我們期待，在二十六日世運閉幕式上，能在觀眾席上看到更多的中華民國國旗。

此次世運能夠正式確立觀眾持國旗的先例，這是兩岸關係的重大突破。然而，在開幕式中，只見少數國旗，未免辜負了這一場得來不易的歷史機遇；因而，在閉幕式場中，宜應出現較多的國旗，以共同標誌這個看似平常實屬不凡的兩岸里程碑。有如好不容易辦到了一張信用卡，若不好好刷它一次，怎麼會有踏實的感覺？因此，我們期待在閉幕式中見到較多的國旗。

從某一角度來看，此次世運可謂是陳菊所代表的民進黨，與北京當局之間的一次相互試探。有人認為，陳菊爭取觀眾持國旗，尤其是用心安排馬總統到場宣布揭幕，或許會使北京方面不悅；這也許是低估了北京的「寬度」與「高度」（陳菊語）。其實，北京方面應當理解：當陳菊在世運確立了「中華民國總統馬英九」的角色，並爭取觀眾持中華民國國旗的權利，這可能正是標誌著民進黨與北京之間的政治差異，已因「中華民國」而正在改善及縮小。中共對此，毋寧應作正面解讀。

十六日中國代表隊未參與繞場開幕式，當天也未見大陸選手認證報到。不言可喻，北京方面當時正在作進退行止的細密估算；一股懸疑不安的氤氳，籠罩在高雄上空。一直到十八日下午傳出中國隊獲得攀岩雙金，原先擔慮北京可能杯葛不出賽的猜疑始告一掃而空。尤其值得注意的是，北京方面始終對開幕式中政治符號的問題未提異議，亦未作評論，統一的口徑是：「一切都依安排的行程進行，絕對沒有刻意迴避參加開幕式。」眾所皆知，這樣的態度，這樣的語言，與過去的橫眉豎目、齜牙咧嘴，真是「差很大」！

這樣的場景，對北京及對民進黨與國民黨皆具重大意義。對北京而言，一個認同中華民國的民進黨，自比主張台灣國的民進黨較有利於北京期待的兩岸關係。再者，經由此次世運的激盪，北京對中華民國的政治符號，更應有正面的理解；不能將青天白日滿地紅旗視為雪山獅子旗，而中華民國二千三百萬公民直選的總統亦絕無可能被北京當做不存在。

對民進黨而言，十六日開幕式由中華民國總統馬英九宣布揭幕，滿場小綠旗歡聲雷動的場景不啻顯示：無論在兩岸的競合關係中，或台灣內部的藍綠角力中，民進黨皆有可能回到「中華民國」的最大公約數上。此次世運在各方面的成就皆顯示，民進黨在兩岸關係中仍有角色，在台灣的政黨競爭中仍可期待，只要民進黨能回到中華民國的立足點上。

再談國民黨。倘若這次世運是由國民黨執政的城市主辦，觀眾持國旗或許亦可突破，因為北京不能犯眾怒；但以國民黨的保守風格，是否敢爭取並爭取到總統揭幕，即頗可存疑。這也可見，民進黨在世運出面維護中華民國，不論在兩岸或在台灣內部，皆有其勝過國民黨的條件，且民進黨在這一方面的操作能力亦優於國民黨。順便可以一提的是，十六日開幕式，綠營政治人物在入口發放「台灣旗」，滿場綠旗招展，連外國選手入場也手持綠旗；足見綠營人物的企圖心及操作能力；相對而言，大會不禁國旗，但全場未見幾面國旗，卻可看出藍營的敏感度、企圖心、操作力皆太過貧弱，白白錯失了一個見證歷史的重大機遇。這就是大家熟悉的國民黨，北京選手在開幕式中缺席，國民黨卻使國旗在看台上缺席。

高雄世運在兩岸政治符號的爭議中，創造了總統揭幕及觀眾持國旗的重大突破。我們期待，北京能從形式上的調整，漸漸進入思想觀念的開放與提升；民進黨則能藉此次世運的政治論述邏輯，平順地處理台灣與中華民國的生命共同體。倘係如此，高雄世運可能是兩岸關係及台灣內部社群關係出現重大改善的契機。

從政治面來看，高雄世運再度證實：中華民國是台灣內部社群關係及兩岸關係的最大公約數。我們期待，在世運閉幕式中，能見到更多的國旗，為此一歷史里程碑見證。

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, eligious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's.

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

NASA's Space Shuttle, officially named the Space Transportation System (STS), is the spacecraft currently used by the United States government for its human spaceflight missions and is scheduled to be retired from service in 2010. At launch, it consists of a rust-colored external tank (ET), two white, slender Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), and the orbiter.

The shuttle stack launches vertically like a conventional rocket from a mobile launch platform. It lifts off under the power of its two solid rocket boosters (SRBs) and its three main engines (SSMEs), the latter fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen from the external tank. The space shuttle has a two stage ascent. The boosters are used only for the first stage, while the main engines burn for both stages. About two minutes after liftoff, staging occurs: the SRBs are released, and shortly begin falling into the ocean to be retrieved for reuse. The shuttle orbiter and external tank continue to ascend under power from the three main engines and their inertia. Upon reaching orbit, the main engines are shut down, and the external tank, the only non-reusable major component, is jettisoned downward and falls to burn up in the atmosphere. At this point, the orbital maneuvering system (OMS) engines may be used to adjust or circularize the achieved orbit.

The orbiter carries astronauts and payload such as satellites or space station parts into low earth orbit, into the Earth's upper atmosphere or thermosphere. Usually, five to seven crew members ride in the orbiter. Two crew members, the Commander and Pilot, are sufficient for a minimal flight, as in the first four "test" flights, STS-1 through STS-4. The payload capacity is 22,700 kilograms (50,000 lb). To carry its payload, the orbiter has a large cargo bay with doors that open along the entire length of its top, a feature which makes the space shuttle unique among present spacecraft. This feature made possible the deployment of large satellites such as the Hubble Space Telescope.

IDEs are designed to maximize programmer productivity by providing tightly-knit components with similar user interfaces. This should mean that the programmer has much less mode switching to do than when using discrete development programs. However, because an IDE is by its very nature a complicated piece of software, this high productivity only occurs after a lengthy learning curve.

Typically an IDE is dedicated to a specific programming language, so as to provide a feature set which most closely matches the programming paradigms of the language. However, some multiple-language IDEs are in use, such as Eclipse, ActiveState Komodo, recent versions of NetBeans, Microsoft Visual Studio, and WinDev.

IDEs typically present a single program in which all development is done. This program typically provides many features for authoring, modifying, compiling, deploying and debugging software. The aim is to abstract the configuration necessary to piece together command line utilities in a cohesive unit, which theoretically reduces the time to learn a language, and increases developer productivity. It is also thought that the tight integration of development tasks can further increase productivity. For example, code can be compiled while being written, providing instant feedback on syntax errors. While most modern IDEs are graphical, IDEs in use before the advent of windowing systems (such as Microsoft Windows or X11) were text-based, using function keys or hotkeys to perform various tasks (Turbo Pascal is a common example). This contrasts with software development using unrelated tools, such as vi, GCC or make.

The word "skyscraper" originally was a nautical term referring to a tall mast or its main sail on a sailing ship. The term was first applied to buildings in the late 19th century as a result of public amazement at the tall buildings being built in Chicago and New York City. The traditional definition of a skyscraper began with the "first skyscraper", a steel-framed ten-storey building. Chicago's now demolished ten-storey steel-framed Home Insurance Building (1885) is considered the "first skyscraper".

The structural definition of the word skyscraper was refined later by architectural historians, based on engineering developments of the 1880s that had enabled construction of tall multi-storey buildings. This definition was based on the steel skeleton —- as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry, which passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicago's Monadnock Building. Philadelphia's City Hall, completed in 1901, still holds claim as the world's tallest load-bearing masonry structure at 167 m (548 ft). The steel frame developed in stages of increasing self-sufficiency, with several buildings in Chicago and New York advancing the technology that allowed the steel frame to carry a building on its own. Today, however, many of the tallest skyscrapers are built almost entirely with reinforced concrete. Pumps and storage tanks maintain water pressure at the top of skyscrapers.

A loose convention in the United States and Europe now draws the lower limit of a skyscraper at 150 meters (500 ft). A skyscraper taller than 300 meters (984 ft) may be referred to as supertall. Shorter buildings are still sometimes referred to as skyscrapers if they appear to dominate their surroundings.

Metaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world. Someone who studies metaphysics would be called either a "metaphysician" or a "metaphysicist".

A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into what types of things there are in the world and what relations these things bear to one another. The metaphysician also attempts to clarify the notions by which people understand the world, including existence, objecthood, property, space, time, causality, and possibility.

Before the development of modern science, scientific questions were addressed as a part of metaphysics known as "natural philosophy"; the term "science" itself meant "knowledge" of epistemological origin. The scientific method, however, made natural philosophy an empirical and experimental activity unlike the rest of philosophy, and by the end of the eighteenth century it had begun to be called "science" in order to distinguish it from philosophy. Thereafter, metaphysics became the philosophical enquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence.

The Birkin bag is a handbag manufactured by leather goods and ready-to-wear manufacturer Hermès. It is named after British-born actress and singer Jane Birkin, a longtime resident of France.

Press accounts of the bag's genesis differ in details. Birkin told noted fashion writer Dana Thomas that while seated next to Hermès CEO Jean-Louis Dumas in 1984 on a Paris to London flight, she opened her Hermès-made datebook and a flurry of loose notes fell to the floor. Dumas took her datebook and returned it a few weeks later with a pocket sewn into the back (which has since become standard). Birkin went on to discuss with Dumas her difficulty in finding a leather weekend bag and at his prompting, described her ideal. Shortly thereafter, the bag she described arrived at her flat with a note from Dumas.

A more piquant version of the story was repeated by film director Andrew Litvack. He put the year as 1981 and says that Birkin was called to Hermès to receive the first prototype. As she was leaving with the bag, they asked if she had forgotten something. Puzzled, she realized they wanted her to pay for it. Litvack claims Birkin was eventually reimbursed, and now receives a 10% discount on Hermès products.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

Webmasters and content providers began optimizing sites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early Web. Initially, all a webmaster needed to do was submit the address of a page, or URL, to the various engines which would send a spider to "crawl" that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed. The process involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine's own server, where a second program, known as an indexer, extracts various information about the page, such as the words it contains and where these are located, as well as any weight for specific words, and all links the page contains, which are then placed into a scheduler for crawling at a later date.

Site owners started to recognize the value of having their sites highly ranked and visible in search engine results, creating an opportunity for both white hat and black hat SEO practitioners. According to industry analyst Danny Sullivan, the phrase search engine optimization probably came into use in 1997.

Graduate students at Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, developed "backrub," a search engine that relied on a mathematical algorithm to rate the prominence of web pages. The number calculated by the algorithm, PageRank, is a function of the quantity and strength of inbound links. PageRank estimates the likelihood that a given page will be reached by a web user who randomly surfs the web, and follows links from one page to another. In effect, this means that some links are stronger than others, as a higher PageRank page is more likely to be reached by the random surfer.