Nikita Singh is an Indian novelist. She has written nine novels including If It's Not Forever , Love@Facebook , Right Here Right Now , Accidentally in Love… With Him? Again? and The Unreasonable Fellows . In February 2013, Someone Like You, a book she co-wrote with Durjoy Datta, was released by Penguin India. It debuted at No. 5 at Hindustan Times Bestseller list.

Early life and Career

Nikita Singh was born in Patna, Bihar, where she spent the first four years of her life. She then relocated to Indore, where she went to primary school. She completed her schooling at Bridgeford School, Tupudana, Ranchi, in 2008. She graduated in pharmacy at the Acropolis Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research in Indore in 2012. She is currently pursuing master's degree in creative writing from The New School, New York City.

She signed a contract with Penguin Books India in 2011 and also joined Grapevine India. She wrote her first book Love @ Facebook when 19 years old and was studying pharmacy. Love @ Facebook is a young adult book about a nineteen-year-old girl, who falls in love with a VJ, after befriending him on Facebook. Under the pseudonym Sidharth Oberoi she has also contributed to the books in "The Backbenchers" series, where she wrote the second book of the series, The Backbenchers: The Missed Call, together with Durjoy Datta. The book was released in June 2012. Singh received a Live India Young Achievers Award in 2013.

In September 2011, the sequel to Singh’s Love @ Facebook, Accidentally In Love..With Him? Again?, was published. The novel is aimed at an older audience than Love @ Facebook. In February 2012, If It's Not Forever...It's Not Love, which Sing co-authored with Durjoy Datta was published. The book is about a real life incident, the Delhi High Court Blast, which occurred on 7 September 2011. Deb, who was there when the blast happened, stumbled upon a half burnt diary, which had a love story written in it, that Deb decides to chase.

Singh has also spoken on various TEDx conferences in colleges across India. She is also an editor in Grapevine India. Her latest book Like a Love Song was released in March 2016.

Bibliography

• Love @ Facebook (2011)
• Accidentally in Love… With Him? Again? (2011)
• If It's Not Forever… It's Not Love (2012)
• The Promise (2012)
• Someone Like You (2013)
• The Unreasonable Fellows (2013)
• Right Here Right Now (2014)
• After All This Time (2015)
• Like A Love Song (2016)
• Every Time It Rains (2017)

References

External links

• Official website

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Adrián Savin González (born May 8, 1982), also known by his nicknames A-Gon and Titán, is a Mexican-American professional baseball first baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball (MLB).

González was the first overall pick in the 2000 Major League Baseball draft by the Florida Marlins. He was traded to the Texas Rangers, and later to the San Diego Padres, where he was an All-Star selection four times and two-time Gold Glove winner. The four-time Padres team Most Valuable Player (MVP) was traded to the Boston Red Sox before entering the final year of his contract during the 2010 offseason and traded again to the Dodgers in August 2012.

González was born in the United States, but played for Mexico in the 2006, 2009, 2013, and the 2017 editions of the World Baseball Classic.

Early life

Adrian Gonzalez was born in San Diego, California to David and Alba Gonzalez, both Mexican natives. Gonzalez is the youngest of three boys; his brothers are David Jr. and Edgar, a former big leaguer. After his birth, his parents moved the family to Tijuana, where his father owned an air-conditioner business. The three boys grew up playing baseball in Mexico, where their father had been a member of the Mexican national baseball team. In 1990 the family returned to the United States, settling in Bonita, California.

While Adrian was drafted by the Florida Marlins out of high school, his brother Edgar attended San Diego State University and was selected by the Tampa Bay Rays in the 30th round of the 2000 draft. Edgar debuted in the major leagues as a utility man with the San Diego Padres in 2008, joining his brother as a teammate.

In 2012 David and Alba Gonzalez were named 2012 George and Barbara Bush Little League Parents of the Year. In November 2012, Adrian Gonzalez was honored as one of 30 "exemplary citizens" by the Mayor of Tijuana in an official ceremony.

High school and early career

Gonzalez was projected to be a late first-round pick out of Eastlake High School in Chula Vista, California, but he advanced with his senior year performance. In June 2000, Gonzalez became the first infield position player to be drafted first overall since Alex Rodriguez in 1993. He was given a $3 million signing bonus by the Florida Marlins. While in the Marlins organization, Gonzalez played with the Gulf Coast League Marlins, Kane County Cougars, Utica Blue Sox, Portland Sea Dogs (2002), Albuquerque Isotopes (2003), and Carolina Mudcats (2003). With the A level Kane County Cougars in his 2nd professional season, Gonzalez hit .312 with 17 home runs and 103 RBIs in 127 games. As a result, he was selected by the Midwest League as the Most Valuable Player & Top Prospect in the league. He also played in the All-Star Futures Game.

Professional career

Texas Rangers (2004â€"2005)

After a wrist injury, the Marlins felt Gonzalez would be hindered swinging the bat, so the Marlins included Gonzalez in a June 2003 trade with the Texas Rangers, along with Ryan Snare and minor leaguer Will Smith, to acquire a relief pitcher, Ugueth Urbina, to aid their championship drive. Gonzalez played with the Rangers' Class AA team, the Frisco Roughriders until he made his Major League debut against the Seattle Mariners on April 18, 2004. He was hitless in 3 at-bats. He recorded his first base hit on April 20 against Ramón Ortiz of the Anaheim Angels and his first home run on April 25 off Kevin Jarvis of the Seattle Mariners. He played in 16 games for Texas in 2004 and in 43 games in 2005, with a combined batting average of .229 and 7 homers.

San Diego Padres (2006â€"2010)

After the season, Gonzalez was traded to the San Diego Padres along with pitcher Chris Young and outfielder Terrmel Sledge. In return, the Rangers received Adam Eaton and Akinori Otsuka. Originally seen as an eventual replacement for Ryan Klesko at first base, Gonzalez was given the job when Klesko underwent shoulder surgery.

With extended playing time at first base in 2006, Gonzalez continued to improve his hitting and defense. On July 23, 2006, he was named the NL Player of the Week. In his first full season, he led the Padres in batting average (.304) and home runs (24). He was the first player in Petco Park history to have more than one multiple home run game. He was named the Padres' MVP for 2006.

On March 31, 2007, Gonzalez agreed to a $9.5 million, four-year deal, with a club option for $5.5 million in 2011. In the 2007 season, he led the Padres in home runs again, with 30, and had a team-high 100 RBIs. He led all Major League first basemen with 161 games and a career-high 46 doubles.

In the 2008 season, Gonzalez finished with a .279 average and once again led the Padres with 36 HRs and 119 RBIs. He was elected to the 2008 MLB All-Star Game as a reserve. He went 1 for 3 with a single and a sacrifice fly, scoring Miguel Tejada of the Houston Astros. He won his first Gold Glove Award in 2008 at first base. Gonzalez set career highs in games played (162), home runs (36), RBI (119), runs scored (103), walks (74) and slugging percentage (.510). He was named the Padres MVP for the second time.

Gonzalez played winter ball in the Mexican Pacific League with the Venados de Mazatlán. In the 2009 Caribbean Series, he led his team past the Dominican Republic's Tigres del Licey with a record-setting 3 home runs on February 4.

Gonzalez hit 23 homers and led Major League Baseball in that category at the end of May 2009. This despite playing his home games at Petco Park, which Padres statisticians describe as an "extreme pitcher's park." On May 18, Gonzalez was described as being one of the two most underrated players in the National League according to a poll of Major League executives and managers conducted by MLB.com. On April 1, Gonzalez was named the NL Co-Player of the Week for the second time in his career. During that week, Gonzalez hit four home runs, tallied 10 RBIs, and had a 1.000 slugging percentage. Gonzalez was elected to the 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game after voting by fellow players, managers and coaches. He subsequently participated in that year's Home Run Derby where he hit two home runs in the first round. On August 1, Gonzalez finished 6-for-6 with three RBI as the Padres topped the Milwaukee Brewers 13â€"6. Gonzalez's six hits are the most by any Padre in a nine-inning ga me. Three others have accomplished the feat, but did it in extra-inning contests. Gonzalez hit five singles and a double.

He led the majors in walks in 2009, with 119, while hitting 40 home runs for the first time in his career. He was named the Padres team MVP for 2009, his third time honored.

Gonzalez started the 2010 season playing well. On May 24, he was named the NL Player of the Week for the fourth time in his career. On June 2, Gonzalez hit a walk-off grand slam in extra innings to lead his team toward a 5â€"1 victory over the New York Mets. In July, Gonzalez was elected to participate in his third consecutive All-Star game.

During the 2010 season, Gonzalez had 176 hits in 591 at-bats, good for a .298 batting average, his highest since hitting .304 in his rookie season (2006). He had 93 walks and 114 strikeouts. His 93 walks put him in third place in the NL behind only Prince Fielder (114) and Albert Pujols (103). He finished with 31 home runs and 101 RBI, the third time in his career he had 100 RBI or more. Gonzalez played in 160 games on the year, tying him with Rickie Weeks for 5th in the NL. He scored 87 runs on the season, compiling 302 total bases, which also tied him with Weeks, for 6th in the NL. Gonzalez was named team MVP for the third consecutive year and the fourth time overall with the Padres.

Boston Red Sox (2011â€"2012)

On December 6, 2010, Gonzalez was traded to the Boston Red Sox for a package of right-handed pitcher Casey Kelly, first baseman Anthony Rizzo, outfielder Reymond Fuentes, and a player to be named later, later determined to be Eric Patterson.

On April 15, 2011, Gonzalez and the Red Sox agreed to a seven-year contract extension worth $154 million through the 2018 season.

On June 19, 2011, Gonzalez hit his 1,000 career hit: a triple off of Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Yovani Gallardo.

On July 3, 2011, Adrian Gonzalez was selected to represent the Red Sox at the 2011 All Star game in Arizona along with teammates Josh Beckett, Jacoby Ellsbury, David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis, and Jon Lester. Gonzalez hit a home run in the game and was responsible for the only run for the American League. Additionally, Ortiz selected Gonzalez as one of three sluggers to join him in the Home Run Derby, where he finished second to Robinson Canó. Gonzalez tied a record for most home runs in the final round of the home run derby at 11, which was then surpassed by the victor Cano.

Gonzalez was named AL Player of the Month for June 2011 with a .401 average (40 for 99) â€" the best in the Majors for that month. After placing second in the 2011 Home Run Derby, Adrian Gonzalez faced a home-run slump until he hit five home runs in ten at-bats on August 23â€"25.

He appeared on the cover of baseball video game MLB 12: The Show. On November 21, the AL MVP ballots came out, with Adrian in seventh place and his teammate Ellsbury in 2nd, both losing to Detroit Tigers ace Justin Verlander.

In 2012, Gonzalez appeared in 123 games with the Red Sox, hitting .300 with 15 homers and 86 RBI.

Los Angeles Dodgers (2012â€"present)

2012

On August 25, 2012, Gonzalez was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers (along with Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, and Nick Punto) and $11 million in cash for James Loney, Iván DeJesús, Jr., Allen Webster and two players to be named later (Jerry Sands and Rubby De La Rosa). In his first at bat with the Dodgers that same day, he hit a three-run home run against the Miami Marlins. In 36 games with the Dodgers, he hit .297 with 3 homers and 22 RBI.

2013

In the 2013 season, Gonzalez appeared in 157 games for the Dodgers and hit .293 with 22 home runs and 100 RBI. He was a candidate for the final vote at the 2013 Major League Baseball All-Star Game but did not get selected to the game.

In the 2013 NLCS Game 5 against the St. Louis Cardinals, Gonzalez went 3 for 4 with 2 home runs. The Dodgers would eventually lose the series in six games.

2014

Gonzalez finished the 2014 season with 116 RBI, the most in all of Major League Baseball. He was the Dodgers' nominee for the Hank Aaron Award, after hitting 27 home runs in 159 games. However, his batting average of .276 was the lowest of his career. He finished up the season by winning the Silver Slugger Award as the best hitting first baseman in the NL and also won several awards for his defense at first base, including the Gold Glove Award, Fielding Bible Award and Wilson Defensive Player of the Year Award.

2015

Gonzalez opened the 2015 season with five home runs in the first three games of the season, including three on April 8 against Andrew Cashner. He was the first MLB player to hit five home runs in the first three games of the season. By homering in his fifth consecutive game, dating back to the end of the 2014 season, he tied the team record, which he shares with Roy Campanella (1950), Shawn Green (2001), Matt Kemp (2010), and Joc Pederson (2015). He won the player of the week honors as a result of that performance. He was also awarded with the National League player of the month award for April as he hit .383 with eight home runs and 19 RBI in the month. He recorded his 1,000th career RBI when he hit a two run home run off Julio Teherán of the Atlanta Braves on May 26. Gonzalez was selected to the 2015 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, the first Dodger first baseman selected since Nomar Garciaparra in 2006. He finished the 2015 season by hitting .275 in 156 games with 28 home runs and 90 RBI, the lowest RBI total he had since 2006.

2016

Gonzalez played for the Mexico national baseball team in the World Baseball Classic qualifiers during spring training in March 2016. The team was managed by his brother Edgar. On June 22, 2016 during a game against the Washington Nationals, Gonzalez made a highlight-reel catch after a foul ball deflected off Chase Utley's glove and off Gonzalez's leg. On August 7, 2016 Gonzalez hit his 300th career home run against the Boston Red Sox. On the season he appeared in 156 games, with a .285 batting average, 18 homers and 90 RBI. It was the least amount of homers he had hit in a season since 2012.

Personal life

Gonzalez and his wife Betsy reside in the San Diego County community of La Jolla. They have two daughters. The couple created The Adrian and Betsy Gonzalez Foundation, which is focused on empowering underprivileged youth in areas of athletics, education and health. As one of his charitable endeavors, Gonzalez paid for the refurbishing of the baseball field in the Tijuana sports complex where he played as a youth.

Gonzalez is a Christian and engraved on his bats is "PS 27:1" for verse 1 from Psalm 27. Gonzalez has spoken about his faith saying, "I don't want to be remembered in baseball. I want to be remembered as a good witness for Christ. ... I’m just trying to use this platform to bring people to Christ."

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A wallpaper or background (also known as a desktop wallpaper, desktop background, desktop picture or desktop image on computers) is a digital image (photo, drawing etc.) used as a decorative background of a graphical user interface on the screen of a computer, mobile communications device or other electronic device. On a computer it is usually for the desktop, while on a mobile phone it is usually the background for the 'home' or 'idle' screen. Though most devices come with a default picture, users can usually change it to custom files of their choosing.

"Wallpaper" was the term used in Microsoft Windows before Windows Vista (where it is called the "desktop background"), while Mac OS X calls it "desktop picture". (Previously, the term desktop pattern was used to refer to a small pattern that was repeated to fill the screen.)

Wallpaper images are usually copyrighted as many other digital images found on the Internet, and as such, most websites collecting and sharing wallpapers, as well as the users downloading from them are an example of mass copyright infringement, a phenomenon which challenges the meaning and illegality of digital piracy and the validity of current copyright legislation around the world.

History

The X Window System was one of the earliest systems to include support for an arbitrary image as wallpaper via the xsetroot program, which at least as early as the X10R3 release in 1985 could tile the screen with any solid color or any binary-image X BitMap file. In 1989, a free software program called xgifroot was released that allowed an arbitrary color GIF image to be used as wallpaper, and in the same year the free xloadimage program was released which could display a variety of image formats (including color images in Sun Rasterfile format) as the desktop background. Subsequently, a number of programs were released that added wallpaper support for additional image formats and other features, such as the xpmroot program (released in 1993 as part of fvwm) and the xv software (released in 1994).

The original Macintosh operating system only allowed a selection of 8×8-pixel binary-image tiled patterns; the ability to use small color patterns was added in System 5 in 1987. MacOS 8 in 1997 was the first Macintosh version to include built-in support for using arbitrary images as desktop pictures, rather than small repeating patterns.

Windows 3.0 in 1990 was the first version of Microsoft Windows to come with support for wallpaper customization, and used the term "wallpaper" for this feature. Although Windows 3.0 only came with 7 small patterns (2 black-and-white and 5 16-color), the user could supply other images in the BMP file format with up to 8-bit color (although the system was theoretically capable of handling 24-bit color images, it did so by dithering them to an 8-bit palette). to provide similar wallpaper features otherwise lacking in those systems. A wallpaper feature was added in a beta release of OS/2 2.0 in 1991.

Due to the widespread use of personal computers, some wallpapers have become immensely recognizable and gained iconic cultural status. Bliss, the default wallpaper of Microsoft Windows XP has become the most viewed photograph of the 2000s.

Live wallpaper

A 'live wallpaper' is a type of application that works on a mobile device using the Android operating system. The application works as a wallpaper â€" providing the background image for the home screenâ€"but also works as a conventional application since it can provide user-interaction with the touch screen (allowing the image to change dynamically, for example) and access other hardware and software features within the device (accelerometer, GPS, network access, etc.).

Similar functionality could be found in the Active Desktop feature of Windows 98 and later versions. There is also third party software that provides this feature for various operating systems.

Mobile wallpaper

A mobile wallpaper is a computer wallpaper sized to fit a mobile device such as a mobile phone, personal digital assistant or digital audio player. The height is often greater than or equal to the width. Wallpapers can typically be downloaded at no cost from various websites for modern phones (such as those running Android, iOS, or Windows Phone operating systems). Modern smartphones allow users to use photos from the web; or photographs captured with a phone's camera can be set as a wallpaper.

Dynamic backgrounds

In OS X

OS X has built-in support, via the Desktop & Screen Saver panel in its System Preferences, for cycling through a folder collection of images on a timed interval or when logging in or waking from sleep.

Additionally, OS X has the native ability to run a screen saver on the desktop; in this configuration, the screen saver appears beneath the desktop icons in place of the system wallpaper. However, OS X does not come with a built-in interface to do this; it must be done through Terminal commands or various third-party applications.

In Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10

Similarly, Windows can also be set to cycle through pictures from a folder at regular intervals. It is supported on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10.
If fully animated backgrounds are wanted, third party software would need to be installed.

In GNOME

GNOME 2 also can be set to cycle through pictures from a folder at regular intervals, similarly to Windows 7.

In KDE 4

KDE 4 provides this feature as well (slideshow).

In Enlightenment

Enlightenment v17 supports image sequences, animated and interactive desktop backgrounds in its default configuration.

In Android

Live wallpaper have been introduced in Android 2.0 (Eclair) and later versions. The live wallpaper is an animated, interactive background that can react and change to input, like touch or data.

In iOS

Dynamically animated backgrounds have also been introduced in iOS 7 and later versions, however they are restricted to the ones provided by Apple. Jailbroken iOS devices can download other dynamic backgrounds.

Other systems or window managers

For other systems, a third party software is required (* in development).

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The Museu del Disseny de Barcelona (Catalan naming, English: "Design Museum of Barcelona"), is a new center of Barcelona's Institute of Culture, which works to promote better understanding and good use of the design world, acting as a museum and laboratory. It focuses on 4 branches or design disciplines: space design, product design, information design and fashion.

The Museum is the result of the merging of several previous existing museums, such as the Museu de les Arts Decoratives, the Museu Tèxtil i d'Indumentària and the Gabinet de les Arts Gràfiques collection. The opening of the new headquarters, located on Plaça de les Glòries, was set gradually during 2014.

History

Barcelona is a city historically linked to design, with old institutions such as the Foment de les Arts Decoratives. That is why the city of Barcelona was raised earlier in the decade of 2000 to create a single center, an integral space to allow the public to understand design in a broader consideration. It was decided to build a single space in which locate all collections and endowments existing in Barcelona related to the world of design, and Oriol Bohigas commissioned the construction of a building in the Plaça de les Glòries. It was originally going to be named Barcelona Design Museum, then from 2008 to 2013 it was named Design Hub Barcelona, but finally it was renamed again as Museu del Disseny de Barcelona (Design Museum of Barcelona).

Goals

The center is a meeting point of a network of people and institutions involved in the design world, and shares relevant information related to the sector. The aim is to encourage both research and economic activity linked to the world of design, using both own equity funds, as of this ongoing analysis of the design world.

Building

The Design Museum is located at the DHUB building in the Plaça de les Glòries. It was designed by MBM architecture firm, formed by Oriol Martorell, Oriol Bohigas and David Mackay. The building construction started in July 2009, when the counselor of Culture Joan Manuel Tresserras and the mayor Jordi Hereu, laid the first stone. Construction ended in 2013, and the Design Museum of Barcelona opened its doors in 2014.

The building consists of two parts: an underground one (using the level change caused by the urbanization of the Glories square) and one that emerges 14.50 meters above the ground. The latter is a parallelepiped bias cut with the same width as the Avila Street, acting as an indicator of the relationship between the Eixample streets and the Glòries square, without affecting the view of the large central park. The cover of the subway is a public space linked to the future project of the Plaça de les Glòries park. The green carpet is one of the important components and it is made with natural or artificial elements to ensure sustainability and easy maintenance.

It includes a bar and restaurant, offering an attractive public space. The lake acts as a compositional emphasis relating the various levels.

Ground Floor

Includes two floors and a mezzanine, denser activities, such as main exhibition hall, reservations, research and teaching, well-attended services, etc. Natural lighting and the relationship with the outside, despite being a basement, is achieved through the pit produced by the difference of levels, reinforced sheet water reflecting a kind of large forecourt. This lighting is reinforced with six skylights that emerge in the public and may be used as showcases for the contents and activities of the Centre.

First Floor

According to planning, it uses the minimum floor area in order not to reduce the space for public use. Cantilever extends into the square, allowing the planned building area. The set of the two bodies that make up the center enters through a single hall with double access: +7 m level., From Avila Street, and at +14.5 m., From the square. This hall is a kind of street or public place, public or semi-almost a must to relate the square of the Glories, the Poblenou and metro and the exchanger. From this square an set of stairs, escalators and elevators reach all the services located in the basement and all the upper floors of various dimensions and characteristics, up to the conference room. The exterior of the building uses only two materials: metal plates (zinc or aluminum) and glass, so that, together, have an industrial look with metallic reflections.

Sustainability

The entire project involves a high degree of environmental quality, sustainability and energy sufficiency. It may indicate the most important chapters: passive sustainability (material and structure of massive facades and finestram, storage and processing, pre-engineered systems, shading and insulation, etc., Within the criteria of Distinctive Guarantee environmental quality of the Generalitat and the EU Ecolabel), sanitation (separative network to reuse rainwater), plumbing (minimum consumption control and regulation of flows, solar collectors for hot water production for a minimum of 70%), air conditioning (water chillers for air condensed high performance, low noise and acoustic protection, heat recovery chiller plants, natural gas boilers, free cooling when outdoor conditions permit, latent heat recovery in the extraction of air), electricity (low power, presence detectors, testers timed, photovoltaic panels for direct use of solar power), centralized management of all fa cilities.

Museums

The Design Museum is the result of merging several previously existing local museums:

Museu de les Arts Decoratives

The Museu de les Arts Decoratives was a museum created in 1932. This historic museum contains a rich and diverse collection of European decorative arts, from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution. In 1995, the museum extended its boundaries with the incorporation of design, thus converting it into the first and only statewide museum concerned with the preservation and exhibition of Spanish industrial design. The collections of the Museu de les Arts Decoratives were created from an important resource of industrial design and decorative art objects, that included salvers, carriages, furniture, wallpaper, clocks, tapestries and glasswork.

Museu Tèxtil i d'Indumentària

The Museu Tèxtil i d'Indumentària possesses countless objects and pieces of major artistic and historical value that make up their collections of garments, fabrics and jewellery. Regarding their collection of clothes, the museum allows you to take a journey through the history of textiles, from the 16th century right up to the modern day. The museum’s collections include Coptic, Hispano-Arab, Gothic and Renaissance fabrics, as well as embroidery, a section on lacework and a collection of prints. Also worth mentioning is the jewelry collection, comprising approximately five hundred pieces that were made and produced in Spain.

Gabinet de les Arts Gràfiques

The Gabinet de les Arts Gràfiques, a Cabinet of Graphic Arts, was a museum dedicated to visual communication design. The collections of the museum bring together significant samples of typography such as punches, matrices and tracing plates, as well as, prints that include samples of binding, packaging, labels and posters.

Important printers such as; Elzeviriana, Bobes, Seix Barral and Tobella, Naips Comas (the makers of playing cards), Tallers Roca (the industrial bookbinders) and the Neufville type foundry, have contributed to the museum’s expanding resources. In addition, certain artists and their families, have also donated graphic works and engraving moulds â€" as is the case of Miquel Plana and the families of Josep Obiols and Miquel Llovet. The collection is presented during exhibitions and study galleries programmed by Disseny Hub Barcelona. The concept that initiated the Study Galleries was to create an area that combines the ideas of a temporary exhibition, a documentation centre and a museum repository but that has its own identity. Various objects are assembled according to their typologies and presented in a way that allows visitors to study, contemplate and reflect upon the museums collections.

The Casa Bloc Apartment Museum

The Room 1/11 of the Casa Bloc (1932â€"1939) (in Catalan, Block house) is an apartment-museum run by the Design Museum of Barcelona. Inside you can visit the structure and the original look of the floor of this architectural complex, a reference architecture worker housing at the time of the Second Spanish Republic. The opening of this museum floor space as a tribute to the work of Josep Lluís Sert Josep Torres Clavé and Joan Baptista Subirana and innovation that its approach assumed the 30's. The Casa Bloc is open to everyone, with a regime of guided tours by reservation, from March 2012. Room 1/11 is a duplex measuring 60 square meters. It is located in Block 2, Level 1, Gate 11. The internal layout is very simple and clearly differentiates the day and the night.

Documentation Center

The Museum also hosts a library dedicated to the greater areas in the world of design: product, fashion, information and interior design. The initial bibliographic reserves contains over 9,000 published documents dating from the 16th century to the present day. And 1,600 of those dating from before 1950. The reserve originated in the old libraries of the Museus Tèxtil i d'Indumentària de Barcelona and the Museu d'Arts Decoratives de Barcelona, the Gabinet de les Arts Gràfiques de Barcelona and the BCD (Barcelona Centre de Disseny). These sources have received numerous donations over the years by professionals, individuals, institutions and businesses. Particularly noteworthy for their uniqueness and excellent state of preservation, the bibliographic reserves of the Museu Tèxtil i d'Indumentària are made up largely of two very large donations: the bequest of the Comtesa de Vilardaga and the donation by Sr. Manuel Rocamora. The majority of the bibliographic reserves can be foun d in the reading room and are accessible to the public. It has developed its own classification system: IMAG.

The most valuable documents, the oldest and those that are referred to the least, can be found in a deposit in the DHUB building. The Documentation center uses RFID technology (Radio Frequency Identification) to keep track of the number of consults each document receives. With this information, the documents that are the most in demand are always located in the reading room for ease of access.

The historic reserves of magazines and journals are still being catalogued. The centre keeps over 100 subscriptions to specialist magazines and journals.

Archives

The archives of the documentation center currently include:

• ADI FAD Archive. Collection of the reserves of the Associació de Dissenyadors Industrials del Foment de les Arts Decoratives (1957â€"2007) It contents documentation generated by the association in its everyday activities, being of work or management. Includes documentation related to its administration(foundational acts, meetings, members, reports, participation in international entities…), information management (archives, computer system…), external relations (public acts, relations with other private and public institutions…), human resources management, financial resources management, heritage management (movable and real state items), legal issues, promotion of industrial design (exhibitions, conferences, publications…) and services to the members (distribution lists, labour exchange, bulletins…)
• Rigalt i Granell Archive. The Archive is made up of documents collected from the stained-glass workshop Rigalt, Granell & Cia and is a testimony to the work of this centenarian workshop that was in operation from 1890 until 1984. Until now, the documentation from the stained-glass workshop Rigalt, Granell & Cia. was being preserved by the Granell family. The archive consists of diverse information about the artistic and technical aspects of the workshop whose work was central to the modernist period. Their work can be found at the Palau de la Música Catalana, the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau and the Casa Lleó Morera, among others. The company worked with architects including Lluís Domènech i Montaner, Lluís Moncunill, Josep Puig i Cadafalch and Geroni Granell. The documentation is a testimony to the work of this centenarian workshop that was in operation from 1890 until 1984. Rigalt, Granell & Cia. faced many challenges throughout this period, whic h, while it always remained in the hands of the Granell family, included changes to its founding members. In this archive you can find accounting documents, drawings, sketches, inventories, publicity catalogues and photos from the stained-glass workshop. The largest number of documents that have been preserved are 500 sketches that include drawings of stained-glass and acid-etched glass. Thanks to these drawings, we can follow the artistic trends in stained-glass over the last 100 years. Included are drawings from the pre-modernist, modernist, noucentista, art deco, and works that reflect the abstract tendencies of the 80's. The donation comprises a total of 3,000 pieces, including prints (from different countries), diverse themed plates, brochures, business directories (among which include Les Vitraux de Paris (c.1900), Aus der Deutschen Glasmalerei de Berlin (1901) and Religiöse Malerein für Kirchedekoration de Viena (1907), company photographs and folders w ith original drawings and sketches.
• Montaner y Simón editors collection.

Databases

It offers its users some of the best specialized databases available. Requests and consultations should be carried out at the centre's facilities.

• Design and Applied Arts Index (DAAI) allows for the consultation of summaries of published articles from design publications dating back to 1973. It covers a wide variety of disciplines: Ceramics, glass, furniture, jewelry, graphic design, fashion design, textile design, interior design, architecture, web design, etc. It includes approximately 1200 new records every month.
• Berg Fashion Library is an online resource that provides integrated access to visual and textual content on clothing and fashion throughout history. It includes the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, a collection of electronic books, dictionaries and other reference resources, as well as, an extensive image bank.
• First VIEW is an extensive archive of fashion photography that allows access to more than 3 million runway images of designers from around the world. DHUBdoc members can access this database from the centre's facilities.

References

External links

• Official Websilte

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The Yellow Wallpaper (original title: "The Yellow Wall-paper. A Story") is a 6,000-word short story by the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine. It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the 19th century toward women's health, both physical and mental.

Presented in the first person, the story is a collection of journal entries written by a woman whose physician husband (John) has rented an old mansion for the summer. Forgoing other rooms in the house, the couple moves into the upstairs nursery. As a form of treatment, the unnamed woman is forbidden from working, and is encouraged to eat well and get plenty of exercise and air, so she can recuperate from what he calls a "temporary nervous depression â€" a slight hysterical tendency", a diagnosis common to women in that period. She hides her journal from her husband and his sister the housekeeper, fearful of being reproached for overworking herself. The room's windows are barred to prevent children from climbing through them, and there is a gate across the top of the stairs, though she and her husband have access to the rest of the house and its adjoining estate.

The story depicts the effect of understimulation on the narrator's mental health and her descent into psychosis. With nothing to stimulate her, she becomes obsessed by the pattern and color of the wallpaper. "It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw â€" not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things. But there is something else about that paper â€" the smell! ... The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell."

In the end, she imagines there are women creeping around behind the patterns of the wallpaper and comes to believe she is one of them. She locks herself in the room, now the only place she feels safe, refusing to leave when the summer rental is up. "For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow. But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way."

Plot synopsis

The story details the descent of a young woman into madness. Her supportive, though misunderstanding husband, John, believes it is in her best interests to go on a rest cure after the birth of their child. The family spends the summer at a colonial mansion that has, in the narrator's words, "something queer about it". She and her husband move into an upstairs room that she assumes was once a nursery, having it serve as their bedroom due to its multitude of windows, which provide the air so needed in her recovery. In addition to the couple, John's sister Jennie is present; she serves as their housekeeper. Like most nurseries at the time the windows are barred, the wallpaper has been torn, and the floor is scratched. The narrator attributes all these to children, as most of the damage is isolated to their reach. Ultimately, though, the reader is left unsure as to the source of the room's damage.

The narrator devotes many journal entries to describing the wallpaper in the room â€" its "yellow" smell, its "breakneck" pattern, the missing patches, and the way it leaves yellow smears on the skin and clothing of anyone who touches it. She describes how the longer one stays in the bedroom, the more the wallpaper appears to mutate, especially in the moonlight. With no stimulus other than the wallpaper, the pattern and designs become increasingly intriguing to the narrator. She soon begins to see a figure in the design, and eventually comes to believe that a woman is creeping on all fours behind the pattern. Believing she must try to free the woman in the wallpaper, the woman begins to strip the remaining paper off the wall.

On the last day of summer, she locks herself in her room to strip the remains of the wallpaper. When John arrives home, she refuses to unlock the door. When he returns with the key, he finds her creeping around the room, circling the walls and touching the wallpaper. She exclaims, "I've got out at last,...in spite of you and Jane", and her husband faints as she continues to circle the room, stepping over his inert body each time she passes.

Interpretation

Gilman's interpretation

Gilman used her writing to explore the role of women in America at the time. She explored issues such as the lack of a life outside the home and the oppressive forces of the patriarchal society. Through her work Gilman paved the way for writers such as Alice Walker and Sylvia Plath.

In The Yellow Wallpaper Gilman portrays the narrator's insanity as a way to protest the medical and professional oppression against women at the time. While under the impression that husbands and male doctors were acting with their best interests in mind, women were depicted as mentally weak and fragile. At the time women’s rights advocates believed that the outbreak of women being diagnosed as mentally ill was the manifestation of their setbacks regarding the roles they were allowed to play in a male-dominated society. Women were even discouraged from writing, because their writing would ultimately create an identity and become a form of defiance for them. Gilman realized that writing became one of the only forms of existence for women at a time where they had very few rights.

Gilman explained that the idea for the story originated in her own experience as a patient: "the real purpose of the story was to reach Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, and convince him of the error of his ways". She had suffered years of depression and consulted a well-known specialist physician who prescribed a "rest cure" which required her to "live as domestic a life as possible". She was forbidden to touch pen, pencil, or brush, and was allowed only two hours of mental stimulation a day.

After three months and almost desperate, Gilman decided to contravene her diagnosis and started to work again. After realizing how close she had come to complete mental breakdown, she wrote The Yellow Wallpaper with additions and exaggerations to illustrate her own misdiagnosis complaint. She sent a copy to Mitchell but never received a response.

She added that The Yellow Wallpaper was "not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked". Gilman claimed that many years later she learned that Mitchell had changed his treatment methods, but literary historian Julie Bates Dock has discredited this. Mitchell continued his methods, and as late as 1908 â€" 16 years after "The Yellow Wallpaper" was published â€" was interested in creating entire hospitals devoted to the "rest cure" so that his treatments would be more widely accessible.

Feminist interpretation

This story has been interpreted by feminist critics as a condemnation of the male control of the 19th-century medical profession. The narrator's suggestions about her recuperation (that she should work instead of rest, engage with society instead of remaining isolated, attempt to be a mother instead of being separated entirely from her child, etc.) are dismissed out of hand using language that stereotypes her as irrational and, therefore, unqualified to offer ideas about her own condition. This interpretation draws on the concept of the "domestic sphere" that women were held in during this period.

Feminist critics focus on the degree of triumph at the end of the story. While some claim the narrator slipped into insanity, others see the ending as a woman's assertion of agency in a marriage in which she felt trapped. The emphasis on reading and writing as gendered practices also illustrated the importance of the wallpaper. If the narrator were allowed neither to write in her journal nor to read, she would begin to "read" the wallpaper until she found the escape she was looking for. Through seeing the women in the wallpaper, the narrator realizes that she could not live her life locked up behind bars. At the end of the story, as her husband lies on the floor unconscious, she crawls over him, symbolically rising over him. This is interpreted as a victory over her husband, at the expense of her sanity.

Susan S. Lanser in her article "Feminist Criticism ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, and the Politics of Color in America" praises contemporary feminism and its role in changing the study and the interpretation of literature. The Yellow Wallpaper was one of many books that were lost because of an ideology that determined the works' content to be disturbing or offensive. Critics such as the editor of the Atlantic Monthly rejected the short story because "[he] could not forgive [himself] if [he] made others as miserable as [he] made [himself]." Lanser argues that the same argument of devastation and misery can be said about the work of Edgar Allan Poe, but his work is still printed and studied by academics.

The Yellow Wallpaper provided feminists the tools on how to interpret literature in different ways. Lanser says the short story was a " particularly congenial medium for such a re-vision...because the narrator herself engages in a form of feminist interpretation when she tries to read the paper on her wall". The narrator in the story is trying to find a single meaning in the wallpaper. At first she focuses on contradictory style of the wallpaper: it is "flamboyant" while also "dull", "pronounced" yet also "lame" and "uncertain" (p. 13). She takes into account the patterns and tries to geometrically organize them, but she is further confused. The wallpaper changes colors when it reflects light and emits a distinct odor which Jane cannot recognize (p. 25). At night the narrator is able to see a woman behind bars within the complicated design of the wallpaper. Lanser argues that Jane was able to find "a space of text on which she can locate whatever self-projection". Lanser creates a relationship between the narrator and the reader. Just like the narrator as a reader, when one comes into contact with a confusing and complicated text, one tries to find one single meaning. "How we were taught to read" as Lanser puts it, is why a reader cannot fully comprehend the text. The patriarchal ideology has kept many scholars from being able to interpret and appreciate novels such as The Yellow Wallpaper. Thanks to feminist criticism "The Yellow Wallpaper" has become a fundamental reading in the standard curriculum. Feminists have made a great contribution to the study of literature but, according to Lanser, are falling short because "we acknowledge the participation of women writers and readers in dominant patterns of thought and social practice then perhaps our own patterns must also be deconstructed if we are to recover meanings still hidden or overlooked.

Martha J. Cutter in her article "The Writer as Doctor: New Models of Medical Discourses in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Later Fiction" discusses how in many of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's works she addresses this "struggle in which a male-dominated medical establishment attempts to silence women" (Cutter 1). Gilman's works challenge the social construction of women in patriarchal medical discourse by displaying women as "silent, powerless, and passive" who refuse treatment. At the time in which her works take place, between 1840 and 1890, women were exceedingly defined as lesser thanâ€"sickly and weak. In this time period it was thought that "hysteria" (a disease stereotypically more common in women) was a result of too much education. It was understood that women who spent time in college or studying were over-stimulating their brains and consequently leading themselves into states of hysteria. In fact, many of the diseases recognized in women were seen as the result of a lack of se lf-control or self-rule. Different physicians argued that a physician must "assume a tone of authority" and that the idea of a "cured" woman is one who is "subdued, docile, silent, and above all subject to the will and voice of the physician" (Cutter 3). A hysterical woman is one who craves power and in order for her to be treated for her hysteria, she must submit to her physician whose role is to undermine her desires. Often women were prescribed bed rest as a form of treatment, which was meant to "tame" them and basically keep them imprisoned. Treatments such as this were a way of ridding women of rebelliousness and forcing them to conform to social roles. In her works Gilman highlights that the harm caused by these types of treatments for woman i.e. "the rest cure" has to do with the way in which her voice is silenced. Paula Treichler explains "In this story diagnosis 'is powerful and public...It is a male voice that...imposes controls on the female narrator and dictates how she is to perceive and talk about the world.' Diagnosis covertly functions to empower the male physician's voice and disempower the female patient's". The narrator in "The Yellow Wallpaper" is not allowed to participate in her own treatment or diagnosis and is completely forced to succumb to everything in which her doctor and in this particular story, her husband, says. The male voice is the one in which forces controls on the female and decides how she is allowed to perceive and speak about the world around her.

Other interpretations

The Yellow Wallpaper is sometimes referred to as an example of Gothic literature for its treatment of madness and powerlessness. Alan Ryan, for example, introduced the story by writing: "quite apart from its origins [it] is one of the finest, and strongest, tales of horror ever written. It may be a ghost story. Worse yet, it may not." Pioneering horror author H. P. Lovecraft writes in his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927) that "The Yellow Wall Paper rises to a classic level in subtly delineating the madness which crawls over a woman dwelling in the hideously papered room where a madwoman was once confined."

Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, in her book Wild Unrest: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Making of "The Yellow Wall-Paper", concludes that "the story was a cri de coeur against [Gilman's first husband, artist Charles Walter] Stetson and the traditional marriage he had demanded." Gilman was attempting to deflect blame to protect Gilman's daughter Katharine and her step-mother, Gilman's friend Grace Channing.

Anglican Archbishop Peter Carnley used the story as a reference and a metaphor for the situation of women in the church in his sermon at the ordination of the first women priests in Australia on 7 March 1992 in St George's Cathedral, Perth.

Sari Edelstein has argued that The Yellow Wallpaper is an allegory for Gilman's hatred of the emerging yellow journalism. Having created The Forerunner in November 1909, Gilman made it clear she wished the press to be more insightful and not rely upon exaggerated stories and flashy headlines. Gilman was often scandalised in the media and resented the sensationalism of the media. The relationship between the narrator and the wallpaper within the story parallels Gilman's relationship to the press. The narrator describes the wallpaper as having "sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin". Edelstein argues that given Gilman’s distaste for the Yellow Press, this can also be seen as a description of tabloid newspapers of the day.

In Paula A. Treichler's article "Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in 'The Yellow Wallpaper'", she places her focus on the relationship portrayed in the short story between women and writing. Rather than write about the feminist themes which view the wallpaper as something along the lines of "...the 'pattern' which underlies sexual inequality, the external manifestation of neurasthenia, the narrator's unconscious, the narrator's situation within patriarchy," Treichler instead explains that the wallpaper can be a symbol to represent discourse and the fact that the narrator is alienated from the world in which she previously could somewhat express herself. Treichler illustrates that through this discussion of language and writing, in the story Charlotte Perkins Gilman is defying the "...sentence that the structure of patriarchal language imposes." While Treichler accepts the legitimacy of strictly feminist claims, she writes that a closer look at the text suggests that the wallpaper could be interpreted as women's language and discourse, and the woman found in the wallpaper could be the "...representation of women that becomes possible only after women obtain the right to speak." In making this claim, it suggests that the new struggle found within the text is between two forms of writing; one rather old and traditional, and the other new and exciting. This is supported in the fact that John, the narrator's husband, does not like his wife to write anything, which is the reason her journal containing the story is kept a secret and thus is known only by the narrator and reader. A look at the text shows that as the relationship between the narrator and the wallpaper grows stronger, so too does her language in her journal as she begins to increasingly write of her frustration and desperation.

Dramatic adaptations

Audio plays

• Agnes Moorehead performed a version twice, in 1948 and 1957, on the radio program Suspense.
• An audio book of The Yellow Wallpaper (1997) was produced by Durkin Hayes and read by Winifred Phillips. This Radio Tales version can also be heard on Sonic Theater on XM Radio.
• BBC Radio modified and dramatized the story for the series Fear on Four, starring Anna Massey.

Stage plays

• Heather Newman scripted and directed an adaptation of the original short story, as part of the 2003 season at Theater Schmeater, in Seattle, Washington. This adaptation won the 2003 Seattle Times "Best of the Fringe" award, and was also produced in 2005 at Tarrant County College by Dr. Judith Gallagher, and directed by Melinda Benton-Muller. In May 2010, Benton-Muller and Dr. Gallagher spoke on a panel about this adaptation at the American Literature Association, with members of the ALA and the Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society.
• Rummage Theatre researched, wrote and directed an hour long play called Behind the Wallpaper (first performed at The Bay Theatre in 2014). The play was inspired by The Yellow Wallpaper, but focuses on exploring postnatal depression and postpartum psychosis in the present day and uses shadow work cast behind wallpaper to represent the "Shadow Woman" which new mother, Julie, sees as part of her psychosis. The play is touring Dorset in 2014/2015.
• A Company of Players presented a stage adaptation of the original short story, written and directed by Kristi Boulton, at the 2014 Hamilton Fringe Festival] in Ontario, Canada. This production was well received by critics and won a "Best of Fringe" award.
• Central Works of Berkeley presented a one-woman show consisting of the text of the play recited and performed by Elena Wright and with a TBA-nominated score written and performed by violinist Cybele D'Ambrosio in 2015.
• Portland, Oregon-based Coho Productions staged an adaptation written by Sue Mach in early 2016, which integrated "expressionistic audio, visual and movement interludes with the haunting literary text." The stage adaptation was co-produced and conceived by Grace Carter, who also portrays the primary character, Charlotte. The play was directed by Philip Cuomo.

Film

• In 1977, the story was adapted as a short film (14 min) as The Yellow Wallpaper by director Marie Ashton and screenwriter Julie Ashton; it starred Sigrid Wurschmidt.
• In 1989, the story was adapted as The Yellow Wallpaper by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), later shown in the U.S. on Masterpiece Theatre. It was adapted by Maggie Wadey, directed by John Clive, and starred Julia Watson and Stephen Dillane.
• In 2009, the story was adapted by director John McCarty as a short (30 min) film called Confinement starring Colleen Lovett. (McCarty had originally written a treatment of the story in the late 1960s on spec for a television anthology. The idea was shelved, but the treatment was eventually revised for Confinement.)
• In 2012, the story was loosely adapted into a feature-length film called The Yellow Wallpaper by Logan Thomas starring Aric Cushing. (DVD release, 2015)
• In 2014, Amandla Stenberg directed a short film based on the story.
• In 2016, Kourosh Ahari directed a feature film based on the original story. The adapted screenplay was written by Amy Liz Roberts.
• British artist Julia Dogra-Brazell's short experimental film, The Rules of the Game (2015), also found inspiration in this text.

Television

• An episode of The Twilight Zone â€" "Something in the Walls" (1989) â€" is a variation on Gilman's story, in which a woman commits herself to a mental institution and insists on plain white walls and no patterns within her hospital room, after having seen faces in the patterns of her bedroom's yellow wallpaper and hearing ominous voices from those faces.
• Paper Walls (1992), a TV short, directed by Glenn Holsten and Lynn Tomlinson, is a version of The Yellow Wallpaper. (It is mixed live action and multi-media animation; 6 mins.)

Popular culture references

• The TV series Pretty Little Liars (2010) uses the original book cover as a wallpaper design in Aria Montgomery's bedroom.
• The TV series American Horror Story season 1 (2011) references The Yellow Wallpaper in the eighth episode.
• In the sixth episode of the 2017 TV series Riverdale, Jughead Jones (played by Cole Sprouse) asks Betty Cooper (played by Lili Reinhart) if she's gone all “Yellow Wallpaper” on him yet.

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The Mercurial Vapor is a football boot manufactured by Nike. The boot is known for being lightweight. Because of this, the boot is endorsed by many players for whom speed is part of their game, notably wingers or strikers, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Franck Ribéry, Luiz Adriano, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Didier Drogba, Jesús Navas, Luka Modrić, Arturo Vidal, Douglas Costa, Xherdan Shaqiri, Raheem Sterling, Stephan El Shaarawy, Eden Hazard, Alexis Sánchez, Carlos Bacca and Philippe Coutinho, among others.

In 1998, Nike launched the first Mercurial football boot â€" a shoe inspired by and designed for Brazilian star Ronaldo, which he debuted at the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The boot is in its eleventh version the Nike Mercurial Vapor XI.

The boot is available in either Soft Ground (SG) (now Soft Ground Pro; SG-Pro), Firm Ground (FG) or Artificial Ground (AG) versions. The SG version's sole plate is fitted with six NikeSnap removable studs (now with molded plastic studs), which can be purchased in different lengths, for the first and second models, and traditional screw-in aluminium studs for versions 3 to 8; the FG version has seven moulded blades.

Background

The origin of the Mercurial Vapors can be traced back to 1998, when Ronaldo debuted the original Nike Air Mercurial boots. The boots were originally released in black, but a version in silver/blue/yellow was released for the 1998 World Cup and a blue/black version followed soon after. All boots were made in Soft Ground (SG) and Firm Ground (FG) varieties, with the SG version using non-removable studs. In 1999, the Mercurial 2 was released in two colourways, black/blue and black/red. These were identical in shape, size and fit to the originals, but they had a different insole and a smaller Nike "swoosh" symbol on the side of the boot. The Mercurials were Nike's first boots to be made using synthetic materials, and also their first venture into the market of lightweight boots designed for speed.

Mercurial Vapor

The original Vapors were released in mid-2002, just before the World Cup of that year. The first glimpse anyone outside of Nike had of the boots was in the Nike cage advert starring Eric Cantona, Thierry Henry and Roberto Carlos, in which a close-up shot of the boots is taken near the end of the advert. The boot was first released in three colourways: cinder/white/maize; University Blue/white/obsidian; and medium grey/ red. These three colourways were distinctive as they had limited heel cushioning and dimples on the inner heel cup for foot grip. This was upgraded for the remainder of the Vapor I line. A chrome/lime variation (worn exclusively by Ronaldo in the semi-finals and final) was released to the public in limited numbers (just 4,600, across FG, HG and SG variants; quantity split unknown) in the period after the tournament. Other colours included white/ice/black; chrome/black; black/chilli red; dark charcoal/surf blue/white; and shock orange/white. In addition to the NikeSk in Vapors, Nike released its first kangaroo leather version of the shoe in black/grey. The Vapors also continued with the R9 designation on boots that was featured originally in the previous Mercurial lines. Both chrome colourways featured the "R9" brand.

At the time of release, the Vapor was the lightest boot on the market with several key innovations. The upper was made of an extremely thin, lightweight synthetic known as Nike Skin. It was claimed to be thinner and stronger than any kangaroo leather. The Vapor also featured an external heel counter which was very uncommon at that time as well as a "glass" filled outsole called NikeFrame, inspired by track sprint spikes and designed to spring back into shape after push-off. According to the booklets inserted into the box with each pair, the shoe showed a 3% decrease in the time to cover a 20-metre sprint compared to other boots.

Mercurial Vapor II

The Mercurial Vapor II was released in January 2004 in two colourways: team red and photo blue. The photo blue boots were debuted by Ronaldo a month earlier, in Real Madrid's clash with Barcelona at the Camp Nou, whilst Thierry Henry debuted the red pair in Arsenal's 5â€"1 win over Internazionale in Milan, with Henry scoring two goals. The revised version of the boot differed from the original Vapors in three respects: first, the material from which the boot was constructed was made marginally thicker; second, a cushioned area around the ankle with a slightly larger heel tab was added midway through the MVII run (generally known as v2.1); and finally, the pattern down the sides of the boot was modified to make the indentations more pronounced, along with a thin coloured stripe to complement the colour of the boot. The boot still maintained the same upper material, sole plate, and external heel counter. The boot was also released in many other colourways, which included cinder/maiz e; mist blue/navy; gunmetal; orange blaze/black; navy/silver; gold/black; white/red; chrome/photo blue; chili red/silver; and the final colourway, aluminium/gold, was released as an homage to the colours of Real Madrid, which were to be worn by Ronaldo. Once again, Nike also released a kangaroo leather version, in a white/ black colourway. The photo blue, orange blaze, gold, aluminium and chrome colourways all sported the 'R9' brand.

Mercurial Vapor III

The MVIII is the third generation in the Mercurial Vapor family and was released in 2006. It featured Teijin microfibres which conform to the foot and are lightweight and durable. The boot itself weighed only 196 g (6.9 oz). It also has a carbon last to give support to the heel and more padding was added to the heel cup area. The original MVIIIs were released in a white/gold colourway, which was followed by sport red/white; silver/yellow; platinum/red; deep royal; dark charcoal/gold; ignite (a yellow/green combination); white/silver; and blue graphite/sonic yellow. A limited edition boot was released to commemorate Italy's fourth World Cup triumph in World Cup gold/Azzurri blue.

Towards the end of the 2006â€"07 season, further colourways were released, including obsidian/metallic platinum; metallic zinc/tart orange; cactus; silver/red; and argon blue.

On 13 September 2007, Nike released a limited edition tenth anniversary version of the Mercurial Vapor, featuring "all the modern technology from the current MVIII combined with the original Mercurial Upper design from 1998." These boots featured in an advert with the Brazilian star Ronaldo, where he reenacted many of his past goals, which he scored wearing the famous Mercurial Vapor boots.

Mercurial Vapor IV

In April 2007, some initial pictures of what were believed to be the new Mercurial Vapor boots were leaked onto the Internet. Not much could be ascertained from the pictures, but they did show that the MVIVs might have a cover over the laces in the same vein as the Adidas F50s. The Nike "swoosh" was also larger than on previous versions. Only two colourways were shown, those being orange peel/obsidian and anthracite/vivid blue. This boot weigh in about 210g (or 7.4oz). Later in the year, a limited edition version of the Mercurial SL was put up for sale online. Only 2,008 pairs were made available in Firm Ground and 500 pairs in Soft ground, costing £250 (€400/$600) each. This version of the boot is made almost entirely out of carbon fibre and weighs a mere 190 grams (6.7 oz). The shoe is made in one colour, black, with two pink "swooshes" on each boot.

In December 2007, a promotional video was released by Nike, featuring the former world record holder for the 100m sprint, Asafa Powell. In the video, Powell dons the Mercurial SL boots, and sprints the length of a football pitch in 9.94 seconds, before instructing the Nike representatives to "tell them they're fast." The Nike representatives are then seen taking the boots to a mansion in London, where Didier Drogba opens the door and is told, "They're fast."

One of the advertisements shows Cristiano Ronaldo appearing to outrun a Bugatti Veyron, allegedly the fastest car in the world, while wearing the Orange Peel/Obsidian versions of the Mercurial Vapor IV boots. The final "launch" advertisement for the boots show Aaron Lennon of Tottenham Hotspur and Gabriel Agbonlahor of Aston Villa go head-to-head on a 45-metre track where the speed was based on speed to the ball and speed with the ball.

A third colourway was revealed on the first weekend of March 2008. Cristiano Ronaldo wore them on 1 March 2008 in Manchester United's FA Cup exit against Portsmouth. This new colourway features a sport red outsole with a gold "swoosh." This new colourway was released on 7 April 2008.

The carbon fibre Mercurial SL boots were used in a professional match for the first time in the 2008 UEFA Champions League Final between Manchester United and Chelsea, when they were worn by Cristiano Ronaldo. Didier Drogba was also expected to wear them, but instead wore the black Mercurial Vapor IVs.

On 7 June 2008, a limited edition brown leather version of the Mercurial Vapors was released to coincide with the start of UEFA Euro 2008. Each boot weighed approximately 275 g (9.7 oz). A green and white colourway, as worn by Cristiano Ronaldo, was also unveiled on 7 June, and was released on for release on 24 July, as is a white and blue version.

The seventh colourway of the Mercurial Vapor IV was a marina/volt version, which was worn by Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimović.

On 24 November 2008, Nike released an eighth, limited edition pink colourway called Nike Mercurial Vapor IV Berry. Initial pictures of a pink colourway called Nike Vapor Rosa were leaked onto the Internet. A video of the Mercurial Rosa was released featuring a cartoon Franck Ribéry trying to outrun an abusive coach that resembles Pink Panther running away from the Inspector with the "Head to Toes" theme being played. A second video showed Ribery driving the Panthermobile (reenacts the intro of Pink Panther), going to a casino and the 1st cartoon.The 2 cartoons were called "Superlight,Supersonic! These were then backed up with a video from Nike, which stated "You better be quick," and featured players such as James Milner, Theo Walcott, Carlos Vela, Marlon Harewood and Cesc Fàbregas. Nicklas Bendtner debuted the boots when Arsenal faced Manchester City at the City of Manchester Stadium on 22 November 2008.

In early January 2009, Nike released the final two colourways for the Vapor IVs: citron/charcoal and charcoal/max orange. The citron colourway has been especially popular with professional players, and was worn by the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimović.

Mercurial Vapor V & Mercurial Vapor Superfly

The Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly and Vapor V were the fifth incarnation of the Nike Mercurial line and the first of the Superfly line. The Mercurial Vapor Superfly marked the first time a boot was made using Nike Flywire technology, while the Vapor V followed the use of a lace cover like its immediate predecessor. The boot was launched by Cristiano Ronaldo at Old Trafford in Manchester on 26 February 2009. It was debuted during the 2008â€"09 UEFA Champions League knockout phase a match between Manchester United and Internazionale by Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimović. The following weekend, players across the world also debuted the boots (notably Robinho, Theo Walcott, Alexandre Pato and Dani Alves).

Both the Superfly and Vapor came in the original max orange/abyss/metallic platinum colourway as well as six others: black/voltage yellow/max orange; orion blue/metallic silver; platinum/max orange; vibrant yellow/black/midwest gold orange; white/pink flash/black/metallic silver; and abyss/white/max orange, which was not released in Superfly version.

Women's Mercurial Vapor

A women's version was released in April 2009, and is available in one colourway: white/metallic silver/max orange.

Mercurial Vapor VI and Mercurial Vapor Superfly II

The second release of the Superfly series was released on 24 February 2010 at a Nike Football event at the Battersea Power Station in London. Once again, Cristiano Ronaldo launched the boot first appearing in a violet poppy/obsidian/orange colourway. Cristiano Ronaldo, however, did not debut the Superfly II. Fulham winger Clint Dempsey debuted the boots on 18 March 2010 against Juventus in the UEFA Europa League at Craven Cottage. The second colourway is dark osbidian/white/cool mint. Cristiano Ronaldo also released his first signature boot. His Superfly's were in the White/Total Orange/Black colourway, featuring Nike's Safari print. Both the Superfly II and the Vapor VI were made available for pre-order on 22 March, and were released on 1 April 2010. The third colorway of the Mercurial Vapor VI and Mercurial Vapor Superfly II is cactus/white/anthracite. This colorway was released on 1 August 2010.

The fourth colorway of the Mercurial Vapor VI came in Voltage Cherry/Obsidian/Silver. This colourway was released on 1 October 2010.

The fifth colorway of the Mercurial Vapor VI came in black/gray/orange. This colourway was released on 1 January 2011. The Superfly II weighs about 7.4oz (210 grams), while the Vapor VI weighs about 8oz (226 grams).

Mercurial Vapor VII and Mercurial Vapor Superfly III

Nike unveiled the third incarnation of the Superfly series â€" the Mercurial Vapor Superfly III â€" and the Mercurial Vapor VII on 16 March 2011. Both boots received two initial launch colourways: Plum Red/White/Volt and Marine Blue/Platinum/Orange.

This update of Nike's lightweight football boots transpired to be largely cosmetic; rather than any new innovations being added to the Mercurial Vapor and Superfly (as the Nike SENSE adaptive traction system was with the Superfly II), the sole, studs, last and weight all remained the same on both football boots.

The only change came in the form of a new graphical design on the upper, which was designed to make the boots even more visible on the pitch.

Whilst many players were seen training and playing in the new Mercurial Vapor boots in the preceding weeks, the Mercurial Vapor Superfly III received its official on-pitch debut on 19 March 2011, when Cristiano Ronaldo and Mesut Özil played in the Madrid derby.

Both of these football boots were released for retail on 1 April 2011.

On 14 April 2011, Nike revealed the Nike CR Mercurial Vapor Superfly III, a version of the Mercurial Vapor Superfly III to be worn exclusively by Cristiano Ronaldo. Whilst not featuring any technical updates to the standard Superfly III, the Nike CR Mercurial Vapor Superfly III features an all-over 'Safari' print in Black/Volt, and geometric pattern on the instep that differs to the standard Superfly III.

On November 17, 2011 it was announced on the Nike website that the new colorway version of the Vapor Superfly III was released. It comes in a Metallic Mech Blue/Solar Red-Dark Obsidian color.

Two more new colorway versions of the Vapor Superfly III were released. The Court Purple/Metallic Luster-Magenta was released late 2011, and the Trace Blue/Anthracite-Cyber, which is Cristiano Ronaldo's latest Nike Mercurial colorway, was released January 2012.

Mercurial Vapor VIII

On March 19, 2012 The Vapor VIII was released in Bright Mango/Dark Metallic Grey and Sail/Soar/Challenge Red color way. Its debut came in the French ligue 2 player Christian Bosmediano. It was put on sale for the public on March 29, 2012. The latest Mercurial Vapor weighs in at 6.5oz. The special features of the boot is that Nike no longer uses the sense studs and four studs for the heel counter now Nike uses a whole new stud design for traction and two studs for the heel counter. This implant of the Mercurials do not include a carbon fibre soleplate, but instead uses the fibreglass soleplate Nike has been using for two years for the standard Vapors. Nike no longer uses Flywire but uses a thin layer of microfibre that has a suede finish, which is said to have been for control. Not only does the new Mercurials provide light weight and traction, now it also provides control.

These boots have also been released in the Miracle, Glide, and Victory versions, all version III (three). Although it appears that all three of the lower versions have at least a little bit of fiberglass on their sole plate, except for the Victory versions, it is actually just a sticker to improve marketing ability. The sticker on Miracle version has a zig-zag design on the fiberglass, the Glide versions have a sticker down the middle of the sole plate, but with no design in it, and as mentioned before, the Victory version has no sticker on its soleplate. The Vapor VIII is worn by Juan Mata, Didier Drogba, Eden Hazard, Neymar, Paul Aguilar, Andrey Arshavin, Cristiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Alexandre Pato, Mesut Özil, Christian Eriksen and Theo Walcott, among others.

Mercurial Vapor IX

In early 2013 the Mercurial Vapor IX was released with Cristiano Ronaldo headlining the boot with his own personalized CR7 edition. The IX came out in a Sunset/Total Crimson/Volt and Fireberry/Red Plum/Electric colourways. The speed boot features a lightweight (less than 200 grams ) Teijin upper featuring both a golf ball dimpled synthetic and a leather finish for control at all speeds and contoured speed which delivers superior fit and complete lock-down. The synthetic used for the synthetic version is a very thin padded synthetic that offers better touch on the ball allowing control in high speeds. The midsole has a perforated sockliner with synthetic top cloth which mirrors your natural foot shape enhancing comfort and flexibility. The outsole features a full length lightweight doubled layer fiberglass and TPU outsole ( leather finish has single layer fire glass for forefoot) which offers explosive acceleration and enhances multi-directional grip. The boot is also part of the s uccessful ACC collection by Nike which basically is an element of control in wet weather conditions. Finally the Synthetic finish weighs in around 6.9oz while the leather finish weighs in at 6.7oz. In May 2013 a limited edition 1998 Mercurial was unveiled in the current Vapor IX model where only 1,998 pairs will be sold to celebrate the 15 years of the Mercurial range and it features the same colourway as the 1998 Nike Mercurial worn by Ronaldo at the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The Nike Mercurial Vapor IX CR7 Galaxy Edition was unveiled on 21 October 2013 featuring a galaxy theme as a part of the CR7 line.

Mercurial Vapor X & Superfly IV

At a Nike Innovation Summit event in Madrid on 25 April 2014, Nike announced the next generation of Mercurial football boots; the Nike Mercurial Superfly IV.

Launched on-stage with Cristiano Ronaldo, the Superfly IV marked the return of the "Superfly" name in football after a two-generation absence.

The main change in the boot's design is the inclusion of FlyKnit; of which a triple-weave blend is used to make the material suitable for football. An ACC coating is also implemented as with other Nike statement boots. Cristiano Ronaldo wears a modified pair.

A Dynamic Fit Collar is also used, as with the Magista Obra, in place of a traditional tongue to create a more snug fit and less disparity between boot and foot.

An all-new traction plate was also introduced, with a carbon fibre chassis for improved energy return.

The boot launches in a Hyper Punch/Gold/Volt colourway, with a Black/Silver/Hyperpunch alternative available.

Details on the Vapor X are anticipated for the end of May 2014.

Similar versions

The Nike Mercurial Vapor can be available in other versions, for different types of turf.

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Glitter describes an assortment of small, flat, reflective particles. Glitter particles reflect light at different angles, causing the surface to sparkle or shimmer. Glitter is like confetti, sparkles, or sequins, but somewhat smaller. Since prehistoric times, glitter has been made and used as decoration, from many different materials including stones such as malachite, galena, and mica, as well as insects and glass. Modern glitter is usually manufactured from plastic.

Modern glitter

The first production of modern plastic glitter is credited to the American machinist Henry Ruschmann, who found a way to cut plastic or mylar sheets into glitter in 1934. During World War II with German glass glitter unavailable, Ruschmann found a market for scrap material ground into glitter made of plastics. He founded Meadowbrook Inventions, Inc. in Bernardsville, New Jersey, the company is still a producer of industrial glitter. Decades later he filed a patent for a mechanism for cross-cutting films as well as other related inventions.

Today over 20,000 varieties of glitter are manufactured in a vast number of different colors, sizes, and materials. Over 10,000,000 pounds (4,500,000 kg) of glitter was purchased between the years of 1989 and 2009 alone. Commercial glitter ranges in size from 0.002 square inches (1.3 mm²) to 0.25 square inches (160 mm²). First, flat multi-layered sheets are produced combining plastic, coloring, and reflective material such as aluminium, titanium dioxide, iron oxide, and bismuth oxychloride. These sheets are then cut into tiny particles of many shapes including squares, rectangles, and hexagons.

Ancient glitter

Glittering surfaces have been found to be used since prehistoric times in the arts and in cosmetics. The modern word “glitter” comes from glitra in Old Norse through Middle English. However, as early as 30,000 years ago, mica flakes were used to give cave paintings a glittering appearance. Prehistoric humans are believed to have used cosmetics, made of powdered hematite, a sparkling mineral.

8,000 years ago people of the Americas were using powdered galena a form of lead, to produce a bright greyish-white glittering paint used for objects of adornment. The collecting and surface mining of galena was prevalent in the Upper Mississippi Valley region by the Cahokia native peoples, for regional trade both raw and crafted into beads or other objects.

Over 6,000 years ago, ancient Egyptians produced glittering cosmetics from the iridescent shells of beetles as well as finely ground green malachite crystal. Researchers believe Mayan temples were sometimes painted with red, green, and grey glitter paint made from mica dust, based on infrared scans of the remnants of paint still found on the structures in present-day Guatemala.

Prior to modern plastics, particles of glass were used to create glittering surfaces and glass glitter is still produced commercially.

Uses

Prior to fabrics made with modern glitter, sequins were sewn or woven on to fabric to give it a glittering appearance. Edible glitter made from gum arabic and other ingredients is even used by culinary artists.

Glitter is used in cosmetics to make the face and nails appear more shiny or sparkly. Additionally, it is used in children's arts and crafts to color and texture items. The small, brightly colored particles often stick to clothing, skin, and furniture, and can be a hassle to remove.

Glitter coatings or finishes are frequently used on fishing lures to draw attention by simulating the scales of prey fish.

Due to its unique characteristics, glitter has also proven to be useful forensic evidence. Because of the tens of thousands of different commercial glitters, identical glitter particles can be compelling evidence that a suspect has been at a crime scene. Glitter particles are easily transferred through the air or by touch, yet cling to bodies and clothing, often unnoticed by suspects.

Glitter is also used for glitter bombing, which is an act of protest in which activists throw glitter on people at public events. Glitter bombers have frequently been motivated by, though not limited to, their targets' opposition to same-sex marriage. Some legal officials argue glitter bombing is technically assault and battery. It is possible for glitter to enter the eyes or nose and cause damage to the cornea or other soft tissues potentially irritating them or leading to infection, depending on the size of the glitter. Whether a prosecutor would pursue the charges depends on a number of factors.

References

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