the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
August 15, 2007: Skype 2.7.0.49 (beta) for Mac OS X released adding availability of contacts in the Mac Address Book to the Skype contact list, auto redial, contact groups, public chat creation, and an in-window volume slider to the call window.
August 16 / August 17, 2007: Skype users unable to connect to full Skype network in many countries
November 2007: Skype users in London who use the 020 city code lost the phone numbers that connected to their Skype accounts after December 2007.
Skype has an encryption system for security.
This system cannot be turned on or off.
Skype provides an uncontrolled registration system for users.
People can use the system safely without revealing their real-life identity to other users of the system, but there is no way to know that the person they communicate with is the one they say they are.
Skype clients can become supernodes.
These supernodes hold together the peer-to-peer network.
It can use a big quantity of bandwidth.
For this reason, some universities have banned the use of Skype.
Significant use of obfuscated code
Keeps chatting on the network
Blind trust in anything else speaking Skype
Ability to build a parallel Skype network
Lack of privacy (Skype has the keys to decrypt calls or sessions)
Heap overflow in Skype
Skype makes it hard to enforce a (corporate) security policy
"No way to know if there is/will be a backdoor"
Users of Skype on Mac OS X have poor audio quality when connecting to Mac/Mobile clients
Bugs and delays in the Linux version
Official Skype website
Planetskype website
Portable Skype (Windows)
Wookieepedia (the Star Wars Wiki)  is an online encyclopedia for information on the Star Wars fictional universe—including information of all eleven films, as well as Expanded Universe.
It is a more specialized and useful wiki for those who wish to go farther than the basics in the Star Wars universe, and is almost entirely in-universe.
The name Wookieepedia is a mix of Wookiee and encyclopedia, based on the name of Wikipedia.
Wookieepedia is hosted by Fandom.
Chianti is a kind of red wine.
It is produced in Tuscany in the famous area of "Chianti" inside the provinces of Arezzo, Florence, Pisa, Pistoia, Prato and Sienna.
Chianti is a really famous red wine.
It is put into a "fiasco", a traditional Italian straw-covered wine bottle.
Chianti Classico a kind of Chianti.
It is proteced by the Italian laws and can only be made in the provinces of Florence and Siena.
Chianti Colli Aretini a kind of Chianti made only in the Arezzo area.
Chianti Colli Fiorentini  a kind of Chianti made only in the Florence area.
Chianti Colline Pisane a kind of Chianti made only in the Pisa area.
Chianti Colli Senesi a kind of Chianti made only in the Siena area.
Chianti Montalbanoa kind of Chianti made only in the areas of Prato, Florence and Pistoia.
Chianti Montespertoli another kind of Chianti made near Florence
Chianti Rùfina a kind of Chianti, first made in the area of "Rufina", near Florence
Chianti Superiore a special Chianti, made in Arezzo, Florence, Pisa, Pistoia and Siena.
This Chianti is costs more than others kinds of Chianti.
Vin Santo del Chianti a kind of sweet wine.
It is made in the areas of Arezzo, Florence, Pisa, Pistoia, Prato and Siena
Vin Santo del Chianti Classico a kind of sweet wine made only in the areas of Florence and Siena
Italian wines
Maxïmo Park formed in 2001 (with frontman Paul Smith coming from Billingham in Teesside).
To Start off with, the four founding members played only a little amount small shows, with Archis Tiku on vocals, constantly switching the instruments he played.
Almost about to split up, but instead they decided to look for somebody else to sing vocals.
Singer Paul Smith was discovered by the then-girlfriend of drummer Tom English in a pub while he was singing along to a Stevie Wonder song.
Having found someone with a stage presence, they started to write their first songs together, all despite the fact that the frontman never imagined himself as a frontman of a band.
Paul Smith had never sung on stage before.
Around March 2004, a friend of the band's paid for 300 copies of a 7" red vinyl single "Graffiti" and later released a vinyl of their tracks ("The Coast Is Always Changing"/"The Night I Lost My Head") that they’d recorded in their house in Fenham.
After some time of doing shows around their home town, Steve Beckett of the dance-electronic label Warp Records found one of these records and decided to sign Maxïmo Park to his record label.
Tom English – drums
Duncan Lloyd – guitar
Paul Smith – vocals
Archis Tiku – bass
Lukas Wooller – keyboard
A Certain Trigger
Maxïmo Park official website
Maxïmo Park MySpace
An acoustic session for Vox podcast
Karaoke Plays Review
Maximo Park, Newcastle 15th Dec 07 Review
The Scenestar Maxïmo Park Interview July 2007
Interview by Alexander Laurence (The Portable Infinite 2006)
Die Klangschau: 15 Songs chosen by Maxïmo Park  and interview
Maximo Park video interview with stv/music, June 2007
Video interview with Paul from Maximo Park
SUPERSWEET interview
Interview by Natalie Shaw for Clash Magazine
Math rock is a guitar-based style of indie rock which has complex rhythms.
This genre started in the late 1980s.
A closely-related genre is post-rock.
Some of the same bands might be called both.
Post-rock is usually characterized by a stronger jazz influence.
The period had two phases, the 11th Dynasty, which ruled from Thebes and the 12th and the following dynasties which revolved around el-Lisht.
These two dynasties were originally considered to be the full extent of this unified kingdom, but historians now  consider the 13th Dynasty to at least partially belong to the Middle Kingdom.
Notes & references
W. Grajetzki, The Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt: History,Archaeology and Society, Duckworth, London 2006
he:היסטוריה של מצרים העתיקה
Thebes (, Thēbai) was a city in Ancient Egypt about 800 km south of the Mediterranean Sea, on the east bank of the river Nile ().
It was the capital of Waset, the fourth Upper Egyptian nome.
Gauthier, Henri.
1925–1931.
Dictionnaire des noms géographiques contenus dans les textes hiéroglyphiques.
3 of 7 vols.
Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire. (
Reprinted Osnabrück: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1975).
75, 76.
Polz, Daniel C. 2001. "
Thebes".
In The Oxford Encyclopedia of ancient Egypt, edited by Donald Bruce Redford.
3 of  3 vols.
Oxford, New York, and Cairo: Oxford University Press and The American University in Cairo Press.
384–388.
Redford, Donald Bruce.
1992. "
In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman.
6 of 6 vols.
New York: Doubleday.
442–443.
(6-volume set)
Strudwick, Nigel C., & Strudwick, Helen, Thebes in Egypt: A Guide to the Tombs and Temples of Ancient Luxor.
London: British Museum Press, 1999,  (hardcover)/ (paperback)
Theban Mapping Project
Ancient Thebes Digital Media Archive (photos, laser scans, panoramas)
Politics of Germany are based on a federal parliamentary democratic republic.
The government is elected by the people in elections where everyone has an equal vote.
The constitution is called the Grundgesetz.
As well as setting out the rights of the people, it describes the jobs of the President, the Cabinet, the Bundestag, Bundesrat and the Courts.
The Federal Chancellor is the head of government, and of the majority group in the legislature (law making body) which is called the Bundestag.
The power to make federal law is given to the government and the two parts of parliament, the Bundestag and Bundesrat.
The ministers of the government are members of the parliament, and need parliamentary support to stay in power.
From 1949 to 1990, the main political parties were the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), with its "sister party", the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU).
After the reunification of Germany the Green Party and Alliance '90(Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) became more important and was in government between 1999 and 2005.
Other important political parties after reunification have been the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) which was based on East Germany's Socialist Unity Party of Germany.
It joined with The Left Party (Die Linkspartei or Die Linke) of western Germany.
In 2007 Die Linke and WASG joined together under the leadership of Oskar Lafontaine
As Germany is a federal country, a lot of the work of government is done by the 16 states (Länder).
Power is shared between the national (or federal) government and state governments.
The national government cannot abolish the state governments.
Rights and the constitution
The political system is set out in the 1949 constitution, the Grundgesetz (Basic Law), which stayed in effect after 1990's German reunification.
The constitution puts freedom and human rights first.
It also splits powers both between the federal and state levels and between the legislative (law-making), executive (government), and judicial (courts) branches.
The 1949 Grundgesetz was written to correct the problems with the Weimar Republic's constitution.
The Weimar Republic collapsed in 1933 and was replaced by the dictatorship of the Third Reich.
The Federal Courts
The courts of Germany are independent of the government and the lawmakers.
Senior judges are appointed by the Bundestag for a fixed term.
Federal executive branch
The Bundeskanzler (Federal Chancellor) heads the Bundesregierung (Federal Cabinet) and thus the executive branch of the federal government.
He or she is chosen by and must report to the Bundestag, Germany's parliament.
Germany, like the United Kingdom, can thus be said to have a parliamentary system.
Konstruktives Misstrauensvotum
The Chancellor cannot be removed from office during a 4-year term unless the Bundestag has agreed on a successor.
This Constructive Vote of No Confidence () is meant to stop what happened in the Weimar Republic.
There the government did not have a lot of support in the parliament.
The small parties often joined together to vote against the government, but could never stay together and choose a new government.
Except in the periods 1969-72 and 1976-82, when the social democratic party of Chancellor Brandt and Schmidt came in second in the elections, the Chancellor has always been the candidate of the largest party.
Usually the largest party is helped by one or smaller more parties to get a majority in the parliament.
Between 1969-72 and 1976-82 the smaller parties decided not to help the largest party, but the second biggest party instead.
The Chancellor appoints a Vice-Chancellor (Vizekanzler), who is a member of his cabinet, usually the Foreign Minister.
When there is a coalition government (which has, so far, always been the case, except for the period of 1957 to 1961), the Vice-Chancellor usually belongs to the smaller party of the coalition.
The Federal Cabinet
The Chancellor is responsible for policy guidelines.
This means he, or she, sets the broad ideas of what the government will do.
To help carry out these ideas the Chancellor can change the make-up of the federal ministries whenever they want.
For example, in the middle of January 2001, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture was renamed to Ministry of Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture.
This was to help fight the "Mad Cow Disease" BSE problem.
At the same time some of the jobs (competencies) of the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Economy, and the Ministry of Health were moved to the new Ministry of Consumer Protection.
The Federal President
The duties of the Bundespräsident (Federal President) are mostly representative and ceremonial; The power of the executive is exercised by the Chancellor.
The President is elected every 5 years on May 23 by the Federal Assembly (Bundesversammlung).
The Bundesversammlung only meets to elect the President.
Its members are the entire Bundestag and an equal number of state delegates selected especially for this purpose in proportion to election results for the state parliaments.
In February 2017, Frank-Walter Steinmeier of the SPD was elected.
The reason that the President is not directly elected by the people is to stop him from claiming to be more powerful than the government and the constitution, which happened in the Weimar Republic.
|President
|Frank-Walter Steinmeier
| --- 1)
|19 March 2017
|Chancellor
|Olaf Scholz
|SPD
|8 December 2021
|Other government parties
|Green, FDP
1) Although Mr. Steinmeier has been a member of the SPD, the German Basic Law requests in Article 55 that the Federal President does not hold another office, practice a profession or hold membership of any corporation.
Federal President has let his party membership rest dormant and does not belong to a political party during his term of office.
Federal parliament
Germany has a bicameral legislature, which means that the parliament has two houses.
The Bundestag (Federal Diet) has at least 598 members, elected for a four-year term.
Half of the members (299) are elected in single-seat constituencies according to first-past-the-post.
The other 299 members are chosen from statewide party lists.
The total percentage of constituency members and regional list members a party has should equal the percentage of votes that a party gets.
This is called proportional representation.
Because Voters vote once for a constituency representative, and a second time for a party Germany is said to have mixed-member proportional representation.
Sometimes a party already has more constituency seats in a land (state) than it should have to keep the percentage of votes and seats equal.
The party does not lose seats.
Instead, it gets no land seats.
This means that the Bundestag sometimes has more than 598 members.
In the current parliament, there are 16 overhang seats, giving a total of 614.
A party must get 5% of the national vote or win at least three constituency seats to be represented in the Bundestag.
This rule is often called the "five percent hurdle", was made to stop lots of small parties from being in the Bundestag.
Small parties were blamed for the problems of the Weimar Republic's Reichstag.
The first Bundestag elections were held in the Federal Republic of Germany ("West Germany") on August 14, 1949.
Following reunification, elections for the first all-German Bundestag were held on December 2, 1990.
The last election was held on September 24, 2017, the 19th Bundestag met on October 24, 2017.
The Bundesrat (Federal Council) is the representation of the state governments at the federal level.
The Bundesrat has 69 members who are delegates of the 16 Bundesländer.
Usually, the 16 Ministers President are members, but they do not have to be.
The Länder each has from three to six votes in the Bundesrat, depending on the population.
Bundesrat members must vote as their state government tell them.
Powers of the legislature
The legislature has powers of exclusive jurisdiction (it can make laws by itself) and concurrent jurisdiction with the Länder (the länder can also make laws).
What laws and what type of laws are set out in the Basic Law.
The Bundestag does most lawmaking.
The Bundesrat must concur (agree) to laws about money shared by the federal and state governments and those making more work for the states.
Often this means that the Bundesrat often needs to agree to a law because federal laws are often carried out by state or local agencies.
Since the political make-up of the Bundesrat is often different from that of the Bundestag, the Bundesrat is often the place for opposition parties to put their point of view, rather than for the states to look after their interests, as the constitution intended.
To limit, members of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat form a Vermittlungsauschuss which is a joint committee to try to reach an agreement when the two chambers can not agree on a certain piece of legislation.
Political parties and elections
For other political parties see List of political parties in Germany.
CDU/CSU: 246
SPD: 152
AfD: 89
FDP: 80
Linke: 69
Greens: 67
->See also: Bundesrat - States.
Amtsgericht - local courts
Landesgericht - state courts
Oberlandesgericht - state appeals courts
Bundesgerichtshof - the federal supreme criminal and civil court
There is also a system of specialist courts, that deals with certain areas of the law.
These generally have a state court and state appeals court before coming to the federal supreme court for that area of law.
The other federal supreme courts are
Bundesfinanzhof - tax affairs
Bundesarbeitsgericht - Labour law
Bundessozialgericht - Social security law
Bundesverwaltungsgericht - Administrative law.
This includes government regulations not covered by one of the other three specialist courts.
Unlike the United States, all courts are state courts, except for the top-level supreme courts.
Germany also has another supreme court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht Federal Constitutional Court.
The Grundgesetz says that every person may complain to the Federal Constitutional Court when his or her constitutional rights, especially human rights, have been violated by the government or one of its agencies and after he or she has gone through the ordinary court system.
Usually, only a small percentage of these constitutional complaints, called (Verfassungsbeschwerden) are successful.
Even so, the Court has often angered both the government and the lawmakers.
The judges even say that they do not care about the reactions of the government, the Bundestag, or public opinion or about the cost of one of the court's decisions.
All that matters is the constitution.
The Bundesverfassungsgericht is very high popular with ordinary people because it protects them from government wrongdoing.
Only the Constitutional Court has the power to ban political parties for being unconstitutional.
However so far the Constitutional court has only used this power twice, outlawing the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) and the SRP (Socialist Reich Party, a successor to the NSDAP) because both parties ideas went against the constitution.
Recent political issues
"Red-Green" vs. Conservative-led coalitions
The final seat count was enough to allow a "red-green" coalition of the SPD with Alliance '90/The Greens (Bündnis '90/Die Grünen), bringing the Greens into a national government for the first time.
The first months of the new government had policy disputes between the moderate and traditional left wings of the SPD, and some voters got fed up.
The first state election after the federal election was held in Hesse in February 1999.
The CDU increased its vote by 3.5%.
The CDU became the largest party and replaced an SPD/Green coalition with a CDU/FDP coalition.
The result was seen in part as a referendum on the federal government's ideas for a new citizenship law, which would have made it easier for long-time foreign residents to become German citizens, and also to keep their original citizenship as well.
The next election for the Bundestag was September 22, 2002.
Gerhard Schröder led the coalition of SPD and Greens to an 11-seat victory over the CDU/CSU headed by Edmund Stoiber (CSU).
Two factors are generally cited that enabled Schröder to win the elections despite poor approval ratings a few months before: good handling of the 2002 European floods and firm opposition to the USA's 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The coalition treaty for the second red-green coalition was signed on October 16, 2002.
There were a lot of new ministers.
Conservative comeback
In February 2003, elections took place in the states of Hesse and Lower Saxony, was won by the conservatives.
In Hesse, the CDU minister president Roland Koch was re-elected, with his party CDU gaining enough seats to govern without the former coalition partner FDP.
In Lower Saxony, the former SPD minister president Sigmar Gabriel lost the elections, leading to a CDU/FDP-government headed by new minister president Christian Wulff (CDU).
The protest against the Iraq war changed this situation a bit, favoring SPD and Greens.
In April 2003, chancellor Schröder announced massive labor market reforms, called Agenda 2010.
This included a shakeup of the system of German job offices (Arbeitsamt), cuts in unemployment benefits and subsidies for unemployed persons who start their own businesses.
These changes are commonly known by the name of the chairman of the commission which conceived them as Hartz I - Hartz IV.
Although these reforms have sparked massive protests they are now credited with being in part responsible for the economic upswing and the fall of unemployment figures in Germany in the years 2006/7.
The European elections on June 13, 2004, brought a staggering defeat for the Social Democrats, who polled only slightly more than 21%, the lowest election result for the SPD in a nationwide election since the Second World War.
Liberals, Greens, conservatives, and the far left were the winners of the European election in Germany, because voters were disillusioned by high unemployment and cuts in social security, while the governing SPD party seems to be concerned with quarrels between its members and gave no clear direction.
Many observers believe that this election marked the beginning of the end of the Schröder government.
Rise of the Right
In September 2004, elections were held in the states of Saarland, Brandenburg and Saxony.
In the Saarland, the governing CDU was able to remain in power and gained one additional seat in the parliament and the SPD lost seven seats, while the Liberals and Greens re-entered the state parliament.
The far-right National Democratic Party, which had never got more than 1 or 2% of the vote, received about 4%, although it failed to earn a seat in the state parliament (a party must obtain at least 5% of the vote to achieve state parliamentary representation).
Two weeks later, elections were held in the eastern states of Brandenburg and Saxony: once again, overall, the ruling parties lost votes and although they remained in power, the right to far-right parties made the big leaps.
In Brandenburg, the Deutsche Volksunion (DVU) re-entered the state parliament after winning 6.1% of the vote.
In Saxony, the NPD entered a non-competition agreement with the DVU and obtained 9.2% of the vote, thus winning seats in the state parliament.
Due to their losses at the ballots, the ruling CDU of Saxony was forced to form a coalition with the SPD.
The rise of the right to far-right worries the ruling political parties.
German federal election 2005
On May 22, 2005, as predicted the SPD was defeated in its former heartland, North Rhine-Westphalia.
Half an hour after the election results, the SPD chairman Franz Müntefering announced that the chancellor would clear the way for premature federal elections by deliberately losing a vote of confidence.
This took everyone by surprise, especially because the SPD was below 25% in polls at the time.
On the following Monday, the CDU announced Angela Merkel as a conservative candidate for chancellorship.
Whereas in May and June 2005 victory of the conservatives seemed highly likely, with some polls giving them an absolute majority, this changed shortly before the election on September 18, 2005, especially after the conservatives introduced Paul Kirchhof as potential minister of the treasury, and after a TV duel between Merkel and Schröder where many considered Schröder to have performed better.
New for the 2005 election was the alliance between the newly formed Electoral Alternative for Labour and Social Justice (WASG) and the PDS, planning to join into a common party (see Left Party.
With the former SPD chairman Oskar Lafontaine for the WASG and Gregor Gysi for the PDS as prominent figures, this alliance soon found interest in the media and in the population.
Polls in July saw them as high as 12%.
After success in the state election for Saxony, the alliance between the far right parties National Democratic Party and Deutsche Volksunion (DVU), which planned to leapfrog the "five-percent hurdle" on a common party ticket was another media issue.
The election results of September 18, 2005, were surprising.
They were very different from the polls of the previous weeks.
The conservatives lost votes compared to 2002, reaching only 35%, and failed to get a majority for a "black-yellow" government of CDU/CSU and liberal FDP.
The FDP polled 10% of the votes, one of their best results ever.
But the red-green coalition also failed to get a majority, with the SPD losing votes, but polling 34% and the greens staying at 8%.
The left party alliance reached 8.7% and entered the German Parliament, whereas the NPD only got 1.6%.
The most likely outcome of coalition talks was a so-called "grand coalition" between the conservatives (CDU/CSU) and the social democrats (SPD), with the three smaller parties (liberals, greens, and the left) in the opposition.
Other possible coalitions include a "traffic light coalition" between SPD, FDP, and Greens and a "Jamaica coalition" between CDU/CSU, FDP, and Greens.
Coalitions involving the Left Party were ruled out by all parties (including the Left Party itself), although the combination of one of the major parties and any two small parties would mathematically have a majority.
Of these combinations, only a red-red-green coalition is politically even imaginable.
Both Gerhard Schröder and Angela Merkel announced that they had won the election and should become the next chancellor.
On October 10, talks were held between Franz Müntefering, the SPD chairman, Gerhard Schröder, Angela Merkel, and Edmund Stoiber, the CSU chairman.
In the afternoon it was announced that the CDU/CSU and SPD would begin formal coalition negotiations with the aim of a Grand Coalition with Angela Merkel as the next German chancellor.
Angela Merkel is the first woman, the first East German and the first scientist to be chancellor as well as the youngest German chancellor ever.
On November 22, 2005, Angela Merkel was sworn in by president Horst Köhler for the office of Bundeskanzlerin.
Political culture of Germany
German emergency legislature
Official Site of the Bundesregierung
Official source of election results
Official source from the German Embassy in Washington, DC
Music notation or musical notation is a way of writing down music so that anyone can play it.
Many systems have been used in the past to write music.
Today most musicians in the Western world write musical notes on a stave: five parallel lines with four spaces in between them.
However, there are many others, some of which are in use today in different cultures.
Writing music down makes it possible for a composer who makes up (composes) a piece of music to let other people know how the music is supposed to sound.
That music can then be played or sung by anybody who can “read music”.
If music is not written down, then people can only learn other people’s music by listening to it and trying to copy it.
This is how folk music was traditionally learned.
Some early ways of writing music
The earliest kind of notation was written on tablets using a way of writing called cuneiform.
Music from Nippur from about 2000 B.C. has been found which seems to give an approximate idea of how the music should be played.
A tablet from 1250 B.C. has musical notation which shows the names of the strings of a lyre.
They are the earliest records we have of written music.
Musical notation from Ancient Greece showed the notes in more detail than the earlier cuneiform.
It shows the pitch (how high or low the note is) and how long it lasts.
It sometimes give an idea of the harmony.
It was used from at least the 6th century BC until about the 4th century AD.
Early European musical notation
When music started to be written down in Europe it was music for the Roman Catholic church.
The monks who wrote it down used a system of dots and strokes called neumes.
They gave an idea of how high or low the notes were, but did not show the length of the notes.
They may have been used by people who knew the music already and just needed a reminder of when to go up and down.
People gradually realized that it was necessary to find a system which showed the exact pitch of the note.
The first stave was just one single horizontal line.
Gradually this increased to four lines.
Guido d’Arezzo, an Italian Benedictine monk who lived in the 11th century developed this system which soon led to the way of writing music that we know.
By the 16th century everybody was using the 5 line stave.
A system of bars (measures) was used everywhere by the end of the 17th century.
At first the bar lines where there to show which notes should be played or sung together.
Gradually the system we know today was developed in which each bar lasted the same length of time, and has a particular number of beats (counts) for each bar.
By the end of the 17th century this was used by most musicians in European classical music.
The modern system of musical notation
Today we use a five-line staff.
The pitch (highness or lowness of a note) is shown by where the note is put on the staff.
There may also be sharps or flats in front of some of the notes.
The music is read from left to right.
A staff of written music usually has a clef in front.
This shows exactly which notes are to be played.
Notes which are very high or low can be put on extra lines called ledger lines above or below the stave.
After the key signature is the time signature.
Bars (measures) divide the piece into regular groupings of beats, and the time signatures show these groupings.
When music is played by a large group of instruments such as an orchestra the music is written in a "score".
This shows the music played by all the instruments, so there are many staves written underneath one another.
The conductor will need to have a score, but the players will play from a “part” which has just the notes that they play.
All the parts needed for a piece of music is called a “set of parts”.
Some other systems
Instruments such as guitars often play from a chord chart or just the names of the chords (C7, Em etc.)
written underneath the music or under the words of a song.
A system called solfege has been used by musicians ever since the Renaissance.
This shows the names of the notes of a scale (do, re, mi etc.).
Lute music in the Renaissance and Baroque periods used to be written in a system called tabulature.
Some 20th century composers have also used tabulature.
Today computers are often used for making music.
This has led to other forms of music notation which are used in different systems of software.
The MIDI file format, stores information about the pitch, duration, speed, volume etc.
of notes and can be used to control a MIDI instrument.
Stave (music)
Clef (music)
Guido d'Arezzo
Musicology means the study of music by a scholar.
A scholar is an academic person, often a professor or lecturer at a university.
Someone who studies musicology is a Musicologist.
Musicologists study all kinds of music.
They study the history of music and learn about all the composers and how they developed their ideas and learned from one another.
They can do this by studying music scores, or by looking for historical documents which tell us about musicians from the past.
Musicologists may also study the philosophy of music (thinking about what music means).
They write articles in musical journals or books on music.
This can help us to know and understand more about the music we play or listen to.
The massacres started during the Russian Revolution of 1905.
The most violent fights happened in 1905 in February in Baku, in May in Nakhichevan, in August in Shusha and in November in Ganja.
C-pop is short for Chinese popular music ().
Most of today's C-pop artists are from Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China, as well as from other countries where Mandarin or Cantonese languages are used, such as Singapore and Malaysia.
However, Taiwanese music has some origins from the Japanese enka so Taiwanese pop is sometimes said to be a different genre from C-Pop.
Cantonese pop
Cantonese pop, or colloquially known as Cantopop, is a subgenre of C-pop, sung in Cantonese language.
Most Hong Kong-born singers start off as Cantonese pop singers before starting a career as a Mandarin pop singer.
Cantonese pop artists include:
Andy Lau
CoCo Lee
Leon Lai
Alan Tam
Joseph Koo
The Four Heavenly Kings
In the early 1990s, many major Cantonese pop stars (such as Alan Tam, Leslie Cheung, Samuel Hui, Priscilla Chan and Joseph Koo) decided to retire because of the protests in China in 1989.
Cantonese pop needed new talent to fill the gaps left by these retired stars, this led to the beginning of "the Four Heavenly Kings" or "四大天王" (lit.
Four Great Kings of Heaven): Jacky Jeung, Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok and Leon Lai.
They were dominating the media in all forms, from magazines, TV, cinema to music.
Mandarin pop
Mandarin pop () is a subgenre of C-pop.
Also known as Mandopop and Mandapop, Mandarin pop songs are performed in Mandarin.
Most Cantonese pop stars also expand their music career into the Mandarin pop scene.
Chinese Music Blog  - Chinese music online community providing Chinese music discussion, album review, lyrics translation and romanization for non-Chinese speakers.
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Stefanie Sun () is a multi-award-winning C-Pop singer and songwriter.
She was born on 1978.
Stefanie has sold over 10 million copies in Asia.
After her release of her tenth album, she is said to be the most popular Mandarin female singer in Asia and the most successful singer from Singapore.
Stefanie wen to school at Saint Margaret's Secondary School, Raffles Girls' School and went on to attend Saint Andrew's Junior College.
She later attended Nanyang Technological University, where she got a degree in Marketing.
Her abilities were discovered by her music teacher at his music school.
Among Mandarin-speakers, Stefanie is known by her Mandarin name, Sun Yan Zi.
She speaks the Teochew dialect, and in Teochew her name is pronounced as "Sng Ee Tze," which is her official name.
Most of her songs are sung in Mandarin, with several in English.
Stefanie's ability to speak many dialects is shown in the songs she sings.
In the song Cloudy Day (called 天黑黑 in Chinese), she sings in both Mandarin and Min Nan (Taiwanese).
Cloudy Day is an adaptation of a traditional Taiwanese folk song.
Her album START!
contains 6 songs in English: Venus, That I Will Be Good, Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough, Silent All These Years, and Hey Jude; and a song she wrote called Someone.
Stefanie does most of her recording and performing in Taiwan, where most of her fans are.
She also visits China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, where many of her fans are.
Her first music album was released in June 2000, the self-titled YanZi, published by Warner Music.
The album sold over 330,000 copies in Taiwan.
Her next album, which was released in December of the same year was titled My Desired Happiness or 我要的幸福 in Chinese.
My Desired Happiness sold over 380,000 copies in Taiwan.
Both albums achieved great success – each album sold over 1,000,000 copies in mainland China.
In January 2002 she released START, which was titled 自選集 in China.
START was a collection of songs and cover versions.
sold over 250,000 copies in Taiwan alone in less than a month and overall 1,000,000 copies sold in mainland China.
In 2002 and 2003, Stefanie sang the official theme songs for Singapore's National Day Parade: We Will Get There (一起走到 in Chinese) and One United People (全心全意 in Chinese).
One United People was included on the album Leave.
In early 2003, she released the album To Be Continued… which like her previous releases, was a success.
It sold more than 250,000 copies in Taiwan and more than 1,000,000 in China.
Only a few months later, she released her seventh album with six new songs mixed with fifteen of her old songs.
By the end of 2003, Stefanie had sold over 7,000,000 copies in Asia with just seven albums.
In late 2003, she decided to take a one-year break from making music, because she wanted to find again her direction in her career.
She returned in late 2004 with a new album titled Stefanie, which was meant to reflect her debut album (self-titled as well, but in Chinese).
This was to symbolise her return with a fresh attitude.
This album sold more than 2,300,000 copies in Asia; making it her most successful album.
She also started her own company called Make Music.
A Perfect Day  was released on 2005, almost one year later.
Reviews of this new album were mixed, but Stefanie said that all she wanted was to make quality music, instead of releases that sell well but have a lower level of artistic quality.
This album was not her highest-selling, but it had still managed to sell over 1,000,000 copies in Asia.
In 2006, Stefanie had 4 full-house concerts at the Hong Kong Coliseum.
The performances were praised by the media as well as fans.
Stefanie also returned to Singapore in a much-anticipated homecoming concert.
However, at The Golden Melody Awards 2006 in Taiwan, while performing songs that were meant to be for male singers, she went off-key, due to having not enough sleep, jet lag, and not having enough time to practice.
The media said she had shattered her image of a pop diva with great singing skills.
Though she had been heavily criticized by the media, many think that she did not perform as bad, instead the media had over-emphasized on her singing that night.
Stefanie’s first album under the Capitol brand is entitled Against the Light or 逆光 in Chinese.
It was released on 22 March 2007.
Her decision to leave Warner after 9 albums was partly due to music executive Sam Chen, who now works at EMI.
He had collaborated with Stefanie on 8 of her 9 albums.
On 26 February 2007, Stefanie returned from Cairo where she and her team were extorted by suspected local gangsters.
Stefanie was in Egypt to shoot a PV for her new album.
Two men disguised as government officials followed her and the crew and asked for money and even showing a handgun.
The crew tried calling the police but the police didn’t believe them.
The crew had to hand over a total of over 200,000 yuan in order to continue shooting.
Stefanie’s tenth album Against the Light, has been a major success in Asia.
In Taiwan, it sold over 60,000 copies in the first 3 days it was released.
In addition, over 500,000 copies were sold within a week in China.
Stefanie was also the number one spot in the Taiwanese Music Charts for 4 weeks.
Chinese musicians
Singaporean musicians
Singaporean singers
The election of the German Federal Diet (Bundestag) 2005 took place on 18 September 2005.
2005 in Europe
Federal elections in Germany
In Indian religions, a mudra (Sanskrit, literally "seal") is a gesture made with the hand or fingers.
Along with asanas (body postures), they are used in yoga.
Each mudra has a meaning.
They are a central part of Hindu iconography.
Mudras are also used in Buddhism.
There are  hand gestures in both Hindu and Buddhist iconography.
An example would be the outward-facing open palm known as Abhay (without fear) mudra, a gesture meant to dispel fear.
Originally published 1985, Routledge & Kegan Paul plc, London.
Mudras Photo Gallery
Mudras in Buddhism
Aaron Kwok is a popular Hong Kong singer and movie actor.
He is one of the "Four Heavenly Kings" of Cantopop.
He has been called "Hong Kong's Michael Jackson" for his dancing.
Aaron Kwok is one of Hong Kong and Asia's most important pop stars.
Over the last decade or so, Kwok has won over a hundred music awards.
As a solo performer, he has played in over 200 concerts around the world.
In 1984, Aaron Kwok joined a dancer training course at HK-TVB, where his talent for dancing was shown.
There, Kwok performed in PVs and a variety of TV shows.
In 1985, Kwok's outstanding performance in a pageant show was spotted.
He was transferred to the acting department of the talent training course and became a TV actor, where he played a few roles in Chinese television drama shows.
In the early 1990s, a Taiwanese motorcycle CM gave him instant fame.
He burst onto the music scene with his now-famous song Loving You Forever (called 對你愛不完 in the Chinese and original release) and the dance moves for the song.
In the next few years, his popularity reached fever-pitch and he was soon ranked alongside the most popular artists of the time.
Over the years, Kwok has also taken part in other mediums such as CMs and acting, especially with director-cinematographer Andrew Lau.
Kwok has also done extensive public service and charity work, which is why he was amongst the winners of the Ten Most Outstanding Young Persons Award 2003.
In 2004, a string of concert dates earned Kwok a Hong Kong Dance Award presented by the Hong Kong Dance Alliance.
Due to this success, Kwok toured again in 2005, receiving much praise.
At the Taiwan's forty-second Golden Horse Awards ceremony on 13 November 2005, Kwok won Best Leading Actor award for his role in the movie Divergence.
It was Kwok's first Golden Horse nomination and beat veteran Hong Kong star Tony Leung to win the honour.
Aaron won the Best Actor Award again at the forty-third Golden Horse Awards on 24 November 2006 for his role in the movie After This Our Exile.
He became the second actor in the history of the Golden Horse Awards to win the Best Actor Award year after year.
Jackie Chan first achieved this back in the 1990s.
2016 One Night Only - Gao Ye
2016 Cold War 2 - Sean K. F. Lau
2016 MBA Partners - Guest star
2016 The Monkey King 2 - Sun Wu Kong
2015 Monk Comes Down the Mountain - Zhou Xi Yu
2015 Port of Call - Detective Chong
2014 The Monkey King - Bull Demon
2013 Silent Witness - Tong Tao
2013 Christmas Rose - Chan Chi-tin
2013 Conspirators - Chan Tam
2013 Better and Better - Xie De Fa
2012 Cold War
2012 Floating City
2012 The Monkey King - Bull Demon
2011 Love in Space
2011 The Detective 2 - Tam
2011 Love for Life - Maestro de escuela primaria
2010 City Under Siege - Sunny
2010 Empire of Silver - Tercer Maestro
2009 The Storm Warriors - Striding Cloud
2009 Murderer - Ling Kwong
2007 The Detective - Tam
2006 The Silver Valley
2006 After This Our Exile - Chow Cheung Sheng
2005 Divergence - Suen Siu Yan
2004 Throw Down - Tony
2004 Heat Team - YT Lee
2001 Para Para Sakura - Wong Kam Shing
2000 China Strike Force - Darren Tong
2000 And I Hate You So - Zhang Yong
2000 2000 A.D. - Peter Li
1998 The Storm Riders - Striding Cloud
1998 Anna Magdalena - Yau Mok Yan (Yau Wing Fu)
1996 Somebody Up There Likes Me - Ken Wong
1995 Whatever Will Be, Will Be - Mr. Lam
1994 The Kung Fu Scholar - Liu Xian Kai
1993 Future Cops - Ryu
1993 Legend of the Liquid Sword - Zhu Liu Xiang
1993 Love is a Fairy Tale - Hung
1993 The Bare-Footed Kid - Guan Fung Yao
1993 A Moment of Romance II - Ah Fu
1993 Millionaire Cop - Ball; Jessy Li
1992 Game Kids - Zhong
1992 Gangs '92 - Sam Lam
1992 Truant Heroes - Ace
1992 Rhythm of Destiny - Lee Ka Wah
1992 The Shootout - Wong Ka Fai
1991 Lee Rock III - Lui Yong Yin
1991 The Banquet - Younger Brother of Small B Head
1991 Savior of the Soul - Silver Fox
1991 The Queen of Gamble - Ah Po
1991 Lee Rock II - Lui Yong-Yin
1990 Story of Kennedy Town - Lee Siu Wai
1989 Close Escape - Ben Kwok
Styrene is a certain organic chemical compound having the chemical formula C8H8.
Its chemical structure is made up of a vinyl group bonded onto a benzene ring.
This benzene ring makes styrene an aromatic compound.
At room temperature and pressure, styrene is a clear, colorless liquid.
Other names for styrene can be styrol, vinylbenzene, phenylethene, or phenylethylene.
Styrene is used in polymer chemistry as a monomer.
This means many styrene molecules can bond together to make a larger molecule called polystyrene.
Polystyrene is a kind of polymer often used as a plastic.
This kind of chemical reaction is called polymerization.
Styrene can also bond with other kinds of monomers to make other kinds of polymers called copolymers.
For one example, styrene has been mixed with another monomer called 1,3-butadiene to make a copolymer which is a kind of synthetic rubber.
For another example, styrene is mixed with acrylonitrile and 1,3-butadiene to make a copolymer plastic called ABS (Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene).
This kind of reaction is called dehydrogenation.
Hydrogen is also made by this reaction..
Para Para Sakura is a 2001 romance-comedy movie directed by Jingle Ma, starring Aaron Kwok and Cecilia Cheung.
It was filmed and produced in Hong Kong.
It runs for 107 minutes and is in the language Cantonese.
Plot Outline
Kwok plays the role of Phillip Wong, a colour-blind dance instructor who holds a class devoted to the latest dance craze, the Japanese Para Para.
While in Shanghai, Phillip meets Yee (Cheung), a spoiled rich girl who is running away from her up-coming arranged marriage.
Soon, Yee begins using Phillip's dance studio as a sanctuary from her responsibilities, and an attraction begins to form between the two.
However, Yee is called back to Japan to be married before long, and Phillip must use more than his dance skills and charisma to prevent her from taking her vows.
Cast and Credits
Aaron Kwok --- Kam-Shing "Phillip" Wong
Cecilia Cheung --- Yuriko "Yee"
Ah Niu --- Henry Ko
Niu Tien --- Yamfeifei, Yuriko's Mother
Kazuhiko Nishimura	--- Shunichi Kukukawa
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/309054/Para-Para-Sakura/
http://au.rottentomatoes.com/m/para_para_sakura/about.php
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1807634811/details
2000s comedy-drama movies
Musical movies
Wayne Lim Junjie (born March 27, 1981) is a Singaporean singer, songwriter, and music composer.
Lin is commonly known as JJ Lin and his Chinese name is Lin Jun Jie.
In 2004, with his self-composed song Jiang Nan, his career began to take off and his name became quickly known throughout China and Taiwan.
JJ Lin was originally managed by the entertainment agency called Ocean Butterflies from 2003 to 2011.
On August 8, 2011, he left his previous agency and joined Warner Music Taiwan.
Even though JJ Lin was born in Singapore, he is actually a descendant from a Chinese province known as Fujian.
JJ can speak English and Mandarin fluently.
JJ Lin’s hobbies include drawing, composing songs, singing, and photographing.
The idols that he likes include Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Jacky Cheung (Zhang Xue You), David Tao (Tao Zhe), and so on.
The food that JJ hates most is tomatoes.
In various variety shows, he showed strong fear and dislike whenever tomatoes were put in front of his eyes.
The colors that he likes the most are blue, black, white and grey.
One of unforgettable experiences in his life was traveling in Japan when he was young.
In China and Taiwan, JJ Lin was best known for his talent in composing songs instead of his appearance.
He composes most of the songs in his albums.
From his debut in 2003, he has produced several “hit” albums.
For example, his album named No.89757, published in 2005, which mainly talked about the love between a robot and a girl a thousand years from now, sold more than 1,500,000 copies in just three months.
His next album, known as Cao Cao, did even better.
This album sold around 2,000,000 copies in just two weeks, a miracle in the Chinese Music Industry.
Whenever JJ Lin publishes an album, it almost always becomes a hit.
JJ’s songs can be heard throughout China and Taiwan in various TV programs, singing competitions, and radio channels.
JJ Lin not only writes songs for himself but also for other famous celebrities, notably Ji De (Remember) for Taiwanese pop diva A-Mei and Fang Shou for his fellow label mate A-Do.
JJ Lin’s undeniable talent in composing has earned him numerous awards every year.
For instance, in 2004, he won the “Best New Artist” award in 15th Taiwan Golden Melody Awards.
In the same year, he also won “Best New Act” in Singapore Hit Awards.
In 2006 Beijing Music Awards, with his popular album Cao Cao, he swept several big awards including Most Popular Male Artist, Top Twenty Golden Melody, Best Album, Best Producer, and “True Hero” Award.
SINA
SINA Blog
JJ Federation Overseas (JJFO)
JJ Facebook Official Page - JJ Federation
Li Yin Zhang (; ), also known in Korea by her Korean name RiIn Jang, is the first and currently only Chinese solo singer to break into the Korean music industry.
Li Yin has been nicknamed the "Chinese BoA".
She speaks both Mandarin and Korean, and has released music in both Korea and China.
She also speaks English but has not yet released any records fully in English.
Li Yin was born on 18 February 1989 in Sichuan, China.
She grew up in a musical family, as both of her parents were professional violinists.
As a child, her parents took her to their rock concerts and exposed her to a variety of music.
At three years old, she began to learn the violin.