Netapplications bases its usage share mainly on the usage statistics of 40,000 websites having around 160 million unique visitors.
On 2009-08-01, Net Applications began weighting its raw data based on the number of internet users in the countries concerned, using data from the CIA ; the changes were applied retroactively to older data. The table below uses weighted data from 2007 Q4 onwards.
This site counts the last 15,000 page views from each of approximately 30,000 websites.
This limits the influence of sites with more than 15,000 visitors on the usage statistics.
Statcounter statistics are directly derived from hits (not unique visitors) from 3 million sites using Statcounter totalling more than 15 billion hits per month. No artificial weightings are used.
Wikimedia squid reports are based on server logs of about 4 billion page requests per month, based on the user agent information that accompanied the requests. These server logs cover requests to the following Wikimedia Foundation projects: Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wikiversity and others.
"TheCounter.com" identifies sixteen versions of six browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Netscape, and Konqueror). Other browsers are categorised as either ‘Netscape compatible’ (including Google Chrome, which may also be categorized as 'Safari' due to its 'Webkit' subtag) or ‘unknown’. Internet Explorer 8 is identified as Internet Explorer 7. Monthly data includes all hits from 2008-02-01 until the end of the month concerned. More than the exact browser type, this data identifies the underlying web rendering engine used by various browsers, and the table below aggregates them in the same column.
"AT Internet Institute" was formerly known as "XiTi".
Methodology: Only counts visits to local sites in 23 European countries and then averages the percentages for those 23 European countries independent of population size.
Quatour pour la fin du temps
Quatuor pour la fin du temps is a piece of chamber music by the French composer Olivier Messiaen. In English -speaking countries it is often called by the English title Quartet for the End of Time. The piece is written for an unusual combination of four instruments: clarinet (in B-flat), violin, cello, and piano. There are 8 movements. It takes about 50 minutes to perform. The work was first performed in unusual circumstances in 1941. It is a very important work in the history of 20th century classical music.
There was a special reason why Messiaen wrote this work for an unusual combination of instruments. In 1940, when World War II was being fought, Germany invaded France. Messiaen was captured by the German army and he was held as a prisoner of war. While being taken to the prisoner of war camp, Messiaen talked to another prisoner, Henri Akoka, who was a clarinettist. Messiaen showed him the sketches for a clarinet piece he was writing called "Abîme des oiseaux". Two other professional musicians were also among the prisoners: Jean le Boulaire, a violinist and Étienne Pasquier, a cellist. Messiaen composed the "Quatuor" for these three musicians with himself at the piano. The combination of these four instruments is unusual, although Paul Hindemith had written a work for the same combination in 1938.
The quartet was given its first performance in Görlitz, Germany (now called Zgorzelec in Poland) on 15 January 1941. The audience consisted of about four hundred prisoners of war. There were German prison officers sitting in front. The music must have seemed strange to the audience, but they all listened politely. Shortly after this Messiaen was released from prison and went back to France.
Messiaen was inspired by the words in the Bible where the angel says “There shall be time no longer”. These words have another meaning in relation to the music, because Messiaen does not write music with a regular number of beats in a bar. Like The Rite of Spring, the length of the bars keep changing. Messiaen had heard enough of soldiers marching to a regular one-two-three-four-one-two-three-four during the war. His rhythms in this music develop from little tiny rhythmic patterns
The work is in eight movements.
The first movement is called “Liturgie de cristal” (“Chyrstal liturgy”) and describes the birds waking up. All four instruments play this movement.
The second movement is “Vocalise, pour l'Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps
“Song for the Angel who announces the end of time”. It is played by the full quartet, although the clarinet does not play in the central section.
The third movement is called “Abîme des oiseaux” (“Abyss of birds”) and is just played by the clarinet. It is extremely slow and the clarinettist needs a lot of breath control.
The fourth movement is “Intermède” (“Interlude”) and is played by the violin, cello, and clarinet.). It is fast and lively.
The fifth movement is “Louange à l'Éternité de Jésus (“Praise to the eternity of Jesus"). It is played by the cello accompanied by the piano who just plays chords. It is again extremely slow and the cellist needs good bow control.
The sixth movement is called “Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes“ (“Dance of the Fury, for the seven trumpets”), played on all four instruments. They play in unison (the same notes) nearly all the way through.
The seventh movement is called “Fouillis d'arcs-en-ciel, pour l'Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps" (“Tangle of rainbows, for the Angel who announces the end of time”), played by the full quartet. Some of the music from the second movement is repeated. We hear the angel being covered by the rainbow.
The eighth movement is “Louange à l'Immortalité de Jésus" (“Praise to the immortality of Jesus"), for violin and piano. We hear the ascent of man to his god. The violin finishes on a very high harmonic note.
In the long preface at the front of the score Messiaen writes a short introduction to the music theory theory of his music. He describes the rhythms he uses and how they relate to one another. However, at the end, he says that it is not necessary to read all about his theory in order to perform the piece.
National parks of New Zealand
The national parks of New Zealand are 14 protected areas that are looked after by the Department of Conservation "for the benefit, use, and enjoyment of the public". These are popular among tourists, with 30% of tourists visiting at least one national park during their stay in New Zealand. While the national parks contain some of New Zealand's most beautiful scenery, the first few that were created were all focused on mountains. Since the 1980s more different kinds of New Zealand landscapes have been included in the national parks. New Zealand's national parks are all important to preserve both nature and culture, and some are also historically important. Tongariro National Park is one of 27 World Heritage Sites that is of both cultural and natural significance, and four of the South Island national parks form Te Wahipounamu, another World Heritage Site.
The National Parks Act of 1980 was written to record what national parks are for, and how they would be chosen and looked after. It begins by explaining what a national park is:
The National Parks Act goes on to say that the public will be allowed to enter and use the parks freely, but with rules to avoid destroying the native plants and animals or the parks. Access to specially protected areas (550 km²) as noted under the act is only allowed with special permits.
National parks are soil, water and forest conservation areas, and should be kept as natural as possible. Native plants and animals are to be looked after and other plants and animals removed if they harm the natural wildlife. Development in what the act calls "wilderness areas" is only foot tracks and huts used for wild animal control or scientific research.