Strasbourg Cathedral or the Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg known as Strasbourg Minster, is a Catholic cathedral in Strasbourg, France. Although considerable parts of it are still in Romanesque architecture, it is considered to be among the finest examples of high, or late, Gothic architecture. Erwin von Steinbach is credited for major contributions from 1277 to his death in 1318. At 142 metres, it was the world's tallest building from 1647 to 1874, when it was surpassed by St. Nikolai's Church, Hamburg. Today it is the sixth-tallest church in the world and the highest extant structure built in the Middle Ages. Described by Victor Hugo as a "gigantic and delicate marvel", by Goethe as a "sublimely towering, wide-spreading tree of God", the cathedral is visible far across the plains of Alsace and can be seen from as far off as the Vosges Mountains or the Black Forest on the other side of the Rhine. Sandstone from the Vosges Mountains used in construction gives the cathedral its characteristic pink hue.

The construction, maintenance, of the cathedral is supervised by the "Foundation of Our Lady" since 1224. Archaeological excavations below and around the cathedral have been conducted in 1896–1897, 1907, 1923–1924, 1947–1948, between 1966 and 1972, between 2012 and 2014; the site of the current cathedral was used for several successive religious buildings, starting from the Argentoratum period, when a Roman sanctuary occupied the site up to the building, there today. It is known that a cathedral was erected by the bishop Saint Arbogast of the Strasbourg diocese at the end of the seventh century, on the base of a temple dedicated to the Virgin Mary, but nothing remains of it today. Strasbourg's previous cathedral, of which remains dating back to the late 4th century or early 5th century were unearthed in 1948 and 1956, was situated at the site of the current Église Saint-Étienne. In the eighth century, the first cathedral was replaced by a more important building that would be completed under the reign of Charlemagne.

Bishop Remigius von Straßburg wished to be buried in the crypt, according to his will dated 778. It was in this building that the Oaths of Strasbourg were pronounced in 842. Excavations revealed that this Carolingian cathedral had three apses. A poem described this cathedral as decorated with precious stones by the bishop Ratho; the basilica caught fire on multiple occasions, in 873, 1002, 1007. In 1015, bishop Werner von Habsburg laid the first stone of a new cathedral on the ruins of the Carolingian basilica, he constructed a cathedral in the Romanesque style of architecture. That cathedral burned to the ground in 1176 because at that time the naves were covered with a wooden framework. After that disaster, bishop Heinrich von Hasenburg decided to construct a new cathedral, to be more beautiful than that of Basel, just being finished. Construction of the new cathedral began on the foundations of the preceding structure, did not end until centuries later. Werner's cathedral's crypt, which had not burned, was expanded westwards.

The construction began with the choir and the north transept in a Romanesque style, reminiscent of and inspired by the Imperial Cathedrals in its monumentality and height. But in 1225, a team coming from Chartres revolutionized the construction by suggesting a Gothic architecture style; the parts of the nave, begun in Romanesque style were torn down and in order to find money to finish the nave, the Chapter resorted to Indulgences in 1253. The money was kept by the Œuvre Notre-Dame, which hired architects and stone workers; the influence of the Chartres masters was felt in the sculptures and statues: the "Pillar of Angels", a representation of the Last Judgment on a pillar in the southern transept, facing the Astronomical clock, owes to their expressive style. Like the city of Strasbourg, the cathedral connects German and French cultural influences, while the eastern structures, e.g. the choir and south portal, still have Romanesque features, with more emphasis placed on walls than on windows.

Above all, the famous west front, decorated with thousands of figures, is a masterpiece of the Gothic era. The tower is one of the first to rely on craftsmanship, with the final appearance being one with a high degree of linearity captured in stone. While previous façades were drawn prior to construction, Strasbourg has one of the earliest façades whose construction is inconceivable without prior drawing. Strasbourg and Cologne Cathedral together represent some of the earliest uses of architectural drawing; the work of Professor Robert O. Bork of the University of Iowa suggests that the design of the Strasbourg façade, while seeming random in its complexity, can be constructed using a series of rotated octagons; the west front of the cathedral was the work of chief architect Erwin von Steinbach. Erwin von Steinbach's son Johannes von Steinbach served as magister operis from 1332 until his death in 1341. From 1341 until 1372, the post of chief architect was held by a Master Gerlach about whom little is known, in the years 1383–1387, a Michael von Freiburg is recorded as magister operis.

The octagonal north tower as it can be seen is the combined work of architects Ulrich

A computer appliance is a computer with software or firmware, designed to provide a specific computing resource. Such devices became known as appliances because of the similarity in role or management to a home appliance, which are closed and sealed, are not serviceable by the user or owner; the hardware and software are delivered as an integrated product and may be pre-configured before delivery to a customer, to provide a turn-key solution for a particular application. Unlike general purpose computers, appliances are not designed to allow the customers to change the software and the underlying operating system, or to flexibly reconfigure the hardware. Another form of appliance is the virtual appliance, which has similar functionality to a dedicated hardware appliance, but is distributed as a software virtual machine image for a hypervisor-equipped device. Traditionally, software applications run on top of a general-purpose operating system, which uses the hardware resources of the computer to meet the computing needs of the user.

The main issue with the traditional model is related to complexity. It is complex to integrate the operating system and applications with a hardware platform, complex to support it afterwards. By constraining the variations of the hardware and software, the appliance becomes deployable, can be used without nearly as wide IT knowledge. Additionally, when problems and errors appear, the supporting staff rarely needs to explore them to understand the matter thoroughly; the staff needs training on the appliance management software to be able to resolve most of problems. In all forms of the computer appliance model, customers benefit from easy operations; the appliance has one combination of hardware and operating system and application software, pre-installed at the factory. This prevents customers from needing to perform complex integration work, simplifies troubleshooting. In fact, this "turnkey operation" characteristic is the driving benefit that customers seek when purchasing appliances. To be considered an appliance, the device needs to be integrated with software, both are supplied as a package.

This distinguishes appliances from "home grown" solutions, or solutions requiring complex implementations by integrators or Value-added resellers. The appliance approach helps to decouple the various systems and applications, for example in the data center. Once a resource is decoupled, in theory it can be centralized to become shared among many systems, centrally managed and optimized, all without requiring changes to any other system; the major disadvantage of deploying a computer appliance is that since they are designed to supply a specific resource, they most include a customized operating system running over specialized hardware, neither of which are to be compatible with the other systems deployed. Customers lose flexibility. On the other hand, a proprietary embedded operating system, or operating system within an application, can make the appliance much more secure from common cyber attacks; the variety of computer appliances reflects the wide range of computing resources they provide to applications.

Some examples: Storage appliances provide massive amounts of storage and additional higher level functionality for multiple attached systems using the transparent local storage area networks computer paradigm. Network appliances are general purpose routers which provide firewall protection, Transport Layer Security, access to specialized networking protocols and bandwidth multiplexing for the multiple systems they front-end. Backup and disaster recovery appliances computer appliances that are integrated backup software and backup targets, sometimes with hypervisors to support local DR of protected servers, they are a gateway to a full DRaaS solution. Firewall- and Security appliances computer appliances that are designed to protect computer networks from unwanted traffic. IIoT and MES Gateway appliances Computer appliances that are designed to translate data bidirectionally between control systems and enterprise systems. Proprietary, firmware applications running on the appliance use point-to-point connections to translate data between field devices in their native automation protocols and MES systems through their APIs, ODBC, or RESTful interfaces.

Anti-spam appliances for e-mail spam Software appliances a software application that might be combined with just enough operating system for it to run on industry standard hardware or in a virtual machine. In essence, the software distribution or the firmware, running a computer appliance. Virtual machine appliances consist of a "hypervisor style" embedded operating system running on appliance hardware; the hypervisor layer is matched to the hardware of the appliance, cannot be varied by the customer, but the customer may load other operating systems and applications onto the appliance in the form of virtual machines. Aside from its deployment within data centers, many computer appliances are directly used by the general public; these include: Digital video recorder Residential gateway Network-attached storage Video game consoleConsumer uses stress the need for an appliance to have easy installation and operation, with little or no technical knowledge being necessary. The world of industrial automation has been rich in appliances.

These appliances have been hardened to withstand vibration extremes. These appliances are highly configurable, enabling customization to meet a wide variety

John Lawrence "Laurie" Hickson was an English rugby union footballer who played in the 1880s and 1890s. He played at representative level for England, Yorkshire, at club level for Bradford FC, a forward, e.g. front row, lock, or back row. Prior to Tuesday 27 August 1895, Bradford FC was a rugby union club, it became a rugby league club, since 1907 it has been the association football club Bradford Park Avenue. John Hickson was born in Clapham Common, his birth was registered in Wandsworth, he died aged 58 in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire. Hickson made his international début while at Bradford FC on Saturday 8 January 1887 at Stradey Park, Llanelli in the Wales versus England match. Subsequent caps were awarded in 1887 against Ireland, Scotland. England did not play international rugby for two years and in 1890 he was again selected to play against Wales, he played his last match for England on Saturday 15 March 1890 at Rectory Field, Blackheath in the England versus Ireland match. Of the 6 matches he played.

When Bradford FC converted from the rugby union code to the rugby league code on Tuesday 27 August 1895, Laurie Hickson would have been 33. He could have been both a rugby union and rugby league footballer for Bradford FC. Search for "Hickson" at rugbyleagueproject.org Biography of Richard Thomas Dutton Budworth with an England team photograph including John Laurence Hickson Photograph "Bradford's Yorkshire Rugby Union Cup winning side - Bradford's only Yorkshire Cup winning side of the Rugby Union era. - 01/01/1884" at rlhp.co.uk Photograph "Laurie Hickson - Captained Yorkshire and played for England. He was president of the Yorkshire RFU. - 01/01/1889" at rlhp.co.uk Photograph "Bradford c.1888 - This team contained six England internationals. - 01/01/1888" at rlhp.co.uk