Minuit is French for midnight. It may also refer to:

Minuit (pronounced min-wee, French for midnight) are an electronic band from New Zealand, formed in Nelson.

The members of Minuit include lead singer, Ruth Carr, with Paul Dodge (also known as Gimme a C!) and Ryan Beehre (also known as Funk'n'SloCuts) playing machines.

Early work

Minuit began as a guitar band with lead vocalist, Ruth Carr, on drums. Ryan Beehre bought a sampler and turned the band electronic, replacing the need for a drummer and putting Ruth out front as vocalist. The band released four self-released EPs, Sonic Experience (1998), Silver (1999), Luck (2000) and Except You (2002).

The 88

In 2003 Minuit signed to Tardus music and released their debut album, The 88. Some of the songs had already been released on their earlier EPs. The 88 achieved gold certification in New Zealand.

Minuit first came to prominence in 2002 when their first single "Species II" was used in the intro to the New Zealand TV show Queer Nation.

A video of the single "Except You" was made by their flatmate Alyx Duncan who thought it would be fun. The result was an award-winning eerie carnival-themed music video.

MINUIT, now MINUIT2, is a numerical minimization computer program originally written in the FORTRAN programming language by CERN staff physicist Fred James in the 1970s. The program searches for minima in a user-defined function with respect to one or more parameters using several different methods as specified by the user. The original FORTRAN code was later ported to C++ by the ROOT project; both the FORTRAN and C++ versions are in use today. The program is very widely used in particle physics, and hundreds of published papers cite use of MINUIT. In the early 2000s Fred James started a project to implement MINUIT in C++ using object-oriented programming. The new MINUIT is an optional package (minuit2) in the ROOT release. As of October 2014 the latest version is 5.34.14, released on 24 January 2014. There is also a Java port as well as several Python ports.

MINUIT is not a program that can be distributed as an executable binary to be run by a relatively unskilled user: the user must write and compile a subroutine defining the function to be optimized, and oversee the optimization process.

Geisha (芸者), geiko (芸子) or geigi (芸妓) are traditional Japanese female entertainers who act as hostesses and whose skills include performing various arts such as classical music, dance, games and conversation, mainly to entertain male customers.

Terms

Geisha (/ˈɡeɪʃə/; Japanese: [ɡeːɕa]), like all Japanese nouns, has no distinct singular or plural variants. The word consists of two kanji, 芸 (gei) meaning "art" and 者 (sha) meaning "person" or "doer". The most literal translation of geisha into English would be "artist," "performing artist," or "artisan." Another name for geisha is geiko (芸子), which is usually used to refer to geisha from western Japan, which includes Kyoto.

Apprentice geisha are called maiko (舞子 or 舞妓), (literally "dance child") or hangyoku (半玉), "half-jewel" (meaning that they are paid half of the wage of a full geisha), or by the more generic term o-shaku (御酌), literally "one who pours (alcohol)". The white make-up and elaborate kimono and hair of a maiko is the popular image held of geisha. A woman entering the geisha community does not have to begin as a maiko, having the opportunity to begin her career as a full geisha. Either way, however, usually a year's training is involved before debuting either as a maiko or as a geisha. A woman above 21 is considered too old to be a maiko and becomes a full geisha upon her initiation into the geisha community. However, those who do go through the maiko stage can enjoy more prestige later in their professional lives.

Geisha are traditional Japanese female entertainers.

Geisha may also refer to:

See also

The Chinese Elm cultivar Ulmus parvifolia 'Geisha' is a dwarf variety.

Description

Rarely exceeding 2 m in height, 'Geisha' is distinguished by its small, variegated leaves .

Pests and diseases

The species and its cultivars are highly resistant, but not immune, to Dutch elm disease, and unaffected by the Elm Leaf Beetle Xanthogaleruca luteola .

Cultivation

Relatively common in cultivation in Europe, it is not known to have been introduced to North America or Australasia.

Accessions

Europe

Nurseries

Europe

(Widely available)