User:Trödel

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Today's featured article

SMS Lothringen

SMS Lothringen was the last of five pre-dreadnought battleships of the Braunschweig class built for the Imperial German Navy. Launched in May 1904, she was named for the then-German province of Lothringen. The ship was armed with a battery of four 28 cm (11 in) guns and had a top speed of 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph). She was to be replaced in July 1914 by dreadnought battleships but World War I prevented her retirement. The ship and the rest of II Squadron joined the dreadnoughts of the High Seas Fleet to support a raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby in December 1914. She primarily served as a guard ship in the German Bight; in poor condition by 1916, she was withdrawn from fleet service in February. She thereafter patrolled the Danish straits until replaced by the battleship Hannover in September 1917. After the war, she was converted into a depot ship for F-type minesweepers and placed in reserve in March 1920. (This article is part of a featured topic: Battleships of Germany.)

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Today's featured picture

Wheat Fields

Wheat Fields is a series of dozens of paintings by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. The close association of peasants and the cycles of nature particularly interested Van Gogh, such as the sowing of seeds, harvest and sheaves of wheat in the fields. Van Gogh saw ploughing, sowing and harvesting as symbolic to man's efforts to overwhelm the cycles of nature. This oil-on-canvas Wheat Fields painting, also sometimes known as Wheat Field with Alpilles Foothills in the Background, was created in June 1888 and is now in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Painting credit: Vincent van Gogh

Yesterday's featured picture

Giechburg

The Giechburg is a partly reconstructed hilltop castle located in the town of Scheßlitz in Bavaria, Germany. There was a hilltop fort at the site from at least Neolithic times, and the castle enters written history in 1125. In 1390, it entered the possession of the prince-bishops of Bamberg, and its history thereafter is closely allied to the bishopric and the city of Bamberg. The castle was destroyed and rebuilt several times over the subsequent centuries before undergoing extensive redevelopment between 1599 and 1609. It became less useful to the prince-bishops over the subsequent centuries however, and eventually fell into ruin. After a period in the 19th and 20th centuries in the hands of the von Giech family, the castle was eventually acquired by the district of Bamberg in 1971 and reconstructed as a conference and hospitality centre. This 2021 aerial photograph shows the Giechburg viewed from the north, with the village of Peulendorf in the background.

Photograph credit: Reinhold Möller

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Featured Picture from Day before Yesterday

Plains-wanderer

The plains-wanderer (Pedionomus torquatus) is a bird in the family Pedionomidae, of which it is the only surviving species. Endemic to Australia, its historical range included Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory, but in recent years it has become endangered, with remaining known populations concentrated in the Riverina (a region in southwestern New South Wales) and in western Queensland. The plains-wanderer is a quail-like ground bird, measuring 15 to 19 centimetres (5.9 to 7.5 in). The adult male is light brown above, with fawn-white underparts with black crescents. The adult female is substantially larger than the male, and has a distinctive white-spotted black collar. This female plains-wanderer was photographed in the Riverina, north of the town of Deniliquin, New South Wales.

Photograph credit: John Harrison

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Featured Picture from Two Days before Yesterday

Ethel Smyth

Ethel Smyth (1858–1944) was an English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works, choral works and operas. Smyth's extensive body of work includes the Concerto for Violin, Horn and Orchestra, and the Mass in D. Her opera The Wreckers is considered by some critics to be the "most important English opera composed during the period between Purcell and Britten". This photograph of Smyth was taken in 1922.

Photograph credit: unknown; restored by Adam Cuerden

Principles

Religion in Society

There is a great disconnect between how athiests and religionist view the proper place for religion in the public square. Briefly, atheists (usually) want no religion in the public square, and religionists want equal access (non-denominational) to the public square and view athiesm as just one other "religion" that needs access.

Wikipedia's Reputation

I've been thinking about this key principle: "[What] reliable sources ... have in common is process and approval between document creation and publication." This is also the key to Wikipedia's reliability and reputation. The core principles of neutrality and verifiability along with the standards for articles (featured/good/etc) and the implicit approval of every person who reads an article and makes no changes to it.

Intellectual Property

We (Americans) often "borrow" other people's intellectual property because the transaction method (i.e. limited use permission) does not exist and can not be created without the transaction cost exceeding the value of the permission (which is close to $0.00 in most cases) so we keep using other's work, and they don't sue us.

Committed identity: 958be6e36eac42126fb635b1513ec54d is a MD5 commitment to this user's real-life identity.

Alec Guinness edit that claims he believed Star Wars would be a big hit