title: Government of Australia

paragraphs: The Commonwealth of Australia is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy. The Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901 when the six self-governing British colonies, agreed to join together as one nation. These colonies became the six states of Australia. The written agreement is the Australian Constitution. This was written at a Constitutional Convention and voted for by the people of the colonies.

paragraphs: The way the Australian Government is organized can be looked at in two ways. The first is federalism which organizes the way powers are distributed between the Australian Government and the state governments. The second is separation of powers into legislative, executive and judiciary branches of government. The Constitution supports the separation of powers in the way it sets out the roles of the branches of government.

paragraphs: Section 1 of the Australian Constitution sets up a democratic legislature, the bicameral Parliament of Australia. This is the Queen and two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Section 51 of the Constitution sets out the Commonwealth Government's legislative powers and gives certain powers and responsibilities (known as "heads of power") to the federal government. All remaining responsibilities are kept by the six States. Each State has its own constitution, so that Australia has seven sovereign Parliaments, none of which can take over the powers of any other. The High Court of Australia rules on any arguments between the Commonwealth and the States, or among the States, about their powers.

paragraphs: The Commonwealth Parliament can propose changes to the Constitution. To become law, the proposals must be put to a referendum of all Australians of voting age. The changes must get a "double majority": a majority of all votes, and a majority of votes in a majority of States.

paragraphs: The Commonwealth Constitution also says that the States can agree to give any of their powers to the Commonwealth. This can be done by an amendment to the Constitution through a referendum. More commonly, if all the states agree, then all state and Commonwealth parliaments pass laws to allow the transfer. These "transfer" laws may have a "sunset clause". This is a part of the law that means the law is only in place for a certain time. After this, the original division of powers is put back.

paragraphs: Australia has several territories, three of which are self-governing: the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the Northern Territory (NT) and Norfolk Island. The legislatures of these territories have powers given to them by the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Parliament keeps the power to overturn territorial legislation and to give or take powers. While Australian citizens living in the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory are represented in the Commonwealth Parliament, Norfolk Islanders are not.

paragraphs: Australia's other territories, (Jervis Bay, Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands) are not self-governing. Instead, these territories are governed by federal laws, with Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands also having local governments. The largely uninhabited Coral Sea Islands was set up as a Territory of the Commonwealth in 1969. The Ashmore and Cartier Islands has been a territory since 1933 run under the laws of the Northern Territory.

paragraphs: The federal nature of the Commonwealth and the structure of the Parliament of Australia were the subject of long negotiations among the colonies. The House of Representatives is elected on a basis which shows the different sized populations of the States. So New South Wales has 50 members while Tasmania has only five. But the Senate is elected on a basis of equality among the States: all States have 12 Senators, regardless of population. This was so the Senators of the smaller States could form a majority and change or even reject laws from the House of Representatives. The ACT and the NT elect two senators each.

paragraphs: The third level of government after Commonwealth and State/Territory is Local government. These are organized as shires, towns or cities. Local governments are made up of elected representatives (known as either councilor or alderman depending on the State), usually serving on a part-time basis.

paragraphs: Government is undertaken by three inter-connected arms of government:

paragraphs: The "Separation of powers" is the principle whereby the three arms of government do their activities separate from each other:

paragraphs: Before the Australia Act 1986, and matching legislation in the parliament of the United Kingdom, some Australian cases could be sent to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for final appeal. Australian law is now only decided on in Australia, and the High Court of Australia is the highest court of appeal. The possibility of the British Parliament making laws to overturn the Australian Constitution was also removed.

paragraphs: The Legislature makes the laws, and supervises the activities of the other two arms with a view to changing the laws if needed. The Australian Parliament is bicameral, made up of the Queen, a 76-member Senate and a 150-member House of Representatives. Twelve Senators from each state are elected for six-year terms, using proportional representation and the single transferable vote (known in Australia as "preferential voting", with half elected every three years.

paragraphs: There are also two senators elected by voters from the Northern Territory (and including the Indian Ocean Territories, Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands). Another two senators are elected by the voters of the Australian Capital Territory (including the Jervis Bay Territory). Senators from the territories are also elected using preferential voting, however, their term of office is not fixed: it starts on the day of a general election for the House of Representatives and ends the day before the next such election day.

paragraphs: The members of the House of Representatives are elected by preferential voting from single-member areas spread among the states and territories roughly in proportion to population. In ordinary legislation, the two chambers have the same powers, but all laws for spending money or charging taxes must come from the House of Representatives. In the Westminster system, the leader of the political party or group of parties that holds the support of a majority of the members in the House of Representatives is asked to form a government and is named Prime Minister.

paragraphs: The Prime Minister and the Cabinet are responsible to the Parliament, of which they must be members. General elections are held at least once every three years. The Prime Minister can advise the Governor-General to call an election for the House of Representatives at any time, but Senate elections can only be held within certain periods set out in the Constitution. The most recent general election was on 21 August 2010.

paragraphs: The Commonwealth Parliament and all the state and territory legislatures use the Westminster system. They have a recognised Leader of the Opposition, usually the leader of the largest party outside the government. There is also a Shadow Cabinet of Opposition members who "shadow" each member of the Ministry, asking questions on matters about the Minister's responsibilities. The government, because it has a majority of members in the lower house of the legislature, can usually pass its legislation and control the workings of the house. The Opposition can slow down the process and obstruct government business if it chooses. The day-to-day business of the house is usually worked out between a senior Minister, who holds the title Leader of the House, and an Opposition frontbencher known as the Manager of Opposition Business.

paragraphs: The Australian Constitution was written in 1901, when the Dominions of the British Empire were not independent countries, and does not use the words "head of state". In practice, the role of head of state of Australia is divided between two people, the Queen of Australia and the Governor-General of Australia. The Governor- General is appointed by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister of Australia. Though in many respects the Governor-General is the Queen's representative, and exercises various constitutional powers in her name, they are also independently vested with many important constitutional powers by the Constitution.

paragraphs: The Sovereign of Australia is currently Queen Elizabeth II. She is also the Sovereign of fifteen other Commonwealth Realms including the United Kingdom. Like the other Dominions, Australia gained legislative independence from the Parliament of the United Kingdom through the Statute of Westminster 1931. This came into force in Australia in 1942, but back dated to 3 September 1939. With the Royal Style and Titles Act 1953, the Australian Parliament gave the Queen the title Queen of Australia. In 1973 her Australian title no longer included her status as Queen of the United Kingdom and Defender of the Faith.

paragraphs: Section 61 of the Constitution says that 'The executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and is exercisable by the Governor‑General as the Queen’s representative, and extends to the execution and maintenance of this Constitution, and of the laws of the Commonwealth'. Section 2 of the Australian Constitution says that a Governor-General shall represent the Queen in Australia. In practice, the Governor-General carries out all the tasks usually done by a head of state, without asking the Queen.

paragraphs: The question of whether the Queen is Australia's head of state became a political one during the 1999 Australian republic referendum, when opponents of the move to make Australia a republic claimed that Australia already had an Australian as head of state in the person of the Governor-General, who since 1965 has invariably been an Australian citizen. The former Governor-General, Major General Michael Jeffery, said in 2004: "Her Majesty is Australia's head of state but I am her representative and to all intents and purposes I carry out the full role." However, in 2005, he declined to name the Queen as head of state, instead saying in response to a direct question, "The Queen is the Monarch and I represent her, and I carry out all the functions of head of state." The Governor-General represents Australia internationally, making and receiving State visits.

paragraphs: In 2009 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called the Governor-General the Australian head of state. He said an overseas visit by Quentin Bryce "...to Africa of this scale by Australia's Head of State will express the seriousness of Australia's commitment".

paragraphs: Under the Westminster system the Governor-General's powers are almost always used on the advice of the Prime Minister or other ministers. The Governor-General retains reserve powers similar to those possessed by the Queen in the United Kingdom. These are rarely exercised, but during the Australian constitutional crisis of 1975 Governor-General Sir John Kerr used them independently of the Queen and the Prime Minister.

paragraphs: Several times people in Australia have wanted to remove the monarchy. In a 1999 referendum, the Australian people voted on a proposal to change the Constitution. The proposal would have removed the Queen from the Constitution and replaced the Governor-General with a President nominated by the Prime Minister, but needing the approval of a two-thirds majority of both Houses of the Parliament. The proposal was defeated. The Australian Republican Movement continues to call for an end to the monarchy in Australia, opposed by Australians for Constitutional Monarchy.

paragraphs: The Federal Executive Council consists of the Governor-General, the Prime Minister and Ministers. It is a formal body which exists to give legal effect to decisions made by the Cabinet, and to carry out various other functions. Members of the Executive Council are entitled to be styled "The Honourable", a title which they retain for life. The Governor-General usually presides at Council meetings, but a Minister with the title Vice-President of the Executive Council serves as the link between the government and the Council.

paragraphs: The Constitution of Australia does not mention the Cabinet, and its decisions have no legal force. All members of the ministry must be sworn as members of the Federal Executive Council. This council is chaired by the Governor-General and which meets solely to approve and give legal force to decisions already made by the Cabinet. That is why there is always a member of the ministry holding the title Vice-President of the Executive Council.

paragraphs: Until 1956 all members of the ministry were members of the Cabinet. With more ministers added in the 1940s and 1950s this made the cabinet too big. In 1956 Robert Menzies created a two level ministry, with only senior ministers in the Cabinet. These are known as the front bench because the sit on the front bench seats in the Parliament. This practice has been continued by all governments except the Whitlam Government.

paragraphs: When the non-Labor parties have been in power, the Prime Minister has made all Cabinet and ministerial appointments. When the Liberal Party and its predecessors (the Nationalist Party and the United Australia Party) have been in coalition with the National Party or its predecessor the Country Party, the leader of the junior Coalition party has had the right decide his party's members of the Coalition ministry, and to work with the Prime Minister to give them their responsibilities.

paragraphs: When the Labor first held office under Chris Watson, Watson used the right to choose members of his Cabinet. In 1907, however, the party decided that future Labor Cabinets would be elected by the members of the Parliamentary Labor Party, the Caucus. The Prime Minister would allocate their responsibilities. The Labor Prime Ministers had a lot of influence over who was elected to Labor ministries, although the leaders small groups inside the party also had a lot of power. Prior to the 2007 general election, Kevin Rudd, said that he and he alone would choose the ministry if he become Prime Minister. His party won the election and he chose the ministry, as he said he would.

paragraphs: The cabinet meets not only in Canberra but also in other Australian state capitals, most often Sydney and Melbourne. Kevin Rudd said he wanted the Cabinet to meet in other places, such as major regional cities. The Commonwealth Parliament Offices in Sydney are located in Phillip Street.

paragraphs: There are times when the government acts in a "caretaker" capacity, principally in the period prior to and immediately following a general election.

paragraphs: The Judiciary interprets the laws, using as a basis the laws as enacted and what was said in the Legislature while the laws were being passed.

paragraphs: Before 1931, the junior status of dominions was shown in the fact that it was British ministers who advised the King, with dominion ministers, if they met the King at all, escorted by the constitutionally superior British minister. After 1931 all dominion ministers met the King as "His" ministers as of right, equal in Commonwealth status to Britain's ministers, meaning that there was no longer either a requirement for, or an acceptance of, the presence of British ministers. The first state to exercise this both symbolic and real independence was the Irish Free State. Australia and other dominions soon followed.


title: Met Office

paragraphs: The Met Office (now the official name for the Meteorological Office) is the United Kingdom's national weather service.

paragraphs: More than 50% of its revenue comes from goods and services. This is why it is a 'trading fund' of the Ministry of Defence.

paragraphs: Part of the Met Office headquarters at Exeter in Devon is the Met Office College. This does the training for internal personnel and many forecasters from around the world.

paragraphs: One of the British stalwarts, the Shipping Forecast, is produced by the Met Office and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. The Shipping Forecast has long been vital to the safety of mariners on the seas around the British Isles.

paragraphs: The Met Office is responsible for issuing Severe Weather Warnings for the United Kingdom through the National Severe Weather Warning Service (NSWWS). These warn of weather which may affect transport and lives. In March 2008, the system was improved and a new stage of warning was introduced, the 'Advisory'.

paragraphs: Its main role is to produce forecast models. It gathers information from weather satellites in space and observations on earth. The information is fed into two IBM supercomputers. The computers use models based on a software package known as the Unified Model. The principal weather products for UK customers are 36-hour forecasts from the newly operational 1.5 km resolution UKV model covering the UK and surroundings (replacing the 4 km model); 48-hour forecasts from the 12 km resolution NAE model covering Europe and the North Atlantic; and 144-hour forecasts from the 25 km resolution global model (replacing the 40 km global model). A wide range of other products for other regions of the globe are sold to customers abroad. They are used by MOD operations abroad or provided free to developing countries in Africa. If necessary, forecasters may make adjustments to the computer forecasts.


title: Statistical process control

paragraphs: Statistical process control (SPC) is the use of statistical methods to assess the stability of a process and the quality of its outputs. For example, consider a bottling plant. The entire system of production that produces filled bottles is termed a "process". Suppose the weight of liquid content added to a bottle is critical for cost control and customer satisfaction. The content should weigh 250 grams, but it is acceptable if the actual weight is between 245 and 255 grams. "Monitoring" means that the weight of every bottle is measured and recorded; sampling means that only a few bottles (say one in a thousand) are actually weighed (analysis to determine the rate of sampling and to assess sample representativeness is a well-established part of SPC.)

paragraphs: SPC relies on quantitative and graphic analysis of measurements to evaluate observed variation. If the attributes of interest (content weight in this example) vary within an acceptable range, a process is said to be "in control," "in statistical control," or "stable." When unacceptable variation is noted, actions are typically taken to determine and correct their cause. In the bottling example, suppose too many bottles are filled with less than 245 grams. Checking the plant equipment reveals that one of ten filler valves is malfunctioning.

paragraphs: SPC has had broad application in manufacturing since its introduction in the 1920s and in many other kinds of repetitive activities.

paragraphs: Much of the power of SPC lies in the ability to examine a process, for the sources of variation in that process, by using tools which give weight to objective analysis over subjective opinions and which allow the strength of each source to be determined numerically. Variations in the process, which might affect the quality of the end-product or service can be detected and corrected, thus reducing waste as well as the likelihood that problems will be passed on to the customer. With its emphasis on early detection and prevention of problems, SPC has a distinct advantage over other quality methods, such as inspection, which apply resources to detecting and correcting problems after they have occurred.

paragraphs: In addition to reducing waste, SPC can lead to a reduction in the time required to produce the product or service from end-to-end. This is partially due to a reduced likelihood that the final product will have to be reworked, but it may also result from using SPC data to identify bottlenecks, wait times, and other sources of delays within the process. Process cycle time reductions, coupled with improvements in yield, have made SPC a valuable tool from both a cost-reduction and a customer-satisfaction standpoint.

paragraphs: Statistical process control was pioneered by Walter A. Shewhart in the early 1920s. Shewhart created the basis for the control chart and the concept of a state of "statistical control" by carefully designed experiments. While Dr. Shewhart drew from pure mathematical statistical theories, he understood that data from physical processes seldom produces a "normal distribution curve" (a Gaussian distribution, also commonly referred to as a "bell curve"). He discovered how the observed variation in manufacturing data did not always behave the same way as data in nature (for example, Brownian motion of particles). Dr. Shewhart concluded that while every process displays variation, some processes display controlled variation that is natural to the process (common causes of variation), while others display uncontrolled variation that is not present in the process causal system at all times (special causes of variation). Uncontrolled variation is often associated with defective products, providing a data-driven means to identify problems and improve quality.

paragraphs: W. Edwards Deming later applied SPC methods in the U.S. during World War II, thereby successfully improving quality in the manufacture of munitions and other strategically important products. After the war ended, he was instrumental in introducing SPC methods to Japanese industry. Deming's approach of using SPC with related management practices came to be known as a quality management system.

paragraphs: The following description relates to manufacturing rather than to the service industry, although the principles of SPC can be successfully applied to either. For a description and example of how SPC applies to a service environment, refer to Roberts (2005). Selden describes how to use SPC in the fields of sales, marketing, and customer service, using Deming's famous Red Bead Experiment as an easy to follow demonstration.

paragraphs: In mass-manufacturing, the quality of the finished article was traditionally achieved through post-manufacturing inspection of the product; accepting or rejecting each article (or samples from a production lot) based on how well it met its design specifications. In contrast, Statistical Process Control uses statistical tools to observe the performance of the production process in order to predict significant deviations that may later result in rejected product.

paragraphs: Two kinds of variation occur in all manufacturing processes: both these types of process variation cause subsequent variation in the final product. The first is known as natural or common cause variation and consists of the variation inherent in the process as it is designed. Common cause variation may include variations in temperature, properties of raw materials, strength of an electrical current etc. The second kind of variation is known as special cause variation, or assignable-cause variation, and happens less frequently than the first. With sufficient investigation, a specific cause, such as abnormal raw material or incorrect set-up parameters, can be found for special cause variations.

paragraphs: For example, a breakfast cereal packaging line may be designed to fill each cereal box with 500 grams of product, but some boxes will have slightly more than 500 grams, and some will have slightly less, in accordance with a distribution of net weights. If the production process, its inputs, or its environment changes (for example, the machines doing the manufacture begin to wear) this distribution can change. For example, as its cams and pulleys wear out, the cereal filling machine may start putting more cereal into each box than specified. If this change is allowed to continue unchecked, more and more product will be produced that fall outside the tolerances of the manufacturer or consumer, resulting in waste. While in this case, the waste is in the form of "free" product for the consumer, typically waste consists of rework or scrap.

paragraphs: By observing at the right time what happened in the process that led to a change, the quality engineer or any member of the team responsible for the production line can troubleshoot the root cause of the variation that has crept in to the process and correct the problem.

paragraphs: SPC indicates when an action should be taken in a process, but it also indicates when NO action should be taken. An example is a person who would like to maintain a constant body weight and takes weight measurements weekly. A person who does not understand SPC concepts might start dieting every time his or her weight increased, or eat more every time his or her weight decreased. This type of action could be harmful and possibly generate even more variation in body weight. SPC would account for normal weight variation and better indicate when the person is in fact gaining or losing weight.

paragraphs: Statistical Process Control may be broadly broken down into three sets of activities: understanding the process; understanding the causes of variation; and elimination of the sources of special cause variation. Key tools in SPC are control charts, a focus on continuous improvement and designed experiments.

paragraphs: In understanding a process, the process is typically mapped out and the process is monitored using control charts. Control charts are used to identify variation that may be due to special causes, and to free the user from concern over variation due to common causes. This is a continuous, ongoing activity. When a process is stable and does not trigger any of the detection rules for a control chart, a process-capability analysis may also be performed to predict the ability of the current process to produce conforming (i.e. within specification) product in the future.

paragraphs: When excessive variation is identified by the control-chart detection rules, or the process capability is found lacking, additional effort is exerted to determine causes of that variance. The tools used include Ishikawa diagrams, designed experiments and Pareto charts. Designed experiments are critical to this phase of SPC, as they are the only means of objectively quantifying the relative importance of the many potential causes of variation.

paragraphs: Once the causes of variation have been quantified, effort is spent in eliminating those causes that are both statistically and practically significant (i.e. a cause that has only a small but statistically significant effect may not be considered cost-effective to fix; however, a cause that is not statistically significant can never be considered practically significant). Generally, this includes development of standard work, error-proofing and training. Additional process changes may be required to reduce variation or align the process with the desired target, especially if there is a problem with process capability.

paragraphs: In 1989, the Software Engineering Institute introduced the notion that SPC can be usefully applied to non-manufacturing processes, such as software-engineering processes, in the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). This idea exists today within the Level 4 and Level 5 practices of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). However, this notion that SPC is a useful tool when applied to non-repetitive, knowledge-intensive processes, such as engineering processes, has encountered much skepticism, and remains controversial today. The problem lies in numerous areas of software which are not repetitive, but instead are one-time or one-off aspects of quality, rather than being observed for repeated performance over a long-term view.


title: Consultant

paragraphs: A consultant (from the Latin "consultare" meaning "to discuss" also the basis of words such as "consul" and "counsel") is a professional who provides expert advice in a particular area of expertise. Various consultants offer advice in management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law (tax law, in particular), human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, statistics, software, life management, economics, public affairs, communication, engineering, sound system design, graphic design, or waste management.

paragraphs: A consultant is usually an expert or a professional, in a specific field, who also has a wide knowledge of the subject matter. A consultant usually works for a consultancy firm or is self-employed, and engages with multiple and changing clients. Thus, clients have access to deeper levels of expertise than would be feasible for them to retain in-house, and may purchase only as much service from the outside consultant as desired.

paragraphs: 'Consultant' is also the term used to denote the most senior medical position in the United Kingdom, Australia and Ireland (e.g., a consultant surgeon).

paragraphs: Some consultants are employed by a consult staffing company, a company that provides consultants to clients. This is particularly common in the technology sector. Consultants are often called contractors in the technology sector in reference to their employment contract.

paragraphs: Strategy consultants are common in upper management in many industries. There are also independent consultants who act as interim executives with decision-making power under corporate policies or statutes. They may sit on specially constituted boards or committees.

paragraphs: Consultants work at client places on behalf of a consultancy or Billing company.


title: The Lesser Polish Way of Saint James

paragraphs: The Lesser Polish Way of Saint James is a popular pilgrimage route in Eastern Europe. This particular route was created in Poland. It starts in the city of Sandomierz, and end in the city of Krakow began in medieval times when many pilgrims travelled through Europe to Santiago de Compostela. The other places on The Lesser Polish Way are: Klimontów, Szczaworyż, Wiślica, and Więcławice.


title: Carnarvon, Western Australia

paragraphs: Carnarvon is a coastal town about 900 kilometres north of Perth, Western Australia. It is at the mouth of the Gascoyne River on the Indian Ocean. The popular Shark Bay World Heritage Site lies to the south of the town. In 2006, there were 5,283 people living in Carnarvon.

paragraphs: The town began in 1883, as a port and supply centre for the surrounding region. It is the administrative centre for the Shire of Carnarvon, the town site was officially listed on 4 June 1891. It was named after Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies.

paragraphs: Carnarvon has a warm to hot dry climate. Average yearly rainfall is with the rainiest months being in May and June. Occasionally tropical cyclones will influence Carnarvon and bring very heavy rain, high temperatures and strong winds. Apart from possible cyclones, summers are usually dry. Temperatures range from an average maximum of in February to in July. Average minimums are and respectively.

paragraphs: During the 1960s, NASA set up the Carnarvon Tracking Station to support the Gemini and Apollo space program. The tracking station was closed in the mid 1970s. Only the foundations of this historical site remain.

paragraphs: Radio Australia had a shortwave relay station (built during the 1970s) that used to relay programming to Europe, South Asia and South East Asia.

paragraphs: There are five schools in the town, three government-run and two independent. These schools are: St Mary's Star of the Sea Catholic School which was built in 1906, Carnarvon Senior High School, East Carnarvon Primary School, Carnarvon Primary School, Carnarvon Christian School and Carnarvon School of the Air.

paragraphs: In 1964 and 1965, 12 rockets were launched from Carnarvon to a maximum altitude of .

paragraphs: On 20 May 1988, the bulk carrier "Korean Star" ran aground in bad weather near Cape Cuvier, within the port limits of Carnarvon. Around 600 tonnes of fuel oil were spilled into the ocean. Damage was limited to of remote beaches and coastline. The ship was left grounded, however very little of the wreck remains to be seen.


title: Postcodes in Australia

paragraphs: Postcodes are used in Australia to sort and send mail to the correct address. All postcodes in Australia have four numbers and are placed at the end of the address. Australian postcodes are managed by Australia Post.

paragraphs: Postcodes are published in small books which can be collected from your nearest post offices, or online at the Australia Post website.

paragraphs: On envelopes and postcards there are often four square boxes printed in orange ink at the bottom right for the postcode numbers. These are used when addressing mail by hand.

paragraphs: Postcodes were started in Australia in 1967 by the Postmaster-General's Department (PMG), now called Australia Post. They replaced earlier postal sorting systems, such as Melbourne's letter and number codes (e.g., "N3", "E5") and a similar system once used in rural and regional New South Wales.

paragraphs: Australian Postcodes are four digits, and written after the name of the city, suburb, or town, and the state or territory:

paragraphs: When writing an address by hand, a row of four boxes (pre-printed on the lower right hand corner of many envelopes) is usually used.

paragraphs: Australian postcodes are sorting information. They are often linked with one area (e.g. 6160 belongs only to Fremantle, Western Australia). But sometimes they can be quite complex, especially in country areas (e.g. 2570 belongs to twenty-two towns and suburbs around Camden, New South Wales). The south-western Victoria 3221 postcode of the Geelong Mail Centre also includes twenty places around Geelong with very few people. This means that mail for these places is not fully sorted until it gets to Geelong. Some postcodes cover large populations (e.g., postcode 4350 serving some 100,000 people in the City of Toowoomba), while other postcodes have much smaller populations, even in urban areas. The postcode numbers range from as low as 0200 (for the Australian National University) to 9729 (mail addressed to the Gold Coast City Council).

paragraphs: Some towns and suburbs have two postcodes—one for street deliveries and one for [post office box]es. For instance, a street address in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta would be written like this:

paragraphs: But mail sent to a PO Box in Parramatta would be addressed:

paragraphs: Many big businesses, government departments and other institutions receive large volumes of mail. They can have their own postcode as a Large Volume Receiver ("LVR"), e.g. the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital has the postcode 4029. More postcode ranges were made available for LVRs in the 1990s.

paragraphs: The first one or two numbers usually show the state or territory that the postcode belongs to

paragraphs: Sometimes near the state and territory borders, Australia Post finds it easier to send mail through a nearby post office that is across the border:

paragraphs: These are postcodes that does not follow the above rule.

paragraphs: Some or all of the postcodes above may cover two states. For example postcode 2620 covers both a suburb in NSW ("Gundaroo") as well as a suburb in the ACT ("Hume") - the postcode is within the ACT range.

paragraphs: Jervis Bay Territory, once an exclave of the ACT but now a separate territory, is geographically located on the coast of NSW. It is just south of the towns of Vincentia and Huskisson, with which it shares a postcode. Mail to the Jervis Bay Territory is still addressed to the ACT.

paragraphs: The numbers used to show the state on each radio callsign in Australia is the same number as the first number for postcodes in that state, e.g. "2xx" in New South Wales, "3xx" in Victoria, etc. Radio callsigns pre-date postcodes in Australia by more than forty years.

paragraphs: Australia's external territories are also included in Australia Post's postcode system. While these territories do not belong to any state, they are addressed as such for mail sorting:

paragraphs: Three scientific bases in Antarctica operated by the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions share a postcode with the isolated sub-Antarctic island of Macquarie Island (part of Tasmania):

paragraphs: Each state's capital city ends with three zeroes, while territorial capital cities end with two zeroes. Capital city postcodes were the lowest postcodes in their state or territory range, before new ranges for LVRs and PO Boxes were made available. The last number can usually be changed from "0" to "1" to get the postcode for General Post Office boxes in any capital city (though Perth now uses a different range of postcodes for its GPO Boxes):

paragraphs: While the first number of a postcode usually shows the state or territory, the second number usually shows a region within the state. However, postcodes with the same second number are not always next to each othera. As an example, postcodes in the range 2200–0001 are split between the southern suburbs of Sydney and the Central Coast of New South Wales.

paragraphs: Postcodes with a second number of "0" or "1" are almost always located within the metropolitan area of the state's capital city. Postcodes with higher second numbers are usually located in rural and regional areas. Common exceptions are where towns were rural when postcodes were first introduced in 1967, but have since been suburbanised and incorporated into metropolitan areas, e.g. Penrith, New South Wales has the postcode 2750 and Petrie, Queensland has the postcode 4502.

paragraphs: Within each region with the same second number, postcodes usually get bigger the further one travels from the state's capital city along major highways and railways. For instance, heading north on the North Coast railway in New South Wales away from Sydney:

paragraphs: Major towns and cities tend to have "0" as the last number or last two numbers, e.g. Rockhampton, Queensland has the postcode 4700 and Ballarat, Victoria has the postcode 3350. There are exceptions; the major town of Ipswich, Queensland has the postcode 4305, while Goodna, a relatively unimportant suburb of Ipswich, is allocated 4300.

paragraphs: Post Office Preferred envelopes sold in Australia have four boxes in the bottom right corner of the front of the envelope. These boxes or squares, which by Australia Post calls "postcode squares", have the postcode for hand-addressed mail. This is for the purpose of Australia Post's automated mail-sorting equipment, which uses optical character recognition software. Postcode squares were introduced in 1990.

paragraphs: Australia Post says that postcode squares should not be used for machine-addressed mail, or mail going overseas.

paragraphs: Many other organisations now use postcodes. Insurance companies often use postcodes when working out the cost of car and house insurance. The NSW Ministry of Transport uses postcodes to give specific numbers for each bus stop in Greater Sydney. The stop number is five to seven numbers: the first four are the postcode, and the others show the bus stop (sometimes written with a space in between, e.g. "2000 108"). Many companies that produce metropolitan street maps also list the postcodes for each suburb, both in indexes on the maps themselves.

paragraphs: To improve mechanised sorting, each address now has a sorting number which is printed on the letter as an orange coloured barcode. This number might be 12 numbers long. This system enables the post office to place items in delivery order.


title: Monitoring

paragraphs: To monitor or monitoring generally means to be aware of the state of a system. Below are some examples:


title: The Medical Journal of Australia

paragraphs: The Medical Journal of Australia is a peer-reviewed medical journal. It is the official journal of the Australian Medical Association and began in 1914. It is published by the Australasian Medical Publishing Company Proprietary Limited (AMPCo).

paragraphs: The journal publishes editorials, articles, case reports, and letters. The full text of every issue since January 2002 is available on their website.


title: Statistician

paragraphs: A statistician is someone who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. The core of that work is to measure, interpret, and describe some events in the world and spot patterns within them. The field shares much common history with social science, but often with a greater view on complex mathematical methods. Statisticians commonly have higher college degrees or other credentials as proof that they are qualified for the job.

paragraphs: It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects. The applications are varied. Statisticians apply their knowledge to production, research, finance, medicine, insurance, census-taking, government, etc. They often are employed to support managerial decisions or to supervise quality control in manufacturing.

paragraphs: According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of 2008, there were 22,600 jobs listed as "statistician" in the United States. Of these people, approximately 30% worked for governments (federal, state, or local). Additionally, there are substantial numbers of persons who use statistics in their work but have job titles other than "statistician". The job of statistician is considered a profession. Most statisticians work in offices and have regular working hours and can therefore be considered to be white-collar workers. A lower number of statisticians are self-employed as statistical consultants.

paragraphs: Most employment as a statistician requires a minimum of a masters degree in statistics or a related field. Many professional statisticians have a PhD.

paragraphs: Civilizations have used the work of statisticians for thousands of years. Statistics was employed in ancient Egypt in censuses of population and cattle. Typical work might involve developing a model and sampling plans, analyzing survey results, or making agricultural or econometric forecasts.


title: Kung Fu Panda 2

paragraphs: Kung Fu Panda 2 is a 2011 3D American computer-animated action comedy movie and the second installment in the series. A sequel to "Kung Fu Panda", Jack Black reprised his role. In the movie, Po is now the Dragon Warrior, and is fighting with his fellow kung fu masters, the Furious Five: Tigress, Viper, Monkey, Mantis and Crane. They go on a quest in Gong-men City to stop Lord Shen, an evil albino peacock from using a weapon to destroy kung fu. The film is directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, who previously worked as a storyboard artist in "Kung Fu Panda 1". It received critical acclaim and is the highest-grossing movie to be directed by a woman.

paragraphs: Po (voiced by Jack Black) is now the Dragon Warrior and a Kung Fu master protecting the Valley of Peace together with his friends, the Furious Five, but must now find inner peace. Master Shifu (voiced by Dustin Hoffman) then sends him on a journey with the Furious Five to Gongmen City and stop Lord Shen (voiced by Gary Oldman), an evil albino peacock who has made a new weapon that can stop Kung Fu. Po has trouble on his journey because he's worried about what happened to his real parents. An old soothsayer (voiced by Michelle Yeoh) helps Po remember that his parents sent Po away as a baby to protect him when their village was attacked by Lord Shen many years ago because Shen learned he would be defeated by Po, the foretold warrior of black and white. Now knowing where he came from, Po finds inner peace, destroys Shen's cannons by throwing the cannonballs back at them, defeats Shen (who also gets killed and crushed by his own cannon), and accepts Mr. Ping (voiced by James Hong) as his dad.

paragraphs: "Kung Fu Panda 2" was acclaimed by critics. It holds a rating of 85% in Rotten Tomatoes and a rating of 7 out of 10. The consensus is "the story arc may seen a tad familiar to fans of the original, but "Kung Fu Panda 2" offers enough action, comedy and visual sparkle to compensate". Just like in the original film, the animation, voice acting and character development were praised.

paragraphs: The film became a box office success. It grossed $667,692,281 on a $150 million budget. It is the highest grossing animated film of 2011, the 9th highest grossing animated film ever released, the 53rd highest-grossing film of all time and the 6th highest grossing film of 2011. It is also the highest grossing animated film directed by a woman (Jennifer Yuh Nelson).

paragraphs: Kung Fu Panda 2 is the soundtrack of the film of the same, scored by Hans Zimmer and John Powell and released in May 24, 2011. Just like the movie, the soundtrack received positive reviews from music critics.

paragraphs: After the success of "Kung Fu Panda 2", DreamWorks Animation confirmed that there will be 6 movies in the franchise. "Kung Fu Panda 3" is confirmed to be released in 2016, with Jennifer Yuh Nelson returning to direct and Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger returning to write the script. The original cast will return in the movie, and "Kung Fu Panda 3" will be the first American animated movie to ever be co-produced by a Chinese firm.


title: Christian Klien

paragraphs: Christian Klien (born 7 February 1983) is an Austrian Formula One racing driver. In total he has scored 14 points in Formula One.

paragraphs: Klien started his motorsport career in his early teens. He raced in karting championships in both Austria and Switzerland. He moved up to Formula BMW. He won several titles in lower Formula series. Klien moved into Formula One in . He drove for the Jaguar Racing team, alongside Mark Webber. At the end of 2004, Jaguar sold its Formula One team to Red Bull. The team was renamed "Red Bull Racing". Klien shared a race seat with Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi. He stayed at Red Bull for season.

paragraphs: In , Klien was replaced by Mark Webber. He was the test driver for Honda. For and , he was the reserve and test driver for BMW Sauber.

paragraphs: In , Klien moved to become the test driver for HRT. For the Singapore Grand Prix Kling replaced Sakon Yamamoto. HRT reported that Yamamoto was sick from food posining. For the Brazilian Grand Prix, HRT announced that Klien would race in place of Yamamoto. No reason was given.


title: Doabi

paragraphs: Doabi, which means "the land between two rivers", is one of the Punjabi dialects spoken in Indian Punjab. This dialects is spoken between the rivers of Beas and Sutlej. It includes the districts of Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Nawanshahr (now known Shahid Bhagat Singh Nagar).


title: Alan Rickman

paragraphs: Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (21 February 1946 – 14 January 2016) was an English actor and theatre director. He was a well known stage actor in modern and classical productions and he used to be a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Rickman was known for being in movies.

paragraphs: Rickman was born on 21 February 1946 in Acton, London. He studied in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Rickman married his partner of 50 years, Rima Horton, in 2012. He lived in London and in Los Angeles, California.

paragraphs: Rickman died in a hospital in London from pancreatic cancer on 14 January 2016 at the age of 69. He was cremated in the West London Crematorium in Kensal Green on February 3, 2016. His widow, Rima Horton, kept his ashes.

paragraphs: In "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" ("Sorcerer's Stone") Rickman portrays Professor Snape, a bad guy who hates Harry. Severus hated James Potter, Harry's father, because he took Lily from him, this is another reason he hates Harry so much because he looks like his father. However, in "Deathly Hallows Part 2" we discover that Snape is in fact a hero. He sacrifices himself to save the wizarding world. Harry recognises this and names a child after him in honour of his braveness.


title: Aram Khachaturian

paragraphs: Aram Ilyich Khachaturian (6 June 1903 in Tiflis – 1 May 1978 in Moscow) was a significant Soviet-Armenian composer. He studied the cello in the 1920s and went to the Moscow Conservatory in 1929. He composed several symphonies and a ballet called Gayane. His music was mainly influenced by the folk music of Armenia. His most popular piece, the "Sabre Dance" from "Gayane", has been used extensively in popular culture and has been covered by a number of musicians worldwide.


title: Stanford prison experiment

paragraphs: The Stanford prison experiment was a scientific experiment done at Stanford University in 1971. The experiment was done in the field of psychology. It tried to recreate the conditions at a prison. Philip Zimbardo was the psychologist who led the experiment. Twenty-four undergraduate students were selected to play the role of either prisoner or prison guard. The role was assigned at random. The students adapted to the roles beyond what Zimbardo had imagined. After some time, the guards used authoritarian measures.

paragraphs: The experiment even affected Zimbardo himself. Five of the prisoners were upset enough by the process to quit the experiment early. The experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days, out of fifteen planned. The experimental process and the results remain controversial. The entire experiment was filmed. Parts of the footage were soon made publicly available as a film. Over 30 years later, Zimbardo found new interest in the experiment when the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal occurred.

paragraphs: The experiment also had certain problems:

paragraphs: There has been a lot of interest for the events in the media. At least the following movies were made:


title: Wonderwall

paragraphs: Wonderwall may mean one of the following:


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

paragraphs: Alvin and the Chipmunks is an American animated music group. It was created by Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. in 1958. The group is made up of three animated chipmunks who sing and talk. They are Alvin, Simon and Theodore. The trio is managed by a fictional man named Dave Seville, who adopted the chipmunks. In reality, "David Seville" was Bagdasarian's stage name, and the chipmunks themselves are named after the executives of their original record label. The characters became a success, and were recreated in animated cartoons and eventually movies.

paragraphs: The voices of the group were all done by Bagdasarian. He recorded his voice and then sped up the playback to create high-pitched voices. It was so unusual and well-done that it earned the record two Grammy Awards for musical engineering. Bagdasarian, performing as the Chipmunks, released a long series of albums and singles. Bagdasarian died in 1972. The characters were revived in the 1980s and 1990s, with the voices being performed by Ross Bagdasarian, Jr. and his wife Janice Karman.

paragraphs: A computer-animated movie based on the characters was released in 2007, called "Alvin and the Chipmunks". It had three sequels: , and . The actors Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler and Jesse McCartney performed the talking voices of the Chipmunks. Bagdasarian, Jr. and Karman performed the singing voices for Alvin, Theodore and the Chipettes, but Steve Vining does Simon's singing voice. The project has earned five Grammy Awards, an American Music Award, a Golden Reel Award, and three Kids' Choice Awards, and has been nominated for three Emmy awards.


title: Acanthaceae

paragraphs: Acanthaceae is one of 23 families in the mint order of flowering plants containing approximately 230 genera and nearly 3,500 species distributed predominantly in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. The greater part of the Acanthaceae family are herbs or shrubs, but climbers (vines) and trees occur as well. The range of habitats extends from marshes to extremely dry situations, but most of these plants are found in damp tropical forests.


title: Gesneriaceae

paragraphs: Gesneriaceae is a one of 23 families in the order Lamiales of flowering plant, consisting of 147 genera and about 3,200 species of mostly tropical and subtropical herbaceous or slightly woody plants. Many are of economic importance as horticultural ornamentals. Among these are the African violets and gloxinias.


title: Novella

paragraphs: A novella is a book shorter than a novel, but longer than a short story. Sometimes it is also called a novellette.


title: Bignoniaceae

paragraphs: Bignoniaceae or the Trumpet creeper or catalpa family of the mint order of flowering plants. It contains about 112 genera and more than 725 species of trees, shrubs, and, most commonly, vines, chiefly of tropical America, tropical Africa, and the Indo-Malayan region. They form an important part of the tropical forest vegetation because of the numerous climbing vines. A few are found in temperate regions, notably the catalpa tree ("Catalpa"), the trumpet creeper ("Campsis"), and the cross vine ("Bignonia").


title: Super Aguri F1

paragraphs: Super Aguri F1 was a Formula One racing team that competed from to . The team was founded by former F1 driver Aguri Suzuki. They were based in Tokyo, Japan. They operated from the former Arrows factory in Leafield, UK. The cars were called Super Aguri-Honda because they used Honda engines. The team was, to some degree, an unofficial Honda second-team. In Japan, public pressure convinced Honda to help its former driver Takuma Sato to continue in Formula One. This lead to the start of Super Aguri F1, and the engine supply from Honda. The team competed two full years, and part of the third year. After four races in the season, the team withdrew due to financial problems.

paragraphs: The team started in September 2005. on 1 November 2005, the team told the FIA its wanted to enter the Formula One World Championship. The FIA did not approved Super Aguri's entry. It was reported that the team failed to give the required $48 million entry bond on time. Super Aguri applied for entry again in 2006. Because they missed the initial registration, the team needed the existing ten teams to agree to its entry. The other teams gave the required unanimous agreement. Super Aguri was confirmed by the FIA on 26 January 2006.

paragraphs: In 2006, the chassis, Super Aguri SA05, was based on the 2002 Arrows A23. The Arrows chassis was bought from ex-Minardi principal Paul Stoddart.Stoddart had bought them when the Arrows team went bankrupt. Super Aguri updated their old chassis to become the Super Aguri SA06. They were used from the German Grand Prix to the end of the year.

paragraphs: Takuma Sato and Yuji Ide were the initial race drivers for the team in the 2006 season. Franck Montagny as the third driver. On 4 May, after four races, the team announced that Montagny would be replacing Ide as race driver. Ide's Super Licence had been revoked after a clash with Christijan Albers.

paragraphs: For , Super Aguri announced Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson would be driving for the team.

paragraphs: When the new SA07 car was first tested by the FIA, it failed the crash test. It was less than 48 hours before the first practice session for the Australian Grand Prix that the SA07 chassis was ready. At the Spanish Grand Prix the team scored its first point. Takuma Sato finished in 8th place. At the Canadian Grand Prix, the team scored its highest finish. Sato finishing in sixth place and earned three points.

paragraphs: For , Super Aguri kept their drivers Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson following the acquisition of an unspecified portion of the team by the Magma Group became a part owner of the team. The team did not attend the final pre-season tests. Not all the parts had arrived. Magma canceled their proposed purchase, leaving Super Aguri's future in doubt. Super Aguri's equipment was denied entry to Istanbul Park for the Turkish Grand Prix. Honda Racing's CEO Nick Fry reportedly told the race organizers that Super Aguri would not be taking part. On 6 May 2008, team founder and principal Aguri Suzuki announced that they were withdrawing from the 2008 World Championship due to financial problems. He said the breach of contract by "SS United Group Oil & Gas Company" resulting in the loss of financial backing. The team was in financial difficulties.

paragraphs: A team of corporate recovery partners were appointed to seek a buyer for Super Aguri. The team's assets were bought by a German businessman named Franz Hilmer. Hilmer unsuccessfully to enter the season under the Brabham name.

paragraphs: Team withdrew from championship after race 4. They did not field any drivers or cars in any further races that season.


title: Polite society

paragraphs: Polite society, often shortened to society, is a euphemism for the upper class.


title: Compromise

paragraphs: To compromise is to make a deal where one person gives up part of his or her demand. In arguments, "compromise" is a concept of finding agreement through communication, through a mutual acceptance of terms, while often involving variations from an original goal or desire.

paragraphs: Extremism is often considered as antonym to compromise, which, depending on context, may be associated with concepts of balance or tolerance. In the negative connotation, compromise may be referred to as "capitulation", referring to a "surrender" of objectives, principles, or material, in the process of negotiating an agreement. In human relationships, "compromise" is frequently said to be an agreement that no party is happy with, this is because the parties involved often feel that they either gave away too much or that they received too little.

paragraphs: From cultural background and influences, the meaning and perception of the word "compromise" may be different: In the UK, Ireland and Commonwealth countries, the word "compromise" has a positive meaning (as a consent, an agreement where both parties win something); in the U.S., it can have rather negative connotations, as in "compromising principles" as a sell-out of basic beliefs.

paragraphs: Defining and finding the best possible compromise is an important problem in fields like game theory and the voting system.

paragraphs: Research has indicated that less-than-optimal compromises are often the result of negotiators failing to realize when they have interests that are completely compatible with those of the other party, and hence, they settle for suboptimal agreements. Mutually-better outcomes can often be found by careful study of both parties' interests, especially if done early in negotiations.


title: Visionary

paragraphs: Defined broadly, a visionary, is one who can envision the future. For some groups, this can involve the supernatural or use of mind-altering drugs.

paragraphs: A visionary state can be achieved via meditation, drugs, lucid dreams, daydreams, or art. One example is Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th century artist/visionary and Catholic saint. Other visionaries in religion are Mohammed (who had a vision of and communed with the Angel Gabriel), St. Bernadette (who had a vision of contact with the Blessed Virgin), and Joseph Smith (who had a vision of contact with the Angel Moroni).

paragraphs: A "vision" can be political, religious, environmental, social, or technological in nature. By extension, a "visionary" can also be a person with a clear, distinctive and specific (in some details) vision of the future, usually connected with advances in technology or social/political arrangements. For example, Ted Nelson or U.S. Vice President Al Gore is referred to as a visionary in connection with the Internet.

paragraphs: Other visionaries simply imagine what does not yet exist but might some day, as some forms of "visioning" (or gazing) can provide a glimpse into the possible future. Therefore, visioning can mean seeing in a utopian way what does not yet exist on earth, but might exist in another realm, such as the ideal or perfect realm as imagined or thought. Examples are Buckminster Fuller in architecture and design, and some of the pioneers of personal computing such as Steve Wozniak. Some people use mathematics to make visionary discoveries in the nature of the universe. In that sense, a visionary may also function as a secular prophet. Some visionaries emphasize communication, and some assume a figurehead role in organizing a social group.

paragraphs: Artists may produce work loosely categorized as visionary art for its luminous content and/or for its use of artistic techniques that call for the use of extended powers of perception in the viewer: (e.g. Gustave Moreau, Samuel Palmer, Jean Delville, Ernst Fuchs, the French Symbolist Odilon Redon, Brion Gysin, Max Ernst, Stanley Spencer, Edward Burne Jones, Adolf Wolfli, Fred Sandback, William Blake, Hieronymus Bosch, and Henry Darger).

paragraphs: Visionary art can be incorrectly defined as a category of primitive art (art of those not formally trained) rather than describing people who have used their visions (or dreams) to create their paintings. Salvador Dali is one artist who would exemplify visionary art that is neither religious nor primitive.


title: Ted Nelson

paragraphs: Theodor Holm Nelson (Ted Nelson, born 1937) is an American sociologist, philosopher, and pioneer of information technology. He coined the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia" in 1963 and published it in 1965. He also is credited with first use of the words "transclusion", "virtuality", "intertwingularity" and "teledildonics". The main thrust of his work has been to make computers easily accessible to ordinary people. His motto is: "A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds." However, he is known for inventing many new words (neologisms) which few other people understand (such as "intertwingularity"), and his remarks contain humor to entertain rather than just inform. Consequently, some of his ideas have been met with negative reactions.

paragraphs: From a pessimist viewpoint, Ted Nelson promotes four maxims: "most people are fools, most authority is malignant, God does not exist, and everything is wrong".

paragraphs: Nelson started Project Xanadu in 1960. He wanted to create a new computer network that was easy to use and easy to understand. He wrote about the project in his books "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" (1974) and "Literary Machines" (1981). He has spent much of his adult life working on Project Xanadu and telling people about its benefits.

paragraphs: The Xanadu project was not very successful. There were many reasons, but not everyone agrees why the project did not go well. Journalist Gary Wolf published an unflattering history, "The Curse of Xanadu", on Nelson and his project in the June 1995 issue of "Wired". Nelson expressed his disgust on his website, referring to Wolf as a "Gory Jackal", and threatened to sue him. He also outlined his objections in a letter to "Wired", and released a detailed rebuttal of the article.

paragraphs: Nelson says that Tim Berners-Lee made some ideas from Xanadu become true by inventing the World Wide Web. But, Nelson dislikes the World Wide Web, XML, and all embedded markup. Nelson thinks that Berners-Lee's work is a much too simple way of doing his original plan:

paragraphs: HTML is precisely what we were trying to PREVENT– ever-breaking links, links going outward only, quotes you can't follow to their origins, no version management, no rights management. – Ted Nelson (Ted Nelson one-liners )

paragraphs: Nelson co-founded Itty bitty machine company, or "IBM", which was a small computer retail store operating from 1977 to 1980 in Evanston, Illinois. The Itty bitty machine company was one of the few retail stores to sell the original Apple I computer. In 1978 he had a significant impact upon IBM's thinking when he outlined his vision of the potential of personal computing to the team that three years later launched the IBM PC.

paragraphs: Ted Nelson is currently working on a new information structure, ZigZag. More information about ZigZag is on the Xanadu project website. That website also has two versions of the Xanadu code that visitors can download. He is also currently developing XanaduSpace - a system for the exploration of connected parallel documents (an early version of this software may be freely downloaded from . He is a visiting fellow at Oxford University - based at the Oxford Internet Institute - where he works in the fields of information, computers, and human-machine interfaces.

paragraphs: Nelson earned a Bachelor's degree in philosophy from Swarthmore College in 1959, a Master's degree in sociology from Harvard University in 1963 and a Doctorate in Media and Governance from Keio University in 2002.

paragraphs: In 1998, at the Seventh WWW Conference in Brisbane, Australia, Ted Nelson was awarded the Yuri Rubinsky Memorial Award. He told the audience that it was the first award that he had ever received for his work.

paragraphs: In 2001 he was knighted by France as "Officier des Arts et Lettres". In 2004 he was appointed as a Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and associated with the Oxford Internet Institute, where he is currently conducting his research.

paragraphs: In 2007 he celebrated his 70th birthday by giving an invited birthday lecture at the University of Southampton.

paragraphs: He is the son of the late Emmy Award-winning director Ralph Nelson and the Academy Award-winning actress Celeste Holm.

paragraphs: His parents' marriage was brief, and he was mostly raised by his grandparents in Greenwich Village, with relatively little contact with his parents. He is partly of Norwegian descent.

paragraphs: The anime "Serial Experiments Lain" cites Project Xanadu as a precursor to The Wired (a fictional internet-like communications network and augmented reality system) and mentions Nelson as the originator of hypertext.

paragraphs: "Populitism" ("pop-u-leet-ism") is another neologism coined by Nelson, as a combination of the word "populism" with "elite". It refers to treating the general populace with the privileges of elitism. The word suggests the society-of-text envisioned by theorists like Shoshana Zuboff and Jay David Bolter, a writing space in which traces of authority persist only as local and contingent effects, the social equivalent of the deconstructed author-function. A "populite" culture might mark the first step toward realization of Jean-Francois Lyotard's "game of perfect information" where all have equal access to the world of data, and where "[g]iven equal competence (no longer in the acquisition of knowledge, but in its production), what extra performativity depends on in the final analysis is 'imagination,' which allows one either to make a new move or change the rules of the game." This is the utopia of information-in-process, the ultimate wetware dream of the clerisy: discourse converted with 100 percent efficiency into capital, the mechanism of that magical process being nomology or rule-making—admittedly a rather specialized form of "imagination."


title: Gunnysacking

paragraphs: Gunnysacking is a metaphor, used in conflict resolution, which involves the act of "storing up" grievances acquired in the course of a relationship, rather than resolve them when they first occurred. The word is based on the idea of using a gunny sack (burlap bag) storing a number of items.

paragraphs: A typical example might occur in a marriage facing occasional difficulty. Partners may have small grievances or annoyances, which by themselves are not critical. However, over time one partner gets less happy and more annoyed. Then some incident occurs, and a full-blown argument follows. By analogy, this is the gunny sack bursting, with an 'overblown reaction'.

paragraphs: The term may also refer to bringing up past grievances when trying to resolve some present problem in a relationship. In which case, gunnysacking (as a tactic) has the dual effect of raising additional problems (in what is typically already a volatile, difficult situation) and presents a side-track obstacle to dealing with the current issues. Additionally, once the practice becomes a familiar pattern used by one person in a relationship, other persons may avoid reporting new issues or problems for the sake of avoiding a repeat of the gunnysacking behavior.


title: Conflict resolution

paragraphs: Conflict resolution is a set of ideas and ways to reduce sources of conflict. The term "conflict resolution" is sometimes used interchangeably with the term "dispute resolution". The terms "conflict" and "dispute" overlap. As a term, conflict is broader than dispute, more concerned with physical action, and less concerned with verbal arguments.

paragraphs: Processes of conflict resolution generally include negotiation, mediation, and diplomacy. The processes of arbitration, litigation, and formal complaint processes such as ombudsman processes, are usually described with the term dispute resolution, although some refer to them as "conflict resolution".

paragraphs: Conflict resolution as both a professional practice and academic field is highly sensitive to cultural background. In Western cultural contexts, such as Canada and the United States, successful conflict resolution usually involves fostering communication among disputants and problem solving that meet their underlying needs. In these situations, conflict resolvers often talk about finding the "win-win" solution, or mutually satisfying scenario, for everyone involved (see Fisher and Ury (1981), "Getting to Yes").

paragraphs: In many non-Western cultural contexts, such as Afghanistan, Vietnam, and China, it is also important to find "win-win" solutions; however, getting there can be very different. In these contexts, direct communication between disputants that explicitly addresses the issues at stake in the conflict can be perceived as very rude, making the conflict worse and delaying resolution. Rather, it can make sense to involve religious, tribal or community leaders, communicate difficult truths indirectly through a third party, and make suggestions through stories (see David Augsberger (1992), "Conflict Mediation Across Cultures"). Intercultural conflicts are often the most difficult to resolve because the expectations of the disputants can be very different, and there is much occasion for misunderstanding.

paragraphs: Conflict resolution has also been studied in non-humans, like dogs, cats, monkeys, snakes, elephants, and primates (see Frans de Waal, 2000). Aggression is more common among animal relatives and within a group, than between groups. Instead of creating a distance between the individuals, however, the primates were more intimate in the period after the aggressive incident. These intimacies consisted of grooming and various forms of body contact. Stress responses, like an increased heart rate, usually decrease after these reconciliatory signals. Different types of primates, as well as many other species who are living in groups, show different types of conciliatory behaviour. Resolving conflicts that threaten the interaction between individuals in a group is necessary for survival, hence has a strong evolutionary value. These findings contradicted previous existing theories about the general function of aggression, i.e. creating space between individuals (first proposed by Konrad Lorenz), which seems to be more the case in conflicts between groups than it is within groups.

paragraphs: In addition to research in primates, biologists are beginning to explore reconciliation in other animals. Up until recently, the literature dealing with reconciliation in non-primates have consisted of anecdotal observations and very little quantitative data. Although peaceful, post-conflict behavior had been documented going back to the 1960s, it was not until 1993 that Rowell made the first explicit mention of reconciliation in feral sheep. Reconciliation has since been documented in spotted hyenas, lions, dolphins, dwarf mongooses, domestic goats, and domestic dogs.

paragraphs: Conflict resolution is an expanding field of professional practice, both in the U.S. and around the world. The escalating costs of conflict have increased use of third parties who may serve as arbitrators, mediators, facilitators, and ombudsmen or conflict specialists to resolve conflicts. In fact, relief and development organizations have added peace-building specialists to their teams. Also, many of the major international NGOs have seen a growing need to hire practitioners trained in conflict analysis and resolution. Furthermore, this expansion of the field has resulted in the need for conflict resolution practitioners to work in a variety of settings such as in businesses, court systems, government agencies nonprofit organizations, government agencies and educational institutions serving throughout the world.

paragraphs: Universities worldwide offer programs of study pertaining to conflict research, analysis, and practice. The Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) houses the Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution, which offers undergraduate, graduate, and professional training on conflict resolution. Additional graduate programs are offered at Georgetown University, Eastern Mennonite University and Trinity College Dublin. George Mason University’s Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution offers undergraduate, certificate and masters programs in Conflict Analysis and Resolution and a Ph.D. program in The Philosophy in Conflict and Conflict Resolution.

paragraphs: Furthermore, the Pax Ludens Foundation based in the Netherlands is an organization that puts together conflict resolution simulations set in an International Relations scenario to help students learn about the intricacies of where conflict emerges in the world of international politics.

paragraphs: Conflict resolution is a growing area of interest in UK pedagogy, with teachers and students both encouraged to learn about mechanisms that lead to aggressive action, and those that lead to peaceful resolution.

paragraphs: In many schools in the UK, conflict resolution has now become an integral part of the SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) programme, chiming,as it does, with the SEAL principles of developing social skills and an understanding of ones own feelings.

paragraphs: In India, masters in conflict analysis and peace building is offered by Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace, in Jamia Millia Islamia university in New Delhi.


title: Bent Larsen

paragraphs: Jørgen Bent Larsen (4 March 1935–9 September 2010) was a Danish chess Grandmaster. He was a six-time Danish champion, and a candidate for the World Chess Championship on four occasions: 1965, 1968, 1971, and 1977. He won three Interzonal tournaments: Amsterdam 1964, Sousse 1967, and Biel 1976. Larsen won several dozen major international tournaments during his career, and was awarded the first Chess Oscar in 1967. At his best he was rated (FIDE rating list) fourth in the world.

paragraphs: Larsen was the strongest chess player born in Denmark, and the strongest Scandinavian until the emergence of Magnus Carlsen. From the early 1970s, he lived for part of the year in Las Palmas, and in Buenos Aires, with his Argentinian-born wife.

paragraphs: Bent represented Denmark six times in Chess Olympiads, always on first board, and compiled an aggregate score of 75/109 (+61 =28 −20), for 68.8%, according to olimpbase.org. He always played a very high number of games, almost all of the rounds, and won three board medals, one gold and two bronze.

paragraphs: The worst result of his career was his 6–0 defeat by Bobby Fischer in the semi-finals of the Candidates matches in 1971. The match was played in Denver, Colorado. Larsen later claimed in a Kasparov.com interview (1998) that his one-sided loss to Fischer was due in part to his condition during the match: "The organizers chose the wrong time for this match. I was languid with the heat and Fischer was better prepared for such exceptional circumstances... I saw chess pieces through a mist and, thus, my level of playing was not good". Fischer was the great player of the day, and went on to beat Spassky in 1972 for the World Championship.


title: Google Search

paragraphs: Google Search or Google Web Search is a web search engine owned by Google Inc. and is the most-used search engine on the World Wide Web. Google receives several hundred million queries each day through its various services.

paragraphs: The main purpose of Google Search is to hunt for text in webpages, as opposed to other data, such as with Google Image Search. Google search was originally developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1997, based on earlier search-engine designs.

paragraphs: Google Search provides at least 22 special features beyond the original word-search capability. These include synonyms, weather forecasts, time zones, stock quotes, maps, earthquake data, movie showtimes, airports, home listings, and sports results. ("see below:" Special features). There are special features for numbers, including ranges (70..73), prices, temperatures, money/unit conversions ("10.5 cm in inches"), calculations ( 3*4+sqrt(6)-pi/2 ), package tracking, patents, area codes, and language translation of displayed pages.

paragraphs: The order of search results (ghits for "Google hits") on Google's search-results pages is based, in part, on a priority rank called a "PageRank". Google Search provides many options for customized search ("see below:" Search options), using Boolean operators such as: exclusion ("-xx"), inclusion ("+xx"), alternatives ("xx OR yy"), and wildcard ("x * x").

paragraphs: Google's rise to success was in large part due to a patented algorithm called PageRank that helps rank web pages that match a given search string.

paragraphs: Previous keyword-based methods of ranking search results, used by many search engines that were once more popular than Google, would rank pages by how often the search terms occurred in the page, or how strongly associated the search terms were within each resulting page.

paragraphs: The PageRank algorithm instead analyses human-generated links, assuming that web pages linked from many important pages are themselves likely to be important. The algorithm computes a recursive score for pages, based on the weighted sum of the PageRanks of the pages linking to them. PageRank is thought to correlate well with human concepts of importance.

paragraphs: In addition to PageRank, Google over the years has added many other secret criteria for determining the ranking of pages on result lists, reported to be over 200 different indicators. The details are kept secret due to spammers and in order to maintain an advantage over Google's competitors.

paragraphs: The exact percentage of the total of web pages that Google indexes is not known, as it is very hard to actually calculate.

paragraphs: Google not only indexes and caches web pages but also takes "snapshots" of other file types, which include PDF, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Flash SWF, plain text files, and so on. Except in the case of text and SWF files, the cached version is a conversion to (X)HTML, allowing those without the corresponding viewer application to read the file.

paragraphs: Users can customize the search engine, by setting a default language, using the "SafeSearch" filtering technology and set the number of results shown on each page. Google has been criticized for placing long-term cookies on users' machines to store these preferences, a tactic which also enables them to track a user's search terms and retain the data for more than a year. For any query, up to the first 1000 results can be shown with a maximum of 100 displayed per page. The ability to specify the number of results is available only if "Instant Search" is not enabled. If "Instant Search" is enabled, only 10 results are displayed, regardless of this setting.

paragraphs: Despite its immense index, there is also a considerable amount of data available in online databases which are accessible by means of queries but not by links. This so-called invisible or deep Web is minimally covered by Google and other search engines. The deep Web contains library catalogs, official legislative documents of governments, phone books, and other content which is dynamically prepared to respond to a query.

paragraphs: Privacy in some countries forbids the showing of some links. For instance in Switzerland any individual can force Google Inc. to delete a link which contains their name.

paragraphs: Since Google is the most popular search engine, many webmasters have become eager to influence their website's Google rankings. An industry of consultants has arisen to help websites increase their rankings on Google and on other search engines. This field, called search engine optimization, attempts to discern patterns in search engine listings, and then develop a methodology for improving rankings to draw more searchers to their client's sites.

paragraphs: Search engine optimization encompasses both "on page" factors (like body copy, title elements, H1 heading elements and image alt attribute values) and Off Page Optimization factors (like anchor text and PageRank). The general idea is to affect Google's relevance algorithm by incorporating the keywords being targeted in various places "on page", in particular the title element and the body copy (note: the higher up in the page, presumably the better its keyword prominence and thus the ranking). Too many occurrences of the keyword, however, cause the page to look suspect to Google's spam checking algorithms.

paragraphs: Google has published guidelines for website owners who would like to raise their rankings when using legitimate optimization consultants.

paragraphs: Google search consists of a series of localized websites. The largest of those, the google.com site, is the top most-visited website in the world. Some of its features include a definition link for most searches including dictionary words, the number of results you got on your search, links to other searches (e.g. for words that Google believes to be misspelled, it provides a link to the search results using its proposed spelling), and many more.

paragraphs: Google's search engine normally accepts queries as a simple text, and breaks up the user's text into a sequence of search terms, which will usually be words that are to occur in the results, but one can also use Boolean operators, such as: quotations marks (") for a phrase, a prefix such as "+", "-" for qualified terms, or one of several advanced operators, such as "site:". The webpages of "Google Search Basics" describe each of these additional queries and options ("see below:" Search options).

paragraphs: Google's Advanced Search web form gives several additional fields which may be used to qualify searches by such criteria as date of first retrieval. All advanced queries transform to regular queries, usually with additional qualified terms.

paragraphs: Google applies query expansion to the submitted search query, transforming it into the query that will actually be used to retrieve results. As with page ranking, the exact details of the algorithm Google uses are deliberately obscure, but certainly the following transformations are among those that occur:

paragraphs: Google's homepage includes a button labeled "I'm Feeling Lucky". When a user clicks on the button the user will be taken directly to the first search result, bypassing the search engine results page. The thought is that if a user is "feeling lucky", the search engine will return the perfect match the first time without having to page through the search results. According to a study by Tom Chavez of "Rapt", this feature costs Google $110 million a year as 1% of all searches use this feature and bypass all advertising.

paragraphs: On October 30, 2009, for some users, the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button was removed from Google's main page, along with the regular search button. Both buttons were replaced with a field that reads, "This space intentionally left blank." This text faded out when the mouse was moved on the page, and normal search functionality is achieved by filling in the search field with the desired terms and pressing enter. A Google spokesperson explains, "This is just a test, and a way for us to gauge whether our users will like an even simpler search interface." Personalized Google homepages retained both buttons and their normal functions.

paragraphs: On May 21, 2010, the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man, the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button was replaced with a button reading the words "Insert Coin". After pressing the button, the user would begin a Google-themed game of Pac-Man in the area where the Google logo would normally be. Pressing the button a second time would begin a two-player version of the same game that includes Ms. Pacman for player 2. This version can be accessed at http://www.google.com/pacman as a permanent link to the page.

paragraphs: On 12 May 2009, Google announced that they would be parsing the hCard, hReview, and hProduct microformats and using them to populate search result pages with what they called "Rich Snippets".

paragraphs: Besides the main search-engine feature of searching for text, Google Search has more than 22 "special features" (activated by entering any of dozens of "trigger words") when searching:

paragraphs: The webpages maintained by the Google Help Center have text describing more than 15 various search options.

paragraphs: Some of the query options are as follows:

paragraphs: The page-display options (or query types) are:

paragraphs: Note that Google searches the HTML coding inside a webpage, not the screen appearance: the words displayed on a screen might not be listed in the same order in the HTML coding.

paragraphs: Some searches will give a 403 Forbidden error with the text

paragraphs: ... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.

paragraphs: We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.

paragraphs: We apologise for the inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again from all of the team here at Google."

paragraphs: The screen was first reported in 2005, and was a response to the heavy use of Google by search engine optimization companies to check on ranks of sites they were optimizing. The message is triggered by high volumes of requests from a single IP address. Google apparently uses the Google cookie as part of its determination of refusing service.

paragraphs: In June 2009, after the death of pop superstar Michael Jackson, this message appeared to many internet users who were searching Google for news stories related to the singer, and was assumed by Google to be a DDoS attack, although many queries were submitted by legitimate searchers.

paragraphs: Google flags search results with the message "This site may harm your computer" if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously. Google does this to protect users against visiting sites that could harm their computers. For approximately 40 minutes on January 31, 2009, "all" search results were mistakenly classified as malware and could therefore not be clicked; instead a warning message was displayed and the user was required to enter the requested URL manually. The bug was caused by human error. The URL of "/" (which expands to all URLs) was mistakenly added to the malware patterns file.

paragraphs: On certain occasions, the logo on Google's webpage will change to a special version, known as a "Google Doodle". Clicking on the Doodle links to a string of Google search results about the topic. The first was a reference to the Burning Man Festival in 1998, and others have been produced for the birthdays of notable people like Albert Einstein, historical events like the interlocking Lego block's 50th anniversary and holidays like Valentine's Day.

paragraphs: In August 2009, Google announced the rollout of a new search architecture, codenamed "Caffeine".

paragraphs: The new architecture was designed to return results faster and to better deal with rapidly updated information from services including Facebook and Twitter.

paragraphs: Google developers noted that most users would notice little immediate change, but invited developers to test the new search in its sandbox.

paragraphs: Differences noted for their impact upon search engine optimization included heavier keyword weighting and the importance of the domain's age.

paragraphs: The move was interpreted in some quarters as a response to Microsoft's recent release of an upgraded version of its own search service, renamed Bing.

paragraphs: Google announced completion of Caffeine on 8 June 2010, claiming 50% fresher results due to continuous updating of its index.

paragraphs: With Caffeine, Google moved its back-end indexing system away from MapReduce and onto BigTable, the company's distributed database platform. Caffeine is also based on Colossus, or GFS2, an overhaul of the GFS distributed file system.

paragraphs: In May 2010 Google rolled out SSL-encrypted web search. The encrypted search can be accessed at: https://encrypted.google.com

paragraphs: Google Instant, an enhancement that displays suggested results while the user types, was introduced in the United States starting on September 8, 2010. One concern is that people might select one of the suggested results instead of finishing their request, and that such a practice could cause bias toward familiar businesses or other search terms. Pornographic or otherwise offensive search terms are excluded from the suggested results. The instant feature appears only on the basic Google site and not specialized iGoogle pages. Google expects Google Instant to save users 2 to 5 seconds in every search, which they say will be collectively 11 million seconds per hour. Search engine marketing pundits speculated that Google Instant would have a great impact on local and paid search.

paragraphs: In concert with the Google Instant launch, Google disabled the ability of users to choose to see more than 10 search results per page. Instant Search can be disabled via Google's "preferences" menu, but autocomplete-style search suggestions now cannot be disabled. A Google representative stated, "It's in keeping with our vision of a unified Google search experience to make popular, useful features part of the default experience, rather than maintain different versions of Google. As Autocomplete quality has improved, we felt it was appropriate to have it always on for all of our users."

paragraphs: Google is available in many languages and has been localized for many countries.

paragraphs: The interface has also been made available in some languages for humorous purpose:

paragraphs: In addition to the main URL Google.com, Google Inc. owns 160 domain names for each of the countries/regions in which it has been localized. As Google is an American company, the main domain name can be considered as the U.S. one.

paragraphs: Some domain names unregistered by Google are currently squatted, such as "Google.ua" (for Ukraine, where the correct URL is "google.com.ua").

paragraphs: In addition to its tool for searching webpages, Google also provides services for searching images, Usenet newsgroups, news websites, videos, searching by locality, maps, and items for sale online. In 2006, Google has indexed over 25 billion web pages, 400 million queries per day, 1.3 billion images, and over one billion Usenet messages. It also caches much of the content that it indexes. Google operates other tools and services including Google News, Google Suggest, Google Product Search, Google Maps, Google Co-op, Google Earth, Google Docs, Picasa, Panoramio, YouTube, Google Translate, Google Blog Search and Google Desktop Search.

paragraphs: There are also products available from Google that are not directly search-related. Gmail, for example, is a webmail application, but still includes search features; Google Browser Sync does not offer any search facilities, although it aims to organize your browsing time.

paragraphs: Also Google starts many new beta products, like Google Social Search or Google Image Swirl.

paragraphs: In 2017 the USPTO issued Microsoft a patent describing a methodology that could serve as an alternative to Google's Instant Search.

paragraphs: Google claims that a search query requires altogether about 1 kJ or 0.0003 kW·h.


title: Fade (audio engineering)

paragraphs: In audio engineering, a fade is a gradual increase (fade-in) or decrease (fade-out) in the level of an audio signal. The term can also be used for film cinematography or theatre lighting, in much the same way (see: fade (filmmaking)).

paragraphs: A recorded song may be gradually reduced to silence at its end ("fade-out"), or may gradually increase from silence at the beginning ("fade-in"). For example, the songs "Bitter Sweet Symphony" by The Verve and "Turn to Stone" by Electric Light Orchestra fade in from the beginning, while the songs "Born to Be Wild" by Steppenwolf, "Boogie Oogie Oogie" by A Taste of Honey, and "Hey Jude" by The Beatles fade out. However, "Born to be Wild" and "Boogie Oogie Oogie" fade out in a matter of seconds, whereas "Hey Jude" takes over 2 minutes to completely fade out. "Goodbye Stranger" by Supertramp takes about a minute to fade out. Fading-out can serve as a recording solution for pieces of music that contain no obvious ending.

paragraphs: Though relatively rare, songs can fade out, then fade back in. Some examples of this are "Helter Skelter" by The Beatles, "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis Presley, "Thank You" by Led Zeppelin or "Undercover of the Night" by The Rolling Stones.

paragraphs: The term "fade" is also used in multi-speaker audio systems to describe the balancing of power between front and rear channels.

paragraphs: "Neptune", part of the orchestral suite, "The Planets", by Gustav Holst, was an early piece of music to have a fade-out ending. Holst stipulates that the women's choruses are "to be placed in an adjoining room, the door of which is to be left open until the last bar of the piece, when it is to be slowly and silently closed", and that the final bar (scored for choruses alone) is "to be repeated until the sound is lost in the distance". Although commonplace today, the effect bewitched audiences in the era before widespread recorded sound—after the initial 1918 run-through, Holst's daughter, Imogen (in addition to watching the charwomen dancing in the aisles during "Jupiter") remarked that the ending was "unforgettable, with its hidden chorus of women's voices growing fainter and fainter... until the imagination knew no difference between sound and silence".

paragraphs: The technique of ending a spoken or musical recording by fading out the sound goes back to the earliest days of recording. In the era of mechanical (pre-electrical) recording, this could only be achieved by either moving the sound source away from the recording horn, or by gradually reducing the volume at which the performers were singing, playing or speaking. With the advent of electrical recording, smooth and controllable fadeout effects could be easily achieved by simply reducing the input volume from the microphones using the fader on the mixing desk.

paragraphs: No single recording can be reliably identified as "the first" to use the technique. In 2003, on the (now-defunct) website "Stupid Question", John Ruch listed the following recordings as possible contenders:

paragraphs: A fader is any device used for fading, especially when it is a knob or button that "slides" along a track or slot. A knob which "rotates" is usually not considered a fader, although it is electrically and functionally equivalent. A fader can be either analogue, directly controlling the resistance or impedance to the source (e.g. a Potentiometer); or digital, numerically controlling a digital signal processor (DSP). Digital faders are also referred to as "virtual" faders, since they can be viewed on the screen of a digital audio workstation. Modern high-end digital mixers often have piezo-electric actuators attached to the faders such that they can be multi-use and will jump to the correct position for the selected function and/or saved setting.

paragraphs: A crossfader on a dj mixer essentially functions like two faders connected side-by-side, but in opposite directions. It allows a DJ to fade one source out while fading another source in at the same time. This is extremely useful when beatmatching two phonograph records or compact discs.

paragraphs: The technique of crossfading is also used in audio engineering as a mixing technique, particularly with instrumental solos. A mix engineer will often record two or more takes of a vocal or instrumental part and create a final version which is a composite of the best passages of these takes by crossfading between each track.

paragraphs: In the perfect case the crossfader would keep constant output level. However, there's no standard how this should be achieved. Many DJ equipment manufacturers offer different mixers for different purposes (e.g. scratching, beatmixing, cut mixing, etc.). High-end mixers often have crossfade curve switches allowing the DJ to select the type of crossfade necessary. Experienced DJs are also able to crossfade between tracks using the channel faders.

paragraphs: There are many software applications that feature virtual crossfaders. For instance, burning-software for the recording of audio-CDs.

paragraphs: On a mixer with auxiliary send mixes, the send mixes are configured pre-fader or post-fader.

paragraphs: If a send mix is configured pre-fader, then changes to the main channel strip fader does not affect the send mix. This is useful for stage monitor mixes where changes in the Front of House channel levels would distract the musicians.

paragraphs: If a send mix is configured post-fader, then the level sent to the send mix follows changes to the main channel strip fader. This is useful for reverberation and other signal processor effects.