title: Czesław Miłosz

text: From 1945 to 1951, Miłosz served as a cultural attaché for the newly formed People's Republic of Poland. It was in this capacity that he first met Jane Zielonko, the future translator of "The Captive Mind", with whom he had a brief relationship. He moved from New York City to Washington, D.C., and finally to Paris, organizing and promoting Polish cultural occasions such as musical concerts, art exhibitions, and literary and cinematic events. Although he was a representative of Poland, which had become a Soviet satellite country behind the Iron Curtain, he was not a member of any communist party. In "The Captive Mind", he explained his reasons for accepting the role:My mother tongue, work in my mother tongue, is for me the most important thing in life. And my country, where what I wrote could be printed and could reach the public, lay within the Eastern Empire. My aim and purpose was to keep alive freedom of thought in my own special field; I sought in full knowledge and conscience to subordinate my conduct to the fulfillment of that aim. I served abroad because I was thus relieved from direct pressure and, in the material which I sent to my publishers, could be bolder than my colleagues at home. I did not want to become an émigré and so give up all chance of taking a hand in what was going on in my own country.Miłosz did not publish a book while he was a representative of the Polish government. Instead, he wrote articles for various Polish periodicals introducing readers to American writers like Eliot, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Robert Lowell, and W. H. Auden. He also translated into Polish Shakespeare's "Othello" and the work of Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg, Pablo Neruda, and others.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: In 1948, Miłosz arranged for the Polish government to fund a Department of Polish Studies at Columbia University. Named for Adam Mickiewicz, the department featured lectures by Manfred Kridl, Miłosz's friend who was then on the faculty of Smith College, and produced a scholarly book about Mickiewicz. Mickiewicz's granddaughter wrote a letter to Dwight D. Eisenhower, then the president of Columbia University, to express her approval, but the Polish American Congress, an influential group of Polish émigrés, denounced the arrangement in a letter to Eisenhower that they shared with the press, which alleged a communist infiltration at Columbia. Students picketed and called for boycotts. One faculty member resigned in protest. Despite the controversy, the department was established, the lectures took place, and the book was produced, but the department was discontinued in 1954 when funding from Poland ceased.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: In 1949, Miłosz visited Poland for the first time since joining its diplomatic corps and was appalled by the conditions he saw, including an atmosphere of pervasive fear of the government. After returning to the U.S., he began to look for a way to leave his post, even soliciting advice from Albert Einstein, whom he met in the course of his duties.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: As the Polish government, influenced by Josef Stalin, became more oppressive, his superiors began to view Miłosz as a threat: he was outspoken in his reports to Warsaw and met with people not approved by his superiors. Consequently, his superiors called him "an individual who ideologically is totally alien". Toward the end of 1950, when Janina was pregnant with their second child, Miłosz was recalled to Warsaw, where in December 1950 his passport was confiscated, ostensibly until it could be determined that he did not plan to defect. After intervention by Poland's foreign minister, Zygmunt Modzelewski, Miłosz's passport was returned. Realizing that he was in danger if he remained in Poland, Miłosz left for Paris in January 1951.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Upon arriving in Paris, Miłosz went into hiding, aided by the staff of the Polish émigré magazine "Kultura." With his wife and son still in the United States, he applied to enter the U.S. and was denied. At the time, the U.S. was in the grip of McCarthyism, and influential Polish émigrés had convinced American officials that Miłosz was a communist. Unable to leave France, Miłosz was not present for the birth of his second son, John Peter, in Washington, D.C., in 1951.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: With the United States closed to him, Miłosz requested—and was granted—political asylum in France. After three months in hiding, he announced his defection at a press conference and in a "Kultura" article, "No", that explained his refusal to live in Poland or continue working for the Polish regime. He was the first artist of note from a communist country to make public his reasons for breaking ties with his government. His case attracted attention in Poland, where his work was banned and he was attacked in the press, and in the West, where prominent individuals voiced criticism and support. For example, the future Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, then a supporter of the Soviet Union, attacked him in a communist newspaper as "The Man Who Ran Away". On the other hand, Albert Camus, another future Nobel laureate, visited Miłosz and offered his support. Another supporter during this period was the Swiss philosopher Jeanne Hersch, with whom Miłosz had a brief romantic affair.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz was finally reunited with his family in 1953, when Janina and the children joined him in France. That same year saw the publication of "The Captive Mind", a nonfiction work that uses case studies to dissect the methods and consequences of Soviet communism, which at the time had prominent admirers in the West. The book brought Miłosz his first readership in the United States, where it was credited by some on the political left (such as Susan Sontag) with helping to change perceptions about communism. The German philosopher Karl Jaspers described it as a "significant historical document". It became a staple of political science courses and is considered a classic work in the study of totalitarianism.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz's years in France were productive. In addition to "The Captive Mind", he published two poetry collections ("Daylight" (1954) and "A Treatise on Poetry" (1957)), two novels ("The Seizure of Power" (1955) and "The Issa Valley" (1955)), and a memoir ("Native Realm" (1959)). All were published in Polish by an émigré press in Paris.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Andrzej Franaszek has called "A Treatise on Poetry" Miłosz's magnum opus, while the scholar Helen Vendler compared it to "The Waste Land", a work "so powerful that it bursts the bounds in which it was written—the bounds of language, geography, epoch". A long poem divided into four sections, "A Treatise on Poetry" surveys Polish history, recounts Miłosz's experience of war, and explores the relationship between art and history.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: In 1960, Miłosz was offered a position as a visiting lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. With this offer, and with the climate of McCarthyism abated, he was able to move to the United States. He proved to be an adept and popular teacher, and was offered tenure after only two months. The rarity of this, and the degree to which he had impressed his colleagues, are underscored by the fact that Miłosz lacked a PhD and teaching experience. Yet his deep learning was obvious, and after years of working administrative jobs that he found stifling, he told friends that he was in his element in a classroom. With stable employment as a tenured professor of Slavic languages and literatures, Miłosz was able to secure American citizenship and purchase a home in Berkeley.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz began to publish scholarly articles in English and Polish on a variety of authors, including Fyodor Dostoevsky. But despite his successful transition to the U.S., he described his early years at Berkeley as frustrating, as he was isolated from friends and viewed as a political figure rather than a great poet. (In fact, some of his Berkeley faculty colleagues, unaware of his creative output, expressed astonishment when he won the Nobel Prize.) His poetry was not available in English, and he was not able to publish in Poland.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: As part of an effort to introduce American readers to his poetry, as well as to his fellow Polish poets' work, Miłosz conceived and edited the anthology "Postwar Polish Poetry", which was published in English in 1965. American poets like W.S. Merwin, and American scholars like Clare Cavanagh, have credited it with a profound impact. It was many English-language readers' first exposure to Miłosz's poetry, as well as that of Polish poets like Wisława Szymborska, Zbigniew Herbert, and Tadeusz Różewicz. (In the same year, Miłosz's poetry also appeared in the first issue of "Modern Poetry in Translation," an English-language journal founded by prominent literary figures Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort. The issue also featured Miroslav Holub, Yehuda Amichai, Ivan Lalić, Vasko Popa, Zbigniew Herbert, and Andrei Voznesensky.) In 1969, Miłosz's textbook "The History of Polish Literature" was published in English. He followed this with a volume of his own work, "Selected Poems" (1973), some of which he translated into English himself.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: At the same time, Miłosz continued to publish in Polish with an émigré press in Paris. His poetry collections from this period include "King Popiel and Other Poems" (1962), "Bobo’s Metamorphosis" (1965), "City Without a Name" (1969), and "From the Rising of the Sun" (1974).


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: During Miłosz's time at Berkeley, the campus became a hotbed of student protest, notably as the home of the Free Speech Movement, which has been credited with helping to "define a generation of student activism" across the United States. Miłosz's relationship to student protesters was sometimes antagonistic: he called them "spoiled children of the bourgeoisie" and their political zeal naïve. At one campus event in 1970, he mocked protesters who claimed to be demonstrating for peace and love: "Talk to me about love when they come into your cell one morning, line you all up, and say 'You and you, step forward—it’s your time to die—unless any of your friends loves you so much he wants to take your place!'" Comments like these were in keeping with his stance toward American counterculture of the 1960s in general. For example, in 1968, when Miłosz was listed as a signatory of an open letter of protest written by poet and counterculture figure Allen Ginsberg and published in "The New York Review of Books", Miłosz responded by calling the letter "dangerous nonsense" and insisting that he had not signed it.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: After 18 years, Miłosz retired from teaching in 1978. To mark the occasion, he was awarded a "Berkeley Citation", the University of California's equivalent of an honorary doctorate. But when his wife, Janina, fell ill and required expensive medical treatment, Miłosz returned to teaching seminars.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: On 9 October 1980, the Swedish Academy announced that Miłosz had won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The award catapulted him to global fame. On the day the prize was announced, Miłosz held a brief press conference and then left to teach a class on Dostoevsky. In his Nobel lecture, Miłosz described his view of the role of the poet, lamented the tragedies of the 20th century, and paid tribute to his cousin Oscar.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Many Poles became aware of Miłosz for the first time when he won the Nobel Prize. After a 30-year ban in Poland, his writing was finally published there in limited selections. He was also able to visit Poland for the first time since fleeing in 1951 and was greeted by crowds with a hero's welcome. He met with leading Polish figures like Lech Wałęsa and Pope John Paul II. At the same time, his early work, until then only available in Polish, began to be translated into English and many other languages.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: In 1981, Miłosz was appointed the Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University, where he was invited to deliver the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures. He used the opportunity, as he had before becoming a Nobel laureate, to draw attention to writers who had been unjustly imprisoned or persecuted. The lectures were published as "The Witness of Poetry" (1983).


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz continued to publish work in Polish through his longtime publisher in Paris, including the poetry collections "Hymn of the Pearl" (1981), "Bells in Winter" (1984) and "Unattainable Earth" (1986), and the essay collection "Beginning with My Streets" (1986).


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: In 1988, Miłosz's "Collected Poems" appeared in English; it was the first of several attempts to collect all his poetry into a single volume. After the fall of communism in Poland, he split his time between Berkeley and Kraków, and he began to publish his writing in Polish with a publisher based in Kraków. When Lithuania broke free from the Soviet Union in 1991, Miłosz visited for the first time since 1939. In 2000, he moved to Kraków.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: In 1992, Miłosz married Carol Thigpen, an academic at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. They remained married until her death in 2002. His work from the 1990s includes the poetry collections "Facing the River" (1994) and "Roadside Dog" (1997), and the collection of short prose "Miłosz’s ABC’s" (1997). Miłosz's last stand-alone volumes of poetry were "This" (2000), and "The Second Space" (2002). Uncollected poems written afterward appeared in English in "New and Selected Poems" (2004) and, posthumously, in "Selected and Last Poems" (2011).


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Czesław Miłosz died on 14 August 2004, at his Kraków home, aged 93. He was given a state funeral at the historic Mariacki Church in Kraków. Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka attended, as did the former president of Poland, Lech Wałęsa. Thousands of people lined the streets to witness his coffin moved by military escort to his final resting place at Skałka Roman Catholic Church, where he was one of the last to be commemorated. In front of that church, the poets Seamus Heaney, Adam Zagajewski, and Robert Hass read Miłosz's poem "In Szetejnie" in Polish, French, English, Russian, Lithuanian, and Hebrew—all the languages Miłosz knew. Media from around the world covered the funeral.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Protesters threatened to disrupt the proceedings on the grounds that Miłosz was anti-Polish, anti-Catholic, and had signed a petition supporting gay and lesbian freedom of speech and assembly. Pope John Paul II, along with Miłosz's confessor, issued public messages confirming that Miłosz had received the sacraments, which quelled the protest.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz's brother, Andrzej Miłosz (1917–2002), was a Polish journalist, translator, and documentary film producer. His work included Polish documentaries about his brother.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz's son, Anthony, is a composer and software designer. He studied linguistics, anthropology, and chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, and neuroscience at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco. In addition to releasing recordings of his own compositions, he has translated some of his father's poems into English.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz was named a distinguished visiting professor or fellow at many institutions, including the University of Michigan and University of Oklahoma, where he was a Puterbaugh Fellow in 1999. He was an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He received honorary doctorates from Harvard University, the University of Michigan, the University of California at Berkeley, Jagiellonian University, Catholic University of Lublin, and Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania. Vytautas Magnus University and Jagiellonian University have academic centers named for Miłosz.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: In 1992, Miłosz was made an honorary citizen of Lithuania, where his birthplace was made into a museum and conference center. In 1993, he was made an honorary citizen of Kraków.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: His books also received awards. His first, "A Poem on Frozen Time", won an award from the Union of Polish Writers in Wilno. "The Seizure of Power" received the Prix Littéraire Européen (European Literary Prize). The collection "Roadside Dog" received a Nike Award in Poland.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: In 1989, Miłosz was named one of the "Righteous Among the Nations" at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial to the Holocaust, in recognition of his efforts to save Jews in Warsaw during World War II.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz has also been honored posthumously. The Polish Parliament declared 2011, the centennial of his birth, the "Year of Miłosz". It was marked by conferences and tributes throughout Poland, as well as in New York City, at Yale University, and at the Dublin Writers Festival, among many other locations. The same year, he was featured on a Lithuanian postage stamp. Streets are named for him near Paris, Vilnius, and in the Polish cities of Kraków, Poznań, Gdańsk, Białystok, and Wrocław. In Gdańsk there is a Czesław Miłosz Square. In 2013, a primary school in Vilnius was named for Miłosz, joining schools in Mierzecice, Poland, and Schaumburg, Illinois, that bear his name.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: In 1978, the Russian-American poet Joseph Brodsky called Miłosz "one of the great poets of our time; perhaps the greatest". Miłosz has been cited as an influence by numerous writers—contemporaries and succeeding generations. For example, scholars have written about Miłosz's influence on the writing of Seamus Heaney, and Clare Cavanagh has identified the following poets as having benefited from Miłosz's influence: Robert Pinsky, Edward Hirsch, Rosanna Warren, Robert Hass, Charles Simic, Mary Karr, Carolyn Forché, Mark Strand, Ted Hughes, Joseph Brodsky, and Derek Walcott.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: By being smuggled into Poland, Miłosz's writing was a source of inspiration to the anti-communist Solidarity movement there in the early 1980s. Lines from his poem "You Who Wronged" are inscribed on the Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers of 1970 in Gdańsk, where Solidarity originated.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Of the effect of Miłosz's edited volume "Postwar Polish Poetry" on English-language poets, Merwin wrote, "Miłosz’s book had been a talisman and had made most of the literary bickering among the various ideological encampments, then most audible in the poetic doctrines in English, seem frivolous and silly". Similarly, the British poet and scholar Donald Davie argued that, for many English-language writers, Miłosz's work encouraged an expansion of poetry to include multiple viewpoints and an engagement with subjects of intellectual and historical importance: "I have suggested, going for support to the writings of Miłosz, that no concerned and ambitious poet of the present day, aware of the enormities of twentieth-century history, can for long remain content with the privileged irresponsibility allowed to, or imposed on, the lyric poet".


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz's writing continues to be the subject of academic study, conferences, and cultural events. His papers, including manuscripts, correspondence, and other materials, are housed at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz's birth in a time and place of shifting borders and overlapping cultures, and his later naturalization as an American citizen, have led to competing claims about his nationality. Although his family identified as Polish and Polish was his primary language, and although he frequently spoke of Poland as his country, he also publicly identified himself as one of the last citizens of the multi-ethnic Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Writing in a Polish newspaper in 2000, he claimed, "I was born in the very center of Lithuania and so have a greater right than my great forebear, Mickiewicz, to write 'O Lithuania, my country.'" But in his Nobel lecture, he said, "My family in the 16th century already spoke Polish, just as many families in Finland spoke Swedish and in Ireland English, so I am a Polish, not a Lithuanian, poet". Public statements such as these, and numerous others, inspired discussion about his nationality, including a claim that he was "arguably the greatest spokesman and representative of a Lithuania that, in Miłosz’s mind, was bigger than its present incarnation". Others have viewed Miłosz as an American author, hosting exhibitions and writing about him from that perspective and including his work in anthologies of American poetry.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: But in "The New York Review of Books" in 1981, the critic John Bayley wrote, "nationality is not a thing [Miłosz] can take seriously; it would be hard to imagine a greater writer more emancipated from even its most subtle pretensions". Echoing this notion, the scholar and diplomat Piotr Wilczek argued that, even when he was greeted as a national hero in Poland, Miłosz "made a distinct effort to remain a universal thinker". Speaking at a ceremony to celebrate his birth centenary in 2011, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė stressed that Miłosz's works "unite the Lithuanian and Polish people and reveal how close and how fruitful the ties between our people can be".


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Though raised Catholic, Miłosz as a young man came to adopt a "scientific, atheistic position mostly", though he later returned to the Catholic faith. He translated parts of the Bible into Polish, and allusions to Catholicism pervade his poetry, culminating in a long 2001 poem, "A Theological Treatise". For some critics, Miłosz's belief that literature should provide spiritual fortification was outdated: Franaszek suggests that Miłosz's belief was evidence of a "beautiful naïveté", while David Orr, citing Miłosz's dismissal of "poetry which does not save nations or people", accused him of "pompous nonsense".


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz expressed some criticism of both Catholicism and Poland (a majority-Catholic country), causing furor in some quarters when it was announced that he would be interred in Kraków's historic Skałka church. Cynthia Haven writes that, to some readers, Miłosz's embrace of Catholicism can seem surprising and complicates the understanding of him and his work.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz's body of work comprised multiple literary genres: poetry, fiction (particularly the novel), autobiography, scholarship, personal essay, and lectures. His letters are also of interest to scholars and lay readers; for example, his correspondence with writers such as Jerzy Andrzejewski, Witold Gombrowicz, and Thomas Merton have been published.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: At the outset of his career, Miłosz was known as a "catastrophist" poet—a label critics applied to him and other poets from the Żagary poetry group to describe their use of surreal imagery and formal inventiveness in reaction to a Europe beset by extremist ideologies and war. While Miłosz evolved away from the apocalyptic view of catastrophist poetry, he continued to pursue formal inventiveness throughout his career. As a result, his poetry demonstrates a wide-ranging mastery of form, from long or epic poems (e.g., "A Treatise on Poetry") to poems of just two lines (e.g., "On the Death of a Poet" from the collection "This"), and from prose poems and free verse to classic forms such as the ode or elegy. Some of his poems use rhyme, but many do not. In numerous cases, Miłosz used form to illuminate meaning in his poetry; for example, by juxtaposing variable stanzas to accentuate ideas or voices that challenge each other.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz's work is known for its complexity; according to the scholars Leonard Nathan and Arthur Quinn, Miłosz "prided himself on being an esoteric writer accessible to a mere handful of readers". Nevertheless, some common themes are readily apparent throughout his body of work.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: The poet, critic, and frequent Miłosz translator Robert Hass has described Miłosz as "a poet of great inclusiveness", with a fidelity to capturing life in all of its sensuousness and multiplicities. According to Hass, Miłosz's poems can be viewed as "dwelling in contradiction", where one idea or voice is presented only to be immediately challenged or changed. According to Donald Davie, this allowance for contradictory voices—a shift from the solo lyric voice to a chorus—is among the most important aspects of Miłosz's work.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: The poetic chorus is deployed not just to highlight the complexity of the modern world but also to search for morality, another of Miłosz's recurrent themes. Nathan and Quinn write, "Miłosz’s work is devoted to unmasking man’s fundamental duality; he wants to make his readers admit the contradictory nature of their own experience" because doing so "forces us to assert our preferences as preferences". That is, it forces readers to make conscious choices, which is the arena of morality. At times, Miłosz's exploration of morality was explicit and concrete, such as when, in "The Captive Mind", he ponders the right way to respond to three Lithuanian women who were forcibly moved to a Russian communal farm and wrote to him for help, or when, in the poems "Campo Dei Fiori" and "A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto", he addresses survivor's guilt and the morality of writing about another's suffering.


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz's exploration of morality takes place in the context of history, and confrontation with history is another of his major themes. Vendler wrote, "for Miłosz, the person is irrevocably a person in history, and the interchange between external event and the individual life is the matrix of poetry". Having experienced both Nazism and Stalinism, Miłosz was particularly concerned with the notion of "historical necessity", which, in the 20th century, was used to justify human suffering on a previously unheard-of scale. Yet Miłosz did not reject the concept entirely. Nathan and Quinn summarize Miłosz's appraisal of historical necessity as it appears in his essay collection "Views from San Francisco Bay": "Some species rise, others fall, as do human families, nations, and whole civilizations. There may well be an internal logic to these transformations, a logic that when viewed from sufficient distance has its own elegance, harmony, and grace. Our reason tempts us to be enthralled by this superhuman splendor; but when so enthralled we find it difficult to remember, except perhaps as an element in an abstract calculus, the millions of individuals, the millions upon millions, who unwillingly paid for this splendor with pain and blood".


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz's willingness to accept a form of logic in history points to another recurrent aspect of his writing: his capacity for wonder, amazement, and, ultimately, faith—not always religious faith, but "faith in the objective reality of a world to be known by the human mind but not constituted by that mind". At other times, Miłosz was more explicitly religious in his work. According to scholar and translator Michael Parker, "crucial to any understanding of Miłosz’s work is his complex relationship to Catholicism". His writing is filled with allusions to Christian figures, symbols, and theological ideas, though Miłosz was closer to Gnosticism, or what he called Manichaeism, in his personal beliefs, viewing the universe as ruled by an evil whose influence human beings must try to escape. From this perspective, "he can at once admit that the world is ruled by necessity, by evil, and yet still find hope and sustenance in the beauty of the world. History reveals the pointlessness of human striving, the instability of human things; but time also is the moving image of eternity". According to Hass, this viewpoint left Miłosz "with the task of those heretical Christians…to suffer time, to contemplate being, and to live in the hope of the redemption of the world".


title: Czesław Miłosz

text: Miłosz had numerous literary and intellectual influences, although scholars of his work—and Miłosz himself, in his writings—have identified the following as significant: Oscar Miłosz (who inspired Miłosz's interest in the metaphysical) and, through him, Emanuel Swedenborg; Lev Shestov; Simone Weil (whose work Miłosz translated into Polish); Dostoevsky; William Blake (whose concept of "Ulro" Miłosz borrowed for his book "The Land of Ulro"), and Eliot.


title: Chastity piercing

text: Chastity piercings are types of genital piercings that can be used to impose chastity in males and females.


title: Chastity piercing

text: A ring or other device is used to hold the labia closed, preventing the wearer from having vaginal sexual intercourse. When denial of direct stimulation of the clitoris is the goal, a rigid shield can be fastened over the clitoral area with labial piercings.


title: Chastity piercing

text: In males, chastity piercing can be performed several ways. Through infibulation (piercing the foreskin closed), a Prince Albert or frenulum piercing using a smaller gauge locking mechanism (preventing intercourse), or chaining a Prince Albert piercing to a guiche piercing (thus preventing an erection). More commonly, a piercing can be used in combination with a chastity device to anchor the penis within the device and prevent it from being pulled out the back. The Prince Albert is the most popular piercing for this purpose.


title: Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi song)

text: "Wanted Dead or Alive" is a power ballad by American rock band Bon Jovi. It is from their 1986 album "Slippery When Wet". The song was written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora and was released on March 3, 1987, as the album's third single. During a February 20, 2008 encore performance in Detroit, Jon Bon Jovi told the crowd about running into Bob Seger at a Pistons game. As he introduced his song "Wanted Dead or Alive", he said it was inspired by Seger's "Turn the Page" hit and called the song the band's anthem. The song peaked at #7 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart and #13 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, making it the third single from the album to reach the Top 10 of the Hot 100. As a result, "Slippery When Wet" was the first glam metal album to have 3 top 10 hits on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi song)

text: In 2001 a live version from the album "One Wild Night Live 1985–2001" was released as a single featuring a promotional music video. In 2003 a new version was released on the album "This Left Feels Right" and this version was also released as a single with a promotional video.


title: Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi song)

text: Considered to be one of the band's signature songs, it is the theme song for Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" TV show. It was also featured in the movies "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man", "", and "Wild Hogs". The song has been used in episodes of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", "Supernatural", "The Sopranos", "Miami Vice" and "The Vampire Diaries".


title: Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi song)

text: The song's title pays homage to Jon's admiration for Old West heroes, and how he identifies with them as being hated and loved at the same time ("wanted dead or alive", so to speak). During an interview on "Inside the Actors Studio", Jon said he got the inspiration for the song early one morning when he could not sleep while riding in a tour bus. The "lifestyle of every rock band" was similar to that of outlaws in that each was, "a young band of thieves, riding into town, stealing the money, the girls, and the booze before the sun came up."


title: Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi song)

text: Jon Bon Jovi said during a concert in Detroit, Michigan, on February 20, 2008, that the song "absolutely positively was influenced by [Bob] Seger's 'Turn the Page.'" Bon Jovi performed "Turn the Page" during a concert in Toronto, Ontario on July 21, 2010. Afterward, Jon told the audience he remembered listening to this song in 1985 while traveling on a tour bus in the midwest and telling Richie Sambora, "We got to write a song like this." The following year the duo composed "Wanted Dead or Alive".


title: Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi song)

text: The music video was directed by Wayne Isham and features footage from the band's Slippery When Wet Tour, including shots from Rochester, New York's War Memorial Auditorium; Chicago's UIC Pavilion; Rochester, Minnesota's Mayo Civic Center; Denver's McNichols Sports Arena; Pittsburgh's Fort Pitt Tunnel and skyline; Huntington, West Virginia; Oklahoma City and other venues. The video captures the life-on-the-road feeling, with several shots of the exhausted band members. The audio for the video uses the short (edited) version of the song.


title: Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi song)

text: In Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet Special Edition", Jon and Richie perform the acoustic version of "Wanted Dead or Alive" live, and before singing they mention they wrote the song in Richie's mother's basement a year ago (1985 or 1986) and Richie says "Mom, this is for you" and Jon thanks her by saying "Thanks for Richie's mom for not doing the laundry the day we wrote this song, it's called 'Wanted Dead or Alive'". In this version, Richie and Jon take turns singing during the second and the last verse. The guitar solo is performed on one of Sambora's trademark multi-neck 12-string Ovation guitars, rather than switching to an electric guitar for the solo and last verse of the song.


title: Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi song)

text: Les Claypool of Primus chose the song for the A.V. Club column "HateSong", where musicians choose songs they dislike. Claypool, who called the song a "wretched soundscape", reflected, "Bon Jovi was actually a big influence on Primus back in the day. Basically, the influence was that we wanted to make music that was the polar opposite of Bon Jovi."


title: FileHippo

text: FileHippo is a software downloading website that offers computer software for Windows. The website has sections listing most recently updated programs and most popular downloads, organised by category, with program information and link. Registration is not required in this website. Before the acquisition by Softonic the FileHippo website, funded by user donations and third-party advertising, had an Update Checker, later renamed App Manager, a free program that scanned a computer for outdated software and offered links to more recent versions.


title: FileHippo

text: FileHippo was established in 2004 by the UK-based technology company Well Known Media. The site added a news section in 2014. FileHippo was estimated to be worth over US$13,000,000 in November 2015. FileHippo does not accept software submissions from publishers. Softonic later acquired FileHippo; the FileHippo home page states "Softonic International, S.A. holds the license to use the name and logo of Filehippo".


title: Pair bond

text: In biology, a pair bond is the strong affinity that develops in some species between a mating pair, often leading to the production and rearing of offspring and potentially a lifelong bond. Pair-bonding is a term coined in the 1940s that is frequently used in sociobiology and evolutionary biology circles. The term often implies either a lifelong socially monogamous relationship or a stage of mating interaction in socially monogamous species. It is sometimes used in reference to human relationships.


title: Pair bond

text: According to evolutionary psychologists David P. Barash and Judith Lipton, from their 2001 book "The Myth of Monogamy", there are several varieties of pair bonds:


title: Pair bond

text: Humans can experience all of the above-mentioned varieties of pair bonds. These bonds can be temporary or last a lifetime. Pair bonding is a behavioral and physiological bond between two mated individuals, and is rare among non-human primates. Humans also engage in social pair bonding, where two individuals will form a close relationship that does not involve sex. In humans and other vertebrates, pair bonds are created by a combination of social interaction and biological factors including neurotransmitters like oxytocin, vasopressin, and dopamine.


title: Pair bond

text: Pair bonds are a biological phenomenon and are not equivalent to the human social institution of marriage. Married couples are not necessarily pair bonded. Marriage may be a consequence of pair bonding and vice versa. One of the functions of romantic love is pair bonding.


title: Pair bond

text: Close to ninety percent of known avian species are monogamous, compared to five percent of known mammalian species. The majority of monogamous avians form long-term pair bonds which typically result in seasonal mating: these species breed with a single partner, raise their young, and then pair up with a new mate to repeat the cycle during the next season. Some avians such as swans, bald eagles, California condors, and the Atlantic Puffin are not only monogamous, but also form lifelong pair bonds.


title: Pair bond

text: For about four days immediately prior to egg-laying, when copulations lead to fertilization, the male bank swallow is very busy, attentively guarding his female. Before this time, as well as after—that is, when her eggs are not ripe, and again after his genes are safely tucked away inside the shells—he goes seeking extra-pair copulations with the mates of other males…who, of course, are busy with defensive mate-guarding of their own.


title: Pair bond

text: In various species, males provide parental care and females mate with multiple males. For example, recent studies show that extra-pair copulation frequently occurs in monogamous birds in which a "social" father provides intensive care for its "social" offspring.


title: Pair bond

text: A University of Florida scientist reports that male sand gobies work harder at building nests and taking care of eggs when females are present – the first time such "courtship parental care" has been documented in any species.


title: Pair bond

text: In the cichlid species "Tropheus moorii", a male and female will form a temporary monogamous pair bond and spawn; after which, the female leaves to mouthbrood the eggs on her own. "T. moorii" broods exhibit genetic monogamy (all eggs in a brood are fertilized by a single male). Another mouth brooding cichlid – the Lake Tanganyika cichlid ("Xenotilapia rotundiventralis") has been shown that mating pairs maintain pair bonds at least until the shift of young from female to male. More recently the Australian Murray cod has been seen maintaining pair bonds over 3 years.


title: Pair bond

text: Pair bonding may also have non-reproductive benefits, such as assisted resource defense. Recent study comparing two species of butterflyfishes, "C. baronessa" and "C. lunulatus", indicate increase in food and energy reserves compared to individual fish. However, there is limited research on the advantages of long-term pair boding and increased fitness.


title: Pair bond

text: Monogamous voles (such as prairie voles) have significantly greater density and distribution of vasopressin receptors in their brain when compared to polygamous voles. These differences are located in the ventral forebrain and the dopamine-mediated reward pathway.


title: Pair bond

text: Peptide arginine vasopressin (AVP), dopamine, and oxytocin act in this region to coordinate rewarding activities such as mating, and regulate selective affiliation. These species-specific differences have shown to correlate with social behaviors, and in monogamous prairie voles are important for facilitation of pair bonding. When compared to montane voles, which are polygamous, monogamous prairie voles appear to have more of these AVP and oxytocin neurotransmitter receptors. It is important that these receptors are in the reward centers of the brain because that could lead to a "conditioned" partner preference in the prairie vole compared to the montane vole which would explain why the prairie vole forms pair bonds and the montane vole does not.


title: Pair bond

text: As noted above, different species of voles vary in their sexual behavior, and these differences correlate with expression levels of vasopressin receptors in reward areas of the brain. Scientists were able to change adult male montane voles' behavior to resemble that of monogamous prairie voles in experiments in which vasopressin receptors were introduced into the brain of male montane voles.


title: Colt 45 (malt liquor)

text: Colt 45 is an American brand of lager or malt liquor made and primarily marketed in the United States, originally introduced by National Brewing Company in the spring of 1963. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, the National Brewing Company and its brands (including Colt 45) are today owned by the Pabst Brewing Company.


title: Colt 45 (malt liquor)

text: Colt 45 is available today in a multitude of packages and sizes. Cans are available in 12-, 16-, 24-, and 32-ounce packages and bottles are available in 7-, 12-, 16-, 18-, 22-, 32-, and 40-ounce packages. Cans are available in multi-packs including: 6-, 12-, 15-, 18-, 24-, 30-, 36-, and 42-packs of 12-ounce cans.


title: Colt 45 (malt liquor)

text: National Brewing Company introduced Colt 45 in 1963. Previously, the only major national brand of malt liquor was Country Club. The label was designed with a kicking horse and horseshoe, a reference to its "extra kick" compared to competing brands.


title: Colt 45 (malt liquor)

text: Listed on the Pabst website as a "Fun Fact", Colt 45 was named after running back #45 Jerry Hill of the 1963 Baltimore Colts and not the .45 caliber handgun ammunition round. The credited name change came because of malt liquor’s association with violence in disenfranchised neighborhoods.


title: Colt 45 (malt liquor)

text: Throughout most of the 60s and 70s, Colt 45 was marketed towards the suburban white-collar middle class demographic. To this end, in a memorable ad campaign that lasted over 15 years, Billy Van portrayed a gentleman in suit and tie quietly sitting at a small table and taking little notice of all the activity going on around him, until a waiter or someone showed up with a schooner glass and a can of Colt 45. Music resembling "Song of the Nairobi Trio" played in the background while a voice-over announcer intoned:


title: Colt 45 (malt liquor)

text: In subsequent commercials, the surroundings became increasingly peculiar, including, but not limited to:


title: Colt 45 (malt liquor)

text: The one constant in each of these commercials was Van himself, who remained unperturbed while sitting at the table, though in some instances he became indirectly involved in the tumult unfolding around him. Van won a 1975 Clio Award for one of these commercials.


title: Colt 45 (malt liquor)

text: By 1978, the "waiting man" commercials were replaced with more contemporary ads and the slogan "That Dynamite Taste"; one of the new commercials briefly featured an unknown Ted Danson. Beginning in 1980, Colt 45 began a long association with actor Billy Dee Williams, who appeared in their print and billboard ads as well as on television. The product's slogan during that era, as stated by Williams in his television commercials, was, "It works every time." Williams responded indifferently to criticism of his appearances in the liquor commercials.


title: Colt 45 (malt liquor)

text: In "Mr. Freedom", the title character drinks several cans of Colt 45 before suiting up from sheriff to white nationalist superhero.


title: Colt 45 (malt liquor)

text: Colt 45 makers experimented briefly with a mint-flavored derivative, marketed under the name Cool Colt, in the early 1990s. Available in limited quantities, it was largely met with puzzlement from loyal customers. While it was in production, the slogan for Cool Colt was "Taste the Cool."


title: Colt 45 (malt liquor)

text: A double malt version—titled Colt 45 Double Malt—is also produced; and in certain regions, such as Montana, has 8.5% abv. Sold in only certain regions, the label is distinguishable by two horseshoes rather than the standard single one.


title: Colt 45 (malt liquor)

text: In 2011, Pabst Brewing introduced Blast by Colt 45. Snoop Dogg signed on to promote the beverage as Blast's "brand ambassador". The 12% ABV fruit-flavored malt beverage has been criticized for targeting underage drinkers. In order to cooperate with FDA regulations, Blast by Colt does not contain caffeine, taurine, or guarana.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: Lieutenant General Alexander Ivanovich Lebed (; 20 April 1950 – 28 April 2002) was a Soviet and Russian military officer and politician who held senior positions in the Airborne Troops before running for president in the 1996 Russian presidential election. He did not win, but placed third behind incumbent Boris Yeltsin and the Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, with roughly 14% of the vote nation-wide. Lebed later served as the Secretary of the Security Council in the Yeltsin administration, and eventually became the governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai, the second largest Russian region. He served four years in the latter position, until his death following a Mi-8 helicopter crash.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: He participated in most of Russia's military conflicts in the final decade of the Soviet Union, including the Soviet–Afghan War. From 1988 until 1991, General Lebed served as the commander of the 106th Guards Airborne Division, and later became the deputy head of the Russian Airborne Troops. The general also played a key role in ending the military phase of the conflict in Moldova between Transnistrian separatists and the Moldovan government in 1992, as the commander of the Russian 14th Guards Army which intervened and occupied the region. Popular among the army, when he resigned his commission in 1995 to enter politics, Lebed was also regarded as being charismatic by the public, in contrast to other Russian politicians in the 1990s, with polls showing his popularity being ahead of Yeltsin's for some time. As the Secretary of the Security Council in the president's administration after the 1996 election he also led the negotiations that ended the First Chechen War.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: Although Lebed was compared by some Western and Russian analysts to Augusto Pinochet and Napoleon Bonaparte, he was considered to be the most popular candidate for the presidential election of 2000 during the second term of President Yeltsin. After getting elected as governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai in 1998 with strong support from Anatoly Bykov, however, he decided to stay in that position and did not run for president, despite calls for him to do so. General Lebed held the position until his death in the 2002 helicopter crash.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: Alexander Lebed was born in the Cossack town of Novocherkassk, in the Rostov Oblast, in 1950. In his youth he was not a bad student but preferred boxing and chess. He grew up in poverty. His father was a carpenter who was sentenced to seven years in a Gulag labor camp for arriving late to work twice, and witnessed the Novocherkassk massacre in 1962. During that time he worked at a factory. He was determined to become a paratrooper and joined the Ryazan Guards Higher Airborne Command School in 1969, becoming a cadet platoon and company commander while he was there. In 1982, as an officer of the Soviet Airborne Troops, Lebed became a battalion commander in Afghanistan during the Soviet war there. During his time in Afghanistan, Lebed became popular with the troops under his command. He held this position until 1982 at which point he attended the Frunze Military Academy. Among his duties was being a member of the funeral department during the period of many deaths among the Soviet gerontocracy, including three Soviet rulers.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: In 1988, Lebed became the commander of the 106th Guards Airborne Division. He and his troops took part in the suppression of uprisings throughout the Soviet Caucasus, in Georgia (1989) and Azerbaijan (1990), in which he refused to use brutality to put down the protestors. By 1991, Lebed held the rank of major general and became second in command of the Airborne Troops. During the 1991 coup d'état attempt by Soviet hardliners against the new Russian government, he gained fame by refusing to follow orders to lead his forces against Boris Yeltsin at the Russian White House, contributing to the coup's collapse. It was also during that time that Lebed became a rival of General Pavel Grachev, Airborne Troops commander and future Russian Minister of Defense, due to what Lebed viewed to be his misguided military reforms. Grachev would thus become his main rival. It was reportedly because of Grachev that Lebed found himself deployed to Moldova in 1992, as commander of the 14th Guards Army. There, in the conflict between Russian and Romanian factions, he intervened and used his position to broker a peace agreement, also providing protection to ethnic Russians. Despite this, Lebed remained hostile to the separatist leadership, which he perceived as corrupt and stated that he was "sick and tired of guarding the sleep and safety of crooks." Nonetheless, he remained against President Boris Yeltsin's decision to withdraw most of the 14th Army from Moldova, as he feared it would bring back chaos to the region.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: General Lebed's actions in Moldova increased his popularity among the Russian public, and Russian nationalists in particular. The event, along with his past service record, ensured that Lebed was the most popular military officer in Russia during that time, and by 1994 he was considered to be a favorite candidate for potentially running against Yeltsin in the 1996 Russian presidential election. Lebed himself described Yeltsin's performance as a "minus." Some analysts both in the West and Russia compared him to Augusto Pinochet and Napoleon Bonaparte.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: After catching public attention with his actions in Moldova in 1992, the general came to be perceived as being an honest, anti-establishment patriot who stood against government corruption and wanted to restore order. Lebed was not necessarily in favor of democracy and had a mixed opinion of it, but did praise both Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet—saying that Pinochet was able to revive Chile by "putting the army in first place" because "preserving the army is the basis for preserving the government"—and the French leader Charles de Gaulle.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: General Lebed ended up joining the centrist, nationalistic political movement known as the Congress of Russian Communities. He retired from the army in 1995 in order to enter politics and won a State Duma seat in December of that year.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: Shortly after winning a seat in the State Duma, Lebed officially launched his long-anticipated campaign for the Russian presidency in the 1996 election.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: Lebed ran as a "law and order" candidate promising to curb both street crime and government corruption, as well as also promising to end the unpopular First Chechen War that had been started by President Yeltsin in 1994. For economic policy he hinted that he supported market reforms that were ongoing at the time, but remained deliberately vague.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: Due to his populist rhetoric, Lebed was compared to Vladimir Zhirinovsky, but lacking the latter's aggressive nationalism. Lebed's style and personal charisma were considered to have been more important to his campaign than his political message itself. Up through May, Lebed flirted with the possibility of forming third force coalition with other candidates, however negotiations for this failed.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: In the first round of the election on 16 June 1996, he came in third place behind Yeltsin and Zyuganov, with 14.7% of the vote. In exchange for Lebed's support, Yeltsin sacked his rival Defense Minister Grachev, replacing him with Igor Rodionov at Lebed's request. There was some evidence that Lebed had dealings with Yeltsin before the election ended. After the first round, Yeltsin named General Lebed as national security head by appointing him as the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: Shortly after taking office as chairman of the Security Council, following Yeltsin's victory against Zyuganov in the July 1996 runoff, Lebed led negotiations with the Chechen President, Aslan Maskhadov. They signed agreements in the town of Khasavyurt in Dagestan which ended the First Chechen War in late August 1996. Lebed was given authority as President Yeltsin's representative and the resulting agreement became known as the Khasavyurt Accords.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: However, the ending of the Chechen War by the general brought him into conflict with Minister of Internal Affairs Army General Anatoly Kulikov and his faction. He was fired from the Security Council by President Yeltsin in October 1996, following an internal conflict within the government between Lebed and a faction that included president's chief of staff, Anatoly Chubais (who was regarded as being in control of the ailing Yeltsin's administration), Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, and Interior Minister Kulikov. Yeltsin stated that he was "acting without proper authority" and Chernomyrdin accused General Lebed of "Bonapartism", while Kulikov even claimed Lebed was plotting a coup.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: Chubais was also worried about the potential of Lebed becoming Yeltsin's successor, as he was the most popular member of the administration, especially after ending the Chechen war. After Chernomyrdin and Kulikov made their accusations, it caused a scandal that led to the President firing Lebed as national security chief. The general nonetheless decided to remain in politics.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: After his firing, there was some indication that General Lebed intended to run for the presidency again in the 2000 Russian presidential election. His visit to the United States in January 1997 was viewed as an effort to win over American business interests as the best successor to Yeltsin, and included a meeting with Donald Trump at Trump Tower. Reportedly, he discussed potential construction projects in Moscow that Trump could be involved in. "He invited me to Russia and I accepted, I thought he was terrific," Trump said after the meeting.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: One Western analyst stated about Lebed, "He may perceive that Yeltsin benefited greatly from support from the Americans in the last campaign. Bill Clinton made a trip to Moscow during the campaign. And the International Monetary Fund extended loans that enabled the Government to make credible promises to pay wages." He also visited President Clinton's inauguration while he was there, at the invitation of Senator William Roth, who made the request at the behest of an unknown businessman. Overall Lebed was said to have left a good impression on the American businessmen that he met. During that time, he was described as being the most popular candidate for the Russian presidency.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: On 7 September 1997, Lebed alleged during an interview that a hundred Soviet-made suitcase-sized nuclear weapons designed for sabotage "are not under the control of the armed forces of Russia". The government of the Russian Federation rejected Lebed's claims and stated that such weapons had never been created.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: In 1998, the general decided to run for governor of the Krasnoyarsk Krai (the second largest region in Russia), wanting to get out of the politics in Moscow after his ouster from the Yeltsin administration. He ended up winning the election for governor, defeating the incumbent Valery Zubov, despite being a complete outsider. There was speculation that he would run for the presidency in 2000, with Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov being projected as his main opponent at that time. However, in 2000 Lebed decided against running for president because he was satisfied with his position as the governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: While serving as Governor, Lebed died in a Mil Mi-8 helicopter crash on 28 April 2002. The helicopter collided with electric lines during foggy weather in the Sayan Mountains.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: Alexei Arbatov, then member of the State Duma for the liberal Yabloko party, called sabotage a possible reason of the crash.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: Lebed was survived by his wife, Inna, two sons, a daughter, and his brother Aleksey. Aleksey Lebed served as Head of the Republic of Khakassia from 1997 to 2009.


title: Alexander Lebed

text: During his time in Moldova, the general called the separatist Transnistrian government as "hooligans" and considered the Moldovan authorities as "fascists". He also called the fellow politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky "the Lord God's monkey."


title: Alexander Lebed

text: Lebed did not consider Ukraine and Belarus to be separate countries from Russia, nor did he consider the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages separate from the Russian. In 1995 he believed both countries would become part of a new state, on a confederal basis with the Russian Federation, at the end of the 20th century. General Lebed was also strongly against the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe initially, but by 1997 had changed his attitude to be more accepting of the idea. However, in March 1997 Lebed stated that he believed its expansion would destabilize the alliance and that it was the result of Cold War thinking, which would cause Russia to become authoritarian in response.


title: Postman (software)

text: Postman is an API platform for developers to design, build, test and iterate their APIs. As of April 2022, Postman reports having more than 20 million registered users and 75,000 open APIs, which it says constitutes the world's largest public API hub. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and maintains an office in Bangalore, where it was founded.


title: Postman (software)

text: Postman started in 2012 as a side project of software engineer Abhinav Asthana, who wanted to simplify API testing, while working at Yahoo Bangalore. He launched Postman as a free app in the Chrome Web Store. As the app’s usage grew, Abhinav recruited former colleagues Ankit Sobti and Abhijit Kane to help create Postman Inc. The three co-founders lead the company today, with Abhinav serving as CEO and Sobti as CTO.


title: Postman (software)

text: Postman offers a tiered pricing model. Options range from a free plan for small teams to enterprise plans that can serve thousands of developers and offer custom domains, reporting, analytics, governance and enterprise integrations with GitHub and GitLab.


title: Postman (software)

text: Postman is privately held, with funding from Nexus Venture Partners, CRV, Insight Partners, Coatue, Battery Ventures, and Mary Meeker’s BOND.


title: Rafa Mir

text: Rafael Mir Vicente (born 18 June 1997) is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a striker for La Liga club Sevilla.


title: Rafa Mir

text: He has played in La Liga for Valencia, Huesca and Sevilla, as well as in the Segunda División for Las Palmas and Huesca. Abroad, he had spells in England with Wolverhampton Wanderers and Nottingham Forest.


title: Rafa Mir

text: Mir won the 2019 European Championship with the Spain national under-21 football team, and a silver medal with the Olympic team at the 2020 tournament.


title: Rafa Mir

text: Born in Murcia, Mir began his career playing futsal with CD Javalí Nuevo. After a 120-goal spell at ElPozo Murcia FS he began playing full football with Ranero CF, scoring 57 and 84 goals in his respective seasons before joining FC Barcelona.


title: Rafa Mir

text: Mir's 32 goals at La Masia earned him a return to his native region and Real Murcia, where a 45-goal haul led to the attention of Valencia CF. He made his senior debut for the reserves on 1 March 2015, as an 88th-minute substitute for Wilfried Zahibo in a 2–1 Segunda División B loss at CE L'Hospitalet.


title: Rafa Mir

text: Mir scored his first senior goal on 7 March 2015, netting the last in a 2–0 win over CF Badalona at the Ciudad Deportiva de Paterna. He finished the campaign with four appearances, as his side narrowly avoided relegation.


title: Rafa Mir

text: The following season, Mir excelled in the UEFA Youth League, scoring consecutive braces in victories over Gent. On 14 November 2015, he was given his first start for the B-side, playing the full 90 minutes in a 4–2 loss at another reserve team, Villarreal CF B.


title: Rafa Mir

text: On 24 November 2015, Mir was called up to the main squad by manager Nuno Espírito Santo for a La Liga game against UD Las Palmas; he was an unused substitute in the 1–1 draw at the Mestalla Stadium. He made his professional debut on 25 November, starting in a UEFA Champions League group stage match away to Zenit Saint Petersburg, being substituted for Santi Mina in the 56th minute of an eventual 2–0 defeat.


title: Rafa Mir

text: Mir made his top-flight debut against Las Palmas on 28 August 2016, replacing Enzo Pérez for the final four minutes of a 4–2 home loss. He began the first half of the 2017–18 season for Valencia B in good form, scoring 15 goals in 19 games, attracting interest from Real Madrid and Wolverhampton Wanderers.


title: Rafa Mir

text: On 3 January 2018, Mir joined Championship club Wolverhampton Wanderers for an undisclosed fee, signing a four-and-a-half-year contract with the club and taking the number 9 shirt. He linked up with former Valencia boss Nuno Espírito Santo, who gave him his first team debut at the club. He made his debut three days later in the FA Cup third round at home to Swansea City, playing the last 13 minutes of a goalless draw in place of Léo Bonatini.


title: Rafa Mir

text: On 23 July 2018, Mir joined Segunda División side UD Las Palmas on loan for one season. A year later, he returned to the Championship, on loan to Nottingham Forest. After struggling for both minutes and goals with Forest, Mir and Forest agreed for him to return to his parent club on 14 January 2020.


title: Rafa Mir

text: Immediately following his departure from Nottingham, Mir was loaned to Segunda División side SD Huesca for 18 months. He was sent off on 8 February 2020 in a 1–0 loss at Girona FC for elbowing Álex Granell and banned for one match. On 17 July, he scored twice in a 3–0 home win over CD Numancia to win promotion to the top flight with a game remaining.


title: Rafa Mir

text: On 15 December 2020, Mir scored a hat-trick in a 3–2 extra-time win over CD Marchamalo in the first round of the Copa del Rey. The following 29 January, he netted another treble in a 3–1 victory at Real Valladolid. He ended the league season with 13 goals, joint eighth-best.


title: Rafa Mir

text: On 20 August 2021, Mir signed a six-year contract with Sevilla. On 23 November 2021, he scored his first Champions League goal in the 97th minute of a 2–0 victory over VfL Wolfsburg.


title: Rafa Mir

text: On 29 June 2021, Mir was named in the 22-man squad for the 2020 Summer Olympics by manager Luis de la Fuente. On 31 July, he scored an injury-time equaliser against the Ivory Coast to take their quarter-final to extra-time, in which he added two further goals to complete a hat-trick as Spain won 5–2 .


title: Rafa Mir

text: Mir, who idolised German forward Mario Gómez, is the son of former defender Magín Mir, whose clubs included RCD Mallorca and Murcia.


title: Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga

text: Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga Rao (4 July 1947 – 26 December 1988) was an Indian politician from Andhra Pradesh. He worked as an MLA of Vijayawada East (Assembly constituency) legislative assembly as member of Indian National Congress party.


title: Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga

text: Ranga's elder brother, Vangaveeti Radha Krishna Rao Sr., was associated with Chalasani Venkata Rathnam, secretary of the Communist Party of India, Vijayawada. However, conflicts arose between Venkata Rathnam and Vangaveeti Radha, to get a hold on Vijayawada transport business, dominated by Datti Kanaka Rao, a follower of Chalasani Venkata Rathnam.


title: Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga

text: In 1972, both Kanaka Rao, and Venkata Rathnam were allegedly murdered by Vangaveeti Radha's supporters. These events in turn led to a retaliation by a rival group, ending in the murder of Vangaveeti Radha. Upon the death of Vangaveeti Radha, his brother Mohana Ranga took over the leadership of United independent Organization with the support of student union leaders Devineni Chandrasekhar (Gandhi), and Devineni Rajasekhar (Nehru).


title: Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga

text: The power struggle between the politically powerful Mohana Ranga and the Devineni family led to the splitting of the United Independent Organization and to the alleged protracted murders of brothers Devineni Chandrasekhar (Gandhi) in 1979 and Devineni Murali in 1988


title: Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga

text: . Subsequently, while Ranga was staging an indefinite fast for distribution of land pattas to residents of Giripuram, he was attacked by a group of men allegedly led by Devineni Rajasekhar (Nehru), who attacked Mohana Ranga's camp and assassinated him in the early hours of 26 December 1988. Ranga's two assigned bodyguards did not intervene. The murder led to large-scale riots in Krishna, Guntur and the Godavari districts.


title: Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga

text: Mohana Ranga was born in Katuru near Vuyyuru, located in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh on 4 July 1947. His parents are Vangaveeti seetharamaya, and vangaveeti savithramma.He had four elder brothers: Vangaveeti Koteswara Rao,(expired at early age)


title: Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga

text: and Vangaveeti Radha Krishna Rao Sr.popularly known as bus stand radha, who was murdered in 1974. Mohana Ranga was married to Chennupati Ratna Kumari; they had a son Radha Krishna Rao Jr., named after Ranga's brother Vangaveeti Radha Krishna Rao Sr., and a daughter, Vangaveeti Asha Latha.


title: Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga

text: Vangaveeti Ranga entered public life after the death of his brother Vangaveeti Radha Krishna. His political career began in 1981, when he ran in the municipal election and the Congress Party withdrew its official candidate in his favor. His rival in the district, Devineni Rajasekhar, (Nehru), was sponsored by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), while Ranga became a leader of the Kapu community. Ranga became an MLA for the Congress Party in 1985; Rajasekhar became a TDP MLA, and eventually a minister. Starting in 1983 both parties were implicated in gang warfare; N. T. Rama Rao was at the time the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. The gang warfare in Vijayawada dated further back; Ranga had served time in prison for the murder of Rajasekhar's brother Gandhi. On 10 March 1988, Rajasekhar's brother Murali was killed, and followers of Ranga were accused. Ranga also campaigned against police abuse. On 10 July 1988, a rally called "Kapunadu" proclaimed him leader of the Kapus; he was in prison at the time, but after his release later that month began a bus tour called "Jana Chaitanya Yatra" "to expose the autocratic rule and misdeeds of Rama Rao". Rao had come to power after a van tour.


title: Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga

text: Following his death, there were riots throughout the region. The pattern of violence showed that the houses and property of Telugu Desam sympathisers who were mostly Kammas were attacked. The city of Vijayawada was under curfew for 40 days. 42 people were killed. Devineni Rajasekhar (Nehru) was ordered by the Chief Minister to surrender himself, and the Director-General of Police resigned. 44 people were accused of the crime; in 2002, the 33 who had not died in the meantime were all acquitted. One of them, Chalasani Venkateswara Rao, known as Pandu, was murdered in 2010.


title: Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga

text: Mohana Ranga's widow Ratna Kumari was elected MLA in 1989; in her second term, she switched from the Congress Party to the TDP. Radha Krishna also entered politics after his father's death. He was a Congress Party MLA from 2004 to 2009; later he shifted to the Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) then to the YSR Congress Party in 2012, and then to TDP in 2019.


title: The Wind (2018 film)

text: The Wind is a 2018 American supernatural Western horror film directed by Emma Tammi in her feature film directorial debut. The film was written by Teresa Sutherland. It stars Caitlin Gerard, Ashley Zukerman, Julia Goldani Telles and Miles Anderson. The film was executive produced by Adam Hendricks and Greg Gilreath through their Divide/Conquer banner, along with John H. Lang. It was produced by David Grove Churchill Viste and Christopher Alender.


title: The Wind (2018 film)

text: In the late nineteenth-century on the American frontier, Lizzy Macklin and her husband Isaac arrive from St. Louis to an unpopulated area of New Mexico, hoping to begin a settlement. They live in solitude until another couple, Emma and Gideon Harper, arrive from Illinois and move into an abandoned cabin nearby. The story is told out of chronological order; in the beginning of the film, it is shown that Emma and her stillborn infant are being buried by the other three major characters.


title: The Wind (2018 film)

text: Lizzy befriends the younger Emma, whose marriage to Gideon is apparently troubled, and she and Isaac help them repair the damaged cabin and regrow a garden and plant some crops. Lizzy confides in Emma about having lost her son, Samuel, in a stillbirth. Throughout her pregnancy, Lizzy had grown increasingly paranoid that a demon was coming to her in the night, especially when Isaac was away.


title: The Wind (2018 film)

text: Late one night, Gideon awakens Isaac and Lizzy, telling them Emma is unwell. They arrive at the couple's cabin, and Lizzy finds Emma hiding under a bed, talking to herself incoherently. She tells Lizzy that something is after her, and that it wants her unborn child. Lizzy renders Emma unconscious with chloroform, and Emma slaps her in the face during the struggle. Throughout her pregnancy, Emma continues to confide to Lizzy that she senses a supernatural presence that she cannot explain, but Lizzy disregards her. Emma tells Lizzy she plans to name the child after either her or Isaac.


title: The Wind (2018 film)

text: Near the end of Emma's pregnancy, she apparently shoots herself in the head in the middle of the night with Lizzy's shotgun. Lizzy attempts to perform a caesarean delivery to save Emma's unborn child, but is unsuccessful. Isaac and Gideon bury Emma and her child, and travel to report the deaths, leaving Lizzy alone. Lizzy's paranoia reemerges after they depart, and she encounters various frightening incidents: A pack of wolves attack her and kill her goat. The next day she sees her goat alive and, out of fear, shoots it. Late one night, she sees lights emanating from the Harper cabin, and goes to investigate. She finds the cabin empty, but is tormented by violent poltergeist activity before losing consciousness. She awakens the following morning, and finds Emma's diary lying on the floor. In it, she reads an entry in which Emma describes her disdain for Gideon, and claims to be carrying Isaac's child. Lizzy burns the pages in the fireplace. To relieve her anxiety, Lizzy renders herself unconscious with chloroform.


title: The Wind (2018 film)

text: Some time later, Lizzy is awoken by a reverend passing by. She provides him a meal and offers him lodging in the Harpers' empty cabin, but urges that he not answer the door after dark. In the middle of the night, the reverend knocks frantically on Lizzy's door, claiming to have been attacked by an unseen entity. She allows him in, but quickly realizes he is a manifestation of the entity itself, and flees, locking herself in the Harpers' cabin. In the morning, she finds the reverend's corpse outside. Shortly after, she visits Samuel's grave, planning to kill herself with a shotgun, but is distracted by the sound of Isaac returning on his horse. To Lizzy's shock, Isaac tells her that he passed the reverend en route, and that the two had a conversation.


title: The Wind (2018 film)

text: Gideon returns, packs his remaining belongings, and moves away, but leaves behind a trunk of books for Lizzy and Isaac. In the trunk, Lizzy finds a tract detailing various "demons of the prairie." Lizzy and Isaac argue about the tract, as he fears reading it will reignite her symptoms of prairie madness in general, paranoia about the supernatural in particular. Isaac storms out, and moments later, Lizzy is levitated and thrown across the cabin by an unseen force; she crashes onto the kitchen table, impaling the side of her lower abdomen on a pair of scissors. Some time later, Lizzy awakens tied to her bed. Isaac, who found Emma's journal, confronts Lizzy, having realized the truth: She murdered Emma out of jealousy. Lizzy manages to free herself, and stabs Isaac in the throat with a piece of broken glass, killing him. At dawn, she stumbles outside and collapses on the ground. As she stares at the expanse of land around her, she reminisces about her pregnancy, and of an encounter with the reverend upon her and Isaac's arrival, when he gave her a tract about the demons of the prairie.


title: The Wind (2018 film)

text: "The Wind" had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2018, as part of the festival's Midnight Madness section.


title: The Wind (2018 film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, "The Wind" holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critics' consensus reads, "Imperfect yet intriguing, "The Wind" offers horror fans an admirably ambitious story further distinguished by its fresh perspective and effective scares." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: The Wind (2018 film)

text: Jessica Kiang from "Variety" gave the film a positive review, writing, ""The Wind" doesn't seek to make infallible heroes of its women, but to understand and empathize with even their most unforgivable acts. And it's a hugely promising debut in terms of Tammi's steady, assured directorial craft." Jordan Mintzer from "The Hollywood Reporter" gave the film a mostly positive review, writing, "Well-shot and edited, with a script that keeps you guessing for a certain stretch of time, "The Wind" doesn't quite sustain the tension through the final reel, resorting to eye-rolling scare tactics that go from serious to way too silly. Nonetheless, it's refreshing to see such an original stab at this type of indie genre-bender, especially one told from a strictly female point of view."


title: The Wind (2018 film)

text: Prior to its release, IFC Films commissioned a short horror game to promote the film. The game was created by independent developer Airdorf, and utilizes a style similar to that of Airdorf's "FAITH" games. The game was met with a positive reception, but criticised for its short length.


title: Cezanne Khan

text: Cezanne Khan is an Indian television actor. He is known for his role of Anurag Basu in "Kasautii Zindagi Kay", that aired on Star Plus. He has also worked in Pakistani television series.


title: Cezanne Khan

text: Khan was born into a Muslim family in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. His father was Ustad Rais Khan, a famous sitarist in Pakistan. His mother, Tasnim Khan, is an interior designer, whose family also resides in Karachi, Pakistan. His brother, Suhail Khan, is a singer, composer and sitar player.


title: Cezanne Khan

text: Khan went to boarding school at Barnes in Deolali. He earned his Bachelor of Commerce from M.M.K. College of Commerce & Economics in Bandra, Bombay.


title: Cezanne Khan

text: During his college days, he was involved with modelling and theatre. After Cezanne finished his B.Com, he was supposed to join NMIMS (Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies) for MBA when he was offered a film. This film never released, but it served to prompt him leave his MBA to pursue a career in acting. It was at this point that his television career began. Anubhav Sinha offered him a role in his TV serial, "Hasratein", on Zee TV and he accepted the offer. And soon after, he got Neena Gupta's "Pal Chhin" and Balaji Telefilms's Kaliren. He also did a bit of acting in B.R.Films' serial Dushman. Meanwhile, Ekta Kapoor was doing the auditions for Kasautii Zindagi Kay (KZK) and offered him the role of Anurag Basu. KZK catapulted Cezanne into a household name. As the shy and meek Anurag Basu in KZK, he gained immense popularity. KZK is one of the top serials of Star Plus.


title: Cezanne Khan

text: He got his name from the famous French painter Paul Cezanne. But the Indian entertainment world often confused him with Hrithik Roshan's wife Suzanne Khan. However, after Kasautii Zindagi Kay, he was soon known by a different name altogether - Anurag Basu.


title: Cezanne Khan

text: "I agree that I am more popular as Anurag than by my real name. The role surely is the turning point in my career," says the actor. Due to his immense popularity, he is getting film offers as well. "But I want a lead role and no less. It should also be good and substantial," he seems to have made up his mind.


title: Cezanne Khan

text: Cezanne's look in KZK "Though I think looks do matter initially, something like an identity card, but as you move on from one role to the other on television, you have to have substance in you to carry you forward. You should have the charisma to impress the audience to watch you day after day," says Cezanne.


title: Cezanne Khan

text: Khan also hosted The Good Health Show on Zee TV for some time. He acted in two Pakistani TV serials - "Piya Kay Ghar Jana Hai" aired on ARY Digital in 2006 and Silsilay Chahat Ke in 2007.


title: Cezanne Khan

text: He returned to TV after 9 Years in a lead role as Harman Singh in Rashmi Sharma's TV show "Shakti - Astitva Ke Ehsaas Ki", replacing Vivian Dsena opposite Rubina Dilaik.


title: Coccidia

text: Coccidia (Coccidiasina) are a subclass of microscopic, spore-forming, single-celled obligate intracellular parasites belonging to the apicomplexan class Conoidasida.


title: Coccidia

text: As obligate intracellular parasites, they must live and reproduce within an animal cell. Coccidian parasites infect the intestinal tracts of animals, and are the largest group of apicomplexan protozoa.


title: Coccidia

text: Infection with these parasites is known as coccidiosis. Coccidia can infect all mammals, some birds, some fish, some reptiles, and some amphibians. Most species of coccidia are species-specific in their host. An exception is "Toxoplasma gondii", which can infect all mammals, although it can only undergo sexual reproduction in cats. Depending on the species of coccidia, infection can cause fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain, and nervous system effects and changes to behavior, and may lead to death. Healthy adults may recover without medication—but those who are immunocompromised or young almost certainly require medication to prevent death. Humans generally become infected by eating under-cooked meat, but can contract infection with "T. gondii" by poor hygiene when handling cat waste.


title: Coccidia

text: The class is divided into four orders, which are distinguished by the presence or absence of various asexual and sexual stages:


title: Coccidia

text: The order Eucoccidiorida is divided into two suborders. These two groups differ in their sexual development: syzygy for Adeleorina and independent gametes for Eimeriorina.


title: Coccidia

text: The first suborder, Adeleorina, comprises coccidia of invertebrates and the coccidia that alternate between blood-sucking invertebrates and various vertebrates; this group includes "Haemogregarina" and "Hepatozoon". There are seven families in this suborder.


title: Coccidia

text: The second suborder, Eimeriorina, comprises coccidia of a variety of coccidia many of form cysts. A number of genera, including "Toxoplasma" and "Sarcocystis", infect vertebrates.


title: Coccidia

text: Infected animals spread spores called oocysts in their stool. The oocysts mature, called sporulation. When another animal passes over the location where the feces were deposited, it may pick up the spores, which it then ingests when grooming itself. Mice may ingest the spores and become infected. When another animal eats the mouse, it becomes infected.


title: Coccidia

text: Inside the host, the sporulated oocyst opens, and eight sporozoites are released. Each one finds a home in an intestinal cell and starts the process of reproduction. These offspring are called merozoites. When the cell is stuffed full of merozoites, it bursts open, and each merozoite finds its own intestinal cell to continue the cycle.


title: Coccidia

text: As the infection continues, millions of intestinal cells may become infected. As they break open, they produce a bloody, watery diarrhea. This can cause dehydration, and can lead to death in young or small pets. Coccidian infections display symptoms mainly from the digestive tract including diarrhea, inflammation, intestinal pain or damage, vomiting, and irregular nutrition. These can lead to weight loss or reduced growth development, anemia, exhaustion, and even death in severe cases.


title: Coccidia

text: Coccidiosis can be diagnosed by finding oocysts in fecal smears. In early stages of the disease, there may be very few oocysts being shed, and a negative test does not rule out the disease.


title: Coccidia

text: Coccidiosis is most commonly treated through the administration of coccidiostats, a group of medications that stop coccidia from reproducing. In dogs and cats, the most commonly administered coccidiostat is sulfa-based antibiotics. Once reproduction stops, the animal can usually recover on its own, a process that can take a few weeks, depending on the severity of the infection and the strength of the animal's immune system.


title: Baluster

text: A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its construction are wood, stone, and less frequently metal and ceramic. A group of balusters supporting a handrail, coping, or ornamental detail are known as a balustrade.


title: Baluster

text: The term baluster shaft is used to describe forms such as a candlestick, upright furniture support, and the stem of a brass chandelier.


title: Baluster

text: The term banister (also bannister) refers to a baluster or to the system of balusters and handrail of a stairway. It may be used to include its supporting structures, such as a supporting newel post.


title: Baluster

text: According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", "baluster" is derived through the , from , from "balaustra", "pomegranate flower" [from a resemblance to the swelling form of the half-open flower ("illustration, below right")], from Latin "balaustium", from Greek βαλαύστιον ("balaustion").


title: Baluster

text: The earliest examples of balusters are those shown in the bas-reliefs representing the Assyrian palaces, where they were employed as functional window balustrades and apparently had Ionic capitals. As an architectural element alone the balustrade did not seem to have been known to either the Greeks or the Romans, but baluster forms are familiar in the legs of chairs and tables represented in Roman bas-reliefs, where the original legs or the models for cast bronze ones were shaped on the lathe, or in Antique marble candelabra, formed as a series of stacked bulbous and disc-shaped elements, both kinds of sources familiar to Quattrocento designers.


title: Baluster

text: The application to architecture was a feature of the early Renaissance architecture: late fifteenth-century examples are found in the balconies of palaces at Venice and Verona. These quattrocento balustrades are likely to be following yet-unidentified Gothic precedents. They form balustrades of colonettes as an alternative to miniature arcading.


title: Baluster

text: Rudolf Wittkower withheld judgement as to the inventor of the baluster and credited Giuliano da Sangallo with using it consistently as early as the balustrade on the terrace and stairs at the Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano ("c" 1480), and used balustrades in his reconstructions of antique structures. Sangallo passed the motif to Bramante (his Tempietto, 1502) and Michelangelo, through whom balustrades gained wide currency in the 16th century.


title: Baluster

text: Wittkower distinguished two types, one symmetrical in profile that inverted one bulbous vase-shape over another, separating them with a cushionlike torus or a concave ring, and the other a simple vase shape, whose employment by Michelangelo at the Campidoglio steps ("c" 1546), noted by Wittkower, was preceded by very early vasiform balusters in a balustrade round the drum of Santa Maria delle Grazie ("c" 1482), and railings in the cathedrals of Aquileia ("c" 1495) and Parma, in the cortile of San Damaso, Vatican, and Antonio da Sangallo's crowning balustrade on the Santa Casa at Loreto installed in 1535, and liberally in his model for the Basilica of Saint Peter. Because of its low center of gravity, this "vase-baluster" may be given the modern term "dropped baluster".


title: Baluster

text: Balusters may be made of carved stone, cast stone, plaster, polymer, polyurethane/polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), precast concrete, wood or wrought iron. Cast-stone balusters were a development of the 18th century in Great Britain (see Coade stone), and cast iron balusters a development largely of the 1840s. As balusters and balustrades have evolved, they can now be made from various materials with a few popular choices being timber, glass and stainless steel.


title: Baluster

text: The baluster, being a turned structure, tends to follow design precedents that were set in woodworking and ceramic practices, where the turner's lathe and the potter's wheel are ancient tools. The profile a baluster takes is often diagnostic of a particular style of architecture or furniture, and may offer a rough guide to date of a design, though not of a particular example.


title: Baluster

text: Some complicated Mannerist baluster forms can be read as a vase set upon another vase. The high shoulders and bold, rhythmic shapes of the Baroque vase and baluster forms are distinctly different from the sober baluster forms of Neoclassicism, which look to other precedents, like Greek amphoras. The distinctive twist-turned designs of balusters in oak and walnut English and Dutch seventeenth-century furniture, which took as their prototype the Solomonic column that was given prominence by Bernini, fell out of style after the 1710s.


title: Baluster

text: Once it had been taken from the lathe, a turned wood baluster could be split and applied to an architectural surface, or to one in which architectonic themes were more freely treated, as on cabinets made in Italy, Spain and Northern Europe from the sixteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Modern baluster design is also in use for example in designs influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement in a 1905 row of houses in Etchingham Park Road Finchley London England.


title: Baluster

text: Outside Europe, the baluster column appeared as a new motif in Mughal architecture, introduced in Shah Jahan's interventions in two of the three great fortress-palaces, the Red Fort of Agra and Delhi, in the early seventeenth century. Foliate baluster columns with naturalistic foliate capitals, unexampled in previous Indo-Islamic architecture according to Ebba Koch, rapidly became one of the most widely used forms of supporting shaft in Northern and Central India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.


title: Baluster

text: The modern term baluster shaft is applied to the shaft dividing a window in Saxon architecture. In the south transept of the Abbey in St Albans, England, are some of these shafts, supposed to have been taken from the old Saxon church. Norman bases and capitals have been added, together with plain cylindrical Norman shafts.


title: Baluster

text: Balusters are normally separated by at least the same measurement as the size of the square bottom section. Placing balusters too far apart diminishes their aesthetic appeal, and the structural integrity of the balustrade they form. Balustrades normally terminate in heavy newel posts, columns, and building walls for structural support.


title: Baluster

text: Balusters may be formed in several ways. Wood and stone can be shaped on the lathe, wood can be cut from square or rectangular section boards, while concrete, plaster, iron, and plastics are usually formed by molding and casting. Turned patterns or old examples are used for the molds.


title: Spiral model

text: The spiral model is a risk-driven software development process model. Based on the unique risk patterns of a given project, the spiral model guides a team to adopt elements of one or more process models, such as incremental, waterfall, or evolutionary prototyping.


title: Spiral model

text: This model was first described by Barry Boehm in his 1986 paper, "A Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement". In 1988 Boehm published a similar paper to a wider audience. These papers introduce a diagram that has been reproduced in many subsequent publications discussing the spiral model.


title: Spiral model

text: These early papers use the term "process model" to refer to the spiral model as well as to incremental, waterfall, prototyping, and other approaches. However, the spiral model's characteristic risk-driven blending of other process models' features is already present:


title: Spiral model

text: In later publications, Boehm describes the spiral model as a "process model generator", where choices based on a project's risks generate an appropriate process model for the project. Thus, the incremental, waterfall, prototyping, and other process models are special cases of the spiral model that fit the risk patterns of certain projects.


title: Spiral model

text: Boehm also identifies a number of misconceptions arising from oversimplifications in the original spiral model diagram. He says the most dangerous of these misconceptions are:


title: Spiral model

text: While these misconceptions may fit the risk patterns of a few projects, they are not true for most projects.


title: Spiral model

text: In a National Research Council report this model was extended to include risks related to human users.


title: Spiral model

text: To better distinguish them from "hazardous spiral look-alikes", Boehm lists six characteristics common to all authentic applications of the spiral model.


title: Spiral model

text: Authentic applications of the spiral model are driven by cycles that always display six characteristics. Boehm illustrates each with an example of a "dangerous spiral look-alike" that violates the invariant.


title: Spiral model

text: Sequentially defining the key artifacts for a project often increases the possibility of developing a system that meets stakeholder "win conditions" (objectives and constraints).


title: Spiral model

text: This invariant excludes “hazardous spiral look-alike” processes that use a sequence of incremental waterfall passes in settings where the underlying assumptions of the waterfall model do not apply. Boehm lists these assumptions as follows:


title: Spiral model

text: In situations where these assumptions do apply, it is a project risk not to specify the requirements and proceed sequentially. The waterfall model thus becomes a risk-driven special case of the spiral model.


title: Spiral model

text: Project cycles that omit or shortchange any of these activities risk wasting effort by pursuing options that are unacceptable to key stakeholders, or are too risky.


title: Spiral model

text: Some "hazardous spiral look-alike" processes violate this invariant by excluding key stakeholders from certain sequential phases or cycles. For example, system maintainers and administrators might not be invited to participate in definition and development of the system. As a result, the system is at risk of failing to satisfy their win conditions.


title: Spiral model

text: For any project activity (e.g., requirements analysis, design, prototyping, testing), the project team must decide how much effort is enough. In authentic spiral process cycles, these decisions are made by minimizing overall risk.


title: Spiral model

text: For example, investing additional time testing a software product often reduces the risk due to the marketplace rejecting a shoddy product. However, additional testing time might increase the risk due to a competitor's early market entry. From a spiral model perspective, testing should be performed until the total risk is minimized, and no further.


title: Spiral model

text: "Hazardous spiral look-alikes" that violate this invariant include evolutionary processes that ignore risk due to scalability issues, and incremental processes that invest heavily in a technical architecture that must be redesigned or replaced to accommodate future increments of the product.


title: Spiral model

text: For any project artifact (e.g., requirements specification, design document, test plan), the project team must decide how much detail is enough. In authentic spiral process cycles, these decisions are made by minimizing overall risk.


title: Spiral model

text: Considering requirements specification as an example, the project should precisely specify those features where risk is reduced through precise specification (e.g., interfaces between hardware and software, interfaces between prime and sub-contractors). Conversely, the project should not precisely specify those features where precise specification increases the risk (e.g., graphical screen layouts, the behavior of off-the-shelf components).


title: Spiral model

text: Boehm's original description of the spiral model did not include any process milestones. In later refinements, he introduces three anchor point milestones that serve as progress indicators and points of commitment. These anchor point milestones can be characterized by key questions.


title: Spiral model

text: "Hazardous spiral look-alikes" that violate this invariant include evolutionary and incremental processes that commit significant resources to implementing a solution with a poorly defined architecture.


title: Spiral model

text: The three anchor point milestones fit easily into the Rational Unified Process (RUP), with LCO marking the boundary between RUP's Inception and Elaboration phases, LCA marking the boundary between Elaboration and Construction phases, and IOC marking the boundary between Construction and Transition phases.


title: Spiral model

text: This invariant highlights the importance of the overall system and the long-term concerns spanning its entire life cycle. It excludes "hazardous spiral look-alikes" that focus too much on initial development of software code. These processes can result from following published approaches to object-oriented or structured software analysis and design, while neglecting other aspects of the project's process needs.


title: The Man Who Invented Christmas (film)

text: The Man Who Invented Christmas is a 2017 Christmas biographical comedy-drama film directed by Bharat Nalluri and written by Susan Coyne. Based on the 2008 book of the same name about Charles Dickens by Les Standiford, the joint Canadian and Irish production stars Dan Stevens, Christopher Plummer, and Jonathan Pryce, and follows Dickens (Stevens) as he conceives and writes his 1843 novella "A Christmas Carol".


title: The Man Who Invented Christmas (film)

text: The film was produced by Parallel Film and Rhombus Media. It was released by Bleecker Street in the United States on 22 November 2017, and by Thunderbird Releasing in the United Kingdom on 1 December 2017. It received generally positive reviews from critics.


title: The Man Who Invented Christmas (film)

text: In 1843, four years after the success of "Oliver Twist", Charles Dickens (Dan Stevens) is suffering financial hardship from the failure of his last three books. Rejected by his publishers, he sets out to write a new book, and publish it himself, to restore his finances. Seeing inspiration around London, most notably a rich man's funeral that is largely unattended and a mean-spirited old man who gives him the catchphrase "Humbug" and inspiration of a new character, he begins writing "A Christmas Carol", due in six weeks in order to be published by Christmas, despite his friends and publishers telling him that the book will also be a failure as Christmas (at the time) was considered irrelevant and few people celebrated it.


title: The Man Who Invented Christmas (film)

text: As Charles develops the story, he interacts with the characters that manifest in front of him, most notably Ebenezer Scrooge (Christopher Plummer). Dickens is helped by one of his servants, Tara (Anna Murphy), a literate Irish nursemaid to his children, whom he discusses story elements with.


title: The Man Who Invented Christmas (film)

text: While writing his book, Charles is greeted by the unannounced arrival of his eccentric father, John Dickens (Jonathan Pryce), whom Charles views as immature and fiscally irresponsible. When Charles shows Tara the next draft, she is distraught that Scrooge would not save Tiny Tim. Tara believes that people can change and suggests instead that Scrooge saves Tiny Tim.


title: The Man Who Invented Christmas (film)

text: However, Charles is unable to believe that a man as cruel and cold as Scrooge could change. He rejects the notion but it continues to haunt him in the form of writer's block. Charles' relationship with his family and friends increasingly strains as he struggles with Scrooge's ending and his debts mount, until he sends both his parents and Tara out of the house in a fit of rage. The next morning, he regrets dismissing Tara, but is unable to find and rehire her. His wife, Catherine Dickens, tearfully confronts Charles over his recklessness and instability, and admits that she believes that he puts his work before his own family.