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Western Africa, region of the western African continent comprising the countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cabo Verde, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Western Africa is a term used in the Encyclopædia Britannica to designate a geographic region within the continent of Africa. The term West Africa is also often used to refer to this part of the continent. As conventionally understood, however, West Africa is primarily a political and economic designation and comprises all the areas considered here except Cameroon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, and the Saharan parts of Mali, Mauritania, and Niger.
The region may be divided into several broad physiographic regions. The northern portion of western Africa is composed of a broad band of semiarid terrain, called the western Sudan, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean on the west to the area of Lake Chad on the east, a distance of about 2,500 miles (4,000 km). It is largely a plateau of modest elevation and borders the Sahara (desert) on the north and the Guinea Coast forests on the south. Rainfall in this region ranges from less than 10 inches (250 mm) in its arid northern reaches to about 50 inches (1,250 mm) in the south. The flora of the western Sudan consists of the scrub vegetation of the transitional zone known as the Sahel in the north and a mix of tall trees and high savanna grasslands in the south. Lying south of the western Sudan are the Guinea Coast equatorial forests, which flourish along the Atlantic coast and extend inland for about 100 to 150 miles (160 to 240 km).
Most of the Sahara and the transitional vegetational zones to its south (the Sahel and the western Sudan) are drained, where there is enough rainfall to support surface streams, either southward via the Niger River system or inland to the Lake Chad basin in the east. Along the better-watered Atlantic coastal areas, the chief features are (west to east) the Mauritanian-Senegal Basin, drained by the Sénégal River; the Fouta Djallon and Guinea Highlands; the Volta River and Niger River coastal plains; and the uplands of Nigeria's Jos Plateau and the Cameroon Highlands.
Culturally, the people of the region belong for the most part to one of three major language families. In the northern and least-populous Saharan regions, Arabs and Imazighen (Berbers; singular Amazigh) of the Afro-Asiatic language family predominate. South of a line connecting the course of the Sénégal River, the Niger River, and the southern two-thirds of Nigeria, Niger-Congo languages are spoken. Along the middle course of the Niger River and around Lake Chad, Nilo-Saharan languages related to those of peoples farther east predominate. These peoples are divided into a very complex ethnic mosaic but may often be conveniently classified by their individual languages.
This article covers the history of the region primarily from the 11th century through the 20th century. Coverage of the region's physical and human geography can be found in the article Africa. For discussion of the physical and human geography of individual countries in the region and of their postcolonial history, see Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Area 3,059,702 square miles (7,924,592 square km). Pop. (2014 est.) 375,477,000.
Muslims in western Africa
A reasonable body of sources for the writing of western African history begins to be available about 1000 ce. Three centuries earlier the Arabs had completed their conquest of Africa north of the Sahara and so came into possession of the northern termini of trade routes reaching across the desert to western Africa. The lively school of geographers and historians that flourished in the Muslim world from about the 9th to the 14th century thus secured access to growing amounts of information about what they called the bilād al-sūdān, the territory of the black peoples south of the Sahara.
This information has its limitations. The Muslim writers, contemptuous of non-Islamic societies, passed on little of what they must have known about the organization of pagan black societies and tended to concentrate on and condemn what struck them as their more monstrous aberrations. Conversely, they doubtless exaggerated the importance of the Islamization that entered western Africa with the Muslim traders crossing the Sahara. The earliest firsthand account of western Africa is probably that of the world traveler Ibn Baṭṭūṭah, who visited the western Sudan in 1352–53. Finally, the North African merchants did not penetrate into western Africa beyond the urban centres of trade and government that existed or came to develop on the northern fringes of the cultivable savannas fronting the Sahara. Their bilād al-sūdān was in fact only the northern marches.
Nevertheless, the picture of western Africa given in the early Muslim writings is of major interest. It is apparent that, right from the beginnings of Arab contact, the organization of the more northerly western African peoples was not solely tribal. They had considerable towns and cities that were supported by a developed agriculture. They had organized networks of markets and trade and a developed system of monarchical government. Kings, whose claim to power was based on descent from the mythical divine founding ancestors of their ethnic groups, taxed trade and levied tribute on the agricultural villages through their possession of bodies of retainers who provided them both with military force and with a hierarchy of officials.
It seems likely that there was an increase in the volume of trans-Saharan trade following the organization of North Africa under Muslim dynasties and that this growth of international trade with western Africa stimulated the growth there of internal trade, urbanization, and monarchical government. Certainly the control of trade, towns, and government in western Africa became increasingly Islamic in form. But it is quite clear that the foundations for the economic and political development of the western Sudan were in existence before the time of contact with Muslim traders or authors. Early Muslim interest was concentrated on two major western African kingdoms: Kanem, in the east, north of Lake Chad; and Ghana, in the extreme west, on the borders of modern Mauritania and Mali. The Muslim sources, which are broadly confirmed by local tradition, indicate that the kingdom of Kanem was being formed during the 9th and 10th centuries through an interaction between Saharan nomads and agricultural village communities. But ancient Ghana (not to be confused with its modern namesake, considerably farther to the south and east) had already reached levels of organization that presuppose several centuries of continuing development.
The earliest extant Arabic reference to a kingdom of Ghana dates from the early 9th century. In the middle of the 11th century, the Córdoban geographer Abū Uʿbayd al-Bakrī described its capital, court, and trade in some detail. The capital was made up of two towns, a stone-built town inhabited by the Muslim traders and a mud-built one of the local Mande in which the king had his walled palace. Their centres were six miles apart, and the whole of the intervening country was more or less built up. The considerable population was supported by the produce of surrounding farms, which were watered from wells. The court displayed many signs of wealth and power, and the king had under him a considerable number of satellite rulers. A principal part of his revenue was derived from regular taxes on trade. The mainstay of this trade was the exchange of gold, which Ghana's own merchants brought from lands to the south, for salt, which the northern traders brought in from salt deposits in the Sahara.
Al-Bakrī's description is broadly confirmed by archaeology. The region in which ancient Ghana was situated contains the ruins of a considerable number of stone-built towns that must have been supported by extensive agricultural and commercial activity; those at Koumbi Saleh are generally identified with the capital described by al-Bakrī.
The relatively extensive Muslim interest in Ghana was undoubtedly due to its importance as a source of gold. Kanem seems to have been less important commercially; the main interest of the Muslim authors seems to have been in the quasi-divine status of its kings, which offended their Muslim principles. Other western African kingdoms undoubtedly existed at this time, but the Muslim sources record little of them beyond their names and approximate locations. Thus between Ghana and Kanem was Kawkaw, perhaps the nucleus of the later Songhai kingdom of Gao. Malel, to the south of Ghana, may similarly have been a prototype of the later Mande kingdom of Mali, which ultimately was to eclipse and absorb Ghana itself.
There are perhaps three possible—and not mutually exclusive—explanations for the origins and development of the kingdoms that Arab trade and scholarship had revealed by about 1000 ce. The first is that they were the result of the invasion of agricultural territory by pastoralists from the Sahara who belonged to the Libyan Amazigh groups who spoke a non-Semitic language and were the dominant group of North Africa before its conquest by the Arabs.
This is the explanation often given in western Sudanese traditions and chronicles. From roughly the 15th century onward, many of these were preserved by local authors who wrote in Arabic and were Muslims, and who thus had some incentive to link the history of their peoples with that of North Africa and with the adjacent Middle East. It was also the explanation favoured by European historians of the later 19th and earlier 20th centuries when Europeans were themselves conquering and colonizing black Africa. There thus evolved the so-called "Hamitic hypothesis," by which it was generally supposed that any progress and development among agricultural blacks was the result of conquest or infiltration by pastoralists from northern or northeastern Africa. Specifically, it was supposed that many of the ideas and institutions of tribal monarchy had spread through Africa by diffusion from the ancient civilization of Egypt and the Nile valley.
There can be no doubt that over the centuries pastoralists from the Sahara have indeed advanced and conquered southward. But not all of these were Libyan Imazighen; some, such as the dynasts of Kanem, were black African in language and culture. Nor is it easy to understand how mobile desert pastoral groups could be effective transmitters of ideas and institutions from the settled civilization of the Nile valley to other agricultural lands in western Africa. It would seem more probable that conquering pastoralists who did succeed in establishing new kingdoms and dynasties in western Africa should do so by taking over existing monarchies, perhaps city-states or even "village-states," and amalgamating these into larger units. Some early western African traditions can certainly be interpreted in this sense.
This leads to the second explanation for the origins and development of monarchical statehood among the western African groups. There is archaeological evidence for the evolution of a cattle-herding and agricultural economy among a mixed population of Libyan Imazighen and black agricultural peoples (now called Ḥarāṭīn) in the Sahara by at least 4000 bce—i.e., more or less contemporary with similar developments in the Nile valley. The desiccation of the Sahara and the evolution of its present desert between about 8000 and 2000 bce must have occasioned an outflowing of population in which the blacks concentrated in the savannas to the south of it. There, in favourable riverine or lacustrine environments, it seems reasonable to suppose that the same desire to avoid conflicts over land and water rights and to control and exploit agricultural surpluses, which had led in the exceptionally fertile but extremely constricted environment of the Nile valley to the dramatic kingship and civilization of the pharaohs, should have occasioned the evolution of similar if less spectacular monarchies.
It should be noted, however, that the major western African monarchies known to the Arabs by approximately 1000 ce were situated not in the well-watered lands along the Sénégal and Niger valleys nor around Lake Chad but north of these, in the less favoured agricultural territory between them and the southern edges of the Sahara. This suggests that a third factor in the evolution of these northern monarchies was the influence of long-distance trade. The western African kingdoms had their own resources of iron, which in some cases were being worked by about 500 bce, but they imported other metals, notably copper, together with horses, luxury manufactures, and—above all—salt, a vital commodity that was scarce in all of western Africa except the coastlands. In exchange they could offer gold, ivory, certain agricultural commodities, and slaves.
The exchange across the Sahara of such commodities probably goes back to times before the establishment of the modern desert. The emergence of the desert did not lead to the cessation of the trade but meant that its surviving pastoralists were encouraged to organize regular trans-Saharan expeditions for trade and plunder. It is known from Herodotus and other classical authors and from surviving rock engravings in the desert that horse-drawn chariots were in use in the Sahara by about 500 bce. Chariots would have been used for short raids rather than for trans-Saharan trade. But the fact that the engravings are deployed along two principal lines, from the Fezzan and southern Morocco toward the upper Niger and Sénégal rivers, suggests a North African interest in the alluvial gold of these rivers. This could well have occasioned the 6th-century Carthaginian expedition led by Hanno to explore the possibility of direct sea trade with western Africa along the Atlantic coast. Despite this expedition, the Carthaginians do not seem to have been capable of opening up a regular sea trade with western Africa. The links with western Africa remained firmly in the hands of the Saharan groups, although, at about the beginning of the Common Era, camels and other pack animals came into use to supplant the horse-drawn vehicles.
The profits to be obtained by distributing Saharan and Mediterranean produce in western Africa, and by controlling the collection and export of the western African commodities that were exchanged for them, must have been a powerful factor in encouraging the kings of communities on the southern fringes of the Sahara to extend their rule by conquest over adjacent similar communities. Control over more extensive territories meant that by tribute and taxation they could acquire greater stocks of goods for exchange with North Africa and the Sahara and more clients and slaves to extend their power at the expense of their neighbours. Some of their increased human power could be mounted on horses, obtained from the Saharan trade, to increase the mobility and power of their armed forces over the open savannas. It is tolerably certain that the power of the kings of ancient Ghana, controlling the export of gold from the Sénégal and Niger valleys, was built up in this way.
The states of the Sudan
The early kingdoms and empires of the western Sudan
In the 10th century the kings of Ghana extended their sway over the Ṣanhājah, the congeries of Amazigh nomadic groups living around Audaghost, just north of their kingdom, who supplied them with salt and North African goods.
This move must have upset the economic balance between agricultural Ghana and the pastoral Ṣanhājah, and ultimately it provoked a reaction. Like the North African Imazighen, the Ṣanhājah were already to some extent Islamized, and they shortly found in a militant, puritanical version of Islam the means to eliminate their differences and to unite in the movement known to history as the Almoravids. In the middle of the 11th century they began to expand into the productive lands on either side of the western Sahara, and it would seem that later in the century Ghana became dominated by them.
One important result of this domination, following as it did upon some centuries of trading contact by Muslims, was that the ruling and merchant classes of the western Sudan became converted to Islam—though in the case of the rulers the conversion was for many centuries not wholehearted. The justification for a king's claim to enforce his rule over his subjects, who remained pagan, was his descent from the original ancestor who had first settled the land and, by accommodation with its deities and spirits, had developed and controlled it for agriculture. If he were not to be rejected and replaced as king by a rival member of its royal family, he had to continue to observe the ancestral and land cult rites in which he was the principal figure.
However, the depredations of the Almoravids' herds and their internecine quarrels must have undermined the prosperity of agriculture in a marginal environment and would have accelerated the decay of Ghana. More southerly Mande groups, many of which had formed satellite kingdoms of the Ghana empire, began to act independently and to compete among themselves for primacy. Eventually about 1235, in the time of a king called Sundiata, the Keita kings of Mali, in the well-watered and gold-bearing lands of the uppermost Niger valley, gained ascendancy and incorporated what was left of ancient Ghana into their own considerably more extensive empire.
The Keita clan seem originally to have been traders from lower down the Niger, and the strategy of their empire was to extend their power down river to the Niger Bend and to its trading cities of Timbuktu and Gao, which lay at the foot of the shortest trans-Saharan routes. The initial success of the Almoravids and their subsequent rapid decline had upset the stability of the more westerly caravan roads leading to Ghana, while by the 13th century Ifrīqīyah (Tunisia and eastern Algeria) and Egypt provided more stable bases for trans-Saharan trade than did Morocco. The Niger River provided a natural means of communication from Mali and its goldfields to Timbuktu and to Gao and also provided Mali's merchants with the possibility of opening up trade elsewhere in black western Africa. By the 14th century, Mande merchants, the Dyula, were trading as far east as the city-states of the Hausa, between Lake Chad and the Niger. By about the same time they had also begun to develop a new trade route southeastward from Jenne (modern Djenné, Mali), on a southerly tributary of the Niger, toward goldfields that were being opened up along the Black Volta and further south still, in what is now modern Ghana.
These Mande merchants were Muslims, and their activities led to a considerable expansion of Islam among the trading classes of western Africa and, with the qualification mentioned earlier, also among its kings. Thus the first conversions of Hausa monarchs seem to date from the 14th or 15th centuries. The Mali kings themselves valued Islam for the commercial and diplomatic advantages it gave them, and some of them, of whom the best known is Mūsā I of Mali (1307–32), made notable pilgrimages to Mecca via Egypt. As may be seen from Ibn Baṭṭuṭah's account of his travels in 1352–53, the essentially pagan society of the western Sudan became open to a considerable degree of Islamic influence, and literacy and even scholarship became firmly established in its major cities.
The success of the Mali empire depended, however, on its rulers maintaining firm control of the Niger waterway. This in its turn depended on their maintaining control over a non-Mande people, the Songhai, who monopolized the fishing and canoe transport of the middle Niger. The Songhai had an independent monarchical tradition of their own, and Mande control of their capital, Gao, proved somewhat fitful. During the 15th century it was lost altogether, and eventually a Songhai king arose, Sonni ʿAlī (1464–92), who, appealing to traditional Songhai paganism against the Islamic universalism of the Mande system, destroyed the Mali empire by ceaseless military campaigning and erected in its place a new empire ruled from Gao. But if this empire were to be profitable and strong, the Songhai needed the Mande as much as the Mande had needed the Songhai. After Sonni ʿAlī's death, power passed first to his son, Sonni Baru (1493), who was soon deposed by one of Sonni ʿAlī's former generals, al-Hājj Muḥammad Askia (1493–1528), who was both a Mande and a Muslim, and thereafter there was a continual struggle for power between the two groups.
The Songhai empire was never strong in the west, where a number of Mande kingdoms remained in the tradition of Ghana and Mali, but was more effective to the east. There the kingdom of Kanem, whose kings had become Islamized in the 11th century, had declined during the 14th and 15th centuries following quarrels among its aristocracy when it was subject to pressure from new nomad invasions. Eventually, however, the Kanem kings reestablished their state in the former province of Bornu in the southwest, close by the Hausa kingdoms. But in the 16th century, Songhai was the most important external influence over the latter, which began to grow in power and importance. South of the Niger Bend the kingdoms of the Mossi-Dagomba peoples were emerging, founded by bands of cavaliers who may have been in some way connected with the ruling families to the northeast. (See also Mossi states and Dagomba.)
Songhai was strong enough to extend its sway northward across the Sahara to as far as the salt mines of Taghaza, close to the Moroccan borders. This upset the balance of trans-Saharan trade, as Ghana's attempt to control the Ṣanhājah had done, and in 1591 finally provoked effective retaliation from the Saʿdī dynasty of Morocco. An expeditionary force of some 4,000 soldiers was sent across the Sahara and took the important cities of Gao, Timbuktu, and Jenne. The Moroccans had firearms, but their success against the much larger numbers of the Songhai army was also facilitated by the internal divisions of the Songhai state. For a time the profits of this enterprise were considerable, but the Moroccans were not strong enough to control the network of trade routes within western Africa that brought gold and other produce to the Niger cities. Ultimately the main gainers from their conquest were the Saharan groups, essentially Amazigh in origin (such as the Tuareg) but now increasingly Muslim and even Arabized, who finally levied tribute on the descendants of the Moroccan soldiers who formed the military caste (Arma) of Gao, Timbuktu, and Jenne.
Firearms also came to the central Sudan about the same time through the trading relations that existed between Bornu and the Ottoman Turks in North Africa. Together with Muslim cavalry, they enabled Idris Alawma of Bornu (end of 16th century) to impose a Muslim bureaucracy on his pagan subjects and to reconquer Kanem. This revival of the Kanem-Bornu dynasty, however, was relatively short-lived. By the 18th century it was the much smaller Hausa kingdoms, especially Kano and Katsina—which had learned much from Mande commercial and industrial experience and had developed a trading network to the south to rival that of the Mande themselves—that took the leading role in western Africa's external trade with North Africa across the Sahara.
The wider influence of the Sudanic kingdoms
The development of such major Sudanic kingdoms and empires as Ghana, Mali, Songhai, the Hausa states, and Kanem-Bornu along the southern fringes of the Sahara had a number of important consequences for the history of western Africa as a whole. For example, it provided the background for the expansion of the Fulani, the only pastoral western African people (also variously known as Fulbe, Fula, Fellata, and Peul). (See also Fulani empire.)
The fact that, uniquely in western Africa, the Fulani are pastoralists has led to suggestions that they were originally a Saharan people. The Fulani language, however, is classified as part of the Niger-Congo family of languages spoken by black Africans, and the earliest historical documentation reports that the Fulani were living in the westernmost Sudan close to ancient Ghana. The development of this organized kingdom thrust pastoral peoples outward, and the ancestors of the modern Fulani seem to have chosen to settle to the southwest, toward the middle Sénégal valley. But there another settled, and (from the 11th century) an Islamized, black kingdom evolved, that of Tekrur. Some Fulani participated in this kingdom and became Tukulor—the Tukulor and Fulani languages being practically identical. Some, however, chose not to accept the settled way of life and, to preserve their traditional pastoral and religious customs, migrated eastward over the savanna grasslands. Grazing land was available between the agricultural villages, and the growing towns provided the Fulani with markets where they could exchange their pastoral produce for agricultural and manufactured goods. Eventually some Fulani settled in these towns, no doubt initially as trading agents for their fellows in the countryside, where the bulk of the Fulani continued to live under their own leaders, aloof from the social and political life of the cultivators, though increasingly paying rent for their grazing and rendering military services to the settled authorities.
In this way, by the 15th century large numbers of Fulani had settled in the Fouta Djallon and in and around Macina, the inland delta country of the Niger upstream of Timbuktu, and they were beginning to appear as far east as Hausaland, where today many millions of their descendants live. By the 16th century the Fulani were appearing in Bornu, and by the 18th century large numbers of them were settling in the grassy uplands of the Cameroons. Although the bulk of the Fulani remained animists, gradually significant numbers of them became Muslims and indeed provided some of the leaders of Islam in western Africa.
The growth of organized statehood in the western African savannas also had important consequences for more southerly lands and peoples. Unsuccessful contestants for power in the major savanna states sometimes moved off toward the south. Traders from these states, especially from Mali and, later, from the Hausa kingdoms, also settled in the south as their trading networks developed, and they often had important political, as well as economic, influences on the groups with whom they came to live. The consequences of these two kinds of movement, which were sometimes interlinked, can best be considered in two sections—firstly, those deriving from developments originating in the Mande sphere in the western savannas, and secondly, those deriving from the Hausa-Bornu region in the east.
In the west one notable emigration was that of the Susu, a Mande group that had lost out to the Keita in the 13th-century struggle for the inheritance of ancient Ghana. This emigration created a wedge of Mande-speaking people close to the Atlantic in the modern Republic of Guinea and in northern Sierra Leone among peoples who had not advanced politically beyond the village level. With the subsequent growth of Mali's power, other smaller groups—sometimes traders, sometimes conquerors, often both—also infiltrated these West Atlantic coastlands. They began to organize their people into petty kingdoms that tended to owe a nominal allegiance to Mali. Major incentives for these migratory movements seem to have been the desire to gain access to coastal supplies of salt and, from the 15th century onward, to the foreign merchandise brought by European sea traders.
In the 16th century the West Atlantic coastlands were invaded by yet another Mande group, the Mane, who advanced westward parallel to the coast from Liberia onward. These were military bands that systematically attacked and overcame the villages of each group they came across. Some of them would stay behind to organize these conquests into small kingdoms, while others, reinforced by auxiliaries recruited from among their victims, would proceed farther west to repeat the pattern. Their advance was halted only when they came up against the Susu. South and east of the Susu, however, the West Atlantic social and ethnic patterns were considerably altered by the actions of the Mane. New Mande-speaking groups emerged, such as the Mende and Loko, while some West Atlantic peoples who retained their original language, such as the Temne, accepted a new aristocracy of Mane provenance.
The Mane advance into the West Atlantic coastlands from the east may have been connected with the growth of Mande influence in the Ivory Coast (modern Côte d'Ivoire) and in modern Ghana. This was commercial in origin; Dyula merchants developed trade routes in search of gold, slaves, and kola nuts, in exchange for which they offered salt, cloth, and other Sudanic or North African goods. It is known that by 1500 the Dyula were trading as far south as the coast of modern Ghana, and their first contact with the Akan peoples who populate almost all the southern half of this territory was probably one or two centuries earlier than this.
This development of trade by the Dyula in modern Ghana and in the adjacent Ivory Coast had important political consequences, and sometimes military implications as well. Ambitious Akan chiefs began to develop and expand their political power to secure the maximum profit from the exploitation of the resources of as much territory and as many people as possible. On the northern fringes of the forest, astride the routes along which gold and kola nuts were brought for exchange with the Dyula, important new kingdoms emerged such as Bono and Banda, both of which were probably in existence by about 1400. As the economic value of gold and kola became appreciated, the forest to the south of these states—which had hitherto been little inhabited because it was less favourable for agriculture than were the savannas—became more thickly populated, and the same principles of political and military mobilization began to be applied there. Village communities became tributaries of ruling groups, with some of their members becoming the clients and slaves needed for the support of the royal households, armies, and trading enterprises. By 1500 most of the Akan territory seems to have been organized in this way and, as trade increased, so the political units—initially very small—tended to increase in size.
Sometimes these political changes were not to the advantage of the Dyula, who employed Mande warriors to guard their caravans and, if necessary, could call in larger contingents from the Sudanic kingdoms. Tensions between the Dyula and the increasingly powerful animist monarchy of Banda erupted in the 17th century into a civil war that destroyed the kingdom and led its Dyula merchants to establish a new trading base of their own farther to the west at Bonduku (Bondoukou). In the following centuries there were at least two major examples of the Dyula taking political authority for themselves at strategic points on the trade routes running through the eastern Ivory Coast.
But the most interesting Mande political initiative along the trade routes south of Jenne was the creation in the early 17th century, just north of the Akan lands, of the new Dyula state of Gonja. This seems to have been inspired by a general worsening of the competitive position of the Mande traders, and it was occasioned by three factors: (1) the near monopoly in the control of the export of forest produce achieved by the Akan kingdom of Bono, (2) the rise to power farther north of the Dagomba kingdom, which controlled local salt pans, and (3) the arrival in the region about 1500 of rival long-distance traders from Hausaland. The Dyula seem to have tried to combat these developments by erecting a major kingdom of their own in Gonja—the territory that the northern traders had to cross to reach the Akan forestlands. But much of Gonja was barren, and its kings lacked the resource base to withstand the growth of Akan power.
Rather less is known about the nature of Sudanic influences in the more easterly zone south of Hausaland and of Bornu. However, it has already been suggested that Dagomba (and a number of similar kingdoms in the Volta basin, including Mamprusi) and the Mossi kingdoms—such as Wagadugu (Ouagadougou) and Yatenga (or Wahiguya), north of Dagomba and closer to the Niger Bend—were founded by conquerors coming from the east. The structures of these kingdoms, which were extant into the beginning of the colonial era, seem to have been erected about the 15th century by relatively small bands of immigrants who eventually merged with the autochthonous Gur-speaking inhabitants of the Volta basin. Their success in conquering and organizing the Gur villages into kingdoms seems to have been due to their possession of cavalry, which subsequently remained a badge of royalty and of aristocracy.
Somewhat earlier, and farther to the east, astride the Niger and closer to Hausaland, similar kingdoms seem to have been developed through the same kind of process by invaders who may well have been ancestral to the Mossi-Dagomba state builders. Examples of these survived in Borgu into colonial times. An interesting corpus of legends—such as that of Kisra, a character derived from the Sāsānian conqueror of Egypt, Khosrow II, who is supposed to have migrated southwestward from the Nile valley founding various kingdoms—suggests that state-building invaders also proceeded south of Borgu and Hausaland through Nupe, Jukun, Igala, Yoruba, and Benin territory (all in modern Nigeria) to as far as southern Dahomey and to the southeasternmost tip of modern Ghana. Much of this territory, however, was subjugated in the 19th century by Muslim Fulani and Hausa, and the legends as they survive often have an Islamic colouring, which makes it difficult to assess their historicity. It could well be that the traditions of the autochthonous pagans had become coloured by the folklore of incoming Muslim traders. But if the legends are really evidence of conquest, there can be no doubt that the conquered peoples had already achieved a high degree of cultural, economic, and—probably—political sophistication.
The archaeological evidence of the Nok culture shows that the inhabitants of central Nigeria engaged in agriculture and were using iron and other metals by about 500 bce. It is moreover generally accepted that the terra-cotta sculptures associated with Nok are precursors of the later court sculpture of southwestern Nigeria, in bronze or brass and stone as well as terra-cotta. The bronze or brass sculpture of Yoruba and of the kingdom of Benin is especially famous for its naturalism and for the high degree of metallurgical skill used to cast the figures by the lost-wax (cire perdue) process.
Tradition asserts that the Yoruba town of Ife (Ile-Ife) was the centre from which this art, and the type of monarchy that supported it, spread to other parts of the region. Modern archaeologists have found nothing to contradict this and have moreover provided evidence for the existence in Yorubaland of a high degree of urbanization by at least the 11th century. Thus in southwestern Nigeria urban civilization seems at least contemporary with the same development in Hausaland and in Kanem-Bornu, the point of departure for Kisra-type conquerors. The probability, therefore, is that if the Kisra and similar legends are evidence of conquering cavaliers, they were—like the Saharan invaders in the Sudan—exploiting rather than creating urban civilizations, though no doubt they may have welded smaller units into larger kingdoms.
It should be pointed out that the territory southwest of Hausaland toward Dahomey is often open country suited to the deployment of cavalry. The effectiveness of cavalry decreased southeastward toward the forest; in the Benin kingdom, horses were little more than residual symbols of monarchical and aristocratic power. Still farther east, in the forest on the other side of the Niger, where there are no traditions of invasion or of developed monarchical government, the archaeological finds at Igbo Ukwu revealed that ancestors of the modern Igbo (Ibo) had, as early as the 9th century, a sophisticated society with surpluses of wealth supporting considerable craft specialization, including a highly developed bronze art with a distinctive style of its own. Recent thinking suggests that the origins of the small, competitive city-states of the eastern Niger delta south of Igboland, with which Europeans were to develop flourishing commerce from the 17th century, may well be associated with earlier, purely indigenous trading activities of which very little is at present known.
On the available evidence, the establishment in eastern Guinea of the network of Hausa trade and trade routes in the form in which it has been known in modern times, essentially similar to the Mande system farther west, can hardly be dated earlier than about the 16th century. Yet the European traders arriving at Benin, in the Yoruba coastlands, and in the Niger delta, from the end of the 15th century, were able to secure regular supplies of goods, some of which (e.g., cloth and beads) clearly originated in the hinterland and seem to have had an already extant market among the Akan peoples of southern Ghana. This presupposes appreciable indigenous commercial development in eastern Guinea before the emergence of the Hausa system.
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African art: West AfricaThis analysis divides the visual arts of West Africa into three broad areas: the western Sudan, the Guinea Coast, and Nigeria. This is done partly to enable the reader to comprehend the diversity of styles and traditions within the region, while recognizing that…
jazz: West Africa in the American South: gathering the musical elements of jazzThe elements that make jazz distinctive derive primarily from West African musical sources as taken to the North American continent by slaves, who partially preserved them against all odds in the plantation culture…
African theatre: Anglophone West AfricaThe countries of Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone (and to a lesser extent The Gambia), plus the English-speaking areas of Cameroon, have produced a theatre of great richness since their political independence. They are examined individually below. (Throughout the article, dates in…
primitive culture: Other peasant societiesIn West Africa peasant society is based on full-time intensive agriculture, with a considerable amount of craft specialization and a large amount of trade carried on in great markets. In ancient times the more populated areas were organized as chiefdoms and primitive states, which exacted a…
More About Western Africa13 references found in Britannica articles
Assorted References
- monsoon
- jazz origins
- literature of Soyinka
- In Wole Soyinka
- sculpture
- theatre
customs and traditions
- divination practices
- peasant societies
physical geography
- Gulf of Guinea
- Niger River
- In Niger River
- subtropical rainforests


text:
They have defeated the Predators three times, the Blues, Canadiens, Ducks and Penguins twice.
They have lost to the Oilers, Maple Leafs, Blue Jackets and Coyotes.
The Blackhawks have had a Jekyll & Hyde season, often playing to the level of their opponents and it was more of the same Friday night when they battled the Avalanche — currently sitting in seventh place in the Central Division — at the United Center.
On Friday, it was Hyde Night as the Hawks looked awful during a 4-1 loss.
How bad was it? The Avs scored their fourth goal — and third of the third period — when Brad Stuart's dump-in from center ice ended up in the back of the net after Hawks...

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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text:
As promised: The last half of 2011, culled from the pages of the Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot.
July 8: The Laguna Beach County Water District announced that some fees would be raised due to the development of local water supplies, capital improvements and the rising cost of imported water. All Laguna Beach water is imported.
•Audiences previewing the 2011 Pageant of the Masters were enchanted by "Only Make Believe."
•Laguna College of Art & Design hosted an exhibition of Rodin sculptures. "It is so significant that [the owners] have allowed the college to take part in their Rodin exhibit," said college President Jonathan Burke.
July 15: A county Superior Court judge ruled that the California Coastal Commission has final say over the proposed sub-division of Laguna Terrace Park.
•An estimated $18,000 was raised at a benefit for Gina Kantzabedian's pet rescue, augmenting the profits from her Animal Crackers store in the Aliso Creek Shopping Center.
July 22: The Laguna Community Concert Band scored a hit at the Festival of Arts Grounds, a triumph few could have imagined when the band was first conceived in 1998. Founders Bill Nichols, Teresa Marino and Carol Reynolds deserve a "bravo."
•The Laguna Canyon Flood Mitigation Task Force recommended improvements in the flood warning and information systems, increased flow in the channel under Coast Highway at Broadway and increased capacity in drainage culverts crossing Laguna Canyon Road.
•Youth reigned at the 35th annual "Vic", the World Championships of Skimboarding at Aliso Beach. Local Sam Stinnett, 18, won the men's title.
July 29: Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5868 honored member Harry Lawrence and all veterans at a fundraiser held at Laguna Beach Woman's Club.
•Thurston student Tyler Levine spent a weekend in Kent, Ohio, attending the invitation-only camp for serious ice hockey players. "Being selected means Tyler is one of the top prospects in his age level," said hockey coach Kelly Askew.
Aug. 5: Business owners, artists, festivals and hotels reported an uptick in business last summer over the previous year.
•Friends of the Seal Lion founders John Cunningham and Jim Staffer reminisced about the early days of their project some 40 years ago, now known and honored as the Pacific Marine Mammal Center on Laguna Canyon Road.
Aug. 12: Laguna Beach resident, filmmaker and political conservative Stephen K. Bannon, directed "The Undefeated," a documentary aimed at showing audiences that Sarah Palin was not just some "Caribou Barbie." Bannon is a co-founder of the National Tea Party Federation.
•Mexican eatery Asada opened its doors. Owner Scott McIntosh was previously involved with nearby Nick's Laguna Beach.
•The school district lagged behind other Orange County districts in the number of students vaccinated. Family Health Director Dr. David Nunez blamed parental refusal, misinformation and lack of health care for the dip in immunizations.
•Laguna Beach Live! celebrated its 10th anniversary
Aug. 19: The Laguna Beach Animal Shelter reopened after eight months of renovations.
•Skipper Lynn, 80, had an epiphany after a traffic accident and began taking public transportation. She just wishes the city bus would stop closer to the Susi Q, where she spends most of her afternoons.
•The council split 3-2 on the outdoor lighting ordinance designed to limit so-called light pollution. Council members Kelly Boyd and Elizabeth Pearson opposed to the complaint-driven law, which Boyd said would pit neighbor against neighbor. Specific holidays were exempted.
•Whitney Pavlik of Laguna and her partner, Jenny Kropp, lived up to their No. 1 seeding in the Manhattan Beach Open. The duo didn't drop a game on their way to the title.
Aug. 26: A group of First Thursday Art Walk gallery owners complained that they paid to participate and other galleries were riding on their coattails. The $80-a-month fees cover free shuttles that transport patrons from gallery to gallery and advertising.
•The Festival of Arts had a winner in the annual fashion show of gowns made from recycled or natural materials.
•The team of architect Morris Skendarian and Don McKeehan were the top dogs in the first Project Pet House Fundraiser presented by the Laguna Board of Realtors and Affiliates at the annual Chili Cook-off and Pet Parade.
•Information about city salaries became easier to find when the city consolidated the data that had been scattered on the city's website following criticism from the Orange County Grand Jury.
Sept. 2: Laguna Beach Police Department employee Robin Ellen Levinson sued the city, claiming poorly maintained Eagle Rock Way caused her to fall from her bicycle. Levinson asked for $1.5 million compensation. The city denied culpability.
Sept. 9: Laguna businessman Saeid Boustanbadi Maralan, 53, of Laguna Niguel was arrested on suspicion of one rape and two sexual assaults. Additional charges were later filed against the registered sex offender.
•Coastline Pilot columnist David Hansen expressed regret about the lack of "family" restaurants in Laguna, which has firmly established itself as a mecca for foodies.
•Firefighters, police officers and volunteers flipped flapjacks, grilled sausages, poured milk and juice and brewed coffee for the annual Exchange Club's Labor Day Pancake Breakfast, directed as always by Sandi St. John.
Sept. 16: A flag that flew over ground zero was raised at Monument Point on Sept. 11, at the dedication of Jorg Dubin's memorial sculpture that incorporated two metal beams salvaged from the World Trade Center debris and donated to Laguna Beach.
•Sleepy Hollow Medical Group on Ocean Avenue celebrated its 20 anniversary in September.
Sept. 23: The council ratified a new contract with Laguna Beach firefighters with new rates of contribution for new hires that will save the city almost $400,000 over two years. The contract included no raises. "This is a significant action on the part of the city's firefighters," City Manager John Pietig said. "They deserve a lot of credit."
•Tibetan monks visited Laguna for the second time. "It is such an honor to have these holy men with us," the Rev. B.J. Beu told the congregation at Neighborhood Congregational Church, where the monks began work on a mandala — an intricate design made with colored sand to aid enlightenment.
Sept. 30: The council approved a bike route in North Laguna. "Sharrows," painted arrows in the roadbed, will indicate the route that will be shared by bicyclists and motorists.
•Councilwoman Verna Rollinger kicked off her reelection bid with a fundraiser at the home of Kathy and Mike Conway. She was the first candidate to formally announce.
•Red Ball II at the Festival of Arts Grounds raised funds for AIDS Services Foundation.
•LCAD celebrated the 50-year road to its present status as an accredited four-year college.
Oct. 7: More than 3,000 signatures were submitted to the city on Oct. 4 in support of an initiative to tax property owners $10 a month for 20 years to raise money to buy open space in and around the city.
•The council voted at the Oct. 4 meeting to pay Friendship Shelter an additional $31,535 to staff the Alternative Sleeping Location daily from 5 p.m. to 10 a.m. and to provide van transportation for the rest of the year, picking up some of the slack in services when the Laguna Relief and Resource Center pulled out.
•Former Councilman Steven Dicterow announced he would seek a fourth term after a six-year hiatus.
•The Environmental Committee imploded. Five members resigned or declined to apply for reappointment. The council formed a sub-committee to try to determine what went wrong and how to fix it.
•Plein air painters gathered in Laguna for the invitational hosted by LAM.
Oct. 14: The council acted to stabilize the abandoned burn dump in Laguna Canyon that shed glass, metal and ceramic debris into a residential area during the December 2010 deluge. Laguna's disaster go-to guy Bob Burnham said five regulatory agencies are involved.
•Laguna Beach resident Victoria Buzzo, 54, was among the victims in shooting rampage at a beauty salon in Seal Beach.
•Six international teams and four American teams competed in singles and pairs matches at the Laguna Beach Lawn Bowling Club.
Oct. 21: Georgia Andersen hosted a reception to celebrate the extensive remodeling on the interior of the Hotel Laguna. She paid homage to the hotel and to her late husband, Claes. "I feel he is here today and he is happy that the hotel is beautiful again," she said.
•Erik Henrickson and Marley Donenfeld were crowned king and queen at the Laguna Beach High School homecoming game.
•Michael Lewis, 20, of Laguna won the Formula 3 Italia Championship Rookie title.
Oct. 28:
Fred Karger said he was the first presidential candidate to file for the New Hampshire primary.
Nov. 4: Friends and admirers of the late peace activist Jean Bernstein gathered to honor her dedication on the spot she made her own: the Saturday peace vigil at Main Beach.
•Malcolm Warner was hired to succeed Bolton Coburn as director of LAM.
Nov. 11: Gallery owners conjectured that art thefts in the area were connected. A suspect was caught on tape at the Village Gallery.
•Members of American Legion Post 222 hosted a special ceremony on Veterans Day to honor those who served their country in the armed forces.
• "Lagunatics" wound up its 19th season, already looking ahead to the 2012 production, which will reprise some of the greatest hits from previous shows. One suggestion: former Police Chief Jim Spreine's rendition of "Montage Cash," to the tune of "Monster Mash."
•Faye Chapman's brain child, the Hunger Bowl, was a feast for eyes and stomachs: taste buds and wallets were tempted by soup and "fixins" donated by local restaurants and the auction of artist-created and donated bowls.
Nov. 18:
Laguna Beach Community Foundation officials announced the formation of the Professional Council, open to professionals in law, accounting, financial services, insurance and real estate who live or work in Laguna.
•Laguna Playhouse launched the Players Club, with the goal of attracting new patrons, rekindling old relationships and raising money for the theater's operations.
•SchoolPower's $78,000 donation was added to the district's $87,000 to buy musical instruments for all four schools.
Nov. 25: Vandals destroyed murals at the Bus Depot.
• "Embrace Diversity," a stop-motion video by Thurston student Austin Fickman, was selected for showing at the 2012 Irvine International Film Festival.
•In sports: The Breaker's boys' water polo team repeated as CIF Southern Section Division 3 champions; the football team dismantled Anaheim 49-13 to win an opening-round game in the sectional championships; and the girls' cross-country team qualified for the state meet.
Dec. 2: All Hospitality Night activities traditionally held at City Hall were condensed to Forest Avenue to accommodate traffic expected for the semi-final playoff game between Laguna Beach and Corona del Mar high schools. The Breakers lost the game, but it was the first time since 1935 the team played a 13th game in a season.
Dec. 9: Jane Egly moved into the center seat on the council dais. Rollinger will succeed her as mayor pro tem.
•The City Council approved at the Dec. 6 meeting an Edison proposal that saved five Bluebird Canyon eucalyptus trees from the chopping block. Not everyone embraced the reprieve, cheered by environmentalists, citing safety as their major concern. Edison had proposed cutting down the trees to reduce the threat to high voltage power lines that could cause a fire or of falling into the roadway, blocking evacuation in an emergency.
•One of the most important documents for governing the city was approved when the California Coastal Commission gave a green light to the updated land use element. The element is the centerpiece of the city's general plan, one of the major tools used to determine how the city will look and function in the coming years.
Dec. 16:
Smart Circle International brought holiday cheer to 17 families "adopted" through the Laguna Relief and Resource Center's annual holiday Adopt-a-Family program.
•Laguna Beach Seniors Inc. celebrated the season at their annual luncheon at Tivoli Terrace.
Dec. 22: High School Principal Joanne Culverhouse was featured in a film entered by Thurston teacher Andrew Crisp in a national competition highlighting former collegiate athletes who make a positive influence on their community.
•Longtime Lagunan David Wilson played Santa Claus to the tune of $15,919.61, which paid off 260 lay-aways at Kmart in Costa Mesa.
•Girls' volleyball standouts Allison Palmer and Alyse Wallace-Form were named All-CIF, Division 1–A.
Dec. 30: The top stories in news, education, art and sports in 2011 were featured.
•Laguna Terrace mobile home park went to court in pursuit of rulings that would allow park residents to own the land under their mobile homes.
OUR LAGUNA is a regular feature of the Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot. Contributions are welcomed. Call (949) 302-1469 or email email@example.com with Attn. Barbara Diamond in the subject line.


text:
|Jepson Flora Project: Jepson Interchange
previous taxon |
next taxon
Jepson Interchange (more information)
©Copyright 1993 by the Regents of the University of California
Annual to tree
Leaves generally compound, alternate, stipuled; leaflets generally entire
Inflorescence: generally raceme, spike, umbel or head; flowers sometime 12 in axils
Flowers generally bisexual, generally bilateral; hypanthium generally flat or cup-like; sepals generally 5, fused; petals generally 5, free, or the 2 lower ± fused; stamens 1many, often 10 with 9 filaments at least partly fused, 1 (uppermost) free; pistil 1, ovary superior, generally 1-chambered, ovules 1many, style, stigma 1
Fruit: legume, sometimes including a stalk-like base above receptacle, dehiscent, or indehiscent and breaking into 1-seeded segments, or indehiscent, 1-seeded, and achene-like
Seeds 1several, often ± reniform, generally hard, smooth
Genera in family: ± 650 genera, 18,000 species: worldwide; with grasses, requisite in agriculture and most natural ecosystems. Many cultivated, most importantly Arachis , peanut; Glycine , soybean; Phaseolus , beans; Medicago ; Trifolium ; and many orns
Reference: [Polhill & Raven (eds) 1981 Advances in legume systematics; Allen & Allen 1981 Leguminosae]
Family description and key to genera by Duane Isely.
Annual or perennial herb from crown, glabrous to hairy; hairs sometimes forked at base, branches parallel with leaf surface, sometimes very unequal
Stem 0 or prostrate to erect
Leaves odd-1-pinnate; leaflets generally jointed to midrib; stipules membranous, sometimes fused around stem at stem base
Inflorescence: raceme, axillary, sometimes head- or umbel-like; flowers 2many
Flower bilateral; calyx 5-lobed; banner outside wings in bud, keel blades with small protrusion at base locking into pit on adjacent wing; 9 filaments fused, 1 free; ovary (and fruit) generally sessile, style slender, stigma minute
Fruit generally 1- or ± 2-chambered, often mottled, generally becoming ± dry; placenta on upper suture
Seeds 2many, smooth, compressed, ± notched at attachment scar
Species in genus: > 2000 species: ± worldwide (380 in North America, 94 in CA including many rare taxa)
Etymology: (Greek: ankle-bone or dice, perhaps from rattling of seeds within fruit)
Reference: [Barneby 1964 Mem NY Bot Gard 20:11188; Isely 1986 Iowa State J Res 61:157289]
Very difficult; both flower and fruit needed for identification; many good species appear similar; some species complexes need study. Taxa near province boundaries may appear in > 1 key. Varieties keyed under species for simplicity; species with vars. so identified in key. Fr length includes beak and any stalk-like base unless fruit body specified.
Perennial, delicate; hairs fine, spreading or ± subappressed, grayish
Stem ± prostrate, open and widely branched, 13 cm, fan-like, slender
Leaf 15.5 cm; lower stipules often fused around stem into sheath; leaflets 313, crowded, 212 mm, ± obovate, tips generally notched
Inflorescence: flowers 313, reflexed in age
Flower: corolla whitish, lavender-veined, keel tipped with lilac, banner 5.28.5 mm, recurved 90100°, keel 3.45.3 mm
Fruit 1020 mm, 611 mm wide, ± spheric or half-ovoid, bladdery, thinly papery, translucent; hairs ± sparse, long, wavy; chamber 1
Ecology: Dry, open, rocky or sandy flats, dunes
Elevation: 13001650 m.
Bioregional distribution: s High Cascade Range, n High Sierra Nevada, Modoc Plateau
Distribution outside California: Nevada


text:
As retirement approaches, millions of baby boomers do not have the savings they need to live well in their golden years. The reason for this may not only be because some didn't start early on their retirement planning -- but because of the catastrophic economic crisis we've had to face. Some people fear the U.S. economy will not grow at a rate that will help their portfolios catch up.
Continue Reading Below
But Scott Below, chair and associate professor in the Department of Finance at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., says retirees should not give up hope. In the second part of a two-part interview, he says economic growth in emerging markets may provide the tailwind U.S. retirees need to lift their retirement balances higher.
Because of the shift to an aging population in the U.S., Japan and some countries in Europe, an economic slowdown is forecasted in those regions. Do you think the two go hand in hand?
An aging population does act as a drag on an economy, and it also creates problems with government programs such as Social Security and Medicare systems. With far more money flowing out of those programs to retirees than into them from the active workforce, that's obviously a problem.
The good news, however, is that the American and European economies aren't as dominant globally as they once were. Some may not see that as good news, but it's not about America being in decline -- it's about undeveloped and emerging economies being on the rise.
We live in a truly global economy today, and one that will only become more global going forward. That's actually good for America, because American corporations are taking full advantage of the growth we're seeing in places such as China, India and South America, and that's creating jobs in the U.S. So while an aging population does create some headwinds for the U.S. economy, they could be more than offset by the world's emerging nation economies.
Should Americans invest more retirement money in emerging markets than they have in the past, since countries that are not yet mature have more growth potential?
Yes, they should, but only if they can overcome the emotions elicited by high-volatility assets. Studies show investors tend to sell most heavily after large drops in stock prices, and they buy most heavily after large stock run-ups, which is obviously the exact opposite of what they should do.
Selling after big drops is based on fear, of course, and we saw a perfect example of that in late 2008 and early 2009. Panic-selling drove stock values down to ridiculously low levels, where some companies were trading for prices below the value of the cash they had on hand. That's precisely when you should be buying those stocks, but instead we saw massive net redemptions from stock mutual funds in people's 401(k) accounts.
Unfortunately, many of those folks are still on the sidelines in cash or low-yielding bond funds, while stock prices have more than doubled since. Those 401(k)s will never make up for the losses they locked in by panic selling, and for many people this will mean delaying their retirement.
So my main concern with individual investors owning emerging-market stocks is that these assets are significantly more volatile than domestic stocks, giving investors even more opportunities to panic-sell following dips. There is little doubt emerging-market stocks will grow faster than domestic stocks over the next 20 years, but if you can't handle the roller-coaster ride, you're probably better off opting for something a little less emotionally taxing.
What's the right amount of money that people should save for retirement on a percentage basis? Should it be 10%, 15% or 20%?
I don't think there is any single "right" amount -- it's different for everybody. There are so many factors you need to consider, such as what rate of return your investments will earn, how much you'll make, and how early you start saving.
The best option is to start as early as you can and save as much as you can. The later you start, the more you will need to save percentagewise because you'll get less help from the power of compounding.
It's also important to invest wisely, with a long-run mentality. Younger retirement savers will obviously want to have higher allocations to stocks than older savers, but even those in retirement should still hold at least some stocks, because the growth that stocks provide over time will help reduce the likelihood people will outlive their nest egg.
We're all living longer, which is good, but it also increases the chance that we'll outlive our retirement accounts, which is not so good. The only way to avoid outliving your assets is to retire with more money than you'll need ??? and the only way for most people to achieve this is by living frugally and investing as much as they can.
We would like to thank Scott Below, chair and associate professor in the Department of Finance at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., for his insights. Questions for this interview were contributed by Barbara Whelehan, assistant managing editor at Bankrate.com.
Read the first part of this interview.
Copyright 2012, Bankrate Inc.


text:
Biblical patriarch
Abraham (Hebrew: אַבְרָהָם, Modern Avraham Tiberian 'Aḇrāhām, Arabic: إبراهيم, Ibrāhīm, 'Abrəham), born Abram (c. 1900 BC?), is the founding patriarch of the Israelites, Ishmaelites, Edomites, Midianites and kindred peoples, according to the three Abrahamic religions.
- Quotes of Abraham as portrayed in traditional sources
- Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren.
Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.
- I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich…
- To the King of Sodom, in Genesis 14:22 - 23 (KJV)
- Wilt Thou indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt Thou indeed sweep away and not forgive the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from Thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked, that so the righteous should be as the wicked; that be far from Thee; shall not the Judge of all the earth do justly? … Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD, who am but dust and ashes. Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous; wilt Thou destroy all the city for lack of five? … Oh, let not the LORD be angry, and I will speak yet but this once. Peradventure ten shall be found there?
- To the LORD regarding the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, in Genesis 18:22 - 32 (KJV), after which, it is recorded that the LORD responds: I will not destroy it for ten's sake.
- Will you really sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are 50 righteous men within the city. Will you, then, sweep them away and not pardon the place for the sake of the 50 righteous who are inside it? It is unthinkable that you would act in this manner by putting the righteous man to death with the wicked one so that the outcome for the righteous man and the wicked is the same! It is unthinkable of you. Will the Judge of all the earth not do what is right?
- I thought: Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife's sake. And moreover she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and so she became my wife. And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father's house, that I said unto her: This is thy kindness which thou shalt show unto me; at every place whither we shall come, say of me: He is my brother.
- To Abimelech in the wife-sister narrative of Genesis 20:11 - 23 (KJV)
- You are fifty years old and would worship a day old statue!
- Abraham in Genesis Rabbah 38.13 R. Hiyya and the Idol Shop
- O our Lord ! Accept (this service) from us, Verily, You are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing.
Book of AbrahamEdit
- Quotations of Abraham from the Book of Abraham from the Pearl of Great Price of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints scriptures.
- Now I, Abraham, built an altar in the land of Jershon, and made an offering unto the Lord, and prayed that the famine might be turned away from my father's house, that they might not perish.
- Book of Abraham 2:17
Genesis RabbahEdit
- Nimrod suggested to Abraham that since he had refused to worship his father's idols because of their want of power, he should worship fire, which is very powerful: Abraham pointed out that water has power over fire. 'Well,' said Nimrod, 'let us declare water god.' 'But,' replied Abraham,' the clouds absorb the water and even they are dispersed by the wind.' 'Then let us declare the wind our god.' 'Bear in mind,' continued Abraham, 'that man is stronger than wind, and can resist it and stand against it.'
Nimrod, becoming weary of arguing with Abraham, decided to cast him before his god--fire--and challenged Abraham's deliverance by the God of Abraham, but God saved him out of the fiery furnace.
- Genesis Rabbah 38, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, (1907), p. 78.
Quotes about AbrahamEdit
- You who build these altars now
to sacrifice these children,
you must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision
and you never have been tempted
by a demon or a god.
- Leonard Cohen, in "Story of Isaac" on Songs from a Room (1969)
- Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
- Genesis 11:31
- Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
- Genesis 12:1 - 3
- And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon: Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.
- Genesis 12:11 - 13
- And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee. Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the LORD.
- Genesis 13:14 - 18
- And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael. And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram
- Genesis 16:15 - 16
- And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
- Genesis 17:1 - 8
- And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him. And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me. And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have born him a son in his old age.
- Genesis 21:5 - 7
- And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.
- Genesis 22:1 - 3 (KJV)
- I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply your offspring like the stars of the heavens and like the grains of sand on the seashore, and your offspring will take possession of the gate of his enemies. And by means of your offspring all nations of the earth will obtain a blessing for themselves because you have listened to my voice.
- After a long time the great and awful Name was forgotten and the people, men, women and children, only recognized an image of wood or stone and the temple of wood or stone which they had been brought up from infancy to serve by bowing down. ... Abraham ... knew that all were mistaken and that what caused them to err was worship of the images which drove the Truth out of their minds.
- Maimonides, Mishneh Torah (c. 1180), Treatise 4: "Idolatry," H. Russell, trans. (1983), pp. 72-73
- Camels as a means of transportation abound in the Old Testament. When Abraham sends a servant to look for a bride for his son Isaac, that servant chooses Rebecca. And why? Because of her kindness in offering to water the camels. That's just one of dozens of camel cameos in the Bible, mostly in the book of Genesis, but scholars have long suspected that those camel caravans are a literary anachronism.
- Renee Montagne in: Carol Meyers Archaeology Find: Camels In 'Bible' Are Literary Anachronisms, npr.org, 14 February 2014.
- It is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants.
- Paul of Tarsus, Epistle to the Galatians 4:22-24 ESV.
- In short, as well as being as big a son of a bitch as the lord, abraham was a consummate liar, ready to deceive anyone with his forked tongue, which in this case, according to the personal dictionary belonging to the narrator of this story, means treacherous, perfidious, false, disloyal and other similarly fine qualities. When he reached the place of which the lord had spoken, abraham built an alter and placed the wood on it. He then tied up his son and lifted him on to the altar, on top of the wood. Without pausing, he took up his knife in order to sacrifice the poor boy and was just about to slit his throat when he felt a hand grip his arm and heard a voice in his ear shouting, What are you doing, you wretch, killing your own son, burning him, it's the same old story it starts with a lamb and ends with the murder of the very person you should love most, But the lord told me to do it, said Abraham, struggling, Keep still, or I'll be the one who does the killing.
- José Saramago, Cain (2009), p. 69
- And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.
- Account of the Binding of Isaac, Genesis 22:10 - 14 (KJV)
- Variant translations of verse 14:
- And he called the name of that place, The Lord seeth. Whereupon even to this day it is said: In the mountain the Lord will see.
- So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."
- New International Version (1984).
- Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means "the LORD will provide"). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."
- New Living Translation (2007)
- Who can be better in religion than one who submits his whole self to Allah, does good, and follows the way of Abraham the true in Faith? For Allah did take Abraham for a friend.
- Then, when (the son) reached (the age of) (serious) work with him, he said: "O my son! I see in vision that I offer thee in sacrifice: Now see what is thy view!" (The son) said: "O my father! Do as thou art commanded: thou will find me, if Allah so wills one practising Patience and Constancy!" So when they had both submitted their wills (to Allah), and he had laid him prostrate on his forehead (for sacrifice), We called out to him "O Abraham! "Thou hast already fulfilled the vision!" - thus indeed do We reward those who do right. For this was obviously a trial- And We ransomed him with a momentous sacrifice: And We left (this blessing) for him among generations (to come) in later times: "Peace and salutation to Abraham!" Thus indeed do We reward those who do right. For he was one of our believing Servants.
- Qur'an, As Saffat 37:102-111, Yusuf Ali.


text:
Welcome to Elaine Isaak.com!
Welcome to my outpost in the Great Beyond.
If you have found me here, then something I have said piqued your curiosity—and you have come here to squint behind the words and discern the shape of the one who made them. Writing is always a joint effort between my imagination and yours. I hope that you enjoy that work as much as I do.
Elaine Isaak
You do NOT want to be my hero


text:
DailyRoads needed a new button or icon design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 40 designs submitted by 5 freelance designers.
DailyRoads Voyager is a free application for Android-powered mobile phones, allowing for continuous video recording from vehicles. Essentially, the application acts as a video black box, recording everything, but only keeping what the driver is really interested in.
More info and screenshots on http://dailyroads.com/voyager/
To the winning designer we are also offering a $248 voucher for an ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet, so you can use our application on a real piece of hardware. Archos doesn't deliver to Romania, so we can't get the tablet ourselves, but would be happy to send the voucher to the designer, whose winning design we ultimately choose. See the details here http://appslib.com/contest/index.html and ask questions in the comments below.
This new application will be used on Android smartphones. Basically any driver can place the phone on the windscreen, and record all the journeys.
We need just 18 small icons, and 5 buttons, many of them being variations in the same set. What we currently have, are only placeholders, and they are listed in the attached PDF document.
Due to different screen resolutions of the target phones, the buttons and arrow icons may be stretched vertically, so the images should look OK under these conditions, too.
The images can be in any of JPG, GIF, PNG formats, basically using a max of 256 colors, to result in smaller file sizes. A PSD with all the images (or image sets) would be also nice to get.


text:
Proudly display your photos and memorabilia in this charming memo board featuring a damask pattern in tranquil shades of tan and blue. Finished off with an off white beadboard frame and striped fabric buttons, this is the perfect addition to your little one's room!
Measures 24.5 x 24.5
Please call a Design Consultant for custom fabric options.
Would you like us to help you find a similar item? Talk with our Design Consultants toll-free at1-800-927-5164.
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This item is custom made especially for you upon order.Click here for our policy on custom made items.
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text: Hi Stu: Stu Midgley wrote: > sorry, forgot to reply all... don't you hate gmail's interface sometimes? > > > What is the memory latency of the woodcrest machines? Since memory > latency really determines your memory bandwidth. Hmmm... not for large block sequential accesses. You can prefetch these assuming enough intelligence in the code generator (heh), or the hardware if the memory access pattern is fairly consistent. Latency really defines the random access local node GUPS, well, its really more complex than that, but roughly that. That said, I would like to measure this. I have an old code which does this, any pointers on code other people would like me to run? If its not too hard (e.g. less than 15 minutes) I might do a few. > If Intel hasn't made any improvements in latency then the limited > number of out-standing loads in the x86-64 architecture will limit the > bandwidth regarless of the MB/s you throw at it. Hmmm... Ok, you are implying that if your processor can consume the load/store slots faster than it can launch them, and there are a limited number of memory operations in flight (2? as I remember, not looking at my notes now), it is going to be load-store pipeline limited, not necessarily "bandwidth". That is, the memory system would be significantly faster than the CPU can consume. I haven't looked closely at the Woodcrest arch yet. Don't know precisely what they are doing here and how it differs from AMD. Would be interesting. So far I haven't been impressed with code that I thought I should be really impressed with on this machine. Oddly the performance was about what we got out of the Core Duo on this platform. -- Joseph Landman, Ph.D Founder and CEO Scalable Informatics LLC, email: landman at scalableinformatics.com web : http://www.scalableinformatics.com phone: +1 734 786 8423 fax : +1 734 786 8452 or +1 866 888 3112 cell : +1 734 612 4615


text:
Ray Tracing and Gaming - One Year Later
One Year Later
This article is intended to be a follow up article to one released about a year ago through PC Perspective. A lot of things have changed since then. Real-time ray tracing for desktop machines is just around the corner.
If you are new to the topic of ray tracing you might want to read through this section.
Ray tracing is a rendering technique that generates a 2D image out of a given 3D scene. This is done by simulating the physics of light propagation using rays. The algorithm shoots, for every pixel on the screen, a so-called "primary ray" from the perspective of the eye of the viewer. The ray tracing algorithm then determines which object is hit first on the path of the ray.
At that hit-point a shader program is invoked which could, for example, cast another ray to simulate (say) a reflection at a mirror.
Through so-called "shadow rays" it can be easily determined if a given pixel is lit or in shadow. If a ray from the point in question can be shot to the light source without being blocked, then it can be concluded that light reaches that point. In the other case – when it is blocked – then we can conclude that the point is in shadow.
The ray tracing approach I am reporting about in this article is calculated completely on the CPU. No graphics card is needed to create the image. (Once created, we merely transport the pixels to the graphics card to have it paint the image onto the monitor).
Another approach to generate a 2D image out of a 3D scene is called "rasterization" and is currently performed by special-purpose hardware graphics cards. Currently, this the standard way that games "render" the images you see using standard libraries like DirectX or OpenGL.


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text:
What is a Fossil? main content.
Part of the Dinosaurs: Activities and Lesson Plans Curriculum Collection.
The American Museum of Natural History houses the largest and most spectacular collection of vertebrate fossils in the world. A fossil is any evidence of prehistoric life that is at least 10,000 years old. The most common fossils are bones and teeth, but footprints and skin impressions fossils as well. Fossils are excavated from ancient riverbeds and lakes, caves, volcanic ash falls, and tar pits. Fossils are classified as either body fossils or trace fossils. Body fossils were parts of the organism, such as bones or teeth. Trace fossils include foot impressions, eggs, burrows, and dung.
In this activity, students will learn to distinguish between body fossils and trace fossils.
1. Write the word fossil on the chalkboard and have students describe what a fossil is in their own words. Guide students to understand that a fossil is any evidence of life that is at least 10,000 years old. Further explain that dinosaur fossils are much older. Some are 65 million years old, others are more than 225 million years old. Tell students that paleontologists can learn a lot about life long ago by studying the fossils they find. Tell students they will explore different kinds of fossils.
2. Write the words body and trace in two columns on the chalkboard. Tell students that fossils are classified as body fossils and trace fossils. Body fossils were once part of an animal. Display pictures of the body fossils. Have students identify the skull, tooth, and foot. Write their answers in the column marked "body." Further explain that trace fossils are evidence of something the dinosaur left behind. Display pictures of the trace fossils. Have students identify the footprints, eggs, and skin impression. Write their responses in the column marked trace. Allow students time to share other information they have about fossils.
3. Distribute crayons and copies of Body Fossil and Trace Fossils. Instruct students to look at the fossils pictured and decide whether they are body fossils or trace fossils. Have them circle the body fossils blue and the trace fossils red. (Answers: tooth, skull, and foot are body fossils. Skin imprint, eggs, and footprints are trace fossils.)


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Phase II Checklist
Checklist for FLAMINGOS-2 Phase II (OT) programs
- General
- Have you selected appropriate templates from the F2 OT library? Have you gone through the checklist in the Top-level Program Overview note and included relevant standardized notes? Add notes with information about the program and acquisition that will make it easier for the observer. Try to use the standardized notes provided in the OT Library.
- In the F2 component, check that the best read mode has been selected for your science observation.
- Are the integration times reasonable? Minimum exposure times are defined by the read mode.
- F2 observation sequences that take longer than ~3 hours to execute will likely not be executed all on one night, and you must allow adequate time for re-acquisitions on subsequent nights when filling the allocated time. Have you read the details about the overhead calculations? Have you added a note explaining how many reacquisitions you have assumed for the calculation of the overheads? Taking the correct overheads into account, do your defined observations fit within the allocated observing time? Is there an appropriate mix of science exposures and baseline calibrations in the sequence?
- Have you checked Baseline Calibrations to see what is offered/required.
- Baseline arcs and flats should be set up using smartcals now. Choosing a flat (as observe element) within a science sequence will automatically set up a baseline nighttime partner calibration with an optimal exposure time. Choosing an arc within a science sequence will automatically set up the correct exposure time but these must be set to nighttime program calibration. Within a daytime arc sequence, this will be set up as daytime partner calibration. If you feel you need a different exposure time (to optimize counts within a particular region of the spectrum for example, use these tables as guidelines for recommended exposure times for GCAL Arcs and Flats. As of 2012B, arcs and flats configured manually will no longer be checked by either the NGO or Contact Scientist. Any time lost will be charged to the PI. .
- Guide stars
- Are guide stars selected for the F2 OIWFS? The PWFS2 is not used with F2 in most cases. To choose a guide star for OIWFS, you can simply click on the Auto GS button in the OT position editor (with 'Allow +- 180deg change for guide star selection' chosen in the F2 component if appropriate). This will select an appropriate guide star for the specified observing conditions. Alternatively, the PI can still choose a guide star using the Manual GS button on the OT position editor. For manual guide stars, ensure that the guide star can be reached for the selected position angle, that the guide star is within the magnitude limits for the OIWFS, and that all guided offset positions can be reached. Check that the probe arm is visible and falls within the green box in the position editor. Fix any red offset positions. The UCAC3 catalog should be used whenever possible for choosing guide stars as the magnitudes are usually reliable.
- Ensure guide stars are stars and not galaxies.
- Calibrations
- Check that appropriate calibrations are included in the program. To see which baseline calibrations/standards are recommended, see Near-IR Calibrations.
- For twilight flats, make sure that the target component is left blank or excluded.
- If the PI requires calibrating standards beyond what is offered in the standard baseline calibrations, these must be defined, including a specific target, and time will be charged against the program for the observation. Observing class should be set to Nighttime Program Calibration. Baseline standards are set to partner calibration.
- Imaging
- Have you considered spatial dithers for imaging? These are normally needed to subtract the bright near-IR sky from the data.
- Baseline photometric standards should not be defined within the program. These baseline standards are already taken on each photometric night that imaging data is obtained. If the PI wishes to have more than one taken, or insists on having one taken with a program defined for CC70 conditions, then a program standard with target component will have to be defined in the program by the PI.
- Spectroscopy
- Have you considered spatial dithers for spectroscopy? These are normally needed to subtract the sky, avoid bad detector regions, and monitor the sky variations.
- Ensure that all the appropriate baseline calibrations (nighttime GCAL flats, twilight flats, daytime Ar, mask image obs [for MOS], and " before " and " after " telluric standards) and acquisition observations are included.
- Have you included the appropriate acquisition observations?
- If an observation includes an unusual or non-standard acquisition (eg. off-axis long-slit where the guide star cannot be accessed with the science target on-axis, blind offset acquisitions, MOS acquisitions with large initial offsets, etc), include the appropriate OT Library standardized note in the program. The text of the note can either describe the acquisition or point to other notes within the program. Using these standardized notes should minimize acquisition errors and would alert the observers about non-standard observations.
- BLIND OFFSETS: Use when targets are too faint to be acquired within 5 min of imaging.
- Make sure that a User1 target is defined with coordinates on the same astrometric system as the science
- Make sure the blind offset User1 star has a name, preferably something like 'Reference Star' or 'Blind offset star'
- Offset star should preferably be within 20 arcsec of the science target. The accuracy of blind offsetting is better than 0.1 arcsec for offsets less than 20 arcsec.
- For the blind offsetting to work, it is essential that the same guide star can be reached for the bright object and the science target.
- Include a note in the program to warn the observer of the non-standard acquisition.
- If your longslit spectroscopic observations involve complicated alignments, crowded fields, or targets fainter than about H=14.0 (eg. if the target is not obvious in the OT position editor with the 2MASS image loaded), you need to prepare finding charts. Such a finding chart should indicate the target/s and display the orientation (preferably North up and East to the left) and scale. Finding charts should be uploaded through the OT.
- If your program is a MOS program, have you defined any pre-imaging along with mask observations? You will get the chance to modify the MOS observations once you design your mask. However, the pointing and PA of your target cannot be changed between the pre-imaging and the MOS observations.
- For MOS programs, have you included the required daytime calibration mask image(s) .
- If your program is a MOS program, prepare yourself for the mask design by reading the MOS instructions in detail and installing the required software.
- Mask names must be in the correct format: ie for program GS-2014A-Q-20, the mask names should be GS2014AQ020-01 and GS2014AQ020-02 for the first and second mask, respectively.


text: Le jeu 20/03/2003 à 21:52, Greg Lindahl a écrit : [...] > Mandrake and Suse are also doing support. However, all you need with the > Opteron is (1) a few kernel mods, and (2) an update to gcc/glibc/etc. The > rest of the user-land doesn't _need_ to change. http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/press/briefs?n=/mandrakesoft/news/2414 "MandrakeSoft has released its well known MandrakeLinux distribution to Opteron. This version of Mandrake Linux 9.0 for Opteron® processors has been made available to MandrakeSoft's partners and is also available on several public FTP mirrors. Hardware vendors and other potential integrators are invited to contact MandrakeSoft at hardware at mandrakesoft.com to test the product or to receive certification. " [...] "In June 2003, MandrakeSoft will release 'MandrakeClustering' for Opteron®, an easy-to-use clustering solution designed to answer needs in the intensive calculation area that will greatly benefit from the power of AMD 64-bit technology." But the first beta of the clustering product will be available in few weeks. -- Erwan Velu Linux Cluster Distribution Project Manager MandrakeSoft 43 rue d'aboukir 75002 Paris Phone Number : +33 (0) 1 40 41 17 94 Fax Number : +33 (0) 1 40 41 92 00 Web site : http://www.mandrakesoft.com OpenPGP key : http://www.mandrakesecure.net/cks/


text:
Vitminlegend needed a new print or packaging design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 31 designs submitted by 11 freelance designers.
Promise Pure
Vitamin producer. Needing an innovative design that makes people identify with the brand and have a feeling of comfort and confidence.
The audience are people who are to busy to eat the proper foods to get all the vitamins they need and would look to vitamins and supplements to fill in those gaps or help them heal. The target audience would be people in the age range of 28 to 80.
The product name will be "Promise Pure", that's the brand name. The background of the label will be yellow, the bottle needs to stand out on the shelves and must have a healing warm feeling. Life giving and healthly is what we want to portray. The font color I imagine would be a dark red, black, or a blue. As far as images incorporated in name, possibly a sun with solarwaves emanating outwards possible placed in the O in Promise or in the middle of Promise Pure, or symbols or purity and health. The background label color is flexible preference is yellow, but white or green maybe ok depending on how much it will stand out on the shelves. Simple logo that inspires trust and health. Vitamin labels come in different sizes the typical picture design comes in 3" x 3", but it can vary depending on the bottle size. Size is not important, the design is what counts.
I've attached other vitamin companies that I think have good designs.
Solaray, Nature's way, Nature Made, Nature's Plus, Burt's Bees have good designes.
Would like the design to be in PSD format.
Adobe Photoshop Document *.psd Recommended