title: Algerian People's National Army

text: The army was in the process of being reorganized into four divisions in 1993, and also has numerous independent brigades and battalions. There are seven military regions, the seventh being added in 2013. The 6th Military Region was created in 1975 to cover the south, and the 7th Military Region in 2013. Regular military forces are composed of conscripts; all Algerian men are required to do a year of military service.


title: Algerian People's National Army

text: Military intelligence, recognized to have played a major political role, was long called "Sécurité militaire" (Military Security, SM) but reorganized in the late 1980s and early 1990s into "Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité" (Department of Intelligence and Security, DRS). The DRS and its counter-espionage branch, DCE, was a leading role in the fight against the Islamist insurgency of the 1990s through a number of its own , as well as by establishing joint task force commands which assumed control over specialized military and police units.


title: Algerian People's National Army

text: Since 2016 the DRS has been dissolved and the new Algerian intelligence service is the "Direction des services de sécurités" (DSS).


title: Algerian People's National Army

text: Military forces are supplemented by a 150,000-member National Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie Nationale), a paramilitary body, which is used mainly as a police force in rural areas. The 200,000-member "Sûreté nationale" or metropolitan police force is under the Ministry of the Interior.


title: Algerian People's National Army

text: Algeria is one of four Saharan states which will create a Joint Military Staff Committee, to be based at Tamanrasset in southern Algeria. Algeria, Mauritania, Niger, and Mali will take part. Mortimer wrote that '..In March 2010, the Centre d'Etat-Major commun Opérationel Conjoint (CEMOC) was established'. A later report said the committee had a secretariat with four staff sections: operations, intelligence, logistics, and communications.


title: Algerian People's National Army

text: Algeria's primary military suppliers have been the former Soviet Union, which sold various types of sophisticated equipment under military trade agreements, and the People's Republic of China. Since independence in the 1960s, no foreign bases are known to have been allowed in Algeria, although in the 1970s and 1980s, large numbers of Soviet military advisers were stationed in the country. Since 2001, security cooperation with the United States has increased, and US forces have taken part in training missions in the country's Saharan south.


title: Algerian People's National Army

text: Another weapons supplier of Algeria is France. France and Algeria have had a significant connection since the French Algeria colonial era, as France supplies weapons and armor to Algerian forces. As of October 2009, it was reported that Algeria canceled a weapons deal with France over the presence of Israeli parts.


title: Algerian People's National Army

text: Four or eight battalions of Russian S-300PMU2 long-range anti-aircraft missiles were ordered in 2006. In 2006, multibillion-dollar purchases of Russian military equipment were made in order to upgrade the country's conventional arsenal. This included a deal by the Algerian Air Force to buy 28 Su-30MKA and 36 MiG-29SMT for up to $3.5 billion. However, those MiG-29s were returned to Russia in February 2008 because of poor airframe quality, after technical evaluations in Algeria. In May 2008 the two governments agreed on a new deal to replace those 36 MiG-29SMT by a new batch of 16 Su-30MKA which meet all requirements of Algerian Air Force.


title: Algerian People's National Army

text: Algeria also has a small domestic military industry of its own. The army produces AK-47 and AKM-47 assault rifles, licensed by Russia and China, as well as rocket-type RPGs in the Construction Company Mechanical Khenchela (ECMK).


title: Algerian People's National Army

text: Moreover, the ECMK also builds under license the UAE Caracal pistol. The logistics base station produces various types of AICV (Armoured Infantry Fighting Vehicle) for the transport of troops and light armored vehicles. The air force produces two types of light aircraft for the basic training and has produced its own reconnaissance drone since December 2010. The Russian company, Rosoboronexport, has expressed a request for financial assistance to several countries including Algeria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to participate in the project for the production of the T-50 (PAK-FA) 5th generation fighter aircraft.


title: Algerian People's National Army

text: Algeria also has a military industrial company called as the Military Industry of Central Direction, which produces military arms, vehicles, weapons, ships, jets, helicopters, tanks, and other equipment. It was founded in 1998.


title: Algerian People's National Army

text: The military industry of Algeria dates back to 1980, when Algeria needed to diversify and sought to have their own national equipment to be less reliant on weapons imported from the Soviet Union and France. The development of the military industry in Algeria in the 1980s played a crucial role when the Algerian Civil War occurred a decade later. The indigenously manufactured weapons helped the Algerian military in combating the Islamists around the country, contributing to the government's victory in 2002.


title: Algerian People's National Army

text: Algeria exports its indigenously manufactured weapons to Tunisia, Mali, Niger, Libya, Mauritania and several other African as well as Arab states in the Middle East.


title: Algerian People's National Army

text: Since 2017 the "Société Algérienne de Fabrication de Véhicules de Marque Mercedes Benz" (SAFAV-MB) supplied the Algerian armed and security forces with several types of Mercedes-Benz vehicles like the Mercedes-Benz Unimog, Zetros, Sprinter, Actros, G-class...


title: Algerian People's National Army

text: Moreover all of this vehicles were created in algeria with the vehicles of the "Société Nationale des Véhicules Industrielles" (SNVI).


title: Ed Robertson

text: Lloyd Edward Elwyn Robertson (born October 25, 1970) is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter of the band Barenaked Ladies. He, along with former member Steven Page, founded the group in 1988. As of Page's departure in 2009, Robertson and bassist Jim Creeggan are the only remaining original members of the band.


title: Ed Robertson

text: Robertson was born in Scarborough, Ontario. He is the youngest of five children, with two sisters, Lynn and Bonnie, and two brothers, Bill and Doug; He claims to have been named on a bet. His mother, Wilma, was a secretary for Imperial Oil, and his father, Earl, worked both as a shipping foreman for Honeywell, and as an egg grader. He believes that his conception was an "accident" because he is several years younger than his siblings, who were all born about one year apart. He credits this situation with allowing him to have the experience of being both in a big family, and an only child—once his siblings moved out of their home.


title: Ed Robertson

text: Robertson began working part-time when he was 13 years old. He has bragged about being named employee of the month at his local Wendy's in July 1985 (he considers this his life's greatest accomplishment). He also answered phones at a CAA office. Robertson appeared in the music video for "All We Are" by Kim Mitchell from Mitchell's 1985 album "Akimbo Alogo".


title: Ed Robertson

text: Robertson was brought up in a home where country music was played almost exclusively; he is still fond of it today. He sang harmonies with his family and learned how to play guitar, which his father also played. Once he began playing guitar for other people, around grade five, he knew he wanted to be a performer. He was in several bands during his school days including a band that covered a collection of rock artists, such as Rush and Kim Mitchell.


title: Ed Robertson

text: In grade four, Robertson entered the gifted program at Churchill Heights Public School. Robertson's first run-in with Steven Page, who was a year ahead in the same gifted program, was when he unknowingly "stole" Page's best friend. It would be several years before the two would really speak to each other. Page saw Robertson at a Harvey's restaurant after a Peter Gabriel concert and was surprised to find that Robertson was also a fan. This ultimately led to their talking and becoming friends.


title: Ed Robertson

text: Robertson attended Woburn Collegiate Institute with Page and, around grade twelve, realized he needed to focus on passing his courses to get into university, believing his goal of being a musician was something of a "pipe dream". It was around this time that he began playing with Page. The two became counsellors at Scarborough Schools Music Camp in the summer of 1988, and spent a lot of time together singing songs and playing guitar. Page was flattered that Robertson knew some of the songs he had written, which Robertson had learned after acquiring a copy of a cassette tape Page had recorded. Page was also impressed by Robertson's ear for singing harmony. Upon receiving a telephone call from an organizer of a benefit concert to which Robertson had committed his recently broken-up band to play, Robertson quickly advised the organizer that he would still be performing but that the name of the band had changed to Barenaked Ladies, a name he had previously joked with Page about. Robertson then phoned Page and invited Page to be his bandmate in Barenaked Ladies. The benefit concert marked the first performance of the duo as Barenaked Ladies.


title: Ed Robertson

text: Robertson was accepted to York University, but dropped out after only half a year, choosing to devote his time completely to the band. He and Page spent the next two years building the reputation and following for Barenaked Ladies, joined along the way by Andy and Jim Creeggan, and Tyler Stewart.


title: Ed Robertson

text: Robertson was the second member of Barenaked Ladies to get married, and the first to have children. He married his longtime girlfriend, Natalie Herbert, in June 1994. They had their first child, Hannah on November 17, 1995; their second child, Lyle was born September 29, 1999; and their third child, Arden was born August 7, 2002. As the first in the band to have children, he was also one of the first to advocate for spending less time touring and more time at home with family. When he is not working with Barenaked Ladies, Robertson prefers to spend as much time as he can with his family in Toronto, or at their Bancroft-area cottage.


title: Ed Robertson

text: Robertson's brother Doug died after crashing his motorcycle in June 1993. The experience affected Ed, which came through in his songwriting. The song "Am I The Only One?" from the 1994 Barenaked Ladies album "Maybe You Should Drive", which he had been writing about his then-future wife, ended up being about the loss of his brother; the song "Leave" from 1998's "Stunt" is about the image of his brother haunting him in hotel rooms while on tour; and the song "Tonight is the Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel" from 2000's "Maroon" was based on Robertson's curiosity about what his brother was thinking about in his last moments. His mother died on December 13, 2008 at age 72, and his father died on June 10, 2011 at the age of 76. Robertson wrote the song "Moonstone" about his mother passing away. It was recorded during the "All in Good Time" sessions, and although it was not included in the basic album, it was released as a bonus track.


title: Ed Robertson

text: Robertson is the primary guitarist for the band, playing dominantly rhythm guitar (evenly split between acoustic and electric) on nearly all of the band's songs. Two of his three bandmates also play guitar with the band on certain songs (Kevin Hearn sometimes on lead, and Jim Creeggan occasionally playing rhythm guitar for songs he sings lead on). During his tenure with the band, Steven Page also played rhythm guitar and, occasionally, lead guitar on around a third of the band's songs. Robertson is capable of playing several other instruments including drums, pedal steel guitar, banjo and mandolin, but he rarely plays anything other than guitar, or occasionally 6-string banjo, on stage. On each passing album, he has sung lead on an increased number of songs, to the point where he shared approximately equal duty with Page by the time the latter left the band. Robertson has sung lead on a number of the band's singles since the success of 1998's "One Week", the first single released with a Robertson lead (not including "If I Had $1000000" which featured a Page/Robertson call-and-response lead vocal). He, along with his other bandmates, has taken over some of Page's lead and harmony vocal parts following the latter's departure. Robertson also often includes rapping and beatboxing into performances with Barenaked Ladies.


title: Ed Robertson

text: Robertson contributed to the writing for the band from their first album. Much of his contribution initially came in the way of co-writing with Page. As the years have passed, Robertson has written an increased amount on his own. He credits Jason Plumb in part for changing his perspective on songwriting, in that instead of trying to write one great song, he would commit to writing a certain number of ideas and they might not all be great, but parts of the songs would sometimes fit together into great songs. As well, Plumb encouraged Robertson to simply come up with an idea that fascinates him, and then to analyse it. The first song he wrote with this method was "When I Fall", based on the concept of "a window washer who's afraid of heights".


title: Ed Robertson

text: Besides Tyler Stewart, who does not typically compose, Robertson is the only other band member who has not written and recorded songs outside of the Barenaked Ladies for himself in the form of a side project. Robertson has preferred to spend creative energy outside the band in co-writing and producing songs for other people (including Andy Kim and Jason Plumb).


title: Ed Robertson

text: In 2002, Robertson won an International Achievement Award at the SOCAN Awards in Toronto for the song "Pinch Me" that he co-wrote with Steven Page.


title: Ed Robertson

text: In 2006, Robertson began starring in "Ed's Up" for OLN Canada. The program covers his journeys by plane to various locations given to him only in the form of GPS coordinates. At these locations, he learns about and participates in a local occupation. The series premiered on November 1, 2006; Robertson filmed a second season in the summer of 2007, which premiered on November 7. A third season was filmed over the summer of 2008. The series was produced by Peace Point Entertainment. Director: Andrew MacDonald, Producer: Craig Flemming, Supervising Producer: Vallery Hyduk.


title: Ed Robertson

text: In 2008, Ed Robertson guest co-hosted "Daily Planet" on Discovery Channel for several weeks while one of the regular hosts was away.


title: Ed Robertson

text: He can be seen in a handful of season 8 and 9 episodes of "" as the music teacher, Mr. Fowler, which aired new in 2009 on Canada's CTV and TeenNick in the States.


title: Ed Robertson

text: On May 29, 2012, Robertson was the guest co-host on the U.S. television morning talk show, "Live with Kelly".


title: Ed Robertson

text: From 2004, Robertson voiced the occasionally recurring character of Captain Butch Flowers/Agent Florida in the web series "Red vs. Blue".


title: Ed Robertson

text: Robertson received his pilot's license in 2005, and the 2007 season of "Ed's Up" was purportedly designed around his attempting to earn his floatplane license. He also rides a motorcycle, which he has taken on some of the band's tours in the past to ride during off-time.


title: Ed Robertson

text: In April 2009, Robertson was recognized for his interest in aviation and the Canadian military by being named Honorary Colonel of 424 Transport and Rescue Squadron of the Canadian Forces. Following the signing, HCol Robertson said that the investiture was "the most incredible honour" he has received. "I have always been thoroughly blown away by the incredible work of our military," he said. "It's a day I thought I would never see come. When I got the letter from the Defence Minister, I was, like, ‘This is real; I am actually going to be an honorary colonel!’" Robertson held the position until March 2012, noting that, although he had not been able to be around as much as he would have liked, the Squadron felt like family to him.


title: Ed Robertson

text: Robertson is fan of video games, and claims to have had almost every console system released since he was a child. He usually brings several consoles and many games on tour with him. Robertson is a fan of the popular Rooster Teeth series "Red vs. Blue", lending his voice to the series to voice , during a time travel episode in the . Originally for a one-off episode, Flowers was re-introduced late in the , four episodes before the season finale. Flowers later made an appearance in the season finale of the . Rooster Teeth Productions has also made special videos, using "Red vs. Blue" characters, to be shown at Barenaked Ladies shows. In February 2009, he starred as Captain Dynamic, in Rooster Teeth Productions live action mini-series, "Captain Dynamic", which promotes the video game "City of Heroes".


title: Ed Robertson

text: Robertson is an avid pinball player and collector. The title of Barenaked Ladies 2015 album "Silverball" reflects this, and the music video for the title track was filmed in Robertson's own collection of 10 pinball machines. In February 2016 Ed appeared on the popular Twitch pinball stream "Bro, Do You Even Pinball?" where he talked about his love for the game and competed against the shows' hosts from Buffalo Pinball.


title: Ed Robertson

text: Robertson won Humber College's inaugural Euterpe Award at the close of the 2005 Humber Songwriting Workshop. In his honour, the school named a scholarship after him for their summer songwriting workshop.


title: Ed Robertson

text: Having an interest in acting, Robertson had a cameo in "Charlie's Angels 2", which was offered to him by director Joseph McGinty Nichol, who had directed Barenaked Ladies' video for "One Week". Robertson had a larger role in the independent Canadian film "Love, Sex and Eating the Bones", which was directed by childhood friend Sudz Sutherland.


title: Ed Robertson

text: Robertson collaborated with astronaut and musician Chris Hadfield in writing a brand new song for Music Monday 2013. Music Monday is a Canadian event to spread the importance of music education. The song, written by Ed and Chris, premiered on February 7, 2013 with Chris joining in from the International Space Station.


title: Ed Robertson

text: At 12:30 pm on August 24, 2008, Robertson was involved in a plane crash while piloting his amphibious Cessna 206, north of Bancroft, Ontario. He and his three passengers walked away from the crash with no apparent injuries. The Transport Canada Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Report (CADOR) indicated that the crash occurred after take-off from Baptiste Lake when Robertson apparently lost airspeed and settled into the trees approximately 300 metres in from the shoreline. The Transportation Safety Board handled the investigation. After several weeks, the TSB was unable to determine a cause of the crash, but cleared Robertson of any misconduct. Additionally, no evidence of mechanical problems was found. Investigator Ray Simpson reported that the investigation was unlikely to produce any further results, and had therefore been essentially closed. Simpson added that undetectable air currents could have been the cause of the crash, but there is no evidence for or against the possibility. He commended Robertson for being "outstanding" in his cooperation with the investigation.


title: Ó

text: Ó, ó (o-acute) is a letter in the Czech, Emilian-Romagnol, Faroese, Hungarian, Icelandic, Kashubian, Polish, Slovak, and Sorbian languages. This letter also appears in the Afrikaans, Catalan, Dutch, Irish, Nynorsk, Bokmål, Occitan, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and Galician languages as a variant of letter "o". In some cases, The Letter "ó" is used in some languages as in a high rising tone (e.g. Vietnamese) It is sometimes also used in English for loanwords.


title: Ó

text: Ó is the 24th letter of the Czech alphabet and the 28th letter of the Slovak alphabet. It represents .


title: Ó

text: In Dutch, the acute Ó accent is used to mark different meanings for words, for example and ("for" / "before"), or and ("to occur" / "to prevent").


title: Ó

text: In Emilian, ó is used to represent [o], e.g. "sótt" [sotː] "dry". In Romagnol, ó is used to represent [oː], e.g. "alóra" [aˈloːra] "then".


title: Ó

text: In Italian, "ó" is an optional symbol (especially used in dictionaries) sometimes used to indicate that a stressed "o" should be pronounced with a close sound: "córso" , "course", as opposed to "còrso" , "Corsican" (but both are commonly written with no accent marks when the context is clear). A similar process may occur with "é" and "è", as in "*pésca", "fishing", and "*pèsca" "peach", in which the accent mark is not written (both are written as "pesca").


title: Ó

text: Ó is the 23rd letter of the Kashubian alphabet and represents . It also represents in southern dialects.


title: Ó

text: It was proposed in 2018 that Ó should be one of their Latin alphabet to replace Ө and represents (or ). The proposal was modified to Ö in late 2019.


title: Ó

text: Ó is the 21st letter of the Polish alphabet, and represents . Historically it represented but morphed to over time (similar to English "oo").


title: Ó

text: In Portuguese, ó is used to mark a stressed in words whose stressed syllable is in an unpredictable location within the word, as in "pó" (dust) and "óculos" (glasses). If the location of the stressed syllable is predictable, the acute accent is not used. Ó contrasts with ô .


title: Ó

text: Ó was once widely used in Scottish, but it has now been largely superseded by "ò". It can still be seen in certain writings but is no longer used in standard orthography.


A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III is a 2012 American comedy film written, directed, and produced by Roman Coppola. It stars Charlie Sheen, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Katheryn Winnick and Patricia Arquette.


title: A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III

text: It premiered at the 2012 Rome Film Festival and had a limited release on February 8, 2013 in the United States, being the first release under the independent distributor, A24. Since its release, it has garnered a largely negative reception.


text: In the 1970s, successful graphic designer and ladies' man Charles Swan III (Sheen) is dumped by his girlfriend Ivana (Winnick), and it throws his life into a tailspin. He does not know whether he loves her or hates her or wants her back or never wants to see her again. Along with his best friend, Kirby (Schwartzman) and his manager, Saul (Murray), Charles starts to suffer from nightmares, fever dreams of past relationships and hits rock bottom as he tries to recover from the recent breakup and tries to turn his life around.


text: "It was surreal", says the Chicago composer and performer Liam Hayes, about appearing in the Roman Coppola film "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III". "I haven't played many gigs on a beach with a Hammond organ, you know?" Hayes, who has made music under the name Plush since the early 1990s, was contacted by Coppola after the director became a huge fan. "I just got so absorbed by his music", Coppola told "GQ" (UK) about Hayes and Plush.


text: The result of this appreciation was Hayes and Coppola making a soundtrack out of Hayes' music. "It evolved", says Hayes. "When we met to discuss the project we talked about possible songs. We talked some more, added a few more songs, and I ended up doing the score." Hayes also appears in the film performing the tune "So Much Music". It is not his first time onscreen: In 2000 he appeared in "High Fidelity" performing his song "Soaring and Boring".


text: On January 8, 2013, the film was released through video on demand and was released in a limited release in the United States on February 8, 2013.


text: "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III" received an overwhelmingly negative response from critics. Nathan Rabin of "The A.V. Club" gave the movie an F, saying that "it isn't a movie so much as a feature-length perfume commercial for a Charlie Sheen signature cologne with gorgeous packaging and absolutely nothing inside." The "Dallas Observer" said that the film "might generously be described as cut-and-paste – or more accurately as 'throw stuff to the wall and see what sticks'" and it was "a clunker". "The New York Daily News" gave "Charles Swan III" one star out of five, saying that "you want to swat it away" and that "maybe with this out of his [Coppola's] system, he'll think up something better." "Time" said that the film "does not lead to a deeper understanding of Charlie Sheen. It does, however, demonstrate his compulsion for poor judgment and bad choices. But weren't we already convinced of that?"


text: Lisa Schwarzbaum, reviewer for "Entertainment Weekly", gave the film a C and a milder response, writing, "The idea of this home-movie-with-higher-production-values directed by Roman Coppola is no less sweet for being unoriginal ... The execution, on the other hand, is perilously self-absorbed, a private party involving friends, family, too many fantasy sequences, and an abundance of costume and set design to create a notion of a stylized L.A. spritzed with eau de "Playboy"."


text: The film holds a 16% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 56 reviews. The site's consensus reads: "Tiresomely self-indulgent and lacking any storytelling cohesion, this "Glimpse Inside the Mind" finds little food for thought." Metacritic gave the film a 28/100 "generally unfavorable" approval rating based on 22 reviews.


text: The film opened at #64 with US$12,000 in its limited release at two theaters the week of February 8. The following weekend, the weekend of February 15, "Charles Swan III" expanded to 18 theaters and gained an 81.6% increase. As of July 11, 2013, the domestic total of "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III" is US$45,350, and in Russia the film has grossed $134,473, with an additional $26,999 in Mexico.


title: Runestone

text: A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition began in the 4th century and lasted into the 12th century, but most of the runestones date from the late Viking Age. Most runestones are located in Scandinavia, but there are also scattered runestones in locations that were visited by Norsemen during the Viking Age. Runestones are often memorials to dead men. Runestones were usually brightly coloured when erected, though this is no longer evident as the colour has worn off. The vast majority of runestones are found in Sweden.


title: Runestone

text: The tradition of raising stones that had runic inscriptions first appeared in the 4th and 5th century, in Norway and Sweden, and these early runestones were usually placed next to graves. The earliest Danish runestones appeared in the 8th and 9th centuries, and there are about 50 runestones from the Migration Period in Scandinavia. Most runestones were erected during the period 950–1100 CE, and then they were mostly raised in Sweden, and to a lesser degree in Denmark and Norway.


title: Runestone

text: What may have increased the spread of runestones was an event in Denmark in the 960s. King Harald Bluetooth had just been baptised and in order to mark the arrival of a new order and a new age, he commanded the construction of a runestone. The inscription reads


title: Runestone

text: The runestone has three sides of which two are decorated with images. On one side, there is an animal that is the prototype of the runic animals that would be commonly engraved on runestones, and on another side there is Denmark's oldest depiction of Jesus. Shortly after this stone had been made, something happened in Scandinavia's runic tradition. Scores of chieftains and powerful Norse clans consciously tried to imitate King Harald, and from Denmark a runestone wave spread northwards through Sweden. In most districts, the fad died out after a generation, but, in the central Swedish provinces of Uppland and Södermanland, the fashion lasted into the 12th century.


title: Runestone

text: There are about 3,000 runestones among the about 6,000 runic inscriptions in Scandinavia. There are also runestones in other parts of the world as the tradition of raising runestones followed the Norsemen wherever they went, from the Isle of Man (Manx Runestones) in the west to the Black Sea in the east (Berezan' Runestone), and from Jämtland in the north to Schleswig in the south.


title: Runestone

text: The runestones are unevenly distributed in Scandinavia: Denmark has 250 runestones, Norway has 50 while Iceland has none. Sweden has as many as between 1,700 and 2,500 depending on definition. The Swedish district of Uppland has the highest concentration with as many as 1,196 inscriptions in stone, whereas Södermanland is second with 391.


title: Runestone

text: Outside of Scandinavia, the Isle of Man stands out with its 30 runestones from the 9th century and early 11th century. Scattered runestones have also been found in England, Ireland, Scotland and the Faroe Islands. With the exception of the runestone on Berezan', there are no runestones in Eastern Europe, which probably is due to a lack of available stones and the fact that the local population probably did not treat the foreigners' stones with much respect.


title: Runestone

text: Runestones were placed on selected spots in the landscape, such as assembly locations, roads, bridge constructions, and fords. In medieval churches, there are often runestones that have been inserted as construction material, and it is debated whether they were originally part of the church location or had been moved there. In southern Scania, runestones can be tied to large estates that also had churches constructed on their land. In the Mälaren Valley, the runestones appear to be placed so that they mark essential parts of the domains of an estate, such as courtyard, grave field, and borders to neighbouring estates. Runestones usually appear as single monuments and more rarely as pairs. In some cases, such as the Hunnestad Monument, they are part of larger monuments together with other raised stones.


title: Runestone

text: Although scholars know where 95% of all runestones were discovered, only about 40% were discovered in their original location. The remainder have been found in churches, roads, bridges, graves, farms, and water routes. On the other hand, scholars agree that the stones were not moved very far from their original sites.


title: Runestone

text: In many districts, 50% of the stone inscriptions have traces of Christianity, but, in Uppland, which has the highest concentration of runic inscriptions in the world, about 70% of the 1,196 stone inscriptions are explicitly Christian, which is shown by engraved crosses or added Christian prayers, and only a few runestones are not Christian.


title: Runestone

text: Scholars have suggested that the reason why so many Christian runestones were raised in Uppland is that the district was the focal point in the conflict between Norse paganism and the newly Christianized King of Sweden. It is possible that the chieftains tried to demonstrate their allegiance to the king and to display their Christian faith to the world and to God by adding Christian crosses and prayers on their runestones. What speaks against this theory is the fact that Norway, Denmark, and Götaland did not have any corresponding development in the runestone tradition. Moreover, not a single runestone declares that there was any relationship towards the king. Additionally, the runestones appear to show that the conversion was a rather peaceful process.


title: Runestone

text: According to another theory, it was a social fashion that was popular among certain clans, but not among all of them. Once some clans in southern Uppland had begun to raise runestones, neighbouring clans emulated them. However, in parts where these clans were less influential, the runestone raising did not reach the same popularity. Several scholars have pointed out the long Viking expeditions and the considerable amassment of wealth in the district. At this time, Swedish chieftains near Stockholm had created considerable fortunes through trade and pillaging both in the East and in the West. They had seen the Danish Jelling stones or they had been inspired by Irish high crosses and other monuments.


title: Runestone

text: The runestones show the different ways in which Christianity changed Norse society, and one of the greatest changes involved no longer burying the deceased on the clan's grave field among his ancestors. Instead, he was buried in the cemetery of the church, while the runestone would serve as a memorial at the homestead, but for certain families, there was less change as they had churches built adjoining the family grave field.


title: Runestone

text: The main purpose of a runestone was to mark territory, to explain inheritance, to boast about constructions, to bring glory to dead kinsmen and to tell of important events. In some parts of Uppland, the runestones also appear to have functioned as social and economical markers.


title: Runestone

text: Virtually all the runestones from the late Viking Age make use of the same formula. The text tells in memory of whom the runestone is raised, who raised it, and often how the deceased and the one who raised the runestone are related to each other. Also, the inscription can tell the social status of the dead person, possible foreign voyage, place of death, and also a prayer, as in the following example, the Lingsberg Runestone U 241:


title: Runestone

text: Most runestones were raised by men and only one runestone in eight is raised by a single woman, while at least 10% are raised by a woman together with several men. It is common that the runestones were raised by sons and widows of the deceased, but they could also be raised by sisters and brothers. It is almost only in Uppland, Södermanland, and Öland that women raised runestones together with male relatives. It is not known why many people such as sisters, brothers, uncles, parents, housecarls, and business partners can be enumerated on runestones, but it is possible that it is because they are part of the inheritors.


title: Runestone

text: A vast majority, 94%, are raised in memory of men, but, contrary to common perception, the vast majority of the runestones are raised in memory of people who died at home. The most famous runestones and those that people tend to think of are those that tell of foreign voyages, but they comprise only c. 10% of all runestones, and they were raised in usually memory of those not having returned from Viking expeditions and not as tributes to those having returned. These runestones contain roughly the same message as the majority of the runestones, which is that people wanted to commemorate one or several dead kinsmen.


title: Runestone

text: The first man who scholars know fell on the eastern route was the East Geat Eyvindr whose fate is mentioned on the 9th century Kälvesten Runestone. The epitaph reads:


title: Runestone

text: It is unfortunate for historians that the stones rarely reveal where the men died. On the Smula Runestone in Västergötland, we are informed only that they died during a war campaign in the East: "Gulli/Kolli raised this stone in memory of his wife's brothers Ásbjôrn and Juli, very good valiant men. And they died in the east in the retinue". Another runemaster in the same province laconically states on the Dalum Runestone: "Tóki and his brothers raised this stone in memory of their brothers. One died in the west, another in the east".


title: Runestone

text: The country that is mentioned on the most runestones is the Byzantine Empire, which at the time comprised most of Asia Minor and the Balkans, as well as a part of Southern Italy. If a man died in the Byzantine Empire, no matter how he had died or in which province, the event was noted as "he died in Greece". Sometimes an exception could be made for Southern Italy, which was known as the land of the Lombards, such as Inga's Óleifr who, it is presumed, was a member of the Varangian Guard, and about whom the Djulafors Runestone in Södermanland says: "Inga raised this stone in memory of Óleifr, her ... He ploughed his stern to the east, and met his end in the land of the Lombards."


title: Runestone

text: Other Norsemen died in Gardariki (Russia and Ukraine) such as Sigviðr on the Esta Runestone who his son Ingifastr reported had fled in Novgorod ("Holmgarðr"): "He fell in Holmgarðr, the ship's leader with the seamen." There were others who died not as far from home and it appears that there were close contacts with Estonia due to many personal names such as "Æistfari" ("traveller to Estonia"), "Æistulfr" ("Wolf of Estonians") and Æistr ("Estonian"). One of the runestones that report of deaths in Estonia is the Ängby Runestone which tells that a Björn had died in Vironia ("Virland").


title: Runestone

text: There were many ways to die as reported by the runestones. The Åda Runestone reports that Bergviðr drowned during a voyage to Livonia, and the Sjonhem Runestone tells that the Gotlander Hróðfúss was killed in a treacherous way by what was probably a people in the Balkans. The most famous runestones that tell of eastern voyages are the Ingvar Runestones which tell of Ingvar the Far-Travelled's expedition to Serkland, i.e., the Muslim world. It ended in tragedy as none of the more than 25 runestones that were raised in its memory tells of any survivor.


title: Runestone

text: Other Vikings travelled westwards. The Anglo-Saxon rulers paid large sums, Danegelds, to Vikings, who mostly came from Denmark and who arrived to the English shores during the 990s and the first decades of the 11th century. What may be part of a Danegeld has been found submerged in a creek in Södra Betby in Södermanland, Sweden. At the location, there is also a runestone with the text: "[...] raise the stone in memory of Jôrundr, his son, who was in the west with Ulfr, Hákon's son." It is not unlikely that the voyage westwards is connected with the English silver treasure. Other runestones are more explicit with the Danegelds. Ulf of Borresta who lived in Vallentuna travelled westwards several times, as reported on the Yttergärde Runestone:


title: Runestone

text: Tosti may have been the Swedish chieftain Skoglar Tosti who is otherwise only mentioned by Snorri Sturluson in "Heimskringla" and who Snorri reports to have been a "great warrior" who "was out for long periods of time on war expeditions". Þorketill was Thorkell the Tall, one of the most famous Viking chieftains, and who often stayed in England. Knútr is no one else but Canute the Great, who became king of England in 1016.


title: Runestone

text: Canute sent home most of the Vikings who had helped him conquer England, but he kept a strong bodyguard, the Þingalið. It was considered to be a great honour to be part of this force, and, on the Häggeby Runestone in Uppland, it is reported that Geiri "sat in the Assembly's retinue in the west", and the Landeryd Runestone mentions Þjalfi "who was with Knútr". Some Swedish Vikings wanted nothing else but to travel with Danes such as Thorkell and Canute the Great, but they did not make it to their destinations. Sveinn, who came from Husby-Sjuhundra in Uppland, died when he was half-way to England, as explained on the runestone that was raised in his memory: "He died in Jútland. He meant to travel to England". Other Vikings, such as Guðvér did not only attack England, but also Saxony, as reported by the Grinda Runestone in Södermanland:


title: Runestone

text: There are in total about 30 runestones that tell of people who went to England, see the England Runestones. Some of them are very laconic and only tell that the Viking was buried in London, or in Bath, Somerset.


title: Runestone

text: Swedish men who travelled to Denmark, England, or Saxony and the Byzantine Empire played an important part in the introduction of Christianity in Sweden, and two runestones tell of men baptized in Denmark, such as the runestone in Amnö, which says "He died in christening robes in Denmark." A similar message is given on another runestone in Vallentuna near Stockholm that tells that two sons waited until they were on their death beds before they converted: "They died in (their) christening robes." Christening robes or baptismal clothes, "hvitavaðir", were given to pagan Scandinavians when they were baptized, and in Uppland there are at least seven stones that tell of convertees having died in such robes.


title: Runestone

text: The language used by the missionaries appears on several runestones, and they suggest that the missionaries used a rather uniform language when they preached. The expression "light and paradise" is presented on three runestones, of which two are located in Uppland and a third on the Danish island Bornholm. The runestone U 160 in Risbyle says "May God and God's mother help his spirit and soul; grant him light and paradise." and the Bornholm runestone also appeals to Saint Michael: "May Christ and Saint Michael help the souls of Auðbjôrn and Gunnhildr into light and paradise."


title: Runestone

text: Christian terminology was superimposed on the earlier pagan, and so "Paradise" substituted "Valhalla", invocations to Thor and magic charms were replaced with Saint Michael, Christ, God, and the Mother of God. Saint Michael, who was the leader of the army of Heaven, subsumed Odin's role as the psychopomp, and led the dead Christians to "light and paradise". There are invocations to Saint Michael on one runestone in Uppland, one on Gotland, on three on Bornholm and on one on Lolland.


title: Runestone

text: There is also the Bogesund runestone that testifies to the change that people were no longer buried at the family's grave field: "He died in Eikrey(?). He is buried in the churchyard."


title: Runestone

text: Another interesting class of runestone is rune-stone-as-self promotion. Bragging was a virtue in Norse society, a habit in which the heroes of sagas often indulged, and is exemplified in runestones of the time. Hundreds of people had stones carved with the purpose of advertising their own achievements or positive traits. A few examples will suffice:


title: Runestone

text: Other runestones, as evidenced in two of the previous three inscriptions, memorialize the pious acts of relatively new Christians. In these, we can see the kinds of good works people who could afford to commission runestones undertook. Other inscriptions hint at religious beliefs. For example, one reads:


title: Runestone

text: Although most runestones were set up to perpetuate the memories of men, many speak of women, often represented as conscientious landowners and pious Christians:


title: Runestone

text: The only existing Scandinavian texts dating to the period before 1050 (besides a few finds of inscriptions on coins) are found amongst the runic inscriptions, some of which were scratched onto pieces of wood or metal spearheads, but for the most part they have been found on actual stones. In addition, the runestones usually remain in their original form and at their original locations, and so their importance as historical sources cannot be overstated.


title: Runestone

text: The inscriptions seldom provide solid historical evidence of events and identifiable people but instead offer insight into the development of language and poetry, kinship, and habits of name-giving, settlement, depictions from Norse paganism, place-names and communications, Viking as well as trading expeditions, and, not least, the spread of Christianity. Though the stones offer Scandinavian historians their main resource of information concerning early Scandinavian society, not much can be learned by studying the stones individually. The wealth of information that the stones provide can be found in the different movements and reasons for erecting the stones, in each region respectively. Approximately ten percent of the known runestones announce the travels and deaths of men abroad. These runic inscriptions coincide with certain Latin sources, such as the "Annals of St. Bertin" and the writings of Liudprand of Cremona, which contain valuable information on Scandinavians/Rus' who visited Byzantium.


title: Runestone

text: The inscription is usually arranged inside a band, which often has the shape of a serpent, a dragon or a quadruped beast.


title: Runestone

text: It appears from the imagery of the Swedish runestones that the most popular Norse legend in the area was that of Sigurd the dragon slayer. He is depicted on several runestones, but the most famous of them is the Ramsund inscription. The inscription itself is of a common kind that tells of the building of a bridge, but the ornamentation shows Sigurd sitting in a pit thrusting his sword, forged by Regin, through the body of the dragon, which also forms the runic band in which the runes are engraved. In the left part of the inscription lies Regin, who is beheaded with all his smithying tools around him. To the right of Regin, Sigurd is sitting and he has just burnt his thumb on the dragon's heart that he is roasting. He is putting the thumb in his mouth and begins to understand the language of the marsh-tits that are sitting in the tree. They warn him of Regin's schemes. Sigurd's horse Grani is also shown tethered to the tree.


title: Runestone

text: Another important personage from the legend of the Nibelungs is Gunnarr. On the Västerljung Runestone, there are three sides and one of them shows a man whose arms and legs are encircled by snakes. He is holding his arms stretched out gripping an object that may be a harp, but that part is damaged due to flaking. The image appears to be depicting an older version of the Gunnarr legend in which he played the harp with his fingers, which appears in the archaic eddic poem "Atlakviða".


title: Runestone

text: The Norse god who was most popular was Thor, and the Altuna Runestone in Uppland shows Thor's fishing expedition when he tried to capture the Midgard Serpent. Two centuries later, the Icelander Snorri Sturluson would write: "The Midgarth Serpent bit at the ox-head and the hook caught in the roof of its mouth. When it felt that, it started so violently that both Thor's fists went smack against the gunwale. Then Thor got angry, assumed all his godly strength, and dug his heels so sturdily that his feet went right through the bottom of the boat and he braced them on the sea bed." (Jansson's translation). The Altuna Runestone has also included the foot that went through the planks.


title: Runestone

text: It appears that Ragnarök is depicted on the Ledberg stone in Östergötland. On one of its sides it shows a large warrior with a helmet, and who is bitten at his feet by a beast. This beast is, it is presumed, Fenrir, the brother of the Midgard Serpent, and who is attacking Odin. On the bottom of the illustration, there is a prostrate man who is holding out his hands and who has no legs. There is a close parallel from an illustration at Kirk Andreas on the Isle of Man. The Manx illustration shows Odin with a spear and with one of his ravens on his shoulders, and Odin is attacked in the same way as he is on the Ledberg stone. Adding to the stone's spiritual content is a magic formula that was known all across the world of the pagan Norsemen.


title: Runestone

text: On one of the stones from the Hunnestad Monument in Scania, there is an image of a woman riding a wolf using snakes as reins. The stone may be an illustration of the giantess Hyrrokin ("fire-wrinkled"), who was summoned by the gods to help launch Baldr's funeral ship "Hringhorni", which was too heavy for them. It was the same kind of wolf that is referred to as the "Valkyrie horse" on the Rök runestone.


title: Runestone

text: Today, most runestones are painted with falu red, since the colour red makes it easy to discern the ornamentation, and it is appropriate since red paint was also used on runes during the Viking Age. In fact, one of the Old Norse words for "writing in runes" was "fá" and it originally meant "to paint" in Proto-Norse ("faihian"). Moreover, in "Hávamál", Odin says: "So do I write / and colour the runes" and in "Guðrúnarkviða II", Gudrun says "In the cup were runes of every kind / Written and reddened, I could not read them".


title: Runestone

text: There are several runestones where it is declared that they were originally painted. A runestone in Södermanland says "Here shall these stones stand, reddened with runes", a second runestone in the same province says "Ásbjörn carved and Ulfr painted" and a third runestone in Södermanland says "Ásbjôrn cut the stone, painted as a marker, bound with runes". Sometimes, the original colours have been preserved unusually well, and especially if the runestones were used as construction material in churches not very long after they had been made. One runestone in the church of Köping on Öland was discovered to be painted all over, and the colour of the words was alternating between black and red.


title: Runestone

text: The most common paints were red ochre, red lead, soot, calcium carbonate, and other earth colours, which were bound with fat and water. It also appears that the Vikings imported white lead, green malachite and blue azurite from Continental Europe. By using an electron microscope, chemists have been able to analyse traces of colours on runestones, and in one case, they discovered bright red vermilion, which was an imported luxury colour. However, the dominating colours were white and red lead. There are even accounts where runes were reddened with blood as in "Grettis saga", where the Völva Þuríðr cut runes on a tree root and coloured them with her own blood to kill Grettir, and in "Egils saga" where Egill Skallagrímsson cut ale runes on a drinking horn and painted them with his own blood to see if the drink was poisoned.


title: Runestone

text: In Sweden, lichen grows at approximately per year. In more ideal conditions it can grow considerably faster. Many runestones are placed alongside roads and road dust causes lichen to grow faster, making lichen a major problem. The lichen's small root strands break through the rock, and blast off tiny pieces, making the rock porous, and over time degrade the inscriptions. Algae and moss also cause the rock to become porous and crumble.


title: Runestone

text: Water entering the cracks and crevices of the stone can cause whole sections to fall off either by freezing or by a combination of dirt, organic matter, and moisture, which can cause a hollowing effect under the stone surface.


title: Runestone

text: Proper preservation techniques slow down the rate of degradation. One method to combat the lichen, algae and moss problem is to smear in fine-grained moist clay over the entire stone. This is then left to sit for a few weeks, which suffocates the organic matter and kills it.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The McLaren 650S is a British sports car designed and manufactured by British automobile manufacturer McLaren Automotive. It was announced in February 2014 as a new model, but based on the existing MP4-12C with 25% new parts, and was formally unveiled at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The 650S shares the MP4-12C's carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer chassis, and is powered by the same 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged McLaren M838T V8 engine, but is now rated at and of torque. Power is transmitted to the wheels through a seven-speed dual-clutch Seamless-Shift gearbox (SSG) provided by Graziano Trasmissioni.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The 650S is an evolution of the preceding 12C and uses the findings gained from the P1 in order to make the car more responsive and focused. It was initially designed to be offered alongside the 12C but the declining sales of the 12C prompted McLaren to market the 650S as its replacement. The 650 in the car's name refers to the engine's power output in "Pferdestärke", the European standard for horsepower while the S stands for Sport. Most of the components are carried over from the 12C which includes the carbon-fibre monocoque chassis which has aluminium subframes front and aft. The monocoque weighs and is manufactured by Carbo Tech, an aerospace contractor based in Austria. With an aim of building 4,000 cars per year, McLaren deemed the traditional pre-impregnation method used to mould parts too labour-intensive and instead used an alternative method which involves a resin transfer moulding process.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The process involves a mould whose tooling involves internal, removable mandrels for the hollow sections which allows the tub to be built in one piece. The pre-cut sheets of carbon fibre are placed in the tooling of the mould and aluminium components are also positioned to be bolted onto the monocoque later. To avoid the galvanic corrosion between aluminium and carbon, the aluminium components of the chassis are primed before assembly. The wide and deep hollow box sections on each side of the carbon fibre tub are designed for easy entry and exit from the car.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The powertrain of the 650S is largely carried over from the 12C but involves new pistons, better-flowing cylinder heads, new exhaust valves, and recalibrated camshaft timing. A new exhaust system also reduces weight while being more responsive. The red-line of the engine was increased to 8,500 rpm.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The engine is mated to the same 7-speed dual clutch transmission as in the 12C but it has been recalibrated for faster shift times. The 650S comes with new aluminium forged wheels wrapped in Pirelli P Zero Corsa tyres having wider contact patch than the previous versions for improved grip. In order to improve ride quality, McLaren used ProActive Chassis Control (PCC) which is a derivative of McLaren's F1 active suspension system. The system consists of dampers on either sides of the car which are hydraulically linked which allows the car to resist roll. The dampers have been divided into sections for rebound and compression. The front damper's compression is linked to the rear damper's rebound. The pressure is gathered in an accumulator which is controlled using gas pressure, by adjusting the pressure in each accumulator, the stiffness of the suspension is adjusted for different driving conditions.


title: McLaren 650S

text: A new front splitter and redesigned wing blades increase downforce by 24% over the 12C while the new tyres contribute to improved handling. The new rear diffuser is based on the bumper/diffuser concept and is carried over from the 12C GT3 race car. The air brake which is carried over from the 12C is now controlled by an onboard computer which uses the data gathered from accelerometers in the car in order to counteract lift. The 650S also makes use of a Drag Reduction System (DRS) for reducing drag and to improve the car's aerodynamics. Like the 12C, the 650S comes standard with a carbon ceramic braking system manufactured by Akebono but the problems related to braking response in the 12C were addressed and improvements were made.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The 650S featured a revised front end, resembling the flagship P1 in order to update the styling of the car and to give it a more aggressive appearance than its predecessor. The design language defined the design ethos of future McLaren sports cars.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The interior includes Alcantara as the standard upholstery material and the infotainment system is based on the same unit used in the P1. Optional carbon fibre sports seats reduce the weight of the car by 15 kg. The interior focus on a symmetrical design language which McLaren claims reduces the shift time required by the owner to learn about the car's functions. The portrait infotainment screen is improved over the 12C and the sat nav system is now easily accessible.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The 650S has a claimed top speed of , and can accelerate from in 3.0 seconds and from in 8.4 seconds.


title: McLaren 650S

text: First announced in February 2014, the 650S Spider is a convertible version of the 650S. It weighs more than the coupe, but it offers nearly identical performance. The Spider has the same structural stiffness as the coupé primarily because the carbon monocell chassis was designed without a roof. the Spider features a three-piece retractable hard-top carbon fibre roof which takes 17 seconds for operation.


title: McLaren 650S

text: It can accelerate from 0 to in 3 seconds and has a top speed of . Up to 25 percent of the parts are new compared to the 12C Spider.


title: McLaren 650S

text: An MSO (McLaren Special Operations) version of the 650S is offered in a limited production run of 50 vehicles. Introduced in 2014, the car was offered in three matte carbon, exclusive MSO colours, Papaya Spark, Agrigan Black and Sarigan Quartz. It features unique and lightweight alloy wheels. These are lighter than the standard alloys, helped by the fact that titanium wheel bolts are used. The interior is upholstered in Alcantara and contains a specialised plaque which has the car's designer Frank Stephenson's branded sketch and an MSO branded leather holdall.


title: McLaren 650S

text: In September 2014, McLaren launched an additional model to the range, the 625C, available in both coupé and roadster bodystyles and aimed at specific markets in the South Asia Pacific region. As with the 650S, the 625 in the model's name refers to the engine's power output in PS while the C refers to Club which hints at the less extreme nature of the car.


title: McLaren 650S

text: Powered by the same 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine, but with a reduced power output of . The 625C is fitted with new dampers and a revised suspension setup, including softer spring rates. Braking is by cast-iron discs instead of the carbon fibre-ceramic units fitted to the 650S. Top speed remains the same as the 650S but acceleration from is slightly slower at 3.1 seconds (when equipped with optional Pirelli P Zero Corsa tyres).


title: McLaren 650S

text: The McLaren 650S Le Mans was revealed in early 2015 to commemorate McLaren's inaugural win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995. This edition marks McLaren's 20th anniversary since this important win - it was also their first entry ever at Le Mans where five McLaren F1 GTRs finished 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 13th.


title: McLaren 650S

text: Developed by McLaren Special Operations, the McLaren 650S Le Mans is limited to 50 units all in coupé variants. It is inspired by the No.59 McLaren F1 GTR that won the 1995 Le Mans. Hence the 650S Le Mans is finished in a metallic Sarthe Grey exterior colour and fitted with ‘Le Mans Edition’ lightweight wheels. Other distinct features from the entry 650S model include a functional roof-mounted engine induction ‘snorkel’ and subtle louvres on the front wings.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The Can-Am is a limited edition of the 650S Spider developed by McLaren Special Operations and features cosmetic upgrades over the standard model. It was introduced as a celebration of the 50 years of the first Can-Am race. Differences from the standard 650S Spider include a carbon-fibre hood, roof, airbrake, door blades and front splitter. The car comes with forged alloy wheels with titanium wheel nuts in the style of the Can-Am race cars of the 1960s wrapped in Pirelli P Zero Corsa tyres. The car featured a slightly designed rear end featuring quad exhaust tips while the front has additional brake cooling gills on the front fenders. The launch car was finished in Mars Red harking back to Bruce McLaren's M1B race car. Other colours included racing orange and onyx black and were available in customisable race liveries. Production was limited to 50 units only.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The McLaren 675LT is a lightweight, track-focused evolution of the McLaren 650S. It was announced in February 2015 and introduced at the 2015 Geneva Motor Show. McLaren only made 500 675LT Coupe (without counting the special editions such as the MSO HS).


title: McLaren 650S

text: As with the 650S, the 675LT makes use of single-piece carbon fibre monocell weighing , and carbon fibre use in the vehicle is increased in order to further minimise weight and increase rigidity.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The 675LT is supplied with new carbon ceramic brake discs to increase braking performance over the 650S. Disc sizes are 394 mm at the front and 380 mm at the rear. Six-piston calipers grip the front discs with four-piston caliper used for the rears. Braking performance is also aided by the air brake ability of the new rear wing.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The 675LT makes use of a new 10-spoke wheel design, each weighing 800 g less than the alloy wheels on the McLaren P1, supplied in a 19-inch front and 20-inch rear fitment.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The new wheels are shod in Pirelli P-Zero Trofeo R track-focused, street-legal tyres which increase grip by up to 6% over the P-Zero Corsa sold with the 650S.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The length of the 675LT is more than the 650S. The 675LT utilises a new rear wing/air brake assembly 50% larger than that used in the 650S, along with a new carbon fibre diffuser and an 80% larger front splitter with sizeable endplates that together increase total downforce by 40%.


title: McLaren 650S

text: New carbon fibre pieces include both the front and rear bumpers as well as front undertray, rear fenders, side intakes and decklid that contribute to the significant weight savings over the 650S. Alcantara is used throughout the interior where carpeting is removed and removal of the air conditioning unit and new carbon fibre race seats together save although an adjustable passenger seat and air-conditioning are included as no-cost options. Other differences from the 650S' interior include the integration of climate controls into the centre console mounted touch screen. 1 millimetre thinner window glass further reduces weight by . New 10-spoke forged aluminium wheels with titanium wheel nuts reduce weight by . This extreme focus in weight saving results in a dry weight of , less than the 650S.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The car is powered by a variation of the M838T twin-turbocharged V8 engine rated at at 7,100 rpm and at 5,500 rpm. This is achieved through the addition of new lightweight connecting rods, a bespoke camshaft, an electronic recirculation valve and a lightweight titanium exhaust featuring dual circular outlets. Also used in the engine are revised turbocharger compressor wheels and an optimised fuel pump.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The 675LT uses the 7-speed automatic dual-clutch gearbox used in the 650S, with improved software reducing the shift time.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The 675LT can accelerate from 0– in 2.9 seconds, 0.1 seconds faster than the 650S. 0– in 7.9 seconds, 0– in 25.9 seconds, 0– in 31.2 seconds, and do the sprint in 10.3 seconds at , continuing on to a claimed top speed of .


title: McLaren 650S

text: The 675 in the 675LT model name refers to the power output of , following the naming scheme started by the 650S. The LT in the model name is a reference to the "Long Tail" 1997 McLaren F1 GT which was the final incarnation of the F1 road car built to comply with FIA homologation regulations for the 1997 F1 GTR. The F1 GT featured extended front and rear overhangs that produced similar downforce to the previous homologation special, the F1 LM, without the use of a drag-inducing fixed rear wing.


title: McLaren 650S

text: A convertible variant of the 675LT was revealed online in December 2015. It shares the same , 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine as the coupé, but has a folding hardtop roof as seen on the 650S Spider taking 16 seconds for operation. The 675LT Spider can accelerate from in 2.9 seconds and in 8.1 seconds. The top speed is reduced slightly, to . McLaren only built 500 675LT Spider (without counting special editions such as the Carbon Series).


title: McLaren 650S

text: In June 2016, McLaren publicly released the 675LT Spider Carbon Series. The cars are based on the 675LT Spider and have the same engine and performance. An extra 40 percent of the body panels are carbon fiber such as the retractable roof and tonneau, A-pillars, bonnet and rear deck, side blades, complete front and rear wings, and even fuel filler flap. Only 25 Carbon Series have been built bringing the total number of 675LTs Spider to 525.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The McLaren MSO HS is a limited version of the outgoing 650S model and is based on the 675LT variant, inspired by the McLaren P1 GTR. It was introduced online in late 2015 and publicly in August 2016. The car is lighter and more powerful than the 675LT, the upgraded engine now rated at and of torque at 7,000 rpm. The car is approximately lighter than the 675LT thanks to the use of Alcantara interior upholstery and carbon fibre racing seats with racing harnesses similar to those found in the P1 GTR, although, a Nappa leather interior upholstery is optional. Exterior changes include a new bumper with front splitters, roof mounted air scoop, full length side skirts and an adjustable fixed rear wing, inspired by the P1 GTR. The wing can be adjusted electronically via the settings programmed in the car's computer. Overall exterior modifications of the car help generate of downforce at . Only 25 were made with each car fully customisable by the customer, bringing the total number of 675LTs to 525. Performance figures of the car remain unknown but the car is likely to have improvements in acceleration, handling and top speed.


title: McLaren 650S

text: In October 2017, McLaren announced the one-offs MSO R Coupe and MSO R Spider both ordered by the same customer. The cars use the same engine as the MSO HS. One way to differentiate the MSO HS from the MSO R is with the rear wing which has 2 levels on the MSO R. Both cars are silver but the coupe has a matte finish. The cars have been seen wearing German license plates with the coupe's reading "M RR 688" and the spider's reading "M SR 688".


title: McLaren 650S

text: In June 2014, McLaren announced that they would produce a GT3 version of the 650S, either as a new car or as an upgrade for the existing 12C GT3 – which will contest GT3 championships from 2015 onwards.


title: McLaren 650S

text: Changes to the car from the road car includes a new 6-speed sequential motorsport gearbox; 380 mm ventilated brake discs with six-piston calipers at the front and four-piston units at the rear; a 52 mm wider track; revised suspension geometry and upgraded components. It is distinguished from the road car by larger air intakes and front splitter, and carbon fibre air intakes and a new rear wing.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The 3.8-litre McLaren twin-turbocharged V8 engine, also used in the 12C-GT3, produces , and includes a new ECU to improve turbo boost and gearshifts. The power output is lower than the road going 650S's due to homologation.


title: McLaren 650S

text: Andrew Kirkaldy, whose CRS Racing team developed the GT3 version of the MP4-12C, said that they were aiming to develop a version that conforms to the LM GTE regulations at the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans, but the plan never worked and didn't appear at the endurance race event.


title: McLaren 650S

text: The 650S achieved its biggest success when it won the 2016 Liqui Moly Bathurst 12 Hour race in Australia at the hands of Álvaro Parente, Shane van Gisbergen and Jonathon Webb. Van Gisbergen set a new outright lap record with a time of 2:01.567 on 7 February 2016.


title: Deities and personifications of seasons

text: There are a number of deities associated with seasons and personifications of seasons in various mythologies, traditions, and fiction.


title: Deities and personifications of seasons

text: In ancient Greek mythology Anemoi were the gods of wind, three of which were associated with seasons:


title: Dare (band)

text: Dare is an English rock band from Oldham, England, fronted by former Thin Lizzy keyboard player Darren Wharton. They formed in 1985 and have released ten albums to date, nine studio and one live. An eleventh album was stated as planned to be released in 2019, although this did not happen, the release of "Road to Eden" announced by the band in January 2022.


title: Dare (band)

text: Dare was formed in 1985 by former Thin Lizzy keyboard player Darren Wharton after Phil Lynott had dissolved the band. By 1987, Dare had gained a local following in Oldham and, in 1987, were signed with a four-year deal by A&M.


title: Dare (band)

text: The band's debut album, "Out of the Silence", was released in 1988 on A&M Records. It was recorded in Los Angeles at singer Joni Mitchell's private studio in Beverly Hills. The lineup for this album consisted of Darren Wharton (vocals/keyboards), Vinny Burns (guitars), Martin 'Shelley' Shelton (bass), James Ross (drums), and (now Professor) Brian Cox (keyboards).


title: Dare (band)

text: The follow-up album "Blood from Stone" was released in 1991, by which time Nigel Clutterbuck played bass guitar and Greg Morgan was on drums. With a much harder edge than the previous release, the second album was produced in Los Angeles by sound engineer Keith Olsen. Wharton since commented that while he is "very proud of that album..., ...we should have stuck to our guns musically and not try and jump on the heavy metal band wagon." He added, ""Blood from Stone" was written to please the rock press of the world."


title: Dare (band)

text: Dare had minor success in Europe, but album sales flagged and the band was dropped from their label (which had been acquired by Polygram), despite "Blood from Stone" peaking at No. 48 in the UK Albums Chart. The band also had five songs in the UK Singles Chart: "Abandon" (No. 71, 1989), "Nothing Is Stronger Than Love" (No. 95, 1989) and "The Raindance" (No. 62, 1989) from "Out of the Silence", and "We Don't Need a Reason" (No. 52, 1991) and "Real Love" (No. 67, 1991) from "Blood from Stone".


title: Dare (band)

text: It would be 1998 before a third album was released - "Calm Before the Storm", produced by Wharton. Wharton has since commented on the emergence of Dare's Celtic sound, stating, "I think that was mainly a part of my Thin Lizzy roots. "Out of the Silence" was quite Celtic in some of its stuff. You know, "The Raindance" and "King of Spades". You know, I spent my early career with Thin Lizzy, so that rubbed off me a great deal, working with Phil Lynott and Scott Gorham. And those Irish roots and the Celtic roots, where I live in Wales... You know, it's a very similar type of genre of folk music." By the time "Calm Before the Storm" was released, in a further personnel reshuffle Vinny Burns, Brian Cox and Nigel Clutterbuck had all departed. Andrew Moore was credited with guitars, Martin Wilding with bass, and Julian Gardner with drums. Under 'additional musicians' Kevin Whitehead was credited with drums and Richard Dews with acoustic guitar and backing vocals. Of those departing, Brian Cox would play with D:Ream before becoming a particle physicist and science communicator. Prior to returning to Dare in 2008, Burns (who departed in 1992 to join Asia) would play with a selection of other bands including Ultravox and Ten, as well as releasing a solo album "The Journey" in 1999. Clutterbuck eventually returned to Dare in 2014.


title: Dare (band)

text: "Belief" was released in 2001. The first single from the album, "White Horses", was playlisted by Sir Terry Wogan on the UK's largest national radio station, BBC Radio 2. Tours throughout Europe and Scandinavia were to follow, including a 12 date tour with Asia in the UK. Line up for the album was Darren Wharton (vocals and keyboards), Richard Dews (acoustic guitar and lead), Andrew Moore (electric guitar and lead), and Julian Gardner (drums and percussion).


title: Dare (band)

text: In the summer of 2004, "Beneath the Shining Water" was released. The single "Sea of Roses" received considerable airplay on Radio 2. In 2008 "Beneath the Shining Water" and "Belief" were released as a double CD though Warner Music/ADA in the U.S.


title: Dare (band)

text: In October 2009, "Arc of the Dawn" was released on Wharton's own label, Legend Records. Line up for the album was Darren Wharton (vocals and keyboards), Richard Dews (guitars and backing vocals), and Kevin Whitehead (drums). Sleeve notes included 'Dare Live' which featured the addition of Vinny Burns on guitars. This set-up was retained for "Calm Before the Storm 2" which was released in 2012, a re-record of the original "Calm Before the Storm" album with previously unreleased bonus tracks.


title: Dare (band)

text: Dare's sole live album to date, "The Power of Nature: Live in Munich" was released in 2005. The album was also available in DVD format.


title: Dare (band)

text: Dare released "Sacred Ground" in July 2016. The album is often referred to as studio album seven, given that "Calm Before The Storm 2" from 2012 was essentially a re-record, and does include a '7' in the cover artwork design. Line up for "Sacred Ground" was Darren Wharton (vocals and keyboards), Vinny Burns (guitars), Kevin Whitehead (drums), Nigel Clutterbuck (bass). Sleeve notes featured the addition of Marc Roberts on keyboards for live shows. The album topped the Amazon Rock Charts in the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy, and received predominantly positive reviews, albeit these usually genre-specific. A typical example might be MelodicRock.com which comments that: "the album features some of Wharton’s most mature song writing to date. Thought provoking and passionate, whilst still retaining a dark rock edge". It continues: "the return of the masterful Vinny Burns on guitar is certainly a stroke of brilliance. Vinny's guitar takes the songs to the next level, delivering the rock edge that fans have wanted. Yes, tempo is far more 'up' than recent work and like past Dare albums, it does take several listens to get to know the tunes. The similar pacing makes it a little harder to separate the songs initially, but as always with Dare, it is all about mood. And no one does mood better than Darren Wharton and Vinny Burns". The summation includes: "There are no fillers here – 11 great tracks of keyboard and guitar framed music; this is a wonderful album that takes a step back from the Celtic influences of recent times and a huge step back towards straight ahead moody AOR".


title: Dare (band)

text: In an interview for metalcovent.com in August 2016, Wharton commented that "I've got a new album almost ready to go for next year, so. So it won't be 4 years 'til the next one".


title: Dare (band)

text: Tour dates/venues during 2017 included the Oslo Hard Rock Café in Norway, the Rockingham Festival at Nottingham Trent University, UK, Winter Storm in Scotland, and the H.E.A.T festival in Germany. The band continued to tour into 2018 and by September 2018 venues had included Hard Rock Heaven (UK), row Club (Athens, Greece), and Melodic Rock Festival (Sweden). The band had also co-headlined five UK shows with FM. On 4 May 2018, the band announced the Anniversary Special Edition of Out Of The Silence, "Out Of The Silence II". The original album has been completely re-recorded and was released on 29 June that year, with pre-sales having started on 18 May. On 9 May 2018, the band announced the launch of a new official website. On 30 November 2018, Dare announced initial European tour details for 2019, which by 6 January 2019 had expanded to 22 dates in Belgium, Germany, Holland, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. A new album was scheduled for release in 2019, but as of July 2020 this had not happened, but was pending according the Dare FaceAche page. Dare continued to tour into 2020 with their first appearance being on the King's call Cruise (4–5 January). Other confirmed dates for 2020 (as of January 2020) were at the Cascais Rock Fest on 25 Jan (with Cutting Crew and The Stranglers), and at the Rock of Ages Festival, Germany 31 July – 2 August. In line with official guidance/regulations, all 2020 show were halted from March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Dare (band)

text: In a Christmas wishes post to fans on Dare's official Facebook page, on 24 December 2020 Wharton commented that the band would "hopefully see you all next year [2021] with our brand new album".


title: Dare (band)

text: On 25 August 2021 on Dare's official Facebook page a Christmas headline show at Holmfirth Picturedrome (4 December) was announced. At the same time an update on the pending new album was given: "In the coming weeks we'll be announcing the brand new DARE album, title and release date, plus full UK tour dates for 2022. The new album will be released on CD & Vinyl." On 8 October an initial date for 2022 was announced (Chester Live Rooms; 4 March), with additional dates to follow.


title: Dare (band)

text: The latest Dare album, "Road To Eden" was announced by the band on 10 January 2022, with a release date by Legend Records of 1 April 2022. An initial track from the album (the lead track), "Born in the Storm" was announced at the same time. Line up for the album remains Darren Wharton (vocals and keyboards), Vinny Burns (guitars), Kevin Whitehead (drums), Nigel Clutterbuck (bass) and Marc Roberts (keyboards). Also on the 10 January a 12-date UK headline tour in October 2022 was announced, this kicking off in Leeds on 6 October, and concluding in Newbury on 29 October. Additional dates were later added, these including an appearance at Cambridge Rock Festival.


title: Latrine

text: A latrine is a toilet or an even simpler facility that is used as a toilet within a sanitation system. For example, it can be a communal trench in the earth in a camp to be used as emergency sanitation, a hole in the ground (pit latrine), or more advanced designs, including pour-flush systems.


title: Latrine

text: The term "latrine" is still commonly used military parlance, less so in civilian usage except in emergency sanitation situations. Nowadays, the word "toilet" is more commonly used than "latrine", except for simple systems like "pit latrine" or "trench latrine".


title: Latrine

text: The use of latrines was a major advancement in sanitation over more basic practices such as open defecation, and helped control the spread of many waterborne diseases. However, unsafe defecation in unimproved latrines still remained a widespread problem by the end of 2020, with more than 3 billion people affected (46 % of the global population). Eradication of this public health threat is one of the United Nations' 17 goals for sustainable development.


title: Latrine

text: The word "latrine" is derived from the Latin "lavatrina", meaning bath. Today it is commonly used in the term "pit latrine". It has the connotation of something being less advanced and less hygienic than a standard toilet . It is typically used to describe communal facilities, such as the shallow-trench latrines used in emergency sanitation situations, e.g. after an earthquake, flood or other natural disaster.


title: Latrine

text: Many forms of latrine technology have been used, from very simple to more complex. The more sophisticated the system, the more likely that the term "toilet" is used instead of "latrine".


title: Latrine

text: A pit latrine is a simple and inexpensive toilet, minimally defined as a hole (pit) in the ground. More sophisticated pit latrines may include a floor plate, or ventilation to reduce odor and fly and mosquito breeding (called ventilated improved pit latrine or "VIP latrine"). Many military units, if intended for extended use, place basic shelters and seating over the pits. A pit is typically sited well away from any water sources to minimize possible contamination. After prolonged use, a pit is typically buried.


title: Latrine

text: Other types of pit latrines may include the Reed Odourless Earth Closet, the arborloo or treebog (very simple types of composting toilet), or the twin pit pour-flush pit latrine, popularized by Sulabh International.


title: Latrine

text: In a location without longer term sanitation infrastructure, such as for emergency sanitation, a trench latrine is a workable solution. It typically consists of a pit or a trench in the ground, to deep and to long.


title: Latrine

text: A slit-trench latrine consists of a relatively shallow trench which is narrow enough to stand with one leg on either side (see defecation postures). This type is used either by squatting, with the users' legs straddling the pit, or by various arrangements for sitting or leaning against a support structure. Such support may be simply a log, plank, branch or similar arrangement placed at right angles to the long axis of the pit. This type of latrine is not commonly found in developing countries but can be used for emergency sanitation.


title: Latrine

text: The shallow-trench latrine is similar to the slit-trench latrine but is wider (200-300mm wide) than the latter. It is also shallow, with a depth of about 150 mm. This type of latrine is often used in the initial phases of emergencies and is a simple improvement on open defecation fields.  A rule of thumb in emergency sanitation provision is to allow 0.25 m of land per person per day. This means 2,500m per 10,000 people per day, or nearly two hectares per week. Men's and women's areas should always be separated.


title: Latrine

text: An aqua privy is essentially a small septic tank located directly below a dry toilet squatting pan or bowl which has a drop pipe extending below the liquid level in the tank to form a simple water seal to minimise odors.


title: The Laughing Cow

text: The Laughing Cow () is a brand of processed cheese products made by Fromageries Bel since 1921, and in particular refers to the brand's most popular product, the spreadable wedge.


title: The Laughing Cow

text: The cheese is a blend of cream, milk and fresh and aged cheeses, particularly comté, which are pasteurized to stop the ripening process. Versatile and portable because of its pasteurization process, Laughing Cow can remain unrefrigerated for a limited length of time. The archetypal Laughing Cow cheese comes wrapped in the individual serving-sized foiled wedges and they are packaged in a round, flat box. Consumers have to pull a little red thread around the box to open it and the foil packaging also features a red tab for opening. The company was founded in 1921. The Laughing Cow is available in these formats in different worldwide markets:


title: The Laughing Cow

text: The Laughing Cow USA introduced a TV commercial in 2009 where the company introduced a new slogan, "Have you laughed today?". In 2010 they updated the brand's website to include cheese recipes.


title: The Laughing Cow

text: Laughing Cow cheese is available in its original flavour, a light version with 7% fat, and an ultra-light version with 3% fat. In addition, flavoured versions of the cheese (such as ham, gruyère, garlic, paprika, mushroom, chèvre, bleu, hazelnut, pizza, jalapeño and onion) are also available in various markets worldwide.


title: The Laughing Cow

text: The Laughing Cow is a red and white cow depicted as being jovial, and almost always wearing ear tags that look like the round boxes the cheese comes in. On April 16, 1921, Léon Bel trademarked his brand, as , in France. In the trademark, the cow is said to have 'a hilarious expression'. Bel had made the original drawing himself, after seeing a travelling meat wagon during World War I called , a play on the word for "Valkyrie". In the beginning the cow was not laughing, was not red and did not wear ear tags. This patent was the very first branded cheese product registered in France. In 1924, illustrator Benjamin Rabier edited the drawing into something more like the image that prevails today. The blue and white stripes around the box date from 1955. Since 1976 both ear-tag boxes have been shown with the top-side visible. Before that year consumers were shown a top and bottom side. The current logo uses the Droste effect, with the laughing cow appearing inside the ear tags.


title: The Laughing Cow

text: The cheese has long been popular in the United Kingdom and Canada as a children's snack. The cheese has also been a constant, but hardly popular, product in the United States for a number of years. However, demand for the triangular wedges has increased significantly recently, since the light version of the product was suggested as a viable menu item to followers of the South Beach Diet. The question asked by the French, ("Why is The Laughing Cow laughing?") has become synonymous with the product.


title: The Laughing Cow

text: Groupe Bel announced plans to open a €13 million factory in Syria on October 2, 2005. This was the first such direct investment in that nation by a French food company.


title: Mickey Madden

text: Michael Allen Madden (born May 13, 1979) is an American musician and a former bassist for the pop rock band Maroon 5.


title: Mickey Madden

text: Madden was born in Austin, Texas. He began playing in junior high school at the Brentwood School in Los Angeles, playing in garages along with friends Jesse Carmichael (guitar/vocals) and Adam Levine (vocals/guitar). The bands Pearl Jam and Nirvana were among their influences. In 1994, with the addition of Ryan Dusick (drums), the band Kara's Flowers was formed.


title: Mickey Madden

text: After the break-up of Kara's Flowers, Madden attended classes at UCLA. After Madden attended college, the group reformed with guitarist James Valentine joining the line-up, and Jesse Carmichael mainly playing the keyboards, and pursued a new musical direction, changing their name to Maroon 5. Throughout their career, the band has released six studio albums: "Songs About Jane" (2002), "It Won't Be Soon Before Long" (2007), "Hands All Over" (2010), "Overexposed" (2012), "V" (2014) and "Red Pill Blues" (2017).


title: Mickey Madden

text: Until his departure from Maroon 5 on July 14, 2020, Madden was the only other member besides Adam Levine to have remained in both Kara's Flowers and Maroon 5 consistently.


title: Mickey Madden

text: Madden is also a founding member of a multimedia project called Collapsing Scenery, along with multi-instrumentalist Don Devore. In that project, Madden used the alias "Reggie Debris."


title: Mickey Madden

text: In 2016, Madden was arrested on drug possession charges alongside James Gubelmann, Ivanka Trump's ex-boyfriend, outside a bar in Manhattan. Madden accepted a day of community service in a plea deal.


title: Mickey Madden

text: On June 27, 2020, he was arrested on domestic violence charges. He announced his leave of absence from Maroon 5 following his arrest. The Los Angeles District Attorney ultimately declined prosecution; the case was dropped, and no charges were filed.


title: Enhanced Combat Helmet (United States)

text: The Enhanced Combat Helmet (ECH) is a combat helmet designed in conjunction of a joint program of the United States Marine Corps and United States Army to replace the current combat helmets in use by the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines. Although similar in shape of the Advanced Combat Helmet and its predecessor the Modular Integrated Communications Helmet, the ECH instead is constructed using thermoplastics instead of the ballistic fibers used on the previous generation combat helmets.


title: Enhanced Combat Helmet (United States)

text: The ECH's profile is very similar to the Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH) but is thicker; they can be differentiated from the ACH by the different chinstrap. The ECH helmet's shell is made of an ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) material. The helmet provides 35% better protection against small-arms fire and fragmentation than the Advanced Combat Helmet, and it protects against certain rifle projectiles. The helmet is of the "tactical cut" type and thus offers less coverage but does enable better mobility. The helmet is compatible with camouflage fabric helmet covers. The helmet has been shown nearly impenetrable to fragments fired by test guns. In a v50 test, guns were unable to attain the velocity required to get 50% of the fragments through a helmet. The helmet's design allows for the addition of devices such as communications and night-vision equipment.


title: Enhanced Combat Helmet (United States)

text: The ECH has a 4-point chinstrap/napestrap head retention system. The Marine/Navy and Army variants are differentiated in that the Marine/Navy version uses an X-Back retention system (called the Class I) and the Army uses the H-Back retention system (called the Class II).


title: Enhanced Combat Helmet (United States)

text: A high cut variant of the ECH with side accessory rails and a contour similar to the Ops-Core FAST (Future Assault Shell Technology) helmet already in use by special operations forces was issued to Marine combat arms units beginning in 2021. Unlike in the earlier version of the helmet, the distinctive D-ring attachment at the jawline is not present in this design.


title: Enhanced Combat Helmet (United States)

text: In an effort led by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), ECH development began in 2007 under the Army Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) Program. In July 2009, more than $8 million was awarded to four vendors for five helmet designs. Mine Safety Appliances was awarded $4.7 million, Gentex Corporation was awarded $1.8 million, BAE Systems Aerospace & Defense Group was awarded $764,000, and 3M subsidiary Ceradyne was awarded $729,000. Testing in September revealed that each helmet failed in ballistic and/or blunt force tests. In February 2010, the Navy joined the program and issued their own requirements. Marine Corps officials suggested design improvements such as better materials to industry and testing resumed in June 2010. Three vendors were to be downselected, and the remaining two would be tested in November. If the program proceeded as planned the Army would acquire 200,000, the Marine Corps would acquire 38,500, and the Navy would acquire 6,700.


title: Enhanced Combat Helmet (United States)

text: Ceradyne won the competition to produce the Enhanced Combat Helmet in March 2012. In July 2013, the U.S. Marine Corps ordered 3,850 helmets for deployed Marines, to be fielded before the end of 2013. The Marine Corps plans to buy 77,000 helmets, enough to outfit a large contingent of deployed U.S. Marines. When they return, they will be turned in. The Lightweight Helmet and Modular Integrated Communications Helmet will still be used for training and noncombat purposes. PEO Soldier also confirmed that the Army will field the helmet. Fielding was scheduled to begin in October 2013. The Marine Corps' ultimate goal is to issue the ECH to all 182,000 Marines.


title: Enhanced Combat Helmet (United States)

text: Prior to enhancements under ManTech, every ballistic helmet in the U.S. military used a thermoset-based combination of aramid fiber with a PVB-phenolic resin. Although there have been improvements in the aramid fibers, the material and processing technology in the ACH had not changed in 30 years. The ManTech program focused on addressing technology barriers that inhibited a new class of improved ballistic materials, including new grades of Dyneema, Spectra, and thermoplastic coated aramids.


title: Enhanced Combat Helmet (United States)

text: The Army helmet fabrication goal was to develop an entirely new methodology for mass-producing complex shapes and combining layers of different thermoplastic materials. During this time, ARL and partners created a new molding technology, which included a manufacturing process reducing labor by 40% and waste by 70%.


title: Enhanced Combat Helmet (United States)

text: The ManTech program has also produced the Ops-Core FAST helmet, fielded by the Green Berets, the Navy SEALS, and other special operations forces. The FAST helmet offers 25% weight reduction; a derivative of the FAST helmet, known as the Maritime (MT), offers a 35% weight reduction. The FAST helmet and its derivatives also use UHMWPE, and the technology includes new manufacturing processes developed at ARL, in collaboration with U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development And Engineering Center and Program Executive Office (PEO) Soldier. ARL and its partners received the Department of Defense Manufacturing Technology Program Achievement Award in 2009 for work on ECH.


title: Spider-Man: One More Day

text: "One More Day" (OMD) is a four-part 2007 comic book crossover storyline, connecting the three main Spider-Man series published by Marvel Comics at the time. Written by J. Michael Straczynski and Joe Quesada, with art by Quesada, the story arc concludes the fallout of Spider-Man's actions during the 2007 "Civil War" crossover. "One More Day" starts in "The Amazing Spider-Man" #544, continues in "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" #24 and "The Sensational Spider-Man" (vol. 2) #41, and concludes in "The Amazing Spider-Man" #545.


title: Spider-Man: One More Day

text: After Aunt May had been shot by a stray bullet from a goon of the Kingpin meant for Spider-Man, Spider-Man seeks help to save her life. He encounters the demon Mephisto, who offers to save her life if Spider-Man gives him his marriage. Spider-Man and his wife, Mary Jane Watson, agree, and this part of their history is erased so that, effectively, they have never been married. The storyline set the stage for a restructuring of the "Spider-Man" titles, resulting in the cancellation of "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" and "The Sensational Spider-Man", with "The Amazing Spider-Man" revamped as a thrice-monthly publication.


title: Spider-Man: One More Day

text: The events of "One More Day" regarding Peter Parker and Mary Jane's marriage was met with criticism, although the artwork received praise. Elements of the storyline are adapted in the feature film "" (2021), set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).


title: Spider-Man: One More Day

text: Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada felt dissolving the Peter Parker and Mary Jane marriage and returning Spider-Man to his roots was necessary to preserve the longevity of the character for the next 20 or 30 years. Quesada said he and other previous editors-in-chief had long been seeking an opportunity to begin a new methodology in which to tell Spider-Man stories, but had not found a reasonable way to do so. Quesada said "It's very easy to un-marry a character, or fix something like that: you just do a huge universal retcon, and say a few events in history didn't happen. But that's really not the way we do it here at Marvel." Quesada found an opportunity to address this in the events of the 2007 "Civil War" mini-series, which resulted in the unmasking of Spider-Man's identity to the public. Quesada knew J. Michael Straczynski was planning to end his run as a Marvel writer, so he personally approached Straczynski to propose "One More Day" as his final project.


title: Spider-Man: One More Day

text: The ideas for "One More Day" began to develop almost two years before its release, at one of Marvel's creative summits for creators and editors. Quesada, Straczynski, Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar, Jeph Loeb, Tom Brevoort and Axel Alonso developed the concept between them, and Ed Brubaker and Dan Slott added more at the next summit. "One More Day" was announced as the concluding storyline of Straczynski's run on "Amazing Spider-Man" in early 2007, and Quesada was named as the artist for the storyline. Although Quesada had become more selective in choosing projects to do as an artist since becoming editor-in-chief, he felt compelled to do the art for "One More Day" because he felt very close to the story, and because since he had been talking about the project for so long, he felt he "needed to put my money where my mouth is."


title: Spider-Man: One More Day

text: While no plot details were given, Marvel issued a promotional image in February that consisted solely of the line "What would you do... with one more day?" against a background of spider webbing. At a panel at the San Diego Comic Con in June 2007, Joe Quesada gave few details about the story, but described it as "a Peter-MJ story." At the same panel, Marvel editor Tom Brevoort announced that "Amazing Spider-Man" would become the sole main Spider-Man title, and would be published three times a month.


title: Spider-Man: One More Day

text: Due to Quesada's known dislike of Mary Jane and Peter Parker's marriage, fans began to speculate he intended to dissolve their marriage in one form or another. Quesada felt that 1987's "The Wedding!" story happened due to an editorial decision, and that Jim Shooter mirrored events Stan Lee had planned for the Spider-Man comic strip in order to maximize any publicity generated.


title: Spider-Man: One More Day

text: Straczynski surprised many when he publicly revealed: "There's a lot that I don't agree with, and I made this very clear to everybody within shouting distance at Marvel, especially Joe Quesada... there was a point where I made the decision, and told Joe, that I was going to take my name off the last two issues of the OMD arc. Eventually, Joe talked me out of that decision because at the end of the day, I don't want to sabotage Joe or Marvel, and I have a lot of respect for both of those." Quesada explained this disagreement with Straczynski, stating that their rift was primarily over the "methodology" of how to erase Peter and Mary Jane's marriage, but Straczynski was on board with the editorial mandate of undoing the Parkers' marriage.