title: Crochet

text: It is a common perception that crochet produces a thicker fabric than knitting, tends to have less "give" than knitted fabric, and uses approximately a third more yarn for a comparable project than knitted items. Although this is true when comparing a single crochet swatch with a stockinette swatch, both made with the same size yarn and needle/hook, it is not necessarily true for crochet in general. Most crochet uses far less than 1/3 more yarn than knitting for comparable pieces, and a crocheter can get similar feel and drape to knitting by using a larger hook or thinner yarn. Tunisian crochet and slip stitch crochet can in some cases use less yarn than knitting for comparable pieces. According to sources claiming to have tested the 1/3 more yarn assertion, a single crochet stitch (sc) uses approximately the same amount of yarn as knit garter stitch, but more yarn than stockinette stitch. Any stitch using yarnovers uses less yarn than single crochet to produce the same amount of fabric. Cluster stitches, which are in fact multiple stitches worked together, will use the most length.


title: Crochet

text: Standard crochet stitches like sc and dc also produce a thicker fabric, more like knit garter stitch. This is part of why they use more yarn. Slip stitch can produce a fabric much like stockinette that is thinner and therefore uses less yarn.


title: Crochet

text: Any yarn can be either knitted or crocheted, provided needles or hooks of the correct size are used, but the cord's properties should be taken into account. For example, lofty, thick woolen yarns tend to function better when knitted, which does not crush their airy structure, while thin and tightly spun yarn helps to achieve the firm texture required for Amigurumi crochet.


title: Crochet

text: It has been very common for people and groups to crochet clothing and other garments and then donate them to soldiers during war. People have also crocheted clothing and then donated it to hospitals, for sick patients and also for newborn babies. Sometimes groups will crochet for a specific charity purpose, such as crocheting for homeless shelters, nursing homes, etc.


title: Crochet

text: It is becoming increasingly popular to crochet hats (commonly referred to as "chemo caps") and donate them to cancer treatment centers, for those undergoing chemotherapy and therefore losing hair. During October pink hats and scarves are made and proceeds are donated to breast cancer funds. Organizations dedicated to using crochet as a way to help others include Knots of Love, Crochet for Cancer, and Soldiers' Angels. These organizations offer warm useful items for people in need.


title: Crochet

text: In 2020, people around the world banded together to help save the wildlife affected by the Australian bushfires by crocheting kangaroo pouches, koala mittens and wildlife nests. This was an international effort to help during the particularly bad bushfire season which devastated local ecological systems.


title: Crochet

text: A group started in 2005 to create crochet versions of coral reefs grew by 2022 to over 20,000 contributors in what became the Crochet Coral Reef Project. To promote awareness of the effects of global warming, their creations have been displayed in galleries and museums by an estimated 2 million people. Many creations apply hyperbolic (curved) geometric shapes—distinguished from Euclidean (flat) geometry—to emulate natural structures.


title: Crochet

text: Crochet has been used to illustrate shapes in hyperbolic space that are difficult to reproduce using other media or are difficult to understand when viewed two-dimensionally.


title: Crochet

text: Mathematician Daina Taimiņa first used crochet in 1997 to create strong, durable models of hyperbolic space after finding paper models were delicate and hard to create. These models enable one to turn, fold, and otherwise manipulate space to more fully grasp ideas such as how a line can appear curved in hyperbolic space yet actually be straight. Her work received an exhibition by the Institute For Figuring.


title: Crochet

text: Examples in nature of organisms that show hyperbolic structures include lettuces, sea slugs, flatworms and coral. Margaret Wertheim and Christine Wertheim of the Institute For Figuring created a travelling art installation of a coral reef using Taimina's method. Local artists are encouraged to create their own "satellite reefs" to be included alongside the original display.


title: Crochet

text: As hyperbolic and mathematics-based crochet has become more popular, there have been several events highlighting work from various fiber artists. Two shows were "Sant Ocean Hall" at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. and "Sticks, Hooks, and the Mobius: Knit and Crochet Go Cerebral" at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania.


title: Crochet

text: In "Style in the technical arts", Gottfried Semper looks at the textile with great promise and historical precedent. In Section 53, he writes of the "loop stitch, or Noeud Coulant: a knot that, if untied, causes the whole system to unravel." In the same section, Semper confesses his ignorance of the subject of crochet but believes strongly that it is a technique of great value as a textile technique and possibly something more.


title: Crochet

text: There are a small number of architects currently interested in the subject of crochet as it relates to architecture. The following publications, explorations and thesis projects can be used as a resource to see how crochet is being used within the capacity of architecture.


title: Crochet

text: In the past few years, a practice called yarn bombing, or the use of knitted or crocheted cloth to modify and beautify one's (usually outdoor) surroundings, emerged in the US and spread worldwide. Yarn bombers sometimes target existing pieces of graffiti for beautification. In 2010, an entity dubbed "the Midnight Knitter" hit West Cape May. Residents awoke to find knit cozies hugging tree branches and sign poles. In September 2015, Grace Brett was named "The World's Oldest Yarn Bomber". She is part of a group of yarn graffiti-artists called the Souter Stormers, who beautify their local town in Scotland.


title: Oculus Rift

text: Oculus Rift is a discontinued line of virtual reality headsets developed and manufactured by Oculus VR, a division of Meta Platforms, released on March 28, 2016.


title: Oculus Rift

text: In 2012 Oculus initiated a Kickstarter campaign to fund the Rift's development, after being founded as an independent company two months prior. The project proved successful, raising almost from around 10,000 contributors. Then in March 2014, Oculus was purchased by Facebook for $2 billion.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The Rift went through various pre-production models since the Kickstarter campaign, around five of which were demonstrated to the public before reaching its commercial release. Two of these models were shipped to backers, labelled as development kits; the DK1 in mid 2013 and DK2 in mid-2014, intended to provide developers with a platform to develop content in time for the Rift's release. However, both were also purchased by many enthusiasts who wished to get an early preview of the technology. The Rift saw its commercial release in March 2016 with the Rift CV1, which was discontinued in March 2019 with the release of its successor, the Oculus Rift S.


title: Oculus Rift

text: Through Meant to be Seen (MTBS)'s virtual reality and 3D discussion forums, Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus and longtime MTBS discussion forum moderator, developed the idea of creating a new head-mounted display that was both more effective than what was then on the market, and inexpensive for gamers.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The first rough prototype was put together in 2011 by Palmer Luckey (then 18 years old) in his parents’ garage in Long Beach, California. Coincidentally, John Carmack had been doing his own research and happened upon Luckey's developments as a fellow member of MTBS. After sampling an early prototype, Carmack favored Luckey's approach and just before the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo, Id Software announced that their future updated version of "Doom 3", "BFG Edition", would be compatible with head-mounted display units.


title: Oculus Rift

text: In June 2012, during the E3 convention, Carmack introduced a duct taped head-mounted display based on Luckey's Oculus Rift prototype, which ran Carmack's own software. The unit featured a high speed IMU and a LCD, visible via dual lenses, that were positioned over the eyes to provide a 90 degrees horizontal and 110 degrees vertical stereoscopic 3D perspective.


title: Oculus Rift

text: Two months after being formed as a company, Palmer's Oculus VR launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign on August 1, 2012 for their virtual reality headset, named the Rift. The main purpose of the Kickstarter was to get an Oculus Rift prototype—now referred to as DK1 (Development Kit 1)—into the hands of developers to begin integration of the device into their games. The DK1 was given as a reward to backers who pledged $300 or more on Kickstarter, and was later sold publicly for $300 on their website. These kits sold at a rate of 4–5 per minute for the first day, before slowing down throughout the week.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The Rift DK1 was released on March 29, 2013, and uses a screen with a significantly lower pixel switching time than the original prototype, reducing latency and motion blur when turning one's head quickly. The pixel fill is also better, reducing the screen door effect and making individual pixels less noticeable. The LCD is brighter and the color depth is 24 bits per pixel.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The 7-inch screen also makes the stereoscopic 3D no longer 100% overlapping, the left eye seeing extra area to the left and the right eye seeing extra area to the right, in which there is no 3D depth perception. The field of view (FOV) is more than 90 degrees horizontal (110 degrees diagonal), which is more than double the FOV of previous VR devices from other companies, and is the primary strength of the device. The resolution is 1280×800 (16:10 aspect ratio), which leads to an effective of 640×800 per eye (4:5 aspect ratio). However, since the device does not feature a 100% overlap between the eyes, the combined horizontal resolution is effectively greater than 640. The image for each eye is shown in the panel as a barrel distorted image that is then corrected by pincushion effect created by lenses in the headset, generating a spherical-mapped image for each eye.


title: Oculus Rift

text: Initial prototypes used a Hillcrest Labs 3DoF head tracker that is normally 125 Hz, with a special firmware requested by John Carmack that makes it run at 250 Hz, tracker latency being vital due to the dependency of virtual reality's realism on response time. The latest version includes Oculus's new 1000 Hz Adjacent Reality Tracker, which aims to provide much lower latency tracking than almost any other tracker. It uses a combination of three-axis gyros, accelerometers, and magnetometers, which make it capable of absolute (relative to Earth) head orientation tracking without drift.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The Development Kit 1 also included interchangeable lenses that aim to allow for simple dioptric correction.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The entire source for the Rift DK1 was released to the public in September 2014, including the firmware, schematics, and mechanicals for the device. The firmware is released under a simplified BSD license, while the schematics and mechanicals are released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


title: Oculus Rift

text: In June 2013, a prototype of the Rift that used a 1080p LCD panel was shown at Electronic Entertainment Expo. This step forwards to twice the number of pixels as DK1 significantly reduced the screen door effect and made objects in the virtual world more clear, especially at a distance. The poor resolution had been the main criticism of the DK1.


title: Oculus Rift

text: This HD prototype is the only prototype of the Rift shown to the public which did not turn into a publicly available developer kit.


title: Oculus Rift

text: In January 2014, an updated prototype codenamed "Crystal Cove" was unveiled at Consumer Electronics Show, which used a special low-persistence of vision OLED display as well as a new motion tracking system that utilized an external camera to track infrared dots located on the headset. The new motion tracking system would allow the system to detect actions such as leaning or crouching, which was claimed to help alleviate sickness experienced by users when the software did not respond to these actions.


title: Oculus Rift

text: Oculus began shipping Development Kit 2 (DK2) in July 2014. This is a small refinement of the "Crystal Cove" prototype, featuring several key improvements over the first development kit, such as having a higher-resolution (960×1080 per eye) low-persistence OLED display, higher refresh rate of 75Hz, positional tracking, a detachable cable, and the omission of the need for the external control box.


title: Oculus Rift

text: A teardown of DK2 revealed that it incorporates a modified Samsung Galaxy Note 3 smartphone display, including the front panel from the device itself.


title: Oculus Rift

text: In September 2014, Oculus once again presented an updated version of the Rift, codenamed Crescent Bay. This version has a greater resolution than the DK2, a lower weight, built-in audio, and 360-degree tracking thanks to the presence of tracking LEDs in the back of the headset. Oculus has also licensed software library RealSpace3D, which is expected to provide the Rift with HRTF and reverb algorithms. During a panel at SXSW 2015, titled "Explore the Future of VR", it was publicly announced for the first time that the prototype uses two screens instead of one as previously thought.


title: Oculus Rift

text: Oculus VR announced on May 6, 2015, that the consumer version of the Rift would ship in the first quarter of 2016, and on March 25, 2016 the first batch of headsets began shipping to consumers.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The consumer version is an improved version of the Crescent Bay Prototype, featuring per-eye displays with a 1080×1200 resolution, running at 90 Hz, 360-degree positional tracking, integrated audio, a vastly increased positional tracking volume, and a heavy focus on consumer ergonomics and aesthetics.


title: Oculus Rift

text: In March 2019, during the announcement of the Rift S, it was said that the Rift S would replace the original Rift. However, Oculus VR stated that they planned to support the CV1 with software updates for "the foreseeable future".


title: Oculus Rift

text: On May 21, 2019, Oculus began shipping a new VR headset known as Rift S. The Rift S has a 1,280 ×1,440 LCD @ 80 Hz and slightly larger field of view than that of the CV1, but lacks mechanical IPD adjustment (IPD adjustment is software-only). The Rift S tracks the position of itself and its controllers in 3D space using a system known as Oculus Insight, which uses the 5 cameras on the HMD to track points in the environment and infrared LEDs on the controllers, information from accelerometers in both the HMD and controllers, and computer vision to predict what path the HMD and controllers are most likely to take. The Rift S uses a DisplayPort 1.2 port and one USB 3.0 port, as opposed to the HDMI and USB 3.0 port used on the Rift CV1. The Rift S targeted the same price point (USD$399) and hardware requirements as the Rift CV1, and has replaced the Rift CV1 since.


title: Oculus Rift

text: During September 2020, it was announced that the Rift S would be discontinued in 2021 in order for Oculus to focus on the Oculus Quest 2. In 2021, the Rift S was officially discontinued and was no longer available on the Oculus website, effectively ending the Rift line.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The Oculus Rift runtime officially supports Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux. The installation package includes components such as the headset driver (which includes Oculus Display driver and controller drivers), Positional Tracking Sensor driver, Oculus Service, and Oculus Home Application. The runtime service implements a number of processing techniques intended to minimize latency and in addition improve the smoothness of VR applications under weaker hardware. These include direct mode, asynchronous timewarp, and asynchronous spacewarp.


title: Oculus Rift

text: When the user puts on the Rift and no other content is being outputted to the headset, they are presented with "Oculus Home". This is the default environment of the Rift, which presents them with a loft environment and a floating menu, allowing the user to launch VR applications they own, see if their friends are using the Rift, and purchase virtual reality content on the "Oculus Home" store from the headset.


title: Oculus Rift

text: An update to the base software, called Core 2.0, introduced a more interactive default environment, allowing the user to navigate and customize it with imported 3D models.


title: Oculus Rift

text: Oculus maintains a market place for applications for the headsets. The listings are curated to only allow applications that run smoothly on the recommended hardware. Most listings are also rated on their comfort level based on their likelihood of causing motion sickness or number of jump scares. However, developers do not have to use "Oculus Home" to distribute content for the Rift, this being entirely optional. The Store can be accessed from the VR-based Oculus Home, from its desktop app, or on the Oculus web site under the section "Experiences."


title: Oculus Rift

text: Content for the Rift is developed using the Oculus PC SDK, a free proprietary SDK available for Microsoft Windows (OSX and Linux support is planned for the future). This is a feature complete SDK which handles for the developer the various aspects of making virtual reality content, such as the optical distortion and advanced rendering techniques.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The Oculus SDK is directly integrated with the popular game engines Unity 5, Unreal Engine 4, and Cryengine. This allows for developers already familiar with these engines to create VR content with little to no VR-specific code.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The Rift is an open platform, and thus developers do not need any approval or verification to develop, distribute, or sell content for it, and do not have to pay any licensing fees. The SDK, however, cannot be modified or reused for other purposes or hardware without permission.


title: Oculus Rift

text: Content developed for the Development Kit 2 using SDK version 0.8 or above are compatible with the Rift; however, content developed for the Development Kit 1 or with older versions of the SDK will have to be recompiled using the latest SDK version to be compatible.


title: Oculus Rift

text: On December 21, 2015, Oculus announced the release of their finalized Rift 1.0 SDK, combined with the start of shipping their final version of the Oculus Rift VR headset to developers.


title: Oculus Rift

text: At Oculus's 3rd annual conference (Oculus Connect 3), it announced the new technology, called "Asynchronous Spacewarp (ASW)". This technology allows the Rift to compensate for the dropped frames. According to Oculus, ASW reduces the minimum specs of a PC to run the Rift without any judder.


title: Oculus Rift

text: In May 2015, Oculus VR announced "recommended" hardware specifications for computers utilizing Oculus Rift, specifying a CPU equivalent to an Intel Core i5-4590, at least 8GB of RAM, at least an AMD Radeon R9 290 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 graphics card, an HDMI 1.3 output, three USB 3.0 ports, and one USB 2.0 port. Oculus VR stated that these requirements would remain in force for the life of the first consumer model. The company also stated that while upcoming discrete GPUs for laptops may be able to reach the required performance for Oculus Rift, systems that switch between integrated and discrete graphics may not handle output in a manner that supports the device. Oculus Rift only supports 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 or later; Oculus VR stated that the device would initially support Windows only in order to focus on "delivering a high[-]quality consumer-level VR experience"; support for Linux and macOS will be developed in the future.


title: Oculus Rift

text: A hardware testing application is available, and Oculus VR has also certified and promoted specific models of pre-built computers that meet these recommendations, from vendors such as Asus, Alienware and Dell Inc., as being "Oculus Ready".


title: Oculus Rift

text: On October 6, 2016, Oculus VR announced lessened hardware recommendations, now suggesting an Intel Core i3-6100 or AMD FX 4350 CPU, at least a GeForce GTX 960 or equivalent graphics card, two USB 3.0 ports and one USB 2.0 port, and Windows 8 or newer. The company stated that these lower requirements were enabled by the adoption of motion interpolation; on systems that cannot handle full 90 frames per second rendering, the drivers will allow software to render at 45 FPS instead, and generate frames based on differences between them to send to the headset to maintain its frame rate. Oculus promoted that these changes lowered the average hardware cost of a PC meeting these specifications to US$500 and would also enable certain laptops to run Oculus Rift.


title: Oculus Rift

text: In June 2018, Oculus VR updated its recommended OS spec to Windows 10. While Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users would still be able to access the standard Rift experience, newer features and apps might require an upgrade to Windows 10.


title: Oculus Rift

text: Oculus has stated that the Rift is primarily a gaming device and that their main content focus is gaming.


title: Oculus Rift

text: Existing games with a first-person or fixed-camera perspective can be ported to VR with some development effort. However, Oculus has stated that the best virtual reality experiences are those that are designed, from the beginning, for the Rift.


title: Oculus Rift

text: A number of AAA games have added Rift support (and can be played with the Development Kit 2), including "Project CARS", "", "Euro Truck Simulator 2", and "Dirt Rally", as well as a number of indie games such as "AaAaAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity" and "Ether One". Fans and hobbyists have also modded support for the Rift into several popular titles which allow for extensive low-level modding, including "Minecraft" and "Flight Simulator X".


title: Oculus Rift

text: At the release event for the Rift in June 2015, Oculus announced 9 launch titles for the Rift, including "" by CCP and "Edge of Nowhere" by Insomniac Games. It also announced that it was working with other developers including "Final Fantasy" developer Square Enix, "Rock Band" developer Harmonix, and "The Order: 1886" developer Ready at Dawn.


title: Oculus Rift

text: In July 2015, Oculus revealed that it was fully funding more than 20 second party high production value games made exclusively for the Rift, one of these being Insomniac's "Edge of Nowhere".


title: Oculus Rift

text: In July 2017, Marvel announced in the Disney's D23 event that it will be bringing 12 superheroes of theirs to VR with an Oculus exclusive game called Powers United VR.


title: Oculus Rift

text: Oculus is including "Oculus Cinema" as a free application, which allows the Rift to be used to view conventional movies and videos from inside a virtual cinema environment, giving the user the perception of viewing the content on a cinema-sized screen. "Oculus Cinema" will also have a networked mode, in which multiple users can watch the same video in the same virtual space, seeing each other as avatars and being able to interact and talk to one another while watching the video.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The Rift also offers the opportunity to view new types of media that are impossible to view on regular monitors; 360° 3D videos and 'virtual reality movies' (an entirely new medium).


title: Oculus Rift

text: Spherical videos (commonly called 360° videos) can be viewed simply by the user moving their head around, and the Rift opens up the possibility for stereoscopic spherical videos (commonly called 360° 3D videos). In September 2014, NextVR announced that they would be using a $200,000 camera rig to produce 360° 3D content for the Rift, including short films, as well as live streaming live events such as sports or concerts in 360° 3D. In July 2015, Oculus announced a deal with Canadian film company Felix & Paul Studios to produce 360° 3D videos for the Rift.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The Rift also supports a new medium of entertainment experiences, which Oculus calls "virtual reality movies". Oculus has established Oculus Story Studio to develop this type of content for the Rift, a team which has multiple former employees from major VFX companies such as PIXAR and ILM. Oculus Story Studio showed off its first VR movie, "Lost", at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, gaining positive reviews from attendees.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The studio intends to have 5 VR shorts released with the Rift at launch, including "Lost", "Bullfighter", "Henry", "Dear Angelica", and "Kabloom".


title: Oculus Rift

text: Oculus believes that social applications will be the most popular virtual reality experiences in the long term. A number of social applications for the Rift are in development, and it is expected that there will be significant competition in the sector.


title: Oculus Rift

text: In May 2015, AltspaceVR launched a public beta for DK2 owners to try out their social VR platform. AltspaceVR allows people to inhabit a shared virtual space with spatial voice communications, cast content from the Internet on virtual screens, and interact with objects (allowing activities such as playing chess or other board games). It also supports extra hardware like eye tracking and body tracking.


title: Oculus Rift

text: In 2013, Philip Rosedale, the founder of Second Life, left Linden Lab to work on a new virtual world designed for the Rift, called "High Fidelity", which will link thousands of user-hosted virtual environments together into a consistent virtual world.


title: Oculus Rift

text: In May 2015, Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, announced that they too were working on a new virtual world, codenamed "Project Sansar", built for virtual reality headsets such as the Rift and Gear VR. Like Second Life, Sansar will be hosted on Linden's servers and lease virtual land to players, on which they can build and sell virtual items and services (which Linden will take a cut of). Linden Lab hoped to release Sansar by the end of 2016.


title: Oculus Rift

text: As well as the consumer uses, the Rift has attracted significant interest from industry and professional spheres for productivity enhancement, visualization, and advertising.


title: Oculus Rift

text: A number of architecture firms have been experimenting with using the Rift for visualization and design. With the right software, the Rift allows architects to see exactly what their building will look like and get an understanding of the scale that is impossible on a traditional monitor.


title: Oculus Rift

text: In early 2015, Audi started using Rift Developer Kit 2's at dealerships to help customers configure the car they are interested in, as well as to see what driving a race in the car would be like.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The Norwegian Army has been experimenting with the Rift Development Kit 2 to allow for a greater situational awareness of armoured vehicle drivers and commanders.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The use of Oculus Rift on an innovative virtual operator station assists the control of a teleoperated military mobile robot Tactical Robotic System (TAROS). Human operators can have intuitive control and mediate 3D view from stereovision cameras.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The Oculus Rift is increasingly used in universities and schools as an educational tool. The ability to provide an immersive, engaging environment can assist a diverse range of students for learning. In particular, there appears to be benefits to medical, health science and exercise students when utilising the Oculus Rift as a supplement for content provided in anatomy and physiology. There is also increasing use of the Oculus Rift within curricula in other fields such as marketing, architecture, clinical education., computer science and paramedics


title: Oculus Rift

text: In October 2016, the television series "Halcyon" was released as a "virtual reality series", where some episodes are broadcast on conventional television. and some as VR content for Oculus Rift. It is a crime drama following the world's first "VR Crimes Unit" in 2048.


title: Oculus Rift

text: Fox Sports began producing content for the Oculus Rift and other virtual reality systems in fall 2016. Its initial content consisted mainly of "Fox College Football" coverage.


title: Oculus Rift

text: Some online casinos have started using Oculus Rift to provide a unique online casino experience, allowing the user to play slots and experience the lobby of a casino through their VR headset.


title: Oculus Rift

text: ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, which in turn owns Id Software, presented a lawsuit against Facebook, claiming the Oculus Rift was the product of intellectual property owned by ZeniMax, developed by John Carmack during his time working for Id Software. The jury ruled partially in favor of ZeniMax, finding the defendants did not steal trade secrets but had violated a non-disclosure agreement. Facebook and some of the Oculus corporate officers were ordered to pay a total of US$500 million. On March 10, 2017, it was revealed that Carmack was suing ZeniMax for US$22.7 million it owed him from their purchase of Id Software.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The Oculus Rift received generally positive reviews from gaming and tech websites. "Wired" gave 9 out of 10 stars to Oculus Rift and wrote, "The long-promised virtual reality headset is finally here, in a remarkably well-made and accessible device." A review by Dan Stapleton of IGN says, "The Oculus Rift is the first headset available, and it does a fantastic job of not just displaying high-quality VR, but making it easy to use." Many reviewers also wrote about the shortcomings of Rift, such as a hefty price tag ($599 in US) and the need of a powerful PC to run it.


title: Oculus Rift

text: The "Wall Street Journal" wrote, "The first totally immersive home virtual reality rig is a pricey, awkward, isolating—and occasionally brilliant—glimpse of the future of computing." "The Verge" said, "Virtual Reality: 8/10. Virtual reality is always almost here."


title: Oculus Rift

text: Will Greenwald of PCMag recommended the Rift once the price had dropped, writing, "The Oculus Rift comfortably produces an immersive, crisp virtual reality experience that will continue to improve with the development of new software, which has been steadily coming out on both the Oculus store and SteamVR. Now that the Rift costs two-thirds of its original $600 price and includes the Oculus Touch controllers and second external sensor that enables whole-room VR, it earns our Editors' Choice for PC-based VR headsets."


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: Annapolis ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Maryland and the county seat of, and only incorporated city in, Anne Arundel County. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C., Annapolis forms part of the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. The 2020 census recorded its population as 40,812, an increase of 6.3% since 2010.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: This city served as the seat of the Confederation Congress, formerly the Second Continental Congress, and temporary national capital of the United States in 1783–1784. At that time, General George Washington came before the body convened in the new Maryland State House and resigned his commission as commander of the Continental Army. A month later, the Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris of 1783, ending the American Revolutionary War, with Great Britain recognizing the independence of the United States.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The city and state capitol was also the site of the 1786 Annapolis Convention, which issued a call to the states to send delegates for the Constitutional Convention to be held the following year in Philadelphia. Over 220 years later, the Annapolis Peace Conference took place in 2007.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: Annapolis is the home of St. John's College, founded 1696; the United States Naval Academy, established 1845, is adjacent to the city limits.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: A settlement in the Province of Maryland named "Providence" was founded on the north shore of the Severn River on the middle Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in 1649 by Puritan exiles from the Province/Dominion of Virginia led by the third Proprietary Governor of Maryland, William Stone (1603–1660). The settlers later moved to a better-protected harbor on the Severn's southern shore. The settlement on the south shore, known from 1683 as "Town at Proctor's", then "Town at the Severn", became in 1694 "Anne Arundel's Towne" (after Lady Ann Arundell (1616–1649), the late wife of the late Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, 1605–1675).


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: In 1654, after the Third English Civil War, Parliamentary forces assumed control of the Maryland colony and Stone went into exile south across the Potomac River in Virginia. Per orders from Lord Baltimore], Stone returned the following spring at the head of a Cavalier royalist force, loyal to the uncrowned King of England. On March 25, 1655, in what became known as the Battle of the Severn (the first colonial naval battle in North America), Stone was defeated, taken prisoner, and replaced by Lt. Gen. Josias Fendall (1628–1687) as fifth Proprietary Governor. Fendall governed Maryland during the latter half of the English Commonwealth period. In 1660, he was replaced by Phillip Calvert (1626–1682) as fifth/sixth Governor of Maryland, after the restoration of Charles II (1630–1685) as King in England.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: In 1694, soon after the overthrow of the Catholic government of second Royal Governor Thomas Lawrence (1645–1714, in office for a few months in 1693), the third Royal Governor Francis Nicholson (1655-1727/28, in office: 1694–1698), moved the capital of the royal colony, the Province of Maryland, to Anne Arundel's Towne and renamed the town "Annapolis" after Princess Anne of Denmark and Norway, soon to become Queen Anne of Great Britain (1665–1714, reigned 1702–1714). Annapolis was incorporated as a city in 1708. Colonel John Seymour, the Governor of Maryland from 1704 to 1709, wrote Queen Anne on March 16, 1709, with qualifications for municipal officials and provisions for fairs and market days for the town.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: 17th-century Annapolis was little more than a village, but it grew rapidly for most of the 18th century until the American Revolutionary War as a political and administrative capital, a port of entry, and a major center of the Atlantic slave trade. The "Maryland Gazette", which became an important weekly journal, was founded there by Jonas Green in 1745; in 1769 a theatre opened; during this period also the commerce was considerable, but it declined rapidly after Baltimore, with its deeper harbor, was made a port of entry in 1780. Water trades such as oyster-packing, boatbuilding and sailmaking became the city's chief industries. Annapolis is home to a large number of recreational boats that have largely replaced the seafood industry in the city.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: Dr. Alexander Hamilton (1712–1756), a Scottish-born doctor and writer, lived and worked in Annapolis. Leo Lemay says his 1744 travel diary "Gentleman's Progress: The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton" is "the best single portrait of men and manners, of rural and urban life, of the wide range of society and scenery in colonial America."


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: Annapolis became the temporary capital of the United States after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Congress was in session in the state house from November 26, 1783, to August 19, 1784, and it was in Annapolis on December 23, 1783, that General Washington resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: For the 1783 Congress, the Governor of Maryland commissioned John Shaw, a local cabinetmaker, to create an American flag. Shaw's flag is slightly different from other designs of the time: the blue field extends over the entire height of the hoist. Shaw developed two versions of the flag: one which started with a red stripe and another that started with a white one.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: In 1786, delegates from all states of the Union were invited to meet in Annapolis to consider measures for the better regulation of commerce. Delegates from only five states—New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, and Delaware—actually attended the September 1786 gathering, known afterward as the "Annapolis Convention". Without proceeding to the business for which they had met, the delegates passed a resolution calling for another convention to meet at Philadelphia in the following year to amend the Articles of Confederation. The resulting Philadelphia convention drafted and approved the Constitution of the United States, which remains in force.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: On April 24, 1861, the midshipmen of the Naval Academy relocated their base in Annapolis and were temporarily housed in Newport, Rhode Island, until October 1865.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: In 1861, the first of three camps that were built for holding paroled soldiers was created on the campus of St. John's College. The second location of Camp Parole would house over 20,000 and would be located where Forest Drive is currently. The third and final location was finished in late 1863 and would be placed near the Elkridge Railroad, as to make transportation of soldiers and resources easier before and allowing the camp to grow to its highest numbers. This area just west of the city is still referred to as Parole. The soldiers who did not survive were buried in the Annapolis National Cemetery.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: In 1900, Annapolis had a population of 8,585. On December 21, 1906, Henry Davis was lynched in the city. He was suspected of assaulting a local woman. Nobody was ever tried for the crime.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: During World War II, shipyards in Annapolis built a number of PT Boats, and military vessels such as minesweepers and patrol boats were built in Annapolis during the Korean and Vietnam wars. It was at Annapolis in July 1940 that Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg arrived in exile during World War II.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: In the summer of 1984, the Navy Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis hosted soccer games as part of the XXIII Olympiad.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: During September 18–19, 2003, Hurricane Isabel created the largest storm surge known in Annapolis's history, cresting at . Much of downtown Annapolis was flooded and many businesses and homes in outlying areas were damaged. The previous record was during a hurricane in 1933, and during Hurricane Hazel in 1954. Downtown Annapolis has high-tide "sunny day" flooding. A Stanford University study found that this resulted in 3,000 less visits and $172,000 in lost revenue for local business in 2017.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: From mid-2007 through December 2008, the city celebrated the 300th anniversary of its 1708 Royal Charter, which established democratic self-governance. The many cultural events of this celebration were organized by Annapolis Charter 300.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: Annapolis was home of the Anne Arundel County Battle of the Bands, which was held at Maryland Hall from 1999 to 2015. The event was a competition between musical groups from each high school in the county; it raised over $100,000 for the county's high school music programs during its 17-year run.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: On June 28, 2018, at the Capital Gazette, a gunman opened fire, killing five journalists and injuring two more.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: An EF-2 tornado struck the western edge of the city on September 1, 2021, during the remnants of Hurricane Ida. Homes, businesses, and restaurants had significant damage near Maryland Route 450, where EF-2 damage was observed with estimated winds of 125 mph. The tornado dissipated immediately past U.S. Route 50 and U.S. Route 301.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: As announced by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Annapolis was the venue for a Middle East summit dealing with the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, with the participation of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ("Abu Mazen") and various other leaders from the region. The conference was held at the United States Naval Academy on November 26, 2007.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The Maryland State House is the oldest in continuous legislative use in the United States. Construction started in 1772, and the Maryland legislature first met there in 1779. It is topped by the largest wooden dome built without nails in the country. The Maryland State House housed the workings of the United States government from November 26, 1783, to August 13, 1784, and the Treaty of Paris was ratified there on January 14, 1784, so Annapolis became the first peacetime capital of the U.S.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: It was in the Maryland State House that George Washington famously resigned his commission before the Continental Congress on December 23, 1783.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The United States Naval Academy was founded in 1845 on the site of Fort Severn, and now occupies an area of land reclaimed from the Severn River. Students that attend the Naval Academy are enrolled for four years with a following five year commitment to serving on active duty in the Marine Corps or Navy. Students hold the naval rank of Midshipman, and on average about 4,500 are enrolled.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: St. John's College is a non-sectarian private college that was once supported by the state. It was opened in 1789 as the successor of King William's School, which was founded by an act of the Maryland legislature in 1696 and was opened in 1701. Its principal building, McDowell Hall, was originally to be the governor's mansion; although £4,000 was appropriated to build it in 1742, it was not completed until after the War of Independence.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: Located south of Baltimore and east of Washington, D.C., Annapolis is the closest state capital to the national capital.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The city is a part of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, and is relatively flat, with the highest point being only above sea level.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: Annapolis lies within the humid subtropical climate zone (Köppen "Cfa"), with hot, humid summers, cool winters, and generous precipitation year-round. Low elevation and proximity to the Chesapeake Bay give the area more moderate spring and summertime temperatures and slightly less extreme winter lows than locations further inland, such as Washington, D.C.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: In November 2020, NASA reported that Annapolis had 18 days of high-tide (non-storm-related) flooding from May 2019 to April 2020, an increase over 2018's 12 days, and higher than the 1995-2005 average of 2 days annually. The increase is attributed to sea level rise caused by climate change. Resultant flood damages caused local businesses to lose as much as $172,000 a year. On Naval Academy grounds, seawater came out of storm drains, with McNair Road and Ramsay Road flooding 20 times in 2020 and more than 40 times each in 2018 and 2019. Adaptation approaches such as sea walls and building up the height of roadways and athletic fields are predicted to last only a few decades.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: As of the census of 2020, there were 40,812 people. The racial makeup of the city was 49.4% Non-Hispanic White, 21.7% African American, 0.7% Native American, 2.5% Asian, 14.5% from other races, and 8.1% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 22.9% of the population.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: As of the census of 2010, there were 38,394 people, 16,136 households, and 8,776 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 17,845 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 60.1% White, 26.0% African American, 0.3% Native American, 2.1% Asian, 9.0% from other races, and 2.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 16.8% of the population.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: There were 16,136 households, of which 26.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 35.3% were married couples living together, 14.9% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.2% had a male householder with no wife present, and 45.6% were non-families. Of all households, 35.0% were made up of individuals, and 11.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.34 and the average family size was 3.02.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The median age in the city was 36 years. 20.8% of residents were under the age of 18; 9.9% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 31.1% were from 25 to 44; 25.3% were from 45 to 64; and 13% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 47.8% male and 52.2% female.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 35,838 people, 15,303 households, and 8,676 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 16,165 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 62.66% White, 31.44% Black or African American, 0.17% Native American, 1.81% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 2.22% from other races, and 1.67% from two or more races. 8.42% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: There were 15,303 households, out of which 24.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 36.6% were married couples living together, 16.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 43.3% were non-families. Of all households, 32.9% were made up of individuals, and 9.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.30 and the average family size was 2.93.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: In the city, the population was spread out, with 21.7% under the age of 18, 9.3% from 18 to 24, 33.4% from 25 to 44, 23.7% from 45 to 64, and 11.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 90.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over there were 86.8 males age 18 and over.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The median income for a household in the city was $49,243, and the median income for a family was $56,984 (these figures had risen to $70,140 and $84,573 respectively, according to ). Males had a median income of $39,548 versus $30,741 for females. The per capita income for the city was $27,180. About 9.5% of families and 12.7% of the population were living in poverty, of which 20.8% were under age 18 and 10.4% were age 65 or over.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: According to the city's 2018 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city, excluding state and local government, are:


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: On East Street, Colonial Players produces approximately six shows a year in its 180-seat theater. "A Christmas Carol" has been a seasonal tradition in Annapolis since it opened at the Colonial Players theater in 1981. Based on the play by Charles Dickens, the 90-minute production by the Colonial Players is an original musical adaptation, with play and lyrics by Richard Wade and music by Dick Gessner. Colonial Players, Inc. is a nonprofit organization founded in 1949. Its first production, "The Male Animal", was performed in 1949 at the Annapolis Recreation Center on Compromise Street. In 1955, the organization moved to its venue in a former automotive repair shop on East Street.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: During the warmer months, Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre presents three shows on its outdoor stage, which is visible from the City Dock. A nonprofit organization, Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre has been providing "theatre under the stars" since 1966, when it performed "You Can't Take It with You" and "Brigadoon" at Carvel Hall Hotel. It began leasing its site at 143 Compromise Street, the former location of the Shaw Blacksmith Shop, in 1967, and became owner of the property in 1990.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The Naval Academy Masqueraders, a theater group at the United States Naval Academy, produces one "main-stage show" each fall and student-directed one-act plays in the spring. Founded in 1847, the Masqueraders is the oldest extracurricular activity at the Naval Academy. Its shows, performed in Mahan Hall, are selected to support the academy's English curriculum.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The King William Players, a student theater group at St. John's College, holds two performances each semester in the college's Francis Scott Key Auditorium. Admission is usually free and open to the public.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The Banneker-Douglass Museum, located in the historic Mount Moriah Church at 87 Franklin Street, documents the history of African Americans in Maryland. Since its opening on February 24, 1984, the museum has provided educational programs, rotating exhibits, and a research facility. Admission is free.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: Preble Hall, named for Edward Preble, houses the U.S. Naval Academy Museum, founded in 1845. Its Beverley R. Robinson Collection contains 6,000 prints depicting European and American naval history from 1514 through World War II. It is also home to one of the world's best ship model collections, donated by Henry Huttleston Rogers. Rogers's donation was the impetus for the construction of Preble Hall. The museum has approximately 100,000 visitors each year.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The Hammond-Harwood House, located at 19 Maryland Avenue, was built in 1774 for Matthias Hammond, a wealthy Maryland farmer. Its design was adapted by William Buckland from Andrea Palladio's Villa Pisani to accommodate American Colonial regional preferences. Since 1940, when the house was purchased from St. John's College by the Hammond-Harwood House Association, it has served as a museum exhibiting a collection of John Shaw furniture and Charles Willson Peale paintings. Its exterior and interior preserve the original architecture of a mansion from the late Colonial period.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: Annapolis City Dock lies at the foot of Main Street that slopes down from Church Circle and St. Anne's Church. The dock is now a narrow waterway from Spa Creek, once named Carrol's Creek with the dock area called Dock Cove, into the heart of the lower town. At the head of the dock is a small park with the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial with the Market House and a traffic circle in an expanse of asphalt surrounded by historic buildings. The Market House, though relatively modern, stands in a vicinity occupied by similar market houses dating to 1730 when the city market was moved from the State House area to the head of the dock. The dock itself is now used largely by recreational vessels rather than the commercial boats and boats of Chesapeake Bay watermen selling catches. The dock and surroundings are part of the Colonial Annapolis National Historic Landmark (NHL) District.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley memorial, located in a park at the head of Annapolis City Dock, commemorates the arrival point of Alex Haley's African ancestor, Kunta Kinte, whose story is related in Haley's book "Roots". A sculpture group at the memorial site portrays Alex Haley seated, reading from a book to three children. The final phase of the memorial's construction was completed in 2002.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The Paca House and Garden encompasses an 18th-century Georgian mansion constructed by William Paca, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The property includes a terraced garden that has been restored to its colonial-era design.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: Annapolis often serves as the end point for the 3,000-mile annual transcontinental Race Across America bicycle race.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: To the north of the state house is a monument to Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice of the US Supreme Court and formerly a Maryland lawyer who won many important civil rights cases.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: Located just before the Naval Academy Bridge is the World War II Memorial, which was constructed in 1998 to symbolize the sacrifice made by the 275,000 citizens from Maryland who joined the service to fight in the war. The memorial is composed of 48 granite columns to represent the 48 states at the time of the war surrounding an amphitheater in which are the names of 6,454 men who gave their lives in the war. Directly behind the memorial are both the Maryland, and United States flags, and a star shaped column with a seven sided base to represent Maryland being the seventh state in the Union.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: On March 9, 2010, the Chesapeake Bayhawks of Major League Lacrosse moved from Washington, D.C. to the Annapolis area, at Navy–Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. In 2013, the Bayhawks won the league's championship, the Steinfeld Cup, for the fifth time.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The city boasts over of parkland, with the largest being the 70-acre Truxtun Heights Park. Quiet Waters Park, a 340-acre regional park run by Anne Arundel County, offers water access, a playground area, over six miles of paved trails, and ice skating rink, and a dog beach.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: Annapolis is home to many seasonal or holiday-themed events and festivals that take place throughout the year. Some examples are the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade, May Day, and United States Naval Academy Commissioning Week.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: Annapolis is governed via the weak mayor system. The city council consists of eight aldermen who are elected from single member wards. The mayor is elected directly in a citywide vote. Since 2008, several aldermen have introduced unsuccessful charter amendments to institute a council-manager system, a move opposed by both Democratic mayor Joshua J. Cohen and his Republican successor Mike Pantelides.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The state legislature, governor's office, and appellate courts are located in Annapolis. While Annapolis is the state's only capital, some administrative offices, including a number of cabinet-level departments, are based in Baltimore.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: Annapolis is served by the Anne Arundel County Public Schools system. Founded in 1896, Annapolis High School has an internationally recognized IB International Program.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: St. Anne's School of Annapolis, Aleph Bet Jewish Day School, Annapolis Area Christian School, St. Martins Lutheran School, Severn School, St. Mary's High School (Annapolis, Maryland), and Indian Creek School are private schools in the Annapolis area. The Key School, located on a converted farm in the neighborhood of Hillsmere, has also served Annapolis for over 50 years. Anne Arundel County's alternative school which has around 160 students ranging grades 6–9, Mary E. Moss Academy, is also in the Annapolis area.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: No major highways enter the city limits of Annapolis. Just outside the city limits, Interstate 595/U.S. Route 50/U.S. Route 301 traverses the region on an east–west route, connecting the Annapolis area to Washington, D.C., and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Interstate 97 interchanges with I-595/US 50/US 301 a few miles west of Annapolis and provides the most direct link to Baltimore. Maryland Route 2 also passes just outside the city limits and is the best connection to Southern Maryland, while also providing an alternate route to Baltimore.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The most prominent roads directly accessing the city include Maryland Route 70, which connects downtown Annapolis to US 50/US 301, and Maryland Route 665, which does likewise for the southwestern portions of the city. Other state highways serving Annapolis include Maryland Route 181, Maryland Route 387, Maryland Route 393, Maryland Route 435, Maryland Route 436, Maryland Route 450, Maryland Route 788 and Maryland Route 797.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: The Annapolis Department of Transportation (ADOT) provides bus service with eight routes, collectively branded Annapolis Transit. The system serves the city with recreational areas, shopping centers, educational and medical facilities, and employment hubs. ADOT also offers transportation for the elderly and persons with disabilities. Several Maryland Transit Administration commuter buses also allow for access to Baltimore or Washington, D.C.


title: Annapolis, Maryland

text: From 1840 to 1968, Annapolis was connected to the outside world by railroad. The Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway (WB&A) operated two electrified interurban lines that brought passengers into the city from both the South and the North. The southern route ran down King George Street and Main Street, leading directly to the statehouse, while the northern route entered town via Glen Burnie. In 1935, the WB&A went bankrupt due to the effects of the Great Depression and suspended service along its southern route, while the newly created Baltimore and Annapolis Railroad (B&A) retained service on the northern route. Steam trains of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad also occasionally operated over the line to Annapolis, primarily for special Naval Academy movements. Passenger rail service on the B&A was eventually discontinued in 1950; freight service ceased in 1968 after the dilapidated trestle crossing the Severn River was condemned. The tracks were eventually dismantled in 1976.


title: Krushna Abhishek

text: Abhishek Sharma (born 30 May 1983), popularly known by his screen name Krushna Abhishek, is an Indian actor, comedian and television host from Mumbai, Maharashtra. He is notable for his humours work in comedy shows on Indian television such as "Comedy circus", "Comedy nights bachao" and "The Kapil Sharma Show".


title: Krushna Abhishek

text: He gained fame as a comedian after participating in "Comedy Circus" show's several seasons on Sony TV. He also participated in dance reality shows, including "Nach Baliye 3" (2007) and "Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 4" (2010). His dance moves are greatly inspired by his maternal uncle, former leading Bollywood actor Govinda.


title: Krushna Abhishek

text: He has hosted "Entertainment ke liye kuch bhi karega", "OMG! Yeh Mera India", "Comedy nights bachao", "Comedy Nights Live" shows on Sony tv, History TV18, Colors TV respectively. He also performs live stage shows"."


title: Krushna Abhishek

text: Abhishek Sharma was born to Atmaprakash Sharma from Himachal Pradesh and Punjabi mother in Mumbai on 30 May 1983. Actor Govinda is his maternal uncle. 1940s- 1950s Hindi film actor Arun Kumar Ahuja was his maternal grandfather and singer Nirmala Devi was his maternal grandmother. Krushna is a Maharashtrian. His mother named him after her favourite actor Amitabh Bachchan's son, Abhishek.


title: Krushna Abhishek

text: Krushna Abhishek is married to his long time girlfriend Kashmira Shah and they live in Mumbai. His wife is a film actress, was played roles in films such as Yess Boss (1997), Hera Pheri (2000) during 1990s, 2000s and participated in Bigg Boss season 1.


title: Krushna Abhishek

text: Since 2019, his family is not talking terms with his uncle Govinda, after the tweet of Kashmir Shah, in which she wrote, ‘people who dance for money'. Govinda's wife Sunita Ahuja felt that it was degrotory and was for her family. Krushna often got excluded from "The Kapil Sharma Show" whenever Govinda arrived as a guest.


title: Krushna Abhishek

text: He made his Hindi film debut with "Yeh Kaisi Mohabbat Hai" (2002), and has acted in films like "Hum Tum Aur Mother" in 2005, "Jahan Jaaeyega Hamen Paaeyega" (2007), and "Aur Pappu Pass Ho Gaya" in the same year. Later he shifted to Bhojpuri films. He played the lead in the TV series, "Sautela" (Doordarshan) in 2007.


title: Krushna Abhishek

text: He participated in various seasons of stand-up comedy show, "Comedy Circus", including, "Comedy Circus 2" (2008), "Comedy Circus 3" (2009), where he was a wild card entry in "Comedy Circus 3" (2009) with Sudesh Lehri.


title: Krushna Abhishek

text: He participated in the celebrity couple dance-reality shows, starting with "Nach Baliye" (Season 3) (2007), and "Kabhi Kabhii Pyaar Kabhi Kabhii Yaar" (2008) along with Kashmera Shah and eventually won the latter. He also appeared in a similar show, "Jalwa Four 2 Ka 1" (2008). In 2010, he participated in the dance reality show, "Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa" (Season 4) with choreographer Robin Merchant. Previously he had also appeared as a judge in the reality dance show on DD National, "Krazzy Kiya Re", along with Sudha Chandran.


title: Krushna Abhishek

text: As a celebrity couple, he and Kashmera Shah took part in the reality show "Love Lock Up" on UTV Bindass in February 2011, in which actress Priyanka Chopra played the role of peace maker.


title: Krushna Abhishek

text: In 2016, he hosted and performed in "Comedy Nights Live" show of Colors TV, produced by Vipul D. Shah. It replaced popularity declined "Comedy Nights with Kapil" (2013-16) of Kapil Sharma. Later when the show itself got replaced "Comedy Nights Bachao" (2015-17) he hosted it and did comedy.


title: Krushna Abhishek

text: In July 2017, he singed Sony TV's The Drama Company show produced by Kapil Sharma's former longtime girlfriend Preeti Simoes and her sister Neeti Simoes.


title: Krushna Abhishek

text: In 2018, he joined the second season of "The Kapil Sharma Show" along with Sudesh Lehri, whom he collaborated with in "Comedy Circus" as well, after the first season closed down due to Kapil Sharma's poor health and mid-air altercations with supporting actors.


title: Krushna Abhishek

text: In 2022, he launched the latest season of his History TV18's Infotainment show "'OMG! Ye mera India"' (). Till 2021 he has hosted 7 season of this show.


title: Syriac language

text: The Syriac language (; / '), also known as Syriac Aramaic ("Syrian Aramaic", "Syro-Aramaic") and Classical Syriac ܠܫܢܐ ܥܬܝܩܐ (in its literary and liturgical form), is an Aramaic dialect that emerged during the first century AD from a local Aramaic dialect that was spoken by Arameans in the ancient Aramean kingdom of Osroene, centered in the city of Edessa. During the Early Christian period, it became the main literary language of various Aramaic-speaking Christian communities in the historical region of Ancient Syria and throughout the Near East. As a liturgical language of Syriac Christianity, it gained a prominent role among Eastern Christian communities that used both Eastern Syriac and Western Syriac rites. Following the spread of Syriac Christianity, it also became a liturgical language of eastern Christian communities as far as India and China. It flourished from the 4th to the 8th century, and continued to have an important role during the next centuries, but by the end of the Middle Ages it was gradually reduced to liturgical use, since the role of vernacular language among its native speakers was overtaken by several emerging Neo-Aramaic dialects.


title: Syriac language

text: Classical Syriac is written in the Syriac alphabet, a derivation of the Aramaic alphabet. The language is preserved in a large body of Syriac literature, that comprises roughly 90% of the extant Aramaic literature. Along with Greek and Latin, Syriac became one of the three most important languages of Early Christianity. Already from the first and second centuries AD, the inhabitants of the region of Osroene began to embrace Christianity, and by the third and fourth centuries, local Edessan Aramaic language became the vehicle of the specific Christian culture that came to be known as the Syriac Christianity. Because of theological differences, Syriac-speaking Christians diverged during the 5th century into the Church of the East that followed the East Syriac Rite under the Persian rule, and the Syriac Orthodox Church that followed the West Syriac Rite under the Byzantine rule.


title: Syriac language

text: As a liturgical language of Syriac Christianity, Classical Syriac language spread throughout Asia as far as the South Indian Malabar Coast, and Eastern China, and became the medium of communication and cultural dissemination for the later Arabs, and (to a lesser extent) the other peoples of Parthian and Sasanian empires. Primarily a Christian medium of expression, Syriac had a fundamental cultural and literary influence on the development of Arabic, which largely replaced it during the later medieval period.


title: Syriac language

text: Syriac remains the sacred language of Syriac Christianity to this day. It is used as liturgical language of several denominations, like those who follow the East Syriac Rite, including the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, and the Assyrian Pentecostal Church, and also those who follow the West Syriac Rite, including: Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Maronite Catholic Church, the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. In its contemporary spoken forms, it is known as leshono kthobonoyo () or kthobonoyo.


title: Syriac language

text: In the English language, the term "Syriac" is used as a linguonym (language name) designating a specific variant of the Aramaic language in relation to its regional origin in northeastern parts of Ancient Syria, around Edessa, that lay outside of provincial borders of Roman Syria. Since Aramaic was used throughout the Near East, having several variants (dialects), this specific dialect that originated in northeastern Syria became known under its regional (Syrian/Syriac) designation ("Suryaya").


title: Syriac language

text: In English scholarly literature, the term "Syriac" is preferred over the alternative form "Syrian" since the latter is much more polysemic and commonly relates to Syria in general. That distinction is used in English as a convention and does not exist on the ancient endonymic level. Several compound terms like "Syriac Aramaic", "Syrian Aramaic" or "Syro-Aramaic" are also used, thus emphasizing both the Aramaic nature of the language and its Syrian/Syriac regional origin.


title: Syriac language

text: Early native speakers and writers used several endonymic terms as designations for their language. In addition to common endonym (native name) for the Aramaic language in general ("Aramaya"), another endonymic term was also used, designating more specifically the local Edessan dialect, known as "Urhaya", a term derived directly from the native Aramaic name for the city of Edessa ("Urhay"). Among similar endonymic names with regional connotations, term "Nahraya" was also used. It was derived from choronym (regional name) Bet-Nahrain, an Aramaic name for Mesopotamia in general.


title: Syriac language

text: Original endonymic (native) designations, for Aramaic in general ("Aramaya"), and Edessan Aramaic in particular ("Urhaya"), were later (starting from the 5th century) accompanied by another term, exonymic (foreign) in origin: "Suryaya" (Syrian/Syriac), adopted under the influence of a long-standing Greek custom of referring to Arameans as "Syrians". Among ancient Greeks, term "Syrian language" was used as a common designation for Aramaic language in general, and such usage was also reflected in Aramaic, by subsequent (acquired) use of the term "Suryaya" as the most preferred synonym for "Aramaya" (Aramaic).


title: Syriac language

text: Practice of interchangeable naming (Aramaya, Urhaya, Nahraya, and Suryaya) persisted for centuries, in common use and also in works of various prominent writers. One of those who used various terms was theologian Jacob of Edessa (d. 708), who was referring to the language as ""Syrian or Aramean"" (Suryāyā awkēt Ārāmāyā), and also as "Urhāyā", when referring to Edessan Aramaic, or "Naḥrāyā" when pointing to the region of Bet-Nahrain (Aramaic term for Mesopotamia in general).


title: Syriac language

text: Plurality of terms among native speakers (ārāmāyā, urhāyā, naḥrāyā, and suryāyā) was not reflected in Greek and Latin terminology, that preferred Syrian/Syriac designation, and the same preference was adopted by later scholars, with one important distinction: in western scholarly use, Syrian/Syriac label was subsequently reduced from the original Greek designation for Aramaic language in general to a more specific (narrower) designation for Edessan Aramaic language, that in its literary and liturgical form came to be known as "Classical Syriac". That reduction resulted in the creation of a specific field of Syriac studies, within Aramaic studies.


title: Syriac language

text: Preference of early scholars towards the use of the Syrian/Syriac label was also relied upon its notable use as an alternative designation for Aramaic language in the ""Cave of Treasures"", long held to be the 4th century work of an authoritative writer and revered Christian saint Ephrem of Edessa (d. 373), who was thus believed to be proponent of various linguistic notions and tendencies expressed in the mentioned work. Since modern scholarly analyses have shown that the work in question was written much later ( 600) by an unknown author, several questions had to be reexamined. In regard to the scope and usage of Syrian/Syriac labels in linguistic terminology, some modern scholars have noted that diversity of Aramaic dialects in the wider historical region of Syria should not be overlooked by improper and unspecific use of Syrian/Syriac labels.


title: Syriac language

text: Diversity of Aramaic dialects was recorded by Theodoret of Cyrus (d. 466), who accepted Syrian/Syriac labels as common Greek designations for Arameans and their language in general, stating that ""the Osroënians, the Syrians, the people of the Euphrates, the Palestinians, and the Phoenicians all speak Syriac, but with many differences in pronunciation"". Theodoret′s regional (provincial) differentiation of Aramaic dialects included an explicit distinction between the "Syrians" (as Aramaic speakers of Syria proper, western of Euphrates), and the "Osroenians" as Aramaic speakers of Osroene (eastern region, centered in Edessa), thus showing that dialect of the "Syrians" (Aramaic speakers of proper Syria) was known to be different from that of the "Osroenians" (speakers of Edessan Aramaic).


title: Syriac language

text: Native (endonymic) use of the term "Aramaic language" (Aramaya/Oromoyo) among its speakers has continued throughout the medieval period, as attested by the works of prominent writers, including the Oriental Orthodox Patriarch Michael of Antioch (d. 1199), but during the course of time exonymic designations based on Syrian/Syriac labels became more common, developing into several dialectal variants (Suryoyo/Suryaya, Sūrayṯ/Sūreṯ, Sūryān).


title: Syriac language

text: Since the proper dating of the "Cave of Treasures", modern scholars were left with no indications of native Aramaic adoption of Syrian/Syriac labels before the 5th century. In the same time, a growing body of later sources showed that both in Greek, and in native literature, those labels were most commonly used as designations for Aramaic language in general, including its various dialects (both eastern and western), thus challenging the conventional scholarly reduction of the term "Syriac language" to a specific designation for Edessan Aramaic. Such use, that excludes non-Edessan dialects, and particularly those of Western Aramaic provenience, persist as an accepted convention, but in the same time stands in contradiction both with original Greek, and later native (acquired) uses of Syrian/Syriac labels as common designations for Aramaic language in general.


title: Syriac language

text: Those problems were addressed by prominent scholars, including Theodor Nöldeke (d. 1930) who noted on several occasions that term ""Syriac language"" has come to have two distinctive meanings, wider and narrower, with first (historical and wider) serving as a common synonym for Aramaic language in general, while other (conventional and narrower) designating only the Edessan Aramaic, also referred to more specifically as the ""Classical Syriac"".


title: Syriac language

text: Noting the problem, scholars have tried to resolve the issue by being more consistent in their use of the term ""Classical Syriac"" as a strict and clear scientific designation for the old literary and liturgical language, but the consistency of such use was never achieved within the field.


title: Syriac language

text: Inconsistent use of "Syrian/Syriac" labels in scholarly literature has led some researchers to raise additional questions, related not only to terminological issues but also to some more fundamental (methodological) problems, that were undermining the integrity of the field. Attempts to resolve those issues were unsuccessful, and in many scholarly works, related to the old literary and liturgical language, reduction of the term ""Classical Syriac"" to ""Syriac"" (only) remained a manner of convenience, even in titles of works, including encyclopedic entries, thus creating a large body of unspecific references, that became a base for the emergence of several new classes of terminological problems at the advent of the informational era. Those problems culminated during the process of international standardization of the terms ""Syriac"" and ""Classical Syriac"" within the ISO 639 and MARC systems.


title: Syriac language

text: The term ""Classical Syriac"" was accepted in 2007 and codified (ISO code: syc) as a designation for the old literary and liturgical language, thus confirming the proper use of the term. In the same time, within the MARC standard, code syc was accepted as designation for "Classical Syriac", but under the name ""Syriac"", while the existing general code syr, that was until then named ""Syriac"", was renamed to ""Syriac, Modern"". Within ISO 639 system, large body of unspecific references related to various linguistic uses of the term ""Syriac"" remained related to the original ISO 639-2 code syr ("Syriac"), but its scope is defined within the ISO 639-3 standard as a macrolanguage that currently includes only some of the Neo-Aramaic languages. Such differences in classification, both terminological and substantial, within systems and between systems (ISO and MARC), led to the creation of several additional problems, that remain unresolved.


title: Syriac language

text: Within linguistics, mosaic of terminological ambiguities related to Syrian/Syriac labels was additionally enriched by introduction of the term ""Palaeo-Syrian language"" as a variant designation for the ancient Eblaite language from the third millennium BC, that is unrelated to the much later Edessan Aramaic, and its early phases, that were commonly labeled as Old/Proto- or even Paleo/Palaeo-Syrian/Syriac in scholarly literature. Newest addition to the terminological mosaic occurred 2014, when it was proposed, also by a scholar, that one of regional dialects of the Old Aramaic language from the first centuries of the 1st millennium BC should be called ""Central Syrian Aramaic"", thus introducing another ambiguous term, that can be used, in its generic meaning, to any local variant of Aramaic that occurred in central regions of Syria during any period in history.


title: Syriac language

text: After more than five centuries of Syriac studies, that were founded by western scholars by the end of the 15th century, main terminological issues related to the name and classification of the language known as Edessan Aramaic, and also referred to by several other names combined of Syrian/Siriac labels, remain opened and unsolved. Some of those issues have special sociolinguistic and ethnolinguistic significance for the remaining Neo-Aramaic speaking communities.


title: Syriac language

text: Since the occurrence of major political changes in the Near East (2003), those issues have acquired additional complexity, related to legal recognition of the language and its name. In the Constitution of Iraq (Article 4), adopted in 2005, and also in subsequent legislation, term ""Syriac"" () is used as official designation for the language of Neo-Aramaic-speaking communities, thus opening additional questions related to linguistic and cultural identity of those communities. Legal and other practical (educational and informational) aspects of the linguistic self-identification also arose throughout Syriac-speaking diaspora, particularly in European countries (Germany, Sweden, Netherlands).


title: Syriac language

text: Syriac was the local dialect of Aramaic in Edessa, and evolved under the influence of the Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox Church into its current form. Before Arabic became the dominant language, Syriac was a major language among Christian communities in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Malabar Coast in India, and remains so among the Syriac Christians to this day. It has been found as far afield as Hadrian's Wall in Great Britain, with inscriptions written by Aramaic-speaking soldiers of the Roman Empire.


title: Syriac language

text: History of Syriac language is divided into several successive periods, defined primarily by linguistic, and also by cultural criteria. Some terminological and chronological distinctions exist between different classifications, that were proposed among scholars.


title: Syriac language

text: During the first three centuries of the Common Era, a local Aramaic dialect that was spoken in the Kingdom of Osroene, centered in Edessa, eastern of Euphrates, started to gain prominence and regional significance. There are about eighty extant early inscriptions, written in Old-Edessan Aramaic, dated to the first three centuries AD, with the earliest inscription being dated to the 6th year AD, and the earliest parchment to 243 AD. All of these early examples of the language are non-Christian. As a language of public life and administration in the region of Osroene, Edessan Aramaic was gradually given a relatively coherent form, style and grammar that is lacking in other Aramaic dialects of the same period. Since Old-Edessan Aramaic later developed into Classical Syriac, it was retroactively labeled (by western scholars) as "Old Syrian/Syriac" or "Proto-Syrian/Syriac", although the linguistic homeland of the language (region of Osroene) was never part of contemporary (Roman) Syria.


title: Syriac language

text: In the 3rd century, churches in Edessa began to use local Aramaic dialect as the language of worship. Early literary efforts were focused on creation of an authoritative Aramaic translation of the Bible, the Peshitta ( ). At the same time, Ephrem the Syrian was producing the most treasured collection of poetry and theology in the Edessan Aramaic language, that later became known as Syriac.


title: Syriac language

text: In 489, many Syriac-speaking Christians living in the eastern reaches of the Roman Empire fled to the Sasanian Empire to escape persecution and growing animosity with Greek-speaking Christians. The Christological differences with the Church of the East led to the bitter Nestorian Schism in the Syriac-speaking world. As a result, Syriac developed distinctive western and eastern varieties. Although remaining a single language with a high level of comprehension between the varieties, the two employ distinctive variations in pronunciation and writing system, and, to a lesser degree, in vocabulary.


title: Syriac language

text: The Syriac language later split into a western variety, used mainly by the Syriac Orthodox Church in upper Mesopotamia and Syria proper, and an eastern variety used mainly by the Church of the East in central and northeastern Mesopotamia. Religious divisions were also reflected in linguistic differences between the Western Syriac Rite and the Eastern Syriac Rite. During the 5th and the 6th century, Syriac reached its height as the lingua franca of Mesopotamia and surrounding regions. It existed in literary (liturgical) form, as well as in vernacular forms, as the native language of Syriac-speaking populations.


title: Syriac language

text: Following the Arab conquest in the 7th century, vernacular forms of Syriac were gradually replaced during the next centuries by the advancing Arabic language. Having an Aramaic (Syriac) substratum, the regional Arabic dialect (Mesopotamian Arabic) developed under the strong influence of local Aramaic (Syriac) dialects, sharing significant similarities in language structure, as well as having evident and stark influences from previous (ancient) languages of the region.


title: Syriac language

text: Syriac-influenced Arabic dialects developed among Iraqi Muslims, as well as Iraqi Christians, most of whom descend from native Syriac speakers.


title: Syriac language

text: Western Syriac is the official language of the West Syriac Rite, practiced by the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Maronite Catholic Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Malabar Independent Syrian Church, the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.


title: Syriac language

text: Eastern Syriac is the liturgical language of the East Syriac Rite, practised in modern times by the ethnic Assyrian followers of the Assyrian Church of the East, the Assyrian Pentecostal Church, the Ancient Church of the East, the Chaldean Catholic Church, as well as the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in India.


title: Syriac language

text: Syriac literature is by far the most prodigious of the various Aramaic languages. Its corpus covers poetry, prose, theology, liturgy, hymnody, history, philosophy, science, medicine and natural history. Much of this wealth remains unavailable in critical editions or modern translation.


title: Syriac language

text: From the 7th century onwards, Syriac gradually gave way to Arabic as the spoken language of much of the region, excepting northern Iraq. The Mongol invasions and conquests of the 13th century, and the religiously motivated massacres of Syriac Christians by Timur further contributed to the rapid decline of the language. In many places outside of Upper Mesopotamia, even in liturgy, it was replaced by Arabic.


title: Syriac language

text: Revivals of literary Syriac in recent times have led to some success with the creation of newspapers in written Syriac ( ") similar to the use of Modern Standard Arabic has been employed since the early decades of the 20th century. Modern forms of literary Syriac has also been used not only in religious literature but also in secular genres, often with Assyrian nationalistic themes.


title: Syriac language

text: Syriac is spoken as the liturgical language of the Syriac Orthodox Church, as well as by some of its adherents. Syriac has been recognised as an official minority language in Iraq. It is also taught in some public schools in Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Sweden, Augsburg (Germany) and Kerala (India).


title: Syriac language

text: In 2014, an Assyrian nursery school could finally be opened in Yeşilköy, Istanbul after waging a lawsuit against the Ministry of National Education which had denied it permission, but was required to respect non-Muslim minority rights as specified in the Treaty of Lausanne.


title: Syriac language

text: In August 2016, the Ourhi Centre was founded by the Assyrian community in the city of Qamishli, to educate teachers in order to make Syriac an additional language to be taught in public schools in the Jazira Region of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, which then started with the 2016/17 academic year.


title: Syriac language

text: Many Syriac words, like those in other Semitic languages, belong to triconsonantal roots, collations of three Syriac consonants. New words are built from these three consonants with variable vowel and consonant sets. For example, the following words belong to the root ("), to which a basic meaning of "taking" can be assigned:


title: Syriac language

text: Most Syriac nouns are built from triliteral roots. Nouns carry grammatical gender (masculine or feminine), they can be either singular or plural in number (a very few can be dual) and can exist in one of three grammatical states. These states should not be confused with grammatical cases in other languages.


title: Syriac language

text: However, very quickly in the development of Classical Syriac, the emphatic state became the ordinary form of the noun, and the absolute and construct states were relegated to certain stock phrases (for example, , , "man, person", literally "son of man").


title: Syriac language

text: In Old and early Classical Syriac, most genitive noun relationships are built using the construct state, but contrary to the genitive case, it is the head-noun which is marked by the construct state. Thus, , , means "the taxes of the kingdom". Quickly, the construct relationship was abandoned and replaced by the use of the relative particle , "". Thus, the same noun phrase becomes , , where both nouns are in the emphatic state. Very closely related nouns can be drawn into a closer grammatical relationship by the addition of a pronominal suffix. Thus, the phrase can be written as , . In this case, both nouns continue to be in the emphatic state, but the first has the suffix that makes it literally read "her taxes" ("kingdom" is feminine), and thus is "her taxes, [those] of the kingdom".


title: Syriac language

text: Adjectives always agree in gender and number with the nouns they modify. Adjectives are in the absolute state if they are predicative, but agree with the state of their noun if attributive. Thus, , ', means "the taxes are evil", whereas , ', means "evil taxes".


title: Syriac language

text: Most Syriac verbs are built on triliteral roots as well. Finite verbs carry person, gender (except in the first person) and number, as well as tense and conjugation. The non-finite verb forms are the infinitive and the active and passive participles.


title: Syriac language

text: Syriac has only two true morphological tenses: perfect and imperfect. Whereas these tenses were originally aspectual in Aramaic, they have become a truly temporal past and future tenses respectively. The present tense is usually marked with the participle followed by the subject pronoun. However, such pronouns are usually omitted in the case of the third person. This use of the participle to mark the present tense is the most common of a number of "compound" tenses that can be used to express varying senses of tense and aspect.


title: Syriac language

text: Syriac also employs derived verb stems such as are present in other Semitic languages. These are regular modifications of the verb's root to express other changes in meaning. The first stem is the ground state, or ' (this name models the shape of the root) form of the verb, which carries the usual meaning of the word. The next is the intensive stem, or ', form of the verb, which usually carries an intensified meaning. The third is the extensive stem, or ', form of the verb, which is often causative in meaning. Each of these stems has its parallel passive conjugation: the ', ' and ' respectively. To these six cardinal stems are added a few irregular stems, like the ' and ', which generally have an extensive meaning.


title: Syriac language

text: Phonologically, like the other Northwest Semitic languages, Syriac has 22 consonants. The consonantal phonemes are:


title: Syriac language

text: Phonetically, there is some variation in the pronunciation of Syriac in its various forms. The various Modern Eastern Aramaic vernaculars have quite different pronunciations, and these sometimes influence how the classical language is pronounced, for example, in public prayer. Classical Syriac has two major streams of pronunciation: western and eastern.


title: Syriac language

text: Syriac shares with Aramaic a set of lightly contrasted stop/fricative pairs. In different variations of a certain lexical root, a root consonant might exist in stop form in one variation and fricative form in another. In the Syriac alphabet, a single letter is used for each pair. Sometimes a dot is placed above the letter ("quššāyā" "strengthening"; equivalent to a dagesh in Hebrew) to mark that the stop pronunciation is required, and a dot is placed below the letter ("rukkāḵā" "softening") to mark that the fricative pronunciation is required. The pairs are:


title: Syriac language

text: Like some Semitic languages, Syriac too has emphatic consonants, and it has three of them. These are consonants that have a coarticulation in the pharynx or slightly higher. The set consists of:


title: Syriac language

text: There are two pharyngeal fricatives, another class of consonants typically found in Semitic languages.


title: Syriac language

text: As with most Semitic languages, the vowels of Syriac are mostly subordinated to consonants. Especially in the presence of an emphatic consonant, vowels tend to become mid-centralised.


title: Syriac language

text: In the western dialect, has become , and the original has merged with . In eastern dialects, there is more fluidity in the pronunciation of front vowels, with some speakers distinguishing five qualities of such vowels, and others only distinguishing three. Vowel length is generally not important: close vowels tend to be longer than open vowels.


title: Syriac language

text: The open vowels form diphthongs with the approximants and . In almost all dialects, the full sets of possible diphthongs collapses into two or three actual pronunciations:


title: Pierre Bergé

text: Pierre Vital Georges Bergé (; 14 November 1930 – 8 September 2017) was a French industrialist and patron. He co-founded the fashion label Yves Saint Laurent, and was a longtime business partner (and onetime life partner) of its namesake designer.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: Bergé was born in Saint-Pierre-d'Oléron, on the Oléron Island, Poitou-Charentes, on 14 November 1930. His mother, Christiane, was a progressive teacher, who used the Montessori method. His father worked for the tax office. Bergé attended the Lycée Eugène Fromentin in La Rochelle, and, later, went to Paris. On the day of his arrival, as he was walking on the Champs-Élysées, French poet Jacques Prévert landed on him following a fall from his apartment window.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: During his early years in Paris, Bergé met both Albert Camus and Sartre through his involvement in leftist organisations, including editing a short-lived leftist magazine. Bergé also befriended and dated the young French artist Bernard Buffet, and helped facilitate Buffet's success.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: Bergé met Yves Saint Laurent in 1958. They became romantically involved and together launched Yves Saint Laurent Couture House in 1961. The couple split amicably in 1976 and remained lifelong friends and business partners. Bergé acted as CEO of Yves Saint Laurent Haute Couture until it closed in 2002. Highly protective of and invested in the reputation and legacy of Saint Laurent Couture, Bergé was known as the "Dean of Yves Saint Laurent". According to "The New York Times", a few days before Saint Laurent died in 2008, he and Bergé were joined in a same-sex civil union known as a pacte civil de solidarité (PACS) in France. When Saint Laurent was diagnosed with brain cancer, Bergé and the doctor mutually decided that it would be better for him not to know of his impending death. Bergé said, "I have the belief that Yves would not have been strong enough to accept that."


title: Pierre Bergé

text: In 1992, Bergé sold shares of the fashion house just before the company released a poor economic report. In 1996, this action was deemed to be insider trading and he was sentenced to a fine of one million Francs. After the close of the Couture house, Bergé became president of the Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent Foundation.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: During Bergé's eulogy of Saint Laurent, he reflected on their lifetime of memories, saying; I remember your first collection under your name and the tears at the end. Then the years passed. Oh, how they passed quickly. The divorce was inevitable but the love never stopped.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: Bergé has been described as a social liberal and a political conservative. He voted for Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in the 1970s.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: In 1988, Bergé launched the French magazine "Globe", which supported the candidacy of François Mitterrand for the presidential election. Bergé participated in all the campaign rallies of François Mitterrand (contrary to 1981, when he did not vote for Mitterrand).


title: Pierre Bergé

text: Bergé later served as President of the association of the friends of Institut François-Mitterrand. In 1993, he helped to launch the magazine "Globe Hebdo".


title: Pierre Bergé

text: A longtime fan and patron of opera, Mitterrand appointed Bergé president of Opéra Bastille on 31 August 1988. He retired from the post in 1994, becoming honorary president of the Paris National Opera. He served as president of the Médiathèque Musicale Mahler, a non-profit library with extensive collections relating to 19th and 20th century music. He was also president of the Comité Jean Cocteau, and the exclusive owner of all the moral rights of all of Jean Cocteau's works.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: A supporter of gay rights, he supported the association against AIDS, Act Up-Paris, and assumed ownership of the magazine "Têtu". He was also one of the shareholders of Pink TV, before withdrawing. In 1994, he participated with Line Renaud in the creation of the AIDS association Sidaction, and he became its president in 1996 until his death.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: Bergé's philanthropic patronages have included UNESCO. In July 1992, Bergé was appointed a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: In 2007, he supported the candidacy of Ségolène Royal. On a more general basis, he has been considered to be her sponsor. For example, after late 2008, when she was no longer heading the French socialist party and he was paying for the rental of her political office located between the French Senate and House of Representants until this arrangement ceased on 3 March 2011.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: The art collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Bergé was put up for sale by the latter in February 2009, with two of twelve bronze statue heads looted from the Old Summer Palace in China during the Second Opium War among them. When China requested the return of these statues, Bergé refused and declared “I am prepared to offer this bronze head to the Chinese straight away. All they have to do is to declare they are going to apply human rights, give the Tibetans back their freedom and agree to accept the Dalai Lama on their territory." Bergé's self-admitted "political blackmail" was received with criticism in China. After Chinese art collector, businessman, and advisor to the PRC's National Treasures Fund, Cai Mingchao placed the winning bid and refused to pay on "moral and patriotic grounds," Bergé decided to retain ownership of them. Later on in a ceremony on 29 June 2013, François Pinault (CEO Kering) returned the artifacts to the Chinese National Museum, Beijing.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: Bergé also set up the museum of Berber art in Marrakesh, Morocco, which holds a collection of Berber objects originating from many different parts of Morocco, from the Rif to the Sahara.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: Bergé published a book, "Lettres à Yves", in 2010 which was translated into English with the title, "Yves Saint Laurent: A Morrocan Passion", in September 2014. On 2 November 2010, he bought a stake in "Le Monde" newspaper, along with investors Matthieu Pigasse and Xavier Niel.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: During the filming of "Yves Saint Laurent" in 2014, the Fondation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent, which holds 7,000 vintage outfits from its archives, played an active role in providing authentic material and fashion of Saint Laurent.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: Bergé was recognized with the Order of Orange-Nassau, Officer of the Ordre National du Mérite, Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, and Legion of Honor.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: In November 2009, Bergé claimed to be suffering from myopathy. He triggered a controversy by accusing the Telethon of "parasitising the generosity of French people in a populist manner." Accused above all of not using donations immediately and making real estate investments, the French Association against Myopathies (AFM), which organises the charitable program, denies Bergé's accusations. Following the repeated attacks by the businessman, the AFM filed a complaint for defamation in February 2010. On 28 June 2013, the 17th Chamber of the Paris Criminal Court sentenced him to a €1,500 fine.


title: Pierre Bergé

text: On 16 March 2013, on Twitter, Bergé retweeted the following message: "If a bomb explodes on the Champs Elysees because of the "#laManifPourTous", I won't be the one crying." This retweet triggered strong reactions because, according to the ""Manif pour tous"" organisation, it is an incitement to acts of terrorism. On 21 June, he appeared on the TV show "Le Petit Journal", and mentioned this episode, declaring that he was "non-violent".


title: Pierre Bergé

text: During the debate on same-sex marriage, Bergé supported the idea of gestational surrogacy and controversially said "rent her womb for a child or lease her arms to work in a factory, what's the difference?", provoking an outcry by same-sex marriage supporters who go against such positions.