title: Gopher (protocol)

text: Gopher combines document hierarchies with collections of services, including WAIS, the Archie and Veronica search engines, and gateways to other information systems such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and Usenet.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: The general interest in campus-wide information systems (CWISs) in higher education at the time, and the ease of setup of Gopher servers to create an instant CWIS with links to other sites' online directories and resources, were the factors contributing to Gopher's rapid adoption.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: The name was coined by Anklesaria as a play on several meanings of the word "gopher". The University of Minnesota mascot is the gopher, a gofer is an assistant who "goes for" things, and a gopher burrows through the ground to reach a desired location.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: The World Wide Web was in its infancy in 1991, and Gopher services quickly became established. By the late 1990s, Gopher had ceased expanding. Several factors contributed to Gopher's stagnation:


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: Gopher remains in active use by its enthusiasts, and there have been attempts to revive Gopher on modern platforms and mobile devices. One attempt is The Overbite Project, which hosts various browser extensions and modern clients.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: The conceptualization of knowledge in "Gopher space" or a "cloud" as specific information in a particular file, and the prominence of the FTP, influenced the technology and the resulting functionality of Gopher.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: Gopher is designed to function and to appear much like a mountable read-only global network file system (and software, such as gopherfs, is available that can actually mount a Gopher server as a FUSE resource). At a minimum, whatever can be done with data files on a CD-ROM, can be done on Gopher.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: A Gopher system consists of a series of hierarchical hyperlinkable menus. The choice of menu items and titles is controlled by the administrator of the server.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: Similar to a file on a Web server, a file on a Gopher server can be linked to as a menu item from any other Gopher server. Many servers take advantage of this inter-server linking to provide a directory of other servers that the user can access.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: The Gopher protocol was first described in . IANA has assigned TCP port 70 to the Gopher protocol. The protocol is simple to negotiate, making it possible to browse without using a client.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: First, the client establishes a TCP connection with the server on port 70, the standard gopher port. The client then sends a string followed by a carriage return followed by a line feed (a "CR + LF" sequence). This is the selector, which identifies the document to be retrieved. If the item selector were an empty line, the default directory would be selected.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: The server then replies with the requested item and closes the connection. According to the protocol, before the connection is closed, the server should send a full-stop (i.e., a period character) on a line by itself. However, not all servers conform to this part of the protocol and the server may close the connection without returning the final full-stop.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: The main type of reply from the server is a text or binary resource. Alternatively, the resource can be a menu: a form of structured text resource providing references to other resources.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: Because of the simplicity of the Gopher protocol, tools such as netcat make it possible to download Gopher content easily from the command line:


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: The selector string in the request can optionally be followed by a tab character and a search string. This is used by item type 7.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: Gopher menu items are defined by lines of tab-separated values in a text file. This file is sometimes called a "gophermap". As the source code to a gopher menu, a gophermap is roughly analogous to an HTML file for a web page. Each tab-separated line (called a "selector line") gives the client software a description of the menu item: what it is, what it's called, and where it leads. The client displays the menu items in the order that they appear in the gophermap.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: The first character in a selector line indicates the "item type", which tells the client what kind of file or protocol the menu item points to. This helps the client decide what to do with it. Gopher's item types are a more basic precursor to the media type system used by the Web and email attachments.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: The item type is followed by the "user display string" (a description or label that represents the item in the menu); the selector (a path or other string for the resource on the server); the "hostname" (the domain name or IP address of the server), and the network port.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: For example: The following selector line generates a link to the "/home" directory at the subdomain gopher.floodgap.com, on port 70. The item type of indicates that the resource is a Gopher menu. The string "Floodgap Home" is what the user sees in the menu.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: In a Gopher menu's source code, a one-character code indicates what kind of content the client should expect. This code may either be a digit or a letter of the alphabet; letters are case-sensitive.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: The technical specification for Gopher, , defines 14 item types. The later gopher+ specification defined an additional 3 types. A one-character code indicates what kind of content the client should expect. Item type is an error code for exception handling. Gopher client authors improvised item types (HTML), (informational message), and (sound file) after the publication of RFC 1436. Browsers like Netscape Navigator and early versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer would prepend the item type code to the selector as described in , so that the type of the gopher item could be determined by the url itself. Most gopher browsers still available, use these prefixes in their urls.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: The gopher menu sent back from the server, is a sequence of lines each of which describes an item that can be retrieved. Most clients will display these as hypertext links, and so allow the user to navigate through gopherspace by following the links.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: This menu includes a text resource (itemtype on the third line), multiple links to submenus (itemtype , on the second line as well as lines 4-6) and a non-standard information message (from line 7 on), broken down to multiple lines by providing dummy values for selector, host and port.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: Historically, to create a link to a Web server, "GET /" was used as a pseudo-selector to emulate an HTTP GET request. John Goerzen created an addition to the Gopher protocol, commonly referred to as "URL links", that allows links to any protocol that supports URLs. For example, to create a link to http://gopher.quux.org/, the item type is , the display string is the title of the link, the item selector is "<nowiki>URL:http://gopher.quux.org/</nowiki>", and the domain and port are that of the originating Gopher server (so that clients that do not support URL links will query the server and receive an HTML redirection page).


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: Gopher+ is a forward compatible enhancement to the Gopher protocol. Gopher+ works by sending metadata between the client and the server. The enhancement was never widely adopted by Gopher servers.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: The client sends a tab followed by a +. A Gopher+ server will respond with a status line followed by the content the client requested. An item is marked as supporting Gopher+ in the Gopher directory listing by a tab + after the port (this is the case of some of the items in the example above).


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: Clients like web browsers, libraries, and utilities primarily designed to access world wide web resources, but which maintain(ed) gopher support.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: Browsers that do not natively support Gopher can still access servers using one of the available Gopher to HTTP gateways or proxy server that converts Gopher menus into HTML; known proxies are the Floodgap Public Gopher proxy and Gopher Proxy. Similarly, certain server packages such as GN and PyGopherd have built-in Gopher to HTTP interfaces. Squid Proxy software gateways any codice_1 URL to HTTP content, enabling any browser or web agent to access gopher content easily.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: For Mozilla Firefox and SeaMonkey, Overbite extensions extend Gopher browsing and support the current versions of the browsers (Firefox Quantum v ≥57 and equivalent versions of SeaMonkey):


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: OverbiteWX includes support for accessing Gopher servers not on port 70 using a whitelist and for CSO/ph queries. OverbiteFF always uses port 70.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: For Chromium and Google Chrome, Burrow is available. It redirects codice_1 URLs to a proxy. In the past an Overbite proxy-based extension for these browsers was available but is no longer maintained and does not work with the current (>23) releases.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: The bandwidth-sparing simple interface of Gopher can be a good match for mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), The early 2010s saw a renewed interest in native Gopher clients for popular smartphones.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: Gopher popularity was at its height at a time when there were still many equally competing computer architectures and operating systems. As a result, there are several Gopher clients available for Acorn RISC OS, AmigaOS, Atari MiNT, CMS, DOS, classic Mac OS, MVS, NeXT, OS/2 Warp, most UNIX-like operating systems, VMS, Windows 3.x, and Windows 9x. GopherVR was a client designed for 3D visualization, and there is even a Gopher client in MOO. The majority of these clients are hard-coded to work on TCP port 70.


title: Gopher (protocol)

text: Because the protocol is trivial to implement in a basic fashion, there are many server packages still available, and some are still maintained.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: An asura (Sanskrit: असुर, Pali: Asura) in Buddhism is a demigod or titan of the Kāmadhātu. They are described as having three heads with three faces each and either four or six arms.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: The Buddhist "asuras" have a few distinctive myths than the "asuras" of Hinduism, which are only found in Buddhist texts.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: Buddhaghosa explains that their name derives from the myth of their defeat at the hands of the god Śakra. According to the story, the asura were dispossessed of their state in Trāyastriṃśa because they became drunk and were thrown down Mount Sumeru. After this incident, they vowed never to drink sura again.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: While all the gods of the Kāmadhātu are subject to passions to some degree, the asuras above all are addicted to them, especially wrath, pride, envy, insincerity, falseness, boasting, and bellicosity.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: Always desiring to be superior to others, having no patience for inferiors and belittling strangers; like a hawk, flying high above and looking down on others, and yet outwardly displaying justice, worship, wisdom, and faith — this is raising up the lowest order of good and walking the way of the Asuras.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: The asuras are said to experience a much more pleasurable life than humans, but they are plagued by envy for the devas, whom they can see just as animals perceive humans. The asuras of some inferior realms however, are malevolent (such as the corruptor Mara) and can be referred to as demons. They are alternatively called "rakshasas".


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: The Asuras formerly lived in the Trāyastriṃśa world on the peak of Sumeru with the other gods of that world. When Śakra became the ruler of that world, the asuras celebrated by drinking a lot of Gandapāna wine, a liquor so strong that Śakra forbade the other gods to drink it. Weakened by their drunkenness, the asuras could not resist when Śakra had the whole lot of them thrown over the edge of Trāyastriṃśa into what would become the Asura-world at the base of Sumeru. A tree grows there called Cittapātali; when the asuras saw it blossom, they saw that it was different from the Pāricchattaka (Sanskrit: Pāriyātra) tree which had grown in their old home, and they knew that they were dispossessed.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: They now meditated on war. In armor and weapons, they climbed up the steep slopes of Sumeru "like ants." Śakra set out to meet them, but was forced to retreat because of their numbers. Passing through the forest where the garuḍas live on his flying chariot, Śakra saw that his passage was destroying the nests of the garuḍas and ordered his charioteer Mātali to turn back. When the pursuing asuras saw Śakra turn about, they felt certain that he must be coming back with an even larger army, and they fled, ceding all the ground they had gained.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: Despite their many wars, there was eventually a partial concord between the Trāyastriṃśa gods and the asuras. This came about because Śakra fell in love with Sujā (also known as Shachi), daughter of the Asura chief Vemacitrin. Vemacitrin had given Sujā the right to choose her own husband at an assembly of the Asuras, and she chose Śakra, who had attended disguised as an aged Asura. Vemacitrin thus became Śakra's father-in-law.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: The asura realm is one of the realms one can be reborn into within the six realms. Rebirth here is a result of experiencing the fruits of wholesome karma while engaging in unwholesome karma.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: The placement of the asura realm in Buddhist cosmology varies among traditions. Sometimes the asura realm is recognized as one of happiness, existing beneath the worlds of the devas and humans. In other schemes, it is viewed as a fourth addition to the usual three evil paths that make up the animal realm, ghost realm and hell realm.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: In schools that recognize the desire realm as consisting of five realms, the asura realm tends to be included among the deva realm. In Tibetan Buddhism, the addition of the asuras in the six-world bhavacakra was created in Tibet at the authority of Je Tsongkhapa.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: The Ekottara Āgama and the Saddharmasmṛtyupasthāna Sūtra explain that asura are divided among the realms of ghosts and animals. In the former case, they are powerful, high-ranking demons reminiscent of gods such as Māra. In the latter case, they are like fearsome beasts that live 84000 yojanas beneath the ocean floor.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: The leaders of the asuras are called "asurendra" (Pāli: "Asurinda", Chinese: 阿修羅王; Pinyin: "Āxiūluó-wáng"; Romaji: "Ashura-ō"), literally meaning "Asura-lord". There are several of these, as the Asuras are broken into different tribes or factions. Among them are the bow-wielding Dānaveghasa Asuras, and the terrible-faced Kālakañjakas. In Pali texts, names that are found include "Vepacitti", "Rāhu" (believed to be synonymous with "Verocana"), "Pahārāda", "Sambara", "Bali", "Sucitti", and "Namucī". According to Buddhaghosa, the three primary leaders were Vepacitti, Rāhu and Pahārāda.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: Mahayana literature tends to recognize four primary leaders, whose biographies are explained in detail in both the Saddharmasmṛtyupasthāna Sūtra and the Daśabhūmika Sūtra. According to this tradition, these asuras live 84,000 yojanas beneath the ocean floor on the northern side of Mount Sumeru, which are divided into four layers.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: According to the Lotus Sutra, the four leaders of the asura took refuge in the Buddha after hearing his sermon.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: The asura were said to be in possession of a war drum called "Ālambara", which sounded like the peal of thunder. It was created from the claw of a giant crab named Kulīradaha. It has since been repurposed by Śakra.


title: Asura (Buddhism)

text: Mahayana texts also mention a stringed instrument belonging to the asura rendered in Chinese as "Āxiūluó Qín" (Chinese: 阿修羅琴; Pinyin: "Āxiūluó Qín"), literally meaning "asura harp".


title: Chris Moyles

text: Christopher David Moyles (born 22 February 1974) is an English radio and television presenter, author and presenter of "The Chris Moyles Show" on Radio X.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Previously he has presented "The Chris Moyles Show" on BBC Radio 1 from 2004 to 2012 and "Chris Moyles' Quiz Night" from 2009 to 2012 on Channel 4.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles has worked at various radio stations, including Radio Luxembourg (under the pseudonym Chris Holmes) and Capital FM. Moyles moved to BBC Radio 1 in July 1997 and left the station in September 2012. He has presented the early breakfast show, a Saturday morning show, and the drive time show (from September 1998 to December 2003), before presenting the breakfast show from 5 January 2004 to 14 September 2012. In September 2009, he was BBC Radio 1's longest serving breakfast presenter. Moyles has become famous for his maverick bad-boy broadcasting style on BBC Radio 1 and has been embroiled in numerous controversies, including accusations of sexism and homophobia, due to statements he has made on the air and in the press.


title: Chris Moyles

text: He frequently made appearances on several television shows including "Hotel Babylon", a celebrity version of "Supermarket Sweep", "Top Gear", "The Charlotte Church Show", "The F-Word", "The Friday Night Project", "The One Show", "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross", "Richard & Judy" and "The Paul O'Grady Show".


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire to Christopher, a postman and housewife Hannah Veronica “Vera” Moyles, (from Dublin) and he was educated at Mount St Mary's Catholic High School. While at school, he began his broadcasting career at WBHS (Wakefield's Broadcast to Hospitals Service), a voluntary staffed hospital radio station in the West Yorkshire city.


title: Chris Moyles

text: After WBHS, Moyles moved to local radio station Aire FM as an assistant for DJ Carl Kingston. During this time, he was also a presenter on Radio Top Shop in the Leeds Briggate branch. After hosting his own Saturday Evening Show on Aire FM (and occasionally serving as a stand-in presenter), he was then employed as a presenter at Radio Luxembourg in 1992, until the station closed.


title: Chris Moyles

text: In 1993, he gained a job at the Pulse of West Yorkshire, presenting the evening show from 7.00 pm–10.00 pm. He remained there until early 1994 when he was dismissed for comments made about the station's previous programme controller. Moyles subsequently joined Signal 1 in Stoke-on-Trent – again presenting "The Evening Bit" from 7.00 pm–10.00 pm. He remained there until he was dismissed by the station's programme controller, who he refers to as a "spineless bastard" in his first autobiography. In 1995 Moyles was heard on the Chiltern Radio Network, presenting the evening show from 7.00 pm–10.00 pm, before taking on the late show from 10.00 pm–1.00 am. This show was simulcast on Horizon Radio, Chiltern Radio, Severn Sound and Northants 96.


title: Chris Moyles

text: In 1996, Moyles joined London station Capital FM hosting his weekend show 'The Late Bit', which went out on a Friday & Saturday evening, and covering for other DJs. It was at Capital that Moyles fell out with fellow DJ 'Doctor' Neil Fox. After declining the offer of presenting the breakfast show on rival station Kiss 100, Moyles joined Radio 1 in July 1997.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles was voted one of the Faces for 97 by "SKY magazine" and presented his first show on Radio 1 on 28 July 1997, hosting the 4.00 am–7.00 am Early Breakfast show – soon called "The Early Bit". In May 1998, his work was recognised with the award of the Silver Sony Awards DJ of the Year, and he was styling himself as 'The Saviour of Early Morning Radio'. Within the year Moyles was promoted to a Saturday breakfast, then Saturday mid-morning slot from 10.00 am–1.00 pm. At Radio 1, he presented most of his shows with David "Comedy Dave" Vitty, who worked behind the scenes at the station before Moyles' arrival.


title: Chris Moyles

text: After standing in regularly for Kevin Greening and Zoe Ball on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show, Moyles's next promotion came in October 1998 when he took control of the drivetime show from 4.00 pm–5:45 pm. The show was extended to 3.00 pm–5:45 pm in February 2001. Moyles has co-presented the show from 1998 with his sidekick.


title: Chris Moyles

text: On 5 January 2004, Moyles started presenting Radio 1's breakfast programme, named "The Chris Moyles Show", switching places with Sara Cox. He had been appointed to increase the ratings for the show and did so, putting on an extra 1,000,000 listeners to the audience in the first quarter of 2004. After a successful first year, Moyles was awarded 'DJ of the Year' by readers of "The Sun".


title: Chris Moyles

text: By 2005, Moyles and his team had succeeded in increasing the morning audience, with his programme's audience swelling to 6.5 million. This was coupled with an increase in the overall Radio 1 audience share. With 895,000 listeners in London in the third quarter of 2005, he succeeded in overtaking Johnny Vaughan to take the position of the capital's most listened to youth breakfast show. Moyles's audience ratings continued to increase each week and led to him winning a gold Sony Radio Award in 2006 for best entertainment show.


title: Chris Moyles

text: With the release of the RAJAR listening figures on 3 August 2006, Moyles had added a further 470,000 listeners to the Breakfast Show, taking the average listenership up to 6.79 million. On 10 May 2007, RAJAR figures confirmed that Moyles had increased his listening figures to 7.06 million, breaking the seven million barrier for the first time with the station having 10.55 million listeners overall. Moyles again increased his audience to 7.72 million as of 1 May 2008 slightly narrowing the gap between him and Terry Wogan, the highest-rated radio show in the UK at the time. The station's overall listener figure is now over 11 million.


title: Chris Moyles

text: On 12 May 2008 "The Chris Moyles Show" won its second Sony radio gold award for 'best breakfast show'. At this time he was given another half-hour on his show going from 7.00 am–10.00 am to 6.30 am–10.00 am.


title: Chris Moyles

text: On 7 September 2009 Moyles became the longest serving breakfast presenter on Radio 1, breaking the record previously set by Tony Blackburn.


title: Chris Moyles

text: In March 2011, Moyles and his colleague David Vitty beat the record for the longest continuous Radio 1 show, on Radio 1's Longest Show Ever with Chris Moyles and Comedy Dave for Comic Relief. Between 16 and 18 March they beat both Simon Mayo's 1999 record of 37 hours and the 'Radio DJ Endurance Marathon (Team)' Guinness World Record by broadcasting for 52 hours for Comic Relief initially raising £2.4 million, and with an audience of 2.84 million, it was the most popular live BBC Red Button radio feature ever. The event raised a final total of £2,821,831.


title: Chris Moyles

text: On 1 July 2011, it was announced that Moyles would remain within the BBC until at least 2014, ending speculation that he would move to a commercial rival. The deal was estimated to be worth £1 million. This would have allowed the presenter to reach his 10-year anniversary on "The Chris Moyles Show". However, on 11 July 2012, Moyles announced that he would be leaving the breakfast show and the station on 14 September. when Moyles was in negotiation with BBC Radio 1 about a new show. It was announced later the same day that Nick Grimshaw would replace him.


title: Chris Moyles

text: On 7 September 2015, it was announced Chris Moyles would return to radio on the newly re-branded Radio X (previously XFM) hosting the new "Chris Moyles Show". The show began airing on 21 September 2015 from 6.30 am–10.00 am, returning to his former breakfast slot and was going head to head with his BBC Radio 1 breakfast show replacement, Nick Grimshaw. Chris Moyles stated Dominic Byrne, who read the news on his BBC Radio 1 show, would return with him, as would producer Pippa Taylor.


title: Chris Moyles

text: On 19 April 2016 it was announced that there would be an additional pre-recorded show on Saturday mornings between 8 am-11.00 am featuring clips from the week, interviews with studio guests plus new content, which means that Chris is on air on Radio X 6 days a week.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles was one of a team of celebrities who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for Comic Relief reaching the summit on 7 March 2009. He was joined by his show's producers, Rachel Mallender and Pippa Taylor, and BBC Radio 1 controller, Andy Parfitt. Also on the climb were Girls Aloud members Cheryl Cole and Kimberley Walsh, Fearne Cotton, Ben Shephard, Gary Barlow, Ronan Keating, Denise Van Outen and Alesha Dixon. He recorded a parody song around this time to promote the climb, mentioning all the names of the people that were also taking part – it was based on Lily Allen's "The Fear", and was called "(A month off of) The Beer".


title: Chris Moyles

text: From 3 February – 23 March 2009, Moyles was joined by Kimberley Walsh, Cheryl Cole, Gary Barlow, Ronan Keating, Ben Shephard and Fearne Cotton to help raise money for charity by reading the time on the Speaking Clock.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles has provided his voice and/or likeness to a number of films and games. His face was used in "", and his voice can be heard in the films "Wimbledon", "War of the Worlds" and "Robots". In some of these films, his voice was only used for the UK version.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles has branched out his work into television. In 2002, his own Channel 5 show, "Live With Chris Moyles", ran five shows a week for 13 weeks. Chris was replaced by Christian O'Connell, before the programme was shelved altogether.


title: Chris Moyles

text: He and sidekick Dave Vitty had their own TV show, also entitled "The Chris Moyles Show" like their former Radio 1 show, which was aired from 1998–99 on the now-defunct UK satellite and cable channel UK Play.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles voiced the fourth and final series of Sky1 show "The Villa" and has occasionally presented "Top of the Pops". He has also worked for the Comic Relief and Children in Need charities on their telecasts.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles has presented a number of episodes of "Big Brother's Big Mouth". Daily Mirror journalist Rob Leigh once said of his "Big Brother's Big Mouth" presenting that "Chris Moyles may be Marmite for the ears on radio but never quite nails it on TV, even with his relative star power". He also presented "The Big Breakfast" on Channel 4 several times between 2000 and 2002.


title: Chris Moyles

text: In 2003, Moyles presented the launch of BBC Three. The launch night (Not to be confused with the 2022 relaunch night) was simulcast on BBC Two.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles launched a new show on Channel 4, called "Chris Moyles' Quiz Night" on 22 March 2009. The show consists of Moyles alongside three other celebrities partaking in a traditional pub-style quiz. The original series had the four competing to win an item that belonged to Moyles but this has since developed into a more traditional quiz with the loser singing karaoke-style at the end of the show. The opening show received poor viewing figures attracting just 6% of total audience for the timeslot. It was continued for a second series between 26 February and 11 April 2010, a third series following between 1 November and 22 December 2010 and fourth between 15 July and 2 September 2011. After 5 series, the show was shelved.


title: Chris Moyles

text: On 24 October 2011, The Metro announced that Moyles would co-present a new dating show, "The Love Machine", alongside Stacey Solomon for Sky. Moyles confirmed this on his radio show that morning.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles appeared on the ITV show "The X Factor: Battle of the Stars" and had minor success. He was voted out of the show on 4 June 2006 in the semi-final. Following this appearance, stories in the "New Statesman" and "The Sun" both reported that Moyles was looking to relaunch his television career; rumours suggested that he had been offered his own show by ITV. Moyles has spoken of a desire to transfer the format of his radio show to the TV, but otherwise has thus far stayed clear of a conventional TV format.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles played himself in an episode of the drama "Hotel Babylon" which aired on 15 February 2007 and appeared on a celebrity version of "Supermarket Sweep" that broadcast on the same day. He has appeared as a guest on numerous British television shows, including the ninth series of "Top Gear", "Never Mind The Buzzcocks", which immortalised Moyles as an "oily pig in a dunce hat" "The Charlotte Church Show", "The F-Word", "The Friday Night Project", "Richard & Judy" and "The New Paul O'Grady Show".


title: Chris Moyles

text: In 2008, Moyles appeared on the Brit Awards to present the award for the best live act, and appeared in the BBC documentary series "Comedy Map of Britain". He has appeared on Channel 4's "" TV programme as well as an appearance as a team captain on the Channel 4 show "Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong" and on 18 July 2008 he appeared on Jimmy Carr's show on Channel 4, "8 Out of 10 Cats".


title: Chris Moyles

text: On 23 February 2009, Moyles was the guest on BBC One's "The One Show" to promote the BT Red Nose climb of Mount Kilimanjaro. He appeared again on the show on 26 February 2010 to talk about and promote the second series of "Chris Moyles' Quiz Night". In July 2009, he featured in an episode of the genealogy documentary series "Who Do You Think You Are?" on BBC One where he explored his Irish ancestry. He visited Ireland and Belgium, where his great-grandfather fought and died in the First World War. On the programme Moyles discovered that his surname means "bald servant" from the Irish ""Ó Maolmanach"". He also co-presented Children in Need Rocks Manchester in November 2011. Moyles appeared on the quiz show "The Million Pound Drop" along with Andi Peters in February 2012, they won £25,000 to divide between their chosen charities.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles appeared on Children in Need on 16 November 2012, performing "Bring Me Sunshine" on stage with holograms of comedy duo Morecambe and Wise in an effort to raise money for the charity.


title: Chris Moyles

text: On 31 October 2022 Moyles was announced by ITV as a campmate of the 2022 series of "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!". On the promo video Moyles says "It's only three weeks in the middle of a jungle; What could possibly go wrong?" He was voted out sixth on 24 November.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles' autobiography, "The Gospel according to Chris Moyles: The Story of One Man and His Mouth" was released by Ebury Press on 5 October 2006.


title: Chris Moyles

text: On 4 October 2007 a follow-up book "Chris Moyles: The Difficult Second Book", published by Ebury Press, was officially released. "The Difficult Second Book" was released in paperback on 1 May 2008. Stewart Lee, on his own programme "Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle", commented that the title of the book suggests "a degree of irony and self-awareness largely absent from the text itself" and then went on to deconstruct and mock the book's contents.


title: Chris Moyles

text: On 16 May 2012 it was announced that Chris Moyles had been cast to play the part of King Herod in an arena tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Jesus Christ Superstar. Moyles reprised his role as King Herod when Jesus Christ Superstar began another arena tour on 1 October 2013. Moyles also toured a solo stage show, "Chris Moyles Live".


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles uses zoo format, and therefore relies on his team members and audience participation for his show's games and quizzes and for other sources of comedy. He is renowned for his boorish manner, quick temper, and put-downs. It is this approach which most commonly leads to criticism of Moyles. It has also caused him to become involved in numerous controversies related to perceived offensive statements. However, Moyles generally accepts counter-attacks in the same manner and routinely derides himself for being overweight and so forth, often in the lyrics of jingles. Due to his fascination with radio, Moyles regularly discusses the process of making the show, often spoofing clichéd radio practices. Many of his show's features are homages to or exaggerations of other radio features.


title: Chris Moyles

text: In December 2000, he parodied the Eminem song "Stan" that was No. 1 in the charts at the time, with a seasonal Christmas themed variation called "Stanta", instead. It became one of the most popular requested parodies and was often played more than once during the course of a show.


title: Chris Moyles

text: In October 2004, Moyles and "The Chris Moyles Show" team replaced U2's "Vertigo" at number one in the UK Official Download Chart with their download-only charity song "Dogz Don't Kill People (Wabbitz Do)", under the name 'Mouldie Lookin' Stain'. The song was a spoof of Goldie Lookin' Chain's "Guns Don't Kill People Rappers Do" (itself a spoof rap song) and proceeds went to Comic Relief. At the time of its release, it was the fastest selling download on UK charts.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles has parodied several Kaiser Chiefs songs under the name "The Kaiser Chefs". These include "I Predict A Diet" (Parody of I Predict a Riot) and "Donny" (Parody of Ruby). Chris and Ricky Wilson of the Kaiser Chiefs (both Leeds United fans) said they had accidentally given Doncaster Rovers fans an unofficial anthem with "Donny" after Doncaster Rovers beat Leeds United 1–0 in the 2008 League One Play-off Final.


title: Chris Moyles

text: During the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, Moyles organised a parody of England World Cup songs, to ridicule the number of songs there were out at the time. "José – The Special One" (a parody of "Rosé" by The Feeling was written on team manager José Mourinho's departure from Chelsea and was banned after the club complained to the BBC (although subsequently played repeatedly on Moyles's show and on Radio 5 Live). He made a parody of "We Have Got to Zero Baby", a take on Enrique Iglesias's "Hero", which describes how his football team, Leeds United, managed to claw back a 15-point deficit in League One in only 5 games. In November 2007, he used Hoosiers – "Goodbye Mr A" for "Goodbye Mr. M" where he sings about the England football manager Steve McClaren being sacked.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Often Moyles will pick a track because of the silliness of its lyrics, for instance "Smile" by Lily Allen was parodied by Moyles's invention "Silly Allen", in a song called "Piles" and Natasha Bedingfield's "I Wanna Have Your Babies" written by Comedy Dave and performed in May 2007. In the same month, he performed a parody of Hellogoodbye's hit "Here" called "Beer in My Arms" in which he describes how much he really dislikes the song, calling it 'daft'. Moyles also covered Puretone "Addicted to Bass" with "Addicted to Plaice", which covers the subject of being addicted to fish. In September 2007, he performed "Suicidal" a parody of the UK number one Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls", in which he talks about how the song makes him feel suicidal and wonders why it reached number one.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Although of 2008, UK's chart no.1 Basshunter was renamed "Chuffhunter" in which he mocks the song and those that would buy it, Kylie Minogue's "Bow Wow Wow" and a re-write of the Estelle song "American Boy", named "Somerset Boy". In the past, he has parodied include Billie Piper's "Honey to the Bee" as "Guinness For Me", All Seeing Eye's "Walk Like a Panther", Will Smith's "Gettin Jiggy Wit It", and McFly's "All About You" as "He Don't Use Shampoo". Moyles has also written Baked Beans, a parody of Same Jeans by The View, and "Lunch in this Pub", originally the Usher single "Love in this Club". One of his recent parodies, "No Hair" – sung by "follicly-challenged" newscaster Dominic Byrne – is a cover of Jordin Sparks's "No Air (ft Chris Brown)".


title: Chris Moyles

text: Another two of Moyles' recent parodies are "Lorry Driver" which is a cover of Britney Spears' song "Womanizer" and "The Boy Does Plenty" by "Adrian Dixon", originally a song by Alesha Dixon, both of which are written by 'Comedy Dave' Vitty.


title: Chris Moyles

text: In March 2009 Moyles released a parody song called "Dreaming of Debbie McGee". The song was about a man who has recurring dreams of the assistant on "The Paul Daniels Magic Show". Comedy Dave wrote the song, and Paul Daniels asked for it to be made into an MP3 file after hearing it on air. It was a parody of the Kings of Leon song "Revelry". In April 2009, McGee recorded a reply which was played on air and was a parody of the same song called Dreaming of Moylesy.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles released "Waterproof" in July 2009, a parody of the La Roux song "Bulletproof". This song has an approved record deal to be used on a parody album, should Chris wish to do so.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles has released an album entitled "The Parody Album". Recording began in September 2009, and the album was released on 23 November.


title: Chris Moyles

text: The official Moyles Parody Album game entitled Parody Island was released to help promote the album and allow players to hear snippets from his new album.


title: Chris Moyles

text: "The Chris Moyles Show" was credited with the debut of the unofficial England World Cup Song, written and performed by Chico Slimani a parody of his hit single "It's Chico Time" and originally named "It's England Time". Slimani recorded the single after having a 'vision' that England won the 2010 World Cup and that in the celebrations, commentators made reference to his song. The single debuted, Monday 8 February 2010.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles has been censured several times by the Broadcasting Standards Commission and Ofcom. This happened during his time at both Capital London and BBC Radio 1. For example, the regulatory bodies upheld complaints when Moyles threatened and bullied Neil Fox in October 2002 with the claim that "I'm gonna tear his head off and poo down his neck"; and also in early 2002, when he said "he would take the virginity of Charlotte Church", when the child star reached sixteen.


title: Chris Moyles

text: When he first arrived at Radio 1, John Peel took an instant dislike to Moyles and accused him of being a "DLT-in-waiting". Moyles retorted that Peel was a "Kenny Everett-in-waiting, because Kenny Everett's dead and it's only a matter of time before John pops his clogs". In his biography Moyles said that he mended his relationship with Peel and felt a sense of loss that he had not got to know him before his death.


title: Chris Moyles

text: In September 2008, Moyles, along with other British radio presenters, was criticised for on-air promotion of drinking to excess.


title: Chris Moyles

text: In February 2006, Moyles apologised, along with the BBC, after swearing when speaking to a caller live on air. He made the outburst while teasing a mother-of-three from Newcastle during an on-air feature which her children had interrupted. "You've got three kids from some fuckin'..." he blurted out, before apologising profusely for his mistake. The BBC issued six apologies, adding that such mistakes could occur during live broadcasts such as Moyles' show. The BBC was later cleared by broadcasting regulator Ofcom over the incident.


title: Chris Moyles

text: In July 2006, communications watchdog Ofcom found Moyles in Breach of rule 1.5 of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code Rules for an incident in which he referred to female listeners as "dirty whores". A listener objected to an item in which the presenter discussed people who urinated in the shower. He considered that the presenter's reference to women who did this as "dirty whores" was unacceptable at this time of the morning.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Alongside a number of other BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2 presenters, Moyles crossed a strike picket line in 2005. BBC staff were striking over recently announced job cuts. A report by the BBC Trust on 2 June 2008 revealed that Moyles was paid £630,000 in 2007.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles revealed in September 2009 that he took a 20 per cent pay cut three months earlier, quoting the reason "I want to work at the BBC, which is trying to save some of its gazillions".


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles was accused of homophobia in May 2006, when he rejected a ringtone by saying "I don't want that one, it's gay", live on air. This led to a number of complaints to the BBC. They argued that the use of the word gay in this context was homophobic. The BBC governors said that Moyles was simply keeping up with developments in English usage.


title: Chris Moyles

text: The Programme Complaints Committee said that, "The word 'gay', in addition to being used to mean 'homosexual' or 'carefree', was often now used to mean 'lame' or 'rubbish'. In describing a ringtone as gay, the DJ was conveying that he thought it was 'rubbish' rather than 'homosexual'. Moyles was not being homophobic". The panel acknowledged that this use of the word 'gay' in a derogatory sense could cause offence to some listeners and counselled caution on its use.


title: Chris Moyles

text: In June, LGBT charity Stonewall marched with placards demanding the dismissal of Moyles during Europride in London. According to Stonewall, "Chris Moyles is not helping young LGBT people struggling to come out through his comments". Stonewall gave Moyles the award of "Bully of the Year" at their annual Stonewall Awards that same year.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Those defending Moyles have noted that Aled Haydn Jones, his show's producer who has worked with Moyles since 2001, is openly gay. Moyles was quoted in The Guardian by Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill as saying "Yeah, I'm homophobic, I don't like the gays. Sorry, it just does my head in. We have a token gay on the show!" In his book "The Difficult Second Book", Moyles says that he was responding to another article with sarcasm, and was subsequently quoted out of context.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles was censured by Ofcom following eight complaints made after a broadcast on 20 January 2009 in which he told listeners it was the birthday of Will Young and then went on to sing "Evergreen" and "Leave Right Now" in a high pitched and effeminate voice, changing the lyrics to references to Young's sexuality. Ofcom stated that the language used could have been "interpreted by listeners as promoting and condoning certain negative stereotypes based on sexual orientation" and whilst acknowledging the intention was to be humorous in their opinion it could have been perceived as hostile and pejorative. The media regulator also said in their view that because of the show's breakfast time slot that attracts a young audience it had the potential to encourage children to discriminate against others based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation and ran the risk of being imitated on the playground causing "unnecessary distress".


title: Chris Moyles

text: On 20 January 2009, Moyles made comments on his radio show regarding the family history programme "Who Do You Think You Are?" and the Holocaust. Referring to his trips while filming the programme, Moyles said "I went off to Ireland and other places to film and unlike a lot of the "Who Do You Think You Are?" shows I didn't go to Auschwitz. Pretty much everyone goes there whether or not they're Jewish. They just seem to pass through there on their way to Florida". Celebrities featured on "Who Do You Think You Are?" including Stephen Fry, Jerry Springer and Natasha Kaplinsky, have traced their family histories back to Jews murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War. The BBC released a statement: "Anyone who listens to the Chris Moyles Show will know he has an irreverent style. However, we regret that on this occasion his comments were misjudged and we are speaking to Chris and his team about them".


title: Chris Moyles

text: On 12 January 2010, hip-hop trio N-Dubz appeared on the Chris Moyles Show on BBC Radio 1. The show received a text message from a female listener saying that band member Dappy was "vile" and "a little boy with a silly hat" and that N-Dubz were "losers". Dappy secretly copied her phone number from the studio console and sent abusive and threatening text messages to the woman the following day including one telling her she was "gonna die!". Moyles said of the resulting criticism: "I feel let down by him, I've supported them and said, 'Do you know what, N-Dubz aren't just a bunch of dippy chavs, they're really good'. So for him to go and do something like that is a bit rubbish".


title: Chris Moyles

text: In 2012 Chris Moyles was involved in a tax avoidance scheme and requested a court order to prevent the press from reporting it, because he claimed it would infringe his human rights. In February 2014 it was reported that he had attempted to avoid up to £400,000 in income tax by claiming losses of £1,000,000 on a used car dealership scheme.


title: Chris Moyles

text: Moyles has won several Sony Radio Awards: Silver in 1998; Gold in 2006; nominated in 2007: Gold in 2008; Bronze in 2009; and Silver in 2010.


title: Chris Moyles

text: In 2007 the rugby league team Featherstone Rovers named their ground after him. Historically known as Post Office Road, it was renamed via a sponsorship deal as the Chris Moyles Stadium. On 7 July 2007 Moyles appeared as a presenter at the UK leg of Live Earth in Wembley Stadium in London.


title: Bulk modulus

text: The bulk modulus (formula_1 or formula_2) of a substance is a measure of how resistant to compression the substance is. It is defined as the ratio of the infinitesimal pressure increase to the resulting "relative" decrease of the volume.


title: Bulk modulus

text: Other moduli describe the material's response (strain) to other kinds of stress: the shear modulus describes the response to shear stress, and Young's modulus describes the response to normal (lengthwise stretching) stress. For a fluid, only the bulk modulus is meaningful. For a complex anisotropic solid such as wood or paper, these three moduli do not contain enough information to describe its behaviour, and one must use the full generalized Hooke's law. The reciprocal of the bulk modulus at fixed temperature is called the isothermal compressibility.


title: Bulk modulus

text: where formula_5 is pressure, formula_6 is the initial volume of the substance, and formula_7 denotes the derivative of pressure with respect to volume. Since the volume is inversely proportional to the density, it follows that


title: Bulk modulus

text: where formula_9 is the initial density and formula_10 denotes the derivative of pressure with respect to density. The inverse of the bulk modulus gives a substance's compressibility. Generally the bulk modulus is defined at constant temperature as the isothermal bulk modulus, but can also be defined at constant entropy as the adiabatic bulk modulus.


title: Bulk modulus

text: Strictly speaking, the bulk modulus is a thermodynamic quantity, and in order to specify a bulk modulus it is necessary to specify how the pressure varies during compression: constant-temperature (isothermal formula_11), constant-entropy (isentropic formula_12), and other variations are possible. Such distinctions are especially relevant for gases.


title: Bulk modulus

text: where formula_14 is the heat capacity ratio. Therefore, the isentropic bulk modulus formula_12 is given by


title: Bulk modulus

text: When the gas is not ideal, these equations give only an approximation of the bulk modulus. In a fluid, the bulk modulus formula_1 and the density formula_9 determine the speed of sound formula_22 (pressure waves), according to the Newton-Laplace formula


title: Bulk modulus

text: In solids, formula_12 and formula_11 have very similar values. Solids can also sustain transverse waves: for these materials one additional elastic modulus, for example the shear modulus, is needed to determine wave speeds.


title: Bulk modulus

text: A material with a bulk modulus of 35 GPa loses one percent of its volume when subjected to an external pressure of 0.35 GPa (~).


title: Bulk modulus

text: Since linear elasticity is a direct result of interatomic interaction, it is related to the extension/compression of bonds. It can then be derived from the interatomic potential for crystalline materials. First, let us examine the potential energy of two interacting atoms. Starting from very far points, they will feel an attraction towards each other. As they approach each other, their potential energy will decrease. On the other hand, when two atoms are very close to each other, their total energy will be very high due to repulsive interaction. Together, these potentials guarantee an interatomic distance that achieves a minimal energy state. This occurs at some distance a, where the total force is zero:


title: Bulk modulus

text: Where U is interatomic potential and r is the interatomic distance. This means the atoms are in equilibrium.


title: Bulk modulus

text: To extend the two atoms approach into solid, consider a simple model, say, a 1-D array of one element with interatomic distance of a, and the equilibrium distance is "a". Its potential energy-interatomic distance relationship has similar form as the two atoms case, which reaches minimal at "a", The Taylor expansion for this is:


title: Bulk modulus

text: At equilibrium, the first derivative is 0, so the dominate term is the quadratic one. When displacement is small, the higher order terms should be omitted. The expression becomes:


title: Bulk modulus

text: This form can be easily extended to 3-D case, with volume per atom(Ω) in place of interatomic distance.


title: Bulk modulus

text: As derived above, the bulk modulus is directly related the interatomic potential and volume per atoms. We can further evaluate the interatomic potential to connect "K" with other properties. Usually, the interatomic potential can be expressed as a function of distance that has two terms, one term for attraction and another term for repulsion.


title: Bulk modulus

text: Where "A" > 0 represents the attraction term and "B" > 0 represents repulsion. n and m are usually integral, and "m" is usually larger than "n", which represents short range nature of repulsion. At equilibrium position, "u" is at its minimal, so first order derivative is 0.


title: Bulk modulus

text: when "r" is close to, recall that the "n" (usually 1 to 6) is smaller than "m" (usually 9 to 12), ignore the second term, evaluate the second derivative


title: Bulk modulus

text: In many cases, such as in metal or ionic material, the attraction force is electrostatic, so "n" = 1, we have


title: Bulk modulus

text: This applies to atoms with similar bonding nature. This relationship is verified within alkali metals and many ionic compounds.


title: Small Axe (anthology)

text: Small Axe is a British anthology film series, created and directed by Steve McQueen. The anthology consists of five films that tell distinct stories about the lives of West Indian immigrants in London from the 1960s to the 1980s. Two episodes of the series were selected into the 2020 Cannes Film Festival. The series premiered on 15 November 2020 on BBC One in the United Kingdom and on 20 November 2020 on Amazon Prime Video in the United States. The title references a proverb – "Small axe fall big tree" or "If you are the big tree, we are the small axe" – that was popularised by Bob Marley in his 1973 song "Small Axe".


title: Small Axe (anthology)

text: It has been reported that Steve McQueen began working on the idea for "Small Axe" in 2010, and that some form of the series was in development since 2012. While the series was initially conceived as a conventional television series with a serialized story, McQueen realized during development that he had sufficient material to make several distinct films. In January 2014, it was announced that he would write and direct an untitled television series for either BBC One or BBC Two about the experience of black people in Britain. In August 2015, it was announced that the series would air on BBC One. In June 2019, Amazon Prime Video was announced to be distributing the series in the United States, with Amazon Studios co-producing. The screenwriters include the British-Caribbean novelist Courttia Newland (author of "The Gospel According to Cane", 2013) and Alastair Siddons.


title: Small Axe (anthology)

text: In June 2019, it was announced that Letitia Wright, John Boyega, Malachi Kirby, Shaun Parkes, Rochenda Sandall, Alex Jennings, and Jack Lowden had joined the cast of the series. In January 2020, Micheal Ward joined the cast of the series.


title: Small Axe (anthology)

text: "Lovers Rock" had its world premiere as the opener of the 58th New York Film Festival on 17 September 2020. "Mangrove" had its world premiere at the festival on 25 September, and "Red, White, and Blue" on 3 October. "Mangrove" also opened the 64th BFI London Film Festival on 7 October 2020; "Lovers Rock" screened at the same festival on 18 October.


title: Small Axe (anthology)

text: The series premiered in the UK on BBC One on 15 November 2020 and in the United States on Amazon Prime Video on 20 November 2020, with one episode released per week on both platforms.


title: Small Axe (anthology)

text: Critical press reviews of each individual film were positive. All five films received approval ratings of at least 95% on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, while Metacritic assigned four of the five a score indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Small Axe (anthology)

text: "Lovers Rock", in particular, was named the best film of 2020 by the British film magazine "Sight & Sound" in its poll of 104 critics worldwide; "Mangrove" came in at 13th.


title: Geography of Germany

text: Germany (German: "Deutschland") is a country in Central Europe, that stretches from the Alps, across the North European Plain to the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. It is the second-most populous country in Europe after Russia, and is seventh-largest country by area in the continent. The area of Germany ranked 63rd and covers , consisting of of land and of waters, smaller than Japan but larger than Republic of the Congo.


title: Geography of Germany

text: Elevation ranges from the mountains of the Alps (highest point: the Zugspitze at ) in the south to the shores of the North Sea (Nordsee) in the northwest and the Baltic Sea (Ostsee) in the northeast. Between lie the forested uplands of central Germany and the low-lying lands of northern Germany (lowest point: Neuendorf-Sachsenbande at below sea level), traversed by some of Europe's major rivers such as the Rhine, Danube and Elbe.


title: Geography of Germany

text: Germany has the second-most borders of any European country, after Russia. It shares borders with nine countries: Denmark in the north, Poland and the Czech Republic in the east, Switzerland (its only non-EU neighbor) and Austria in the south, France in the southwest and Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands in the west. Germany also shares a maritime border with Sweden in the north and the United Kingdom in the northwest.


title: Geography of Germany

text: Germany is in Central Europe, bordering Denmark in the north, Poland and the Czech Republic in the east, Austria and Switzerland in the south, France and Luxembourg in the south-west, and Belgium and the Netherlands in the north-west. It lies mostly between latitudes 47° and 55° N (the tip of Sylt is just north of 55°), and longitudes 5° and 16° E. The territory covers , consisting of of land and of water. It is the seventh largest country by area in Europe and the 63rd largest in the world.


title: Geography of Germany

text: The northern third of the country lies in the North European Plain, with flat terrain crossed by northward-flowing watercourses (Elbe, Ems, Weser, Oder). Wetlands and marshy conditions are found close to the Dutch border and along the Frisian coast. Sandy Mecklenburg in the northeast has many glacier-formed lakes dating to the last glacial period.


title: Geography of Germany

text: Moving south, central Germany features rough and somewhat patternless hilly and mountainous countryside, some of it formed by ancient volcanic activity. The Rhine valley cuts through the western part of this region. The central uplands continue east and north as far as the Saale and merge with the Ore Mountains on the border with the Czech Republic. Upland regions include the Eifel, Hunsrück and Palatine Forest west of the Rhine, the Taunus hills north of Frankfurt, the Vogelsberg massif, the Rhön, and the Thüringer Wald. South of Berlin, the east-central part of the country is more like the low northern areas, with sandy soil and river wetlands such as the Spreewald region.


title: Geography of Germany

text: Southern Germany's landforms are defined by various linear hill and mountain ranges like the two adjacent ranges of the Swabian and Franconian Alb (reaching approximately from the source of the Danube in the southwest of Baden-Württemberg, south of Stuttgart, across Swabia into Central Franconia and to the valley of the river Main) and the Bavarian Forest along the border between Bavaria and the Czech Republic. The Alps on the southern border are the highest mountains, but relatively little Alpine terrain lies within Germany (in southeastern Swabia and Upper Bavaria) compared to Switzerland and Austria. The Black Forest, on the southwestern border with France, separates the Rhine from the headwaters of the Danube on its eastern slopes.


title: Geography of Germany

text: The north–south difference in Germany, between 55°03"N (at List on Sylt) and 47°16"N (around Oberstdorf, Bavaria) equals almost eight degrees of latitude (or 889 km), which can be seen especially during the warm season in the differences between the average temperatures. Besides that, there is a strong west–east cline in temperature. This is explained by the North western Germany’s flat and open landscapes and its closeness to the sea, and South's higher terrain, larger distance from the sea, and the Alps. These mountains prevent much of the usually warmer Mediterranean air blowing into southern Germany. To the north of the Alps and the Carpathians, the local climate becomes colder, even at the same latitude and altitude. This is caused by some areas being further away from the Atlantic Ocean's Gulf Stream, known for having a warm current for its latitude, in addition to being closer to Russia's and Siberia's extremely cold winter winds. Even if Siberian winter winds are not dominating, when they do hit Germany, temperatures can in extreme cases fall to -20 C in the mountains and below during the nights, and this has an effect on the average temperatures of November to March. Although rare, when such cold air reaches Germany, the North-Eastern parts become mainly affected, while the Southwest receives few cold days in general. The Gulf Stream results in the coast having the mildest nights in the winter, almost never freezing.


title: Geography of Germany

text: The warmest area in Germany is the area bordering France, west of the Schwarzwald hills, roughly between Karlsruhe to the north and the Swiss border to the south. The coldest area (except for mountain peaks) is found in the southeastern parts of eastern Germany around Dresden and Görlitz up to Berlin.


title: Geography of Germany

text: Germany's climate is temperate and marine in the West, humid continental to the East and humid subtropical in the Southwest. It features mild winters in the Southwest, cold winters in the East and is mostly overcast from November to February. Summers are mild to warm in the north and hot in the south. The North and Middle of Germany lies fully in the temperate climatic zone in which humid westerly winds predominate. In the northwest and the north, the climate is oceanic. Winters there are relatively mild and summers comparatively cool. In the east, the climate shows clear continental features; winters can be very cold for long periods, and summers can become very warm. Dry periods are often recorded.


title: Geography of Germany

text: In the center and the south, there is a transitional climate which may be predominantly oceanic or continental, according to the general weather situation. Winters are cool and summers warm, though maximum temperatures can exceed for several days in a row during heat waves.


title: Geography of Germany

text: The warmest regions of Germany can be found in the southwest (see rhine rift, German Wine Route and Palatinate). Here summers are hot with many days up to . Sometimes, minimum temperatures do not drop below , which is relatively rare in other regions, except the North Sea Coast and Western City climates.


title: Geography of Germany

text: The recorded extremes are a maximum of (July 2019, Duisburg-Bearl & Tönisvorst), and a minimum of (February 1929, in Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm).


title: Geography of Germany

text: Germany covers a total of , of which is irrigated land and is covered by water, the largest lakes being Lake Constance (total area of , with 62% of the shore being German; international borders are not defined on the lake itself), Müritz () and Chiemsee (). The majority of Germany is covered by either arable land (33.95%); permanent crops cover 0.57% of the land.


title: Geography of Germany

text: Germany has a total of of coastline, and borders totaling (clockwise from north: Denmark , Poland , Czech Republic , Austria , Switzerland , France , Luxembourg , Belgium , Netherlands ). The German-Austrian border crosses itself near Jungholz. The border with Belgium includes 5 German exclaves because the Vennbahn railway is on Belgian territory crossing in and out of Germany.


title: Geography of Germany

text: Further important rivers include the Saale and the Main in central Germany, the Neckar in the southwest, the Weser in the North and the Oder at the eastern border.


title: Geography of Germany

text: Throughout the Karst rocks many caves were formed especially in the valley of the Hönne. The biggest culture cave of Europe is located in Balve.


title: Geography of Germany

text: A recent global remote sensing analysis suggested that there were 2,783 km of tidal flats in Germany, making it the 11th ranked country in terms of how much tidal flat occurs there.


title: Geography of Germany

text: Phytogeographically, Germany is shared between the Atlantic European and Central European provinces of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. The territory of Germany can be subdivided into two ecoregions: European-Mediterranean montane mixed forests and Northeast-Atlantic shelf marine. The majority of Germany is covered by either arable land (33%) or forestry and woodland (31%). Only 15% is covered by permanent pastures.


title: Geography of Germany

text: The plants and animals of Germany are those generally common to central Europe. Beeches, oaks, and other deciduous trees constitute one-third of the forests; conifers are increasing as a result of reforestation. Spruce and fir trees predominate in the upper mountains, while pine and larch are found in sandy soil. There are many species of ferns, flowers, fungi, and mosses. Fish abound in the rivers and the North Sea. Wild animals include deer, wild boar, mouflon, fox, badger, hare, Eurasian lynx, and small numbers of beaver. Extinct/endangered animals include gray wolf, brown bear, and European bison. Various migratory birds cross Germany in the spring and autumn.


title: Geography of Germany

text: The national parks in Germany include the Wadden Sea National Parks, the Jasmund National Park, the Vorpommern Lagoon Area National Park, the Müritz National Park, the Lower Oder Valley National Park, the Harz National Park, the Saxon Switzerland National Park and the Bavarian Forest National Park.


title: Geography of Germany

text: Germany is known for its many zoological gardens, wildlife parks, aquaria, and bird parks. More than 400 registered zoos and animal parks operate in Germany, which is believed to be the largest number in any single country of the world. The Zoologischer Garten Berlin is the oldest zoo in Germany and presents the most comprehensive collection of species in the world.


title: Geography of Germany

text: With an estimated 83.2 million inhabitants in December 2020, Germany is the most populous country in the European Union and ranks as the 19th largest country in the world in terms of population. Its population density stands at .


title: Geography of Germany

text: The United Nations Population Fund lists Germany as host to the second-highest number of international migrants worldwide, around 23% of Germany's population do not hold a German passport or are direct descendants of immigrants. The number of third and subsequent generations of immigrants are not statistically recorded.


title: Geography of Germany

text: Each state has its own state constitution and is largely autonomous in regard to its internal organisation. Due to differences in size and population the subdivision of these states varies, especially between city states ("Stadtstaaten") and states with larger territories ("Flächenländer"). For regional administrative purposes five states, namely Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony, consist of a total of 22 Government Districts ("Regierungsbezirke"). As of July 2021 Germany is divided into 400 districts ("Kreise") on municipal level, these consist of 294 rural districts and 106 urban districts.


title: Geography of Germany

text: Germany has a number of large cities; the most populous are: Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, and Stuttgart. The largest conurbation is the Rhine-Ruhr region (12 million), including Düsseldorf (the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia), Cologne, Essen, Dortmund, Duisburg, and Bochum.


title: Merchant

text: A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as industry, commerce, and trade have existed. In 16th-century Europe, two different terms for merchants emerged: referred to local traders (such as bakers and grocers) and () referred to merchants who operated on a global stage, importing and exporting goods over vast distances and offering added-value services such as credit and finance.


title: Merchant

text: The status of the merchant has varied during different periods of history and among different societies. In modern times, the term "merchant" has occasionally been used to refer to a businessperson or someone undertaking activities (commercial or industrial) for the purpose of generating profit, cash flow, sales, and revenue using a combination of human, financial, intellectual and physical capital with a view to fueling economic development and growth.


title: Merchant

text: Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated in ancient Babylonia and Assyria, China, Egypt, Greece, India, Persia, Phoenicia, and Rome. During the European medieval period, a rapid expansion in trade and commerce led to the rise of a wealthy and powerful merchant class. The European age of discovery opened up new trading routes and gave European consumers access to a much broader range of goods. From the 1600s, goods began to travel much further distances as they found their way into geographically dispersed market-places. Following the opening of Asia to European trade and the discovery of the New World, merchants imported goods over very long distances: calico cloth from India, porcelain, silk and tea from China, spices from India and South-East Asia and tobacco, sugar, rum and coffee from the New World. By the eighteenth century, a new type of manufacturer-merchant had started to emerge and modern business practices were becoming evident.


title: Merchant

text: The English term, "merchant" comes from the Middle English, , which is derived from Anglo-Norman , which itself originated from the Vulgar Latin or , formed from present participle of ('to trade, to traffic or to deal in'). The term refers to any type of reseller, but can also be used with a specific qualifier to suggest a person who deals in a given characteristic such as "speed merchant", which refer to someone who enjoys fast driving; "noise merchant", which refers to a group of musical performers; and "dream merchant", which refers to someone who peddles idealistic visionary scenarios.


title: Merchant

text: Elizabeth Honig has argued that concepts relating to the role of a merchant began to change in the mid-16th century. The Dutch term, , became rather more fluid during the 16th century when Antwerp was the most global market town in Europe. Two different terms, for a merchant, began to be used, referred to local merchants including bakers, grocers, sellers of dairy products and stall-holders, while the alternate term, , referred to those who traded in goods or credit on a large scale. This distinction was necessary to separate the daily trade that the general population understood from the rising ranks of traders who took up their places on a world stage and were seen as quite distant from everyday experience.


title: Merchant

text: However, the term 'merchant' is often used in a variety of specialised contexts such as in "merchant banker", "merchant navy" or "merchant services".


title: Merchant

text: Merchants have existed as long as humans have conducted business, trade or commerce. A merchant class operated in many pre-modern societies. Open-air, public markets, where merchants and traders congregated, functioned in ancient Babylonia and Assyria, China, Egypt, Greece, India, Persia, Phoenicia and Rome. These markets typically occupied a place in the town's centre. Surrounding the market, skilled artisans, such as metal-workers and leather workers, occupied premises in alley ways that led to the open market-place. These artisans may have sold wares directly from their premises, but also prepared goods for sale on market days. In ancient Greece markets operated within the agora (open space), and in ancient Rome in the forum. Rome's forums included the Forum Romanum, the Forum Boarium and Trajan's Forum. The Forum Boarium, one of a series of "fora venalia" or food markets, originated, as its name suggests, as a cattle market.


title: Merchant

text: Trajan's Forum was a vast expanse, comprising multiple buildings with shops on four levels. The Roman forum was arguably the earliest example of a permanent retail shop-front.


title: Merchant

text: In antiquity, exchange involved direct selling through permanent or semi-permanent retail premises such as stall-holders at market places or shop-keepers selling from their own premises or through door-to-door direct sales via merchants or peddlers. The nature of direct selling centred around transactional exchange, where the goods were on open display, allowing buyers to evaluate quality directly through visual inspection. Relationships between merchant and consumer were minimal often playing into public concerns about the quality of produce.


title: Merchant

text: The Phoenicians became well known amongst contemporaries as "traders in purple" – a reference to their monopoly over the purple dye extracted from the murex shell. The Phoenicians plied their ships across the Mediterranean, becoming a major trading power by the 9th century BCE. Phoenician merchant traders imported and exported wood, textiles, glass and produce such as wine, oil, dried fruit and nuts. Their trading necessitated a network of colonies along the Mediterranean coast, stretching from modern-day Crete through to Tangiers (in present-day Morocco) and northward to Sardinia. The Phoenicians not only traded in tangible goods, but were also instrumental in transporting the trappings of culture. The Phoenicians' extensive trade networks necessitated considerable book-keeping and correspondence. In around 1500 BCE, the Phoenicians developed a script which was much easier to learn than the pictographic systems used in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Phoenician traders and merchants were largely responsible for spreading their alphabet around the region. Phoenician inscriptions have been found in archaeological sites at a number of former Phoenician cities and colonies around the Mediterranean, such as Byblos (in present-day Lebanon) and Carthage in North Africa.


title: Merchant

text: The social status of the merchant class varied across cultures; ranging from high status (the members even eventually achieving titles such as that of Merchant Prince or Nabob) to low status, as in China, Greece and Roman cultures, owing to the presumed distastefulness of profiting from "mere" trade rather than from labor or the labor of others as in agriculture and craftsmanship. The Romans defined merchants or traders in a very narrow sense. Merchants were those who bought and sold goods, while landowners who sold their own produce were not classed as merchants. Being a landowner was a "respectable" occupation. On the other hand, the Romans did not consider the activities of merchants "respectable". In the ancient cities of the Middle East, where the bazaar was the city's focal point and heartbeat, merchants who worked in bazaar enjoyed high social status and formed part of local elites. In Medieval Western Europe, the Christian church, which closely associated merchants' activities with the sin of usury, criticised the merchant class, strongly influencing attitudes towards them.


title: Merchant

text: In Greco-Roman society, merchants typically did not have high social status, though they may have enjoyed great wealth. Umbricius Scauras, for example, was a manufacturer and trader of garum in Pompeii, circa 35 C.E. His villa, situated in one of the wealthier districts of Pompeii, was very large and ornately decorated in a show of substantial personal wealth. Mosaic patterns in the floor of his atrium were decorated with images of amphorae bearing his personal brand and inscribed with quality claims. One of the inscriptions on the mosaic amphora reads "G(ari) F(los) SCO[m]/ SCAURI/ EX OFFI[ci]/NA SCAU/RI" which translates as "The flower of garum, made of the mackerel, a product of Scaurus, from the shop of Scaurus". Scaurus' fish sauce had a reputation for very high quality across the Mediterranean; its fame travelled as far away as modern southern France. Other notable Roman merchants included: Marcus Julius Alexander (16 – 44 CE), Sergius Orata (fl. c. 95 BCE) and Annius Plocamus (1st century CE).


title: Merchant

text: In the Roman world, local merchants served the needs of the wealthier landowners. While the local peasantry, who were generally poor, relied on open-air market places to buy and sell produce and wares, major producers such as the great estates were sufficiently attractive for merchants to call directly at their farm-gates. The very wealthy landowners managed their own distribution, which may have involved exporting. Markets were also important centres of social life, and merchants helped to spread news and gossip.


title: Merchant

text: The nature of export markets in antiquity is well documented in ancient sources and in archaeological case-studies. Both Greek and Roman merchants engaged in long-distance trade. A Chinese text records that a Roman merchant named Lun reached southern China in 226 CE. Archaeologists have recovered Roman objects dating from the period 27 BCE to 37 CE from excavation sites as far afield as the Kushan and Indus ports. The Romans sold purple and yellow dyes, brass and iron; they acquired incense, balsam, expensive liquid myrrh and spices from the Near East and India, fine silk from China and fine white marble destined for the Roman wholesale market from Arabia.


title: Merchant

text: Medieval England and Europe witnessed a rapid expansion in trade and the rise of a wealthy and powerful merchant class. Blintiff has investigated the early Medieval networks of market towns and suggests that by the 12th century there was an upsurge in the number of market towns and the emergence of merchant circuits as traders bulked up surpluses from smaller regional, different day markets and resold them at the larger centralised market towns. Peddlers or itinerant merchants filled any gaps in the distribution system. From the 11th century, the Crusades helped to open up new trade routes in the Near East, while the adventurer and merchant, Marco Polo stimulated interest in the far East in the 13th century. Medieval merchants began to trade in exotic goods imported from distant shores including spices, wine, food, furs, fine cloth (notably silk), glass, jewellery and many other luxury goods. Market towns began to spread across the landscape during the medieval period.


title: Merchant

text: Merchant guilds began to form during the Medieval period. A fraternity formed by the merchants of Tiel in Gelderland (in present-day Netherlands) in 1020 is believed to be the first example of a guild. The term, "guild" was first used for "gilda mercatoria" and referred to body of merchants operating out of St. Omer, France in the 11th century. Similarly, London's "Hanse" was formed in the 12th century. These guilds controlled the way that trade was to be conducted and codified rules governing the conditions of trade. Rules established by merchant guilds were often incorporated into the charters granted to market towns. In the early 12th century, a confederation of merchant guilds, formed out the German cities of Lübeck and Hamburg, known as "The Hanseatic League" came to dominate trade around the Baltic Sea. By the 13th and 14th centuries, merchant guilds had sufficient resources to have erected guild halls in many major market towns.


title: Merchant

text: During the thirteenth century, European businesses became more permanent and were able to maintain sedentary merchants and a system of agents. Merchants specialised in financing, organisation and transport while agents were domiciled overseas and acted on behalf of a principal. These arrangements first appeared on the route from Italy to the Levant, but by the end of the thirteenth century merchant colonies could be found from Paris, London, Bruges, Seville, Barcelona and Montpellier. Over time these partnerships became more commonplace and led to the development of large trading companies. These developments also triggered innovations such as double-entry book-keeping, commercial accountancy, international banking including access to lines of credit, marine insurance and commercial courier services. These developments are sometimes known as the "commercial revolution."


title: Merchant

text: Luca Clerici has made a detailed study of Vicenza's food market during the sixteenth century. He found that there were many different types of merchants operating out of the markets. For example, in the dairy trade, cheese and butter was sold by the members of two craft guilds (i.e., cheesemongers who were shopkeepers) and that of the so-called ‘resellers’ (hucksters selling a wide range of foodstuffs), and by other sellers who were not enrolled in any guild. Cheesemongers’ shops were situated at the town hall and were very lucrative. Resellers and direct sellers increased the number of sellers, thus increasing competition, to the benefit of consumers. Direct sellers, who brought produce from the surrounding countryside, sold their wares through the central market place and priced their goods at considerably lower rates than cheesemongers.


title: Merchant

text: From 1300 through to the 1800s a large number of European chartered and merchant companies were established to exploit international trading opportunities. The Company of Merchant Adventurers of London, chartered in 1407, controlled most of the fine cloth imports while the Hanseatic League controlled most of the trade in the Baltic Sea. A detailed study of European trade between the thirteenth and fifteenth century demonstrates that the European age of discovery acted as a major driver of change. In 1600, goods travelled relatively short distances: grain 5–10 miles; cattle 40–70 miles; wool and wollen cloth 20–40 miles. However, in the years following the opening up of Asia and the discovery of the New World, goods were imported from very long distances: calico cloth from India, porcelain, silk and tea from China, spices from India and South-East Asia and tobacco, sugar, rum and coffee from the New World.


title: Merchant

text: In Mesoamerica, a tiered system of traders developed independently. The local markets, where people purchased their daily needs were known as "tianguis" while "pochteca" referred to long-distance, professional merchants traders who obtained rare goods and luxury items desired by the nobility. This trading system supported various levels of pochteca – from very high status merchants through to minor traders who acted as a type of peddler to fill in gaps in the distribution system. The Spanish conquerors commented on the impressive nature of the local and regional markets in the 15th century. The Mexica (Aztec) market of Tlatelolco was the largest in all the Americas and said to be superior to those in Europe.


title: Merchant

text: In much of Renaissance Europe and even after, merchant trade remained seen as a lowly profession and it was often subject to legal discrimination or restrictions, although in a few areas its status began to improve.


title: Merchant

text: The "modern era" is generally understood to refer to period that started with the rise of consumer culture in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe.


title: Merchant

text: As standards of living improved in the 17th century, consumers from a broad range of social backgrounds began to purchase goods that were in excess of basic necessities. An emergent middle class or bourgeoisie stimulated demand for luxury goods, and the act of shopping came to be seen as a pleasurable pastime or form of entertainment.


title: Merchant

text: As Britain continued colonial expansion, large commercial organisations came to provide a market for more sophisticated information about trading conditions in foreign lands. Daniel Defoe ( 1660–1731), a London merchant, published information on trade and economic resources of England, Scotland and India. Defoe was a prolific pamphleteer. His many publications include titles devoted to trade, including: "Trade of Britain Stated" (1707); "Trade of Scotland with France" (1713); "The Trade to India Critically and Calmly Considered" (1720) and "A Plan of the English Commerce" (1731); all pamphlets that became highly popular with contemporary merchants and business houses.


title: Merchant

text: Armenians operated as a prominent trade nation during the 17th century. They stood out in international trade due to their vast network – mostly built by Armenian migrants spread across Eurasia. Armenians had established prominent trade-relations with all big export players such as India, China, Persia, the Ottoman Empire, England, Venice, the Levant, etc. Soon they captured Eastern and Western Europe, Russia, the Levant, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, and the Far East trade routes, carrying out mostly caravan-trade activities. A significant reason for Armenians' massive involvement in international trade was their geographic location – the Armenian lands stand at the crossroads between Asia and Europe. Another reason was their religion, as they were a Christian nation isolated between Muslim Iran and Muslim Turkey. European Christians preferred to carry out trade with Christians in the region.


title: Merchant

text: Eighteenth-century merchants who traded in foreign markets developed a network of relationships which crossed national boundaries, religious affiliations, family ties, and gender. The historian, Vannneste, has argued that a new "cosmopolitan merchant mentality" based on trust, reciprocity and a culture of communal support developed and helped to unify the early modern world. Given that these cosmopolitan merchants were embedded within their societies and participated in the highest level of exchange, they transferred a more outward-looking mindset and system of values to their commercial-exchange transactions, and also helped to disseminate a more global awareness to broader society and therefore acted as agents of change for local society. Successful, open-minded cosmopolitan merchants began to acquire a more esteemed social position within the political elites. They were often sought as advisors for high-level political agents. The English nabobs belong to this era.


title: Merchant

text: By the eighteenth century, a new type of manufacturer-merchant was emerging and modern business practices were becoming evident. Many merchants held showcases of goods in their private homes for the benefit of wealthier clients. Samuel Pepys, for example, writing in 1660, describes being invited to the home of a retailer to view a wooden jack. McKendrick, Brewer and Plumb found extensive evidence of eighteenth-century English entrepreneurs and merchants using "modern" marketing techniques, including product differentiation, sales promotion and loss-leader pricing. English industrialists, Josiah Wedgewood (1730–1795) and Matthew Boulton (1728–1809), are often portrayed as pioneers of modern mass-marketing methods. Wedgewood was known to have used marketing techniques such as direct mail, travelling salesmen and catalogues in the eighteenth century. Wedgewood also carried out serious investigations into the fixed and variable costs of production and recognised that increased production would lead to lower unit-costs. He also inferred that selling at lower prices would lead to higher demand and recognised the value of achieving scale economies in production. By cutting costs and lowering prices, Wedgewood was able to generate higher overall profits. Similarly, one of Wedgewood's contemporaries, Matthew Boulton, pioneered early mass-production techniques and product differentiation at his Soho Manufactory in the 1760s. He also practiced planned obsolescence and understood the importance of "celebrity marketing" – that is supplying the nobility, often at prices below cost – and of obtaining royal patronage, for the sake of the publicity and kudos generated. Both Wedgewood and Boulton staged expansive showcases of their wares in their private residences or in rented halls.


title: Merchant

text: Eighteenth-century American merchants, who had been operating as importers and exporters, began to specialise in either wholesale or retail roles. They tended not to specialise in particular types of merchandise, often trading as general merchants, selling a diverse range of product types. These merchants were concentrated in the larger cities. They often provided high levels of credit financing for retail transactions.


title: Merchant

text: In the nineteenth century, merchants and merchant houses played a role in opening up China and the Pacific to Anglo-American trade interests. Note for example Jardine Matheson & Co. and the merchants of New South Wales. Other merchants profited from natural resources (the Hudson's Bay Company theoretically controlled much of North America, names like Rockefeller and Nobel dominated trade in oil in the US and in the Russian Empire), while still others made fortunes from exploiting new inventions – selling space on and commodities carried by railways and steamships.


title: Merchant

text: In fully planned economies of the 20th century, planners replaced merchants in organising the distribution of goods and services.


title: Merchant

text: However, merchants, increasingly labelled with euphemisms such as "industrialists", "businessmen", "entrepreneurs" or "oligarchs",


title: Merchant

text: continue their activities in the 21st century. The wealth and influence of figures such as Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Jack Ma testify to the ongoing importance of merchandising.


title: Merchant

text: Elizabeth Honig has argued that artists, especially the Dutch painters of Antwerp, developed a fascination with merchants from the mid-16th century. At this time, the economy was undergoing profound changes – capitalism emerged as the dominant social organisation replacing earlier modes of production. Merchants were importing produce from afar – grain from the Baltic, textiles from England, wine from Germany and metals from various countries. Antwerp was the centre of this new commercial world. The public began to distinguish between two types of merchant, the who were local merchants including bakers, grocers, sellers of dairy products and stall-holders, and the "koopman," which were a new, emergent class of trader who dealt in goods or credit on a large scale. With the rise of a European merchant class, this distinction was necessary to separate the daily trade that the general population understood from the rising ranks of traders who operated on a world stage and were seen as quite distant from everyday experience. The wealthier merchants also had the means to commission artworks with the result that individual merchants and their families became important subject matter for artists. For instance, Hans Holbein the younger painted a series of portraits of Hanseatic merchants working out of London's Steelyard in the 1530s. These included including Georg Giese of Danzig; Hillebrant Wedigh of Cologne; Dirk Tybis of Duisburg; Hans of Antwerp, Hermann Wedigh, Johann Schwarzwald, Cyriacus Kale, Derich Born and Derick Berck. Paintings of groups of merchants, notably officers of the merchant guilds, also became subject matter for artists and documented the rise of important mercantile organisations.


title: Merchant

text: In recent art: Dutch photographer Loes Heerink spend hours on bridges in Hanoi to take pictures of Vietnamese street Merchants. She published a book called Merchants in Motion: the art of Vietnamese Street Vendors.


title: Merchant

text: Although merchant halls were known in antiquity, they fell into disuse and were not reinvented until Europe's Medieval period. During the 12th century, powerful guilds which controlled the way that trade was conducted were established and were often incorporated into the charters granted to market towns. By the 13th and 14th centuries, merchant guilds had acquired sufficient resources to erect guild halls in many major market towns. Many buildings have retained the names derived from their former use as the home or place of business of merchants:


title: Maharashtra Legislative Council

text: The Maharashtra Vidhan Parishad or Maharashtra Legislative Council is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of Maharashtra state in western India.


title: Maharashtra Legislative Council

text: The seat of the Vidhan Parishad is situated at the Nariman Point area of South Mumbai in the capital Mumbai. The budget session and the monsoon session are convened in Mumbai whereas the winter session is convened in the auxiliary capital Nagpur.


title: Maharashtra Legislative Council

text: Legislative Council shall consist of not less than 40 members or maximum one-third of the total number of members in the legislative assembly, chosen in the manner provided in this section.


title: Maharashtra Legislative Council

text: It is a continuous House and not subject to dissolution. However, one-third of its members retire every second year and are replaced by new members. As such a member enjoys a tenure of six years. The members of the Vidhan Parishad elect its chairman and deputy chairman.


title: Maharashtra Legislative Council

text: The council has a Leader of the House, who heads the government caucus. The office is provided for in the Legislative Council Rules, which defines it as ""Chief Minister or any other Minister appointed by Chief Minister"". The Rules further mandate that the chairperson should conduct parliamentary business in consultation with the Leader.


title: Maharashtra Legislative Council

text: The council has a Deputy Leader of the House, who heads the government caucus. The office is provided for in the Legislative Council Rules, which defines it as ""Chief Minister or any other Minister appointed by Chief Minister"". The Rules further mandate that the chairperson should conduct parliamentary business in consultation with the Leader.


title: Hawkgirl

text: Hawkgirl is the name of several superheroines appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The original Hawkgirl, Shiera Sanders Hall, was created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Dennis Neville, and first appeared in "Flash Comics" #1 (January 1940). Shayera Hol was created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Joe Kubert, and first appeared in "The Brave and the Bold" #34 (March 1961). Kendra Saunders was created by writer David S. Goyer and artist Stephen Sadowski, and first appeared in "JSA: Secret Files and Origins" #1 (August 1999). One of DC's earliest super-heroines, Hawkgirl has appeared in many of the company's flagship team-up titles including Justice Society of America and Justice League of America.


title: Hawkgirl

text: Several incarnations of Hawkgirl have appeared in DC Comics, all of them characterized by the use of archaic weaponry and artificial wings, attached to a harness made from the special Nth metal that allows flight. Most incarnations of Hawkgirl work closely with a partner/romantic interest Hawkman.


title: Hawkgirl

text: Since DC's continuity was rewritten in the 1985 series "Crisis on Infinite Earths", Hawkgirl's history has become muddled with several new versions of the character appearing throughout the years, some associated with ancient Egypt and some with the fictional planet Thanagar. These versions of the character have starred in several series of various durations.


title: Hawkgirl

text: Hawkgirl has been adapted into various media, including direct-to-video animated films, video games, and both live-action and animated television series, featuring as a main or recurring character in the shows "Justice League", "Justice League Unlimited", "The Flash", "Arrow", "Young Justice", "DC Super Hero Girls" and "Legends of Tomorrow". Ciara Renée portrayed the character in live action in the Arrowverse shows.


title: Hawkgirl

text: Created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Dennis Neville, Shiera Sanders first appeared in "Flash Comics" #1 (January 1940), in the same 12-page story in which Fox and Neville introduced Hawkman. Shiera first appears as Hawkgirl in "All Star Comics" #5 (July 1941), in a costume created by Sheldon Moldoff, based on Neville's Hawkman costume.


title: Hawkgirl

text: With the fading popularity of superheroes during the late 1940s, the Hawkman feature ended in the last issue of "Flash Comics" in 1949. In 1956, DC Comics resurrected the Flash by revamping the character with a new identity and backstory. Following the success of the new Flash, DC Comics revamped Hawkman in a similar fashion with "The Brave and the Bold" #34 in 1961. The Silver Age versions of Hawkman and Hawkgirl became married Thanagarian police officers from the planet Thanagar who come to Earth in order to study police techniques. Silver Age Hawkgirl is introduced as Shayera Hol (phonetically identical to Shiera Hall), who appears in costume as of her first appearance. Although Silver Age Hawkman joins the Justice League in "Justice League of America" #31 in 1964, Silver Age Hawkgirl was not offered membership because Justice League rules only allowed for one new member to be admitted at a time. In 1981, Silver Age Hawkgirl changed her name to Hawkwoman in the Hawkman backup feature of "World's Finest Comics" #274.


title: Hawkgirl

text: With the establishment of DC's multiverse system, the Golden Age Hawkgirl was said to have lived on Earth-Two and the Silver Age Hawkgirl on Earth-One.


title: Hawkgirl

text: Following the events of DC's miniseries, "Crisis on Infinite Earths", the histories of Earth-One, Two, Four, S, and X were merged into one single Earth with a consistent past, present, and future. As a result, both the Golden Age and the Silver Age versions of Hawkman and Hawkgirl live on the same Earth. Shortly after "Crisis on Infinite Earths", DC decided that having the Justice Society on the same Earth as all of the other superheroes was redundant and most of the team, including Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl were given a sendoff in the "Last Days of the Justice Society" one-shot. The Justice Society were trapped in another dimension, Limbo, where they would battle for all of eternity to prevent Ragnarök from occurring on the Earth.


title: Hawkgirl

text: Initially, the Silver Age Hawkman and Hawkwoman were kept in continuity unchanged after "Crisis on Infinite Earths". However, DC reversed this decision and rebooted Hawkman continuity after the success of the "Hawkworld" miniseries. Originally, "Hawkworld" was a miniseries set in the past that revised the origins of Hawkman and Hawkwoman, but after the series became a success, DC Comics made "Hawkworld" an ongoing series set in the present, with both heroes only recently appearing on Earth after the events in the "Invasion!" miniseries, resulting in a complete reboot of Hawkman continuity. Several continuity errors regarding Hawkman and Hawkgirl's Justice League appearances then needed to be fixed, including their appearance in the "Invasion!" miniseries. All previous appearances by the Silver Age Hawkgirl in the Justice League were explained by the Golden Age Hawkgirl taking the Silver Age Hawkgirl's place. However, Hawkwoman continued to appear in some pre-"Hawkworld" Justice League adventures during the time Golden Age Hawkgirl was trapped in Limbo. To explain this continuity error, a new Hawkwoman, Sharon Parker, was created and retconned into the Justice League during the time Golden Age Hawkgirl was in Limbo.