title: Pascal's calculator

text: He then devised a competing design, the Stepped Reckoner which was meant to perform additions, subtractions and multiplications automatically and division under operator control. Leibniz struggled for forty years to perfect this design and produced two machines, one in 1694 and one in 1706. Only the machine built in 1694 is known to exist; it was rediscovered at the end of the 19th century, having spent 250 years forgotten in an attic at the University of Göttingen.


title: Pascal's calculator

text: The German calculating-machine inventor Arthur Burkhardt was asked to attempt to put Leibniz' machine in operating condition. His report was favorable except for the sequence in the carry. and "therefore, especially in the case of multiple carry transfers, the operator had to check the result and manually correct the possible errors". Leibniz had not succeeded in creating a calculator that worked properly, but he had invented the Leibniz wheel, the principle of a two-motion mechanical calculator. He was also the first to have cursors to inscribe the first operand and a movable carriage for results.


title: Pascal's calculator

text: There were five additional attempts at designing "direct entry" calculating machines in the 17th century (including the designs of Tito Burattini, Samuel Morland and René Grillet).


title: Pascal's calculator

text: Around 1660 Claude Perrault designed an "abaque rhabdologique" that is often mistaken for a mechanical calculator because it has a carry mechanism in between the numbers. But it is actually an abacus, since it requires the operator to handle the machine differently when a carry transfer takes place.


title: Pascal's calculator

text: Pascal's calculator was the most successful mechanical calculator developed in the 17th century for the addition and subtraction of large numbers. The stepped reckoner had a problem in the carry mechanism after more than two consecutive carries, and the other devices had carry mechanisms (one tooth wheel) that were limited in their capacity to carry across multiple digits or had no carry mechanism in between the digits of the accumulator.


title: Pascal's calculator

text: Calculating machines did not become commercially viable until 1851, when Thomas de Colmar released, after thirty years of development, his simplified arithmometer, the first machine strong enough to be used daily in an office environment. The Arithmometer was designed around Leibniz wheels and initially used Pascal's 9's complement method for subtractions.


title: Embraer R-99

text: The Embraer R-99 is the Brazilian Air Force military designation of the EMB-145-RS. It is an aircraft based on the ERJ 145 civil regional jet. The R-99 series are equipped with Rolls-Royce AE1 3007 turbofan engines. The military versions provide 20% more thrust than the civil version. The first flight was in 1999.


title: Embraer R-99

text: The "R-99A"'/"E-99"/"EMB 145 AEW&C" is an Airborne early warning and control aircraft, equipped with the Erieye active electronically scanned array radar from Saab Microwave Systems (formerly Ericsson Microwave Systems) of Sweden. The FAB claims that it has 95% of the capability of the larger AWACS aircraft which are in service in the air forces of other nations. In 2008 the FAB redesignated the R-99A as the E-99, the factory name for the Embraer EMB-145SA (Surveillance Aircraft), a special military conversion of the passenger version of the Embraer ERJ-145LR.


title: Embraer R-99

text: The "R-99B"/"R-99"/"EMB 145 MULTI INTEL" is a remote sensing aircraft. It employs a synthetic aperture radar, combination electro-optical and FLIR systems as well as a multi-spectral scanner. The aircraft also possesses signal intelligence and C3I capabilities. In 2008, the FAB redesignated the R-99B as the R-99, for the Embraer EMB-145RS (Remote Sensing), a special military conversion of the passenger version of the Embraer ERJ-145LR.


title: Embraer R-99

text: The "EMB 145 MP" is the maritime patrol version of the EMB-145. It shares much of the same sensor suite as the R-99B, but most visibly, lacks the multi-spectral scanner and the side-looking radar. It retains many of the C3I and ELINT capabilities of the EMB-145-RS. Mexico was the launch customer for this variant.


title: Embraer R-99

text: The "P-99"/ would be the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) modification of the "EMB 145 MP" and would have four underwing hardpoints, which could be mounted with a variety of torpedoes and/or anti-ship missiles. No prototype with those modifications was ever flown.


title: Embraer R-99

text: In Brazilian service, the E-99 and R-99 are based in Anapolis AFB. Five E-99s and three R-99s are operated by the Air Force as part of the SIVAM program. The E-99s are under a modernization program that aims to update all the electronics, including a new Erieye-ER (extended range) radar, the same used on GlobalEye Detection range increased from 450 km to


title: Embraer R-99

text: 723 km in the E99M version. The range of targets that can be detected now ranges from vessels and large aircraft to watercraft, rubber dinghies and vehicles, as well as hovering helicopters. The first E-99M ("M" stands for modernized) was handed over to Brazilian Air Force on november 27th, 2020.


title: Embraer R-99

text: In the future Embraer P600 AEW system will likely replace the E-99 AEW but FAB is currently engaged in the E-99 modernization program, the E-99M will be in service for a long time, and there are no orders for P600.


title: Embraer R-99

text: A Brazilian R-99 was deployed on request of Peruvian authorities to locate the site where 71 hostages were being kept by the armed group Shining Path. The aircraft detected VHF waves origin so the Peruvian authorities could rescue the hostages (2003).


title: Embraer R-99

text: On June 1st 2009 a R-99 was deployed on the search for the missing Air France Flight 447. The fact is reported as the first real mission of a Brazilian R-99 on maritime search. The R-99 synthetic-aperture radar allowed to locate — even at night and under bad weather conditions — aircraft's debris and victims bodies 800 km away from Fernando de Noronha Archipelago. The A330-200 empennage and a galley were the biggest debris located by the R-99.


title: Embraer R-99

text: A Greek EMB-145-H was deployed to perform AEW missions as part of the enforcement of no-fly zone over Libyan Civil War (2011).


title: Embraer R-99

text: In 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hellenic EMB-145H's flew several daily combat missions, monitoring NATO allied airspace over Romania and Bulgaria while covering part of the Black Sea.


title: Young Thug discography

text: The discography of American rapper Young Thug consists of two studio albums, two compilation albums, twelve mixtapes, seven commercial mixtapes, three extended plays, and sixty-nine singles (including 71 as a featured artist).


title: Young Thug discography

text: In 2015, Thug released his debut mixtape, "Barter 6", which reached number 22 on the "Billboard" 200. His 2016 mixtape, "I'm Up" matched the same position. That same year, Thug saw an increase with his mixtape, "Slime Season 3", which rose to number seven. His final mixtape of the year, "Jeffery", dropped down by one position at number eight. In 2017, his mixtape, "Beautiful Thugger Girls", matched the same position. That same year, his collaborative mixtape with Future, "Super Slimey" reached number two on the "Billboard" 200. In 2018, Thug released his collaborative compilation album with his record label, YSL Records, "Slime Language", which hit number eight. His second extended play, "On the Rvn", was released later that year, and fell back at number 17. Thug released his debut studio album, "So Much Fun", in 2019, which debuted and peaked atop the "Billboard 200", marking his first chart-topping album. In 2020, he released his collaborative mixtape with Chris Brown, "Slime & B", which fell back at number 24. Thug released his collaborative compilation album with YSL and label signee Gunna, a sequel to "Slime Language", in 2021, which marked his second number-one album on the "Billboard 200". Later that year, he released his second studio album, "Punk", which became his third number-one album and second consecutive number-one album.


title: Young Thug discography

text: Thug has earned three chart-topping singles on the "Billboard" Hot 100, all of which he is a featured artist on. In 2017, he earned his first number-one single from Camila Cabello's single, "Havana". He would later earn his second single that would reach the first position the Hot 100 in 2020 from Travis Scott's single, "Franchise", which also features M.I.A. He earned his third chart-topping single from Drake's single, "Way 2 Sexy", which also features Future.


title: Farnsworth House

text: The Edith Farnsworth House, formerly the Farnsworth House, is a historical house designed and constructed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe between 1945 and 1951. The house was constructed as a one-room weekend retreat in a rural setting in Plano, Illinois, about 60 miles (96 km) southwest of Chicago's downtown. The steel and glass house was commissioned by Edith Farnsworth.


title: Farnsworth House

text: Mies created a 1,500-square-foot (140 m) structure that is widely recognized as an exemplar of International Style of architecture. The retreat was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006, after being listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. The house is owned and operated as a house museum by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.


title: Farnsworth House

text: In celebration of the 2018 Illinois Bicentennial, the Farnsworth House was selected as one of the Illinois 200 great places by the American Institute of Architects Illinois component (AIA Illinois) and was recognized by "USA Today Travel" magazine, as one of AIA Illinois' selections for Illinois "25 Must See Buildings".


title: Farnsworth House

text: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was retained by Farnsworth to design a weekend retreat during a dinner party in 1945. The wealthy client wanted to build a very special work of modern architecture, however, toward the end of construction, a dispute arose between architect and client that interfered with completion of the building.


title: Farnsworth House

text: Farnsworth had purchased the wooded, nine-acre riverfront property from the publisher of the "Chicago Tribune", Robert R. McCormick. Mies developed the design in time for it to be included in an exhibition on his work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1947. After completion of design, the project was placed on hold awaiting an inheritance from an ailing aunt of Farnsworth. Mies was to act as the general contractor as well as architect. Work began in 1950 and was substantially completed in 1951. The commission was an ideal one for any architect, but was marred by a very publicized dispute between Farnsworth and Mies that began near the end of construction. The total cost of the house was $74,000 in 1951 ($734,635 in 2020 dollars). A cost overrun of $15,600 over the initially approved construction budget of $58,400, was due to escalating material prices resulting from inflationary commodities speculation (in anticipation of demand arising from the mobilization for the Korean War). Near the completion of construction, the architect filed a lawsuit for non-payment of $28,173 in construction costs. The owner then filed a counter suit for damages due to alleged malpractice. The architect's attorneys proved that Farnsworth had approved the plans and budget increases, and the court ordered the owner to pay her bills. Farnsworth's malpractice accusations were dismissed as unsubstantiated. It was a bitter and hollow victory for Mies, considering the painful publicity that followed.


title: Farnsworth House

text: The conflict between the architect and the client resulted in an unfinished site and an unfurnished interior. The construction of a teak wardrobe closet and the system of bronze-framed screens to enclose the deck porch were completed to Mies' designs by his former employee, architect William Dunlap, and a local millworker who mediated between them. Mies never again communicated with Farnsworth, nor spoke publicly about their rumored relationship. Farnsworth continued to use the house as her weekend retreat for the next 21 years, often hosting architectural notables visiting to see the work of the world-famous architect.


title: Farnsworth House

text: Writing about the conflict in 1998, author Alice T. Friedman asserted that "[t]here is no evidence to suggest that [Farnsworth] sought to have her behavior challenged by the 'inner logic' of Mies's unyielding architectural vision; on the contrary, she seems to have had a clear idea about how she wanted to live and she expected the architect to respect her views... [S]he soon discovered that what Mies wanted, and what he had thought he had found in her, was a patron who would put her budget and her needs aside in favor of his own goals and dreams as an architect."


title: Farnsworth House

text: In 1968, the local highway department condemned a portion of the property adjoining the house for construction of a raised highway bridge over the Fox River, encroaching upon the original setting of the design. Farnsworth sued to stop the project, but lost the court case. She sold the house in 1972, retiring to her villa in Italy.


title: Farnsworth House

text: In 1972, the Edith Farnsworth House was purchased by British property magnate, art collector, and architectural aficionado Peter Palumbo. He removed the bronze screen enclosure of the porch, added air conditioning, electric heat, extensive landscaping, and his art collections to the grounds, including sculptures by Andy Goldsworthy, Anthony Caro, and Richard Serra. At the time, the interior was furnished with furniture Mies designed in the 1930s, but produced more recently by Knoll, as well as designs by Mies' grandson, Dirk Lohan, a Chicago architect Palumbo commissioned specifically for the house.


title: Farnsworth House

text: In 2001, Palumbo struck a deal with the state of Illinois, which agreed to buy the house for $7 million and open it full-time to the public, but state officials withdrew from the deal in early 2003, saying $7 million was too much to spend at a time of financial crisis.


title: Farnsworth House

text: After owning the property for 31 years, Palumbo removed the art and put the property up for sale with Sotheby's in 2003, raising serious concerns about the future of the building. Preservationists and contributors from around the world, including the Friends of the Farnsworth House, began a concerted preservation and fund-raising effort to keep the house on its original site. With this financial support, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Landmarks Illinois were able to purchase the house in December 2003 for a reported $7.5 million. Now operated as a house museum, the Farnsworth House is open to the public, with tours conducted by the National Trust. The house is listed in the National Register and is designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of the Interior.


title: Farnsworth House

text: The essential characteristics of the house are immediately apparent. The extensive use of clear floor-to-ceiling glass opens the interior to its natural surroundings to an extreme degree. Two distinctly expressed horizontal slabs, which form the roof and the floor, sandwich an open space for living. The slab edges are defined by exposed steel structural members painted pure white. The house is elevated above a flood plain by eight wide flange steel columns which are attached to the sides of the floor and ceiling slabs. The slab ends extend beyond the column supports, creating cantilevers. A third floating slab, an attached terrace, acts as a transition between the living area and the ground. The house is accessed by two sets of wide steps connecting ground to terrace and then to porch.


title: Farnsworth House

text: Mies found the large open exhibit halls of the turn of the century to be very much in character with his sense of the industrial era. Here he applied the concept of an unobstructed space that is flexible for use by people. The interior appears to be a single open room, its space ebbing and flowing around two wood blocks; one a wardrobe cabinet and the other containing a kitchen, toilet, and fireplace block (the "core"). The larger fireplace-kitchen core seems to be a separate house nesting within the larger glass house. The building is essentially one large room filled with freestanding elements that provide subtle differentiation within an open space, implied but not dictated, zones for sleeping, cooking, dressing, eating, and sitting. Very private areas such as toilets, and mechanical rooms are enclosed within the core. Drawings recently made public by the Museum of Modern Art indicate that the architect provided ceiling details that allow for the addition of curtain tracks that would allow privacy separations of the open spaces into three "rooms".


title: Farnsworth House

text: Mies applied this space concept, with variations, to his later buildings, most notably at Crown Hall, his Illinois Institute of Technology campus masterpiece. The notion of a single room that can be freely used or zoned in any way, with flexibility to accommodate changing uses, free of interior supports, enclosed in glass and supported by a minimum of structural framing located at the exterior, is the architectural ideal that defines Mies' American career. The Farnsworth House is significant as his first complete realization of this ideal, a prototype for his vision of what modern architecture in an era of technology should be.


title: Farnsworth House

text: The Farnsworth House addresses basic issues about the relationship between the individual and his society. Mies viewed the technology-driven modern era in which an ordinary individual exists as largely beyond one's control. But he believed the individual can and should exist in harmony with the culture of one's time for successful fulfillment. His career was a long and patient search for an architecture that would be a true expression of the essential soul of his epoch, the Holy Grail of German Modernism. He perceived our epoch as the era of industrial mass production, a civilization shaped by the forces of rapid technological development. Mies wanted to use architecture as a tool to help reconcile the individual spirit with the new mass society in which the individual exists.


title: Farnsworth House

text: His answer to the issue is to accept the need for an orderly framework as necessary for existence, while making space for the freedom needed by the individual human spirit to flourish. He created buildings with free and open space within a minimal framework, using expressed structural columns. He did not believe in the use of architecture for social engineering of human behavior, as many other modernists did, but his architecture does represent ideals and aspirations. His mature design work is a physical expression of his understanding of the modern epoch. He provides the occupants of his buildings with flexible and unobstructed space in which to fulfill themselves as individuals, despite their anonymous condition in the modern industrial culture. The materials of his buildings, industrial manufactured products such as mill-formed steel and plate glass, certainly represent the character of the modern era, but he counterbalances these with traditional luxuries such as Roman travertine and exotic wood veneers as valid parts of modern life. Mies accepted the problems of industrial society as facts to be dealt with, and offered his idealized vision of how technology may be made beautiful and support the individual as well. He suggests that the downsides of technology decried by late nineteenth century critics such as John Ruskin, can be solved with human creativity, and shows us how in the architecture of this house.


title: Farnsworth House

text: Reconnecting the individual with nature is one of the great challenges of an urbanized society. The rural site offered Mies an opportunity to bring the human relationship to nature into the forefront. Here he highlights the individual's connection to nature through the medium of a synthetic shelter. Mies said: "We should attempt to bring nature, houses, and the human being to a higher unity". Glass walls and open interior space are the features that create an intense connection with the outdoor environment, while providing a framework reduces opaque exterior walls to a minimum. The careful site design and integration of the exterior environment represents a concerted effort to achieve an architecture wedded to its natural context.


title: Farnsworth House

text: Mies conceived the building as an indoor-outdoor architectural shelter simultaneously independent of and intertwined with the domain of nature. Mies did not build on the flood-free upland portions of the site, choosing instead to tempt the dangerous forces of nature by building directly on the flood plain near the edge of the river. Philip Johnson referred to this type of experience of nature as "safe danger". The enclosed space and a screened porch are elevated five feet on a raised floor platform, just slightly above the 100-year flood level, with a large intermediate terrace level.


title: Farnsworth House

text: The house has a distinctly independent personality, yet also evokes strong feelings of a connection to the land. The levels of the platforms restate the multiple levels of the site, in a kind of poetic architectural rhyme, not unlike the horizontal balconies and rocks do at Wright's Fallingwater.


title: Farnsworth House

text: The house was anchored to the site in the cooling shadow of a large and majestic black maple (which was removed in 2013 due to age and damage). As Mies often did, the entrance is located on the sunny side, facing the river instead of the street, moving visitors around corners, and revealing views of the house and site from various angles as they approach the front door. The simple elongated cubic form of the house is parallel to the flow of the river, and the terrace platform is slipped downstream in relation to the elevated porch and living platform. Outdoor living spaces were designed to be extensions of the indoor space, with an open terrace and a screened porch (the screens have been removed). Yet the synthetic element always remains clearly distinct from the natural by its geometric forms that are highlighted by the choice of white as their primary color.


title: Farnsworth House

text: The Farnsworth House sits isolated on a floodplain that faces the Fox River, establishing the architect's concept of simple living. Open views from all sides of the building help enlarge the living space area and aid flow between the living space and its natural surroundings.


title: Farnsworth House

text: Due to the floodplain, the Farnsworth House stands as an independent structure; construction materials include steel, concrete, natural stone, and glass. The steel, painted white, creates the structure that supports the floor and ceiling slabs. They are composed of concrete, along with radiant coil set in the floor used for heating purposes. The remainder of the exterior consists of the 1/4-inch-thick glass panels serving as walls.


title: Farnsworth House

text: Due to the Farnsworth House's location in the Fox River floodplain, the site often experiences low-level flooding. Despite the precautions taken in the design, waters have risen substantially inside of the structure multiple times in excess of FEMA 500-year flood levels.


title: Farnsworth House

text: The National Trust for Historic Preservation has been developing a flood mitigation plan to deal with the ongoing threat to the structure posed by the river.


title: Farnsworth House

text: It was announced in 2011 that the Illinois Institute of Technology was going to build a permanent exhibition space for the wardrobe that Edith Farnsworth commissioned for the Farnsworth House. The wardrobe was extensively damaged in the 1996, 1997, and 2008 floods, with its large size rendering any possible evacuation attempt costly and difficult. In an attempt to protect the wardrobe, curators of the Farnsworth House decided to have the wardrobe put on permanent display near the visitor center on the site, which is well above the 500-year flood plain. Under the direction of Professor Frank Flury, students of the Illinois Institute of Technology designed and constructed the Barnsworth Gallery to house the wardrobe and serve as an exhibition space.


title: Farnsworth House

text: The building design received accolades in the architectural press, resulting in swarms of uninvited visitors trespassing on the property to glimpse this latest Mies building. As a result of the accusations contained in Edith Farnsworth's lawsuit, the house soon became a prop in the larger national social conflicts of the McCarthy era. The weekend house became a lightning rod for anti-modernist publications, exemplified in the April 1953 issue of "House Beautiful", which attacked it as a "communist-inspired effort" to supplant traditional American styles. Large areas of glass wall, flat roofs, purging of ornament, and a perceived lack of traditional warmth and coziness were characteristics of the International Style that were particular talking points of attack.


title: Farnsworth House

text: The poor energy efficiency of the Farnsworth House has been widely discussed as well. Farnsworth herself expressed dismay at the house's poor temperature control and tendency to attract insects when illuminated at night.


title: Farnsworth House

text: Nonetheless, the Farnsworth House has continued to receive critical acclaim as a masterpiece of the modernist style, and Mies went on to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contribution to American architecture and culture. Architect and critic Philip Johnson openly confessed how he was inspired by the design in the construction of his own Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut in 1947 as his personal residence.


title: Farnsworth House

text: In the twenty-first century, Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critics Paul Goldberger and Blair Kamin have both declared the house a masterpiece of modern architecture. Its timeless quality is reflected by the reverent fascination in the minimalist house shown by a new generation of design professionals and enthusiasts.


title: Farnsworth House

text: In 2021, the New York Times named it as one of the 25 most significant works of architecture since World War II.


title: Farnsworth House

text: On November 17, 2021, Edith Farnsworth's birthday, a rededication of the house on its 70th anniversary was livestreamed on its Facebook and Instagram pages, during which it was officially renamed the Edith Farnsworth House in recognition of its owner's contribution to its benchmark design as well as her achievements as a research physician, classical violinist, poet, translator, and patron of the fine arts. "We hope this seemingly simple act of inserting her first name has the larger effect of inserting her into the ongoing history of modern architecture," said Scott Mehaffey, executive director of the Edith Farnsworth House.


title: Farnsworth House

text: In 2016, the movie, "", featured a house modeled after the Farnsworth House. The follow-up film "Justice League" also features the same house in a trailer released at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con.


title: Farnsworth House

text: In January 2019, writer-director Richard Press and HanWay Films announced an upcoming Farnsworth House film project starring Elizabeth Debicki as Dr. Edith Farnsworth and Ralph Fiennes as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.


title: Alipay

text: Alipay () is a third-party mobile and online payment platform, established in Hangzhou, China in February 2004 by Alibaba Group and its founder Jack Ma. In 2015, Alipay moved its headquarters to Pudong, Shanghai, although its parent company Ant Financial remains Hangzhou-based.


title: Alipay

text: Alipay overtook PayPal as the world's largest mobile (digital) payment platform in 2013. As of June 2020, Alipay serves over 1.3 billion users and 80 million merchants. According to the statistics of the fourth quarter of 2018, Alipay has a 55.32% share of the third-party payment market in mainland China, and it continues to grow.


title: Alipay

text: The service was first launched in 2003, by Taobao. The People's Bank of China, China's central bank, issued licensing regulations in June 2010 for third-party payment providers. It also issued separate guidelines for foreign-funded payment institutions. Because of this, Alipay, which accounted for half of China's non-bank online payment market, was restructured as a domestic company controlled by Alibaba CEO Jack Ma in order to facilitate the regulatory approval for the license.


title: Alipay

text: The 2010 transfer of Alipay's ownership was controversial, with media reports in 2011 that Yahoo! and Softbank (Alibaba Group's controlling shareholders) were not informed of the sale for nominal value. Chinese business publications "Century Weekly" criticised Ma, who stated that Alibaba Group's board of directors was aware of the transaction. The incident was criticised in foreign and Chinese media as harming foreign trust in making Chinese investments. The ownership dispute was resolved by Alibaba Group, Yahoo!, and Softbank in July 2011.


title: Alipay

text: In 2013 Alipay launched a financial product platform called Yu'ebao (余额宝). Alipay partnered with Tianhong Asset Management to launch the it. Alibaba (the parent company of Alipay) reported having 152 million Yu'e bao users in mid-2016, with 810 billion RMB (US$117 billion) in funds under management. As of June 2013 the company still had what it called "a minor paperwork problem" with the China Securities Regulatory Commission, but the company said that they planned to expand the product while these are sorted out.


title: Alipay

text: In 2021, the mandate by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) to open up the "walled garden" ecosystems of the major tech companies has led to the introduction of interoperability of payment QR codes of Alipay and competing WeChat Pay and UnionPay's Cloud QuickPass platforms.


title: Alipay

text: Alipay claims it operates with more than 65 financial institutions including Visa and MasterCard to provide payment services for Taobao and Tmall as well as more than 460,000 online and local Chinese businesses.


title: Alipay

text: Alipay is used in smartphones with their Alipay Wallet app. QR code payment codes are used for local in-store payments. The Alipay app also provides features such as credit card bill payments, bank account managements, P2P transfer, prepay mobile phone top-up, bus and train ticket purchases, food orders, vehicles for hire, insurance selections and a digital identification document storage. Alipay also allows online check-out on most Chinese-based websites such as Taobao and Tmall.


title: Alipay

text: The Alipay app allows users to add their own services provided from different companies to create a more personalised experience.


title: Alipay

text: Since late-2008, Alipay has promoted public service payment services and has covered more than 300 cities nationwide, supporting more than 1,200 partner organizations. In addition to utility bills such as water and electricity, Alipay also extends their services to areas such as paying transportation fines, property fees, and cable television fees. Common online payment services also include hydropower coal payment, tuition payment and traffic fine.


title: Alipay

text: On 15 January 2009, Alipay launched a credit card repayment service, supporting 39 domestic bank-issued credit cards. It is currently the most popular third-party repayment platform. The main advantages are free credit card bills checking, repayments with no administrative fee, as well as automatic repayment, repayment reminders and other value-added services. In the first quarter of 2014, 76% of credit cards were also paid by Alipay Wallet.


title: Alipay

text: From December 2013, several chain convenience store companies, including Meiyijia, Hongqi Chain, and Qishiduo C-STORE and 7-Eleven, have successively supported Alipay payment; in December, Beijing taxi drivers began to accept Alipay to pay the fare. Subsequently, Wanda Cinema, Joy City, Wangfujing and other large-scale retail companies as well as movie theaters, KTV, and catering companies have access to Alipay.


title: Alipay

text: From March 26, 2019, the service fee will be charged for the payment of credit card through Alipay. Customers only pay the portion of the payment that exceeds 2,000 yuan at 0.1%.


title: Alipay

text: In November 2019, Alipay introduced Tourpass, a service component that allows non-Chinese users to use its mobile payment feature by pre-loading Chinese Yuan equivalent foreign currency into the app.


title: Alipay

text: In 2020, Alipay used a QR code system to help in containing the COVID-19 outbreak. The health code system tags users one of three colors according to their location, basic health information and travel history.


title: Alipay

text: "Beauty filters" were included to Alipay's face-scan payment system in a new upgrade that was released in July 2019. The market has responded well to the "beauty filters," which make users seem better when they use the program to make payments.


title: Alipay

text: Internationally, more than 300 worldwide merchants use Alipay to sell directly to consumers in China. It currently supports transactions in 18 major foreign currencies.


title: Alipay

text: Since the launch of Alipay in the Mainland China, Ant Financial introduced a series of expansion of the services to other countries. Other than expanding into individual countries, the system would also be integrated with online payment platform providers. Ant Group had acquired a majority stake into 2C2P, a Singapore-based provider used by merchants worldwide in April 2022, and would eventually integrate Alipay with 2C2P.


title: Alipay

text: In 2017, Ant Financial expanded to Hong Kong. In a joint venture with CK Hutchison, as Alipay Payment Services (HK), it launched the "AlipayHK" brand. A standalone app provides features such as mobile payments and P2P transfers. All transactions are made and settled in local Hong Kong dollars. The service then became available in major chain stores including McDonald's, 7-Eleven and Circle K. Wet markets and other merchants were also supported. From 2020 and 2021, with AlipayHK passing two million users, the service became accepted on MTR, buses and ferries.


title: Alipay

text: Alipay entered Japan in 2015, with network up to 38,000. Ant Financial hopes that their network in Japan could help Chinese tourists that are heading to Japan.


title: Alipay

text: Alipay was introduced to the Philippines in 2018 by Asia United Bank (AUB). AUB also introduced WeChat Pay, and intends to use both payment systems to cater to Chinese tourists visiting the country.


title: Alipay

text: Ant Financial also has invested on Mynt, the operator of the mobile service GCash which caters to the Philippine market. It helped convert GCash into a cashless mobile payment service similar to Alipay. It is also working on rebranding the mobile wallet into GCash by Alipay by the second half of 2021.


title: Alipay

text: In 2017, Ant Financial partnered with CC Financial, a start-up company in Singapore. Alipay plans to expand its 20,000 acceptance points in Singapore, and open up their platform to Singapore banking users.


title: Alipay

text: Alipay was introduced in South Korea in 2015, and is now available at various merchants around the country. Users can even receive an instant tax refund at four major airports in the country. In 2019, taxis in Seoul and Starbucks will accept Alipay via Kakaopay.


title: Alipay

text: Alipay entered Vietnam in 2010, with its network up to 21,000. Ant Financial hopes that their network in Vietnam could assist Chinese tourists visiting the country. Currently in Vietnam, Davitrans, a proxy shipping service, is the only website in the country that accepts Alipay as one of its payment methods.


title: Alipay

text: In February 2019, Alipay and Tourism Australia announced a service to promote Australian destinations to Chinese tourists using the city of Sydney as a 12-month pilot project. The new Sydney City Card will introduce an interactive city map in the Alipay app to alert tourists to participating locations and retailers where Alipay payments are welcomed. A similar initiative will be trialed concurrently in Queenstown, New Zealand.


title: Alipay

text: Ant Financial has partnered with First Data in 2017. It allows Alipay service to be used at point-of-sale with more than four million retail partners in United States.


title: Alipay

text: In 2017, Alipay partnered with SnapPay to allow Canadian retailers to accept Chinese currency from Chinese shoppers. There are currently 800 merchants in Canada that supports Alipay, including most Cadillac Fairview mall locations in partnership with OTT Pay, such as the flagship Eaton Center of Toronto and CF Chinook Centre in Calgary. Air Canada began allowing transactions in Alipay to book flights from Canada and the United States beginning in August 2018, after initially rolling out the feature for booking of flights originating from China.


title: Alipay

text: Alipay partners with Silkpay to enable merchants in France and other European countries to accept Alipay payments online and in-store.


title: Alipay

text: Alipay partnered with UniCredit, SIA and Banca Sella Group to enable app payments in physical and online stores in Italy.


title: Alipay

text: Alipay has started cooperating with Vipps in Norway. 30 shops in Bergen are ready to receive Alipay-customers, and in January 2019 some shops in Oslo will be ready.


title: Alipay

text: Alipay in 2022 with Sberbank will provide immediate money transfers by cellphone number from Russia to China.


title: Alipay

text: Alipay is conceptually similar to Apple Pay, WeChat Pay and PayPal because it overlays traditional card payment methods. Although users receive immediate notification of the transaction, the main difference among Alipay and an instant payment system, like Venmo or Zelle is that the funds transfer between counterparties is not immediate. The settlement time depends on the payment method chosen by the customer, while for instant payment systems, the funds are transferred within seconds or minutes.


title: Alipay

text: In September 2021, the Chinese government stated its intent to dismantle the Alipay super app into separate businesses due to concerns over "systemic financial risks" as Chinese e-commerce and fintech firms had begun to amass huge troves of user data for their operations. The move essentially split Ant Group's consumer lending businesses, credit card-like Huabei and micro-loan provider Jiebei, from Alipay’s financial offerings.


title: Alipay

text: In November 2021, Alipay introduced a new privacy protection feature amid growing concerns over data privacy and after China's Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) came into effect on 1 November 2021. The PIPL prohibits the unnecessary collection of personal information, abuse of personal privacy, and data exchanges with overseas entities. Alipay's new feature allows users to track how the app collects data about them and is an interactive equivalent to a privacy policy, which explains how an app collects, stores, and shares user data.


title: Alipay

text: Alipay was banned in India (along with other Chinese apps) on 2 September 2020 by the government amid the 2020 China-India skirmish.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by the Swedish firm DICE and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, iOS and Kindle Fire systems. It is a direct sequel to "" and is part of the "Battlefield" game series. It was released worldwide in March 2010. The iOS port was released on the App Store on December 16, 2010. A Kindle Fire version was released in June 2012.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: The game is primarily a squad-level first-person shooter based in a contemporary modern warfare setting. Additionally, the game includes a single-player campaign, where the player re-assumes the role of Preston Marlowe, the protagonist of the original game. The game's Frostbite 1.5 engine allows for destructible environments. Multiplayer maps, which allow for five different game modes, contain a wide selection of vehicles, aircraft and emplacements.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: The game was met with positive reception from critics, garnering a mean of 88 from aggregator Metacritic for the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, and 87 for the PC version. It became a commercial success, selling more than twelve million units since its initial release. Seven VIP map packs, as well as a downloadable game mode, were added after launch; an expansion pack, "" (centered on the Vietnam War), released on December 21, 2010.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: While "Bad Company 2" is primarily a first-person shooter, it follows other games in the series by allowing the player to control certain vehicles, including ATVs, APCs, tanks, and helicopters. On foot, players are given access to a variety of real-world small arms such as assault rifles and machine guns. Players can also jump, crouch, and sprint. They can carry one primary weapon and a pistol in multiplayer, or two primary weapons in single-player, as well as grenades and other equipment. Players can fire "from the hip", but zooming in and using iron sights, reflex sights, or telescopic sights (depending on the weapon) will provide much better accuracy when shooting.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: "Bad Company 2" heavily emphasizes destructible environments. Large sections of most buildings can be destroyed by explosives, and some walls and fences break down under barrages of bullets, with the game's physics engine realistically simulating the destruction.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: The game utilizes a "regenerating health" system, rather than giving players health points as older games in the "Battlefield" series have done. To accommodate this in multiplayer, the "Medic" equipment now accelerates health regeneration rather than directly restoring the player's health. If the player is wounded, they must take cover and avoid damage in order to regain health. A heavily wounded player will see dirt and blood around the edges of the screen, as an illustration of injury.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: "Bad Company 2" features a story-driven single-player campaign. For most of the narrative, the player takes control of Preston Marlowe, one of the members of the titular "Bad Company". The exception to this is the first mission, which is set prior to the rest of the campaign. Each mission is divided into a series of objectives, often interspersed with cutscenes which simulate the style of war films. While the other members of Bad Company will engage in combat, the game relies upon the player to complete the objectives and kill most of the enemies. Although the player's computer-controlled allies can never die, they cannot carry out objectives. Aside from infantry combat, the campaign contains several missions in which the player controls a vehicle, or mans a weapon turret while a teammate controls the vehicle.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: Each weapon in the campaign is considered a collectible - the first time the player picks up that type of weapon, a "Collectable Unlocked" message appears. There are also sensor stations throughout the campaign which the player can find and destroy - this is also recorded in the campaign stats. "Supply Drop" crates are scattered throughout the missions, where the player can exchange weapons and replenish ammo. The Supply Drop crates will remember any weapon the player picks up and this weapon will then be available for the rest of the campaign.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: Multiplayer is class-based, with four classes: Assault, Engineer, Medic, and Recon. Each class has a variety of unique weapons and equipment, and serves a specific role in combat. There are also some weapons that can be used by any class, such as pistols and shotguns. Each class gains experience and levels up separately.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: New items are unlocked by earning experience points, which are gained for performing actions conducive to the goals of the player's team, such as eliminating enemy players, healing teammates, or capturing or defending points of interest. These points count towards a total of 50 ranks. Bonuses to the base number of points can be awarded under certain circumstances (such as eliminating an enemy by means of a headshot).


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: Multiplayer mode features 15 vehicles, including new additions, such as the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, a quad bike, a four-man patrol boat, a personal watercraft, a ZU-23-2 mounted on a BMD-3 armoured personnel carrier, and a Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout, controlled via remote computer terminals. The available maps are set in various environments such as South America and Alaska, near the borders of Russia, similar to those seen in the single-player.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: A dog tag system, as seen in "Battlefield 2142" and "Battlefield: Bad Company", is also used, awarding players with their opponents' dog tags when they defeat them with a knife attack. Players can use party chat for each game mode. The game uses the PunkBuster anti-cheat program to protect from cheaters in online multiplayer matches.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: Conquest: Features the classic gameplay of the "Battlefield" series. Players must capture and defend flags for as long as possible. If a base is taken, it can be recaptured, and the cycle can repeat until the game's end. Every kill depletes one ticket, and tickets gradually decrease when one team controls more than half of the flags on the map. Vehicles can spawn once a flag is captured. When one team's tickets are depleted, that team will lose the game. Lost tickets can be regained by reviving fallen teammates.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: Onslaught: Tasks one squad of up to four players to capture certain points on the map, allowing the squad to advance. The game is won by capturing all the points. Unlike other modes, the only enemies are bots. This game mode features new lighting and time of day on existing maps, as well as new vehicles. It is available for Xbox 360 and PS3 only; a PC version was planned, but was cancelled.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: Rush: Players must defend or destroy pairs of M-COM stations until either the attackers run out of respawn tickets or all of the stations are destroyed. Lost tickets can be regained by reviving fallen teammates. An M-COM station can be destroyed by planting a charge, using explosive weapons or ballistics, or simply by demolishing the building in which it is located. However, not all M-COM stations exist in destructible buildings, forcing players to use a variety of methods to achieve the same goal. When a charge is planted by the attacking team, an alarm is activated and the defenders have a limited amount of time to get to the M-COM station and disarm the bomb before it detonates.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: Squad Deathmatch: Features up to four squads, each fighting against the other. An infantry support vehicle is available for any squad to claim, giving a significant advantage. The first squad to score fifty kills wins the match.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: Squad Rush: Similar to Rush, but consists of only two squads, one defending and the other attacking. The maps used for Squad Rush are smaller versions of those for both Conquest and Rush modes. There are only 2 M-COM stations in each round.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: "Bad Company 2" is set in the near future during the fictional Second Russo-American War between the United States and Russian Federation, the latter supporting the fictional Latin American Militia, a rebel group operating in South America.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: The game begins in October 1944, as a group of US commandos infiltrate an Imperial Japanese Navy-controlled island in the Sea of Japan as part of "Operation Aurora." They secure a Japanese scientist who was working on a secret scalar weapon, and escape the island on a submarine. However, as foreshadowed by the scientist's warnings, the commandos witness the weapon firing and subsequently perish from the resulting tsunami, sparking a myth within the U.S. Army.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: In the near future, Russia has invaded Europe and Alaska while supporting China's fight in Asia and arming a South American militia. Privates Preston Marlowe, Terrence Sweetwater, George Haggard and Sergeant Samuel Redford are fighting in Russia in an attempt to secure a scalar weapon device. Despite evading Russian soldiers and completing the mission successfully, the device is discovered to be a fake. Impressed with their previous activities, Army General Braidwood has the squad transferred into the Special Activities Division and assigns them a new mission; to contact Agent James Wyatt (called Aguire in-game), much to the disappointment of Redford, who had hoped to retire after the previous mission.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: The squad travels to Bolivia in search of the agent, and after many firefights, they eventually save Aguire. He sends them to retrieve his scalar technology intelligence from a French weather satellite that can be controlled from a base in the Andes. Sweetwater lands the satellite and the squad successfully thwart a Russian attempt to destroy it. Marlowe locates the data server and proceeds to descend the mountain during a blizzard while dodging Russian patrols. He survives, and is extracted by the others.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: During extraction, Aguire briefs the squad about the man responsible for rebuilding scalar weaponry; Arkady Kirilenko, a Russian Army colonel the squad encountered in Russia. Kirilenko is hoping to use scalar weaponry to disable America's power grid and pave the way for a Russian invasion. He is believed to be hiding in Chile. The squad head there, aided by US forces, and find Kirilenko, who escapes again. Left with only Kirilenko's papers, Sweetwater discovers there is a shipping manifest for an abandoned ship called the "Sangre Del Toro". Aided by the rest of the squad, Marlowe finds the ship and retrieves a compound essential to the use of the weapon, while also discovering the truth behind Operation Aurora - the US military knew it was a suicide mission, and the operation was planned in order to learn more about the weapon's capabilities.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: While attempting to meet Aguire in Ecuador, the squad's helicopter is shot down and they are separated. Along with their helicopter pilot, Flynn (Eric Loren), they regroup and escape the local militia. Redford gives Aguire the compound before finding out that Aguire has double-crossed them by allying himself with Kirilenko. Aguire reveals that he wants revenge against the United States for what happened to his father, Thomas Wyatt (one of the commandos killed in 1944 during Operation Aurora). Despite this, Kirilenko betrays Aguire and kills him. Before he can kill the squad, however, Flynn intervenes and saves them at the cost of his own life.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: While the squad is mourning Flynn, they hear Kirilenko talking through a guard's radio. Marlowe knifes the guard and the squad proceeds toward the city of Quito. Here, after battling squads of South American and Russian troops, they find a large An-124 cargo aircraft that is believed to house the scalar weapon. This is confirmed as a powerful electromagnetic pulse is suddenly released, disabling all electronic equipment in the city except the aircraft. Haggard and Sweetwater become disheartened, with Haggard going so far as suggesting the squad abort the mission. Angry at his allies for giving up, Marlowe is about to continue the mission alone before Redford stops him and then convinces the rest to continue. They then infiltrate the aircraft as it takes off. After a firefight to reach the cockpit, they find it empty. They return to the cargo bay to find Kirilenko attempting to fire the scalar weapon again, this time high over the southern United States. With the help of explosives from the plane's armory, they access and destroy the scalar weapon.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: The explosion sends the aircraft plummeting, forcing the squad to bail out, but Kirilenko grabs the last parachute before Marlowe. In free fall, Marlowe kills Kirilenko, and is then saved by Sweetwater who hands Marlowe the parachute that was stolen by Kirilenko. The squad lands in Texas, Haggard's home state. Shortly after, General Braidwood arrives to inform them that they are to aid the US Army against an incoming Russian invasion that is coming through Alaska, much to the squad's disappointment.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: The game was first announced in February 2009. On October 19, game developer DICE posted a Twitter announcement stating the game will have dedicated server support. This was in response to Infinity Ward's announcement on October 17 that "" would not support dedicated servers. A PS3 version of the beta began development on November 19, while the PC version was pushed back until February 2010 because of difficulties with PC varieties.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: The online multiplayer demo for the Xbox 360 and the closed beta for the PC were released on January 28, 2010, and servers ran until February 25. The demo was released on the PS3 on February 4, 2010, in Europe and North America and February 11, 2010, in Asia. The PS3 beta featured the map "Arica Harbor", while the PC beta, Xbox 360 demo, and PS3 demo featured the map "Port Valdez".


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: During an interview with GameZone's Dakota Grabowski in March 2010, Senior Producer Patrick Bach revealed that following the negative feedback from PC gamers after the first "Battlefield: Bad Company" was not released on the PC, Electronic Arts and DICE had a separate dedicated team working on the PC version of "Bad Company 2". Bach stated "We see it as very, very hardcore and important part of our customers. So we put a lot of effort into making sure that everything worked perfect." Bach also commented on the use of peripherals such as a mouse and keyboard on consoles, saying "I don't think that we have any special connections to peripherals to the consoles [...] The biggest problem with peripherals for consoles is that the console itself is a level playground. It's even and you know the consumer has the same technology and have the same peripherals and same controls – which makes it easier for us to create a game that feels fair. By catering to a mouse and keyboard for the consoles, it would maybe skew the even playground."


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: The game uses Dolby Digital and Frostbite's High Definition Audio Range technology. The score was composed by Mikael Karlsson (composer) and is featured on the "Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Official Soundtrack", which was released on February 2, 2010.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: As a pre-order promotion, EA offered the "Limited Edition" of "Bad Company 2" at normal pricing. By pre-ordering the Limited Edition, buyers of the PC version were given early access to the closed beta from January 28 to February 25. Owners of the Limited Edition on all systems were also given early access to numerous weapons and vehicle perks, which included the M1A1 Thompson and an M1911 pistol, as well as four vehicle perks.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: In addition to the six upgrades offered by EA on all pre-orders of the Limited Edition, select retailers offered their own incentives. Copies pre-ordered at GameStop, for example, came with an additional code, unlocking the AKS-74U carbine and giving access to the Squad Rush game mode 30 days early (North America only). All six Limited Edition upgrades, as well as the AKS-74U, are also available to owners of the Standard Edition of the game, but they must be acquired by accumulating points in-game.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: The "Ultimate Edition" was released on August 31, 2010, for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The package includes "Battlefield: Bad Company 2", "Battlefield 1943", "Onslaught" mode, and immediate access to four vehicle upgrades and two weapon unlocks from purchase, a bonus originally included only in the Limited Edition.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: As part of a program designed to encourage game purchases and reward the community, EA and DICE confirmed that they would periodically release additional "VIP" content for "Bad Company 2". On Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, this content is available free to "VIP" players who purchase a new copy of the game. Owners of used copies will be able to purchase a VIP code for an additional cost from their respective system's online store. Owners of the PC version will receive this content for free regardless of ownership status.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: As part of the "Battlefield Veterans" program, players gain access to the M1 Garand rifle if they have registered two or more "Battlefield" games with EA, or if they have joined the "EA Gun Club".


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: Several map packs have been released for the game. "Map Pack 1" was released on March 2, 2010, as "Day One Map Pack". It added two new maps: Nelson Bay for Rush mode and Laguna Alta for Conquest. "Map Pack 2" was released on March 30, and added two new maps: Laguna Presa for Rush and Arica Harbour for Conquest. "Map Pack 3" was released on June 9 for consoles, and June 30 for PC. The Laguna Alta map was made available for Squad Rush, and the Nelson Bay map was made available for Squad Deathmatch. "Map Pack 4" was released on July 7. The Atacama Desert map was made available for Rush and the Port Valdez map for Conquest. "Map Pack 5" was released on July 28. The White Pass map was made available for Rush and the Nelson Bay map for Conquest. "Map Pack 6" was released on August 18. The Panama Canal map was made available for Squad Deathmatch and the Laguna Presa map for Squad Rush. "Map Pack 7" was released on December 1, and includes two maps ported from the first "Bad Company" game; "Oasis" and "Harvest Day", both of which are playable in all game modes. As well as these, two maps from the single-player campaign were ported to multiplayer; "Cold War" was made available for Rush, Squad Rush and Squad Deathmatch while "Heavy Metal" was made available for Conquest and Squad Deathmatch.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: Kit upgrades were released on April 21, 2010, for the Xbox 360, May 12 for the PlayStation 3 and December 1 for PC. Residents of the United States can retrieve unlock codes for the upgrades on the Xbox 360 by purchasing specially marked Dr Pepper bottles. The kit upgrades include two additional pins and one additional award for each class, as well as unique camouflage upgrades. Kit shortcuts were released on June 16 for consoles. The shortcuts are available for purchase for each separate class, or in a bundle pack for all four classes. Upon installation, the shortcuts will unlock all primary weapons, gadgets and specialisations for their respective class.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: A new mode, "Onslaught", was released on June 22 and 24 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 respectively. In Onslaught, up to four players co-operatively face endless waves of computer controlled enemies. "Bad Company 2" senior producer Patrick Bach said that DICE would "consistently support the fans playing "Bad Company 2" with new ways to get into multiplayer." He also said that the mode would "challenge the elite players with new experiences to improve their performance online."


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: "Bad Company 2: Vietnam" is an expansion pack for "Bad Company 2" which takes place during the Vietnam War. It was released on December 18, 2010, for Microsoft Windows and on December 21 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It is available as a retail package and via download. The retail package, however, only includes product key for internet activation. The expansion has received positive reviews, with praise for its "fun, close encounters" and use of licensed music tracks from the Vietnam war era.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: The expansion pack contains 5 new maps, 6 new vehicles, and 15 new weapons. The fifth map, Operation Hastings, was originally set to be unlocked when the playing community reached 69,000,000 team play actions (revives, resupplies, assists etc.) on each platform. While it was unlocked for PC on December 30, 2010, the map was released early on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as a "new year's gift" from DICE. It also includes 49 contemporary music tracks which can be listened to via an in-game radio, as well as new voiceovers for both American and Vietnamese forces, based on authentic communication from the Vietnam war. Ten new Xbox Live achievements/PlayStation Network trophies are also available to unlock.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: "Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam" received generally positive reviews, with scores from Metacritic of 88 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, and 86 for the PC version, and scores from GameRankings of 88.80% for the PlayStation 3 version, 88.00% for the Xbox 360 version, and 84.27% for the PC version. Most critics agreed that the expansion is worth buying for users who already enjoy the game's multiplayer component. IGN praised it as being one of the best multiplayer offerings of the year, scoring it 9.5 out of 10. Destructoid gave it 9 out of 10, calling it a "no brainer" for active "Battlefield" fans. GameSpot gave it 8.5 out of 10, praising the maps, atmosphere and the new vehicles and weapons, but criticizing the online stat-tracking and the reduced emphasis on player progression. Joystiq stated that it plays differently from the original game, but called it a success nevertheless, awarding it 4 out of 5 stars.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: "Battlefield: Bad Company 2" received mostly positive reviews from game critics. Aggregating review website Metacritic have the PlayStation 3 version at 88/100, the Xbox 360 version at 88/100, and the PC version at 87/100. The iOS version received generally poorer reviews and holds a score of 64/100.


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: "GameZone" Steven Hopper gave the game 9.25/10, saying, "Even though the single-player campaign still isn't where it needs to be, "Bad Company 2" is definitely a great sequel that builds on its predecessor in every way, making for one that no shooter fan will want to miss, especially if you go online for your gaming." "Game Informer" gave the game 9.5 out of 10, praising the improvements made over the first "Bad Company". "GameTrailers" gave the game 9.1 out of 10, praising its use of an intertwining multiplayer in which "Purists will appreciate that you must earn every kill." Level design was also commended; "Bad Company 2 features sprawling, densely populated environments with an excellent level of detail." However, they referred to the single-player mode as "predictable."


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: "GameSpy" reviewer Anthony Gallegos gave the game 4.5 stars out of 5, describing the single-player campaign as "a blast" and concluding that "the staying power for BFBC2 lies in its multiplayer." Dan Whitehead from "Eurogamer" reviewed the game and gave it a score of 9/10, describing it as an "open challenge" to Activision's market leader, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2", and calling "Bad Company 2" a "way superior game" when compared to "Modern Warfare 2". Whitehead also commented that it had "immediately evident" improvements over the previous game in the series, and concluded that "Bad Company 2" is "the online shooter at its most streamlined, most thoughtful, most exhilarating." "IGN" gave the game 8.9 out of 10, praising the visuals as being "near-photo realistic" and calling it "one of the best looking games around."


title: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

text: "Bad Company 2" became the fourth best-selling title in March 2010 with 2.3 million copies sold in Europe and North America. By May 2010, it had sold more than 5 million copies, which had grown to "almost 6 million" by November. As of June 30, 2011, over 9 million copies of the game have been sold across all platforms. As of March 2012, this number had increased to over 12 million.


title: Kim Yeo-jin

text: Kim Yeo-jin (born June 24, 1972) is a South Korean actress and activist. Kim made her acting debut in the stage play "What Do Women Live For" in 1995, and has since remained active in film and television, drawing praise for her supporting roles in Im Sang-soo's "Girls' Night Out" (1998), Lee Chang-dong's "Peppermint Candy" (2000), and Im Kwon-taek's "Chi-hwa-seon" (2002).


title: Kim Yeo-jin

text: Kim Yeo-jin met her future husband director Kim Jin-min in 2003 on the set of "Forever Love". They married in February 2004.


title: Kim Yeo-jin

text: Kim is known for being actively engaged in various rallies and civic group activities, attracting public attention to controversial social and political issues, including efforts to reinstate laid-off shipbuilders at Hanjin Heavy Industries, calls to lower university tuition fees, and opposition to the Four Major Rivers Project. She often expresses her opinions on social networking service Twitter, and has been called one of the most popular socialtainers.


title: Kim Yeo-jin

text: Because of her outspokenness, MBC banned Kim in 2011 (she was originally scheduled to appear as a "progressive" panelist on the current affairs radio show "Sohn Suk-hee's Spotlight"), which led to prominent figures from academic, literary and media circles to call for a boycott of the network's programs.


title: Max Müller

text: Friedrich Max Müller (; 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born philologist and Orientalist, who lived and studied in Britain for most of his life. He was one of the founders of the western academic disciplines of Indian studies and religious studies ('science of religion', German: "Religionswissenschaft"). Müller wrote both scholarly and popular works on the subject of Indology. The "Sacred Books of the East", a 50-volume set of English translations, was prepared under his direction. He also promoted the idea of a Turanian family of languages.


title: Max Müller

text: Max Müller was born into a cultured family on 6 December 1823 in Dessau, the son of Wilhelm Müller, a lyric poet whose verse Franz Schubert had set to music in his song-cycles "Die schöne Müllerin", and "Winterreise". His mother, Adelheid Müller (née von Basedow), was the eldest daughter of a prime minister of Anhalt-Dessau. Carl Maria von Weber was a godfather.


title: Max Müller

text: Müller was named after his mother's elder brother, Friedrich, and after the central character, Max, in Weber's opera "Der Freischütz". Later in life, he adopted Max as a part of his surname, believing that the prevalence of Müller as a name made it too common. His name was also recorded as "Maximilian" on several official documents (e.g. university register, marriage certificate), on some of his honours and in some other publications.


title: Max Müller

text: Müller entered the gymnasium (grammar school) at Dessau when he was six years old. In 1835, at the age of twelve, he was sent to live in the house of Professor Carus and attend the Nicolai School at Leipzig, where he continued his studies of music and classics. It was during his time in Leipzig that he frequently met Felix Mendelssohn.


title: Max Müller

text: In need of a scholarship to attend Leipzig University, Müller successfully sat his abitur examination at Zerbst. While preparing, he found that the syllabus differed from what he had been taught, necessitating that he rapidly learn mathematics, modern languages and science. He entered Leipzig University in 1841 to study philology, leaving behind his early interest in music and poetry. Müller received his Ph.D. degree in Sep 1843. His final dissertation was on Spinoza's "Ethics". He also displayed an aptitude for classical languages, learning Greek, Latin, Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit.


title: Max Müller

text: In 1850 Müller was appointed deputy Taylorian professor of modern European languages at Oxford University. In the following year, at the suggestion of Thomas Gaisford, he was made an honorary M.A. and a member of the college of Christ Church, Oxford. On succeeding to the full professorship in 1854, he received the full degree of M.A. by Decree of Convocation. In 1858 he was elected to a life fellowship at All Souls' College.


title: Max Müller

text: He was defeated in the 1860 election for the position of Boden Professor of Sanskrit, which was a "keen disappointment" to him. Müller was far better qualified for the post than the other candidate (Monier Monier-Williams), but Müller's broad theological views, Lutheranism, German birth, and lack of practical first-hand knowledge of India spoke against him. After the election he wrote to his mother, "all the best people voted for me, the Professors almost unanimously, but the "vulgus profanum" made the majority".


title: Max Müller

text: Later in 1868, Müller became Oxford's first professor of comparative philology, a position founded on his behalf. He held this chair until his death, although he retired from its active duties in 1875.


title: Max Müller

text: In 1844, prior to commencing his academic career at Oxford, Müller studied in Berlin with Friedrich Schelling. He began to translate the "Upanishads" for Schelling, and continued to research Sanskrit under Franz Bopp, the first systematic scholar of the Indo-European languages (IE). Schelling led Müller to relate the history of language to the history of religion. At this time, Müller published his first book, a German translation of the "Hitopadesa", a collection of Indian fables.


title: Max Müller

text: In 1845, Müller moved to Paris to study Sanskrit under Eugène Burnouf. Burnouf encouraged him to publish the complete Rigveda, making use of the manuscripts available in England. He moved to England in 1846 to study Sanskrit texts in the collection of the East India Company. He supported himself at first with creative writing, his novel "German Love" being popular in its day.


title: Max Müller

text: Müller's connections with the East India Company and with Sanskritists based at Oxford University led to a career in Britain, where he eventually became the leading intellectual commentator on the culture of India. At the time, Britain controlled this territory as part of its Empire. This led to complex exchanges between Indian and British intellectual culture, especially through Müller's links with the Brahmo Samaj.


title: Max Müller

text: Müller's Sanskrit studies came at a time when scholars had started to see language development in relation to cultural development. The recent discovery of the Indo-European language group had started to lead to much speculation about the relationship between Greco-Roman cultures and those of more ancient peoples. In particular the Vedic culture of India was thought to have been the ancestor of European Classical cultures. Scholars sought to compare the genetically related European and Asian languages to reconstruct the earliest form of the root-language. The Vedic language, Sanskrit, was thought to be the oldest of the IE languages.


title: Max Müller

text: Müller devoted himself to the study of this language, becoming one of the major Sanskrit scholars of his day. He believed that the earliest documents of Vedic culture should be studied to provide the key to the development of pagan European religions, and of religious belief in general. To this end, Müller sought to understand the most ancient of Vedic scriptures, the "Rig-Veda." Müller translated the book written by the 14th century Sanskrit scholar Sayanacharya from Sanskrit to English. Müller was greatly impressed by Ramakrishna Paramhansa, his contemporary and proponent of Vedantic philosophy, and wrote several essays and books about him.


title: Max Müller

text: For Müller, the study of the language had to relate to the study of the culture in which it had been used. He came to the view that the development of languages should be tied to that of belief-systems. At that time the Vedic scriptures were little-known in the West, though there was increasing interest in the philosophy of the Upanishads. Müller believed that the sophisticated Upanishadic philosophy could be linked to the primitive henotheism of early Vedic Brahmanism from which it evolved. He had to travel to London to look at documents held in the collection of the British East India Company. While there he persuaded the company to allow him to undertake a critical edition of the Rig-Veda, a task he pursued over many years (1849–1874). He completed the critical edition for which he is most remembered.


title: Max Müller

text: For Müller, the culture of the Vedic peoples represented a form of nature worship, an idea clearly influenced by Romanticism. Müller shared many of the ideas associated with Romanticism, which coloured his account of ancient religions, in particular his emphasis on the formative influence on early religion of emotional communion with natural forces. He saw the gods of the Rig-Veda as active forces of nature, only partly personified as imagined supernatural persons. From this claim Müller derived his theory that mythology is "a disease of language". By this he meant that myth transforms concepts into beings and stories. In Müller's view, "gods" began as words constructed to express abstract ideas, but were transformed into imagined personalities. Thus the Indo-European father-god appears under various names: Zeus, Jupiter, Dyaus Pita. For Müller all these names can be traced to the word ""Dyaus"," which he understood to imply "shining" or "radiance". This leads to the terms "deva", "deus", "theos" as generic terms for a god, and to the names "Zeus" and "Jupiter" (derived from deus-pater). In this way a metaphor becomes personified and ossified. This aspect of Müller's thinking was later explored similarly by Nietzsche.


title: Max Müller

text: In 1888, Müller was appointed Gifford Lecturer at the University of Glasgow. These Gifford Lectures were the first in an annual series, given at several Scottish universities, that has continued to the present day. Over the next four years, Müller gave four series of lectures. The titles and order of the lectures were as follows:


title: Max Müller

text: In 1881, he published a translation of the first edition of Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason". He agreed with Schopenhauer that this edition was the most direct and honest expression of Kant's thought. His translation corrected several errors that were committed by previous translators. In his Translator's Preface, Müller wrote


title: Max Müller

text: Müller continued to be influenced by the Kantian Transcendentalist model of spirituality, and was opposed to Darwinian ideas of human development. He argued that "language forms an impassable barrier between man and beast."


title: Max Müller

text: In his career, Müller several times expressed the view that a "reformation" within Hinduism needed to occur, comparable to the Christian Reformation. In his view, "if there is one thing which a comparative study of religions places in the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every religion is exposed... Whenever we can trace back a religion to its first beginnings, we find it free from many blemishes that affected it in its later states".


title: Max Müller

text: He used his links with the Brahmo Samaj to encourage such a reformation on the lines pioneered by Ram Mohan Roy. Müller believed that the Brahmos would engender an Indian form of Christianity and that they were in practice "Christians, without being Roman Catholics, Anglicans or Lutherans". In the Lutheran tradition, he hoped that the "superstition" and idolatry, which he considered to be characteristic of modern popular Hinduism, would disappear.


title: Max Müller

text: The translation of the "Veda" will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India, and on the growth of millions of souls in that country. It is the root of their religion, and to show them what the root is, I feel sure, is the only way of uprooting all that has sprung from it during the last 3,000 years... one ought to be up and doing what may be God's work.


title: Max Müller

text: Müller hoped that increased funding for education in India would promote a new form of literature combining Western and Indian traditions. In 1868 he wrote to George Campbell, the newly appointed Secretary of State for India:


title: Max Müller

text: In his sixties and seventies, Müller gave a series of lectures, which reflected a more nuanced view in favour of Hinduism and the ancient literature from India. In his "What can India teach us?" lecture at University of Cambridge, he championed ancient Sanskrit literature and India as follows:


title: Max Müller

text: He also conjectured that the introduction of Islam in India in the 11th century had a deep effect on the psyche and behaviour of Hindus in another lecture, "Truthful Character of the Hindus":


title: Max Müller

text: Swami Vivekananda, who was the foremost disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, met Müller over a lunch on 28 May 1896. Regarding Müller and his wife, the Swami later wrote:


title: Max Müller

text: During the course of his Gifford Lectures on the subject of "natural religion", Müller was severely criticised for being anti-Christian. In 1891, at a meeting of the Established Presbytery of Glasgow, Mr. Thomson (Minister of Ladywell) moved a motion that Müller's teaching was "subversive of the Christian faith, and fitted to spread pantheistic and infidel views amongst the students and others" and questioned Müller's appointment as lecturer. An even stronger attack on Müller was made by Monsignor Alexander Munro in St Andrew's Cathedral. Munro, an officer of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland (and Provost of the Catholic Cathedral of Glasgow from 1884 to 1892), declared that Müller's lectures "were nothing less than a crusade against Divine revelation, against Jesus Christ, and against Christianity". The blasphemous lectures were, he continued, "the proclamation of atheism under the guise of pantheism" and "uprooted our idea of God, for it repudiated the idea of a personal God".


title: Max Müller

text: Similar accusations had already led to Müller's exclusion from the Boden chair in Sanskrit in favour of the conservative Monier Monier-Williams. By the 1880s Müller was being courted by Charles Godfrey Leland, medium Helena Blavatsky, and other writers who were seeking to assert the merits of "pagan" religious traditions over Christianity. The designer Mary Fraser Tytler stated that Müller's book "Chips from a German Workshop" (a collection of his essays) was her "Bible", which helped her to create a multi-cultural sacred imagery.


title: Max Müller

text: Müller distanced himself from these developments, and remained within the Lutheran faith in which he had been brought up. According to G. Beckerlegge, "Müller's background as a Lutheran German and his identification with the Broad Church party" led to "suspicion by those opposed to the political and religious positions that they felt Müller represented", particularly his latitudinarianism.


title: Max Müller

text: Although Müller took a strong religious and academic interest in Hinduism and other non-Christian religions, and often compared Christianity to religions that many traditional Protestants would have regarded as primitive or false, he grounded his Perennialism in a belief that Christianity possessed the fullest truth of all living religions. Twenty-first century scholars of religion, far from accusing Müller of being anti-Christian, have critically examined Müller's theological project as evidence for a bias towards Christian conceptions of God in early academic religious studies.


title: Max Müller

text: Müller attempted to formulate a philosophy of religion that addressed the crisis of faith engendered by the historical and critical study of religion by German scholars on the one hand, and by the Darwinian revolution on the other. He was wary of Darwin's work on human evolution, and attacked his view of the development of human faculties. His work was taken up by cultural commentators such as his friend John Ruskin, who saw it as a productive response to the crisis of the age (compare Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach"). He analyzed mythologies as rationalisations of natural phenomena, primitive beginnings that we might denominate "protoscience" within a cultural evolution. Müller also proposed an early, mystical interpretation of theistic evolution, using Darwinism as a critique of mechanical philosophy.


title: Max Müller

text: In 1870 Müller gave a short course of three lectures for the British Institution on language as the barrier between man and beast, which he called "On Darwin's Philosophy of Language". Müller specifically disagreed with Darwin's theories on the origin of language and that the language of man could have developed from the language of animals. In 1873, he sent a copy of his lectures to Darwin reassuring him that, though he differed from some of Darwin's conclusions, he was one of his "diligent readers and sincere admirers".


title: Max Müller

text: Müller's work contributed to the developing interest in Aryan culture, which often set Indo-European ("Aryan") traditions in opposition to Semitic religions. He was "deeply saddened by the fact that these classifications later came to be expressed in racist terms", as this was far from his intention. For Müller, the discovery of common Indian and European ancestry was a powerful argument against racism, arguing that "an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar" and that "the blackest Hindus represent an earlier stage of Aryan speech and thought than the fairest Scandinavians".


title: Max Müller

text: Müller put forward and promoted the theory of a "Turanian" family of languages or speech, comprising the Finnic, Samoyedic, "Tataric" (Turkic), Mongolic, and Tungusic languages. According to Müller, these five languages were those "spoken in Asia or Europe not included under the Arian [sic] and Semitic families, with the exception perhaps of the Chinese and its dialects". In addition, they were "nomadic languages," in contrast to the other two families (Aryan and Semitic), which he called State or political languages.


title: Max Müller

text: The idea of a Turanian family of languages was not accepted by everyone at the time. Although the term "Turanian" quickly became an archaism (unlike "Aryan"), it did not disappear completely. The idea was absorbed later into nationalist ideologies in Hungary and Turkey.


title: Max Müller

text: In 1869, Müller was elected to the French "Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres" as a foreign correspondent ("associé étranger").


title: Max Müller

text: In June 1874, Müller was awarded the "Pour le Mérite" (civil class), much to his surprise. Soon after, when he was commanded to dine at Windsor, he wrote to Prince Leopold to ask if he "might" wear his Order, and the wire came back, "Not "may", but "must"."


title: Max Müller

text: In 1875, Müller was awarded the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art. The award is given to acknowledge excellent and outstanding achievements in the field of science and art. In a letter to his mother dated 19 December, Müller wrote that the award was more showy than the "Pour le Mérite", "but that is the best".


title: Max Müller

text: He married Georgina Adelaide Grenfell on 3 August 1859 after overcoming the opposition from her family. The couple had four children – Ada, Mary, Beatrice and William Grenfell – of whom two predeceased them.


title: Max Müller

text: Georgina (died 1919) had his papers and correspondence bound; they are at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.


title: Max Müller

text: Müller's health began deteriorating in 1898 and he died at his home in Oxford on 28 October 1900. He was interred at Holywell Cemetery on 1 November 1900.


title: Max Müller

text: After his death a memorial fund, the Max Müller Memorial Fund, was opened at Oxford for "the promotion of learning and research in all matters relating to the history and archaeology, the languages, literatures, and religions of ancient India".


title: Max Müller

text: Harry Smith stated of his film "Heaven and Earth Magic": "The first part depicts the heroine's toothache consequent to the loss of a valuable watermelon, her dentistry and transportation to heaven. Next follows an elaborate exposition of the heavenly land in terms of Israel, Montreal and the second part depicts the return to earth from being eaten by Max Müller on the day Edward the Seventh dedicated the Great Sewer of London."


title: Max Müller

text: The Goethe Institutes in India are named Max Müller Bhavan in his honour, as is a street (Max Mueller Marg) in New Delhi.


title: Max Müller

text: Müller's biographies include those by Lourens van den Bosch (2002), Jon R. Stone (2002) and Scholar Extraordinary (1974) by Nirad C. Chaudhuri, the last of which was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for English by Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters. Stephen G. Alter's (2005) work contains a chapter on Müller's rivalry with the American linguist William Dwight Whitney.


title: Languages of Nepal

text: Languages of Nepal constitutionally called Nepalese languages are the languages having at least an ancient history or origin inside the sovereign territory of Nepal spoken by Nepalis. The 2011 National census lists 123 languages spoken as a mother tongue (first language) in Nepal. Most belong to the Indo-Aryan and Sino-Tibetan language families.


title: Languages of Nepal

text: The official working language at federal level is Nepali, but the constitution provisions each province to choose one or more additional official working languages. The Language Commission of Nepal on 6 Sept 2021 recommended 14 official languages for different provinces of Nepal.


title: Languages of Nepal

text: The mother languages of Nepal, or languages of Nepali origin are sometimes referred to as "Nepali languages".


title: Languages of Nepal

text: According to the constitution of Nepal, "all languages spoken as the mother tongues in Nepal are the languages of the nation". Many of the languages also have various dialects. For example, the Rai community has about 30 languages. Some of the languages are similar and may be considered as a dialect but sometimes the distinction between dialects or completely different languages is unclear and might differ in opinions from person to person.


title: Languages of Nepal

text: Nepal's languages are mostly either Indo-European or Sino-Tibetan, while only a very few of them are Austro-Asiatic and Dravidian.


title: Languages of Nepal

text: Out of 123 languages of Nepal, the 48 Indo-European languages, which are of the Indo-Aryan (Indic) sub-family (excluding English), constitute the largest group in terms of the numeric strength of their speakers, nearly 82.1% of population. Nepali, Bhojpuri, Maithili, Awadhi, Tharu languages, Urdu, etc. fall in this group.


title: Languages of Nepal

text: The Sino-Tibetan family of Nepal's languages forms a part of its Tibeto-Burman group. Though spoken by relatively fewer people than the Indo-European family (17.3% of population), it includes a greater number of languages, about 63 languages. Languages belonging to this group are Tamang, Nepal Bhasa (Newar), Magar, Limbu, etc.


title: Languages of Nepal

text: The small declining number of Dravidian languages are represented by Kurux, and the Munda languages of the Austroasiatic family by Santali and Mundari.


title: Languages of Nepal

text: The indigenous languages of Nepal that predated the influx of Indic, Tibeto-Burman, and other families barely survive in the Kusunda language, which is nearly extinct today.


title: Languages of Nepal

text: Nepal also has at several indigenous village sign languages: Jhankot Sign Language, Jumla Sign Language, and Ghandruk Sign Language, in addition to the Nepali Sign Language designed for national use.


title: Languages of Nepal

text: Part 1 of the Constitution of Nepal 2015 (2072 B.S.) contains these provisions about the languages of Nepal:


title: Languages of Nepal

text: According to the 2011 national census, Nepali native speakers make up less than half the population, about 44.6%. Most of the languages in Nepal are endangered because out of the 129 languages, only 19 of them have more than 100,000 speakers. Those languages are spoken by 95.91% of the total population.


title: Languages of Nepal

text: The 2019 annual report of the Language Commission of Nepal registered six languages not previously counted: Rana Tharu, Nar Phu, Chum (Syaar), Nubri (Larke), Poike and Serake (Seke). These languages are spoken in the districts of Kanchapur, Manang, Gorkha, Dolpa, and Mustang respectively.


title: Languages of Nepal

text: Nepali in Devanagari script is the official working language in federal level. The constitution has provisioned provinces to choose one or more than one official language(s) besides Nepali. According to the Language Commission of Nepal Maithili and Limbu are recommended to have official status in Province No. 1; Maithili, Bhojpuri and Bajjika in Province No. 2; Tamang and Nepal Bhasa in Bagmati Province; Magar and Gurung in Gandaki Province; Tharu and Awadhi in Lumbini Province; Nepali (Khas Bhasa)'s Karnali dialect and Magar in Karnali Province; Dotyali and Tharu in Sudurpashchim Province.


title: Languages of Nepal

text: Most of the languages are found exclusively in oral form. According to the Language Commission, fifteen scripts are currently in use in Nepal, including the following:


title: Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist

text: The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist () was the theft over several months in 2011 and 2012 of nearly of maple syrup, valued at C$18.7 million from a storage facility in Quebec. The facility was operated by the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers () who represent 77 percent of the global maple syrup supply. Adjusted for inflation (2020), the heist is the most valuable in Canadian history.


title: Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist

text: In 1966, a group of maple syrup producers in Quebec participated in a joint plan to collectively market maple syrup. This effort inspired the formation of a larger agreement all across Quebec which became known as the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers.


title: Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist

text: The FPAQ maintains a strategic reserve of maple syrup, officially known as the International Strategic Reserve (ISR) across multiple warehouses in rural Quebec towns.


title: Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist

text: Over the course of several months between 2011 and 2012, the contents of 9,571 barrels, valued at C$18.7M, were stolen in a suspected insider job from a FPAQ facility in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford, Quebec. The syrup was stored in unmarked white metal barrels inspected only once a year. Thieves used trucks to transport barrels to a remote sugar shack, where they siphoned off the maple syrup, refilled the barrels with water, then returned them to the facility. As the operation progressed, the thieves started siphoning syrup directly off barrels in the reserve without refilling them. The stolen syrup was trucked to the south (Vermont) and east (New Brunswick), where it was trafficked in many small batches to reduce suspicion. It was typically sold to legitimate syrup distributors who were unaware of its origin.


title: Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist

text: In July 2012, the FPAQ took its annual inventory of syrup barrels. Inspector Michel Gauvreau started climbing up the barrels and nearly fell, expecting barrels but finding them to be empty. Police later recovered hundreds of barrels of the syrup from an exporter based in Kedgwick, New Brunswick.


title: Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist

text: The theft was featured in the Netflix documentary series "Dirty Money" in season 1, episode 5, "The Maple Syrup Heist".


title: Savage Grace

text: Savage Grace is a 2007 drama film directed by Tom Kalin and written by Howard A. Rodman, based on the book "Savage Grace" by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Aronson. The story is based on the highly dysfunctional relationship between heiress and socialite Barbara Daly Baekeland and her son, Antony. The film stars Julianne Moore, Stephen Dillane, Eddie Redmayne, Elena Anaya, and Hugh Dancy.


title: Savage Grace

text: It was an official selection at the 2007 London Film Festival, the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Savage Grace

text: The film is based on the true story of Barbara Daly Baekeland (Moore), her husband Brooks Baekeland (Dillane), heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune, and their only child Antony (Redmayne), who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The story begins with Antony's birth and follows the family to the time of his arrest for the murder of his mother.


title: Savage Grace

text: Critics gave the film mixed reviews. The review aggregator "Rotten Tomatoes" has a 38% of approval, based on 89 reviews — the consensus reads "though visually compelling, the lamentable characters in "Savage Grace" make for difficult viewing." Metacritic, another review aggregator, reported the film had an average score of 51 out of 100, based on 28 reviews.


title: Savage Grace

text: Peter Bradshaw writing in "The Guardian" gave the film four out of five stars, describing it as "a gripping, coldly brilliant and tremendously acted movie."


title: Savage Grace

text: After the film opened, Baekeland's former lover, Samuel Adams Green (played by Dancy in the film), wrote an article pointing out that elements in the film were factually inaccurate, such as the "ménage à trois" scene of Barbara, Antony, and Sam having sex.


title: Savage Grace

text: Green then took legal action against the film makers, which was still unresolved at the time of his death.


title: Western betrayal

text: Western betrayal is the view that the United Kingdom, France, and sometimes the United States failed to meet their legal, diplomatic, military, and moral obligations with respect to the Czechoslovak and Polish states during the prelude to and aftermath of World War II. It also sometimes refers to the treatment of other Central and Eastern European states at the time.


title: Western betrayal

text: The term refers to several events, including the treatment of Czechoslovakia during the Munich Agreement and the resulting occupation by Germany, as well as the failure of France and the UK to aid Poland when the country was invaded by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. The same concept also refers to concessions made by the United States and the United Kingdom to the Soviet Union during the Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam conferences and to their passive stance during the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi occupation, and post-war events, which allocated the region to the Soviet sphere of influence and created the communist Eastern Bloc.


title: Western betrayal

text: Historically, such views were intertwined with some of the most significant geopolitical events of the 20th century, including the rise and empowerment of Nazi Germany, the rise of the Soviet Union as a dominant superpower with control of large parts of Europe, and various treaties, alliances, and positions taken during and after World War II and continuing on into the Cold War.


title: Western betrayal

text: "Notions of western betrayal" is a reference to "a sense of historical and moral responsibility" for the West's "abandonment of Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War," according to professors Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler.


title: Western betrayal

text: In Central and Eastern Europe, the interpretation of the outcomes of the Munich Crisis of 1938 and the Yalta Conference of 1945 as a betrayal of Central and Eastern Europe by Western powers has been used by Central and Eastern European leaders to put pressure on Western countries to acquiesce to more recent political requests such as membership in NATO.


title: Western betrayal

text: In a few cases deliberate duplicity is alleged, whereby secret agreements or intentions are claimed to have existed in conflict with understandings given publicly. An example is Winston Churchill's covert concordance with the USSR that the Atlantic Charter did not apply to the Baltic states. Given the strategic requirements of winning the war, British Prime Minister Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had no option but to accept the demands of their erstwhile ally, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, at the Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam conferences, argues retired American diplomat Charles G. Stefan.


title: Western betrayal

text: There was also a lack of military or political support for the anticommunist rebels during the uprising in German Democratic Republic in 1953, during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and during the democracy-oriented reforms in Czechoslovakia in 1968 (the so-called "Prague Spring").


title: Western betrayal

text: According to Ilya Prizel, the "preoccupation with their historical sense of 'damaged self' fueled resentment" towards the West generally and reinforced the western betrayal concept in particular. Grigory Yavlinsky argues that damage to central European national psyches left by the Western "betrayal" at Yalta and Munich remained a "psychological event" or "psychiatric issue" during debates over NATO expansion.