Fernando de Noronha is an archipelago of 21 islands and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, 354 km offshore from the Brazilian coast. The archipelago's name is a corruption of the name of the Portuguese merchant Fernão de Loronha, to whom it was given by the Portuguese crown for services rendered regarding wood imported from Brazil. Only the homonymous main island is inhabited; the archipelago's total area is 26 km2. The islands are administratively unique in Brazil, they form a "state district", not part of any municipality and is administered directly by the government of the state of Pernambuco. The state district's jurisdiction includes the remote Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago, located 625 kilometres northeast of Fernando de Noronha. 70% of the islands' area was established in 1988 as a national maritime park. In 2001, UNESCO designated it as a World Heritage Site because of the importance of its environment, its time zone is UTC−02:00 all year round. The islands of this archipelago are the visible parts of a range of submerged mountains.

It consists of 21 islands and rocks of volcanic origin. The main island has an area of 18 km2, being 3.5 km wide at its maximum. The base of this enormous volcanic formation is 756 metres below the surface; the volcanic rocks are of variable though silica-undersaturated character with basanite and phonolite among the lava types found. The main island, from which the group gets its name, makes up 91% of the total area; the central upland of the main island is called the Quixaba. The United Nations Environment Programme lists 15 possible endemic plant species, including species of the genera Capparis noronhae, Ceratosanthes noronhae, Cayaponia noronhae, Moriordica noronhae, Cereus noronhae, Palicourea noronhae, Guettarda noronhae, Bumelia noronhae, Physalis noronhae, Ficus noronhae; the islands have two endemic birds: the Noronha vireo. Both are present on the main island. In addition there is an endemic subspecies of eared dove. Subfossil remains of an extinct endemic rail have been found; the archipelago is an important site for breeding seabirds.

An endemic sigmodontine rodent, mentioned by Amerigo Vespucci, is now extinct. The islands have the Noronha wormlizard and the Noronha skink; the life above and below sea is the main attraction of the island. Sea turtles, cetaceans and many other species are observed; the climate is tropical, with two well-defined seasons for rainfall, if not temperature. The rainy season lasts from February to July; the temperature ranges, both diurnal and monthly, are unusually slight. Many controversies mark the discovery of the archipelago by Europeans. At least three names – São Lourenço, São João, Quaresma – have been associated with the island around the time of its discovery. Based on the written record, Fernando de Noronha island was discovered on August 10, 1503, by a Portuguese expedition and financed by a private commercial consortium headed by the Lisbon merchant Fernão de Loronha; the expedition was under the overall command of captain Gonçalo Coelho and carried the Italian adventurer Amerigo Vespucci aboard, who wrote an account of it.

The flagship of the expedition hit a reef and foundered near the island, the crew and contents had to be salvaged. On Coelho's orders, Vespucci anchored at the island, spent a week there, while the rest of the Coelho fleet went on south. In his letter to Soderini, Vespucci describes the uninhabited island and reports its name as the "island of St. Lawrence", its existence was reported to Lisbon sometime between and January 16, 1504, when King Manuel I of Portugal issued a charter granting the "island of St. John" as a hereditary captaincy to Fernão de Loronha; the date and new name in the charter has presented historians with a puzzle. As Vespucci did not return to Lisbon until September 1504, the discovery must have been earlier. Historians have hypothesized that a stray ship of the Coelho fleet, under an unknown captain, may have returned to the island to collect Vespucci, did not find him or anyone else there, went back to Lisbon by itself with the news; the captain who returned to Lisbon with the news is unknown.

This account, reconstructed from the written record, is marred by the cartographic record. An island, name

The Synagogue Shomré Hadas known as the Hollandse Synagoge. is a modern orthodox synagogue built in Antwerp, Belgium. The building is so named because it was commissioned by descendants of Jews who came to Antwerp from the Netherlands in the early 19th century, it was the first large synagogue in Antwerp. Today the synagogue is used for services only on Yom Kippur. Built by Jewish architect Joseph Hertogs in Moorish revival style, it was inaugurated on Bouwmeestersstraat 7, in 1893; the synagogue was damaged by bombings during World War II and in 1944, the building was hit by a Nazi V1 flying bomb.. It was renovated in 1958; the building is a protected monument since 17 September 1976. Although commissioned by an orthodox Jewish community, the synagogue has a pipe organ was built in the balcony, like for example in the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest, Hungary. History of the Jews in Antwerp Krinsky, Carol Herselle. Synagogues of Europe: architecture, meaning. Mineola, NY: Dover. Pp. 256–257. ISBN 978-0-486-29078-2.

"Beknopte Biografie van Joseph Hertogs". Archived from the original on 11 March 2012. Retrieved 23 June 2011. Vlaams Instituut voor het Onroerend Erfgoed. "De Inventaris van het Bouwkundig Erfgoed - Joodse Synagoge". Retrieved 23 June 2011. Kalmar, Ivan Davidson. "Moorish Style: Orientalism, the Jews, Synagogue Architecture". Jewish Social Studies: History Culture and Society. 7: 68. Doi:10.2979/JSS.2001.7.3.68. Archived from the original on 8 April 2008. Retrieved 19 March 2008. Media related to Hollandse synagoge at Wikimedia Commons Synagogue 360: 360° view of the interior of the Hollandse Synagogue

A compressed audio optical disc, MP3 CD, or MP3 CD-ROM or MP3 DVD is an optical disc that contains digital audio in the MP3 file format. Discs are written in the "Yellow Book" standard data format, as opposed to the Red Book standard audio format. Compressed audio files are supported by many modern CD players as well as DVD players. Disc players are capable of playing compressed formats, such as MP3, the most used format, as well as Ogg Vorbis, the proprietary Windows Media Audio and ATRAC; because of audio data compression, optical discs do not have to spin all of the time saving battery power. The audio is buffered in random-access memory, which provides protection against skipping; the number of files that a disc can hold depends on how the audio files are encoded and the length of the audio. A standard audio CD can hold about 18 audio programs, a 650-MB data CD containing mid-quality audio files can hold 9.5 hours of audio or about 138 audio tracks. ID3 tags stored in compressed audio files can be displayed by some players, some players can search for audio files within directories on a compressed audio optical disc.

There is no official standard for how audio files on a compressed audio optical CD are stored on discs. As such, the format expected by different players varies; this sometimes leads to incompatibilities and difficulty in playing discs because of filename length limits, sub-directory limits, number of files limits, special character bugs. Sometimes, pressed CDs containing MP3s can be used, since some CD-ROM video games can act as an "MP3 CD" for some users; some older classic CD-ROM games tend to use WAV files since WAV files were the biggest audio format throughout the 90s, in which WAV files on optical discs are compatible with CD players which have Yellow Book CD-ROM support. This technology is most used in audiobooks new on CD since 2000 or so. Since unabridged audiobooks can run into many hours length. CEA/APA has published the following standards on audiobooks. CEA-2003-C - Digital Audiobook File Format and Player Requirements CEA-2004, Audiobook Media and Player Compatibility. Longer runtime as per file compression 6 red book audio discs for the price of one Yellow Book, depending on file compression rates Longer battery life from fewer disc spins Discs marketed without "music" endorsement aren't rejected since Yellow Book mode is being used instead of Red Book audio mode.

Most disadvantages with compressed audio optical discs are present with CDs, DVDs in general. Compared to solid-state flash memory which can be rewritten a finite amount of about 100,000 times and hard drives which can be rewritten a near-infinite number of times, optical discs with compressed audio on them are either non-rewritable, or can only be rewritten about 1000 times, which includes having to erase the entire volume before re-writing. In some cases 1000 write/erase cycles on RW optical discs vs. 100,000+ write/erase cycles on flash memory can be somewhat of a moot point with applications that have less demand for usage. Another issue re-writable optical discs suffer from, is that the re-writable discs have less compatibility with older disc players, though most CD and DVD players that support MP3s and other compressed audio will support RW discs easily; the dependency of moving parts for the associated equipment guarantees less runtime than solid-state Portable media players for battery life reasons, as well as the overall service life.

When being looped, an optical disc player can fail in less than one month when spinning uninterrupted, solid-state portable media players can run for as long as 6 months uninterrupted without failure. Yellow Book optical disc ROMs with compressed audio may free up as many as 5 Red Book audio CDs, but they still demand lots of shelf space, compared to external hard drives and solid-state flash memory. Unlike mechanical disks with permanent housing such as hard drives, solid-state devices like flash memory which has inexpensive but tough housing, optical discs have a reflective surface that can get damaged at low thresholds of surface damage, in which if damage is just accidental, it could mean rendering it unusable; the repeated handling of discs between jewel case and disc drive exposes the disc to dust, makes the disc liable to be damaged permanently. Note that some CD and DVD discs have defective aluminum layers that can flake, damage the disc naturally. If an archival-grade disc is used, such as gold CD or M-DISC, the disc can last far longer than hard drives or flash memory.

Repeated insertion and removal of optical discs can occur when somebody has to deal with multi-gigabyte collections which can span across as many as 10 CD-Rs or more when lots more gigabytes were to be used. Sometimes when somebody is looking for a specific MP3 or similar. Recordable Blu-ray Discs can somewhat solve this problem, but they too suffer from most other disadvantages; the high cost of stand-alone Blu-ray burners, as well as the higher cost of equipment with BD-ROM drives can negate buying sold-state flash memory instead, of which the re-writability of flash memory negates Blu-ray's apparent advantages. Red Book: Compact Disc Digit