumenical patriarch insisted that all of Barlaam's writings be destroyed and thus no complete copies of Barlaam's treatise "Against Messalianism" have survived.

Barlaam's primary supporter Emperor Andronicus III died just five days after the synod ended. Although Barlaam initially hoped for a second chance to present his case against Palamas, he soon realised the futility of pursuing his cause, and left for Calabria where he converted to the Roman Church and was appointed Bishop of Gerace.

After Barlaam's departure, Gregory Akindynos became the chief critic of Palamas. A second council held in Constantinople in August 1341 condemned Akindynos and affirmed the findings of the earlier council. Akindynos and his supporters gained a brief victory at a council held in 1344 which excommunicated Palamas.
However, the last of these councils, held in May 1351, conclusively exonerated Palamas and condemned his opponents.  This synod ordered that the Metropolitans of Ephesus and Ganos be defrocked and jailed. All those who were unwilling to submit to the orthodox view were to be excommunicated and kept under surveillance at their residences. A series of anathemas were pronounced against Barlaam, Akindynos and their followers; at the same time, a series of acclamations were also declared in favor of Gregory Palamas and the adherents of his doctrine. One notable opponent of Palamism was Nicephorus Gregoras who refused to submit to the dictates of the synod and was effectively imprisoned in a monastery for two years.

Gradual acceptance of the Palamist doctrine

Kallistos I and the ecumenical patriarchs who succeeded him mounted a vigorous campaign to have the Palamist doctrines accepted by the other Eastern patriarchates as well as all the metropolitan sees under their jurisdiction. However, it took some time to overcome initial resistance to his teachings.  For example, the Metropolitan of Kiev, upon receiving tomes from Kallistos that expounded the Palamist doctrine, rejected it vehemently and composed a reply in refutation. Similarly, the Patriarchate of Antioch remained steadfastly opposed to what they viewed as an innovation; however, by the end of the fourteenth century, Palamism had become accepted there.  Similar acts of resistance were seen in the metropolitan sees that were governed by the Latins as well as in some autonomous ecclesiastical regions, such as the Church of Cyprus.

One notable example of the campaign to enforce the orthodoxy of the Palamist doctrine was the action taken by Patriarch Philotheos I to crack down on Prochoros Kydones, a monk and priest at Mount Athos who was opposed to the Palamites. Kydones had written a number of anti-Palamist treatises and continued to argue forcefully against Palamism even when brought before the patriarch and enjoined to adhere to the orthodox doctrine. Finally, in exasperation, Philotheos convened a synod against Kydones in April 1368.  However, even this extreme measure failed to effect the submission of Kydones and in the end, he was excommunicated and suspended from the clergy in perpetuity. The long tome that was prepared for the synod concludes with a decree canonizing Palamas who had died in 1357/59.

Despite the initial opposition of some patriarchates and sees, over time the resistance dwindled away and ultimately Palamist doctrine became accepted throughout the Eastern Orthodox Church. During this period, it became the norm for ecumenical patriarchs to profess the Palamite doctrine upon taking possession of their see.

Martin Jugie states that the opposition of the Latins and the Latinophrones, who were necessarily hostile to the doctrine, actually contributed to its adoption, and soon Latinism and Antipalamism became equivalent in the minds of many Orthodox Christians.

According to Aristeides Papadakis, "all Orthodox scholars who have written on Palamas — Lossky, Krivosheine, Papamichael, Meyendorff, Christou — assume his voice to be a legitimate expression of Orthodox tradition."

Later years

Palamas's opponents in the hesychast controversy spread slanderous accusations against him, and in 1344 Patriarch John XIV imprisoned him for four years. However, in 1347 when Patriarch Isidore came to the Ecumenical Throne, Gregory was released from prison and consecrated as the Metropolitan of Thessalonica. However, since the conflict with Barlaam had not been settled at that point, the people of Thessalonica did not accept him, and he was forced to live in a number of places.  It was not until 1350 that he was able to occupy the episcopal chair.
In 1354, during a voyage to Constantinople, the ship he was in fell into the hands of Turkish pirates; he was imprisoned and beaten. He was obliged to spend a year in detention at the Ottoman court where he was well treated.  Eventually his ransom was paid and he returned to Thessaloniki, where he served as archbishop for the last three years of his life.

Death and canonization
Palamas died in 1357 or 1359. His dying words were, "To the heights! To the heights!"  He was canonized a saint of the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1368 by Patriarch Philotheos of Constantinople, who also wrote his Vita and composed the service which is chanted in his honour. His feast day is celebrated twice a year, on 14 November, the anniversary of his death, and on the Second Sunday of Great Lent, because Gregory's victory over Barlaam is seen as a continuation of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, i.e., the victory of the Church over heresy, celebrated the previous Sunday.

Gregory's relics rest in the Church of Saint Gregory Palamas in Thessaloniki.

Hymns
Troparion (Tone 8)
O light of Orthodoxy, teacher of the Church, its confirmation,
O ideal of monks and invincible champion of theologians,
O wonder-working Gregory, glory of Thessaloniki and preacher of grace,
always intercede before the Lord that our souls may be saved.

Kontakion (Tone 8)
Holy and divine instrument of wisdom,
joyful trumpet of theology,
together we sing your praises, O God-inspired Gregory.
Since you now stand before the Original Mind, guide our minds to Him, O Father,
so that we may sing to you: "Rejoice, preacher of grace."

Works
 Patrologia Graeca, vols. 150, 151
 Philokalia

Primary works translated into English

 The Triads (Classics of Western Spirituality Series) ()
Philokalia, Volume 4 ()
Saint Gregory Palamas: The Homilies, (The Complete Homilies Translated into English - Published in 2009) ()
Homilies of Saint Gregory Palamas, Vol. 1 ()
Homilies of Saint Gregory Palamas, Vol. 2 ()
Treatise on the Spiritual Life ()
The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters ()
Dialogue Between an Orthodox and a Barlaamite ()

See also
Tabor Light
Mount Athos
Gregory Acindynus
Christian mysticism
The Ascetical Homilies of Isaac the Syrian, a 7th-century hesychastic text

References

Further reading

A Study of Gregory Palamas () By John Meyendorff Translated by George Lawrence (1964)
St. Gregory Palamas and Orthodox Spirituality () by Fr. John Meyendorff
Saint Gregory Palamas as a Hagiorite () by Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos
Introduction to St. Gregory Palamas () by George C. Papademetriou
Triune God: Incomprehensible but Knowable—The Philosophical and Theological Significance of St Gregory Palamas for Contemporary Philosophy and Theology edited by Constantinos Athanasopoulos, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015 ()
Orthodox Mysticism and Asceticism: Philosophy and Theology in St Gregory Palamas' Work ed. by C. Athanasopoulos, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020.
"The influence of Ps.Dionysius the Areopagite on Johannes Scotus Eriugena and St. Gregory Palamas: Goodness as Transcendence of Metaphysics", by C. Athanasopoulos,  in Agnieska Kijewska, ed., Being or Good? Metamorphoses of Neoplatonism, Lublin: Catholic University of Lublin Press (KUL), 2004, pp. 319–341.
"Scholastic and Byzantine Realism: Absolutism in the Metaphysics and Ethics of Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Ockham and the critique of St. Gregory Palamas", by C. Athanasopoulos, in Verbum (the official Journal of the Institute of Medieval Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of St. Petersburg, Russia), Vol. 6, Volume Topic: Aristotle in Medieval Metaphysics, January 2002, pp. 154–165.
'St. Gregory Palamas, (Neo-)Platonist and Aristotelian Metaphysics: the response of Orthodox Mystical Theology to the Western impasse of intellectualism and essentialism' by C. Athanasopoulos in Divine Essence and Divine Energies: Ecumenical Reflections on the Presence of God in Eastern Orthodoxy, edited by C. Athanasopoulos and C. Schneider, James Clarke & Co, April 2013. (), pp. 50–67.

External links

 St Gregory Palamas Orthodox Icon and Synaxarion
 International Conference on St Gregory Palamas, Thessaloniki 2012 with links to abstracts and reports from the Conference
 Papers from the International Conference on St Gregory Palamas (Thessaloniki, Veroia and Mt Athos, 2012)
 Palamas Seminar Meetings
 Papers from the International Conference on Mysticism and Asceticism in St Gregory Palamas (Veroia 2015)
 Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Graeca with analytical indexes
 Light for the World: the Life of St. Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) by Fr. Bassam A. Nassif
 An Overview of the Hesychast Controversy
 Melkite Greek Catholic Information Centre on St. Gregory Palamas
 Excerpt from "Byzantine Theology, Historical trends and doctrinal themes" by John Meyendorff

1296 births
1359 deaths
14th-century Christian saints
14th-century Byzantine monks
14th-century Byzantine bishops
14th-century Byzantine writers
14th-century Christian mystics
14th-century Eastern Orthodox theologians
Athonite Fathers
Byzantine bishops of Thessalonica
Byzantine Christian mystics
Byzantine saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church
Byzantine theologians
Eastern Catholic saints
Eastern Orthodox archbishops
Eastern Orthodox mystics
Eastern Orthodox saints
Eastern Orthodox theologians
Greek Christian monks
Greek Christian mystics
Greek theologians
Medieval Athos
Medieval Thessalonica
People from Constantinople
Saints of medieval Greece
Saints of medieval Macedonia
14th-century Greek musicians
14th-century Greek writers
14th-century Greek educators
14th-century Greek philosophers
Palamism
Hesychasts
People associated with Vatopedi
People associated with Great Lavra
Philokalia

Gregory Palamas


In computer science, a program specification is the definition of what a computer program is expected to do. It can be informal, in which case it can be considered as a blueprint or user manual from a developer point of view, or formal, in which case it has a definite meaning defined in mathematical or programmatic terms. In practice, most successful specifications are written to understand and fine-tune applications that were already well-developed, although safety-critical software systems are often carefully specified prior to application development. Specifications are most important for external interfaces that must remain stable.

Overview
In systems engineering a specification is a document that clearly and accurately describes the essential technical requirements for items, materials, or services including the procedures by which it can be determined that the requirements have been met. Specifications help avoid duplication and inconsistencies, allow for accurate estimates of necessary work and resources, act as a negotiation and reference document for engineering changes, provide documentation of configuration, and allow for consistent communication among those responsible for the eight primary functions of Systems Engineering. They provide a precise idea of the problem to be solved so that they can efficiently design the system and estimate the cost of design alternatives. They provide guidance to testers for verification (qualification) of each technical requirement.

References

Computer programming

Program specification


The PaPeRo which stands for "Partner-type-Personal-Robot", is a personal robot developed by Japanese firm NEC Corporation. It is noted for its cute appearance and facial recognition system. The robot's development began in 1997 with the first prototype, the R100. The name PaPeRo was adopted in 2001.

PaPeRo has been researched and developed with the intent for it to partner with human beings and live together with them. For this reason, it has various basic functions for the purpose of interacting with people.

Since the original introduction of PaPeRo, there have been a few different versions, including a Childcare Version, 2003 and 2005 revised versions, and "PaPe-Jiro", a robotic comedian. In 2006, a virtual PaPeRo was released for use in any PC running the Windows operating system and the Pocket PC. The robot is programmable using a development environment known as "PaPeRo Creator".

For PaPeRo to interact with people and perform autonomous actions, it must understand information on the conditions of, and outside, the location where it has been put. For this reason, various devices have been included to detect the outside area, such as a CCD camera, microphone, ultrasonic sensors, etc.

In spring 2009, NEC introduced PaPeRo Mini, weighing half of the current PaPeRo model, with physical dimensions roughly half the size of the original.  The PaPeRo Petit was introduced in 2013, which is even smaller at 23 cm tall.  NEC plans to use this version to provide a service "that will allow family members living apart to watch over each other utilizing the robot and cloud computing technology."

Specifications
 Height: 385 mm
 Width: 282 mm
 Depth: 251 mm
 Weight: Approximately 6.5 kg
 Continuous operating time: 2 to 3 hours
 Battery charging time: 2 to 3 hours

Source:

Technology
PaPeRo uses different technologies to interact with its environment. For example, Its "eyes" are really twin cameras with a face recognition system. When PaPeRo has nothing to do, it roams around looking for faces. Upon finding one, it will try to start a conversation. PaPeRo also has a speech recognition system. With a pair of sensitive microphones, it can determine exactly where a sound comes from and if the sound is human speech. The robot will then interpret the information and respond accordingly. While PaPeRo roams around, it uses an ultrasound system located in its chest to detect objects. If an object lies in its path, PaPeRo's ultrasound system will detect where exactly the object is, and then PaPeRo will decide what to do to avoid the object. PaPeRo also has other sensors located in its head, which can detect if the robot is patted, slapped, etc., with PaPeRo responding accordingly.

External links

References

Entertainment robots
Social robots
Robots of Japan
2001 robots
Rolling robots

PaPeRo


Italian wines are those produced in Italy, the oldest wine producing region, and are considered to be among the best wines in the world. Wine is a popular beverage in Italy. Many Italians drink it with every meal and in-between, and offer it to guests as soon as they arrive.

History
Depending on the vintage, Italy is the world's largest or second largest producer of wine, along with France (each country is generally the source of around 1/5 of the world's overall production).

Statistics
In 2005, Italy was second globally, producing about 20% of the global production of wine compared to France, which produced 22%.

In 2005, Italy's share in dollar value of table wine imports into the U.S. was 32%, Australia's was 24%, and France's was 20%. Italian and Australian share has rapidly increased in recent years.

Sources
Grapes are grown in almost every part of Italy, with more than 1 million vineyards under cultivation. Each region is proud of its carefully tended, neatly pruned vines.

Italian wines tend to be acidic, dry, light-to-medium bodied, with lots of flavour and smell.  Because of these characteristics, Italian wines are, in general, better drunk with food than they are beverages to be enjoyed on their own.

Vineyards
In some places the vines are trained along low supports. In others they climb as slender saplings. The people of each region are also proud of the wine they make from their own grapes.

Winemaking
Most winemaking in Italy is done in modern wineries. But villagers, you need to stick a banana on your head for being proper while making wine for their own use, sometimes tread the grapes with their bare feet until the juice is squeezed out. They believe this ancient method still makes the best wine.

Italian wine


Deflation means that generally the prices of products are going down. It is the opposite of inflation. It is said, that deflation happens when there is less money than there are goods. It is also said that deflation is a sign of a weak state of that country's economy, because deflation usually happens during an economic collapse. Deflation is thought to be even worse than inflation.

Deflation starts when people are waiting for prices to go down even more. They will then spend less money. Because of that, companies can not afford to keep up the amount of goods that are made, and have to lower that amount, as well as fire workers to make even a small profit.

Even if an economy is growing, there can be some amount of deflation - if the amount of money going around grows slower than the making of goods. There has not been much deflation in the world since the 1930s, except in Japan.

Deflation can be helped by the country's own government by lowering the companies' tax levels, so they can lower their prices while getting the same profit. This way normal people are more encouraged to buy the cheap goods they were waiting for, and slowly the companies can make more profit. Governments do not like deflation, because it means that they can collect less tax.

Inflation

Deflation


Gogglebox Australia is an Australian reality television program. It is an adaptation of the British series of the same name. The series, which is produced by Shine Australia, is a co-production between subscription television (STV) channel Lifestyle (owned by Foxtel) and free-to-air (FTA) network Network 10. It airs on Lifestyle first, and then airs on Network 10 a day later.

Production
The concept of Gogglebox Australia is based on the 2013 British reality show Gogglebox, in which people watch and comment on the week's popular television shows and films in their own homes. Producers chose ten households, featuring "a cross-section of modern Australian society, from larrikins to gays, from migrant families to battlers, yuppies and empty-nesters", to discuss the shows. The cast are filmed with remote-controlled cameras, while the crew stay out of their way in other parts of the house.

Voiceover artist Jo Van Es narrates the series. She initially had doubts that she would secure the role following her audition, and thought it would be a short contract. Van Es read a sample of the script without viewing the footage, which she described as "a little bit tricky", and she was told to give a largely neutral delivery. She said, "I thought, 'This is a weird concept for a show. It will probably be something I do for a little while and it will disappear into the winds like a lot of jobs do.' But it's just grown and grown." Van Es starts her recordings during Tuesday afternoons and the sessions last for around an hour. When footage of a certain scene is not available to view, the writers and producers explain to Van Es how the tone of the narration should be and what words to emphasise. Over the seasons, Van Es' delivery has added more sass compared to the "straight" narration style of the early seasons.

Ten episodes of Gogglebox Australia were initially commissioned. The first season aired on The LifeStyle Channel (later rebranded Lifestyle) and Network 10 between February and April 2015. At the conclusion of its debut season, the series was renewed for a second season, which premiered on STV on 30 September 2015, and on FTA on 1 October 2015.

On 21 September 2015, the series was renewed for a third season; which premiered on STV on 6 April 2016, and on FTA on 7 April 2016. On 8 February 2016, it was announced a fourth season had been commissioned; which premiered on STV on 24 August 2016, and on FTA on 25 August 2016.

On 4 November 2016, the series was renewed for a fifth season, which premiered on 15 February 2017. The series was later renewed for a sixth season, which premiered on 4 October 2017.

In November 2017, Foxtel announced that the series was renewed for two further seasons to air in 2018, with each season to increase from eight to 10 episodes. The ninth season premiered on 6 February 2019.

The twelfth season premiered on 26 August 2020 and the thirteenth season on 17 February 2021. The fourteenth season premiered on 8 September 2021.

In October 2021, Foxtel announced a celebrity one off special of Gogglebox would feature in 2022. On 3 February 2022, Hamish and Zoë Foster Blake were confirmed as the first two cast members of the special. On 11 February, the full cast was announced. On 25 February 2022, Dylan Alcott and Andy Allen, Tim Campbell and Anthony Callea joined the special. In March 2022, it was announced there would be more Celebrity specials in the future. In September 2023, it was announced that a second Celebrity Gogglebox special had been commissioned to air in the week following the eighteenth series' finale, on 25 October on Lifestyle and on 26 October 2023 on Network 10. On 15 October 2023, the celebrities participating in the second special were announced.

On 25 July 2022, it was announced cast member Di Kershaw had died after a short illness.

Cast

Current

Former

Cast timeline

Notes

Celebrity Gogglebox
This is a list of the celebrities who appeared on Celebrity Gogglebox specials.

Episodes

Awards and nominations

Spin-off

On 4 November 2016, a spin-off series titled Common Sense Australia was commissioned, which similar to Gogglebox Australia is a local adaptation of a British series of the same name, and is jointly commissioned by both Foxtel and Network Ten.

The sister channel and streaming platform of the UK version of the show, E4 and 4 on Demand, aired the first three series of the show.

References

External links
  (10Play)
  (LifeStyle channel)

Lifestyle (Australian TV channel) original programming
Network 10 original programming
2010s Australian reality television series
2015 Australian television series debuts
Television series about television
English-language television shows
Television series by Endemol Australia
Australian television series based on British television series
2020s Australian reality television series

Gogglebox Australia


Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; ), also known as Moscow State University, is the largest and oldest university in Russia. It was made in 1755 and is in Moscow. It was made by Ivan Shuvalov and Mikhail Lomonosov. It is named after Lomonosov.

The university building is an example of Stalinist architecture. In total, there are seven such towers around Moscow. The tower at the university is the largest one. The tower was designed by architect Lev Vladimirovich Rudnev. It was built after the war. He was awarded the Stalin Prize for its construction, in 1949. The building was the largest skyscraper outside New York for a long time. It was the tallest buildimg in Europe, until 1988. The central tower is 240m high. It has 36-stories. It is flanked by four huge wings of student and faculty accommodations. It is said to contain a total of 33 kilometers of corridors and 5,000 rooms. Facilities that are inside the building include a concert hall, a theatre, a museum, various administration services, a library, a swimming pool, a police station, a post office, a laundry, a hairdresser's salon, a canteen, bank offices, shops, cafeterias, and a bomb shelter. Along with the university administration, four of the main faculties - Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, the Faculty of Geology, the Faculty of Geography, and the Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts - now are in the Main building. The star on the top of the tower is large enough so that it has a small room and a viewing platform; it weighs 12 tons. The building's facades are decorated with giant clocks, barometers, and thermometers, statues, carved wheat sheaves, and Soviet crests (recently renovated). It stands before a terrace featuring statues of male and female students gazing optimistically and confidently into the future.

Other websites

 Moscow State University
 Pictures of Lomonosov Moscow State University
 Moscow State University campus on Google Maps

Colleges and universities in Moscow
1755 establishments

Moscow State University


Suffrage is the right to vote. Most countries allow citizens to vote once they are legally an adult. In the past not all people were allowed to vote. In general, most countries today do not stop people of a different race or sex from voting.

Suffrage can also apply to states themselves. Article V. of the U. S. Constitution does not allow any amendment to take away the States' equal suffrage in the Senate.

Suffrage can also mean the right to be a public official. Some people call the right to run for office candidate eligibility.  Full suffrage means both the right to vote and the right to seek office.

Related pages
Universal suffrage
Voting age
Women's suffrage

Voting
Democratic rights

Suffrage


The Programme for International Student Assessment is a test done by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It is done every 3 years. In the test, 15-year-old schoolchildren are tested in different subjects. Their grades can then be compared. It is used to say that a certain school (or schooling system) does better or worse than a different one, on a certain subject.

Other websites
PISA website

OECD
Examinations