Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka (/sriË?ˈlÉ‘Ë?Å‹kÉ™, -ˈlæŋkÉ™/ or ⁱ/ʃriË?-/;Sinhalese - à·?à·Šâ€?රී ලංකà·?à·€, Tamil Ilaá¹…kai), officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and known from the beginning of British colonial rule until 1972 as Ceylon (/sᵻˈlÉ’nËŒ seɪ-ËŒ siË?-/), is an island country in South Asia near south-east India.

Sri Lanka has maritime borders with India to the northwest and the Maldives to the southwest. Its documented history spans 3,000 years, with evidence of pre-historic human settlements dating back to at least 125,000 years. Its geographic location and deep harbours made it of great strategic importance from the time of the ancient Silk Road through to World War II.

A diverse and multicultural country, Sri Lanka is home to many religions, ethnic groups, and languages. In addition to the majority Sinhalese, it is home to large groups of Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils, Moors, Burghers, Malays, Kaffirs and the aboriginal Vedda. Sri Lanka has a rich Buddhist heritage, and the first known Buddhist writings of Sri Lanka, the PÄ?li Canon, dates back to the Fourth Buddhist council in 29 BC. The country's recent history has been marred by a thirty-year civil war which decisively ended when Sri Lankan military defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009.

Chinese Taipei

"Chinese Taipei" is the name for the Republic of China (ROC) agreed upon in the Nagoya Resolution whereby the ROC and the People's Republic of China recognize each other when it comes to the activities of the International Olympic Committee. It has been used by the ROC as the basis when participating in various international organizations and events, including the Olympics, Miss Earth, Paralympics, Asian Games, Asian Para Games, Universiade and FIFA World Cup.

The term is deliberately ambiguous. To the PRC "Chinese Taipei" is ambiguous about the political status or sovereignty of the ROC/Taiwan; to the ROC it is a more inclusive term than just "Taiwan" (which is to the ROC just one part of China, which it, similarly to the PRC, claims to be the rightful government of the nation in its entirety, and to the PRC the use of "Taiwan" as a national name is associated with independence of the area from the PRC) and "Taiwan China" might be construed as a subordinate area to the PRC.

Taipei

Taipei (/ËŒtaɪˈpeɪ/, literally means "North of Tai(wan)"), officially known as Taipei City (Chinese: 臺北市 or å?°åŒ—市; pinyin: TáibÄ›i Shì; PeÌ?h-Å?e-jÄ«: Tâi-pak ChhÄ«), is the capital city and a special municipality of Taiwan. Sitting at the northern tip of Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City. It is about 25 km (16 mi) southwest of the northern port city Keelung. The city is mostly located on the Taipei Basin, an ancient lakebed bounded by the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung and Xindian rivers, which join to form the Tamsui River along the city's western border.

The city proper is home to an estimated population of 2,693,672 in 2009, forming the core part of the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area which includes the nearby cities of New Taipei and Keelung with a population of 6,900,273, the 40th most-populous urban area in the world. The name "Taipei" can refer either to the whole metropolitan area or the city proper.

Taipei is the political, economic, educational, and cultural center of Taiwan, and one of the major hubs of the Chinese-speaking world. Considered to be a global city, Taipei is part of a major high-tech industrial area.Railways, high-speed rail, highways, airports, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by two airports – Taipei Songshan and Taiwan Taoyuan. Taipei is home to various world-famous architectural or cultural landmarks which include Taipei 101, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Dalongdong Baoan Temple, Hsing Tian Kong, Mengjia Longshan Temple, National Palace Museum, Presidential Office Building, Taipei Guest House, Ximending, and several night markets dispersing over the city. Its natural features such as Maokong, Yangmingshan, and hot springs are also well known to international visitors.

Taipei (novel)

Taipei is a 2013 novel by Tao Lin. It is his third novel, his first book in three years, and his seventh book overall.

Background

On August 15, 2011, The New York Observer reported that Lin had sold his third novel, then titled Taipei, Taiwan, to Vintage. Lin's agent, Bill Clegg, brokered the deal with editor Tim O'Connell based on "a 5000-word excerpt and a ~3-page outline", for "$50,000 with a $10,000 bonus if it earns out its advance." Lin reportedly chose Vintage after meeting with four other editors, including those at Little, Brown and Harper Perennial. Earlier that morning the Wall Street Journal broke the news and briefly interviewed Lin on his decision. Lin said, "Vintage/Knopf publishes most of my favorite writers: Lorrie Moore, Ann Beattie, Bret Easton Ellis."

Cover

On February 1, 2013, Entertainment Weekly debuted the cover. The article also included an interview with Lin, who said, of the autobiographical nature of the book:

The article did not comment on the cover, except to say that it was "shiny." Thought Catalog, in an article titled "The Cover For Tao Lin's New Novel Looks Sweet," wondered how it would appear: "The version online is a shiny gif. It will be interesting to see what the cover looks like on a physical copy." Apparently no critics recognized the gif cover as an apparent homage to the underground, avant-garde writer Bradley J. Milton, whose 'Huckleberry Milton' came out two years before.

Mahjong solitaire

Mahjong solitaire is a solitaire matching game that uses a set of mahjong tiles rather than cards. It is also known as Shanghai solitaire, electronic or computerized mahjong, solitaire mahjong and erroneously as mahjong. The tiles come from the four-player game known as mahjong.

Play

The 144 tiles are arranged in a special four-layer pattern with their faces upwards. A tile is said to be open or exposed if it can be moved either left or right without disturbing other tiles. The goal is to match open pairs of identical tiles and remove them from the board, exposing the tiles under them for play. The game is finished when all pairs of tiles have been removed from the board or when there are no exposed pairs remaining.

Tiles that are below other tiles cannot be seen. But by repeated undos and/or restarts which some programs offer, one gradually gets more and more information. Sometimes, tiles are only partially covered by other tiles, and the extent to which such tiles can be distinguished depends on the actual tile set. Playing Mahjong solitaire optimally in the sense to maximize the probability of removing all tiles is PSPACE-complete, and the game gets NP-complete when peeking below tiles is allowed. A sample of 10,000,000 games with the default layout, 'the turtle' (see right), which were analyzed in about 40 hours on a single processor thread, revealed that between 2.95 and 2.96 percent of the turtles cannot be solved even if peeking is allowed.