What is "platform"

Halfpace \Half"pace`\ (-p[=a]s`), n. (Arch.) A platform of a staircase where the stair turns back in exactly the reverse direction of the lower flight. See Quarterpace.

Note: This term and quarterpace are rare or unknown in the United States, platform or landing being used instead.

1540s, "plan of action, scheme, design," from Middle French plateforme, platte fourme, literally "flat form," from Old French plat "flat" (see plateau (n.)) + forme "form" (see form (n.)). The literal sense of "raised, level surface" in English is first recorded 1550s. Political meaning, "statement of party policies," is from 1803, probably originally an image of a literal platform on which politicians gather, stand, and make their appeals, perhaps influenced by earlier sense of "set of rules governing church doctrine" (first attested 1570s). Railroad station sense is from 1838.

n. A raised stage from which speeches are made and on which musical and other performances are made. vb. (context transitive English) To furnish with or shape into a #Noun

1. n. a raised horizontal surface; "the speaker mounted the platform"

2. a document stating the aims and principles of a political party; "their candidate simply ignored the party platform"; "they won the election even though they offered no positive program" [syn: political platform, political program, program]

3. the combination of a particular computer and a particular operating system

4. any military structure or vehicle bearing weapons [syn: weapons platform]

5. a woman's shoe with a very high thick sole [syn: chopine, chopines, platforms]

Platform may refer to:

Platform is a 2001 novel by controversial French writer Michel Houellebecq (translated into English by Frank Wynne). It has received both great praise and great criticism, most notably for the novel's apparent condoning of sex tourism and anti-Muslim feelings. The author was charged for inciting racial and religious hatred after describing Islam as "stupid", but saw charges dismissed.

A play in Spanish based on the book, adapted and directed by Calixto Bieito, premiered at the 2006 Edinburgh International Festival.

Platform is a 2000 Chinese film written and directed by Jia Zhangke. The film is set in and around the small city of Fenyang, Shanxi province, China (Jia's birthplace), from the end of the 1970s to the beginning of the 1990s. It follows a group of twenty-something performers as they face personal and societal changes. The dialogue is a mixture of local speech, mainly Jin Chinese and Mandarin. The film has been called "an epic of grassroots". It is named after a popular song about waiting at a railway platform.

Platform has garnered wide acclaim from critics in the years since its release, and is often named one of the greatest films of the 2000s.

In geology, a platform is a continental area covered by relatively flat or gently tilted, mainly sedimentary strata, which overlie a basement of consolidated igneous or metamorphic rocks of an earlier deformation. Platforms, shields and the basement rocks together constitute cratons. Platform sediments can be classified into the following groups: a "protoplatform" of metamorphosed sediments at the bottom, a "quasiplatform" of slightly deformed sediments, a "cataplatform", and a "orthoplatform" at the top. The Mesoproterozoic Jotnian sediments of the Baltic area are examples of a "quasiplatform". The post- Ordovician rocks of the South American Platform are examples of an orthoplatform.

Platform is a 1993 Bollywood action film directed by Deepak Pawar and starring Ajay Devgan in the lead, with Tisca Chopra (Credited as Priya Arora, her screen name before marriage), Prithvi, and Paresh Rawal.

Platform is the second studio album by American electronic producer Holly Herndon, released on 19 May 2015 via 4AD. The album received critical acclaim upon its release.

Platforms, in European politics, are openly organized political factions within left-wing political parties. Examples include the Republican Communist Network, the Workers Unity Platform and the Solidarity Tendency, platforms within the Scottish Socialist Party; the Socialist Workers Platform and the Committee for a Workers' International ( International Socialists) platform, both Trotskyist platforms formerly within the Scottish Socialist Party and now part of Solidarity (Scotland); and the "plateformes" 1 through 4 of the Revolutionary Communist League (Ligue communiste révolutionnaire - LCR) in France.

Such groups in American left-wing political organizations are usually called tendencies or caucuses.

Category:Socialist parties in Europe

Platform London is an interdisciplinary London-based art and campaigning collective founded in 1983 that creates projects with social justice and environmental justice themes. Platform describes itself as "bringing together environmentalists, artists, human rights campaigners, educationalists and community activists to create innovative projects driven by the need for social and environmental justice. This interdisciplinary approach combines the transformatory power of art with the tangible goals of campaigning, the rigour of in-depth research with the vision to promote alternative futures."

A 1992 project by Platform sparked a local campaign to dig up the River Effra in London, England.

Their ongoing research into the political economy of oil is called the Unraveling the Carbon Web. Platform has written several books tracking the oil industry, including The Oil Road: Journeys from the Caspian Sea to the City of London published by Verso Books in 2013 and The Next Gulf: Britain, the USA and the politics of oil in the Gulf of Guinea published in 2005 by Constable & Robinson. Some Common Concerns - Imagining BP’s Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey Pipelines was released in October 2002.

Past work has included a campaign against the proposed oil law in Iraq, a series of performances about BP and climate change for oil analysts and journalists, a living memorial to the Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, a book exploring the psychology of those who work within major corporations, and a campaign to stop the Royal Bank of Scotland being the major European private financier of oil & gas.

Platform is in a long-running argument with the Tate over its sponsorship by BP, describing it as "a serious stain on the UK's cultural patrimony". Some artists with work in the Tate have backed Platform's opposition to BP, including Conrad Atkinson. Art critic Jonathan Jones opposed Platform's demands: "If they can get money from Satan himself they should take it." Interviewed during BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Tate Director Nicholas Serota explained "We look for long-term partners and one of those long-term partners is BP. They have been with us for 20 years. We all recognise they have a difficulty at the moment but you don't abandon your friends because they have what we consider to be a temporary difficulty."

A "Living Memorial" to Ken Saro-Wiwa was unveiled in London on 10 November 2006 by Platform, on the 11th anniversary of his execution. Created by Nigerian-born artist Sokari Douglas Camp, it consists of a steel sculpture of a bus with Ken's words inscribed in the side "I accuse the oil companies of genocide against the Ogoni". It has toured England, visiting the Shell headquarters and Glastonbury.

In 2006, with funding from Arts Council England they produced And While London Burns, an operatic audio tour of the City of London.