AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
Balukas was entered in both the men's and women's divisions of the 1987 B.C. Classic, a nine-ball competition. After controversy, she competed only on the men's side. There, she beat Keith McCready 11 to 3. At that time McCready was the 17th-ranked male player by money list. Balukas finished the tournament by tying for 9th place.
In August 1987, at the B.C. Classic held at a Holiday Inn in Binghamton, New York, Balukas was scheduled to play in the men's and women's tournaments. After arriving, she found out that for the nighttime matches, she would be required to wear formal clothing. However, she did not have suitable clothing with her. The men's side had no similar dress code. Thus, Balukas did not buy clothes to follow the rule because she thought it was unfair.
The women held a vote on whether Balukas should be allowed to play. The vote resulted in Balukas being banned from the women's tournament. Some people said that the real reason other players voted her out was because they would have a better chance of winning the first place USD $5,000 prize if Balukas did not play. Balukas did not think so. Balukas did compete on the men's side, tying for ninth place.
Soon after the dress code issue was reported on, the president of the Women's Professional Billiard Association (WPBA), Belinda Bearden, sent a letter to "The New York Times". Bearden wrote that the facts were different than reported. The WPBA stated the dress code was decided by the women players for themselves. They made the rules to improve the image of women's pool and to attract a larger audience and more press to the sport. They said that Balukas was the only woman at the event who was not willing to follow the rule. They also explained that Balukas first left from the women's division. They said that she came back to play after the list of who would play who was already completed. Another vote on whether she could play went 8–7 in Balukas' favor. However, after they asked a player who was absent from the first vote, Balukas withdrew from the women's division of the competition.
In 1988, Balukas was playing another professional player named Robin Bell the Brunswick-sponsored World Open Nine-ball Championship. The tournament was held at Caesars Palace (a casino and hotel) in Las Vegas, Nevada and shown on television. Bell was Balukas's best friend on the women's tour. She had never beaten Balukas before. However, Bell had been playing very strongly in the tournament. The terms of the match were that the winner would be whoever won nine games first. In the game of nine ball, there is a way to win the game very quickly. The game is over and the first player wins if they put the 9 ball in a pocket when they take the first shot. Early in the match the score was 2 games to 3, with Bell winning. Then, Bell sank the 9 ball on the first shot two games in a row, so she won both games. That made the score 5 to 2 very quickly without having to play a complete game. Bell avoided having to match skill with Balukas on each turn.
All television match players wore small microphones so that their words and the sounds of play could be heard by the audience. Balukas quietly said to herself that Bell had gotten lucky. The microphone let others hear what Balukas said. The referee spoke to Balukas and told her not to continue talking about Bell. They continued playing. Balukas won the match with a final score of 9 to 5. According to an interview with Balukas by "New York Woman" magazine in 1991, Balukas's exact words were "Some world championship... beat me with skill, not luck". Despite Bell and Balukas's friendship, after the match Bell made a formal to the WPBA about the incident. The WPBA's board of directors fined Balukas $200 for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Balukas was angry about the fine. She did not pay it. She turned down offers by others to pay the fine for her. Balukas explained that "It wasn’t the $200... [Women] pool players, who were ranked three and six and five, were the ones who decided I should be fined. I felt it should have been done by an outside panel, not by my competitors". The sides were deadlocked. Balukas to pay and the WPBA refused to cancel the fine. They would not allow Balukas to play again until she paid. "Just because she was our premier player does not mean she was above the rules", said Vicki Paski in 1992, then president of the WPBA. Another professional named Loree Jon Jones was also interviewed. Her feelings were more mixed: "Her not playing is, I guess, sad", but she also said that without Balukas playing, "we've all learned how to win".
Balukas had faced other problems before she stopped competing. When she had tried to compete against men as the only woman she heard insults from some men. For example, one said "I’m gonna put on a dress and go play with the women". Balukas heard many complaints from the men upon her entry to a Chicago tournament in 1988. They said it was not fair that she got to play on both the men's and women's side, when the men could only play on their own side. She agreed not to play. However, after she traveled to the tournament she learned she had been tricked: "I found out that the first- and second-place winners in the women’s event were going to be invited to play in the men’s event. I was stabbed in the back".
Balukas also admits having been under great pressure, much of it that she placed on herself. After she reached the very top of her profession, "That's when I started getting nervous... that’s when I started putting a lot of pressure on myself". "Playing against the men, I learned to lose... but [losing] hurt with the women because I was expected to win all the time". Balukas later said that leaving the sport was a combination of many things, including: stress, fatigue, frustration, and anger at the professional pool industry. She said, "You know, you're going to fine me? Well, see you later. That was my excuse to finally say I need a break".
After leaving the sport, Balukas returned to Bay Ridge. She took over management of her family's pool hall, Hall of Fame Billiards on Ovington Avenue in Brooklyn. She says "I'm enjoying my life immensely... I have moved on". In summing up these events in a 1992 article, "The New York Times" stated, "So America's greatest woman pool player competes only for the odd soda. If you're feeling lucky, drop by her poolroom...If you're thirsty...go elsewhere".
In 1975, when she was fifteen years old, Balukas was already described as the "best female pool player in the world". Announcers had stopped calling Balukas "the Little Princess", but introduced her to audiences as "the Queen". By that time she had won the World Straight Pool Championship women's division eight of the last nine years. During those same years, she also won sixteen women's professional tournaments. She had been named the Billiard Congress of America Player of the Year five times. In 1985, Balukas became the second woman (after Dorothy Wise) to enter the BCA Hall of Fame. She was the youngest person ever to receive the honor, at just under 27 years of age. In 1999, Balukas was ranked number fifteen on "Billiard Digest's" Fifty Greatest Players of the Century.
New York State Route 308
New York State Route 308 (NY 308, Route 308) is a short road in Dutchess County, New York. The highway is long. It goes through mostly rural areas, and is usually used as a shortcut from U.S. Route 9 (US 9) to New York State Route 9G. The road passes several landmarks along its path. The road began its history in about 1685, when a group of Native Americans built the Sepasco Trail. This trail went from the Hudson River to Lake Sepasco, and followed the same path that currently exists as Route 308. The trail was there until 1802, when part of the Ulster and Delaware Turnpike was built over it. Route 308 was officially formed in 1930.
Part of NY 308 is in the Rhinebeck Village Historic District, which is a area that has 272 historical buildings. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. A well-known attraction is the Beekman Arms Inn, which is located at the corner of NY 308 and US 9. The inn was started in 1776, and says it is one of the oldest inns within the United States.
The road begins at US 9 in the village of Rhinebeck, which is above sea level. To the south of here is a park, a small lake, and a cemetery. At this point, the Dutchess County Fairgrounds are north of Route 308. The highway goes to the east, and is called East Market Street. It soon leaves Rhinebeck, while it runs next to a small creek sometimes known as the Landsman Kill.
The road intersects with County Route 101 and then turns to the north. It also intersects with Route 9G before it turns to the east into a rural area. In this area, Route 308 carries about 6,400 vehicles each day. There are many small lakes around the road as it intersects with County Route 52 and turns to the northeast. NY 308 then travels west of Sepasco Lake before turning east again. It ends at NY 199 in the town of Milan.
The earliest people that lived in northern Dutchess County were the Mohicans. They were a Native American nation that came to the area about 3,000 years ago. There were around 8,000 Mohicans during the time they first saw the Europeans. However, there were only 800 after the American Revolution. Artifacts were found along the shore of Lake Sepasco, which is a small lake near NY 308. The artifacts included very old arrowheads, and are now being shown at a local museum.
A smaller group of these Native Americans were known as the Sepasco Indians. This name was used for Native Americans in the Sepasco area, which is now known as Rhinebeck. The word "Sepasco" probably came from the tribe's word for "little river" or "stream", which is "sepuus". After the Civil War, only a few of the Sepasco were left. The last Sepasco Indian died in 1867 in a hut near Lake Sepasco. By 1685, a trail known as the Sepasco Trail was formed by the Sepasco people. This trail started at the Hudson River and went east through the village of Rhinebeck. It ended at Lake Sepasco. Part of the trail from Rhinebeck to Lake Sepasco follows about the same path that is today taken by Route 308.
The trail was there until 1802, when a turnpike, a type of road, was built over it "for improving and making a road from the west line of the Town of Salisbury in the State of Connecticut to the Susquehannah River at or near the Town of Jericho". The part of the new turnpike east of the Hudson River was sometimes known as the "Ulster and Salisbury Turnpike". A plaque was placed in November 1922 at the Beekman Arms Inn. The sign marked the crossing of the Kings Highway (now called US 9) and the Ulster and Salisbury Turnpike.
NY 308 itself was officially made during 1930. The path of the road was changed a bit in the 1960s.
Grand Central Terminal (GCT) — often called Grand Central Station or simply Grand Central — is a train station in New York City. Located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, it is the largest train station in the world by number of platforms.
The first station at this site was built in 1871 by the New York Central Railroad at a time when there were many long-distance passenger trains in the United States which most people took to move across the country. Back then it was called "Grand Central Depot". In 1913 the station was rebuilt and given its current name, "Grand Central Terminal", but today many people call it "Grand Central Station". In fact, "Grand Central Station" is the name of the nearby post office, and of a New York City Subway station underneath.
Grand Central Station covers an area of 48 acres and has 44 platforms on two levels, with 67 tracks along them. There are 41 tracks on the upper level and 26 tracks on the lower level. All of them are built underground at the end of a long tunnel under Park Avenue, where trains have to change from diesel to electric power using a third rail to avoid problems with exhaust. These platforms serve commuters traveling on the Metro-North Railroad to Westchester County, New York, Putnam County, New York, and Dutchess County, New York in New York State, and Fairfield County, Connecticut and New Haven County, Connecticut in the state of Connecticut. By December 2022, the Long Island Rail Road will be extended to a new station at Grand Central, below the existing platforms. Once this happens, Grand Central will have a total of 75 tracks and 48 platforms.
Samuel P. Taylor State Park
Pedernales, Dominican Republic
Pedernales is a Dominican city and the capital of the Pedernales province, in the southwest of the country close to the border with Haiti.
The name of "Pedernales" was given to the town when it was founded because that was the name of the river that now is the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
"Pedernales" or "silex" ("flint") is the name of a hard mineral that is common in the region.
Before the conquest of the island by European people, some native groups lived around the place where the city of Pedernales is now. But soon those groups disappeared and very few people came to live here because it is a very dry region.
When the French colony of "Saint-Domingue" (present Haiti) was created, the Pedernales river was the southern border between that colony and the Spanish colony of "Santo Domingo" (present Dominican Republic). During those colonial times, some soldiers came here for some time but almost nobody lived here for a long time.
In 1927, the Dominican government brought farmers from other places of the country and made a town for them; the new town was given the name of Pedernales and its first administrator was Sócrates Nolasco who later became a well-known writer.
The town became, in 1938, a municipal district (an administrative division of a municipality in the Dominican Republic) of Enriquillo, province of Barahona.
When the Pedernales province was created in 1957, the town of Pedernales became the capital of the new province.
The municipality had, in , a total population of 14,590: 7,473 men and 7,117 women. The urban population was of the total population.
The only rivers in the municipality, and in the province, are the Pedernales river and its tributary Mulito.
Sierra de Bahoruco ("Bahoruco mountain range") is in the northern half of the municipality; its highest mountain, and the highest mountain of the province, is "Loma del Toro", above sea level, in the limits with the Independencia province.
The municipality has a total area of and has only one municipal district (a subdivision of a municipality): José Francisco Peña Gómez.
The altitude of the city of Pedernales is above sea level.
The municipality of Pedernales has the Independencia Province to the north, the Barahona Province to the east, the municipality of Oviedo to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the south and Haiti to the west. The city is at about from the border with Haiti.
Pedernales has a subtropical steppe/low-latitude semi-arid hot climate (Köppen-Geiger classification: BSh).
The average amount of rainfall for the year in the city is . The month with the most precipitation on average is September with of rainfall, followed by October with .
Pedernales is in a hot region; the average temperature for the year is . The warmest month, on average, is August with an average temperature of . The coolest month on average is January, with an average temperature of .
The municipality of Pedernales has only one municipal district:
Because Pedernales is on the border, the trade with Haiti is important. But the main economic activity is farming, mainly on the mountains, where coffee and beans are important products. Potato, cabbage and other vegetables are produced in the Sierra de Bahoruco.
Tourism is becoming an important economic activity because there are several beautiful beaches with white sand, like "Cabo Rojo" and "Bahía de las Águilas". There are two of the largest national parks of the country: the "Jaragua National Park" and the "Sierra de Bahoruco National Park".
Mining of limestone to send to other countries and for a cement factory is another important economic activity in the municipality.
The Mahicans (also Mohicans) are a Native American tribe, who originally settled around the Hudson River. Many then moved to Massachusetts after 1780, before the remaining descendants moved to northeastern Wisconsin during the 1820s and 1830s.
The tribe's name for itself was Muhhekunneuw, or "People of the River."
Heaviside Function
The Heaviside function, often written as "H"(x), is a non-continuous function whose value is zero for a negative input and one for a positive input.
The function is used in the mathematics of control theory to represent a signal that switches on at a specified time, and which stays switched on indefinitely. It was named after the Englishman Oliver Heaviside.
The Heaviside function is the integral of the Dirac delta function: "H"′(x) = "δ"(x). This is sometimes written as
We can also define an alternative form of the Heaviside step function as a function of a discrete variable "n":
where "n" is an integer.
The discrete-time unit impulse is the first difference of the discrete-time step
This function is the cumulative summation of the Kronecker delta:
is the discrete unit impulse function.
Often an integral representation of the Heaviside step function is useful:
The value of the function at 0 can be defined as "H"(0) = 0, "H"(0) = ½ or "H"(0) = 1. In particular:
Yasushi Kita
Yasushi Kita (born 25 April 1978) is a Japanese football player. He plays for Gainare Tottori.
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Hiroki Kobayashi (born 24 May 1977) is a former Japanese football player.
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Tomohiko Ito
Tomohiko Ito (born 28 May 1978) is a Japanese football player. He plays for Shonan Bellmare.
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Descriptive statistics is a branch of statistics. Its aim is to summarize a set of statistical data. The data are usually taken by sampling a population. To picture the way the data are distributed, a histogram may be drawn. The data may be summarized by computing some characterising values, like the "center" of the dat, and the "spread". In some cases the different items of data will be grouped and the groups will be described, in some way.
Inference (statistics)
Statistical inference is the process of drawing conclusions from data that is subject to random variation. Examples would be observational errors or sampling variation.
For the most part, statistical inference makes statements about populations, using data drawn from the population of interest by some form of random sampling. The result is some kind of statistical proposition, such as:
Ânderson Lima
Ânderson Lima Veiga (born 18 March 1973) is a Brazilian football player.
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Silvio Spann
Silvio Spann (born 21 August 1981) is a Trinidad and Tobago football player. He plays for Wrexham and Trinidad and Tobago national team.
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Amir Karič
Amir Karič (born 31 December 1973) is a Slovenian football player. He plays for Koper.
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2007 United Kingdom floods
The 2007 floods in the United Kingdom were a series of major floods that happened in many places across the country during the summer of 2007.
In Gloucestershire, there was a flash flood from the River Severn and a lot of extreme rainfall. It is estimated that 23 people died and nearly all of Gloucestershire was trapped in their homes for the summer holidays. The water was around four foot deep, and it got into most people's homes. The repairs would have cost about 3 thousand pounds per home.
Anto Drobnjak
Anto Drobnjak (born 21 September 1968) is a former Yugoslavian football player. He has played for Yugoslavia national team.
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Ryuichi Sugiyama
Sugiyama was born in Shizuoka on July 4, 1941. After graduating from Meiji University, he joined Japan Soccer League club Mitsubishi Motors in 1966. The club won the champion in 1969 and 1973. The club also won 1971 and 1973 Emperor's Cup. He retired in 1973. In his 8 seasons, he played all matches except 1 game in 1970 season and he was selected Best Eleven in all seasons. He was also selected "Japanese Footballer of the Year" 3 times (1964, 1969 and 1973).
On May 28, 1961, during Rōnin for university, Sugiyama debuted for the Japan national team against Malaya. He played at 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. At 1964 Summer Olympics, he played 3 games and scored 2 goals against Argentina and Ghana. At 1968 Summer Olympics, he played 6 matches and assisted 5 goals and Japan won bronze medal. In 2018, 1968 Olympics team was selected Japan Football Hall of Fame. He also played at 1962, 1966 and 1970 Asian Games. At 1972 Summer Olympics qualification in 1971, Japan's failure to qualify for 1972 Summer Olympics. This qualification was his last game for Japan. He played 56 games and scored 15 goals for Japan until 1971.
After retirement, Sugiyama became a manager for Yamaha Motors in 1974. He led the club to the Japan Soccer League Division 1. He is their longest-serving manager, having led the club from 1974 to 1987.
In 2005, Sugiyama was selected Japan Football Hall of Fame.
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Gallup's List of Widely Admired People
There is a rise in average IQ scores since the beginning of measurements. It is called the Flynn effect. The rise in most industrialized countries where IQ testing has long been commonplace is about three IQ points per decade. James R. Flynn described this phenomenon in 1984.
Others supported the claims. They found the rise was mostly due to the test scores of those who scored an IQ below 100. The number of those who were classified as "mentally handicapped" reduced from year to year. In contrast, the scores of those who got more than 100 did not seem to be affected.
IQ tests are re-normalized every so often to hold the average score for an age group at 100. This gave a first hint to Flynn that the IQ was changing over time. The revised versions are standardized on new samples and scored with respect to those samples only. The only way to compare the difficulty of two versions is to have a group of people take both tests. This confirms IQ gains over time.
The average rate of rise seems to be around three IQ points per decade. Today, children go to school for a longer time. They have also become more familiar with testing. It might therefore be expected that the biggest gains occur with school-related content, such as vocabulary, arithmetic or general information. Just the opposite is the case: abilities such as these have had small gains and occasional declines over the years. The largest changes appear on general intelligence factor loaded (g-loaded) tests such as Raven's Progressive Matrices, instead. For example, Dutch soldiers gained 21 points in only 30 years, or 7 points per decade, between 1952 and 1982.
Some studies focused on the distribution of scores have found that the Flynn effect mainly occurs with lower scores. However, Raven (2000) found that a lot of data must be re-interpreted with respect to the date of birth. Previously, this data had been interpreted to show that many abilities decrease when people get older. This data must now be interpreted to show that many abilities had in fact increased dramatically, as Flynn predicted. On many tests this occurs at all levels of ability. Two large samples of Spanish children were assessed with a 30-year gap. Comparison of the IQ distributions indicated that
Some scientists believe these changes are very big. One of them is Ulric Neisser. In 1995 he was the head of a task force of the American Psychological Association, charged with writing a statement on where intelligence research was. He estimates that if American children of 1932 could take an IQ test normed in 1997 their average IQ would have been only about 80. In other words, half of the children in 1932 would be classified as having borderline mental retardation or worse in 1997. Looking at Ravens, Neisser estimates that if you extrapolate beyond the data, which shows a 21 point gain between 1952 and 1982, an even larger gain of 35 IQ points can be argued. Arthur Jensen warns that extrapolating beyond the data leads to results such as an IQ of minus 1000 for Aristotle (even assuming he would have scored 200 in his day).
Most of the time, the effect is associated with IQ rises. A similar effect has been found with increases in semantic and episodic memory.
William Franklin Graham, Jr. (November 7, 1918 – February 21, 2018), better known as Billy Graham, was an American Evangelical Christian minister and evangelist. He was a member of the Southern Baptist Convention. Graham is widely recognized as the one of the most important and most influential preachers of the twentieth century. He was a spiritual advisor to several U.S. presidents. Graham preached in person to more people than anyone else who has ever lived. Until 2002, Graham's lifetime audience with radio and television broadcast was more than two billion people. Graham met every United States President since Harry S. Truman. He received many honors including the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Graham was born on a dairy farm near Charlotte, North Carolina. His mother and father Morrow Coffey and William Franklin Graham managed the farm. They were devout Christians and Graham's mother had a big influence on his faith. In 1933 Graham's father forced Graham and his sister Catherine to drink beer until they vomited. This made them hate alcohol for the rest of their lives. The Billy Graham Center says Graham was converted in 1934 during a revival meeting in Charlotte led by local evangelist Mordecai Ham. However, he did not become a member of a local youth group because he was "too worldly". After graduating from Sharon High School in May 1936 Graham went to Bob Jones College (now called Bob Jones University).
In his first year of college, he found both the schoolwork and rules too hard. As a result, he almost had to leave school, but Bob Jones, Sr., the founder of the college, said that in doing that, he would throw his life away. He told Graham, "At best, all you could amount to would be a poor country Baptist preacher somewhere out in the sticks... You have a voice that pulls. God can use that voice of yours. He can use it mightily."
While he was at college, Graham would often take a canoe to a little island in the river. On that island he would preach to the birds, alligators, and cypress stumps. In 1937, Graham transferred to the Florida Bible Institute (now Trinity College of Florida) where the Florida College in Temple Terrace, Florida now stands. Graham later transferred to Wheaton College and in 1943, graduated from Wheaton in Illinois with a degree in anthropology. While he was at Wheaton College, Graham decided to take the Bible as the perfect Word of God. He accepted this as truth at the Forest Home Christian camp (now called "Forest Home Ministries"), southeast of the Big Bear area in Southern California. A memorial is there showing where Graham first made this choice.
In 1946, Graham married a girl who was in a class with him, Ruth Bell. Her parents were Presbyterian missionaries in China. Her father, L. Nelson Bell, worked as a surgeon there. When talking about Bell, Graham said "She looked at me and our eyes met and I felt that she was definitely the woman I wanted to marry." Ruth said that he wanted to please God more than any man she had ever met. They married two months after they graduated from college. After marriage, they lived in a log cabin that she had made. Ruth died on June 14, 2007, at age 87. They had five children together: Virginia (Gigi) Graham Foreman; Anne Graham Lotz; Ruth Dienert; Franklin Graham, and Ned Graham. They also have 19 grandchildren and 28 great-grandchildren.
Graham became a Southern Baptist minister in 1939. Then he took over and organized financing of the radio program "Songs in the Night". Afterwards, he made the baritone, George Beverly Shea director of music in his ministry. The program went well, but Graham left it in 1945. He wished to be a chaplain in the armed forces, but after trying to get in, he came down with mumps, so he had to not enlist. After some time, he recovered in Florida. Then he started Youth for Christ with evangelist Charles Templeton. He traveled all through the United States and Europe as an evangelist.
Graham held many revival meetings in Los Angeles in 1949. These revivals are thought to be the time when Graham became a national religious figure. This is because he got help from the powerful newspaper man William Randolph Hearst. Many people believe that Hearst liked Graham for his love of his country. It is also believed that he may have thought that Graham could help with his conservative, anti-communist views. Hearst sent a telegram to his newspaper editors reading "Puff Graham" during Graham's late 1949 Los Angeles crusade. Therefore, one could read much more about Graham now in Hearst's newspaper chain and national magazines. That meant that his crusade event could run for eight full weeks — five weeks longer than planned. Henry Luce put Graham on the cover of "Time magazine" in 1954.
Graham had missions in both London and the Madison Square Garden in 1957. The London mission lasted 12 weeks and the New York mission was about 16 weeks. He also led his first crusade in Australia in 1959.
Graham was the president of Northwestern College in Minnesota from 1948 to 1952. He began many organizations, such as the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He also spoke against racial segregation during the 1960s. Graham did not want to speak to segregated auditoriums. He even once tore down ropes that had been put up to split the audience. Graham paid bail money to get Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. out of jail. That was during the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He asked King to join him in the pulpit at the revival meeting at New York City in 1957. During that 16-week tour, he was heard by many people, who came to hear him at Madison Square Garden, Yankee Stadium and the Times Square. Because they became good friends, Graham was one of the few white people King let call him by his birth name "Michael".
During the Cold War, Graham was the first evangelist to speak behind the Iron Curtain. During the Apartheid times, Graham would not go to South Africa until the government let all people sit together. He finally preached his first crusade there in 1973, during which he taught that apartheid was not right.
Graham went to China, where his wife Ruth was born. He also appeared in North Korea in 1992. On September 14, 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks, Graham led prayer at the Washington National Cathedral. President George W. Bush went to this service. On June 24, 2005, he began what he said would be his last North American crusade. On the weekend of March 11 and March 12, 2006 Graham held the "Festival of Hope". It was held in New Orleans, which was recovering from Hurricane Katrina.
Graham said that he had to retire because of his failing health. He had had Parkinson's disease for about 15 years, as well as many other problems. In August 2005, though weak, he used a walker to go to at the start of his library in Charlotte, North Carolina. On August 18, 2007, Graham, aged 88, was treated for intestinal bleeding.
Graham preached Christianity to nearly 215 million people in more than 185 countries and territories. He also preached to hundreds of millions more through television, videos, movie, and webcasts. He went to over 41 evangelistic crusades. He began this ministry in 1947, and kept doing it until recently. He would often use a big area, such as a stadium, park, or a large street to speak at. Groups of up to 5,000 people would often sing in choir at his meetings. Graham would preach the gospel and then invite people to come forward. In 1992, one-quarter of the 155,000 in his Moscow audience came for salvation upon his request.
Graham died on February 21, 2018, at his home in Montreat, North Carolina, at the age of 99, just 259 days shy of his 100th birthday.
In politics, Graham was a member of the Democratic Party, but changed to Republican during the presidency of his friend Richard Nixon. Though he did not support people running on politics in general, he gave his support in some cases over the years.
Graham met every United States President since Harry Truman. He became close friends with Vice-President Richard Nixon while on a golf course. Dwight D. Eisenhower asked to see Graham while on his deathbed. Graham also worked with Lyndon B. Johnson, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, the Bush family, and Barack Obama when he visited Rev. Graham at his home in Montreat, North Carolina where they “had a private prayer.”
Graham played golf with John F. Kennedy, even though Kennedy was a Roman Catholic. Graham spent the last night of Johnson's presidency in the White House. He was also there for the first night of Nixon's. Nixon appeared at one of Graham's revivals in East Tennessee in 1970. It had one of the biggest crowds ever to gather in Tennessee. However, their friendship got weaker because Graham did not approve of Nixon's post-Watergate behavior. They became better friends again. Graham said at that time, "I'm out of politics."
When Graham went to the hospital in 1976, three Presidents called in one day to wish him well: former President Nixon, President Ford, and President-Elect Carter. He was at the start of Reagan's presidency, and gave the speech at George H.W. Bush's presidency. Bill Clinton went to one of Graham's New York revivals in 2005. He also said that he had gone to Graham's revival as a boy in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1959.
Graham spoke at many funerals over the years, but he was unable to do Reagan's on June 11, 2004, because of recent hip surgery. Graham had been Reagan's first choice. Bad health also kept Graham from doing the funeral of President Gerald R. Ford in Washington D.C., on January 2, 2007.
Graham spoke against communism. He was in favor of the U.S. Cold War policy, including the Vietnam War. However, in a 1999 speech, he talked about his relationship with the late North Korean dictator Kim Il-Sung. He said that he was a "different kind of communist" and "one of the great fighters for freedom in his country against the Japanese." Graham went on to say that even though he had never met Kim's son and former North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, he had "exchanged gifts with him." Graham gave a globe covered with doves to the "North Korean Friendship Museum".
In 1994, the people read in the diaries of H. R. Haldeman that Graham had talked with President Nixon about "Jewish domination of the media". (H. R. Haldeman worked with Richard Nixon at the White House). Because what Haldeman had written was different from things that Graham usually said in public, most Jewish groups did not really believe it. Graham released a statement that he never spoke "publicly or privately about the Jewish people, including conversations with President Nixon, except in the most positive terms." He said, "Those are not my words." In 2002, however, "Richard Nixon tapes" showed that Graham had talked about it, in the 1970s. This was like Haldeman had written. On the tapes, Graham agreed with Nixon that Jews had control over the American media. He called it a "stranglehold" in 1972. Graham said "This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country's going down the drain." When the videotapes were released, Graham said he was sorry for his remarks, saying, "although I have no memory of the occasion, I deeply regret comments I apparently made ... They do not reflect my views, and I sincerely apologize for any offense caused by the remarks." He also said that "If it wasn't on tape, I would not have believed it. I guess I was trying to please... I went to a meeting with Jewish leaders and I told them I would crawl to them to ask their forgiveness."
In 1970, Graham said feminism was part of a society with fewer rules and that women did not want to compete with men. He also said that a women should be a wife, mother, and homemaker. This idea of the role of women was published in the "Ladies' Home Journal". Many people sent letters of protest. The magazine added a section called "The New Feminism" after a sit-in protest at the "Journal".
Graham was never alone with any woman except his wife. This was called the Billy Graham rule.
Billy's daughter Bunny said that her father did not allow her and her sisters higher education.
Between 1950 and 1990, Graham appeared many times on "Gallup's list of most admired people". The United States Postal Service has said that he is one of the few Americans, along with the current President, who can get mail that simply says his name and country: "Billy Graham, America". He received the "Congressional Gold Medal" from the United States Congress and the "Presidential Medal of Freedom" from Reagan, America's highest civilian honors. President Bill Clinton and former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole gave Graham the "Congressional Gold Medal" at a ceremony in Washington D.C., in 1996. The George Washington Carver Memorial Institute has honoured his work to help make better relationships between people of different races.
In 1971, Graham's hometown of "Charlotte" held a "Billy Graham Day", to which President Richard Nixon came. On May 30, 1999, Graham was invited to speak right before the Indianapolis 500. On May 31, 2007, the $27 million "Billy Graham Library" was officially started in Charlotte. Former Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton came. In 1990, the band "The Swirling Eddies" gave homage to Graham with its song "Billy Graham" on the album "Outdoor Elvis".
Graham got the "Big Brother of the Year Award" for his work on behalf of children. He also got the "Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion" and the "Sylvanus Thayer Award" for his commitment to "Duty, Honor, and Country." The "Billy Graham Children's Health Center" in Asheville is named after him. There is a special chair named after him at the Southern Baptist Samford University; the "Billy Graham Chair of Evangelism and Church Growth."
Daubechies wavelet
Daubechies wavelets are a family of orthogonal wavelets named after Belgian physicist and mathematician Ingrid Daubechies. They are used in discrete wavelet transform.
Scale function coefficients (low pass filter in orthogonal filter banks) must satisfy following conditions (formula_1 is length of filter).
which implies
There is more than one solution (except case of formula_12). However, it is necessary to distinguish between low pass and high pass filter.
Wavelets are denoted like D"x", where "x" is either number of coefficients (formula_1) or number of vanishing moments (formula_14). First case of notation (number of coefficients) is more recent and more frequented (e.g. D8 is wavelet with 8 coefficients).
MATLAB code for enumeration of wavelet with 4 coefficients (denoted as D4).
Solutions (low pass filters only):
Straight pool, also called 14.1 continuous or simply 14.1, is a pocket billiards (pool) game. It was the common sport of championship competition until faster-playing games like nine-ball and to a lesser extent eight-ball became more popular. This is the game from the history of pool.
The game was especially popular in the United States, and was the subject of the classic 1961 film "The Hustler".
In straight pool, the person shooting may attempt to pocket any ball on the table. The aim of the game is to reach a set number of points. The amount of points needed to win is agreed to before the game. One point is scored for each ball pocketed legally (that is, without a foul). A typical game might require a player to score 100 points. This means that at least 100 balls must be pocketed to win. In professional competition, straight pool is usually played to 150 points. Straight pool is a call-pocket game. This means that the player must call what pocket they mean to sink the ball into on every shot. It does not matter how balls reach the pocket (Hole) . As long as no foul is involved, and the balls goes into the pocket that is called, a point is scored.
Straight pool is well known in the United States, Europe, Japan and the Philippines, but the game has become more elsewhere. Probably the all-time greatest player (by professional statistics), WillieMosconi, holds the game's record high run. Here is what he said:
In the first rack in straight pool (when you place all the balls together before the break), the fifteen object balls (the colored balls) are racked in a triangular frame, usually made from aluminum, wood, or plastic. The center of the ball at the top of the rack is placed over the a spot on the table called the foot spot. Traditionally, the 1 ball is placed at the rack's right corner, and the 5 ball is placed at the rack's left corner. Other balls are placed randomly. All the balls must touch their neighbors. However, it is considered a courtesy by some players to place a striped ball at the front of the rack. This is because the break is very important and it is believed that a striped ball is easier to hit very precisely.
In most pool games, pocketing a ball and spreading the balls is the aim on the break. Straight pool is different. In it, the goal on the first break shot is to leave the opponent with a "safety". A safety means a situation where they opponent has no good shot. The reason for this is because the call-pocket rule—the rule discussed earlier requiring the player to call the ball they intend to pocket—"includes" the break shot. For that reason, if you break the balls hard, and even if you pocket many balls, you will not be able to go again unless you called one of those balls in a pocket and it goes into that pocket.
To perform a legal break, either a ball must be pocketed in a called pocket or the cue ball and at least two additional colored balls must touch rails. If you do not succeed at one of these two options, the shot is a foul. A foul on the first break results in a special penalty of a loss of 2 points. In addition, the opponent has the choice of either accepting the table as it was left, or of having the balls re-racked and requiring the person who fouled on the break to repeat it.
All other fouls during the game have a penalty of a one point deduction. This includes fouling on an "intragame" rack (a rack after the first rack, which are discussed later). However, a third foul "in a row" at any time in a straight pool game results in a loss of 15 points. When applying this rule, a foul on the initial break, though it is a loss of two points, is not counted as two fouls. The 15 point deduction is in addition to the one point loss for each foul. Thus, the first two fouls are a loss of one point each, and the third foul in a row is a loss of 16 points: 1 point for the foul, and 15 points for it being the third foul in a row.
"Intragame racks" refers to all racks after the first rack. As noted previously, straight pool is played to a specific number of points, normally far more than the 15 total points that can be made in the first rack. For this reason, multiple intragame racks are necessary. Intragame racking employs a separate set of rules from those in place at the game's start on the first rack.
To reach the point in time when an intragame rack is needed, the balls are played until only the cue ball and only one object ball remain on the table's surface. At that time, if neither the cue ball or the fifteenth object ball remains in the rack area (or is interfering with racking in the rack area) the fourteen pocketed object balls are racked with no ball placed at the top of the rack, and the rack is placed so that "if the top ball were in the rack", its center would be placed over the table's foot spot. Play then continues with the cue ball shot from where it rested, and the fifteenth, non-racked object ball from where it rested prior to racking.
The name "14.1 continuous" is named after this racking method. That is, that fourteen (14) racked object balls and one (.1) separate colored ball are left at the end of each intragame rack. The shooter will then normally try to pocket the unracked fifteenth colored ball, and at the same time have the cue ball smash into the fourteen racked balls, spreading them so that later shots are available, and the player continue at the table.
A number of rules detail what must be done when one or both of the cue ball and fifteenth object ball are either in the rack area at the time an intragame rack is neeeded, or are so close to the intragame racking area, that the racking of the 14 balls cannot be done without moving one of them. The rules also vary depending on whether the cue ball or fifteenth object ball are resting on the table's head spot. These rules are shown on the following chart. Note that in the chart the use of the word kitchen refers to the area behind the table's head string.
General intelligence factor
The general intelligence factor, often shortened to g, is a construct from psychology. It is the common factor in intelligence tests. It is the result of measuring intelligence in different ways.
Charles Spearman, an early statistician and psychologist, found that school children's grades across unrelated subjects were strongly related to each other. That is to say, children who were good at one area (such as reading) were also good in another area (such as math). He then proposed that these relationships reflected the influence of a dominant factor, which he called "g" for "general" intelligence. He developed a model where all variation in intelligence test scores can be explained by two factors. The first is the factor specific to an individual mental task: the individual abilities that would make a person more skilled at one cognitive task than another. The second is "g", a general factor that governs performance on all cognitive tasks.
After 120 years of cognitive testing, "g"s central role is still a meaningful measure. Other models have also been proposed, and there is significant controversy about "g" and its alternatives.
White-tailed spider
Misa Telefoni Retzlaff
Misa Telefoni Retzlaff (born Hermann Theodor Retzlaff, 21 May 1952) is the Deputy Prime Minister of Samoa. He is of German-Samoan descent.
Retzlaff went to school at King's College in Auckland, New Zealand. He studied law at the University of Auckland. Then he went to Samoa to practice law. He was made Attorney-General of Samoa in 1986.
In February 2011 Telefoni said he was retiring from politics at the 2011 election.
Machine Shop Recordings
U.S. Route 9
Southampton Common
Southampton Common is a large open space. It is to the north of the city centre of Southampton, England.
It originally had a zoo (Southampton Zoo), but it was shut down due to animal welfare reasons.
Thomas Quasthoff
Thomas Quasthoff (born Hildesheim, Germany, 9 November 1959) is a German bass-baritone. He is thought of as one of the best singers of today. It was not easy for him to get a good musical education because of his physical disability. However, he has became one of the world’s finest singers of German song (Lieder) and he also sings a wide variety of styles including Baroque music, opera and jazz.
Quasthoff was born in Hildesheim, Germany. His mother had been taking the drug thalidomide during the pregnancy and this resulted in Thomas being born with physical handicaps. He has flipper-like hands and no arms, and he has very short legs.
Quasthoff wanted to study music at the conservatory, but he was not allowed to do so because there was a rule that every music student had to play the piano. It was impossible for Quasthoff to play an instrument because of his disability.