A chess clock consists of two adjacent clocks with buttons to stop one clock while starting the other, so that the two clocks never run simultaneously. Chess clocks are used in chess and other two-player games; the purpose is to keep track of the total time each player takes for their own moves, ensure that neither player overly delays the game. Chess clocks were first used extensively in tournament chess, are called game clocks; the first time that game clocks were used in a chess tournament was in the London 1883 tournament. Their use has since spread to tournament Scrabble, shogi, go, nearly every competitive two-player board game, as well as other types of games. In a tournament, the arbiter places all clocks in the same orientation, so that they can assess games that need attention at stages; the simplest time control is "sudden death", in which players must make a predetermined number of moves in a certain amount of time or forfeit the game immediately. A popular variant in informal play is blitz chess, in which each player is given a short time, such as five minutes, on the clock in which to play the entire game.

The players may take less time over any individual move. The opening moves in chess are played due to their familiarity, which leaves the players more time to consider more complex and unfamiliar positions later, it is not unusual in slow chess games for a player to leave the table, but the clock of the absent player continues to run if it is their turn, or starts to run if their opponent makes a move. Analog clocks are equipped with a "flag" that falls to indicate the exact moment the player's time has expired. Analog clocks use mechanical buttons. Pressing the button on one player's side physically stops the movement of that player's clock and releases the hold on the opponent's; the drawbacks of the mechanical clocks include accuracy and matching of the two clocks, matching of the indicators of time expiration. Additional time cannot be added for more complex time controls those that call for an increment or delay on every move, such as some forms of byoyomi. However, a malfunctioning analog clock is a less serious event than a malfunctioning digital clock.

In 1973, to address the issues with analog clocks, Bruce Cheney, a Cornell University Electrical Engineering student and chess player, created the first digital chess clock as a project for an undergraduate EE course. Typical of most inventions, it was crude compared to the products on the market many years and was limited by the technology that existed at the time. For example, the display was done with red LEDs. LEDs require significant power, as a result, the clock had to be plugged into a wall outlet; the high cost of LEDs at the time meant that only one set of digits could be displayed, that of the player whose turn it was to move. This meant. In 1973, LSI chips were not or cheaply available, so all the multiplexing and logic were done using chips that consisted of four two-input TTL NAND gates, which resulted in excessive power consumption. Being plugged into the wall is a major drawback, but had one advantage: the timebase for the clock was driven off of a rectified version of 60 cycle AC current.

Each player had a separate counter, and, in a parallel to the original mechanical architecture, one player's counter was disabled while the other's was running. The clock only had one mode: time ran forward, it could be reset, but not set. It did not count the number of moves, but it addressed the original goals of the project. The first commercially available digital chess clock was patented in 1975 by Joseph Meshi and Jeffrey R. Ponsor, they named it the Micromate-80. There was only one made and this was tested bij chess players in multiple tournaments. Three years a much-improved Micromate-180 was produced alongside Meshi's MBA Thesis, "Demand Analysis for a New Product", at San Diego State University, while Meshi and Ponsor continued to develop digital gaming. Digital clocks and Internet gaming have spurred a wave of experimentation with more varied and complex time controls than the traditional standards. Time control is used in modern chess in many different methodologies. One notable development, which has gained quite wide acceptance in chess, was proposed by former world champion Bobby Fischer, who in 1988 filed for US patent 4,884,255 for a new type of digital chess clock.

Fischer's digital clock gave each player a fixed period of time at the start of the game and added a small amount after each move. Joseph Meshi called this "Accumulation" as it was a main feature of his patented Micromate-180; this became. In this way, the players would never be short of time; this timing method is called "accumulation" but it is called "increment", "bonus", or "Fischer". The increment time control was first used in the organised 1992 Fischer–Spassky match, became popular in the wider chess world, was used in the FIDE World Chess Championship 1998. Nowadays most top level tournaments and tournaments outside the United States use Fischer's system. An increasing number of lower level tournaments in the US are starting to use Fischer's system. Other aspects of Fischer's patent, such as a synthesized voice announcing how much time the players have, thus eliminating the need for them to keep looking at the clock, have not been adopted. On March 10, 1994, a patent application was filed by inventors Frank A.

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The Midland Examining Group was an examination board, operating in England and Northern Ireland. It offered a range of Certificate of Achievement qualifications, it became part of OCR in 1998. The board was one of a number of new'examining groups' formed to develop syllabuses for the GCSE qualification, due to replace the GCE O Level and CSE qualifications in 1988. MEG was formed by the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board and Southern Universities' Joint Board for School Examinations GCE boards and the East Midlands Regional Examinations Board and The West Midlands Examinations Board CSE boards in 1985. Though this was not a merger and the boards remained independent of each other, the East Midlands and West Midlands boards, who stopped offering CSEs after they were phased out in 1987, now only offered exams as part of MEG, although they continued their other services such as in-service training, OFSTED inspections, prison service education; the operation and processing of the GCSE was shared out between the constituent boards with the Oxford, Bristol and Birmingham centres each taking responsibility for a number of the subjects offered.

The Oxford and Cambridge and Southern Universities' Joint Board continued to offer A Levels independently. Despite its regional name, schools were free to pick which exam board to use for their qualifications and MEG set 30% of all GCSE qualifications taken each year; the board wrote syllabuses for the Certificate of Achievement, aimed at students working below GCSE level. In 1993, MEG became part of the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, though it retained its separate identity. Furthermore, UCLES's A Level division, the Oxford and Cambridge Examinations and Assessment Council, took over both the Southern Universities' Joint Board and in 1995, the Oxford and Cambridge Board; the Midland Examining Group headquarters offices were in Cambridge at the UCLES offices in Hills Road, although some MEG subject officers and part of the exam processing were still based in Birmingham in the TWMEB offices at Mill Wharf. Following the government decision to establish "unitary" exam boards, UCLES announced in 1997 that it was, with the Royal Society of Arts Examinations Board, launching the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations exam board, which would take over running all UCLES and RSA qualifications in the United Kingdom from October 1, 1998, though it continued to use the old syllabuses until they expired.

EMREB and TWMEB became part of OCR. The MEG name appeared on some, but not all, of the Summer 1999 exam papers, but the certificates for that year, all subsequent exam papers, featured the OCR name only

Thomas Holmes, 1st Baron Holmes was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1727 and 1774. He managed elections in the government interest in the Isle of Wight during the 1760s. Holmes was baptized on 2 November 1699, the eldest son of Henry Holmes, MP, of Thorley and his wife Mary, illegitimate daughter of Sir Robert Holmes, MP, of Thorley, he married Anne Apsley, widow of Colby Apsley, daughter of Henry Player of Alverstone, Hampshire. At the 1727 British general election Holmes was returned as a Tory Member of Parliament for Newtown, where his family shared the electoral influence with the Worsleys, he voted against the Administration on the civil list on 23 April 1729 but was unseated on petition on 25 April 1729. He was returned unopposed for Newtown at the 1734 British general election, he voted against the Administration on the Spanish convention in 1739 and was absent from the division on the place bill in 1740. In 1738, on the death of his father, he succeeded to his estates and political interests on the Isle of Wight.

He did not stand at the 1741 British general election but returned his brother General Henry Holmes for Newtown instead. Holmes made an agreement with Sir Robert Walpole to support the Government on condition he should become the Government's manager for Newtown and Yarmouth, the three Isle of Wight boroughs. After the fall of Walpole in 1742, he renewed the agreement with Pelham, it was accepted that he should have first use of the seats for himself and his family and at the 1747 general election, he was returned unopposed with his brother Henry, for Yarmouth. He did not have as much power as many borough-owners who could directly return MPs, but he exercised his influence in favour of government candidates, he was returned again as MP for Yarmouth in 1754 and 1761. He returned his brother Admiral Charles Holmes for Newport in 1758. Holmes was sufficiently valuable to the ministries of Pelham and Newcastle that he was able to ask for and receive secret service payments for each seat he secured.

He was given a peerage as Baron Holmes, of Kilmallock in the County of Limerick, on 11 September 1760. He was appointed Governor of the Isle of Wight from 6 April 1763. Holmes first wife died in 1743, he married as his second wife Catherine Leigh, daughter of John Leigh of Shorwell, Isle.of Wight. He was buried on 21 July, his only son by his first marriage predeceased him and the peerage became extinct on his death, but was revived in 1797 in favour of his nephew Leonard Holmes. Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III

Boo was a Pomeranian dog that became an Internet sensation. He was the subject of four photo-books; as of March 2016, Boo had over 17.5 million likes on Facebook. Boo was owned by Irene Ahn, a Facebook employee, the owner of Boo's older brother, Buddy. Boo belonged to a San Francisco-based Facebook employee who created a Facebook page for the dog with the statement "My name is Boo. I am a dog. Life is good." He became popular in October 2010 after singer Kesha sent a tweet that she had a new boyfriend, linking to the page. Chronicle Books, noticing that Boo had 5 million Facebook fans at the time, approached the owner to write a picture book. In August 2011, Boo: The Life of the World's Cutest Dog, written by his owner under the pen name J. H. Lee, was published; the book was published in ten languages. A second book followed, Boo: Little Dog in the Big City, as well as a calendar and plans for a cut-out book and additional children's books, his other merchandise includes. Boo's owners said. In April 2012, Boo was the subject of a death hoax.

Tweets followed. It was confirmed by the Chronicle Book staff that Boo was alive and well. In July 2012, Boo was named the Official Pet Liaison of Virgin America, which featured photos of him in an airplane along with advice for people traveling with pets, he modeled sunglasses for The Monocle Order, from the Blood and Tears line. Mike Isaac of All Things Digital outed Boo's owner as Irene Ahn, a Facebook employee, in August 2012. Manny the Frenchie Tuna Facebook page

Steingarten is a studio album by Pole. It was released by his own label, ~scape, in 2007. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 82% based on 10 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Tim O'Neil of PopMatters gave the album 8 stars out of 10, saying, "There's none of the indulgence that bedevils minimalism, as the album clocks in at a modest 45 minutes." He added, "Every track is just about a complete microcosm unto itself, unfolding with precision and lingering for just long enough for the listener to begin to get a grasp of the many subtleties on display, but not long enough for it to wear out its welcome."The Wire named it the 17th best album of 2007. Steingarten at Discogs

For the stream that flows from Johnson County, through Kansas City, referred to as the Big Blue see Blue River The Big Blue River is the largest tributary of the Kansas River. The river flows for 359 miles from central Nebraska into Kansas, until its confluence with the Kansas River at Manhattan, it was given its name by the Kansa tribe of Native Americans, who lived at its mouth from 1780 to 1830, who called it the Great Blue Earth River. The river passes through agricultural land; some of the larger towns along its course, in addition to Manhattan, include Beatrice, Nebraska. Shortly before intersecting with the Kansas River, the Big Blue discharges its waters into a reservoir called Tuttle Creek Lake, which lies northeast of Manhattan; the reservoir is a man-made flood-control measure, held back by a dam composed of the limestone and gypsum dredged out of the floodplain by bulldozers left to rust underneath the flooded area. The land surrounding the reservoir is a state park area, although the Great Flood of 1993 decimated much of the northern area.

The river continues as the outflow from Tuttle Creek Lake for five miles before intersecting with the Kansas River east of Manhattan. Nebraska and Kansas have entered into an agreement of appropriation where Nebraska has full use of the river's water, except that from May 1 to September 30 Nebraska must allow a certain variable flow to pass into Kansas. To date, there has been no shortage of water in the river. List of Kansas rivers Lakes and dams in Kansas List of Nebraska rivers U. S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Big Blue River