On a Clear Day You Can See Forever is a 1970 American musical comedy-drama fantasy film starring Barbra Streisand and Yves Montand and directed by Vincente Minnelli. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is adapted from his book for the 1965 stage production of the same name. The songs feature lyrics by Lerner and music by Burton Lane. Yves portrays a hypnotherapist who discovers that his meek patient (Streisand) has an enigmatic past life as 19th century aristocrat and begins to fall in love with her.

Plot
At the behest of her mainstream conservative fiancé Warren, scatterbrained five-pack-a-day chain smoker and clairvoyant Daisy Gamble attends a class taught by psychiatrist Marc Chabot for help in kicking her habit. She becomes unintentionally hypnotized and manages to convince Chabot to attempt to cure her nicotine addiction with hypnotherapy. While undergoing hypnosis, it is discovered she is the reincarnation of Lady Melinda Winifred Waine Tentrees, a seductive 19th century coquette who was born the illegitimate daughter of a kitchen maid. She acquired the paternity records of the children housed in the orphanage where her mother had to send her and used the information to blackmail their wealthy fathers. She eventually married nobleman Robert Tentrees during the period of the English Regency, then was tried for espionage and treason after he abandoned her.

As their sessions progress, complications arise when Chabot begins to fall in love with Daisy's exotic former self and Daisy begins to fall for him, and his university colleagues demand he either give up his reincarnation research or resign his position with the school. While waiting for Chabot in his office, Daisy accidentally hears a tape recording of one of her sessions and when she discovers Chabot's interest is limited to Melinda, she storms out of the office. When she returns for a final meeting with him, she mentions fourteen additional lives, including her forthcoming birth as Laura and subsequent marriage to the therapist in the year 2038.

In Daisy's life her ex-step-brother Tad shows up and she's thrilled to see him.  It's clear to see that they have an easy rapport, contrasting with Warren who never asks or listens to her opinion and often tells her what to do, what to wear, and what to say.  One day Tad is on the roof of Daisy's apartment building where she gardens and tells Warren that he thinks Daisy should marry him instead as he can make her happy and he's rich.  At the end of the film Daisy breaks up with Warren and it's implied that she  connects with Tad.

Cast
 Barbra Streisand as Daisy Gamble (Melinda, Lady Tentrees)
 Yves Montand as Marc Chabot
 Larry Blyden as Warren Pratt
 Bob Newhart as Dr. Mason Hume
 Simon Oakland as Dr. Conrad Fuller
 John Richardson as Sir Robert Tentrees
 Jack Nicholson as Tad Pringle
 Mabel Albertson as Mrs. Hatch
 Roy Kinnear as The Prince Regent, later King George IV
 Irene Handl as Winnie Wainwhisle, Melinda's mother (a kitchen maid in the household of the Prince Regent)
 Pamela Brown as Mrs Maria Fitzherbert

Musical numbers
 "Hurry! It's Lovely Up Here" – Daisy
 "On a Clear Day" – Orchestra and Chorus
 "Love with All the Trimmings" – Daisy
 "Wait Till We're 65" - Warren and Daisy (cut before the film's release)
 "Melinda" – Marc
 "Go to Sleep" – Daisy
 "He Isn't You" – Daisy
 "What Did I Have That I Don't Have?" – Daisy
 "Who Is There Among Us Who Knows" – Tad with Daisy (cut before the film's release)
 "Come Back to Me" – Marc
 "On a Clear Day" – Marc
 "On a Clear Day" (Reprise) – Daisy

Production
Alan Jay Lerner made a number of changes in adapting his stage play for the screen. The character of Frenchman Marc Chabot originally was Austrian Mark Bruckner. The period of Melinda's life was shifted ahead by a decade or two, her family background is different, and the cause of her death was changed from drowning at sea to unjust execution. In the stage play, the question of whether Daisy really was a reincarnation of Melinda went unresolved, but the film script made it clear she was. The character of Daisy's stepbrother Tad Pringle was added, although most of his scenes and his song "Who Is There Among Us Who Knows?" ended up on the cutting room floor. Additionally, the future of Daisy and Marc's relationship was altered, and several ensemble musical numbers were excluded from the film.

New York City locations include Central Park, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Pan Am Building, the Upper West Side, and Lexington and Park Avenues. Scenes set in the UK were filmed at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, Kemp Town, and East Sussex.

Nelson Riddle served as the film's music supervisor, arranger, and conductor.

Cecil Beaton designed the period costumes. It proved to be his final project. Arnold Scaasi, a long time fashion collaborator with Streisand designed some of her contemporary outfits. Scaasi had previously designed Streisand's outfit when she received the Oscar the year before for Funny Girl.

Paramount Pictures originally intended the film to be a nearly three-hour-long roadshow theatrical release, but executives ultimately had Minnelli cut nearly an hour from the running time. Along with Tad's song, the deleted material included "Wait Till We're Sixty-Five", a duet between Daisy and Warren,  "She Isn't You", Marc's response to Daisy's "He Isn't You", and "On the S.S. Bernard Cohn" although the melody can be heard in the background of the scene where Marc and Daisy drink and talk in a cocktail lounge.

In A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life and Films of Vincente Minnelli (Da Capo Press, 2010), author Mark Griffin examines the excised scenes, including a song entitled "People Like Me".  According to Griffin: "Even among die-hard 'Clear Day' fans, this missing number is something of a mystery.  It's often referred to as 'E.S.P.', which may have been the song's title at one point.  Stills of [Barbra] Streisand wearing a futuristic outfit at the Central Park Zoo have surfaced, offering what appears to be a tantalizing glimpse of this deleted sequence.  In [Alan Jay] Lerner's script dated April 18, 1969, Montand's character croons 'People Like Me', which features the lyrics, 'To a sober-minded man of reason, E.S.P. is worse than treason.'  It's been suggested that throughout the song, there would have been cutaways to Streisand in her various incarnations—past, present and future."

Release
The film opened on June 17, 1970 at the State I and Cine Theatres in New York City and then expanded in July and August before a broad release in September.

Critical reception
Upon its release, the film received mixed reviews, though it has endured its initial criticism, being one of the few films with a 100% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

In his review in The New York Times, Vincent Canby called it "a movie of fits and starts" and added,
"because the fits are occasionally so lovely, and the starts somewhat more frequent than Fifth Avenue buses, I was eventually hypnotized into a state of benign though not-quite-abject permissiveness . . . The movie is quite ordinary and Broadway-bland in most of its contemporary sequences. Miss Streisand, as a 22-year-old New Yorker whose Yiddish intonations are so thick they sound like a speech defect, defines innocence by sitting with her knees knocked together and her feet spread far apart, a mannerism she may have picked up from Mary Pickford. Minnelli's camera also is hard-pressed to find interesting things to look at in the humdrum settings . . . and a lot of the time it just records exits and entrances, as if it all were taking place on a stage. However, the movie, Minnelli and Miss Streisand burst into life in the regression sequences, filmed at the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. Minnelli's love of décor transforms the movie into very real fantasy, and the star into a stunning looking and funny character who mouths her arch, pseudo-Terence Rattigan lines as if she were parodying Margaret Leighton. She is so fine, in fact, that if I didn't know she was not terribly good at lip-sync, I would suspect someone else was reading her."

Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and declared it "a musical to see more than once, if not forever." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called the film "just about as good as it could be," yet "dull. Nothing to get mad about, nothing to dislike. Just nothing to care about, to put your arm around your wife or sweetheart about, nothing to get so enthused about you forget there's a smoggy and war-infested world outdoors." Tom Milne of The Monthly Film Bulletin expressed disappointment that "two of the best and liveliest songs in the show," "On the S.S. Bernard Cohn" and "Wait Till We're Sixty-Five," were not included in the final cut of the movie. "Without them," Milne wrote, "it is merely a charming romantic comedy agreeably tricked out with charming songs."

TV Guide rates the film 2½ out of a possible four stars and comments, "[It] boasts great sets and costumes, but its script leaves much to be desired, and even the usually reliable Vincente Minnelli is unable to inject much life into the proceedings."

Time Out London says: "Minnelli is able to decorate his material with beguiling visual conceits – the opening time-lapse photography, the colour contrasts between past and present. But he can do nothing to combat the script's length and shallowness, and there are some thumb-twiddling moments in between Burton Lane's delightful songs. The two star performers make an odd team, with their varying kinds of professionalism and vowel sounds."

Box office
The film was produced on a budget of $8 million. It grossed $14 million at the box office in the United States and Canada, returning $5.35 million in theatrical rentals.

Accolades
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
 2006: AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals – Nominated

Soundtrack

The soundtrack album to the film was released by Columbia Records in 1970.

See also
 List of American films of 1970

References

External links

 On a Clear Day You Can See Forever at BarbraArchives.com

1970 films
1970s musical fantasy films
1970s musical comedy-drama films
1970s romantic comedy-drama films
American musical comedy-drama films
American romantic comedy-drama films
American romantic fantasy films
American romantic musical films
American musical fantasy films
Films directed by Vincente Minnelli
Films about orphans
Films about reincarnation
Films based on musicals
Films about hypnosis
Films set in Brighton
Films set in England
Films set in New York City
Films set in the 1800s
Films set in the 19th century
Films shot in England
Films shot in East Sussex
Films shot in New York City
Films with screenplays by Alan Jay Lerner
Paramount Pictures films
Films produced by Howard W. Koch
1970 comedy films
1970 drama films
1970s English-language films
1970s American films

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (film)


His Imperial Majesty's Retinue, His Imperial Majesty's Suite (abbr. H. I. M. Retinue,  H. I. M. Suite; , e.g. ) was a retinue unit of personal aides to the Russian Emperor, who usually were officers of the Army or the Guards units.

The aides to the Tsar were routinely assigned honorary title of Adjutant; it was used in parallel with existing personal military, court or civil rank as defined in the Table of Ranks. Anna of Russia was the first Sovereign who assigned an Adjutant General () as her personal military aide in the rank of General-Poruchik (, Lieutenant General). Since 1775, Pavel I additionally honored a handful of his Guards officers (in an equivalent of Colonel ranks) with a Fliegel Adjutant (флигель-адъютант), an equivalent of Aide-de-camp.

Nicholas I formally created the Suite in 1827 and introduced a title of Major General of the H.I.M. Suite. In 1841, a special title of Ajdutant General of the Emperor's Person was created.

However, military units might have been awarded the honourable title «His Imperial Majesty's Suit», e.g. Siberian 1st of «His Imperial Majesty's Suit» infantry regiment — one of the Imperial Russian Army's regiments in East Siberia.
Military of the Russian Empire
1917 disestablishments in Russia

Svita


The Meitei currency for most of the history of Manipur consisted of gold, silver, bronze and copper coinage.
From the earliest history of the coinage in the Ancient Manipur (Antique Kangleipak), during the 1st century CE, well into the modern times, Meitei currency saw many changes in form,
denomination and composition. A persistent feature was the inflationary debasement and the replacement of coins over the centuries. Notable examples include the reforms of King Pamheiba (). This trend continued into modern times.
There are many archeological sites excavated in Manipur from where many ancient coins were found, among which Nachou is one of the most significant places.

Standards and denominations
There were two kinds of coins issued in Ancient Manipur right from the time of the onset of marketing, which are "semkhai" and "sen". These are generally crafted out of bronze. Two "semkhai"s equals to one "sen".

Ancient period
The earliest known coinage was issued by during the reign of Emperor Ura Konthouba in the 7th century CE in Ancient Manipur (Antique Kangleipak). Some historians strongly opined that the oldest known coins were circulated from the 1st century CE during the reign of Emperor Nongda Lairen Pakhangba in Ancient Manipur. It is evident that bronze coins dating back to 568 AD to 658 AD were found inscribed with letters of archaic Meitei script.

Medieval period

Early medieval
It is evident from the coins discovered that there was a good deal of literary activity taken place during the reign of King Kyamba. The Cheitharol Kumbaba recorded that King Khagemba issued coins along with which there was all round progress in the kingdom. In the Sana Keithel (Royal Market), there was a custom in which the king threw bell metal coins amidst the public as familiar gestures of goodwill and responsibility for public welfare. In the beginning, kings had to abandon the plan to issue copper coins when the women traders refused to accept them.

Late medieval
The coins issued before the reign of King Pamheiba () depicted legends in the archaic Meetei script. For the first time in the history of Manipur's numismatics, Garibaniwaja introduced the Nagari script in depicting the legends. The tradition of depicting Bengali script and Nagari script in the coins was followed by the succeeding rulers of later times.
Many of the coins, issued in between seventeenth and nineteenth century AD, bear Sanskrit legends in Devanagari script. On special occasions, coins were distributed among the crowds with a grand possession of the royalty.

Modern period
On special occasions, coins were distributed among the crowds with a grand possession of the royalty.
In the Northeast India, only Manipur struck low denomination coins that were useful for market trading. When Manipur came under the Indian Union, the Indian currency came into use.

Minting
The Senjam and the Aheibam families were engaged for making coins under the supervision of the institution of the maibas. The populace often learned about of a new ruler when coins appeared with the new ruler's name. For example, Ura Konthouba (Wura Konthouba) issued coins bearing the Meetei letter "ꯋ" ("wa") denoting his name.

Coins in religious activities
The senior most/chief male family members (pibas) used coins in the names of God Sanamahi and Goddess Leimarel and regularly perform rites and rituals in the Sanamahi Kachin (Lainingthou Kachin).
During the Laiching Jagoi, an ancient dance performance in the Lai Haraoba festival, the senior most maiba has to throw a "konyai" (gold or silver coin) and rice into the water to invoke a deity. The art of fortune telling consists of throwing the coins on the floor and reading its results by the maibas and the maibis.

Bibliography
 ON A UNIQUE BRASS COIN (MEDALLIAN ?) OF MANIPUR on JSTOR

Other websites
 Unexplored Antique Coins of Manipur
 Cultural Heritage Complex 8

References

History of Manipur

Meitei currency


Darklight is a 2004 movie that has links to the Lilith Jewish myth. In the movie, Lilith (Shiri Appleby) and William Shaw (Richard Burgi) join forces to kill the Demonicus, an evil beast that is starting a worldwide plague.

Premise
Lilith is introduced as Elle, a young woman who lives with a guardian. She has no memory of who she is. Lilith is the first woman created by God. She rejected Adam's belief that he was better than her. God turned her into an immortal demoness who kills the children of Adam and Eve. A secret society, The Faith, was created to destroy Lilith.

After murdering the young son of Faith Agent William Shaw, Lilith was captured by Shaw, but The Faith chose to let her live. Instead they blocked her memory and powers, and placed her with a foster family as Elle.

When the ambitious yet evil scientist Anders Raeborne (David Hewlett) used an extract from Lilith's blood in an attempt to become immortal, he became the evil Demonicus, a powerful monster who transmitted a red plague with his bite and tongue. The leaders of Faith, The Prefect (Ross Manarchy) and Chapel (John de Lancie), assigned Chief Agent William Shaw to help Lilith regain her memories and train her to destroy Demonicus and bring his head to develop an antidote.

Cast
  Shiri Appleby as Lilith / Elle, Young woman tasked with saving the world.
  Richard Burgi as William Shaw, Lilith's reluctant partner.
  John de Lancie as Faith Director Chapel
  David Hewlett as Anders Raeborne, The main villain of the movie and a scientist who seeks to become immortal at all costs, only for him to end up transforming into an entity known as the Demonicus.
  Ross Manarchy as The Prefect

References

2004 television films
2004 films
2004 fantasy films
Syfy original films
2000s American films

Darklight (film)


Meynell Langley is a small area of settlement in Derbyshire, England. It is located between Kirk Langley and Kedleston.

Meynell Langley Hall is the ancestral home of the Meynell family. In 2015 Godfrey Meynell who had been High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1982, and his son, placed a version of Grotto in the Gulf of Salerno by Joseph Wright in an auction at Sotheby's. It was one of the Wright paintings that were kept at Meynell Langley Hall. The money raised was to be donated to assist Syrian refugees in Greece. This painting had been in their family since 1840.

References

External links

Villages in Derbyshire
Geography of Amber Valley

Meynell Langley


In spring and summer 1864 Fort Blair, Fort Henning and Fort Insley were constructed to help protect the town and post of Fort Scott from Confederate forces.  Fort Insley was named for Capt. Martain H. Insley.  It was located just northeast of town, about 1½ blocks northeast of the main part of the post of Fort Scott.  It overlooked Buck Run Creek.

Each blockhouse was built of sawed wood slabs or thick boards, which were covered with rough boards.  Each had a wood shingle roof and had ports for aiming rifles and small cannon.  Each was two stories tall.  Each blockhouse was surrounded by log palisades covered on the outside by earthworks, which in turn were surrounded by wide, deep ditches.

Fort Insley was the largest of the blockhouses, measuring twenty by thirty feet.  It was garrisoned by a detachment from the 6th Kansas and served as an ammunition storehouse.  The three blockhouses helped protect Fort Scott in October 1864 when Maj. Gen. Sterling Price retreated south during his failed invasion of Missouri (see Price's Missouri Raid).  He hoped to overrun Fort Scott, but retreated without a fight.

After the Civil War Forts Henning and Insley were torn down.  Fort Scott itself closed in October 1865.

References

Insley
Buildings and structures in Bourbon County, Kansas
Closed installations of the United States Army
1864 establishments in Kansas

Fort Insley


USS Curlew (MSC(O)-8/AMS-8/YMS-218) was a  built for the United States Navy during World War II. She was the fourth U.S. Navy ship to be named for the curlew.

History
Laid down, 18 July 1942 by the J. N. Martinac Shipbuilding Co. of Tacoma, Washington; Launched, 23 December 1942; Completed and commissioned USS YMS-218, 23 June 1943.

She served in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater during World War II, and took part in occupation activities in late 1945 and early 1946.

In early 1947, after returning to the U.S. West Coast, she was placed out of commission. YMS-218 was reclassified as a Motor Minesweeper, AMS-8 and named USS Curlew, 18 February 1947. Curlew recommissioned in June 1949.

Curlew was sent to the Western Pacific a year later to support Korean War operations. During most of that conflict, she was active in the combat zone, performing mine clearance and blockade missions. Curlew remained in the Japan-Korea area after the war ended in mid-1953. She was redesignated a Coastal Minesweeper (Old), MSC(O)-8, 7 February 1955.

Curlew was transferred to South Korea on 6 January 1956 as ROKS Geumhwa (MSC 519). Returned from South Korea, the veteran minesweeper was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 15 November 1974, and was disposed of about 1977.

References

External links

YMS-1-class minesweepers of the United States Navy
Ships built in Tacoma, Washington
1942 ships
World War II minesweepers of the United States
Korean War minesweepers of the United States
Ships transferred from the United States Navy to the Republic of Korea Navy

USS Curlew (AMS-8)


Cromer Links Halt (located at ) was a railway station on the outskirts of Cromer. It was on the now disused Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway line between Roughton Road Junction and Overstrand station. It opened on 9 July 1923, only to close thirty years later on 7 April 1953.

History
Opened as part of an attempt to encourage holiday traffic on the line, the halt primarily served golfers at the nearby Royal Cromer Golf Club. The station facilities were very basic, consisting of no more than a single wooden platform, which cost £170 to build, two wooden benches and running in board together with the obligatory oil lamps. No shelter was provided for passengers and the platform was constructed of sleepers and supported by wooden trestles.

The halt was approached from the road by a path leading up the embankment on which the railway ran. To the west, a bridge carried the line over Northrepps Road from where it proceeded on another embankment before reaching Cromer Tunnel which was built by the Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway to take the line under the Great Eastern's Cromer High to Norwich route. Although only 61 yards long, the tunnel is notable as being one of only two standard gauge tunnels anywhere in Norfolk, the other being Barsham Tunnel on the Wells-on-Sea branch. However, as Barsham Tunnel was opened out before 1912, Cromer Tunnel is actually the only tunnel.

The line was served in general by around half a dozen trains each way between North Walsham, Mundesley and Cromer Beach. However, with no direct service to Norwich - the nearest city - the halt was little-used, and closed in 1953 as part of a package of early rationalisation measures undertaken by British Railways after nationalisation, which also involved the closure of the line from Roughton Road Junction to Mundesley. The coastal line, although highly picturesque, carried little traffic and its closure made sound economic sense to British Railways.

Present day
Due to its wooden construction, virtually no trace of Cromer Links Halt has survived other than the gate to the approach path up the embankment, the rotting remains of which were said to be entangled in the undergrowth at the site of the station.

See also
 Railway stations in Cromer

Notes

References

Disused railway stations in Norfolk
Former Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway stations
Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1923
Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1953
1923 establishments in England

Cromer Links Halt railway station


The General Electric I-A was the first working jet engine in the United States, manufactured by General Electric (GE) and achieving its first run on April 18, 1942.

The engine was the result of receiving an imported Power Jets W.1X that was flown to the US from Britain in 1941, and the I-A itself was based on the design of the improved Power Jets W.2B, the plans of which were also received. Like these designs, the I-A engine was also of centrifugal design.

The I-A engine led directly to the first production US jet engine, the General Electric J31 which powered the first US jet aircraft, the Bell XP-59A Airacomet.

Design and development

During the late 1930s/early 1940s, a small company in England, known as Power Jets, had been developing, through a series of prototypes, a gas turbine engine to provide aircraft jet propulsion. Power Jets had been started by a Frank Whittle, who had thought of the concept of a jet engine whilst he was a young flight cadet at RAF Cranwell. He applied for a patent for the engine in January, 1930, although he eventually allowed the patent to lapse.

Power Jets Ltd was formed in March 1936. Manufacture of key engine components was undertaken by the British Thomson-Houston Company (BTH), starting in June 1936. Testing of the first engine, the WU, to demonstrate the concept, commenced on April 12, 1937. Because of a shortage of funds at Power Jets, engine components were in short supply, so development proceeded at a very slow pace.

However, in the summer of 1939, shortly before war was declared, the Air Ministry suddenly realised that the jet engine was likely to become a viable means of propulsion. As a result, Power Jets received a contract for a flight engine on July 12, 1939. Shortly afterwards, a contract was placed with Gloster Aircraft Company to produce an experimental aircraft to demonstrate the engine.

In May 1941, the first British jet aircraft, Gloster E.28/39, made its maiden flight. It was powered by the  thrust Power Jets W.1. Prior to this first flight another engine known as the W.1X had been used in the prototype aircraft for taxiing trials. This particular one-off engine had been assembled from a collection of spare parts and was not considered flightworthy.

After a visit to England mid-1941, General Henry H. Arnold was so impressed by flight demonstrations of the Gloster E.28/39 he had witnessed that he arranged for the Whittle W.1X turbojet engine to be flown in October 1941 to the U.S in the bomb bay of a USAAC Consolidated B-24 Liberator, along with drawings for the more powerful W.2B/23 engine and a small team of Power Jets engineers, so that the US could develop its own jet engine. As a result, General Electric received a contract from U.S Army Air Corps to build a turbojet based on the W.2B/23. General Electric's extensive experience in turbocharger production made them the natural choice for producing such engine. With utmost secrecy, in October 1941 a small dedicated GE team at Lynn, Massachusetts, began the intensive development of the first US jet engine. GE initially referred to their engine as the Type I. Engine component production was undertaken fairly openly, but the project reference "Type I Supercharger" was used to disguise the true application of the parts.

The aerodynamic design and  many mechanical features of the Type I were identical to that of the W.2B/23. However, there were some major differences, principally with the design of the wheelcase, which was brought into line with the US practice of mounting engine accessories on the engine itself.

In November 1941, well before the Type I would become available for testing, General Electric started ground running of the Power Jets W.1X engine. This was the first jet engine to run on US soil, but more importantly GE gained valuable experience of testing a turbojet engine.

On April 18, 1942, twenty-eight weeks after stateside work began, GE's engineers successfully ran the first Type I engine. True, the unit stalled before full engine speed was obtained,  but this reflected British experience with the W.2B.

With their vast experience of developing turbochargers, General Electric turned their expertise to improving the Type I. A modified version, the Type I-A, incorporating partitions in the blower casing to separate the air flow into each of the individual combustion chambers at the suggestion of Whittle, began testing on May 18, 1942, and developed a thrust of , at an overall pressure ratio of 3:1.

On October 1, 1942, a Bell XP-59A aircraft, powered by two 1,250 lbf thrust I-A turbojet engines, made its first flight at the Muroc Army Air Field in California. Further engine developments produced a   thrust engine, known as the I-14, which was used to propel the service test YP-59A aircraft.

Ultimately, General Electric found they could produce a thrust of  from a package the same size and weight as the I-A, which they called the I-16. Later, when the P-59 went into production, the aircraft was fitted with J31s, which was the USAAF designation for the I-16.

Meanwhile, Power Jets continued to develop the W.2B, initially with the help of the  Rover Company. On April 1, 1943, Rolls-Royce took responsibility for developing the engine, and it went into small-scale production as the 1,600 lbf thrust Rolls-Royce Welland I in October, 1943. The Gloster Meteor I fighter, which entered RAF service in July, 1944, was powered by the Welland I.

Variants
 Type I
Initial design based on W.1X. Incorporated automatic control system and forged Hastelloy B turbine blades. First run on 18th April 1942.
 Type I-A
Revised design incorporating partitions in blower casing at suggestion of Whittle.

Engines on display
The W.1X is on display at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.

I-1A on display at Valiant Air Command - Titusville Florida

Applications
 Bell XP-59A

Specifications (General Electric I-A)

See also

References

J31
1940s turbojet engines
Centrifugal-flow turbojet engines

General Electric I-A


Harry Crawford Black (1887–1956) was an American businessperson, newspaper executive, and philanthropist. He was chairman of The A.S. Abell Company, which published the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

He was born in Baltimore in 1887. He graduated from The Boys' Latin School of Baltimore in 1905 and later graduated from Princeton University. Upon graduating from Princeton University, Black took a job with Baltimore's Fidelity and Deposit Company.  He married Constance Hoffmeister in 1912. They had one child, Guy Crawford Black, who died at a very young age.

Black is most known for his work with the Baltimore Sun and The Sunpapers.  He also held board positions in the Fidelity and Deposit Company, The Fidelity Trust Company, and The Sunpapers. Harry C. Black died in 1956 at the age of 69, at his home in Boynton Beach, Florida. Harry C. Black was described as an old-fashioned, polite, generous old man. He rode a horse-drawn buggy to his work, and made charitable donations to several Baltimore organizations, such as Johns Hopkins University, the Enoch Pratt Free Library, as well as several local museums.

References

" Black's Will Benefits Two Universities," Baltimore Sun, November 20, 1956.
"Buggy Travel to Office Found Fast and Pleasant," Evening Sun, June 10, 1942.
" Harry Black, Head of Sun Board, Dies," Baltimore Sun, November 26, 1956.

American newspaper people
American bankers
1887 births
1956 deaths
Princeton University alumni
People from Boynton Beach, Florida
20th-century American philanthropists

Harry Crawford Black


Dudley Henry Dickerson Jr. (November 27, 1906September 23, 1968) was an American film actor. Born in Chickasha, Oklahoma, he appeared in nearly 160 films between 1932 and 1952, and is best remembered for his roles in several Three Stooges films.

Career
Given the era in which Dickerson performed, he was usually cast in stereotypical roles that were common in films of the time. His boundless energy can be seen in what are rather restrictive roles, and was a master at what has become known as "scared reaction" comedy. One of his early screen credits was the Our Gang comedy Spooky Hooky (1936), as a bemused caretaker. Dickerson also appeared in Soundies musical films with Dorothy Dandridge and Meade Lux Lewis; Big Joe Turner had recorded three numbers for Soundies but was not present for the filming, so Dickerson stood in for him and lip-synced his vocals.

Modern viewers will remember Dudley Dickerson for his portrayals of startled cooks, quizzical orderlies, frightened porters, and apprehensive watchmen in such Three Stooges films as They Stooge to Conga, A Gem of a Jam, and Hold That Lion! In Hold that Lion, he played a lovable train conductor who memorably bugged out his eyes and shrieked, "He'p, he'p, ah'm losin' mah mahnd!" when a lion attacked him and ripped the seat of his pants while he was shining a pair of shoes. This gag had been used by Moe in a previous short, but Dickerson's portrayal of the scene was so funny that the crew (and Dickerson himself) could hardly contain their laughter, as one can hear in the final release.

Probably Dickerson's most memorable role was that of the hapless chef in the Stooges' A Plumbing We Will Go, in which he uttered in bewilderment, "This house has sho' gone crazy!" He was also able to show the range of his acting talent in this role, able to raise a laugh from the audience by just giving a suspicious, sideways look to a kitchen appliance that had previously acted up. The footage would be recycled twice more in future Stooge comedies: 1949's Vagabond Loafers and 1956's Scheming Schemers.  Both films included a newly filmed scene of a raincoat-clad Dickerson informing guests that "dinner's postponed on account of rain" (a turn of phrase usually used to describe the cancellation of a baseball game due to inclement weather).

Dickerson received featured billing in several Hugh Herbert comedies produced by Columbia Pictures, in which, as Herbert's valet, he is always in scary situations and reacts with comic terror.

In the early 1950s, Dickerson appeared in several episodes of TV's The Amos 'n' Andy Show, usually as a lodge member or Joe the Barber.

Dickerson had also appeared opposite Columbia comic Andy Clyde. When Columbia concluded its long-running Clyde series, producer Jules White called Dickerson back to appear opposite Clyde in a remake of the 1948 short Go Chase Yourself. To White's surprise, Dickerson had lost considerable weight and would no longer match the scenes filmed in 1948. White regarded Dickerson so highly that he filmed the new scenes anyway. Columbia released the film in 1956 as Pardon My Nightshirt.

Dickerson retired from acting in 1959. He died of a brain tumor in 1968 at age 61, and is buried at Lincoln Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California.

Selected filmography

 Spooky Hooky (1936)
 A Day at the Races (1937)
 Shall We Dance (1937)
 Way Out West (1937)
 The Adventures of Jane Arden (1939)
 At the Circus (1939)
 You're Next! (1940)
 My Life with Caroline (1941)
 Criminals Within  (1941)
 My Sister Eileen (1942)
 The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)
 George Washington Slept Here (1942)
 Gung Ho! (1943)
 Kid Dynamite (1943) as Mr. Jackson
 The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944)
 Pardon My Terror (1946)
 Tall, Dark and Gruesome (1948)
 Microspook (1949)
The Sickle or the Cross (1949)
 Between Midnight and Dawn (1950)
 The Amos 'n Andy Show (1951–1953)
 Mr. and Mrs. North (1952)
 Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953)
 Hook a Crook (1956)
 The Alligator People (1959)

With the Three Stooges, Andy Clyde, El Brendel and Hugh Herbert
 A Plumbing We Will Go (1940, Stooges)
 From Nurse to Worse (1940, Stooges)
 The Ring and the Belle (1940, Clyde)
 Ready, Willing but Unable (1941, Brendel)
 Host to a Ghost (1941, Clyde)
 Phoney Cronies (1942, Brendel)
 They Stooge to Conga (1943, Stooges)
 A Gem of a Jam (1943, Stooges)
 Spook to Me (1945, Clyde)
 Get Along, Little Zombie (1946, Herbert)
 Nervous Shakedown (1947, Herbert)
 Hold That Lion! (1947, Stooges)
 Should Husbands Marry? (1948, Herbert)
 Go Chase Yourself (1948, Clyde)
 Who Done It? (1949, Stooges)
 Super Wolf (1949, Herbert)
 Vagabond Loafers (1949, Stooges)
 One Shivery Night (1950, Herbert)
 Booty and the Beast (1953) (stock footage from Hold That Lion)
 Pardon My Nightshirt (1956, Clyde)
 Scheming Schemers (1956, Stooges) (stock footage from A Plumbing We Will Go and Vagabond Loafers)

References

External links

Dudley Dickerson at threestooges.net

1906 births
1968 deaths
African-American male actors
American male film actors
Deaths from brain cancer in the United States
Male actors from Oklahoma
20th-century American male actors
20th-century American comedians
20th-century African-American people

Dudley Dickerson


The Spread Toolkit is a computer software package that provides a high performance group communication system that is resilient to faults across local and wide area networks. Spread functions as a unified message bus for distributed applications, and provides highly tuned application-level multicast, group communication, and point to point support. Spread services range from reliable messaging to fully ordered messages with delivery guarantees.

The toolkit consists of a messaging server, and client libraries for many software development environments, including C/C++ libraries (with and without thread support), a Java class to be used by applets or applications, and interfaces for Perl, Python, and Ruby.  Interfaces for many other software environments have been provided by third parties.

In typical operation, each computer in a cluster runs its own instance of the Spread server, and client applications connect locally to that server process.  The Spread servers, in turn, communicate with each other to pass messages to subscriber applications.  It can also be configured so that clients distributed across the network all communicate with a Spread server process on one host.

The Spread Toolkit is developed by Spread Concepts LLC, with much support by the Distributed Systems and Networks Lab (DSN) at Johns Hopkins University, and the Experimental Networked Systems Lab at George Washington University.

Partial funding was provided by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and The National Security Agency (NSA).

Bindings
Bindings for Spread Toolkit exist for many languages and platforms:
Ada
C
C++
C#
Haskell
Java
Lua
Microsoft Excel
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Squeak
Scheme
TCL

References

External links

Middleware

Spread Toolkit


Jeremiah Jerome Ratliff (born August 29, 1981), formerly known as Jay Ratliff, is an American former professional football player who was a nose tackle in the National Football League (NFL) for the Dallas Cowboys and Chicago Bears. He played college football for the Auburn Tigers and was selected by the Cowboys in the seventh round of the 2005 NFL Draft.

Early years
Ratliff attended Lowndes High School in Valdosta, Georgia and was a letterman in football and basketball. He earned All-State and honorable-mention All-USA Today honors after catching 44 passes for 701 yards and seven touchdowns as a senior.

College career
While attending Auburn University, Ratliff played for the Auburn Tigers football team from 2000 to 2004. As a freshman tight end he recorded 3 receptions for 38 yards, playing in 12 games (1 start).

He was converted to defensive end as a sophomore, starting eight of 12 games and tying a career-highs with 37 tackles (10 for loss), two forced fumbles and a sack. Ratliff played in nine games as a junior reserve defensive end, making seven tackles, including one for a loss.

After moving from defensive end to defensive tackle in his senior season, he started all 13 games and tied his career high with 37 tackles. He also made four tackles for a loss and a sack. He tied a single game career high with seven tackles at Auburn to earn SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week honors. He helped the Tigers win the Southeastern conference (SEC) Championship and finish 13-0 by defeating Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl, in which he made three tackles.  Auburn finished in 2004 second behind USC in the final Associated Press poll.

Professional career

Dallas Cowboys

Regarded as an undersized defensive tackle, he dropped in the 2005 NFL Draft until he was selected in the seventh round (224th overall pick) by the Dallas Cowboys, who were looking to play him at defensive end in their new 3-4 defense.

Ratliff played his first NFL game at Oakland (10/2) and shared a sack with linebacker Scott Shanle. He made his first start the next week against the Philadelphia Eagles (10/9) when the Cowboys opened in their nickel package. He was placed on injured reserve on November 1. In 2006, he played 15 games as part of the defensive line rotation. His quickness and relentless drive allowed him to tie for the team lead with seven quarterback pressures; made 10 tackles; four sacks (tied for third on the team); one pass breakup; and one forced fumble. He led the team in fumble recoveries, which tied for second in the NFL.

He became the starting nose tackle following an injury to Jason Ferguson early in the 2007 season and although he was seen as an undersized player for the position, he started to dominate opposing offensive linemen.  He was signed to a $20.5 million, five-year contract extension on December 14, 2007, to stay with the Cowboys through the 2012 season. The deal included an $8 million signing bonus. That year, he received the team's Ed Block Courage Award recipient.

In 2008, although he faced constant double teams, he had his best statistical year, recording career highs with 51 tackles (30 solo) and 7.5 sacks, receiving his first Pro Bowl invitation and establishing him as one of the league's best 3-4 nose tackles. For his solid performance that season he was also named to the Pro Football Writers Association's All-NFC Team. The next year, he was considered one of the dominant players in the league, earning All-Pro honors, after registering 40 tackles (29 solo) and 6 sacks.

By 2011 he signed a new contract extension worth $40 million to play through the 2017 season, but there were already worries that his size and style of play could shorten his career. Discussions about moving him to defensive end never materialized, and his production and health started to decline. At the end of the season, he was selected to his fourth straight Pro Bowl appearance. In 2012 he missed his first game in five years. He missed four games with a high ankle sprain and also suffered a groin injury that put him on the injured reserve list. He finished the season with only 16 tackles.

During his rehabilitation process, Ratliff relationship with the team's medical staff and even with owner Jerry Jones became tense. After his trust towards the Cowboys organization deteriorated, he hired an independent physician and started to rehab on his own.

The Cowboys still saw him as key player in the new 4-3 defense, even after assigning him to the Physically Unable to Perform list at the start of the year. After missing all preseason and the first 6 games of the season, the team terminated his contract and placed him on the failed physical list from Reserve/PUP (Physically Unable to Perform) on October 16, 2013. He finished his Cowboys career with 27 sacks, 16 passes defensed and 317 total tackles.

An already acrimonious release escalated after Ratliff's agent (Mark Slough) held a conference call on October 16, where he publicly stated that it was a serious pelvic injury that would likely take at least a year to heal. On October 23, the controversy heated up when Ratliff was cleared medically to work out for other NFL teams, only a week after being released.

Chicago Bears
On November 2, 2013, Ratliff signed a 1-year-deal with the Chicago Bears and stated that he wanted to be called Jeremiah. He made his Bears debut against the Minnesota Vikings in week thirteen, recording a tackle in a 23-20 loss. He finished with 4 starts, 14.5 tackles (1 for loss) and 1.5 sacks.

On March 5, 2014, he re-signed with the Bears on a two-year contract. His best game came in week seven against the Miami Dolphins, recording a career-high 3.5 sacks in a game. He missed five games due to injuries, but was still considered the best player on the defense, finishing with 6.5 sacks (second on the team) and 33 quarterback pressures.

Ratliff was suspended by the NFL for the first three weeks of the 2015 regular season for violating the league's Policy and Program for Substances of Abuse. The suspension was a result of an incident that occurred in 2013, where Ratliff was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving.

On October 22, 2015, he was released after what was reported as a heated exchange with general manager Ryan Pace.

Personal life
Ratliff was arrested the evening of January 22, 2013 on suspicion of drunk driving. He was arrested 20 miles northwest of Dallas after he sideswiped a semi-truck. No one was injured. However; Ratliff failed the field sobriety test and spent the night in jail. He was released the following morning on bond.

References

External links

Official website
Chicago Bears bio
Dallas Cowboys bio

1981 births
Living people
American football defensive ends
American football defensive tackles
Auburn Tigers football players
Chicago Bears players
Dallas Cowboys players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
Players of American football from St. Petersburg, Florida

Jeremiah Ratliff


Chowder is a thick  soup prepared with milk or cream, a roux, and seafood or vegetables. Oyster crackers or saltines may accompany chowders as a side item, and cracker pieces may be dropped atop the dish. New England clam chowder is typically made with chopped clams and diced potatoes, in a mixed cream and milk base, often with a small amount of butter. Other common chowders include seafood chowder, which often consists of fish, clams, and other types of shellfish; lamb or veal chowder made with barley; corn chowder, which uses corn instead of clams; various fish chowders; and potato chowder, which is often made with cheese. Fish, corn, and clam chowders are popular in North America, especially New England and Atlantic Canada.

Etymology

The origin of the term chowder is obscure. One possible source is the French word chaudron, the French word for cauldron, the type of cooking or heating stove on which the first chowders were probably cooked. Chodier was also a name for a cooking pot in the Creole language of the French Caribbean islands. Additionally, a Portuguese, Brazilian, Galician and Basque fish and shellfish stew is known as caldeirada which appears to have a similar etymology. Another possible source of the word "chowder" could be the French dish called chaudrée (sometimes spelled chauderée), which is a thick fish soup from the coastal regions of Charente-Maritime and Vendée. Yet another etymology could be the Quebecois French word chaudière, which means "bucket".

In the sixteenth century in Cornwall and Devon the dialectal word "jowter" was used to describe hawkers, particularly fishmongers, which later turned into "chowder" and "chowter". However, this is not cited by the Oxford English Dictionary as a possible source due to controversy regarding the origins of the dish itself. The earliest citation the OED gives for the word used in its current sense of a fish-based stew is American.

History
Chowder as it is known today originated as a shipboard dish, and was thickened with the use of hardtack. Chowder was brought to North America with immigrants from England and France and seafarers more than 250 years ago. It became popular for its flavor, and is now used widely for its simple preparation.

An early description of chowder is found in the journal kept by the young botanist Joseph Banks, who visited English and French Labrador fisheries in 1766. Banks gives an account of chowder, which he described as "Peculiar to this Country", and its preparation. Even though it was unfamiliar, he stated that "when well made a Luxury that the rich Even in England at Least in my opinion might be fond of It is a Soup made with a small Quantity of salt Pork cut into Small Slices a good deal of fish and Biscuit Boyled for about an hour".

Chowder was not utterly unfamiliar in England at the time, as in Sir Launcelot Greaves (1762) Tobias Smollett has one character state, "My head sings and simmers like a pot of chowder". A Manx sailor in his memoirs recalls a meal made aboard a British ship on a voyage through the Caribbean in 1786: "....we frequently served up a mess called chowder, consisting of a mixture of fresh fish, salt pork, pounded biscuit and onions; and which, when well seasoned and stewed, we found to be an excellent palatable dish." Cookbooks of the period included recipes for "Chowder, a Sea Dish" which might be thicker than a soup: in 1830 an English baked dish made with salmon and potato was called a chowder.

In 1890, in the magazine American Notes and Queries, it was said that the dish was of French origin. Among French settlers in Canada it was a custom to stew clams and fish laid in courses with bacon, sea biscuits, and other ingredients in a bucket called a "chaudière". The Native Americans adopted it as "chawder", and the name (and the dish) eventually became "chowder" in the United States of America. After the Revolutionary war, the fourth of July was celebrated with picnics, fireworks, dances and dinners. The foods served varied according to the customs of each region. Chowder was one of the dishes commonly served for the celebrations in the northern United States.

In the United States, early chowder making is traced to New England. It was a bowl of simmering chowder by the sea side that provided in its basic form "sustenance of body and mind – a marker of hearth and home, community, family and culture". It evolved along the coastal shoreline of New England as a "congerie" of simple things, very basic and cooked simply. It is a simple dish of salt and pepper, potatoes and onion, pork and fish, cream and hard crackers, and not a sophisticated dish of the elite. Its simplicity made it attractive and it became a regional dish of the New Englanders, and their favorite recipe was "chowder master". "Symbolically, functionally, mnemonically or dynamically" chowder has become a community-defining symbol for New Englanders. Etta M. Madden and Martha L. Finch observe that chowder provides "visceral memories that provided feelings of familiarity, comfort and continuity".

A recipe formulated and published in 1894 by Charles Ranhofer, a famous chef of Delmonico's restaurant, was called "Chowder de Lucines" and had ingredients of pork, clams, potato (sliced to a seven sixteenths-inch size), onion, parsley, tomato, crackers garnished by thyme, salt and pepper. Others in the same family, totally different from the New England clam chowder, are: "Fulton Market style", introduced in 1904 and made from clams, tomatoes, allspice, cloves, red pepper, and Worcester sauce; a "Vegetable Clam Chowder" introduced in 1929 and made of clams, chopped onions, diced carrots, stewed tomatoes, and thyme; "Coney Island Clam Chowder"; "New York Clam Chowder"; and "Manhattan Clam Chowder", a late entry after 1930.

In most cases, particularly in the Maritime Provinces, Canadian chowder is thinner and more seafood-forward than its creamier American counterparts.

Types
Chowder is a soup with cream or milk mixed with ingredients such as potatoes, sweet corn, smoked haddock, clams and prawns, etc. Some cream-style chowders do not use cream, and are instead prepared using milk and a roux to thicken them. Some of the popular variations are clam chowder and potatoes; seafood chowder; spiced haddock chowder; Irish fish chowder with soda bread; crayfish chowder; clam chowder with cod; British seaside chowder with saffron; thick smoked-haddock chowder; Raymond Blanc's light shellfish chowder; New England–style clam chowder traditionally served with oyster crackers; smoked haddock chowder with leeks and sweetcorn; clam, broad bean and salami chowder; and many more. Chowder can be a comfort food, especially during the winter months.

Bermuda fish chowder

Considered a national dish of Bermuda, the primary ingredients in Bermuda fish chowder include fish, tomato, and onion that is seasoned with black rum and a Sherry pepper sauce. The dish is of British origin, and was brought to the New World by the colonists.

Clam chowder

Clam chowder is prepared with clams, diced potato, onion, and sometimes celery. It may be prepared as a cream-style or broth-style soup. Several variations of clam chowder exist, including New England clam chowder, which is a cream-style soup; Manhattan clam chowder, a broth-style soup prepared using tomato, vegetables and clams; Rhode Island clam chowder, a broth-style soup prepared using tomato and clams with no vegetables, and alternatively a simple broth-style soup using clams; New Jersey clam chowder; Delaware clam chowder; Hatteras clam chowder; and Minorcan clam chowder. In Connecticut clam chowder, milk is used instead of cream. New England clam chowder is made in a diverse variety of styles.

Clam chowder may be prepared with fresh, steamed clams or canned clams. The "clam liquor" from steamed or canned clams may be retained for use in the soup, and fresh or bottled clam juice may be used. January 21 is the  National New England Clam Chowder Day in the United States.

In the late 1800s clam chowder was introduced in New Zealand as an "American" dish and has become integral to New Zealand cuisine. A variant of New Zealand clam chowder is "pipi chowder", also known as "pipi soup" made with New Zealand surf clams. "Pipi" comes from the indigenous Maori name for the shellfish. Although there are variations in ingredients all New Zealand seafood chowders are made in the style of New England chowders, always with milk and/or cream.

Corn chowder

Corn chowder is similar in consistency to New England clam chowder, with corn being used instead of clams. Additional vegetables that may be used in its preparation include potatoes, celery and onion. Some are prepared using meats, such as chicken or bacon. Corn chowder may be prepared with fresh, frozen, or canned corn.

Fish chowder
Fish chowder is prepared with fish such as salmon or cod, and is similar to clam chowder in ingredients and texture. Ingredients used in fish chowder may include potato, onion, celery, carrot, corn and bacon.

Smoked salmon chowder
A popular dish in Pacific Northwest cuisine, smoked salmon chowder gets its red color from tomato paste and is prepared with celery, garlic, leeks, chives, potatoes and Alaskan smoked salmon. The best known smoked salmon chowders are made at Pike Place Market and by Ivar's Salmon House, both in Seattle, Washington.

Southern Illinois chowder

Southern Illinois chowder, also referred to as "downtown chowder", is a thick stew or soup that is very different from the New England and Manhattan chowders. The main ingredients are beef, chicken, tomatoes, cabbage, lima beans, and green beans. Traditionally, squirrel meat was a common addition. Southern Illinois chowder is a hearty dish that has been described as being closer in style to burgoo and Brunswick stew than coastal chowders.

Seafood chowder
Seafood chowder is prepared with various types of seafood as a primary ingredient, and may be prepared as a broth- or cream-style chowder. It is a popular menu item in New Zealand using ready-prepared mixed seafood, called "seafood marinara," "marinara mix", or simply "marinara." These terms to describe mixed seafood are unique to New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa and not to be confused with the meaning of "marinara" as in marinara sauce.

Spiced haddock chowder
Spiced haddock chowder is made with haddock fillets, carrot, potato, plain flour, bay leaves, peppercorns, mustard, and spices added to milk and cooked in a pot with butter.

Other types
The White Castle restaurant serves a potato-and-bacon chowder.

Use of preserved clams
In North America, as people moved west, some homemade preparations of traditional chowder used canned or bottled clams when fresh clams were not available. In some places the ingredients were modified based upon other locally available foods such as salmon, corn and chicken.

Commercial varieties
Mass-produced, canned varieties of chowder are manufactured and purveyed to consumers, such as Campbell's and Progresso's New England Clam Chowder, among other brands.

See also

 Bisque (food) – a smooth, creamy soup traditionally made with seafood
 Bobó de camarão – Brazilian shrimp chowder-like soup or stew
 Cioppino – a fish stew derived from Italian cuisine
 Cullen skink – the traditional Scottish haddock and milk stew
 Fish stew
 Jeongol – a chowder-like stew in Korean cuisine
 List of cream soups
 List of fish and seafood soups
 List of fish dishes
 List of seafood dishes
 List of soups
 List of stews
 Squid as food
 New England Great Chowder Cook-Off

References

Bibliography

Further reading

 The New England Chowder Compendium. Beatrice McIntosh Cookery Collection. University of Massachusetts.

External links

A history of Chowder. Linda Stradley. What's Cooking America. 2004.

American soups
American stews
Cream soups
English soups
Fish stews
French soups
New Zealand soups
Independence Day (United States) foods

Chowder


Eugen Ewig (18 May 1913, Bonn – 1 March 2006) was a German historian who researched the history of the early Middle Ages. He taught at the University of Mainz and Bonn University. He was considered an expert in the Merovingian period. In 1958, he founded the German Historical Research Center in Paris.

Life
He studied at the Beethoven grammar school in Bonn, with  Hermann Platz. He studied with Wilhelm Levison, and Ernst Robert Curtius. He trained as an archivist at  Institute for Archive Science and History in Berlin-Dahlem. He worked at the  Lorraine State Archives in Metz. He was interned after the war, but he was released in February / March 1945.

From 1946  until 1949, he was a lecturer at University of Nancy. From 1946 to 1964, he taught at University of Mainz. With help from  Konrad Adenauer, he founded the German Historical Institute in Paris. They sponsored German and French historians.

From 1964 to 1980, he taught at University of Bonn.

Works

 Trier im Merowingerreich. Civitas, Stadt, Bistum. Paulinus-Verlag, Trier 1954. (Nachdruck: Scientia-Verlag, Aalen 1987, ISBN 3-511-00875-1.)
 Die Rheinlande in der fränkischen Zeit (451–919/31). Düsseldorf 1980, ISBN 3-590-34201-3
 Die Merowinger und das Frankenreich [zuerst 1988]. 5., aktualisierte Auflage. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-170-19473-1.
 Spätantikes und fränkisches Gallien. Band 1–2: Gesammelte Schriften (1952–1973). Herausgegeben von Hartmut Atsma. Artemis, München 1976 and 1979

References

2006 deaths
German historians
1913 births

Eugen Ewig


Jhargram is a community development block that forms an administrative division in Jhargram subdivision of Jhargram district in the Indian state of West Bengal.

History

Red corridor
106 districts spanning 10 states across India, described as being a part of the Left Wing Extremism activities, constitutes the Red corridor. In West Bengal the districts of Pashim Medinipur, Bankura, Purulia and Birbhum are part of the Red corridor. However, as of July 2016, there has been no reported incidents of Maoist related activities from these districts for the previous 4 years. In the period 2009-2011 LWE violence resulted in more than 500 deaths and a similar number missing in Paschim Medinipur district.

The Lalgarh movement, which started attracting attention after the failed assassination attempt on Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, then chief minister of West Bengal, in the Salboni area of Paschim Medinipur district, on 2 November 2008 and the police action that followed, had also spread over to these areas. The movement was not just a political struggle but an armed struggle that concurrently took the look of a social struggle. A large number of CPI (M) activists, and others active in different political parties, were killed. Although the epi-centre of the movement was Lalgarh, it was spread across 19 police stations in three adjoining districts – Paschim Medinipur, Bankura and Purulia, all thickly forested and near the border with Jharkhand. The deployment of CRPF and other forces started on 11 June 2009. The movement came to an end after the 2011 state assembly elections and change of government in West Bengal. The death of Kishenji, the Maoist commander, on 24 November 2011 was the last major landmark.

From 2009 Maoist violence had rapidly spread across eleven western CD blocks of the district: Binpur I, Binpur II, Salboni, Grahbeta II, Jamboni, Jhargram, Midnapore Sadar, Gopiballavpur I, Gopiballavpur II, Sankrail and Nayagram.

Geography
The Chota Nagpur Plateau gradually slopes down creating an undulating area with infertile laterite rocks/ soil. In Jhargram CD Block 90% of the cultivated area has lateritic soil and 10% has alluvial soil. Jhargram CD block is drought prone with a particularly severe drought situation.

Jhargram is located at .

Jhargram CD block is bounded by Binpur I and Midnapore Sadar CD blocks in the north, Kharagpur I and Sankrail CD locks in the east, Gopiballavpur II CD block in the south and Jamboni CD block in the west.

It is located 39 km from Midnapore, the district headquarters.

Jhargram CD block has an area of 515.11 km2. It has 1 panchayat samity, 13 gram panchayats, 129 gram sansads (village councils), 604 mouzas and 489 inhabited villages. Jhargram police station serves this block. Headquarters of this CD block is at Jhargram City.

Jhargram CD block had a forest cover of 15,400 hectares, against a total geographical area of 53,951 hectares in 2005-06.

Gram panchayats of Jhargram block are: Aguiboni, Bundhgora, Chandri, Chubka, Dudhkundi, Lodhasuli, Manikpara, Sardiha, Nendahbahara, Patasimul, Radhanagar, Salboni, Sapdhara.

Demographics

Population
According to the 2011 Census of India, Jhargram CD block had a total population of 170,097, all of which were rural. There were 85,970 (51%) males and 84,127 (49%) females. Population in the age range 0–6 years was 20,331. Scheduled Castes numbered 25,220 (14.83%) and Scheduled Tribes numbered 38,625 (22.71%).

According to the 2001 census, Jhargram block had a total population of 153,381, out of which 78,362 were males and 75,019 were females. Jhargram block registered a population growth of 14.64 per cent during the 1991-2001 decade. Decadal growth for the combined Midnapore district was 14.87 per cent. Decadal growth in West Bengal was 17.45 per cent.

Large villages (with 4,000+ population) in Jhargarm CD block are (2011 census figures in brackets): Manikpara (4,239).

Other villages in Jhargram CD block are (2011 census figures in brackets): Chandri (1,699), Radhanagar (3,476), Sardiha (660), Chubka (577), Lodhasuli (1,102) and Patashimul (486).

Literacy
According to the 2011 census the total number of literate persons in Jhargram CD block was 108,179 (72.23% of the population over 6 years) out of which males numbered 60,974 (80.55% of the male population over 6 years) and females numbered 47,205 (63.73% of the female population over 6 years). The gender gap in literacy rates was 16.82%.

See also – List of West Bengal districts ranked by literacy rate

Language and religion

In the 2011 census Hindus numbered 154,823 and formed 91.03% of the population in Jhargram CD block. Muslims numbered 6,296 and formed 3.70% of the population. Others numbered 8,960 and formed 5.27% of the population. Others include Addi Bassi, Marang Boro, Santal, Saranath, Sari Dharma, Sarna, Alchchi, Bidin, Sant, Saevdharm, Seran, Saran, Sarin, Kheria, Christian and other religious communities. In 2001, Hindus were 84.44%, Muslims 3.27% and tribal religions 12.04% of the population respectively.

At the time of the 2011 census, 86.83% of the population spoke Bengali and 11.66% Santali as their first language.

BPL families
In Jhargram CD lock 49.02% families were living below poverty line in 2007.

According to the District Human Development Report of Paschim Medinipur: The 29 CD blocks of the district were classified into four categories based on the poverty ratio. Nayagram, Binpur II and Jamboni CD blocks have very high poverty levels (above 60%). Kharagpur I, Kharagpur II, Sankrail, Garhbeta II, Pingla and Mohanpur CD blocks have high levels of poverty (50-60%), Jhargram, Midnapore Sadar, Dantan I, Gopiballavpur II, Binpur I, Dantan II, Keshiari, Chandrakona I, Gopiballavpur I, Chandrakona II, Narayangarh, Keshpur, Ghatal, Sabang, Garhbeta I, Salboni, Debra and Garhbeta III CD blocks have moderate levels of poverty (25-50%) and Daspur II and Daspur I CD blocks have low levels of poverty (below 25%).

Economy

Infrastructure
498 or 82% of mouzas in Jhargram CD block were electrified by 31 March 2014.

490 mouzas in Jhargram CD block had drinking water facilities in 2013-14. There were 56 fertiliser depots, 35 seed stores and 61 fair price shops in the CD block.

Agriculture

Although the Bargadari Act of 1950 recognised the rights of bargadars to a higher share of crops from the land that they tilled, it was not fully implemented. Large tracts, beyond the prescribed limit of land ceiling, remained with the rich landlords. From 1977 onwards major land reforms took place in West Bengal. Land in excess of land ceiling was acquired and distributed amongst the peasants. Following land reforms land ownership pattern has undergone transformation. In 2013-14, persons engaged in agriculture in Jhargram CD block could be classified as follows: bargadars 6.84%, patta (document) holders 28.94%, small farmers (possessing land between 1 and 2 hectares) 2.56%, marginal farmers (possessing land up to 1 hectare) 22.22% and agricultural labourers 39.45%.

In 2005-06 net cropped area in Jharagram CD block was 53,951 hectares and the area in which more than one crop was grown was 15,321 hectares.

The extension of irrigation has played a role in growth of the predominantly agricultural economy. In 2013-14, the total area irrigated in Jhargram CD block was 15,565 hectares, out of which 5,500 by canal water, 1,900 hectares by tank water, 200 hectares by deep tube wells, 4,450 by shallow tube wells, 160 hectares by river lift irrigation, 350 hectares by open dug wells and 3,005 hectares by other methods.

In 2013-14, Jhargram CD block produced 75,846 tonnes of Aman paddy, the main winter crop, from 35,328 hectares, 1,994 tonnes of Aus paddy (summer crop) from 942 hectares, 848 tonnes of wheat from 268 hectares and 37,648 tonnes of potatoes from 1,356 hectares. It also produced mustard.

Banking
In 2013-14, Jhargram CD block had offices of 15 commercial banks and 2 gramin banks.

Transport
Jhargram CD block has 5 ferry services and 4 originating/ terminating bus routes.

The Kharagpur-Tatanagar line of South Eastern Railway passes through this CD block and there is a station at Jhargram.

Education
In 2013-14, Jhargram CD block had 200 primary schools with 10,801 students, 31 middle schools with 1,815 students, 4 high schools with 1,690 students and 17 higher secondary schools with 16,875 students. Jhargram CD block had 1 general college with 934 students, 3 professional/ technical institutions with 1,019 students and 440 institutions for special and non-formal education with 15,130 students. There was 1 general college in Jhargram municipal area (outside Jhargram CD block).

The United Nations Development Programme considers the combined primary and secondary enrolment ratio as the simple indicator of educational achievement of the children in the school going age. The infrastructure available is important. In Jhargram CD block out of the total 199 primary schools in 2008-2009, 149 had pucca buildings, 8 partially pucca, 5 kucha and 37 multiple type.

Vivekananda Satavarshiki Mahavidyalaya was established in 1964 at Manikpara. It is affiliated to Vidyasagar University. It offers courses in Bengali, Santali, English, Sanskrit, history, political science, philosophy, economics, commerce, physics, chemistry and mathematics.

Healthcare
In 2014, Jhargram CD block had 1 block primary health centre, 4 primary health centres and 1 private nursing home with total 52 beds and 9 doctors. It had 32 family welfare sub centres and 1 family welfare centre. 2,727 patients were treated indoor and 89,581 patients were treated outdoor in the hospitals, health centres and subcentres of the CD block.

Mohanpur Block Primary Health Centre, with 10 beds at Montipa-Mohanpur, is the major government medical facility in the Jhargram CD block. There are primary health centres at: Lauriadam (PO Rajabas) (with 10 beds), Manikpara (with 10 beds), Chubka (PO Khalseuli) (with 6 beds) and Chandri (with 6 beds).

References

External links

Community development blocks in Jhargram district

Jhargram (community development block)


In mathematical optimization and decision theory, a loss function or cost function (sometimes also called an error function)  is a function that maps an event or values of one or more variables onto a real number intuitively representing some "cost" associated with the event. An optimization problem seeks to minimize a loss function. An objective function is either a loss function or its opposite (in specific domains, variously called a reward function, a profit function, a utility function, a fitness function, etc.), in which case it is to be maximized. The loss function could include terms from several levels of the hierarchy.

In statistics, typically a  loss function is used for parameter estimation, and the event in question is some function of the difference between estimated and true values for an instance of data. The concept, as old as Laplace, was reintroduced in statistics by Abraham Wald in the middle of the 20th century.  In the context of economics, for example, this is usually economic cost or regret.  In classification, it is the penalty for an incorrect classification of an example. In actuarial science, it is used in an insurance context to model benefits paid over premiums, particularly since the works of Harald Cramér in the 1920s. In optimal control, the loss is the penalty for failing to achieve a desired value. In financial risk management, the function is mapped to a monetary loss.

Example

Regret

Leonard J. Savage argued that using non-Bayesian methods such as minimax, the loss function should be based on the idea of regret, i.e., the loss associated with a decision should be the difference between the consequences of the best decision that could have been made had the underlying circumstances been known and the decision that was in fact taken before they were known.

Quadratic loss function

The use of a quadratic loss function is common, for example when using least squares techniques. It is often more mathematically tractable than other loss functions because of the properties of variances, as well as being symmetric: an error above the target causes the same loss as the same magnitude of error below the target.  If the target is t, then a quadratic loss function is

for some constant C; the value of the constant makes no difference to a decision, and can be ignored by setting it equal to 1. This is also known as the squared error loss (SEL).

Many common statistics, including t-tests, regression models, design of experiments, and much else, use least squares methods applied using linear regression theory, which is based on the quadratic loss function.

The quadratic loss function is also used in linear-quadratic optimal control problems. In these problems, even in the absence of uncertainty, it may not be possible to achieve the desired values of all target variables. Often loss is expressed as a quadratic form in the deviations of the variables of interest from their desired values; this approach is tractable because it results in linear first-order conditions. In the context of stochastic control, the expected value of the quadratic form is used.

0-1 loss function

In statistics and decision theory, a frequently used loss function is the 0-1 loss function

using Iverson bracket notation, i.e. it evaluates to 1 when , and 0 otherwise.

Two-parameter loss function
Specially in trading, where there is a range in between any price is correct, this range been called spread, and the "correct" value can be anywhere between bid and ask, including them, and ask (sell price) being higher than bid, is it as follows:

where  is the two-parameter (or ranged) loss function,  is the high value parameter,  is the low value parameter, and  is the unknown value.

For example, if bid is 1.20 and ask is 1.26, deals can be any value between these two, including them (i.e. 1.20, 1.21, 1.22, 1.23, 1.24, 1.25 and 1.26).

This can also be easily applied to any kind of measurement. Also correlates to quadratic function by .

This function is unpublished.

Constructing loss and objective functions

In many applications, objective functions, including loss functions as a particular case, are determined by the problem formulation.  In other situations, the decision maker's preference must be elicited and represented by a scalar-valued function (called also  utility function) in a form  suitable for optimization — the problem that Ragnar Frisch has highlighted in his Nobel Prize lecture.
The existing methods for constructing objective functions are collected in the proceedings of two dedicated conferences.
In particular, Andranik Tangian showed that the most usable objective functions — quadratic and additive — are determined by a few indifference points. He used this property in the models for constructing these objective functions from either ordinal or cardinal data that were elicited through computer-assisted interviews with decision makers.
Among other things, he constructed  objective functions to optimally distribute budgets for 16 Westfalian universities
and the European subsidies for equalizing unemployment rates among 271 German regions.

Expected loss

In some contexts, the value of the loss function itself is a random quantity because it depends on the outcome of a random variable X.

Statistics
Both frequentist and Bayesian statistical theory involve making a decision based on the expected value of the loss function; however, this quantity is defined differently under the two paradigms.

Frequentist expected loss
We first define the expected loss in the frequentist context. It is obtained by taking the expected value with respect to the probability distribution, Pθ, of the observed data, X. This is also referred to as the risk function of the decision rule δ and the parameter θ. Here the decision rule depends on the outcome of X. The risk function is given by:

Here, θ is a fixed but possibly unknown state of nature, X is a vector of observations stochastically drawn from a population,  is the expectation over all population values of X, dPθ is a probability measure over the event space of X (parametrized by θ) and the integral is evaluated over the entire support of X.

Bayesian expected loss
In a Bayesian approach, the expectation is calculated using the posterior distribution * of the parameter θ:

One then should choose the action a* which minimises the expected loss. Although this will result in choosing the same action as would be chosen using the frequentist risk, the emphasis of the Bayesian approach is that one is only interested in choosing the optimal action under the actual observed data, whereas choosing the actual frequentist optimal decision rule, which is a function of all possible observations, is a much more difficult problem.

Examples in statistics
 For a scalar parameter θ, a decision function whose output  is an estimate of θ, and a quadratic loss function (squared error loss)  the risk function becomes the mean squared error of the estimate, An Estimator found by minimizing the Mean squared error estimates the Posterior distribution's mean.
 In density estimation, the unknown parameter is probability density itself. The loss function is typically chosen to be a norm in an appropriate function space. For example, for L2 norm,  the risk function becomes the mean integrated squared error

Economic choice under uncertainty

In economics, decision-making under uncertainty is often modelled using the von Neumann–Morgenstern utility function of the uncertain variable of interest, such as end-of-period wealth. Since the value of this variable is uncertain, so is the value of the utility function; it is the expected value of utility that is maximized.

Decision rules
A decision rule makes a choice using an optimality criterion. Some commonly used criteria are:

Minimax: Choose the decision rule with the lowest worst loss — that is, minimize the worst-case (maximum possible) loss:
Invariance: Choose the decision rule which satisfies an invariance requirement.
Choose the decision rule with the lowest average loss (i.e. minimize the expected value of the loss function):

Selecting a loss function
Sound statistical practice requires selecting an estimator consistent with the actual acceptable variation experienced in the context of a particular applied problem. Thus, in the applied use of loss functions, selecting which statistical method to use to model an applied problem depends on knowing the losses that will be experienced from being wrong under the problem's particular circumstances.

A common example involves estimating "location". Under typical statistical assumptions, the mean or average is the statistic for estimating location that minimizes the expected loss experienced under the squared-error loss function, while the median is the estimator that minimizes expected loss experienced under the absolute-difference loss function. Still different estimators would be optimal under other, less common circumstances.

In economics, when an agent is risk neutral, the objective function is simply expressed as the expected value of a monetary quantity, such as profit, income, or end-of-period wealth. For risk-averse or risk-loving agents, loss is measured as the negative of a utility function, and the objective function to be optimized is the expected value of utility.

Other measures of cost are possible, for example mortality or morbidity in the field of public health or safety engineering.

For most optimization algorithms, it is desirable to have a loss function that is globally continuous and differentiable.

Two very commonly used loss functions are the squared loss, , and the absolute loss, .  However the absolute loss has the disadvantage that it is not differentiable at .  The squared loss has the disadvantage that it has the tendency to be dominated by outliers—when summing over a set of 's (as in ), the final sum tends to be the result of a few particularly large a-values, rather than an expression of the average a-value.

The choice of a loss function is not arbitrary. It is very restrictive and sometimes the loss function may be characterized by its desirable properties. Among  the choice principles are, for example, the requirement of completeness of the class of symmetric statistics in the case of i.i.d. observations, the principle of complete information, and some others.

W. Edwards Deming and Nassim Nicholas Taleb argue that empirical reality, not nice mathematical properties, should be the sole basis for selecting loss functions, and real losses often are not mathematically nice and are not differentiable, continuous, symmetric, etc. For example, a person who arrives before a plane gate closure can still make the plane, but a person who arrives after can not, a discontinuity and asymmetry which makes arriving slightly late much more costly than arriving slightly early. In drug dosing, the cost of too little drug may be lack of efficacy, while the cost of too much may be tolerable toxicity, another example of asymmetry. Traffic, pipes, beams, ecologies, climates, etc. may tolerate increased load or stress with little noticeable change up to a point, then become backed up or break catastrophically. These situations, Deming and Taleb argue, are common in real-life problems, perhaps more common than classical smooth, continuous, symmetric, differentials cases.

See also
Bayesian regret
Loss functions for classification
Discounted maximum loss
Hinge loss
Scoring rule
Statistical risk

References

Further reading

Optimal decisions

Loss function


Niklas Peter Ekstedt (born November 28, 1978) is a Swedish chef and restaurant manager.

After attending the gastronomic high school of Racklöfska in the skiing resort of Åre in central Sweden, Ekstedt worked for Charlie Trotter in Chicago.

Soon thereafter, at age twenty-one, Ekstedt started his first restaurant, 'Niklas', in the harbor town of Helsingborg, Sweden. Niklas was listed the best business restaurant in Sweden by newspaper 'Dagens Industri' in 2003 and the fifth best restaurant in Sweden by the restaurant guide 'White' in 2005.

In 2003 Ekstedt opened a second restaurant, 'Niklas i Viken', a summer restaurant located in the village of Viken, a few kilometers north of Helsingborg. Simultaneously, Ekstedt's cooking show, 'Mat' (Food in Swedish), began airing on Sveriges Television (Swedish national television).

In autumn 2008, Ekstedt and his staff moved to Stockholm to manage Restaurant 1900. In April 2009, the fifth season of Ekstedt's cooking show began airing. Since then Ekstedt's Television Career has continued with several shows, including a cooking show aimed at a children audience.

In 2011, Ekstedt opened his second restaurant in Stockholm, simply named 'Ekstedt'. Here, the concept is to first and foremost cook all raw ingredients over an open fire.

Ekstedt furthermore completed short internships at several three-star Michelin restaurants, including El Bulli, Spain.

In 2020, Ekstedt appeared as a judge in the Channel 4 series 'Crazy Delicious.' The show took place on an 'edible set' and was hosted by British comedian Jayde Adams alongside chefs Heston Blumenthal and Carla Hall.

References

External links
 Niklas' Personal homepage

Living people
1978 births
Swedish television chefs
Swedish restaurateurs

Niklas Ekstedt


Molly Maud Kiely (born October 10, 1969) is a Canadian-American alternative cartoonist best known for erotica. Her work is published by Fantagraphics/Eros Comix and has influenced other artists such as Jess Fink.

Kiely was born in Bracebridge, Ontario, raised in Kitchener, and attended the University of Waterloo. She has liked drawing her whole life, and discovered comics through Krazy Kat and Li'l Abner. She created her first minicomic in 1991 at the San Diego Comic-Con. She left Canada for San Francisco in 1992.

Her first comic, Communion, was a collaboration with J. Hagey based on a stream-of-consciousness poem about a one-night stand. It was published by the Eros Comix imprint of Fantagraphics in 1992. In 1993, Wooley Comics commissioned her to do a comic adaptation of Marquis de Sade's novel Philosophy in the Bedroom.

She describes her work as "clean line style" that has been compared to Aubrey Beardsley and Jaime Hernandez.

The pornographic nature of her work sometimes draws judgement from feminists who see her as helping men exploit women. Under Subsection 163 of the Canadian Criminal Code, the Canadian Customs and Post Office occasionally confiscated Kiely's work when it was being mailed between her and Eros in 1995.

She had a daughter with her husband in 2007 before being widowed in 2015. As of 2017, Kiely resides in Tucson, Arizona with her daughter.

Selected bibliography
 Communion, 1992 (written by Jonathan Hagey)
 Philosophy in the Bedroom, 1993
 Diary of a Dominatrix, 3 volumes, 1994–1995
 Sass, 1995
 Saucy Little Tart, 5 volumes, 1995–1997
 That Kind of Girl, 1999
 Tecopa Jane, 2000
 On Your Knees Boy, 2002
 Adaptation of Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji in the anthology The Graphic Cannon, edited by Russ Kick

References

External links

1969 births
American female comics artists
Canadian female comics artists
American erotic artists
Canadian erotic artists
Living people
People from Bracebridge, Ontario

Molly Kiely


The fairy martin (Petrochelidon ariel) is a member of the swallow family of passerine birds which breeds in Australia. It is migratory wintering through most of Australia, with some birds reaching New Guinea and Indonesia. It is increasingly a wanderer to New Zealand, where it may have bred. This species is frequently placed in the genus Hirundo  as Hirundo ariel.

This is a bird of open country near water, and is usually seen near its nest sites in cliffs, culverts or bridges.

Description
The fairy martin is dumpy and square tailed. It averages  long and weighs . The adult has an iridescent blue back, brown wings and tail, a rufous crown and nape, and a whitish rump. The underparts are dull white. The sexes are similar, but young birds are duller and browner, with a paler forehead and pale fringes to the back and wing feathers.

This species can be distinguished from other Australian swallows by its pale rump. The most similar species, the tree martin, has a shallowly forked tail and blue-black head and nape.

The call of this vocal swallow is a chrrrr and the song is a high-pitched twitter. The vocalizations are higher pitched than those of the tree martin.

Behaviour

Fairy martins breed from August through to January in colonies usually of a few tens of nests, but the largest known site had 700 nests. Nests are constructed in natural holes in dead trees, riverbanks, cliff faces or rock crevices, but increasingly in artificial sites on bridges, in culverts and pipes, and on buildings.

The nest is a retort or bottle shaped structure, made from up to 1,000 mud pellets and lined with dried grasses and feathers. The bowl is about  in diameter, and the entrance tunnel is  long. The nests in a colony are clustered together. Both sexes build the nest and share incubation and care of the young.

The clutch is usually four, sometimes five, reddish-brown speckled white eggs, and this species is often double or triple brooded.

The fairy martin feeds high in the air on flying insects, usually in large flocks. Fairy martins have a slow fluttering flight and feed higher than welcome swallows. They will also feed on insect swarms low over water, and have been recorded feeding on injured moths on a newly cut lawn. This species is highly gregarious and forms large flocks, often with tree martins.

Ecology

When the mud nest is vacated after breeding, it may become occupied by several species of microbats. These opportunists include the wattle bats of genus Chalinolobus (Chalinolobus morio, C. dwyeri and  C. gouldii), and the small long-eared bat Nyctophilus geoffroyi.

References

Birds in backyards

Petrochelidon
Birds of Australia
Birds described in 1843
Articles containing video clips

Fairy martin


Sonya Kitchell (born March 1, 1989, in Ashfield, MA) is an American singer-songwriter. Kitchell formed her first band and began writing music in 2001. In 2004 Sonya signed with Velour Records and was named the second Starbucks Hear Music Artist, releasing her first international-selling record, Words Came Back to Me on Velour Records. She has toured globally to Japan, Europe and across the U.S. many times in support of the album.

Kitchell has appeared on numerous late-night TV shows, including the Late Show with David Letterman, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, CNN, CBS and garnered rave reviews from the LA Times, Boston Globe,  NY Times and NPR. She has appeared in venues such as Carnegie Hall and The Hollywood Bowl, amongst numerous notable stages around the world. In 2007 she joined forces with Herbie Hancock, singing on his Grammy-winning Joni Mitchell tribute titled River: The Joni Letters.  Hancock invited Kitchell to join him on tour, to sing in his band, in support of the record for the following year. That gave her the chance to work alongside such notables as Wayne Shorter, Joni Mitchell, Milton Nascimento, Chaka Khan, Quincy Jones, and many more.

Shortly after her year spent touring with Hancock, Kitchell released her second album This Storm in 2008 on Decca Records, produced by Malcolm Burn, in collaboration with renowned rock band, The Slip, to much critical acclaim.

In 2009, Kitchell joined forces with long-time friend and collaborator Garth Stevenson, and together they created a collection of string-quartet based music.  The album Convict of Conviction was released in 2010, produced by Stewart Lerman. Over the next year Kitchell explored a more dramatic, cinematic side to her music performing as Sonya Kitchell & The Brooklyn Strings.

Her songs have appeared on numerous TV shows and films including Perfect Stranger,  Private Practice and The Unit.

She lives in Brooklyn, NY and released her latest self-produced album We Come Apart in partnership with Thirty Tigers and the Rockwood Music Hall in January 2016.

Personal life
Kitchell was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Ashfield, Massachusetts.

She is the daughter of photographer/artist Peter Kitchell and illustrator Gayle Kabaker and has a younger brother, Max Kitchell.

Discography
Cold Day EP (Velour Recordings, 2005)
Words Came Back to Me (Velour Recordings, 2006)
This Storm (Decca Records, 2008)
Convict of Conviction (429 Records, 2010)
We Come Apart (Relativity Media, 2016)

References

External links
 Official Site
 Dye, David, "Sonya Kitchell's Precocious Debut: 'Cold Day'", National Public Radio radio, Originally aired October 18, 2005.
 Gallant, Doug, "Sonya Kitchell is a star on the rise", The Guardian, April 28, 2006.

1989 births
Living people
American child singers
American women singer-songwriters
Decca Records artists
Singer-songwriters from Massachusetts
Guitarists from Massachusetts
People from Ashfield, Massachusetts
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American women guitarists
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American singer-songwriters

Sonya Kitchell


Skageflå is one of a handful of historic mountain farms on the steep mountainsides along the Geirangerfjorden.  It is located in Stranda Municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway.  Skageflå lies approximately  above the fjord. The farm is a 2 to 4 hour walk from the nearby village of Geiranger, and can also be reached with help of a local sightseeing boat (M/S Geirangerfjord). The boat takes passengers to a spot on the fjord just below the farm, from where they face a very steep half-hour climb. Coastal Odyssey, a sea kayaking company, runs guided kayaking tours with interpretation to the farm.  Active Geiranger also does guided kayak trips to the farm as well as water taxi trips to the trail. Directly across the fjord is the old Knivsflå farm and the Seven Sisters waterfall.

Although it was abandoned in 1916, Skageflå was once one of the richer goat farms in Geiranger, and had two or three mountain pastures for its animals. The farm was inhabited from the middle ages until 1916; it is now a tourist attraction. A rock slide in 1873 destroyed much of the cultivated land. From the fjord, the farm has a difficult uphill hike to get to the farm.

Magdalene Thoresen, Henrik Ibsen's mother-in-law, said of the area:
This fjord is surrounded by the steepest and, one is almost tempted to say, the most preposterous mountains on the entire west coast. It is very narrow and has no habitable shore area, for the precipitous heights rise in sheer and rugged strata almost straight out of the water. Foaming waterfalls plunge into the fjord from jagged peaks. There are, however, a few mountain farms here, and of these one or two have such hazardous access, by paths that wind around steep precipices, and by bridges that are fixed to the mountain with iron bolts and rings, that they bear witness in a most striking way to the remarkable powers of invention which the challenges of nature have developed in man.

The name
The first element is the genitive of skagi ('outstanding headland') - related to the famous Danish place Skagen. The last element is flå ('field in a mountain side').

References

Stranda
Former populated places in Møre og Romsdal
Tourist attractions in Møre og Romsdal
Historic farms in Norway
Farms in Møre og Romsdal

Skageflå


The Basilica of the Holy Mother of God Eleusa, Nesebar, is a former monastery church situated in the UNESCO World Heritage town of Nesebar in Bulgaria and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title "Eleusa", Ελεούσσα in Byzantine Greek, or "the Tender".

The church, on the northern side of the peninsula, was built in the 6th century. It is recorded until the 14th century, and formed part of a monastery complex. It is presumed to have been destroyed by an earthquake.

The northern part and the central nave had sunk into the sea, but in 1920 excavations and research began here, and the church is now well-preserved and partly restored.

It has three naves, three apses and a narthex, with two smaller apses on the north and south sides. It is 28 m long and 18 m wide.

External links
 Archaeological Museum, Nesebar: Eleusa
 Nessebar, Bulgaria

References
 Ecker, Gerhard, 1984: Bulgarien. Kunstdenkmäler aus vier Jahrtausenden von den Thrakern bis zur Gegenwart. DuMont Buchverlag: Köln

Churches in Nesebar
Medieval Bulgarian Orthodox church buildings
Byzantine architecture in Bulgaria


Messier 32 (also known as NGC 221) is a dwarf "early-type" galaxy about 2.65 million light-years from Earth. It is seen in the constellation Andromeda.

M32 is a satellite galaxy of the large Andromeda Galaxy (M31). It was discovered by Guillaume Le Gentil in 1749. M32 measures 6.5 ± 0.2 thousand light-years in diameter at the widest point.

The galaxy is a compact elliptical galaxy type. Compact ellipticals are rather rare.
Half the stars are inside an effective radius of only 100 parsecs.

Densities in the central area increase steeply, over 3×107 M⊙ pc−3 as seen by the HST. The half-light radius of this central star cluster is around 6 parsec.  In other words, this small centre of the galaxy emits half the light of the central 100 parsecs.

Like more ordinary elliptical galaxies, M32 contains mostly older faint red and yellow stars with practically no dust or gas and consequently no current star formation. It does, however, show hints of star formation in the relatively recent past.

M32 contains a supermassive black hole.
Its mass is between 1.5 and 5 million solar masses.

References

Elliptical galaxies
Local galaxies

Messier 32


The Diet of Augsburg were the meetings of the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire that held in the German city of Augsburg. Both an imperial city and the residence of the Augsburg prince-bishops, the city hosted the Estates in many such sessions from the 10th century.

The most famous one was in 1530, when Emperor Charles V summoned the German princes to a diet in Augsburg to put an end to ecclesiastic dissensions. Each prince was asked to state in writing in German and in Latin his religious opinions and the ecclesiastic abuses that should be corrected.

1530
Holy Roman Empire

Diet of Augsburg