title: ¡Uno!

text: "¡Uno!" received generally positive reviews from contemporary music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 67, based on 32 reviews. In his review for "Rolling Stone", David Fricke complimented the album's "12 blasts of hook-savvy mosh-pit pop" and found it to be a "plain relief" after the "weight and worry" of the band's previous two albums, observing "a hipper, richer grip in the details." Melissa Maerz of "Entertainment Weekly" called the album "a welcome switch from high concept to high energy." "Kerrang!" magazine called it "a sharp and often exhilarating change of gear from the Green Day of the past eight years." BBC Music's Ian Winwood called it "a work of masterfully controlled music." "Mojo" recommended it to fans of the band's 1994 album "Dookie" and stated, "your favourite slacker-punks are, briefly, back." Scott Heisel of "Alternative Press" praised its "loud, fast, catchy-as-fuck punk rock" and wrote that its "stripped down instrumentation" and "more direct lyrics" are "mutually beneficial." Jason Heller of "The A.V. Club" commented that "filler abounds, and it doesn’t land with quite as much delirious abandon as it once did, but Armstrong’s power-pop impulse can still pack a face-splitting punch." AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine felt that its "big, crisp, and clean" sound "undercuts some of the punkiness of Green Day's intentions", but complimented their "attack" as "precise" and wrote that the "huge" hooks "gleefully bludgeon doubters into blissful submission."


title: ¡Uno!

text: In a mixed review, Ed Power of "Hot Press" observed "over-familiarity" and "less to say on "Uno"" than on the band's previous work, stating, "they are doing what they do best. Nothing less, but certainly nothing more." Dave Simpson of "The Guardian" called "¡Uno!" "a very decent fist of sounding like their twentysomething selves", but wrote that "the pace doesn't vary and the recent social commentary ... has given way to more teenage concerns". Slant Magazine's Yorgo Douramacos called the album "fairly strong", but felt that the songs "sound like only slightly altered versions of previous entries in the Green Day catalogue." In a negative review, Andy Gill of "The Independent" panned "Green Day's devotion to the most basic of rock formats" and called the music "patronising corporate rock masquerading, in sweary adolescent anthems as somehow anti-establishment." Randall Roberts of the "Los Angeles Times" asserted that the album was too "typical" and "commercial" to be a punk album, writing that it "feels like the work of a band that has painted itself into an aesthetic corner." Paul Mardles of "The Observer" criticized the album as "largely throwaway, its frenzied, phlegm-flecked songs littered with sentiments ... that sound daft coming from a 40-year-old frontman." Greg Kot of the "Chicago Tribune" was ambivalent towards its "back-to-basics" approach and perceived a lack of "memorable lyric[s]". Barry Nicolson of "NME" found the album more comparable to "the three albums that followed" "Dookie", noting "highs that prove unsustainable, and lows that hope you're too adrenalised to notice." "Rolling Stone" ranked it number eight on their year-end top albums list for 2012. Robert Christgau later said in 2021 that the album had "sounded like more of the self-important same" and diminished his interest in the band's subsequent work.


title: ¡Uno!

text: The album debuted at number two on the US "Billboard" 200 chart, selling 139,000 copies in its first week. After 3 months, Uno had shifted 256,000 copies in the US. The album has sold over 325,000 copies in the US. In the United Kingdom, it also debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart on first-week sales of 42,651 copies. As of October 13, 2016, "¡Uno!" has sold 125,531 copies in the UK. In Canada, the album debuted at number three on the Canadian Albums Chart selling 12,000 copies.


title: Honda CB400SF

text: The Honda CB400 Super Four is a CB series standard motorcycle produced by Honda at the Kumamoto plant from 1992 to the present. The CB400 embodies the typical Universal Japanese Motorcycle produced through the 1970s, updated with modern technology. To this end, the bike has a naked retro design, paired with a smooth inline-four engine. Originally a Japan-only bike, it was later also available in SE Asia, and from 2008 in Australia.


title: Honda CB400SF

text: Unveiled in 1991 at the 29th Tokyo Motor Show as a 400 cc version of the CB1000 Super Four, the motorcycle was introduced in Japan for the 1992 model year, with an engine similar to that of the early CB-1.


title: Honda CB400SF

text: 1992: The CB400 Super Four introduced the updated CB-1 engine, tilted backwards to obtain a more erect cylinder bank. Carburetors changed from down-draft to side-draft type, but still CV. A more conventional chain drive system replaced the gear cam drive system, setting the red-line at 12,500 rpm. Wider gear ratios defined the versatility of Honda's intention for the bike.


title: Honda CB400SF

text: 1994: Updates to the ignition timing due to adoption of the pent-roof combustion chamber design, the internal structure of the muffler, and the shape of the cam chain links for reduced mechanical noise. The engine mount location was updated for improved handling. A new instrument cluster appeared with the analogue fuel gauge moved to a central location from previously within the tachometer face, a row of indicator LEDs below the clocks, and a hazard light switch. Weight increased by .


title: Honda CB400SF

text: A special edition Super Four version R model offered PGM-IG programmed ignition timing along with electronic controlled valve operation, in addition to a headlight cowl, sharper rake angle, lightweight aluminium muffler, stiffer suspension and sintered brake pads.


title: Honda CB400SF

text: 1996: New front brake discs with reduced tendency to warp, and opposed four-piston calipers for improved initial response.


title: Honda CB400SF

text: 1997: Updates to the carburetor air funnels, the internal muffler structure, and the Nissin brakes. Weight increased by .


title: Honda CB400SF

text: 1999: The CB400SF Hyper VTEC introduced major engine improvements through the use of Honda's VTEC system. While having four valves per cylinder, below 6750 rpm one intake and exhaust pair are disabled. This technique improved the engine's low and mid-range power and efficiency, while retaining performance over 6,750 rpm by resuming four valve operation. The light-weight aluminium muffler (previously special edition), 40 mm shorter wheelbase, 10 mm lower engine mount position, and front suspension lifted from the super-sport CBR900RR resulted in improved handling. Weight reduced by .


title: Honda CB400SF

text: 2002: The CB400SF Hyper VTEC Spec II changed the operation of the VTEC system to trigger at 6,300 rpm along with updated ignition timing map. An LCD odometer/trip-meter and clock + fuel gauge were integrated in the speedometer and tachometer faces respectively, as well as adding the HISS ignition security system. Air intake noise was reduced by enhancing the surface rigidity of the air cleaner case. Lighter, smaller oil filter and front brake calipers were lifted from the super-sport CBR900RR. Chipping guards were added to the front fork tubes. Weight increased by .


title: Honda CB400SF

text: 2004: The CB400SF Hyper VTEC Spec III further changed the operation of the VTEC system to trigger at 6,750 rpm in 6th gear, remaining at 6,300 rpm in gears 1–5, along with further updated ignition timing map. Increased quantity of glass wool in the exhaust pipe collector reduces exhaust noise to 72 dB to comply with government regulations. A new lower seat with single grab rail instead of surface belt, light rear brake caliper and updated front suspension offer better ergonomics. Multi-reflector headlight, LED tail-lights, new fuel tank and rear cowl provide improved safety and styling. Weight increased by .


title: Honda CB400SF

text: 2005: Added analogue pre-load adjustment mechanism for the front suspension and high-density polyurethane material for the seat cushion. From 2005, the CB400 Super Bol d'Or has been available with a half-fairing in Japan and later in SE Asia as well.


title: Honda CB400SF

text: 2006: Larger ignition coils supply a more stable spark at lower rpms; clear smoke lenses on the turn indicator lights.


title: Honda CB400SF

text: 2008: The CB400SF Hyper VTEC Revo introduced Honda's PGM-FI programmed fuel injection and an idle air control valve for improved fuel economy and reliability. Revised engine materials and an integrated crank-case cover reduced the engine weight by . The VTEC operation was further refined such that in gears 1–5 four-valve operation engaged at 6,300 rpm for wide open throttle, otherwise at 6,750 rpm, and remaining at 6,750 rpm in 6th gear. Independent cylinder ignition timing map, revised air intake geometry and a larger stainless steel muffler contribute to fuel efficiency. Updated frame rigidity and engine mounting position improved handling. Optional combined ABS uses three-piston sliding calipers on the front brakes instead of the standard four-piston opposed calipers and a larger 256 mm rear brake disc. Weight increased by , and with ABS.


title: Honda CB400SF

text: 2014: Central LCD screen with gear position, fuel consumption, thermometer and heater level for the handle grips (available with the "E Package"), 10-spoke wheels, round mirrors and dual grab rails on a revised rear cowl with LED rear lights and clear lens. Revised frame geometry brought the handlebars 10 mm higher and 7 mm closer to the rider, and also reduced the rise angle of the tail end, both changes resulting in a more upright riding position. Revised half-fairing with LED headlight for the Super Bol d'Or. Weight increased by .


title: Honda CB400SF

text: Genuine accessories available from Honda include a rear carrier storage box that installs in place of the dual grab rails, a 12V power socket that plugs into the wiring harness, and a central stand.


title: Honda CB400SF

text: 2018: 25th anniversary model of Honda's "PROJECT BIG 1" (SuperFour since 1992), smaller 2-chamber muffler and updated throttle bodies to comply with emissions regulations, also increased the maximum power to . LED headlight, updated front and rear suspension, right-angle tyre valve stems, and push type helmet lock bracket. Super Bol d'Or is available with ABS only. Weight increased by .


title: Honda CB400SF

text: All specifications are manufacturer claimed unless otherwise specified. The motorcycle model designation is printed on a sticker under the seat.


title: Cashier's check

text: A cashier's check (or cashier's cheque, cashier's order) is a check guaranteed by a bank, drawn on the bank's own funds and signed by a cashier. Cashier's checks are treated as guaranteed funds because the bank, rather than the purchaser, is responsible for paying the amount. They are commonly required for real estate and brokerage transactions.


title: Cashier's check

text: Genuine cashier's checks deposited into a bank account are usually cleared the next day. The customer can request "next-day availability" when depositing a cashier's check in person. Forged cashier's checks may bounce 2 weeks after being deposited.


title: Cashier's check

text: When cashier’s checks took weeks to clear the banks, they were often forged in fraud schemes. The recipient of the check would deposit it in their account and withdraw funds under next-day availability, assuming it was legitimate. The bank might not be informed the check was fraudulent until, perhaps, weeks after the customer had withdrawn funds made available by the fraudulent deposit, by which time the customer would be legally liable for the cash already withdrawn.


title: Cashier's check

text: A customer asks a bank for a cashier's check, and the bank debits the amount from the customer's account immediately and assumes the responsibility for covering the cashier's check. That is in contrast with a personal check, for which the bank does not debit the amount from the customer's account until the check is deposited or cashed by the recipient.


title: Cashier's check

text: A cashier's check is not the same as a teller's check, also known as a banker's draft, which is a check provided to a customer of a bank or acquired from a bank for remittance purposes and drawn by the bank, and drawn on another bank or payable through or at a bank.


title: Cashier's check

text: A cashier's check is also different from a certified check, which is a personal check written by the customer and drawn on the customer's account, on which the bank certifies that the signature is genuine and that the customer has sufficient funds in the account to cover the check.


title: Cashier's check

text: Also, a cashier's check should not be confused with a counter check, which is a non-personalized check provided by the bank for the convenience of a customer making withdrawals or payments, but it is not guaranteed and is functionally equivalent to a personal check.


title: Cashier's check

text: Cashier's checks feature the name of the issuing bank in a prominent location, usually the upper left-hand corner or upper centre of the check. In addition, they are generally produced with enhanced security features, including watermarks, security thread, color-shifting ink, and special bond paper. These are designed to decrease the vulnerability to counterfeit items. To be recognized as a cashier's check, words to that effect must be included in a prominent place on the front of the item.


title: Cashier's check

text: The payee's name, the written and numeric amount to be tendered, the remitter's information, and other tracking information (such as the branch of issue), are printed on the front of the check. The check is generally signed by one or two bank employees or officers; however, some banks issue cashier's checks featuring a facsimile signature of the bank's chief executive officer or other senior official.


title: Cashier's check

text: Some banks contract out the maintenance of their cashier's check accounts and check issuing. One leading contractor is Integrated Payment Systems, which issues cashier's checks and coordinates redemption of the items for many banks, in addition to issuing money orders and other payment instruments. In theory, checks issued by a financial institution but drawn on another institution, as is often the case with credit unions, are teller's checks.


title: Cashier's check

text: Due to an increase in fraudulent activities, starting in 2006 many banks insist upon waiting for a cashier's check to clear the originating institution before making funds available for withdrawal. Personal checks will thus have the same utility in such transactions.


title: Cashier's check

text: In the United States, under Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code, a cashier's check is effective as a note of the issuing bank. Also, according to Regulation CC (Reg CC) of the Federal Reserve, cashier's checks are recognized as "guaranteed funds", and amounts under $5,000 are not subject to deposit hold (except in the case of new accounts). The length of a hold varies (2 days to 2 weeks) depending on the bank. It is not clear what length of time may pass before a bank can be held responsible for accepting a bad cashier's check.


title: Cashier's check

text: In Canada, bank drafts carry the same legal weight as standard checks but are provided as a service to clients as a payment instrument with guaranteed funds. Drafts (or money orders depending on the issuing institution) usually have better security features than standard checks, and as such are often preferred when the receiver is concerned about receiving fraudulent payment instruments. However, bank drafts can also be subject to counterfeiting, and as such can be held or verified by depositing institutions in accordance with their hold funds policy, prior to providing access to the funds.


title: Cashier's check

text: In Canada, the term money order is used non-uniformly: some institutions offer both money orders and bank drafts depending on the amount, while others only offer one or the other for any amount. Generally, bank drafts and money orders are treated the same way with respect to guaranteed funds and hold policies.


title: Cashier's check

text: In many nations, money orders are a popular alternative to cashier's checks and are considered safer than personal bank checks. However, in the United States, they are generally not recognized as "guaranteed funds" under Reg CC and are limited to a specified maximum amount ($1,000 or less under U.S. law for domestic postal money orders).


title: Cashier's check

text: Because of US regulatory requirements associated with the Patriot Act and the Bank Secrecy Act due to updated concerns over money laundering, most insurance and brokerage firms will no longer accept money orders as payment for insurance premiums or as deposits into brokerage accounts.


title: Cashier's check

text: Counterfeit money orders and cashier's checks have been used in certain scams to steal from those who sell their goods online on sites such as eBay and Craigslist.


title: Cashier's check

text: The "counterfeit cashier's check scam" is a scheme wherein the victim is sent a cashier's check or money order for payment on an item for sale on the Internet. When the money order is taken to the bank it may not be detected as counterfeit for 10 business days or more, but the bank will deposit the money into the account and state that it has been "verified" or is "clear" in about 24 hours. This gives the victim a false feeling of security that the money order was real, so they proceed with the transaction. When the bank eventually discovers that the money order is counterfeit and reverses the account credit many days later, the customer will usually have already mailed the item. In many cases the "check" or "money order" is for more than the amount owed, and the victim is asked to refund the difference in cash.


title: Electromagnetic coil

text: An electromagnetic coil is an electrical conductor such as a wire in the shape of a coil (spiral or helix). Electromagnetic coils are used in electrical engineering, in applications where electric currents interact with magnetic fields, in devices such as electric motors, generators, inductors, electromagnets, transformers, and sensor coils. Either an electric current is passed through the wire of the coil to generate a magnetic field, or conversely, an external "time-varying" magnetic field through the interior of the coil generates an EMF (voltage) in the conductor.


title: Electromagnetic coil

text: A current through any conductor creates a circular magnetic field around the conductor due to Ampere's law. The advantage of using the coil shape is that it increases the strength of the magnetic field produced by a given current. The magnetic fields generated by the separate turns of wire all pass through the center of the coil and add (superpose) to produce a strong field there. The more turns of wire, the stronger the field produced. Conversely, a "changing" external magnetic flux induces a voltage in a conductor such as a wire, due to Faraday's law of induction. The induced voltage can be increased by winding the wire into a coil because the field lines intersect the circuit multiple times.


title: Electromagnetic coil

text: The direction of the magnetic field produced by a coil can be determined by the right hand grip rule. If the fingers of the right hand are wrapped around the magnetic core of a coil in the direction of conventional current through the wire, the thumb will point in the direction the magnetic field lines pass through the coil. The end of a magnetic core from which the field lines emerge is defined to be the North pole.


title: Electromagnetic coil

text: The wire or conductor which constitutes the coil is called the winding. The hole in the center of the coil is called the core area or "magnetic axis". Each loop of wire is called a turn. In windings in which the turns touch, the wire must be insulated with a coating of nonconductive insulation such as plastic or enamel to prevent the current from passing between the wire turns. The winding is often wrapped around a "coil form" made of plastic or other material to hold it in place. The ends of the wire are brought out and attached to an external circuit. Windings may have additional electrical connections along their length; these are called taps. A winding that has a single tap in the center of its length is called center-tapped.


title: Electromagnetic coil

text: Coils can have more than one winding, insulated electrically from each other. When there are two or more windings around a common magnetic axis, the windings are said to be inductively coupled or magnetically coupled. A time-varying current through one winding will create a time-varying magnetic field that passes through the other winding, which will induce a time-varying voltage in the other windings. This is called a transformer. The winding to which current is applied, which creates the magnetic field, is called the "primary winding". The other windings are called "secondary windings".


title: Electromagnetic coil

text: Many electromagnetic coils have a magnetic core, a piece of ferromagnetic material like iron in the center to increase the magnetic field. The current through the coil magnetizes the iron, and the field of the magnetized material adds to the field produced by the wire. This is called a ferromagnetic-core or iron-core coil. A ferromagnetic core can increase the magnetic field and inductance of a coil by hundreds or thousands of times over what it would be without the core. A ferrite core coil is a variety of coil with a core made of ferrite, a ferrimagnetic ceramic compound. Ferrite coils have lower core losses at high frequencies.


title: Electromagnetic coil

text: A coil without a ferromagnetic core is called an air-core coil. This includes coils wound on plastic or other nonmagnetic forms, as well as coils which actually have empty air space inside their windings.


title: Electromagnetic coil

text: Electromagnets are coils that generate a magnetic field for some external use, often to exert a mechanical force on something. or remove existing background fields. A few specific types:


title: Electromagnetic coil

text: Inductors or reactors are coils which generate a magnetic field which interacts with the coil itself, to induce a back EMF which opposes changes in current through the coil. Inductors are used as circuit elements in electrical circuits, to temporarily store energy or resist changes in current. A few types:


title: Electromagnetic coil

text: A transformer is a device with two or more magnetically coupled windings (or sections of a single winding). A time varying current in one coil (called the primary winding) generates a magnetic field which induces a voltage in the other coil (called the secondary winding). A few types:


title: Electromagnetic coil

text: Electric machines such as motors and generators have one or more windings which interact with moving magnetic fields to convert electrical energy to mechanical energy. Often a machine will have one winding through which passes most of the power of the machine (the "armature"), and a second winding which provides the magnetic field of the rotating element ( the "field winding") which may be connected by brushes or slip rings to an external source of electric current. In an induction motor, the "field" winding of the rotor is energized by the slow relative motion between the rotating winding and the rotating magnetic field produced by the stator winding, which induces the necessary exciting current in the rotor.


title: Electromagnetic coil

text: These are coils used to translate time-varying magnetic fields to electric signals, and vice versa. A few types:


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: Emmanuel Eboué (born 4 June 1983) is an Ivorian former professional footballer who played as a right back.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: Formed at ASEC Mimosas, he moved to Europe to play for Belgium's Beveren in 2002. He spent most of his career, from 2005 to 2011, with Arsenal of the Premier League, playing 214 games, including the 2006 UEFA Champions League Final. Later he moved to Galatasaray, where he played regularly and won five domestic honours in Turkey. Eboué made his international debut for the Ivory Coast in 2004, eventually earning 79 caps by 2013. He was part of their squads at five Africa Cup of Nations tournaments and two World Cups.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: Born in Abidjan, Eboué began his football career in the ASEC Mimosas youth academy. In 2002, Eboué moved to ASEC's Belgian parent club KSK Beveren and spent three seasons there. His impressive performances in Belgium caught the eye of Arsenal's scouts.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: Eboué's debut came only days after signing from Beveren, in the FA Cup against Stoke City. Although he was not initially a first team regular, making just one FA Premier League appearance, as a substitute, in 2004–05, Eboué was regularly in Arsenal's reserve team. He did however contribute three appearances to Arsenal's victorious 2004–05 FA Cup campaign.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: In 2005–06, Eboué made his breakthrough into the Arsenal side. He started the season mainly as a reserve player, though he scored his first goal for Arsenal in the club's 3–0 League Cup third round victory at Sunderland on 25 October 2005. Despite leaving for the African Cup of Nations in January 2006, he was immediately sent into action on his return; he made his first career Premiership start at right back against Liverpool at Anfield, replacing the injured Lauren. With Lauren injured for the rest of the season, Eboué unexpectedly held his place for the remainder of Arsenal's 2005–06 campaign.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: Eboué's run in the Arsenal side included matches in the UEFA Champions League knockout phase against Real Madrid, Juventus, and Villarreal. Impressed with the way the Ivorian adapted to the increased pace of the Premiership and pressure of the Champions League, Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger even compared Eboué to the legendary Brazilian winger Garrincha after an energetic performance in the 1 April 2006 game against Aston Villa. Eboué continued in the starting line-up for Arsenal in the 2006 UEFA Champions League Final at the Stade de France.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: Eboué started the 2006–07 season, and was named the Arsenal Player of the Month for September. However, he was injured in an international and spent the whole of the month of October out with injury. He made his first team return as a substitute in the 1–0 defeat by West Ham United on 5 November, and started the League Cup win over Everton later that same week. He scored his second Arsenal goal in their 3–1 Champions League victory over Hamburg on 21 November 2006. Persistent ankle problems have plagued him throughout December 2006 and January 2007. He attempted to make many comebacks, mostly against high-profile teams such as Liverpool, in the FA Cup third Round and Manchester United, but he was unable to come through them unscathed. Wenger decided to wait until there was no chance that there would be a recurrence of the injury. He came off the bench for Armand Traoré in the League Cup final against Chelsea. He started the match against Blackburn Rovers in the FA cup 5th Round Replay, only for his ankle to get injured again from a studs-up challenge from Blackburn winger Morten Gamst Pedersen, which the referee also missed. In May 2007, Eboué signed a new long-term contract with Arsenal.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: From the start of the 2007–08 season, Arsène Wenger stated his intention to move Eboué into a role on the right wing, following the signing of Bacary Sagna. On 20 September 2008, Eboué scored his first Premier League goal against Bolton Wanderers in an away match, which Arsenal won 3–1.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: During the 2008–09 season, he was frequently criticised by Arsenal fans after some less-than-satisfactory performances. In December 2008 against Wigan Athletic at the Emirates, Eboué played particularly poorly after being brought on as a substitute. He made many unforced errors to the point where a small section of Arsenal fans began to boo him. Eboué continued to lose possession and in the second half, Eboué tackled his own player and gifted possession to Wigan. He was subsequently substituted. This dramatic dip in form also coincided with other problems in the team, notably the absence of teammate Theo Walcott (who also played regularly on the right wing) through injury. Further appearances were confined to playing as a wing-forward or right back. On 8 March 2009, he scored the third goal against Burnley in the FA Cup fifth round match. On 14 March, he scored two goals (one a penalty) in the Gunners' 4–0 hammering of Blackburn Rovers.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: He scored his first goal of the 2009–10 season for Arsenal against Wigan Athletic at the Emirates Stadium, on 19 September 2009, the fixture in which he was booed by a small section of his own fans in the previous season. On 9 March 2010, in the second leg of Arsenal's Champions League tie at home to Porto, Eboué scored the fourth goal in a 5–0 win having come on as a substitute. In March 2010, Eboué dismissed speculation he would leave Arsenal and pledged to see out the remainder of his contract.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: In April 2011, Eboué scored for Arsenal in their 3–1 win over Blackpool at Bloomfield Road, with a powerful strike from his weaker left foot, which helped keep Arsenal's title hopes alive. In the following match against Liverpool at the Emirates Stadium, however, he conceded a last-minute penalty by pushing Lucas Leiva in the back which denied the club victory and left them six points adrift of the leaders. On 8 May 2011, he was an unused substitute in the game against Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium in a 3–1 defeat.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: At the end of the 2010–11 season, Eboué made 27 appearances in total and scored once in all competitions.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: At the start of the 2011–12 season, Eboué lost his squad number to new signing Gervinho, who was given the number 27 shirt upon his arrival, which left Eboué's future at the club unclear. On 16 August 2011, Eboué completed a move to Turkish club Galatasaray for €3.5 million in 4-year contract (worth €2.35M a season plus bonus). Following his move to Galatasaray, Eboué revealed that manager Arsène Wenger told him he would have few first-team opportunities and to listen to interest to join the Turkish side. On 11 September 2011, Eboué made his debut in the clubs shirt in a 2–0 loss against İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: In the match between Galatasaray and Beşiktaş which was 0–0, Eboué was pelted with missiles from the crowd whenever he neared the touchline. On 3 December 2011, Eboué scored his first goal against Gençlerbirliği, which was the only goal in a 1–0 win. He played 31 matches in the league as he secured his first league title of his professional career.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: In Eboué's second season at the club, the Ivorian helped the team claim victory in the Turkish Super Cup on 12 August 2012, playing the whole game in an entertaining 3–2 victory over rivals Fenerbahçe at the Kazım Karabekir Stadium in Erzurum. Eboué was part of the squad that surprisingly fell 2–1 to Turkish Second Division side 1461 Trabzon in December 2012.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: During the 2013 winter transfer window, he was joined by national teammate Didier Drogba on 28 January 2013. On 9 April 2013, in the Champions League quarter-final second leg against La Liga club Real Madrid, Eboué scored from long range as Galatarsay secured a 3–2 win, falling 5–3 on aggregate. Eboué helped Galatasaray defend their league title, playing the full ninety minutes in their 4–2 defeat of Sivasspor on 5 May, a win which secured the club's 19th Turkish Super Lig title. In Gala's following match on 12 May, the Kıtalar Arası Derbi against Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray lost the match 2–1 but Eboué and Drogba were subject to racist abuse from Fenerbahçe fans during the game and no punishment was handed down on the club or its supporters.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: Eboue was left out of the main squad by Cesare Prandelli at the beginning of 2014–15 season. As a consequence, he played with the U21 team the whole season. As Galatasaray's foreign player limit was full, he could not return to the team after Prandelli had left. At the end of the season, his contract was not renewed and Eboué left the club.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: On 9 March 2016, Eboué signed a short-term contract with Sunderland. On 31 March 2016, Eboué began serving a one-year ban from all football-related activity, for failing to pay a former agent. He was released by Sunderland in April 2016, having not played for the club.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: In July 2017, Eboué trained with Hungarian Ferencváros, but could not agree on a contract with the club.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: In October 2017, Eboué was looking to join Türk Ocağı Limasol, a team in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The move fell through due to issues with his blood that were discovered in a medical test.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: In December 2017, Eboué was offered a job coaching the under-14 team at former club Galatasaray, when their manager Fatih Terim was made aware of Eboué's financial problems.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: Eboué debuted for Ivory Coast in 2004 and had generally been a regular fixture in the defence operating at right-back for the Elephants, along with former teammate Kolo Touré. On 18 November 2009, Eboué scored his first goal for Ivory Coast in a 2–2 draw against Germany. He was named in Sven-Göran Eriksson's Ivory Coast squad for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.


title: Emmanuel Eboué

text: Eboué is a Christian. He had three children with his Belgian wife, Aurélie, whom he married before joining Arsenal. In December 2017, Eboué told the "Sunday Mirror" that he is poor and homeless due to his divorce and bad investments that were under his former wife's control.


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: Al-Anon Family Groups, founded in 1951, is an international mutual aid organization for people who have been impacted by another person's alcoholism. In the organization's own words, Al-Anon is a "worldwide fellowship that offers a program of recovery for the families and friends of alcoholics, whether or not the alcoholic recognizes the existence of a drinking problem or seeks help."


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: Alateen "is part of the Al-Anon fellowship designed for the younger relatives and friends of alcoholics through the teen years".


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: Al-Anon defines itself as an independent fellowship with the stated purpose of helping relatives and friends of alcoholics. According to the organization, alcoholism is a family illness. Its "Preamble to the Twelve Steps" provides a general description:


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: Not an intervention program, Al-Anon does not have the stated primary purpose of arresting another's compulsive drinking. Members meet in groups. Meetings are usually small (five to twenty-five); in larger meetings, members often split into smaller groups after the opening readings so everyone has a chance to speak.


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: Al-Anon was co-founded in 1951, 16 years after the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous on June 10, 1935, by Anne B. and Lois W. (wife of AA co-founder Bill W.). Before the formation of Al-Anon, independent groups of families of alcoholics met. "Bill thought the[se] groups could be consolidated and that Lois should be the one to take it on."


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: Al-Anon adopted the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous for their use "word for word with the exception of the Twelfth Step", changing the word "alcoholics" to "others" ("we tried to carry this message to others"). Its name derives from the first parts of the words "Alcoholics Anonymous". Alateen, part of Al-Anon, began in California in 1957 when a teenager named Bob "joined with five other young people who had been affected by the alcoholism of a family member."


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: Although people commonly turn to Al-Anon for help in stopping another's drinking, the organization recognizes that the friends and families of alcoholics are often traumatized themselves and in need of emotional support and understanding. According to Lois W.:


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: Al-Anon/Alateen literature focuses on problems common to family members and friends of alcoholics such as excessive care-taking, an inability to differentiate between love versus pity and loyalty to abusers, rather than the problems of the alcoholic.


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: The organization acknowledges that members may join with low self-esteem, largely a side-effect of unrealistically overestimating their agency and control: attempting to control another person's drinking behavior and, when they fail, blaming themselves for the other person's behavior.


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: Participation in Al-Anon has been associated with less personal blame by women who, as a whole, engage in more initial personal blame for the drinking than men. Family members of alcoholics begin to improve as they learn to recognize family pathology, assign responsibility for the pathology to a disease, forgive themselves, accept that they were adversely affected by the pathology and learn to accept their family members' shortcomings.


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: Al-Anon members are encouraged to keep the focus on themselves, rather than on the alcoholic. Although members believe that changed attitudes can aid recovery, they stress that one person did not cause, cannot cure and cannot control another person's alcohol-related choices and behaviors.


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: Al-Anon's primary purpose is to help families and friends of alcoholics, rather than stopping alcoholism in others or assisting with interventions. When an alcoholic's spouse is active in Al-Anon and the alcoholic is active in AA, the alcoholic is more likely to be abstinent, marital happiness is more likely to be increased and parenting by both is more likely to improve.


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: A 1999 clinical analysis of methods used by concerned significant others (CSOs) to encourage alcoholics to seek treatment indicated that Al-Anon participation was "mostly ineffective" towards this goal. The psychologists found community reinforcement approach and family training (CRAFT) "significantly more" effective than Al-Anon participation in arresting alcoholism in others.


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: In 2015, Al-Anon Family Groups published its "2015 Member Survey Results" of demographic and other information from Al-Anon members in Canada and the United States Of the 8,517 respondents, 93 percent identified as white, 83 percent as female and 61 percent as married. 12 percent of the respondents had children under age 18 at home. "80 percent of respondents have been in a romantic relationship involving an alcoholic partner". And one side finding was that "40 percent of respondents initially joined Al-Anon because a person with a drug problem was negatively affecting their lives".


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: For the "2006 Alateen Member Survey", conducted in the U.S., 139 Alateen members responded. Sixty-five percent of the respondents were female, 35 percent were male, 72 percent were white and 20 percent spoke Spanish fluently. The respondents' average age was 14.


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: The structure of Al-Anon Family Groups may be depicted as an inverted pyramid, with the organization's headquarters (the World Service Office) at the bottom and the "autonomous" groups at the top.


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: Al-Anon and Alateen members meet in Groups for fellowship and support. Each Group may elect a Group Representative (GR) to represent a group at District meetings.


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: Al-Anon and Alateen Groups' Group Representatives (GRs) attend District meetings. At these meetings they discuss service activities, Group issues ( their primary purpose being to be a forum for Groups) and information from their Area and the World Service Office (WSO) of Al-Anon and Alateen, with GRs having voting privileges. A District may host regular events, such as workshops and speaker meetings, for the local fellowship.


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: An Area comprises several Districts. (For example, Texas is divided into two Al-Anon and Alateen Areas, East and West. Each Texas Area has about a dozen Al-Anon and Alateen Districts, for a total of about 24 in the state.) Each Area has regular meetings (known as Assemblies) where Group Representatives (GRs) meet and vote on issues impacting that Area, host workshops and speakers and get Area information to bring back to their Groups.


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: At Area Assembly, GRs elect a Delegate to the annual World Service Conference (WSC). The WSC meets annually to interface with the World Service Office (WSO), which is managed by administrators and overseen by the Board of Trustees (who meet more regularly themselves).


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: Al-Anon promotes democracy and accountability. According to one of its General Warranties of the Conference, "That though the Conference serves Al-Anon it shall never perform any act of government; and that like the fellowship of Al-Anon Family Groups which it serves, it shall always remain democratic in thought and action." Another states "That no Conference member shall be placed in unqualified authority over other members."


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: According to Tradition Two of Al-Anon's Twelve Traditions: "Our leaders are but trusted servants—they do not govern." Tradition Nine says: "Our groups, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve." Districts and Areas are directly responsible to the Groups.


title: Al-Anon/Alateen

text: The World Service Office (WSO) is accountable to the World Service Conference (WSC). The WSC is responsible to the Areas through elected Delegates and ultimately responsible to the Groups. According to Concept One of Al-Anon's Twelve Concepts of Service: "The ultimate responsibility and authority for Al-Anon world services belongs to the Al-Anon Groups."


title: Bill Joy

text: William Nelson Joy (born November 8, 1954) is an American computer engineer and venture capitalist. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Scott McNealy, Vinod Khosla, and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as Chief Scientist and CTO at the company until 2003.


title: Bill Joy

text: He played an integral role in the early development of BSD UNIX while being a graduate student at Berkeley, and he is the original author of the vi text editor. He also wrote the 2000 essay "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us", in which he expressed deep concerns over the development of modern technologies.


title: Bill Joy

text: Joy was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering (1999) for contributions to operating systems and networking software.


title: Bill Joy

text: Joy was born in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, Michigan, to William Joy, a school vice-principal and counselor, and Ruth Joy. He earned a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan and a Master of Science in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1979.


title: Bill Joy

text: As a UC Berkeley graduate student, he worked for Fabry's Computer Systems Research Group CSRG on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) version of the Unix operating system. He initially worked on a Pascal compiler left at Berkeley by Ken Thompson, who had been visiting the university when Joy had just started his graduate work.


title: Bill Joy

text: He later moved on to improving the Unix kernel, and also handled BSD distributions. Some of his most notable contributions were the ex and vi editors and the C shell. Joy's prowess as a computer programmer is legendary, with an oft-told anecdote that he wrote the vi editor in a weekend. Joy denies this assertion. A few of his other accomplishments have also been sometimes exaggerated; Eric Schmidt, CEO of Novell at the time, inaccurately reported during an interview in PBS's documentary "Nerds 2.0.1" that Joy had personally rewritten the BSD kernel in a weekend. He also wrote codice_1 in 1980 which Rob Pike and Brian W. Kernighan wrote went against Unix philosophy.


title: Bill Joy

text: According to a "Salon" article, during the early 1980s, DARPA had contracted the company Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) to add TCP/IP to Berkeley UNIX. Joy had been instructed to plug BBN's stack into Berkeley Unix, but he refused to do so, as he had a low opinion of BBN's TCP/IP. So, Joy wrote his own high-performance TCP/IP stack. According to John Gage:


title: Bill Joy

text: In 1982, after the firm had been going for six months, Joy was brought in with full co-founder status at Sun Microsystems. At Sun, Joy was an inspiration for the development of NFS, the SPARC microprocessors, the Java programming language, Jini/JavaSpaces, and JXTA.


title: Bill Joy

text: In 1986, Joy was awarded a Grace Murray Hopper Award by the ACM for his work on the Berkeley UNIX Operating System.


title: Bill Joy

text: On September 9, 2003, Sun announced Joy was leaving the company and that he "is taking time to consider his next move and has no definite plans".


title: Bill Joy

text: In 1999, Joy co-founded a venture capital firm, HighBAR Ventures, with two Sun colleagues, Andy Bechtolsheim and Roy Thiele-Sardiña. In January 2005 he was named a partner in venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. There, Joy has made several investments in green energy industries, even though he does not have any credentials in the field. He once said, "My method is to look at something that seems like a good idea and assume it's true".


title: Bill Joy

text: In 2011, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Computer History Museum for his work on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) Unix system and the co-founding of Sun Microsystems.


title: Bill Joy

text: In 2000, Joy gained notoriety with the publication of his article in "Wired" magazine, "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us", in which he declared, in what some have described as a "neo-Luddite" position, that he was convinced that growing advances in genetic engineering and nanotechnology would bring risks to humanity. He argued that intelligent robots would replace humanity, at the very least in intellectual and social dominance, in the relatively near future. He supports and promotes the idea of abandonment of GNR (genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics) technologies, instead of going into an arms race between negative uses of the technology and defense against those negative uses (good nano-machines patrolling and defending against Grey goo "bad" nano-machines). This stance of broad relinquishment was criticized by technologists such as technological-singularity thinker Ray Kurzweil, who instead advocates fine-grained relinquishment and ethical guidelines. Joy was also criticized by "The American Spectator", which characterized Joy's essay as a (possibly unwitting) rationale for statism.


title: Bill Joy

text: A bar-room discussion of these technologies with Ray Kurzweil started to set Joy's thinking along this path. He states in his essay that during the conversation, he became surprised that other serious scientists were considering such possibilities likely, and even more astounded at what he felt was a lack of consideration of the contingencies. After bringing the subject up with a few more acquaintances, he states that he was further alarmed by what he felt was the fact that although many people considered these futures possible or probable, that very few of them shared as serious a concern for the dangers as he seemed to. This concern led to his in-depth examination of the issue and the positions of others in the scientific community on it, and eventually, to his current activities regarding it.


title: Bill Joy

text: Despite this, he is a venture capitalist, investing in technology companies. He has also raised a specialty venture fund to address the dangers of pandemic diseases, such as the H5N1 avian influenza and biological weapons.


title: Bill Joy

text: In his 2013 book "Makers", author Chris Anderson credited Joy with establishing "Joy's law" based on a quip: "No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else [other than you]." His argument was that companies use an inefficient process by not hiring the best employees, only those they are able to hire. His "law" was a continuation of Friedrich Hayek's "The Use of Knowledge in Society" and warned that the competition outside of a company would always have the potential to be greater than the company itself.


title: Meesha Shafi

text: She made her film debut with a supporting role in the 2013 Mira Nair's film "The Reluctant Fundamentalist". She achieved further critical success for her role of Laxmi, an Indian spy agency Research and Analysis Wing's operative, in Bilal Lashari's action thriller film "Waar", which ranks among the highest-grossing Pakistani films of all time in Pakistan.


title: Meesha Shafi

text: Shafi was born in Lahore, Pakistan 1981 to actress Saba Hameed and Syed Pervaiz Shafi. She did her A Levels from Lahore Grammar School and graduated with a degree in fine arts from National College of Arts in 2007. In 2016, Shafi became a Canadian citizen.


title: Meesha Shafi

text: Shafi entered the modelling industry at the age of 17, when she starred opposite Jawad Ahmed in the music video for the song "Bin Teray Kya Hai Jeena". In 2009 Shafi became the brand ambassador for L'Oreal Paris Pakistan. She has featured in many Pakistani magazines and in international publications such as "L'Officiel" and "Vogue India".


title: Meesha Shafi

text: Shafi made her screen debut with the 2006 serial "Muhabbat Khawab Ki Soorat" on Hum TV. She then appeared in Geo TV serial "Ye Zindagi To Woh Nahi" in 2007.


title: Meesha Shafi

text: She made her film debut with Mira Nair's 2012 Hollywood film, "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" (based on Mohsin Hamid's novel of the same name), alongside Kate Hudson and Riz Ahmed.


title: Meesha Shafi

text: The film describes the bad impact of Americans toward Muslims after 9/11. Shafi had a minor role and appeared in only two scenes in the film in the role of the male lead's sister. The film received mixed reviews from critics, and failed to break even at the box office.


title: Meesha Shafi

text: She then acted in Bilal Lashari's Pakistani film "Waar", alongside Shaan Shahid. Her portrayal of Laxmi, an Indian spy agency Research and Analysis Wing's operative was critically praised by the Pakistani media. The movie won her the 'Best Supporting Actress' award at the ARY Film Awards in 2014.


title: Meesha Shafi

text: In 2016, Shafi has a lead role in the TV costume drama "Mor Mahal" which is set in the mid-19th century.


title: Meesha Shafi

text: Shafi started her singing career with the band Overload with her husband, but left in 2011. Shafi sang along with the internationally acclaimed folk singer Arif Lohar on "Coke Studio Pakistan Season 3", with the song "Alif Allah (Jugni)". The single, originally composed and performed by Lohar, gathered over 20 million+ views on YouTube, was the most-viewed Coke Studio song ever, until it was overtaken by "Tajdaar-e-Haram", and was used in several films like "Cocktail", "Diary of a Butterfly" and "Jugni".


title: Meesha Shafi

text: She sang a rendition of the folk song "Chori Chori", which received mixed reviews. She returned to Coke Studio (Season 5) in 2012 when she sang "Ishq Aap Bhi Awalla" with the Chakwalees and sang a ghazal by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, "Dasht-e-Tanhai".


title: Meesha Shafi

text: In 2014, Meesha Shafi returned to the Coke Studio floor for a third time to perform "Sun Ve Balori" with the composer and tabla guru Ustad Tafu and producers Strings.


title: Meesha Shafi

text: In 2015, Meesha Shafi lent her vocals to two OSTs. One being 'EVA' that was produced by Strings is featured on the soundtrack of the film "Moor", released in August 2015, and directed by director Jami.


title: Meesha Shafi

text: In August 2015, she released 'Mehram Dilaan De Mahi' for the OST of the biopic (directed and portrayed on screen by Sarmad Khoosat), based on the life and works of prose writer, "Manto". The track is produced by True Brew Records and the lyrics are by Punjabi poet Shiv Kumar Batalvi. 'Manto' was released on 11 September 2015.


title: Meesha Shafi

text: In April 2013, Shafi joined Strings, Ali Azmat, Shahzad Hasan and Alamgir as a judge and mentor on the singing talent show "Cornetto Music Icons", aired on ARY Digital.


title: Meesha Shafi

text: In July 2017,Meesha Shafi joined Fawad Khan and Farooq Ahmed in the audition round as judge while Khan, Shafi, Atif Aslam and Shahi Hasan were the judges in the knockout round of Pepsi Battle of the Bands Season 2. Ayesha Omer is the host of the season.[12]


title: Meesha Shafi

text: Shafi's maternal grandfather, Hameed Akhtar, was a novelist and newspaper columnist, president of the Progressive Writers' Movement, and editor of Urdu daily newspapers including "Imroz" and "Nawa-e-Waqt". In 2008, she married musician Mahmood Rahman. The couple have two children, a daughter named Janevi, and a son named Kazimir.


title: Meesha Shafi

text: In 2018 Meesha Shafi accused actor Ali Zafar of sexual harassment. She filed a case with the Punjab Ombudsperson (who is supposed to adjudicate cases of harassment of women in the workplace), who declined to hear the case because she "did not have an employer-employee relationship" with Zafar. An appeal she filed with the governor was dismissed, again on "technical grounds". Lahore High Court rejected her case on the basis that there was no employer-employee relationship between Ali and Meesha. Meesha's case helped in spotting out loophole in Pakistani justice system according to which a woman cannot make harassment allegations against someone unless she's employed by the accused party. On 17 September 2019 Meesha Shafi filed a civil defamation case against Zafar for statements made he made in April 2019 on Hum News, which alleged that she was lying about the sexual harassment allegations against him in order to obtain fame and Canadian immigration. Shafi denied these accusations, arguing that she was already a celebrity as well as a Canadian citizen at the time of the original complaint.


title: Meesha Shafi

text: On 29 September 2020, Ali Zafar won petition to have Shafi's civil defamation case against him stopped while he launched a FIR against Meesha Shafi and eight others for posting defamatory content against him on their Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts.


title: Meesha Shafi

text: Shafi won an appeal against Lahore High Court's decision to stop her defamation case in favor of Zafar's on 19 January 2022.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: A lighthouse keeper or lightkeeper is a person responsible for tending and caring for a lighthouse, particularly the light and lens in the days when oil lamps and clockwork mechanisms were used. Lighthouse keepers were sometimes referred to as "wickies" because of their job trimming the wicks.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: Historically, lighthouse keepers were needed to trim the wicks, replenish fuel, wind clockworks and perform maintenance tasks such as cleaning lenses and windows. They were also responsible for the fog signal and the weather station, and played a major role in search and rescue at sea.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: Because most lighthouses are located in remote, isolated or inaccessible areas on islands and coastlines, it was typical for the work of lighthouse keeper to remain within a family, passing from parents to child, all of whom lived in or near the lighthouse itself. "Stag light" was an unofficial term given to some isolated lighthouses in the United States Lighthouse Service. It meant stations that were operated solely by men, rather than accommodating keepers and their families.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: Electrification and other technological advancements such as remote monitoring and automatic bulb changing began to appear in the 1960s and over the course of the late 20th century made paid resident keepers at the lights unnecessary in certain areas, while simply altering their responsibilities elsewhere. Those who continue to work as lighthouse keepers today perform building maintenance, repair work to broken and blind buoys, geographic realignment of wayward navigational aids off the coast, and technical maintenance on automated systems. In most countries, the training of lighthouse keepers falls within the jurisdiction of the Navy or Coast guard. In the US, periodic maintenance of the lights is now performed by visiting Coast Guard Aids to Navigation teams.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: The earliest record of a named individual in a formal capacity as a lighthouse keeper was William, a member of the now famous Knott family, who was appointed to the South Foreland lighthouse near Dover, England, in 1730.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: George Worthylake served as the first lighthouse keeper in the United States. He served at Boston Harbor Lighthouse from 1716 until his death in 1718. In 1776, Hannah Thomas became the first female lighthouse keeper in the United States when she became keeper of Plymouth (Gurnet) Lighthouse in Massachusetts following the death of her husband, John Thomas. Both Hannah and her husband received $200 per year for their service.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, there are 51 staffed lighthouses left in Canada, as of October 2017: one in New Brunswick, 23 in Newfoundland and Labrador, and 27 in British Columbia. All of these lighthouses are staffed for operational reasons, except for the light on Machias Seal Island. This lighthouse, manned by the Canadian Coast Guard, is kept occupied for sovereignty purposes due to the disputed status of the island with the US. The Coast Guard further clarified in 2022 that there are 90 people employed as lighthouse keepers across the country, all of whom are considered to be employees of the federal government, and 54 of whom operate out of British Columbia.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: The last civilian keeper in the United States, Frank Schubert, died in 2003. The last officially manned lighthouse, Boston Light, was manned by the Coast Guard until 1998. It now has volunteer Coast Guard Auxiliary "keepers" whose primary role is to serve as interpretive tour guides for visitors.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: The lighthouses of Mexico are managed by the "General Directorate for Ports and Merchant Marine", a government agency within the larger Secretariat of Communications and Transportation. Automation is not as common in Mexico as in other countries and many of the larger lights are therefore still staffed by resident civilian keepers.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: The first lighthouse in Brazil is recorded to have been lit in 1698 in Santo Antonio, Bahia province, and they maintain a rich lighthouse keeping tradition. Of the 200 active lighthouses still maintained by the Navigational Aid Center, 33 are staffed, as of March 2020.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: As of 2013, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) listed 650 lighthouses in Chile and approximately 20 of those were inhabited as of 2003. The southernmost lighthouse in the world, located on the northeast coast of Isla Gonzalo, in the Diego Ramirez Islands, remains a continuously staffed lighthouse and meteorological station administered by the Chilean Navy. In October 2017, the lighthouse keeper Marcelo Escobar had to be airlifted to Punta Arenas after he suffered a broken arm.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: Sweden began systematically automating their lighthouses as early as the 1930s. Their transformation was so efficient that of the over 100 inhabited lighthouses operating at the start of the 20th century, only nine remained by the year 1980, and only three remained staffed into the 21st century: Kullen Lighthouse, the oldest lighthouse in Scandinavia, was automated in 2003, having been only inhabited periodically since 1996, and then with the retirement of Lighthouse Master Per-Erik Broström on February 25, 2003, Holmögadd lighthouse on the southern end of Holmöarna, became Sweden's final inhabited lighthouse. Holmögadd lighthouse was decommissioned five years later.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: The last manned lighthouse in Finland was deserted in 1987, and the last Norwegian lighthouse keeper moved out of Runde Lighthouse in 2002.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: Most French lighthouses are automated, though approximately a dozen were still staffed as of 2011. The French Department of Lighthouses and Beacons recommends that at least two isolated lighthouses at sea remain staffed regularly, if not constantly, for the benefit of training personnel in the work of maritime signal maintenance and safety. This highlights the ongoing role that lighthouse-keeping can play in modern society.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: As of 2011, there were also 62 staffed lighthouses in Italy and two staffed lights in the Netherlands – one at Schiermonnikoog and the other on the island of Terschelling.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: Automation of lighthouses in the Britain and Ireland began in the late 1960s, but the majority of lighthouses remained staffed by resident keepers until the 1980s and 1990s. On the Isle of Man, the final lighthouses to become automated and therefore lose their keepers were the Calf of Man and Langness lighthouses, which were converted in 1995 and 1996 respectively. The Langness Lighthouse was purchased in 2008 by British television personality Jeremy Clarkson, and his ex-wife currently operates the property as tourist accommodations.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: The Hook Head Lighthouse, at the eastern entrance to Ireland's Waterford Harbour, is the second oldest operating lighthouse in the world. It was manned continuously from at least 1207 until 1996, when it was finally automated. From the time of its construction in the 13th century, until the mid-17th century, the lighthouse was even home to an early Christian monastery.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: Following the automation of Hook Head Lighthouse, Baily Lighthouse became the last Irish lighthouse to have a resident keeper, but it too was automated in 1997, and the lighthouse keeper was no longer needed.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: A couple of months later, on March 31, 1998, the keepers left the Fair Isle South Lighthouse in Shetland, and with that the final Scottish lighthouse to be staffed became automated.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: The last manned lighthouse in England, and the United Kingdom, was the North Foreland Lighthouse in Kent. The last six keepers Dave Appleby, Colin Bale, Dermot Cronin, Tony Homewood, Barry Simmons and Tristan Sturley completed their service in a ceremony attended by the Prince Philip, on 26 November 1998. In an interview with the BBC, Dermot Cronin remarked, "I had no idea I would be closing the door of the last manned lighthouse in the British Isles."


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: Under pressure from British minister Sir Harry Parkes to fulfil its obligations under the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Amity and Commerce to make the waters and harbors of Japan safe for shipping, the Tokugawa shogunate hired the Edinburgh-based firm of D. and T. Stevenson to chart coastal waters and to build lighthouses where appropriate. Richard Henry Brunton was sent from Edinburgh in August 1868 to head the project after being recommended to the Japanese government by the Stevensons, Over the next seven and a half years he designed and supervised the building of 26 Japanese lighthouses in the Western style, along with two lightvessels. Brunton also established a system of lighthouse keepers, modeled on the Northern Lighthouse Board in Scotland. Initially under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the responsibility for maintaining lighthouses came under the Maritime Safety Agency following World War 2. In 2006 Meshima Lighthouse became the last of Japan's 3,337 lighthouses to become automated.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: There are five lighthouses along the coasts of the Malay Peninsula, all managed by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore. Of those five, two were still regularly staffed by lighthouse keepers as of the end of 2015. Raffles Lighthouse, on Singapore's southernmost island, and Pulau Pisang Lighthouse, which is technically located within the neighbouring country of Malaysia, are both crewed by a rotating staff of eight lighthouse keepers who work 10-day shifts in pairs.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: The last staffed lighthouse in Australia was the Sugarloaf Point Light, otherwise known as Seal Rocks Lighthouse. Although the lighthouse was electrified in 1966, and automated in 1987, a caretaker and lighthouse keeper remained on site until 2007, when the lighthouse keeper's cottages were renovated into tourist accommodations. The Maatsuyker Island Lighthouse off the southern coast of Tasmania, although fully automated in 1996, still employs volunteer caretakers on six-month assignments; the duties include weather observations and land management as well as building maintenance.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: The character of the lighthouse keeper has been popular throughout history for their associated air of adventure, mystery, isolation and their rugged lifestyle. The heroic role that lighthouse keepers can sometimes play when shipwrecks occur also feeds into their popularity.


title: Lighthouse keeper

text: To recognize the role of lighthouse keepers in the nation's maritime safety, the US Coast Guard named a class of USCG Coastal Buoy Tenders after famous US Lighthouse Keepers. Fourteen ships in the "Keeper" class were built between 1996 and 2000 and are used to maintain aids to navigation, including lighthouses:


title: Tracking number

text: Tracking numbers are numbers assigned to packages when they are shipped. Tracking numbers are useful for knowing the location of time sensitive deliveries. It is a unique ID number or code assigned to a package or parcel. The tracking number is typically printed on the shipping label as a bar code that can be scanned by anyone with a bar code reader or smartphone.


title: Tracking number

text: In the United States, some of the carriers using tracking numbers include UPS, FedEx, and the United States Postal Service. Most postal services use the S10 (UPU standard) (format AA 00000000 9 BB) for international mailings, including the United States Postal Service and most European Postal Services.


title: Tracking number

text: Tracking numbers consist of letters and numbers typically between 8 and 40 characters long sometimes with spaces or hyphens between groupings of characters. When shown on a receipt after shipping a package the tracking number is usually close to the barcode.


title: Tracking number

text: FedEx Ground and Express tracking numbers are 12 digits (with the ability to expand to 14 characters in the future), while overall barcode length is 34 digits.


title: Tracking number

text: A UPS tracking number, for domestic packages within the United States, will usually start with "1Z" followed by a 6 character shipper number (numbers and letters), a 2 digit service level indicator, and finally 8 digits identifying the package (the last digit being a check digit), for a total of 18 characters.


title: Tracking number

text: DHL Express supports the carrier-independent ISO standard 15459-1 for the identification of single packages. Such identifiers consist of uppercase characters and numerals, and they can be up to 35 digits long. Companies that already use this standard do not require an additional identifier to track their pieces when shipping with DHL Express. In addition, DHL Express uses numeric identifiers of exactly ten digits to track transport orders (i.e. an order to transport a shipment consisting of one or more pieces from A to B). Customers can use both codes for tracking purposes.


title: Tracking number

text: The USPS Tracking number format for parcels, shipment and post tracking vary according to the mail or services chosen by you in USPS. Here We have given all Tracking number formats by USPS.


title: Man Up (film)

text: Man Up is a 2015 romantic comedy film directed by Ben Palmer and written by Tess Morris. It stars Lake Bell and Simon Pegg. The film follows a 34-year old single woman who is mistaken for a stranger's blind date and finds the perfect man for her in a 40-year old divorcé. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 29 May 2015. It received positive reviews from critics.


title: Man Up (film)

text: Nancy is a 34-year old journalist who has been dating unsuccessfully for the past four years. Her sister encourages her to keep putting herself out there. Nancy goes to her friend's engagement party and has an awkward blind date. She then travels to London to attend her parents' 40th anniversary celebration where she plans to give a speech. On the train, she sits across from Jessica, a bubbly younger woman who is going on a blind date based on a book called "Six Billion People and You". While talking to Jessica, Nancy expresses her pessimism about life and love. Jessica walks off the train at London Waterloo station, leaving her book behind. Nancy pursues Jessica to return it but is stopped by Jack, Jessica's blind date. Jack thinks Nancy is Jessica because of the book. Before Nancy can explain the situation, Jack charms her with his rambling introduction. She impulsively pretends to be Jessica.


title: Man Up (film)

text: Despite the fact that Nancy is not who she says she is, the two hit it off immediately. They talk and get to know each other, and Nancy learns that Jack is a 40-year old divorced man who is an online marketing manager. They have a good time while drinking and bowling. Then, Nancy runs into her secondary school classmate and stalker, Sean, who works at the bowling alley. He finds out about Nancy's deception and tries to blackmail her into kissing him in a bathroom stall. The two are caught in a compromising position by Jack, and Nancy admits that she is not actually his date. Jack and Nancy get into an argument, criticising each other's opinions and life choices.


title: Man Up (film)

text: After realising that they have lost Jack's bag and Nancy's notebook with her speech, they both race back to the bar. There, they meet Ed and Hilary, Jack's soon-to-be-ex-wife. Trying to irritate Hilary, Jack pretends that Nancy is his girlfriend, and Nancy goes along with it. She learns that Ed and Hilary had an affair, which led to the divorce. Jack gets upset and goes to a bathroom stall. Nancy joins him, and he tearfully admits that he has not recovered from his failed marriage. Nancy says that her own bad relationship history has made her bitter. She consoles Jack and says that he will eventually be all right. They go back to the bar, and Nancy sets Ed on fire before spraying Ed and Hilary with a fire extinguisher, to Jack's delight.


title: Man Up (film)

text: Nancy decides to go to her parents' anniversary party, which is already underway. She is about to invite Jack, but he learns that Jessica still wants to meet him, so they part ways. Nancy arrives at her parents' party but is sad about leaving Jack. During his date with Jessica, Jack finds that they do not have much in common. He fully realizes that leaving Nancy was a mistake when he discovers that Nancy has swapped noteboooks with him. With Jessica's blessing, he goes to find Nancy. He enlists the help of Sean, but Sean misdirects Jack to the wrong address and goes to try his luck with Nancy himself, to no avail. Jack ends up at a party of teenagers, but one of the teenagers knows where Nancy's parents live. At the anniversary party, Nancy gives an impromptu speech to her parents, one that includes the sentiment that her date with Jack changed her for the better. Simultaneously, Jack arrives with Nancy's speech for her parents. Only instead of giving her the notebook containing the speech, he gives Nancy a speech that she's very much the right girl for him, and they kiss.


title: Man Up (film)

text: In June 2013, it was announced Simon Pegg had joined the Big Talk production, co-starring as the romantic interest. On 19 November 2013 Lake Bell joined the cast as the film's lead, with "The Inbetweeners" director Ben Palmer set to direct. The film received funding from BBC Films, with Anton Capital Entertainment and Amazon Prime Instant Video joining as minor production partners. StudioCanal distributed the film.


title: Man Up (film)

text: Olivia Williams, Rory Kinnear, Stephen Campbell Moore, Sharon Horgan, Harriet Walter, and Ken Stott joined the cast during filming. Principal photography began on 20 January 2014 in London.


title: Man Up (film)

text: "Man Up" premiered at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival on 19 April 2015 and was released theatrically in the United Kingdom on 29 May 2015 by StudioCanal. The film was released in the United States by Saban Films on 13 November 2015. It grossed $2.9 million worldwide.


title: Man Up (film)

text: The film received positive reviews from critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 80% "Certified Fresh" rating based on 80 reviews, with an average rating of 6.25/10. The site's consensus states: "Thanks to fine performances from Lake Bell and Simon Pegg, "Man Up" largely strikes the deceptively difficult balance between romance and comedy." On Metacritic, the film holds a 69 out of 100 rating, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II is a 2006 real-time strategy video game developed and published by Electronic Arts. Being second part of the Middle-Earth strategy game, it is based on the fantasy novels "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" by J. R. R. Tolkien and its live-action film series adaptation. It is the sequel to Electronic Arts' 2004 title "". Along with the standard edition, a Collector's Edition of the game was released, containing bonus material and a documentary about the game's development.


title: The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II

text: The story for "The Battle for Middle-earth II" is divided into Good and Evil Campaigns. The Good Campaign focuses on Glorfindel, an Elf who is alerted to a planned attack on the Elven sanctuary of Rivendell. With help from the Dwarves and other Good forces, the Elves attempt to eliminate Sauron and his army to restore peace in Middle-earth. In the Evil Campaign, Sauron sends the Mouth of Sauron and the Nazgûl to muster wild Goblins. With his army, Sauron moves forward with his plan to destroy the remaining Good forces in the North. The Windows version of the game was released in March 2006 and the Xbox 360 version was released in July 2006.


text: "The Battle for Middle-earth II" received generally favorable reviews from video game critics. Reviews praised the game's integration of the "Lord of the Rings" universe into a real-time strategy title, while criticism targeted the game's unbalanced multiplayer mode. "The Battle for Middle-earth II" received numerous awards, including the Editors' Choice Award from "IGN". At the end of March 2006, "The Battle for Middle-earth II" reached fourth in a list of the month's best-selling PC games. A Windows expansion pack for the game was released in November 2006, called "", which features a new faction known as Angmar, new units, and several gameplay improvements. The official game servers were shut down for Windows in 2010 and Xbox 360 in 2011, however Windows users may still play online using unofficial game servers.


text: "The Battle for Middle-earth II" is a real-time strategy game. Similar to , the game requires that the player build a base with structures to produce units, gather resources, research upgrades, and provide defenses. Units are used to attack the enemy and defend the player's base. Players win matches by eliminating all enemy unit producing structures. Unlike the first game, the player can build an unlimited number of structures anywhere on the map, allowing for more freedom in base building and unit production. Players can build walls to defend their base; however, the walls can only be constructed within a certain proximity to the players fortress. They can also construct arrow and catapult towers on building plots around a fortress to provide defensive support and basic protection. Along with this, each factions' fortress is uniquely equipped with a special power reached only by purchasing necessary upgrades. The game's HUD, called the Palantír, shows the player's hero units and their abilities, a mini-map, and objectives.


text: Units are classified into one of several classes: infantry, ranged, pikemen, cavalry, or siege. Each unit class has unique strengths and weaknesses, emphasizing the importance of properly matching up units in battle to increase their effectiveness. Hero units are unique in that only one of each can be created; they consist of characters from the novel, such as Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Saruman, Nazgûl, Mouth of Sauron, Arwen, the Witch-king of Angmar, and Shelob, characters created for the game like Gorkil the Goblin King and Drogoth the Dragon Lord, or are created via the game's Hero Creator (only accessible via the PC version). If the player kills Gollum, a non-player character, they are rewarded with the One Ring. The item can be used to summon one of two ring heroes for a price of 10,000 resources, Galadriel and Sauron, depending on the player's faction. Ring heroes have extremely strong armor and powerful attacks, making them among the game's most over-powered units.


text: The War of the Ring mode carried over from the first game in the series combines turn-based strategy elements with real-time skirmishes. Middle-earth is divided into territories; players can construct buildings to produce troops only in a claimed territory. During each turn, the player can move their armies into neutral and enemy territories to take control of them. While neutral territories are conquered by simply entering them, enemy territories must be wrested from the other player by defeating them in a skirmish. Troops can be garrisoned in conquered territories to defend against enemy attacks. When the player chooses to attack another territory, or one of their territories is being invaded by an enemy, they can either simulate the match and let the computer determine the outcome, or play the match by commanding the units in real time. The winner of the skirmish gains the territory, and all surviving units gain experience points. To win the game, players must either control the enemy's capital territory, or take over a given number of territories in Middle-earth.


text: "The Battle for Middle-earth II" introduces three new factions with unique units and heroes: Goblins, Dwarves, and Elves. Rohan and Gondor are combined into one faction called Men of the West. Along with Mordor and Isengard from , there are six playable factions. The troops of Gondor provide a solid offense and defense with standard infantry and archers, and the Rohirrim of Rohan act as elite cavalry. The Elven archers are effective at inflicting damage from a distance, and their support units, the Ents, can perform a combination of melee and siege attacks, they are often considered the strongest defensive faction due to their strong missile units and powerful 'silverthorn arrows'. Although slow and expensive, Dwarven infantry, pikemen, and axe-throwers are very powerful and well-armored allowing them to prevail in even the longest clashes with enemy troops. A collection of wild creatures and beasts of Middle-earth make up the Goblin faction, this includes goblins, trolls (particularly cave trolls, attack trolls, mountain trolls, drummer trolls, and half-trolls), giant spiders, mountain giants, dragons, and fire drakes, which are effective in large numbers. Their only advantage is that the goblin archer and soldier units are cheap to make at only 75 resources and build faster than other basic infantry. Isengard troops are highly trained Uruk-hai under Saruman's command. Berserkers are used by Isengard as one-man armies that move extremely fast and deal significant damage (particularly to enemy buildings and heroes). Additionally, Isengard is the only Evil faction that can build walls. Mordor forces are a mixture of Orcs, Men, Trolls, Mûmakil, and Sauron's lieutenants. Mordor Orcs have tough armor, making them useful for absorbing enemy damage while stronger units attack enemies. Trolls contribute greatly to the Mordor offensives, having strong melee attacks and the ability to throw boulders or wield trees like swords.


text: Set in the regions of northern Middle-earth, the game focuses on the events of the War in the North. For the sake of gameplay, the game takes several liberties with Tolkien's works and the film trilogy. Some characters were altered in their appearances, abilities, and roles; for instance, a combat role in the game is given to Tom Bombadil, a merry and mysterious hermit who appears in "The Lord of the Rings" but does not take part in the war. In addition, Tolkien's earlier novel "The Hobbit" lends several elements to the game, including characters such as the Giant Spiders from Mirkwood. The story for "The Battle for Middle-earth II" is divided into Good and Evil Campaigns. Both campaigns focus on the battles fought by the newly introduced factions: the Elves, Dwarves, and Goblins. The player goes through nine fixed missions on either Easy, Medium, or Hard difficulty mode. Narrated cutscenes provide plot exposition between missions.


text: The Good Campaign opens after the Fellowship of the Ring has set out on their mission to unmake the One Ring of Power, with Elrond and Glóin planning the War in the North. The Elven hero Glorfindel discovers an impending attack on the Elven sanctuary of Rivendell. Thanks to the early warning, Elrond's forces in Rivendell manage to repel the Goblins' attacks. Following the battle, Elrond realizes that the Elves and Dwarves must join forces to purge the threat of Sauron's forces in the North.


text: The next battle takes place in the Goblin capital of Ettenmoors, where the Goblin fortress is destroyed and Gorkil the Goblin King is killed.


text: After their victory, the heroes are informed that the Goblins on Sauron's command enlisted the service of a Dragon named Drogoth who is laying waste to the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains. The heroes make their way to the Blue Mountains and help the Dwarven army defeat Drogoth and his Goblins.


text: The Grey Havens, an Elven port on the western shores, is attacked by the Corsairs of Umbar, allies of Sauron. The Dwarves, who have been reluctant to ally with the Elves, eventually decide to come to the aid of the Grey Havens. With the Goblins defeated and all of Eriador pacified, the Dwarven-Elven alliance is tested by Sauron's forces.


text: Mordor's overwhelming forces besiege the Lake Town of Esgaroth and the Dwarven city of Erebor. The Dwarven king Dáin leads a small group of Dwarves and men of Dale to defend their homeland and manage to eliminate the Mordor presence in Esgaroth but are forced to retreat back to Erebor to defend themselves against an overwhelming army led by the Mouth of Sauron. After a long battle against the Mouth of Sauron's army, Elven reinforcements from Mirkwood led by the Elven king Thranduil arrive and save the Dwarves, defeating the Mouth of Sauron and his army.


text: Elrond leads the first attack, but later, Thranduil, Glorfindel, Glóin, Arwen, and King Dáin all unite under the Dwarven-Elven alliance for a final battle in Dol Guldur, the stronghold of Sauron in Mirkwood, aided by the Ents and Eagles. The Good forces and its three combined armies overcome the defenses and destroy the fortress, eliminating the last threat in the North.


text: Sauron sends the Mouth of Sauron and the Nazgûl to the North to muster wild Goblins. His lieutenants lead the Goblin army and the Trolls and launch an assault on the Elven forest of Lórien while freeing three trapped Mountain Giants. Despite heavy resistance, the forest is overrun with Celeborn slain and Galadriel having fled to Rivendell. Even Caras Galadhon collapses under the sheer force of the massive invasion. The Mouth of Sauron peers eagerly into the captured Mirror of Galadriel for his next attack as his Goblins celebrate their triumph over the Elves amidst the ruins of the once-mighty ancient stronghold.


text: Another group of Goblins led by the Goblin King Gorkil attacks the Grey Havens by land and sea. The Elven port is destroyed and captured, and the march across Eriador begins.


text: The Hobbits of the Shire are chosen as the next target. Gorkil's horde manages to crush the Hobbits and burn their country to the ground, but Saruman's servant Gríma Wormtongue suddenly appears with a large army of Isengard Uruks and claims the land for his master. The Goblins annihilate the well-trained army and kill Wormtongue, taking the Shire for themselves while enslaving the Hobbits.


text: Gorkil continues marching west and besieges Fornost, the fortified ruins of the ancient capitol of Arnor. The defenders, consisting of the Dúnedain and Dwarves led by Glóin, crumble under the relentless Goblin attacks, and Eriador falls under Goblin control.


text: Sauron launches a concurrent campaign east of the Misty Mountains. The orcs from Dol Guldur eliminate the Elves and the Ents that guard the Forest Road in Mirkwood, defeating the Elven lord Thranduil.


text: After the fall of Mirkwood, the Mouth of Sauron leads his horde to Withered Heath to recruit the Dragon Lord Drogoth, after destroying the Dwarves in the area. The Mouth of Sauron wins Drogoth over by bringing some fire drakes that they freed from the Dwarves to him.


text: To finally rid Sauron and Middle Earth of the Dwarves, The Mouth of Sauron attacks the human city of Dale and the Dwarven stronghold of Erebor, led by King Dain.


text: For the final battle against the Good factions in the North, the Goblin horde and Sauron's forces from Mordor converge at Rivendell, the last surviving stronghold against Sauron in Middle-earth. Eagles, the Dead Men of Dunharrow, Galadriel and her surviving Elves, and the remnants of the Fellowship of the Ring arrive to help Arwen and Elrond, but Sauron (having attained full power through recovering the One Ring from the dead Frodo) and all his gathered forces of goblins, orcs, trolls, mountain giants, spiders, dragons, and Fellbeast enter the battle and completely destroy the remaining Good forces in the North. With Rivendell defeated, Sauron claims victory and darkness now falls all over Middle-earth.


text: Tolkien Enterprises granted the publisher of "The Battle for Middle-earth II", Electronic Arts, the rights to develop "The Lord of the Games" video games based on "The Lord of the Rings" books on July 22, 2005. This agreement was complementary to a separate arrangement made between the two companies in 2001. That agreement gave Electronic Arts the rights to build video games based on "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy. The new deal gives Electronic Arts the opportunity to create video games with original stories tied closely with the "Lord of the Rings" universe. In the same announcement, Electronic Arts revealed two games that its EA Los Angeles division would be developing with the license: "The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II" for Windows—a sequel to ""—and "" for the PlayStation Portable.


text: On November 10, 2005, Electronic Arts announced that Hugo Weaving, who played Elrond in the "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, would reprise his role as Elrond and be the lead voiceover talent in "The Battle for Middle-earth II". During his voiceover session, he noted, "I always find voice work really fascinating because you are working on one element of your make up as an actor—focusing more intently on one part of your toolbox if you like—in a way so everything seems to go into producing that vocal effect. It really isn’t just an effect, because it actually comes from a source which is a true continuation of that character."


text: On January 13, 2006, Electronic Arts reported that an Xbox 360 version of "The Battle for Middle-earth II" was under development, and it was promised to feature a "unique and intuitive control scheme" developed by video game designer Louis Castle, co-founder of the real-time strategy developer Westwood Studios. Players would be able to play online via the Xbox Live service. Castle was excited to port the game to a console, stating, "Living these cinematic battles in high-definition with stunning surround sound, all from the comfort of your living room couch on the Xbox 360, is an extraordinary experience. [...] Adding the ability to battle it out with friends via Xbox Live is also really exciting."


text: The game's water effects received substantial upgrades because of the large role naval battles play in "The Battle for Middle-earth II". The developers endeavored to make the surface of oceans and lakes look realistic by using techniques similar to those applied in films when creating computer-generated ocean water. The digital water simulates deep ocean water by reflecting its surroundings on the surface, and wave technology was used to create large waves along coastlines to immerse the player in the game experience. Lost towns, corals, and fish were added underwater to add to the effect. Water was chosen as the first graphical component of "The Battle for Middle-earth II" to take advantage of DirectX 9 programmable shaders. These additions were part of an overall Electronic Arts strategy to continue the "Lord of the Rings" experience that began with the trilogy film series.


text: As cinematic director of "The Battle for Middle-earth II", Richard Taylor was responsible for designing the game's opening and closing sequences, as well as campaign and mission introductions and endings. As the first Electronic Arts video game to be given free rein on material from "The Lord of the Rings" universe, several lands, characters, and creatures from the books appear visually for the first time in the game's cut scenes. Taylor considered it essential to use good graphical and audio combinations when telling a story, and he was pleased to have Weaving on the project as the primary storyteller.


text: The game was released by Electronic Arts on March 2, 2006 for Windows and July 5, 2006 for Xbox 360. Electronic Arts released a Collector's Edition that includes a bonus DVD with supplemental high-definition media such as the full original music score; in-game cinematics and trailers; the documentary "The Making of The Battle for Middle-earth II"; and "The Art of the Game", a gallery featuring hundreds of cinematic paintings and concept art created for the game.


text: It was given generally favorable reviews, receiving an aggregated score of 84% at Metacritic for its Windows version. Praise focused on its successful integration of the "Lord of the Rings" franchise with the real-time strategy genre, while criticism targeted the game's unbalanced multiplayer mode. "The Battle for Middle-earth II" was given the Editor's Choice Award from IGN. At the end of its debut month of March 2006, "The Battle for Middle-earth II" reached fourth in a list of the month's best-selling PC games, while the Collector's Edition peaked at eighth place. In the second month after the game's release, "The Battle for Middle-earth II" was the 12th best-selling PC game, despite a 10% slump in overall game sales for that month. The game's computer version received a "Silver" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom.


text: After playing the game, "PC Gamer" found little fault with it, calling it a very well-balanced game overall. The magazine also was pleased that the game's "production values [were] sky-high", with which GamesRadar agreed, explaining, "It's not often you come across an RTS with production values this high; every part seems to be polished till it shines." When compared to its predecessor, "", "GamePro" was convinced "The Battle for Middle-earth II" had improved upon the original in several fundamental ways. GameSpot believed that "The Battle for Middle-earth II" offered better gameplay and a much broader scope that encompassed more of Middle-earth.


text: Several critics praised the game's real-time strategy elements and graphics. IGN considered the high quality of "The Battle for Middle-earth II" proof that Electronic Arts was truly interested in building great real-time strategy games. Despite a few minor issues, GameZone was happy with the gameplay of "The Battle for Middle-earth II", believing that the game did a good job of enabling the player to experience the turmoil of the fantasy world. They also admired the game's conversion for the Xbox 360 version, calling it "one of the best PC-to-console conversions" and praising the developers for a "commendable job of assigning actions to the 360 controller’s eight buttons". The graphics were appreciated by ActionTrip, which found it "really hard not to drool over this game", commending the game's design and art team for doing a fabulous job on every location that appeared in the single-player campaign.


text: Playing within the universe of "The Lord of the Rings" was appealing to a number of reviewers, which found that it generally increased the game's entertainment value. "PC Gamer" shared this sentiment, calling "Lord of the Rings" "arguably the best fantasy universe ever", and GameZone asked the question, "What self-respecting Tolkien fan can be without this title?" The results also pleased 1UP.com, which was convinced that fans of "The Lord of the Rings" could not afford to miss purchasing the game. Game Revolution complimented the game's merge with the "Lord of the Rings" universe, observing that the franchise's mythology and the game's frenetic battles came together in a very satisfying bundle. The integration of "The Lord of the Rings" into a video game satisfied "Game Informer", and the magazine predicted the game would be "another winner for Electronic Arts".


text: Despite positive reactions, reviewers brought up several issues with the game. The British video game publication "PC Gamer UK" was unhappy with the game, claiming that Electronic Arts chose to release a formulaic game because it was a safer choice than taking "The Battle for Middle-earth II" in another direction. "PC Zone" agreed with this view, claiming that although the game looked impressive, it took a by-the-numbers approach towards the real-time strategy genre in a "mindless sort of way", concluding that "in no way is it anywhere near the game we hoped for." The game's multiplayer portion disappointed GameSpy, which found it too unbalanced compared to the heroes, whom they considered to be too strong. Eurogamer considered the game to be of average quality, noting that there were no truly redeeming qualities.


text: The editors of "Computer Games Magazine" named "The Battle for Middle-earth 2" the third-best computer game of 2006, and called it "undeniably a labor of love, a grand work of art and strategy."


text: The Smithsonian American Art Museum selected "The Battle for Middle-earth 2" as one of 80 games spanning the past 40 years to be a part of "The Art of Video Games" exhibit that ran from March, 2012 to September 2012 in Washington, DC.


text: Electronic Arts announced on July 27, 2006 that its EA Los Angeles studio would be releasing an expansion pack to "The Battle for Middle-earth II" titled "". It was slated for release during the 2006 holiday season. The game, produced by Amir Rahimi, promised players the opportunity to fight in wars that precedes the events of the "Lord of the Rings" novels. "The Rise of the Witch-king" adds a new single-player campaign, new units, a new faction, and improved features. Its story follows the Witch-king of Angmar's "ascent to power, his domination of Angmar, and eventual invasion of Arnor, Aragorn's ancestral home". The game was sent to manufacturers on November 15, 2006, and was released on November 28.


text: On January 9, 2011, Electronic Arts announced that the online game servers would be shut down on January 11, 2011 for the Xbox 360 format of the game. The PC version of the game was shut down on December 31, 2010. Electronic Arts noted that their discontinuation of support for the game was partly because the licensing deal with New Line Cinema (holders of the "Lord of the Rings" license) had expired, which led them to no other option than to shut down all online services for the game.


title: Chalkidiki

text: Chalkidiki (; , also spelled Halkidiki, is a peninsula and regional unit of Greece, part of the region of Central Macedonia, in the geographic region of Macedonia in Northern Greece. The autonomous Mount Athos region constitutes the easternmost part of the peninsula, but not of the regional unit.


title: Chalkidiki

text: The capital of Chalkidiki is the town of Polygyros, located in the centre of the peninsula, while the largest town is Nea Moudania. Chalkidiki is a popular summer tourist destination.


title: Chalkidiki

text: "Chalkidiki" also spelled "Halkidiki" () or "Chalcidice" () was the name given to this peninsula after Chalkida. In ancient times, the area was a colony () of the ancient Ionian Greek city-state of Chalcis.


title: Chalkidiki

text: The Cholomontas mountains lie in the north-central part of Chalkidiki. Chalkidiki consists of a large peninsula in the northwestern Aegean Sea, resembling a hand with three 'fingers' (though in Greek these peninsulas are often referred to as 'legs'). From west to east, these are Kassandra, Sithonia, and Mount Athos, a special polity within Greece known for its monasteries. These "fingers" are separated by two gulfs, the Toronean Gulf and the Singitic Gulf. The Chalkidiki borders on the regional unit of Thessaloniki to the north, and is bounded by the Thermaic Gulf on the west and the Strymonian Gulf on the east.