A bikini is a women's two-piece swimsuit featuring two triangles of fabric on top, similar to a bra and covering the woman's breasts, two triangles of fabric on the bottom, the front covering the pelvis but exposing the navel, the back covering the buttocks. The size of the top and bottom can vary from full coverage of the breasts and buttocks, to more revealing designs like a thong or G-string that cover only the areolae and mons pubis, but expose the buttocks. In May 1946, Parisian fashion designer Jacques Heim released a two-piece swimsuit design that he named the Atome. Like swimsuits of the era, it covered the wearer's navel, it failed to attract much attention. Clothing designer Louis Réard introduced his new, smaller design in July, he named the swimsuit after the Bikini Atoll, where the first public test of a nuclear bomb had taken place only four days before. His skimpy design was risque, exposing much of her buttocks. No runway model would wear it, so he hired a nude dancer, Micheline Bernardini, from the Casino de Paris to model it at a review of swimsuit fashions.

Due to its controversial and revealing design, the bikini was accepted slowly by the public. The swimsuit gained increased exposure and acceptance as film stars like Brigitte Bardot, Raquel Welch, Ursula Andress wore them and were photographed on public beaches and seen in film. In many countries the design was banned from other public places; the minimalist bikini design became common in most Western countries by the mid-1960s as both swimwear and underwear. By the late 20th century it was used as sportswear in beach volleyball and bodybuilding. There are a number of modern stylistic variations of the design used for marketing purposes and as industry classifications, including monokini, tankini, trikini and skirtini. A man's single-piece brief swimsuit may be called a bikini. A variety of men's and women's underwear types are described as bikini underwear; the bikini has gained wide acceptance in Western society. By the early 2000s, bikinis had become a US$811 million business annually, boosted spin-off services such as bikini waxing and sun tanning.

While the two-piece swimsuit as a design existed in classical antiquity, the modern design first attracted public notice in Paris on July 5, 1946. French automotive engineer Louis Réard introduced a design he named the "bikini", adopting the name from the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, the colonial name the Germans gave to the atoll, transliterated from the Marshallese name for the island, Pikinni. Four days earlier, the United States had initiated its first peacetime nuclear weapons test at Bikini Atoll as part of Operation Crossroads. Réard hoped his swimsuit's revealing style would create an "explosive commercial and cultural reaction" similar to the explosion at Bikini Atoll. By making an analogy with words like bilingual and bilateral containing the Latin prefix "bi-", the word bikini was first back-derived as consisting of two parts, by Rudi Gernreich, who introduced the monokini in 1964. Swimsuit designs like the tankini and trikini further cemented this derivation. Over time the "–kini family", including the "–ini sisters", expanded into a variety of swimwear including the monokini, tankini, hikini, face-kini and microkini.

The Language Report, compiled by lexicographer Susie Dent and published by the Oxford University Press in 2003, considers lexicographic inventions like bandeaukini and camkini, two variants of the tankini, important to observe. Although "bikini" was a registered trademark of Réard, it has since become genericized. Variations of the term are used to describe stylistic variations for promotional purposes and industry classifications, including monokini, tankini, pubikini and skirtini. A man's brief swimsuit may be referred to as a bikini. A variety of men's and women's underwear types are described as bikini underwear. Archaeologist James Mellaart described the earliest bikini-like costume in Çatalhöyük, Anatolia in the Chalcolithic era, where a mother goddess is depicted astride two leopards wearing a costume somewhat like a bikini; the two-piece swimsuit can be traced back to the Greco-Roman world, where bikini-like garments worn by women athletes are depicted on urns and paintings dating back to 1400 BC.

In Coronation of the Winner, a mosaic in the floor of a Roman villa in Sicily that dates from the Diocletian period, young women participate in weightlifting, discus throwing, running ball games dressed in bikini-like garments. The mosaic, found in the Sicilian Villa Romana del Casale, features ten maidens who have been anachronistically dubbed the "Bikini Girls". Other Roman archaeological finds depict the goddess Venus in a similar garment. In Pompeii, depictions of Venus wearing a bikini were discovered in the Casa della Venere, in the tablinum of the House of Julia Felix, in an atrium garden of Via Dell'Abbondanza. Swimming or bathing outdoors was discouraged in the Christian West, so there was little demand or need for swimming or bathing costumes until the 18th century; the bathing gown of the 18th century was a loose ankle-length full-sleeve chemise-type gown made of wool or flannel that retained coverage and modesty. In 1907, Australian swimmer and performer Annette Kellerman was arrested on a Boston beach for wearing form-fitting sleeveless one-piece knitted swimming tights that covered her from neck to toe, a costume she adopted from England

Lucien-L'Allier station is a Montreal Metro station in the borough of Ville-Marie in Montreal, Canada. It serves the Orange Line; the station, planned under the name "Aqueduc", was designed by the firm of Boulva & Cleve. A sculptural grille by Jean-Jacques Besner covering a ventilation shaft is the only artwork; the station is a normal side platform station, with a mezzanine on its eastern end. Passengers have to descend the greatest distance to reach the platforms of any station in Montreal The station is intermodal with the Réseau de transport métropolitain's commuter train lines; that train station was built as part of the Bell Centre. It is connected to Montreal's underground city; this station is named for Lucien L'Allier Street, whose name was changed from rue de l'Aqueduc in order to commemorate Lucien L'Allier, chief engineer for the initial network of the Metro, as well as for the construction of Saint Helen's Island and Notre Dame Island for Expo 67. He had died. A plaque in the station commemorates him.

Terminus Centre-Ville Lucien-L'Allier station Bell Centre / Montreal Canadiens Edifice Gare Windsor / Canadian Pacific Railway Le 1250 René-Lévesque Bonaventure Metro station and points east Cité du commerce électronique Concordia University / Fine Arts pavilion YWCA Lucien-L'Allier station web site Montreal by Metro, metrodemontreal.com - photos and trivia 2011 STM system map 2011 Downtown System Map Metro Map

The Volkswagen Concept BlueSport is a mid-engined roadster concept car produced by Volkswagen. It was introduced at the 2009 North American International Auto Show in Detroit; the Concept BlueSport follows on from a previous roadster concept car, the Volkswagen Concept R, shown at the 2003 Frankfurt Motor Show. The Concept BlueSport is powered by a 2.0 L TDI I4 producing around 180 hp and 260 lb⋅ft. A six speed dual clutch DSG gearbox helps give it an estimated 0 to 60 mph time of 6.2 sec, a top speed of 140 mph. It has been reported that a production BlueSport model is under development, based on a platform, codenamed Mimo or 9X1, to be shared between the Volkswagen Group marques Volkswagen and Porsche; the Audi version, related to the Audi e-tron Detroit concept car, may be named Audi R4 or R5. A Porsche variant is speculated to be a "spiritual successor" to the Porsche 356 roadster, positioned below the current Boxster, as the company's entry level model. Christian Felske Volkswagen News: Volkswagen reveals mid-engined roadster concept in Detroit

State Route 138 is a 23.01-mile-long state highway in West Tennessee, connecting the town of Toone with Interstate 40. SR 138 begins in Hardeman County at an intersection with SR 18, it goes northwest through wooded areas to enter Toone, where it passes through town along Main Street before having an intersection with SR 100. The highway leaves Toone and continues northwest through wooded areas to cross into Madison County. SR 138 continues north through farmland to have an intersection with SR 223 before passing Mercer, it continues north through farmland and rural areas for several miles to an intersection with US 70/SR 1 before coming to an end at an interchange with I-40, where the road continues north as Providence Road. The entire route of SR 138 is a rural two-lane highway

Horse Creek is a stream in Solano County, California which discharges into Ulatis Creek. The U. S. government has designated a portion of Horse Creek within the 100-year floodplain. In particular, within unincorporated Solano County 500 feet downstream and 1,500 feet upstream of Willow Avenue are a designated 100-year floodplain. For incorporated Vacaville areas, along Horse Creek 800 feet downstream of Leisure Town Road and 2,000 feet upstream of the sewer maintenance area are designated within the 100-year floodplain. For the Middle Branch Horse Creek, 100-year flood designations were made upstream of Interstate 80 and 2,200 feet upstream of Interstate 505. List of rivers in California

Hal Halpin is an American computer game executive and entrepreneur, is the president and founder of the Entertainment Consumers Association. Halpin is best known as the founder of the US video game industry's retail trade association, Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association which merged with Video Software Dealers Association to form Entertainment Merchants Association in 2006, he is the president of the Crest Group, a consulting company serving the video game industry. Crest Group is the association management company that managed IEMA and now manages the Entertainment Consumers Association, he is a Contributing/Guest Editor for 1UP.com, BitMob, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Game Informer Magazine, GameDaily, GameTheory, IGN, iMedia Connection, IndustryGamers, The Escapist. The Entertainment Consumers Association was launched in response to the need for consumer rights advocacy following a string of anti-games and anti-gamer legislation which would have criminalized the sale of certain video games if not for the efforts of trade groups in opposition.

The industry itself was well represented by the International Game Developers Association, the Entertainment Software Association, the Entertainment Merchants Association, but those that purchase and play games went unrepresented until the launch of the ECA. Notable ECA publications include GameCulture and ECA Today. While running the IEMA, Halpin was involved in a number of important changes including the Hot Coffee scandal, retailers carding for mature-rated games, the standardization of PC games packaging and related platform identification marks. During that time he became a favourite target of noted anti-games activist and attorney, Jack Thompson; the two opponents were scheduled to debate publicly at the 2007 Penny Arcade Expo, but the debate was cancelled and replaced in the schedule with keynote speaker, Wil Wheaton. Prior to Crest, ECA, IEMA, Halpin was the founder and president of Cyberactive Media Group, a business-to-business publishing company. There he was publisher of Interactive Entertainment Magazine, the leading trade publication serving the sector.

He previously founded and was the publisher of GameDaily, the category's primary daily news outlet. Although he claims credit for coining the phrase "interactive entertainment," this claim is untrue. Halpin founded and was the publisher of GameDaily, the category's primary daily news outlet and career site and job board, GameJobs.com, which remains a staple HR tool serving the trade. Halpin re-published David Sheff's Game Over, a book on the history of the video game industry considered by many to be the "Bible" of the video game business and re-launched the industry's first charitable organization, Games for Good. While acting as president of the IEMA, Halpin was called upon to represent the sector in mass-media outlets, speaking at conventions and trade shows, in representing the medium to federal and state government representatives, his role became more public as president of the ECA while advocating consumer rights issues such as Net Neutrality and Universal Broadband, Fair Use and DMCA, ACTA negotiations transparency and Taxation on video games and other digital products.

On March 25, 2009, speaking at the FTC workshop on Digital Rights, he recommended in testimony that the presence of embedded Digital Rights Management technology be disclosed to customers prior to the sale/license of the software and that End User License Agreements – known as software license agreements – be standardized for packaged goods software. Halpin and ECA represented the position of game consumers via an amicus brief and online petition regarding the U. S. Supreme Court case, Schwarzenegger v. EMA, known as the violent video games case. On December 2, 2009, controversy arose regarding the ECA’s membership cancellation policy, in which the association’s membership terms and conditions were changed without notifying ECA users; the change was made due to an exploit in a partner’s coupon codes. The cancellation policy change temporarily required that members mail a physical letter requesting cancellation while the association upgraded their systems. There were complaints about the change in the terms and conditions being made without notifying the membership, which struck some members as ironic given the ECA’s stance regarding End User License Agreements.

The three-week ordeal ended on December 24, 2009, once the promised new modules went public giving members online account termination and an online auto-renewal opt-out functionality similar to Xbox Live and ECA’s listing with the CT Better Business Bureau was raised to an A-. Halpin's brother, created a feature-length documentary about video game violence, Spencer Halpin's Moral Kombat, in which Halpin is interviewed, he appeared in Playing Columbine, a documentary about the controversial videogame, Super Columbine Massacre RPG!. Halpin is a vocal consumer advocate, providing reaction quotes and interviews for news media on topically-important issues and making himself available for national news journalists. Hal Halpin Official Site Entertainment Consumers Association GameCulture.com GameJobs.com GamePolitics.com