Thomas George Hooper (born 5 October 1972) is a British-Australian film director.

Hooper began making short films as a teenager and had his first professional short, Painted Faces, broadcast on Channel 4 in 1992. At Oxford University, Hooper directed plays and television commercials. After graduating, he directed episodes of Quayside, Byker Grove, EastEnders, and Cold Feet on British television. In the 2000s, Hooper directed the major BBC costume dramas Love in a Cold Climate (2001) and Daniel Deronda (2002), as well as the 2003 revival of ITV's Prime Suspect series, starring Helen Mirren. Hooper made his feature film debut with Red Dust (2004), a British drama starring Hilary Swank and Chiwetel Ejiofor, before directing Helen Mirren again in the Company Pictures/HBO Films historical drama Elizabeth I (2005). He continued working for HBO on the television film Longford (2006) and in John Adams (2008), a seven-part serial on the life of the American president. Hooper returned to features with The Damned United (2009), a fact-based film about the English football manager Brian Clough (played by Michael Sheen). The following year saw the release of the historical drama The King's Speech (2010), starring Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush, which was met with critical acclaim. Hooper's next film was Les Misérables (2012), which featured an all-star cast led by Hugh Jackman. His 2015 film, The Danish Girl, was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. Later, Hooper directed two episodes of His Dark Materials and a live-action adaptation of the musical Cats, for which he won two Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Director and Worst Screenplay.

Hooper's work was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for Prime Suspect and John Adams, won one for Elizabeth I, and was nominated for the British Academy (BAFTA) TV Craft Award for Best Director for Longford. The King's Speech won multiple awards, including Best Director wins for Hooper from the Directors Guild of America and the Academy Awards and a Best Director nomination from BAFTA.

Early life
Tom Hooper was born on 5 October 1972 in London, England, the son of Meredith Jean (Rooney) and Richard Hooper. Meredith is an Australian author and academic and Richard is an English media businessman. Hooper was educated at Highgate School and Westminster School. His initial interest in drama was triggered by his English and drama teacher at Highgate, former Royal Shakespeare Company actor Roger Mortimer, who produced an annual school play.

At the age of 12, Hooper read a book entitled How to Make Film and Television and decided he wanted to become a director. For the next year Hooper researched filmmaking from publications such as On Camera by Harris Watts. Aged 13, he made his first film, entitled Runaway Dog, using a clockwork 16mm Bolex camera his uncle had given to him. Hooper said: "The clockwork would run out after thirty seconds, so the maximum shot length was thirty seconds. I could only afford a hundred feet of Kodachrome reversal film, which cost about twenty-five [pounds], and you had to send off for two weeks to be processed. I could only make silent movies, because sound was too expensive and complicated." He slowed down the frame rate of the camera so he could maximise what little film stock he had. Hooper classified the short, about a dog which kept running away from its owner, as a comedy, and filmed it on location in Oxfordshire.

When Hooper was 14, his film Bomber Jacket came runner-up in a BBC younger filmmakers' competition. The short starred Hooper's brother as a boy who discovers a bomber jacket and a photograph hidden in a cupboard and learns his grandfather died in World War II. Another of Hooper's short films, entitled Countryside, depicts a nuclear holocaust.

Hooper finished school aged 16, then wrote the script for his first professional short film, entitled Painted Faces. He spent the next two years raising capital for the short by courting advertisement directors, whose financial dominance during the late 1980s was noticed by Hooper. Director Paul Weiland invested in the short, which provided Hooper with the equipment he needed. After two years of financing and production, Painted Faces was completed. Hooper wrote, produced, directed and edited it. It was sold to Channel 4 and broadcast on the channel's First Frame strand in 1992, had a screening at the 35th London Film Festival and had a limited theatrical release.

After taking a gap year to finance Painted Faces, Hooper read English at University College, Oxford. He joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society, where he directed Kate Beckinsale in A View from the Bridge and Emily Mortimer in The Trial. Hooper also had his first paid directing work, earning £200 for a corporate Christmas video, and he directed his first television advertisements, including one for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 featuring Right Said Fred. He continues to direct advertisements alongside television and film projects. In 1996 he joined the commercial production company John S. Clarke Productions and in 2001 he signed with Infinity Productions. Hooper has also directed commercials including an ad for Jaguar with Tom Hiddleston, Ben Kingsley, and Mark Strong, which aired during Super Bowl XLV. His commercial work is produced through international production company SMUGGLER.

Career

BBC and ITV productions
After graduating from Oxford, Hooper directed further television commercials, intending to break into the film industry the same way Ridley Scott, Tony Scott and Hugh Hudson did. He was introduced by his father to the television producer Matthew Robinson, who mentored Hooper and gave him his first television directing work. For Robinson, Hooper directed episodes of the short-lived Tyne Tees Television soap opera Quayside in 1997, four episodes of the Children's BBC television series Byker Grove in the same year, and his first episodes of the BBC One soap opera EastEnders in 1998.

Hooper directed several EastEnders episodes between 1998 and 2000, two of which were hour-long specials that represented the soap when it won the British Academy Television Award for Best Soap Opera in 2000 and 2001; the first was the episode in which Carol Jackson (Lindsey Coulson) learns her daughter Bianca (Patsy Palmer) had an affair with her fiancé Dan Sullivan (Craig Fairbrass). The Jackson episode marked the beginning of a week of episodes that led to Palmer's departure from the soap, and Robinson had hired Hooper to direct the key episodes of that storyline. Hooper worked 10-hour days on EastEnders, and learned to direct with speed. He was influenced in his early career by the cinematic style of American TV series such as ER, NYPD Blue and Homicide: Life on the Street and tried to work that style into his EastEnders episodes; one scene featuring Grant Mitchell (Ross Kemp) involved a crane shot, which Hooper believes made him infamous among the EastEnders production crew.

In 1999, Hooper directed two episodes of Granada Television's comedy-drama television series Cold Feet, which marked his move to bigger-budget productions. There was initially concern at Granada that Hooper might be an unsuitable director for the series given his background in drama.

In 2001, Hooper directed his first of two costume dramas for the BBC; Love in a Cold Climate was based on Nancy Mitford's novels The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. Hooper, the writer Deborah Moggach, and the producer Kate Harwood researched the period details of the production by interviewing Nancy's sister Deborah. In 2002, Hooper directed Daniel Deronda, adapted from George Eliot's novel. The Guardians Mark Lawson said of Hooper's two costume dramas, "he brought verve and intelligence to television's most conservative form".

Hooper returned to Granada the next year to direct the revival of Prime Suspect, entitled The Last Witness. The two-part serial was the first Prime Suspect instalment to be made since 1995, when star Helen Mirren quit. Hooper initially declined to direct the production because he believed the series was tired. Granada's head of drama Andy Harries introduced Hooper to Mirren, who persuaded him to take the job by promising that he could make the serial his own way. The two-part serial was broadcast on the ITV network in November 2003. Hooper's direction received praise from Andrew Billen in the New Statesman: "Tom Hooper proved an outstanding director, imposing a bleak, overlit hyper-realism on the search for a killer in a hospital, isolating Mirren in rows of empty chairs and playing on the eyewitness/optical visual metaphors." The serial was also broadcast on PBS in the United States. Hooper received nominations for the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Serial and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or Dramatic Special for his work on Prime Suspect.

Film debut and HBO works

Hooper made his debut as a feature film director with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission drama Red Dust (2004), which stars Hilary Swank, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jamie Bartlett. The film was not widely seen, which Hooper attributed to media coverage of torture during the Iraq War: "When I started making it you could watch the movie with a wonderful sense of 'we'd never do it in our own country…they're the horrible people but it's not us.' By the time the film came out (there were) these revelations that the Americans were torturing, the British were torturing. The film became a lot more uncomfortable for the very audiences it was designed to target. I have learned that sadly the theatrical audience does not run to see films that are openly issue-led." The premiere of the film in the United Kingdom came on BBC Two in 2005, making it eligible for the BAFTA Television Awards; it was nominated in the Best Single Drama category at the 2006 ceremony.

In 2005, Hooper was asked by Helen Mirren to direct the Company Pictures/HBO Films two-part serial Elizabeth I, in which she was starring. The serial won Hooper his first Emmy Award, for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or Dramatic Special. In January 2006, Hooper commenced filming the Granada/HBO television film Longford. The film dramatises the failed efforts of Lord Longford (played by Jim Broadbent) to secure the release from prison of Moors murderer Myra Hindley (played by Samantha Morton). The film was broadcast on Channel 4 in October 2006. Seb Morton-Clark for the Financial Times called Longford one of the most accomplished television dramas of 2006, and praised the writer and director: "Morgan and director Tom Hooper wove a seamless narrative about obsession – and not just that of the misguided philanthropist for the incarcerated Hindley or even that that existed between the sadistic lovers themselves. More significantly, by using chunks of original television footage, they painted a stark picture of the zealotry of a vengeful nation and its press over the supposed embodiment of evil." Hooper's continued successes led him to be ranked at number four in the Directors category of Broadcast magazine's annual Hot 100. The following year he was nominated for the British Academy Television Craft Award for Best Director for Longford.

Elizabeth I and Longford led directly to Hooper being selected by Tom Hanks to direct the epic miniseries John Adams for Playtone and HBO. Hooper had been working on a biographical film with Joan Didion about Katharine Graham, publisher of The Washington Post, since 2006 when he was asked by Hanks to helm the programme. The miniseries, starring Paul Giamatti as John Adams, was based on David McCullough's Adams biography and was Hooper's first wholly American production. He worked on the miniseries for a total of 16 months; principal photography lasted 110 days on locations in the United States, France, England and Hungary and he controlled a $100 million budget. The Boston Globes Matthew Gilbert complimented Hooper's style of direction in the first two episodes "Join or Die" and "Independence":

Director Tom Hooper lets his actors shine, as he did so marvelously in Helen Mirren's Elizabeth I and the child-killer drama Longford, but he complements them, too, with this kind of immediate point of view. And when he does give us panoramic shots from afar – of the Adams farm in Braintree, for example – they're askew, to keep us out of the classroom mode. At the end of episode 2 [...] Hooper showcases all his directorial strength with one bold choice. When the long-fretting Congress finally decides to break with Britain, he refrains from using any visual or aural tweaks. Upon the announcement, "The resolution carries," the scene remains perfectly silent for one long moment. The terror of responsibility hangs heavily in the room, while a victorious soundtrack surely would have chased it away.

John Adams received 23 Emmy Award nominations, including another Outstanding Direction nomination for Hooper, and won 13, the highest number for any nominee in a single year. He was also nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement. At the beginning of 2009, he was profiled for The Observers film Hotlist.

Independent feature films

The wake of John Adams' Emmy wins brought offers to Hooper from studios to direct spy and comic book films, which he declined. In November 2007, he signed on to direct The Damned United, reuniting him with Peter Morgan and Andy Harries. The film was an adaptation of David Peace's novel The Damned Utd, a fictional version of the 44 turbulent days English football manager Brian Clough spent as manager of Leeds United. It was originally developed by Stephen Frears for Michael Sheen to play Clough. Frears quit the project after he was unable to translate the book to film. Hooper received a copy of the script while shooting John Adams in Hungary and noticed a similarity between the "egotistical, flawed, brilliant" Adams and the "egotistical, flawed, brilliant" Clough. He was not put off by joining the project later, as Morgan's script was in only its first draft. During pre-production, Hooper engaged in meticulous research, particularly on the locations and the football grounds of the era. He cast Timothy Spall as Clough's assistant Peter Taylor, Colm Meaney as Don Revie and Jim Broadbent as Derby County chairman Sam Longson. During editing, it was decided to make the tone of the film lighter to attract audiences and to appease the real people depicted in the film. The Damned United was released in 2009.

Work on Hooper's next film, The King's Speech, began in the same year. Hooper explained: "It was a stage play, and my mother who's Australian was invited to a fringe [theatre] reading in London because she's part of the Australian community. The play's about the relationship between King George the Sixth and his Australian speech therapist. She came back and said 'you've got to read this play,' and I read it and it was brilliant ...". Hooper cast Colin Firth as George VI and Geoffrey Rush as Lionel Logue and spent three weeks with the actors reading the script and rehearsing. Principal photography took place on location around the UK from November 2009 to January 2010. During editing, Hooper continued to consult with Firth and Rush by sending them cuts of the film and listening to their feedback.

Hooper completed the final cut of the film at the end of August 2010 and presented it a few days later at the Telluride Film Festival. The film won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and Hooper won the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures. In February 2011, he was presented with the Academy Award for Best Director, though lost the BAFTA Award for Best Direction to David Fincher. In comparing the two films, Varietys Adam Dawtrey wrote, "Hooper's 2009 film The Damned United did not register among awards selectors, but King's Speech is a much more personal project. His Anglo-Australian parentage reflects the culture clash at the heart of the movie, and it pays off with beautifully crafted, crowd-pleasing drama."

Studio films
Following the success of The King's Speech during the awards season, Hooper joined the 15-person board of governors at the British Film Institute, was invited to join the directors branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and was ranked at number 19 in The Times British Film Power 100. In March 2009, Hooper met with Nelson Mandela in preparation for directing a film adaptation of Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. By 2012, however, he had left the project.

He was offered the chance to direct Iron Man 3 for Marvel Studios but declined and instead signed on to direct Les Misérables for Working Title Films, which he had first heard about while discussing a different project with screenwriter William Nicholson in 2010. Hooper had not seen the musical, so watched a performance of it in London's West End. Adapted from the musical, the film starred Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Eddie Redmayne. As the film required the actors to sing and dance, they were auditioned in front of Hooper, producers and composers. The role of Fantine was hugely contested; Hooper said, "It was like half a dozen of the biggest female movie stars on the planet wanted to play the role".

Hooper investigated filming the feature in 3D, and performed some camera tests before deciding to film it with traditional 2D methods. He stated "[...] I slightly worry with 3D that some people will physically struggle with it. If you have a certain type of eyesight, it can be more demanding than watching a normal movie." Unlike other musical films, Les Misérables features the actors singing live on camera, rather than miming to backing vocals. Hooper told Los Angeles Times that he thought there was a "slightly strange falseness" when he saw musical films where the actors sang to recordings. The actors wore wireless earpieces on set so they could sing to accompanying piano music. Hooper believed this method allowed the actors to have emotional control over their songs: "When Annie [Hathaway, who plays Fantine] is singing 'I Dreamed a Dream', if she needs to take a tenth of a second to have a thought before she sings it, or to have an emotion before she sings a line, she can take it."Les Miserables was released in North America on 25 December 2012, and received eight Academy Award nominations including Best Picture.

Hooper's fifth feature film, The Danish Girl, was released in late 2015. It loosely tells the story of Lili Elbe, one of the first people to undergo sex reassignment surgery, and wife Gerda Wegener. It stars Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander, both of whom received Academy Award nominations. Critics were generally positive about the film.

In May 2016, it was announced that he would direct an adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage musical, Cats, which is in turn, based on T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Filming commenced in November 2018 and the film, which stars Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, James Corden, Idris Elba and Taylor Swift, was released on 20 December 2019 but was a critical and commercial failure. Hooper co-produced the original song "Beautiful Ghosts" with Lloyd Webber and Greg Wells, written by Swift and Lloyd Webber.

Directorial style

Hooper uses camera styles "that encode the DNA of the storytelling in some way" and will reuse and develop filming styles in successive productions. Hooper identifies research as being key to his process of directing period dramas such as John Adams to make the scenes authentic. For The Damned United, Hooper and director of photography Ben Smithard researched the look of the late 1960s and early 1970s through football photography books. Hooper has also been influenced by cinematographer Larry Smith, who worked with Stanley Kubrick and advised Hooper of techniques used by Kubrick. Hooper and Smith have worked together on Cold Feet, Love in a Cold Climate, Prime Suspect, Red Dust and Elizabeth I.

Hooper also uses uncommon framing techniques to emphasise story; in John Adams, he wanted to imply American independence seemed unlikely during the Revolutionary War, so he used "a very rough camera style—almost all hand held, wide lenses close to the actors, lots of movement, many cameras shooting at once so there was often not a settled master "point of view", and lots of unmatching dutch tilts so the horizon lines of the frame were often being thrown off." The America-set scenes were contrasted by the scenes set in France, in which more traditional filming techniques were employed to evoke a feel of entrenched values. Similarly, in The Damned United, Hooper began to experiment with using wide-angle lenses and putting actors in the extreme edges of the frame. He was influenced by the unusual framing from social photography of the 1970s, and he and Ben Smithard decided to adopt the framing style while scouting locations. Hooper used the same style in The King's Speech, particularly in the scene where Bertie and Logue meet in Logue's consulting room; Colin Firth is framed to the extreme left of the picture, leaving most of the shot dominated by the rough wall behind Firth.

Another frequently used technique is Hooper's tendency to use a variety of focal length camera lenses to distort the resulting picture. In The Damned United he used a 10mm lens, notably in the scene where Clough stays inside during the Derby–Leeds match. Hooper operated the camera in this scene himself. In The King's Speech, Hooper used "typically 14mm, 18mm, 21mm, 25mm and 27mm" lenses and put the camera close to the actors' faces. Hooper said the use of this method in the first consulting room scene served to "suggest the awkwardness and tension of Logue and Bertie's first meeting".

Following the release of Cats, reports came from the film's visual effects departments of Hooper's "hurtful", "horrible", "disrespectful" and "demeaning attitude" towards them and their work. The VFX team reportedly were forced to work upwards of 90 hour working weeks, with some employees staying at the offices for two to three days at a time just to finish the film. One member of the VFX team said Hooper's treatment "was pure, almost slavery for us", with six months to complete the trailer, and only four months to complete the film.  Hooper supposedly had no inclination as to the process of visual effects, thus the VFX department could not show Hooper the step-by-step process of what he wanted, such as animatics, unless it was already rendered. He reportedly would send emails to individual VFX artists on the film to denigrate their work. Hooper would also insult them during conference meetings, calling the work "garbage". Neither Hooper nor Universal have commented on the accusations.

Filmography

Film

Television

Miniseries

TV film
 Longford (2006)

Awards and nominations

Directed Academy Award performances

Hooper has directed multiple Academy Award-nominated performances, three of which have won.

See also
List of directorial debuts
List of EastEnders crew members
List of English Academy Award nominees and winners
List of University of Oxford people

Notes

References

External links

Hooper's Academy Award for Best Director acceptance speech (video)

1972 births
Alumni of University College, Oxford
Best Directing Academy Award winners
English people of Australian descent
English film directors
English film producers
English television directors
English male screenwriters
Living people
People educated at Westminster School, London
Film directors from London
Film producers from London
Primetime Emmy Award winners
People educated at Highgate School
Directors Guild of America Award winners
English-language film directors
Australian people of English descent
Australian television directors
Australian film directors
Australian film producers
Australian screenwriters
Australian expatriates in England

Tom Hooper


The Battle of Shanhaiguan was a battle in 1900 where Qing dynasty imperial troops and the Boxers engaged in combat against British forces.

Chinese Forces
The permanent Chinese forces stationed at Shanhaiguan consisted of the left division under commanding officer General Song Qing. It consisted of two battalions, one under General Ma Yukun, however, both withdrew to Tianjin in June and July before the battle, which they did not participate in. In June Ma Yukun then received orders from Empress Dowager Cixi to enter Beijing, to crush the Boxer rebels along the way.

Battle
Part of the Great Wall, the "old dragon head", was destroyed during the battle by the British during a sea attack. In response, Chinese Boxer forces responded with a counterstrike and destroyed the railroad nearby.

Honghuzi attacks

Louis Livingston Seaman wrote about an incident in which the Chinese Honghuzi bandits, who were also Boxers, captured, tortured, and executed Eight-Nation Alliance Sikh soldiers at Shanhaiguan:

"In January, 1900, during the Boxer campaign (and the Hunghutzes were all Boxers in those days) I chanced to be on the Great Wall of China at Shan-HaiKwan, when a party of five sikhs, with two coolies and a cart, went through a gateway on a foraging expedition for wood. Shortly after one of the coolies rushed back, so frightened he could hardly articulate, and reported that a party of mounted Hung-hutzes had swooped down on the sikhs, who had carelessly neglected to take their arms, and had carried them off and stolen their ponies. The coolies had escaped by hiding in a near-by nullah.

It was " boots and saddles," and in less time than one can write it, the Royal Bengal Lancers, Beluchis, and Gourkas were swarming over the hills in a vain hunt for their comrades and the Boxers. But they were late. Several hours after, they came upon the scene of torture. All was over. There remained only the mutilated remains of their companions and the inhuman instrument that had accomplished its deadly work.

The death instrument was a sort of iron cage, about eight feet high, made of rods fastened to a small ring at the base, resembling somewhat the steel frame of an umbrella on an enlarged scale. The rods were closed round the victim much as they are round the handle of a closed umbrella, and a rudely constructed nut or screw at the top forced them tightly together. In this infernal device the unfortunate sikhs had been forced, one after another, and as the screw was tightened and the flesh of the victim protruded between the bars, these fiends had sliced it off with their swords until the end came, and it came quickly."

Occupation
In September, Shanhaiguan was occupied by Britain, which wanted to prevent Russia from entering the area.

See also
First and Second Opium Wars

Notes

Conflicts in 1900
1900 in Beijing
Battles of the Boxer Rebellion
United States Marine Corps in the 20th century
Sieges involving the United States
Battles involving Russia
Great Wall of China

Battle of Shanhaiguan (1900)


Hans Ruprecht Hoffmann (c. 1545–1617) was a German sculptor and master stonemason.

Biography

Hans Ruprecht Hoffman was likely born in Worms around 1545.  He apprenticed under Dietrich Schro in Mainz and Johann von Trarbach in Simmern.  He became a master craftsman of the stonemason's guild.  He established a large sculpture workshop and is noted for statues with particularly expressive faces.

He and his wife Katharina (d. 1582) had three children; in 1583, he married his second wife, Anna Örthin (d. 1589); and in 1590, his third wife, (Anna) Margaretha, daughter of Theis Kochenbecker of Cochem.

During his life, Hoffman was one of the leading proponents of Mannerism west of the Rhine.  He is known for his epitaphs, altars, and funerary monuments, as well as the pulpit of the Cathedral of Trier and the Peter Fountain in Trier.

Works

Main Market Square, Trier:
Peter Fountain (1595)
Cathedral of Trier:
Pulpit (1570–72)
Marble relief of altar in the cloister (1596)
Trinity Altar (1597) (at grave of Archbishop Jakob von Eltz-Rübenach)
St. John Altar (1601) (at grave of Archbishop Johann von Schönenberg)
All Saints Altar (1614) (at grave of Archbishop Lothar von Metternich)
Liebfrauenkirche, Trier:
Grave altar of Hugo Schonenburg (d. 1581)
Basilica of St. Salvator, Prüm:
Stone pulpit (before 1590)

References

This page is based on this page on German Wikipedia.

1617 deaths
German sculptors
German male sculptors
Year of birth unknown

Hans Ruprecht Hoffmann


Distance fog is a technique used in 3D computer graphics to enhance the perception of distance by shading distant objects differently.

Because many of the shapes in graphical environments are relatively simple, and complex shadows are difficult to render, many graphics engines employ a "fog" gradient so objects further from the camera are progressively more obscured by haze and by aerial perspective. This technique simulates the effect of light scattering, which causes more distant objects to appear lower in contrast, especially in outdoor environments.

Visibility in a natural haze declines exponentially, not linearly, with distance due to scattering. The colour of the light being scattered into the viewing path affects the colour of the haze; blue under blue skies, reddish near sunset, as with alpenglow. These more subtle details are represented in some graphics.

"Fogging" is another use of distance fog in mid-to-late 1990s games, when processing power was not enough to render far viewing distances, and clipping was employed. Clipping could be very distracting since bits and pieces of polygons would flicker in and out of view instantly, and by applying a medium-ranged distance fog, the clipped polygons would appear at a sufficiently far distance that they were obscured by the fog, fading in as the player approached.

See also
 Aerial perspective
 Anisotropic filtering
 Computer graphics
 Draw distance
 Level of detail (LOD)
 Scale space

References

3D rendering

Distance fog


Motormouth (Harley Davis) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by Paul Neary and developed by writer Graham Marks, with initial designs by Gary Frank (Supreme Power, The Incredible Hulk). As the title character of her own series, Motormouth (later Motormouth & Killpower) was part of a line of original comics released in the early-to-mid 1990s by Marvel UK. She is a teenage street rat from London, England, with a fierce temper who curses constantly. She is 5 ft 4 in (1.62 m) tall and weighs roughly (.

Publication history
Motormouth ran for 12 issues, with Harley and later her partner Killpower going to various alternative realities from the regular Marvel Universe.

Fictional character biography
Harley is orphaned at age 11 and grows up as part of a gang that lives in the East End of London. They survive by foraging and stealing. Her incredibly foul language earns her the nickname "Motormouth." When she is 17, Harley is discovered by Laarson, an agent of Mys-Tech, the shadowy organization that is featured in all of Marvel UK's 1990s titles. Harley is a candidate for his MOPED (Mind-Operated Personal Dematerialization) technology. This allows people to jump between alternative realities, but it will only operate on people with certain strands of DNA. The unit is disguised as a pair of training shoes, which Harley finds and tries on. At the same time, Laarson is being executed by Mys-Tech's techno-wizards, and agents are sent to find the MOPED units. In order to save her and the units, Laarson's subordinates activate the technology and send her to another universe.

While still on the run from Mys-Tech, Harley is sent to a future in which the world is covered in shopping malls. It is here that she purchases a Soni-Muta 500 Unit, a microchip that allows her to mentally tune in to any radio station she wants. This would later give her a sonic scream. Harley returns to her own universe and is captured and put to work by Mys-Tech. She escapes after a mission to Tokyo, Japan.

Killpower
She has to make a random jump in order to escape, and she ends up on a planet named Tekron. Killpower, an agent of Mys-Tech, is sent to find her. Unable to escape him, Harley reasons with the man instead. Mentally little more than a small child, Killpower becomes intrigued by Harley and joins her as her partner. Harley is then badly injured on Tekron when a stray bullet hits her in the throat. Killpower uses her Soni-Muta 500 and MOPED technology to cure her. This not only gives her the aforementioned sonic scream, but she could also now travel between universes without the aid of technology. Both are then forced to flee from Mys-Tech's influence.

Motormouth and Killpower then appear in the Battletide mini-series. Death's Head is hired by Mys-Tech to retrieve Killpower. While the two fight, Motormouth and Tuck (Death's Head's partner) go on a shopping spree on an alien planet. Motormouth and Killpower later plan an attack on Tyburn, a powerful Mys-Tech agent. Harley is able to steal their MOPED unit and neutralize the tracking devices Mys-Tech has implanted in the duo. Tyburn survives the attack.

Saving the world
Motormouth becomes an essential part of the Mys-Tech Wars mini-series. At first, she is just one of many superheroes attacking the main Mys-Tech complex, hoping to take down the Techno-Wizards, the heads of Mys-Tech.

The wizards fight back successfully, slaughtering most of the heroes. Death-Head kills them in return. Unfortunately, this endangers all of Earth. A fortunate fall from Killpower allows six heroes, Motormouth included, to break free of the melee and patch themselves into the required equipment so they can save the Earth from destruction. The others, such as Doctor Strange and Professor X, bring powerful forces to the mix. Motormouth ends up simply sitting in the sixth chair to fill out the required number of entities.

The Earth is saved and time is reversed, undoing all the deaths that have occurred. Only the last six remember any of which had happened.

Time Guardian and the Hulk
In the Dark Guard mini-series, both Motormouth and Killpower are recruited by the Time Guardian to help stop a war on the planet Eopia. The war had been caused by Tyburn, and Mys-Tech agents have infiltrated both sides of the war. Motormouth is instrumental in stopping a powerful Mys-Tech agent called Collapsar, who had captured Killpower. Her extra-sensory vision allows her to see microfractures in his torso, which in turn allows Death's Head to smash him.

Motormouth and Killpower guest-starred in an issue of Incredible Hulk, illustrated by Motormouth's co-creator Gary Frank. The Hulk falls onto their dinner table. This is after the Hulk fights the villain, Madman. Killpower and the Hulk briefly fight. The Hulk proves himself more than a match for her obscene language. The trio team up to rescue Prince Charles from Madman, who had taken him up the side of Big Ben. Though he is dropped to the side, Charles escapes injury. In the ensuing battle, Harley accidentally brings down London Bridge, and Madman escapes.

Motormouth and Killpower come under the attention of Nigel Orpington-Smythe, leader of the R.C.X., a British intelligence agency, in the comic book Excalibur. Security footage stills of the two are shown to Captain Britain as an example of the lawless vigilantism that Smythe seeks to control. R.C.X. was neutralized before they became a threat to Harley.

Issue #12, the last of the series, features Motormouth visiting a homeless encampment on the south side of the River Thames in London, England. It's revealed she used to live there, though she did not enjoy it. The two heroes, along with Death's Head, defeat and kill a murderous A.I.M. construct that has taken on the mannerisms of the local homeless population. The second part of the issue features the two battling fanatical, naive worshippers of a lost alien being. In defeating the being, Killpower becomes the world's new god.

Post-series appearances
Two new stories were planned before Marvel UK fell. Motormouth versus Removal Man was partially drawn and had her fighting a Mys-Tech assassin who made his targets never exist in the first place (boasting one of his finest jobs as the Fantastic Five). Motormouth Remix would have had her hopping through alternate realities looking for Killpower and running into versions of Marvel US characters to connect Marvel UK more to their parent company.

Harley has since had a cameo appearance in the Avengers Forever mini-series.

Sometime later, she becomes a reserve agent for MI:13. While trying to rescue Faiza Hussain's parents, she is hospitalised.

When Mys-Tech tried to send all of Britain to hell, Motormouth and Killpower fought at the Battle of London Bridge. She was also sucked into Hell, but Killpower saved her and the other heroes, leaving himself trapped in the inferno. Harley was left depressed and quit MI:13, living instead on a council estate in London, where she was known for her work fighting the vampire invasion. She became the single mother to two children, Victoria and Albert (named after pubs), and every so often she'd be attacked by (and kill) a former Mys-Tech monster who thought she was an easy target. After one attack, she learned her children were psychic mutants who were removing her memories of the monsters to stop her from being sad.

She temporarily rejoined MI:13 and led an army of British heroes to the Shard to fight an invasion from Hell. To Harley's shock, it turned out Hell's leader was a transformed Killpower who had been manipulated by Mephisto into believing she'd abandoned him. Killpower tried to kill her, but her sonic scream managed to clear his mind. Realizing he'd been made into "a bad man," he allowed Britain's super-soldiers to kill him. A distraught Harley was approached by Nick Fury to join SHIELD, and she angrily refused.

Other versions
A future version of Harley appears in Excalibur #67 (July 1993). Working with other heroes to protect an enclave of innocent people, she steps up to battle a wave of Sentinels. Both sides inflict heavy casualties. Harley is one of the many disintegrated by the robot's weapons.

Powers and abilities

Harley can create deafening sounds and force blasts by screaming or shouting, similar to the X-Men's Banshee or DC Comics' Black Canary. By humming at a high pitch, she can use ultrasound to see through solid objects. She can also jump between alternate universes using the MOPED technology built into her. This technology also allows her to sense threats outside her normal field or range of senses. She also seems to have some ability to sense various forms of energy.

Notes

References

Motormouth at the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe
Motormouth at the International Catalogue of Superheroes

Motormouth at the Big Comic Book DataBase

1992 comics debuts
Comics characters introduced in 1992
Fictional characters who can manipulate sound
Marvel Comics cyborgs
Marvel Comics characters who can teleport
Marvel Comics mutates
Marvel UK characters
Marvel UK titles
Marvel Comics female superheroes

Motormouth (comics)


Shandor Alphonso is a Canadian ice hockey linesman, currently working in the National Hockey League. He has worn sweater number 52 since joining the NHL prior to the start of the 2014-15 season.

Playing career
Alphonso was chosen in the 7th round (140th overall) of the 2000 OHL Priority Selection, by the Sudbury Wolves. He spent three seasons with Sudbury, picking up 73 points in 183 games. After spending the 2004–05 season in the OPJHL, he played five years at Lakehead University before finishing his playing career in the WOAA with the Shelburne Muskies.

Officiating career
Prior to the 2009-10 season, Alphonso attended the NHL's Amateur Exposure Combine, a program for former junior and college players who had an interest in becoming an official. He decided to become an official, instead of continuing his playing career.

On 25 September 2011, Alphonso worked his first Ontario Hockey League game in Oshawa, as the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds played against the Oshawa Generals.

He attended the combine again (then called the Officials Exposure Combine), in 2014, before signing a minor league contract that September. His first NHL game came on 17 October 2014, when the Florida Panthers faced off against the Buffalo Sabres in Buffalo. In 2015 (his first season under the contract), he worked the American Hockey League's Calder Cup final series between the Utica Comets and Manchester Monarchs.

Before the 2016-17 season, Alphonso was promoted to a full-time NHL linesman.

On 14 February 2017, Alphonso was slashed in the leg by Anaheim Ducks centre Antoine Vermette, who was reportedly unhappy with a faceoff conducted by Alphonso. Alphonso did not suffer any injury on the play, but Vermette was assessed a game misconduct and was suspended 10 games by the league the next day.

Personal life
Before he joined the NHL's officiating staff in 2014, Alphonso had worked for RBC Bank as a financial planner. He left the company in October of that same year.

References

External links

1984 births
Living people
Canadian ice hockey officials
Ice hockey people from Ontario
National Hockey League officials
People from Orangeville, Ontario
Sudbury Wolves players

Shandor Alphonso


The Flood is the first novel by crime writer Ian Rankin.

Plot summary

Mary Miller has always been an outcast.  As a child, she fell into the hot burn - a torrent of warm chemical run-off from the local coal mine - and her hair turned white.  Initially she was treated with sympathy, but all that changed a few days later, when the young man who pushed her in died in an accident.

Now many years later, Mary is a single mother caught up in a faltering affair.  Her son, Sandy, has fallen in love with a strange homeless girl - and both mother and son are forced to come to terms with a dark secret from Mary's past.

1986 British novels
Novels by Ian Rankin
1986 debut novels
Polygon Books books

The Flood (novel)


Beatrix Timbrell Bulstrode (born  Mary Beatrix Nunns in 1869, later known as  Beatrix Manico Gull after second marriage, died 1951) was a British journalist and explorer. She is best known for her journey through China and Mongolia in the early twentieth century, which she wrote about in a 1920 book, A Tour in Mongolia.

Biography
Bulstrode was born Mary Beatrix Nunns in 1869 in Sussex. She later became a journalist and was on the council of the Society of Woman Journalists. In 1891, she married Herbert Timbrell Bulstrode, who died in 1911. Bulstrode wanted to travel after the death of her first husband.

Bulstrode toured Mongolia twice. The first journey used local guides and she was accompanied by a missionary from Finland. Her second trip was with Edward Manico Gull, who she later married. On her travels, she carried a concealed Mauser C96 that she was practiced in using. She also had two Colt revolvers and a shotgun. The entire journey cost her $1,500.

Bulstrode began her journey in September 1911, starting out at Hong Kong. She took a boat to Fuzhow, where she was able to tour southern China. She took another boat trip to the mouth of the Yangzste River and then traveled  up the river part-way with a local crew and later on a British steamer. She next traveled near Yichang and then went back to Hankou. From there, she traveled to the capital, Beijing. From the capital, she traveled through Zhangjiakou in a cart to Mongolia. Once in Mongolia, she traveled  through open country, encountering Nomadic people. Bulstrode decided not to cross the Gobi Desert and returned to Beijing.

In Beijing, she met Edward Manico Gull who worked for customs in China. They decided to travel to northern Mongolia together and felt they each had complementary skills needed for the journey. They took a train to Verkhneudinsk in Siberia and then traveled up the Selenga River in a steamboat. They came to Kyakhta, where Russian customs held them up for some time because of their weapons and ammunition. Finally, they hired a three-horse cart known as a taranta, and began their journey to the capital of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar. In the capital, she visited a "dungeon," where she described around 150 prisoners, most with life sentences being kept in small boxes, similar to Coffins. She also related an incident where she watched the execution of three soldiers from this prison. Leaving the capital, they traveled by orton  and reached Kyakhta. Then they went back to Siberia, took the Trans-Siberian Railway to St. Petersburg and finally returned to Britain.

Bulstrode published a book about her travels in 1920 called A Tour in Mongolia. She begins the stories of her travels in Beijing. The Washington Journal called A Tour in Mongolia a "vivid account" of her journey.

Bulstrode continued to stay involved with China, working to provide relief work in that country in 1937. Bulstrode died in 1951 in Surrey.

Images

References

External links
A Tour in Mongolia

1869 births
1951 deaths
British women journalists
British travel writers
British explorers
People from Sussex
People from Surrey (before 1965)
British women travel writers

Beatrix Bulstrode


Factory was a band from Stockholm in Sweden, active between 1978-1982. They scored chart successes in Sweden during the late 1970s-1980's.

Factory brok through in Sweden with the 1978  single Efter plugget 1978. The single was followed up by the album Factory. The band toured the Nordic Region in the late 1970s-early 1980's and also released the 1980 album Factory II.

During the 1990s, the band was reunited temporary touring with, among others, Magnum Bonum, Attack and Snowstorm.

Members
 Mats Carinder, vocals
 Ted Leinsköld, guitar
 Lars-Olof Larsson, keyboard
 Ken Siewertson, bass
 Mats Söderberg, drums

Discography

Studio albums
 Factory (1979)
 Factory II (1980)

Compilation albums
 Best of Factory (1989)

Singles
 Lumpna funderingar (1978)
 Efter plugget (1978)
 Kuddsnack (1979)
 Face to Face (1981)
 Jag ställer inte upp (1981)
 Hårt mot hårt (1982)
 Ooa hela natten (with Attack och Magnum Bonum) (1992)

Maxisingles 12"
 Efter plugget (1989)

References

1970s Swedish music groups
1980s Swedish music groups
Musical groups disestablished in 1982
Musical groups established in 1978
Musical groups from Stockholm
1978 establishments in Sweden
1982 disestablishments in Europe
1980s disestablishments in Sweden

Factory (band)


Polylactic acid (PLA) is a type of plastic. Specifically it is a type of polyester. It is the most popular plastic for 3D printing. It has many properties that make it an ideal material for 3D printing. It has a low melting point, and it does not shrink much when it cools. PLA is usually made from sugar or starch.

Polymers

Polylactic acid


Kathi Foster (born January 21, 1947) is a former member of the Arizona House of Representatives. She served in the House from January 1995 through January 2003, serving district 14. Not eligible to run for the House in 2002, due to Arizona term limit laws, she ran for the State Senate in the newly redistricted District 13, but lost in the Democrat primary to Richard Miranda.  She ran again for the Senate in 2004, this time in District 12, but lost in the general election to incumbent Robert Blendu.

References

Democratic Party members of the Arizona House of Representatives
1947 births
Living people

Kathi Foster


Blood doping is a way of increasing the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream. This is done to improve athletic performance. Because blood cells carry oxygen from the lungs to the muscles, a having more red cells in the blood can improve an athlete's aerobic capacity (VO2 max) and endurance. Many methods of blood doping are illegal, particularly in professional sport.

There are a number of different methods. Frozen blood taken from the individual previously can be used for a later transplant; packed red cells from a compatible donor may be used, and blood substitutes may be used. The growth area in illegal blood doping of athletes is blood substitutes.

Related pages
 Doping in sport

References

Doping in sport
Blood

Blood doping


BBM, also known by its full name BlackBerry Messenger, was a consumer-oriented proprietary mobile instant messenger and videotelephony application service originally developed by BlackBerry Limited and later briefly by Indonesian company Emtek under licence. Initially it was included and offered on BlackBerry devices before it was expanded cross-platform. BBM was shut down on 31 May 2019; the company since continues to offer the paid enterprise edition, BBM Enterprise.

Messages sent via BBM were sent over the Internet and sent using the BlackBerry PIN system. In the past, many service providers allowed sign-in to BBM using a dedicated BlackBerry data plan. Exchanging messages was possible to a single person or via dedicated discussion or chat groups, which allowed multiple BlackBerry devices to communicate in a single session. In addition to offering text-based instant messages, BBM also allowed users to send pictures, voicenotes (audio recordings), files (up to 16 MB), share real time location on a map, stickers and a wide selection of emojis.

Communication was possible only among BlackBerry devices, until late 2013 when BBM was released on iOS and Android systems followed by Windows Phone. Over 300 million Stickers were shared. Daily, approximately 150,000 BBM Voice Calls were placed. There were more than 190 million BBM users worldwide as of 2015, and BlackBerry infrastructure handled 30 petabytes of data traffic each month by early 2013. BBM was the original "mobile-first" messaging service, and was popular for a while before it started to lose out to rivals. It remained particularly popular in Indonesia, the only country where BBM was the most popular instant messenger in 2016 – installed on 87.5% of Android devices.

History
BlackBerry Messenger was launched on August 1, 2005.

With the release of BlackBerry Messenger 5.0, BlackBerry allows users to use a QR Code to add each other to their respective friends lists rather than using only numeric PIN identification or an email address associated with the user's BlackBerry. Recent BlackBerry devices can also exchange BBM contacts using Near Field Communication technology. Users can also set animated gif pictures as their display pictures, although animated pictures have a 32KB size limit.

The release of BlackBerry Messenger 6.0 introduced additional traits. This update is focused on social communication mediums, including 'BBM Connected Apps', which allow the user to invite friends to share their favourite BlackBerry Applications.

In late-December 2011, the audience measurement company BBM Canada sued RIM for infringing its trademark of "BBM" by using it as an initialism for BlackBerry Messenger; BBM Canada used it as an initialism for its former name, the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement. The company cited that it had received phone calls from users who believed that they were connected to RIM. However, RIM asked for the case to be dropped, as the two organizations were in different industries. The suit was dismissed, and BBM Canada ultimately re-branded as Numeris.

With the release of BlackBerry Messenger 7.0 in December 2012, voice chat (BBM Voice Call) was introduced.

BBM Protected, a "secure" encrypted enterprise-level messenger, was launched in June 2014.

On June 27, 2016, it was announced that Indonesia-based Emtek Group had acquired the licensing rights for BBM. BlackBerry Limited would provide the BBM API to Emtek as part of the six-year, $207 million deal. In 2017, the BBM servers moved from a data center in Canada to a Google Cloud Platform-based data center in Asia.

On April 18, 2019, BBM announced that they would discontinue the BBM for consumer service globally as of May 31 that year and that users would be able to switch to BBMe, the paid, enterprise version of the messenger.

Reliability
BBM has been widely reputed for its uptime and reliability. However, on October 10, 2011, users of the service in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa were widely affected by an outage at provider RIM's UK headquarters in Slough, England. The outage lasted for two days, during which BlackBerry Messenger was reported to be unavailable, thus seriously affecting the company's reputation.

Cross-platform
BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins announced on May 14, 2013, that BlackBerry Messenger will be available on iOS and Android in the summer of 2013. This would mark the first steps of BlackBerry Messenger reaching beyond its own platform, as it had never been available on competing hardware before.

It was rumoured that BlackBerry Messenger would launch on June 27, 2013, for Android and iOS. This was later denied by BlackBerry and an actual release date was yet to be announced.

On June 21, 2013, A BlackBerry Messenger application was spotted on the Play Store. However, it turned out to be a fake.

A worldwide release for BBM on Android was slated for September 21, 2013, which was officially announced by Blackberry. It was also announced that the app would require Android versions not older than 4.x.x (Ice Cream Sandwich & above)

BlackBerry confirmed that BBM for iPhone would release on September 22, a day later after the official Android release and would work on iPhones running iOS 6 & later. However, during the worldwide rollout of BBM for Android and iPhone on September 21, 2013, 1.1 million Android users downloaded a leaked BlackBerry Messenger APK which caused BlackBerry to cease the launching of BlackBerry Messenger on both Android and iOS platforms.

BBM was officially released on iOS and Android on October 21, 2013. 5 million downloads were recorded in the first 8 hours of its release. BBM, in late 2013, was the No.1 free app on both the App Store and Google Play Store. In total, the app had over 10 million downloads on the first day.

On 24 February 2014, BlackBerry officially confirmed BBM for Windows Phone and Nokia X would be released by Q2 2014. Nokia confirmed BBM would be preinstalled on Nokia X devices. As of June 2016, BBM was no longer offered on the Windows Store.

On 27 June 2018, consumer features such as BBM Channels and paid content in the BBM Shop were discontinued on BB10 and BBOS devices.

On April 18, 2019, it was announced that the BBM consumer service for Android and iOS will be shutting down on May 31, 2019.

Non-BlackBerry features
For now BBM for Multi-Platform will offer Personal Chats, Group Chat up to 250 people, Status Updates and can send or receive messages up to 2000 Characters. BBM Channels, BBM Voice and BBM Shop is available on Android and iOS.

In early January 2014, a beta update for BBM on Android was released to testers. The update included BBM Voice & BBM Channels. In February 2014, an update (220.127.116.11) was officially released to Android and iOS users containing the awaited features along with some other features including new emoticons and changes including a new look for Updates featuring choices to show All, Contacts or Channels filters.

Security
On November 4, 2014, BBM scored 1 out of 7 points on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's "Secure Messaging Scorecard". It lost points because communications are not encrypted with a key the provider doesn't have access to (i.e. communications are not end-to-end encrypted), users can't verify contacts' identities, past messages are not secure if the encryption keys are stolen (i.e. the app does not provide forward secrecy), the code is not open to independent review (i.e. the code is not open-source), the security design is not properly documented, and there has not been a recent independent code audit.

The enterprise version, BBM Protected, initially scored 3 out of 7 points, but this was updated to 5 out of 7 points after additional information was provided by BlackBerry and reflected in the EFF changelog dated November 14, 2014. It lost points because past messages are not secure if the encryption keys are stolen and the code is not open to independent review.

Userbase
In May 2011, RIM claimed there were 43 million active BlackBerry Messenger users worldwide.

From 2013 to 2014, the number of BBM users increases sharply, up to over 100 million.

In 2016, BBM reached over 889 million users from all over the world and ranked 2nd in the top messaging apps (the first place belongs to Telegram)

As of January 2018, there are at least 63 million monthly users in Indonesia.

References

Further reading

External links

BlackBerry
Instant messaging
Instant messaging clients
BlackBerry Limited
BlackBerry software
Products and services discontinued in 2019
2005 software

BBM (software)


The 1988 Swedish motorcycle Grand Prix was the thirteenth round of the 1988 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season. It took place on the weekend of 12–14 August 1988 at the Anderstorp circuit.

500 cc race report
Eddie Lawson on pole. Wayne Rainey gets the start from Niall Mackenzie and Didier De Radiguès.

At the end of the first lap it's Rainey, Lawson, Wayne Gardner, Christian Sarron, De Radiguès, et al. Lawson passes 3 riders on the straight as if he's angry for his performance at Donington.

Lawson soon through on Rainey and gets a large lead on a group with Gardner, now in 2nd and Rainey in 3rd.

Lawson almost highsides out of first place, but keeps it together to the end. Rainey fades to 5th.

500cc classification

References

Swedish motorcycle Grand Prix
Swedish
Motorcycle
Swedish Grand Prix

1988 Swedish motorcycle Grand Prix


Long Wharf is a waterfront district and neighborhood of the city of New Haven, Connecticut, United States.  The neighborhood is a mixed-use district, with a combination of commercial, industrial, port, and recreation facilities.

Location
Long Wharf can be defined as the area stretching inland from the west side of New Haven Harbor northwest to Union Avenue, west to Hallock Avenue and Cedar Street, and north to the Oak Street Connector and I-95 (up to the Q-Bridge). It is located east of The Hill, and south of downtown New Haven and the Wooster Square neighborhood.  Interstate 95 bisects the neighborhood from the southwest to northeast; it intersects with Interstate 91 in the extreme northeast section of the neighborhood. The Oak Street Connector/Route 34 also connects with Interstate 95 in the selfsame section.

History
The area is called "Long Wharf" because there was once a wharf there that projected out of the juncture of Water St. and Union Ave. The wharf was built by William Lanson, an African American entrepreneur and engineer.  He built the wharf into New Haven Harbor until it finally reached a length of 3/4 of a mile, making it the longest wharf in the country. Along it stood the Customs House, warehouses and other businesses. It was destroyed in the late 1940s to early 1950s when the harbor was partially filled in to construct Interstate Highways 91 and 95, dramatically moving the waterfront and creating this district.

Buildings and features

The Long Wharf area contains several notable features and buildings, including the Long Wharf Theatre, the Long Wharf Maritime Center, Sargent (a New Haven firm with a history going back to 1810, now a division of Assa Abloy), the former headquarters of the New Haven Register (Jordan's Furniture as of 2016), as well as New Haven's Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park which stretches for seventeen acres (69,000 m²)  directly along the harborfront. Long Wharf is also the home port of a replica of the historical ship Amistad.

The area also includes the remaining portion of Marcel Breuer's landmark Pirelli Tire Building (1969), now the Hotel Marcel.  The building was truncated in 2003 to accommodate the construction of the new IKEA home products store. IKEA originally proposed to destroy the entire building but compromised after a lengthy public debate.  The tower was preserved but the rear portion was razed to make room for the IKEA parking lot. Ironically, IKEA's furniture styling is strongly influenced by the famed Bauhaus school where Breuer taught. It was once planned that a large shopping mall, the New Haven Galleria, would be constructed at this location; instead the IKEA store was built.

Church Street Bridge
Road construction has been encouraged to reconnect this neighborhood directly with downtown.  The Church Street Bridge was built for this purpose and opened in December 2003.  It provided a new link from downtown to Long Wharf for vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists. Constructing the bridge was difficult due to its placement over a broad active rail yard. In order to minimize disruption, particularly to the trains which run underneath it, the bridge was completed in a single-night operation (called the "Big Pick") using the largest land-based, mobile, high-capacity crane in existence. This mega-crane with a 2600-ton capacity was delivered in over 200 tractor-trailer loads and put in place the preassembled  steel truss center span.

Neighborhood issues
Long Wharf Drive has attracted drag racers from all over the state. On August 17, 2008, Misael Ruiz, of East Haven, was killed by a racing car that lost control. Town officials are now making decisions on how to prevent racing on the strip.

References

Neighborhoods in New Haven, Connecticut
Populated coastal places in Connecticut

Long Wharf (New Haven)


Lake Malta, known also as the Maltański Reservoir, is an artificial lake in Poznań, Poland.  It was formed in 1952 as a result of the damming of the Cybina River.  It is about 2.2 km long (with the circuit of 5,6 km), which makes the lake the biggest man-made lake of the city. The water is 3.1 m deep on average with a maximum about 5 m.  There are a number of recreational attractions along the edge of the lake including:
an artificial ski slope,
an artificial ice rink,
a zoological garden,
Kolejka Parkowa Maltanka - a narrow gauge railway,
the Mound of Freedom,
seasonal bikes rental - MaltaBike

The lake also has one of the oldest man-made rowing venues in Europe - The Malta Regatta Course.  This dates back to 1952 and has held a number of Rowing World Cup events. It also hosted the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in 1990 and 2001, and did so again in 2010.

The lake also gives its name to the Malta theatre festival, held in Poznań annually in June, with some of the shows taking place next to the lake.

The name of the lake comes from the Knights Hospitaller also known as Knights of Malta. The lake was built on land owned by Church of St. John of Jerusalem Outside the Walls, given to the order in 1187 by duke Mieszko III the Old.

Because of the importance of the lake for the city of Poznań, various methods to improve its water quality have been investigated.

References

External links

Tourist attractions in Poznań
Rowing venues
Lakes of Greater Poland Voivodeship
Parks in Poland
Reservoirs in Poland

Lake Malta


A first-degree relative (FDR) is a person's parent (father or mother), full sibling (brother or sister) or offspring. It constitutes a category of family members that largely overlaps with the term nuclear family, but without spouses.

If the persons are related by blood, the first degree relatives share approximately 50% of their genes. First-degree relatives are a common measure used to diagnose risks for common diseases by analyzing family history.

See also
Second-degree relatives
Third-degree relatives
Family
Next of kin

References

Family

First-degree relative


Iveta Putalová (born 24 March 1988 in Czechoslovakia) is a Slovak track and field sprinter who specialises in the 400 metres. She represented her country at the European Athletics Championships in 2014 and the European Athletics Indoor Championships in 2015. Her personal best of 52.84 seconds is the Slovak indoor record for the 400 m.

Career
Her first international podium came at the 2010 European Team Championships, where she was third in the 4×400 metres relay in the Second League of the competition. She then came to prominence individually at the 2014 European Team Championships, taking second place in the 400 m behind Latvia's Gunta Latiševa-Čudare. She is a member of the Sokol Kolín Czech athletics club.

She was the Slovak champion in the 200 metres both indoors and outdoors in 2014. She ran a personal best of 24.12 seconds for the 200 m that same year. She began to make progress in the 400 m, setting a best of 53.25 seconds while running in the heats of the 2014 European Athletics Championships. She was also part of the Slovak relay team at that championships.

Her international breakthrough came at the 2015 European Athletics Indoor Championships where she improved round on round: she began with a Slovak national record of 53.28 seconds in the heats, then 52.99 seconds in the semi-finals and lastly a time of 52.84 to take fourth place in the final.

Personal bests
400 metres – 52.18 (2015)
400 metres indoor – 52.62 (2018)

International competitions

References

External links

 Iveta Putalová at the Slovenský Olympijský Výbor

Living people
1988 births
Slovak female sprinters
Slovak female models
World Athletics Championships athletes for Slovakia
European Games gold medalists for Slovakia
Athletes (track and field) at the 2015 European Games
Athletes (track and field) at the 2019 European Games
European Games medalists in athletics
Athletes (track and field) at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Olympic athletes for Slovakia
Sportspeople from Bratislava

Iveta Putalová


The Forest Landscape Integrity Index (FLII) is an annual global index of forest condition measured by degree of anthropogenic modification. Created by a team of 48 scientists, the FLII, in its measurement of 300m pixels of forest across the globe, finds that ~17.4 million km2 of forest has high landscape-level integrity (with a score from 9.6–10), compared to ~14.6 million with medium integrity (6–9.6) and ~12.2 million km2 with low integrity (0–6).

The FLII finds that most remaining high-integrity forest landscapes are found in Canada, Russia, Rocky Mountains, Alaska, the Amazon, the Guianas, southern Chile, Central Africa, and New Guinea. Low integrity forests, on the other hand, are found in Western and Central Europe, the American Southwest, South-East Asia west of New Guinea, the Andes, much of China and India, the Albertine Rift, West Africa, Mesoamerica, and the Atlantic Forests of Brazil.

The results are meant to help decision-makers at all levels achieve their commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Forest Integrity
An ecosystem is considered to have integrity when its structure, composition, and ecological processes are within their natural range.

Country rankings
172 countries have been ranked:

Background
The index was authored by a global team of forest conservation experts, including:

See also
 Intact forest landscape
 List of countries by forest area

References

External links
 Official site & map

Biodiversity
Sustainable forest management
Environmental terminology
Forest conservation
Environmental indices

Forest Landscape Integrity Index


Tony Lord is a United Kingdom gardener, photographer and author.  In 2005 the Royal Horticultural Society awarded him the Victoria Medal of Honour (V.M.H) for his work as a garden photographer, horticultural consultant and writer.

Lord started out as a social anthropologist.  In Micronesia, he studied the connections between nature and indigenous peoples, and became very interested in plants and their interactions.

Lord received his gardening training at Kew Gardens, holds a doctorate in horticulture, and later was the Gardens Adviser for the British National Trust.  For over ten years he has edited the Royal Horticultural Society annual publication Plant Finder, and he is a regular contributor to the magazine The Garden.

Lord's first book, Best Borders, won the Garden Writers' Guild award for the best general gardening book of 1994.  His book Gardening at Sissinghurst took a new and deeper approach to garden analysis and has been translated into German, French and Dutch.

References

Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
British garden writers
English gardeners
English photographers
Victoria Medal of Honour recipients

Tony Lord


Conrad (; c. 1206 – 24 July 1240) was the landgrave of Thuringia from 1231 to 1234 and the fifth Grand Master of the Teutonic Order from 1239 to 1240. He was the first major noble to join the military order.

Conrad was the youngest son of Hermann I, Landgrave of Thuringia, and Sophia, a daughter of Otto I, Duke of Bavaria. His elder brother Louis IV of Thuringia was married to Saint Elisabeth of Hungary. When Louis died in 1227 during the Sixth Crusade, his brother Henry Raspe became regent for Louis' minor son Herman II, and Conrad took on the title of Count of Gudensberg in Hesse, assisting his brother in ruling the area.

On Elisabeth's death in 1231, Henry Raspe took Thuringia for himself, and together with Conrad, worked to consolidate power. Conrad engaged in battle a number of times with Siegfried III, Archbishop of Mainz, at one point personally swinging him around and threatening to cut him in two. In 1232, he besieged the city of Fritzlar, massacring its populace and burning the church.

Elisabeth had founded a hospital in Marburg and had intended to bequeath it to the Johanniter Order, but this was rejected by her defensor, Conrad of Marburg. Pope Gregory IX sent a commission to settle the matter, and it decided in favor of Conrad of Marburg on 2 August 1232. In the summer of 1234, Conrad travelled to Rome and convinced the Curia to turn the hospital and parish church in Marburg over to the Teutonic Knights, which had founded a house in the city the previous year. In November, Conrad set aside his temporal title and entered the Teutonic Order himself. The next year, he joined the commission to Rome that represented his sister-in-law in the canonisation process, and he remained in the court of the Pope until Pentecost of 1235 when she was declared a saint.

Upon the death of Hermann von Salza, Conrad became the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. While on a trip to Rome in the early summer of 1240, he fell ill and died. He was buried in the Elisabeth Church in Marburg.

References

1200s births
1240 deaths
Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order
Burials at St. Elizabeth's Church, Marburg
Landgraves of Thuringia
Ludovingians
Sons of monarchs

Conrad of Thuringia


Emil Fuchs (13 May 1874, Beerfelden, Grand Duchy of Hesse – 13 February 1971) was a German theologian, the son of Georg Friedrich Fuchs and Auguste Louise Wilhelmine Lonni Hauss.

A religious socialist, Fuchs was one of the first Lutheran pastors to join the Social Democratic Party of Germany. As a devoted pacifist, he later joined the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). He was a Fellowship holder at Woodbrooke College (now Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre), Selly Oak, Birmingham from 1934 to 1935.

Fuchs was both a committed Christian and socialist and wrote numerous books on the relationship of Marxism and Christianity. In 1958 Fuchs became honorary member of the East German CDU, that was part of the East German government and pursued a pro-communist course. On 9 February 1961 Fuchs was member of a Christian commission that was charged with discussing the issues of state and church with the GDR leader Walter Ulbricht. Since then Emil Fuchs engaged for normalisation of relations between the state and church in East Germany. Though a loyal GDR supporter Fuchs occasionally opposed the party line: he was against the persecution of the Young Congregations (Junge Gemeinden) in 1950s and when conscription was introduced in East Germany, he managed to persuade the communist leadership to allow an alternative for armed service. Men who refused usual service in the army could accordingly serve as 'construction soldiers', who, as evident from the term, did mostly construction tasks.

In 1906 he married Else Wagner (1875–1931), who later committed suicide. They had four children: Elisabeth (1908–1939, suicide), Gerhard (1909–1951), Klaus (1911–1988) and Kristel (1913–2008). His son Klaus Fuchs, a physicist, was an atomic spy, convicted of supplying information from the British and American atomic bomb research to the USSR during, and shortly after, World War II.

References

External links

1874 births
1971 deaths
People from Beerfelden
People from the Grand Duchy of Hesse
Converts to Quakerism
German Lutheran theologians
German Quakers
German Democratic Party politicians
Quaker theologians
Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians
Christian Democratic Union (East Germany) politicians
Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold members
Christian Peace Conference members
German Christian pacifists
Lutheran pacifists
German Christian socialists
Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit
Recipients of the Banner of Labor
East German people
20th-century German Protestant theologians
German male non-fiction writers
Quaker socialists
Lutheran socialists
Christian socialist theologians

Emil Fuchs (theologian)


Houttuynia is a genus of two species in the Saururaceae native to Southeast Asia. One species, H. cordata, is widely cultivated as a culinary herb. The genus was originally described in 1783 by Carl Peter Thunberg when he formally described H. cordata as the only species. It remained a monotypic genus until 2001 when Zheng Yin Zhu and Shi Liang Zhang discovered and described a second species native to China, H. emeiensis but the validity still unestablished. It was named after Martinus Houttuyn.

References

Piperales genera
Saururaceae

Houttuynia


Atmosphere-Space Transition Region Explorer (ASTRE) is a mission concept proposed in 2011 to NASA's Medium-Class Explorers program (MIDEX) to study the interaction between the Earth's atmosphere and the ionized gases in outer space in an effort to understand how space-induced currents in electric power grids originate, as well as improve satellite drag models. The spacecraft would measure ionized gases within the transition region/boundary layer between 150–250 km altitude.  The concept was not selected for development at that time.

The Principal Investigator is Robert F. Pfaff from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

References

Proposed spacecraft
Explorers Program


Fluorescent microthermography (FMT) is a microscopy technique for infrared imaging of temperature distribution in small scale; the achievable spatial resolution is half micrometer and temperature resolution of 0.005 K. Time-dependent measurements are possible, as the fluorescence lifetime is only about 200 microseconds.

A thin film of a phosphor, europium thenoyl-trifluoroacetonate, is applied on the surface (e.g. an integrated circuit die) and illuminated by ultraviolet light at 340–380 nm, stimulating fluorescence at mainly 612 nm line. The quantum efficiency of fluorescence decreases exponentially with temperature, differences in emitted light intensity can be therefore used to assess differences on surface temperature, with hot areas showing as darker.

References

Infrared imaging
Microscopy
Thermometers
Measurement

Fluorescent microthermography


Legislative Council elections were held in Ceylon in 1911.  elect the four mentioned above for the following four electorates - two for European electorates (European urban and European rural) one for the Burgher electorate and one for the Ceylonese electorate. Four unofficial members were to be selected through an election and the remainder would be appointed by the Governor. The two European seats for registered European rural and urban inhabitants (previously the Governor had appointed three members to represent these areas) were filled without any election as there was only one nomination for each. The Burgher seat was contested by three candidates, whilst the seat for "educated" Ceylonese was contested by two candidates, with both winning candidates elected by large winning margins.

Elections were held on 12 December for the Burgher seat and 13 December for the Ceylonese seat, with the results formally released on 18 December. Hector William van Cuylenburg (later Sir) was elected with 829 votes, with H Geo Thomas and Arthur Alvis receiving 466 votes and 273 votes respectively. A total of 1,568 Burghers (72.9%) of the total 2,149 registered voters casting their vote. Ponnampalam Ramanathan (later Sir) was elected with 1,645 votes with Dr. H. Marcus Fernando (later Sir), receiving 981 votes. A total of 2,626 (89.5%) of the total 2,934 registered voters casting their vote.

The election results were formalised in the Government Gazette on 22 December. The first meeting of the new Legislative Council was held in the afternoon of 16 January 1912.

References

1911 elections in Asia
1911 in Ceylon
Parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka
1911 elections in the British Empire

1911 Ceylonese Legislative Council election


Calvin Richard Klein (born November 19, 1942) is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc., in 1968. In addition to clothing, he also has given his name to a range of perfumes, watches, and jewellery.

Early years
Klein was born on November 19, 1942, to a Jewish family in the Bronx, New York City, the son of Flore (née Stern; 1909–2006) and Leo Klein. Leo had immigrated to New York from Hungary, while Flore was born in the United States to immigrants from Galicia and Bukovina, Austria-Hungary (modern day-Ukraine).

Klein went to Isobel Rooney Middle School 80 (M.S.80) as a child. He attended the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan and was enrolled at, but never graduated from, New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, instead receiving an honorary doctorate in 2003. He did his apprenticeship in 1962 at an old line cloak-and-suit manufacturer, Dan Millstein, and spent five years designing at other New York City shops. In 1968, he launched his first company with his childhood best friend, Barry K. Schwartz.

He became a protégé of Baron de Gunzburg, through whose introductions he became the toast of the New York elite fashion scene even before he had his first mainstream success with the launch of his first jeans line. He was immediately recognized for his talent after his first major showing at New York Fashion Week. He was hailed as the new Yves Saint Laurent, and was noted for his clean lines.

Personal life
Klein married Jayne Centre, a textile designer, in 1964. They have a daughter, television producer Marci Klein, who is best known for her work on NBC's Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock. The couple divorced in 1974. In September 1986, Klein married his assistant Kelly Rector in Rome while they were on a buying trip in Italy. She later became a well-known socialite photographer.  After separating in 1996, they divorced in April 2006 after 20 years of marriage.

In 2003, Klein bought an ocean-front estate in Southampton, New York, on Long Island and demolished it to build a $75 million glass-and-concrete mansion. In 2015, he put his Miami Beach, Florida mansion on the market for $16 million. The Florida home sold in February 2017 for $12,850,000. In June 2015, Klein bought a mansion in Los Angeles, California, for $25 million.

Calvin Klein dated gay ex-porn star Nicholas Gruber. Klein is a supporter of the U.S. Democratic Party, having given over $250,000 to candidates and PACs since 1980.

Awards
In 1974, Klein designed the tight-fitting signature jeans that would go on to gross $200,000 in their first week of sales. In that same year he also became the first designer to receive outstanding design in men's and women's wear from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) award show. In 1983, he was placed on the International Best Dressed List. Also in 1981, 1983, and 1993, he received an award from the CFDA. In 1991, he received the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award.

Other
Klein made a cameo appearance in season 3, episode 15 ("The Bubble") of the television series 30 Rock. A fictionalized version of him also appears in season 4, episode 13 ("The Pick") of the television series Seinfeld.

Filmography
 The Emperor's New Clothes: An All-Star Illustrated Retelling of the Classic Fairy Tale 1998 (voice)

See also
 High culture
 Jews in New York City
 List of LGBT people from New York City

References

External links

 Info and photos related to Calvin Klein at askmen.com
 Calvin Klein talks trends on VOGUE.COM
 Calvin Klein's bio at informat.com
 The Biography Channel
 Some History and Background on Calvin Klein
 Calvin Klein — a modern fashion icon
 People magazine, January 18,1982. Calvin Klein, King of clothes
 The Latest Calvin by Michael Gross, NY Magazine August 8, 1988

1942 births
Living people
American fashion businesspeople
American fashion designers
American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent
Art Students League of New York alumni
Businesspeople from New York (state)
Fashion Institute of Technology alumni
Jewish fashion designers
LGBT fashion designers
American male voice actors
American LGBT businesspeople
American bisexual artists
People from the Bronx
New York (state) Democrats
High School of Art and Design alumni
Bisexual male artists
Bisexual businesspeople
Bisexual Jews
American people of Jewish descent
20th-century American Jews
21st-century American Jews

Calvin Klein


The Power Elite is a 1956 book by sociologist C. Wright Mills, in which Mills calls attention to the interwoven interests of the leaders of the military, corporate, and political elements of society and suggests that the ordinary citizen in modern times is a relatively powerless subject of manipulation by those three entities.

Background

The book is something of a counterpart of Mills' 1951 work, White Collar: The American Middle Classes, which examines the then-growing role of middle managers in American society. A main inspiration for the book was Franz Leopold Neumann's book Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism in 1942, a study of how Nazism came into a position of power in a democratic state like Germany. Behemoth had a major impact on Mills.

Summary

According to Mills, the eponymous "power elite" are those that occupy the dominant positions, in the three pillar institutions (state security, economic and political) of a dominant country. Their decisions (or lack thereof) have enormous consequences, not only for Americans but, "the underlying populations of the world." Mills posits that the institutions that they head  are a triumvirate of groups that have inherited or succeeded weaker predecessors:

 "two or three hundred giant corporations" which have replaced the traditional agrarian and craft economy,
 a strong federal political order that has inherited power from "a decentralized set of several dozen states" and "now enters into each and every cranny of the social structure," and
 the military establishment, formerly an object of "distrust fed by state militia," but now an entity with "all the grim and clumsy efficiency of a sprawling bureaucratic domain."

Importantly and as distinct from modern American conspiracy theory, Mills explains that the elite themselves may not be aware of their status as an elite, noting that "often they are uncertain about their roles" and "without conscious effort, they absorb the aspiration to be... The Ones Who Decide." Nonetheless, he sees them as a quasi-hereditary caste. The members of the power elite, according to Mills, often enter into positions of societal prominence through educations obtained at eastern establishment universities like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. But, Mills notes, "Harvard or Yale or Princeton is not enough... the point is not Harvard, but which Harvard?"

Mills identifies two classes of Ivy League alumni: those were initiated into an upper echelon fraternity such as the Harvard College social clubs of Porcellian or Fly Club, and those who were not. Those so initiated, Mills continues, receive their invitations based on social links first established in elite private preparatory academies, where they were enrolled as part of family traditions and family connections. In that manner, the mantle of the elite is generally passed down along familial lines over the generations.

The resulting elites, who control the three dominant institutions (military, economy and political system) can be generally grouped into one of six types, according to Mills:

 the "Metropolitan 400:" members of historically-notable local families in the principal American cities who are generally represented on the Social Register
 "Celebrities:" prominent entertainers and media personalities
 the "Chief Executives:" presidents and CEOs of the most important companies within each industrial sector
 the "Corporate Rich:" major landowners and corporate shareholders
 the "Warlords:" senior military officers, most importantly the Joint Chiefs of Staff
 the "Political Directorate:" "fifty-odd men of the executive branch" of the U.S. federal government, including the senior leadership in the Executive Office of the President, who are sometimes variously drawn from elected officials of the Democratic and Republican parties but are usually professional government bureaucrats

Mills formulated a very short summary of his book: "Who, after all, runs America? No one runs it altogether, but in so far as any group does, the power elite."

Reception and criticism

Commenting on The Power Elite, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. derisively said, "I look forward to the time when Mr. Mills hands back his prophet's robes and settles down to being a sociologist again." Adolf Berle noted the book contained "an uncomfortable degree of truth", but Mills presented "an angry cartoon, not a serious picture".  Dennis Wrong described The Power Elite as "an uneven blend of journalism, sociology, and moral indignation". A review of the book in the Louisiana Law Review bemoaned that the "practical danger of Mr. Mills' pessimistic interpretation of the current situation is that his readers will concentrate on answering his prejudicial assertions rather than ponder the results of his really formidable research". Consideration of the book has become moderately more favorable. In 2006, G. William Domhoff wrote, "Mills looks even better than he did 50 years ago". Mills' biographer, John Summers, opined that book's historical value "seems assured".

In popular culture

In 2017, episode 5 of the Netflix TV series Mindhunter contains a scene in which one of the main characters, a sociology PhD student Deborah "Debbie" Mitford, writes a paper on The Power Elite.

In the Noah Baumbach film While We're Young, the protagonist Josh Schrebnick is a documentarian who cites Mills, and frequently cites the expertise of the subject of his documentary, Ira Mandelstam's views as they relate to The Power Elite.

See also

 Elite theory
 Friendly Fascism, 1980 book
 Iron law of oligarchy
 Mass society
 Military-industrial complex
 New Left
 Power (social and political)
 Social alienation

References

Further reading

 Crockett, Norman L. ed. The power elite in America (1970), escerpts from experts online free

External links

 C.W Mills, Structure of Power in American Society, British Journal of Socoiology, Vol.9.No.1 1958
 C. Wright Mills, About F. Neumanns study Structure of Nazi Germany in Power, Politics and People
 A Mills Revival? by S .Aronowitz
 C.Wright Mills, On Intellectual Craftsmanship from The Sociological Imagination, How Power Elite was made
 Sociology-Congress in Köln 2000 workshop: C. Wright Mills and his Power Elite: Actuality today?
 Art inspired by The Power Elite

1956 non-fiction books
Books by C. Wright Mills
Elite theory
Military–industrial complex
Sociology books
Social class in the United States
Political science theories
Sociological theories
Political science books
Social status
Income in the United States
Books about economic inequality
Social inequality
Books about political power
Oxford University Press books
C. Wright Mills

The Power Elite


Cresheim Creek is a creek in southeastern Pennsylvania. Rising at Wyndmoor in Springfield Township (in a park near the USDA's Agricultural Research Service Eastern Regional Research Center, adjacent to the border between Montgomery County and Northwest Philadelphia), it runs about 2.7 miles (4.3 km) southwest, passing through part of Northwest Philadelphia and forming the boundary between Mount Airy and Chestnut Hill, before emptying into the Wissahickon Creek at Devil's Pool not far south of the Valley Green Inn.

The Cresheim Valley below Germantown Avenue is part of Fairmount Park. The former railbed within it (see section below) is also an easement for PECO powerlines, which take advantage of the former railbed's grading and open space. In October 2013, the City of Philadelphia extended Fairmount Park ownership of the creek valley almost to the Philadelphia-Montgomery border at Stenton Avenue as part of the Wissahickon East Project, with ongoing and future efforts such as streambed cleanup and invasive species removal to restore the  of newly acquired land.

Cresheim Valley Drive runs beside the creek from Stenton Avenue until southwest of the Chestnut Hill West Line tracks, where the road bends away to become Emlen Street. The stone pergola that stands at the southwest corner of the intersection of Germantown Avenue and Cresheim Valley Drive contains plaques honoring both the early German settlers of the Cresheim Valley and Samuel Newman Baxter, chief arborist of Fairmount Park from 1915 to 1945.

A dirt parking area off Cresheim Valley Drive, southwest from the Chestnut Hill West railroad bridge, marks the trailhead for a set of walking paths that follow the creek for some distance downstream to its outlet.

History

Pre-Euro-American and early-Euro-American periods

The area around Cresheim Creek was originally inhabited by the Lenape. Seventeenth-century (1600s) settlers of the German Township named the creek after the village from which they had emigrated (which is now part of Monsheim, Alzey-Worms, Rhineland-Palatinate). The aforementioned pergola plaque gives the settlers' spelling of the name as Krisheim. The settlers arrived in the 1680s. In 1700, they built Cresheim Cottage, the earliest permanent building in the vicinity, which is still standing at the intersection of Germantown Avenue and Gowen Avenue. (The original cottage comprises the smaller part of the present building; the larger part was built circa 1748.)

Cresheim Branch (Fort Washington Branch) of the Connecting Railway

From 1893 to 1978, a  branch of the Connecting Railway, variously called either the Cresheim Branch or the Fort Washington Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, diverged from the Chestnut Hill Branch (present-day Chestnut Hill West Line) just north of Allen Lane station (behind what is now the campus of New Covenant Church and several schools) and ran next to the creek's bank from there to the creek's headwaters near East Lane station in Wyndmoor. The railbed curved through Hillcrest and Laverock in Cheltenham Township to meet and follow the right-of-way that is now occupied by the Fort Washington Expressway portion of Route 309 to Fort Hill, at a station named White Marsh (sic), near Fort Washington, where it connected with the Trenton Cutoff. The branch was electrified by the Pennsylvania from 1924 to 1952, more as an operational convenience for the railroad than for the line's negligible commuter traffic which the PRR never bothered to develop. The section of the branch below Queen Street in Wyndmoor remained in service for freight customers until 1978 when it was abandoned and the tracks removed.

Outdoor enthusiasts of Northwest Philadelphia and various Montgomery County communities have encouraged their local legislators to effect the conversion of the Cresheim Branch's railbed into a rail trail.

See also

 List of rivers of Pennsylvania

References

External links
 Wissahickon East Project

Rivers of Pennsylvania
Tributaries of the Schuylkill River
Rivers of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Rivers of Philadelphia
Wissahickon Valley Park

Cresheim Creek


Messier 54 (or M54 or NGC 6715) is a globular cluster in the constellation Sagittarius. It was discovered by Charles Messier in 1778. Later, he included it in his catalog of comet-like objects.

M54 was thought to belong to our Milky Way galaxy, but in 1994 it was discovered that M54 belongs to the Sagittarius dwarf elliptical galaxy ('Sag DEG').

M54 is some 87,000 light-years from us, and has a radius of 150 light-years across. It is one of the most dense globulars. It shines with the luminosity of roughly 850,000 times that of the Sun and has an absolute magnitude of −10.0.

M54 is easily found in the sky, being close to the star ζ Sagittarii. Individual stars cannot be seen with amateur telescopes.

It is on or near SagDEG's center. Some authors think it actually may be its core; but others do not.

In July 2009, a team of astronomers found evidence of a medium-sized black hole in the core of M54.

References

Star clusters

Messier 54


Daniel Davis Jr. (1813–1887) was an American photographer, daguerreotypist and ambrotypist.

In 1842 Daniel Davis Jr. patented a method for colouring daguerreotypes through electroplating, and his work was refined by Warren Thompson the following year.

References
 Elliott, Alan. A Daguerreotype
 Union List of Artist Names, s.v. "Davis, Daniel Jr.", cited 10 September 2006.

1813 births
1887 deaths
American photographers

Daniel Davis Jr.