X10 (industry standard)

X10 is a protocol for communication among electronic devices used for home automation (domotics). It primarily uses power line wiring for signaling and control, where the signals involve brief radio frequency bursts representing digital information. A wireless radio based protocol transport is also defined.

X10 was developed in 1975 by Pico Electronics of Glenrothes, Scotland, in order to allow remote control of home devices and appliances. It was the first general purpose domotic network technology and remains the most widely available.

Although a number of higher bandwidth alternatives exist, X10 remains popular in the home environment with millions of units in use worldwide, and inexpensive availability of new components.

History

In 1970, a group of engineers started a company in Glenrothes, Scotland called Pico Electronics. The company revolutionized the calculator industry by developing the first single chip calculator. When calculator IC prices started to fall, Pico refocused on commercial products rather than plain ICs.

X10 (programming language)

X10 is a programming language being developed by IBM at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center as part of the Productive, Easy-to-use, Reliable Computing System (PERCS) project funded by DARPA's High Productivity Computing Systems (HPCS) program. Its primary authors are Kemal Ebcioğlu, Vijay Saraswat, and Vivek Sarkar.

X10 is designed specifically for parallel computing using the partitioned global address space (PGAS) model. A computation is divided among a set of places, each of which holds some data and hosts one or more activities that operate on those data. It has a constrained type system for object-oriented programming, a form of dependent types. Other features include user-defined primitive struct types; globally distributed arrays, and structured and unstructured parallelism.

X10 uses the concept of parent and child relationships for activities to prevent the lock stalemate that can occur when two or more processes wait for each other to finish before they can complete. An activity may spawn one or more child activities, which may themselves have children. Children cannot wait for a parent to finish, but a parent can wait for a child using the finish command.

List of express bus routes in New York City

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) operates a number of express bus routes in New York City. Express bus routes operated by MTA New York City Transit, or under contract to the city Economic Development Corporation by Academy Bus, are assigned an express (X) prefix, while those operated by MTA Bus Company are assigned multi-borough (for instance QM) prefixes.

Below is a list of all express bus lines operating within the City of New York. The unidirectional fare, payable in coins or MetroCard, is $6.50. Discount fare media is available.

Manhattan to Staten Island

Unless otherwise indicated, most routes travel to and from Staten Island via the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and the Gowanus Expressway and then the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel into Lower Manhattan, or via a somewhat faster route via the Goethals Bridge and the New Jersey Turnpike and then the Lincoln Tunnel directly into Midtown Manhattan.

Routes X1 to X22A, X30 to X31, and X42 are operated by New York City Transit. Routes X23 and X24 are operated by Academy Bus.

Hard (Zürich)

Hard is a quarter in the district 4 of Zürich.

It was formerly a part of Aussersihl municipality, which was incorporated into Zürich in 1893.

The quarter has a population of 12,715 distributed on an area of 1.46 km².

Coordinates: 47°22′46.59″N 8°30′57.64″E / 47.3796083°N 8.5160111°E / 47.3796083; 8.5160111

Hard (surname)

Hard is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

Hardcourt

A hardcourt (or hard court) is a surface or floor on which a sport is played, most usually in reference to tennis courts. They are typically made of rigid materials such as asphalt or concrete, and covered with acrylic material to seal the surface and mark the playing lines, while providing some cushioning. Historically, hardwood surfaces were also in use in indoor settings, similar to an indoor basketball court, but these are now rare.

Tennis

Tennis hard courts are made of synthetic/acrylic layers on top of a concrete or asphalt foundation and can vary in color. These courts tend to play medium-fast to fast because there is little energy absorption by the court, like in grass courts. The ball tends to bounce high and players are able to apply many types of spin during play. Flat balls are favored on hard courts because of the extremely quick play style. Speed of rebound after tennis balls bounce on hard courts is determined by how much sand is in the synthetic/acrylic layer placed on top of the asphalt foundation. More sand will result in a slower bounce due to more friction.

Private company limited by shares

A private company limited by shares, usually called a private limited company (Ltd.) (though this can theoretically also refer to a private company limited by guarantee), is the private limited type of company incorporated under the laws of England and Wales, Scotland, that of certain Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland. It has shareholders with limited liability and its shares may not be offered to the general public, unlike those of a public limited company (plc).

"Limited by shares" means that the company has shareholders, and that the liability of the shareholders to creditors of the company is limited to the capital originally invested, i.e. the nominal value of the shares and any premium paid in return for the issue of the shares by the company. A shareholder's personal assets are thereby protected in the event of the company's insolvency, but money invested in the company will be lost.

A limited company may be "private" or "public". A private limited company's disclosure requirements are lighter, but for this reason its shares may not be offered to the general public (and therefore cannot be traded on a public stock exchange). This is the major distinguishing feature between a private limited company and a public limited company. Most companies, particularly small companies, are private.