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Cornerstone

Cornerstone

Cornerstone has several possible meanings and uses:
- A cornerstone is an important cultural component of western architecture, often indicating a building time and significant builders, enscribed on the stone. Some cornerstones include time capsules of the time a particular building was built. Cornerstones are found primarily in masonry-based architecture. The origins of this tradition are vague but its presence in Judeo-Christian countries can be associated with one of the Quotations from the Old Testament in the New Testament which portrays a cornerstone as the quintessence of irony.
- Cornerstone is a relational database developed by Infocom and marketed by them and later by Activision.
- Cornerstone is the title of a magazine published by Jesus People USA in Chicago, Illinois. They also run an annual Christian music festival called Cornerstone Festival in Illinois and Florida.
- A cornerstone is a concept which provides the basic tools for understanding or manipulating a larger intellectual edifice.
- Cornerstone is a privately held economic and financial consulting firm with multiple offices in the United States.
- Cornerstone is a Danish heavy metal band.
- Cornerstone is also the name of an album by Styx.
- Cornerstone is also the common name of Cornerstone Theater Company, a noted theater company based in Los Angeles. Category:Architecture

Architecture

Architecture (in Greek αρχή = start and τέχνη = craftsmanship) is the art and science of designing buildings and structures. A wider definition would include within its scope the design of the total built environment, from the macrolevel of town planning, urban design, and landscape architecture to the microlevel of furniture. furniture, Athens, Greece]] However, the widest definition in modern use refers to the organization, articulation, and interfaces of any built (or To Be Built— TBB) entity, whether a building or a communications' network. That is, an architecture, in its broadest sense, shows how the components of a built or TBB entity fit together. An architecture may be considered a translation between a user's needs and a builder's building instructions, or requirements. The components of an architecture may be already built items, or specified items (items whose building requirements have been completed), or To Be Specified items (items whose building requirements have not yet been been completed, and for which only user or builder needs may be assigned).

Introduction

The skills of the architect are used in complex building types such as the skyscraper, hospital, stadium, airport, etc. to less complicated projects such as commercial and residential buildings and development. Many pieces of architecture can be seen as cultural and political symbols. The role of the architect, though changing, has been central to the successful (and sometimes unsuccessful) design and implementation of the built environment in which we live.

Scope and intentions

According to the very earliest surviving work on the subject, Vitruvius' De architectura, good buildings satisfy three core principles: Firmness, Commodity, and Delight; architecture can be said to be a balance and coordination among these three elements, with none overpowering the others. A modern day definition sees architecture as addressing aesthetic, structural and functional considerations. However, looked at another way, function itself is seen as encompassing all criteria, including aesthetic and psychological ones. Architecture is a multi-disciplinary field, including within its fold mathematics, science, art, technology, social sciences, politics, history, philosophy, and so on. In Vitruvius' words: "Architecture is a science, arising out of many other sciences, and adorned with much and varied learning: by the help of which a judgement is formed of those works which are the result of other arts". He adds that an architect should be well versed in fields such as music, astronomy, etc. Philosophy is a particular favourite; in fact the approach of an architect to their subject is often called their philosophy. Rationalism, empiricism, structuralism, poststructuralism, and phenomenology are some topics from philosophy that have influenced architecture. phenomenology, Italy]] # Translation of firmitatis utilitatis venustatis [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/home.html] due to Henry Wotton, 1624 [http://www.gardenvisit.com/landscape/LIH/history/vitruvius.htm#ch1-3].

Theory and practice

Architecture and buildings

The difference between architecture and building is a subject matter that has engaged the attention of many. According to Nikolaus Pevsner, European historian of the early 20th century, "A bicycle shed is a building, Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture". In current thinking, the division is not too clear. Bernard Rudofsky's famous Architecture Without Architects consolidated a whole range of structures designed by ordinary people into the realm of architecture. Architecture is also the art of designing the human built environment. Buildings, landscaping, and street designs may be used to impart both functional as well as aesthetic character to a project. Siding and roofing materials and colors may be used to enhance or blend buildings with the environment. Building features such as cornices, gables, entrances, window treatments and borders may be used to soften or enhance portions of a building. Landscaping may be used to create privacy and block direct views from or to a site and enhance buildings with colorful plants and trees. Street side features such as decorative lighting, benches, meandering walkways, and bicycle lanes may enhance a site for passersby, pedestrians, and cyclists.

Architectural history

Architecture first evolved out of the dynamics between needs (shelter, security, worship, etc.) and means (available building materials and attendant skills). Prehistoric and primitive architecture constitute this early stage. As humans progressed and knowledge began to be formalised through oral traditions and practices, architecture evolved into a craft. Here there is first a process of trial and error, and later improvisation or replication of a successful trial. What is termed Vernacular architecture continues to be produced in many parts of the world. Vernacular architecture, India]] Early human settlements were essentially rural. As surplus of production began to occur, rural societies transformed into urban ones and cities began to evolve. In many ancient civilisations such as the Egyptians' and Mesopotamians' architecture and urbanism reflected the constant engagement with the divine and the supernatural. However, the architecture and urbanism of the Classical civilisations such as the Greek and the Roman evolved from more civic ideas and new building types emerged. Architectural styles developed and texts on architecture began to be written. These became canons to be followed in important works, especially religious architecture. Some examples of canons are the works of Vitruvius, the Kaogongji of ancient China and Vaastu Shastra in ancient India. In Europe in the Classical and Medieval periods, buildings were not attributed to specific individual architects who remained anonymous. Guilds were formed by craftsmen to organise their trade. Over time the complexity of buildings and their types increased. General civil construction such as roads and bridges began to be built. Many new building types such as schools, hospitals, and recreational facilities emerged. Islamic architecture has a long and complex history beginning in the 7th century CE. Examples can be found throughout the countries that are, or were, Islamic - from Morocco and Spain to Iran, and Indonesia. Other examples can be found in areas where Muslims are a minority. Islamic architecture includes mosques, madrasas, caravansarais, palaces, and mausolea of this large region. With the Renaissance and its emphasis on the individual and humanity rather than religion, and with all its attendant progress and achievements, a new chapter began. Buildings were ascribed to specific architects - Michaelangelo, Brunelleschi, Leonardo da Vinci - and the cult of the individual had begun. But there was no dividing line between artist, architect and engineer, or any of the related vocations. At this stage, it was still possible for an artist to design a bridge as the level of structural calculations involved were within the scope of the generalist. With the consolidation of knowledge in scientific fields such as engineering and the rise of new materials and technology, the architect began to lose ground on the technical aspects of building. He therefore cornered for himself another playing field - that of aesthetics. There was the rise of the "gentleman architect" who usually dealt with wealthy clients and concentrated predominantly on visual qualities derived usually from historical prototypes. In the 19th century Ecole des Beaux Arts in France, the training was toward producing quick sketch schemes involving beautiful drawings without much emphasis on context. France, USA]] Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution laid open the door for mass consumption and aesthetics started becoming a criterion even for the middle class as ornamented products, once within the province of expensive craftmanship, became cheaper under machine production. Industrial Revolution, India]] The dissatisfaction with such a general situation at the turn of the twentieth century gave rise to many new lines of thought that in architecture served as precursors to Modern Architecture. Notable among these is the Deutscher Werkbund, formed in 1907 to produce better quality machine made objects. The rise of the profession of industrial design is usually placed here. Following this lead, the Bauhaus school, founded in Germany in 1919, consciously rejected history and looked at architecture as a synthesis of art, craft, and technology. When Modern architecture first began to be practiced, it was an avant-garde movement with moral, philosophical, and aesthetic underpinnings. Truth was sought by rejecting history and turning to function as the generator of form. Architects became prominent figures and were termed masters. Later modern architecture moved into the realm of mass production due to its simplicity and economy. However, a reduction in quality of modern architecture was perceived by the general public from the 1960s. Some reasons cited for this are its lack of meaning, sterility, ugliness, uniformity, and psychological effects. The architectural profession responded to this partly by attempting a more populist architecture at the visual level, even if at the expense of sacrificing depth for shallowness, a direction called Postmodernism. Robert Venturi's contention that a "decorated shed" (an ordinary building which is functionally designed inside and embellished on the outside) was better than a "duck" (a building in which the whole form and its function are considered together) gives an idea of this approach. Another part of the profession, and also some non-architects, responded by going to what they considered the root of the problem. They felt that architecture was not a personal philosophical or aesthetic pursuit by individualists; rather it had to consider everyday needs of people and use technology to give a livable environment. The Design Methodology Movement involving people such as Chris Jones, Christopher Alexander started searching for more people-orientated designs. Extensive studies on areas such as behavioural, environmental, and social sciences were done and started informing the design process. As many other concerns began to be recognised and complexity of buildings began to increase in terms of aspects such as services, architecture started becoming more multi-disciplinary than ever. Architecture now required a team of professionals in its making, an architect being one among the many, sometimes the leader, sometimes not. This is the state of the profession today. However, individuality is still cherished and sought for in the design of buildings seen as cultural symbols - the museum or fine arts centre has become a showcase for new experiments in style: today Deconstructivism, tomorrow maybe something else.

External links

- [http://www.pygmies.info/camps.html African Pygmies Architecture]
- [http://www.aia.org/ American Institute of Architects]
- [http://www.architectsindex.com/ ArchitectsIndex - Directory of UK Architects along with work examples]
- [http://www.architypes.net/ Architypes - Wiki of architecture design principles and patterns]
- [http://www.architecture.com/ Architecture.com - Courtesy of the Royal Institute of British Architects]
- [http://www.archpedia.com/ Archpedia - architecture encyclopedia]
- [http://www.vernarch.com/ Center for vernacular Architecture-Bangalore-India]
- [http://st-takla.org/Gallery/Gallery-Coptic-Orthodox-Architecture-01.html Christian Coptic Orthodox Architecture] at http://St-Takla.org
- [http://www.cupola.com/bldgstr1.htm Cupola - Building and Structure Photo Galleries]
- [http://www.danda.be/ Danda - News and reviews on architecture]
- [http://www.iab.org.br/ Instituto de Arquitetos do Brasil]
- [http://www.islamicarchitecture.org Islamic Architecture]
- [http://www.archinform.net/ Archinform - International Architecture Database]
- [http://architect.architecture.sk Famous architects]
- [http://www.galinsky.com/ Galinsky - People enjoying buildings worldwide]
- [http://www.glasssteelandstone.com/ Global Architecture Encyclopedia - Glass Steel and Stone]
- [http://www.thehopkinscompany.com/glossary/glossary.html Glossary of Architectural Terms]
- [http://www.greatbuildings.com/ Great Buildings Collection]
- [http://www.nyc-architecture.com/ New York architecture images]
- [http://www.riba.org Royal Institute of British Architects]
- [http://www.sah.org/ Society of Architectural Historians]
- [http://www.vitruvio.ch/ Vitruvio]
- [http://worldheritage-forum.net/de/ Worldheritage-Forum: Weblog and Information on UNESCO World Heritage topics] Category:Applied sciences Category:Arts ko:건축 ms:Seni bina ja:建築学 simple:Architecture th:สถาปัตยกรรมศาสตร์

Judeo-Christian

Judeo-Christian (or Judaeo-Christian) is a term used to describe the body of concepts and values which are thought to be held in common by Christianity and Judaism, and typically considered a fundamental basis for Western legal codes and moral values. Whereas the article Judaism and Christianity emphasizes that Judaism and Christianity each have widely diverging views of their respective relationship to the other, this article emphasizes continuities and convergences between the two religions, and acknowledges their complex joint history.

Neither religion is monolithic

As with the article on the Judaism and Christianity, this article makes generalizations about Jewish and Christian beliefs and practices. Nevertheless, it is very important to understand that neither religion is monolithic; there is no single "Judaism", as there is no single "Christianity". Instead, there are wide variations on a theme concerning belief and practice both among individual Jews and Christians and between different Jewish and Christian groups (indeed, there exist some Christians and Jews who hold that other Christians and Jews are not in fact the same religion.)

Source of the term

Christianity emerged from Judaism in the century after the death of Herod the Great. Christians brought from Judaism its scriptures; fundamental doctrines such as monotheism; the belief in a Messiah, a term that is more commonly known as Christ (christos in Greek) and means 'anointed one'; form of worship, including a priesthood, concepts of sacred space and sacred time, the idea that worship here on Earth is patterned after worship in Heaven, and the use of the Psalms in community prayer. Christianity dropped some fundamental Jewish practices, however, particularly the Jewish covenant on male circumcision, and one of its most significant preachers Paul of Tarsus, himself a Jew and a Roman citizen, made a point of preaching to the gentiles of the Roman Empire, contributing to the religion's spread. Users of the term Judeo-Christian, pointing out that Christians and Jews have many sacred texts and ethical standards in common, also generally hold that Christians and Jews worship the same God. The term was invented in the United States of America in an attempt to create a non-denominational religious consensus or civil religion that, by embracing Judaism, avoided the appearance of anti-Semitism. The first-known uses of the terms "Judæo-Christian" and "Judaeo-Christianity", according to the Oxford English Dictionary, are 1899 and 1910 respectively. The original uses of the term have faded, and it now usually refers to a general Western religious background. The term is commonly used by historians and academics as a shorthand for the predominant religious influences upon Western culture. For a systematic look at this subject see: Comparing and Contrasting Judaism and Christianity

Problems with the term

The term Judeo-Christian has been criticized for implying more commonality than actually exists. In The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition, Jewish theologian-novelist Arthur A. Cohen questions the theological appropriateness of the term and suggests that it was essentially an invention of American politics. [http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=188]. It has also been criticized by some for excluding or marginalizing Islam, the third major Abrahamic religion. Sometimes the terms Judeo-Islamic or Judeo-Christo-Islamic are used to more fully incorporate Islam into this umbrella.

Fundamental differences between the two religions

Judaism and Christianity have many areas of agreement, as well as sharply defined ethical and religious systems that are in some areas opposites. Generally neither Jews nor Christians want to have their distinctive traits removed by an oversimplification. Opponents of this term claim that the concept collapses these important differences, and effects a modern appropriation of Jewish identity to Christian values. They point to the traditional Christian claim that Christianity is the logical progression of, and heir to, Biblical Judaism, as precedent. A further problem with the notion of a Judeo-Christian tradition is that in fact neither Judaism or Christianity is monolithic. Tremendous variations occur in both religions which have influenced each other over the past 2,000 years. Moreover, Judaism and Christianity each have widely diverging views of their respective relationship to the other, and a complex joint history. So although there are popular themes, or common views, no one group, or view, can claim to speak for either religion, and each religion comprises a scattering of traditions and beliefs which vary in universality, based around a common core, rather than a definitive description. A measure of the scale of this variation, is that even internally to each religion, there exist some Christians and Jews who hold that other Christians and Jews are not in fact the same religion. Despite this, the mainstream view and approach, at least in current times, is mostly peaceful living side by side, with strong inter-dialogue at many levels to reconcile past differences between the two groups. According to Jewish teaching, Christians are accepted as worshipping the same God, and likewise many Christians emphasize common historical heritage and religious continuity with the ancient spiritual lineage of the Jews.

Perceived exclusion of Islam

The term Judeo-Christian is seen by some to imply a rejection of Islam, the third major religion to trace its roots to the same common culture. The term Judeo-Christian values is commonly used in the West, and many Muslim scholars view this term as emblematic of a disconnect between Western-culture Christianity and Islam Attempts have been made to unite this split, followed closely by attempts to discredit them. The term Judeo-Christian-Islamic has been coined to describe the values shared by the common history of the three religions. This term has been used, for example, by Abrahamic faith gatherings held in various cities of the U.S., which are designed to promote mutual understanding, and have drawn the participation of Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Columbia University professor Dick Bulliet has an up-coming book about this topic called "Islamo-Christian Civilization,". Others however denounce this inclusion, arguing that Islam lacks basic features in doctrine that Christianity and Judaism share, and also because they believe that Judaism and Christianity has shaped the cultural settings of Europe while Islam has been outside of this development. Others argue that this term is appropriate, since they believe all three claim monotheism and share many similar beliefs and traditions -- Christians believe in the Gospel, Jews believe in the Torah only (and not the Gospel) and do not recognize Jesus, while Muslims believe in the Torah, the Gospel and believe in Jesus. They also argue that Islam had a major influence on bringing Europe out of the Dark Ages into the Age of Enlightenment, through the culture and sciences that the Europeans learned from the Muslims during that period. Regardless of features in common, in a practical sense, these three religions stemming from common roots, their cultures, and their mutual interactions, have together been responsible for shaping much of the modern world, so a common inclusive term for the combined traditions of all three is often seen as an appropriate umbrella term.

References

- Cohen, Arthur A. The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition. Harper & Row, New York, 1970.
- Hexter, J. H. The Judaeo-Christian Tradition (Second Edition). Yale University Press, 1995.
- Neusner, Jacob. Jews and Christians: The Myth of a Common Tradition. Trinity Press International, Philadelphia, l99l.

External links

- [http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=188 A Judeo-Christian Looks at the Judeo-Christian Tradition]
- [http://www.the-tidings.com/2001/0622/davidsonsigns.htm The rise and fall of the term 'Judeo-Christian'] Category:Jewish Christian topics

Quotations from the Old Testament in the New Testament

Quotations - from the Old Testament in the New, which are very numerous, are not made according to any uniform method. When the New Testament was written, the Old was not divided, as it now is, into chapters and verses, and hence such peculiarities as these: When Luke (20:37) refers to Exodus 3:6, he quotes from "Moses at the bush", i.e., the section containing the record of Moses at the bush. So also Mark (2:26) refers to 1 Samuel 21:1-6, in the words, "in the days of Abiathar;" and Paul (Romans 11:2) refers to 1 Kings ch. 17-19, in the words, "in Elias", i.e., in the portion of the history regarding Elias. In general, the New Testament writers quote from the Septuagint ("LXX") version of the Old Testament, as it was then in common use among the Jews. But it is noticeable that these quotations are not made in any uniform manner. Sometimes, e.g., the quotation does not agree literally either with the LXX. or the Hebrew Masoretic text. This occurs in about one hundred instances. Sometimes the LXX. is literally quoted (in about ninety instances), and sometimes it is corrected or altered in the quotations (in over eighty instances). For example, at Matthew 21:42 Jesus says "Did ye never read in the scriptures that the stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner?" which is a reference to Psalm 118:22. Likewise Mark 12:10. Other quotations are sometimes made also directly from the Hebrew text (Matthew 4:15, 16; John 19:37; 1 Corinthians 15:54). Besides the quotations made directly, there are found numberless allusions, more or less distinct, showing that the minds of the New Testament writers were filled with the expressions and ideas as well as historical facts recorded in the Old. There are in all two hundred and eighty-three direct quotations from the Old Testament in the New, but not one clear and certain case of quotation from the Deuterocanonical books. In addition to the Deuterocanonical books, a number of other Old Testament books are also not quoted in the New Testament. Besides quotations in the New from the Old Testament, there are in Paul's writings three quotations from certain Greek poets, Acts 17:28; 1 Corinthians 15:33; Titus 1:12. These quotations are memorials of his early classical education. David Instone-Brewer points out that the household codes of Eph 5-6 and elsewhere are based on what Aristotle taught and serve as a Christian commentary on same.

External link

- [http://scripturecatholic.com/deuterocanon.html Deuterocanonical Citations in New Testament] Category:New Testament Category:Jewish Christian topics

Cornerstone (software)

Cornerstone is a relational database for the PC released by Infocom in 1985. It was widely hailed upon its release for its ease of use, but is generally considered one of the leading factors that led to the demise of the company.

History and development

In the 1980s, Infocom was widely-known as a computer game developer and publisher. It developed the most popular works of interactive fiction available at the time and, in fact, can be considered a pioneer of the genre. However, games were only considered a "jumping off" point for the company. Infocom was originally established as an outlet to develop "serious" products. Before forming the company, several of the founders had created the game Zork on mainframes while attending or working at MIT. When they joined to form Infocom, Zork was a natural choice as a first product because it was practically complete and didn't require much up-front funding. The enormous success of the game and its "sequels" (which were actually the other portions of the original mainframe game, which had been split into pieces that early personal computers could handle) led to the development of more interactive titles, due in large part to the highly portable technology the company developed for intelligent parsing. Despite the overwhelming success of its numerous game titles, the original founders of Infocom were still intent on developing serious titles. In addition, business software was seen as more lucrative than game titles since business traditionally paid thousands of dollars for each copy of software applications. After some deliberation, Infocom's board of directors decided to develop a relational database application for business users. Database applications at the time of Cornerstones original development were fairly inaccessible to non-programmers. The leading database application of the day, dBase II, required complex command-line commands even for the simplest operations. The Cornerstone developers were determined to make ease-of-use their chief priority. Dozens of people were hired in programming, marketing and other areas to swell Infocom's ranks to over 100 employees. While development of Cornerstone was going well, it required an enormous amount of capital. Infocom borrowed heavily and used a sole source of venture capital. Profits from their interactive fiction titles were diverted to help fund Cornerstone, a move that disturbed many employees of the game division and led to an adversarial attitude towards the business division among some. One development decision that proved fateful for the product—and the company as a whole—was the decision to make Cornerstone run via a virtual machine (VM). The use of Infocom's "Z-machine" for its interactive titles had been a huge boon: since all the games were written in an intermediate language (called ZIL), the company could release one title for every major platform simultaneously. The developers hoped to do the same for Cornerstone and its subsequent products. The existing VM proved unsuitable for the database application, so a new one was written for the product. The developers produced the VM for the PC first, planning to write VMs for other platforms after the initial PC release. When Cornerstone was released in 1985, it was widely hailed as a giant leap forward in usability. All commands were menu-driven, an innovative feature at the time. Many powerful features never before seen were available, such as command-completion and context-sensitive help. One PC Week columnist wrote, "Cornerstone is the best program I have ever used... the program is so easy to use, explaining its use is almost redundant. If you need a relational database, buy Cornerstone." One significant achievement noted by reviewers was that Infocom was able to contain the entire program on one floppy disk, a bonus provided by their use of their custom virtual machine (in addition to other facilities, it compressed text). However, Infocom's use of a VM impacted performance. For simple operations, Cornerstones performance was fine. However, for intensive operations, such as importing text files and sorting, Cornerstone dragged, especially when compared to the dominant database available at the time of Cornerstones release, dBase III. One review noted that after waiting over three hours for a single text file to be imported, all similar benchmark tests were abandoned. Additionally, users of dBase III, despite needing to use complex command-line commands, were able to repurpose databases for whatever uses they needed. They could even make stand-alone applications which used databases with the package. Macros could also be developed which automated many complex or repetitive tasks. Cornerstone, though it had many built-in convenience functions, wasn't programmable. Many repetetive and complex tasks—few as they were—needed to be carried out by hand. Also, any operations on its databases needed to be carried out within the application; Cornerstone had no facilities for creating stand-alone specially-purposed applications. While Infocom's use of a VM was a boon in some ways, the most significant advantage of its use—easy portability—was no longer an issue. During Cornerstones development, the PC had emerged as the dominant business computer. The product's slow operation due to the VM was too great a disadvantage compared to other current offerings. These failings may not have proved fatal were it not for the climate in which the product was released. In 1985, the computer industry took a serious downturn and many consumers and businesses that may have been potential customers were reluctant or unable to justify the purchase of the program. Cornerstone sold just 10,000 copies. This may not have proven lethal to the company had game sales remained strong, but the industry downturn had also affected Infocom's game sales. Their sales performance was not as good as projected and the revenue provided by games was not enough to cover the development costs of the database. Though the company's revenue for the year was over ten million dollars (US currency), it was far short of what was needed to keep the company solvent. As a final blow, the industry's slump caused several of Infocom's creditors to call in their loans early. Infocom's recently burgeoning ranks of employees suffered waves of layoffs and pay reductions. In 1986, Infocom was acquired by Activision, a large developer and publisher. Activision paid off Infocom's outstanding debt as part of the deal. While the acquisition kept Infocom afloat for a few more years, bad luck and poor management decisions led Activision to close Infocom for good in 1989.

External link

- [http://mit.edu/6.933/www/Fall2000/infocom/ Down From the Top of Its Game: The Story of Infocom, Inc.]—A report from MIT which offers a very detailed examination of Infocom's creative successes and marketing failures, including Cornerstone. Category:Infocom

Relational database

A relational database is a database based on the relational model. Strictly speaking the term refers to a specific collection of data but it is invariably employed together with the software used to manage that collection of data. That software is more correctly called a relational database management system, or RDBMS. All data which is stored in and retrieved from a relational database is cast in the form of relations. A relation is a set of n-tuples that represents the extension of an n-adic predicate. However, these n-tuples are not the ordered tuples of mathematics; instead, their components, called attribute values, are identified and referenced by names. Queries and integrity constraints are expressed declaratively, without the use of iterative loops or pointers, using operators based on the relational algebra and relation comparisons. The relational algebra is complete with respect to first-order predicate calculus except that certain restrictions are imposed on the use of negation and disjunction to address problems of computability.

External links

- [http://www.acm.org/classics/nov95/toc.html A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks]: By Edgar F. Codd
- Relational Database Principles by Colin Ritchie. ISBN 0826457134
- Database in Depth by Chris Date. ISBN 0596100124. A new book (2005) by perhaps the best-known author in this field. Category:Data management ja:リレーショナルデータベース

Infocom

Infocom was an American software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction, known as text adventure computer games. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone. Infocom was founded on June 22 1979 by MIT staff and students led by Dave Lebling, Marc Blank, Al Vezza, and Joel Berez and lasted as an independent company until 1986 when it was bought by Activision. Activision finally shut down the Infocom division in 1989, although they released some titles in the 1990s under the Infocom Zork brand.

Overview

Infocom was well-known among game-players for their parser called ZIL (Zork Implementation Language or Zork Interactive Language--it was referred to as both) used in its witty, ambitious text adventures, which allowed the user to type complex instructions to the game. Unlike earlier works of interactive fiction, which only understood commands of the form 'verb noun' (e.g. "get apple"), Infocom's parser could understand commands like "get all apples except the green apple from the barrel." Infocom games were written using a programming language that ran on a standardized virtual machine called the Z-machine. As the games were text based and used variants of the same Z-machine interpreter, Infocom was able to release most of their games for most popular home computers of the day simultaneously—the Apple II family, Atari 800, IBM PC compatibles, Commodore 64, Commodore 128¹, Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, the Mac, Atari ST, and the Commodore Amiga. The company was also known for shipping creative props, or "feelies" (and even "smellies"), with its games.

History

The beginning

Inspired by Colossal Cave, Marc Blank and Dave Lebling created what was to become the first Infocom game, Zork, in 1977 at MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science. Despite the development of a revolutionary virtual memory system that allowed games to be much larger than the average personal computer's normal capacity, the enormous mainframe-developed game had to be split into three roughly equal parts. Zork I was released originally for the TRS-80 in 1980 and eventually sold more than a million copies across several platforms. Lebling and Blank each authored several more games and additional game writers (or "implementors") were hired, notably including Steve Meretzky. Other popular and inventive titles included the rest of the Zork series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, and A Mind Forever Voyaging. In its first few years of operation, text adventures proved to be a huge revenue stream for the company. Whereas most computer games of the era would achieve initial success and then suffer a significant drop-off in sales, Infocom titles continued to sell for years and years. One key employee said of their situation, "It was phenomenal—we had a basement that just printed money."

Standing out from the competition

Three key components proved key to Infocom's success: marketing strategy, rich storytelling and feelies. Whereas most game developers sold their games mainly in software stores, Infocom also distributed their games via bookstores. Since their games were text-based, patrons of bookstores were drawn to the Infocom games as they were already interested in reading. Next, Infocom titles featured strong storytelling and rich descriptions, eschewing the day's primitive graphic capabilities, allowing users to use their own imaginations for the lavish and exotic locations the games described. Third, the inclusion of "feelies"—imaginative props and extras tied to the game's theme—provided some copy protection against pirating. Some games were unsolveable without the extra content provided with the boxed game. Many of the games' puzzles proved too difficult for some players. Infocom was regularly flooded with phone calls from customers pleading for hints to solving game puzzles. Due to this, Mike Dornbrook created the Zork User's Group (ZUG) to handle a typewritten "pay-per-hint" service. He also started Infocom's customer newsletter called The New Zork Times to discuss game hints and preview and showcase new products. (After the threat of a lawsuit by the New York Times, the newsletter's name was later changed to The Status Line, a reference to an informational feature provided the player in every Infocom game.) The pay-per-hint service eventually led to the development of InvisiClues: books with hints, maps, clues and solutions for puzzles in the games. The answers to the puzzles were printed in invisible ink that only became visible with a special marker, provided with each book. Sales of InvisiClues proved incredibly lucrative: their sales consistently filled computer book best seller lists until the list developers were forced to combine all InvisiClues sales into one number, which simply assured that it would almost always occupy the topmost position.

Serious mistakes...

In 1984 Infocom started putting resources into a new division to produce business products. In 1985 they released a database product, Cornerstone. Though this application was hailed upon its release for ease of use, it sold only 10,000 copies; not enough to cover the development expenses. Whereas their games had benefitted significantly from the portability offered by running on top of a virtual machine, this strategy did not prove to be a significant advantage for Cornerstone; in fact, the virtual machine significantly slowed the database's execution speed. Most businesses were moving to the IBM PC platform by that time, so portability was no longer a significant differentiator. Infocom had sunk much of the money from games sales into Cornerstone; this, in addition to a slump in computer game sales, left the company in a very precarious financial position.

...and the Activision takeover

A surprising lack of offers for such a successful company led to the 1985 acquisition of Infocom by Activision. This turned out to be the beginning of the end for Infocom. While relations were cordial between the two companies at first, the departure of James Levy from Activision left Bruce Davis in charge. Davis believed that his company had paid too much for Infocom and initiated a lawsuit against them to recoup some of the cost. Furthermore, he made a string of poor, heavy-handed decisions that made Infocom unprofitable. For example:
- Davis demanded they use Activision's packaging plant instead of their own in-house one, raising the cost of each package from $0.45 each to over $0.90 each. In addition, the Activision plant made numerous mistakes in packaging where the Infocom one almost never did.
- Infocom had a successful marketing approach that kept all their games in store inventories for years. Because of this, older titles sales often kept pace with sales of newer games. For example, because Zork was available for years after its initial release in 1980, it continued to top charts in sales well into the mid-1980s. Activision preferred to market Infocom's games the way they marketed their other titles: replacing older titles with newer ones. While this made sense for the graphically intensive games that made up the rest of Activision's catalog, since Infocom games were text based, it didn't make sense--the newer games didn't have improved text. This marketing approach cut off potential revenue for numerous Infocom titles that had consistently brought in money for several years.
- Davis demanded the struggling developer must produce eight titles a year. Infocom had traditionally produced about four games per year with more staff than they currently had.
- Davis pushed Infocom to release more graphical games, but the one they did release bombed. This was, in part, due to Infocom's long-standing rule of maximum portability; a game that could display graphics on a number of different systems couldn't take advantage of the strengths of any of them.

The end

Rising costs and falling profits due to these changes and other botched ventures caused Activision to finally pull the plug on Infocom in 1989. For a few years, Activision continued to market Infocom's classic games in collections (usually by genre, such as the Science Fiction collection); in 1991, they published The Lost Treasures of Infocom, followed in 1992 by The Lost Treasures of Infocom II. These two compilations featured nearly every game produced by Infocom before 1988. (Leather Goddesses of Phobos was not included in either bundle, but could be ordered via a coupon included with Lost Treasures II.)

Titles & authors

Interactive Fiction

- The Zork series:
- The original Zork Trilogy (Marc Blank & Dave Lebling):
- Zork I: The Great Underground Empire (1980)
- Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz (1981)
- Zork III: The Dungeon Master (1982)
- The Enchanter Trilogy:
- Enchanter (1983, Marc Blank)
- Sorcerer (1984, Steve Meretzky)
- Spellbreaker (1985, Dave Lebling)
- Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor (1987, Brian Moriarty)
- Zork Zero: The Revenge of Megaboz (1988, Steve Meretzky)
- Zork: The Undiscovered Underground (1997, Michael Berlyn and Marc Blank)
- Deadline (1982, Marc Blank)
- Starcross (1982, Dave Lebling)
- Suspended: A Cryogenic Nightmare (1983, Michael Berlyn)
- Infidel (1983, Michael Berlyn)
- Planetfall (1983, Steve Meretzky)
- The Witness (1983, Stu Galley)
- Cutthroats (1984, Michael Berlyn & Jerry Wolper)
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1984, Steve Meretzky & Douglas Adams)
- Seastalker (1984, Stu Galley & Jim Lawrence)
- Suspect (1984, Dave Lebling)
- A Mind Forever Voyaging (1985, Steve Meretzky)
- Wishbringer: The Magick Stone of Dreams (1985, Brian Moriarty)
- Ballyhoo (1986, Jeff O'Neill)
- Hollywood Hijinx (1986, "Hollywood" Dave Anderson)
- Leather Goddesses of Phobos (1986, Steve Meretzky)
- Moonmist (1986, Stu Galley)
- Trinity (1986, Brian Moriarty)
- Border Zone (1987, Marc Blank)
- Bureaucracy (1987, Infocom & Douglas Adams)
- The Lurking Horror (1987, Dave Lebling)
- Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It (1987, Jeff O'Neill)
- Plundered Hearts (1987, Amy Briggs)
- Stationfall (1987, Steve Meretzky)
- Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels (1988, Bob Bates)
- Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur (1989, Bob Bates)
- James Clavell's Shogun (1989, Dave Lebling)
- Journey (1989, Marc Blank)

Other Titles

- Graphic Adventures
- Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2: Gas Pump Girls Meet the Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet X! (1992, Steve Meretzky)
- Return to Zork (1993)
- Zork: Nemesis (1996)
- Zork Grand Inquisitor (1997)
- BattleTech Games
- BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception (1988, developed by Westwood Studios)
- BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Revenge (1991, developed by Westwood Studios)
- Other Games
- Fooblitzky (1985, Marc Blank, Mike Berlyn, Poh Lim & Paula Maxwell)
- Quarterstaff: The Tomb of Setmoth (1988, Scott Schmitz, Ken Updike & Amy Briggs)
- Mines of Titan (1988, Louis Castle & Brett Sperry)
- Tombs and Treasure (1989, developed by Nihon Falcom)
- Circuit's Edge (1989, developed by Westwood Studios)
- Infocomics
- Lane Mastodon vs. the Blubbermen (1988, Steve Meretzky)
- Gamma Force in Pit of a Thousand Screams (1988, Amy Briggs)
- ZorkQuest: Assault on Egreth Castle (1988, Elizabeth Langosy)
- ZorkQuest II: The Crystal of Doom (1988, Elizabeth Langosy)

Collections

- The Zork Trilogy (1986; contained Zork I, Zork II & Zork III)
- The Enchanter Trilogy (1986; contained Enchanter, Sorcerer & Spellbreaker)
- The Lost Treasures of Infocom (1991; contained 20 of Infocom's interactive fiction games)
- The Lost Treasures of Infocom II (1992; contained 11 interactive fiction games)
- The Zork Anthology (1994; contained Zork I, Zork II, Zork III, Beyond Zork & Zork Zero)
- The Masterpieces of Infocom (1996; contained 33 Infocom games plus six winners of the SPAG Interactive Fiction Contest not affiliated with Infocom)
- Zork Special Edition (1997; contained Zork I, Zork II, Zork III, Beyond Zork, Zork Zero, Return to Zork, Zork: Nemesis & Planetfall)
- Zork Classics: Interactive Fiction (2000)

Legacy

With the exception of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Shogun, the copyrights to the Infocom games are believed to be still held by Activision. Many Infocom titles can be downloaded via the Internet, legally in the case of the Zork trilogy and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but in violation of the copyright in most other cases. They are available as Z-machine story files and require a Z-machine interpreter to play. Interpreters are available for most computer platforms, the most widely used being the Frotz, Zip and Nitfol interpreters.

Notes

# Infocom was actually one of the very few companies (if not the only one) to release game software for the C128's native mode, contrary to most software houses' practice of only catering for the combined C64/128 market (as the C128 was compatible with the C64)

External links

- [http://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/v,1/o,100/j,22/ MobyGames' entry on Infocom]
- [http://infodoc.plover.net/ Infocom Documentation Project]
- [http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue92/245_1_Interactive_Text_In_An_Animated_Age.php 1988 Interview with Joel Berez and Marc Blank]
- [http://www.infocom-if.org/ Infocom's history, games and authors]
- [http://www.if-legends.org/~pdd/infocom/fact-sheet.txt Infocom Fact-sheet]
- [http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/ INFOCOM Homepage by Peter Scheyen]—An enthusiast's home page, containing, among many other resources, a timeline of Infocom's founding, releases and eventual dissolution.
- [http://mit.edu/6.933/www/Fall2000/infocom/ Down From the Top of Its Game: The Story of Infocom, Inc.]—A report from MIT which offers a very detailed examination of Infocom's creative successes and marketing failures. A must-read for Infocom fans.
- [http://infocom.elsewhere.org/gallery/ The Infocom Gallery] with photos of all game boxes, feelies, instruction manuals and extra game contents
- [http://www.retrology.com/infcover.htm A gallery of Infocom box art]
- [http://www.gue-network.com GUE-Network], contains an extensive image gallery of packaging, maps, and screenshots from the games
- [http://www.xs4all.nl/~pot/infocom/ Online java version of various Infocom games]

Newsgroups

- [news://rec.arts.int-fiction rec.arts.int-fiction] with discussion of IF design
- [news://rec.games.int-fiction rec.games.int-fiction] with discussion of IF reading/playing Category:Defunct computer and video game companies Category:Infocom Category:Interactive fiction

Chicago, Illinois

Chicago, colloquially known as the "Second City" and the "Windy City", is the third-largest city in population in the United States, following New York City and Los Angeles, and the largest inland city in the country. Chicago is located in the Midwestern state of Illinois along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. It is the largest city and the county seat of Cook County. When combined with its suburbs and eight surrounding counties, the greater metropolitan area known as Chicagoland encompasses a population greater than 9 million people. Growing from a frontier town in 1833 to one of the world's premier cities, Chicago is ranked as one of 10 "Alpha" (most influential) world cities by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group & Network. Today, Chicago is the financial, transportation, and cultural capital of the American Midwest. The city has long been known around the world as a financial, industrial, and transportation center and for its ethnic diversity. Chicago's skyscrapers, local cuisine, political traditions, and sports teams are some of the most recognized symbols of the city. A variety of colloquial nicknames reflect Chicago's unique character. A resident of Chicago is referred to as a Chicagoan. About one-third of Chicagoans are White, another third African-American, and the rest Hispanic or from other ethnic groups. Chicago also has many dozen distinct neighborhoods to match the ethnic diversity; the city is divided into 77 official community areas.

History

Early days

During the mid 1700s, the Chicago area was inhabited primarily by Potawatomis, who took the place of the Miami and Sauk and Fox who had controlled the area previously. The name Chicago originates from "Checagou" (Chick-Ah-Goo-Ah) or "Checaguar," which in the Potawatomi language means "garlic" (not "onions" or "skunk"). The area was so named because of the smell of rotting marshland wild leeks (ramps) that once covered it. The first non-native settler in Chicago was Jean-Baptiste Pointe du Sable, a Haitian of African descent, who settled on the Chicago River in the 1770s and married a local Potawatomi woman. In 1795, following the War of the Wabash Confederacy, the area of Chicago was ceded by the Native Americans in the Treaty of Greenville to the United States for a military post. In 1803, Fort Dearborn was built and remained in use until 1837, except between 1812 and 1816 when it was destroyed in the Fort Dearborn Massacre during the War of 1812.

Incorporation and growth

War of 1812 On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was incorporated with a population of 350. The first boundaries of the new town were Kinzie, Desplaines, Madison, and State streets, which included an area of about three-eighths of a square mile (1 km²). Within seven years the primarily French and Native American town had a population of over 4,000. Chicago was granted a city charter by Illinois on March 4, 1837. The opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal in 1848 allowed shipping from the Great Lakes through Chicago to the Mississippi River and on to the Gulf of Mexico. The first rail line to Chicago, the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, was completed the same year. These projects foreshadowed Chicago's eventual development into the transportation hub of the United States. Chicago also became home to national retailers, including Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck and Company, offering catalog shopping using the city's expansive transportation connections. Sears, Roebuck and Company The geography of Chicago presented early citizens with many problems. The prairie bog nature of the area provided a fertile ground for disease-carrying insects. Early on, Chicago's population and commerce growth was stymied by lack of good transportation infrastructure. During spring, Chicago was so muddy from the high water that horses would be stuck past their legs in the street. One dirt road was so hazardous that it became known as the "Slough of Despond". Comical signs proclaiming "Fastest route to China" or "No Bottom Here" were placed to warn people of the mud. To address these transportation problems, the Board of Cook County Commissioners decided to improve two country roads toward the west and southwest. The first road crossed the "dismal Nine-mile swamp" and Des Plaines River to the west, then continued southwest to Walker's Grove, now known as Plainfield. The second road headed south, but its exact route is disputed. Early Chicago was also plagued by sewer and water problems. Many people described it as the filthiest city in America. To solve the problems, the city initiated the creation of a massive sewer system. In the first phase sewage pipes were laid across the city above-ground, with gravity moving the waste. The second phase, executed in 1855, involved raising the level of the city by four to seven feet (one to two meters); this was done by jacking up buildings and placing fill in order to raise streets above the swamp and the newly-laid sewer pipes. By 1857, Chicago was the largest city in what was then known as the Northwest. In a period of 20 years, Chicago's population grew from 4,000 to over 90,000 people. The 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago nominated home-state candidate Abraham Lincoln for U.S. president. At the election of April 23, 1875 the voters of Chicago chose to operate under the Illinois Cities and Villages Act of 1872. Chicago still operates under this act in lieu of a charter. The Cities and Villages Act has been revised several times since, and may be found in Chapter 65 of the Illinois Compiled Statutes.

Great Chicago Fire

In 1871, most of the city burned in the Great Chicago Fire. The damage from the fire was immense; 300 people died, 18,000 buildings were destroyed and nearly 100,000 of the city's 300,000 residents were left homeless. One of the factors contributing to the fire's spread was the abundance of wood; the streets, sidewalks and many buildings were built of wood. Some would say that this is what has led to the current tradition of most Chicagoans building with brick and steel. While at the time the fire damage was devastating, history has shown that it proved to be a benefit to the city and surrounding communities. It afforded city planners the opportunity to begin with a clean slate and fix the mistakes of the past. In the following years it led to a building boom that cemented the city's status as the transportation hub of America, the building of the world's first skyscraper and the adoption of the grid system. All of these factors contributed to a long term framework for robust and continued growth.

Geography

grid system grid system Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois at the southwestern tip of Lake Michigan. When Chicago was founded in the 1830s most of the early building began around the mouth of the Chicago River. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Chicago has a total area of 606.1 km² (234.0 mi²), of which 588.3 km² (227.1 mi²) is land and 17.8 km² (6.9 mi²) is water. The total area is 2.94% water. The city has been built on relatively flat land; the average height of land is 579 feet (176 meters) above sea level. The city lies beside Lake Michigan and two rivers, the Chicago in downtown and the Calumet in the industrial far South Side, entirely or partially flow through Chicago. The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal connects the Chicago River with the Des Plaines River, which runs to the west of the city.

Climate

Chicago is known as a city of climate extremes. While winters can often be bitterly cold, extreme summer heat waves are not uncommon. Chicago has a temperate climate, typical of the U.S. Midwest, with hot summers and frigid winters, subject to extremes in both seasons (though Lake Michigan has a moderating effect close to shore). Weather typical of each season can arrive unusually early or late. For example, it has snowed in September (1942) and reached 90 °F (33 °C) in March (1982). The greatest recorded single-day temperature difference was more than 65 °F (31 °C) on (February 8, 1900). 1900 In a typical Chicago summer, average high temperatures are 72 °F to 84 °F (23 °C to 28 °C), with overnight lows averaging 62 °F (17 °C). Yearly precipitation averages about 33 inches (838 mm). Summer is the rainiest season, with short-lived rainfall and thunderstorms more common than prolonged rainy periods. On average, temperatures exceed 90 °F (33 °C) on 20 days each summer. The highest temperature reached in Chicago is an unofficial 109 °F (44 °C) on July 24, 1935. Winter in Chicago is a variable and fickle season. On average Chicago receives a total of 37.0 inches (95 cm) of snow, though total snowfall has ranged from 9.8 to 87.0 inches (25 and 223 cm). Typical snowfall accumulation is around 2 inches (5 cm), but about once a year Chicago experiences 10 to 14 inches (26 to 36 cm) of snow in one day. Temperatures can vary widely in the span of one week, and extended periods of temperatures below 32 °F (0 °C) are not uncommon in January and February. The temperature in January averages about 25 °F (-4 °C) in the afternoon and 10 °F (-12 °C) at night. Temperatures drop below 0 °F (-18 °C) an average of 15 days each winter. Although rare, the temperature can climb to 50 °F (10 °C) or higher in winter.

2004 Chicago Earthquake

An earthquake registering about 4.3 on the Richter scale shook some buildings in Chicago at 1:10 A.M. on June 28 2004. The epicenter of the earthquake was in Ottawa, Illinois and sparked worries that the New Madrid fault might become active again. An earthquake of 6 or higher in the Missouri Fault might cause moderate to high damage in Chicago.

Law and Government

New Madrid fault] The government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and legislative branches. The mayor is the chief executive, elected by general election for a term of four years. The mayor appoints commissioners and other officials who oversee the various departments. The current mayor is Richard M. Daley, a Democrat. In addition to the mayor, Chicago's two other citywide elected officials are the clerk and the treasurer. The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 aldermen, one elected from each ward in the city. The council enacts local ordinance and approves the city budget. Government priorities and activities are established in a budget ordinance usually adopted each November. The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions.

Politics

Former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley once led a political machine called the Chicago Democratic Machine. Another point of interest is the party leanings of the city. For much of the last century, Chicago has been considered one of the largest Democratic strongholds in the United States. For example, the citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican mayor since 1927, when William Thompson was voted into office. Today only one Alderman member is Republican. Chicago's politics lean famously to the left compared to the rest of the midwest, and it is often said that Chicago is the "East Coast" of the Midwest. All precincts of the city voted for Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. Social liberalism is strong in the city, with a strong majority of Chicagoans supporting welfare programs and the pro-choice movement. In 2004, Mayor Richard M. Daley rejected a proposal to legalize same-sex marriage in the city. The issue was controversial especially in Illinois, since the state is arguably the most varied in terms of liberal urban areas vs conservative rural areas. In partisan elections, such as for the State Legislature and U.S. Congress, most elections are won by Democrats, such as the landslide win of Barack Obama in 2004.

Law enforcement

Barack Obama The Chicago Police Department, also known as the CPD, is the principal law enforcement agency of Chicago, under the jurisdiction of the mayor of Chicago. It is the largest police department in the U.S. Midwest and the second largest in the nation (with 13,619 sworn officers and 2,625 other employees as of 2003), and one of the oldest organized police forces in the world. Currently, the Chicago Police Department is nationally accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies. There are twenty-five police districts, each led by a commander. Each commander oversees a network of administrative and operational departments that include patrol officers, detective forces, and other investigative units. Commanders report to the superintendent of police who in turn is subject to the authority of the mayor of Chicago. Related topics
- Chicago City Hall
- List of Chicago city departments
- List of mayors of Chicago
- Municipal Flag of Chicago
- Chicago City Council
- Chicago Police Department
- Chicago Fire Department
- Sister Cities of Chicago
- [http://library7.municode.com/gateway.dll/IL/illinois/7539?f=templates&fn=default.htm&npusername=13322&nppassword=MCC&npac_credentialspresent=true&vid=default Municipal Code of Chicago]

People and culture

Demographics

People living in Chicago are called "Chicagoans." The term is also sometimes applied to those living in one of the neighboring communities. As of the census of 2000, there are 2,896,016 people, 1,061,928 households, and 632,909 families residing in the city of Chicago proper. This encompasses about one-fifth of the entire population of the state of Illinois and 1% of the population of the United States. The population density is 4,923.0/km² (12,750.3/mi²). There are 1,152,868 housing units at an average density of 1,959.8/km² (5,075.8/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 31.32% White, 36.39% Black or African American, 26.02% Hispanic or Latino, 0.15% Native American, 4.33% Asian and Pacific Islander, .15% from other races, and 1.64% from two or more races. For changes between the 1990 and 2000 census, see [http://www.chicagoneighborhoods.cc/chicago-demographics.html]. other races The city itself makes up 23.3% percent of the total population of Illinois, down from a top 44.3% in 1930. Chicago's unique culture arises from it being a melting pot, with nearly even percentages of Caucasians and African-Americans and a sizeable Hispanic minority. The main European ethnic groups in Chicago are the Irish, Germans, Italians and Polish. Chicago has a large Irish-American population on its South Side. Many of Chicago's politicians have come from this population, including the current mayor, Richard M. Daley. Chicago has the largest populaton of Swedish-Americans of any city in the US, numbering 123,000. After the Chicago fire, many Swedish carpenters helped to rebuild the city, which is why it is sometimes called the city the Swedes built. Today, Chicago has the largest ethnically Polish population outside of Poland, making it one of the most important Polonia centers. Polish food and customs have melted into the culture of the city. Chicago is also considered to be the second-largest Serbian, Lithuanian and Greek city in the world. The city also has the country's largest Assyrian population, numbering as many as 80,000 and is the location of the seat of the head of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Dinkha IV. The Chicago Metropolitan area is also becoming a major center for Indian Americans and South Asians. Chicago has the third largest South Asian population in the country, after New York City and San Francisco. The Devon Avenue Market on Chicago's north side is an example of this, as it is one of the largest South Asian neighborhoods in North America. There are 1,061,928 households, of which 28.9% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 35.1% are married couples living together, 18.9% have a female householder with no husband present, and 40.4% are non-families. Of all households, 32.6% are made up of individuals and 8.7% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.67 and the average family size is 3.50. Of the city population, 26.2% are under the age of 18, 11.2% are from 18 to 24, 33.4% are from 25 to 44, 18.9% are from 45 to 64, and 10.3% are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 32 years. For every 100 females there are 94.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 91.1 males. The median income for a household in the city is $38,625, and the median income for a family is $42,724. Males have a median income of $35,907 versus $30,536 for females. The per capita income for the city is $20,175. Below the poverty line are 19.6% of the population and 16.6% of the families. Of the total population, 28.1% of those under the age of 18 and 15.5% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.
Museums and galleries
In 1998, the City of Chicago officially opened the Museum Campus, a 10 acre lakefront park surrounding three of the city's main museums, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium. The Museum Campus was constructed on the southern section of Grant Park. The construction project involved re-routing Lakeshore Drive to make room for the new park. Grant Park is also home to Chicago's other major downtown museum, the Art Institute of Chicago. Some other major museums and galleries of the Chicago area include:
- Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, 1300 S. Lake Shore Dr.
- Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave. One of the premier art museums in the United States. Famous pieces include American Gothic by Grant Wood, and A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. The Museum is partnered with The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.Georges Seurat
- Chicago Cultural Center ([http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Tourism/CultureCenterTour/ Home Page]), 78 E. Washington St. Built in 1897 as Chicago's first public library, the building now houses the city's Visitor Information Center, galleries, and exhibit halls. The ceiling of Preston Bradley Hall includes a 38-foot Tiffany glass dome.
- Field Museum of Natural History, 1400 S. Lake Shore Dr., Chicago's natural history museum. Highlights include Sue, the largest Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton in the world as well as a great, kids-friendly Egyptian exhibit.
- Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, 1852 West 19th St., a museum dedicated to Mexican, Latino and Chicano art and culture.
- Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave. Art of all types from around the world made since 1945.
- Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, 5700 S. Lake Shore Dr.
- Oriental Institute, part of the University of Chicago, one of the best collections of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archeology in the world.
- Shedd Aquarium, 1200 S. Lake Shore Dr. Located on the Museum Campus, the Shedd Aquarium is home to a large collection of marine life from throughout the world. The Pacific Northwest–themed Oceanarium features dolphins, whales, and other animals from the region, as well as a panoramic view of Lake Michigan. The aquarium was the largest indoor aquarium in the world until the Georgia Aquarium opened in November 2005.
Performing arts
2005 Chicago is a well-known theater capital and the birthplace of improvisational comedy, where it remains extremely popular. The city is home to The Second City and ImprovOlympic, two of the largest comedy troupes in the world. Many world-famous actors and comedians are Chicagoans or came to study in the area, particularly at Northwestern University in Evanston. The form itself was invented at the University of Chicago in the 1960s by an undergraduate performance group called the Compass Players, whose members went on to found Second City. (In honor of this, Second City returns to the school on major anniversaries to perform free shows.) Since its founding in 1976 as an ensemble effort, Steppenwolf Theatre Company on the city's north side has nurtured a generation of gifted actors, directors and playwrights and grown into an internationally renowned company of thirty-five artists. Many other theatres, from new performances spaces to landmark houses like the Chicago Theatre on State and Lake, present a wide variety of plays and musicals, both touring shows and original works, such as the premiere in December 2004 of the Tony Award winner for Best Musical in 2005, Spamalot. The Lyric Opera of Chicago was founded in 1954 and performs in the Civic Opera Building, which was built in 1929 on the east bank of the Chicago River and is the second-largest opera auditorium in North America, with 3,563 seats. The Lyric Opera purchased the Civic Opera House from the building's owner in 1993. The company has reported an average of 100% sales for the past 16 years and approximately 34,000 subscribers for its six-month season.
Music
Chicago has made many significant pop-cultural contributions. In the field of music, Chicago is well-known for its Chicago blues, Chicago soul, Jazz, and Gospel. It is known as the birthplace of the House style of music, whose history is related to the development and fostering of the techno electronic style of music in nearby Detroit. The Hip-Hop scene in Chicago is also very influential, with major artists including Kanye West, R. Kelly, and Common. The rock band Chicago was named after the city, although its original name was the Chicago Transit Authority. The band's name was shortened to Chicago after the CTA threatened to sue them for unauthorized use of the original. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, one of the nation's oldest and most respected symphony orchestras, plays its concerts at the historic Symphony Center in downtown Chicago. One of the most influential bands of the mid 1990s' alternative music era, The Smashing Pumpkins, hail from Chicago.
Cuisine
Chicago's signature foods reflect the city's ethnic and working-class roots. Chicago deep-dish pizza, popularized by Uno and Due pizzerias, is world renowned, although thin-crust and other styles of pizza are also popular throughout the city. A traditional Chicago hotdog is typically loaded with mustard, chopped onion, sliced tomato, pickle relish, celery salt and a dill pickle spear. It is somewhat taboo to put ketchup on a Chicago hotdog; there are actually some small hotdog shops and stands that will refuse service to you if you make the request. A Chicago hotdog is almost always made out of Vienna Beef, the largest provider of hot dog meat for Chicago. Chicago is also known for Italian Beef sandwiches and the Maxwell Street Polish (always served topped with grilled onions and mustard). Chicago also has a long list of world-renowned upscale dining establishments serving a wide array of cuisine from some of the most well-known chefs in the nation. Some notable destinations include [http://www.charlietrotters.com/index.asp Charlie Trotter's] (chef Charlie Trotter) on Armitage in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, Frontera Grill, a gourmet Mexican restaurant owned by Food Network star Rick Bayless, and The Everest, a new-French restaurant on the top floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange building downtown.
Media
Chicago commands the third-largest market in North America (after New York City and Los Angeles; although Mexico City has a larger population, its market does not hold such importance) and as such has many different forms of media and outlets to support its status. All of the major US television networks have subsidiaries in Chicago. Chicago's local WGN-TV, which is owned by the Tribune Company, is carried (with some programming differences) as "Superstation WGN" on cable nation-wide. There are two major daily newspapers published in Chicago, The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, with the former having the larger circulation. There are also a number of regional and special-interest newspapers such as the Daily Southtown, the Chicago Defender and the Chicago Reader. Local blog sites of note are Gapersblock, [http://www.flowfeel.com FlowFeel] and Bookslut.
Crime
Despite its prosperity and reputation as a safe city, Chicago's crime situation in the latter half of the 20th century, and the early years of the 21st, has often been less than ideal. In addition to its gangland problems, starting in the late 1960s Chicago, like many other major American cities, saw a major rise in violent crime which took decades to reverse. Murders in the city peaked first in 1974, with 970 murders for the year when the city's population was over three million, resulting in a murder rate of around 28.8 per 100,000; and again in 1992, with 943 murders for the year when the city had fewer than three million people, resulting in a murder rate of 33.87 per 100,000. Following 1992, the murder count slowly petered down to 703 by 1999; by this time, it had the most murders of any big city in the country and continued to until 2004. That year, after adopting crime-fighting techniques recommended by the New York Police Department and the Los Angeles Police Department, Chicago recorded 448 homicides, the lowest total since 1965. Despite the impressive gains, however, the city's murder rate of 15.65 (going by the 2004 population estimate) is still higher than those of New York, Boston, San Francisco, and even Los Angeles. Chicago has been among the first US cities to build an integrated emergency response center to coordinate the city's response to terrorist attacks, gang violence, and natural disasters in the city. Built in 1995, the center is integrated with over 2000 cameras, a direct link to the National Counter-Terrorism Center, and communications with all levels of city government. Recently installed anti-crime cameras have been introduced and are capable of pinpointing gunshot sounds, calculating where the shots were fired, and pointing and zooming the cameras in the direction of the shots. So far early results show these new cameras to be highly effective in reducing crime within a 2 block radius. Placed in residential areas, these cameras cause some Chicagoans to feel uneasy about being so closely watched. They have prompted some calls of discrimination since these cameras are prevelant in Black and Latino communities. The FBI often does not accept crime statistics submitted by the Chicago Police Department, which tallies data differently than other cities. For instance, the police record all criminal sexual assaults as opposed to only rape, like other police departments do; and aggravated battery is counted along with the standard category of aggravated assault. As a result, Chicago is often omitted from studies like Morgan Quitno's annual "Safest/Most Dangerous City" survey.
- http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-06-06-crime-drop_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA
- http://www.cityofchicago.org/police
Economy
Morgan Quitno] Chicago has been a center for commerce in the United States for most of its modern history. Today, Chicago remains the United States' second financial center with the nation's second largest central business district and third largest gross metropolitan product. In fact, Chicago's gross metropolitan product would rank 18th in the world if it were a nation-state, at approximately 380 billion dollars. Before it was incorporated as a town in 1833, the primary industry was the fur trade. Chicago's early explosive growth led many land speculators and enterprising individuals to the area. Situated on the Great Lakes and with so many new people settling the area, Chicago became an ideal location for shipping and receiving goods. With that, many railroads started to be built from Chicago to other parts of the country, further aiding the growth of the city. Additionally, the building of the Illinois and Michigan Canal helped move goods south down the Mississippi River. In the 1840s, Chicago became the largest grain port in the world, shipping food from the Mississippi Valley region which was also growing into the largest food-producing region in the world. In 1848, Chicago built its first grain elevator, and, in 1858 there were twelve grain elevators dotting the skyline. Carl Sandburg described Chicago as a "stacker of wheat", and some would argue that the grain elevators were Chicago's first skyscrapers. In the 1850s and 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry exploded. Great entrepreneurs such as Gustavus Swift and Philip Armour helped the area to become the largest producer of meat products in the world at the time. By 1862, Chicago had displaced Cincinnati, Ohio, as "Porkopolis". During the 1860s two factors helped this development: first, the Civil War increased the demand for food products, and Chicago's transportation network ensured that goods could be delivered quickly to soldiers all over the northern United States; and second, meat packing plants began to utilize ice. Before this time, meat production and distribution facilities, otherwise known as disassembly plants, had to shut down in the hot summer months. More operating months meant hundreds of thousands of new man-hours in which people could work. The efficiency of Chicago's meat packing industry and its disassembly plants inspired others such as Henry Ford when he developed Model-T assembly lines. Today, we consider industries such as steel, oil, and banking to be the great global market segments, but in the 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry represented the first global industry. As the major meat companies grew in Chicago many, such as Armo

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