Aspen

Aspen is a common name for certain tree species; some, but not all, are classified by botanists in the section Populus, of the poplar genus.

Species

These species are called aspens:

Habitat and longevity

The aspens are all native to cold regions with cool summers, in the north of the Northern Hemisphere, extending south at high altitudes in the mountains. They are all medium-sized deciduous trees reaching 15–30 m (49–98 ft) tall.

All of the aspens typically grow in large clonal colonies, derived from a single seedling, and spread by means of root suckers; new stems in the colony may appear at up to 30–40 m (98–131 ft) from the parent tree. Each individual tree can live for 40–150 years above ground, but the root system of the colony is long-lived. In some cases, this is for thousands of years, sending up new trunks as the older trunks die off above ground. For this reason, it is considered to be an indicator of ancient woodlands. One such colony in Utah, given the nickname of "Pando", is estimated to be 80,000 years old, making it possibly the oldest living colony of aspens. Some aspen colonies become very large with time, spreading about 1 m (3.3 ft) per year, eventually covering many hectares. They are able to survive forest fires, because the roots are below the heat of the fire, with new sprouts growing after the fire burns out.

Aspen, Colorado

The City of Aspen is the Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 6,658 at the 2010 United States Census. Aspen is situated in a remote area of the Rocky Mountains' Sawatch Range and Elk Mountains, along the Roaring Fork River at an elevation just below 8,000 feet (2,400 m) above sea level on the Western Slope, 11 miles (18 km) west of the Continental Divide.

Founded as a mining camp during the Colorado Silver Boom and later named "Aspen" because of the abundance of aspen trees in the area, the city boomed during the 1880s, its first decade of existence. That early era ended when the Panic of 1893 led to a collapse in the silver market, and the city began a half-century known as "the quiet years" during which its population steadily declined, reaching a nadir of less than a thousand by 1930. Aspen's fortunes reversed in the mid-20th century when neighboring Aspen Mountain was developed into a ski resort, and industrialist Walter Paepcke bought many properties in the city and redeveloped them. Today it is home to three renowned institutions, two of which Paepcke helped found, that have international importance: the Aspen Music Festival and School, the Aspen Institute, and the Aspen Center for Physics.

Aspen (Botkyrka Municipality)

Aspen is a lake of Botkyrka Municipality, Södermanland, Sweden. The lake is crossed by the European route E4/European route E20 and is located about 20 kilometres southwest of Stockholm, the Swedish capital. It has an area of 1,847 km².

During the Stone Age, Aspen was in the ocean, but was uplifted by the time of the Bronze Age. Bronze Age settlements grew up around the lake and for some thousand years Iron Age farms were around the lake. The area developed during this period. A graveyard from that period is preserved in the area.

Skrävsta Ekholmen nature reserve is in the vicinity of the lake with about sixty large oak trees, half of which are centuries old. There are large bats and many other rare animal and plant species. Around the lake is a nature trail at 7½ km length. The path leads through the woods, high above the marsh.

Gallery

Lake Aspen, cultural landscape

Lake Aspen, cultural landscape

Lake Aspen, nature path

Lake Aspen, nature path

Notch

Notch may refer to:

See also

Notch (musician)

Norman Howell (born May 11, 1973, Hartford, Connecticut), better known as Notch, is an R&B, reggae, dancehall and reggaeton artist. He was the former lead vocalist and one of the creative force behind the hip hop-reggae act, Born Jamericans.

He has been featured on hit albums such as Mas Flow 2, Mas Flow 2.5, Chosen Few II: El Documental, Barrio Fino, and The Cosmic Game. His first solo album, Raised by the People, was released in May 2007.

Biography

Early life

Notch's mother is African American of Native American, Portuguese, and Puerto Rican descent, his father was born in Jamaica and is of Afro-Cuban and French descent. His parents separated while still an infant. He spent his early years with his mother living in Hartford, Connecticut. He grew up in a multicultural neighborhood. Notch learned how to speak Spanish because most of his friends at that time were of Hispanic descent. He went to go live with his father in Washington D.C. when he was nine years old. Notch also spent a short time in Bermuda before moving back to Washington D.C. where he lived until his early twenties.

Markus Persson

Markus Alexej Persson (born 1 June 1979), also known as Notch or xNotch, is a Swedish video game programmer and designer who founded the video game company Mojang alongside Carl Manneh and Jakob Porser in late 2010.

Persson's principal venture for founding Mojang was Minecraft, a first-person sandbox video game that has gained popularity and support since its tech demo in 2009. Since the release of Minecraft, Persson has gained significant notability within the video game industry, having won multiple awards and establishing relations with the industry's figureheads. Persson retained his position as the lead designer of Minecraft until the game's official launch in 2011, after which he transferred creative authority to Jens Bergensten. In November 2014, he left Mojang after its acquisition by Microsoft.

Biography

Persson was born in Stockholm,Sweden, to a Finnish mother and a Swedish father on 1 June 1979. He lived in Edsbyn for the first seven years of his life before his family moved back to Stockholm. He began programming on his father's Commodore 128 home computer at the age of seven. Having experimented with various type-in programs he produced his first game at the age of eight, a text-based adventure game. Professionally he had worked as a game developer for King.com for over four years, until 2009. Afterwards he worked as a programmer for Jalbum. He is also one of the founders of Wurm Online, although he no longer works on this game. Outside of work, he has made seven games for competitions for the Java 4K Game Programming Contest such as "Left 4K Dead" and "MEGA4kMAN". He has also entered the Ludum Dare competition. He is the central figure of a documentary by 2 Player Productions about the rise of Minecraft and Mojang called Minecraft: The Story of Mojang.