AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
On January 9, 2001, iTunes 1.0 was released at Macworld San Francisco. Macintosh users immediately began to dig through iTunes’s resource fork where they discovered that there were so many other strings and other resources that indicated iTunes was a re-engineered SoundJam MP. Casady & Greene ceased distribution of SoundJam MP on June 1, 2001 at the request of the developers.
Shōnen
AAC is a file format for storing music or other sounds. It stands for Advanced Audio Coding or Advanced Audio Codec. It is used by Apple Inc. in the iPod and iTunes. AAC is one of the standard formats that comes from the MPEG organization, the same people who invented MP3.
There are several flavors of AAC. These are the most popular:
Here are some common AAC file name endings:
An AAC file that has only music and information could have a name that ends with either .m4a or .mp4.
A KDE/Qt application for Linux/Unix called easytag will edit metadata about AAC-encoded files as long as they end with the .m4a extension. Typically, renaming files to .m4a and back to the original extension after editing is sufficient. This method can be used to configure typical ID3v2 metadata including cover art. This cover art is used by Apple's iTunes and their media players. Note that easytag does not have the ability to add chapter points into Audiobooks (.m4b).
WMA is a file format for storing music. It was made by Microsoft. It stands for Windows Media Audio. It is used in Windows Media Player and many portable music players.
I am an amazing person who knows all about WMA but am not going to tell you anythingHidden
Hidden or The Hidden can refer to:
A regatta is a term used to describe either a boat race, or series of boat races.
Although the term typically describes racing events of unpowered watercraft, some powerboat race series are also called "regattas". Most commonly, a "regatta" is either a series of rowing, sailing or yacht racing.
Although "regattas" are typically amateur competitions, they are usually very highly organized, formally structured events, with complex rules precisely describing the schedule and procedures of the event.
A touchscreen is a computer screen that can be used by touching it with a finger or a stylus pen, instead of using a mouse and keyboard. It can be described as a touchpad with a screen built-in to it.
Today, all kinds of devices, both big and small, make use of touchscreens. However, tablet computers and smartphones have made them popular and are the most widely known and used products that use touchscreens.
In 1965, E.A Johnson of England’s Royal Radar Establishment, invented the first touchscreen that was used in the U.K for air traffic control up until around 1995. The first resistive touch screen was invented by G. Samuel Hurst in 1975, and produced in 1982. Back in 1970, Hurst and nine friends discovered that a touchscreen on a computer monitor made for an excellent method of interaction. Pressure on the cover sheet allowed voltage to flow between the X wires and the Y wires, which could be measured to indicate coordinates. This discovery helped found what we today refer to as resistive touch technology (because it responds purely to pressure rather than electrical conductivity, working with both a stylus and a finger).
Much later in 2005, three friends from France created a multi-touch screen capable of tracking any numbers of fingers. By 2005, their company named JazzMutant released the Lemur, a music controller with a multi-touch screen interface. This new technology helped influenced the TactaPad also made in 2005. Two years later, in January 2007, the iPhone was released, which was controlled entirely by a multi-touch screen. It, and the iPad which came out in September 2010, were very successful and would eventually lead to more companies adding touchscreens to their products. They included Samsung, Sony, Motorola, and many companies who adopted the touch-friendly Android operating system.
In response to the popularity of touchscreens, Microsoft, maker of the Windows family of operating systems for personal computers, would introduce a new interface in Windows 8 in 2011, which has large tiles that are meant to be easily usable with touch technology like those on tablets. It would come out the next year, along with the Microsoft Surface tablet.
Because of how easy they are to use, touchscreens can be found in many places. Along with general computing and consumer electronics devices such as smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and personal computers, touchscreens are also widely used on kiosks, which are used for information systems in cities and museums. They are also found on machines including Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs), cash registers and retail point-of-sale terminals, GPS navigation systems such as those in cars and other vehicles, medical equipment and industrial control panels. The touchscreen built into kiosks use simple point and click interaction. Interactive whiteboards, which can be found in many schools, also use a simple form of touch technology.
Different kinds of touchscreens work in different ways. There are two main technologies used for touchscreens:
Unlike resistive screens, capacitive screens don’t work if you touch them with a plastic stylus because the plastic acts as an insulator. Some stylus pens, such as the Apple Pencil for the iPad Pro, are made to work with capacitive screens. They are pressure sensitive and let you to do different things by pushing harder or more gently. For example, you can draw a wider or narrower line in programs like Microsoft OneNote and Adobe Photoshop.
My-HiME
My-Hime (舞-HiME, Mai-Hime) is an anime made by the Sunrise Inc. My-Otome is the parallel sequence to this story.
Mai Tokiha, the protagonist, is once of the Himes (Princesses) who are girls with power who fight against monsters and an evil organisation.
The Zodiac is the twelve constellations in the form of animals or humans.
The modern astrological signs are the simplified pictures of the signs used in the Hellenistic times. These are the twelve animals the signs represent:
A person's Zodiac sign is determined by at what time and on what day they are born.
In the Chinese Zodiac, years match twelve animals in turn.
Artemis Fowl is a series of books about a young criminal mastermind. The books were written by Irish author Eoin Colfer. The series currently has eight main books and two short stories. The first two books are have been made into graphic novels.
The two short stories are:
LEPrecon comes before Artemis Fowl, and is about one of the main characters, an elf called Holly Short. It tells how she moves to a unit in the fairy 'police' called LEPrecon (a word-play on leprechaun).
The Seventh Dwarf comes between Artemis Fowl and Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incident. The Seventh Dwarf is about when two of the characters are trying to steal a tiara. They do not originally know they are both trying. They meet, and end up helping each other.
As the books advance, more attention is given to the moral progressiveness of the main character, Artemis Fowl II. In the first book he is shown as the bad guy, but further on in the series he is shown as a goodie.
Lee Hazlewood
Barton Lee Hazlewood (July 9, 1929 – August 4, 2007) was an American country singer, songwriter and record producer. He was most famous for writing the song "These Boots Are Made For Walking" for Nancy Sinatra. He was born in Mannford, Oklahoma.
Hazlewood died of kidney cancer on August 4, 2007 in Henderson, Nevada at the age of 78.
Boundary may mean:
Decimal separator
The decimal separator is a symbol used to mark the border between the integral and the fractional parts of a decimal numeral. This symbol can be a period ("."), as is common in United States and other English-speaking countries, or a comma (","), as in continental Europe. Decimal point and decimal comma are also common names for the decimal separator. For example, 9.5 means nine and one half in English speaking countries, while in many European countries, the same number might be written as 9,5.
Moving Picture Experts Group
The Moving Picture Experts Group, or MPEG for short, is a group of people that figure out ways to put music and video onto computers. Then they publish this information for people to use.
MPEG invented a number of file formats for music and video.
MP3 and AAC, which are two of MPEG's music formats, are very popular. The MPEG-2 video format, used in DVDs, is also very popular.
Companies like Apple use MPEG formats in iTunes and the iPod. Many YouTube videos use the MPEG-4 format, which sometimes goes by the brand names DivX™ or Xvid.
Princess Iman bint Al Hussein
Clannad are a musical group from Gweedore, in County Donegal, which is in the north-west of Ireland. They are very famous for their haunting sound that has been used in many Hollywood movies. They have sold over 20 million albums all over the world and won a Grammy award in 1999. They are brothers and sisters Máire, Ciarán, and Pól Brennan and their uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan. Their younger sister Enya was once part of the group.
Their first language is Gaelic and many of their songs are sung in that language.
Nicole Vaidišová
Nicole Vaidišová (born 23 April 1989 in Nuremberg) is a Czech professional female tennis player.
She became a tennis professional in 2003, and debuted in several ITF tournaments. She measures at and weighs . She enjoys reading, watching movies, yoga, and bike riding. Her favorite city is New York City. She speaks German, English, Czech, and is learning French.
Tatiana Golovin
Tatiana Golovin (born 25 January 1988 in Moscow, Russia) is a professional female tennis player. She moved to Paris, France and earned French citizenship. She won the 2004 French Open mixed-doubles event with Richard Gasquet. She currently resides in Miami, Florida. She speaks English and French.
Home row
On a QWERTY keyboard, the letters "ASDFGHJKL" and the semicolon (;) are called the home row, or sometimes the home keys.
The home keys A, S, D, F, J, K, L and semicolon are where the fingers are placed, with both thumbs resting on the space bar. The pinkies (plural of pinky) go on the A and ; keys, the ring fingers (fingers closest to the pinkies) on S and L, middle fingers on D and K, and the index fingers (those closest to the thumb) on F and J. Some computers have little bumps on the F and J letters to help the user tell where the home keys are. When the fingers are placed on the home keys, almost every key should be reachable from that position.
Arzashkun
Arzashkun () was a capital city of the Kingdom of Urartu in the 9th century B.C. It is thought that the city was located north of Lake Van in what is now eastern Turkey. The city had two walls and towers. It was protected from attack, by a thick forest. An army could not easily travel through this forest.
The nation of Urartu was at the headwaters of the river Tigris in the 9th century B.C. Shalmaneser III, king of Assyria thought that Urartu was a danger to Assyria. He started an expedition to Urartu in 857. He said that he destroyed the capital, Arzashkun. He also claimed that he traveled as far as Lake Van and left his inscription on Mount Irritia.
It is believed that the name "Arzashkun" is the Assyrian form of an Armenian name.
Caucasus Mountains
Hayk
Hayk (Armenian:Հայկ, also known as Haik), in Armenian legend, was the founder of the Armenian nation. His story is found mostly in the 5th century historian Moses Khorenatsi's book "History of Armenia".
According to Moses Khorenatsi, Hayk is the son of Torgom (Togarmah), the son of Gomer, the son of Japheth. Hayk is also called the founder of the Haykazuni dynasty. According to the historian Juansher, Hayk "was prince of the seven brothers and stood in service to the giant Nimrod (Nebrovt') who first ruled the entire world as king."
Hayk is also the name of the constellation Orion in the Armenian Bible (Job 38:31)
According to Moses Khorenatsi, after Hayk the son of Torgom became father to Armeneak while living in Babylon, because the arrogant Titan Bel (who is Nimrod, according to Moses) has made himself king of the world, Hayk moves with his family and 300 others to the land of Ararat, and starts a village called "Haykashen". On the way, he leaves one area for his grandson, Cadmus. Bel sends one of his sons to give Hayk a message, saying that he must return to Babylon, but Hayk answers that he will not. Then Bel marches against him with a great army, but Cadmus warns Hayk that he is coming. Hayk gathers his own army on the shore of Lake Van and tells them they must either defeat Bel or die trying, so they will not become his slaves.
After that, he finds Bel's army on a mountain. Moses says this mountain is found at Dastakert. Bel himself is seen in front of his army. In the middle of the battle, Hayk kills Bel with a lucky arrow and Bel's army becomes confused and defeated.
According to other writers, this battle was fought at Dyutsaznamart around Julamerk, southeast of Lake Van, in the year 2501 BC. Hayk builds a castle called "Haykaberd" and the village of Haykashen. He names the country where the battle was fought "Hayk" after himself, and today the name of Armenia is called "Hayastan" and the Armenian people are called "Hay", in their language. Also, in the ancient writings of the Hittites, there was a country called Hayasa in the area.
Mol is a municipality in the Belgian province of Antwerp.
In 2007, 33060 people lived there.
It is at 51° 11 North, 05° 07 East.
Maya (software)
Autodesk Maya (), commonly shortened to Maya, is 3D computer graphics software that runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux, originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation (formerly Alias|Wavefront) and currently owned and developed by Autodesk, Inc. It is used to create interactive 3D applications, including video games, animated film, TV series, or visual effects. The product is named after the Sanskrit word "Maya" ( ""), the Hindu concept of illusion.
Gerry Adams
Gerard "Gerry" Adams () (born 6 October, 1948 in Belfast, Northern Ireland) is an Irish politician who was the president of Sinn Féin, a political party that wants Northern Ireland to join the Republic of Ireland. He was a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly in Belfast and was a member of the British Parliament for Belfast West. He does not go to Parliament because he does not believe that Britain should control Northern Ireland, this is called abstentionism.
Adams is a spokesman for the "Irish republican movement" or the "Provisional movement". This includes Sinn Féin and the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). The IRA is illegal in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, because it is called a terrorist group by both governments. Adams is thought to have persuaded the IRA to give up its "war" against the UK in return for devolved government for Northern Ireland.
From the late 1980s, Adams was an important figure in the Northern Ireland peace process, started when he met first the SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour Party’s) leader John Hume and later the Irish and British governments, and then other parties. In 1995 the IRA stopped fighting, and in 2005 the IRA said the war was over.
Adams retired from politics in February 2020.
Gerry Adams was born in West Belfast. He has 4 brothers and 5 sisters.
His parents, Gerry Adams Sr. and Annie Hannaway, came from strong republican backgrounds. Adams's grandfather, also named Gerry Adams, had been a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) during the Irish War of Independence. Two of Adams's uncles, Dominic and Patrick Adams, had been interned (jailed without a trial) by the governments in Belfast and Dublin. His uncle Dominic was a senior figure in the IRA of the mid-1940s, but not the chief of staff as some people say. Gerry Sr. joined the IRA when he was sixteen.
Adams's mother’s grandfather, Michael Hannaway, was a member of the Fenians during their dynamiting campaign in England in the 1860s and 1870s. Michael's son, Billy, was election agent for Éamon de Valera in 1918 in West Belfast but refused to follow de Valera into democratic and constitutional politics upon the formation of Fianna Fáil. Annie Hannaway was a member of Cumann na mBan, the women's branch of the IRA. Three of her brothers (Alfie, Liam, and Tommy) were also IRA members.
In the late 1960s, a civil rights campaign started in Northern Ireland, to get equal treatment for Roman Catholics Adams was an active supporter and joined the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in 1967. Instead of leading to change, the civil rights movement there were protests counter-demonstrators called Loyalists. In August 1969 there was rioting in Northern Ireland’s big cities of Belfast and Derry, and the Government of Northern Ireland asked for the British army to help keep control.
This is when the IRA and its political counterpart in Sinn Féin, restarted. Gerry Adams was active in Sinn Féin at this time. In 1970 the republican movement (that is the peaceful politicians and the fighters like the IRA who all want the United Kingdom not to control Northern Ireland) split. Adams aligned himself with the active "Provisional" part based in Belfast. The "Official" part based in Dublin was not interested in fighting for people in Belfast, and the "Official" Sinn Féin was more interested in spreading Marxism rather than making Ireland united.
In August 1971, internment without trial was introduced in Northern Ireland. Adams was arrested in March 1972 and interned HMS Maidstone, but was set free in June to take part in secret talks in London. There was a short-lived truce and some members of the IRA met with William Whitelaw the British government minister in charge of Northern Ireland. The IRA delegation included Sean Mac Stiofain (Chief of Staff), Daithi O'Conaill, Seamus Twomey, Ivor Bell, Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams. The IRA insisted Adams be included in the meeting and he was released from internment to participate. Following the failure of the talks, he helped to plan a bombing campaign in Belfast known as Bloody Friday. He was re-arrested in July 1973 and interned at Long Kesh internment camp, which was later called the Maze Prison. After attempting to escape he was sentenced to imprisonment, which was also served at the Maze.
During the Hunger Strikes of 1981, Adams played an important policy-making role. The hunger strikes saw Sinn Féin become more important as a political force. In 1983 he was elected president of Sinn Féin and became the first Sinn Féin MP elected to the British House of Commons since the 1950s. Following his election (as MP for Belfast West) the British government lifted a ban on him traveling to Britain. In line with Sinn Féin policy, he refused to sit in the House of Commons.
On 14 March 1984, Adams was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt when several Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) gunmen fired about twenty shots into the car in which he was travelling. After the shooting, undercover plain-clothes police officers seized three suspects who were later convicted and sentenced. One of the three was John Gregg. Adams claimed that the British army had prior knowledge of the attack and allowed it to go ahead.
Adams has often said that he has never been a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). However, several writers and journalists such as Ed Moloney, Richard English, Peter Taylor and Mark Urban have all said Adams was part of the IRA leadership during the 1970s. Adams has called Moloney's claims "libellous."
In 1978, Gerry Adams became joint-vice-president of Sinn Féin and he led a challenge to the Sinn Féin leadership of President Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and joint-Vice President Dáithí Ó Conaill. Others who supported Adams and were from Belfast included Jim Gibney, Tom Hartley, and Danny Morrison. Some say Ruairí Ó Brádaigh was a more traditional Irish nationalist and that the northern leadership which surrounded Adams wanted to act faster and in different ways if they had to.
The 1975 IRA-British truce is often viewed as the event that began the challenge to the original Provisional Sinn Féin leadership, which was said to be Southern-based and dominated by southerners like Ó Brádaigh and Ó Conaill. However, the Chief of Staff of the IRA at the time, Seamus Twomey, was a senior figure from Belfast. Others in the leadership also lived in the North, including Billy McKee from Belfast. Adams was supposed to have become the most senior figure in the IRA Northern Command because he wanted only military action, but during his time in prison, Adams came to thought about his ideas and became more political.
It is alleged that "provisional" republicanism was founded on its opposition to the communist-inspired "broad front" politics of the Cathal Goulding-led Official IRA, but this too is disputed.
Some of the main reasons that the Provisional IRA was founded in December 1969 and provisional Sinn Féin was founded in January 1970, was that people like Ó Brádaigh, O'Connell, and Billy McKee wanted new political bodies and did not want to work in or with the existing bodies such as the Parliament in London. Another was the failure of the Goulding leadership to defend nationalist areas against attacks by Loyalists and sometimes even the police. At the December 1969 IRA convention and the January 1970 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis (the Irish words for a party conference or convention) the delegates voted to participate in the Dublin (Leinster House), Belfast (Stormont) and London (Westminster) parliaments, the organizations split into Provisional and Official parts. Gerry Adams, who had joined the Republican Movement in the early 1960s, did not go with the Provisionals until later in 1970.
Republicans like Ruairí Ó Brádaigh said that the only legitimate country in Ireland was the Irish Republic declared in 1916. They said the legal government was the IRA Army Council because the last remaining anti-Anglo-Irish Treaty deputies of the Second Dáil made them the government. (Adams agreed to this idea of republican political legitimacy until quite recently - however in his 2005 speech to the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis he rejected it.)
When Sinn Féin any won seats in the British or Irish parliaments they never went to the parliaments. At its 1986 Ard Fheis, Sinn Féin changed its and constitution to allow its members to sit in the Dublin parliament (Leinster House/Dáil Éireann). This made Ruairí Ó Brádaigh lead a small walkout, just as he had done years earlier to create Provisional Sinn Féin. This minority which still believed in abstentionism, called themselves Republican Sinn Féin (or Sinn Féin Poblachtach in Irish), and says that they are the true Sinn Féin.
Adams' leadership of Sinn Féin was supported by a Northern-based group that included Danny Morrison and Martin McGuinness. Adams and others, over time, pointed to Sinn Féin election wins in the early and mid-1980s, when hunger strikers Bobby Sands and Kieran Doherty were elected to the British House of Commons and Dáil Éireann, and they pushed to get Sinn Féin to become more political and less paramilitary. This policy was a success and Adams and McGuinness, and others were elected to the House of Commons, but never attend. Sinn Féin still abstains from Westminster.
At this time most ordinary people in Britain knew about Adams because they could not hear him. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher banned radio and television stations from broadcasting his voice. All Irish republican organizations and loyalist terrorist organizations were banned like this, but Adams was the only person important enough to appear regularly on TV. This ban was imposed after the BBC interviewed Martin McGuinness. and the British Government thought that some groups were getting too much publicity.
A similar ban, known as Section 31, had been the law in the Republic of Ireland since the 1970s. However, media outlets soon found ways around the ban, first by the use of subtitles, and later and more commonly by using actors to read his words over the pictures of him speaking.
This ban was made fun of in cartoons and satirical TV shows, notably "Spitting Image", and in "The Day Today". It was also criticized by freedom of speech organizations worldwide and British media personalities, including BBC Director-General John Birt and BBC foreign editor John Simpson. The ban was lifted by Prime Minister John Major on 17 September 1994.
Sinn Féin continued its policy of refusing to sit in the Westminster parliament even after Adams won the Belfast West constituency. He lost his seat to Joe Hendron of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) in the 1992 general election. However, he easily regained it at the next election in May 1997.
Under Adams, Sinn Féin moved away from being a political voice of the Provisional IRA to becoming a professionally organized political party in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
SDLP leader John Hume MP realized that a negotiated settlement might be possible and began secret talks with Adams in 1988. These discussions led to unofficial contacts with the British Northern Ireland Office under the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Brooke, and with the government of the Republic under Charles Haughey – although both governments maintained in public that they would not negotiate with "terrorists".
These talks provided the basis for what was later to be the Belfast Agreement, as well as the Downing Street Declaration and the Joint Framework Document.
These negotiations led to the IRA ceasefire in August 1994. The new Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Albert Reynolds had played a key role in the Hume/Adams talks through his Special Advisor Martin Mansergh, thought the ceasefire as permanent. However, the IRA ended its ceasefire because of the slow pace of developments, partly because British prime minister John Major needed the votes of the Ulster Unionist Party in the House of Commons.
Later there was a new ceasefire, and there were talks between teams from the British and Irish governments, the Ulster Unionist Party, the SDLP, Sinn Féin and representatives of loyalist paramilitary organizations, under the chairmanship of former United States Senator Mitchell. The talks produced the Belfast Agreement (also called the "Good Friday Agreement" as it was signed on Good Friday, 1998). Under the agreement, structures were created to show that some people on the island of Ireland were Irish and others wanted to be British. A British-Irish Council and the Northern Ireland Assembly were set up.
Articles 2 and 3 of the Republic's constitution, "Bunreacht na hÉireann", which claimed sovereignty over all of Ireland, were reworded, and a power-sharing Executive Committee was provided for. As part of their deal Sinn Féin agreed to abandon its abstentionist policy regarding a "six-county parliament", and took its seats in the new Assembly based at Stormont Sinn Féin ran the and running the health and social services and the education ministries in the power-sharing government.
Opponents in Republican Sinn Féin accused Sinn Féin of "selling out" by agreeing to participate in what is called "partitionist assemblies" in the Republic and Northern Ireland. However Gerry Adams insisted that the Belfast Agreement provided a way to make Ireland united by non-violent and legal means, much as Michael Collins had said of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922
When Sinn Féin came to nominate its two ministers to the Executive Council, the party, like the SDLP and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) did not include its leader among its ministers. (When later the SDLP chose a new leader, it selected one of its ministers, Mark Durkan, who then opted to remain a minister.)
Adams remains the President of Sinn Féin, with Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin serving as Sinn Féin parliamentary leader in Dáil Éireann, and Martin McGuinness the party's chief negotiator and effective party head in the Northern Ireland Assembly. His son, Gearoid is a primary school teacher and has represented County Antrim in gaelic football.
On 8 March 2007 it was Adams was re-elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
On 26 March 2007, he met with DUP leader Ian Paisley face-to-face for the first time, and the two came to an agreement regarding the return of the power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland Assembly
The Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly was set up after the Belfast Agreement to allow the people of Northern Ireland to run their own government and pass some laws. The United Kingdom parliament can still abolish the assembly, because Northern Ireland is not an independent country, but a part of the United Kingdom. The assembly comes together in the city of Belfast. Speaker is Alex Maskey.
The assembly is elected using a form of proportional representation voting. The seats of each party after the 2017 election is shown in this table:
Northern Ireland Office
The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) was set up in 1971. It is a ministry in the British Government which looks after the affairs of Northern Ireland. It head is the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
The job of Secretary of State is less important now because the Northern Ireland Assembly and the ministers in the assembly do a lot of the work of the Northern Ireland Office.
The devolution of police and justice in April 2010 transferred many of the NIO's previous responsibilities to the Northern Ireland Assembly and its devolved government, the Northern Ireland Executive. The Department of Justice (Northern Ireland) looks after those matters. This transfer of power resulted in a smaller Northern Ireland Office, similar to the Scotland Office and Wales Office.
Cyprian
Saint Cyprian (Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus) was bishop of Carthage. he was an important early Christian writer. He was probably born at the beginning of the 3rd century in North Africa, perhaps at Carthage. At Carthage, he learned about classical (Paganism). After becoming a Christian, he became a bishop (249). he eventually died a martyr at Carthage.
Flag of Cyprus
The flag of Cyprus is the flag of the European country Cyprus. It features a map of the whole island, with two olive branches below the map (a symbol of peace) on a white background. The map on the flag is a copper-yellow color to show Cyprus has large amounts of copper. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus uses a different flag similar to the flag of Turkey.
Simon Barere
Simon Barere (September 1, 1896–April 2, 1951) was a Russian pianist. He was born in Odessa, Ukraine.
Barere died of a massive bleeding in brain during a performance of Grieg's Piano Concerto at Carnegie Hall with Philadelphia Orchestra.
Tomsk ( "Томск") is a Russian city, the administrative center of Tomsk Oblast. One of the largest cities in Siberia. Population 575 352 (2019).
Established under a decree from Tsar Boris Godunov in 1604.
In 1804, the government selected Tomsk to become the center for a new governorate which would include the modern cities of Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Altai, Krasnoyarsk and eastern Kazakhstan.
Tomsk State University is the first university in Siberia (founded in 1878, opened in 1888). The Tomsk State University Library book reserve is considered to be among the richest in Russia.
Tomsk Polytechnic University is the first (founded in 1896 and opened in 1900) technical university in Siberia.
Siberian Medical University is one of the oldest (founded in 1930) and highest rated medical schools in Russia.
Continental climate, transitional from subarctic to sharply continental climate.
The annual average temperature is 0.9 °C. Winters are severe and lengthy (from the end of October to the beginning of April), and the lowest recorded temperature was −55 °C in January 1931.
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the theory that that life, or the universe, cannot have arisen by chance and was designed and created by some intelligent entity. It believes that the universe is so complex that it must have been designed by a higher intelligent being. This theory is that life did not evolve by natural selection.
Intelligent design was developed by a group of American creationists to get around legal judgements like Edwards v. Aguillard, which said that creationism could not be taught in schools because of the First Amendment. The first use of the term in this form was in the creationist textbook "Of Pandas and People", published in 1989.
Intelligent design suggests that life is too complex to have evolved. Scientists have discovered that even a single cell is complex. The genes in a cell code have a huge amount of information. Therefore that information, like computer programming, has to come from an intelligent source and cannot be made randomly. This is thought to be because the properties of entropy say things cannot grow in complexity by randomness. Law professor Phillip E. Johnson was seen as the father of the intelligent design.
It is also argued that although an amino acid could be made randomly, a protein (a long, shaped string of amino acids) is such a precise sequence and structure that it would be impossible to make by chance. Also, a protein or DNA would not be alive by itself; so a whole life form would have to be made all at once. This argument can be seen as a way of saying that natural selection could not have created life. It is argued whether that is a valid point.
A common example of this is a bacterial flagellum, which is essentially a microscopic animal version of a very efficient electric motor. The flagellum has lots of separate parts. It is argued that for the flagellum to form by evolution, every single one of the parts would have to be formed together at just the right time. However, scientists say this is not correct. There is evidence that the flagellum developed through evolution.
A religious philosopher, William Paley, said that life is more complicated than a machine (like as a watch.) He said that just like a watch was made by a smart designer, so were animals. This is known as the watchmaker analogy.
Many parts of different animals are very similar. Intelligent design could show that a common creator used the same good design ideas for all of them. This could be evidence of evolution; but intelligent design suggests that every part of an animal is useful and there for a reason, showing how smart the designer was.
Evolution suggests that many parts of the same animal would not be useful or not good, because it happened by natural selection. In the past, it was believed that some parts of the human body have no biological function, but later it was proved that some actually do important things.
If animals and persons have similar parts because they came from a common ancestor, then the genes that code for these parts should be similar too. Sometimes this is true. But, other times similar structures are coded by entirely different genes, because of convergent evolution. These examples of this kind of different results in data can be used to claim that evolution is either wrong or right, causing arguments.
Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi
Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi (; born 25 November 1941) is a spiritual leader and founder of the spiritual movements "RAGS International" (now known as Messiah Foundation International) and "Anjuman Serfaroshan-e-Islam".
He is the author of many Urdu books on spirituality. The most popular of his books is "Deen-e-Ilahi" "The Religion of God" (2000) which has recently been republished by Hay House and translated into English, Arabic, Thai, Persian, Hindi and other languages by Messiah Foundation International.
RAGS International was renamed to Messiah Foundation International in 2000. MFI claims that Shahi is the Mehdi, Messiah, and Kalki Avatar.
Shahi was born on 25 November 1941, in the village of Dhok Gohar Shah in the district of Rawalpindi in British India. He is a fifth generation descendant of the Sufi Baba Gohar Ali Shah.
At the age of twenty, when he was the owner of F.Q. Steel Industries, Shahi began to search for spirituality. Eventually he became disillusioned in this search and returned to work. Shahi then married and had three children.
In 1975, he went to Sehwan Sharif for self-mortification. He spent a period of three years in the mountains of Sehwan Sharif and the forest of Laal Bagh in self-purification.
Shahi became popular as a Sufi preacher in Pakistan during the later 1970s. He formed "RAGS International" and "Anjuman Serfaroshan-e-Islam" in 1980. Of the two organisations, RAGS International is still active as Messiah Foundation International whereas Anjuman Serfaroshan-e-Islam was reported to have been dissolved and banned in Pakistan in 2011.
The CEO of Messiah Foundation International is Younus AlGohar. Shahi claimed to have met with Jesus Christ in 1997.
He and many of his followers have been convicted under Islamic blasphemy by an antiterrorist court in Sindh. After he fled to England, Shahi was convicted "in absentia", receiving sentences that totaled approximately 59 years.
Shahi was reported to have disappeared in London in 2001; afterwards, sightings of him were reported around the world of people claiming to have met and received spiritual guidance from him.
In February 2002, prior to any decision on appeals filed with the Sindh High Court, Ardeshir Cowasjee claimed in an article he wrote for "Dawn" newspaper, the Pakistani newspaper, that unnamed people who identified themselves to him as office-bearers of the All-Faith Spiritual Movement told him that Gohar Shahi died abroad, but this report was unconfirmed.
After Shahi's disappearance, his followers largely split into two organisations: the Messiah Foundation International and the Anjuman Serfaroshan-e-Islam. RAGS International was renamed to "Messiah Foundation International" shortly after Shahi's disappearance. Its current leader is Younus AlGohar.
Some sources report his death as of 2001, others as of 2003. According to the "Pakistani Press Foundation" Shahi died in 2001 An article from 2006 in the "Sunday Telegraph" reports that Shahi died in 2003, and a 2009 article in "Your Local Guardian" also says he was reported to have died in 2003. But none of these reports are confirmed as there is no physical proof of his body.
However, the Indian news agency PTI reported in 2008 that Shahi was based in the United Kingdom after being convicted of blasphemy by the Sindh High Court. This view is supported by the "Indian Express" which reported in 2008 that Shahi had fled to the United Kingdom and was presently based there. "Zee News" also supported this claim. The Hindustan Times has reported that he is "serving a life sentence".
The Messiah Foundation International claims that he merely disappeared.
Shahi's family, including his wife, five sons and a daughter, still resides in Kotri.
"Main page:" Messiah Foundation International
The teachings of Gohar Shahi have been a source of controversy. Some orthodox theological scholars say his teachings are blasphemous, while others, such as Hisham Kabbani and Sultan-al Awliya Shaykh Mawlana as-Sayyid Khwaja Muhammad Nazim Adil al-Haqqani al-Rabbani al-Qubrusi al-Firdausi an-Naqshbandi have praised him. Hisham Kabbani also sat at the feet of Gohar Shahi.
Classical singers such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Ghulam Farid Sabri have been presented the message of Shahi, which they have praised. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was quoted as saying "The message of Hazrat Riaz Gohar Shahi is the greatest message I have ever heard." In "Qawwali" events in Japan and Germany, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan personally distributed leaflets in favour of Shahi. Aziz Mian has also presented a "Qawwali" in praise of Shahi at a "Jashan-e-Shahi" event (which celebrates the day Shahi supposedly took the rank of Mehdi by Allah) event.
Shahi and his followers have made claims that are opposed by some mainstream Islamic theologians in Pakistan and abroad. Shahi was accused of claiming the status of a prophet but Shahi denied such accusations. His teachings have been condemned by Muslim religious leaders and the Pakistani government.
Shahi predicts that the world would end in the year 2026 due to a comet heading towards earth. He claims the comet will be the cause of "total destruction" though mentions that "in order to intimidate [mankind]...God plans destruction on a small scale".
Many attempts were made on the lives of Shahi and Younus AlGohar, including a petrol bomb thrown into AlGohar's residence in Manchester where Shahi stayed when he toured the United Kingdom. A man tried to attack him with a hand grenade during a discourse at his home in Kotri, Pakistan. A bounty was put on his head in Pakistan.
Shahi's books have been banned by the government of Pakistan, and his followers are not allowed to meet in public.
Gohar Shahi claimed to have met with Jesus in America. Shahi's supporters claim that his face became prominent on the moon, sun, nebula star and the Black Stone in Mecca, and that these appearances were signs from God that Gohar Shahi is the awaited Mehdi, Messiah, and Kalki Avatar.
The alleged images induced greater legal and religious opposition. Shahi has also supported this claim, saying that God had revealed the images of Shahi on the Moon and various locations, for which Shahi himself was not responsible, and if questions should be raised, they should be raised to God. Messiah Foundation International claims the alleged images to be signs from God, pointing to Shahi being the awaited Mehdi, and quote religious texts as well as sayings from the likes of Nostradamus, and Ja'far al-Sadiq to support it.
Journalists in Pakistan asked Shahi,
"Many believe that you are the Mehdi, and God has revealed signs unto them which say that you are the Mehdi, but you do not officially announce that you are the Mehdi. Why?" Shahi gestured towards himself and answered, "Does Imam Mehdi not know the law of Pakistan? He knows that the law of Pakistan declares that 'whosoever claims to be the Mehdi, put him in jail'. I have given the signs of his [Mehdi's] characteristics, which the Mehdi knows and none other. Now, it is up to people to recognize him and believe him".
On 18 November 1997, after appearing in court before Justice Rasheed A. Razvi of Sindh High Court Hyderabad Circuit, Shahi said, "The only justification to be Hazrat Imam Mehdi is the mark on [one's] back which can prove his existence."
Of the groups following Shahi, Messiah Foundation International claims that Shahi is the awaited Mehdi, Messiah, and Kalki Avatar while "Anjuman Serfaroshan-e-Islam" did not. According to MFI's website, Shahi is the Awaited Messiah, but they deny the notion that Shahi is another form of Jesus and claim that Jesus has also returned to support the Mehdi.
Gohar Shahi has authored a number of books, including one based on Sufi poetry known as "Taryāq-e-Qalb", roughly translating to the "'Cure of Hearts'". One of his most prominent books is "Deen-e-Ilahi" ("The Religion of God"), which is banned in Pakistan.
Works by Gohar Shahi include:
On May 17th, 2012, Messiah Foundation International republished "The Religion of God" with Hay House. As of July 1st, 2012, it was #5 on the publisher's Best Seller's List.
Messiah Foundation International considers Shahi to be the author of the "Goharian Philosophy of Divine Love", a set of principles upon which the organisation is founded. Shahi has also authored a monthly magazine, "Hatif-e-Mehdi", which is banned in Pakistan for allegedly containing material offensive to the religious feelings of Muslims there.
International Spiritual Movement Anjuman Serfaroshan-e-Islam
International Spiritual Movement Anjuman Serfroshan-e-Islam (ASI) () is a Pakistan-based organisation. It was made in 1980 by Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi. Its headquarters are in Kotri, Hyderabad, Sindh and Pakistan.
The purpose of this movement is to invite all man without any discrimination of caste, creed, nation or religion towards the divine love of God.
To serve this purpose, Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi visited places of worship of different types, including Mosques, Imam Bargahs, churches, Hindu temples, Sikh temples etc.
International Spiritual Movement Anjuman Serfroshan-e-Islam is divided into two branches one for men only and other is for women only. The ladies wing is led by Mrs. Gulzar. However, the president of men wing is Mr. Wasi Muhammad Qureshi, who was nominated by Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi as President of International Spiritual Movement Anjuman Serfroshan-e-Islam. Gohar Shahi himself is the Patrorn-in-Chief of International Spiritual Movement Anjuman Serfroshan-e-Islam.
In 1980, when Shahi formed the movement it had only five members, who are called founding members. Following are the names of the founding members of International Spiritual Movement Anjuman Serfaroshan-e-Islam:
Roman Curia
The Roman Curia ( Curia Romanae) is usually called "The Curia". It is the cabinet of Vatican City and the Roman Catholic Church.
Parts of The Curia look after the independent country of the Vatican. For example, The Curia includes the Vatican's courts.
Other parts of The Curia do jobs that are important for the Catholic Church. For example, the "Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity" is in charge of meeting other churches.
All of the parts of The Curia that are listed on the Vatican's website are explained in this table.
Apostolic Nunciature
An Apostolic Nunciature is the embassy of the Holy See in a foreign country. The nunciature protects the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church, not just the Vatican City, and also liases between the Holy See and the Roman Catholic Church in that country.
The head of nunciature is called a Nuncio. The nuncio is the equivalent of an Ambassador, or a High Commissioner in Commonwealth countries.
Some countries make the Nuncio "Dean of the Diplomatic Corps" (head of the group of ambassadors to its country). This is allowed by the international agreement about diplomats. Usually the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps is the longest serving ambassador in a country.
A pro-Nuncio was the name used for a Nuncio in countries which did not make a Nuncio Dean of the Diplomatic Corps automatically. The Vatican stopped using the title in 1991.
An Apostolic Delegate represented the Holy See to the church, but not the government, in another country.
Software development is the process of creating a computer software. It includes the software release life cycle of preparing a design, coding the program, and fixing the bugs. The final goal is software release of a product that serves the wishes of users.
Software product is usually a result of research, new development, prototyping, modification, reuse, re-engineering, maintenance, or any other activities.
There are 3 main goals of software development:
A software development process (model, methodology) is a system that is used to structure, plan, and control the process of developing information systems. Each model is defferent, more or less structured and is considered to be suitable to only some kinds of projects.
There are several stages of software development:
There are different sources of ideas for software products like market research. The next step is market evaluation. It includes a check of cost and time assumptions, economic feasibility, fit with existing channels distribution, effects on existing product lines, required features, fit with the company's marketing objectives.
This process is also connected with non-technical activities like human resources, risk management, intellectual property, budgeting, crisis management, etc.
An important task in creating a software program is understanding the requirements. The software engineers must accept the client's idea and adapt it to the working process.
After establishing the requirements, the engineers start creating a software design document. Design of the software means the high-level design of the main modules with a full picture of how the parts fit together. The language, operating system, and hardware components should be clear at this stage.
There are 3 next processes which are combined:
The deployment includes installation, customization, testing, and possibly a longer period of evaluation.
Software training and support are important because software is only effective if it is used rightly.
Maintaining and improving software is the stage to cope with new faults or requirements, it usually takes a lot of time and effort.
Gag (disambiguation)
Gag may mean:
Gag reflex
Gag reflex, also called "pharyngeal reflex", is a reflex contraction of the throat in humans that prevents anything to pass through the throat, except during normal swallowing. It is also named as "pharyngeal reflex".