A drop kick is a type of kick in various codes of football. It involves a player dropping the ball and kicking it after it bounces off the ground. Drop kicks are most used as a method of restarting play and scoring points in rugby union and rugby league. Association football goalkeepers return the ball to play with drop kicks; the kick was once in wide use in both Australian rules football and gridiron football, but is today seen in either sport. The drop kick technique in rugby codes is to hold the ball with one end pointing downwards in two hands above the kicking leg; the ball is dropped onto the ground in front of the kicking foot, which makes contact at the moment or fractionally after the ball touches the ground, called the half-volley. The kicking foot makes contact with the ball on the instep. In a rugby union kick-off, or drop out, the kicker aims to kick the ball high but not a great distance, so strikes the ball after it has started to bounce off the ground, so the contact is made close to the bottom of the ball.

In rugby league, drop kicks are mandatory to restart play from the goal line after the defending team is tackled or knocks on in the in-goal area or the defending team causes the ball to go dead or into touch-in-goal. Drop kicks are mandatory to restart play from the 20 metre line after an unsuccessful penalty goal attempt goes dead or into touch-in-goal and to score a drop goal in open play, worth one point. Drop kicks are optional for a penalty kick to score a penalty goal and when kicking for touch from a penalty, although the option of a punt kick is taken instead. In rugby union, a drop kick is used to score a drop goal, it was one of only two ways to score points, along with the place kick. Drop kicks are mandatory from the centre spot to start a half, from the centre spot to restart the game after points have been scored, to restart play from the 22-metre line after the ball is touched down or made dead in the in-goal area by the defending team when the attacking team kicked or took the ball into the in-goal area, to score a drop goal in open play, worth three points.

Drop kicks are optional. The usage of drop kicks in rugby sevens is the same as in rugby union, except that drop kicks are used for all conversion attempts and for penalty kicks, both of which must be taken within 40 seconds of the try being scored or the award of the penalty. In both American and Canadian football, one method of scoring a field goal or extra point is by drop-kicking the football through the goal, it contrasts with the punt, wherein the player kicks the ball without letting it hit the ground first. A drop kick is more difficult; the drop kick was used in early football as a surprise tactic. The ball would be snapped or lateraled to a back, who would fake a run or pass, but would kick the field goal instead; this method of scoring worked well in the 1920s and early 1930s, when the football was rounder at the ends. Early football stars such as Charles Brickley, Frank Hudson, Jim Thorpe, Paddy Driscoll, Al Bloodgood were skilled drop-kickers. Driscoll's 55 yard drop kick in 1924 stood as the unofficial record for field goal range until Bert Rechichar kicked a 56-yard field goal in 1953.

In 1934, the ball was made more pointed at the ends. The creation of the pointed football is credited to Shorty Ray, at the time a college football official and the NFL's head of officiating; this made passing the ball easier, as was its intent, but made the drop kick obsolete, as the more pointed ball did not bounce up from the ground reliably. The drop kick was supplanted by the place kick, which cannot be attempted out of a formation used as a running or passing set; the drop kick remains in the rules, but is seen, effective when attempted. In Canadian football the drop kick can be taken from any point on the field, unlike placekicks which must be attempted behind the line of scrimmage. Before the NFL–AFL merger, the last successful drop kick in the NFL was executed by Scooter McLean of the Chicago Bears in their 37–9 victory over the New York Giants on December 21, 1941, in the NFL Championship game at Chicago's Wrigley Field. Though it was not part of the NFL at the time, the All-America Football Conference saw its last drop kick November 28, 1948, when Joe Vetrano of the San Francisco 49ers drop kicked an extra point after a muffed snap against the Cleveland Browns.

To date, the only successful drop kick in the NFL since the 1940s was by Doug Flutie, the backup quarterback of the New England Patriots, against the Miami Dolphins on January 1, 2006, for an extra point after a touchdown. Flutie had estimated "an 80 percent chance" of making the drop kick, called to give Flutie, 43 at the time, the opportunity to make a historic kick in his final NFL game. Dallas Cowboys punter Mat McBriar attempted a maneuver similar to a drop kick during the 2010 Thanksgiving Day game after a botched punt attempt, but the ball bounced several times before the kick

The Metro Mass Transit Limited is a public transportation company in Ghana. The company was set us to provide reliable and affordable means of transport for commuters within villages and cities as well as provide intercity movement. Public bus companies have operated in Ghana since the Ominibus Service Authority started its operations in 1927; the OSA contributed a lot to the Ghanaian society in terms of public transport. However, OSA's assets were divested in 1995. Metro Mass Transit arose from an idea from President John Kufuor who spoke of the need of introducing a mass transit bus system in the cities of Ghana at his inauguration speech on 7 January 2001. President Kufuor directed the re-introduction of public mass transport in the metropolitan and municipal areas to ensure the safe, affordable and reliable transport of commuters. Since the government has been promoting public mass transportation. Metro Mass Transit Limited was incorporated in 2003; the shareholders include the SIC Insurance Company, National Investment Bank, Ghana Oil Company, Agriculture Development Bank, Prudential Bank Limited and Social Security and National Insurance Trust.

These together have 55% shareholding. The Government of Ghana holds the remaining 45% shares; the Managing Director of Metro Mass Transit is alleged to have been caught in a secret audio recording, where he tried to bribe or pay off the whistle blower on how he the MD has sold vehicles that could be repaired as spoiled vehicles. Since the introduction of the Metro Mass Transit, the following areas have benefited from the service: Accra Metropolitan Area Tema Metropolitan Area Kumasi Metropolitan Area Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Area Tamale Metropolitan Area New Juaben Municipal Area Sunyani Municipal Area Cape Coast Metropolitan Area Agona West Municipal Area Ho Municipal Area Wa Municipal Area Bolgatanga Municipal Birim Central Municipal Area MMT at the moment has a fleet of buses made up of Yaxing, DAF, Neoplan VDL, VDL Jonckheere, VDL Dutch, Iveco buses, it is expected that the size of the fleet will reach 1,000 by the end of the year 2008. The Fiat-Iveco buses were donated by the Italian Government and helped a great deal during the pilot phase.

These buses are being phased out. The Yaxing buses were supported by the Ghana Government. On 13 April 2006, MMT received 150 Yaxing buses from the Ministry of Roads and Transport to augment the MMT fleet; this brought the total number of Yaxing buses received to 400 and the total operational MMT fleet to over 600. As of early 2016 all Yaxing buses are no longer in service. All DAF & VDL buses have been financed through an ORET Grant agreement between the Dutch Government and Ghana. Thirty-five percent of the value is a gift of the Dutch Government whilst 65% has been provided as a loan. All DAF Neoplaan & VDL Neoplan buses are manufactured at the Neoplan factory in Kumasi. MMT carried 40 million passengers nationwide from January to October 2007 over 12,000,000 kilometres. MMT buses have carried 36,456,300 passengers nationwide and have given 3,724,644 school children free ride. A pilot Bus Rapid Transit project in Accra, connecting Adenta with the Central Business District and the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, carrying over 20,000 passengers a day commenced in September 2005.

The buses operate tickets are sold in advance. The mission of MMT is to provide an efficient urban mass transport system in Ghana through the use of buses. To build a dominant, efficient and affordable yet an economically sustainable mass transit public bus company in Ghana. MMT aims to introduce the Bus Rapid Transit System into Ghana. MMT has grown to be one of the major employers in Ghana. MMT's current staff strength of around 2,474 is expected to exceed 3000 by the end of 2008 with the arrival of about 258 buses. Janitorial services, bus washing and cleaning are outsourced to third parties providing employment for additional 500 persons. On account of the construction of the buses in Kumasi, several indirect jobs have been created in the manufacturing sector. In general productivity of the workforce in Ghana would increase, since MMT can offer fast and reliable transport from home to the workplace. Moreover, the operations of MMT would empower the Ghanaian community by making job, shop and healthcare better accessible.

In the year 2013, MMT won the International Transport Awards. It won the overall award in the National Road Safety awards scheme on October 2013 in the Eastern Region of Ghana

WeeChat is a free and open-source Internet Relay Chat client, designed to be light and fast. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License 3 and has been developed since 2003. WeeChat comes with a default ncurses interface, but through the use of the relay plugin, it is possible to use other interfaces. WeeChat's features include: IPv6 SSL Proxy connections The screen can be split up to display multiple windows at the same time. Incremental text search Aspell support for spell checking Scripting support for many languages (Perl, Ruby, Tcl, Scheme with GNU Guile, JavaScript with V8, PHP FIFO pipes for remote control Support for multiple character encodings User-defined aliases and shortkeys WeeChat supports most platforms and operating systems, including Linux, BSD, macOS, Debian GNU/Hurd, HP-UX, Solaris, QNX, Microsoft Windows. Binary packages and builds of WeeChat are available for installation as well as the source code for self compilation; this includes most Linux distributions and BSD package management systems, such as Debian, Mandriva Linux, Gentoo Linux, Arch Linux, FreeBSD via the FreeBSD Ports system, OpenBSD via the Ports collection, as well on NetBSD via Pkgsrc.

In his review for Free Software Magazine, Martin Brown graded WeeChat with 43 points out of a possible 50, noting that "At first glance, WeeChat is not as friendly or easy to use as Rhapsody", but, "There’s a lot of hidden power built into the application", including Python, Perl and Lua extensions which can be selected at installation. Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients List of Internet Relay Chat commands irssi Official website

INS Purak is a self-propelled fuel carrier barge built by Modest Infrastructure Ltd in Bhavnagar, for the Indian Navy. The auxiliary ship has a capacity to carry 500 tonnes of fuel. Purak has all of the essential communication and navigation equipment; the wheel house is air conditioned and the vessel is classed under IRS with Class notation: +SUL + IY. for carriage of oil with flash point above 60 Degree. It is named after a previous auxiliary vessel of same name built by Mazagon Dock Limited, Bombay which served the Indian Navy. Purak is part of a series of five barges being built by the Modest Infrastructure Limited, its sister ship is INS Puran. It was inducted into the Indian Navy on 11 April 2012 at Naval Dockyard, Mumbai by Rear Admiral Deepak Bali, Flag Officer and Concepts, Indian Navy. INS Puran INS Poshak Ambika class replenishment ship Hooghly class fuel barge

Antun Sorkočević, was a diplomat, writer and member of Ragusan nobility. He was Medo Pucić's cousin, a good friend of Marko Bruerović. Sorkočević was born in Dubrovnik, his father was mother, Paula Bonda. Like his father, he was a composer. Antun studied in Rome, after 1806 led the Republic of Ragusa's diplomatic representation in Paris where he was the last ambassador of the Republic in France, where he spent 35 years of his life. In Paris he wrote Postanak i propast Republike Dubrovačke in which he proposed that Dubrovnik should join Boka Kotorska and Serbia to make it one nation; the pamphlet was banned in Austria. He put forth the idea of creating a separate region comprising the Republic and Boka Kotorska under the Austrian Empire after French occupation of these lands. Antun first married Catterina Schneider in 1820 in Venice, his second wife was Paola Labbia from Venice. He had one daughter, whose mother remains unknown. Author of numerous publications, he became a member of Académie Celtique in 1806 and the Société des Antiquaires in 1828.

Among other books he published such as Mémoire sur la langue et les moeurs des peuples slaves, Fragments sur l'histoire et la littérature de la République de Raguse et sur la langue slave. In 1838, he translated Ivan Gundulić's Osman into French and became the author of the earliest piano sonatas, he died in Paris. His collection contains abundant information relevant to the two composers' life and work. Antun wrote numerous pieces for chamber music. Fragments sur l'histoire politique et littéraire de l'ancienne république de Raguse et sur la langue slave. Paris, 1839. Republic of Ragusa List of notable Ragusans Dubrovnik Dalmatia History of Dalmatia Luka Sorkočević House of Sorkočević

Typhoon Conson, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Frank, was the first of the record ten typhoons to impact Japan during the 2004 Pacific typhoon season. Developing out of a tropical depression near the northern Philippines in early June, Conson traveled towards the north. Strengthening, the storm reached typhoon status late on June 7 according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center and several hours according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. After turning towards the northeast, the typhoon brushed Taiwan and reached its peak intensity with winds of 150 km/h on June 9. After reaching its peak, Conson weakened, passing through Okinawa before being downgraded to a tropical storm the next day. On June 11, the storm made landfall as a minimal tropical storm in the Kōchi Prefecture just before becoming extratropical; the extratropical remnants continued towards the northeast and were last mentioned on June 14 crossing the international date line. Typhoon Conson brought heavy rains and high winds to the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan.

Flooding in the Philippines killed two people and caused about PHP1.6 million in damages. However, some reports state. In the Ryukyu Islands, the storm brought heavy rains and high winds to several islands, damaging crops and leaving many without power; as it became extratropical, Conson caused moderate damage in southern Japan, including a few landslides which prompted evacuations. Throughout Japan, losses reached 355.7 million yen. Early on June 4, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center began monitoring an area of low pressure associated with deep convection about 780 km south-southeast of Hong Kong; that day, following notable development, they classified the system as Tropical Depression 07W. At the same time, the Japan Meteorological Agency began monitoring the system as a tropical depression. Moving towards the southeast, 07W strengthened, being classified a tropical storm by the JTWC at 1200 UTC the next day. Around the same time, the storm entered the Philippine Atmospheric and Astronomical Services Administration's area of responsibility and was given the local name Frank.

Twenty-four hours 07W made its closest approach to the Philippines, passing within 295 km of Manila. A few hours the JMA upgraded the depression to a tropical storm and gave it the name Conson. A ridge located over the central Philippines caused Conson to turn towards the north. Continuing to intensify, the JTWC assessed the storm to have reached typhoon status at 1800 UTC on June 7; the JMA upgraded the storm to a typhoon about twelve hours later. A 28 km wide eye developed. Forecasts showed the typhoon making landfall in southern Taiwan but the turn towards the northeast spared the island from a direct hit. Shortly after being classified as a typhoon by the JMA, the JTWC upgraded Conson to a Category 2 typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale with winds of 155 km/h; the eye became disorganized and the cloud tops around the center warmed. However, the storm reorganized the next day and was upgraded to a Category 3 typhoon by the JTWC with winds of 185 km/h; the intensification was the result of the influence of an approaching shortwave trough which enhanced poleward outflow.

Around this time, PAGASA issued their final advisory on Typhoon'Frank' as it moved out of their area of responsibility. The strengthening was the result of Conson passing over the warm waters of the Kuroshio Current; the forward motion on the typhoon began to increase as it interacted with a baroclinic zone. Shortly after, the JMA assessed the storm to have reached its peak intensity with winds of 150 km/h and a minimum pressure of 960 hPa; that day, the storm passed over Okinawa as it weakened. By June 10, Conson began to undergo an extratropical transition. Continuing increase in forward speed caused the low to become exposed from shower and thunderstorm activity on the southern edge of the circulation. Around 1200 UTC, the center of circulation became separated from deep convection, leading to the typhoon being downgraded to a tropical storm by both agencies several hours later. Early on June 11, the JTWC reported that the storm had completed its extratropical transition just south of Japan.

However, the JMA kept Conson has a tropical cyclone through its landfall in Kōchi Prefecture as a minimal tropical storm. Shortly after landfall, it was classified as an extratropical cyclone. Continuing towards the northeast, the storm remained weak and was last mentioned as it crossed the international date line on June 14 near the Aleutian Islands; the Japan Meteorological Agency uses 10-minute sustained winds, while the Joint Typhoon Warning Center uses 1-minute sustained winds. The conversion factor between the two is 1.14x. JMA's peak intensity for Conson was 150 km/h 10-minute sustained, or 160 km/h 1-minute sustained; the JTWC's peak intensity for Conson was 185 km/h 1-minute sustained, or 155 km/h 10-minute sustained. The National Meteorological Center of China estimated a peak intensity of 150 km/h 10-minute sustained, or 160 km/h 1-minute sustained; the Hong Kong Observatory assessed Conson to be weaker than other agencies, with peak winds estimated at 130 km/h 10-minute sustained, or 150 km/h 1-minute sustained.

On June 7, the Philippine Atmospheric and Astronom