title: Burushaski

text: Personal prefixes do not occur in all verbs and all tenses. Some verbs do not admit personal prefixes, others still do so only under certain circumstances. Personal prefixes used with intransitive verbs often express a volitional function, with prefixed forms indicating an action contrary to the intention of the subject. For example:


title: Burushaski

text: A number of verbs – mostly according to their root form – are found with the d-prefix in position 2, which occurs before a consonant according to vowel harmony. The precise semantic function of the d-prefix is unclear. With primary transitive verbs the d-prefix, always without personal prefixes, forms regular intransitives. Examples:


title: Burushaski

text: A master's thesis research work of a native speaker of Burushaski on Middle Voice Construction in the Hunza Dialect claims that the [dd-] verbal prefix is an overt morphological middle marker for MV constructions, while the [n-] verbal prefix is a morphological marker for passive voice. The data primarily come from the Hunza dialect of Burushaski, but analogous phenomena can be observed in other dialects. This research is based on a corpus of 120 dd-prefix verbs. This research has showed that position {-2} on the verb template is occupied by voice-marker in Burushaski. The author argues that the middle marker is a semantic category of its own and that it is clearly distinguished from the reflexive marker in this language. The middle marker (MM) means the grammatical device used to "indicate that the two semantic roles of Initiator and Endpoint refer to a single holistic entity" (Kemmer 1993: 47). In the view of that definition, I look at a middle marked verb in Burushaski and illustration follows the example.


title: Johnny Rapid

text: Johnny Rapid (born Hylan Anthony Taylor; August 24, 1992) is an American gay pornographic film actor.


title: Johnny Rapid

text: Since 2010, he has appeared in over 200 pornographic scenes for Men.com studio. He now runs his own site.


title: Johnny Rapid

text: As a teenager, he was a car enthusiast, and a boxer. He graduated from Rockdale District School in 2010.


title: Johnny Rapid

text: When he lost his job in the middle of summer he thought that playing in porn films could be a good way to make money quickly.


title: Johnny Rapid

text: Before building his career for Men.com, he also played several scenes for "Boys First Time" and "Bukkake Boys" Studios. For the first, he appeared in a scene called "Rapid Fire" released December 23, 2011.


title: Johnny Rapid

text: In January 2015, Rapid publicly offered $2 million to Canadian singer Justin Bieber to shoot a pornographic scene with him. The singer never answered. Rapid went on to play Bieber in a porn parody.


title: Johnny Rapid

text: By April 2021, Rapid’s pornographic film work has been prolific and has included doing 300+ scenes with over 180 different male pornographic actors.


title: Johnny Rapid

text: Discreet about his private life, Rapid previously defined himself as heterosexual and thus a gay for pay actor; however, he now identifies as bisexual.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Tawi-Tawi (; Tausug: "Wilaya' sin Tawi-Tawi"; Sinama: "Jawi Jawi/Jauih Jauih") is an island province in the Philippines located in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). The capital of Tawi-Tawi is Bongao.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: It is the southernmost province of the country, sharing sea borders with the Malaysian state of Sabah and the Indonesian North Kalimantan province, both on the island of Borneo to the west. To the northeast lies the province of Sulu. Tawi-Tawi also covers some islands in the Sulu Sea to the northwest, Cagayan de Tawi-Tawi Island and the Turtle Islands, just away from Sabah.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: The municipalities comprising the current Tawi-Tawi province were formerly under the jurisdiction of Sulu until 1973.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Province was named after its main island. Tawi-Tawi is the Sinama form of "jawi-jawi", Malay for the banyan tree; the island is known for having an abundance of this tree. Early Spanish accounts give the name of the island as "Tauitaui" and "Tavi-Tavi" or "Tavitavi".


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Evidence of human presence in Tawi-tawi was carbon-dated to be 6,810 BC to 3,190 BC, signifying one of the earliest known evidence of human presence in Southeast Asia. The bones, jars, shells, and other artifacts and fossils were found in the "Bolobok Rock Shelter Cave Archaeological Site", which has been declared as an Important Cultural Treasure by the government in 2017.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Much of the Tawi-tawi area was the center of Sama culture and arts for hundreds of years. Some islands are sites of centuries-old traditional burial grounds featuring traditional Sama "okil" carvings of ancestors.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: In 1380, the first mosque in the Philippines, the Sheik Karimol Makhdum Mosque, was established by an Arab trader and missionary, Makhdum Karim. The area was heavily converted to Islam, especially when the Sultanate of Sulu in nearby Sulu province was founded. Although unlike the Tausug people, many Sama retained at least part of their ancient animist religions.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: As early as January 28, 1761, Sultan Muizz ud-Din entered into an agreement with Alexander Dalrymple of the British East India Company for commercial and economic concessions. The subsequent treaties with Muizz ud-Din on September 12, 1762, and with Sultan Azim ud-Din, claimant to the Sultanate and a prisoner of the British in Manila, on February 23, 1763, confirmed these British claims. However, on March 5, 1775, Datu Teteng annihilated the British troops in Balambangan. Since then, the Muslims not only fought the British soldiers but also the Spanish troops. After the brother of Sultan Aliyud-Din I captured the Spanish ship San Jose in Tawi-Tawi, the British forces withdrew from Balambangan in 1805.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: On January 22, 1878, Baron von Overbeck, representing the British North Borneo Company, signed a treaty with Sultan Jamalul Alam for the lease of the Sultan's land in Borneo at an annual rent of 5,000 Mexican dollars. The Germans also asked for commercial concessions. Due to foreign encroachments, the Spaniards constructed a naval base at Tata'an and built garrisons in Bongao and Siasi.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: On March 7, 1885, Spain, Britain and Germany signed a protocol in Madrid whereby Spain relinquished all her claims to the offshore lands in Borneo, granted freedom of trade and navigation in Sulu, and Britain and Germany recognized Spanish sovereignty over Balabac and Cagayan de Sulu. However, the British diplomatically continued to pay the annual rents for Sabah (Sultan's land in Borneo) to Harun ar-Rashid.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: During the Philippine Revolution of 1896, the mutiny of the 68th Regiment at Busbus, Jolo implicated Tagalog soldiers. The Muslims, however, retained their own views on independence and freedom.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: When the American forces occupied Jolo on May 19, 1899, they established garrisons at Bongao and Siasi after the Muslims wiped out the Spanish garrison in Tata'an, Tawi-Tawi. In 1900, the United States entered into a treaty with Spain whereby Sibutu and Cagayan de Sulu were ceded to the former for $100,000. The Sultanate continued to receive the rentals for Sabah until 1946 when the British North Borneo Company sold its rights to the British Crown.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: During World War II, the calm but exposed waters around the islands were used by the Imperial Japanese Navy as a major fleet anchorage due to its proximity to the oilfields of Borneo. Japanese forces, however, did not develop any facilities on the islands leaving the anchorage without an airfield, which allowed American submarines to track the movements of the Japanese fleet at the exposed anchorage. After the Japanese Imperial Forces occupied Tawi-Tawi, guerilla forces were organized under Lts. Konglamtio and Alejandro Tresperes in Siasi and Tawi-Tawi. These units were under the Sulu Command led by Lt. Col. Alejandro Suarez. The Command aided the American Liberation Forces at Sanga-Sanga Island on April 2, 1945.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: On October 16, 1947, the offshore lands of Borneo—Taganak, Bakkungan, Bayaua, Sibauang and Lihiman Islands—were turned over to the Philippines by the British North Borneo government. The unveiling ceremonies of the marker in Taganak Island on June 26, 1948, were attended by M.G. Combe, representing Great Britain, former President Diosdado Macapagal for the Philippines, Princess Tarhata Kiram for the Sultanate, and Governor Kalinangan Calauag for Sulu.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Previously part of the province of Sulu, Tawi-Tawi was converted into a province on September 11, 1973, pursuant to "Presidential Decree No. 302" and erstwhile Commodore Romulo Espaldon was appointed as its first governor until the first provincial elections were held.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Prior to issuing the decree, President Marcos had asked Espaldon, “Why are the young boys of Tawi-Tawi easily wooed by the Moro National Liberation Front?” Espaldon replied, “The Sama boys, like their elders and leaders, are tired and weary of their union with the Province of Sulu. They want to have their own leaders and manage their own affairs. If His Excellency wants to solve the problem, I recommend that he create them into a separate province and allow them to exercise their own local prerogatives.” Hence, Espaldon earned the moniker "Father of Tawi-Tawi."


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: During the first 730 days of Tawi-Tawi as a province, Espaldon spearheaded over 100 civilian infrastructure projects, including the construction of the provincial capitol, provincial hospital, public market, 50 mosques, school houses, radio station, airstrips, piers, houses, bridges, roads and water system.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: The seat of the provincial government was initially designated as Bato-Bato in the municipality of Balimbing (now Panglima Sugala), but was moved to Bongao on April 4, 1979, by virtue of "Batas Pambansa Blg. 24".


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Tawi-Tawi is currently being groomed as the location of a special economic zone and transhipment point, a future center of commerce as the Tawi-Tawi freeport is being built in the area.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: The province lies at the southwestern tip of the country, situated between the Sulu Sea in the north and the Celebes Sea in the south. The province is part of the Sulu Archipelago, and consists of Tawitawi Island and 106 surrounding islands and islets with a combined land area of . Tawitawi Island itself has an area of . The last island of the province at the edge of the Philippine-Malaysia border is Panguan Island.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: The province has two seasons: dry and wet. The climate is generally moderate. The wettest months are from August to November. The other months of the year are generally dry with occasional rain showers.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: The main island of Tawi-Tawi supports many endemic species and subspecies of vertebrates, invertebrates and plants unique to this island, plus some that are only shared with Sulu Province. These include the Tawitawi brown dove, the Sulu hornbill and the Sulu bleeding-heart, although this latter species may already be extinct.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: The rapid expansion of human settlements into forested areas together with clearance for agriculture in the last few decades has dramatically reduced the available habitat for most of the endemic species, many of which are now considered 'Critically Endangered' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Tawi-Tawi comprises 11 municipalities, all encompassed by two legislative districts and further subdivided into 203 barangays.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Most of the municipalities are located on the islands in the Sulu Archipelago. Two of them, Mapun (which is closer to Palawan) and Turtle Islands, lie within the Sulu Sea.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Most of the people in Tawi-Tawi belong to the Sama cultural group. Within this group are subgroups and named based on the location of the speaker. Sama Sibutu are those from the Sibutu-Sitangkai Island Group, Sama Simunul are those from Simunul-Manuk Mangkaw Island Group, and so on.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: The Jama Mapun are largely found in the Cagayan Mapun and Turtle Island Group. Many of the people from the Turtle Islands and Cagayan Mapun maintain daily commerce with Sabah, since it is only 14 kilometers away.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: The Badjao (also called "Sama Dilaut") are widely dispersed across the province, though their population is diminishing due to diseases and migration to other areas in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: The Tausog or Tau Sug, Orang Suluk or Aa Suk are a Moro ethnic group constituting a significant minority in Tawi-Tawi.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: The Tausug language is the lingua franca of Tawi-Tawi, as in the case of the rest of the provinces in the Sulu Archipelago. Another prevailing local language, Sama, is spoken in varied tones and accents with the major ones being Sinama Sibutu (spoken mainly in the Sibutu-Sitangkai Region), Sinama Simunul (concentrated in Simunul-Manuk-Mangkaw Islands), Sinama Kapoan (spoken in the South Ubian-Tandubas and Sapa-Sapa Regions) and Sinama Banguingui (concentrated in Buan Island and spoken by Banguingui people).


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Chavacano, Cebuano, and Yakan are also spoken, as are the national official languages of Tagalog and English. Many locals and barter traders can also speak Sabah Malay.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Many Muslims can also speak Cebuano because of the mass influx of Cebuano settlers to Mindanao, since Tausug is a related Visayan language.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: A majority of Tawi-Tawi's Muslim population practice Sunni Islam of the Shafi'i tradition, as taught by Arab, Persian, Indian Muslim, Chinese Muslim and Malaccan missionaries from the 14th century onwards. The oldest mosque in the Philippines, the Sheik Karimol Makdum Mosque, can be found in Simunul, Tawi-Tawi.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Relatively newer Islamic sects, mostly brought by returning veterans of the Afghan wars and missionaries from Pakistan's stricter Sufi traditions, referred to as the Tableegh, have been active in propagating what they believe to be a "purer" Islamic way of life and worship. A very small number who have since married into Iranian or Iraqi families have converted to Shiite Islam.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Majority of Tawi-Tawi Christians are Roman Catholic, they are under the jurisdiction of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Zamboanga through its suffragan Apostolic Vicariate of Jolo/Diocese of Jolo. Non-Catholic Christians include Evangelicals, Jesus Miracle Crusade, Episcopalian, and Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and a number of other Protestant denominations. Only the most recent Chinese immigrants adhere to Buddhism or Taoism, while most of the older Chinese families have acculturated and have either converted to Islam while retaining most of their Chinese beliefs.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Agriculture, fishing, and agar-agar (seaweeds) farming are the leading source of livelihood of the people of Tawi-Tawi, with quite a number engaged in the barter trade business. Copra is the top agricultural product, followed by root crops, fruits, and vegetables.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: Recently, Philippine Airlines and Bangsamoro Government launches the inaugural flight of the first ever regional air connectivity on June 9, 2022 from Cotabato City, the regions seat and capital. Meanwhile, Cebu Pacific began operating a daily flight from Zamboanga City to Tawi-Tawi Province on October 14, 2011, utilizing its 150-seater Airbus A319 aircraft. Philippine Airlines (operated by PAL Express) also started operating flights to and from Zamboanga City on December 15, 2019.


title: Tawi-Tawi

text: A sea connection to other parts of the Philippine archipelago as well as an international route to Semporna, Malaysia is available from Bongao.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: A phonemic orthography is an orthography (system for writing a language) in which the graphemes (written symbols) correspond to the phonemes (significant spoken sounds) of the language. Natural languages rarely have perfectly phonemic orthographies; a high degree of grapheme-phoneme correspondence can be expected in orthographies based on alphabetic writing systems, but they differ in how complete this correspondence is. English orthography, for example, is alphabetic but highly nonphonemic; it was once mostly phonemic during the Middle English stage, when the modern spellings originated, but spoken English changed rapidly while the orthography was much more stable, resulting in the modern nonphonemic situation. However, because of their relatively recent modernizations compared to English, the Serbian<wbr>/<wbr>Croatian<wbr>/<wbr>Bosnian<wbr>/<wbr>Montenegrin, Romanian, Italian, Turkish, Spanish, Finnish, Czech, Latvian, Esperanto, Korean and Swahili orthographic systems come much closer to being consistent phonemic representations.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: In less formal terms, a language with a highly phonemic orthography may be described as having regular spelling. Another terminology is that of deep and shallow orthographies, in which the depth of an orthography is the degree to which it diverges from being truly phonemic. The concept can also be applied to nonalphabetic writing systems like syllabaries.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: In an ideal phonemic orthography, there would be a complete one-to-one correspondence (bijection) between the graphemes (letters) and the phonemes of the language, and each phoneme would invariably be represented by its corresponding grapheme. So the spelling of a word would unambiguously and transparently indicate its pronunciation, and conversely, a speaker knowing the pronunciation of a word would be able to infer its spelling without any doubt. That ideal situation is rare but exists in a few languages.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: A disputed example of an ideally phonemic orthography is the Serbo-Croatian language. In its alphabet (Latin as well as Serbian Cyrillic alphabet), there are 30 graphemes, each uniquely corresponding to one of the phonemes. This seemingly perfect yet simple phonemic orthography was achieved in the 19th century—the Cyrillic alphabet first in 1814 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić, and the Latin alphabet in 1830 by Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj. However, both Gaj's Latin alphabet and Serbian Cyrillic do not distinguish short and long vowels, and non-tonic (the short one is written), rising, and falling tones that Serbo-Croatian has. In Serbo-Croatian, the tones and vowel lengths were optionally written as (in Latin) ⟨e⟩, ⟨ē⟩, ⟨è⟩, ⟨é⟩, ⟨ȅ⟩, and ⟨ȇ⟩, especially in dictionaries.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: Another such ideal phonemic orthography is native to Esperanto, employing the language creator L. L. Zamenhof's then-pronounced principle “one letter, one sound”.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: There are two distinct types of deviation from this phonemic ideal. In the first case, the exact one-to-one correspondence may be lost (for example, some phoneme may be represented by a digraph instead of a single letter), but the "regularity" is retained: there is still an algorithm (but a more complex one) for predicting the spelling from the pronunciation and vice versa. In the second case, true irregularity is introduced, as certain words come to be spelled and pronounced according to different rules from others, and prediction of spelling from pronunciation and vice versa is no longer possible. Common cases of both types of deviation from the ideal are discussed in the following section.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: Some ways in which orthographies may deviate from the ideal of one-to-one grapheme-phoneme correspondence are listed below. The first list contains deviations that tend only to make the relation between spelling and pronunciation more complex, without affecting its predictability (see above paragraph).


title: Phonemic orthography

text: "ch" versus "çh" in Manx Gaelic: this is a slightly different case where the same digraph is used for two different single phonemes.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: This is often due to the use of an alphabet that was originally used for a different language (the Latin alphabet in these examples) and so does not have single letters available for all the phonemes used in the current language (although some orthographies use devices such as diacritics to increase the number of available letters).


title: Phonemic orthography

text: Most orthographies do not reflect the changes in pronunciation known as sandhi in which pronunciation is affected by adjacent sounds in neighboring words (written Sanskrit and other Indian languages, however, reflect such changes). A language may also use different sets of symbols or different rules for distinct sets of vocabulary items such as the Japanese hiragana and katakana syllabaries (and the different treatment in English orthography of words derived from Latin and Greek).


title: Phonemic orthography

text: Alphabetic orthographies often have features that are morphophonemic rather than purely phonemic. This means that the spelling reflects to some extent the underlying morphological structure of the words, not only their pronunciation. Hence different forms of a morpheme (minimum meaningful unit of language) are often spelt identically or similarly in spite of differences in their pronunciation. That is often for historical reasons; the morphophonemic spelling reflects a previous pronunciation from before historical sound changes that caused the variation in pronunciation of a given morpheme. Such spellings can assist in the recognition of words when reading.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: Korean "hangul" has changed over the centuries from a highly phonemic to a largely morphophonemic orthography. Japanese kana are almost completely phonemic but have a few morphophonemic aspects, notably in the use of ぢ "di" and づ "du" (rather than じ "ji" and ず "zu", their pronunciation in standard Tokyo dialect), when the character is a voicing of an underlying ち or つ. That is from the rendaku sound change combined with the yotsugana merger of formally different morae. The Russian orthography is also mostly morphophonemic, because it does not reflect vowel reduction, consonant assimilation and final-obstruent devoicing. Also, some consonant combinations have silent consonants.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: A defective orthography is one that is not capable of representing all the phonemes or phonemic distinctions in a language. An example of such a deficiency in English orthography is the lack of distinction between the voiced and voiceless "th" phonemes ( and , respectively), occurring in words like "this" (voiced) and "thin" (voiceless) respectively, with both written .


title: Phonemic orthography

text: Languages whose current orthographies have a high grapheme-to-phoneme and phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence (excluding exceptions due to loan words and assimilation) include:


title: Phonemic orthography

text: Many otherwise phonemic orthographies are slightly defective: Malay (incl. Malaysian and Indonesian), Italian, Maltese, Welsh, and Kazakh do not fully distinguish their vowels; Lithuanian, Latvian, and Serbo-Croatian do not distinguish tone and vowel length (also additional vowels for Lithuanian and Latvian); Somali does not distinguish vowel phonation; and the graphemes "b" and "v" represent the same phoneme in all varieties of Spanish (except in Valencia), while in the Spanish of the Americas, can be represented by graphemes "s", "c", or "z". Modern Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Maithili and several others feature schwa deletion, where the implicit default vowel is suppressed without being explicitly marked as such. Others, like Marathi, do not have a high grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence for vowel lengths.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: French, with its silent letters and its heavy use of nasal vowels and elision, may seem to lack much correspondence between spelling and pronunciation, but its rules on pronunciation, though complex, are consistent and predictable with a fair degree of accuracy. The phoneme-to-letter correspondence, on the other hand, is often low and a sequence of sounds may have multiple ways of being spelt, often with different meanings.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: Orthographies such as those of German, Hungarian (mainly phonemic with the exception "ly", "j" representing the same sound, but consonant and vowel length are not always accurate and various spellings reflect etymology, not pronunciation), Portuguese, and modern Greek (written with the Greek alphabet), as well as Korean hangul, are sometimes considered to be of intermediate depth (for example they include many morphophonemic features, as described above).


title: Phonemic orthography

text: Similarly to French, it is much easier to infer the pronunciation of a German word from its spelling than vice versa. For example, for speakers who merge /eː/ and /ɛː/, the phoneme /eː/ may be spelt "e", "ee", "eh", "ä" or "äh".


title: Phonemic orthography

text: English orthography is highly non-phonemic. The irregularity of English spelling arises partly because the Great Vowel Shift occurred after the orthography was established; partly because English has acquired a large number of loanwords at different times, retaining their original spelling at varying levels; and partly because the regularisation of the spelling (moving away from the situation in which many different spellings were acceptable for the same word) happened arbitrarily over a period without any central plan. However even English has general, albeit complex, rules that predict pronunciation from spelling, and several of these rules are successful most of the time; rules to predict spelling from the pronunciation have a higher failure rate.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: The syllabary systems of Japanese (hiragana and katakana) are examples of almost perfectly shallow orthography – exceptions include the use of ぢ and づ (discussed above) and the use of は, を, and へ to represent the sounds わ, お, and え, as relics of historical kana usage. There is also no indication of pitch accent, which results in homography of words like 箸 and 橋 (はし in hiragana), which are distinguished in speech.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: Xavier Marjou uses an artificial neural network to rank 17 orthographies according to their level of Orthographic depth. Among the tested orthographies, Chinese and French orthographies, followed by English and Russian, are the most opaque regarding writing (i.e. phonemes to graphemes direction) and English, followed by Dutch, is the most opaque regarding reading (i.e. graphemes to phonemes direction); Esperanto, Arabic, Finnish, Korean, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish are very shallow both to read and to write; Italian is shallow to read and very shallow to write, Breton, German, Portuguese and Spanish are shallow to read and to write.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: With time, pronunciations change and spellings become out of date, as has happened to English and French. In order to maintain a phonemic orthography such a system would need periodic updating, as has been attempted by various language regulators and proposed by other spelling reformers.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: Sometimes the pronunciation of a word changes to match its spelling; this is called a spelling pronunciation. This is most common with loanwords, but occasionally occurs in the case of established native words too.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: In some English personal names and place names, the relationship between the spelling of the name and its pronunciation is so distant that associations between phonemes and graphemes cannot be readily identified. Moreover, in many other words, the pronunciation has subsequently evolved from a fixed spelling, so that it has to be said that the phonemes represent the graphemes rather than vice versa. And in much technical jargon, the primary medium of communication is the written language rather than the spoken language, so the phonemes represent the graphemes, and it is unimportant how the word is pronounced. Moreover, the sounds which literate people perceive being heard in a word are significantly influenced by the actual spelling of the word.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: Sometimes, countries have the written language undergo a spelling reform to realign the writing with the contemporary spoken language. These can range from simple spelling changes and word forms to switching the entire writing system itself, as when Turkey switched from the Arabic alphabet to a Turkish alphabet of Latin origin.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: Methods for phonetic transcription such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) aim to describe pronunciation in a standard form. They are often used to solve ambiguities in the spelling of written language. They may also be used to write languages with no previous written form. Systems like IPA can be used for phonemic representation or for showing more detailed phonetic information (see Narrow vs. broad transcription).


title: Phonemic orthography

text: Phonemic orthographies are different from phonetic transcription; whereas in a phonemic orthography, allophones will usually be represented by the same grapheme, a purely phonetic script would demand that phonetically distinct allophones be distinguished. To take an example from American English: the sound in the words "table" and "cat" would, in a phonemic orthography, be written with the same character; however, a strictly phonetic script would make a distinction between the aspirated "t" in "table", the flap in "butter", the unaspirated "t" in "stop" and the glottalized "t" in "cat" (not all these allophones exist in all English dialects). In other words, the sound that most English speakers think of as is really a group of sounds, all pronounced slightly differently depending on where they occur in a word. A perfect phonemic orthography has one letter per group of sounds (phoneme), with different letters only where the sounds distinguish words (so "bed" is spelled differently from "bet").


title: Phonemic orthography

text: A narrow phonetic transcription represents phones, the sounds humans are capable of producing, many of which will often be grouped together as a single phoneme in any given natural language, though the groupings vary across languages. English, for example, does not distinguish between aspirated and unaspirated consonants, but other languages, like Korean, Bengali and Hindi do.


title: Phonemic orthography

text: The sounds of speech of all languages of the world can be written by a rather small universal phonetic alphabet. A standard for this is the International Phonetic Alphabet.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Drafting tools may be used for measurement and layout of drawings, or to improve the consistency and speed of creation of standard drawing elements. Tools such as pens and pencils mark the drawing medium. Other tools such as straight edges, assist the operator in drawing straight lines, or assist the operator in drawing complicated shapes repeatedly. Various scales and the protractor are used to measure the lengths of lines and angles, allowing accurate scale drawing to be carried out. The compass is used to draw arcs and circles. A drawing board was used to hold the drawing media in place; later boards included drafting machines that sped the layout of straight lines and angles. Tools such as templates and lettering guides assisted in the drawing of repetitive elements such as circles, ellipses, schematic symbols and text. Other auxiliary tools were used for special drawing purposes or for functions related to the preparation and revision of drawings. The tools used for manual technical drawing have been displaced by the advent of computer-aided drawing, drafting and design (CADD).


title: Technical drawing tool

text: The ancient Egyptians are known to have used wooden corner rulers. Ancient Nuragic people in Sardinia used compasses made of bronze, like the one displayed in showcase 25 in the Nuragic department of the National Archeological Museum G. A. Sanna in Sassari. In ancient Greece, evidence has been found of the use of styli and metal chisels, scale rulers and triangle rulers. Excavations in Pompeii have found a bronze tool kit used by the Romans, which contained triangle rulers, compasses and a ruler to use with a pen.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Although a variety of styli were developed in ancient times and were still being used in the 18th century, quills were generally used as the main drawing tool. Styli were also used in the form of ivory or ebony pencils.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Protractors have been used to measure and draw angles and arcs of a circle accurately since about the 13th century, although mathematics and science demanded more detailed drawing instruments. The adjustable corner ruler was developed in the 17th century, but a feasible screw-tightened version not until the 1920s.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: In the 17th century, a stylus that could draw a line with a specific width called a ruling pen was developed. The stylus had two curved metal pieces which were joined by a screw. Ink was trickled between the blades, from which it flowed evenly across the paper. The basic model was maintained for a long time, with minor modifications, until the 1930s when the German technical drawing pens came to the market.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Artists (including Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer, Nicholas Bion and George Adams) generally made drawing tools for themselves. Industrial production of technical drawing instruments started in 1853, when Englishman William Stanley (1829–1909) founded a technical manufacturing company in London. Even then, however, most tools were still made by hand.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: In the 1930s the equipment available expanded: drawing apparatus and Rapidograph-drawing pens appeared, improving the line quality and, especially, producing consistent line width. In addition to the Rapidograph stylus, a more traditional Grafos-type stylus was used for a long time, where different line widths were achieved by changing the pen nib. For instance in Finland Grafos was commonly used as a primary drawing tool still in the early 1970s.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Equipment changed radically during the 1990s, when computer-aided design almost completely ousted drawing by hand. Technical design has changed from drawing by hand to producing computer-aided design drawings, where drawings are no longer "drawn", but are built from a virtually-produced model. Drawings are not necessarily produced in hard copy at all, and if they are needed they are printed automatically by a computer program. Hand-drawn designs however are still widely used in the draft design stage.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Pencils in use are usually mechanical pencils with a standard lead thickness. The usual line widths are 0.35 mm, 0.5 mm, 0.7 mm and 1.0 mm. Hardness varies usually from HB to 2H. Softer lead gives a better contrast, but harder lead gives a more accurate line. Bad contrast of the lead line in general is problematic when photocopying, but new scanning copy techniques have improved the final result. Paper or plastic surfaces require their own lead types.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: In most cases, the final drawings are drawn with ink, on either plastic or tracing paper. The pen is generally a Rapidograph-type technical pen, a marker pen that draws lines of consistent width (so-called steel marker pen). The pen has an ink container which contains a metal tube, inside which is a thin metal needle or wire, the soul. Ink is absorbed between the needle and the tube wall, preventing an excessive amount of ink from being released. The needle has a weight and by waving the pen back and forth the needle is released and the ink can run. Originally, the tank was filled from an ink bottle; newer pens use ink cartridges.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Each line width has its own stylus. The line width is standardized: In Finland, the most commonly used set is , , , , and . Separate styli are used for tracing paper and plastic, because plastic requires a harder pen tip. To function well they require regular maintenance, the finest marker pens in particular.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: The drawing board is an essential tool. Paper will be attached and kept straight and still, so that the drawing can be done with accuracy. Generally, different kind of assistance rulers are used in drawing. The drawing board is usually mounted to a floor pedestal in which the board turns to a different position, and also its height can be adjustable. Smaller drawing boards are produced for table-top use. In the 18th and 19th centuries, drawing paper was dampened and then its edges glued to the drawing board. After drying the paper would be flat and smooth. The completed drawing was then cut free. Paper could also be secured to the drawing board with drawing pins or even C-clamps. More recent practice is to use self-adhesive drafting tape to secure paper to the board, including the sophisticated use of individualized adhesive dots from a dispensing roll. Some drawing boards are magnetized, allowing paper to be held down by long steel strips. Boards used for overlay drafting or animation may include registration pins or peg bars to ensure alignment of multiple layers of drawing media.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: A T-square is a straightedge which uses the edge of the drawing board as a support. It is used with the drafting board to draw horizontal lines and to align other drawing instruments. Wooden, metal, or plastic triangles with 30° and 60° angles or with two 45° angles are used to speed drawing of lines at these commonly used angles. A continuously adjustable 0–90° protractor is also in use. An alternative to the T-square is the parallel bar which is permanently attached to the drawing board. It has a set of cables and pulleys to allow it to be positioned anywhere on the drawing surface while still remaining parallel to the bottom of the board. The drafting machine replaces the T-square and triangles.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: A drafting machine is a device which is mounted to the drawing board. It has rulers whose angles can be precisely adjusted with a controlling mechanism.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: There are two main types of apparatus: an arm-type parallelogram apparatus based on a hinged arm; and a track-type apparatus which moves on a rail mounted to the top of the drawing board. The accuracy of the arm type apparatus is better in the middle of the board, decreasing towards the edges, whereas a track machine has a constant accuracy over the whole board. The drawing head of a track-type drafting machine slides on bearings in a vertical rail, which in turn is moved along a horizontal, top-mounted rail. Both apparatus types have an adjustable drawing-head with rules attached to a protractor scale so that the angle of the rules may be adjusted.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: A drafting machine allows easy drawing of parallel lines over the paper. The adjustable angle between the rulers allows the lines to be drawn in varying accurate angles. Rulers may also be used as a support for separate special rulers and letter templates. The rules are replaceable and they can be for example scale-rules.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Drawing apparatus has evolved from a drawing board mounted parallel ruler and a pantograph, which is a device used for copying objects in an adjustable ratio of sizes.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: French curves are made of wood, plastic or celluloid. Some set squares also have these curves cut in the middle. French curves are used for drawing curves which cannot be drawn with compasses. A faint freehand curve is first drawn through the known points; the longest possible curve that coincides exactly with the freehand curve is then found out from the French curves. Finally, a neat continuous curve is drawn with the aid of the French curves.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Rulers used in technical drawing are usually made of polystyrene. It is used for drawing lines and connecting points. Rulers come in two types according to the design of their edge. A ruler with a straight edge can be used with lead pencils and felt pens, whereas when a technical pen is used the edge must be grooved to prevent the spread of the ink.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: A scale ruler is a scaled, three-edged ruler which has six different scales marked to its sides. A typical combination for building details is 1:20, 1:50, 1:100, 1:25, 1:75 and 1:125. There are separate rulers for zoning work as well as for inch units. Today scale rulers are made of plastic, formerly they were made of hardwood. A pocket-sized version is also available, with scales printed on flexible plastic strips.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Compasses are used for drawing circles or arc segments of circles. One form has two straight legs joined by a hinge; one leg has a sharp pivot point and the other has a holder for a technical pen or pencil. Another form, the beam compass, has the pivot point and pen holder joined by a trammel bar, useful when drawing very large radius arcs. Often a circle template is used instead of a compass when predefined circle sizes are required.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Letter templates are used for drawing text, including digits and letter characters. Diagrams are usually of a standard letter shape and size to conform to standards of encodings (e.g. DIN or ANSI). For example, in Finland the series used is 1.8 mm, 2.5 mm, 3.5 mm, 5.0 mm and 7.0 mm. Except for the very biggest ones, the templates are only suitable for technical pen drawing.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: For drawing circles and circle-arcs, circle templates which contain a set of suitably-sized holes are used. Templates are also available for other geometric shapes such as squares and for drawing ellipses, as well as many specialized varieties for other purposes.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: There are also specific templates to provide user with the most common symbols in use in different branches of designing.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: For example, the architect templates can be used to draw different sized doors with their "opening arcs",


title: Technical drawing tool

text: building and equipment symbols and furniture. The templates also provide the symbols for thermal insulation.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Two methods of drawing smooth curves in manual drafting are the use of French curves and flat splines (flexible curves). A French curve is a drawing aid with many different smoothly-varying radiused curves on it; the manual drafter can fit the French curve to some known reference points and draw a smooth curved line between them. A spline is a flexible ruler, usually rubber or plastic coated with a metal "backbone", which can be smoothly shaped to follow a desired curve and allows drawing a smooth line between initial reference points. Sometimes a spline is temporarily held in position with small weights.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Silk-paper-like translucent drafting paper that wrinkles when wetted. It is primarily suitable for pencils and felt tip pens. Pencil marks can be corrected to some extent with an eraser.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Manufactured in different strengths, the surface may be slightly polished. This paper also wrinkles upon wetting. Suitable for pencil and felt tipped pens, and with limitations for technical pens. An eraser can be used for pencil lines. Ink is difficult to erase without damage.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Drafting linen was formerly used for technical drawings. It was durable and held up to handling, but it was difficult to use in modern whiteprints for reproduction, and shrinking was a concern.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Polished sandwich paper-like, translucent thick paper, which comes in different strengths. Wrinkles upon wetting. Suitable for both graphite pencils and technical pens. An eraser or sharp scraper tool is used for corrections.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Translucent plastic film, which is usually of gray or a light khaki shade. Common types are 0.05, 0.07 and 0.10 mm thick. These films are also used in photocopying. The most commonly used materials are polyesters, and sometimes also PVC or polycarbonate; arguably, a proprietary eponym or genericized trademark for this is called Mylar.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Drawing inks can be divided into two groups: India ink and polymer inks. India ink is used on paper and drafting film plastics. The most commonly used India ink is a colloidal mixture of water and carbon black.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Dry transfer decals can speed the production of repetitive drawing elements such as borders, title blocks, line types, shading, and symbols. They were frequently used in the production of schematic drawings, maps, and printed circuit board artwork, for example. Dry transfer lettering such as Letraset was used especially in lettering larger size document annotations, or when consistency of lettering was especially required.


title: Technical drawing tool

text: Many copies of technical drawings may be required in the construction of a project. Reproductions must be accurate as to size and shape, but for many purposes need not be permanent. The blueprint process was first used for mechanical reproduction of drawings. Drawing offices may use diazo or whiteprint processes. Where the volume of drawings reproduced justifies the cost of the machine, a large format photocopier using xerography can reproduce drawings at lower cost than re-plotting them.


title: Grommet

text: A grommet is a ring or edge strip inserted into a hole through thin material, typically a sheet of textile fabric, sheet metal or composite of carbon fiber, wood or honeycomb. Grommets are generally flared or collared on each side to keep them in place, and are often made of metal, plastic, or rubber. They may be used to prevent tearing or abrasion of the pierced material or protection from abrasion of the insulation on the wire, cable, line being routed through the penetration, and to cover sharp edges of the piercing, or all of the above.


title: Grommet

text: A small grommet may also be called an eyelet, used for example on shoes, tarps and sails for lacing purposes.


title: Grommet

text: Grommets in electrical applications are referred to as "insulating bushings". Most common are molded rubber bushings that are inserted into hole diameters up to 2″ (51 mm). There are many hole configurations from standard round to assorted U-shapes. Larger penetrations that are irregular in shape as well as long straight edges are often fitted with extruded or stamped strips of continuous length, referred to as "grommet edging". This type of protective bushings is quite common in applications that range from telecom switches and data center cabinets to complex and dense wire/cable and even hydraulic tubing in aircraft, transportation vehicles and medical equipment.


title: Grommet

text: Grommets are typically used to reinforce holes in leather, cloth, shoes, canvas and other fabrics. They can be made of metal, rubber, or plastic, and are easily used in common projects, requiring only the grommet itself and a means of setting it. A simple punch, a metal rod with a convex tip, is often sold with the grommets. It can be struck with a hammer to set the grommet. It can alternatively be set with an electronic, pneumatic, or gas-powered machine. There are also dedicated grommet presses with punch and anvil, as shown in the picture, ranging from inexpensive to better-quality tools, which are somewhat faster to use.


title: Grommet

text: Typical applications are footwear for boot and shoe laces, in laced clothing such as corsets, in flags for hoisting, and in curtains and other household items that require hanging from hooks, as when they are used in conjunction with tensioner rods for shower curtains. The grommet prevents the cord from tearing through the hole, thereby providing structural integrity. Small grommets are also called eyelets, especially when used in clothing or crafting. Eyelets may be used purely decoratively for crafting. When used in sailing and various other applications, they are called cringles. Sometimes field workers refer to them as grunyons.


title: Grommet

text: Traditionally, rope grommets have been widely used on sailing ships in a variety of ways. They have been utilized as chest handles or on row boats as a soft oar lock. They are a rope ring that is made by first disassembling the rope then re-weaving the strands to the desired size.


title: Grommet

text: Holes in metal or another hard material will often have sharp edges. Electrical wires, cord, rope, lacings, or other soft vulnerable material passing through the hole can become abraded or cut, or electrical insulation may break due to repeated flexing at the exit point of the casing of a junction box for example. Rubber, plastic or plastic coated metal grommets are used to avoid this. Tight fitting rubber grommets can also prevent the entry of dirt, air, water, etc. The smooth and sometimes soft inner surface of the grommet shields the wire from damage.


title: Grommet

text: Grommets are generally used whenever wires pass through punched or drilled sheet metal or plastic casings for this reason. Molded and continuous strip grommets, also known as edge grommets, are manufactured in a wide variety of sizes and lengths expressly for this purpose; they are usually a single piece which can be inserted by hand. Two-piece hard plastic devices are available which also grip the wire that passes through. These are called strain relief bushings and are often used to insulate, anchor, and protect power cords where they enter panels. Preventing a tug or twist on the wire from stressing the electrical connections inside the connected equipment. Sleeved grommets have a flexible extension (sleeve), usually tapered or moulded to flex increasingly towards the free end in order to reduce fracturing of electrical insulation.


title: Grommet

text: Grommets made of rubber or other elastic material are also used to minimize the transmission of vibration. They were widely used for mounting shock-sensitive computer disk drives, particularly in equipment subject to vibration or jarring, but are not usually used with more robust modern drives. The screws that hold the drive in place pass through grommets that decouple it acoustically from the chassis. Grommets are used in a similar way to acoustically isolate electronic circuit components that are susceptible to microphonism caused by mechanical vibration or jarring.


title: Grommet

text: In chronic cases of otitis media with effusions present for months, surgery is sometimes performed to insert a grommet, called a "tympanostomy tube" into the eardrum to allow air to pass through into the middle ear, and thus release any pressure buildup and help clear excess fluid within.


title: Grommet

text: This is also a correcting measure for a patulous Eustachian tube (when air moves to and from the middle ear with each breath making the eardrum flap).


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: Ayn al Asad is an Iraqi Armed Forces base located in Al Anbar Governorate (also called Anbar province) of western Iraq. It was originally known as Qadisiyah Airbase.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: It was the second largest US military airbase in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Until January 2010, it was the home of the II Marine Expeditionary Force/Multi-National Force West. Other major tenants have included the 3rd ID's 4th IBCT, 82nd Airborne Division Advise & Assist Brigade, 332nd Medical Brigade, 321st Sustainment Brigade, Vertical Onboard Delivery Detachment-1 (VOD-1), VAQ-141, Navy Customs Battalion Juliet, elements of the Iraqi Army's 7th Division, and the United States Air Force (USAF).


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: On December 26, 2018, President Donald Trump and his wife Melania visited the soldiers stationed at the base. On November 23, 2019, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen, visited the troops ahead of Thanksgiving. On January 8, 2020, the air base came under an Iranian ballistic missile attack in retaliation for the killing of Quds leader Qasem Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike a few days earlier.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: The sprawling base is located within the districts of Haditha and Hīt of the largely Sunni Al Anbar Governorate, about west of Baghdad and west of the village of Khan al Baghdadi.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: The airbase is divided by Wādī al Asadī (وادي الاسدي), a wadi whose course passes through the oasis along the base's western edge and then continues eastward, emptying into the Euphrates River at Khan al Baghdadi. This oasis is locally referred to as "Abraham's Well".


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: Geologically, the base resides in the Al-Ḥammād sector of the Syrian Desert, composed mostly of a rock and gravel steppe.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: The base was originally named Qadisiyah Airbase (قاعدة القادسية الجوية), a reference to the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah (c. 636). Qadisiyah AB was one of five new air bases built in Iraq as part of their Project "Super-Base", launched in 1975 as a response to the lessons learned during the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: The base was built sometime between 1981 and 1987 by a consortium of Yugoslavian companies under contract to the government of Iraq. Two Yugoslav government agencies led the project. The FDSP (Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement) acted as the project manager and Aeroengineering acted as the project engineer. Known as 'Project 202-B' and 'Project 1100', the companies involved in its construction included Granit, Vranica d.d. Sarajevo, I.L. Lavčević d.d. Split, and Unioninvest d.d. Sarajevo.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: The US$280,000,000 project at Qadisiyah AB included accommodation for 5,000 personnel and the necessary infrastructure including public facilities (mosques, outdoor and indoor Olympic swimming pool, football field, sports hall, cinema, library, elementary school, high school, hospital and clinic) and fortified military facilities (military airport, shelters for personnel and equipment, shelters for bombers and fighters and military barracks). The hardened aircraft shelters built here and throughout Iraq by the Yugoslavs were nicknamed 'Yugos'. At the time they were considered state of the art but were rendered obsolete in 1991 after the development of the GBU-28 laser-guided bunker-buster bomb.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: Prior to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, the base housed three units of the Iraqi Air Force, which flew MiG-25s and MiG-21s. It was abandoned shortly after the start of the invasion.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: It was initially known as Objective Webster, and then eventually was renamed Al Asad Airbase, which means ""The Lion"" in Arabic.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: The base was initially secured during the Iraq War by the Australian Special Air Service Regiment on April 16, 2003 and was turned over to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (3rd ACR) in May 2003. The 3rd ACR was relieved by the Marines of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in March 2004. Al Asad became the largest U.S. base in western Iraq and the western equivalent of Baghdad's Green Zone.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: Al Asad was a major convoy hub, hosting hundreds of fuel and supply trucks every day. Huge shipments of fuel were commonly run along the dangerous routes coming out of Jordan and, despite insurgent attempts, a majority of these convoys arrived at their destinations untouched. A single convoy operation would sometimes last a couple days with trucks on the road for over 8 hours a day.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: Like other large bases in Iraq, Al Asad offered amenities including an indoor swimming pool, movie theater (which was a carbon copy of the Sustainer Theatre at Camp Anaconda), post office, Morale, Welfare and Recreation center, several gyms, Post Exchange, Burger King, Cinnabon, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, Subway Restaurant, Combat Support Hospital, and a Green Beans Coffee Shop. The base is self-sufficient for producing drinking water, having both a reverse osmosis water purification plant and a bottling plant. Most of the housing on base are "cans" – shipping containers converted to, or manufactured as, living areas. Some of the original barracks still remain, however, and were used as well. Overflow tents were used when required, such as transition periods, which can nearly double the number of troops on the base. The base was a common destination for celebrities and politicians visiting American troops in Iraq, such as Chuck Norris and Toby Keith. While the towns and routes near Al Asad were as dangerous as anywhere else in Iraq, it is relatively remote and is easily accessible by air. The base often received indirect fire from Iraqi insurgents which usually caused little to no damage, though there were occasional casualties.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: The controversial song Hadji Girl was recorded at Al Asad in 2005. On September 3, 2007, President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace visited Al Asad and spent Labor Day with the servicemembers deployed to the base.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: As the Marines withdrew from Iraq, Al Asad remained one of the last American-occupied bases in Al Anbar. In 2009 and 2010, Marines with the 2nd MEF removed the majority of gear and personnel from the base. The MEF concluded its operations at Al Asad in March 2010. The last of the civilian personnel were airlifted from Al Asad on December 16, 2011, and the base officially closed on December 31, 2011.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: When Marines with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force - Crisis Response - Central Command returned in September 2014, Commanding Officer Colonel Jason Bohm said it was “like a scene out of the Twilight Zone. Our headquarters was a former Marine air logistics squadron headquarters. There were items that were just left there when we picked up and left. Literally newspapers with the date the last person that was in that office (departed are) still there, except there’s a lot of dust on it now.”


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: In late October 2014, the airbase and surrounding region came under repeated attack by Islamic State (ISIL) militants. Fifty U.S. advisers were sent to the base. Also to conduct a site survey for U.S. advisers can use the installation to support the Iraqi military, said Navy Cmdr. Elissa Smith, a Defense Department spokeswoman. It now hosts 320 advisers.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: During the early morning hours of 14 December 2014, U.S. Marines hosted there allegedly clashed with ISIL alongside the Iraqi Army and Tribal Forces near Ayn al Asad base, west of Anbar, in an attempt to repel them from the base of which includes about 100 U.S. advisers in it at the time, when ISIL attempted to overrun the base. According to a field commander of the Iraqi Army in Anbar province, said that "the U.S. force equipped with light and medium weapons, supported by F-18, was able to inflict casualties against fighters of ISIL organization, and forced them to retreat from the al-Dolab area, which lies 10 kilometers from Ain al-Assad base." Sheikh Mahmud Nimrawi, a prominent tribal leader in the region, added that "U.S. forces intervened because of ISIL started to come near the base, which they are stationed in so out of self-defense," he responded, welcoming the U.S. intervention, and saying "which I hope will not be the last." This was said to be the first encounter between the United States and the Islamic State, in four years. However, this claim has been stated to be "false" by the Pentagon. The airbase and surrounding region came under repeated attack by Islamic State militants in October 2014.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: On February 6–7, U.S. Marines and Danish soldiers with Task Force Al Asad taught Iraqi soldiers basic defense and ambush techniques.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: In February 2015, ISIL took control of most of the town of al-Baghdadi which is close to Al Asad Airbase and began what a Defense Department spokeswoman called "ineffective indirect fire" against Al Asad base. Later, according to CBS News, "Eight suicide bombers managed [on February 13] to get onto [Al Asad] ... but were killed by an ISF counter attack almost immediately." Further, CBS news reported that "ISIL [had] been regularly shelling Ain al-Assad for the past couple days, but there have been no reports of damage from the shelling or the attempted bombing on Friday." In early March, Iraqi forces cleared ISIL out of al-Baghdadi.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: The airbase continues to be used by coalition forces in Iraq, including British troops. In 2016 it was announced that the UK would send 250 more troops to be stationed at Al Asad base. In February 2018, it was announced that Capt Dean Sprouting had been killed at the base, possibly as a result of an accident. The Captain had been serving with the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: On December 26, 2018, President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visited Al Asad Airbase. In a speech given there, Trump claimed that the military hadn't gotten a raise in ten years, and that he would be giving them a raise of over 10 percent. However, American military personnel had received a pay hike of at least one percent for the past 30 years, got a 2.4 percent pay increase in 2018, and would receive a 2.6 percent pay increase for 2019. During the visit, Trump took photos with Seal Team 5 special operators and posted images of their faces without obscuring them. The Office of the Secretary of Defense said that no rules were broken, because the special operators volunteered to participate in the press event.


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: According to a January 3, 2020 "Reuters" article, a "security source" inside Al Asad Airbase and a "local official at a nearby town" said that the reports that the Al Asad Airbase were under attack, are false. On January 8, 2020, Iranian media, shortly followed by American media, reported that missiles had been launched by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) at the airbase. State TV reported that the operation's name was "Martyr Soleimani" and was in response to the killing head of the IRGC's Quds Force Qasem Soleimani. The IRGC said more than 30 missiles were fired. The Pentagon confirmed that "more than a dozen ballistic missiles were launched from Iran." A defense official said, "10 of the missiles hit Al Asad Airbase, one struck Irbil in northern Iraq and four "failed in flight."


title: Al Asad Airbase

text: In late March 2020, U.S. military deployed Patriot air defence systems in Al Asad Airbase as a precaution against possible further Iranian missile attacks.


title: No Kum-sok

text: Kenneth H. Rowe (born No Kum-sok; ; January 10, 1932) is a Korean American engineer and aviator who served as a senior lieutenant in the Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force during the Korean War. Approximately two months after the end of hostilities, he defected to South Korea in a MiG-15 aircraft, and was subsequently granted political asylum in the United States.


title: No Kum-sok

text: No was born in Sinhung County, South Hamgyong Province, in then-Japanese occupied northern Korea. Under colonial rule, No was required to adopt a Japanese name, Okamura Kyoshi.


title: No Kum-sok

text: His father was a baseball player for a company's team. During World War II, No supported Japan and considered becoming a kamikaze pilot, but his father was adamantly against it. No's support for Imperial Japan waned and he became pro-American, though he had to hide his pro-Americanism due to the dangers of being recognized as being an admirer of the U.S. in northern Korea at the time.


title: No Kum-sok

text: In early 1948, a teenage No attended a speech by Kim Il-sung. Though No was opposed to Communism, he found Kim to be a capable orator. However, No had to keep his anti-Communist views hidden, due to the danger of what would happen if North Korean authorities had found out about them.


title: No Kum-sok

text: During the Korean War, No applied to join the Korean People's Navy and was accepted after he lied in the selection test. At the naval academy, No won the favor of his history professor who later helped No in the pilot selection test. After passing the selection test, No was promoted to ensign, and brought to Manchuria for flight training. He subsequently received promotion to the rank of lieutenant and then to senior lieutenant. He flew more than 100 combat missions during the war.


title: No Kum-sok

text: On the morning of September 21, 1953, No flew his Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 from Sunan just outside Pyongyang to Kimpo Air Base in South Korea. The time from take-off in North Korea to landing in South Korea was 17 minutes, with the MiG reaching 1000 km/h (620 mph). During the flight, he was not chased by North Korean aircraft (as he was too far away), nor was he interdicted by American air or ground forces; U.S. radar near Kimpo had been shut down temporarily that morning for routine maintenance. No landed the wrong way on the runway, almost hitting an F-86 Sabre jet landing at the same time from the opposite direction. Captain Dave William veered out of the way and exclaimed over the radio "It's a goddamn MiG!". Another American pilot, Captain Jim Sutton, who was circling the airport, said that if No had tried to land in the right direction, he would have been spotted and shot down. No taxied the MiG into a free parking spot between two Sabre jets, got out of the plane and began tearing up a picture of Kim Il-sung that was placed in the cockpits of North Korean aircraft, and then threw up his arms in surrender at approaching airbase security guards.


title: No Kum-sok

text: After being taken into custody and debriefed by CIA operative "Andy Brown" (born Arseny Yankovsky, son of Yuri Yankovsky), No received a $100,000 () reward offered by Operation Moolah for being the first pilot to defect with an operational aircraft, which he said he never heard of prior to his defection. No explained that North Korean pilots were not allowed to listen to South Korean radio, the leaflets broadcasting the award were not dropped in Manchuria where the pilots were based, and even if they had heard about the reward, the pilots would not have understood the purchasing power of the US dollar; he said the program would have been more effective if they had offered a good job and residence in North America. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was against paying defectors.


title: No Kum-sok

text: There were repercussions for No's defection. According to Captain Lee Un-yong, a Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force flight instructor who defected to South Korea two years after No, General Wan-yong, the top commander of the Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force, was demoted, and five of No's air force comrades and commanders were executed. One of those killed was Lieutenant Kun Soo-sung, No's best friend and fellow pilot. No's parents would have also been punished for their son's defection, but his father was already dead (having been killed in the Korean War) and his mother had already defected to the South. The fate of No's uncle and the rest of his family remains unknown.


title: No Kum-sok

text: After No surrendered his aircraft, it was taken to Okinawa, where it was given USAF markings and test-flown by Captain H.E. Collins and Major Chuck Yeager. The MiG-15 was later shipped to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base after attempts to return it to North Korea were unsuccessful. It is currently on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.


title: No Kum-sok

text: In 1954, No emigrated to the United States, where he met Vice President Richard Nixon. After immigrating, he anglicized his name to "Kenneth H. Rowe". In 1957, he was joined in the U.S. by his mother, who had defected from North Korea earlier in 1951. He subsequently graduated from the University of Delaware with degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering. He married an émigré from Kaesong, North Korea; they raised two sons and a daughter, and he became a U.S. citizen. He worked as an aeronautical engineer for Grumman, Boeing, Pan Am, General Dynamics, General Motors, General Electric, Lockheed, DuPont, and Westinghouse.


title: No Kum-sok

text: In 1970, he learned from a fellow defector that, as punishment for his defection, his best friend, Lieutenant Kun Soo Sung, had been executed along with four other pilots in his chain of command who were also executed by firing squad. One of the pilots and a friend in his squadron became the General of the Korean People's Army. General O Kuk-ryol, who became the vice chairman of the National Defence Commission in 2009, was considered by some the second most powerful man in North Korea.


title: No Kum-sok

text: In 1996, he wrote and published a book, "A MiG-15 to Freedom", about his defection and previous life in North Korea. Rowe retired in 2000 after working 17 years as an aeronautical engineering professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. A biography of No by Blaine Harden was published in 2015 as "The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot: The True Story of the Tyrant Who Created North Korea and The Young Lieutenant Who Stole His Way to Freedom". Harden had access to newly released intelligence and to No.


title: No Kum-sok

text: Rowe speaks fluent English and Korean and currently lives in Daytona Beach, Florida; he has stated that he has never second-guessed his decision to defect from North Korea and make a new life in America.


Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (also known as TJHSST, TJ, or Jefferson) is a Virginia state-chartered magnet high school in Fairfax County, Virginia operated by Fairfax County Public Schools.


title: Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

text: The school occupies the building of the previous Thomas Jefferson High School (constructed in 1964). A selective admissions program was initiated in 1985 through the cooperation of state and county governments, as well as corporate sponsorship from the defense and technology industries. It is one of 18 Virginia Governor's Schools, and a founding member of the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology. In 2021 and 2022, "U.S. News & World Report" ranked the school first in its annual "Best U.S. High Schools" list.


text: Attendance at the school is open to students in six local jurisdictions based on academic achievement, essays, and socio-economic background. Before the 2020–21 school year, the admissions process also involved a math, reading, and science exam.


text: Thomas Jefferson High School was constructed and opened in 1964. Fairfax County Public Schools' superintendent William J. Burkholder and his staff began working on the idea of a science high school in 1983 with advice from the superintendent's business/advisory council. Burkholder announced the plans for the magnet school in January 1984. The school board chose Thomas Jefferson High School as the location for the new magnet school in June 1984 and approved the funding in February 1985. The school was originally intended to only serve Fairfax County students, but after Virginia governor Charles S. Robb chose Fairfax County as the location of a regional science and technology school, the school board voted to accept the funding from the state and allow students from Arlington, Loudoun, and Prince William counties and from the Cities of Fairfax and Falls Church to attend as well. The business community played a significant role in the creation of the school, providing around $3 million in contributions and advice on the school's curriculum. Hazleton Laboratories, Honeywell, AT&T, Virginia Power, Sony Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, and Xerox, among other companies, made significant contributions in equipment or finances to the school before it opened. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology opened in fall 1985 with 400 ninth-graders and 125 seniors who were selected from 1,200 applicants.


text: The school underwent renovations from 2013 to 2017, adding additional research labs, internet cafes, three-dimensional art galleries, a black box theater, and a dome reminiscent of President Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. The renovations costed $90 million.


text: The school is part of the Fairfax County Public Schools system of Fairfax County, Virginia. Students from Fairfax, Arlington, Loudoun, and Prince William counties and from the Cities of Fairfax and Falls Church are eligible for admission. Students must be enrolled in Algebra 1 or a higher level math class in 8th grade and have a minimum GPA of 3.5 to be eligible.


text: The admissions process is based on grade point average, a math or science related problem solving essay, a student portrait sheet demonstrating skills and character, and details about a student's socio-economic background including whether they are economically disadvantaged, a special education student, or an English language learner. Each public school is allocated a number of seats equal to 1.5% of that school's 8th grade student population; the remaining seats are unallocated and offered to the highest evaluated remaining students. During the admissions process, students are identified only by a number; admissions officers do not know their race, ethnicity, sex, or name.


text: Before the 2020–21 school year, the admissions process also included a math, reading, and science exam.


text: The admissions process and the demographics of the student body it produces, in particular the under-representation of black and Hispanic students relative to the school system overall, have been a source of controversy throughout the school's history.


text: After the school's early graduating classes included relatively few black and Hispanic students, FCPS created a race-based affirmative action program to admit more black and Hispanic students. The program was in effect for the admissions process for the graduating classes of 1997 through 2002; the county ended it because of legal challenges to similar programs. Following the end of this program, the share of black and Hispanic students at the school decreased from 9.4 percent in 1997–98 to 3.5 percent in 2003–04. Black and Hispanic students remained significantly under-represented at the school through the 2000s and 2010s.


text: In 2012, a civil rights complaint against the school was filed with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights by "Coalition of the Silence," an advocacy group led by former county School Board member Tina Hone, and the Fairfax chapter of the NAACP, alleging that it discriminated against black, Hispanic, and disabled students. In response, the Office of Civil Rights, in September 2012, opened an investigation.


text: In 2020, the school board made a number of significant changes to the admissions process meant to increase the ratio of black and Hispanic students admitted. These included the elimination of the application fee; the increase of the number of admitted students from around 480 to 550; the elimination of an entrance exam; the allocation of seats to each middle school equal to 1.5% of their 8th grade student population; and the addition of "experience factors" including whether students are economically disadvantaged, English language learners, or special education students. Following these changes, the proportion of black and Hispanic students admitted increased from 4.52% to 18.36% while the proportion of Asian Americans decreased from 73.05% to 54.36%. The proportion of female students admitted also increased, from 41.80% to 46.00%, and to 55.45% the next year.


text: In March 2021, the Coalition for TJ, an advocacy group opposed to the changes and represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, sued the Fairfax County school board, alleging that the 2020 changes to the admissions process discriminated against Asian Americans. In February 2022, judge Claude M. Hilton of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled in "Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board" in the Coalition for TJ's favor and ordered the school to return to the previous admissions process. The school board appealed the decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and in March 2022 that court issued a stay on the order that allowed the school to continue the new admissions process while the case was pending. The Supreme Court of the United States rejected a request to vacate the stay in April 2022. The case is scheduled to be heard in the court of appeals in September 2022.


text: The Systems Engineering Course designed and built a CubeSat which was launched on November 19, 2013, from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Orbital Sciences Corporation donated the CubeSat Kit to the school on December 6, 2006, and provided the launch for the satellite. After a successful launch at 8:15PM, TJSAT became the first satellite launched into space that was built by high school students. The launched satellite contained a 4-watt transmitter operating on amateur radio frequencies, and a text-to-speech module to allow it to broadcast ASCII-encoded messages sent to it from Jefferson.


text: TJREVERB is the school's second cubesat mission, currently scheduled to launch on CRS-26. The satellite will test Iridium satellite radio and connect to the students' groundstation via email.


text: The school's computer systems lab is one of the few high school computing facilities with a supercomputer. In 1988, a team from the school won an ETA-10P supercomputer in the SuperQuest competition, a national science competition for high school students. The ETA-10P was damaged by a roof leak in the 1990s. Cray Inc. donated a new SV1 supercomputer, known as Seymour, to the school on December 4, 2002, which is on display as of 2021.


text: The lab also supported a number of Sun Microsystems thin clients for use by students enrolled in AP Computer Science. In 2008, the school received a grant from Sun Microsystems for $388,048, which was student-written. The Syslab was given 7 Sun workstations, 12 Sun servers, and 145 Sun Rays for distribution throughout the school. These were placed in the existing AP Computer Science Lab and the science classrooms, support backend services, and serve as kiosks placed around the school for guests, students, and faculty. However, the Sun Rays were taken out of the AP Computer Science Lab due to teachers' objections. By 2014, the Sun Ray clients were decommissioned, and replaced with Linux-based thin clients running LTSP.


text: Since 2000, students have built and maintained an Intranet application used to give students access to school resources remotely, and to manage the Eighth Period program. Three iterations of the application have been developed: the original system, built in 2000 as an early PHP application; Intranet2, known as Iodine, which used object-oriented PHP; and Ion, written in Python using the Django web framework.


text: In 2021 and 2022, "U.S. News & World Report" ranked TJ as the best overall high school in the United States. It was previously ranked fourth in 2020, tenth in 2019, and sixth in 2018. In 2016, the school placed first in "Newsweek"'s annual "America's Top High Schools" rankings for the third consecutive year. The average SAT score for the graduating class of 2020 was 1528 and the average ACT score was 34.5.


text: In 2007, for schools with more than 800 students in grades 10–12, TJ was cited as having the highest-performing AP Calculus BC, AP Chemistry, AP French Language, AP Government and Politics, U.S., and AP U.S. History courses among all schools worldwide. In 2014, 3864 AP Exams were taken by students; over 97% earned a score of 3, 4, or 5.


text: President Barack Obama signed the America Invents Act into law on September 16, 2011, at the school. The law was made to reform U.S. patent laws.


text: In 1997, 2000, 2013, and 2017, the wind ensemble of the school was among fifteen high-school bands invited to the Music for All National Concert Band Festival in Indianapolis.


title: Knife game

text: five finger fillet (FFF), Chicken or the stab between the fingers game , is a game wherein, placing the palm of one's hand down on a table with fingers apart, using a knife (such as a pocket or pen knife), or other sharp object, one attempts to stab back and forth between one's fingers, trying not to hit one's fingers. The game is intentionally dangerous, exposing players to the risk of injury and scarring, and, before antibiotics, an incision or penetration risked sepsis and death. A foldable blade carries the additional danger that, "as the faster you go, the more likely the blade will fold back in on itself trapping the finger of your stabbing hand." It may be played much more safely by using another object, such as the eraser side of a pencil or a marker with its cap on. In European culture it is traditionally considered a boys' game. However, its focus on motor coordination and dexterity is comparable to clapping games.


title: Knife game

text: The order in which the spaces between the fingers are stabbed varies. In the following examples, the space numbered 1 is to the outside of the thumb, with numbering then proceeding to the space between the thumb and index finger and so forth.


title: Knife game

text: The most popular version is to simply stab all the spaces in order, starting from behind the thumb to after the little finger, and back again ("In its simplest form, one would simply move as fast as one dared backwards and forwards."):


title: Knife game

text: A more complex order is also common ("Those with stronger nerves could stab according to a sequence"):


title: Knife game

text: Roman Polanski's first feature "Knife in the Water" (1962) may be the first film to show the game; a young hitchhiker plays the game on the deck of a sailboat.


title: Knife game

text: In the movie "Dark Star" (1974), a bored crew member plays the game, starting slowly but nevertheless sticking himself after a few rounds.


title: Knife game

text: The movie "Aliens" (1986) features a scene with a member of the crew, Bishop, who plays the "knife game" with another member of the crew.


title: Knife game

text: The game is played in the movie "Ted" (2012) created by Seth MacFarlane; the eponymous character, the talking teddy bear, Ted, plays the game at a party with a stranger while intoxicated and ends up accidentally stabbing the stranger's hand.


title: Knife game

text: In "The Hangover Part II" (2011) an unsuccessful attempt at the knife game is eventually revealed to be the cause of the severed finger discovered in the motel room, which turns out to be an essential clue.


title: Knife game

text: In "Drugstore Cowboy" (1989) the game is briefly shown to be played by neighbors of the main characters.


title: Knife game

text: In "My Bloody Valentine" (1981) the game is briefly shown played by 2 characters in the Cage Bar scene, while the bartender is telling the lore of the Valentine's Day killer.


title: Knife game

text: Nasiruddin Shah, playing a Mumbai ganglord named Mastana, indulges in this game in Kaizad Gustad’s comedy Bombay Boys.


title: Knife game

text: In episode 8 of the first season of "Samurai Jack" (2001), some patrons of the bar in the opening scene are shown to play a version of the game with a spork instead of a knife.


title: Knife game

text: In episode 27 of "Popee the Performer" (2002) Popee attempts the knife game along with his wolf assistant, Kedamono, Popee then ends up stabbing his finger splitting it in two. This resulted in the episode never airing on television because of concerns of children in Japan that they might do the knife game themselves. Despite this, the episode was officially available on the Season 3 DVD set of the series and the additional POPEE THE MANIAX DVD box set and nowadays, the episode, along with the rest of the series, can be found easily online.


title: Knife game

text: In episode 2 of "The IT Crowd" (2006), Moss can be seen playing the game with a screwdriver as a fire spreads across the office.


title: Knife game

text: In Season 5, Episode 14 of "The Amazing World of Gumball" (2017), Darwin can be seen playing the knife game using a fork. His paternal grandfather Frankie points out how strange and dangerous it is considering how Darwin only has one finger.


title: Knife game

text: In Season 1, Episode 2 of "SuperMansion" (2015), Black Saturn, Jewbot, Brad, American Ranger, and Cooch take turns failing at the game in the kitchen (with Cooch shoving the knife directly in to her thigh).


title: Knife game

text: In Season 1, episode 6 of the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire" (2010) features a young WWI veteran, Jimmy Darmody, playing "Five Finger Fillet," and requesting the young Al Capone to join in.


title: Knife game

text: In episode 21 of the 11th season of "The Simpsons", Homer Simpson can be seen failing the knife game and stabbing all of his fingers.


title: Knife game

text: In the episode "The Bill" of "Inside No. 9", the knife game (called Stabscotch) is used to decide who should pay a restaurant bill.


title: Knife game

text: In Season 3, Episode 10 of "Z Nation" (2016), 10K is forced to perform the knife game as a test of loyalty to Murphy.


title: Knife game

text: In Season 4, Episode 14 of "Revenge (TV series)", Emily uses the knife game as a method of unlocking Louise's hidden memories about her father's death. Nolan claims it was a technique she learned in Japan.


title: Knife game

text: In Season 8, Episode 16 of "Castle (TV series)", Detective Javier uses the knife game to interrogate a suspect.


title: Knife game

text: In Season 2, Episode 4 of "", Beckett Mariner is seen playing the knife game with a Klingon knife in the "USS Cerritos"' bar.


title: Knife game

text: In season 3 in an episode called “ The Grim Grotto” of “A series of unfortunate events”, Count Olaf is playing the game in a submarine, frustrated by the Baudelaires, he ends up stabbing himself twice.


title: Knife game

text: In Season 1, Episode 6 of "Our Flag Means Death", Blackbeard plays the game to psych himself up to kill Stede Bonnet.


title: Knife game

text: In the Sierra On-Line game "" (1988), one sequence requires winning the knife game in a Brooklyn bar in order to continue the winning plot.


title: Knife game

text: It appears as one of the minigames in "Work Time Fun" (2005). It has no win condition, so the game only ends once the player hits a finger.


title: Knife game

text: It also appears as a minigame called "Wee Hand" in the 2007 video game , though here set to a one minute timer.


title: Knife game

text: "Knife.Hand.Chop.Bot" (2007), by the Svoltcore group, is an "interactive installation that plays with the recipient's concern about [his or her] own physical integrity."


title: Knife game

text: A minor character can be seen playing the game at a local bar in the 2009 graphic adventure game "Tales of Monkey Island".


title: Knife game

text: 2010's "Red Dead Redemption" and its prequel "Red Dead Redemption 2" (2018) include the knife game as a playable mini-game.


title: Knife game

text: In "" (2018) Kokichi Ouma attempts to play it in his final free-time event (but ends up cutting himself).


title: Knife game

text: On August 31, 2011, a YouTube video entitled "The Knife Game Song" created by songwriter Rusty Cage was released. Several internet users uploaded videos of themselves singing the song while playing the knife game. A new version of the song with additional lyrics was later released on March 29, 2013.


title: Knife game

text: The viral popularity of the song inspired an episode of the game show "", in which contestants were required to stab a knife between their fingers as many times as possible in thirty seconds without harming themselves. Rusty Cage, who traveled from America in order to compete, was crowned the winner and awarded €50.000 in prize money.


title: Knife game

text: In 2017, Rusty Cage released a video detailing his side of the story on the knife game. He uploaded his final knife game song on April 29, 2017. In January 2019, Rusty made many of his Knife Game videos private to prevent his Youtube channel from receiving strikes and potentially being terminated. He subsequently transferred many of his videos to a BitChute account for preservation. Re-uploads of the songs continue to proliferate on YouTube from other users.


title: Open Handset Alliance

text: The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) is a consortium of 84 firms to develop open standards for mobile devices. Member firms include HTC, Sony, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Google, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, T-Mobile, Sprint Corporation (now merged with T-Mobile US), Nvidia, and Wind River Systems.


title: Open Handset Alliance

text: The OHA was established on November 5, 2007, led by Google with 34 members, including mobile handset makers, application developers, some mobile network operators and chip makers. Android, the flagship software of the alliance (first developed by Google in 2007), is based on an open-source license and has competed against mobile platforms from Apple (iOS), Microsoft (Windows Phone), Nokia (Symbian), HP (formerly Palm), Samsung Electronics / Intel (Tizen, bada), and BlackBerry (BlackBerry OS).


title: Open Handset Alliance

text: As part of its efforts to promote a unified Android platform, OHA members are contractually forbidden from producing devices that are based on competing forks of Android.


title: Open Handset Alliance

text: At the same time as the announcement of the formation of the Open Handset Alliance on November 5, 2007, the OHA also unveiled Android Open Source Project, an open-source mobile phone platform based on the Linux kernel. An early look at the SDK was released to developers on November 12, 2007.


title: Open Handset Alliance

text: The first commercially available phone running Android was the HTC Dream (also known as the T-Mobile G1). It was approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on August 18, 2008, and became available on October 22 of that year.


title: President of Kosovo

text: The president of the Republic of Kosovo (, ), is the head of state and chief representative of the de facto Republic of Kosovo in the country and abroad.


title: President of Kosovo

text: The president is elected indirectly, by the Assembly of Kosovo, in a secret ballot by a two-thirds majority of deputies in functions. If no candidate achieves a two-thirds majority, at the third ballot the candidate who receives a simple majority is elected.


title: President of Kosovo

text: The vote in the Assembly should take place no later than a month before the end of the incumbent president's term of office. The president serves for a five-year term, renewable once.


title: President of Kosovo

text: The first post-war president, who served until his death in January 2006, was Ibrahim Rugova. His successor was Fatmir Sejdiu. When Sejdiu resigned from his post on 27 September 2010, Jakup Krasniqi served as acting president. On 22 February 2011, Behgjet Pacolli was elected as a president of Kosovo, which was quickly evaluated as unconstitutional move. On 4 April 2011, Behgjet Pacolli stepped down and it was decided that another candidate would be elected to serve for up to a year. A constitutional reform will be undertaken to allow for a popular vote for the president in 2013. On 7 April 2011, Atifete Jahjaga, Deputy Director of the Kosovo Police, with the rank of major general,<ref name="election/rank">"Atifete Jahjaga zgjidhet presidente e Republikës" "Telegrafi.com" 7 April 2011 (accessed 6 April 2011)</ref> was elected as president.


title: Bender, Moldova

text: Bender (, Moldovan Cyrillic: Бендер) or Bendery (, , ), also known as Tighina (), is a city within the internationally recognized borders of Moldova under "de facto" control of the unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (Transnistria) (PMR) since 1992. It is located on the western bank of the river Dniester in the Romanian historical region of Bessarabia.


title: Bender, Moldova

text: Together with its suburb Proteagailovca, the city forms a municipality, which is separate from Transnistria (as an administrative unit of Moldova) according to Moldovan law. Bender is located in the buffer zone established at the end of the 1992 War of Transnistria. While the Joint Control Commission has overriding powers in the city, Transnistria has "de facto" administrative control.


title: Bender, Moldova

text: The fortress of Tighina was one of the important historic fortresses of the Principality of Moldova until 1812.


title: Bender, Moldova

text: First mentioned in 1408 as "Tyagyanyakyacha" (Тягянякяча) in a document in Old Slavonic (the term has Cuman origins), the town was known in the Middle Ages as Tighina in Romanian from Moldavian sources and later as "Bender" in Ottoman sources. The fortress and the city were called "Bender" for most of the time they were a rayah of the Ottomans (1538–1812), and during most of the time they belonged to the Russian Empire (1828–1917). They were known as "Tighina" (Тигина, ) in the Principality of Moldavia, in the early part of the Russian Empire period (1812–1828), and during the time the city belonged to Romania (1918–1940; 1941–1944).


title: Bender, Moldova

text: The city is part of the historical region of Bessarabia. During the Soviet period the city was known in the Moldavian SSR as "Bender" in Romanian, written Бендер with the Cyrillic alphabet, as "Bendery" () in Russian and "Bendery" (Бенде́ри) in Ukrainian. Today the city is officially named "Bender", but both "Bender" and "Tighina" are in use.


title: Bender, Moldova

text: The town was first mentioned as an important customs post in a commerce grant issued by the Moldavian voivode Alexander the Good to the merchants of Lviv on October 8, 1408. The name "Tighina" is found in documents from the second half of the 15th century. Genoese merchants used to call the town "Teghenaccio". The town was the main Moldavian customs point on the commercial road linking the country to the Crimean Khanate. During his reign of Moldavia, Stephen III had a small wooden fort built in the town to defend the settlement from Tatar raids.


title: Bender, Moldova

text: In 1538, the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent conquered the town from Moldavia, and renamed it "Bender". Its fortifications were developed into a full fortress under the same name under the supervision of the Turkish architect Koji Mimar Sinan. The Ottomans used it to keep the pressure on Moldavia. At the end of the 16th century several unsuccessful attempts to retake the fortress were made: in the summer of 1574 Prince John III the Terrible led a siege on the fortress, as did Michael the Brave in 1595 and 1600. About the same time the fortress was attacked by Zaporozhian Cossacks.


title: Bender, Moldova

text: In the 18th century, the fort's area was expanded and modernized by the prince of Moldavia Antioh Cantemir, who carried out these works under Ottoman supervision.


title: Bender, Moldova

text: In 1713, the fortress, the town, and the neighboring village Varnița were the site of skirmishes between Charles XII of Sweden, who had taken refuge there with the Cossack Hetman Ivan Mazepa after his defeat in the Battle of Poltava in 1709, and the Turks who wished to enforce the departure of the Swedish king.


title: Bender, Moldova

text: During the second half of the 18th century, the fortress fell three times to the Russians during the Russo-Turkish Wars (in 1770, 1789, and in 1806 without a fight).


title: Bender, Moldova

text: Along with Bessarabia, the city was annexed to the Russian Empire in 1812, and remained part of the Russian Governorate of Bessarabia until 1917. Many Ukrainians, Russians and Jews settled in or around Bender, and the town quickly became predominantly Russian-speaking. By 1897, speakers of Romanian and Moldovan made up only around 7% of Bender's population, while 33.4% were Jews.


title: Bender, Moldova

text: Tighina was part of the Moldavian Democratic Republic in 1917–1918, and after 1918, following the Union of Bessarabia with Romania, the city belonged to the Kingdom of Romania, where it was the seat of Tighina County. In 1918, it was shortly controlled by the Odessa Soviet Republic which was driven out by the Romanian army. The local population was critical of Romanian authorities; pro-Soviet separatism remained popular. On Easter Day, 1919, the bridge over the Dniester River was blown up by the French Army in order to block the Bolsheviks from coming to the city. In the same year, there was a pro-Soviet uprising in Bender, attempting to attach the city to the newly founded Soviet Union. Several hundred communist workers and Red Army members from Bessarabia, headed by Grigori Stary, seized control in Bender on May 27. However, the uprising was crushed on the same day by the Romanian army.


title: Bender, Moldova

text: Romania launched a policy of Romanianization and the use of Russian was now discouraged and in certain cases restricted. In Bender, however, Russian continued to be the city's most widely spoken language, being native to 53% of its residents in 1930. Although their share had doubled, Romanian-speakers made up only 15%.