Michael Finney is a professional magician. He was born in 1954 in Woodland, California. He moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1978. He has appeared on numerous television specials and performs regularly throughout the U.S. He has appeared on the cover of The Linking Ring.

Biography
After spending part of his early career as a close-up magician and a children's performer at a theme park, Finney decided to concentrate strictly on comedy magic.

Once a comedy finalist on the television program Star Search, Finney was nominated for 'Magician of the Year' by the Magic Castle nightclub in Los Angeles, performed at the 2004 Inaugural Gala for President George W Bush, and received the Silver Lion Head award for excellence in comedy and magic from magicians Siegfried and Roy.

NBC
Once a regular performer on NBC's World's Greatest Magicians and World's Wildest Magic shows, Finney now performs primarily one day corporate events, charity events, and at casinos.

Finney is one of only a few magicians with their own foundation —- the Michael Finney Foundation to benefit firefighters and the Pappas School for homeless children. In eight years, his foundation donated over $400,000 to his causes, according to Finney's estimate. He stated in a recent interview that he is now also associated with the Gift of Life, a Rotarian group that provides assistance and operations for children with heart problems. He is currently involved with the Wounded Warriors program, having contributed almost a million dollars through his foundation.

References
https://www.theaquarian.com/2014/02/19/interview-with-masters-of-illusion-up-to-new-tricks/

External links
 Official homepage
 Interview with Michael Finney

1954 births
Living people
American magicians
Academy of Magical Arts Parlour Magician of the Year winners

Michael Finney (magician)


Shota Rustaveli was a Georgian poet of the 12th century, and the greatest classic of Georgian secular literature. He is the author of The Knight in the Panther's Skin ("Vepkhistqaosani" in Georgian), the Georgian national epic poem. Little is known about life of the poet. He was a courtier of king Tamari.

His work

"The Knight in the Panther's Skin" (the actual name is Vepkhistkaosani, which means The wearer of Tiger's Skin) has been translated into many languages. It was first printed in 1712, in Tbilisi (capital of Georgia). It consists of 1576 four line stanzas with monorhyme. That means all lines rhyme to each other. The lines are made up of sixteen syllables.

References

Bibliography
 Georgian Literature by A. G. Baramidze, D. M. Gamezardashvili, University Press of the Pacific, Honolulu 2001, .

Other websites

 The Man in the Panther's Skin: full text of M. Wardrop's English translation.
 Shota Rustaveli. "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" (Fragments in English).

12th-century works
Poets from Georgia (country)
1172 births
1216 deaths
Writers from Georgia (country)

Shota Rustaveli


Herbert George Ponting, FRGS (21 March 1870 – 7 February 1935) was a professional photographer.  He is best known as the expedition photographer and cinematographer for Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova Expedition to the Ross Sea and South Pole (1910–1913). In this role, he captured some of the most enduring images of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Early life
Ponting was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire in the south of England, on 21 March 1870. His father was a successful banker, Francis Ponting, and his mother was Mary Sydenham. From the age of eighteen Herbert was employed at a local bank branch in Liverpool, where he stayed for three years.  That time was long enough to convince him that he did not wish to follow in the profession of his father. He emigrated to California where he ran a fruit ranch and worked in mining.  In 1895 he married a California woman, Mary Biddle Elliott; their daughter Mildred, was born in Auburn, California in January 1897.

Ponting sold his fruit farm in 1898 and, with his wife and daughter, returned to Britain to stay with his family. When they returned to the USA he turned his long-standing hobby of photography into his next career. Following a chance meeting with a professional photographer in California, to whom he had given advice about the locality and showed his own photos, he entered his pictures in competitions and won awards; he also sent some of his stereoscopic photographs to companies who published them. His work was also selected for the first San Francisco Salon; at that time he was living in Sausalito, north of San Francisco.  He took stereoviews of and reported on the Russo-Japanese war of 1904–05, and worked in Asia, including in Burma, Korea, Java, China and India taking stereoviews and working as a freelance photographer for English-speaking periodicals. Improvements in the printing press had made it possible, for the first time, for mass-market magazines to print and publish photographic illustrations.

In 1907 Ponting returned to Europe, where he exhibited his Japanese and other photographs and continued to take stereoviews (including in Switzerland and Spain) and wrote illustrated articles for magazines including Country Life, the Graphic, the Illustrated London News, Pearson's, and the Strand Magazine.

Ponting expanded his photographs of Japan into a 1910 book, In Lotus-land Japan.  He took extensive photographs in Spain.  He had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS) in 1905.  His flair for journalism and ability to shape his photographic illustrations into a narrative led to his being signed as expedition photographer aboard the Terra Nova, the first time a professional photographer was included on an Antarctic expedition.

The Terra Nova and Antarctica
As a member of the shore party in early 1911, Ponting helped set up the Terra Nova Expedition's Antarctic winter camp at Cape Evans, Ross Island.  The camp included a tiny photographic darkroom.  Although the expedition came more than 20 years after the invention of photographic film, Ponting preferred high-quality images taken on glass plates.  With these plates, Ponting could capture images of Antarctic icescapes and landscapes.

Ponting was one of the first men to use a portable movie camera in Antarctica.  The primitive device, called a cinematograph, could take short film sequences.  Ponting also brought autochrome plates to Antarctica and took some of the first known color still photographs there.

The expedition's scientists studied the behavior of large Antarctic animals, especially killer whales, seals, and penguins.  Ponting tried to get as close as possible to these animals, both on the Terra Nova in the sea ice and later on Ross Island, and narrowly escaped death on one occasion in early 1911 when a pod of eight killer whales broke up the ice floe in McMurdo Sound on which he was standing.

During the 1911 winter, Ponting took many flash photographs of Scott and the other members of the expedition in their Cape Evans hut.  With the start of the 1911–12 sledging season, Ponting's field work began to come to an end.  As a middle-aged man, he was not expected to help pull supplies southward over the Ross Ice Shelf for the push to the South Pole. Ponting photographed other members of the shore party setting off for what was expected to be a successful trek. After 14 months at Cape Evans, Ponting, along with eight other men, boarded the Terra Nova in February 1912 to return to civilization, arrange his inventory of more than 1,700 photographic plates, and shape a narrative of the expedition. Ponting's illustrated narrative would be waiting for Captain Scott to use for lectures and fundraising in 1913.

Later life
The catastrophic end of "Scott's Last Expedition" also affected Ponting's later life and career.  When the Terra Nova had sailed south in 1910, it had left massive debts behind.  It was expected that Scott would return from the South Pole as a celebrity and that he could use moving images from his expedition in a one-man show.  Ponting's cinematograph sequences, pieced out with magic lantern slides, were to have been a key element in the expedition's financial payback.

However, when the bodies of Scott and his companions were discovered in their tent on the Ross Ice Shelf in November 1912, their diaries and journals were also found.  These records described the explorers' final days while suffering from exposure and malnutrition, and their desperate effort to get to a depot of food and fuel that could have saved them.  Scott knew he was doomed, and used his final hours to write pleas to his countrymen to look after the welfare of the expedition's widows and survivors.

The eloquent appeals, upon publication in the British press, wrung massive donations from the public. The gifts repaid the entire cost of the expedition, provided large annuities (carefully doled out by expedition status and rank) for the widows and survivors, and left a substantial surplus for eventual use as the startup endowment of the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI), part of Cambridge University.

Under these conditions, Ponting's Antarctic work took on a tragic overtone and became a memorial to Scott and his companions rather than a celebration. It was, however, used extensively in the press and exhibited at the Fine Art Society, Bond Street, shown in venues all over Britain and used in numerous lectures by Ponting and other expedition members (including at Buckingham Palace and the Royal Albert Hall). When World War I began Ponting tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade the War Office to make use of his skills as a photographer and war correspondent, but his age was cited as a reason for his being rejected for war service. Copies of his films of Scott were shown to soldiers at the front who were, according to an army chaplain, moved by the heroism of Scott and his men.

With the conclusion of the war, Ponting's archive drew a nibble of interest. Over the course of time, Ponting would eventually fall out with some of the surviving members of the expedition, most notably with Lieutenant Evans, as well as falling out with the trustees of the Terra Nova Expedition. A few of the surviving expedition members grew envious of Ponting, thinking that he was profiting off the exhibition for monetary gain and fame. This was untrue, as Ponting felt it was his duty to protect the interests of not only his photographic program, but to protect the memory and achievements of his friends Wilson and Scott. In addition to this, most of the money from Ponting's lectures went to paying off the debts from the expedition, as well as to the memorial fund that was established to aid the widows and dependents of the members who had perished.

He published The Great White South, the photographic narrative of the expedition, in 1921 which was a popular success, and produced two films based upon his surviving cinematograph sequences, The Great White Silence (1924 - silent) and Ninety Degrees South (1933 - sound), the latter of which he collaborated with Evans, whom he had since made peace with.  He also continued to lecture extensively on the Antarctic.  These works brought him little personal recompense but he continued to work on inventions related to the 'movies', including a special effects machine which was used in the English language version of "Emil and the Detectives" (1935). Ponting died at his home in London in 1935; his photographs were sold to raise funds to pay for medical and other expenses.

The Scott Polar Research Institute purchased the Ponting Collection in 2004 for £533,000.  In 2009, SPRI and publisher Salto Ulbeek platinum-printed and published a selection of the Collection.  The Great White Silence was restored by the British Film Institute and re-released in 2011. During the period of the Scott expedition centenary (2010–3) his work was widely published and exhibited, reaching new audiences.

In addition, one of Ponting's photographic darkrooms was reconstructed in the collections of the Ferrymead Heritage Park in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Exhibition
2010: Die Eroberung des Südpols – Fotografien von Herbert Ponting ("The Conquest of the South Pole: the photographs of Herbert Ponting"), Flo Peters Gallery, Chilehaus C, Pumpen 8, Hamburg, Germany.

His verse
Ponting is also the author of a verse in trochaic tetrameter, "The Sleeping Bag" (1911).  The poem, elaborating on a motif also found in the anonymously-authored Longfellow parody "The Modern Hiawatha" (ca. 1904), is recited for humorous effect in the film Scott of the Antarctic.

Bibliography
Arnold, H.J.P., Photographs of the World: a biography of Herbert Ponting, Hutchinson, London (1969)
Arnold, H.J.P., Herbert Ponting: Another World, Photographs in the United States, Asia, Europe & Antarctica 1900–1912, Sidgwick & Jackson, London (1975)
Huxley, Elspeth, Scott of the Antarctic, Atheneum Books, New York (1978)
Ponting, Herbert G., In Lotus-Land Japan, Macmillan, London, 1910
Ponting, Herbert G., The Great White South, or, With Scott in the Antarctic being an account of experiences with Captain Scott's South Pole Expedition and of the nature life of the Antarctic, with an introduction by Lady Scott, Duckworth, London (1921)
Strathie, Anne, Herbert Ponting: Scott's Antarctic Photographer and Pioneer Filmmaker, The History Press, Cheltenham, 2021

References

External links

Ponting Portfolio and platinum prints
Scott Polar Research Institute
Royal Geographical Society biographical tribute
BFI Screenonline on Ponting's film 'The Great White Silence'.
National Archive on Flickr a set from the Copy archive.
 "The Lost Photographs of Captain Scott", Outside magazine, n.d. Retrieved 2013-05-18. Includes self-portrait of Ponting taking a picture of Terra Nova (#8 of 10).

1870 births
1935 deaths
Collections of the Scott Polar Research Institute
English cinematographers
Photographers from Wiltshire
Explorers of Antarctica
Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society
People educated at Carlisle Grammar School
People educated at Preston Grammar School
People from Salisbury
Photography in Japan
Terra Nova expedition

Herbert Ponting


was a philosopher, educator, and statesman in Shōwa period Japan. As Minister of Education in the immediate post-war era, he oversaw major reforms to the Japanese educational system.

Biography
Abe was born in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture as the son of a doctor of Chinese medicine. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University, and was a close associate of Natsume Sōseki, Seiichi Hatano, Kyoshi Takahama and Shigeo Iwanami, although he was forced to return home to teach English in Matsuyama due to reduced family circumstances. He later married the sister of Misao Fujimura. While still a student, he began writing literary criticism and was interested in the development of naturalism.

From 1920, Abe worked as a professor at Hosei University; however, he toured Europe extensively and spent some time at Heidelberg University in 1924 where he studied Kantian philosophy. In 1926 he accepted a position at Keijō Imperial University in Seoul Korea, where he became interested in Korean culture and Korean literature. He travelled to China in 1929, visiting Jinan, Qufu and climbed Mount Tai, and noted the strong Japanese commercial presence throughout Shandong Province. He also visited Manchuria and noted the increasing Chinese presence in Harbin
Abe returned to mainland Japan in 1940, returning to his alma mater, the Daiichi High School in Tokyo. However, Abe soon ran afoul of the military authorities with his outspoken criticism of the military's plans to cut short school curriculums to increase the numbers of conscripts, and of Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe's efforts to create a single-party state. Although occasionally harassed by the Kempeitai, he was not arrested.

After the end of World War II, Abe was appointed to a seat in the Upper House of the Diet of Japan in December 1945, and from January through March 1946 served as  Minister of Education in the cabinet of Prime Minister Kijūrō Shidehara, where he oversaw the post-war reform of the Japanese educational system. He helped draft the Fundamental Law of Education, and the current Tōyō kanji and Modern kana usage guidelines. As Education Minister, he also stated that he felt it was fortunate that Japan had been occupied by America instead of the Soviet Union. From October 1946, he was principal of the Gakushuin Peers' School – a post he held until his death in 1966.

Abe was a strong supporter of the anti-war movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but maintained a critical stance against post-war socialism, which he viewed as dangerous as pre-war militarism.

Abe was awarded the Yomiuri Literary Prize in 1958 for his biography of Shigeo Iwanami. In 1964, he was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure.

Abe died in Tokyo in 1966, but his grave is at the temple of Tōkei-ji in Kamakura.

References

External links

National Diet Library biography

Notes

1883 births
1966 deaths
People from Ehime Prefecture
University of Tokyo alumni
Government ministers of Japan
Members of the House of Peers (Japan)
Japanese educators
Japanese philosophers
Recipients of the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 1st class
Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Academic staff of Hosei University
Heidelberg University alumni
Japanese expatriates in Germany
20th-century Japanese philosophers

Yoshishige Abe


Durham Flames were a semi-professional Canadian football club based in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. The club competed in the Canadian Professional Soccer League for five seasons from 1999 to 2003.

Background
Durham Flames (previously known as Oshawa Flames) played in the Canadian Professional Soccer League which is the third tier of Canadian football pyramid. The club was founded in 1999 and played their home matches at the Oshawa Civic Stadium in Oshawa. The stadium is able to accommodate 2,000 spectators. The club was affiliated to the Canadian Soccer Association.

History
Durham Flames were originally known as Oshawa Flames and first entered the Canadian Professional Soccer League in 1999, as a replacement for the Mississauga Eagles. The club's first head coach was CSL and APSL veteran Jens Kraemer. Notable acquisition were Darryl Gomez, Pat Sullivan, and Hubert Busby, Jr. The club finished in fifth position and reached the semi-finals of the League Cup before going out 2-0 on aggregate to Toronto Croatia, the second match proving decisive at Centennial Park Stadium. The following season the team hired the services of Durham College head coach Stan Bombino to coach the team. Bombino led Durham to a seventh-place finish which reflected the fact that they drew 9 of their 14 matches. Jimmy Kuzmanovski was the club's top goal-scorer with 9 league and cup goals. At the conclusion of the season Kuzmanovski was awarded the CPSL Rookie of the Year award. Under their new title of Durham Flames, and under the leadership of Danny Stewart the club again failed to reach the championship playoffs in the 2001 and 2002 seasons. Though Durham failed to reach the postseason they received the CPSL Fair Play award in 2001.

In their final season in 2003 in the Eastern Conference the club struggled, winning just one of their 18 league matches. This contrasted with their performance in the Open Canada Cup when they reached the Cup Final weekend before losing 4-1 to London City in a wild card game on 29 August 2003. The Flames last ever match was played on 30 September 2003 when they went down 3-1 away to Vaughan Sun Devils. On October 5, 2003 the organization was awarded their second CPSL Fair Play award for being the most disciplined team.

It was reported in the local press that The Flames were excluded from the League in December 2003, their franchise having been revoked following their failure to pay league fees and fines. Durham Storm took over their slot for home games in Oshawa's Civic Stadium on Friday nights. However The Storm bought the Mississauga Olympians franchise and did not take over the Durham Flames franchise.

Season to season

First team squad 2003
The following players represented Durham Flames in their final season:

Club administration 2003
The key officials of the club during the last season were:

Steve Kralj - President
Carlos De sousa - Vice President
Frank Kralj - Treasurer
Stan Bombino - Technical Director

Jack Methven - Manager
Steve Hamill - Head Coach
Tony Cabral - Assistant Coach
Matt Gurr - Goalkeeper Coach

Head coaches

Footnotes

Canadian Soccer League (1998–present) teams
Defunct soccer clubs in Canada
Soccer clubs in Ontario
Sport in Oshawa
Association football clubs established in 1999
Association football clubs disestablished in 2003
1999 establishments in Ontario
2003 disestablishments in Ontario

Durham Flames


The AIM Multiuser Benchmark, also called the AIM Benchmark Suite VII or AIM7, is a job throughput benchmark widely used by UNIX computer system vendors.  Current research operating systems such as K42 use
 the reaim
 form of the benchmark for performance analysis.
The AIM7 benchmark measures some of the same things as the SDET benchmark.

The original code was developed by Gene Dronek for AIM Technology, Inc., who licensed it to others.  The first AIM Benchmarks were for single user PCs. The suite was expanded and enhanced to become multi-user benchmarks by Donald Steiny.  Caldera International, Inc., bought the license and released
 the source code for Suite VII and Suite IX under the GPL.

AIM7 is a program written in C that forks many processes called tasks, each of which concurrently runs in random order a set of subtests called jobs.  There are 53 kinds of jobs, each of which exercises a different aspect of the operating system, such as disk-file operations, process creation, user virtual memory operations, pipe I/O, and compute-bound arithmetic loops
.

An AIM7 benchmark run is composed of a sequence of subruns with the number of tasks incrementing by one between each subrun.  Each subrun goes until each of its tasks has completed its set of jobs.  Each subrun reports a metric of jobs completed per minute, with the final report for the overall benchmark being a table of that throughput metric versus number of tasks.  A given system will have a peak number of tasks N at which the jobs per minute is maximized.  Either N or the value of the jobs per minute at N is typically used as the metric of interest.

References

Benchmarks (computing)

AIM Multiuser Benchmark


Slighting is the deliberate damage of high-status buildings to reduce their value as military, administrative or social structures. This destruction of property sometimes extended to the contents of buildings and the surrounding landscape. It is a phenomenon with complex motivations and was often used as a tool of control. Slighting spanned cultures and periods, with especially well-known examples from the English Civil War in the 17th century.

Meaning and use

Slighting is the act of deliberately damaging a high-status building, especially a castle or fortification, which could include its contents and the surrounding area. The first recorded use of the word 'slighting' to mean a form of destruction was in 1613. Castles are complex structures combining military, social, and administrative uses, and the decision to slight them took these various roles into account. The purpose of slighting was to reduce the value of the building, whether military, social, or administrative.  Destruction often went beyond what was needed to prevent an enemy from using the fortification, indicating the damage was important symbolically. When Eccleshall Castle in Staffordshire was slighted as a result of the English Civil War, the act was politically motivated.

In some cases it was used as a way of punishing the king's rebels, or was used to undermine the authority of the owner by demonstrating his inability to protect his property. As part of the peace negotiations bringing The Anarchy of 1135–1154 to an end, both sides agreed to dismantle fortifications built since the start of the conflict. Similarly, in 1317 Edward II ordered the dismantling of Harbottle Castle in Northumberland in England as part of a treaty with Robert the Bruce.

In England, Scotland, and Wales, it was uncommon for someone to slight his own fortifications but not unknown; during the First War of Scottish Independence, Robert the Bruce systematically slighted Scottish castles, often after capturing them from English control. More than a century earlier, John, King of England, ordered the demolition of Château de Montrésor in France, during his war with the French king over control of Normandy. In the Levant, Muslim rulers adopted a policy of slighting castles and fortified towns and cities to deny them to Crusaders; the Sultan Baybars, for example, instigated the destruction of fortifications at Jaffa in 1267, Antioch in 1268, and Askelon in 1270.

Methods of destruction

Castles were demolished with a range of methods, each affecting the buildings in different ways. Fire might be used, especially against timber structures; digging underneath stone structures (known as undermining) could cause them to collapse; dismantling a structure by hand was sometimes done, but was time- and labour-intensive, as was filling ditches and digging away earthworks; and in later periods gunpowder was sometimes used. Manually dismantling a castle ("picking") can be split into two categories: primary damage where the intention was to slight the castle; and secondary damage which was incidental through activity such as retrieving reusable materials.

Undermining involved digging underneath a wall or removing stones at its base. When successful, the tunnel or cavity would collapse, making it difficult to identify through archaeology. Archaeological investigations have identified 61 castles that were slighted in the Middle Ages, and only five were undermined. While surviving mines are rare, one was discovered in the 1930s during excavations at Bungay Castle in Suffolk. It probably dates from around 1174 when the owner rebelled against Henry II.

The effect of slighting

Dismantling a castle was a skilled process, and stone, metal, and glass were sometimes removed for sale or reuse.  After the castle at Papowo Biskupie in Poland was slighted, some of the materials from the castle were used to build a seminary at nearby Chełmża.

The impact of slighting ranged from almost complete destruction of a site, as can be seen at Deganwy Castle, to a token gesture, for example damaging elements such as arrowslits. In 1268, the court of King Louis IX of France gave orders to slight a new fortification near Étampes, specifying that the bailiff carrying out orders should "destroy the arrow-slits and so to break them through that it may be abundantly clear that the fortification has been slighted".

Destruction was often carefully targeted rather than indiscriminate, even when carried out on a large scale. In cases of medieval slighting, domestic areas such as free-standing halls and chapels were typically excluded from the destruction.

When King Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland gave the order to slight the castle at Mała Nieszawka, after negotiation with the Teutonic Order who owned the castle, one of the conditions was that the buildings in the outer bailey would be left intact while the walls were reduced in height. In 1648, Parliament gave orders to slight Bolsover Castle but that "so much only be done to it as to make it untenable as a garrison and that it may not be unnecessarily spoiled and defaced." When a castle had a keep, it was usually the most visible part of the castle and a focus of symbolism. This would sometimes attract the attention of people carrying out slighting. Kenilworth was one of many castles to be slighted during the English Civil War, and the side of the keep most visible to people outside the castle was demolished.

Documentary sources for the medieval period typically have little information on what slighting involved, so archaeology helps to understand which areas of buildings were targeted and how they were demolished. For the English Civil War, destruction accounts are rare but there are some instances such as Sheffield Castle where detailed records survive. At Sheffield military and social concerns combined: there may have been a desire to prevent the Royalist owner from using the fortification against Parliament, and the destruction undermined the owner's authority. Despite this, the profits from the demolition went to the owner, contrasting with Pontefract Castle, where the money went to the townspeople.

When castles were slighted in the Middle Ages this often led to their complete abandonment, but some were repaired and others reused. This was also the case with places slighted as a result of the English Civil War. In 1650, Parliament gave orders to slight Wressle Castle; the south part of the castle was left standing so that the owner could still use it as a manor house. Berkeley Castle was also slighted in the same period – meaning that a small but significant part of the curtain wall was demolished, but the remaining structure was left intact, and the castle remains inhabited to this day.

The use of destruction both to control and to subvert control spans periods and cultures. Slighting was prevalent in the Middle Ages and the 17th century; notable episodes include The Anarchy, the English Civil War, and France in the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as Japan. The ruins left by the destruction of castles in 17th-century England and Wales encouraged the later Romantic movement.

See also

Notes

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

Fortifications
Medieval studies
Demolition
Military tactics
Castles
Wars of Scottish Independence
English Civil War

Slighting


A birthmark is a mark on skin that some people are born with. nevus|congenital melanocytic nevi, and port-wine stains.

A birthmark was once thought of as the mark of the devil, and today it is often considered a birth defect. In some cases this mark is considered to be the mark of God applied to his chosen few

References

Skin

Birthmark


GenGIS merges geographic, ecological and phylogenetic biodiversity data in a single interactive visualization and analysis environment. A key feature of GenGIS is the testing of geographic axes that can correspond to routes of migration or gradients that influence community similarity. Data can also be explored using graphical summaries of data on a site-by-site basis, as 3D geophylogenies, or custom visualizations developed using a plugin framework. Standard statistical test such as linear regression and Mantel are provided, and the R statistical language can be accessed directly within GenGIS. Since its release, GenGIS has been used to investigate the phylogeography of viruses and bacteriophages, bacteria, and eukaryotes.

See also
Phylogeography
Biogeography

References

External links
 GenGIS homepage

Bioinformatics software
Biogeography
Genetics software
Molecular biology

GenGIS


Scyllo may refer to:

1D-1-guanidino-3-amino-1,3-dideoxy-scyllo-inositol transaminase (EC 184.108.40.206), an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction 1D-1-guanidino-3-amino-1,3-dideoxy-scyllo-inositol + pyruvate 1D-1-guanidino-1-deoxy-3-dehydro-scyllo-inositol + L-alanine
Glutamine—scyllo-inositol transaminase (EC 188.8.131.52), an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction L-glutamine + 2,4,6/3,5-pentahydroxycyclohexanone 2-oxoglutaramate + 1-amino-1-deoxy-scyllo-inositol
Guanidinodeoxy-scyllo-inositol-4-phosphatase (EC 22.214.171.124), an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction 1-guanidino-1-deoxy-scyllo-inositol 4-phosphate + H2O 1-guanidino-1-deoxy-scyllo-inositol + phosphate
Scyllo-inosamine 4-kinase (EC 22.214.171.124), an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction ATP + 1-amino-1-deoxy-scyllo-inositol ADP + 1-amino-1-deoxy-scyllo-inositol 4-phosphate
Scyllo-inosamine-4-phosphate amidinotransferase (EC 22.214.171.124), an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction L-arginine + 1-amino-1-deoxy-scyllo-inositol 4-phosphate L-ornithine + 1-guanidino-1-deoxy-scyllo-inositol 4-phosphate
Scyllo-inositol, a cyclohexanehexol stereoisomer Also known as Scyllitol, Cocositol, Quercinitol, 1,3,5/2,4,6-Hexahydroxycyclohexane

Scyllo


Hermes-Berthecourt is a railway station located in the communes of Hermes and Berthecourt in the Oise department, France.  The station is served by TER Hauts-de-France trains from Creil to Beauvais.

The station was the terminus of a secondary line to Persan-Beaumont operated by the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Hermes à Beaumont ("Hermes - Beaumont Railway Company").

References

Railway stations in Oise

Hermes-Berthecourt station


Juan Alberto González Vázquez (born October 20, 1969) is a Puerto Rican former baseball outfielder. He played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for four teams, but is most identified with the Texas Rangers (1989–1999, 2002–2003). One of the premier run producers and most feared hitters of the 1990s and early 2000s, González hit over 40 home runs five times and amassed at least 100 runs batted in (RBIs) eight times. He also had a batting average of .310 or higher in five seasons. In his career as a whole, González averaged an impressive 42 home runs, 135 RBIs, 81 extra-base hits, and 353 total bases per 162 games, placing him well within the top ten all-time in these season-adjusted statistics.

González was known as a line drive hitter, not a fly-ball home run hitter as were many power hitters of the 1990s. He was a full-time player at the age of 21 and a two-time Most Valuable Player before his 30th birthday. González explained his propensity for bringing runners home by saying, "I concentrate more when I see men on base."

Early life
González grew up in a rough area of Puerto Rico, where as a young boy he learned to hit bottlecaps and corks with a broomstick handle in the Alto de Cuba barrio. In the Puerto Rico youth league, González batted cleanup behind future Yankee center fielder Bernie Williams, where both competed against González's future teammate Iván Rodríguez. When the Yankees scouted the teenage Williams, he requested that they also bring his friend González to their scouting camp on the east coast; however, due to a lack of funding, González would remain in Puerto Rico.

Professional career

Minors
The Texas Rangers signed González as an amateur free agent on May 30, 1986, at the age of 16. González has always wanted to serve as a role model for the kids of Puerto Rico, as they are faced with the downfalls of drugs and prostitution frequently. González avoided such temptations growing up. His father, a math teacher, and mother, a housewife, made sure González and his two sisters behaved properly and stayed away from negative influences. González moved his family out of the barrio early in his MLB career. He paid utility bills for down-on-their-luck friends and plans on working to construct recreation facilities and a baseball diamond in his home town. One of Juan's managers, Johnny Oates, believed that until you've walked where Juan González has walked, you just won't understand. Speaking from experience, as Oates has walked the streets of Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, during visits multiple times, he had this to say: "I don't think you can appreciate how far he's come until you've been there", Oates said. "We might be making choices between going to the movies or going to the skating rink. But look at the choices the kids there were faced with growing up – do you want to do drugs or get beaten up?  I think it says so much about him that he was able to rise above the peer pressure in Vega Baja. He had enough intelligence to say, 'I don't want to do that.'"

In Puerto Rico he is known as "Igor", the nickname he has carried since he was a nine-year-old fascinated by the professional wrestler "Igor the Magnificent."
"I watched wrestling all the time and I still like it", González said. "One day when I was nine, I told another guy, 'I'm Igor.' And he said, 'Okay, your name is Igor from now on.' And I've been Igor since then."

González debuted with the 1986 GCL Rangers and finished with .240 batting average, .303 on-base percentage, and a .266 slugging percentage in 60 games. He only had five extra-base hits (none of them home runs) in 233 AB and struck out 57 times. He tied Harvey Pulliam by grounding into a Gulf Coast League-leading 9 double plays.

In 1987, González showed some improvement with the Gastonia Rangers, though Mark Whiten and Junior Felix were deemed better outfield prospects in the South Atlantic League. In ratings by Baseball America, González tied Ryan Bowen for 10th place on the prospect listing. He finished with .265 batting average, .306 on-base percentage, and .401 slugging percentage with 14 home runs and 74 RBI.

González spent 1988 with the Charlotte Rangers and batted .256/~.327/.415 with 8 home runs in 277 AB. One of his outfield teammates that year was Sammy Sosa. The next year, he showed more improvement with the Tulsa Drillers hitting .293/~.322/.506 with 21 home runs and led the Texas League with 254 total bases. He outhomered Sosa by 14 and was third in the League in home runs, behind teammate Dean Palmer (25) and Chris Cron (22). González was rated the league's No. 4 prospect by Baseball America, behind Ray Lankford, Andy Benes and José Offerman. Lankford and Warren Newson joined him in the TL All-Star outfield.

Texas Rangers (1989–1999)
González was called up by the Texas Rangers in September of that year, but only hit .150/.227/.250. During his time with the Rangers that year, González only hit one home run. He became the youngest player in Rangers history (19 yrs old) to hit a home run.

In 1990, González – playing with the Oklahoma City 89ers – led the American Association in home runs (29), RBI (101) and total bases (252). He made the AA All-Star outfield alongside Lankford and Bernard Gilkey and was named the league MVP. Baseball America named him the top prospect in the league in a poll of managers. He finished with .258/~.343/.508 for the 89ers. In the AAA All-Star Game, González hit 4th for the AL prospects and played as a designated hitter. He went 2 for 5 with a double, one of the game's two homers, two runs and two RBI in the AL's 8–5 loss. González was again called up by the Rangers and did far better this time, batting .289/.316/.522.

In 1991, Texas gave González a chance to be an everyday player. He batted .264 while hitting 27 home runs and recording 102 runs batted in (RBIs). González came up as a center fielder, as did teammate Sammy Sosa; but the Rangers opted to keep González and trade Sosa. González split his time in the OF between CF (93 games) and LF (92 games). González thrilled the club in his first full season at the young age of 21, as his 27 home runs led the Rangers. His 102 RBI was good enough for 2nd on the club, and 7th in the AL.

In 1992, González finished with a .260 batting average, 43 home runs, and 109 RBIs. He spent most of his time in CF in '92, playing 123 games there, 31 in LF and making just one appearance in RF, while DH-ing 4 games. He was the American League home run champion (one more than Mark McGwire) while also ranking 3rd in TB (309), 4th in extra-base hits (69), 5th in slugging percentage (.529), 7th in RBIs (109) while winning his first Silver Slugger Award. Winning the home run crown at the age of 22 made him the youngest player to lead the majors since Johnny Bench in 1970.

In 1993, González broke through to true stardom. He led the AL for the second consecutive year with 46 bombs, while raising his batting average an impressive 50 points to  .310, all this to go along with a league-leading slugging percentage of .632. That production garnered González an invite to his first All-Star team. During the 1993 All-Star Weekend, he participated in the only Home Run Derby of his career. González and Ken Griffey Jr. put on an amazing display of raw-power, as they each golfed 7 homers a piece. González, however, wowed the national audience even more, becoming the first player to hit a homer into the facade of the upper deck in left field (estimated 473 feet) at Oriole Park at Camden Yards and the green wall behind the center-field fence (estimated 455 feet).  González then defeated Griffey in a winner-take-all playoff for the individual Home Run Derby title, 5–4. When asked about the title, González responded: "It was very exciting to surprise everybody. I never thought in my mind that I'd win the Home Run Derby. I even surprised myself."  He also finished fourth in voting for the 1993 AL MVP and earned his second consecutive Silver Slugger Award.

In 1994, the Rangers moved from Arlington Stadium to The Ballpark in Arlington. González batted 19 home runs in 1994 during the strike-shortened season, but belted 27 home runs in 1995, in just 90 games.

From 1995–98, González was an RBI machine, averaging more than an RBI per game (514 RBI, 511 games). This made him the first player since World War II to drive in a run per game for any four-year period. He won two MVP awards in this stretch (1996 and 1998). The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract listed him as the player who had the highest ratio of slugging percentage to on-base percentage in baseball history at that time, ahead of Dave Kingman and Tony Armas and 4th in RBI per game by an outfielder (behind Sam Thompson, Joe DiMaggio and Babe Ruth). James also ranked González as the 52nd-best right fielder in baseball history as of mid-2000.

In 1996, González had one of his best seasons hitting .314 with a .643 slugging percentage. He edged Alex Rodríguez by one first-place vote (11–10) and 3 award points (290–287) in a very close vote to win the American League MVP. He won his third Silver Slugger as an outfielder and was second in the AL in slugging (87 points behind McGwire). He was selected to the Associated Press Major League All-Star Team and The Sporting News AL All-Star squad at season's end. González was also named the Puerto Rico Pro Athlete of the Year by Associated Press and the DFW Metroplex Pro Athlete of the Year by the Dallas All Sports Association. He received the honorable selection of American League Player of the Month in July, leading the majors in batting (.407), homers (15), RBI (38), slugging (.917) and total bases (99). González was also the AL Player of the Week for July 29 – August 4. González had a pair of 21-game hitting streaks, June 25 – July 19 and August 8–31, matching the 3rd longest hitting streaks in team history with Mickey Rivers (1980) being the only other Ranger with 2 20-game hitting streaks in the same season. On July 30, González went 5–5 vs. New York, a career best and tied the club record for hits in a game. González was also chosen as a member of the Major League Baseball All-Star Team that traveled to Japan for an eight game exhibition series in November, batting .500 (10–20) with one homer and 3 RBI in 7 games.  That year, the Texas Rangers made the playoffs, and in the 1996 American League Division Series, González homered five times in four games and batted .438/.526/1.375 with 9 RBI. Texas ended up losing in four games to the New York Yankees. González tied Jeffrey Leonard's 1987 NLCS record by homering in four straight post-season games and joined Reggie Jackson and Ken Griffey Jr. as the only players to hit five home runs in a single post-season series. González, however, accomplished this feet in less games (4) than Leonard, Jackson and Griffey Jr; all of whom needed at least 5 games to accomplish said feat. Combining the regular season and postseason, González hit .315 with 52 home runs, 153 RBIs, and .664 slugging percentage in 1996.

In 1997, González batted .296/.335/.589 as a DH-RF for the Rangers, winning his fourth Silver Slugger Award. In 133 games he was 4th in slugging, 6th in total bases (314), third in homers (42) and RBI (131), 10th in extra-base hits (69) and tied for 6th with 10 sacrifice flies. González missed the first month of the season and was not activated from the DL until May 2 due to a torn ligament in his left thumb. Despite the injury he still managed to earn American League Player of the Month honors in September (.337, 10 home runs, 26 RBI) and was the Rangers Player of the Month in both August and September. González was selected to Baseball America's American League All-Star Team.

In 1998, he reached the 100 RBI mark before the All-Star break (101), being the first player (and still most recent) to do so since Hank Greenberg 63 years earlier. He hit cleanup for the AL in the 1998 All-Star Game and decisively won the AL MVP award. González was 10th in the 1998 AL in batting average, second in slugging, fourth in OPS, 6th in hits (193), 4th in total bases (382), first in doubles (50), tied for fourth in home runs (45), first in RBI (157) in 154 games, tied for 8th in OPS+ (149), second in extra-base hits (97), tied for third in sac flies (11), tied for sixth in intentional walks (9) and tied for third in double plays ground into (20). In April, he drove in 35 runs, a major league record for the month that still stands today. González produced the 5th season ever of at least 50 doubles and 40 home runs. González started 115 games in Right and 36 as the DH.

González became the 1st 5-time winner of the Rangers Player of the Year Award and was also named as the AL's Most Valuable Player by USA Today and USA Today Baseball Weekly. González was selected to major league all-star teams selected by the Associated Press (OF) and Baseball America (DH) and to the Sporting News AL all-star squad (OF). He was named as an outfielder on the AL Silver Slugger Award team for the 5th time in his career, his 3rd consecutive year. González shared Rangers Player of the Month honors with Iván Rodríguez in April and won the award outright in May. González also received the American League Player of the Week, for August 31 – September 6. He received 21 of 28 1st place mvp votes and 7 2nd place votes for 357 total points to defeat Boston's Nomar Garciaparra, who had 5 1st place votes and 232 points. González also became the 1st native of Latin America to ever win multiple MVP's since the award was instituted in 1931. This award also made him the 16th player to capture 2 MVP's in a 3-year span. The Rangers reached the playoffs, only to be swept by the Yankees. The Rangers offense was miserable in the Division Series, scoring just one run on a Pudge Rodriguez single after doubling to lead off the inning.

In 1999, González was 9th in the AL in average, 4th in slugging, 6th in OPS, 10th in runs (114), 6th in total bases (338), 6th in home runs (39), 5th in RBI (128), 7th in extra-base hits (76) and 2nd in sacrifice flies (12). However, he and the Rangers wound up being swept for the second consecutive year by the Yankees in the Division Series. González wasn't able to do much in the 3-game series, hitting .182/.250/.455 with one home run, but his solo bomb was the only run the Rangers scored in the series.

González announced just before the 1999 All-Star Game that if the fans did not elect him to the starting lineup, he would refuse an invitation to be added to the roster (as a result he was not invited). González believed that the system was flawed; he thought the managers and players should vote for the starters. A few weeks later González didn't dress for the Hall of Fame exhibition game because (according to the media) the uniform pants the Rangers brought for him were too large. González later had this to say about the incident  "I couldn't play because my right wrist was sore. The pants they gave me were size 40. I wear 34. They were clown pants."

Detroit Tigers (2000)
Following the 1999 season, with one year left on his contract, the slugger was traded by the Texas Rangers along with Danny Patterson and Gregg Zaun in a blockbuster nine-player deal with the Detroit Tigers for Frank Catalanotto, Francisco Cordero, Bill Haselman, Gabe Kapler, Justin Thompson, and Alan Webb. He became the first two-time MVP to be traded since Dale Murphy was sent from Atlanta to Philadelphia in 1990. Detroit Tiger general manager Randy Smith was paying a high price for González by trading multiple young players, but he couldn't pass up on acquiring González, whom he referred to as "a two-time MVP and future Hall-of-Famer," even though González would more likely be a one-year rental (and was).

Gambling that they would be able to extend his contract past the 2000 season, the Tigers reportedly offered González an eight-year, $140 million contract soon after the deal was struck. González refused, which turned out to be the bigger gamble. He began the season badly, hobbled by foot pain and unable to adjust to the spacious dimensions of Detroit's new Comerica Park, where the left-center field fence stood nearly 400 feet from home plate. By mid-season he had announced that the Tigers would have to bring the fences in if they wanted to re-sign him as a free agent.

Detroit shopped González before the trading deadline, but a deal that would have sent him to the Yankees for outfielder Ricky Ledée and two minor leaguers was scuttled when the outfielder made it clear that he didn't want to play in New York. The Puerto Rico native stumbled through the rest of the season and saw his production dip to an all-time low (22 home runs, 67 RBI in 115 games). After missing the last weeks of the 2000 season, he was granted free agency on November 1.

Cleveland Indians (2001)
On January 9, 2001, he signed a one-year $10 million contract with the Cleveland Indians. González opened the season with a great start, batting .388 (40–103) with 9 homers and 32 RBIs in season's first 25 games through May 2. González completed the first half on a torrid pace. He was voted in as an All-Star starter and batted 5th in the 2001 All-Star Game. González hit .347 with 23 home runs and 83 RBI in 79 games in the first half.

He appeared to be on his way to easily capturing the RBI title, but an RBI drought at the end of the season (0 RBI in last 10 games) allowed Bret Boone to pass him by one. González hit over .300 in each of season's 1st 5 months before dropping to .299 for the month of September. His top months were .387 (36–93) in April and .356 (26–73) in July. González was hitting as high as .360 on June 5, then went 17–64 (.266) in next 17 contests, dropping to .338 through June 26. Had a .351 (73–208) mark in next 56 games and was at .344 overall, 2nd in the AL, through September 9. After this he hit just .130 (6–46) in final 13 games, going 3–34 (.088) in last 10 contests. González was hitless in his final 15 trips after his single on September 24. Despite his cold streak over the last week and a half of the season, he still finished with a .325/.370/.590 slash line and a 147 OPS+, close to his MVP seasons. He also won his sixth Silver Slugger and finished fifth in the MVP voting. His .325 average was one point shy of his career high (1999) and marked his 5th .300 season, his third in the last four years.

He was sixth in the 2001 AL in batting average, 5th in slugging, 6th in OPS, 9th in home runs (35), second in RBI (140, (in 140 games) one behind leader Bret Boone), 8th in OPS+, tied for third in double plays grounded into (18) and led the league with 16 sacrifice flies. González was also a 2nd team selection on Baseball America's Major League all-star squad and was named as the Indians player of the year by Baseball America. This proved to be the last season in which González averaged an RBI a game. Although González finished the regular season rather slowly, he showed up in a big way in the playoffs where he hit .348/.348/.739 for Cleveland in the Division Series with 3 doubles, 2 homers and 5 RBI in 5 games. Despite this Cleveland still fell in defeat.

González had a season best 15-game hitting streak from August 29 – September 19 at .345 (20–58) and hit safely in 10 straight games from April 17–27. González also had a 4 hit game April 11 at the Chicago White Sox. González batted .368 (43–117) vs. left-handers, 3rd best in the AL and had a .335 (53–158) mark with runners in scoring position, the 8th highest. As the DH, he hit .392 (31–79), this was the highest average in AL among players with 35 or more DH at bats, with 8 homers and 33 RBI in 21 games.

Through 11 full major league seasons (1991-2001), González had 392 homers and 1,263 RBI, an average of 36 homers and 115 RBI per year. His RBI total was the most in MLB in during that time frame by 40, despite having 1,000 fewer plate appearances than the player with the second-most RBIs for the time period, Jeff Bagwell (who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2017).

Second stint with Texas Rangers (2002–2003)
On January 8, 2002, González made his return to Arlington by signing a two-year $24 million contract with the Texas Rangers. He hit .282/.324/.451 (94 OPS+) the first year in 70 games. On June 18, he participated in the first MLB game ever with four players with 400+ home runs to that point. Rafael Palmeiro and Fred McGriff joined Sosa and González in a game which Texas lost to the Chicago Cubs, 4–3. His first season back in Arlington he had a .358 (29–81) average versus Lefties and hit .328 (21–64) with runners in scoring position while posting a .307 mark(42–137) in Arlington. He hit just .171 (6–35) with 2 homers and 4 RBI as the DH. He had Texas' only hit, a leadoff double in the 8th, off Cory Lidle on July 19 at Oakland.

In 2003, González started the first few weeks rather slowly. He had a .230 average with 4 homers and 8 RBI in his first 18 games through April 20. He quickly picked it up though and went on a .349 (29–83) tear with 9 homers and 24 RBI in his next 21 games, improving to .293 by May 5. As of May 7, González was tied for the Major League Lead in home runs with 12. He followed that up by going just 8-for-39 (.205) in his next 9 games, falling to .276 through May 25. He started a hot streak yet again though by hitting .321 (42–131) with 10 homers and 36 RBI in the next 34 games. But his season was cut short by a tear in his calf muscle on July 19. At the time, González was hitting .294 and ranked 3rd in home runs (24) 4th in slugging percentage (.572) and 7th in RBI (70) in the AL. González was on pace to recapture his 2001 Indians form, but the tear lingered and the injury proved to be the end of his season.

González hit 2 homers in a game 4 times: April 5 vs. Seattle; April 29 and May 1 at Toronto and July 10 against Minnesota. His 47 career multi-homer games are 12th most all-time. He also hammered 5 homers in 3 games, April 29 – May 1 at Toronto, the 4th time in Rangers history that feat had been accomplished. He had a season best 5 RBI on April 29 at Toronto and drove in 4 runs in a game on 3 occasions. González had 18 RBI in a 9-game span, April 22 – May 1, including 10 in 3-game series at Toronto, April 29 – May 1. He was selected as AL co-player of the week for April 28 – May 4. He also had a season high 9-game hitting streak, June 3–17.

He started 57 games in right field and 24 games as the designated hitter. He did not make an error in 108 total chances in the outfield and was tied for 6th in the league in outfield assists (10), despite his short season. He ranked 5th on the club in home runs (24), and completed his 11th season with 20 or more home runs. The Rangers, however, were preparing for a youth movement and on October 26, 2003, he was granted free agency.

Kansas City Royals (2004)
On January 6, 2004, González was signed by the Kansas City Royals to a one-year, $4.5 million deal with an option for the next season. However, his back worsened in the middle of May and his season came to an end after May 21. He ended up hitting .276/.326/.441 with five home runs and 17 RBI in 33 games. The Royals declined to renew his option, making him a free agent.

Second stint with Cleveland Indians (2005)
He was signed by the Cleveland Indians for the 2005 season, and was activated in May. Despite a thorough workout regimen, González suffered a major hamstring injury (he tore his right medial hamstring totally off the bone at the knee joint) in his first plate appearance of the season while running out a grounder. This put him out for the season after just one at-bat.

González signed on with the independent Atlantic League in 2006, playing for the Long Island Ducks. He hit .323/.377/.515 in 36 games, with 6 home runs and 23 RBI. His time was again limited by injuries.

The St. Louis Cardinals invited González to spring training prior to the 2008 season. He was one of 26 non-roster invitees, participating in full roster workouts that began on February 19, 2008.  He hit .308 with a .462 slugging percentage in spring training with 1 home run, 1 double and 5 RBI in 9 games. However, he was put on the inactive list with an abdominal strain and he returned to Puerto Rico with an invitation to rejoin the Cardinals once he was healthy. González decided to stay in Puerto Rico, and did not rejoin the Cardinals.

In June 2013, González was invited to become a member of the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame. He declined the invitation at the time, saying, "I closed the Texas Rangers chapter in my life a long time ago." A couple years later, though, he accepted the invitation and was inducted on July 11, 2015. González is the Rangers' all-time leader with 372 home runs, 1,180 RBIs and a .565 slugging percentage. His 157 RBIs in 1998 and .643 slugging percentage in 1996 are also club records. González ranks in the top 5 in club history in almost every other major offensive category.

Career statistics

In four American League Division Series covering 15 games, González hit .290 (18-for-62) scoring 11 runs, with 8 home runs and 15 RBI.

Career in Puerto Rico
In the 1989–1990 Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League, González hit .269/~.345/.500 for the Criollos de Caguas and hit 9 home runs, one less than former league leader Greg Vaughn.

During the 1992–1993 season, he batted .333 for the Santurce Crabbers and won the league MVP award despite not playing until after the All-Star break. He hit 7 home runs and led the league despite playing in only 66 games. González did not accompany Santurce to the 1993 Caribbean Series. The next season, he ended up hitting .268 with 7 homers, 3 behind Phil Hiatt.

In 1995, González joined the San Juan Senators for the 1995 Caribbean Series and hit .375 with 6 RBI as the Puerto Rican "Dream Team" won the title. González hit 5th, between Carlos Delgado and Rubén Sierra on a team that also boasted Roberto Alomar, Bernie Williams, Carlos Baerga and Edgar Martínez. San Juan outscored their opponents 49–15.

During the 2006–2007 Puerto Rican League, in 33 games playing for the champion Carolina Giants, González hit .281 with 18 RBIs and 4 homers. In 12 playoff games, he batted .369 with 3 home runs and 5 RBIs. González claims he is healthy and no longer feels pain in his legs. He was 10 for 26 (.385) in the 2007 Caribbean Series and made the All-Star team at DH.

Presently, he is the owner of the baseball team in his hometown, Vega Baja, in the Confederative Baseball League in Puerto Rico, where he also plays as a DH. Aside from baseball, he focuses on helping the community, with the condition that no attention from the media occurs when he becomes involved in a cause, stating "What value does it have to help someone and then publicizing it in newspapers? That is not giving. I help, but I ask them to please not say anything."

For the 2015-2016 season, González served as coach of the Double A Vega Baja team, the Caimanes del Melao Melao. However, after a 3-11 record, he was fired.

Steroid allegations
González was one of several players whom Jose Canseco claimed to have introduced to steroids. Canseco made these allegations in his best-seller, Juiced, but without citing any corroborating evidence.  González was also briefly mentioned in the Mitchell Report regarding a 2001 incident in which an unmarked bag in the Indians' team luggage was detained by customs in Toronto, Canada. González's assistant stated that the bag belonged to Angel Presinal, a prominent personal trainer for a number of professional players, but Presinal claimed that the bag belonged to González. It was also disputed whether or not the bag actually contained steroids. Although Presinal claimed the bag was not his, he said that he was aware of its contents and that they were not, in fact, steroids. He stated that the bag contained Soladek (a painkiller), Dolo-neurobion (a vitamin B complex used in fighting the flu), and Clenbuterol (a stimulant similar to ephedrine, which is believed by some to promote muscle tone and weight loss). González immediately cut ties with the trainer following the incident. In 2007, ESPN published an article about Presinal on its website, describing him as "fitness guru, massage therapist and personal trainer to baseball's Latino elite." In the same article, ESPN asked John Hart, the Indians' former general manager, about the 2001 incident involving Presinal. Hart said that the team looked into the matter and ultimately exonerated Gonzalez.

In 2007, Rangers' owner Tom Hicks speculated that González had used steroids, saying in an interview that the team had acquired "Juan González for $24 million after he came off steroids, probably, we just gave that money away." Hicks later acknowledged that his statement was not based on personal knowledge, only a suspicion that steroids were the cause of injuries: "The way his body broke down at a young age and his early retirement makes me suspicious." Luis Mayoral, a former Ranger employee and good friend of González, reasoned that Hicks' comments were why González declined his first invitation to join the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame in 2013. Instead, he was inducted in 2015.

Like his former teammate, hall-of-famer Iván Rodríguez, who was also accused of steroid use, González has consistently stated over the years that he has never taken steroids, and is, in fact, a vegetarian. "I have nothing to hide," said González. "Nothing. And I offered to be tested, whenever they wanted. If you have nothing to hide, there is nothing to worry [about]," González said. In Rodriguez's case, similar unproven allegations from baseball's "steroid era" did not prevent him from being elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

Personal life
González has been married four times. He was married to Puerto Rican volleyball player Elaine López, sister of fellow major leaguer Javy López, during the early 1990s. This marriage broke down when a local newspaper released a cover photo of singer Olga Tañón kissing González during a concert in San Juan. A scandal followed, with González divorcing Elaine López and marrying Tañón, who said she had no idea González was married to Lopez when she kissed him. González and Tañon had a daughter together, Gabriela González Tañón, in 1998. González and Tañon divorced less than two years later. His daughter later became one of only 50 people in the world (and the first Puerto Rican) ever to have been diagnosed with Sebastian syndrome, a mild blood clotting disorder.

González has a friendship with George W. Bush which began when González debuted with the Texas Rangers who at the time were owned by Bush.
 González stated that "a friendship that goes beyond baseball was created between them" and during his time in office Bush invited González to the White House twice. The first of reunions took place on April 16, 2001 and the second on December 3, 2007; in this reunion he was accompanied by historian Luis Rodriguez Mayoral. The discussion lasted 35 minutes and involved González's future in the Major Leagues and other baseball related topics, as well as the happenings of their respective careers. During this visit to Washington, D.C. González was also involved in a meeting with Rudy Giuliani and a visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in order to visit Puerto Rican soldiers that were injured in the Iraq War.

After a history of personal setbacks, González stated in a 2007 interview that his personal life was now in order. "I'd rather have health and my family, my relationship with God than money," he said. "How many people who can buy whatever they want have committed suicide? God is first, then your kids, your family, good health."

Success as manager of Puerto Rico national team

After serving as a coach in 2017, González was named manager and head coach of the Puerto Rico national baseball team in 2018, leading the team to gold medals in both 2018 and 2019.

González made his debut as manager at the 2018 Central American and Caribbean Games (CACG). Unable to request athletes contracted to MLB (or active in MiLB), González assembled a team consisting of players active in foreign independent leagues, the local Double A amateur league, and veteran free agents with previous professional experience, making the final cut following a preparatory tournament. González made his official debut as manager in a 5-3 victory over Venezuela. In its next outing, Puerto Rico defeated Cuba 8-1 to snap Cuba's 36-year (43-game) winning streak at the CACG. This was followed by wins over the Dominican Republic (4-1) and Mexico (7-1). González closed his first participation as manager by leading Puerto Rico to the CACG gold medal, defeating second-place Colombia 2-1.

In 2019, González found continued success by guiding Puerto Rico to win gold at the 2019 Lima Pan American Games, going undefeated and besting Canada 6-1 in the final. This was Puerto Rico's first-ever gold medal in baseball in the history of the Pan American Games.

Also in 2019, the Puerto Rican Baseball Federation announced that González would be the manager of the Puerto Rican National Team in November's WBSC Premier12, the biggest international baseball event of the year, in preparation for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Accomplishments
 2-time American League MVP (1996, 1998)
 5-time Top-10 MVP (4th, 1993; 1st, 1996; 9th, 1997; 1st, 1998; 5th, 2001)
 3-time All-Star (1993, 1998, 2001)
 5 40+ HR Seasons (1992, 43; 1993, 46; 1996, 47; 1997, 42; 1998, 45) and 1 39-HR Season (1999)
 His .561 slugging percentage ranks 15th on the all-time list
 His 434 career home runs rank 47th on the all-time list
 Ranks 4th all-time in plate appearances/HR with 16.49 (No. 1 Mark McGwire – 13.14, No. 2 Babe Ruth – 14.87, No. 3 Sammy Sosa – 16.25)
 Ranks 5th all-time in HR/162 games with 42
 Ranks 5th all-time in TB/162 games with 353
 Ranks 6th all-time in RBI/162 games with 135
 Ranks 6th all-time in XBH/162 games with 81
 Ranks 12th all-time in career multi-homer games
 Ranks 15th all-time in AB per HR with 15.1 AB/HR
 6 Silver Slugger awards (1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001)
 2-time American League Home Run Champion (1992, 1993)
 Finished Top 5 in RBI 6 times (1993, 4th, 118; 1996, 2nd, 144; 1997, 3rd, 131; 1998, 1st, 157; 1999, 5th, 128; 2001, 2nd, 140)
 Finished Top 5 in slugging percentage 7 times (1992, 5th, .561; 1993, 1st, .632; 1996, 2nd, .643; 1997, 4th, .589; 1998, 2nd, .630; 1999, 4th, .601; 2001, 5th, .590)
 Became just the second player in major league history to have at least 100 RBI before the All-Star break (101 in 1998, second to Hank Greenberg who had 103)
 Holds all-time record for RBI in the month of April (35 in 1998)
 One of only six players after 1950 with over 150 RBI in a single season
 Hit his 300th home run in the fewest games in American League history (1,096)
 9th Youngest ever to hit 300 Career HR (28 years, 334 days)
 Tied for 1st in postseason history for HR in a single division series with Ken Griffey Jr., but in fewer games (Gonzalez – 5 HR in 4 games in 1996, Griffey – 5 HR in 5 games in 1995)
 Tied for 2nd in most HR in a single playoff series with 5 HR in just 4 games in 1996. (Reggie Jackson 1977, 5 HR in 6 Games; Chase Utley 2009, 5 HR in 6 Games; Ken Griffey Jr. 1995, 5 HR in 5 Games; Nelson Cruz 2011, 6 HR in 6 games)
 Ranks 2nd in postseason history in slugging percentage in a single playoff series (1.375 in 1996)
 Ranks 2nd in postseason history in OPS in a single Division Series (1.901 in 1996)
 Ranks 5th in postseason history in OPS in a single playoff series among qualified leaders (1.901 in 1996)
 Tied for 2nd with 10 other players in extra base hits in a single Division Series (5 in 1996 & 2001)
 Ranks 3rd in postseason history in total bases in a single Division Series (22 in 1996)
 Ranks 7th in postseason history in RBI in a single Division Series (9 in 1996)
 Tied for 2nd in postseason history in career HR in the Division Series (8 HR)
 Ranks 4th in postseason history in career slugging percentage in the Division Series (.742)
 Ranks 7th in postseason history in career extra base hits in the Division Series (12)
 Ranks 8th in postseason history in career OPS in the Division Series (1.075)

See also

 List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
 List of Puerto Ricans
 List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
 List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
 List of Major League Baseball annual runs batted in leaders
 List of Major League Baseball annual home run leaders
 List of Major League Baseball players named in the Mitchell Report

References

External links

1969 births
Living people
American League All-Stars
American League home run champions
American League RBI champions
American League Most Valuable Player Award winners
Buffalo Bisons (minor league) players
Cleveland Indians players
Detroit Tigers players
Kansas City Royals players
Long Island Ducks players
Major League Baseball designated hitters
Major League Baseball players from Puerto Rico
Major League Baseball right fielders
People from Vega Baja, Puerto Rico
Texas Rangers players
Tulsa Drillers players
Silver Slugger Award winners
American Association (1902–1997) MVP Award winners

Juan González (baseball)


CPL or Cpl may refer to:

Organizations
 CPFL Energia (NYSE: CPL), the largest non state-owned group of electric energy generation and distribution in Brazil
 CPL Aromas, a British fragrance company formerly known as Contemporary Perfumers Limited
 CPL Resources, a resourcing/placement company based in Dublin

Libraries
 Chicago Public Library, the public library system that serves the city of Chicago, Illinois, US
 Cleveland Public Library, the public library system that serves the city of Cleveland, Ohio, US
Calgary Public Library, the public library system that serves the city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada
 Coquitlam Public Library, a public library that serves Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada
 Codices Palatini latini, the Latin section of the medieval manuscript collection in the Bibliotheca Palatina in Heidelberg.

Sports
 Canadian Premier League, a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the Canada Soccer which represents the sport's highest level in Canada
 CPL Shield, a trophy awarded at the conclusion of the Canadian Premier League regular season
 Caribbean Premier League, a Twenty20 cricket league
 Coastal Plain League, a wood-bat collegiate summer league
 Coastal Plain League (Class D), a former minor league baseball affiliation
 Cyberathlete Professional League, a professional sports tournament organization specializing in computer and console video game competitions

Science and technology
 Caprolactam, an organic compound with the formula (CH2)5C(O)NH
 Chemical Physics Letters, a peer-reviewed scientific journal
 Chinese Physics Letters, an open access scientific journal published in China, from the Chinese Physical Society
 Circular polarizing filter, a type of photographic filter
 Crackle Photolithography, a kind of cost efficient photolithography process using random crack template as mask.

Computing
 Call-Processing Language, a language that can be used to describe and control Internet telephony services
 Characters per line, the maximal number of monospaced characters that may appear on a single line
 Common Public License, a free software/open-source software license published by IBM
 Composition Playlist, a file that defines the playback order of a Digital Cinema Package
 Command Programming Language, a scripting language used by the PRIMOS operating system
 Complementary pass-transistor logic, one of many logic families of pass transistor logic used in the design of integrated circuits
 .cpl files, the Control Panel applets in Microsoft Windows
 CPL (programming language), a multi-paradigm programming language
 Current privilege level, of a task or program on x86 CPUs

Other uses
 Centre for Professional Learning, on the Campus The Hague of Leiden University, Netherlands
 Cents Per Line, a measurement of how much transcriptionists are paid for their work
 Certified Professional Landman, the highest designation offered to landmen in the oil/gas industry by the American Association of Professional Landmen
 Certified Professional Locksmith, a trade qualification awarded to members of the Associated Locksmiths of America
 Clavis Patrum Latinorum, a numbered list of the Latin authors in the Corpus Christianorum
 Color position light, a type of North American railroad signal
 Commercial pilot licence, a qualification that permits the holder to act and be paid as an aircraft pilot
 Concealed Pistol License, a permit for concealed carry in the United States
 Contemporary Pictorial Literature, a 1970s comic book fanzine published by the CPL Gang
 Continuous pressure laminate, decorative laminate produced using pressure in a continuous process
 Corporal (Cpl or CPL), a rank in use in some form by most militaries and some police forces
 Cost per Lead, an online advertising pricing model
 Criminal procedure law

See also

 Communist Party of Latvia, a political party in Latvia
 Communist Party of Lithuania, a political party in Lithuania
 Communist Party of Luxembourg, more commonly known by their French (PCL) or German (KPL) initials

CPL


John R. Hicks (July 31, 1956 – November 29, 2005) was an American murderer executed by the U.S. state of Ohio. He was executed for the August 2, 1985, murder of his 5-year-old stepdaughter, Brandy Green. He was also convicted of the murder of his 56-year-old mother-in-law, Maxine Armstrong, for which he received a life sentence.

Crime
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hicks was a cocaine addict and alcoholic. He had purchased cocaine around 4 p.m. on August 2, 1985, but felt a further craving, so he took the VCR from his own home as security for a $50 purchase. He did not have the cash to redeem the VCR, so he knew his wife would become angry when she found out what he had done. He then decided to rob and murder Armstrong.

He telephoned Armstrong to say he was coming home. When he arrived around 11 p.m., he put his stepdaughter to bed. He then approached Armstrong from behind and strangled her with his own hands. To make sure she was dead, he used a length of clothesline. He searched her bedroom and stole $300 and some credit cards.

After buying more cocaine, he realized his stepdaughter would place him at the crime scene and could be a potential witness. He returned and smothered her with a pillow. When this failed to kill his stepdaughter, he tried to use his own hands and then duct taped her mouth and nose. He attempted to dismember Armstrong in the bathtub but gave up after nearly cutting one of her legs off. Returning to the body of Brandy Green, he removed her panties and penetrated her with his finger. His last plans in the apartment were to steal a checkbook, a ring, a .32 caliber pistol, and an ammunition box. After returning to his apartment around 3 a.m., he fled Cincinnati at 6 a.m. He was arrested two days later in Knoxville, Tennessee on August 4, 1985.

Trial and appeals
Hicks was convicted of the aggravated murder of Maxine Armstrong while committing robbery, for which he received a life sentence to be served concurrently with a 10 to 25-year sentence for aggravated robbery. In the murder of his 5-year-old stepdaughter, Hicks was convicted of aggravated murder to escape detention and the purposeful killing of more than two people.

Hicks was sentenced to death on March 3, 1986, for the aggravated murder of Brandy Green.

Hicks's lawyers have argued that under Ohio law, voluntary intoxication may be considered a mitigating factor in capital cases. They say that the jury was not instructed of this fact. In their report, the parole board wrote that although he was intoxicated, the "merciless death" of his stepdaughter was premeditated.

The jury was also told that the final decision of whether to impose a death sentence rested with the trial judge. They say that this may have led some jurors to vote for the death penalty, even though they had doubts about its appropriateness for the case.  The Court of Appeals of Ohio overturned the later grounds for appeal. They stated that they did not endorse "the perpetuation of a practice that has fallen into disfavor in this state."

Dr. Theodore Parran of the Case Western School of Medicine diagnosed Hicks with a psychotic decomposition and recommended that he be placed into a psychiatric facility for observation. Parran said that although Hicks' actions appeared deliberate, he did not know what he was doing.

The nine-member Ohio Parole Board recommended unanimously on November 15, 2005, that Governor Bob Taft deny clemency for Hicks. At the hearing, his brother pleaded for Hicks' life to be spared, while his sister-in-law argued that Hicks should be executed for his crimes.

Execution
John Hicks died by lethal injection at 10:20  a.m. on November 29, 2005, at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio.

Asked for a final statement by the warden, he said:

It begun with a syringe in my arm and it ends with a needle in my arm. It's come full circle. I realize that. … I know this may be shallow or hollow words to y'all but it's coming from my heart.

After the drugs had begun to flow, he said, "Whoa. Hallelujah", laughed loudly, and said, "Yes. Thank you."

See also
 Capital punishment in Ohio
 Capital punishment in the United States
 List of people executed in Ohio
 List of people executed in the United States in 2005

General references
Report from the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
Ohio Parole Board clemency report (PDF)

References

1956 births
2005 deaths
21st-century African-American people
21st-century executions by Ohio
21st-century executions of American people
American murderers of children
American people executed for murder
Executed African-American people
Executed people from Ohio
People convicted of murder by Ohio
People executed by Ohio by lethal injection
People from Cincinnati

John R. Hicks


Coolidge is a ghost town in Price County, Wisconsin, United States. Coolidge was located in the town of Fifield near Coolidge Lake,  north of Phillips. The town was marked on USGS maps as late as 1941 and is still marked on Wisconsin Department of Transportation maps.

History
Coolidge was one of the first settlements in the Town of Fifield along the Wisconsin Central Railroad. The town was set up as a flag station for the railway in November 1886. It consisted of two stores, a boarding house, post office and a saw and planing mill. The latter was built by W. H. Coolidge in 1884.

When Boyington and Atwell of Stevens Point built their sawmill at the sight known as Fifield, Coolidge had a population of 500. The mill operated until 1891 and had a pine cut of over 80,000,000 board feet.

According to Fifield: A History, by Douglas Severt, all that is left of Coolidge today is a pile of stone in the clearing that was once the company's vault. Near this same stone pile stands a huge spreading lilac bush that blossom every spring, as if in memorial to the past. William Ehmke was born at Coolidge and later became section boss on the Wisconsin Central as was his father before him.

References

Geography of Price County, Wisconsin
Ghost towns in Wisconsin

Coolidge, Wisconsin


Kang the Conqueror (Nathaniel Richards) is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, most commonly serving as one of the main antagonists of the Avengers franchise and a major antagonist in the Fantastic Four franchise.

He is a time-traveling terrorist and conqueror who is intent on total domination of the entire universe. Since his debut, he has served as one of Avengers' most reoccurring and dangerous foes.

Portrayals
Kang the Conqueror has been described as one of Marvel's most notable and powerful villains. Kang has made media appearances in animated television and video games. He made his feature movie debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movie Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), portrayed by American actor Jonathan Majors, who also portrayed Pharaoh Rama-Tut, Victor Timely, Immortus, Scarlet Centurion, Chronomonitor #616, and the wider Council of Kangs in the movie's post-credits scene, and will reprise the roles in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (2025) and Avengers: Secret Wars (2026). Majors also previously appeared as ''He Who Remains'', a version of the character from the previous incarnation of multiverse and creator of the Time Variance Authority (TVA), in the episode ''For All Time, Always.'' from the 2021 first season of Loki, and will return as Victor Timely in the series' 2023 second season.
Marvel Comics characters

Kang the Conqueror


In underwater diving, open water is unrestricted water such as a sea, lake, river, or flooded quarry. It is a contradistinction to confined water (usually a swimming pool) where diver training takes place. Open water also means the diver has direct vertical access to the surface of the water in contact with the Earth's atmosphere.Open water diving implies that if a problem arises, the diver can directly ascend vertically to the atmosphere to breathe air. Penetration diving—involving entering caves or wrecks, or diving under ice—is therefore not "open water diving". In some contexts the lack of a decompression obligation is considered a necessary condition for classification of a dive as an open water dive, as a decompression obligation is a procedural and safety restriction on immediate ascent to the surface, but this does not affect the classification of the venue as open water.

Swim-throughs – the recreational diving term for arches and short, clear, tunnels where the natural light can be seen at the far end, and there is enough clearance that it is theoretically possible for the diver to pass through the narrowest point without contact with the sides, bottom or ceiling, are technically an overhead environment, but this is often overlooked by divers as there is no risk of getting lost inside, and the risk of entrapment is generally low.

Divers progress from learning diving skills in confined or benign water such as a swimming pool to practicing skills in open water in which the environment is not restricted to a small, controlled locality and depth, with conditions more typical of a natural body of water which might be used by divers, and the range of hazards and associated risk is significantly expanded. In this context confined water and benign water are special cases of open water, as they comply with the more general condition of unobstructed access to the surface.

Some recreational diver certification agencies use a variation on this term in the title of their entry level certification. Open Water Diver certification implies that the diver is competent to dive in unrestricted water, with various constraints regarding the conditions, and particularly that their competence is limited to diving in open water with free access to the surface.

Open ocean diving
The extreme case of open water is the deep open ocean, where the bottom is at a depth which is irrelevant to the diver as there would be no chance of surviving long enough to reach it. Open oceanic water is often remarkably clear, but this is not always the case. There is no natural visual reference for depth in the open ocean, and depth monitoring is critically important to diver safety.

Blue-water diving

Blue-water diving is done in mid-water where the bottom is out of sight of the diver and there may be no fixed visual reference. It is used by scientific divers for direct observation and sampling of pelagic organisms and particulate matter, particularly the gelatinous zoo-plankton that are fragile and transparent, making them relatively inaccessible by other methods, and by recreational divers for observation and photography of a range of organisms not easily seen in inshore waters.

The techniques of blue-water diving have been developed over the years to suit the conditions and address the hazards of an environment which is functionally bottomless, and has no fixed visible positional references. The diver who is focused on small organisms or instruments at close range is likely to have diminished awareness of depth, buoyancy, current, surge, other divers, large organisms, and even the direction to the surface.

An accepted procedure for scientific blue-water collection diving with several working divers, is to tether the working divers to a central hub connected to a surface platform, and to have an in-water safety diver attend the hub. The tethers pass through fairleads at the hub and are tensioned by a weight at the end, which keeps slack out of the line and thereby reduces the risk of entanglement, and prevents the end of the line from passing through the fairlead. The tether serves to limit the distance a diver can  move away from the hub, which is typically fastened to a substantial downline supported by a large buoy at the surface, and kept vertical by a weight. The float at the surface allows the divers to move freely in the water column within the constraint of the tether, and drift with the current. The tethers also allow rope signals between the safety diver and the working divers. The surface platform, generally a small boat, may be tethered to the buoy, and if there is sufficient wind to make this a problem a parachute sea anchor can be deployed to minimise drift. Windage will generally position the buoy and boat downwind of the parachute. The other end of the tether is clipped to the diver's harness or buoyancy compensator by some form of quick-release shackle. These procedures and equipment can also be used at night.

If a sea anchor is deployed to limit drift, it must be kept clear of the divers to minimise the risk of entanglement, and it should be buoyed to prevent sinking in a calm. The sea anchor cable should be buoyant line for the same reason. Blue-water diving operations are constrained by water and weather conditions, including wind, sea state, current strength, visibility, and the presence of aggressive predators.

Black-water diving and blackwater photography
Black-water diving is mid-water diving at night, particularly on a moonless night. The term may also be used to refer to diving in zero visibility, or in sewage. Christopher Newbert, author of Within a Rainbow Sea, (1984) is credited as an early black-water diver. In his book, he describes solo offshore night dives to depths of up to . Black-water diving is often done as a photographic opportunity for recreational divers as there can be a wide range of plankton that would not often be seen by day or closer inshore. This is known as blackwater photography.

Weighted downlines are commonly used to provide a stable vertical reference. These may be tied to the boat or supported by a buoy.  Each diver may be attached to a downline using a shorter tether to ensure that divers do not go too far from the boat or too deep. The downline may be marked with lights to indicate depth and to attract mobile organisms. A wide range of animal life may be seen, including many species that spend the daylight hours at depths below those accessible to ambient pressure divers, and migrate vertically through the water column on a diurnal cycle. Many of these are bioluminescent or translucent or both.

The boat moves differently from the divers and the divers move differently from the plankton, making it necessary to work to get a position from which there will be enough time to frame and take photos of the drifting subjects. The boat will drift under the influence of current and wind, while the divers and plankton will drift with the current. If there is wind the boat will drag the downlines, and if tethered to the buoy, it will drag the buoy and divers attached. If divers swim ahead of the towing action, they will have a short time to drift with the plankton and take photos until the slack in the line has been taken up, at which point the plankton will be left behind. This drift problem can be reduced by setting a parachute anchor, which will reduce wind drift to a negligible amount. The divers should stay clear of the entanglement hazard of the suspension lines.

References

Underwater diving procedures

Open-water diving


Roberto D'Ettorre Piazzoli (born 27 April 1942) is an Italian film producer and cinematographer who has worked frequently with Ovidio G. Assonitis.

Born in Rome, Piazzoli began working for the Italian movie industry in the early 1960s as a cameraman, under the direction of Vittorio De Sica, Damiano Damiani, Marco Ferreri, Florestano Vancini, Mauro Bolognini, Dino Risi and Pasquale Festa Campanile.

As a cinematographer he has worked on such films as The Last Snows of Spring and as co-director (under the pseudonym Robert Barrett) on Beyond the Door and Tentacles directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis; he also co-directed Laure, together with Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane, Emmanuelle Arsan's husband.

His filmography also includes No Place to Hide, Over the Line, Sposi, Fratelli e Sorelle and Laguna.

References

External links

1942 births
Living people
Italian film producers
Italian cinematographers

Roberto D'Ettorre Piazzoli


The Ford Ranger is a compact or mid-size pickup marketed globally by Ford over a series of generations, varying between both in-house or outside development and manufacturing — and with a hiatus in North America from 2011-2018.

Debuting as a compact pickup in North America in 1982 for the 1983 model year, the Ranger was later introduced in some South American countries. From 1998 to 2011, the Ranger nameplate was used for models developed by Mazda for sale outside the North American market. In 2011, Ford introduced the first Ranger based on the T6 platform. Considered a mid-size pickup truck, the model was developed in-house by Ford Australia. In that same year, the North American-market Ranger was discontinued, leaving the T6 platform-based Ranger as the sole Ranger model worldwide.

For the 2019 model year, the Ranger was reintroduced in North America using the globally-marketed T6 model. It is manufactured at the Michigan Assembly Plant at Wayne, Michigan. The Ranger is smaller than the F-150 and larger than the Maverick in the Ford North American pickup truck range, while for markets outside the Americas it is typically the only Ford pickup offered for sale.

The second generation of the T6-based Ranger was released in 2021 for worldwide markets, using a revised T6 platform.

Origin of name
Prior to its use on compact pickup trucks, Ford used the Ranger nameplate on three different model lines. The Edsel division was the first to use the name, with the Edsel Ranger introduced in 1958 as its lowest-trim sedan; the model line lasted through the 1960 demise of the Edsel brand.

For 1965, the Ranger name returned to use by Ford as a trim package for F-Series trucks; in 1972, a corresponding Bronco Ranger was introduced.  Offered through the 1981 model year, the Ranger trim served as the mid-level to high-level trim package.

Following the 1981 model year, the Ranger trim line was withdrawn from its light trucks, largely in anticipation of its 1983 model year compact pickup truck which was introduced in early 1982.

Americas

North America

Compact pickup (1983–2012)
For the 1983 model year, Ford introduced the Ranger for the United States and Canada.  The first compact pickup truck designed by Ford, the American-produced Ranger replaced the Mazda-produced Ford Courier.  Produced across three generations using a single chassis architecture, the model line was marketed from the 1983 to the 2012 model years (ending retail sales after the 2011 model year).

The Ranger light-truck chassis architecture served as the basis for a wide range of vehicles over its production.  Along with sharing body and powertrain components with the Ford Bronco II and Ford Explorer SUVs, the Ranger also shared components with the Ford Aerostar minivan and the Ford Explorer Sport Trac mid-size pickup truck.  Through the use of rebadging, from 1994 to 2009, Mazda marketed the Ford Ranger in the United States and Canada as the Mazda B-Series (the reverse of the 1970s Ford Courier and also the reverse of the Ford Ranger outside of North America).

While among the highest-selling vehicles in the compact segment for nearly its entire 29-year production, an overall decline in demand for compact trucks led to its discontinuation after the 2011 model year (a short 2012 run was produced for fleet sales).  On December 22, 2011, the final Ford Ranger produced for North America was assembled at the  Twin Cities Assembly Plant, the final vehicle assembled at the facility.

Mid-size pickup (2019–present)

For the 2019 model year, the Ranger returned to its model range in North America after an eight-year hiatus to slot below the F-Series. The first example was assembled on October 22, 2018.  The first generation of the model line sold as a mid-size pickup truck, the fourth-generation Ranger is derived from the global-market Ranger T6 designed by Ford Australia with adaptations accommodate US government regulations along with other modifications made to match local market demands.

The current generation of the Ranger is offered in two configurations on a 127-inch wheelbase, including a 2+2 door SuperCab (6-foot bed) and a 4-door SuperCrew (5-foot bed). With the current model, the two-door standard cab is not offered for sale in North America.

The model line is manufactured by Ford at its Michigan Assembly Plant at Wayne, Michigan.

South America

In 1995, exports of the Ranger began to select Latin and South American countries. To accommodate the demand for the vehicle, Ford Argentina commenced local production of the Ranger in 1998, introducing a four-door cab not sold in North America. During the 2000s, Rangers produced by Ford Argentina shared a common chassis with North American-produced vehicles, while offering a diesel engine option to meet local demand. For 2010, the locally-produced Ranger underwent a final exterior revision exclusive to the South American market.

Ford Argentina ended production of the compact Ranger following the 2011 model year to shift its production to its replacement, the mid-size Ranger T6.

International

Mazda-based (1998–2011)

In 1971, Ford entered the compact truck segment as it marketed the second-generation Mazda B series under the Ford Courier nameplate; the Courier was marketed worldwide. For 1983, the Ranger replaced the Courier in North America, while Ford continued to source the Courier from Mazda for global markets into the 1990s, following the development of the B-Series model line. In 1998, Ford introduced the Ranger name on Mazda-sourced pickup trucks, however the Courier name continued through 2006 in Australia and New Zealand.

The first-generation Mazda-based Ranger was produced from 1998 to 2006, while the second generation was produced from 2006 to 2011; the latter was derived from the Mazda BT-50 (which replaced the Mazda B series). These Ranger models were sold in Asia, Australasia, Europe, Africa, and several Latin American markets.

T6 platform-based (2011–present)

In 2011, Ford introduced the first Ranger based on the T6 platform (codename: P375). Developed by Ford Australia, the T6-based Ranger replaced the American and Mazda-sourced Rangers with a single model, also forming a basis of the second-generation Mazda BT-50. The T6-based Ranger models are marketed worldwide, although it was not marketed in the United States and Canada between 2011 and 2018 model years. The second generation model of the T6-based Ranger (codename: P703) was released in 2021, featuring major changes while riding on a revised T6 platform dubbed as "T6.2".

References

Ranger
Cars introduced in 1982
Pickup trucks

Ford Ranger