title: Tony Orlando

text: Kirshner also hired Orlando to record songwriter demos as a solo artist, and his first success came at the age of 16 when he charted in the US and UK with the hits "Bless You" and "Halfway To Paradise". He also appeared at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater with DJ Murray the K. Orlando also had four records that "Bubbled Under" the Hot 100: "Chills" in 1962, "Shirley" and "I'll Be There" in 1963, and "I Was A Boy (When You Needed A Man)" as by Billy Shields in April 1969. Gerry Goffin and Jack Keller wrote a doo-wop version of Stephen Foster's song "Beautiful Dreamer" for Orlando. Released as a single in 1962, the song was picked up by the Beatles who included it in their set lists on the Beatles Winter 1963 Helen Shapiro Tour; a recorded version was released on their 2013 album "On Air – Live at the BBC Volume 2". New Colony Six recorded an Orlando composition, "I'm Just Waitin' (Anticipatin' For Her To Show Up)", which charted locally in Chicago and "Bubbled Under" the Hot 100 in July 1967.


title: Tony Orlando

text: Orlando continued as a solo artist and also became a producer himself, as well as a successful music executive in the late 1960s. In 1967, Clive Davis hired Orlando as general manager of Columbia Records publishing subsidiary April-Blackwood Music. By the late 1960s, Orlando had worked his way up to vice president of a larger publishing company, CBS Music where he signed, co-wrote with and produced Barry Manilow (under the name "Featherbed"). . He also worked with other artists, such as The Yardbirds, James Taylor, Grateful Dead, Blood Sweat and Tears, and Laura Nyro. In the summer of 1969, he recorded with the studio group Wind and had a #28 hit that year with "Make Believe" on producer Bo Gentry's Life Records. Orlando was experiencing success, primarily as a music executive, and Davis pretended not to notice when Orlando accepted a $3,000 advance and sang lead vocals on a song called "Candida" as a favor for two producer friends. If the record failed, Orlando didn't want it to affect his reputation, so he used a pseudonym: Dawn.


title: Tony Orlando

text: When the song became an international number-one song, he began to use his name in the group becoming "Dawn featuring Tony Orlando" and then "Tony Orlando and Dawn". The group had 19 other top 40 tracks, including "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree", the top-selling hit of 1973 and one of the biggest selling singles of all time. The group also had a hit variety program, "The Tony Orlando and Dawn Show" on CBS from 1974 to 1976. They then broke up in 1977, after which he has performed as Tony Orlando.


title: Tony Orlando

text: Orlando recorded the record "Candida", with backup singers including Toni Wine (who wrote the song) and Linda November. Concerned about a possible conflict of interest with his April-Blackwood duties, Orlando sang under the condition that his name not be associated with the project, so it was released under the simple name of "Dawn", the middle name of the daughter of Bell records executive Steve Wax.


title: Tony Orlando

text: "Candida" became a worldwide hit in 1970, reaching number one in five countries, and the top ten in many others, including number three in the United States. Dawn, with Wine and November again singing backup, recorded another song, "Knock Three Times", which itself became a #1 hit. Orlando then wanted to go on tour, and asked two other session singers, Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent Wilson to join for the tour. Orlando then discovered that there were six touring groups using that name, so Dawn became "Dawn featuring Tony Orlando", which changed to Tony Orlando and Dawn in 1973.


title: Tony Orlando

text: The new group recorded more hits, including "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" (1973) and "He Don't Love You (Like I Love You)" (1975), a cover of the Jerry Butler hit, "He Will Break Your Heart". With a successful recording career, Orlando then set his sights on television. As described in "The San Francisco Chronicle", "Tony Orlando and Dawn burst out of television sets during the Ford administration, a sunny antidote to the dark cynicism that followed Watergate. He represented simple, traditional values, a conservative return to pure entertainment. He drew a happy face in the "O" of his autograph. It was not terribly cool, but America loved him." The "Tony Orlando and Dawn" Show on CBS became a hit, a summer replacement for the "Sonny & Cher" show, and ran for four seasons from 1974 to 1976. It welcomed the biggest names in show business each week as Orlando's guests, including his boyhood idols, Jackie Gleason and Jerry Lewis.


title: Tony Orlando

text: At the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, Orlando danced to the tune of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" with then First Lady Betty Ford. The media stated that it was to divert attention as Nancy Reagan entered the Kemper Arena convention hall. However, in Orlando's book "Halfway to Paradise", he states that Mrs. Reagan was asked what her favorite song was, which happened to be "Tie a Yellow Ribbon", so it was chosen as her entrance song. Ronald Reagan unsuccessfully challenged Gerald Ford, for the presidential nomination that year but came back in 1980 to claim the presidency itself. Ray Barnhart, a Reagan co-manager from Texas, criticized Mrs. Ford for having "danced a jig" with Orlando. Barbara Staff, another Texas co-chairman, called Betty Ford's behavior "a low, cheap shot".


title: Tony Orlando

text: On October 12, 2015, with Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent Wilson present, Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters honored Orlando with their Art Gilmore Career Achievement Award at a celebrity luncheon.


title: Tony Orlando

text: Along with the fame, Orlando had personal battles in the 1970s. He was briefly addicted to cocaine, and battled both obesity and depression. In 1977, due to the death of his sister, and the suicide of Orlando's close friend, comedian Freddie Prinze, Orlando had a breakdown, and retired from singing. He was briefly institutionalized, but returned to television with an NBC comeback special. From then, he continued as a solo artist, charting with two singles – the dance hit "Don't Let Go" in 1978 and "Sweets For My Sweet" in 1979. In the 1980s, he was a dominant force in Las Vegas, headlining various hotels with sold-out audiences.


title: Tony Orlando

text: Orlando continued primarily as a solo singer, performing on tour and regularly in Las Vegas and Branson, Missouri. He hosted the New York City portions of the MDA Labor Day Telethon on WWOR-TV since the 1980s but quit in 2011 in response to Jerry Lewis' firing from the Muscular Dystrophy Association. He has won the Casino Entertainer of the Year Award, the Best All Around Entertainer – Las Vegas four times, and, prior to that, three times in Atlantic City, the Jukebox Artist of the Year Award from the Amusement and Music Owners Association of New York, The Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and has also been bestowed with The Bob Hope Award for excellence in entertainment from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society in honor of his efforts on behalf of United States veterans. His work on behalf of American veterans led to his being named Honorary Chairman at the 40th Anniversary at the NAM-POW's Homecoming Celebration at the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library in 2014.


title: Tony Orlando

text: In 2020, Orlando began hosting a Saturday night oldies program for WABC Radio as the New York City station partially restored its music format.


title: Tony Orlando

text: Orlando starred in the 1981 TV movie "300 Miles For Stephanie", playing a police officer who promises to walk over 300 miles to a sanctuary in order to obtain God's help to cure Stephanie, his gravely ill daughter. Others in the cast included Edward James Olmos, Pepe Serna and Julie Carmen.


title: Tony Orlando

text: In May 1981, Orlando appeared on Broadway in the title role of "Barnum", replacing Jim Dale, who was on a three-week vacation.


title: Tony Orlando

text: During the 1984–85 season of "The Cosby Show" (its first season), Orlando played Tony Castillo, who runs a community center. He had a cameo appearance as himself in the 2002 film "Waking Up In Reno", in which he sang a version of "Knock Three Times".


title: Tony Orlando

text: In 2003, Orlando had a recurring role in the children's animated series "Oswald", in which he did the voice of "Sammy Starfish".


title: Tony Orlando

text: Orlando appeared in an episode of "MADtv" doing a sketch involving a court case, where the defense sings to persuade the jury about their side. He sang for the prosecution, thereby persuading the judge to give the defense jail for life. In another television program, Orlando was featured in "Larry the Cable Guy's Star Studded Christmas Extravaganza". He appeared in "That's My Boy" as Steve Spirou, a Happy Madison production starring Adam Sandler in 2012.


title: Tony Orlando

text: Orlando is a longtime advocate for U.S. military veterans and "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" has become an anthem for service members.


title: Tony Orlando

text: Orlando serves on the board of directors for the Eisenhower Foundation, as well as honorary chairman of Snowball Express, an organization that serves the children of fallen military heroes.


title: Tony Orlando

text: He hosts the annual Congressional Medal of Honor dinner in Dallas, Texas. He has served as the master of ceremonies at the Secretary of Defense Freedom Awards at the Pentagon in Washington, DC.


title: Tony Orlando

text: Orlando was introduced by Jerry Lee Lewis to his future wife, Elaine, who had previously dated Buddy Holly. Tony and Elaine married in 1965, and had one child, Jon; they divorced in 1984. Five years later, Orlando was engaged to Francine Amormino, whom he married on April 29, 1990. The couple remained married as of 2021; they have one child.


title: Tony Orlando

text: On February 27, 2013, his mother, Ruth Schroeder of Hollister, Missouri, died in Branson, Missouri of a diabetic stroke.


title: Tony Orlando

text: In 2002, he wrote a memoir, "Halfway to Paradise" with Patsi Bale Cox. Tony and Francine Orlando live in Branson, Missouri, with their daughter, Jenny Rose. Orlando's son Jon Orlando, from his first marriage, was a comedian from 1993 to 2002. Jon lives in Las Vegas and is currently the host of The Action Junkeez Podcast as well as Wise Kracks Podcast with the legendary sports bettor Bill Krackenberger. It was announced on September 7, 2021, that Jon was hired as the CEO of MaximNFT.


title: Tony Orlando

text: Orlando was interviewed on "The 700 Club" explaining that he was raised Catholic and was "brought up with the Lord as my Savior"; but after a self-destructive period following his professional success with Dawn, he became a born-again Christian in 1978.


title: Kyuss

text: Kyuss ( ) was an American rock band, formed in Palm Desert, California, in 1987. The band disbanded in 1995, and since then, members of Kyuss have gone on to form or play in several notable bands including Queens of the Stone Age, Fu Manchu, Dwarves, Eagles of Death Metal, Mondo Generator, Hermano, Unida, Slo Burn and Them Crooked Vultures.


title: Kyuss

text: In November 2010, three former members of the band (minus Homme, who declined to participate) reunited under the adapted moniker "Kyuss Lives!" for a world tour with plans to record a new album at some point. A federal lawsuit subsequently filed by Homme resulted in Oliveri leaving the band in March 2012, and five months later a court ruled that Garcia and Bjork were not allowed to release audio recordings under the Kyuss Lives! moniker. As a result, they changed their name to Vista Chino.


title: Kyuss

text: The band formed in 1987 jamming under the name Katzenjammer (German slangword for "Hangover" ["archaic"], literally "moaning of a cat") before eventually deciding upon Sons of Kyuss. Brant Bjork selected the name from the undead monster found in the "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" roleplaying game. In 1989 the band recorded their eponymous debut EP, "Sons of Kyuss", which was their only release to feature Chris Cockrell on bass. After self-releasing the EP in 1990, the band recruited Nick Oliveri – who had previously played second guitar in Katzenjammer – to replace Cockrell on bass, and shortened their name to Kyuss.


title: Kyuss

text: Kyuss' first line-up consisted of vocalist John Garcia, guitarist Josh Homme, bassist Nick Oliveri and drummer Brant Bjork. The band gradually built a local following in Palm Desert, California and frequently performed at parties in and around the isolated towns of Southern California's desert areas. These impromptu and predominantly outdoor shows, referred to locally as "generator parties", consisted of small crowds of people, beer drinking, and the use of gasoline-powered generators to provide electricity for the equipment. Homme commented that playing in the desert "was the shaping factor for the band" noting that "there's no clubs here, so you can only play for free. If people don't like you, they'll tell you. You can't suck."


title: Kyuss

text: The band then signed with independent record label Dali, who released their debut album, "Wretch", in September 1991. Several songs on the album were re-recorded versions of those that appeared on the "Sons of Kyuss" EP. Album sales were sluggish, though the band was quickly making a name for itself as a live act. Guitarist Josh Homme soon gained a reputation for his unique downtuned, psychedelic style of guitar playing, and his convention of playing electric guitars through bass guitar amplifiers to create a bass-heavy sound.


title: Kyuss

text: In 1992, the band, along with new producer Chris Goss, began work on their next album, "Blues for the Red Sun". Goss understood the band, and was able to accurately capture their live sound in the studio. Released in June that year, the album was critically hailed and is today widely regarded as a pioneering stoner rock record. By the end of 1993, they were invited to open nine dates for Metallica touring Australia. Comparisons to stoner rock godfathers Black Sabbath became common, though Homme claimed to have little knowledge of the band at the time but Bjork asserted he and Oliveri were hugely influenced by the British group.


title: Kyuss

text: Oliveri left the band following completion of the album and Scott Reeder, who had been approached about joining Kyuss five to six months earlier during a West Coast tour with The Obsessed, made his debut at the release party for "Blues for the Red Sun".


title: Kyuss

text: The band then soon found themselves signed with major label Elektra Records after Dali Records hit financial problems and was bought by Elektra. In 1994, they would release their first major label album, self-titled "Kyuss". Originally intended to be titled "Pools of Mercury", the album commonly came to be known among fans as "Welcome to Sky Valley". Between record company shuffling and bandmember shuffling it would take a whole year for the album recorded in 1993 to be released. Once again produced by Chris Goss, it received critical acclaim and, musically, demonstrated a much more psychedelic and mature sound. However, personal problems emerged and drummer Brant Bjork left the band following completion of the recording sessions. Bjork cited his extreme distaste for touring, particularly band relationship problems that develop during long periods on the road. He was replaced by Alfredo Hernández, who had previously played with Reeder in the band Across the River during the mid-80s. In July 1995, they released their fourth and final album, "...And the Circus Leaves Town". A video was made for "One Inch Man", the album's only official single. The album was not as successful commercially as "Sky Valley", receiving mixed reviews. Kyuss broke up during the late summer of 1995.


title: Kyuss

text: After the band's breakup in 1995, there had been frequent and persistent speculation among fans regarding the possibility of a Kyuss reunion. When asked in late 2004 about whether the band would ever re-unite, Homme replied that this was unlikely to happen in the near future. However, on December 20, 2005, Garcia made a guest appearance onstage with Queens of the Stone Age during their encore at the Wiltern LG in Los Angeles. They performed three Kyuss songs together: "Thumb", "Hurricane" and "Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop". The band has reportedly received numerous offers to re-form, all of which have been turned down:


title: Kyuss

text: Scott Reeder also commented on a possible Kyuss reunion in early 2008, saying "I think everyone but Josh would do it in a heartbeat". Reeder also noted that he would "do it for free beer again".


title: Kyuss

text: Shortly after the breakup, Homme toured as the rhythm guitarist with Screaming Trees and began work on ongoing The Desert Sessions recording series. In December 1997, a transitional split EP was released, featuring three songs by Kyuss (the Black Sabbath cover "Into the Void," "Fatso Forgotso", and "Flip the Phase") and three songs by Queens of the Stone Age ("If Only Everything", "Born to Hula" and "Spiders & Vinegaroons"). Homme and Hernandez formed Queens of the Stone Age in 1998, and recruited Oliveri as bassist after completion of their debut album.


title: Kyuss

text: Hernandez later played with Yawning Man, Che and Orquestra Del Desierto, while Oliveri formed the band Mondo Generator, named after the only Kyuss song credited solely (words and music) to him. Drummer Brant Bjork went on to form the band Brant Bjork and the Bros, recorded and performed with Fu Manchu and Mondo Generator, and has recorded several solo albums.


title: Kyuss

text: John Garcia went on to form Slo Burn, although the band was short-lived and released only one EP, "Amusing the Amazing", before disbanding in September 1997. He was also briefly associated with the band Karma to Burn. In 1998, he began working with the band Unida, recording one EP, one LP and an unreleased album. At the same time he started working with the band Hermano, having released three LP's and one live album to date. Garcia has more recently been working on a solo album.


title: Kyuss

text: In 1997, Homme, Bjork, and Oliveri recorded three songs together ("13th Floor", "Simple Exploding Man", & "Cocaine Rodeo") for Mondo Generator's debut album Cocaine Rodeo, released in 2000. Also featuring Garcia and Chris Goss on one track, the songs are regarded by many fans as the true final Kyuss recordings.


title: Kyuss

text: In 2000, a compilation album, "", was released. The album is a collection of the band's singles, as well as B-sides and live material.


title: Kyuss

text: Although Kyuss left behind some "rarities", many of them were released on "Muchas Gracias", and further releases from the band appear unlikely. Singer John Garcia told Billboard.com in a 2005 interview:


title: Kyuss

text: In 2010, a European "John Garcia plays Kyuss" tour was announced. In June 2010, former Kyuss members Nick Oliveri and Brant Bjork joined Garcia onstage to perform "Green Machine" and "Gardenia" during a headlining appearance by "Garcia Plays Kyuss" at Hellfest in Clisson, France, and they also appeared onstage with Garcia in other concerts on the tour.


title: Kyuss

text: In November 2010, Garcia, Oliveri and Bjork announced plans to tour under the moniker "Kyuss Lives!" with guitarist Bruno Fevery. In reference to the new band name, Garcia stated that "there is never going to be a Kyuss without Josh Homme" and that "hopefully in the future him and I can get together and do some writing." The band went on to tour Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and North and South America. The band then announced plans to record a new studio album for a summer 2012 release in addition to a live album.


title: Kyuss

text: However, in March 2012, it was revealed that Josh Homme, after persuading bassist Scott Reeder to support him, had filed a federal lawsuit against John Garcia and Brant Bjork alleging "trademark infringement and consumer fraud" over the use of the Kyuss name despite the fact Brant Bjork had originally created the name. Nick Oliveri left Kyuss later that month after it was revealed that Garcia and Bjork had tried to take control of the Kyuss trademark.


title: Kyuss

text: In August 2012, the courts ruled that Garcia and Bjork could not release any recordings, studio or live, under the Kyuss Lives! moniker. While they were allowed to continue using the moniker for live shows (as long as, unlike the band's current logo, Lives! is written in the same size and next to the word Kyuss to avoid confusion), the judge stated that they may face issues in the future and that "it may be in Defendants' best interest to begin re-branding under a new name". On November 29, 2012, it was announced that Kyuss Lives! had changed their name to Vista Chino.


title: Kyuss

text: In July 2020, Homme stated that he was open to the possibility of participating in a Kyuss reunion. "(T)here have been times I thought (Kyuss) cannot end that way, and the only real way to end it correctly now would be to play," he said. "And because they sort of perverted the punctuation and they knocked the wing off this beautiful dragon that's an ice sculpture, and the only way to put the motherfucking wing back on would be to (play again). In 2021, Bjork stated he had reached out to Homme in regards to his comments. However, the probability of a reunion has been put into question due to a lack of communication from Homme.


title: Mancala

text: The mancala games are a family of two-player turn-based strategy board games played with small stones, beans, or seeds and rows of holes or pits in the earth, a board or other playing surface. The objective is usually to capture all or some set of the opponent's pieces.


title: Mancala

text: Versions of the game date back to the 7th century and evidence suggests the game existed in Ancient Egypt. It is among the oldest known games to still be widely played today.


title: Mancala

text: The name is a classification or type of game, rather than any specific game. Some of the most popular mancala games (concerning distribution area, the numbers of players and tournaments, and publications) are:


title: Mancala

text: They differ from other mancala types in that the player's store is included in the placing of the seeds. The most common type has seven holes for each player, in addition to the player store holes. This version has identical rules throughout its range. But there are also numerous variations with the number of holes and rules by region. Sometimes more than one version can be played in a single locality.


title: Mancala

text: Although more than 800 names of traditional mancala games are known, some names denote the same game, while others are used for more than one game. Almost 200 modern invented versions have also been described.


title: Mancala

text: Evidence of the game was uncovered in Israel in the city of Gedera in an excavated Roman bathhouse where pottery boards and rock cuts were unearthed dating back to between the 2nd and 3rd century AD. Among other early evidence of the game are fragments of a pottery board and several rock cuts found in Aksumite areas in Matara (in Eritrea) and Yeha (in Ethiopia), which are dated by archaeologists to between the 6th and 7th centuries AD; the game may have been mentioned by Giyorgis of Segla in his 14th century Geʽez text "Mysteries of Heaven and Earth", where he refers to a game called qarqis, a term used in Geʽez to refer to both Gebet'a (mancala) and "Sant'araz" (modern "sent'erazh", Ethiopian chess).


title: Mancala

text: The games existed in especially eastern Europe. In the Baltic area, it was once very popular ("Bohnenspiel"); in Bosnia, where it is called Ban-Ban and still played today; Serbia; and Greece ("Mandoli", Cyclades). Two mancala tables from the early 18th century are to be found in Weikersheim Castle in southern Germany. In western Europe, it never caught on but was documented by Oxford University orientalist Thomas Hyde.


title: Mancala

text: The United States has a larger mancala-playing population. A traditional mancala game called Warra was still played in Louisiana in the early 20th century, and a commercial version called Kalah became popular in the 1940s. In Cape Verde, mancala is known as "ouril". It is played on the Islands and was brought to the United States by Cape Verdean immigrants. It is played to this day in Cape Verdean communities in New England.


title: Mancala

text: Recent studies of mancala rules have given insight into the distribution of mancala. This distribution has been linked to migration routes, which may go back several hundred years.


title: Mancala

text: The word "mancala" () is a tool noun derived from an Arabic root "naqala" () meaning "to move". No one game exists with the name "mancala"; the name is a classification or type of game. This word is used in Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt but is not consistently applied to any one game; it was applied to backgammon in the ancient Near East. Mancala first appeared in Africa.


title: Mancala

text: Most mancala games share a common general gameplay. Players begin by placing a certain number of seeds, prescribed for the particular game, in each of the pits on the game board. A player may count their stones to plot the game. A turn consists of removing all seeds from a pit, "sowing" the seeds (placing one in each of the following pits in sequence), and capturing based on the state of the board. The game's object is to plant the most seeds in the bank. This leads to the English phrase "count and capture" sometimes used to describe the gameplay. Although the details differ greatly, this general sequence applies to all games.


title: Mancala

text: If playing in capture mode, once a player ends their turn in an empty pit on their own side, they capture the opponent's pieces directly across. Once captured, the player gets to put the seeds in their own bank. After capturing, the opponent forfeits a turn.


title: Mancala

text: Equipment is typically a board, constructed of various materials, with a series of holes arranged in rows, usually two or four. The materials include clay and other shapeable materials. Some games are more often played with holes dug in the earth, or carved in stone. The holes may be referred to as "depressions", "pits", or "houses". Sometimes, large holes on the ends of the board called "stores", are used for holding the pieces.


title: Mancala

text: Playing pieces are seeds, beans, stones, cowry shells, half-marbles or other small undifferentiated counters that are placed in and transferred about the holes during play.


title: Mancala

text: Board configurations vary among different games but also within variations of a given game; for example Endodoi is played on boards from 2×6 to 2×10. The largest is Tchouba (Mozambique) with a board of 160 (4×40) holes requiring 320 seeds, and En Gehé (Tanzania), played on longer rows with up to 50 pits (a total of 2×50=100) and using 400 seeds. The most minimalistic variants are Nano-Wari and Micro-Wari, created by the Bulgarian ethnologue Assia Popova. The Nano-Wari board has eight seeds in just two pits; Micro-Wari has a total of four seeds in four pits.


title: Mancala

text: With a two-rank board, players usually are considered to control their respective sides of the board, although moves often are made into the opponent's side. With a four-rank board, players control an inner row and an outer row, and a player's seeds will remain in these closest two rows unless the opponent captures them.


title: Mancala

text: The objective of most two- and three-row mancala games is to capture more stones than the opponent; in four-row games, one usually seeks to leave the opponent with no legal move or sometimes to capture all counters in their front row.


title: Mancala

text: At the beginning of a player's turn, they select a hole with seeds that will be sown around the board. This selection is often limited to holes on the current player's side of the board, as well as holes with a certain minimum number of seeds.


title: Mancala

text: In a process known as "sowing", all the seeds from a hole are dropped one by one into subsequent holes in a motion wrapping around the board. Sowing is an apt name for this activity, since not only are many games traditionally played with seeds but placing seeds one at a time in different holes reflects the physical act of sowing. If the sowing action stops after dropping the last seed, the game is considered a "single lap" game.


title: Mancala

text: "Multiple laps" or "relay sowing" is a frequent feature of mancala games, although not universal. When relay sowing, if the last seed during sowing lands in an occupied hole, all the contents of that hole, including the last sown seed, are immediately re-sown from the hole. The process usually will continue until sowing ends in an empty hole. Another common way to receive "multiple laps" is when the final seed sown lands in your designated hole.


title: Mancala

text: Many games from the Indian subcontinent use "pussakanawa laps". These are like standard multi-laps, but instead of continuing the movement with the contents of the last hole filled, a player continues with the next hole. A pussakanawa lap move will then end when a lap ends just before an empty hole.


title: Mancala

text: Depending on the last hole sown in a lap, a player may "capture" stones from the board. The exact requirements for capture, as well as what is done with captured stones, vary considerably among games. Typically, a capture requires sowing to end in a hole with a certain number of stones, ending across the board from stones in specific configurations or landing in an empty hole adjacent to an opponent's hole that contains one or more pieces.


title: Mancala

text: Another common way of capturing is to capture the stones that reach a certain number of seeds at any moment.


title: Mancala

text: Also, several games include the notion of capturing holes, and thus all seeds sown on a captured hole belong at the end of the game to the player who captured it.


title: Mancala

text: Like other board games, mancala games have led to psychological studies. Retschitzki has studied the cognitive processes used by awalé players. Some of Restchitzki's results on memory and problem solving have recently been simulated by Fernand Gobet with the CHREST computer model. De Voogt has studied the psychology of Bao playing.


title: Mancala

text: Mancala was used as a minigame in the multiplayer online game "Club Penguin". It is also one of the games featured in Nintendo's "". Mancala was also used as a minigame as a part of the "Nabooti" island adventure on "Poptropica". Mancala also features in 2019 Ethiopian board video game "Gebeta" released by Qene Technology.


title: Jamal Murray

text: Jamal Murray (born February 23, 1997) is a Canadian professional basketball player for the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He also represents the Canadian national team. He played one season of college basketball for the Kentucky Wildcats before being drafted by the Nuggets with the seventh overall pick in the 2016 NBA draft.


title: Jamal Murray

text: Murray was born and raised in Kitchener, Ontario, the son of Sylvia (who is from Syria) and Roger Murray (who was born in Jamaica and moved to Canada at age nine). He also has a younger brother, Lamar. His father grew up running track and field and playing basketball; as a youth, his father played against Kitchener native Lennox Lewis before Lewis began his professional boxing career.


title: Jamal Murray

text: When Murray was three years old, he could play basketball "for hours" and at age six played in a league for ten-year-olds. By the age of 12 or 13, he began playing pick-up games against top high school and college players. His father put him through many basketball drills and kung fu exercises, including meditation.


title: Jamal Murray

text: Murray attended Grand River Collegiate Institute in Kitchener, later transferring to Orangeville Prep in Orangeville, Ontario, where his father served as an assistant coach. He and fellow prospect Thon Maker formed a duo that helped Orangeville Prep defeat many American schools.


title: Jamal Murray

text: At the 2013 Jordan Brand Classic International Game, Murray was named MVP, becoming the second Canadian to win the award after Duane Notice. At the 2015 Nike Hoop Summit, Murray scored a game-high 30 points and was named the MVP.


title: Jamal Murray

text: Murray was named MVP of the 2015 BioSteel All-Canadian Basketball Game, which includes the top high school players in Canada.


title: Jamal Murray

text: On June 24, 2015, Murray committed to Kentucky to play for coach John Calipari. As a freshman in 2015–16, he was featured on the Midseason Top 25 list for the John R. Wooden Award, and was named to the 35-man midseason watchlist for the Naismith Trophy. He appeared in 36 games and averaged 20.0 points, 5.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists while shooting 40.8% from three-point range. Following his freshman season, Murray was named a third-team All-American by the Associated Press. Murray also made the All-SEC First Team and the SEC All-Freshman Team. Murray's 20.0 points per game are the most by any freshman in Kentucky's program history and the most for any player in John Calipari's tenure as head coach.


title: Jamal Murray

text: In April 2016, Murray declared for the NBA draft, forgoing his final three years of college eligibility.


title: Jamal Murray

text: On June 23, 2016, Murray was selected by the Denver Nuggets with the seventh overall pick in the 2016 NBA draft. On August 9, 2016, he signed his rookie scale contract with the Nuggets. On November 13, 2016, he scored a then career-high 19 points in a 112–105 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. He topped that mark on November 22, scoring 24 points in a 110–107 win over the Chicago Bulls. On December 1, he was named Western Conference Rookie of the Month for games played in October and November. On February 17, 2017, Murray was named MVP of the Rising Stars Challenge after posting a game-high 36 points (9-14 3FG) and a game-high 11 assists in Team World's 150–139 victory over Team USA. On April 7, 2017, he scored a career-high 30 points in a 122–106 win over the New Orleans Pelicans. At the season's end, he was named to the NBA All-Rookie Second Team.


title: Jamal Murray

text: On November 11, 2017, Murray scored a career-high 32 points in a 125–107 win over the Orlando Magic. Six days later, he had a 31-point effort in a 146–114 win over the New Orleans Pelicans. On January 22, 2018, he scored a career-high 38 points, including a three-point play in the final minute, as the Nuggets beat the Portland Trail Blazers 104–101. On February 1, 2018, he had a 33-point effort in a 127–124 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder.


title: Jamal Murray

text: On November 5, 2018, Murray scored a career-high 48 points in a 115–107 win over the Boston Celtics. On December 18, he had 22 points and a career-high 15 assists in a 126–118 win over the Dallas Mavericks. On December 29, he scored 46 points and made a career-high nine 3-pointers in a 122–118 win over the Phoenix Suns. On January 3, he scored 17 of his 36 points in the fourth quarter of the Nuggets' 117–113 win over the Sacramento Kings. On January 17, he scored 22 of his 25 points in the third quarter of the Nuggets' 135–105 win over the Bulls. On February 6, after missing six games with a sprained left ankle, Murray had 19 points and 11 assists in a 135–130 loss to the Brooklyn Nets. In Game 3 of the Nuggets' second-round playoff series against the Trail Blazers, Murray had a then playoff career-high 34 points in a 140–137 quadruple-overtime loss. In Game 4, he again scored 34 points in a 116–112 win.


title: Jamal Murray

text: On November 17, 2019, Murray recorded a season-high 39 points and 8 assists, including seven three-pointers, in a 131–114 win over the Memphis Grizzlies. Three days later, during a 105-95 victory over the Houston Rockets, Murray recorded a career high 6 steals, along with scoring 10 points and adding 9 assists. On December 23, Murray scored 28 points and would knock down a game-winning step-back jumper against the Phoenix Suns with 2.5 seconds remaining in overtime to secure a 113–111 road victory. On January 4, 2020, he tied his season-high 39 points in a 128–114 loss to the Washington Wizards. After missing ten games due to an ankle sprain suffered against Charlotte on January 15, Murray returned to have one of the best stretches of his career, averaging 31.3 points per game over a four-game stretch, including 36 points on 14-of-17 shooting and six three-pointers against the Suns on February 8. On March 4, Murray hit yet another game-winner, making an off-balance jumper with 4.5 seconds remaining in regulation to seal a 114–112 victory over the Hornets while capping off an 18-point, 6-assist performance.


title: Jamal Murray

text: On August 17, during the Nuggets' first round matchup with the Utah Jazz in the 2020 NBA playoffs, Murray recorded 36 points and 9 assists, scoring 20 points in the fourth quarter and overtime to lead the Nuggets to a 135–125 Game 1 victory. In Game 4 six days later, Murray erupted for a career-high 50 points, along with 11 rebounds and 7 assists, in a 129–127 loss to the Jazz. With Donovan Mitchell scoring 51, it was the first time in NBA playoff history that two opponents scored at least 50 points in the same game. In a potential elimination game in Game 5 with Denver down 3–1 in the series, Murray recorded 42 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists to lead the Nuggets to a 117–107 win and force a Game 6, where Murray again scored 50 points, shooting 9–12 from three and helping the Nuggets extend the series to a Game 7 with a 119–107 victory. Following Game 6, Murray became emotional during the postgame interview with TNT’s Jared Greenberg, addressing racial injustice, as well as honoring George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, as each of their pictures were on his shoes.


title: Jamal Murray

text: On September 15, in Game 7 against the Los Angeles Clippers, Murray scored 40 points while hitting six three-pointers, leading the Nuggets to a series-clinching 104–89 win to advance to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 2009. With the win, the Nuggets became the first team in NBA history to comeback from multiple 3–1 deficits in a single postseason. However, the Nuggets would go on to lose in the Western Conference Finals in five games to the eventual NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers, with Murray recording 28 points, 8 rebounds and 12 assists in the lone Denver victory in Game 3.


title: Jamal Murray

text: On February 19, 2021, Murray scored a career–high 50 points in a 120–103 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. During the game he became the first player in NBA history to score 50 points without attempting a free throw, as well as being the second player to get 50 points while shooting more than 80 percent from the field and from three-point range. On April 12, Murray suffered a torn ACL on his left knee during a game against the Golden State Warriors. The following day, the Nuggets announced Murray would be out indefinitely. On April 21, Murray underwent surgery on the torn ACL on his left knee. The same day Nuggets announced that he remained out indefinitely. Murray averaged a career-high 21.2 points, 4.8 assists, and 1.3 steals, and shot a career-high 47.7% FG and 40.8% 3FG while playing 35.5 minutes per game.


title: Jamal Murray

text: Although he was never officially shut down for the season, Murray missed the entire 2021–22 campaign while recovering from his ACL tear. Without Murray, the Nuggets lost in 5 games to the Golden State Warriors during the first round of the playoffs.


title: Jamal Murray

text: On October 19, 2022, Murray played in his first game in eighteen months, scoring 12 points in 26 minutes of playing time during a 123-102 loss to the Utah Jazz. On December 8, Murray scored 21 points alongside a game-winning three-pointer in a 121–120 win over the Portland Trail Blazers.


title: Jamal Murray

text: Murray represented Canada at the 2013 FIBA Americas Under-16 Championship in Uruguay, and averaged 17 points, 6 rebounds and 2.4 steals per game in leading the team to a bronze medal. He played for the Canadian national team at the 2015 Pan American Games, helping the team win a silver medal. His final averages for the tournament were 16.0 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game, while shooting 45.9% from the field.


title: Jamal Murray

text: On May 24, 2022, Murray agreed to a three-year commitment to play with the Canadian senior men's national team.


title: Mitford family

text: The Mitford family is an aristocratic English family, whose principal line had its seats at Mitford, Northumberland. Several heads of the family served as High Sheriff of Northumberland. A junior line, with seats at Newton Park, Northumberland, and Exbury House, Hampshire, descends via the historian William Mitford (1744–1827) and were twice elevated to the British peerage, in 1802 and 1902, under the title Baron Redesdale.


title: Mitford family

text: The family became particularly known in the 1930s and later for the six Mitford sisters, great-great-great-granddaughters of William Mitford, and the daughters of David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, and his wife Sydney Bowles. They were celebrated and at times scandalous figures, who were described by "The Times" journalist Ben Macintyre as "Diana the Fascist, Jessica the Communist, Unity the Hitler-lover; Nancy the Novelist; Deborah the Duchess and Pamela the unobtrusive poultry connoisseur".


title: Mitford family

text: The family traces its origins in Northumberland back to the time of the Norman Conquest. In the Middle Ages they had been Border Reivers based in Redesdale. The main line had its family seat first at Mitford Castle, then Mitford Old Manor House, prior to building Mitford Hall in 1828; all three are near Mitford, Northumberland.


title: Mitford family

text: The sisters gained widespread attention for their stylish and controversial lives as young people, and for their public political divisions between communism and fascism. Nancy and Jessica became well-known writers: Nancy wrote "The Pursuit of Love" and "Love in a Cold Climate", and Jessica "The American Way of Death" (1963). Deborah managed Chatsworth, one of the most successful stately homes in England.


title: Mitford family

text: Jessica and Deborah married nephews of prime ministers Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan, respectively. Deborah and Diana both married wealthy aristocrats. Unity and Diana were well known during the 1930s for being close to Adolf Hitler. Jessica turned her back on her inherited privileges and eloped with her cousin, Esmond Romilly, who was hoping to report on the Spanish Civil War for the "News Chronicle", having briefly fought with the International Brigade. Jessica's memoir, "Hons and Rebels", describes their upbringing, and Nancy drew upon her family members for characters in her novels. In 1981, Deborah became politically active when she and her husband Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire, joined the new Social Democratic Party.


title: Mitford family

text: The sisters and their brother Thomas were the children of David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, known to his children as "Farve" and by various other nicknames. Their mother was Sydney Freeman-Mitford, Baroness Redesdale, known as "Muv", the daughter of Thomas Bowles. David and Sydney married in 1904. The family homes changed from Batsford House to Asthall Manor beside the River Windrush in Oxfordshire, and then Swinbrook Cottage nearby, with a house at Rutland Gate in London. They also lived in a cottage in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, which they used as a summer residence. The siblings grew up in an aristocratic country house with emotionally distant parents and a large household with numerous servants; this family dynamic was not unusual for upper-class families of the time. The parents disregarded formal education of women of the family, and they were expected to marry at a young age to a financially well-off husband. The children had a private language called "Boudledidge" (pronounced "bowdledidge"), and each had a different nickname for the others.


title: Mitford family

text: On the outbreak of the Second World War, their political views came into sharper relief. "Farve" remained a conservative who had long favoured the Chamberlain approach of appeasing Germany, but once Britain declared war on Germany, he returned to being an anti-German British patriot and discarded his previous sympathy for the Nazis, while "Muv" continued her fascist sympathies and usually supported her fascist children. The couple separated in 1943 as a result of this conflict. Nancy, a moderate socialist, worked in London during the Blitz and informed on her fascist siblings to the British authorities. Pamela remained seemingly non-political, although according to her sister Nancy, Pamela and Derek Jackson were virulent anti-Semites verbally during World War II who had called for all Jews in England to be killed, and also wanted an early end to the war with Germany before England lost any more money.


title: Mitford family

text: Tom, a fascist, refused to fight Germany but volunteered to fight against Imperial Japan; he was killed in action in Burma in 1945. Diana, also a fascist, married to Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, was imprisoned in London from May 1940 until November 1943 under Defence Regulation 18B. Unity, fanatically devoted to Hitler and Nazism, was distraught over Britain's war declaration against Germany on 3 September 1939, and tried to commit suicide later that day by shooting herself in the head. She failed in the suicide attempt, but suffered brain damage that eventually led to her early death in 1948. Jessica, a communist, had moved to the US, but her husband Esmond Romilly, a Republican veteran from the Spanish Civil War who volunteered for the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II, died in 1941 when his bomber developed mechanical problems over the North Sea and went down. In numerous letters Jessica said that her daughter Constancia received a pension from the Canadian government after Esmond's death until she turned 18. The strong political rift between Jessica and Diana left them estranged from 1936 until their deaths, although they did speak to each other in 1973, as their eldest sister Nancy was on her deathbed. Aside from Jessica and Diana's estrangement, the sisters kept in frequent contact with each other in the decades after World War II. The sisters were prolific letter-writers, and a substantial body of correspondence still exists, principally letters between them.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification (inter-confederation play-offs)

text: For the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification, there were two scheduled inter-confederation play-offs to determine the final two qualification spots to the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Matches were played on 13–14 June 2022 in Qatar.


text: The draw for the inter-confederation play-offs was held on 26 November 2021, 17:00 CET, in Zürich, Switzerland.


text: Originally, the two teams in each tie were to play a two-legged home-and-away series. However, the ties were single-leg knockout matches in Qatar.


text: These play-offs were the last ties to decide the two remaining World Cup slots for a 32-team tournament. The 2026 FIFA World Cup has been expanded to 48 teams, and included as part of the qualifiers a play-off tournament involving six teams to decide the last two berths.


text: For the first time, FIFA decided to hold single-game matches in the World Cup host country, Qatar. They were scheduled for 13–14 June 2022 at the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium in Al Rayyan. They were originally scheduled for March that year, but were moved due to the changes in the FIFA International Match Calendar caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Elaine May

text: Elaine Iva May (née Berlin; born April 21, 1932) is an American comedian, filmmaker, playwright, and actress. She has received numerous awards including an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Grammy, and a Tony. She made her initial impact in the 1950s with her improvisational comedy routines with Mike Nichols, before transitioning as a groundbreaking film director starting in the 1970s onward.


title: Elaine May

text: In 1955, May moved to Chicago and became a founding member of the Compass Players, an improvisational theater group. She began working alongside Nichols and in 1957, they both quit the group to form their own stage act, Nichols and May. In New York they performed nightly in clubs in Greenwich Village alongside Joan Rivers and Woody Allen as well as on the Broadway stage. They also made regular appearances in television and radio broadcasts. They released multiple comedy albums and received four Grammy Award nominations winning Best Comedy Album for "An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May" in 1962. Their relatively brief time together as comedy stars led New York talk show host Dick Cavett to call their act "one of the comic meteors in the sky." Woody Allen declared, “the two of them came along and elevated comedy to a brand-new level". Their collaboration was the subject of the PBS documentary for American Masters entitled, "" (1996).


title: Elaine May

text: Following the end of her performing partnership with Nichols, she starred in films infrequently, including "Luv", "Enter Laughing" (both 1967), and "California Suite" (1978). May became the first female director with a Hollywood deal since Ida Lupino when she directed the black screwball comedy, "A New Leaf" (1971) acting opposite Walter Matthau. Experimenting with genres, she regularly broke the mold in directing critically acclaimed films including her dark romantic comedy "The Heartbreak Kid," (1972) and the gritty gangster film "Mikey and Nicky" (1976), and the adventure comedy "Ishtar" (1987). May received her first Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay nomination for Warren Beatty's comedy "Heaven Can Wait" (1978). She reunited with Nichols for "The Birdcage" (1996), and "Primary Colors" (1998) receiving a Academy Award nomination for the later.


title: Elaine May

text: In 2013, May received the National Medal of Arts for her lifetime contributions to American comedy, which was presented to her by President Barack Obama. In 2018, May returned to the Broadway stage after a 60-year absence in Lila Neugebauer's revival of Kenneth Lonergan's play "The Waverly Gallery" which ran at the John Golden Theatre, the same theater where Nichols and May starred almost 60 years prior. May received rapturous reviews for her performance, and won the 2019 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, becoming the second oldest performer to win a Tony Award for acting. In 2022, May was honored by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences by being awarded the Honorary Academy Award for her "bold, uncompromising approach to filmmaking, as a writer, director, and actress".


title: Elaine May

text: Elaine Iva Berlin was born on April 21, 1932, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Jewish parents, theater director and actor Jack Berlin and actress Ida (Aaron) Berlin. As a child, May performed with her father in his traveling Yiddish theater company, which he took around the country. Her stage debut on the road was at the age of three, and she eventually played the character of a generic little boy named Benny.


title: Elaine May

text: Because the troupe toured extensively, May had been in over 50 schools by the time she was ten, having spent as little as a few weeks enrolled at any one time. May said she hated school and would spend her free time at home reading fairy tales and mythology. Her father died when she was 11 years old, and then she and her mother moved to Los Angeles, where May later enrolled in Hollywood High School. She dropped out when she was fourteen years old. Two years later, at the age of sixteen, she married Marvin May, an engineer and toy inventor. They had one child, Jeannie Berlin (born 1949), who became an actress and screenwriter. The couple divorced in 1960, and she married lyricist Sheldon Harnick in 1962; they divorced a year later. In 1964, May married her psychoanalyst, David L. Rubinfine; they remained married until his death in 1982.


title: Elaine May

text: May's longtime companion was director Stanley Donen, from 1999 until his death in 2019. Donen said he proposed marriage "about 172 times".


title: Elaine May

text: After her marriage to Marvin May, she studied acting. She also held odd jobs during that period, such as a roof salesman, and tried to enroll in college. She learned, however, that colleges in California required a high school diploma to apply, which she did not have. After finding out that the University of Chicago was one of the few colleges that would accept students without diplomas, she set out with seven dollars and hitchhiked to Chicago.


title: Elaine May

text: Soon after moving to Chicago in 1950, May began informally taking classes at the university by auditing, sitting in without enrolling. She nevertheless sometimes engaged in discussions with instructors and once started a huge fight after saying that Socrates' apology was a political move. Mike Nichols, who was then an actor in the school's theatrical group, remembers her coming to his philosophy class, making "outrageous" comments, and leaving. They learned about each other from friends, eventually being introduced after one of his stage shows. The director, Paul Sills, brought May to Nichols and said, "Mike, I want you to meet the only other person on the campus of the University of Chicago who’s as hostile as you are: Elaine May." Six weeks later, they bumped into each other at a train station in Chicago and soon began spending time together over the following weeks as "dead-broke theatre junkies."


title: Elaine May

text: In 1955, May joined a new, off-campus improvisational theater group in Chicago, The Compass Players, becoming one of its charter members. The group was founded by Sills and David Shepherd. Nichols later joined the group, wherein he resumed his friendship with May. At first he was unable to improvise well on stage, but with inspiration from May, they began developing improvised comedy sketches together. Nichols remembered this period:


title: Elaine May

text: Actress Geraldine Page recalled they worked together with great efficiency, "like a juggernaut." Thanks in part to Nichols and May, the Compass Players became an enormously popular satirical comedy troupe. They helped the group devise new stage techniques to adapt the freedom they had during the workshop.


title: Elaine May

text: May became prominent as a member of the Compass's acting group, a quality others in the group observed. Bobbi Gordon, an actor, remembers that she was often the center of attention: "The first time I met her was at Compass... Elaine was this grande dame of letters. With people sitting around her feet, staring up at her, open-mouthed in awe, waiting for 'The Word'." A similar impression struck Compass actor Bob Smith:


title: Elaine May

text: As an integral member of their group, May was open to giving novices a chance, including the hiring of a black actor and generally making the group "more democratic". And by observing her high level of performance creativity, everyone's work was improved. "She was the strongest woman I ever met," adds Compass actor Nancy Ponder.


title: Elaine May

text: In giving all her attention to acting, however, she neglected her home life. Fellow actress Barbara Harris recalled that May lived in a cellar with only one piece of furniture, a ping-pong table. "She wore basic beatnik black and, like her film characters, was a brilliant disheveled klutz."


title: Elaine May

text: Because she was physically attractive, some members of the group, including Nichols, became distracted during workshops. Group actor Omar Shapli was "struck by her piercing, dark-eyed, sultry stare. It was really unnerving," he says. Nichols remembers that "everybody wanted Elaine, and the people who got her couldn't keep her." Theater critic John Lahr agrees, noting that "her juicy good looks were a particularly disconcerting contrast to her sharp tongue."


title: Elaine May

text: May's sense of humor, including what she found funny about everyday life, was different from others' in the group. Novelist Herbert Gold, who dated May, says that "she treated everything funny that men take seriously... She was never serious. Her life was a narrative." Another ex-boyfriend, James Sacks, says that "Elaine had a genuine beautiful madness." Nevertheless, states Gold, "she was very cute, a lot like Debra Winger, just a pretty Jewish girl."


title: Elaine May

text: She was considered highly intelligent. "She's about fifty percent more brilliant than she needs to be," says actor Eugene Troobnick. Those outside their theater group sometimes noticed that same quality. British actor Richard Burton, who was married to Elizabeth Taylor at the time, agreed with that impression after he first met May while he was starring in "Camelot" on Broadway.


title: Elaine May

text: Nichols was personally asked to leave the Compass Players in 1957 because he and May became too good, which threw the company off balance, noted club manager Jay Landsman. Nichols was told he had too much talent. Nichols then left the group in 1957, with May quitting with him. They next formed their own stand-up comedy team, Nichols and May. After contacting some agents in New York, they were asked to audition for Jack Rollins, who would later become Woody Allen's manager and executive producer. Rollins said he was stunned by how good their act was:


title: Elaine May

text: By 1960, they made their Broadway debut with "An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May", which later won a Grammy. After performing their act a number of years in New York's various clubs, and then on Broadway, with most of the shows sold out, Nichols could not believe their success:


title: Elaine May

text: His feelings were shared by May, who was also taken aback by their success, especially having some real income after living in near-poverty. She told a "Newsweek" interviewer, "When we came to New York, we were practically barefoot. And I still can't get used to walking in high heels."


title: Elaine May

text: The uniqueness of their act made them an immediate success in New York. Their style became the "next big thing" in live comedy. Charles H. Joffe, their producer, remembers that sometimes the line to their show went around the block. That partly explains why Milton Berle, a major television comedy star, tried three times without success to see their act. Critic Lawrence Christon recalls his first impression after seeing their act: "You just knew it was a defining moment. They caught the urban tempo, like Woody Allen did." They performed nightly at mostly sold-out shows, in addition to making TV program and commercial appearances and radio broadcasts.


title: Elaine May

text: Among the qualities of their act, which according to one writer made them a rarity, was that they used both "snob and mob appeal," which gave them a wide audience. Nachman explains that they presented a new kind of comedy team, unlike previous comedy duos which had an intelligent member alongside a much less intelligent one, as with Laurel and Hardy, Fibber McGee and Molly, Burns and Allen, Abbott and Costello, and Martin and Lewis.


title: Elaine May

text: What differentiated their style was the fact that their stage performance created "scenes," a method very unlike the styles of other acting teams. Nor did they rely on fixed gender or comic roles, but instead adapted their own character to fit a sketch idea they came up with. They chose real-life subjects, often from their own life, which were made into satirical and funny vignettes.


title: Elaine May

text: This was accomplished by using subtle joke references which they correctly expected their audiences to recognize, whether through clichés or character types. They thereby indirectly poked fun at the new intellectual culture which they saw growing around them. They felt that young Americans were taking themselves too seriously, which became the subject of much of their satire.


title: Elaine May

text: Nichols structured the material for their skits, and May came up with most of their ideas. Improvisation became a fairly simple art for them, as they portrayed the urban couple's "Age of Anxiety" in their sketches, and did so on their feet. According to May, it was simple: "It's nothing more than quickly creating a situation between two people and throwing up some kind of problem for one of them."


title: Elaine May

text: Nichols noted that after coming up with a sketch idea, they would perform it soon after with little extra rehearsal or writing it down. One example he remembered was inspired simply from a phone call from his mother. I called Elaine and I said, "I've got a really good piece for us tonight." They created a six-minute-long, mostly improvised, "mother and son" sketch, which they performed later that night.


title: Elaine May

text: May helped remove the stereotype of women's roles on stage. Producer David Shepherd notes that she accomplished that partly by not choosing traditional 1950s female roles for her characters, which were often housewives or women working at menial jobs. Instead, she often played the character of a sophisticated woman, such as a doctor, a psychiatrist, or an employer. Shepherd notes that "Elaine broke through the psychological restrictions of playing comedy as a woman."


title: Elaine May

text: May and Nichols had different attitudes toward their improvisations, however. Where Nichols always needed to know where a sketch was going and what its ultimate point would be, May preferred exploring ideas as the scene progressed. May says that even when they repeated their improvisations, it was not rote but came from re-creating her original impulse. Such improvisational techniques allowed her to make slight changes during a performance. Although May had a wider improvisational range than Nichols, he was generally the one to shape the pieces and steer them to their end. For their recordings, he also made the decision of what to delete.


title: Elaine May

text: Audiences were still discovering May and Nichols in 1961, four years after they arrived. However, at the height of their fame, they decided to discontinue their act that year and took their careers in different directions: Nichols became a leading Broadway stage and film director; May became primarily a screenwriter and playwright, with some acting and directing. Among the reasons they decided to call it quits was that keeping their act fresh was becoming more difficult. Nichols explained:


title: Elaine May

text: Nichols said that for him personally the breakup was "cataclysmic", and he went into a state of depression: "I didn't know what I was or who I was." It was not until 1996, thirty-five years later, that they would work together again as a team, when she wrote the screenplay and he directed "The Birdcage." It "was like coming home, like getting a piece of yourself back that you thought you'd lost," he said. He adds that May had been very important to him from the moment he first saw her, adding that for her "improv was innate," and few people have that gift.


title: Elaine May

text: Director Arthur Penn said of their sudden breakup, "They set the standard and then they had to move on." To New York talk show host Dick Cavett, "They were one of the comic meteors in the sky."


title: Elaine May

text: They reunited for a Madison Square Garden benefit for George McGovern for President in June, 1972. The event, titled "Together Again for McGovern," also featured two musical groups that had recently broken up, Simon and Garfunkel and Peter, Paul and Mary, as well as singer Dionne Warwick.


title: Elaine May

text: Following the break-up, May wrote several plays. Her greatest success was the one-act "Adaptation". Other stage plays she has written include "Not Enough Rope", "Mr Gogol and Mr Preen", "Hotline" (which was performed off-Broadway in 1995 as part of the anthology play "Death Defying Acts"), "After the Night and the Music", "Power Plays", "Taller Than A Dwarf", "The Way of All Fish", and "Adult Entertainment". In 1969 she directed the off-Broadway production of "Adaptation/Next".


title: Elaine May

text: In 2002 Stanley Donen directed her musical play "Adult Entertainment" with Jeannie Berlin and Danny Aiello at Variety Arts Theater in Manhattan.


title: Elaine May

text: May wrote the one-act play "George is Dead", which starred Marlo Thomas and was performed on Broadway from late 2011 into 2012 as part of the anthology play "Relatively Speaking" along with two other plays by Woody Allen and Joel Coen, directed by John Turturro.


title: Elaine May

text: May made her film writing and directing debut in 1971 with "A New Leaf", a black comedy based on Jack Ritchie's short story "The Green Heart", which she read in an Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. (Ritchie would later retitle the story "A New Leaf".) The unconventional 'romance' starred Walter Matthau as a Manhattan bachelor faced with bankruptcy and May herself as the wealthy but nerdy botanist he cynically romances and marries in order to salvage his extravagant lifestyle. Director May originally submitted a 180-minute work to Paramount, but the studio cut it back by nearly 80 minutes for release.


title: Elaine May

text: May quickly followed her debut film with 1972's "The Heartbreak Kid". She limited her role to directing, using a screenplay by Neil Simon, based on a story by Bruce Jay Friedman. The film starred Charles Grodin, Cybill Shepherd, Eddie Albert, and May's own daughter, Jeannie Berlin. It was a major critical success, and holds a 90% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In 2000, it was listed at No. 91 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs list.


title: Elaine May

text: May followed the two comedies by writing and directing the gangster film "Mikey and Nicky", starring Peter Falk and John Cassavetes. Budgeted at $1.8 million and scheduled for a summer 1975 release, the film cost $4.3 million and was not released until December 1976. May ended up in a legal battle with Paramount Pictures over post-production costs, at one point hiding reels of the film in her husband's friend's Connecticut garage and later suing the company for $8 million for breach of contract. May worked with Julian Schlossberg to get the rights to the film and released a director's cut in 1980. In 2019, May worked with The Criterion Collection to create the newest director's cut. The film has gained appreciation by many critics and audiences in recent years.


title: Elaine May

text: Warren Beatty worked with May on the comedy "Ishtar" (1987), starring Beatty and Dustin Hoffman. Largely shot on location in Morocco, the production was beset by creative differences among the principals and had cost overruns. Long before the picture was ready for release, the troubled production had become the subject of numerous press stories, including a long cover article in "New York" magazine. Some of the opposition to the film came from David Puttnam, the studio head, making "Ishtar" a prime example of studio suicide. The advance publicity was largely negative and, despite some positive reviews from the "Los Angeles Times" and "The Washington Post", the film was a box office disaster.


title: Elaine May

text: The film "Ishtar" has been positively re-evaluated in the 21st century by multiple publications including the "Los Angeles Times", "Slate", Indiewire, and "The Dissolve". Richard Brody of "The New Yorker" called "Ishtar" a "wrongly maligned masterwork" and raved, "There's a level of invention, a depth of reflection, and a tangle of emotions in "Ishtar" which are reached by few films and few filmmakers."


title: Elaine May

text: In addition to writing three of the films she directed, Elaine May received an Oscar nomination for updating the 1941 film "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" as "Heaven Can Wait" (1978). She contributed (uncredited) to the screenplay for the 1982 megahit "Tootsie", notably the scenes involving the character played by Bill Murray. She also contributed to the screenplay for the drama "Dangerous Minds" (1995).


title: Elaine May

text: May reunited with her former comic partner, Mike Nichols, for the 1996 film "The Birdcage", an American adaptation of the classic French farce "La Cage aux Folles". Their film relocated the story from France to South Beach, Miami. It was a major box office hit. May received her second Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay when she again worked with Nichols on the 1998 film "Primary Colors".


title: Elaine May

text: In December 2013, Stanley Donen was reported to be in pre-production for a new film, co-written with May, to be produced by Nichols. A table reading of the script for potential investors included such actors as Christopher Walken, Charles Grodin, Ron Rifkin, and Jeannie Berlin. Nichols died in 2014, however, and Donen died in 2019.


title: Elaine May

text: May has also acted in comedy films, including "Enter Laughing" (1967), directed by Carl Reiner, and "Luv" (1967), costarring Peter Falk and Jack Lemmon. The latter film was not well received by critics, although Lemmon said he enjoyed working alongside May: "She's the finest actress I've ever worked with," he said. "And I've never expressed an opinion about a leading lady before... I think Elaine is touched with genius. She approaches a scene like a director and a writer."


title: Elaine May

text: Film scholar Gwendolyn Audrey Foster notes that May is drawn to material that borders on dry Yiddish humor. As such, it has not always been well received at the box office. Her style of humor, in writing or acting, often has more to do with traditional Yiddish theater than traditional Hollywood cinema.


title: Elaine May

text: May starred in "A New Leaf" (1971), which she also wrote and directed. The dark comedy also co-starred Walter Matthau. Vincent Canby called it "a beautifully and gently cockeyed movie that recalls at least two different traditions of American film comedy... The entire project is touched by a fine and knowing madness." May received a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of botanist Henrietta Lowell. In Herbert Ross's "California Suite" (1978), written by Neil Simon, she was reunited with "A New Leaf" co-star Walter Matthau, playing his wife Millie. May acted in the film "In the Spirit" (1990), in which she played a "shopaholic stripped of consumer power"; Robert Pardi has described her portrayal as a "study of fraying equanimity [that] is a classic comic tour de force."


title: Elaine May

text: May reunited with Nichols for a stage production of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" in New Haven in 1980.


title: Elaine May

text: She appeared in Woody Allen's "Small Time Crooks" (2000) where she played the character May Sloane, which Allen named after May when he wrote it, and with May being his first choice for the part. For her acting, she won the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Supporting Actress. Allen spoke of her as a genius, and of his ease of working with her: "She shows up on time, she knows her lines, she can ad-lib creatively, and is willing to. If you don't want her to, she won't. She's a dream. She puts herself in your hands. She's a genius, and I don't use that word casually." Nearly 15 years later, Allen ended up casting her to play his wife, Kay Munsinger, in his Amazon limited series, "Crisis in Six Scenes", which was released in 2016.


title: Elaine May

text: In 2016, she starred alongside her friend Woody Allen, in his series "Crisis in Six Scenes" on Amazon Prime, which was her first role since Allen's "Small Time Crooks".


title: Elaine May

text: In 2018, May returned to Broadway after 60 years in a Lila Neugebauer-directed revival of Kenneth Lonergan's play "The Waverly Gallery" opposite Lucas Hedges, Joan Allen, and Michael Cera. The play ran at the John Golden Theatre, the same theatre where Nichols and May started almost 60 years ago. May received rapturous reviews for her performance as the gregarious, dementia-ridden elderly gallery owner Gladys Green, with many critics remarking that she was giving one of the most extraordinary performances they had ever seen onstage. The show received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, while May herself won for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance. She became the second oldest performer to win a Tony Award for acting.


title: Elaine May

text: In 2019, it was announced that May is set to direct her first narrative feature in over 30 years. Little is known about the project other than its title, "Crackpot", and that it is set to star Dakota Johnson, who announced the project at the 2019 Governors Awards.


title: Elaine May

text: Nichols and May created a new "Age of Irony" for comedy, which showed actors arguing contemporary banalities as a key part of their routine. That style of comedy was picked up and further developed by later comics such as Steve Martin, Bill Murray, and David Letterman. According to Martin, Nichols and May were among the first to satirize relationships. The word "relationship," notes Martin, was first used in the early sixties: "It was the first time I ever heard it satirized." He recalls that soon after discovering their recorded acts, he went to sleep each night listening to them. "They influenced us all and changed the face of comedy."


title: Elaine May

text: In "Vanity Fair", Woody Allen declared, "Individually, each one is a genius, and when they worked together, the sum was even greater than the combination of the parts—the two of them came along and elevated comedy to a brand-new level."


title: Elaine May

text: Lily Tomlin was also affected by their routines and considers May to be her inspiration as a comedian: "There was nothing like Elaine May, with her voice, her timing, and her attitude," says Tomlin. "The nuances of the characterizations and the cultured types that they were doing completely appealed to me. They were the first people I saw doing smart, hip character pieces. My brother and I used to keep their 'Improvisations to Music' on the turntable twenty-four hours a day."


title: Elaine May

text: In an interview with Pitchfork Magazine, standup comedian John Mulaney, described "Mike Nichols & Elaine May Examine Doctors" (1961) as one of his favorite comedy albums of all time. Mulaney stated, "I got this album for Christmas when I was in junior high. The last track, 'Nichols and May at Work,' is an outtake from recording the album, they were just improvising dialog in a studio. They’re trying to do a piece where a son goes to his mother and says that he wants to become a registered nurse. It’s something you just have to experience, because two people that funny laughing that hard is really, really, really funny. I think it might be the happiest thing ever recorded."


title: Elaine May

text: Filmmaker and film historian Peter Bogdanovich covered Elaine's filmography in his book "Movie of the Week" (1999). Bogdanovich praised all of her films and concluded with "Long live Elaine! Would that she could act and direct again in pictures. In 1998 I saw her perform off-Broadway in a couple of one-act plays she wrote ("Power Plays"), and her performances matched the comic genius of the writing." Other admirers of May's work include comedian Patton Oswalt, and directors Ben and Josh Safdie who both detailed their admiration for her and her work, in particular her film "Mikey and Nicky" (1976) through The Criterion Channel.


title: Elaine May

text: May's work as a director has been given a closer look in recent years with David Hudson, a writer for The Criterion Collection declaring her as a "criminally underappreciated moviemaker".


title: Elaine May

text: In 2017 the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle created an award in her name given "to a deserving person or film that brings awareness to women’s issues".


title: Elaine May

text: For her acting, her accolades include a nomination for a Golden Globe award for Best Actress in a musical or comedy for "A New Leaf" (1971), and winning the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in "Small Time Crooks" (2000).


title: Elaine May

text: May was awarded the National Medal of Arts for her lifetime contributions to American comedy by President Barack Obama, in a ceremony in the White House on July 10, 2013. She was awarded for her "groundbreaking wit and a keen understanding of how humor can illuminate our lives, Ms. May has evoked untold joy, challenged expectations, and elevated spirits across our Nation."


title: Elaine May

text: In January 2016, the Writers Guild of America-West announced that May would receive its 2016 Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement at the Writers Guild of America Award ceremony in Los Angeles on February 13.


title: Elaine May

text: On June 9, 2019, May won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance as Gladys in the Broadway revival of Kenneth Lonergan's "The Waverly Gallery". She also received a Drama League Award nomination and won a Drama Desk Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play. That same year, May's film "A New Leaf" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: Elaine May

text: In 2021, she was chosen to receive the Honorary Academy Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, receiving the award for her "bold, uncompromising approach to filmmaking, as a writer, director and actress". She was honored at the annual Governors Awards alongside Samuel L. Jackson, Liv Ullman, and Danny Glover on March 25, 2022. Bill Murray presented her with the award crediting her with "saving his life on multiple occasions professionally".


title: Multimeter

text: A multimeter is a measuring instrument that can measure multiple electrical properties. A typical multimeter can measure voltage, resistance, and current, in which case it is also known as a volt-ohm-milliammeter (VOM), as the unit is equipped with voltmeter, ammeter, and ohmmeter functionality, or volt-ohmmeter for short. Some feature the measurement of additional properties such as temperature and capacitance.


title: Multimeter

text: Analog multimeters use a microammeter with a moving pointer to display readings. Digital multimeters (DMM, DVOM) have numeric displays and have made analog multimeters virtually obsolete as they are cheaper, more precise, and more physically robust than analog multimeters.


title: Multimeter

text: Multimeters vary in size, features, and price. They can be portable handheld devices or highly-precise bench instruments. Cheap multimeters can cost under , while laboratory-grade models with certified calibration can cost over .


title: Multimeter

text: The first moving-pointer current-detecting device was the galvanometer in 1820. These were used to measure resistance and voltage by using a Wheatstone bridge, and comparing the unknown quantity to a reference voltage or resistance. While useful in the lab, the devices were very slow and impractical in the field. These galvanometers were bulky and delicate.


title: Multimeter

text: The D'Arsonval–Weston meter movement uses a moving coil which carries a pointer and rotates on pivots or a taut band ligament. The coil rotates in a permanent magnetic field and is restrained by fine spiral springs which also serve to carry current into the moving coil. It gives proportional measurement rather than just detection, and deflection is independent of the orientation of the meter. Instead of balancing a bridge, values could be directly read off the instrument's scale, which made measurement quick and easy.


title: Multimeter

text: The basic moving coil meter is suitable only for direct current measurements, usually in the range of 10 μA to 100 mA. It is easily adapted to read heavier currents by using shunts (resistances in parallel with the basic movement) or to read voltage using series resistances known as multipliers. To read alternating currents or voltages, a rectifier is needed. One of the earliest suitable rectifiers was the copper oxide rectifier developed and manufactured by Union Switch & Signal Company, Swissvale, Pennsylvania, later part of Westinghouse Brake and Signal Company, from 1927.


title: Multimeter

text: The first attested usage of the word "multimeter" listed by the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1907.


title: Multimeter

text: The invention of the first multimeter is attributed to British Post Office engineer, Donald Macadie, who became dissatisfied with the need to carry many separate instruments required for maintenance of telecommunications circuits. Macadie invented an instrument which could measure amperes (amps), volts and ohms, so the multifunctional meter was then named Avometer. The meter comprised a moving coil meter, voltage and precision resistors, and switches and sockets to select the range.


title: Multimeter

text: The Automatic Coil Winder and Electrical Equipment Company (ACWEECO), founded in 1923, was set up to manufacture the Avometer and a coil winding machine also designed and patented by MacAdie. Although a shareholder of ACWEECO, Mr MacAdie continued to work for the Post Office until his retirement in 1933. His son, Hugh S. MacAdie, joined ACWEECO in 1927 and became Technical Director. The first AVO was put on sale in 1923, and many of its features remained almost unaltered through to the last Model 8.


title: Multimeter

text: Any meter will load the circuit under test to some extent. For example, a multimeter using a moving coil movement with full-scale deflection current of 50 microamps (μA), the highest sensitivity commonly available, must draw at least 50 μA from the circuit under test for the meter to reach the top end of its scale. This may load a high-impedance circuit so much as to affect the circuit, thereby giving a low reading. The full-scale deflection current may also be expressed in terms of "ohms per volt" (Ω/V). The ohms per volt figure is often called the "sensitivity" of the instrument. Thus a meter with a 50 μA movement will have a "sensitivity" of 20,000 Ω/V. "Per volt" refers to the fact that the impedance the meter presents to the circuit under test will be 20,000 Ω multiplied by the full-scale voltage to which the meter is set. For example, if the meter is set to a range of 300 V full scale, the meter's impedance will be 6 MΩ. 20,000 Ω/V is the best (highest) sensitivity available for typical analog multimeters that lack internal amplifiers. For meters that do have internal amplifiers (VTVMs, FETVMs, etc.), the input impedance is fixed by the amplifier circuit.


title: Multimeter

text: The first Avometer had a sensitivity of 60 Ω/V, three direct current ranges (12 mA, 1.2 A, and 12 A), three direct voltage ranges (12, 120, and 600 V or optionally 1,200 V), and a 10,000 Ω resistance range. An improved version of 1927 increased this to 13 ranges and 166.6 Ω/V (6 mA) movement. A "Universal" version having additional alternating current and alternating voltage ranges was offered from 1933 and in 1936 the dual-sensitivity Avometer Model 7 offered 500 and 100 Ω/V. Between the mid 1930s until the 1950s, 1,000 Ω/V became a de facto standard of sensitivity for radio work and this figure was often quoted on service sheets. However, some manufacturers such as Simpson, Triplett and Weston, all in the USA, produced 20,000 Ω/V VOMs before the Second World War and some of these were exported. After 1945–46, 20,000 Ω/V became the expected standard for electronics, but some makers offered even more sensitive instruments. For industrial and other "heavy-current" use low sensitivity multimeters continued to be produced and these were considered more robust than the more sensitive types.


title: Multimeter

text: High-quality analog (analogue) multimeters continue to be made by several manufacturers, including Chauvin Arnoux (France), Gossen Metrawatt (Germany), and Simpson and Triplett (USA).


title: Multimeter

text: Pocket-watch-style meters were in widespread use in the 1920s. The metal case was typically connected to the negative connection, an arrangement that caused numerous electric shocks. The technical specifications of these devices were often crude, for example the one illustrated has a resistance of just 25 Ω/V, a non-linear scale and no zero adjustment on both ranges.


title: Multimeter

text: Vacuum tube voltmeters or valve voltmeters (VTVM, VVM) were used for voltage measurements in electronic circuits where high input impedance was necessary. The VTVM had a fixed input impedance of typically 1 MΩ or more, usually through use of a cathode follower input circuit, and thus did not significantly load the circuit being tested. VTVMs were used before the introduction of electronic high-impedance analog transistor and field effect transistor voltmeters (FETVOMs). Modern digital meters (DVMs) and some modern analog meters also use electronic input circuitry to achieve high input impedance—their voltage ranges are functionally equivalent to VTVMs. The input impedance of some poorly designed DVMs (especially some early designs) would vary over the course of a sample-and-hold internal measurement cycle, causing disturbances to some sensitive circuits under test.


title: Multimeter

text: Additional scales such as decibels, and measurement functions such as capacitance, transistor gain, frequency, duty cycle, display hold, and continuity which sounds a buzzer when the measured resistance is small have been included on many multimeters. While multimeters may be supplemented by more specialized equipment in a technician's toolkit, some multimeters include additional functions for specialized applications (temperature with a thermocouple probe, inductance, connectivity to a computer, speaking measured value, etc.).


title: Multimeter

text: A multimeter is the combination of a DC voltmeter, AC voltmeter, ammeter, and ohmmeter. An un-amplified analog multimeter combines a meter movement, range resistors and switches; VTVMs are amplified analog meters and contain active circuitry.


title: Multimeter

text: For an analog meter movement, DC voltage is measured with a series resistor connected between the meter movement and the circuit under test. A switch (usually rotary) allows greater resistance to be inserted in series with the meter movement to read higher voltages. The product of the basic full-scale deflection current of the movement, and the sum of the series resistance and the movement's own resistance, gives the full-scale voltage of the range.


title: Multimeter

text: As an example, a meter movement that required 1 mA for full-scale deflection, with an internal resistance of 500 Ω, would, on a 10 V range of the multimeter, have 9,500 Ω of series resistance.


title: Multimeter

text: For analog current ranges, matched low-resistance shunts are connected in parallel with the meter movement to divert most of the current around the coil. Again for the case of a hypothetical 1 mA, 500 Ω movement on a 1 A range, the shunt resistance would be just over 0.5 Ω.


title: Multimeter

text: Moving coil instruments can respond only to the average value of the current through them. To measure alternating current, which changes up and down repeatedly, a rectifier is inserted in the circuit so that each negative half cycle is inverted; the result is a varying and nonzero DC voltage whose maximum value will be half the AC peak to peak voltage, assuming a symmetrical waveform. Since the rectified average value and the root mean square (RMS) value of a waveform are only the same for a square wave, simple rectifier-type circuits can only be calibrated for sinusoidal waveforms. Other wave shapes require a different calibration factor to relate RMS and average value. This type of circuit usually has fairly limited frequency range. Since practical rectifiers have non-zero voltage drop, accuracy and sensitivity is poor at low AC voltage values.


title: Multimeter

text: To measure resistance, switches arrange for a small battery within the instrument to pass a current through the device under test and the meter coil. Since the current available depends on the state of charge of the battery which changes over time, a multimeter usually has an adjustment for the ohm scale to zero it. In the usual circuits found in analog multimeters, the meter deflection is inversely proportional to the resistance, so full-scale will be 0 Ω, and higher resistance will correspond to smaller deflections. The ohms scale is compressed, so resolution is better at lower resistance values.


title: Multimeter

text: Amplified instruments simplify the design of the series and shunt resistor networks. The internal resistance of the coil is decoupled from the selection of the series and shunt range resistors; the series network thus becomes a voltage divider. Where AC measurements are required, the rectifier can be placed after the amplifier stage, improving precision at low range.


title: Multimeter

text: Digital instruments, which necessarily incorporate amplifiers, use the same principles as analog instruments for resistance readings. For resistance measurements, usually a small constant current is passed through the device under test and the digital multimeter reads the resultant voltage drop; this eliminates the scale compression found in analog meters, but requires a source of precise current. An autoranging digital multimeter can automatically adjust the scaling network so the measurement circuits use the full precision of the A/D converter.


title: Multimeter

text: In all types of multimeters, the quality of the switching elements is critical to stable and accurate measurements. The best DMMs use gold plated contacts in their switches; less expensive meters use nickel plating or none at all, relying on printed circuit board solder traces for the contacts. Accuracy and stability (e.g., temperature variation, or aging, or voltage/current history) of a meter's internal resistors (and other components) is a limiting factor in long-term accuracy and precision of the instrument.


title: Multimeter

text: The resolution of a multimeter is the smallest part of the scale which can be shown, which is scale dependent. On some digital multimeters it can be configured, with higher resolution measurements taking longer to complete. For example, a multimeter that has a 1 mV resolution on a 10 V scale can show changes in measurements in 1 mV increments.


title: Multimeter

text: Absolute accuracy is the error of the measurement compared to a perfect measurement. Relative accuracy is the error of the measurement compared to the device used to calibrate the multimeter. Most multimeter datasheets provide relative accuracy. To compute the absolute accuracy from the relative accuracy of a multimeter add the absolute accuracy of the device used to calibrate the multimeter to the relative accuracy of the multimeter.


title: Multimeter

text: The resolution of a multimeter is often specified in the number of decimal digits resolved and displayed. If the most significant digit cannot take all values from 0 to 9 it is generally, and confusingly, termed a fractional digit. For example, a multimeter which can read up to 19999 (plus an embedded decimal point) is said to read digits.


title: Multimeter

text: By convention, if the most significant digit can be either 0 or 1, it is termed a half-digit; if it can take higher values without reaching 9 (often 3 or 5), it may be called three-quarters of a digit. A -digit multimeter would display one "half digit" that could only display 0 or 1, followed by five digits taking all values from 0 to 9. Such a meter could show positive or negative values from 0 to 199999. A -digit meter can display a quantity from 0 to 3999 or 5999, depending on the manufacturer.


title: Multimeter

text: While a digital display can easily be extended in resolution, the extra digits are of no value if not accompanied by care in the design and calibration of the analog portions of the multimeter. Meaningful (i.e., high-accuracy) measurements require a good understanding of the instrument specifications, good control of the measurement conditions, and traceability of the calibration of the instrument. However, even if its resolution exceeds the accuracy, a meter can be useful for comparing measurements. For example, a meter reading stable digits may indicate that one nominally 100 kΩ resistor is about 7 Ω greater than another, although the error of each measurement is 0.2% of reading plus 0.05% of full-scale value.


title: Multimeter

text: Specifying "display counts" is another way to specify the resolution. Display counts give the largest number, or the largest number plus one (to include the display of all zeros) the multimeter's display can show, ignoring the decimal separator. For example, a -digit multimeter can also be specified as a 199999 display count or 200000 display count multimeter. Often the display count is just called the 'count' in multimeter specifications.


title: Multimeter

text: The accuracy of a digital multimeter may be stated in a two-term form, such as "±1% of reading +2 counts", reflecting the different sources of error in the instrument.


title: Multimeter

text: Analog meters are older designs, but despite being technically surpassed by digital meters with bar graphs, may still be preferred by engineers and troubleshooters. One reason given is that analog meters are more sensitive (or responsive) to changes in the circuit that is being measured. A digital multimeter samples the quantity being measured over time, and then displays it. Analog multimeters continuously read the test value. If there are slight changes in readings, the needle of an analog multimeter will attempt to track it, as opposed to the digital meter having to wait until the next sample, giving delays between each discontinuous reading (plus the digital meter may additionally require settling time to converge on the value). The digital display value as opposed to an analog display is subjectively more difficult to read. This continuous tracking feature becomes important when testing capacitors or coils, for example. A properly functioning capacitor should allow current to flow when voltage is applied, then the current slowly decreases to zero and this "signature" is easy to see on an analog multimeter but not on a digital multimeter. This is similar when testing a coil, except the current starts low and increases.


title: Multimeter

text: Resistance measurements on an analog meter, in particular, can be of low precision due to the typical resistance measurement circuit which compresses the scale heavily at the higher resistance values. Inexpensive analog meters may have only a single resistance scale, seriously restricting the range of precise measurements. Typically, an analog meter will have a panel adjustment to set the zero-ohms calibration of the meter, to compensate for the varying voltage of the meter battery, and the resistance of the meter's test leads.


title: Multimeter

text: Digital multimeters generally take measurements with accuracy superior to their analog counterparts. Standard analog multimeters measure with typically ±3% accuracy, though instruments of higher accuracy are made. Standard portable digital multimeters are specified to have an accuracy of typically ±0.5% on the DC voltage ranges. Mainstream bench-top multimeters are available with specified accuracy of better than ±0.01%. Laboratory grade instruments can have accuracies of a few parts per million.


title: Multimeter

text: Accuracy figures need to be interpreted with care. The accuracy of an analog instrument usually refers to full-scale deflection; a measurement of 30 V on the 100 V scale of a 3% meter is subject to an error of 3 V, 10% of the reading. Digital meters usually specify accuracy as a percentage of reading plus a percentage of full-scale value, sometimes expressed in counts rather than percentage terms.


title: Multimeter

text: Quoted accuracy is specified as being that of the lower millivolt (mV) DC range, and is known as the "basic DC volts accuracy" figure. Higher DC voltage ranges, current, resistance, AC and other ranges will usually have a lower accuracy than the basic DC volts figure. AC measurements only meet specified accuracy within a specified range of frequencies.


title: Multimeter

text: Manufacturers can provide calibration services so that new meters may be purchased with a certificate of calibration indicating the meter has been adjusted to standards traceable to, for example, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), or other national standards organization.


title: Multimeter

text: Test equipment tends to drift out of calibration over time, and the specified accuracy cannot be relied upon indefinitely. For more expensive equipment, manufacturers and third parties provide calibration services so that older equipment may be recalibrated and recertified. The cost of such services is disproportionate for inexpensive equipment; however extreme accuracy is not required for most routine testing. Multimeters used for critical measurements may be part of a metrology program to assure calibration.


title: Multimeter

text: A multimeter can be assumed to be "average responding" to AC waveforms unless stated as being a "true RMS" type. An average responding multimeter will only meet its specified accuracy on AC volts and amps for purely sinusoidal waveforms. A True RMS responding multimeter on the other hand will meet its specified accuracy on AC volts and current with any waveform type up to a specified crest factor; RMS performance is sometimes claimed for meters which report accurate RMS readings only at certain frequencies (usually low) and with certain waveforms (essentially always sine waves).


title: Multimeter

text: A meter's AC voltage and current accuracy may have different specifications at different frequencies.


title: Multimeter

text: When used for measuring voltage, the input impedance of the multimeter must be very high compared to the impedance of the circuit being measured; otherwise circuit operation may be affected and the reading will be inaccurate.