title: Pill bug

paragraphs: Armadillidiidae is a family of woodlice, a terrestrial crustacean group in the order Isopoda. They are commonly known as pill bugs or potato bugs or rollie pollies. Pill bugs are not insects, but are crustaceans. Crustaceans are animals with hard shells made from many pieces for protection.

paragraphs: Pill bugs look like gray pills. The pill bug's abdomen has seven segments. Pill bugs have flat bodies. The pill bug has three basic body parts called the head, thorax, and abdomen, moce and they can be many sizes.

paragraphs: The head has eyes (simple and compound) and a mouth. Pill bugs have two sets of antennae. One of the sets is visible to see. The thorax holds the legs. The abdomen holds the exopods of uropods and is attached to some crustaceans' abdomens. Pillbugs eat rotten plants, rotten animals, old garbage, and even bits of food in animal dung. Pill bugs do not breathe through lungs; they have gills. Because of this, they need to be in a damp place or they will die. They also prefer dark rocks or any other dark place to stay that is dark. They are more active at night and early morning because of the darkness. Pill bugs are not beneficial to potted plants. If you notice your potted plants have one or two of them crawling around on the plant, there are probably many more that you don't see feeding off of the roots.

paragraphs: Pill bugs have the typical lifespan of an Isopod, living two years average and five years maximum.

paragraphs: The Pill bugs come from a family called Armadillidiidae.

paragraphs: For some people, looking for Pill Bugs in their garden is helpful to their garden and also enjoyable, especially for small children. To some people, keeping Pill Bugs as pets is also an enjoyable thing. To keep a Pill Bug as a pet, it's area which it is kept in must be moist and/or damp, with plants that are fresh and plants that have begun to rot. Pill Bugs are still garden animals so please remember you cannot keep them or their full life and should be released back into the wild sometime.


title: Druze

paragraphs: The Druze are an Arabic-speaking people of the Middle East.

paragraphs: There are more than 500,000 Druze. Most of them live in Syria and Lebanon. Some have emigrated to the United States and Canada.

paragraphs: The Druze practice a religion related to Islam and Christianity but more based on philosophy. Al-Hakim, a ruler of Egypt during the 11th century sponsored the religion which was created by Hamza bin Ali. The name Druze probably comes from Darazi, a preacher who was expelled from the Druze movement, because he preached that Al-Hakim was literally God.

paragraphs: Although sometimes many Druze consider themselves part of Shia Islam, in Israel they are considered part of a different ethnic and religious group within the Arabic-speaking minority.

paragraphs: The Druze in Lebanon had a major political influence and were the rulers of Lebanon before the 1860s. After the 1860s, they shared the ruling of Mount Lebanon with the Maronites and were later considered the 4th major religious sect after independence. They played a key role in fighting against the Lebanese Christian right during the early 1980s. The Druze ended their fighting against the Lebanese Christian right in late 1990. In 1990 and 1991, they gained representation in Lebanon's government in accordance with a 1989 peace agreement.


title: Ready to Fall

paragraphs: "Ready to Fall" is the first single by melodic hardcore band Rise Against from their fourth studio album, "The Sufferer & The Witness" (2006).

paragraphs: An acoustic version of this song was done live on the CJZN Radio station in Victoria, British Columbia, on January 18, 2007, before a Billy Talent concert featuring Rise Against, Anti-Flag, and Moneen.

paragraphs: On March 12, 2009, the song became a downloadable song in the video game, "Guitar Hero World Tour". It is also shown in Tap Tap Revenge 3 on the iPhone and iPod Touch as a downloadable double song pack with Audience of One. The song was also shown in 2009 action movie 12 Rounds.

paragraphs: The video was made in 2006. It is about pollution and its effects on the environment. The video is 3 minutes and 52 seconds long. It cuts between shots of the band playing and shots of animals being saved or dying, if not already dead. This is from many environmental dangers made by humans. At the end of the video, lead singer Tim McIlrath says, ""Every action has a reaction. We've got one planet, one chance.""

paragraphs: There was also a version played on television. There are also ones that are more graphic. This was never really released. But it is available on some websites. The video serves a testimony to veganism. Rise Against is an active supporter of PETA, a animal rights organization, and the band members are all active vegetarians.

paragraphs: The song got to number 13 on the "Billboard" Modern Rock Tracks chart. It is the lowest charting single from "The Sufferer & the Witness". Although, it was the band's second highest charting single.


title: Soccer City

paragraphs: Soccer City is a sports stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was first built in 1987. At that time, it was named the FNB Stadium.

paragraphs: In 2009, the stadium was improved. More seats were added. New locker (dressing) rooms and new floodlights were built.

paragraphs: The stadium hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Is one of the 10 stadiums where World Cup games will be played.

paragraphs: All times are given in South African Standard time (UTC+2).

paragraphs: On June 29, the South African government announced that a memorial service for Nelson Mandela would be held 10 to 14 days after his death at Soccer City. Mandela died on December 5, 2013 and a memorial service was held at Soccer City.

paragraphs: FNB Stadium is mostly used for concerts and local 5-a-side tournaments. When South Africa's most popular soccer team, the [Kaizer Chiefs] play in the stadium, they attract approximately 15,000 fans when they play there among the rotating venues that they use.


title: Acacia

paragraphs: Acacia is a genus of shrub or tree are belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1773. Many non-Australian species tend to be thorny, whereas the majority of Australian Acacias are not.

paragraphs: Acacias are heavily defended against herbivores. Different species have different combinations of defences:

paragraphs: Products from the Acacia have often been used for medicinal purposes.

paragraphs: Various species of acacia yield gum. True gum arabic is the product of "Acacia senegal", abundant in dry tropical West Africa from Senegal to northern Nigeria.

paragraphs: "Acacia arabica" is the gum-Arabic tree of India, but yields a gum inferior to the true gum-Arabic.


title: Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts

paragraphs: Many East Asian scripts can be written both horizontally and vertically.

paragraphs: Documents around the world have many different ways of writing. But there are mainly two ways of writing: writing horizontally (횡서, 橫書) or vertically (종서縱書). There are two kinds of horizontal writing. One kind can be read from left to right (좌횡서, 左橫書); the other is read from right to left (우횡서, 右橫書). There are two kinds of vertical writing as well: from left to right (좌정서, 左縱書) or from right to left (우정서, 右縱書), both of these are written from top to bottom. Traditionally, the countries in the East Asian cultural sphere (such as Korea, China, Japan or Vietnam) write vertically from right to left. When it was necessary to write horizontally, they wrote horizontally from right to left. When the Western culture began influencing them, they began writing horizontally from left to right, which is now used widely.

paragraphs: Most Western languages are written horizontally from left to right, but Arabic and Hebrew are written horizontally from right to left. Mongol letters are written horizontally from left to right.

paragraphs: Long ago, people used hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphs were very flexible characters. They were often written from left to right in the first line, and then right to left in the second line, and so on. This is called boustrophedon. A person can tell which direction to read by which direction the hieroglyphs of animals and people were facing. If the hieroglyphs were facing left, then the line must be read from left to right. If they were facing right, they must be read from right to left.


title: Mimosoideae

paragraphs: Mimosoideae is a subfamily of the flowering plant family Fabaceae. Members of this family usually have flowers with small petals and many stamens.

paragraphs: Some classification systems, for example the Cronquist system, treat Fabaceae in a narrow sense, raising Mimosoideae to the rank of family as Mimosaceae. The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group treats Fabaceae in the broad sense.


title: Affix

paragraphs: An affix is a piece added to a word, or root, which signals or changes its role in a sentence. It is part of grammar. Affixes may occur in various positions in a word:


title: New Caledonia national football team

paragraphs: New Caledonia national football team is the national football team of New Caledonia.


title: Midshipman

paragraphs: A midshipman is an officer cadet, or a commissioned officer. They are the lowest rank of officer in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use this rank are Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, India, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Kenya. Before 1968, it was used by the Royal Canadian Navy. But it was replaced with that of naval cadet upon the making of the Canadian Forces.


title: Impressionist music

paragraphs: The impressionist movement in music was a movement in Europen classical music. It was mostly in France. It began in the late 19th century and ended in the middle of the 20th century. There were two very famous composers of this movement, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Debussy actually did not like the term 'Impressionist' in his works. English impressionist musicians include Cyril Scott (1879–1970) and John Ireland (1879–1962). Other well-known composers labeled impressionist include Paul Dukas, Gabriel Fauré, Manuel de Falla, Isaac Albéniz, Giacomo Puccini, Leoš Janáček, Alexander Scriabin and Kurt Atterberg

paragraphs: The first pieces of impressionist music were probably composed by Franz Liszt, the first such piece for orchestra is probably Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, composed by Claude Debussy, between 1892 and 1894.

paragraphs: The impressionism of Debussy is achieved through a number of means the overall aim of which were to weaken the teleological (Purpose driven) harmonic structure of classical (functional) western harmony. In functional harmony a path is set that leads inexorably to a final cadence at which the tonic is clearly affirmed, dissonance whether through the use of suspensions or 7th chords etc. is correctly prepared and then resolved creating a flow of tension and release. By contrast, many of Debussy's dissonances simply flow onto another dissonance in chains of seventh chords etc. Another way that Debussy holds tonality in suspense is through the use of the pentatonic and whole-tone scales in both melody and harmony. The story of modernist music has been a response to the extreme chromaticism of radical romantic composers such as Wagner and Liszt. The ones who felt compelled to complete the task took music to the chromatic extreme of atonality, others found ways to continue to write music using recognisable harmonic sequences and tonal (therefore recallable) melody by emancipating the dissonance and freeing it from its functional straightjacket. Debussy played a massive part in developing the vocabulary for this kind of composition. All non-atonal composers of the modernist era owe a debt to Debussy, including Stravinsky, Bartok, Messiaen and possibly even Steve Reich.


title: Neoclassicism music

paragraphs: Neoclassicism in music was popular in the twentieth-century. Mostly between the two World Wars. This kind of music is when composers try to come back to beautiful ways with the broadly defined way of "classicism", namely order, balance, clarity, economy, and emotions. Neoclassicism had two distinct national lines of development. They were French and German. Neoclassicsim was a beautiful trend rather than a movement. Many composers normally do not think of themselves as "neoclassicists." But some really do have some elements of the style.


title: Vincent d'Indy

paragraphs: Paul Marie Theodore Vincent d'Indy (27 March 1851–2 December 1931) was a French composer and music teacher. Born in Paris, he was encouraged to learn music by his uncle who had studied with César Franck. D'Indy later also studied with Franck at the Paris Conservatoire. He liked the music of Lizst, Beethoven and Wagner. He went to the first performance of Wagner's "Ring" at Bayreuth in 1876. He organized performances of works by Rameau and Monteverdi whose work had been mostly forgotten. He was a very conservative in his views on music, and after his proposed changes to the Conservatoire were ignored, he set up his own music school, the Schola Cantorum in 1894.

paragraphs: He wrote a large number of musical compositions including operas, overtures, symphonies, choral works, piano works, string sextets, string quartets, folk song arrangements, and a cello sonata. One of his well known works is the "Symphonie sur un Chant Montagnard Français" (1886) ("Symphony on a French Mountain Song").

paragraphs: He also wrote books including a biography of César Franck, and a book on how to write music.


title: Edgard Varèse

paragraphs: Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse (December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965), was a French composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States.

paragraphs: Varèse's music has an emphasis on timbre and rhythm. He made up the term "organized sound." This phrase means that some timbres and rhythms can be grouped together. Although his finished works only last about three hours, he has been thought as an influence by many big composers of the late 20th century. His use of new instruments and electronic resources led to his being known as the "Father of Electronic Music" while Henry Miller described him as "The stratospheric Colossus of Sound".


title: Conservapedia

paragraphs: Conservapedia is a wiki designed for Americans who are conservative Christians. It was created by Andrew Schlafly. Conservapedia is a reaction to what its creators see as a "liberal point of view" in Wikipedia. Conservapedia has articles on many things, but most of the site is about politics and religion. It also has lectures and other materials for students, and classes taught by Mr. Schlafly for free. All articles are written from a conservative point of view dominant in the Right-wing of the Republican Party in the United States of America. Conservapedia has some different ideas on community. They have Administrators who have the most power. Users cannot edit at nighttime in the U.S. (because of vandalism), upload images, or do other things they could do at most wikis. Users are granted these rights and can also earn the right to block other users. As of August 2018, Conservapedia owned 47,610 articles.

paragraphs: Conservapedia was founded by lawyer Andrew Schlafly because of what he felt was liberal bias in Wikipedia. He did this with his homeschooled World History class after one of his students used Common Era dating methods instead of his preferred Anno Domini ones.

paragraphs: Unlike Wikipedia, anonymous people are not allowed to contribute to Conservapedia. They have to create accounts that should be using part of their real names (such as the preferred real first name and last initial setup). Edits should follow the site's conservative, Christian point of view. Administrators control every aspect of the site and have the final say in editorial authority. Vandals often edit Conservapedia to mess up the pages because they do not agree with the site's point of view. Some editors are banned for making minor mistakes.

paragraphs: In part of Conservapedia, editors edit the Bible to remove what they call "liberal bias" from modern versions. They claim that the New International Version of the Bible is written at the seventh-grade level and that it has politically correct language. Critics say that it is not good to rewrite the Bible and say it was bad for them to remove Jesus' prayer in Luke 23:34 and the adulteress story.

paragraphs: Schlafly got into an argument with Michigan State University researcher Richard Lenski over his twenty-year experiment with e.coli samples he used to show evolution happening. Schlafly mailed Lenski asking for the results. Lenski replied by showing Schlafly his paper on the subject. Schlafly (who did not read the paper) asked for the evidence and Lenski refused to hand him the samples since Schlafly is not enough of an expert. Conservapedians got in a campaign criticizing Lenski.

paragraphs: Critics use this as a way to show how ignorant they think Conservapedia is.

paragraphs: Conservapedia has had some bad reactions from people who think that it is untrue. It has also been criticized for supporting some ideas such as creationism.

paragraphs: A site called RationalWiki was created mainly to criticize Conservapedia. Some editors of that site decided that they wanted to vandalize or destroy Conservapedia. Rational-Wiki now mocks and criticizes other things too.

paragraphs: Two other sites, A Storehouse of Knowledge, and Ameriwiki were created as alternatives to Conservapedia.

paragraphs: The Bible Retranslation project has come under criticism by people who feel it is wrong to change God's word.

paragraphs: However, there are still some who praise Conservapedia.


title: Text grammar

paragraphs: A text grammar is the study of texts above the level of the sentence. It shows how texts are put together so as to convey ideas, facts, messages, and fiction.

paragraphs: A similar term is discourse analysis. Both are mostly concerned with natural language use; discourse analysis would include spoken language. Speech is also the parent of rhetoric, the ancient study of persuasive speaking. In a similar way, literary criticism parallels text grammar, because both concentrate on the printed word. A text grammar approach puts emphasis on the linguistic structure of a text, rather than its cultural or symbolic meaning.

paragraphs: A text is a coherent body of sentences. Coherent means they are linked by a consistent "theme". The text ends when "completion" is signalled. For example, when a problem introduced at the start is solved, or when a promised discussion has reached a conclusion.

paragraphs: Each text focuses on certain things. If texts are grouped by what they are doing, then there are five basic text types:

paragraphs: Many texts, of course, can and do have a mixture of two or more of these types.


title: Discourse analysis

paragraphs: Discourse analysis is a subject which studies a text or a conversation. This is a subject in linguistics which does not study sentences, like in syntax, but the entire text or conversation. The text or conversation is known as discourse. Discourse analyst prefer to use real life discourse in their studies, rather than invented sentences like in traditional linguistics. This way of studying real life discourse is called corpus linguistics.

paragraphs: Discourse analysis is related to text linguistics. However, text linguistics studies how discourse is structured so that they are connected (how sentences are joined to each other). Discourse analysis studies this, and also how the discourse is connected to the context. This context includes who the people talking or writing are, the social and cultural context. Also, it studies the way mode, which is the way the language is represented (is it a letter, speech, email, Internat chat?), influences discourse. Discourse analysis is also interested in the genre (topic) of the discourse.

paragraphs: Discourse analysis is studied not only in linguistics, but also in sociology, anthropology, psychology, communication studies and translation studies.


title: Super Paper Mario

paragraphs: Super Paper Mario (also known as Paper Mario 3) is a Wii role playing game released in 2007. It is the third game for the "Paper Mario" series to be released on platform. The game was going to be released for the GameCube, like ), but was instead released for the Wii.

paragraphs: The player controls Mario and his companions and has to explore different lands of a town called Flipside, fights enemies to gain levels and solves puzzles. As the story progresses, Princess Peach, Luigi, and Bowser become playable. "Super Paper Mario" is a 2D and 3D game since one of Mario's abilities is to change the perspective of the environment.

paragraphs: Mario and his friends set out to collect eight Pure Hearts in each chapters, in order to destroy the Chaos Heart and prevent the black hole from destroying the world.

paragraphs: In each "Paper Mario" game, there have always been members that follow Mario and help him in battles. Pixl is a name that comes from the word pixel, but is also a reference to pixie, which is a name for a fairy. Each pixl has a different power and look, but despite having many members, the player can only use one. In "Super Paper Mario", Tippi, also called Tiptron, is the player's butterfly partner. She has the ability to give tips to Mario and makes invisible objects appear. The player can recruit one of the Pixls in each chapters as the game progresses.

paragraphs: Most of the reviews for "Super Paper Mario" were positive such as IGN that gives a score of 8.9 out of 10. Most critics praised the plot because it has a great sense of humor, but said that the graphics were fine, but not extraordinary. The game has sold more than 2.28 million copies worldwide.


title: Power-up

paragraphs: A power-up is an item in a video game that gives the player's character the ability to do something. Power-ups can be found in many video games.


title: Kamloops

paragraphs: Kamloops, British Columbia is a city in British Columbia, Canada. It is ranked 37th on the list of 100 largest metropolitan areas in Canada.

paragraphs: At the 2006 census, 86,376 lived in Kamloops.


title: Mao Asada

paragraphs: Mao Asada (born September 25, 1990) is a former figure skater from Japan. She is a former World Figure Skating Champion (2008) and is ranked no. 3 by ISU. She won the Japanese national championships in 2007 and 2008 after winning two silver medals in a row. She is the 2005 World Junior Champion. She won the silver medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Her older sister Mai Asada is also a high-level skater.

paragraphs: Asada is from Nagoya. She was very skilled from a young age. She landed her first triple axel in competition while still at the junior level. She is one of five female figure skaters who have ever landed that jump in international competition.

paragraphs: Asada won won everything on the Junior level in the 2004-2005 season. The next season was the Olympic season. Asada would be too young to compete at the 2006 Olympics. But the Japanese skating federation thought there was not a good reason to keep her at the Junior level when she had already won everything. Asada was old enough for the Grand Prix, but not for senior level ISU championships. Asada went into the Grand Prix without any of the pressure that was on the other skaters who were old enough to go the Olympics and were trying to qualify for spots on their country's Olympic team. Able to compete without pressure, Asada won the Grand Prix Final in December 2005.

paragraphs: Following her win, the Japanese skating federation petitioned the International Olympic Committee to make an exception to the age rule for Asada, claiming that depriving her of a chance to compete at the 2006 Olympics would be denying a medal contender a chance to compete. However, this petition, even if it had worked, would have been too late. Other skaters had been effected by the age rule. The South Korean skating federation, for example, held Kim Yu-Na back in juniors for the 2005-2006 season, even though she could have competed successfully on the Grand Prix, because she also was not old enough for the Olympics, and because of it did not earn a spot to the Olympics at the Olympic Qualifying Competition in the fall of 2005. Asada had been a force in Japanese skating for many years, so the federation could have petitioned for an exception years earlier. There had previously been a loophole in eligibility rules regarding the World Championships and medalling at the World Junior Championships, but that loophole had been closed years earlier, and it had never applied to the Olympics.

paragraphs: Instead, Asada went to the World Junior Championships again, where she lost to Kim Yu-Na.

paragraphs: In 2006-2007, Asada's first season being old enough for senior Worlds, she won the silver medal at the World Championships behind fellow Japanese skater Miki Ando.

paragraphs: Mao Asada is known for her amazing flexibility. She is known for her one-handed Biellmann spin and her cross-grab Biellmann spiral, in which she uses the hand opposite her leg to hold up her leg in the position. She is consistent with the triple axel.


title: Catia

paragraphs: Catia (Computer Aided Three dimensional Interactive Application) is a commercial designing software. It was made by Dassault Systemes and marketed world-wide by IBM. CATIA is written in C++.


title: Brigham Young

paragraphs: Brigham Young (June 1, 1801 – August 29, 1877) was the second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon church) and the first Governor of the American state of Utah. Young was born in Vermont. He became president of the Mormon church in 1847 after the death of Joseph Smith, Jr in 1844.

paragraphs: Brigham Young University is named after Young.

paragraphs: John Taylor replaced Young as leader of the church three years after Young died.

paragraphs: Young started a journey that would take the Mormon pioneers to Winter Quarters, Nebraska, in 1846, then to the Salt Lake Valley. Young arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847, a date now known as Pioneer Day in Utah, which is also one of its holidays. The Mormon pioneers' journey was one of the largest and one of the best organized migration to the West. On August 22, 29 days after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, Young started the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

paragraphs: In the church, Young was in some of the important positions, and after three years, he became the president of the church on December 27, 1847.

paragraphs: Young served 29 years in the Mormon church.

paragraphs: Young helped in building temples in his time in the LDS Church and made temple building a main purpose. When Joseph Smith was the president, Young was helping to build the Kirtland and Nauvoo temples. Only four days after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, Young found the location for the Salt Lake Temple; and then started the building process on April 6, 1853. During his time as the church president, Young look over the construction of the Salt Lake Tabernacle and then he announced plans to build the St. George (1871), Manti (1875), and Logan (1877) temples. He also helped fix the building the Endowment House, a "short-term temple" which began to be used in 1855 for church members to go to while they were building the Salt Lake Temple.


title: Speaker (politics)

paragraphs: Speaker is the title of the person in charge of some legislatures, usually the lower house.

paragraphs: The Speaker is elected by other members of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, and is usually a member of the government party, but leaves his or her party because the Speaker must be "neutral" (not like one side more than another). The Speaker does not vote. If the Speaker wants to stand in for re-election the other parties do not oppose him to show he is neutral. As of January 2020, the Speaker is Lindsay Hoyle, a member of the Labour Party.

paragraphs: The Speaker (Ceann Comhairle) of the Dáil Éireann is neutral, but the constitution (Bunreacht) of Ireland says he does not need to stand for re-election, he is given the first seat in his constituency. The current Speaker (November 2017) is Sean Treacy.

paragraphs: The Speaker is the leader of the largest party. He or she is not neutral, but votes for his or hers party's policies. The Speaker also helps to get his or her party's ideas made law. The term of the Speaker of the House is two years in office. Democratic Nancy Pelosi became Speaker again in 2019.


title: Orator

paragraphs: An orator is someone who pleads a case in public. Originally, it meant speaking in a public place for or against a person or a proposal. In ancient Greek, Latin, French and English, an orator spoke for and against the accused in courts, and for or against big political decisions, such as whether to go to war. Gradually, it came to mean someone who spoke in public on formal occasions.

paragraphs: Oratory, or rhetoric, is the skill of argument or persuasion used by orators. The invention of printing allowed books to be multiplied and produced cheaply. This has made it possible for orators to do their persuasion in print as well as speaking. Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill are good examples of how orators in the 20th century used media such as radio and movies where once they could only use speech. Both wrote books which sold in large numbers, though Churchill's books were about more than politics. Today television and newspapers play a vital role in deciding elections; the web less so.

paragraphs: Other types of orator are those who wish to change beliefs. Religious preachers like Martin Luther and John Knox changed religion in western Europe; William Wilberforce and Sojourner Truth led the fight against the evil of slavery. Emmeline Pankhurst, Martin Luther King Jr and others fought to get equal rights for all citizens.

paragraphs: We have orators today as much as the ancient Greeks did. The main difference is that the Greeks could see and listen to them face to face, but we rarely do today.

paragraphs: The study of how persuasion is done by orators is called rhetoric. It has been studied for 2,500 years at least, and there are a huge number of books about it.


title: Parsifal

paragraphs: Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. Wagner took most of the story from a medieval poem "Parzival" by the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach. It was the last opera that Wagner completed. He started thinking about it in 1857 but did not do much work to it until after he had finished the cycle of four operas known as the Ring Cycle which was produced complete in 1876 in the special theatre (Festspielhaus) he had built in Bayreuth. Wagner composed his opera "Parsifal" so that it would suit the sound of this new theatre. It was first produced in 1882. The story is related to the Arthurian legends.

paragraphs: Wagner did more than any other composer in the 19th century to change the way that people listened to opera. In the 18th century people went to the opera house and sat in their boxes to chat to other people and be seen. Composers wrote operas with big arias which allowed the singers to show off their skills and make the audience applaud.

paragraphs: Wagner changed all this. He soon developed operas in which there is no difference between recitative (where the story is told) and arias (big songs for the soloists). The music of his later operas, especially "Parsifal", is like a long, continuous line with rich, Romantic harmony. The music develops logically, with leitmotifs (very short pieces of music which represent particular people or ideas) which help the music and the story to develop.

paragraphs: The story of Parsifal and the Holy Grail has survived in several forms that date from between 1170 and 1220. Wagner, who always wrote the words of his operas himself, used a mixture of several of these versions of the story to fit his ideas for the opera. Parsifal is a young man who is a “pure fool”, which means that he is an innocent, good man who slowly starts to understand the world. The Holy Grail is the cup from which Jesus Christ is supposed to have drunk at the Last Supper. The Holy Spear is the spear which is supposed to have been the one with which the Roman soldier pierced Jesus’ side when he was put on the cross. The Holy Grail and the Holy Spear are sacred relics (things from the past) which have been given to Titurel and his band of Christian knights to look after. Titurel has built a castle, Montsalvat, high up on the forest rocks, to guard them. In particular, he has to watch out for Klingsor who lives nearby. Klingsor is a magician who has a garden full of beautiful flower-maidens. These maidens are in his power. One of them is Kundry. She has already been made to several young knights to Klingsor’s power. Even Titurel’s son, Amfortas, could not resist the lure of Kundry. His spear was taken from him and he was badly wounded before being rescued. At the beginning of the opera he is lying in pain. The only thing that could heal the wound would be the touch of the Holy Spear which Klingsor now has, and the only person who could get that spear back again is a “pure fool”, a young man who knows nothing about the evil of the world and who can resist the beauty of the flower-maidens.

paragraphs: The opera starts with an orchestral prelude (Wagner does not call it an “overture”). When the curtain rises Gurnemanz, one of the senior knights, wakes up two sleeping servants. They kneel and pray as King Amfortas is brought down on his bed to the forest lake to bathe his wound. Kundry arrives, dashing in on her horse, looking for something to heal the wound (when Kundry is away from Klingsor she is not in his power. She feels that it was her fault that Amfortas was wounded. When Kundry is not in Klingsor’s power she is actually a faithful messenger of the Grail).

paragraphs: Suddenly a wounded swan (a bird that is sacred to the knights of the Grail) falls dead at Gurnemanz’s feet. The swan had been killed by Parsifal. He did not know that it was a wrong thing to do, but when the knights capture him he realizes his and he breaks the arrow. The knights ask him his name, but Parsifal says he does not know his name or where he comes from. Suddenly the knights realize that Parsifal is the pure fool they need who can capture the Holy Spear.

paragraphs: The scene changes. The knights take communion. Amfortas is in terrible pain but has to do his duty in the ceremony. When the Holy Grail is shown it sparkles brightly in the hall. The knights sink to their knees. Only Parsifal does not seem to understand the meaning of it all.

paragraphs: The scene is Klingsor’s magic garden by his castle. Kundry has been summoned by him is now quite different: she has no power of her own, and is controlled and tormented by Klingsor. Klingsor notices Parsifal, whom he is expecting, approach from the distance, and sends his magical knights to fight him, expecting them to be defeated by Parsifal. The flower-maidens, the wives of the knights, see Parsifal and call him by his name. No one has ever called him by his name before. When one of them kisses his lips he suddenly realizes what it is he has to do. He now remembers everything that has happened in Act I and understands its meaning. He throws the maiden to one side. Klingsor appears and throws the spear at Parsifal, but magically it stops over Parsifal’s head. Parsifal grabs it and makes the sign of the cross. The castle is destroyed, the gardens disappear, and he goes off back to the Grail.

paragraphs: After a journey which takes him many years Parsifal comes back to the Grail forest. Gurnemanz is now very old. Kundry works for the knights. Parsifal himself is dressed as a black knight. Kundry recognizes him, but Gurnemanz does not. He is annoyed that an armed stranger should come on this holy day (it is Good Friday). Parsifal throws the spear into the ground, puts down his weapons and takes off his helmet. Gurnemanz realizes who it is. He helps him to dress like a knight of the Grail. Kundry washes his feet and dries them with her long hair. Gurnemanz blesses Parsifal’s head. Parsifal is now a knight of the Grail, and he baptizes Kundry. Titurel has just died, and Amfortas, still in terrible pain, comes out to uncover the Grail. Parsifal enters and touches the wound with the point of the spear. Amfortas’s pain changes to happiness, the shrine is opened, the Grail is surrounded by light. The knights kneel down, Kundry dies peacefully. All is forgiven. The music finishes with a climax based on the leitmotifs of the Holy Grail and the Sacrament.

paragraphs: Until 1903, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus was the only place where Wagner’s opera "Parsifal" was allowed to be performed. In 1903, the opera was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Soon, it was being performed in other places as well.

paragraphs: Wagner like to describe "Parsifal" as "ein Bühnenweihfestspiel" ("A Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage"). At Bayreuth, it has become tradition that there is to be no applause after the first act of the opera.

paragraphs: The conductor of the first performance was Hermann Levi, the court conductor at the Munich Opera. Wagner objected to Parsifal being conducted by a Jew (Levi's father was in fact a rabbi). Wagner first suggested that Levi should convert to Christianity, which Levi declined to do. Wagner then wrote to King Ludwig that he had decided to accept Levi. This despite the fact that (he alleged) he had received complaints that "of all pieces, this most Christian of works" should be conducted by a Jew. The King expressed his satisfaction at this. He said that "human beings are basically all brothers". Wagner wrote to the King that he "regard[ed] the Jewish race as the born enemy of pure humanity and everything noble about it".


title: Kana

paragraphs: Kana is the name for syllable-based writing systems used in the Japanese language.

paragraphs: Although manyogana is the oldest of the three types of kana, being used as early as the seventh century, it was soon replaced by hiragana and katakana. Both of these characters came from the kanji characters that made up manyogana.

paragraphs: Today, there are 46 basic sounds in Japanese that are each represented by a hiragana and a corresponding katakana character as seen in the chart below. (The characters for the sounds "wi" and "we" are no longer used.) There are 25 other sounds that can be made by adding one of two diacritics: a dakuten or a handakuten. Also, 12 of the kana come in a smaller size to make other combinations of syllables.

paragraphs: Japanese sentences are usually written using a mix of hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Although it is possible to write a sentence in only hiragana or katakana characters, it is hard for most Japanese people to understand because the kanji symbols represent a concept which the kana do not show. Small kana symbols, however, can be put above kanji to show how it is pronounced (this is called furigana and is used a lot in karaoke).

paragraphs: Besides kana, Japanese sounds can also be written in Romaji (using the Roman alphabet) to help people who do not speak Japanese learn the language.


title: Tropical Storm Erin (2007)

paragraphs: Tropical Storm Erin was the second tropical cyclone to make landfall on the United States in the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season. It was also the fifth named storm of the season. Erin formed in the Gulf of Mexico on August 14 from an area of convection which was becoming stronger. It became stronger and changed into a tropical storm the next day, and on August 16 Erin made landfall near Lamar, Texas and was able to not die as it moved over land across Texas before moving towards the north into Oklahoma. The storm killed at least 17 people and made an already-severe flooding problem in Texas even worse. Another different storm that Erin went into killed at least 18 people.

paragraphs: On August 9, an area of convection formed just south of Jamaica in association with a trough of low pressure. The system moved west-northwestward, and by August 10, the system had a broad surface trough with a little shower activity. Convection increased on August 11, and by August 12 the contact between a tropical wave and an upper-level low in the area resulted in a large area of disorganized thunderstorms extending from the western Caribbean Sea into the central Bahamas. Upper-level winds slowly became more helpful for development, and on August 13 a large low pressure area formed about 90 miles (145 km) north-northeast of Cancún, Quintana Roo. Late on August 14, a NOAA Hurricane Hunters plane that flew into the system reported a small circulation center, but at the time was not well-defined enough to begin tropical cyclone advisories. However, deep convection was kept near the increasingly organizaing center, and at 0300 UTC on August 15 the National Hurricane Center named it as Tropical Depression Five about 425 miles (685 km) southeast of Brownsville, Texas.

paragraphs: In the overnight hours after formation, the storm was disorganized with a shabby and abstracted center of circulation. Located to the south of a mid to upper-level ridge over the southern United States, the system moved to the west-northwest into an area ideal for further strengthening; an upper-level anticyclone formed over the central Gulf of Mexico, and sea surface temperatures along its track were warm. The cloud pattern became better organized, keeping a large area of convection with curved rainbands and well-established outflow. Based on reports from Hurricane Hunters, the National Hurricane Center upgraded the depression to Tropical Storm Erin at 1530 UTC on August 13 about 250 miles (400 km) east of Brownsville, Texas. As it continued northwestward, Erin remained disorganized and was not able to strengthen above minimal tropical storm status. At 1200 UTC on August 16 the cyclone made landfall near Lamar, Texas as it weakened to tropical depression status. Three hours later, the National Hurricane Center stopped giving out advisories on Erin as warning responsibility was switched to the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center.

paragraphs: Slowly moving northwestward through Texas, Tropical Depression Erin managed to keep an area of convection near the center, with its widespread, but scattered rainbands dropping moderate to heavy precipitation. By August 17, the winds decreased to 20 mph (30 km/h), with higher gusts. The system turned to the north-northeast on August 18, while heavy bands of thunderstorms continued to spin around the center of Erin. Early on August 19 after entering Oklahoma, Erin suddenly re-intensified to maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (80 km/h) a short distance west of Oklahoma City. The Norman, Oklahoma National Weather Service remarked the intensification "[resulted] in what amounts to an inland tropical storm;" at 0930 UTC the system showed an eye-like feature and a spiral rainband, and produced wind gusts of over 80 mph (130 km/h). However, a few hours later, the system began weakening again, and late on August 19 Erin degenerated into a remnant low pressure area as the circulation dissipated over northeastern Oklahoma. The low continued into southeastern Kansas before dissipating, feeding moisture northward toward a frontal system extending from the Midwestern United States through the Mid-Atlantic States. Its remnant mid-level circulation then moved eastward across Missouri, Kentucky, and Virginia before losing identity as it moved out into the Atlantic Ocean.

paragraphs: Instantly after Erin become a tropical depression, the National Hurricane Center gave out a tropical storm watch from Freeport, Texas to the United States/Mexico border; at the same time, the government of Mexico issued a tropical storm watch southward to Rio San Fernando. Shortly before achieving tropical storm status, the watch in Texas was upgraded to a tropical storm warning. Late on August 15, the warning was extended to San Luis Pass, while the watch in Mexico was cancelled. As Erin made landfall, the warnings was cancelled, and several flood watches and warnings were given out for counties across southeastern Texas. Upon moving into Oklahoma, flood and flash flood warnings were issued for several counties.

paragraphs: Governor of Texas, Rick Perry activated the National Guard and moved emergency personnel to the areas expected to be affected by the storm. Erin is expected to bring flooding to the region, which had already been declared a disaster area on August 7, 2007 from widespread flooding on the Nueces River basin; this area remained flooded as of August 15, 2007. On August 15, oil futures rose to $74.01 (USD), because of fears of Erin disturbing oil supplies produced on Texan coasts, combined with low oil supplies.<ref name="oil futures 8/15"></ref> As a result of the threat from the storm, Shell Oil Company evacuated 188 workers on oil platforms in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico.

paragraphs: By midday on August 15, rainbands with gusty winds began affecting the Texas coastline. As it made landfall, the storm created heavy rainfall near and to the or northeast of its path, reaching 11.02 inches (280 mm) at a station in Lockwood. The passage of the storm caused several bayous in the Houston area to reach or go beyond flood levels. Across southeastern Texas, the cyclone generated several funnel clouds, and near Iah a EF0 tornado was reported. Wind gusts from Erin were fairly weak across the state, peaking at 35 mph (55 km/h) at Palacios with an unofficial report of 39 mph (63 km/h) at Jamaica Beach. While moving onto land, the storm produced a small storm surge peaking at 3.22 feet (0.98 m) at Pleasure Pier, which caused minor beach erosion.

paragraphs: In Clear Lake City, heavy rainfall broke down a part of a grocery store roof, killing two workers. The precipitation caused moderate flooding across eastern parts of Harris County; over 400 homes and 40 businesses were flooded. Flooding across the Greater Houston area briefly stopped the METRORail and closed several state roads. One person drowned after driving into a retention pond. Several people needed rescue assistance, and in Comal County a car accident killed three people. The movement of the storm temporarily left about 20,000 electrical customers without power, though most outages were quickly restored. In San Antonio, one body was found from a creek and another died after driving into a flooded road and was swept into a drainage ditch in which four others survived. In Sisterdale, two people were killed when they were swept away stalled over Sister Creek In Taylor County, near Abilene, flooding killed one person and forced the evacuation of about 2,000 people.

paragraphs: After its unexpected redevelopment over Oklahoma, heavy damages were also reported there. Several communities in central Oklahoma were flooded from the effects of heavy rainfall. Watonga, Kingfisher and Geary were the hardest-hit communities, where many houses and buildings were flooded. Winds in Watonga gusted as high as 82 mph (131 km/h), which damaged numerous trees and power lines and heavily damaged mobile homes. The entire community lost power, also with about 15,000 customers in total in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. A section of Interstate 40 was also closed for a while.

paragraphs: One person was found to have drowned in a cellar in Fort Cobb, and another drowned in Kingfisher. Another storm-related death took place in Seminole. Three others were found dead after a weather-related automobile accident also near Carnegie. Another automobile accident-related death took place in Okmulgee County but it is not sure if Erin is to blame there.

paragraphs: Although its surface circulation had dissipated, its upper circulation remained unbroken and created a burst of rainfall early on August 20. The 11.94 inches/303.3 mm that fell at Miller became the wettest Missouri rainfall total associated with a tropical cyclone, or its remains, since at least 1976. One person died in Sleeper when he drove into flood waters which had swept away a bridge he was trying to navigate onto. Nine water rescues happened along the Interstate 44 passageway, which was most effected by Erin's rainfall.


title: Antonio Banderas

paragraphs: José Antonio Domínguez Banderas (born August 10, 1960), better known as Antonio Banderas, is an Spanish movie actor, producer and singer who has acted in several important Hollywood movies including "", "Assassins", "Interview with the Vampire", "Mariachi" sequels, "Philadelphia", "The Mask of Zorro", and "Puss in Boots" in the Shrek movies.

paragraphs: Banderas and his wife Melanie Griffith said in June 2014 that they are divorcing. The divorce was finalized in 2015.


title: Jim Carrey

paragraphs: James Eugene Carrey (born January 17, 1962) is a Canadian-American movie actor and comedian. He is known for his acting in movies, such as the "Ace Ventura" movie series, "Dumb and Dumber", "The Cable Guy", "Liar Liar" and "Bruce Almighty". He has also been successful in dramatic roles in movies such as "The Truman Show", "Man on the Moon", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "The Number 23". He won the Golden Globe Award in 2000. Carrey has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.


title: Egyptian cobra

paragraphs: The Egyptian cobra "(naja haje)" is a type of poisonous cobra. It was worshiped by the Ancient Egyptians. It lives in both North Africa and Southwestern Asia. It is one of the most venomous snakes in the world. Egyptian cobras can grow up to 5 feet or 6 feet, 8 inches (1.5–2 m) and have been seen as large as 8 feet in some areas. Recently, a man was sentenced to a year in jail and a fine of $17,000 for owning an Egyptian cobra. Small symbols of Egyptian cobras were included in the crown of the pharaohs.


title: Mikhail Baryshnikov

paragraphs: Mikhail Nikolaevitch Baryshnikov (, born 27 January 1948) is a Russian-American dancer, choreographer, and actor. Born in Latvia to Russian parents during the time of the Soviet Union, he later became an American citizen. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre, Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974 for more opportunities in western dance.

paragraphs: He has been called the world's greatest living male ballet dancer. Critic Clive Barnes once called him, "The most perfect dancer I have ever seen".

paragraphs: While on a tour in Canada with the Kirov Ballet in 1974, Baryshnikov asked for political asylum in Toronto. He became an American citizen in 1986. He has won three Emmy Awards.

paragraphs: Part of his significance is that he danced both classical ballet and modern dance. From 1978 he worked full-time in the New York City Ballet under the direction of George Balanchine. In 1980 he became Artistic Director of the American Ballet Theatre. Later he founded his own company and moved towards modern dance. He has danced many times on television in North America.


title: Batman Begins

paragraphs: Batman Begins is a 2005 superhero movie, based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman. Christopher Nolan directed the movie, which stars Christian Bale as Batman, as well as Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy and Morgan Freeman.

paragraphs: "Batman Begins" was successful, and in 2008 a sequel titled "The Dark Knight" was released.

paragraphs: "Batman Begins" was the first movie in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Trilogy".


title: Liam Neeson

paragraphs: William John "Liam" Neeson, OBE (born 7 June 1952) is an Irish actor and comedian, nominated for many awards including the Oscar. He is well known for his role as Oskar Schindler in the 1993 movie "Schindler's List", and after that he has appeared in several popular movie series, including the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy, "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "Batman Begins". He has also continued to play real-life characters, including Michael Collins and Alfred Kinsey.


title: Great Seal of the United States

paragraphs: The Great Seal of United States is the official coat of arms of United States, and it is placed in official documents from United States Government. The name is used both for the coat of arms, and the material seal itself, which is made by the United States' executive power. The great seal was used for the first time in the year of 1782.

paragraphs: The seal's design is used in national documents, such as passports, by the United States military, and flags. As a coat of arms, it has the national colors of the United States, but the material seal itself only has a basic black and white design (like when used on paper).

paragraphs: Since 1935, the two faces of Great Seal appear in the note of one dollar.


title: Biellmann spin

paragraphs: The Biellmann spin is a spin in figure skating. It is performed on one foot. The free leg (the leg not on the ice) is pulled up from behind and pulled above the head. The knee is bent slightly and the back is bent backwards into the spin. This forms a teardrop position with the body. In the classic version of the spin, both arms are used to hold up the leg. A slightly changed version has one hand on the skate and the other hand on the arm holding up the skate. A change can be made in that one hand can be dropped. If the hand holding up the spin is on the same side of the body as the leg, the spin is referred to as a "one-hand Biellmann spin", because the spin is being performed with one hand. If the hand holding up the spin is on the opposite side of the body as the leg, the spin is referred to as a "cross-grab Biellmann spin", because that hand has to "cross" the body to "grab" the skate.

paragraphs: The spin has also been said to look like a "tulip on a turntable". It is one of the most iconic figure skating moves. Along with the layback spin, the Biellmann is used in advertisements and icons representing figure skating. The position is also used in spiral sequences.

paragraphs: No one knows who invented the spin. Cecilia Colledge of Great Britain performed a one-handed Biellmann spin in 1937. There is a famous photograph of her doing the spin at the 1937 World Figure Skating Championships. Tamara Moskvina of the Soviet Union performed the spin at the 1965 European Championships and there is a famous photo of her doing it as well. Both Janet Champion and Slavka Kohout of the United States performed this spin early on.

paragraphs: The spin is named after Swiss skater Denise Biellmann, who popularized the move. Biellmann performed the spin beginning in the 1970s, having learned it from her teammate, fellow Swiss skater Karin Iten. Biellmann performed the spin on her way to becoming World Champion and the spin was officially named for her. It is the only figure skating spin officially named after a skater in International Skating Union regulations.

paragraphs: The classic positions is explained above. This position is often entered into through a layback spin. The free leg of the layback is grasped by one or both hands and brought up above the head.

paragraphs: Irina Slutskaya of Russia is officially credited with inventing the "change foot Biellmann spin". She performs the Biellmann on one foot, then drops her free leg and performs the spin on her other leg.

paragraphs: A "half-Biellmann spin", also called the "catch-foot camel spin", is a Biellmann variation in which the free leg is grasped in a camel spin position and brought up above the head, but the upper body is not lifted into the teardrop position.

paragraphs: Many skaters have performed a Biellmann variation in which the free leg is brought down towards the face, with the knee bent inwards. This spin has mostly been performed by Junior-level or Junior-age skaters, because this is easiest to perform before puberty. It is unknown who invented this variation. It was performed by Naomi Nari Nam at the United States nationals in 1999. More recently it has been brought back by Junior level skaters including Caroline Zhang of the United States who performed the spin on her way to winning the 2007 World Junior title.

paragraphs: As well, Zhang and other Junior skaters are known for doing a "hyper-extended" Biellmann spin in which the leg is pulled straight up in the air and the back bent as far into the spin as possible. Zhang is able to perform the spin with her free leg pulled straight up into the air, making the spin look like a capital-I. This position is not original to Zhang, but she has been the one to popularize it.

paragraphs: Because of Code of Points, the Biellmann spin has been used too much in competitions. Many skaters would perform the spin even if they were not flexible enough because it was a good way of getting a lot of points. The International Skating Union has limited the number of Biellmann spins that can be performed in a single program.

paragraphs: The spin is almost entirely performed by women, and it is a common feature in most Junior and Senior level ladies programs, as well as being a position for ice dancing lifts. It is generally not performed by men because most male skaters are not flexible enough to perform the spin. The most famous male skater to perform the spin is Evgeni Plushenko. However, he has not done it in competition since 2003. Shawn Sawyer has also performed the spin at the Junior level. Recently, the spin has been performed in competition by Ryo Shibata of Japan and Eliot Halverson of the United States.


title: Omar Sharif

paragraphs: Omar Sharif (; born 10 April 1932 – 10 July 2015) was an Egyptian actor who worked in many Hollywood movies. He acted in Arabic, French, and English movies. Sharif is most famous for his roles in "Doctor Zhivago", "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Funny Girl" (1968). He was nominated for the Academy Award and won the Golden Globe Award three times. Sharif had a son and two grandsons. He converted from Christianity to Islam.

paragraphs: Sharif once ranked among the world's best-known contract bridge players, forming the "Omar Sharif Bridge Circus" in 1967 which toured the world, competing against famous teams.

paragraphs: With Charles Goren, Sharif co-wrote a syndicated newspaper bridge column for the "Chicago Tribune" for several years, but later turned over most of the writing of the column to Tannah Hirsch.

paragraphs: He was also author or co-author of several books on bridge, and licensed his name to a bridge video game. An MS-DOS version and Amiga version was released in 1992 as "Omar Sharif on Bridge". It is still sold in Windows and "mobile platform" versions.

paragraphs: In May 2015, it was reported that Sharif had Alzheimer's disease. His son, Tarek El-Sharif, said that his father was getting confused. He was forgetting facts about some of the biggest movies of his career.

paragraphs: On July 10, 2015, at the age of 83, Sharif died after a heart attack at a hospital in Cairo, Egypt.

paragraphs: On July 12, 2015, Sharif's funeral was held at the Grand Mosque of Mushir Tantawi in eastern Cairo. The funeral was attended by a group of Sharif's relatives, friends and Egyptian actors. His casket was draped in the Egyptian flag and a black shroud. He is burued in El-Sayeda Nafisa cemetery in southern Cairo.


title: Toshirō Mifune

paragraphs: Toshirō Mifune (Japanese: 三船 敏郎 "Mifune Toshirō" – IPA: [miɸɯne toɕiɺoː]) (1 April 1920 – 24 December 1997) was a Japanese actor. He had roles in almost 170 movies.


title: Andy García

paragraphs: Andrés Arturo García Menéndez (born April 12, 1956), professionally known as Andy Garcia, is an Cuban American actor and director born in Cuba. He became famous in the 1990s, when he acted in many successful Hollywood movies, including "", "When a Man Loves a Woman", "Ocean's Eleven", and "Ocean's Thirteen". He was nominated for several awards for his work, including the Oscar.


title: Rodrigo Santoro

paragraphs: Rodrigo Junqueira dos Reis Santoro (born August 22, 1975) is a Brazilian Actor. He started his career acting in different soap operas in his country. In the last few years, he has become known after his roles in the movies "Love Actually" and "300".

paragraphs: Santoro was born in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro. He is half of Italian descent.


title: Michael Caine

paragraphs: Sir Michael Caine ; (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite Jr., 14 March 1933) is an English actor, producer, and author. Known for his distinctive cockney accent, Caine has appeared in over 115 movies, and is regarded as a British movie icon.

paragraphs: His early role in "Alfie" (1966) earned him an Academy Award nomination. He also starred in "The Italian Job" (1969) and "Battle of Britain" (1969).

paragraphs: His roles in the 1970s included "Get Carter" (1971), "The" "Last" "Valley" (1971), "Sleuth" (1972), for which he earned his second Academy Award nomination, "The Man Who Would Be King" (1975) and "A Bridge Too Far" (1977).

paragraphs: In 1986, he received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters".

paragraphs: Caine played Ebenezer Scrooge in "The Muppet Christmas Carol" (1992). In 1999, he won a second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for "The Cider House Rules".

paragraphs: Caine played Nigel Powers, Austin Powers' father in the 2002 parody "Austin Powers in Goldmember", and Alfred Pennyworth in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Trilogy". He appeared in several other of Nolan's movies, including "The Prestige" (2006), "Inception" (2010) and "Interstellar" (2014).

paragraphs: He also appeared in Alfonso Cuarón's "Children of Men" and Matthew Vaughn's action comedy movie "".

paragraphs: Caine is one of only two actors nominated for an Academy Award for acting in every decade from the 1960s to the 2000s, the other one being Jack Nicholson.


title: Begging

paragraphs: Begging means asking people for money, food, shelter or other things, when one is not able to give anything instead. It is also referred to as sponging, spanging (short for "spare-changing") or (in American English) panhandling.

paragraphs: In larger cities, it is common to see beggars who ask for money, food, or other items. Typically, beggars often beg for spare change using coffee cups, mugs, small boxes, hats, or other items into which monies can be placed and sometimes display signs with messages such as "Help me. I'm homeless."

paragraphs: A 2002 study of 54 panhandlers in Toronto reported that of a median monthly income of $638 CAD, those interviewed spent a median of $200 CAD on food and $192 CAD on alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs. The Fraser Institute, however, criticized this study. They said there were many forms of begging including ones in which good money can be earned. They also said that panhandlers' reports were not reliable

paragraphs: Because of this, some people say that it would be better to give the beggars gift cards or food/service vouchers, instead of money. Some shelters also offer business cards with information on the shelter's location and services, which can be given instead of cash.

paragraphs: Aggressive panhandling means to ask for donations or help in a threatening manner. This is not mugging, but rather similar and therefore often forbidden by law. Examples include:


title: Benicio del Toro

paragraphs: Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez (born February 19, 1967) is a Puerto Rican actor and film producer. He grew up in Santurce, but spent his adolescence and high school years in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, USA. He has won several awards in his career, including an Academy Award.


title: Geoffrey Rush

paragraphs: Geoffrey Roy Rush (born 6 July 1951) is an Australian actor who has won the Academy and Emmy awards, as well as several others. He was the first Australian actor to win an Academy Award for acting.

paragraphs: He has won one Academy Award for acting (from four nominations), three British Academy Film Awards (from five nominations), two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards.

paragraphs: He is the foundation President of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts and was named the 2012 Australian of the Year.

paragraphs: Rush was born on 6 July 1951 in Toowoomba, Queensland. He studied at Everton Park State High School and at University of Queensland. Rush was raised in Brisbane.

paragraphs: In 1975, Rush went to Paris for two years and studied mime, movement and theatre at the L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, before returning to continue his stage career with QTC. In 1979, he shared an apartment with actor Mel Gibson for four months while they co-starred in a stage production of "Waiting for Godot".

paragraphs: Rush is known for his roles in "Shine", "", "Shakespeare in Love", "", "Quills", "Finding Nemo", "", and in "The King's Speech".

paragraphs: Since 1988, Rush has been married to actress Jane Menelaus, with whom he has a daughter, Angelica (born 1992), and a son, James (born 1995). Geoffrey Rush lives at Camberwell station, Camberwell, Victoria.


title: Joaquin Phoenix

paragraphs: Joaquín Rafael Phoenix () (born October 28, 1973), originally called Leaf Phoenix, is an American actor. He is from a family of actors, like his brother, the late actor River Phoenix. He has been nominated four times for the Academy Award, winning once in 2020. He also won the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA and Grammy Awards.

paragraphs: Phoenix is popular for his roles as Commodus in "Gladiator", as Johnny Cash in "Walk the Line" and as the main character in "Joker".

paragraphs: He is also known for portraying firefighter Jack Morrison in "Ladder 49". He has recently begun directing music videos, as well as producing movies and television shows. He also sang and recorded an album, the soundtrack "Walk The Line", which won a Grammy Award. He has been a social activist for a long time, especially for animal rights. He is a vegan.


title: William Hurt

paragraphs: William Hurt (born March 20, 1950) is an American actor. He won an Academy Award in 1985 for his work in the movie "Kiss of the Spider Woman".


title: Adrien Brody

paragraphs: Adrien Brody (born April 14, 1973) is an American actor. He starred in Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" (2002). The role won him an Academy Award for Best Actor, the youngest actor ever to win the award. His mother, Sylvia Plachy (born 1943) is a Hungarian photographer. His father is of Polish descent.


title: Mark Wahlberg

paragraphs: Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg (born June 5, 1971) is an American actor and television and movie producer. His father was of Swedish and Irish descent, and his mother is of Irish, Scottish, English, and French-Canadian ancestry. He has been nominated for an Academy Award. He was also known as "Marky Mark" at the beginning of his career, when he had become famous as a rap musician with the band Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch after a brief time as a member of New Kids on the Block.

paragraphs: Wahlberg was convicted of assault when he was 16, for which he was imprisoned. He is a Roman Catholic.


title: Wesley Snipes

paragraphs: Wesley Trent Snipes (born July 31, 1962) is an American actor, martial artist and movie producer. He is best known for his role as the vampire hunter in the "Blade" trilogy movies.

paragraphs: Snipes was born in Orlando, Florida and spent most of his childhood in The Bronx, New York City. He moved back to Orlando when he was a teenager.


title: Jak 3

paragraphs: Jak 3 is a video game for Sony's PlayStation 2 made by Naughty Dog. It is the third game in the "Jak and Daxter" series.

paragraphs: Jak, Daxter, and Pecker are thrown into the desert by their own people one year after the previous game, Jak II, ended. They are found by Damas, Kleiver, and another wastelander. Jak is tested in an arena, and wins a fight, proving him worthy to not be killed. He and Daxter then explore, meeting Seem, a monk and Errol along the way. This starts a "friendship" with the some well-known citizens of Spargus, and Jak and Daxter soon become used to the city of Spargus, completing missions and looking around the desert for artifacts, or out of mere curiosity.

paragraphs: Further throughout the game, Ashelin (a key character in Jak 2), asks Jak to come back to Haven City. Jak refuses, telling her "they could rot for all I care", still angry for them throwing him and Daxter out of Haven City for the wrong reason.

paragraphs: Later on, he decides to go back, and meets everybody once again. He gains new light powers that give him the ability to fly, make a shield around him, slow time, and heal himself. With his newfound powers he saves Haven City and Spargus City from attacks multiple times.

paragraphs: In the end, Jak finds out that Damas was his father, and Veger took him away from him. Jak chases Veger towards the catacombs, and meets the Precursors themselves. It is also found out that Daxter is a Precursor too. Jak and Daxter is sent to Errol to stop him. When he is defeated, Jak, Daxter, and all the others gather together in the arena, while the Precursors make their speech.


title: Edward Norton

paragraphs: Edward Harrison Norton (born August 18, 1969) is an American movie actor and director. He was nominated for three [[Academy Awards]. He won the [[Golden Globe]] in 1997 for "[[Primal Fear (movie)|Primal Fear]]".

paragraphs: [[Category:Golden Globe Award winning actors]]

paragraphs: [[Category:Actors from Boston, Massachusetts]]


title: Cardinal (bird)

paragraphs: The Cardinals or Cardinalidae are a family of passerine birds that live in North and South America.


title: Magpie

paragraphs: The magpie is a large bird in the crow family, Corvidae. It is a general scavenger and predator of insects, small mammals, and other birds' eggs and young.

paragraphs: The word "magpie" usually means the European magpie ("Pica pica"), which is a very common bird. There are other magpies in Europe, in Spain and Portugal. Elsewhere, there are other species of magpie. Some are black and white and are in the genus Pica. Some are green and blue and are also known as "oriental" magpies (Genus "Urocissa" and "Cissa"). There is also one species of blue and white magpie, the azure-winged magpie "Cyanopica cyana".

paragraphs: There are also two other species of bird that are called 'magpie', though they are not true magpies. There is the black magpie, which is really a treepie. There is also the Australian magpie. It is not a member of the crow family at all. It is in the Artamidae family.

paragraphs: Magpies are large birds. They often have long tails. They also walk or hop along the ground.

paragraphs: Magpies eat lots of different kinds of food. They will eat meat such as baby birds, eggs and carrion (dead animals). They will also eat seeds and other parts of plants.

paragraphs: Magpies are clever birds. They can pass the mirror test. This is when the bird can see itself in a mirror and understand that it is a reflection. Magpies also like bright, shiny things, such as aluminium.


title: Final Fantasy Tactics

paragraphs: Final Fantasy Tactics is a tactical role-playing game for the Playstation and Game Boy Advance. It was released in 1997 by Square Co., Ltd. (now Square Enix).


title: Vacuole

paragraphs: A vacuole is a membrane-bound organelle. They are a kind of vesicle. Vacuoles are closed sacs, made of membranes with inorganic or organic molecules inside, such as enzymes. They have no set shape or size, and the cell can change them as it wants. They are in most eukaryotic cells and do many things. They can store waste. Vacuoles and their contents are distinct from the cytoplasm, and are classified as ergastic according to some people. The solution that fills the vacuole is called cell sap.

paragraphs: What a vacuole does and how important it is depends on what kind of cell they are in. They are much more important in plant and fungus cells than in animal cells. Some common jobs of a vacuole are to:

paragraphs: Vacuoles are also important in autophagy, keeping a balance between making and getting rid of many things in cells and organisms. They also help with destroying and recycling broken proteins that build up in cells. Vacuoles may help attack bacteria and some kinds of vacuoles may act as a house for symbiotic bacteria. In protists, vacuoles also store and help digest food that the protist ate.

paragraphs: The central vacuole is a cellular organelle found in plant cells. It is often the largest organelle in the cell. It is surrounded by a membrane and holds materials and wastes. It also keeps the proper pressure in the plant cells, and supports the growing plant.

paragraphs: The evolution of multicellularity took place several times on Earth. That is, separately in animals, fungi, streptophytes (charophyte algae and land plants), red algae, and brown algae. The vacuole probably evolved several times independently, even within the green plants.


title: College of Arms

paragraphs: The College of Arms, in London is one of the few remaining government heraldic authorities in Europe. It was founded in 1484 by King Richard III, and its job is to control heraldry and grant new "armorial bearings", sometime called coats of arms.

paragraphs: The college is run by the Kings of Arms, heralds and pursuivants who handle heraldic affairs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland on behalf of the Queen. (Scotland has its own heraldic authority: Lord Lyon King of Arms and his office.)

paragraphs: The college also grants arms to citizens of other Commonwealth countries that do not have their own heralds. (Canadians use Canadian Heraldic Authority and South Africans have the Bureau of Heraldry)

paragraphs: As well as designing and granting new arms, the College tries to answer many requests from people trying to prove that they are descended from an "armigerous" (arms-bearing) person; a person descended in the male line (or through heraldic heiresses) from an armiger may be reissued that ancestor's arms. Special marks called difference marks can be added make the coat of arms different from the arms of their cousins. The college is involved in genealogy and have many pedigrees (family trees) in their records. Anyone may register a pedigree with the college, where they are carefully checked and need official proofs before being altered.

paragraphs: Heralds were originally messengers. Officers of the College of Arms still sometimes read Royal proclamations in public, for example at the accession of a new sovereign.

paragraphs: They also help plan state ceremonies, such as coronations, the introduction of new peers into the House of Lords, and the ceremonies of orders of chivalry.

paragraphs: For these public appearances, the officers of the college wear costume showing their place in the Royal Household, either simple red livery or the herald's traditional colourful outfit of a tabard emblazoned with his master's arms (in this case the royal arms).

paragraphs: The College of Arms is on Queen Victoria Street in the City of London, not far to the south of St. Paul's Cathedral. The site was given to the college when it was re-formed by Philip and Mary I in 1555, and the present 17th century building dates from after the Great Fire of London in 1666.

paragraphs: The College of Arms was featured in the 1969 James Bond movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" where James Bond visits his friend Sir Hillary Bray who permits Bond to impersonate him so he can spy on Blofeld's base. Bray gives Bond information on Blofeld's ancestor Count Balthazzar de Bleuchamp. Bond is shown his own coat of arms with the family motto: "the world is not enough" (this was used for the title of the 19th Bond movie "The World Is Not Enough").

paragraphs: The Earl Marshal, a hereditary office held by the Duke of Norfolk, oversees the College, but he is not a member. He must give his written consent, called a warrant, before any new coat of arms can be issued. The Earl Marshal's court (called the Court of Chivalry) can hear cases about using coats arms, but the court has not sat since 1954. Usually the Earl Marshal usually leaves affairs to the professional heralds of the College.

paragraphs: There are, three levels of officers of arms: Kings of Arms, Heralds, and Pursuivants. The officers of arms occupy posts bearing traditional titles:

paragraphs: The officers of arms earn money from their own private practices in heraldry and genealogy. They get only nominal salaries as officers of the College. These salaries were set centuries ago and reflect the living costs of the day. William IV reduced them to the old level in the 1830s. The amounts are listed below, and is not taxed:

paragraphs: Any letters, telephone calls or visitors to the college not for a specific officer of arms are seen by the "officer in waiting". All members of the college serve as officer in waiting on rotation.

paragraphs: "Heralds Extraordinary" are appointed to take part in special ceremonial occasions or to help the Earl Marshal personally; they are not members of the college. Among the extraordinary heralds have been —

paragraphs: The New Zealand Herald Extraordinary is not a member of the college but it is a permanent post created to oversee heraldry in New Zealand; he works together with the college to grant new arms for people and bodies in that country (where he himself lives and works).

paragraphs: The Kings of Arms grant coats of arms by letters patent. Before they can even consider the granting of arms, an application, (called a "memorial") must be made to the Earl Marshal, and a fee paid.

paragraphs: The Kings of Arms are authorised in their "patents of appointment" (the letter giving them their job) to grant coats of arms to "eminent men". Originally this meant someone who was rich or had social status. By 1530, the heralds wanted successful candidates for a grant of arms to have £300 or rent from land of £10 a year. Since the heralds get fees for granting arms, they have always been generous when deciding who should be allowed a coat of arms. In 1616, Ralphe Brooke, York Herald, tricked the Garter King of Arms into granting a coat of arms to the common hangman for a fee of 22 shillings (£1-20p).

paragraphs: This is why the Earl Marshal's permission to grant a coat of arms is needed.

paragraphs: There are no fixed rules about granting modern coats of arms. If a herald is approached and does not consider that the application has merit, he may tactfully suggest to the applicant that he or she should not proceed. If it does proceed, its success or otherwise will depend on the approval of the Earl Marshal, who may apply his own standards. Peter Gwynn-Jones has recently written that

paragraphs: The coat of arms, or a differenced version of them using marks of cadency, can be used by "all" of the legitimate children of an individual and such children and their descendants may bear the arms (or a differenced version of them) from the moment of birth: they do not have to wait for the death of the previous generation. The College of Arms does not need to approve the use of the arms in each generation: the original grant of arms is the only authority required. Although daughters and sons inherit the right to bear arms for themselves personally, the right passes only through the male line: hence, a son transmits the arms to his children, but a daughter, can use them herself, but her children cannot. A partial exception to this rule is the case of a woman who has no brothers, or whose brothers have no children; such a woman is called a heraldic heiress and may transmit the arms to her children as a quartering with their father's arms, and to their descendents.

paragraphs: The costs involved are quite substantial. The applicant does not buy a coat of arms: the arms themselves are freely given, but fees must be paid to the heralds and artists involved as professionals, and to support the buildings and other running costs of the College. Aside from the heralds' traditional nominal salaries, given above, the College of Arms is not financed by the taxpayer.

paragraphs: The College of Arms is also responsible for recording the changes of names. In order to change one's name, one must apply for a deed poll to be entered on the College's registers and published in the London Gazette.

paragraphs: When a Royal Licence is granted for a transfer of arms, the change of the surname may be permitted by the Licence itself, so there is no need of a deed poll.


title: City of Sunderland

paragraphs: The City of Sunderland is a metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Since 1992 it has had the status of a city and metropolitan borough.

paragraphs: It is named after its largest settlement, Sunderland, but covers a far larger area which includes the towns of Washington, Houghton-le-Spring, and other smaller settlements.

paragraphs: The district was created in 1974 as the Metropolitan Borough of Sunderland when all local government in England and Wales was changed by the Local Government Act 1972. This was when four different local government districts from County Durham were joined together.

paragraphs: Sunderland became a city in 1992, the 40th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's "accession" (the time she became queen).

paragraphs: The district had a population of 280,807 at the time of the 2001 census.

paragraphs: On March 24, 2004, the City adopted St Benedict Biscop as its patron saint. A patron had never been adopted before.


title: Self-Strengthening Movement

paragraphs: The Self-Strengthening Movement ( or ; 1861 - 1895) was a reform organised during the late Qing Dynasty. The movement's intent was the modernization of China as a result of many military defeats it had faced at the hands of the West. It could be divided into three phases the first phase (1861 - 1872), the second phase (1872 - 1885) and the third phase (1885 - 1895).

paragraphs: After the defeat of Opium Wars and the outbreak of Taiping Rebellion, the emperor and imperial officials realised that the Qing Government might be overthrown soon and they would no longer reign the country. In order to prevent this, a series of reforms were implemented in the Self-Strengthening Movement, sometimes called "Westernization" which sought to adopt ideas from the West, mainly in technology.


title: Michael Keaton

paragraphs: Michael John Douglas (born September 5, 1951), better known by the artistic name Michael Keaton, is an American actor who became popular for his early comedic film roles, most notably his performance as the title character of Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice", and later gained international fame for his dramatic portrayal of Bruce Wayne / Batman in Tim Burton's "Batman" and "Batman Returns". He won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2015 for his role in "Birdman". In 2016, he played Ray Kroc in "The Founder".

paragraphs: Keaton was born in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. He lived in Robinson Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. His father, George A. Douglas, worked as a civil engineer and surveyor, and his mother, Leona Elizabeth (nee Loftus), a homemaker, came from McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. Keaton was raised in a Catholic family. He is of Irish and Scots-Irish ancestry. He attended Montour High School in Pennsylvania. Douglas studied speech for two years at Kent State, before dropping out and moving to Pittsburgh.

paragraphs: Keaton supported Senator Bernie Sanders for President in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.


title: Inequality

paragraphs: Inequality is sometimes used to name a statement that one expression is smaller, greater, not smaller or not greater than the other.

paragraphs: Inequality in math is when two solutions or answers are compared by greater than or less than. It is when the two or yet many solutions are being compared is not of equal amount. Solving an inequality means finding its solutions. When you substitute a number to a variable and the statement is true, then it is a solution. When you substitute a number to a variable and the statement is not true then, the number is not a solution to the statement.

paragraphs: Solving inequality is finding a solution to a given variable. It is finding a relative order of a set. Inequality might have many solutions, but usually only solutions as real numbers are the ones we are looking for. The proper way to read inequality is from left to right, just like the other equations, but the only difference is that they have different rules for every equation.

paragraphs: For example, consider the inequality x+4>12, where x is a real number. First, one needs to find the x and verify that it is actually a solution. The answer will be x>8 and it is a true statement. This expression is about the location of x within the set of real numbers. A number line is one way to show the location relative to all other real numbers.(See figure Inequality 1)

paragraphs: There are five different kinds of inequalities:

paragraphs: There are four ways to solve quadratic equations:

paragraphs: Furthermore, it will take two steps to solve an inequality. The first one is to simplify using the reciprocal of addition or subtraction. The second one is to simplify more by using the reciprocal of multiplication or division. Note that when multiplying or dividing an inequality by a negative number, the inequality symbol must be reversed.

paragraphs: Inequality is a mathematical statement that explains that the two values are not equal and are different. The equation a≠b means that "a" is not equal to "b". Inequality is the same with any equation, with the (only) difference that inequality does not use an equal sign but inequality symbols. The inequality b>a means that b is greater than a. Speed limits, mark, and others use inequality to express them.

paragraphs: When solving an inequality, a person need to have a true statement. When you divide or multiply an inequality with a negative number on both sides, the statement is false. In order to make the statement correct with a negative number, one must reverse the direction of the inequality symbol. When a number is a positive number, one does not need to reverse the symbol. Inequality is about making a true statement.

paragraphs: For example, start with a true statement -6"y"<-12. When both sides are divided by -6, the result will become y<2. In this statement, the symbol need to be reversed in order to have a true statement, which produces y>2 as the correct answer. In the number line (see figure Inequality 2), a closed shaded circle points out that it is included in the solution set. An open circle points out that it is not included in the solution set.


title: Chechnya

paragraphs: Chechnya (officially called the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria; Chechen language: Нохчийн Республика, "Noxçiyn Respublika"; Russian: Чече́нская Респу́блика, "Chechenskaya Respublika") is a federal subject in Russia. It is located in the Caucasus region. The capital is Grozny.

paragraphs: Most people in Chechnya are Muslims and are of ancient Hurrian roots who spoke a Caucasian language. Most Chechens belong to the Shafi`i school of Sunni Islam.

paragraphs: Chechens speak their own language, not related to the Russian language. Chechen is part of the Northeast Caucasian, or "Vainakh", family, while Russian is a Slavic language.

paragraphs: During Soviet control, Chechnya was unified with Ingushetia. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Chechnya broke away from Ingushetia to form its own republic. The Chechens wanted independence. After the First Chechen War, Chechnya was de facto independent as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. After the Second Chechen War, Russia regained control of Chechnya.

paragraphs: Russia has claimed Chechnya as part of its country since the Russians invaded the Caucasus in the 18th century.

paragraphs: The current leader of the Chechen Republic is Ramzan Kadyrov. He is also the son of the 1st Chechen President, Akhmad Kadyrov.


title: Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel

paragraphs: Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel is a mathematical paradox named after the German mathematician David Hilbert. Hilbert used it as an example to show how infinity does not act in the same way as regular numbers do.

paragraphs: Normal hotels have a set number of rooms. This number is finite. Once every room has been assigned to a guest, any new guest that wants a room and does not have one yet cannot be served - in other words, the hotel is fully booked.

paragraphs: Now suppose that there is a hotel that has an infinite number of rooms. As a convenience, the rooms have numbers, the first room has the number 1, the second has number 2, and so on. If all the rooms are filled, it might appear that no more guests can be taken in, as in a hotel with a finite number of rooms. This is wrong, though. A room can be provided for another guest. This can be done by moving the guest in room 1 to room 2, the guest in room 2 to room 3, and so on. In the general case, the guest in room "n" will be moved to room "n+1". After all guests have moved, room 1 is empty, and the new guest now has a room to occupy. This shows how we can find a room for a new guest even if the hotel is already full, something that could not happen in any hotel with a finite number of rooms.

paragraphs: Another thing that can be done with this imaginary hotel is to double the number of people inside, again when all the rooms are already full. This is done by asking each guest to multiply their room number by two and move to that room. (If their previous room number was "n", this time they would move to room number "2n".) This would send the guest in room 1 to room 2, the guest in room 2 to room 4, the guest in room 3 to room 6, the guest in room 4 to room 8, and so on. After finishing, we find that all the rooms with the odd numbers are empty. Then we can put an infinite number of guests into these empty rooms. Now the number of guests in the hotel has been doubled without making the hotel bigger.

paragraphs: The guest at room 11 would move to room 101.

paragraphs: The second person of group 5 (Address 5-2) would go to room 25.

paragraphs: This is not really a paradox, it is only counterintuitive. In a normal hotel, with a finite number of rooms, the number of "odd-numbered" rooms, is smaller than the total number of rooms. In Hilbert's Hotel this does not seem to be the case.

paragraphs: The guest 1 of group 2 of vehicle 1 (1-2-1) goes to room 121.

paragraphs: Address 0-1 (hotel dweller) stays because 1-0-0-0-1 moves to room 10,001.

paragraphs: Each megapod holds 10 pods. (100 people)

paragraphs: Each supermegapod holds 10 megapods. (1,000 people)

paragraphs: Each superdupermegapod holds 10 supermegapods.

paragraphs: Each ultrasuperdupermegapod holds 10 superdupermegapod.

paragraphs: Each ultrasuperduperubermegapod holds 10 ultrasuperdupermegapods. (1,000,000 people)

paragraphs: This assumes that there is never an infinitieth layer. (The main ship)

paragraphs: Hilbert's paradox is a veridical paradox: it leads to a counter-intuitive result that is provably true. The statements "there is a guest to every room" and "no more guests can be accommodated" are not equivalent when there are infinitely many rooms. An analogous situation is presented in Cantor's diagonal proof.

paragraphs: At first, this state of affairs might seem to be counter-intuitive. The properties of "infinite collections of things" are quite different from those of "finite collections of things". The paradox of Hilbert's Grand Hotel can be understood by using Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers. In an ordinary (finite) hotel with more than one room, the number of odd-numbered rooms is obviously smaller than the total number of rooms. However, in Hilbert's aptly named Grand Hotel, the quantity of odd-numbered rooms is not smaller than the total "number" of rooms. In mathematical terms, the cardinality of the subset containing the odd-numbered rooms is the same as the cardinality of the set of all rooms. Indeed, infinite sets are characterized as sets that have proper subsets of the same cardinality. For countable sets (sets with the same cardinality as the natural numbers) this cardinality is formula_1.

paragraphs: Put differently, for any countably infinite set, there exists a bijective function which maps the countably infinite set to the set of natural numbers, even if the countably infinite set contains the natural numbers. For example, the set of rational numbers—those numbers which can be written as a quotient of integers—contains the natural numbers as a subset, but is no bigger than the set of natural numbers since the rationals are countable: there is a bijection from the naturals to the rationals.


title: Opposite number

paragraphs: In mathematics, opposite number or additive inverse of any number is a number "n" which, if added to "n", results in 0 (the identity element of addition). The opposite number for "n" is written as "−n". For example, −7 is the opposite number of 7, because formula_1.

paragraphs: For positive numbers, the opposite number is simply the negative version of the number. For negative numbers, the opposite number is the positive version of the number.


title: Nth root

paragraphs: An "n"-th root of a number "r" is a number which, if "n" copies are multiplied together, makes "r". It is also called a radical or a radical expression. It is a number "k" for which the following equation is true:

paragraphs: We write the nth root of "r" as formula_3. If "n" is 2, then the radical expression is a square root. If it is 3, it is a cube root. Other values of n are referred to using ordinal numbers, such as "fourth root" and "tenth root".

paragraphs: For example, formula_4 because formula_5. The 8 in that example is called the radicand, the 3 is called the index, and the check-shaped part is called the radical symbol or radical sign.

paragraphs: Roots and powers can be changed as shown in formula_6.

paragraphs: The product property of a radical expression is the statement that formula_7. The quotient property of a radical expression is the statement formula_8.

paragraphs: This is an example of how to simplify a radical.

paragraphs: If two radicals are the same, they can be combined. This is when both of the indexes and radicands are the same.

paragraphs: This is how to find the perfect square and rationalize the denominator.


title: Isle of Portland

paragraphs: The Isle of Portland is an island in Dorset in the south of England. Portland is south of the resort of Weymouth. 13,000 people live there. It is where the famous Portland limestone was originally found.

paragraphs: In 2012, the sailing in the Olympics will take place on Portland and in Weymouth.


title: Weymouth, Dorset

paragraphs: Weymouth is a resort town in Dorset on the south coast of England. 52,000 people live in the town. Thousands of tourists have holidays there, because it is by the sea. In summer it is sometimes sunny and warm and there is lots to do. The sailing in the 2012 Summer Olympics were held in Weymouth and on the Isle of Portland nearby.


title: Chrysanthemum

paragraphs: Chrysanthemums are a genus ("Chrysanthemum") of about 30 species of perennial flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, from Asia and northeast Europe.


title: Flagship

paragraphs: A flagship is the ship used by the officer who commanded a group of naval ships. The term comes from the custom of the commanding officer to fly a special flag to show he was present.

paragraphs: Used in this way, "flagship" is normally a temporary name; the flagship is wherever the officer is flying his flag. However, admirals have always needed a special place; a meeting room large enough to hold all the captains of the fleet, and a place for the admiral's staff to make plans and draw up orders.

paragraphs: Over the years, the term "flagship" has been borrowed by other industries. These include broadcasting, automobiles, cell phones, and others to mean their core products or services.


title: European magpie

paragraphs: The European magpie ("Pica pica") is a bird that lives in Europe, much of Asia, and northwest Africa. It is one of several birds in the crow family named as magpies.

paragraphs: In Europe, "magpie" is used by English speakers to call the European magpie; it is the only magpie in Europe outside the Iberian Peninsula.


title: Sui generis

paragraphs: Sui generis (pronounced or ) is a term from Latin. It can be translated to "Of (his/her/its) own kind". It basically means that something has very special characteristics. They are so special, that the thing cannot really be compared to anything else. It is used in various contexts. The term was invented by philosophers. What they originally wanted to say was that an idea is so specific as to be unique, that it cannot really be part of a broader concept.

paragraphs: When lawyers talk about something being "sui generis", they mean that something is unique. It cannot be compared. With intellectual property, a design can be "sui generis".

paragraphs: The European Union is something that has come to be in the last few years. In some ways it is like state in others like a confederation of states or an international organisation. It is mostly classified as "sui generis".

paragraphs: In the sociology of Emile Durkheim, "sui generis" is used to illustrate his theories on social existence. He says that society, as it was there before any living individual was born, is independent of all individuals. His "sui generis" (its closest English meaning in this sense being 'independent') society will furthermore continue its existence after the individual ceases to interact with it.

paragraphs: Meryl Streep was praised in a "Wall Street Journal" review of "The Devil Wears Prada": "(her) pitch-perfect portrayal of Miranda is "sui generis", with a dramatic existence of its own, as unique and memorable as, say, a Bette Davis character."

paragraphs: Martin Kettle in "The Guardian" said about hung parliaments: "Each is "sui generis", dependent on the particular parliamentary arithmetic, inter-party momentum and surrounding political circumstances."

paragraphs: "Slate" has used the term several times; one article discussed the unique variations of French Rose Champagne: "Grower Champagnes are wines made by small farmers in the Champagne region who, bucking convention, choose to craft their own wines rather than sell their grapes to the major Champagne houses. Typical of farmer fizzes, the grower rosés are utterly "sui generis"—in a few cases almost freakishly so."

paragraphs: A CNN "The Marquee" post said about James Brown, "I can't even begin to talk about his importance. He was "sui generis"."

paragraphs: Political commentator Dick Morris referred to the intense public interest in the 2008 US Presidential race as "clearly sui generis, and anything can happen."