The Iridium satellite constellation provides L band voice and data information coverage to satellite phones, satellite messenger communication devices and integrated transceivers, as well as two-way satellite messaging service to supported Android smartphones, over the entire surface of Earth. Iridium Communications owns and operates the constellation, additionally selling equipment and access to its services. It was conceived by Bary Bertiger, Raymond J. Leopold and Ken Peterson in late 1987 (in 1988 protected by patents Motorola filed in their names) and then developed by Motorola on a fixed-price contract from July 29, 1993, to November 1, 1998, when the system became operational and commercially available.

The constellation consists of 66 active satellites in orbit, required for global coverage, and additional spare satellites to serve in case of failure. Satellites are placed in low Earth orbit at a height of approximately  and inclination of 86.4°. The nearly polar orbit and communication between satellites via Ka band inter-satellite links provide global service availability (including both poles, oceans and airways), regardless of the position of ground stations and gateways.

In 1999, The New York Times quoted a wireless market analyst, regarding people having "one number that they could carry with them anywhere" as "expensive... There never was a viable market."

Due to the shape of the original Iridium satellites' reflective antennas, the first generation satellites focused sunlight on a small area of the Earth surface in an incidental manner. This resulted in a phenomenon called Iridium flares, whereby the satellite momentarily appeared as one of the brightest objects in the night sky and could be seen even during daylight. Newer Iridium satellites do not produce flares.

Overview
The Iridium system was designed to be accessed by small handheld phones, the size of a cell phone. While "the weight of a typical cell phone in the early 1990s was 10.5 ounces" (300 grams) Advertising Age wrote in mid 1999 that "when its phone debuted, weighing 1 pound (453 grams) and costing $3,000, it was viewed as both unwieldly and expensive."

An omnidirectional antenna was intended to be small enough to be mounted on the planned phone, but the low handset battery power was insufficient for contact with a satellite in geostationary orbit,  above the Earth; the normal orbit of communications satellites, in which the satellite appears stationary in the sky. In order for a handheld phone to communicate with them, the Iridium satellites are closer to the Earth, in low Earth orbit, about  above the surface. With an orbital period of about 100 minutes a satellite can only be in view of a phone for about 7 minutes, so the call is automatically "handed off" to another satellite when one passes beyond the local horizon. This requires a large number of satellites, carefully spaced out in polar orbits (see animated image of coverage) to ensure that at least one satellite is continually in view from every point on the Earth's surface. At least 66 satellites are required, in 6 polar orbits containing 11 satellites each, for seamless coverage.

Orbit
Orbital velocity of the satellites is approximately . Satellites communicate with neighboring satellites via Ka band inter-satellite links. Each satellite can have four inter-satellite links: one each to neighbors fore and aft in the same orbital plane, and one each to satellites in neighboring planes to either side. The satellites orbit from pole to same pole with an orbital period of roughly 100 minutes. This design means that there is excellent satellite visibility and service coverage especially at the North and South poles. The over-the-pole orbital design produces "seams" where satellites in counter-rotating planes next to one another are traveling in opposite directions. Cross-seam inter-satellite link hand-offs would have to happen very rapidly and cope with large Doppler shifts; therefore, Iridium supports inter-satellite links only between satellites orbiting in the same direction. The constellation of 66 active satellites has six orbital planes spaced 30° apart, with 11 satellites in each plane (not counting spares). The original concept was to have 77 satellites, which is where the name Iridium came from; the element iridium has the atomic number 77, and the satellites evoked the Bohr model image of electrons orbiting around the Earth as its nucleus. This reduced set of six planes is sufficient to cover the entire Earth surface at every moment.

History
The Iridium satellite constellation was conceived in the early 1990s as a way to reach high Earth latitudes with reliable satellite communication services. Early calculations showed that 77 satellites would be needed, hence the name Iridium, after the metal with atomic number 77. It turned out that just 66 were required to complete the blanket coverage of the planet with communication services.

First generation
The first-generation constellation was developed by Iridium SSC, and financed by Motorola. The satellites were deployed in 1997–2002. All the satellites needed to be in orbit before commercial service could begin.

Iridium SSC employed a globally diverse fleet of rockets to get their 77 satellites into orbit, including launch vehicles (LVs) from the United States, Russia, and China. 60 were launched to orbit on twelve Delta II rocket carrying five satellites each; 21 on three Proton-K/DM2 rocket with seven each, two on one Rokot/Briz-KM rocket carrying two; and 12 on six Long March 2C/SD rocket carrying two each. The total setup cost for the first-generation fleet was approximately .

The first test telephone call was made over the network in 1998, and full global coverage was complete by 2002. However, although the system met its technical requirements, it was not a success in the market. Poor reception from inside buildings, bulky and expensive handsets, and competition with the conventional cellular phone contributed to its failure. Insufficient market demand existed for the product at the price points on offer from Iridium as set by its parent company Motorola. The company failed to earn revenue sufficient to service the debt associated with building out the constellation and Iridium went bankrupt, one of the largest bankruptcies in US history at the time.

The constellation continued operation following the bankruptcy of the original Iridium corporation. A new entity emerged to operate the satellites and developed a different product placement and pricing strategy, offering communication services to a niche market of customers who required reliable services of this type in areas of the planet not covered by traditional geosynchronous orbit communication satellite services. Users include journalists, explorers, and military units.

No new satellites were launched 2002–2017 to replenish the constellation, even though the original satellites based on the LM-700A model had been projected to have a design life of only 8 years.

Second generation
The second-generation Iridium-NEXT satellites began to be deployed into the existing constellation in January 2017. Iridium Communications, the successor company to Iridium SSC, has ordered a total of 81 new satellites being built by Thales Alenia Space and Orbital ATK: 66 operational units, nine on-orbit spares, and six ground spares.

In August 2008, Iridium selected two companies — Lockheed Martin and Thales Alenia Space — to participate in the final phase of the procurement of the next-generation satellite constellation.

, the original plan had been to begin launching new satellites in 2014.

The design was complete by 2010, and Iridium stated that the existing constellation of satellites would remain operational until Iridium NEXT is fully operational, with many satellites expected to remain in service until the 2020s, while the NEXT satellites would have improved bandwidth. The new system was to be backward-compatible with the current system. In June 2010, the winner of the contract was announced as Thales Alenia Space, in a $2.1 billion deal underwritten by Compagnie Française d'Assurance pour le Commerce Extérieur. Iridium additionally stated that it expected to spend about $800 million to launch the satellites and upgrade some ground facilities.

SpaceX was contracted to launch all the Iridium NEXT satellites. All the Iridium NEXT launches have taken place using a Falcon 9 rocket launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Deployment of the constellation began in January 2017, with the launch of the first ten Iridium NEXT satellites. Most recently, on January 11, 2019, SpaceX launched an additional ten satellites, bringing the number of upgraded satellites in orbit to 75.

In September 2023, it was revealed that Iridium Communications was supplying the satellite communication system and equipment to Russian government organizations, which were using them for the invasion of Ukraine, a breach of sanctions.

Original Iridium constellation

The satellites each contained seven Motorola/Freescale PowerPC 603E processors running at roughly 200 MHz, connected by a custom backplane network. One processor was dedicated to each cross-link antenna ("HVARC"), and two processors ("SVARC"s) were dedicated to satellite control, one being a spare. Late in the project an extra processor ("SAC") was added to perform resource management and phone call processing.

The cellular look down antenna had 48 spot beams arranged as 16 beams in three sectors. The four inter-satellite cross links on each satellite operated at 10 Mbit/s. Optical links could have supported a much greater bandwidth and a more aggressive growth path, but microwave cross links were chosen because their bandwidth was more than sufficient for the desired system. Nevertheless, a parallel optical cross link option was carried through a critical design review, and ended when the microwave cross links were shown to support the size, weight and power requirements allocated within the individual satellite's budget. Iridium Satellite LLC stated that their second generation satellites would also use microwave, not optical, inter-satellite communications links. Iridium's cross-links are unique in the satellite telephone industry as other providers do not relay data between satellites; Globalstar and Inmarsat both use a transponder without cross-links.

The original design as envisioned in the 1960s was that of a completely static "dumb satellite" with a set of control messages and time-triggers for an entire orbit that would be uploaded as the satellite passed over the poles. It was found that this design did not have enough bandwidth in the space-based backhaul to upload each satellite quickly and reliably over the poles. Moreover, fixed, static scheduling would have left more than 90% of the satellite links idle at all times. Therefore, the design was scrapped in favour of a design that performed dynamic control of routing and channel selection late in the project, resulting in a one-year delay in system delivery.

Each satellite can support up to  concurrent phone calls at  bit/s and weighs about . The Iridium System presently operates within a dedicated band segment from  to  MHz and shares with Globalstar a band segment from  to  MHz. These segments are part of the wider L band, adjacent to the Radio Astronomy Service (RAS) band segment from  to  MHz.

The configuration of the Satellite concept was designated as Triangular Fixed, 80 Inch Main Mission Antenna, Light-weight (TF80L). The packaging design of the spacecraft was managed by Lockheed Bus Spacecraft team; it was the first commercial satellite bus designed at the Sunnyvale Space Systems Division in California. The TF80L configuration was considered a non-conventional, innovative approach to developing a satellite design that could be assembled and tested in five days. The TF80L design configuration was also instrumental in simultaneously solving fundamental design problems involving optimization of the communications payload thermal environment and RF main mission antenna performance, while achieving the highest payload fairing packaging for each of the three main launch vehicle providers.

The first spacecraft mock-up of this design was built in the garage workshop in Santa Clara, California for the Bus PDR/CDR as a proof-of-concept model. This first prototype paved the way for the design and construction of the first engineering models. This design was the basis of the largest constellation of satellites deployed in low Earth orbit. After ten years of successful on-orbit performance, the Iridium team celebrated the equivalent of  cumulative years of on-orbit performance in 2008. One of the engineering Iridium satellite models was placed on permanent exhibit in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Launch campaign
95 of the 99 built satellites were launched between 1997 and 2002. Four satellites were kept on the ground as spares.

The 95 satellites were launched over twenty-two missions (nine missions in 1997, ten in 1998, one in 1999 and two in 2002). One extra mission on Chang Zheng was a payload test and did not carry any actual satellites.

Iridium satellite number changed over time following failure and replacement.

In-orbit spares

Spare satellites are usually held in a  storage orbit. These can be boosted to the correct altitude and put into service in case of a satellite failure. After the Iridium company emerged from bankruptcy the new owners decided to launch seven new spares, which would have ensured two spare satellites were available in each plane. As of 2009, not every plane had a spare satellite; however, the satellites can be moved to a different plane if required. A move can take several weeks and consumes fuel which will shorten the satellite's expected service life.

Significant orbital inclination changes are normally very fuel-intensive, but orbital perturbation analysis aids the process. The Earth's equatorial bulge causes the orbital right ascension of the ascending node (RAAN) to precess at a rate that depends mainly on the period and inclination.

A spare Iridium satellite in the lower storage orbit has a shorter period so its RAAN moves westward more quickly than the satellites in the standard orbit. Iridium simply waits until the desired RAAN (i.e., the desired orbital plane) is reached and then raises the spare satellite to the standard altitude, fixing its orbital plane with respect to the constellation. Although this saves substantial amounts of fuel, it can be a time-consuming process.

During 2016, Iridium experienced in-orbit failures which could not be corrected with in-orbit spare satellites, thus only 64 of the 66 satellites required for seamless global coverage were in operation. This caused some service interruptions until the next-generation constellation was put into service.

Next-generation constellation
In 2017, Iridium began launching Iridium NEXT, a second-generation worldwide network of telecommunications satellites, consisting of 66 active satellites, with another nine in-orbit spares and six on-ground spares. These satellites incorporate features such as data transmission that were not emphasized in the original design. The next-generation terminals and service became commercially available in 2018. One of the Iridium NEXT services is Iridium Certus, a globally available satellite broadband, which is capable of up to 704 Kbps of bandwidth across maritime, aviation, land mobile, government, and IoT applications.

The NEXT satellites incorporate a secondary payload for Aireon, a space-qualified ADS-B data receiver for use by air traffic control and, via FlightAware, by airlines. A tertiary payload on 58 satellites is a marine AIS ship-tracker receiver for Canadian company ExactEarth Ltd.

In January 2020, the Iridium constellation was certified for use in the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS). The certification ended a monopoly on the provision of maritime distress services that had previously been held by Inmarsat since the system became operational in 1999.

Iridium NEXT also provides data link to other satellites in space, enabling command and control of other space assets regardless of the position of ground stations and gateways.

Launch campaign
In June 2010, Iridium signed the largest commercial rocket-launch deal ever at that time, a US$492 million contract with SpaceX to launch 70 Iridium NEXT satellites on seven Falcon 9 rockets from 2015 to 2017 via SpaceX leased launch facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base. The final two satellites were originally slated to be orbited by a single launch of an ISC Kosmotras Dnepr. Technical issues and consequential demands from Iridium's insurance delayed the launch of the first pair of Iridium NEXT satellites until April 2016.

Iridium NEXT launch plans originally included launch of satellites on both Ukrainian Dnepr launch vehicles and SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicles, with the initial satellites launching on Dnepr in April 2016; however, in February 2016, Iridium announced a change. Due to an extended slowdown in obtaining the requisite launch licenses from Russian authorities, Iridium revamped the entire launch sequence for the 75-satellite constellation. It launched and successfully deployed 10 satellites with SpaceX on January 14, 2017, delayed due to weather from January 9, 2017, and the first of those new satellites took over the duties of an old satellite on March 11, 2017.

At the time of the launch of the first batch, the second flight of ten satellites was planned to launch only three months later in April 2017. However, in a February 15 statement, Iridium said that SpaceX pushed back the launch of its second batch of Iridium NEXT satellites from mid-April to mid-June 2017. This second launch, which occurred on June 25, 2017, delivered another ten Iridium NEXT satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO) on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. A third launch, which occurred on October 9, 2017, delivered another ten satellites to LEO, as planned. The Iridium NEXT IV mission launched with ten satellites on December 23, 2017. The fifth mission, Iridium NEXT V, launched with ten satellites on March 30, 2018. The sixth launch on May 22, 2018, sent another 5 satellites into LEO. The penultimate Iridium NEXT launch occurred on July 25, 2018 launching another 10 Iridium NEXT satellites. The final ten NEXT satellites launched on January 11, 2019. Of the six additional spare satellites five have been launched on 20 May 2023 while the last one, Iridium 101, is still on the ground.

Iridium satellite number could change over time following failure and replacement.

Iridium 127 had to be re-designated as Iridium 100 before launch due to a ground software issue.

Patents and manufacturing
The main patents on the Iridium system, U.S. Patents 5,410,728: "Satellite cellular telephone and data communication system", and 5,604,920, are in the field of satellite communications, and the manufacturer generated several hundred patents protecting the technology in the system. Satellite manufacturing initiatives were also instrumental in the technical success of the system. Motorola made a key hire of the engineer who set up the automated factory for Apple's Macintosh. He created the technology necessary to mass-produce satellites on a gimbal, taking weeks instead of months or years. At its peak during the launch campaign in 1997 and 1998, Motorola produced a new satellite every 4.3 days, with the lead-time of a single satellite being 21 days.

Defunct satellites
Over the years a number of Iridium satellites have ceased to work and are no longer in active service, some are partially functional and have remained in orbit whereas others have tumbled out of control or have reentered the atmosphere.

Iridium 21, 27, 20, 11, 46, 71, 44, 14, 79, 69 and 85 all suffered from issues before entering operational service soon after their launch. By 2018, of these eleven, Iridium 27, 79 and 85 have decayed out of orbit; Iridium 11, 14, 20 and 21 were renamed to Iridium 911, 914, 920 and 921 respectively since replacements of the same name were launched.

From 2017, several first-generation Iridium satellites have been deliberately de-orbited after being replaced by operational Iridium NEXT satellites.

As of January 2023, a total of 80 previously operating satellites are now defunct or no longer exist.

Iridium 33 collision

At 16:56 UTC on February 10, 2009, Iridium 33 collided with the defunct Russian satellite Kosmos 2251. This accidental collision was the first hypervelocity collision between two artificial satellites in low Earth orbit. Iridium 33 was in active service when the accident took place. It was one of the oldest satellites in the constellation, having been launched in 1997. The satellites collided at a relative speed of roughly  This collision created over 2000 large space debris fragments that can be hazardous to other satellites.

Iridium moved one of its in-orbit spares, Iridium 91 (formerly known as Iridium 90), to replace the destroyed satellite, completing the move on March 4, 2009.

Technical details

Air interface
Communication between satellites and handsets is done using a TDMA and FDMA based system using L-band spectrum between  and  MHz. Iridium exclusively controls 7.775 MHz of this and shares a further 0.95 MHz. In 1999, Iridium agreed to timeshare a portion of spectrum, allowing radio astronomers to observe hydroxyl emissions; the amount of shared spectrum was recently reduced from 2.625 MHz.

External "hockey puck" type antennas used with Iridium handheld phones, data modems and SBD terminals are usually defined as 3 dB gain, 50 ohms impedance with RHCP (right hand circular polarization) and 1.5:1 VSWR. As Iridium antennas function at frequencies very close to those of GPS, a single antenna may be utilized through a pass-through for both Iridium and GPS reception.

The type of modulation used is normally DE-QPSK, although DE-BPSK is used on the uplink (mobile to satellite) for acquisition and synchronization. Each time slot is 8.28 milliseconds long and sits in a 90 milliseconds frame. Within each FDMA channel there are four TDMA time slots in each direction. The TDMA frame starts off with a 20.32 milliseconds period used for simplex messaging to devices such as pagers and to alert Iridium phones of an incoming call, followed by the four upstream slots and four downstream slots. This technique is known as time-division multiplexing. Small guard periods are used between time slots. Regardless of the modulation method being used, communication between mobile units and satellites is performed at 25 kilobaud.

Channels are spaced at 41.666 kHz and each channel occupies a bandwidth of 31.5 kHz; this allows space for Doppler shifts.

Handoff
The Iridium system uses three different handoff types. As a satellite travels over the ground location, calls are handed to adjacent spot-beams; this occurs approximately every fifty seconds. A satellite only stays in view for seven minutes at the equator. When the satellite disappears from view, an attempt is made to hand the call to another satellite. If no other satellite is in view, the connection is dropped. This may occur when the signal from either satellite is blocked by an obstacle. When successful, the inter-satellite handoff may be noticeable by a quarter-second interruption.

The satellites are also able to transfer mobile units to different channels and time slots within the same spot beam.

Ground stations
Iridium routes phone calls through space. In addition to communicating with the satellite phones in its footprint, each satellite in the constellation also maintains contact with two to four adjacent satellites, and routes data between them, to effectively create a large mesh network. There are several ground stations which link to the network through the satellites visible to them. The space-based backhaul routes outgoing phone call packets through space to one of the ground station downlinks ("feeder links"). Iridium ground stations interconnect the satellite network with land-based fixed or wireless infrastructures worldwide to improve availability. Station-to-station calls from one satellite phone to another can be routed directly through space without going through a ground station. As satellites leave the area of a ground station, the routing tables are updated and packets headed for the ground station are forwarded to the next satellite just coming into view of the ground station. Communication between satellites and ground stations is at 20 and 30 GHz.

Gateways are located in
 Tempe, Arizona (USA)
 Fairbanks, Alaska (USA)
 Svalbard, Norway (Europe)
 Izhevsk, Russia
 Punta Arenas, Chile (South America)

The pre-bankruptcy corporate incarnation of Iridium built eleven gateways, most of which have since been closed.

See also

 Celestri
 Globalsat Group
 Intelsat
 Intersputnik
 Mobile-satellite service
 O3b Networks
 OneWeb
 Orbcomm
 Radiotelephone
 SES Broadband for Maritime
 Thuraya

References

External links

 Up-to-date status (de-orbits)
 Iridium Satellite LLC corporate web site
 Iridium satellite tracking
 Iridium satellite phone descriptions
 Catch The Iridium Project
 Iridium Pager
 Iridium Pager Programmer

Communications satellite constellations
Satellite telephony
Satellites in low Earth orbit

Iridium satellite constellation


Campus Geesseknäppchen is a campus in Luxembourg City, in southern Luxembourg, that is shared by a number of academic institutions.

The campus is located in the southwest of the city, just to the north of the terminus of the A4 motorway. It is predominantly in the quarter of Hollerich, although the western part (including the Conservatoire) lies in Merl.  Shaped roughly like a right triangle, the campus measures 800 metres (880 yards) east-west along the hypotenuse, and  north-south at its maximum.

Geesseknäppchen is the site of:

 Athénée de Luxembourg
 Conservatoire de Luxembourg
 International School of Luxembourg
 Lycée Aline Mayrisch
 Lycée Michel Rodange
 Lycée Technique Ecole de Commerce et de Gestion

The campus has shared sporting facilities, including an athletics track, five sports halls, an Olympic size swimming pool, and a football (soccer) pitch.

The Japanese Supplementary School in Luxembourg (ルクセンブルグ補習授業校 Rukusenburugu Hoshū Jugyō Kō), a Japanese supplementary school, is located on the premises of the International School of Luxembourg. Its operations began there in 1991 and it serves students aged 6 to 15.

References

Year of establishment missing
Education in Luxembourg City
Geography of Luxembourg City
Campuses

Campus Geesseknäppchen


A continental tire or a continental kit is a term used in the United States for an upright externally-mounted spare tire located behind an automobile's trunk, made popular by the Continental Mark Series, which carried a simulated continental tire until 1998.

The term also describes a non-functional bulge stamped into the trunk lid or a cosmetic accessory to the rear of the car giving the impression of a spare tire mount.

Early spare tire mounts

The pre-mounted spare tire and wheel combination on early automobiles typically meant an external mounting because motorists would often need to change tires. Automakers often mounted a spare tire, or two, on the rear of the car.

Some cars featured side-mounted spare tires in the fenders behind the front wheels. Automakers also offered side-mounted spare tires as an option. Early European sports cars had their spare tire attached to the back of the automobile since their trunk or storage space was often minimal.

These rear or side mounted spare tires were not described as continental tire.

The development of the enclosed trunk on automobiles meant the spare tire could be placed out of sight. This arrangement used up valuable space for carrying luggage. Manufacturers offered the sidemount option to increase trunk capacity. Some sports cars accommodated the spare tires inside the trunk resulting in a tight fit and it even projected a portion of the tire into the passenger area necessitating a vinyl cover.

The continental tire mount

Edsel Ford had a special car built after returning from a trip to Europe that would have a "continental look" – including a spare tire mounted on the trunk. The 1939 Lincoln Continental's short trunk with its external rear spare tire mount became a distinctive design. While this was not the first car to either carry its spare above the rear bumper or integrated it into the rear bodywork, it was the first to do it so elegantly and thus this feature became known as a "continental tire" even if the design was found on other brands.

Similar external spare tire placements were added as standard or optional to popular mass-market and also described as a "continental kit", borrowing their name from the production Lincoln Continental. Consumers were also able to have aftermarket "continental kits" installed on almost any vehicle.

There is a legend that Henry Ford II complained that the trunk of his personal Ford Thunderbird did not have room for a set of golf clubs without removing the spare tire. The 1956 Thunderbird had its spare tire mounted outside. However, adding weight behind the rear wheels was said to adversely affect steering and handling. For 1957 the Thunderbird's trunk was stretched  to allow the spare tire to migrate back inside, although the continental mounting was still optional. This external spare wheel mount became a customizing aftermarket appearance accessory during the 1950s.

In the United States, the external continental tire mounting was a factory option on various types of cars during the 1950s and early 1960s. On some smaller models – such as on the Nash Metropolitan and Jeepster Commando – the continental tire was a standard feature. The two-passenger Nash Metropolitan's rear-mounted spare tire was more convenient because access to the trunk was by folding down the seatback on the early (1954 through 1958) models. The large-sized 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser was the top-of-the-line model and included what Ford described a "Dream Car Spare Tire Carrier" among its many standard features.

The car's rear bumper was often extended, and the tire had a fabric or metal cover. The bracket for the spare wheel was designed to swing away for access to the trunk. Manufacturers included continental tire mounts for their perceived "distinctiveness" as well as a means to increase luggage space in the trunk, such as on all the 1954 Nash Custom models.

The Jeep DJ was available in a "Surrey Gala" appearance package from 1959 until 1964. Included were a fringed top, seats, and a continental tire mount with a colorful vinyl-coated fabric covers in "candy stripes" of pink, green, or blue to match the car's body colors.

Simulated continental tire

Automotive historians also use this term to describe a nonfunctional circular bulge stamped into the trunk lid to give the impression of a spare tire.

This design feature was popularized by several 1950s Italian-bodied Chrysler concept cars. The trunk lid bulge was later embraced by Chrysler designer Virgil Exner and incorporated on many cars such as the luxury 1957 Imperial as well as mass-market models such as the 1959 Plymouth Belvedere and included on the compact Plymouth Valiant by 1960. Some critics described this bulging styling element on the trunk lid as a "toilet seat."

The Lincoln Continental Mark III in 1969 included a "bump" in its rear deck lid to vaguely substitute the original 1939 Lincoln Continental spare tire design. This distinctive rear design was continued on the Mark series, including the Mark VIII coupe that was produced through 1998.

Modern use

Contemporary examples of continental kits are sometimes found on old and newer customized automobiles, including late-model Lincoln Continental cars that never included a factory design or option. It has become an accessory that typifies "the spirit" of the 1950s. After-market continental kits are available for customization of 200 different automobile models. Some after-market applications may not enhance the design of the car.

Continental kits and trunk lid add-on spare tire trim were also made popular by the garish pimpmobile era of the 1970s and featured in "Super Fly" movies. Continental kits and simulated spare tires were also featured in some of the transformations done on the Pimp My Ride show.

Continental tires are known as 'fifth wheels' in hip hop slang. For example, in the Houston hip-hop culture, "slabs" feature a rear-mounted wheel that has been "cut in half and enclosed in a fiberglass casing."

Numerous compact sport utility vehicle (SUV) models include an external rear-mounted spare tire from the factory. Accessory spare tire mounts that fit into a car's tow hitch are also available. Recreational vehicles may also have a spare tire on the rear. The wheel and tire combination may be exposed or covered with different materials that may have logos or other designs. These rear spare tire mounts are no longer described as a continental tire. Moreover, manufacturers have improved the packaging to mount spare tires under the car or cargo area floor. The externally rear-mounted tire appears on Jeep Wrangler and Mercedes-Benz G-Class vehicles to facilitate easy access when off-road.

See also
Fender skirts
Whitewall tire
Spare wheel cover

References

External links

Automotive styling features
Automotive accessories
Tires
Vehicle modifications

Continental tire


William Keable (or Keeble) (1715–1774) was an English painter of portraits and conversation pieces.

He was the son of John and Ann Keable and baptised at Cratfield, Suffolk in October 1715.

His main period of success as an artist was in the 1740s and 1750s; he was a member of the St Martin's Lane Academy in 1754. He specialised in the painting of portraits, especially of American colonists, particularly from Charleston, South Carolina, who were visiting London. Typical of his work were the portraits of Mrs Benjamin Smith (1722-1760) and her brother-in-law Thomas Smith Jr (1719-1790) in 1749. He was also an amateur musician.

By 1761 he had left England to settle in Italy, where he continued to paint portraits, becoming a member of the Accademico della Clementina in 1770. He died in Italy in 1774 and was buried in Livorno.

Works
 Self Portrait (1748). Yale Center for British Art
 Portrait of a Gentleman
 Mrs Benjamin Smith (1749). Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina
 Thomas Smith Jnr (1749)
 Castruccio Bonamici Gandolfini (after 1761)
 A mezzotint portrait of Sir Crisp Gascoyne, Lord Mayor of London by James McArdell, from a painting by William Keable, was published in the London Magazine for July 1753.

References

External links

1714 births
1774 deaths
Artists from Suffolk
People from Waveney District

William Keable


The Little Stranger is also the title of one of the Color Classics series produced 13 March 1936, in three-strip Technicolor, by Fleischer Studios. It is also the 2018 film adaptation of Waters' novel.

The Little Stranger is a 2009 gothic novel written by Sarah Waters. It is a ghost story set in a dilapidated mansion in Warwickshire, England in the 1940s. Departing from her earlier themes of lesbian and gay fiction, Waters' fifth novel features a male narrator, a country doctor who makes friends with an old gentry family of declining fortunes who own a very old estate that is crumbling around them. The stress of reconciling the state of their finances with the familial responsibility of keeping the estate coincides with perplexing events which may or may not be of supernatural origin, culminating in tragedy.

Reviewers note that the themes in The Little Stranger are alternately reflections of evil and struggle related to upper class hierarchy misconfiguration in post war Britain. Waters stated that she did not set out to write a ghost story, but began her writing with an exploration of the rise of socialism in the United Kingdom and how the fading gentry dealt with losing their legacies. A mix of influences is evident to reviewers: Henry James, Shirley Jackson, Wilkie Collins, and Edgar Allan Poe. The novel was mostly well received by critics as Waters' strengths are exhibited in setting of mood and pacing of the story. It is Waters' third novel to be short-listed for the Man Booker Prize.

Plot summary
Faraday, a country doctor with humble beginnings, is called to Hundreds Hall, an 18th-century estate that has survived far beyond its former glory. He treats a young maid who dislikes the large, draughty emptiness of the house, but strikes a friendship with Caroline Ayres, the unmarried daughter of the family, her brother Roderick, who continues to heal physically and mentally from his experiences as a pilot in World War II, and their mother, the lady of the estate. He begins treating Roderick's lingering badly-healed wounds and becomes a family friend, knowing them well enough to realise they are in dire financial straits and unable to keep the house in any comfortable condition without selling their lands or objects in the house.

In an attempt to cheer up the family and possibly match Caroline to a potential husband, they throw a party for a few family friends when disaster strikes. A couple brings their young child who is mauled by Caroline's ancient and previously gentle Labrador retriever. Roderick begins to behave moodily and drink heavily. Faraday believes the strain of managing the estate is at fault. Roderick, however, divulges that something appeared in his room the night the dog attacked the girl. He says that it was first in his room trying to harm him, and that he must keep the unseen force focused on him so as not to direct its attention to his sister or mother. Spots begin appearing on his walls looking like burns, and, after Caroline awakes in the middle of the night to find his room on fire, Roderick is committed to a mental hospital.

Faraday and Caroline waver between romance and confused platonic friendship. Other sounds in the house alarm Caroline and Mrs Ayres and their two maids. They find curious childish writing on the walls where these activities have taken place. The maids' bells sound without anyone calling them; the phone rings in the middle of the night with no one on the line. A 19th century tube communication device linking the abandoned nursery to the kitchen begins to sound, scaring the maids. When Mrs Ayres goes to investigate, she is locked in the nursery where Susan, her much-loved first daughter, died of diphtheria at eight years old. Experiencing shadows and indiscernible fluttering and frantic to escape, Mrs Ayres pounds the windows open, cutting her arms. After Caroline and the maids free her and she recovers, she comes to believe and take comfort that Susan is around her at all times, that Susan is impatient to be with her though she sometimes harms her. One morning not long after, Caroline and the maid find that Mrs Ayres has hanged herself.

The day of Mrs Ayres's funeral, Faraday and Caroline set plans to marry in six weeks' time. Caroline, however, is listless and uninterested in the wedding, eventually calling it off and making plans to sell Hundreds Hall. Faraday is unable to believe it and tries several times to talk Caroline out of it, to no avail. On the night of their would-be wedding, Faraday has a call that keeps him out. When he finally comes home, he learns that Caroline hurled herself off the second floor onto a marble landing, killing herself. The maid reports at the inquest that she awoke to hear Caroline go upstairs to investigate a sound she heard in the darkened hall. She simply said "You!" then fell to her death. Three years later, Faraday continues to visit the abandoned mansion, unable to find what Caroline saw.

Style
Sara O'Leary in The Gazette states that Waters' narrative voice is her strongest asset and that she has an "uncanny ability to synthesize her research and is never expository in the telling details she draws upon—tiny little things about what people wore or ate or had in their houses". Emma Donoghue in The Globe and Mail remarks on the diversion from the narrative style in The Little Stranger. Waters is known in her previous four novels for providing plot twists, but this one, notes Donoghue, provides a straightforward accounting that tackles issues of insanity, poltergeists, and family secrets "with a minimum of tricks". The review in The Washington Post concurs, using a quote by Henry James to say everything to be done in the way of ghost stories and haunted houses has been done. Ron Charles states that the novel is not cliché due to Waters's restraint: "the story's sustained ambiguity is what keeps our attention, and her perfectly calibrated tone casts an unnerving spell". A similar review appeared in The Australian calling attention to Waters' "moderation and flawless cadence" that forms "a story pulsing with malevolent energy" and an "atmosphere is wickedly, addictively tense".

In The Sunday Telegraph, John Preston writes that "the richness of Waters's writing ensures that the air of thickening dread is very thick indeed. Everything, from Mrs Ayres's 'absurdly over-engineered shoes', to the hairs on Caroline's legs—each one 'laden with dust, like an eye-blacked lash'—is described with a wonderfully sharp eye." Waters herself acknowledges the light-handedness of the supernatural elements of the story, stating "I wanted the ghost story to be fairly subtle. The ghost stories that I've enjoyed are uncanny, unsettling and eerie more than they are about in-your-face pyrotechnics. I wanted it to be very based in the social context of the time, but for it to have this extra element of strangeness."

Several references in The Little Stranger indicate the influences Waters used in its composition. Rebecca Starford in The Australian praises Waters' ability to use elements from other authors: "Waters is one of the great contemporary storytellers. She has never made bones about borrowing", noting that her inspirations for this story were Daphne du Maurier, Henry James, Agatha Christie, and Charles Dickens. As children, Roderick and Caroline changed the hands of a broken clock to twenty minutes to nine, thinking it amusing to reflect the stopped clocks of Miss Havisham's house from Dickens' Great Expectations. Like the narrator of du Maurier's Rebecca, Faraday has no first name; the man overcome by the house in Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher is also named Roderick. Peter Cannon in Publishers Weekly writes that the novel is evocative of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.

Themes

Evil

As a doctor, Faraday is a rational narrator who confronts each member of the Ayres family and the maids in turn as they divulge their suspicions that something in the house is alive. As he consults with other physicians, they are able to explain away the strange happenings easily with answers supplied by medicine and psychology. Waters does not give definitive answers about the occurrences, leaving it more a philosophical issue. Not wanting to frustrate the reader however, she admits "I tried to keep it strange, keep what was happening genuinely odd, without closing it down with a neat explanation at the end." The title of the book is a reference to Faraday's continuing questions; Roderick is fearful that the house is infectious. Eventually Faraday wonders if it is "consumed by some dark germ, some ravenous shadow-creature, some 'little stranger' spawned from the troubled unconscious of someone connected with the house itself".

Emma Donoghue considers the deepest theme of the story to be "the unpindownability of evil", as suspicion shifts to individuals who may be self-destructing from the forces around them, possible malevolent motivations from the family or house staff, an unseen force inhabiting the house, or Faraday himself. Faraday's concern for the family is often intertwined for concern for the house so that he often discourages those who are obviously troubled by staying there from leaving it. He explains away the suspicions of Mrs Ayres, who believes that Susan is in the house trying to hasten their reunion; Caroline, who believes that Roderick is so upset in the mental institution that a part of him is trying to contact the family to warn them of something; and Betty, the maid who is convinced the malevolent spirit of a former domestic resides on the second floor of the home. Faraday's rationalisations become increasingly improbable as he blames all the strangeness on fatigue, stress, even the house's plumbing. Ron Charles in The Washington Post considers Faraday's deep concern for the family that is often mixed with envy to be influenced by Patricia Highsmith's psychopathic manipulator Tom Ripley.

Class
Class and ambition are repeatedly referenced in the novel. Faraday's mother was at one time a nursery maid at Hundreds Hall, much like Waters' grandparents who were domestics in a country estate; the reader is first given a description of its opulence when the narrator is a child and he attends a garden fête, and is so entranced with the building he plies a piece of it off and puts it in his pocket. He often revisits his memory of his first significant impression of the mansion comparing it with its current state. Soldiers were billeted in its rooms during the recent war. Two centuries of wear and weather have taken their toll, and the taxes on the British gentry are too high for the family to bear. They attempt to reconcile their family legacy with the reality of having no money to keep it up. Charlotte Heathcote in The Sunday Express and Rebecca Starford in The Australian both note that the novel is preoccupied with class.

Faraday too is conflicted as he recounts how his family sacrificed everything including his mother's health and life to give him his education. He laments that he has not achieved anything with it and he visits Hundreds Hall vacillating between being flattered and feeling unworthy of knowing a family like the Ayreses. They, however, seem resolute about being unable to afford the upkeep of the house and once Roderick is gone, Caroline and Mrs Ayres are ambivalent about staying in the house. It is Faraday who is most indignant about the family being forced to sell their land and possessions. Faraday is an unreliable narrator, and reviewers noted the slight discrepancies in what he says to the family as their doctor and his devotion to the house at their expense.

Near the end, as Faraday attempts to explain reasonably and scientifically why the family for which he has grown so fond is falling apart, he wonders what must be eating them alive; a friend blurts, "Something is....It's called a Labour government." Barry Didock notes that Waters captures the stark mood of postwar Britain that Evelyn Waugh highlighted in Brideshead Revisited, where the social changes being wrought did not make the future seem optimistic at all. The anxiety about the future is so all-consuming that Scarlett Thomas in The New York Times suggests it is the cause for speculation about each character's sanity. Waters concedes that although her novels are all period pieces, they are not meant to instill an overwhelming romantic sense of nostalgia: "I'd hate to think that my writing's escapist. For me, my interest in the past is closely linked to my interest in the present, in the historical process of how things lead to others."

Plot Twist
Waters' writing was well-received upon the publication of her first novel,Tipping the Velvet, a story set in Victorian London. She began writing in her early thirties while completing a dissertation in English literature about gay and lesbian fiction from the 1870s onward. Not enjoying expository writing, she attempted fiction and finding that she liked it, followed Tipping the Velvet with Affinity, another Victorian-set novel with gothic themes, and Fingersmith, also Victorian yet more of a Dickensian crime drama. All three have significant lesbian themes and characters; Waters often labels them as "Victorian lesbo romps". To avoid being pigeonholed as a niche writer, however (asking "Why, oh why, did I ever allow the phrase 'lesbo Victorian romp' to cross my lips?"), she followed these with The Night Watch, which also has gay and lesbian characters, but is set in the 1940s.

For The Little Stranger, Waters diverted from overt lesbian themes, but incorporated other elements from previous books. A character in Affinity talks to spirits of the dead; the setting of Fingersmith is a large country estate inhabited by a small family and house staff; The Night Watch is set in post-WWII Britain with characters who are somewhat at a loss with what to do following the upheaval of war. Barry Didock in The Herald considers The Night Watch a companion piece to The Little Stranger. Waters states that the change from a conservative to socialist society was her true impetus for writing The Little Stranger: "I didn't set out to write a haunted house novel. I wanted to write about what happened to class in that post-war setting. It was a time of turmoil in exciting ways. Working class people had come out of the war with higher expectations. They had voted in the Labour government. They want change.... So it was a culture in a state of change. But obviously for some people it was a change for the worse." She had originally set out to rewrite a version of The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey, which is a courtroom thriller about a middle-class family accused of kidnapping a young girl.

Waters is well known for the immense amount of research she conducts for her novels. Groundwork for The Night Watch also found its way into The Little Stranger; after this probing she concluded 1947 was "a miserable year". Much of her time preparing for this novel was spent in Warwickshire estate homes and local newspaper archives. She told The Globe and Mail I read a lot of novels from the period. And diaries were a wonderful resource. I also watched films from that period and went to museums and archives to look at ephemera from the period. I like to try to capture the idiom and slang... A writer at that time wouldn't have used profanity in a respectable novel. But if you look at diaries or letters, people were swearing all the time, in very modern-sounding ways. One of the excitements about writing about the past from the present is that you can put in a lot of the details that the mainstream novelists of the time couldn't because of the conventions of the time.

Reception
Upon its release on 28 May 2009, reception to the novel was mostly positive. Ron Charles in The Washington Post calls The Little Stranger "deliciously creepy", stating that the tale is "one screw away from The Fall of the House of Usher". Erica Wagner, a reviewer for The Times confesses that "left alone one night in [her] boxy Seventies ex-council house—about as unspooky a place as you can imagine—had to stop reading for fright". Corinna Hente in The Herald Sun writes "This is a terrific, chilling read you can get lost in, from a first-class storyteller", although she accedes that the novel is slow to start and readers may be disappointed with the ambiguous ending. Charlotte Heathcote calls Waters "a darkly masterful storyteller with a rare gift for bringing a bygone era to vibrant life". The ambiguity of the jostling between evil and class was praised by Scarlett Thomas in The New York Times; she notes, "Sarah Waters is an excellent, evocative writer, and this is an incredibly gripping and readable novel", but certain questions about the likable Ayres family, who are killed as if by being socially redundant, leave Thomas uncomfortable.

Kirkus Reviews was similarly pleased with Waters's detail, but considered the relaxing of tension in crucial places and Faraday's sometimes second-hand narration of events in Hundreds Hall flawed. They write, however, that Waters  "work[s] in traditions established by Edgar Allan Poe, Sheridan le Fanu and Wilkie Collins, expertly teasing us with suggestive allusions to the classics of supernatural fiction. A subtle clue planted in one character's given name neatly foreshadows, then explains, the Ayres family's self-destructive insularity." John Preston in The Sunday Telegraph was disappointed with the ending, complaining of the loss of tension, but states, "it's still a hell of a ride getting there". Tom Beer in Newsday greatly praised the novel, writing that "the pleasures of The Little Stranger aren't those of your garden-variety suspense novel. They lie, instead, with the author's uncanny ability to paint her characters and their world and to seduce the reader into following along with her. Hundreds Hall is a pretty gloomy place, but I was thrilled to spend time there, under the guidance of this supremely gifted storyteller."

Following Fingersmith and The Night Watch, The Little Stranger became Waters' third novel to be short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, a prestigious award for novelists from the British Commonwealth. Salon.com chose the novel as one of the best books of 2009. In autumn 2018, a film adaptation directed by Lenny Abrahamson and starring Domhnall Gleeson and Ruth Wilson was released.

Citations

References to The Little Stranger correspond to Waters, Sarah (2009). The Little Stranger, Riverhead Trade (American edition).

External links
Sarah Waters' website

2009 British novels
British novels adapted into films
Ghost novels
British Gothic novels
English Gothic novels
Novels by Sarah Waters
Novels set in Warwickshire
Novels set in the 1940s
Virago Press books
Novels set in mansions and country houses

The Little Stranger


The dress was a 2015 online viral phenomenon centred on a photograph of a dress. Viewers disagreed on whether the dress was blue and black, or white and gold. The phenomenon revealed differences in human colour perception and became the subject of scientific investigations into neuroscience and vision science.

The phenomenon originated in a photograph of a dress posted on the social networking service Facebook. The dress was black and blue, but the conditions of the photograph caused many to perceive it as white and gold, creating debate. Within a week, more than ten million tweets had mentioned the dress. The retailer of the dress, Roman Originals, reported a surge in sales and produced a one-off version in white and gold sold for charity.

Origin
In February 2015, about a week before the wedding of Grace and Keir Johnston, of Colonsay, Scotland, the bride's mother, Cecilia Bleasdale, took a photograph of a dress at Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet north of Chester, England. Bleasdale intended to wear the dress at the wedding and sent the photograph to Grace. The dress was coloured blue with black lace. However, Grace told her mother she perceived it in the photograph as white with gold lace.

After Grace posted the photograph on Facebook, her friends also disagreed; some saw it as white with gold, while others saw it as blue with black. For a week, the debate became well known in Colonsay, a small island community.

On the day of the wedding, Caitlin McNeill, a friend of the bride and groom, performed with her band at the wedding. Even after seeing that the dress was "obviously blue and black" in reality, the musicians remained preoccupied by the photograph. They said they almost failed to make it on stage because they were caught up discussing the dress. A few days later, on 26 February, McNeill reposted the image to her blog on Tumblr, creating further public discussion surrounding the image.

Response

Initial viral spread

Cates Holderness, who ran the Tumblr page for BuzzFeed at the site's New York offices, received a message from McNeill asking for help resolving the colour dispute of the dress. She dismissed it, but checked the page near the end of her workday and saw that it had received around 5,000 notes, a large amount for Tumblr. Tom Christ, Tumblr's director of data, said at its peak the page was receiving 14,000 views a second (or 840,000 views per minute), well over the normal rates. Later that night, the number of notes increased tenfold.

Holderness showed the picture to other members of the BuzzFeed social media team, who immediately began arguing about the dress colours. She created a simple poll for Tumblr users, then left work and took the subway home. When she got off the train and checked her phone, it was overwhelmed by messages. That evening, the page set a new record at BuzzFeed for concurrent visitors, and eventually peaked at 673,000.

The image became a worldwide Internet meme across social media. On Twitter, users created the hashtags "#whiteandgold", "#blueandblack", and "#dressgate" to discuss their opinions on what the colour of the dress was, and theories surrounding their arguments. The number of tweets about the dress increased throughout the night; at 11:36 pm GMT, when the first increase in the number of tweets about the dress occurred, there were five thousand tweets per minute using the hashtag "#TheDress", increasing to 11,000 tweets per minute with the hashtag by 1:31 am GMT. The photo also attracted discussion relating to the triviality of the matter as a whole; The Washington Post described the dispute as "[the] drama that divided a planet". Some articles humorously suggested that the dress could prompt an existential crisis over the nature of sight and reality, or that the debate could harm interpersonal relationships. Others examined why people were making such a big argument over a seemingly trivial matter.

Overnight popularity
On the evening BuzzFeed posted the article, the Wellesley College neuroscientist Bevil Conway gave some comments about the phenomenon to the Wired reporter Adam Rogers. Before they hung up, Rogers warned him, "Your tomorrow will not be the same." Conway thought he was exaggerating. Rogers's story eventually received 32.8 million unique visitors. When Conway woke up the next morning, his inbox had so many emails he initially thought it had been hacked, until he saw that most were interview requests from major media organisations. "I did 10 interviews and had to have a colleague take my class that day," said Conway.

Celebrities with larger Twitter followings began to comment. A tweet by the American songwriter Taylor Swift, in which she saw the dress as blue and black and said she was "confused and scared"—was retweeted 111,134 times and liked 154,188 times. Jaden Smith, Frankie Muniz, Demi Lovato, Mindy Kaling, and Justin Bieber saw the dress was blue and black, while Anna Kendrick, B. J. Novak, Katy Perry, Julianne Moore, and Sarah Hyland saw it as white and gold. Kim Kardashian tweeted that she saw it as white and gold, while her then-husband Kanye West saw it as blue and black. Lucy Hale, Phoebe Tonkin, and Katie Nolan saw different colour schemes at different times. Lady Gaga described the dress as "periwinkle and sand", while David Duchovny called it teal. Other celebrities, including Ellen DeGeneres and Ariana Grande, mentioned the dress on social media without mentioning specific colours. Politicians, government agencies and social media platforms of major brands also wrote humorous posts. Ultimately, the dress was the subject of 4.4 million tweets within 24 hours.

The dress was designed and manufactured by Roman Originals. In the UK, where the phenomenon had begun, Ian Johnson, creative manager for Roman Originals, learned of the controversy from his Facebook news feed that morning. "I was pretty gobsmacked. I just laughed and told the wife that I'd better get to work," he said. TV presenter Alex Jones wore the dress on that night's edition of The One Show.

Businesses that had nothing to do with the dress, or even the clothing industry, devoted social media attention to the phenomenon. Adobe retweeted another Twitter user who had used some of the company's apps to isolate the dress's colours. "We jumped in the conversation and thought, Let's see what happens," recalled Karen Do, the company's senior manager for social media. Jenna Bromberg, a digital brand manager for Pizza Hut, saw the dress as white and gold and quickly sent out a tweet with a picture of pizza noting that it, too, was the same colours. Do called it "literally a tweet heard around the world".

Ben Fischer of the New York Business Journal reported that interest in the first BuzzFeed article about the dress exhibited vertical growth instead of the typical bell curve of a viral phenomenon, leading BuzzFeed to assign two editorial teams to generate additional articles about the dress to drive ad revenue, and, by 1 March, the original BuzzFeed article had received over 37 million views. The dress was cited by CNN commentator Mel Robbins as a viral phenomenon having the requisite qualities of positivity bias incorporating "awe, laughter and amusement" and was compared to and contrasted with a story about escaped llamas in an Arizona retirement community earlier that day, as well as to tributes paid to actor Leonard Nimoy after his death the following day.

Real colours of dress confirmed
The dress was confirmed as a royal blue "Lace Bodycon Dress" from the retailer, Roman Originals. The dress is black and blue; although it was available in three other colours (red, pink, and ivory, each with black lace), a white and gold version was not available at the time. The day after McNeill's post, Roman Originals' website experienced a major surge in traffic and sold out of the dress within 30 minutes. On 28 February, Roman Originals announced that they would make a single white and gold dress for a Comic Relief charity auction.

On 3 March, the Johnstons, Bleasdale, and MacNeill appeared as guests on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in the United States. The presenter, Ellen DeGeneres, presented each of them with gifts of underwear patterned after the dress and combining both colour schemes. The show sponsors also gave the Johnstons a gift of $10,000 and a honeymoon trip to Grenada, as they had left their honeymoon early to participate in the show.

By 1 March, over two thirds of BuzzFeed users polled responded that the dress was white and gold. Some people have suggested that the dress changes colours on its own. Media outlets noted that the photo was overexposed and had poor white balance, causing its colours to be washed out, giving rise to the perception by some that the dress is white and gold.

Scientific explanations

There is no consensus on why the dress elicits such discordant perceptions. The neuroscientists Bevil Conway and Jay Neitz believe they are a result of how the human brain perceives colour and chromatic adaptation. Conway believes it is connected to how the brain processes the various hues of a daylight sky: "Your visual system is looking at this thing, and you're trying to discount the chromatic bias of the daylight axis... people either discount the blue side, in which case they end up seeing white and gold, or discount the gold side, in which case they end up with blue and black." Neitz said:

Similar theories have been expounded by the University of Liverpool's Paul Knox, who stated that what the brain interprets as colour may be affected by the device the photograph is viewed on, or the viewer's own expectations. Anya Hurlbert and collaborators also considered the problem from the perspective of colour perception. They attributed the differences in perception to individual perception of colour constancy.

The neuroscientist and psychologist Pascal Wallisch states that while inherently ambiguous stimuli have been known to vision science for many years, this is the first such stimulus in the colour domain that was brought to the attention of science by social media. He attributes differential perceptions to differences in illumination and fabric priors, but also notes that the stimulus is highly unusual insofar as the perception of most people does not switch. If it does, it does so only on very long time scales, which is highly unusual for bistable stimuli, so perceptual learning might be at play. In addition, he says that discussions of this stimulus are not frivolous, as the stimulus is both of interest to science and a paradigmatic case of how different people can sincerely see the world differently. Daniel Hardiman-McCartney of the College of Optometrists stated that the picture was ambiguous, suggesting that the illusion was caused by a strong yellow light shining onto the dress, and human perception of the colours of the dress and light source by comparing them with other colours and objects in the picture. The philosopher Barry C. Smith compared the phenomenon with Ludwig Wittgenstein and the rabbit–duck illusion, although the rabbit-duck illusion is an ambiguous image where, for most people, the alternative perceptions switch very easily.

The Journal of Vision, a scientific journal about vision research, announced in March 2015 that a special issue about the dress would be published with the title A Dress Rehearsal for Vision Science. The first large-scale scientific study on the dress was published in Current Biology three months after the image went viral. The study, which involved 1,400 respondents, found that 57 per cent saw the dress as blue and black, 30 per cent saw it as white and gold, 11 per cent saw it as blue and brown, and two per cent reported it as "other". Women and older people disproportionately saw the dress as white and gold. The researchers further found that if the dress was shown in artificial yellow-coloured lighting almost all respondents saw the dress as black and blue, while they saw it as white and gold if the simulated lighting had a blue bias. Another study in the Journal of Vision, by Pascal Wallisch, found that people who were early risers were more likely to think the dress was lit by natural light, perceiving it as white and gold, and that "night owls" saw the dress as blue and black.

A study carried out by Schlaffke et al. reported that individuals who saw the dress as white and gold showed increased activity in the frontal and parietal regions of the brain. These areas are thought to be critical in higher cognition activities such as top-down modulation in visual perception.

Legacy
The dress was included on multiple year-end lists of notable Internet memes in 2015. As the original authors of the photograph that sparked the viral phenomenon, Bleasdale and her partner Paul Jinks later expressed frustration and regret over being "completely left out from the story", including their lack of control over the story, the omission of their role in the discovery, and the commercial use of the photograph. In South Africa, the Salvation Army used the dress in a 2015 campaign to raise awareness of domestic violence, with the slogan: "Why is it so hard to see black and blue?" In July 2023, Keir Johnston was charged with the attempted murder of his wife, Grace, following years of domestic violence and threats.

See also

 Checker shadow illusion
 Law of triviality
 List of Internet phenomena
 Yanny or Laurel
 List of individual dresses

References

External links

   (as of 27 February 2015 at 01:49:59 UTC)

2010s photographs
2010s fashion
2015 in fashion
2015 in science
BuzzFeed
Clothing controversies
Color of clothing
Color photographs
Color vision
February 2015 events
Individual dresses
Internet memes introduced in 2015
Optical illusions
Visual perception
Multicolor dresses

The dress


Sticky rice in bamboo is a common Southeast Asian dish consisting of sticky rice roasted inside specially prepared bamboo sections of different diameters and lengths. It is consumed both as a savory food and as a sweet dessert.

Names
The dish is known by various names throughout Southeast Asia, including paung din (ပေါင်းတင်း) or kauk hnyin kyi dauk () in Burmese, kralan () in Khmer, and khao lam (, ; ) in Lao and Thai and cơm lam in Vietnamese. In Lao and Thai, khao means rice and lam means the cooking process, which involves roasting the contents in prepared bamboo sections, while in Vietnamese cơm lam translates as "bamboo cooked rice".

In Malaysia and Indonesia, it known as lemang, which is typically eaten during Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations, where it can be eaten with rendang.  In the Philippines, this is known as binungey.

Variations

Cambodia

In Cambodia, sticky rice in bamboo is called kralan (). It is made by roasting a mixture of glutinous rice, black-eyed peas or beans, coconut milk, grated coconut and palm sugar in bamboo tubes over a fire for around 90 minutes. Kralan is often eaten at Chinese and Khmer New Year. According to archeological evidence, rice has been cooked in bamboo already by the Mon-Khmer tribes and in Khmer Empire kralan was used as military rations, which has led historian Dr. Michel Tranet to conclude that the method of roasting sticky rice in bamboo tubes originated in Cambodia. Thma Krae village in Kratie Province and Samrong Khnong village in Battambang Province have become well known for their sticky rice in bamboo.

During harvest season, Cambodian Buddhists in the Angkor region celebrate a particular nocturn rite during which local peasants lay down next to each other in what is called a plang kralan () as sticky rice bamboo being grilled to form a human bridge on which the Buddhist monks walk in order to obtain merits and hope of an abundant harvest.

Laos

Sticky rice is ingrained in the national culinary heritage and figures in religious traditions of the Lao people. Since ancient time Lao people used sticky rice to prepare Khao Lam for both feasting and offering to monks. Today, Lao Khao Lam may be made with white or purple (khao kum) sticky rice mixed with coconut cream, beans, small pieces of taro or sweet potato. It can be consumed as a sweet or a festival and celebration food that is frequently served with Lao grilled chicken ping kai. Khao lam and Ping Kai are so popular they are sold on roadsides in Laos.

Myanmar (Burma)

Paung din () or kaukhnyin kyidauk () is another ready-to-eat portable form cooked in a segment of bamboo.  When the bamboo is peeled off, a thin skin remains around the rice, and it also gives off a distinctive aroma.

Thailand
Khao lam uses sticky rice with red beans, sugar, grated coconut, and coconut milk. It can be prepared with white or dark purple (khao niao dam) varieties of glutinous rice. Sometimes described as a "cake", thick khao lam containers may have a filling of coconut custard in the center that is made from coconut cream, egg, and sugar.  Khao lam can be consumed as savory food or dessert. It is a cultural food and is an OTOP product. Moreover, Thai people present khao lam to monks to make merit. Further, it is gradually becoming a Thai tradition.

In the past, Thailand had innumerable bamboo trees. Thai people thought about the utility of using bamboo for cooking purposes. The ingredients of khao lam are glutinous rice, black beans, coconut milk, sugar and salt. Moreover, taro or young coconut may be added.

Vietnam
In Vietnam, it is called cơm lam and found in the Northwest Mountainous Area. It originated when mountain people, such as the Tai peoples, would prepare for long journeys by pressing wet rice (cơm) with added salt, into bamboo tubes, and cooking. Cơm lam is also served in Central Highlands food stalls with chicken.

See also
 Daetong-bap
 Lemang

References

External links

Pictures of kralan being made
ក្រឡាន Kralan. Chef Nak. 7 July 2022.

Glutinous rice dishes
Burmese rice dishes
Cambodian cuisine
Chinese New Year foods
Lao cuisine
Thai rice dishes
Vietnamese rice dishes
Foods containing coconut

Sticky rice in bamboo


Félix Pyat (4 October 1810 – 3 August 1889) was a French socialist journalist, playwright, politician and a leading figure of the Paris Commune.

Biography
He was born in Vierzon (Cher), the son of a Legitimist lawyer. Called to the bar in Paris in 1831, he threw his whole energies into journalism. The violent personal attacks in a pamphlet entitled Marie-Joseph Chénier et le prince des critiques (1844), in reply to Jules Janin, brought him six months' sojourn in the Sainte-Pélagie prison, in the cell just vacated by Lamennais. In 1846 he edited the collected works of Claude Tillier in four volumes and wrote a detailed introduction to Tillier's biography and work.

He worked with other dramatists in a long series of plays, with an interval of six years on the National, until the revolution of 1848. George Sand, whom he had introduced in 1830 to the staff of Le Figaro, now asked Ledru-Rollin to make him commissary-general of the Cher. After three months' tenure of this office he was elected by the Cher department to the constituent assembly, where he voted with the Mountain, and brought forward the celebrated motion for the abolition of the presidential office.

About this time he fought a duel with Proudhon, who had called him the aristocrat of democracy. He joined Ledru-Rollin in the attempted insurrection of 13 June 1849, after which he sought refuge in Switzerland, Belgium, and finally in England, where he became involved with the irregular masonic organisation, La Grande Loge des Philadelphes. For having glorified regicide after Orsini's attempt on the life of Napoleon III he was brought before an English court, but acquitted, and the general amnesty of 1869 permitted his return to France. However, further outbursts against the authorities, followed by prosecution, compelled him to return to England.

The deposing of Napoleon III on 4 September 1870 brought him back to Paris, and it was he who in his paper Le Combat displayed a black-edged announcement of the negotiations for the surrender of Metz to the Prussians. After the insurrection of 31 October he was imprisoned for a short time. In January 1871, Le Combat was suppressed, only to be followed by an equally virulent Vengeur.

Elected to the National Assembly of France, he retired from Bordeaux, where it sat, with Henri Rochefort and others until such time as the so-called "parricidal" vote for peace should be annulled. He returned to Paris to join the Committee of Public Safety, and, in Hanotaux's words, was the  of the Paris Commune, but was blamed for the loss of the fort of Issy. He was superseded on the committee by Delescluze, but he continued to direct some of the violent acts of the Commune, the overthrow of the Vendôme column, the destruction of Adolphe Thiers's residence and of the expiatory chapel built to the memory of Louis XVI. He escaped the vengeance of the Versailles government, crossed the frontier in safety, and, though he had been condemned to death in his absence in 1873, the general amnesty of July 1880 permitted his return to Paris.

He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the department of Bouches-du-Rhône in March 1888 and took his seat on the extreme Left, but died at Saint-Gratien the following year.

References

External links

1810 births
1889 deaths
People from Vierzon
French socialists
Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery
19th-century French journalists
French male journalists
19th-century male writers
Communards

Félix Pyat


Erode Venkata Ramasamy (17 September 1879 – 24 December 1973), also called Periyar, Thanthai Periyar or E. V. R. by his followers, was an Indian philosopher, politician, independence and social activist. He started the Self-Respect Movement or the Dravidian Movement and proposed the creation of an independent state called Dravida Nadu, uniting the states of South India. He was also the founder of the socio-cultural organization, Dravidar Kazhagam. Periyar started his weekly magazine, "Kudi Arasu" to express his views against the Congress party and Mahatma Gandhi.

Life
Periyar was born in Erode, Madras Presidency in a rich family. At a young age, he witnessed many incidents of racial, caste and gender discrimination. Periyar married when he was 19 and had a daughter who lived for only 5 months. His first wife, Nagammai, died in 1933. He always protested against young women getting married to much older people. Periyar, when he was 72, married for a second time, Maniammai who was 32 at the time in July 1948. His second wife, Maniammai, continued Periyar's social work after his death in 1973, but Dravidar Kazhagam was still spreading his thoughts and ideas.
Periyar fought for the Tamil language, Tamil people, and for their rights until his death. He was against Brahmin for their caste and religious following. Periyar organized anti-Hindi protests in 1938, against introducing Hindi as a compulsory language of study in schools. Now in the present days, Periyar's followers are increasing all over the world among the Tamil people, due to their interest in Tamil language and history behind them.

Tamil activists
1879 births
1973 deaths
Tamil Nadu politicians

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy


Nicoleta Alexandru (; born 5 November 1968), whose stage name is Nicola (), is a Romanian singer. She is best known for representing Romania at the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest.

Life and career

Nicoleta Alexandru was born in Bucharest, Romania. Nicola began her solo career in 1992 and has since toured extensively and made numerous television, radio and stage appearances. In 2003, she was awarded the Woman of the Year award by Avantaje magazine, her song "Lângă mine" was awarded "The Song of the Year" prize by București and Actualitati Radio stations, and she was awarded  Mamaia and Love Song Festival trophies for the same song.

On 1 March 2003, after a huge response to her song "Don't Break My Heart," Nicola won the Romanian national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest at Riga. In the international final, she came in 10th place. She released her fourth LP, Best Of Nicola, that same year. Building on the recognition gained from the Eurovision Song Contest, the album sold more copies than expected for a Romanian artist and was certified platinum. That year she also won "Best Female" at the TV K Lumea awards.

In January 2005, she released "De mă vei chema" which went on to spawn two hit singles; "De mă vei chema" and "Honey". She subsequently launched the video for lead single "De mă vei chema," which was filmed near Bucharest. It featured her backing band, consisting of Andrei Stanoevici, Cătălin Dalvarea, Ștefan Corbu and her ex-husband Mihai Alexandru. Nominated for her success, she faced tough competition for "Best Pop" and "Best Female" at the MTV Romania Music Awards 2005; the latter she went on to win. In late 2005, it was announced she and her husband, Mihai Alexandru, were set to divorce after 15 years of marriage. The divorce became big news in Romanian tabloids, not only because of her fame, but also the nature of the divorce and his status as a high-profile music producer.

In summer 2007, Nicola returned to the charts with "Doar noi doi". The video was filmed on location in Barcelona, Spain. Later on in the year, she released "Dacă-i tarziu," which was set to launch her fourth studio album, but the release was held back to participate in Romania's national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. Her song, "Fairytale Story", placed 7th out of 12 songs in the national final. Nicola then went on to release the single, "Leave No Heart Behind," in fall 2008, which was written by Thomas Nichols, who co-wrote songs by Céline Dion and All Saints.

On 21 August 2009, Nicola launched her studio album, "Thank You". The first single released from the album was My Love, which was co-worked with Kord. The single has a music video, which was directed by Dragoș Buliga.

Discography

Albums
Cu tălpile goale (1999) ("Barefoot")
Turquoise (2000)
 Vamos a Mamaia
 Domnul președinte
 Ce mult te vreau
 I Feel Good
 Freak d'a disk
 Turquoise
 Iarna (Milioane)
 Mr. Joe
 Hercules
Lângă mine (2002) ("Beside Me")
 Lângă mine
 Undeva, cândva
 I Do
 Eu
 Îți mulțumesc
 Cântec pentru Iisus
 Te așteaptă cineva
 Undeva, cândva – rmx
Best of Nicola (2003)
 Lângă mine
 Dincolo de noapte e zi
 Îți mulțumesc
 Turquoise
 Lângă mine (phantom winter tale rmx)
 Iarna (Milioane)
 Dincolo de noapte e zi (rmx)
 Don't Break My Heart
 Cu tălpile goale
 I Do
 Halimah
 Undeva, cândva
 Vamos a Mamaia
 Lângă mine (phantom rmx)
De mă vei chema (2005) ("If You Call Me")
 De mă vei chema
 Honey
 Ascunde-mă de ploaie
 A venit
 Don't Break My Heart
 Nu știam
 Power of Love
 Love Is...
 Ascunde-mă de ploaie – rmx
 Îți mulțumesc (feat. Dana Dorian)
Thank You (2009)
 My Love (Tango remix by Kord)
 My Love (white vers.)
 My Love (extended)
 Leave No Heart Hehind
 Doar noi doi
 Fairytale Story
 Omule de pe stradă
 Thank You
 Poveste
 Vise în doi
 Dacă-i târziu
 The Winner Takes It All
 Dansez
 Yeah, Yeah

References

External links
 www.nicola.ro-NICOLA Official Website
 NICOLA Official MySpace

1968 births
Living people
20th-century Romanian women singers
20th-century Romanian singers
21st-century Romanian women singers
21st-century Romanian singers
Romanian women pop singers
English-language singers from Romania
Musicians from Bucharest
Eurovision Song Contest entrants for Romania
Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 2003

Nicoleta Alexandru


John Renshaw Thomson (September 25, 1800September 12, 1862) was an American merchant and politician from New Jersey.

Life
Thomson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Edward Thomson (1771-1853) and Ann Renshaw (1773-1842).  His father along with an uncle, George Thomson, were shipowners extensively involved in the China Trade.

Thomson attended the common schools in Princeton, New Jersey, and the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). In 1817, he went to China and assisted his father in the mercantile trade.  John served as the United States Consul to Canton from 1823 to 1825, succeeding his late brother Richard Renshaw Thomson, whose sudden death left the position vacant.

In 1825–26, Edward Thomson's business failed.  His son returned to the United States and, in the winter of 1825, married Annis Stockton, a daughter of Senator Richard Stockton and granddaughter of Continental Congressman Richard Stockton and poet Annis Boudinot Stockton.  The match brought many financial and political advantages.  The young couple settled in Princeton.

Thomson became a director and secretary of the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company and was president, and later treasurer, of the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad. He was a delegate to the New Jersey State Constitutional Convention of 1844, and was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Governor of New Jersey the same year.

Thomson's wife Annis died in 1842; in 1845, he married Josephine A. Ward, daughter of congressman Aaron Ward of New York.  Thomson had no children with either wife.

Thomson was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of his brother-in-law Robert F. Stockton. Thomson was re-elected in 1857, occupying the seat from March 4, 1853, until his death in Princeton, New Jersey.  He was chairman of the Committee on Patents and the Patent Office (36th United States Congress) and the Committee on Pensions (Thirty-sixth Congress).  Thomson was a friend of President James Buchanan, and supported repeal of the Missouri Compromise on the grounds that slavery was permitted under the United States Constitution, as well as the candidacy of John C. Breckinridge in the 1860 United States Presidential Election, but when southern states began to form the Confederate States of America after the election, Thomson supported the Union.

He was interred in Princeton Cemetery. In 1878, his widow Josephine married Maryland governor Thomas Swann.

See also
List of United States Congress members who died in office (1790–1899)

References

External links

Obit in The Congressional Globe (Vol. 54, part 1, page 7)

1800 births
1862 deaths
People of New Jersey in the American Civil War
Politicians from Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton University alumni
Democratic Party United States senators from New Jersey
New Jersey Democrats
Burials at Princeton Cemetery
Politicians from Philadelphia
19th-century American politicians
American consuls
Stockton family of New Jersey

John Renshaw Thomson


"Lisa's Substitute" is the nineteenth episode of The Simpsons second season. It first started on Fox in the United States on April 25, 1991. In this episode, Lisa's teacher Miss Hoover gets Lyme disease, so substitute teacher "Mr. Bergstrom" takes over the class. Lisa finds Mr. Bergstrom's teaching methods inspiring and finds a whole new love for learning. When Miss Hoover returns to class, Lisa is sad to lose her most positive adult role model. Eventually, she knows that while Mr. Bergstrom was one of a kind, she can find role models in other people, like her father Homer. Meanwhile, Bart runs for class president against "Martin."

Other websites

1991 television episodes
The Simpsons (season 2) episodes

Lisa's Substitute


Burlington Northern Santa Fe Manitoba (BNSF Manitoba) is a Canadian subsidiary railroad of the BNSF Railway, which operates in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Equipment
BNSF Manitoba uses a single EMD GP locomotive. The company uses a single caboose with the reporting mark BN 12580. It has a bilingual Operation Lifesaver paint scheme, reminding motorists to Look, Listen, Live. They also have a few trucks used to move the switchman around, and move maintenance crews around, and they have maintenance of way vehicles to maintain their tracks.

History
This railway traces its history to the Midland Railway of Manitoba which was incorporated in 1903 and built various lines around Winnipeg.  The operations of the company were acquired by the Manitoba Great Northern Railway, a subsidiary of the Great Northern Railway (GN) on July 1, 1909.

The lines were sold by the GN to the city of Winnipeg, except for the following sections:

 line from the CN mainline at Lindsay Street and Taylor Avenue to McPhillips Avenue
 Winnipeg yard trackage

The line to the Canada–United States border at Noyes, Minnesota, was sold to the Canadian National Railway (CN), although the GN maintained trackage rights over it to access its tracks in Winnipeg.

After the GN was merged into the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1970, the name of the MGNR was changed to Burlington Northern Manitoba Ltd. (BNML) in 1971.  The last name change was to Burlington Northern Santa Fe (Manitoba) took place in 1999, following the merger of the BNSF Railway in 1996.

There are currently seven employees: train crew having four, and maintenance of way having three.

Trackage
BNSF owns tracks from the CNR Rivers Subdivision near Lindsay St, to Academy Rd and from north of Portage Ave to Pacific Ave. Along the line is their engine house and ADM industry between Taylor Ave to Grant Ave, and a yard from Grant Ave to Corydon Ave. At the north end of the track, there are a couple more industries. BNSF has trackage rights on the CPR La Riviere Subdivision between Academy Rd to just north of Portage Avenue, and the CNR Rivers Subdivision between Lindsay St, and Fort Rouge Yard. BNSF also has trackage rights on the entire CN Letellier Sub, usually just used for shunting cars at the CNR Fort Rouge Yard.

Manitoba railways
BNSF Railway

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Manitoba


Ernest Ion Pool  (22 November 1857 in City of Westminster – 26 September 1931 in Hastings) was a British athlete who competed in the Marathon at the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris. He did not complete the race.

After he returned to England he wrote an article for the club magazine of the South London Harriers commenting on his experiences;

"The marathon turned out a dismal fiasco. The whole conduct of the race on the part of
the responsible officials, beginning with the tardy date of the announcement abroad down to
the smallest details providing, or rather failing to provide, for the convenience of contestants on the fatal day, and the entire absence of precautions to ensure fair play, can only be characterized by the one word "Presposterous" – with a capital P.

Add to this the non-sporting instincts of the French populace and it will not be necessary to cite fully the details of the troubles that invariably beset the strangers only bicycles and cars for obstacles.

At the best it proved a steeplechase, 25 miles is really too far for a steeplechase, but that was with mere circumstance. Suffice it to say that when the three placed men in last year's London to Brighton GAYP found it necessary to retire inside of four miles and Arthur Newton (a well known
long distance record breaker in the States), who was unwise enough to finish, took
longer than walking time to complete the distance, it shows that things were very, very wrong.
I could a further tale unfold...but 'no mattah.

References

External links

Buchanan, Ian  British Olympians. Guinness Publishing (1991)

Olympic athletes for Great Britain
Athletes (track and field) at the 1900 Summer Olympics
British male marathon runners
1857 births
1931 deaths
Place of birth missing
Athletes from London

Ernest Ion Pool