SimCity 4 is the fourth sequel to the SimCity computer game. It was created by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts.
The main new feature in this game is the addition of 'God Mode'. This is one of the three elements of gameplay. Players can add mountains, lakes, rivers and canyons to their landscape.
Another feature is "MySims" mode, a mode that lets players import their Sims from the game The Sims and add them into their city. This lets players see what they are thinking.
Cities are grouped into regions, which allow different cities in the same region to be connected. They can be connected by road or train, and cities could share water. Some regions come with the game, but you can create your own.
RCI stands for residential (housing), commercial, and industry demand. The higher the demand, the faster the city grows. No demand or negative demand causes buildings to be empty and run down.
Big buildings show up when you have high density zones. The amount of people living in the city changes the amount of skyscrapers built in the city. Skyscrapers can be built when residential population reaches 30,000, and when commercial population reaches 45,000.
Elasmosaurus
Elasmosaurus was a 46 foot long swimming reptile that lived in the North American Inland Sea. It was a plesiosaur.
It was first discovered in 1868 by a scientist named Edward Drinker Cope who accidentally put the head on the tail. It had 71 cervical vertebrae.
It was suggested by D.M.S. Watson that their method was as surface swimmers, mostly eating with their head above water, darting down to snatch smaller fish which were feeding on plankton. It is hard to see the benefit of a long neck under water. Aquatic mammals operating under water all have a streamlined torpedo-shape, as did pliosaurs and ichthyosaurs. All the longer-necked families were, from the setting of the teeth and jaws, eaters of small fish. The large number of neck vertebrae is probably linked to the modest degree of flexibility between adjacent vertebrae.
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was part of the Schutzstaffel (SS). "Waffen-SS" means "armed SS" in German. The Waffen-SS was a paramilitary organization within the SS.
The divisions of the Waffen-SS were made of specially trained soldiers. Their original job was to protect higher-ranking people in the SS and the Nazi Party. Together with the "Sturmabteilung" ("Storm Battalion," or SA), they were used as a police force. The Waffen-SS was officially an extra police force on the streets.
In 1937, some soldiers were reorganized. Nazi leaders gave some SS members the job of guarding and running concentration camps (and, later, death camps). These soldiers were moved from the Waffen-SS to the "SS-Totenkopfverbände".
In some of the concentration camps, like Auschwitz and Buchenwald, doctors of the Waffen-SS did experiments on humans.
Heinrich Himmler led the SS from 1929 until Nazi Germany lost World War II in 1945. After World War II, the SS were found guilty of crimes against humanity, and the SS was made illegal.
The Waffen-SS was grouped into divisions, as follows:
The differences to the normal army units were as follows:
One of the strangest SS units was the British Free Corps. It was a unit of the Waffen SS during World War II. The unit was made of about 27 prisoners of war from the British Empire. One British soldier who helped recruit other soldiers to join the unit was John Amery. After the war, he was sentenced to death for high treason, he was then executed.
After the end of the war, all soldiers were dismissed from the SS.
In 1951, the "Hilfsgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit der ehemaligen Angehörigen der Waffen-SS" was founded in Germany. This translates to "Mutual support organisation of former members of the Waffen-SS'." In English, it is better known as "HIAG." The group wanted soldiers who were in the Waffen-SS to be treated the same as soldiers of the Wehrmacht (the regular German Army).
The group also publishes a magazine. The magazine tries to send the message that the Waffen-SS were just normal soldiers. Sometimes, there are also revisionist articles in it.
Pizzicato
Pizzicato means: playing a string instrument by plucking the strings (pulling a string with the finger and letting go quickly). Instruments such as the violin, viola, cello and double bass are normally played with a bow, but if the composer wants the player to pluck instead of bow, the word “pizzicato” or just “pizz” is written in the music. When the player has to play with the bow again the word “arco” is written in the music (“arco” is the Italian word for “bow”).
When instruments of the violin family are played pizzicato the player usually plucks the string with the index finger (pointing finger) of the right hand somewhere over the fingerboard. Bassists typically use the index and middle finger. Sometimes the player may rest the thumb on the edge of the fingerboard to keep the hand steady. Sometimes more fingers can be used for particularly fast pizzicato sections. Cellists and double bass players can use the thumb for plucking, especially for playing chords.
It is also possible to play pizzicato with the left hand (the hand which is normally doing the fingering). It is not difficult to pluck an open string with the left hand. Stopped strings are harder, and the brilliant violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini wrote some virtuoso pieces with extremely difficult left hand pizzicato.
Very occasionally violinists may be asked to pluck their instruments holding them down in their laps. This is normally when they are deliberately imitating a guitar.
Very often players have to change very quickly from bowing to plucking and back again. It is easy to play a bowed note and then immediately a plucked note if the bowed note finished near the heel of the bow (the end where the bow is held). If the bowed note finishes near the tip the player needs a moment to get the hand ready to pluck. It can take a little more time to go back to bowing again because the player has to get the bow back into playing position.
If there is a long pizzicato section then it is more comfortable to put the bow down instead of holding it in the right hand all the time. This is fine so long as the player has time to pick the bow up again when it goes back to arco.
Pizzicato notes sound short and detached (staccato). The player can get different sounds by plucking in different parts of the string. High notes sound very short and dry. Pizzicato notes on the double bass sound much more resonant (big and boomy). Double basses often play pizzicato to give extra rhythmic and harmonic support. For example: in a waltz the cellos and violas might be accompanying the tune with an “um-cha-cha, um-cha-cha” while the double basses just pluck on the “um” (the first beat of the bar). Double basses usually play pizzicato when playing with jazz groups.
One special effect can be made by pulling the string hard and letting it go so that it snaps against the fingerboard. Bartók used this effect several times. This is not the same as jazz bass players who slap the strings at the end of a note (“slap bass”).
In orchestras composers used pizzicato in the 17th century. Monteverdi used it in his opera "Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda". In the 19th century the Romantic composers often asked for pizzicato. Tchaikovsky’s "Symphony no 4" has a whole scherzo movement for pizzicato strings. Johann Strauss wrote a "Pizzicato Polka" and in the 20th century Britten wrote a whole movement for pizzicato strings in his "Simple Symphony".
Movement (music)
Long pieces of classical music are often divided into movements. They are like different sections of the piece. Movements can be quite short, or extremely long. If you listen to a symphony it may often be divided into four movements. In the time of Haydn and Mozart the four movements were normally: a fast movement, a slow movement, a dance-like movement (minuet) and a fast movement to end the work.