title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: The turning point in Chernenko's career was his assignment in 1948 to head the Communist Party's propaganda department in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. There, he met and won the confidence of Leonid Brezhnev, the first secretary of the Moldavian branch of the Communist Party from 1950 to 1952 and future leader of the Soviet Union. Chernenko followed Brezhnev in 1956 to fill a similar propaganda post in the CPSU Central Committee in Moscow. In 1960, after Brezhnev was named chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (titular head of state of the Soviet Union), Chernenko became his chief of staff.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: In 1964, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was deposed, and succeeded by Brezhnev. During Brezhnev's tenure as Party leader, Chernenko's career continued successfully. He was nominated in 1965 as head of the General Department of the Central Committee, and given the mandate to set the Politburo agenda and prepare drafts of numerous Central Committee decrees and resolutions. He also monitored telephone wiretaps and covert listening devices in various offices of the top Party members. Another of his jobs was to sign hundreds of Party documents daily, a job he did for the next 20 years. Even after he became General Secretary of the Party, he continued to sign papers referring to the General Department (when he could no longer physically sign documents, a facsimile was used instead).


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: In 1971, Chernenko was promoted to full membership in the Central Committee: overseeing Party work over the Letter Bureau, dealing with correspondence. In 1976, he was elected secretary of the Letter Bureau. He became Candidate in 1977, and in 1978 a full member of the Politburo, second to the General Secretary in the Party hierarchy.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: During Brezhnev's final years, Chernenko became fully immersed in ideological Party work: heading Soviet delegations abroad, accompanying Brezhnev to important meetings and conferences, and working as a member of the commission that revised the Soviet Constitution in 1977. In 1979, he took part in the Vienna arms limitation talks.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: After Brezhnev's death in November 1982, there was speculation that the position of General Secretary would fall to Chernenko, but he was unable to rally enough support for his candidacy within the Party. Ultimately, KGB chief Yuri Andropov, who had been more mindful of Brezhnev's failing health, succeeded to the position.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: Yuri Andropov died on 9 February 1984. Chernenko was then elected to replace Andropov even though the latter stated he wanted Mikhail Gorbachev to succeed him. Additionally, Chernenko was terminally ill himself.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: At the time of his ascent to the country's top post, Chernenko was primarily viewed as a transitional leader who could give the Politburo's "Old Guard" time to choose an acceptable candidate from the next generation of Soviet leadership. In the interim, he was forced to govern the country as part of a triumvirate alongside Defense Minister Dmitriy Ustinov and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. This became a growing problem as Chernenko's illness led him to miss meetings with increasing frequency.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: At Andropov's funeral, Chernenko could barely read the eulogy. Those present strained to catch the meaning of what he was trying to say. He spoke rapidly, swallowed his words, kept coughing and stopped repeatedly to wipe his lips and forehead. He ascended Lenin's Mausoleum by way of a newly installed escalator and descended with the help of two bodyguards.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: Chernenko represented a return to the policies of the late Brezhnev era. Nevertheless, he supported a greater role for the labour unions, and reform in education and propaganda. The one major personnel change Chernenko made was the dismissal of the Chief of the General Staff, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov. Ogarkov was subsequently replaced by Marshal Sergey Akhromeyev.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: In foreign policy, he negotiated a trade pact with China. Despite calls for renewed détente, Chernenko did little to prevent the escalation of the Cold War with the United States. For example, in 1984, the Soviet Union prevented a visit to West Germany by East German leader Erich Honecker. However, in late autumn of 1984, the U.S. and the Soviet Union did agree to resume arms control talks in early 1985. In November 1984 Chernenko met with Britain's Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: In 1980, the United States had boycotted the Summer Olympics held in Moscow in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The following 1984 Summer Olympics were due to be held in Los Angeles, California. On 8 May 1984, under Chernenko's leadership, the USSR announced its intention not to participate, citing security concerns and "chauvinistic sentiments and an anti-Soviet hysteria being whipped up in the United States". The boycott was joined by 14 Eastern Bloc countries and allies, including Cuba (but not Romania). The action was widely seen as revenge for the U.S. boycott of the Moscow Games. The boycotting countries organised their own "Friendship Games" in the summer of 1984.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: Before his death, Chernenko signed preliminary documents stating that on 9 May 1985, on the day of the 40th Victory Day Parade, the city of Volgograd would be renamed to Stalingrad. In his letter to Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva, he wrote about "the upcoming restoration of justice in relation to the memory and heritage of I.V. Stalin", which presumably referred to Stalin's political rehabilitation.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: Chernenko started smoking at the age of nine, and he was always known to be a heavy smoker as an adult. Long before his election as general secretary, he had developed emphysema and right-sided heart failure. In 1983 he had been absent from his duties for three months due to bronchitis, pleurisy and pneumonia. Historian John Lewis Gaddis described him as "an enfeebled geriatric so zombie-like as to be beyond assessing intelligence reports, alarming or not" when he succeeded Andropov in 1984.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: In early 1984, Chernenko was hospitalized for over a month but kept working by sending the Politburo notes and letters. During the summer, his doctors sent him to Kislovodsk for the mineral spas, but on the day of his arrival at the resort Chernenko's health deteriorated, and he contracted pneumonia. Chernenko did not return to the Kremlin until later in 1984. He awarded Orders to cosmonauts and writers in his office, but was unable to walk through the corridors and was driven in a wheelchair.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: By the end of 1984, Chernenko could hardly leave the Central Clinical Hospital, a heavily guarded facility in west Moscow, and the Politburo was affixing a facsimile of his signature to all letters, as Chernenko had done with Andropov's when he was dying. Chernenko's illness was first acknowledged publicly on 22 February 1985 during a televised election rally in Kuibyshev Borough of northeast Moscow, where the General Secretary stood as candidate for the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR, when Politburo member Viktor Grishin revealed that the General Secretary was absent in accordance with doctors' advice. Two days later, in a televised scene that shocked the nation, Grishin dragged the terminally ill Chernenko from his hospital bed to a ballot box to vote. On 28 February 1985, Chernenko appeared once more on television to receive parliamentary credentials and read out a brief statement on his electoral victory: "the election campaign is over and now it is time to carry out the tasks set for us by the voters and the Communists who have spoken out".


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: Emphysema and the associated lung and heart damage worsened significantly for Chernenko in the last three weeks of February 1985. According to the Chief Kremlin doctor, Yevgeny I. Chazov, Chernenko had also developed both chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis of the liver. On 10 March at 15:00, Chernenko fell into a coma and died later that evening at 19:20, aged 73. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a combination of chronic emphysema, an enlarged and damaged heart, congestive heart failure and liver cirrhosis. A three-day period of mourning across the country was announced. India, Iraq, Syria and Nicaragua all declared three days of mourning; Pakistan declared two days of mourning; East Germany and Czechoslovakia declared one day of mourning.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: Chernenko became the third Soviet leader to die in less than three years. Upon being informed in the middle of the night of his death, U.S. President Ronald Reagan is reported to have remarked, "How am I supposed to get anyplace with the Russians if they keep dying on me?"


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: Chernenko was honored with a state funeral and was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, in one of the twelve individual tombs located between the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin wall. He is the last person to have been interred there.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: The impact of Chernenko—or the lack thereof—was evident in the way in which his death was reported in the Soviet press. Soviet newspapers carried stories about Chernenko's death and Gorbachev's selection on the same day. The papers had the same format: page 1 reported the party Central Committee session on 11 March that elected Gorbachev and printed the new leader's biography and a large photograph of him; page 2 announced the demise of Chernenko and printed his obituary.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: After the death of a Soviet leader it was customary for his successors to open his safe. When Gorbachev had Chernenko's safe opened, it was found to contain a small folder of personal papers and several large bundles of money; more money was found in his desk. It is not known where he had obtained the money or what he intended to use it for.


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: In 1976, 1981 and 1984 Chernenko was awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labour. On the latter occasion, Minister of Defense Dmitry Ustinov underlined his rule as an "outstanding political figure, a loyal and unwavering continuer of the cause of the great Lenin". In 1982 he received the Lenin Prize for his "Human Rights in Soviet Society".


title: Konstantin Chernenko

text: Chernenko had a son with his first wife, Faina Vassilyevna Chernenko, named Albert. With his second wife, Anna Dmitrevna Lyubimova, who married him in 1944, he had two daughters, Yelena and Vera, and a son, Vladimir. In 2015, archival documents were published, according to which Chernenko had many more wives, and many more children with them; this circumstance, perhaps, was the reason for the slowing of Chernenko's career growth in the 1940s.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: The Toyota JZ engine family is a series of inline-6 automobile engines produced by Toyota Motor Corporation. As a replacement for the M-series inline-6 engines, the JZ engines were 24-valve DOHC engines in 2.5- and 3.0-litre versions.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: The 1JZ version was produced from 1990 to 2007 (last sold in the Mark II BLIT Wagon and Crown Athlete). Cylinder bore and stroke is . It is a 24-valve DOHC engine with two belt-driven camshafts and a dual-stage intake manifold.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: The 1JZ-GE is a common version, with a 10:1 compression ratio. Output for the early non-turbo, non-VVT-i (1990–1995) 1JZ-GE was at 6000 rpm and at 4800 rpm. VVT-i variable valve timing was added in 1995, for an output of at 6000 rpm and at 4000 rpm.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: Like all JZ-series engines, the early 1JZ-GE is designed for longitudinal mounting and rear-wheel-drive. All of these models only came with a 4-speed automatic transmission; no manual gearbox option was offered.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: The 1JZ-GTE is a twin-turbocharged version of the 1JZ, produced from 1990 to 2007. The first generation 1JZ-GTE employs twin CT12A turbochargers arranged in parallel and blowing through a side-mount or front mount air-to-air intercooler. With an 8.5:1 static compression ratio, the factory quoted power and torque outputs are at 6200 rpm and at 4800 rpm. The bore and stroke are the same as for the 1JZ-GE: bore × stroke is . In 1991, the 1JZ-GTE was slotted into the all-new Soarer GT.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: The early generation 1JZ-GTEs combined the inherent smoothness of an inline 6-cylinder engine with the revving capacity of its short stroke and early power delivery of its small, ceramic wheeled turbochargers. The ceramic turbine wheels are prone to delamination in the setting of high impeller rpm and local temperature conditions, usually a result of higher boost. The first generation 1JZs were even more prone to turbo failure due to there being a faulty one-way valve on the head, specifically on the intake cam cover causing blow-by gases to go into the intake manifold. On the exhaust side, a decent amount of oil vapor flows into the turbos causing premature wear on the seals. The later second generation engines had this problem fixed and in Japan there was actually a recall in order to repair the first generation engines, though that does not apply to 1JZs imported to other countries. The fix is simple, and involves replacement of the PCV valve (2JZ); all parts are available through Toyota.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: The third generation of the 1JZ-GTE was introduced around 1996, still as a 2.5-litre turbo, but with Toyota's BEAMS architecture. This included a reworked head, newly developed continuously variable valve timing mechanism (VVT-i), modified water jackets for improved cylinder cooling and newly developed shims with a titanium nitride coating for reduced cam friction. The turbo setup changed from parallel twin turbo (CT12A x2) to a single turbo (CT15B). The single turbo is in part made more efficient by the use of smaller exhaust ports in the head, this allows the escaping exhaust gasses to have more velocity as they exit the head, which in turn, spools the turbo faster and at lower RPM.The adoption of VVT-i and the improved cylinder cooling allowed the compression ratio to be increased from 8.5:1 to 9.0:1. Even though the official power figures remained at at 6200 rpm, torque was increased by to at 2400 rpm. These improvements resulted in increased engine efficiency that reduced fuel consumption by 10%. The adoption of VVTi, a much higher efficiency single turbocharger than the twins as well as different manifold and exhaust ports were responsible for most of the 50% torque increase at low engine speeds. This engine was used primarily in Toyota's X chassis cars (Chaser, Mark II, Cresta, Verossa, Blit), the Crown Athlete V (JZS171) and in the later JZZ30 Soarer, as the JZA70 Supra had long been discontinued at this time.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: Around 2000, Toyota introduced what are quite probably the least-recognized members of the JZ engine family: the FSE direct injection variants. These FSE 1JZ and 2JZ engines are aimed at achieving minimal emissions and fuel consumption together with no loss of performance.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: The 2.5-litre 1JZ-FSE employs the same block as the conventional 1JZ-GE; however, the design of the cylinder head is unique.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: The ‘D4’ FSE employs a relatively narrow angle cylinder head with swirl control valves that serve to improve combustion efficiency.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: This is necessary to run at extremely lean air-fuel ratios around 20 to 40:1 at certain engine load and revs. Not surprisingly, fuel consumption is reduced by around 20 percent (when tested in the Japanese 10/15 urban mode). Normal unleaded fuel is enough to cope with the FSE's 11:1 compression ratio.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: The direct injection version of the 1JZ generates and – virtually the same as the conventional VVT-i 1JZ-GE. The 1JZ-FSE is always used with an automatic transmission.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: The 2JZ has been produced from 1991 (first released in the 1991 Toyota Aristo) to 2007. Cylinder bore and stroke is . VVT-i variable valve timing was first introduced in 1995 starting with the 2JZ-GE, but did not come to the 2JZ-GTE and the US-market until mid-1997 for the 1998 model year onwards. This engine is not merely a stroked version of the 1JZ (although they share a common bore size, bore pitch, and general architecture), but has a taller block deck and longer connecting rods to accommodate the stroke increase.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: It uses Sequential Electronic Fuel Injection, has an aluminium head and 4 valves per cylinder, along with a cast-iron cylinder block. VVT-i was first introduced to the engines in 1995. The VVT-i version also featured DIS as opposed to the traditional distributor set-up previously seen on the 1JZ-GE. Despite the common misconception, it was not a true COP (Coil-On-Plug, also known as Plug-top coil) ignition system, instead relying on one coil to fire two cylinders, one of which was by spark plug wire.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: The 2JZ-GTE is an inline-layout, six-cylinder, belt-driven dual overhead camshaft, air-intercooled, twin-turbocharged, cast-iron block, aluminium cylinder head engine designed and manufactured by Toyota Motor Corporation that was produced from 1991 to 2002 in Japan. It originally powered the Toyota Aristo V (JZS147) in 1991 before becoming Toyota's flagship performance engine in the Toyota Supra RZ (JZA80) in 1993.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: Development and evolution of the engine was, principally, a response to Nissan's relatively new and then-successful RB26DETT engine, which had achieved much success in FIA Group A and Group N touring car championships.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: Its mechanical basis was of the existing 2JZ-GE, but differed in its use of sequential twin turbochargers and an air-to-air side-mounted intercooler. The engine block, crankshaft, and connecting rods of the Supra's 2JZ-GE and 2JZ-GTE are the same, with notable differences being that the 2JZ-GTE has recessed piston tops (giving a lower compression ratio), oil spray nozzles to aid in cooling the pistons and a different head (redesigned inlet/exhaust ports, cams and valves). Toyota's VVT-i variable valve timing technology was added to the engine beginning in September 1997, and hence it phased out production of the original engine in Japan. Consequently, maximum torque and horsepower was raised for engines selling in all markets. The later 2JZ-GE VVT-i equipped models (Aristo, Altezza and Mark II) shared a different part number for weaker connecting rods.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: The addition of twin turbochargers, jointly developed by Toyota with Hitachi, in sequential configuration had raised its commercially cited output from to the contemporary industry maximum of at 5600 rpm. In its first appearance, torque was advertised as at 4000 rpm to be later recited as with the introduction of VVT-i in production year 1997. The mutually agreed, industry-wide output ceiling was enforced by Japan's now-defunct Gentlemen's Agreement exclusively between Japanese automakers selling to the Japanese domestic market. Engine power in the North American and European markets, as documented by Toyota, was increased to at 5600 rpm.


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: The export version of the 2JZ-GTE achieved its higher power output with the use of newer stainless steel turbochargers (ceramic for Japanese models), revised camshafts, and larger injectors (550 cc/min for export, 440 cc/min for Japanese). The mechanical similarities between the Japanese-specification CT20 turbine and export-specification CT12B turbine allow interchangeability of the exhaust-side propeller shaft. Additionally, the export-exclusive CT12B turbine received more durable turbine housings and stainless steel turbine and impeller fins. Multiple variants of the Japanese CT20 turbine exist discretely, which are identified with the B, R, and A part number suffixes (e.g.: CT20A).


title: Toyota JZ engine

text: The 3.0-litre 2JZ-FSE uses the same direct injection principle as the smaller 1JZ-FSE but runs an even higher 11.3:1 compression ratio. This engine features narrow angle cylinder heads with swirl control valves improving combustion efficiency (similar to the 1JZ-FSE) and weighs about . The 2JZ-FSE matches the conventional VVT-i 2JZ-GE with and of torque. The 2JZ-FSE is always used with an automatic transmission.


title: Scott Grimes

text: Scott Christopher Grimes (born July 9, 1971) is an American actor and singer. Some of his most prominent roles include appearances in the 1984 cult classic "The Night They Saved Christmas", "ER" as Dr. Archie Morris, "Party of Five" as Will McCorkle, "Band of Brothers" as Technical Sergeant Donald Malarkey, and the animated sitcom "American Dad!", voicing Steve Smith. He is also well known by cult movie fans for his role as Bradley Brown in the first two "Critters" films. Since 2017, he has been a regular on the Fox/Hulu sci-fi comedy drama "The Orville" as Lieutenant Gordon Malloy.


title: Scott Grimes

text: As a singer, Grimes is best known for co-writing and performing the soft rock single "Sunset Blvd", which spent several weeks on the "Billboard" charts, and for being one of the four singers in Russell Crowe's band Indoor Garden Party.


title: Scott Grimes

text: Grimes was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the son of Pam and Rick Grimes. He lived in neighboring Dracut for much of his youth, and attended Dracut Public Schools. His sister, Heather Grimes, is also an actress. He is the uncle of Camryn Grimes, who is known for her roles as Cassie Newman and Mariah Copeland on "The Young and the Restless".


title: Scott Grimes

text: Grimes started acting at an early age. In 1984, at the age of 13, he co-starred with Mickey Rooney in a made-for-TV holiday movie titled "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear." In 1985, he appeared in an episode of the "Twilight Zone" called "Little Boy Lost."


title: Scott Grimes

text: Grimes also began singing in childhood, and in March 1986 appeared on a Bob Hope TV special, singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow." The special was taped in Sweden with the King and Queen in attendance. In 1987, he performed as a guest vocalist on the "Time" album by Richard Carpenter of The Carpenters, where Carpenter thanked the 15-year-old Grimes for his "spirited" performance, commenting in the liner notes, "I believe young Scott to have quite a future in music." Grimes' first music album, "Scott Grimes." was released by A&M Records in 1989, with the single "I Don't Even Mind" and produced by Carpenter. In 2005, he released his second album, "Livin' on the Run," and in 2010 his third, "Drive."


title: Scott Grimes

text: In 1987, Grimes voiced Pinocchio in the dark animated film "Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night." In 1988, he appeared with Dwayne Hickman, Connie Stevens, and her daughter Tricia Leigh Fisher in the TV movie "Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis"; Grimes, Hickman, Stevens, and Fisher also appeared on the "All-Star Super Password Special" with Bert Convy. He had also guest starred on the NBC sitcom "Wings." He is also known for his 1987 recurring role on "Who's the Boss" as Alyssa Milano's character's love interest, Chad McCann and his regular appearances in the 1994–2000 series "Party of Five" as Will McCorkle.


title: Scott Grimes

text: Grimes starred on the NBC series "ER" playing Dr. Archie Morris from 2003 until the series' end in 2009. Initially a recurring character on "ER", he later was upgraded to a main role in season 12. The character initially provided comic relief, but grew over the years, becoming central to several episodes and story lines in the series' final seasons.


title: Scott Grimes

text: Since 2005, Grimes has voiced Steve Smith in the American animated sitcom "American Dad!" He has also voiced the recurring characters Midget Assassin and Frat Guy, as well as several additional characters, each of whom appear in only one episode.


title: Scott Grimes

text: Grimes' film credits include the dark comedy "Who's Your Monkey" and Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood" with Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. On October 11, 2010, Grimes announced on his Twitter that he would voice a character on the animated series "Family Guy," which would turn out to be Joe Swanson's previously thought-to-be-dead son, Kevin Swanson. On March 19, 2013, he was cast as Dave Flynn on the "" episode entitled "Red", the first episode of a two-part backdoor pilot to another "NCIS" spin-off which would have been named "NCIS: Red", but it was not picked up. Grimes had previously appeared in an "NCIS" episode entitled "Baltimore" in 2011 as Detective Danny Price, Anthony DiNozzo's former partner at the Baltimore P.D.


title: Scott Grimes

text: Since September 10, 2017, he has played cocky helmsman Gordon Malloy, the best friend of Captain Ed Mercer (Seth MacFarlane) on the Fox/Hulu sci-fi comedy drama "The Orville", created by executive producer MacFarlane.


title: Scott Grimes

text: Grimes has a son and a daughter with his first wife, Dawn Bailey-Grimes, whom he married on May 5, 1997. In December 2011, he married Megan Moore. She filed for divorce in October 2017. At the San Diego Comic-Con in 2018, it was revealed that he was dating his "Orville" co-star Adrianne Palicki. The two announced their engagement in January 2019, and married in Austin, Texas on May 19, 2019. Two months later, in July 2019, Palicki filed for divorce, but had it dismissed in November. The couple separated again in June 2020, with Palicki again filing for divorce in July.


title: Slender Man

text: Slender Man (also spelled Slenderman) is a fictional supernatural character that originated as a creepypasta Internet meme created by Something Awful forum user Eric Knudsen (also known as "Victor Surge") in 2009. He is depicted as a thin, unnaturally tall humanoid with a featureless head and face, wearing a black suit.


title: Slender Man

text: Stories of the Slender Man commonly feature him stalking, abducting, or traumatizing people, particularly children. The Slender Man has become a pop culture icon, although he is not confined to a single narrative but appears in many disparate works of fiction, typically composed online. Fiction relating to the Slender Man encompasses many media, including literature, art and video series such as "Marble Hornets" (2009–2014), wherein he is known as The Operator. The character has appeared in the video game "" (2012) and its successor "" (2013), as well as inspiring the Enderman in "Minecraft". He has also appeared in a , where he was portrayed by Doug Jones, and an eponymous 2018 film, where he was portrayed by Javier Botet.


title: Slender Man

text: Beginning in 2014, a moral panic occurred over the Slender Man after readers of his fiction were connected to several violent acts, particularly a near-fatal stabbing of a 12-year-old girl in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The stabbing inspired the documentary "Beware the Slenderman", which was released in 2016.


title: Slender Man

text: The Slender Man was created on June 10, 2009, on a thread in the Something Awful Internet forum. The thread was a Photoshop contest in which users were challenged to "create paranormal images." Forum poster Eric Knudsen, under the pseudonym "Victor Surge", contributed two black-and-white images of groups of children to which he added a tall, thin, spectral figure wearing a black suit. Although previous entries had consisted solely of photographs, Surge supplemented his submission with snatches of text—supposedly from witnesses—describing the abductions of the groups of children and giving the character the name "The Slender Man":


title: Slender Man

text: These additions effectively transformed the photographs into a work of fiction. Subsequent posters expanded upon the character, adding their own visual or textual contributions.


title: Slender Man

text: Knudsen was inspired to create the Slender Man primarily by Zack Parsons' "That Insidious Beast", Stephen King's "The Mist", reports of shadow people, Mothman and the Mad Gasser of Mattoon. Other inspirations for the character were the Tall Man from the 1979 film "Phantasm", H. P. Lovecraft, the surrealist work of William S. Burroughs, and the survival horror video games "Silent Hill" and "Resident Evil". Knudsen's intention was "to formulate something whose motivations can barely be comprehended, and [which caused] unease and terror in a general population." Other pre-existing fictional or legendary creatures which are similar to the Slender Man include: the Gentlemen, black-suited, pale, bald demons from the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episode "Hush"; men in black, many accounts of which grant them an uncanny appearance with an unnatural walk and "oriental" features; and The Question, a DC Comics superhero with a blank face, whose secret identity is "Victor Sage", a name similar to Knudsen's alias "Victor Surge".


title: Slender Man

text: In her book, "Folklore, Horror Stories, and the Slender Man: The Development of an Internet Mythology", Professor Shira Chess of the University of Georgia connected the Slender Man to ancient folklore about fairies. Like fairies, the Slender Man is otherworldly, with motives that are often difficult to grasp; like fairies, his appearance is vague and often shifts to reflect what the viewer wants or fears to see, and, like fairies, the Slender Man lives in the woods and wild places and kidnaps children.


title: Slender Man

text: The Slender Man soon went viral, spawning numerous works of fanart, cosplay, and online fiction known as "creepypasta"—horror stories told in short snatches of easily copyable text that spread from site to site. Divorced from its original creator, the Slender Man became the subject of myriad stories by multiple authors within an overarching mythos.


title: Slender Man

text: Many aspects of the Slender Man mythos first appeared on the original Something Awful thread. One of the earliest additions was added by a forum user named "Thoreau-Up", who created a folklore story set in 16th-century Germany involving a character called Der Großman, which was implied to be an early reference to the Slender Man. The first video series involving the Slender Man evolved from a post on the Something Awful thread by user "ce gars". It tells of a fictional film school friend named Alex Kralie, who had stumbled upon something troubling while shooting his first feature-length project, "Marble Hornets". The video series, published in found footage style on YouTube, forms an alternate reality game describing the filmers' fictional experiences with the Slender Man. The ARG also incorporates a Twitter feed and an alternate YouTube channel created by a user named "totheark". As of 2013, "Marble Hornets" had over 250,000 subscribers around the world and had received 55 million views. Other Slender Man-themed YouTube serials followed, including "EverymanHYBRID" and "TribeTwelve".


title: Slender Man

text: In 2012, the Slender Man was adapted into a video game titled ""; within its first month of release, the game was downloaded over 2 million times. Several popular variants of the game followed, including "Slenderman's Shadow" and "Slender Man" for iOS, which became the second most-popular app download. The sequel to "Slender: The Eight Pages", "", was released in 2013. Several independent films about the Slender Man have been released or are in development, including "Entity" and "The Slender Man", released free online after a $10,000 Kickstarter campaign. In 2013, it was announced that "Marble Hornets" would become a feature film.


title: Slender Man

text: Because the Slender Man's fictional "mythology" has evolved without an official "canon" for reference, his appearance, motives, habits, and abilities are not fixed but change depending on the storyteller. He is most commonly described as very tall and thin with unnaturally long, tentacle-like arms (or mere tentacles), which he can extend to intimidate or capture prey. In most stories, his face is white and featureless, but occasionally his face appears differently to anyone who sees it. He appears to be wearing a dark suit and tie. The Slender Man is often associated with the forest and/or abandoned locations and has the ability to teleport. Proximity to the Slender Man is often said to trigger a "Slender sickness"; a rapid onset of paranoia, nightmares and delusions accompanied by nosebleeds.


title: Slender Man

text: Early stories featured him targeting children or young adults. Some featured young adults driven insane or to act on his behalf, while others did not, and others claim that investigating the Slender Man will draw his attention. The web series "Marble Hornets" established the idea of proxies (humans who fall under the Slender Man's influence) though initially, they were simply violently insane, rather than puppets of the Slender Man. "Marble Hornets" also introduced the idea that the Slender Man could interfere with video and audio recordings, as well as the "Slender Man symbol", ⦻, which became a common trope of Slender fiction. Graphic violence and body horror are uncommon in the Slender Man mythos, with many narratives choosing to leave the fate of his victims obscure. Shira Chess notes that "It is important to note that few of the retellings identify exactly what kind of monster the Slender Man might be, and what his specific intentions are- these points all remain mysteriously and usefully vague."


title: Slender Man

text: Media scholar and folklorist Andrew Peck attributes the success of the Slender Man to its highly collaborative nature. Because the character and its motives are shrouded in mystery, users can easily adapt existing Slender Man tropes and imagery to create new stories. This ability for users to tap into the ideas of others while also supplying their own helped inspire the collaborative culture that arose surrounding the Slender Man. Instead of privileging the choices of certain creators as canonical, this collaborative culture informally locates ownership of the creature across the community. In these respects, the Slender Man is similar to campfire stories or urban legends, and the character's success comes from enabling both social interaction and personal acts of creative expression.


title: Slender Man

text: Although nearly all users understand that the Slender Man is not real, they suspend that disbelief in order to become more engrossed when telling or listening to stories. This adds a sense of authenticity to Slender Man legend performances and blurs the lines between legend and reality, keeping the creature as an object of legend dialectic. This ambiguity has led some to some confusion over the character's origin and purpose. Only five months after his creation, George Noory's "Coast to Coast AM", a radio call-in show devoted to the paranormal and conspiracy theories, began receiving callers asking about the Slender Man. Two years later, an article in the "Minneapolis Star Tribune" described his origins as "difficult to pinpoint." Eric Knudsen has commented that many people, despite understanding that the Slender Man was created on the Something Awful forums, still entertain the possibility that he might be real.


title: Slender Man

text: Shira Chess describes the Slender Man as a metaphor for "helplessness, power differentials, and anonymous forces." Peck sees parallels between the Slender Man and common anxieties about the digital age, such as feelings of constant connectedness and unknown third-party observation. Similarly, Tye Van Horn, a writer for "The Elm", has suggested that the Slender Man represents modern fear of the unknown; in an age flooded with information, people have become so unaccustomed to ignorance that they now fear what they cannot understand. Troy Wagner, the creator of "Marble Hornets", ascribes the terror of the Slender Man to its malleability; people can shape it into whatever frightens them most. Tina Marie Boyer noted that "The Slender man is a prohibitive monster, but the cultural boundaries he guards are not clear. Victims do not know when they have violated or crossed them."


title: Slender Man

text: On May 31, 2014, two 12-year-old girls in Waukesha, Wisconsin held down and stabbed a 12-year-old classmate 19 times. When questioned later by authorities, they reportedly claimed that they wished to commit a murder as a first step to becoming proxies for the Slender Man, having read about it online. They also stated that they were afraid that Slender Man would kill their families if they did not commit the murder. After the perpetrators left the scene, the victim crawled out of the woods to a roadway. A passing cyclist alerted authorities, and the victim survived the attack. Both attackers have been diagnosed with mental illnesses but have also been charged as adults and are each facing up to 65 years in prison. One of the girls reportedly said Slender Man watches her, can read minds and could teleport.


title: Slender Man

text: Experts testified in court that she also said she conversed with Lord Voldemort and one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. On August 1, 2014, she was found incompetent to stand trial and her prosecution was suspended until her condition improved. On November 12, 2014, a doctor judged that her condition had improved enough for her to stand trial, and on December 19, 2014, the judge ruled that both girls were competent to stand trial. In August 2015, the presiding judge ruled that the girls would be tried as adults. They were tried separately. On August 21, 2017, one of the girls, now 15, pleaded guilty to being a party to attempted second-degree homicide, but claimed she was not responsible for her actions on grounds of insanity. Although prosecutors alleged that she knew what she was doing was wrong, the jury determined that she was mentally ill during the attack. She will spend at least three years in a mental hospital. On December 21, Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren sentenced Weier, then 16 years old, to be hospitalized for 25 years from the date of the crime, which would keep her institutionalized until age 37.


title: Slender Man

text: In a statement to the media on June 4, 2014, Eric Knudsen said, "I am deeply saddened by the tragedy in Wisconsin and my heart goes out to the families of those affected by this terrible act." He stated he would not be giving interviews on the matter.


title: Slender Man

text: On September 25, 2017, it was reported that Morgan Geyser, then 15, had agreed to plead guilty to attempting to commit first-degree homicide in an arrangement that would allow her to avoid jail time. On February 1, 2018, the Associated Press reported that Geyser had been sentenced to 40 years in the Wisconsin mental hospital, the maximum sentence allowed.


title: Slender Man

text: The stabbing in Waukesha spawned a nationwide moral panic over Slender Man across the United States. Parents across the nation became worried about the potential dangers that stories about Slender Man might pose to their children's safety. Russell Jack, the police chief of Waukesha, warned that the Slender Man stabbing "should be a wake-up call for all parents" that "the internet is full of dark and wicked things"—a warning which numerous media outlets publicized.


title: Slender Man

text: After hearing the story, an unidentified woman from Cincinnati, Ohio, told a WLWT TV reporter in June 2014 that her 13-year-old daughter had attacked her with a knife, and had written macabre fiction, some involving the Slender Man, who the mother said motivated the attack.


title: Slender Man

text: On September 4, 2014, a 14-year-old girl in Port Richey, Florida, allegedly set her family's house on fire while her mother and nine-year-old brother were inside. Police reported that the teenager had been reading online stories about Slender Man as well as Atsushi Ōkubo's manga "Soul Eater". Eddie Daniels of the Pasco County Sheriff's Office said the girl "had visited the website that contains a lot of the Slender Man information and stories [...] It would be safe to say there is a connection to that."


title: Slender Man

text: During an early 2015 epidemic of suicide attempts by young people ages 12 to 24 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Slender Man was cited as an influence; the Oglala Sioux tribe president noted that many Native Americans traditionally believe in a "suicide spirit" similar to the Slender Man. Other Sioux describe the "Big Man" as a messenger or sign, warning that society is developing in a dangerous direction.


title: Slender Man

text: A documentary film on the incident called "Beware the Slenderman", directed by Irene Taylor Brodsky, was released by HBO Films in March 2016, and was broadcast on HBO on January 23, 2017.


title: Slender Man

text: The Waukesha stabbing and the negative media attention it generated irreversibly altered the Slender Man legend and the online community surrounding it. What had previously just been a creepy horror meme to most people suddenly acquired a new level of reality that most fans of Slender Man found horrifying. Meanwhile, by around the same time, the Slender Man character had lost much of his original popularity. Most of the original blogs that had once been devoted to Slender Man either shut down completely or became less popular. Slender Man's presence in mainstream popular culture also contributed to a decline in how frightening he seemed to many people.


title: Slender Man

text: The late 2010s also saw an increase in benevolent portrayals of Slender Man, with many depictions of him from this period portraying him as an antihero who protects victimized children from bullies, although often by violent means. In some portrayals of Slender Man from the late 2010s, he has a daughter named Skinny Sally, who is portrayed as a young girl covered in cuts and bruises. Slender Man sometimes is portrayed carrying Skinny Sally on his shoulders protectively. Lynn McNeill, assistant professor of folklore at Utah State University, observes that the increase in benevolent portrayals of Slender Man seems to have begun shortly after the stabbing in Waukesha and states that this trend towards a benevolent Slender Man may be a reaction by fans of the character to the violence of the stabbing.


title: Slender Man

text: Despite the decline in popular interest in Slender Man, commercial adaptations of the character continued. In 2015, the film adaptation of "Marble Hornets", titled "", was released on VOD, where the character was portrayed by Doug Jones. In 2016, Sony Pictures subsidiary Screen Gems partnered with Mythology Entertainment to bring a Slender Man film into theatres, with the title character portrayed by Javier Botet.


title: Slender Man

text: The film generated considerable controversy soon after it was announced, with many accusing the filmmakers of trying to capitalize off the Waukesha stabbing. Bill Weier, the father of Anissa Weier, stated, "It's absurd they want to make a movie like this... All we're doing is extending the pain all three of these families have gone through." The progressive advocacy group Care2 created an online petition, which received over 19,000 signatures, demanding that the film not be released, labelling the film "crass commercialism at its worst" and "a naked cash grab built on the exploitation of a deeply traumatic event and the people who lived it." Sony representatives insisted that the film was based on the fictional character that had become popular online and not on the Waukesha stabbing.


title: Slender Man

text: Upon its release in August 2018, the film "Slender Man", despite being declared a box-office bomb and receiving both little marketing and overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics, went on to gross several times its $10 million budget worldwide. David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film a D, writing "a tasteless and inedibly undercooked serving of the Internet's stalest creepypasta, "Slender Man" aspires to be for the YouTube era what "The Ring" was to the last gasps of the VHS generation. But... there's one fundamental difference that sets the two movies apart: "The Ring" is good, and "Slender Man" is terrible." Writing for "The Verge", Carli Velocci called the Slender Man movie "a nail in the coffin of a dying fandom".


title: Slender Man

text: Several scholars have argued that, despite being a fictional work with an identifiable origin point, the Slender Man represents a form of digital folklore. Shira Chess argues that the Slender Man exemplifies the similarities between traditional folklore and the open source ethos of the Internet, and that, unlike those of traditional monsters such as vampires and werewolves, the fact that the Slender Man's mythos can be tracked and signposted offers a powerful insight into how myth and folklore form. Chess identifies three aspects of the Slender Man mythos that tie it to folklore: collectivity (meaning that it is created by a collective, rather than a single individual), variability (meaning that the story changes depending on the teller), and performance (meaning that the storyteller's narrative changes to reflect the audience's response).


title: Slender Man

text: Andrew Peck also considers the Slender Man to be an authentic form of folklore and notes its similarity to emergent forms of offline legend performance. Peck suggests that digital folklore performance extends the dynamics of face-to-face performance in several notable ways, such as by occurring asynchronously, encouraging imitation and personalization while also allowing perfect replication, combining elements of oral, written, and visual communication, and generating shared expectations for performance that enact group identity despite the lack of a physically present group. He concludes that the Slender Man represents a digital legend cycle that combines the generic conventions and emergent qualities of oral and visual performance with the collaborative potential of networked communication.


title: Slender Man

text: Jeff Tolbert also accepts the Slender Man as folkloric and suggests it represents a process he calls "reverse ostension." Ostension in folkloristics is the process of acting out a folk narrative. According to Tolbert, the Slender Man does the opposite by creating a set of folklore-like narratives where none existed before. It is an iconic figure produced through a collective effort and deliberately modeled after an existing and familiar folklore genre. According to Tolbert, this represents two processes in one: it involves the creation of new objects and new disconnected examples of experience, and it involves the combination of these elements into a body of "traditional" narratives, modeled on existing folklore (but not wholly indebted to any specific tradition).


title: Slender Man

text: Professor Thomas Pettitt of the University of Southern Denmark has described the Slender Man as being an exemplar of the modern age's closing of the "Gutenberg Parenthesis"; the time period from the invention of the printing press to the spread of the web in which stories and information were codified in discrete media, to a return to the older, more primal forms of storytelling, exemplified by oral tradition and campfire tales, in which the same story can be retold, reinterpreted and recast by different tellers, allowing the lore to expand and evolve with time.


title: Slender Man

text: Despite his folkloric qualities, the Slender Man is not in the public domain. Several for-profit ventures involving the Slender Man have unequivocally acknowledged Knudsen as the creator of this fictional character, while others were civilly blocked from distribution (including the Kickstarter-funded film) after legal complaints from Knudsen and other sources. Though Knudsen himself has given his personal blessing to a number of Slender Man-related projects, the issue is complicated by the fact that, while he is the character's creator, a third party holds the options to any adaptations into other media, including film and television. The identity of this option holder has not been made public. Knudsen himself has argued that his enforcement of copyright has less to do with money than with artistic integrity: "I just want something amazing to come off it... something that's scary and disturbing and kinda different. I would hate for something to come out and just be kinda conventional." In May 2016, the media rights to Slender Man were sold to production company Mythology Entertainment, but the company split up in 2019, leaving the ownership of the character's rights in question.


title: Ramen

text: The word "ramen" is a Japanese borrowing of the Mandarin Chinese "lāmiàn" (, "pulled noodles"). However, historian Barak Kushner argues that this borrowing occurred retroactively and that various independent Japanese corruptions of Chinese words had already led to Japanese people calling this Chinese noodle dish "ramen". One theory suggests that the Japanese mistook the Chinese particles "le" (了) or "la" (啦, a contraction of 了啊) for a "ra" sound when Chinese cooks would announce "hăo le" (好了) to communicate that a dish was complete. The Japanese then appended the word "men" (麵, meaning 'noodle') to the "ra" to create the word "ramen". Early ramen or ramen-like dishes went by different names, such as "Nankin soba" (南京そば, literally "Nanjing soba", named after the city which was the then capital of China), "Shina soba" (支那そば, literally "Chinese soba"), or "Chūka soba" (中華そば, also meaning "Chinese soba"). Until the 1950s, ramen was most commonly called "Shina soba", but today "Chūka soba" or just "ramen" (ラーメン) are more common, as the word "支那" ("Shina", meaning "China") has acquired a pejorative connotation through its association with Japanese imperialism.


title: Ramen

text: Ramen is a Japanese adaptation of Chinese wheat noodle soups. It is first recorded to have appeared in Yokohama Chinatown in the early 20th century. Although the ramen takes its name from "lāmiàn," it does not actually evolve from the northern Chinese dish of lamian. The noodles used in ramen known as "chūkamen" are cut rather than hand-pulled. The ramen is derived from southern Chinese noodle dishes such as the char siu tangmian of Guangdong and the rousi tangmian of Jiangnan. This is reflective of Yokohama Chinatown's demographics, as most Chinese settlers in the district came from the cities of Guangzhou and Shanghai.


title: Ramen

text: One theory says that ramen was introduced to Japan during the 1660s by the Chinese neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Shunsui who served as an advisor to Tokugawa Mitsukuni after he became a refugee in Japan to escape Manchu rule and Mitsukuni became the first Japanese person to eat ramen. Most historians reject this theory as a myth created by the Japanese to embellish the origins of ramen.


title: Ramen

text: According to historians, the more plausible theory is that ramen was introduced to Japan in the late 19th or early 20th centuries by Chinese immigrants living in Yokohama Chinatown. In 1910, the first ramen shop named "" (来々軒) opened in Asakusa, Tokyo, where the Japanese owner employed twelve Cantonese cooks from Yokohama's Chinatown and served the ramen arranged for Japanese customers. Early versions were wheat noodles in broth topped with char siu.


title: Ramen

text: By 1900, restaurants serving Chinese cuisine from Guangzhou and Shanghai offered a simple dish of noodles, a few toppings, and a broth flavored with salt and pork bones. Many Chinese living in Japan also pulled portable food stalls, selling ramen and gyōza dumplings to workers. By the mid-1900s, these stalls used a type of a musical horn called a "charumera" (チャルメラ, from the Portuguese "charamela") to advertise their presence, a practice some vendors still retain via a loudspeaker and a looped recording. By the early Shōwa period, ramen had become a popular dish when eating out. According to ramen expert Hiroshi Osaki, the first specialized ramen shop opened in Yokohama in 1910.


title: Ramen

text: After Japan's defeat in World War II, the American military occupied the country from 1945 to 1952. In December 1945, Japan recorded its worst rice harvest in 42 years, which caused food shortages as Japan had drastically reduced rice production during the war as production shifted to colonies in China and Formosa island. The US flooded the market with cheap wheat flour to deal with food shortages. From 1948 to 1951, bread consumption in Japan increased from 262,121 tons to 611,784 tons, but wheat also found its way into ramen, which most Japanese ate at black market food vendors to survive as the government food distribution system ran about 20 days behind schedule. Although the Americans maintained Japan's wartime ban on outdoor food vending, flour was secretly diverted from commercial mills into the black markets, where nearly 90 percent of stalls were under the control of gangsters related to the "yakuza" who extorted vendors for protection money. Thousands of ramen vendors were arrested during the occupation.


title: Ramen

text: In the same period, millions of Japanese troops returned from China and continental East Asia from their posts in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Some of them would have been familiar with wheat noodles. By 1950 wheat flour exchange controls were removed and restrictions on food vending loosened, which further boosted the number of ramen vendors: private companies even rented out "yatai" starter kits consisting of noodles, toppings, bowls, and chopsticks. Ramen "yatai" provided a rare opportunity for small scale postwar entrepreneurship. The Americans also aggressively advertised the nutritional benefits of wheat and animal protein. The combination of these factors caused wheat noodles to gain prominence in Japan's rice-based culture. Gradually, ramen became associated with urban life.


title: Ramen

text: In 1958, instant noodles were invented by Momofuku Ando, the Taiwanese-Japanese founder and chairman of Nissin Foods. Named the greatest Japanese invention of the 20th century in a Japanese poll, instant ramen allowed anyone to make an approximation of this dish simply by adding boiling water.


title: Ramen

text: Beginning in the 1980s, ramen became a Japanese cultural icon and was studied around the world. At the same time, local varieties of ramen were hitting the national market and could even be ordered by their regional names. A ramen museum opened in Yokohama in 1994.


title: Ramen

text: Today ramen is one of Japan's most popular foods, with Tokyo alone containing around 5,000 ramen shops, and more than 24,000 ramen shops across Japan. "Tsuta", a ramen restaurant in Tokyo's Sugamo district, received a Michelin star in December 2015.


title: Ramen

text: A wide variety of ramen exists in Japan, with geographical and vendor-specific differences even in varieties that share the same name. Although ramen usually has toppings, ramen can be broadly categorized by its two main ingredients: noodles and broth.


title: Ramen

text: Most noodles are made from four basic ingredients: wheat flour, salt, water, and derived from the Chinese jiǎnshuǐ (鹼水) a type of alkaline mineral water, containing sodium carbonate and usually potassium carbonate, as well as sometimes a small amount of phosphoric acid. Although ramen noodles and Udon noodles are both made with wheat and are similar, they are different kinds of noodle.


title: Ramen

text: The "kansui" is the distinguishing ingredient in ramen noodles, and originated in Inner Mongolia, where some lakes contain large amounts of these minerals and whose water is said to be perfect for making these noodles. Making noodles with "kansui" lends them a yellowish hue as well as a firm texture. Eggs may also be substituted for "kansui". Some noodles are made with neither eggs nor "kansui" and should only be used for yakisoba, as they have a weaker structure and are more prone to soaking up moisture and becoming extremely soft when served in soup.


title: Ramen

text: Ramen comes in various shapes and lengths. It may be thick, thin, or even ribbon-like, as well as straight or wrinkled.


title: Ramen

text: Traditionally, ramen noodles were made by hand, but with growing popularity many ramen restaurants prefer to use noodle-making machines to meet the increased demand and improve quality. Automatic ramen-making machines imitating manual production methods have been available since the mid. 20th century produced by such Japanese manufacturers as Yamato MFG. and others.


title: Ramen

text: Ramen soup is generally made from stock based on chicken or pork, combined with a variety of ingredients such as pork bones, katsuobushi (skipjack tuna flakes), niboshi (dried baby sardines), beef bones, shiitake, onions, and kombu (kelp). Some modern ramen broths can also be vegetable-based. Tare is often added to broth to make the soup.


title: Ramen

text: The resulting combination is generally divided into several categories. Although newer and older variations often make this categorization less clear-cut, a description of said old variations is as follows:


title: Ramen

text: After basic preparation, ramen can be seasoned and flavored with any number of toppings, including but not limited to:


title: Ramen

text: Seasonings commonly added to ramen are white pepper, black pepper, butter, chili pepper, sesame seeds, and crushed garlic. Soup recipes and methods of preparation tend to be closely guarded secrets.


title: Ramen

text: Most "tonkotsu" ramen restaurants offer a system known as "kae-dama" (替え玉), where customers who have finished their noodles can request a "refill" (for a few hundred yen more) to be put into their remaining soup.


title: Ramen

text: While standard versions of ramen are available throughout Japan since the Taishō period, the last few decades have shown a proliferation of regional variations, commonly referred to as "gotouchi ramen" (ご当地ラーメン). Some of these which have gone on to national prominence are:


title: Ramen

text: There are many related, Chinese-influenced noodle dishes in Japan. The following are often served alongside ramen in ramen establishments. They do not include noodle dishes considered traditionally Japanese, such as soba or udon, which are almost never served in the same establishments as ramen.


title: Ramen

text: Ramen is offered in various types of restaurants and locations including ramen shops, "izakaya" drinking establishments, lunch cafeterias, karaoke halls, and amusement parks. Many ramen restaurants only have a counter and a chef. In these shops, the meals are paid for in advance at a ticket machine to streamline the process.


title: Ramen

text: However, the best quality ramen is usually only available in specialist "ramen-ya" restaurants. Some restaurants also provide "Halal" ramen (using chicken) in Osaka and Kyoto. As "ramen-ya" restaurants offer mainly ramen dishes, they tend to lack variety in the menu. Besides ramen, some of the dishes generally available in a "ramen-ya" restaurant include other dishes from Japanese Chinese cuisine such as fried rice (called "Chahan" or "Yakimeshi"), "gyoza" (Chinese dumplings), and beer. "Ramen-ya" interiors are often filled with Chinese-inspired decorations.


title: Ramen

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic, many ramen restaurants were temporarily closed, with 34 chains filing for bankruptcy by September 2020. Ramen restaurants are typically narrow and seat customers closely, making social distancing difficult.


title: Ramen

text: Ramen became popular in China where it is known as rìshì lāmiàn (, lit. "Japanese-style lamian"). Restaurant chains serve ramen alongside distinctly Japanese dishes, such as tempura and yakitori. Interestingly, in Japan, these dishes are not traditionally served with ramen, but gyoza, kara-age and others from Japanese Chinese cuisine.


title: Ramen

text: In Korea, ramen is called "ramyeon" (). There are different varieties, such as kimchi-flavored "ramyeon". While usually served with egg or vegetables such as carrots and scallions some restaurants serve variations of "ramyeon" containing additional ingredients such as dumplings, tteok, or cheese as toppings.


title: Ramen

text: Outside of Asia, particularly in areas with a large demand for Asian cuisine, there are restaurants specializing in Japanese-style foods such as ramen noodles. For example, Wagamama, a UK-based restaurant chain serving pan-Asian food, serves a ramen noodle soup and in the United States and Canada, Jinya Ramen Bar serves "tonkotsu" ramen.


title: Ramen

text: Instant ramen noodles were exported from Japan by Nissin Foods starting in 1971, bearing the name "Oodles of Noodles". One year later, it was re-branded "Nissin Cup Noodles", packaged in a foam food container (It is referred to as Cup Ramen in Japan), and subsequently saw a growth in international sales. Over time, the term ""ramen"" became used in North America to refer to other instant noodles. While some research has claimed that consuming instant ramen two or more times a week increases the likelihood of developing heart disease and other conditions, including diabetes and stroke, especially in women, those claims have not been reproduced and no study has isolated instant ramen consumption as an aggravating factor. However, instant ramen noodles, known to have a serving of 43 g, consist of very high sodium. At least 1,760 mg of sodium are found in one packet alone. It consists of 385k calories, 55.7 g of carbohydrates, 14.5 g of total fat, 6.5 g of saturated fat, 7.9 g of protein, and 0.6 mg of thiamine.


title: Ramen

text: In Akihabara, Tokyo, vending machines distribute warm ramen in a steel can known as . It is produced by a popular local ramen restaurant in flavors such as "tonkotsu" and curry, and contains noodles, soup, menma, and pork. It is intended as a quick snack, and includes a small folded plastic fork.


title: Ramen

text: In October 2010, an emoji was approved for Unicode 6.0 for "Steaming Bowl", that depicts Japanese ramen noodles in a bowl of steaming broth with chopsticks. In 2015, the icon was added to Emoji 1.0.


title: Ramen

text: The Shin-Yokohama Rāmen Museum is a unique museum about ramen, in the Shin-Yokohama district of Kōhoku-ku, Yokohama.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The Xbox is a home video game console and the first installment in the Xbox series of video game consoles manufactured by Microsoft. It was released as Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market on November 15, 2001, in North America, followed by Australia, Europe and Japan in 2002. It is classified as a sixth-generation console, competing with Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube. It was also the first major console produced by an American company since the release of the Atari Jaguar in 1993.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The console was announced in March 2000. With the release of the PlayStation 2, which featured the ability to playback CD-ROMs and DVDs in addition to playing games, Microsoft became concerned that game consoles would threaten the personal computer as an entertainment device for living rooms. Whereas most games consoles to that point were built from custom hardware components, the Xbox was built around standard personal computer components, using variations of Microsoft Windows and DirectX as its operating system to support games and media playback, and featuring a 733 MHz Intel Pentium III CPU and a 233 MHz Nvidia GeForce 3-based NV2A GPU, the latter two making the Xbox technically more powerful compared to its rivals. The Xbox was the first console to feature a built-in hard disk. The console also was built with direct support for broadband connectivity to the Internet via an integrated Ethernet port, and with the release of Xbox Live, a fee-based online gaming service, a year after the console's launch, Microsoft gained an early foothold in online gaming and made the Xbox a strong competitor in the sixth generation of consoles. The popularity of killer app blockbuster titles such as Bungie's "Halo 2" contributed to the popularity of online console gaming, and in particular first-person shooters.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The Xbox had a record-breaking launch in North America, selling 1.5 million units before the end of 2001, aided by the popularity of one of the system's launch titles, "", which sold a million units by April 2002. The system went on to sell a worldwide total of 24 million units, including 16 million in North America; however, Microsoft was unable to make a steady profit off the console, which had a manufacturing price far more expensive than its retail price, despite its popularity, losing over $4 billion during its market life. The system outsold the GameCube and the Sega Dreamcast, but was vastly outsold by the PlayStation 2, which had sold over 100 million units by the system's end of production. It also underperformed outside of the Western market; particularly, it sold poorly in Japan due to its large console size and an overabundance of games marketed towards American audiences instead of Japanese-developed titles. Production of the system was discontinued starting in 2005. The Xbox was the first in an ongoing brand of video game consoles developed by Microsoft, with a successor, the Xbox 360, launching in November 2005, followed by the Xbox One in 2013 and the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles in 2020.


title: Xbox (console)

text: Before the Xbox, Microsoft had found success publishing video games for its Windows PCs, releasing popular titles such as "Microsoft Flight Simulator" and the massively successful "Age of Empires" after the creation of DirectX, the application programming interface (API) that allowed for direct access of the computer hardware and bypassing Windows. However, the company had not delved into the home console market of video games, which was dominated at the time by Sony's PlayStation. Sony was working on its next video game console, the PlayStation 2 (PS2), announced officially to the public on March 2, 1999, and intended for the system to act as a gateway for all types of home entertainment. Sony presented a vision where the console would ultimately replace the desktop computer in the home. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates saw the upcoming PS2 as a threat to Microsoft's line of Windows PCs, worrying that the all-encompassing system could eliminate consumer interests in PCs and drive them out of the market. With video games rapidly growing into a massive industry, Gates decided that Microsoft needed to venture into the console gaming market to compete with Sony. Previously, Sega had developed a version of Windows CE for its Dreamcast console to be used by game developers. Additionally, Gates had directly approached Sony CEO Nobuyuki Idei before the public announcement of the PS2 regarding letting Microsoft develop programming software for the console. However, the offer was declined by Idei in favor of having Sony create proprietary software. Microsoft had also attempted to meet with Hiroshi Yamauchi and Genyo Takeda of Nintendo to potentially acquire the company, but Nintendo declined to go further.


title: Xbox (console)

text: In 1998, four engineers from Microsoft's DirectX team—Kevin Bachus, Seamus Blackley, Ted Hase and DirectX team leader Otto Berkes—began discussing ideas for a new console which would run off Microsoft's DirectX technology. Nat Brown, the Windows Software Architect at Microsoft, would also become a regular contributor to the project after meeting Hase in November 1998. The project was codenamed "Midway," in reference to the Battle of Midway during World War II in which Japan was decisively defeated by American forces, as a representation of Microsoft's desire to surpass Sony in the console market. The DirectX team held their first development meeting on March 30, 1999, in which they discussed issues such as getting a PC to boot at a quicker pace than usual. The console would run off Windows 2000 using DirectX 8.1, which would allow PC developers to easily transition into making games for the console while also granting it a larger processing power than that of most other home consoles. According to Blackley, using PC technology as the foundation for a video game console would eliminate the technological barriers of most home consoles, allowing game creators to expand further on their own creativity without having to worry about hardware limitations.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The 4 DirectX team members encountered disagreements with the Silicon Valley engineering team behind WebTV, which joined Microsoft after they purchased the rights to the device. Microsoft executive Craig Mundie wanted the project to be led by the WebTV team, who believed the console should be built from the ground-up as an appliance running off Windows CE; however, the DirectX team were adamant about the idea of repurposing PC hardware components, such as a hard disk drive, arguing that they were cheaply manufactured and could easily be updated every year. The 4 developers gained the support of Ed Fries, the head of Microsoft's gaming division, who believed the use of a hard drive, in particular, would give the console a technical edge among competitors despite its high manufacturing cost. The two opposing teams pitched their arguments to Gates on May 5, 1999, at a meeting attended by over twenty different people. WebTV's team, among whom were Nick Baker, Dave Riola, Steve Perlman, and Tim Bucher, and their sponsor, Craig Mundie, made the case that creating an appliance would be far cheaper, highlighting that most consoles were generally sold at around $300. They also wanted to use a custom-made graphics chip, which could be shared across several different home devices. Conversely, Fries, vouching for the DirectX team, argued that using a PC hard drive would set Microsoft's console apart from competitors by allowing for the direct implementation of online access, an argument which Gates sided with. When Gates questioned if PC games could be effectively ported to the new console, Blackley explained that the machine would utilize DirectX hardware, meaning that they could be converted easily. Gates heavily favored this proposition over WebTV's, whose concept relied on Windows CE, a heavily stripped-down Windows variant that was not compatible with DirectX. As such, Gates sided with the DirectX concept and gave Berkes' team permission to create a new video game console. Despite this, WebTV would still play a part in the Xbox's initial launch.


title: Xbox (console)

text: Rick Thompson and Robert J. Bach were responsible for overseeing the Xbox's design. The DirectX team began constructing prototype consoles, purchasing several Dell computers and using their internal parts. Initially, it envisioned that after designing the console, Microsoft would have worked with a third-party computer manufacturer to mass-produce the units. However, the early work showed that this would need to be something that Microsoft would have to produce themselves, making the prospect a far more costly operation; the name "Coffin Box" became associated with the project as there were fears the project would end careers at Microsoft. Further, as a gaming console, they could not provide the direct Windows interface to users. While Thompson and Bach had warned Gates and Steve Ballmer about these large-scale changes from the initial proposal in late 1999, the matter came to a head at a February 14, 2000, meeting, informally referred to as the Valentine's Day Massacre, in which Gates furiously vented about the new cost proposal and massive changes in this console from what had been previously presented, since the Xbox appeared to marginalize Windows. However, after being reminded that this was a product to compete against Sony, Gates and Ballmer gave the project the go-ahead along with the necessary marketing budget. Another contentious point of design was the addition of Ethernet connectivity rather than simple support for dial-up networking. At this point, most consumer homes had access to Internet connectivity, but social networks had yet to be established which would later demonstrate the viability of this decision. The Xbox leads argued that with the planned Xbox Live functionality, the Ethernet port would help friends be able to play after they have graduated from schools and colleges and moved across the country.


title: Xbox (console)

text: Throughout the console's prototyping, Microsoft was working with AMD for the CPU on the system. According to Blackley, just prior to the system's reveal in January 2001, the Microsoft engineers opted to switch to an Intel CPU, a fact that had not yet been communicated to AMD prior to the reveal.


title: Xbox (console)

text: Among the names considered for the new console were a number of acronyms, including "Windows Entertainment Project" (WEP), "Microsoft Total Gaming" (MTG), "Microsoft Interactive Network Device" (MIND), and "Microsoft Interactive Center" (MIC). Also among the names considered was "DirectX Box", referring to the system's reliance on Direct X. At one point, Hase jokingly came up with the names "XXX-Box" and "DirectXXX-Box" as a nod to the system's higher volume of adult content compared to Sony or Nintendo's consoles. "DirectX Box" was quickly shortened to "Xbox" through an e-mail conversation, and was ultimately favored by the development team, though a number of spelling variants were tossed around, such as xBox, XboX, and X-box. Microsoft's marketing department did not like this name, suggesting "11-X" or "Eleven-X" as alternatives. During focus testing, the company put the name "Xbox" on the list of possible names simply to prove how unpopular the Xbox name would be with consumers. However, "Xbox" proved to be the more popular name on the list and was thus selected as the official name of the product.


title: Xbox (console)

text: When the physical design of the controller began, circuit boards for the controller had already been manufactured. Microsoft had asked Sony's supplier, Mitsumi Electric, for a similar folded and stacked circuit board design used in Sony's DualShock 2 controller, but the company refused to manufacture such a design for Microsoft. This led to the controller being bulky and nearly three times the size of Sony's controller. This initial controller design was never launched in Japan. The console instead launched with a smaller, redesigned version named "Controller S" that did use the more compact circuit board design.


title: Xbox (console)

text: As the development team began to tighten down the design of the Xbox, they got help from Flextronics not only in revising the design but in mass production, creating a factory in Guadalajara, Mexico, for this purpose. Early production units had a high failure rate of around 25%, which Flextronics repaired. Later iterations of the hardware design worked to eliminate these failures.


title: Xbox (console)

text: Gates first publicly mentioned the Xbox in an interview in late 1999, stating that he wanted the system "to be the platform of choice for the best and most creative game developers in the world". It was later announced officially by Gates in a keynote presentation at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose on March 10, 2000, showing off an early prototype build of the system and a series of demos showcasing its hardware. The presentation and the new system were well-received, impressing developers with both the hard drive and the Ethernet port and appealing to them with the notion of easy-to-use development tools.


title: Xbox (console)

text: Microsoft began looking at a series of acquisitions and partnerships to secure content for the console at this time. In early 2000, Sega's Dreamcast sales were diminishing, in part due to Electronic Arts' decision to bypass the console, and Sony's PlayStation 2 was just going on sale in Japan. Gates was in talks with Sega's late chairman Isao Okawa about the possibility of Xbox compatibility with Dreamcast games, but negotiations fell apart over whether the Dreamcast's SegaNet online service should be implemented. Microsoft also looked to acquire Electronic Arts, Nintendo, Square Enix, and Midway without success. The company did achieve success in convincing developers at Bethesda Game Studios and Tecmo about the power of the Xbox over the PS2, lining up "" and "Dead or Alive 3" as Xbox console-exclusives.


title: Xbox (console)

text: Around this same time, Microsoft announced it was rebranding its Games Group, which had been focused on developing games for Windows, to the Microsoft Games division to make titles for both Windows and the Xbox. Microsoft began acquiring a number of studios to add to the division, notably Bungie in June 2000, shortly after their announcement of "". With Microsoft's acquisition, "Halo" switched from being a release for personal computers to being an Xbox exclusive release and as a launch time to help drive sales of the console.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The Xbox was officially unveiled to the public by Gates and guest professional wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson at CES 2001 in Las Vegas on January 3, 2001. Microsoft announced Xbox's release dates and prices at E3 2001 in May. Most Xbox launch titles were unveiled at E3, most notably "Halo" and "Dead or Alive 3."


title: Xbox (console)

text: The unit's release in November 2001 was partially hampered by the impact of the September 11 attacks on travel, as Microsoft could not travel to the Guadalajara facility to help test units. They were able to arrange to ship the units locally instead of testing at Microsoft facilities to have them ready for launch.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The system was officially launched at midnight on November 15, 2001, three days before the subsequent launch of the Nintendo GameCube. A special event was held on the prior night as part of the grand opening of the flagship store of Toys 'R' Us at Times Square in New York City, in which 1,000 systems were shipped to the store to kick off sales. Bill Gates was present at the event, personally selling the very first Xbox console and greeting people in line and playing games with them at the numerous display units present.


title: Xbox (console)

text: In 2002, the Independent Television Commission (ITC) banned a television advertisement for the Xbox in the United Kingdom after complaints that it was "offensive, shocking and in bad taste." It depicted a mother giving birth to a baby boy, fired like a projectile through a window, aging rapidly as he flies through the air. The advertisement ends with an old man crash-landing into his own grave and the slogan, "Life is short. Play more."


title: Xbox (console)

text: The Xbox's successor, the Xbox 360, was officially announced on May 12, 2005 on MTV. It was the first next generation system to be announced. It was released in North America on November 22, 2005. Nvidia ceased production of the Xbox's GPU in August 2005, which marked the end of brand-new Xbox production. The last game for the Xbox in Japan was "The King of Fighters Neowave" released in March 2006, the last Xbox game in Europe was "Xiaolin Showdown" released in June 2007, and the last game in North America was "Madden NFL 09" released in August 2008. Support for out-of-warranty Xbox consoles was discontinued on March 2, 2009. Support for Xbox Live on the console ended on April 15, 2010.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The Xbox 360 supports a limited number of the Xbox's game library if the player has an official Xbox 360 Hard Drive. Xbox games were added up until November 2007. Xbox game saves cannot be transferred to Xbox 360, and the ability to play Xbox games through Xbox LIVE has been discontinued since April 15, 2010. It is still possible to play Xbox games with System Link functionality online via both the original console and the Xbox 360 with tunneling software such as XLink Kai. It was announced at E3 2017 that the Xbox One would be gaining support for a limited number of the Xbox's game library.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The Xbox was the first video game console to feature a built-in hard disk drive, used primarily for storing game saves and content downloaded from Xbox Live. This eliminated the need for separate memory cards (although some older consoles, such as the Amiga CD32, used internal flash memory, and others, such as the TurboGrafx-CD, Sega CD, and Sega Saturn, had featured built-in battery backup memory prior to 2001). An Xbox user could rip music from standard audio CDs to the hard drive, and these songs were used for the custom soundtracks in some games.


title: Xbox (console)

text: Unlike the PlayStation 2, which could play movie DVDs without the need for a remote control (although an optional remote was available), the Xbox required an external IR adapter to be plugged into a controller port in order to play movie DVDs. If DVD playback is attempted without the IR sensor plugged in, an error screen will pop up informing the user of the need for the Xbox DVD Playback Kit. The said kit included the IR sensor and a remote control (unlike the PS2, the Xbox controller could not control DVD playback). Said remote was manufactured by Thomson (which also manufactured optical drives for the console) and went on sale in late 2002, which meant a modified version of the remote design used by the RCA, GE and ProScan consumer electronics of the era was used for the Xbox remote, and therefore users wishing to use a universal remote were instructed to utilize RCA DVD remote codes.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The Xbox was the first gaming product to feature Dolby Interactive Content-Encoding Technology, which allows real-time Dolby Digital encoding in game consoles. Previous game consoles could only use Dolby Digital 5.1 during non-interactive "cut scene" playback.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The Xbox is based on commodity PC hardware and is much larger and heavier than its contemporaries. This is largely due to a bulky tray-loading DVD-ROM drive and the standard-size 3.5-inch hard drive. The Xbox has also pioneered safety features, such as breakaway cables for the controllers to prevent the console from being pulled from the surface upon which it rests.


title: Xbox (console)

text: Several internal hardware revisions have been made in an ongoing battle to discourage modding (hackers continually updated modchip designs in an attempt to defeat them), to cut manufacturing costs, and to make the DVD-ROM drive more reliable (some of the early units' drives gave disc-reading errors due to the unreliable Thomson DVD-ROM drives used). Later-generation units that used the Thomson TGM-600 DVD-ROM drives and the Philips VAD6011 DVD-ROM drives were still vulnerable to failure that, respectively, either rendered the consoles unable to read newer discs or caused them to halt the console with an error code usually indicating a PIO/DMA identification failure. These units were not covered under the extended warranty.


title: Xbox (console)

text: In 2002, Microsoft and Nvidia entered arbitration over a dispute on the pricing of Nvidia's chips for the Xbox. Nvidia's filing with the SEC indicated that Microsoft was seeking a $13 million discount on shipments for NVIDIA's fiscal year 2002. Microsoft alleged violations of the agreement the two companies entered, sought reduced chipset pricing, and sought to ensure that Nvidia fulfill Microsoft's chipset orders without limits on quantity. The matter was privately settled on February 6, 2003.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The Xbox includes a standard AV cable which provides composite video and monaural or stereo audio to TVs equipped with RCA inputs. European Xboxes also included an RCA jack to SCART converter block and the standard AV cable.


title: Xbox (console)

text: An 8 MB removable solid-state memory card can be plugged into the controllers, onto which game saves can either be copied from the hard drive when in the Xbox dashboard's memory manager or saved during a game. Most Xbox game saves can be copied to the memory unit and moved to another console, but some Xbox saves are digitally signed. It is also possible to save an Xbox Live account on a memory unit, to simplify its use on more than one Xbox. The ports at the top of the controllers could also be used for other accessories, primarily headsets for voice chat via Xbox Live.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The Xbox CPU is a 32-bit 733 MHz, custom Intel Pentium III Coppermine-based processor. It has a 133 MHz 64-bit GTL+ front-side bus (FSB) with a 1.06 GB/s bandwidth. The system has 64 MB unified DDR SDRAM, with a 6.4 GB/s bandwidth, of which 1.06 GB/s is used by the CPU and 5.34 GB/s is shared by the rest of the system.


title: Xbox (console)

text: Its GPU is Nvidia's 233 MHz NV2A. It has a floating-point performance of 7.3 GFLOPS, capable of geometry calculations for up to a theoretical 115 million vertices/second. It has a peak fillrate of 932 megapixels/second, capable of rendering a theoretical 29 million 32-pixel triangles/second. With bandwidth limitations, it has a realistic fillrate of 250–700 megapixels/second, with Z-buffering, fogging, alpha blending, and texture mapping, giving it a real-world performance of 7.8–21 million 32-pixel triangles/second.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The Xbox controller features two analog sticks, a pressure-sensitive directional pad, two analog triggers, a Back button, a Start button, two accessory slots and six 8-bit analog action buttons (A/Green, B/Red, X/Blue, Y/Yellow, and Black and White buttons). The standard Xbox controller (also nicknamed the "Fatty" and later, the "Duke") was originally the controller bundled with Xbox systems for all territories except Japan. The controller has been criticized for being bulky compared to other video game controllers; it was awarded "Blunder of the Year" by "Game Informer" in 2001, a Guinness World Record for the biggest controller in Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2008, and was ranked the second-worst video game controller ever by IGN editor Craig Harris.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The "Controller S" (codenamed "Akebono"), a smaller, lighter Xbox controller, was originally the standard Xbox controller only in Japan, designed for users with smaller hands. The "Controller S" was later released in other territories by popular demand and by 2002 replaced the standard controller in the Xbox's retail package, with the larger original controller remaining available as an accessory.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The Xbox runs a custom operating system which is based on a heavily modified version of Windows 2000. It exports APIs similar to those found in Microsoft Windows, such as Direct3D. Its source code was leaked in 2020.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The user interface for the Xbox is called the Xbox Dashboard. It features a media player that can be used to play music CDs, rip CDs to the Xbox's built-in hard drive and play music that has been ripped to the hard drive; it also lets users manage game saves, music, and downloaded content from Xbox Live, and lets Xbox Live users sign in, customize, and manage their account. The dashboard is only available when the user is not watching a movie or playing a game. It uses many shades of green and black for the user interface to be consistent with the physical Xbox color scheme. When the Xbox was released in 2001, the Live service was not online, so the dashboard's Live sections and the network settings sub-menu were not present yet.


title: Xbox (console)

text: Xbox Live was released in November 2002, but in order to access it, users had to buy the Xbox Live starter kit containing a headset and a subscription. While the Xbox was still being supported by Microsoft, the Xbox Dashboard was updated via Live several times to reduce cheating and add features.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The Xbox launched in North America on November 15, 2001. Popular launch games included "", "Project Gotham Racing", and "Dead or Alive 3". All three of these games would go on to sell over a million copies in the US.


title: Xbox (console)

text: Although the console gained strong third-party support from its inception, many early Xbox games did not fully use its powerful hardware until a full year after its release. Xbox versions of cross-platform games sometimes came with a few additional features and/or graphical improvements to distinguish them from the PS2 and GameCube versions of the same game, thus negating one of the Xbox's main selling points. Sony countered the Xbox for a short time by temporarily securing PlayStation 2 exclusives for highly anticipated games such as the "Grand Theft Auto" series and the "Metal Gear Solid" series as well as Nintendo for the "Resident Evil" series. Notable third-party support came from Sega, who announced an 11-game exclusivity deal at Tokyo Game Show. Sega released exclusives such as "Panzer Dragoon Orta" and "Jet Set Radio Future", which met with a strong reception among critics.


title: Xbox (console)

text: In 2002 and 2003, several high-profile releases helped the Xbox gain momentum and distinguish itself from the PS2. Microsoft purchased Rare, responsible for many Nintendo 64 hit games, to expand their first party portfolio. The Xbox Live online service was launched in late 2002 alongside pilot titles "MotoGP", "MechAssault" and "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon". Several best-selling and critically acclaimed titles for the Xbox soon followed, such as "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell", and "". Take-Two Interactive's exclusivity deal with Sony was amended to allow "Grand Theft Auto III" and its sequels to be published for the Xbox. Many other publishers got into the trend of releasing the Xbox version alongside the PS2 version, instead of delaying it for months.


title: Xbox (console)

text: 2004 saw the release of highly rated exclusives "Fable" and "Ninja Gaiden": both games would become big hits for the Xbox. Later that year, "Halo 2" was released and became the highest-grossing release in entertainment history, making over $125 million in its first day and became the best-selling Xbox game worldwide. "Halo 2" became Xbox Live's third killer app after "MechAssault" & "". That year Microsoft made a deal to put Electronic Arts' popular titles on Xbox Live to boost the popularity of their service.


title: Xbox (console)

text: By 2005, despite notable first party releases in "" and "Forza Motorsport", Microsoft began phasing out the Xbox in favor of their next console, the Xbox 360. Games such as "" and "Perfect Dark Zero", which were originally to be developed for the Xbox, became Xbox 360 launch titles instead. The last game released on the Xbox was "Madden NFL 09", on August 12, 2008.


title: Xbox (console)

text: On November 15, 2002, Microsoft launched its Xbox Live online gaming service, allowing subscribers to play online Xbox games with other subscribers around the world and download new content directly to the system's hard drive. The online service works only with a broadband Internet connection. In its first week of operation, Xbox Live received 100,000 subscriptions, and further grew to 250,000 subscribers within two months of the service's launch. In July 2004, Microsoft announced that Xbox Live had reached one million subscribers; in July 2005, membership reached two million, and by July 2007 there were more than three million subscribers. By May 2009, the number had ballooned to twenty million current subscribers. On February 5, 2010, it was reported that Xbox Live support for the original Xbox games would be discontinued as of April 14, 2010. Services were discontinued on schedule, but a group of users later known as the "Noble 14" continued to play for almost a month afterwards by simply leaving their consoles on connected to "Halo 2".


title: Xbox (console)

text: Prior to launching, anticipation for the Xbox was high, with Toys 'R' Us and Amazon reporting that online preorders had sold out within just 30 minutes. Microsoft stated that it planned to ship 1–1.5 million units to retailers by the end of the year, followed by weekly shipments of 100,000 units.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The launch was one of the most successful in video game history, with unit sales surpassing 1 million after just 3 weeks and rising further to 1.5 million by the end of 2001. The system also attained one of the highest-ever attachment rates at launch, with over 3 games selling per unit according to the NPD Group. Strong sales were tied in large part to the highly anticipated launch title, "", which had surpassed sales of 1 million units by April 2002 and attained a 50% attach rate for the console. By July 2004, the system had sold 15.5 million units worldwide—10.1 million in North America, 3.9 million in Europe, and 1.5 million in Asia-Pacific—and had a 33% market share in the US.


title: Xbox (console)

text: Despite strong sales in North America, Microsoft struggled to make a profit from the Xbox due to its high manufacturing cost. With its initial retail price of $299, Microsoft lost about $125 for every system sold, which cost $425 to manufacture, meaning that the company would have to rely on software sales in order to make any money. According to Robbie Bach, "Probably six months after we shipped, you could see the price curve and do the math and know that we were going to lose billions of dollars." These losses were further exacerbated in April 2002, when Microsoft lowered the retail price of the Xbox even further to $199 in order to further driving hardware sales. Microsoft also struggled to compete with Sony's more popular PlayStation 2 console, which generally saw far higher sales numbers, although the Xbox outsold the PS2 in the U.S. in April 2004. By its manufacturing discontinuation in 2005, the Xbox had sold a total of 24 million units worldwide, 16 million of which had been sold in North America. These numbers fell short of Microsoft's predicted 50 million units, and failed to match the PlayStation 2's lifetime sales of 106 million units at the time, although it did surpass the GameCube and Dreamcast's lifetime sales of 21 million and 10.6 units, respectively. Ultimately, Microsoft lost an accumulative total of $4 billion from the Xbox, only managing to turn a profit at the end of 2004. While the Xbox represented an overall loss for Microsoft, Gates, Ballmer, and other executives still saw it as a positive result for the company as it brought them into the console marketplace against doubts raised by the industry, and led to Microsoft's further development of other consoles in the Xbox family.


title: Xbox (console)

text: Prior to its Japanese launch in February 2002, many analysts estimated that the Xbox would have trouble competing with the PS2 and the GameCube, its local counterparts in the region, noting its comparatively high price tag, lack of exclusives, and larger size which would not fit as well in Japan's smaller living spaces. Microsoft hoped to ship six million Japanese Xbox consoles by June 2002; however, the system had only sold a total of 190,000 units in the region by April of that year, two months after the system's launch in February. For the week ending April 14, 2002, the Xbox sold only 1,800 units, considerably less than the PS2 and GameCube, and failed to see a single title reach the top 50 best-selling video games in Japan. In November 2002, the Xbox chief in Japan stepped down, leading to further consultations about Xbox's future, which by that point had only sold 278,860 units in the country since its February launch. For the week ending July 18, 2004, the Xbox sold just 272 units, even fewer than the PSOne had sold in the same week. The Xbox did, however, outsell the GameCube for the week ending May 26, 2002. Ultimately, the Xbox had only sold 474,992 units in its lifetime. Factors believed to have contributed to the console's poor market presence included its large physical size, which contrasted the country's emphasis on more compact designs, and a lack of Japanese-developed games to aid consumer interest.


title: Xbox (console)

text: The popularity of the Xbox, as well as (in the United States) its comparatively short 90-day warranty, inspired efforts to circumvent the built-in hardware and software security mechanisms, a practice informally known as modding.


title: The Wolverine (film)

text: The Wolverine is a 2013 superhero film featuring the Marvel Comics character Wolverine. It is the sixth installment in the "X-Men" film series, the second installment in the trilogy of "Wolverine" films after "" (2009), and a spin-off/sequel to "" (2006). Directed by James Mangold from a screenplay written by Scott Frank and Mark Bomback, based on the 1982 limited series "Wolverine" by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, it stars Hugh Jackman as Logan / Wolverine, alongside Rila Fukushima, Tao Okamoto, Hiroyuki Sanada, Famke Janssen, and Will Yun Lee. Following the events of "X-Men: The Last Stand", Logan travels to Japan, where he engages an old acquaintance in a struggle that has lasting consequences. Stripped of his healing powers, Wolverine must battle deadly samurai while struggling with guilt over Jean Grey's death.


title: The Wolverine (film)

text: The film's development began in 2009 after the release of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine". Christopher McQuarrie was hired to write a screenplay for "The Wolverine" in August 2009. In October 2010, Darren Aronofsky was hired to direct the film. The project was delayed following Aronofsky's departure and the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. In June 2011, Mangold was brought on board to replace Aronofsky. Bomback was then hired to rewrite the screenplay in September 2011. The supporting characters were cast in July 2012 with principal photography beginning at the end of the month around New South Wales before moving to Tokyo in August 2012 and back to New South Wales in October 2012. The film was converted to 3D in post-production.


title: The Wolverine (film)

text: "The Wolverine" was released by 20th Century Fox in various international markets on July 24, 2013, and in the United States two days later. It received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for its action sequences, cinematography, and Jackman's performance, though criticism was directed towards the climax. The film earned $414 million worldwide, making it the fifth-highest-grossing film in the series.


title: The Wolverine (film)

text: An unrated extended cut of the film referred to as the "Unleashed Extended Edition" was released on Blu-ray, featuring more blood and violence, extended action scenes, as well as additional footage during moments of character interaction. A third film titled "Logan" was released on March 3, 2017.