title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: Retrograde ejaculation is sometimes referred to as a "dry orgasm." Retrograde ejaculation is one symptom of male infertility. A man may notice during masturbation that despite the occurrence of orgasm, no accompanying ejaculation was produced. Another underlying cause for this phenomenon may be ejaculatory duct obstruction.


title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: During a male orgasm, sperm are released from the epididymis and travel via small tubes called the vas deferens. The sperm mix with seminal fluid in the seminal vesicles, prostate fluid from the prostate gland, and lubricants from the bulbourethral gland. During climax, muscles at the end of the bladder neck tighten to prevent retrograde flow of semen. In retrograde ejaculation, these bladder neck muscles are either very weak or the nerves controlling the muscles have been damaged.


title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: It can also be caused by a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection for testicular cancer if nerve pathways to the bladder sphincter are damaged, with the resulting retrograde ejaculation being either temporary or permanent. Modern nerve-sparing techniques seek to reduce this risk; however, it may also occur as the result of Green Light Laser prostate surgery.


title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: Surgery on the bladder neck accounted for about ten percent of the cases of retrograde ejaculation or anejaculation reported in a literature review.


title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: Retrograde ejaculation is a common side effect of medications, such as tamsulosin, that are used to relax the muscles of the urinary tract, treating conditions such as benign prostatic hyperplasia. By relaxing the bladder sphincter muscle, the likelihood of retrograde ejaculation is increased.


title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: The medications that mostly cause it are antidepressant and antipsychotic medication, as well as NRIs such as atomoxetine; patients experiencing this phenomenon tend to quit the medications.


title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: Retrograde ejaculation can also be a complication of diabetes, especially in cases of diabetics with long term poor blood sugar control. This is due to neuropathy of the bladder sphincter. Post-pubertal males (aged 17 to 20 years) who experience repeated episodes of retrograde ejaculation are often diagnosed with urethral stricture disease shortly after the initial complaint arises. It is currently not known whether a congenital malformation of the bulbous urethra is responsible, or if pressure applied to the base of the penis or perineum immediately preceding ejaculatory inevitability may have inadvertently damaged the urethra. This damage is most often seen within 0.5 cm of the ejaculatory duct (usually distal to the duct).


title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: Medications to treat high blood pressure, benign prostate hyperplasia, mood disorders, surgery on the prostate and nerve injury (which may occur in multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury or diabetes).


title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: Diagnosis is usually determined after a medical professional performs a urinalysis on a urine specimen that is obtained shortly after ejaculation. In cases of retrograde ejaculation, the specimen will contain an abnormal level of sperm. Especially in case of "orgasmic anejaculation", anejaculation can often be confused with retrograde ejaculation, and they share some fundamental aspects of the cause. Urinalysis is used to distinguish between them.


title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: The genitals are physically examined to ensure that there are no anatomical problems. The urine will be tested for the presence of semen. If there are no sperm in the urine, it may be due to damage to the prostate as a result of surgery or prior radiation therapy.


title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: The treatment depends on the cause. Medications may work for retrograde ejaculation but only in a few cases. Surgery rarely is the first option for retrograde ejaculation and the results have proven to be inconsistent. Medications do not help retrograde ejaculation if there has been permanent damage to the prostate or the testes from radiation. Medications also do not help if prostate surgery has resulted in damage to the muscles or nerves. Medications only work if there has been mild nerve damage caused by diabetes, multiple sclerosis, or mild spinal cord injury.


title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: These medications tighten the bladder neck muscles and prevent semen from going backwards into the bladder. However, the medications do have many side effects and they have to be taken at least 1–2 hours prior to sexual intercourse. In many cases, the medications fail to work at the right time because most men are not able to predict when they will have an orgasm.


title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: If a couple is experiencing infertility as a result of retrograde ejaculation and medications are not helping, the collection of the semen collection may undergo a special procedure. First, the patient alkalinizes his urine by intake of sodium bicarbonate (3g dissolved in water in the evening before bed, and then another dose after complete bladder emptying right before going to the laboratory). Before semen collection the patient must empty his bladder. The patient then has to masturbate in one container and immediately after has to urinate in another container. The male's ejaculate may be centrifuged from urine voided, and the isolated sperm injected directly into the woman through the use of intrauterine insemination. In more severe cases, in-vitro fertilization with intracytoplasmic sperm injection may be used.


title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: Retrograde ejaculation can be deliberately induced by squeezing the urethra at the base or applying pressure to the perineum during orgasm. The retrograde-ejaculated sperm goes into the bladder and is excreted with the next urination.


title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: In certain cultures, such as in the Oneida Community, retrograde ejaculation is performed as a form of primitive male birth control ("coitus saxonicus"). However, the practice is not considered a reliable method compared to most modern types of birth control. Besides the lack of protection from STDs, the technique itself can be hard to execute correctly during the act of coitus, especially if the male does not fully understand the anatomy involved. Many doctors also do not recommend "coitus saxonicus" due to the risk of putting pressure on the pudendal nerve, which can cause numbness in the penis.


title: Retrograde ejaculation

text: Taoists and some fields of alternative medicine recommend and teach deliberate retrograde ejaculation as a way of "conserving the body's energy". It was believed that retrograde ejaculation caused the sperm to travel into the head and nourish the brain, or that energy is conserved physically by keeping the sperm (and thereby, the "intelligence" that created it) in the body. However, there are other Taoist perspectives on the general subject of ejaculation and techniques that do not involve retrograde ejaculation (see Taoist sexual practices).


title: Ray of Light

text: Ray of Light is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Madonna, released in early 1998 by Maverick Records. A stylistic and aesthetical departure from her previous work, "Ray of Light" is an electronica and techno-pop record which incorporates multiple genres, including ambient, trip hop, psychedelic music and Middle Eastern music, while also seeing Madonna singing with greater breadth and a fuller tone. Mystical themes are also strongly present in both the music and lyrics, as a result of Madonna embracing Kabbalah, her study of Hinduism and Buddhism, and her daily practice of Ashtanga yoga.


title: Ray of Light

text: After giving birth to her first child, Madonna started working on the album with producers Babyface and Patrick Leonard. Following failed sessions with them, Madonna pursued a new musical direction with English producer William Orbit, which resulted in a much more experimental sound being produced for the album. The recording process was the longest of Madonna's career, and she experienced problems with Orbit's hardware arrangement which would break down and cause delays until it could be repaired.


title: Ray of Light

text: Considered as her best body of work, the album received universal critical acclaim, with reviews praising the singer's new musical direction, Orbit's complex, innovative and experimental production, and Madonna's songwriting skills. Referred to as her "most adventurous" record, "Ray of Light" has been noted for its introspective, spiritual, and religious nature with Madonna's vocals also being lauded. Retrospectively, the album has continued receiving critical acclaim from contemporary critics and is often considered to be her "magnum opus". On top of this, the album is frequently cited by critics as one of the greatest mainstream pop albums of all time. "Ray of Light" won four Grammy Awards from a total of six nominations.


title: Ray of Light

text: The album debuted at number two on the US "Billboard" 200, with the biggest first-week sales by a female artist at the time. It also peaked at number one in 17 countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, and charted within the top-five in most musical markets. Worldwide, "Ray of Light" has sold over 16 million copies and is one of the best-selling albums by women. Five singles were released from the album, including the international top five hits "Frozen" and "Ray of Light". The album's promotion was later supported by the Drowned World Tour in 2001. Music critics have noted the album's influence on popular music, and how it introduced electronica into mainstream pop culture in America. They also noted Madonna's musical re-invention which helped the 39-year-old remain contemporary among the teen-marketed artists of the period.


title: Ray of Light

text: Following the release of her compilation album "Something to Remember" (1995), Madonna started taking vocal lessons in preparation for her role in "Evita" (1996). She would also give birth to her daughter, Lourdes, later in 1996. These events inspired a period of introspection. "That was a big catalyst for me. It took me on a search for answers to questions I'd never asked myself before", she said to "Q" magazine, in 2002. During the same period, she embraced Kabbalah and started studying Hinduism and yoga, all of which helped her "step outside [myself] and see the world from a different perspective". Madonna felt that there was a "whole piece" of her voice left unused, which she decided to utilize for the album. By May 1997, Madonna had started writing songs for the album. She began collaborating with Babyface, who had first worked with her on her previous album "Bedtime Stories" (1994). The two wrote a couple of songs together before Madonna decided the collaborations were not going in the musical direction she wanted for the album. According to Babyface, the songs "had a 'Take a Bow-ish' kind of vibe, and Madonna didn't want, or need, to repeat herself".


title: Ray of Light

text: After abandoning the songs she had written with Babyface, Madonna turned to musician Rick Nowels, who had previously co-written songs with Stevie Nicks and Celine Dion. The collaboration produced seven songs in nine days, but those songs also did not display the album's future electronic musical direction. Three of the songs, "The Power of Good-Bye", "To Have and Not to Hold" and "Little Star", appear on the album. Madonna then began writing songs with Leonard, who had produced many songs for Madonna in the late 1980s. Unlike her previous albums, Leonard's song writing collaborations were accompanied by very little studio input. Madonna believed that Leonard's production "would have lent the songs more of a Peter Gabriel vibe", a sound that she did not want for the album. Guy Oseary, chairman of Maverick Records, then phoned British electronic musician William Orbit, and suggested that he send some songs to Madonna. Orbit sent a 13-track digital audio tape to Madonna. "I was a huge fan of William's earlier records, "Strange Cargo 1" and "2" and all that. I also loved all the remixes he did for me and I was interested in fusing a kind of futuristic sound but also using lots of Indian and Moroccan influences and things like that, and I wanted it to sound old and new at the same time", Madonna said.


title: Ray of Light

text: In early June before starting recording, Orbit met Madonna at her house in New York, and she played him the music she had worked on with other producers up to May 1997, which he felt sounded "slick". They visited the Hit Factory later that week, where Madonna invited the producer to work on "Ray of Light". Orbit then sent her a tape of musical snippets he was working on, which were usually eight or sixteen-bar phrases and stripped-down versions of tracks that would later be heard on the album. Madonna listened to the samples, over and over again, until she was inspired to write lyrics. Once she had an idea about the lyrical direction of the song, she would take her ideas back to Orbit, and they would expand on the original music ideas. As most of the instrumental demos pre-existed, Madonna worked on the lyrics and melodies while at home or while travelling.


title: Ray of Light

text: The album was recorded over four and a half months at Larrabee North Studio in North Hollywood, California, beginning in mid-June 1997, the longest Madonna had ever worked on an album. For most of the recording process, only three other people were in the studio with Madonna: William Orbit, an engineer named Pat McCarthy, and his assistant engineer, Matt Silva. They started recording in Los Angeles, but the recording process was initially plagued with machinery problems, as Orbit preferred to work with samples and synth sounds, and not with live musicians. The computers would break down, and recording would have to be delayed until they could be repaired. Orbit recorded the bulk of the album's instrumentation over a four-month period. Orbit recalls playing the guitar and having his fingers bleed during the long hours he spent in the studio.


title: Ray of Light

text: After some errors in her pronunciation of Sanskrit shloka "Yoga Taravali" during the song "Shanti/Ashtangi", the BBC arranged for Madonna to take telephonic lessons to learn the basic correct pronunciation of Sanskrit words from eminent scholar Vagish Shastri. She then made the necessary pronunciation corrections on the album. In an interview with MTV, Madonna recalled the recording of the album, saying her business partner Guy Oseary was a helpful friend, and that after she and Orbit played him the tracks, he, to their dismay, said nothing and left the studio. "He really hates those icy strings. Right when I think the track's done, he sort of pushes us another step further. 'Maybe we should try this', or 'I really don't want to hear that'. And then of course, later on, it creeps in my brain, and I'm like, 'maybe I should have done a background vocal on that'. And then she comes in and happily does it, right?" Madonna said. Orbit also recalled during an interview with "Q" magazine that Madonna recorded "Swim" the day her friend and fashion designer Gianni Versace was killed in Miami, Florida. He also commented that this is probably why the track has an emotional impact.


title: Ray of Light

text: According to spokesperson Liz Rosenberg, Madonna considered titling the album "Mantra", which she thought was a "really cool title", and she also considered calling it "Veronica Electronica"; however, she discarded both of those ideas and called it "Ray of Light", as her albums were always titled after one of the songs from each album's tracklist. The artwork was taken from a November 28, 1997 photoshoot with Peruvian photographer Mario Testino at the Paris Theater in Miami Beach. In terms of styling, Madonna and stylist Lori Goldstein opted for textures evocative of the elements water and air, which are recurrent themes on the album. For the album cover, Madonna wears a turquoise Dolce & Gabbana Spring/Summer 1998 vinyl raincoat. Other pictures from the same shoot serve as the artworks for the "Ray of Light" and "Frozen" singles, where Madonna models items from Prada's Spring/Summer 1998 collection. Madonna and Testino had previously collaborated for a Versace brand collection 2 years earlier. Madonna was impressed with the natural look Testino had captured, so she booked him again for the album's photoshoot. He recalled, "At 2pm she said, 'OK, I'm tired. We're done'. And I said, 'But I don't have the pictures yet'. She said, 'You're working for me and I say we're done'. I said, 'No, we carry on'. The picture she used on the cover came after that".


title: Ray of Light

text: "Ray of Light" was a notable departure from Madonna's previous work, and has been described as her most "adventurous" record. An electronica, trip hop, and techno-pop album, it also contains elements of several different types of music, including house, ambient, drum and bass, rock, new wave, eastern and classical music. Vocally, the album was also a marked change from Madonna's previous work; as the singer underwent vocal training lessons for her 1996 film "Evita", her vocals exhibited greater breadth and range, as well as a fuller timbre. In many songs, she also abandoned the vibrato which was present in her previous work. Critically, it is said to have Madonna's most full-bodied vocals.


title: Ray of Light

text: The opening track and third single, "Drowned World/Substitute For Love", is a downtempo ballad drawing influences from jungle, drum and bass and trip hop music. The title is inspired by J. G. Ballard's post-apocalyptic science fiction novel "The Drowned World" (1962). "Swim", the second song, has a spiritual tone. She sings: "Swim to the ocean floor/So that we can begin again/Wash away all our sins/Crash to the other shore". "Ray of Light", the third track and second single, is an uptempo electronic dance-pop song with strong techno and trance influences. A "sonically progressive" track, it also incorporates elements of rock, with a prominent electric guitar riff. Its sound effects include whistles and bleeps. "Candy Perfume Girl" has a grunge intro and continues to pair post-modern beeps and beats with old-fashioned electric guitar flare ups. In the next song, "Skin", Madonna sings "Do I know you from somewhere?" in a yearning voice over the beats of an electronic orchestra.


title: Ray of Light

text: The sixth track, "Nothing Really Matters", is an up-tempo dance track which contains influences of techno. "Sky Fits Heaven" focuses on Madonna's spiritual studies and her daughter Lourdes. Some lyrics include: "Sky fits heaven so fly it, that's what the prophet said to me/Child fits mother so hold your baby tight, that's what my future can see". Elements of the lyric are taken from the poem "What Fits?" by poet Max Blagg, the poem used for a 1993 advertisement for Gap Inc. "Shanti/Ashtangi" is a Hindu prayer and up-tempo techno song sung by Madonna in Sanskrit, over a driving dance rhythm. The techno dance track features Madonna singing the adapted version of Shankaracharya entirely in Sanskrit with lines such as "Vunde gurunam caranaravinde/Sandarsita svatma sukhavabodhe".


title: Ray of Light

text: "Frozen", the ninth track and album's first single, is a mid-tempo electronic ballad which has a layered sound enhanced by synthesizers and strings. The song additionally contains ambient qualities, a moderate dance rhythm during the chorus and techno-influenced beats towards the end. Madonna's vocals throughout the song lack vibrato, and have drawn comparisons to medieval music. Lyrically, the song is about a cold and emotionless man; nevertheless, subtexts have been noticed. According to Jarman-Ivens, lyrics such as "You're frozen, when your heart's not open" reflected an artistic palette, "encompassing diverse musical, textual and visual styles in its lyrics." "The Power of Good-Bye" is an emotional ballad which lyrically meditates on loss and longing. It was released as the album's fourth single. "To Have and Not to Hold" is about a distant lover and "Little Star" is about her daughter, Lourdes. Both are superficially vibrant but with underlying subtlety and restrained arrangements prevailing. "Mer Girl", the album's final track, is a surreal meditation on mortality and the death of Madonna's mother, in which she sings, "And I smelled her burning flesh/Her rotting bones, her decay/I ran and I ran/I'm still running away." "She stepped out of the vocal booth," Orbit recalled of its recording, "and everybody was rooted to the spot. It was just one of those moments. Really spooky."


title: Ray of Light

text: "Ray of Light" was released in Japan on February 22, 1998, with an additional Japan-only bonus track "Has to Be". The album was later released in the United States on March 3, 1998. In New Zealand, a box set of "Ray of Light" and "The Immaculate Collection" was released to accompany the album. It reached number 12 on the albums chart and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) for shipment of 7,500 copies. A promotional instore VHS compilation titled "Rays of Light" was released in the United Kingdom in 1999, compiling all the music videos to all five singles from the album. All five videos were later included on the compilation "" (1999). "Sky Fits Heaven" was released as a promotional single in the United States. It peaked at number 41 on the "Billboard" Hot Dance Club Play chart.


title: Ray of Light

text: To promote the album, Madonna made a number of televised appearances and live performances of the album's songs. On February 14, 1998, she debuted "Sky Fits Heaven", "Shanti/Ashtangi" and "Ray of Light" at Roxy NYC nightclub. "Frozen" was performed on "The National Lottery Show" in the UK (February 21), 1998 Sanremo Music Festival in Italy (February 24), "Wetten, dass..?" in Germany (February 28) and the "Rosie O'Donnell Show" in the United States (March 13). On April 27, Madonna made an unannounced appearance at the Rock for the Rainforest benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City to sing "Frozen". She also joined the other stars of the concert, including Sting, Elton John, and Billy Joel to perform "With a Little Help From My Friends" and "Twist and Shout" with them. On May 29, Madonna appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and sang "Little Star" and "Ray of Light" there. On September 10, she opened 1998 MTV Video Music Awards in New York City with the performance of "Shanti/Ashtangi" and "Ray of Light" featuring Lenny Kravitz on guitar. "The Power of Good-Bye" was sung at the 1998 MTV Europe Music Awards in Italy (November 12) and "Top of the Pops" in the UK (November 19). On February 24, 1999, Madonna performed "Nothing Really Matters" at the 41st Grammy Awards ceremony at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.


title: Ray of Light

text: Madonna performed "Drowned World/Substitute For Love", "Ray of Light", "Candy Perfume Girl", "Sky Fits Heaven", "Frozen" and "Mer Girl" on the Drowned World Tour, her fifth concert tour, which promoted "Ray of Light" and its successor album. It started in June 2001 and was Madonna's first tour in eight years. The tour was to be started before the new millennium, but she had become pregnant with her son Rocco Ritchie, released "Music" that year, and married Ritchie in December 2000. The show was divided into five sections, "Cyber-Punk", "Geisha", "Cowgirl", "Spanish" and "Ghetto". The Drowned World Tour received positive reviews. The tour was a commercial success, grossing a total of US$75 million, and it was the top concert tour of a solo artist in 2001. The concert was broadcast live on HBO from The Palace of Auburn Hills in Auburn Hills, Michigan on August 26, 2001. The "Drowned World Tour 2001" DVD was released in all regions on November 13, 2001. Like the original airing of the show, the DVD received very good reviews. The photographs used on the DVD packaging were taken by Madonna's friend Rosie O'Donnell.


title: Ray of Light

text: "Frozen" was released as the lead single from the album on February 23, 1998. It peaked inside the top five in most musical markets worldwide, while topping the singles chart in Finland, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, where it became Madonna's first single to debut at number one. It became her sixth single to peak at number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100, setting a record for Madonna as the artist with most number-two hits in the chart history. The song received critical acclaim, and was labelled a masterpiece whose sound was described as "cinematic". However, the Belgian court in 2005 ruled that the opening four-bar theme to the song was plagiarized from the song "Ma vie fout le camp", composed by Salvatore Acquaviva. The ruling forbade the sale of the single and the entire "Ray of Light" album, as well as other compilations that included the track in Belgium. In February 2014, a Belgian court ruled that Madonna did not plagiarize Acquaviva's work for "Frozen". The court spoke of a "new capital offense" in the file: composer Edouard Scotto Di Suoccio and societies Tabata Atoll Music and Music in Paris had also filed a complaint for plagiarism. According to them, both "Ma vie fout le camp" and "Frozen" originated in the song "Blood Night" which they composed in 1983. After all three tracks in the case were compared, the final ruling was that the songs were "not sufficiently 'original' to claim" that any plagiarism had taken place. This ruling ended the eight-year ban of the song that was in place in Belgium since 2005.


title: Ray of Light

text: The album's second single, "Ray of Light", was released on April 27, 1998. It peaked at number one in Spain and attained the top five position in Canada, Finland, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. It entered the Hot 100 at number five, becoming Madonna's highest debut on the chart ever. The song was also a hit on Hot Dance Club Play chart, remaining at number one for four weeks, and became the "Top Hot Dance Club Play Single" of 1998. Critically, it also received positive reviews, being praised for its club-perfect, yet "sonically progressive" sound, as well as her powerful vocals.


title: Ray of Light

text: "Drowned World/Substitute for Love" was released on August 24, 1998, as the third single outside the United States. It reached number one in Spain and the top ten in Italy and the United Kingdom. The music video, directed by Walter Stern, caused controversy due to scenes that featured Madonna being chased by paparazzi on motor-bikes, a scenario similar to Princess Diana's death in 1997. The fourth single, "The Power of Good-Bye", was released on September 22, 1998. It reached the top-ten peaks in Austria, Canada, Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom. In the United States, the song peaked at number eleven on the Hot 100. Its music video was directed by Matthew Rolston. "Nothing Really Matters" was released as the album's fifth and final single on March 2, 1999. It became a top-ten hit in Canada, Finland, Italy, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In the United States, it became Madonna's lowest-charting single on the Hot 100, peaking at number 93, but was a number-one hit on its dance chart. Its music video, directed by Johan Renck, was inspired by Arthur Golden's book "Memoirs of a Geisha", and featured Madonna dressed as a geisha.


title: Ray of Light

text: "Ray of Light" received universal acclaim from critics. Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic called it Madonna's "most adventurous record" and "most mature and restrained album." Paul Verna of "Billboard" commented: "Easily her most mature and personal work to date, "Ray of Light" finds Madonna weaving lyrics with the painstaking intimacy of diary entries and wrapping them in hymn-like melodies and instrumentation swathed in lush, melancholy ambience—with forays into classic house, trance, and even guitar pop. Of course, she balances the set's serious tone with chewy pop nuggets that allow her to flex her immeasurably widened vocal range to fine effect." He finished the review by calling the album "a deliciously adventurous, ultimately victorious effort from one of pop music's most compelling performers." Sal Cinquemani of "Slant Magazine" described the album as "one of the great pop masterpieces of the '90s" and stated that: "Its lyrics are uncomplicated but its statement is grand" and "Madonna hasn't been this emotionally candid since "Like a Prayer"". Rob Sheffield's review for "Rolling Stone" called the album "brilliant", but was critical of Orbit's production, saying that he doesn't know enough tricks to produce a whole album, and so becomes repetitive. "Until Simply Red enlist John Zorn, or Mariah Carey works with Tortoise," Stuart Maconie wrote in "Q", "she remains the only pop aristocrat who's keeping her ears open."


title: Ray of Light

text: David Browne of "Entertainment Weekly" wrote: "For all her grapplings with self-enlightenment, Madonna seems more relaxed and less contrived than she's been in years, from her new Italian earth-mother makeover to, especially, her music. "Ray of Light" is truly like a prayer, and you know she'll take you there." Roni Sarig, in "City Pages", was most impressed by Madonna's vocal range, depth, and clarity and called "Ray of Light" "her richest, most accomplished record yet." Robert Hilburn of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote: "One reason why her new "Ray of Light" is the most satisfying album of her career is that it reflects the soul-searching of a woman who is at a point in her life where she can look at herself with surprising candor and perspective." In "Melody Maker", Mark Roland drew comparisons with St Etienne and Björk's "Homogenic" album, highlighting "Ray of Light"s lack of cynicism as its most positive aspect: "It's not an album turned on the lathe of cynical pop manipulation, rather it's been squished out of a lump of clay on a foot-powered wheel. Lovingly teased into life, "Ray of Light" is like the ugly mug that doesn't match but is all the more special because of it." Joan Anderman from "The Boston Globe" said "Ray of Light" is a remarkable album. He described it as a deeply spiritual dance record, ecstatically textured, a serious cycle of songs that goes a long way toward liberating Madonna from a career built on scavenged images and cultivated identities. Robert Christgau was less impressed in "Playboy", deeming it a "great-"sounding"" but average record because enlightenment themes always yield awkward results for pop entertainers. However, he praised sensual songs such as "Skin" and "Candy Perfume Girl".


title: Ray of Light

text: Upon its release, "Ray of Light" topped the official charts of 17 countries. It broke the record as Warner Music Group's album with most shipments before release at 2.5 million units worldwide (excluding the US figures), before being suprassed by Madonna's own next album "Music". Ultimately the album managed to sell 3 million copies in five days. With over 16 million copies, "Ray of Light" is one of the best-selling albums by women.


title: Ray of Light

text: In the United States, "Ray of Light" debuted at number two on the "Billboard" 200 albums chart on the issue dated March 21, 1998. It set the record for biggest first-week sales by a female artist in Nielsen SoundScan era at that time with 371,000 copies sold. However, the album was not able to top the soundtrack album of the motion picture "Titanic", becoming Madonna's fifth album to peak at the runner-up position. During the second week, the album sold 225,000 copies and was still kept off the top spot by the soundtrack. On March 16, 2000, the album was certified four times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments of four million units of the album. Madonna became the first female artist to have seven multi-platinum studio albums by RIAA. According to Nielsen SoundScan, "Ray of Light" had sold 3,891,000 copies in the United States as of December 2016. This figure does not include units sold through clubs like the BMG Music, where the album sold over 459,000 copies. In Canada, the album debuted at number one on the Canadian Albums Chart with first-week sales of 59,900 copies. It was later certified seven-times platinum by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) for shipment of 700,000 copies.


title: Ray of Light

text: "Ray of Light" enjoyed commercial success in Latin America, being certified 3× platinum in Argentina for 180,000 copies recognized by Cámara Argentina de Productores de Fonogramas y Videogramas (CAPIF) and platinum in Brazil for shipments of over 250,000 units certified by Associação Brasileira dos Produtores de Discos (ABPD). In Mexico, initial shipments of the album were 30,000 units. The album also achieved commercial success in Oceania, debuting at number one on the albums chart in Australia and New Zealand. It was certified triple platinum by Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) and platinum by Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) for shipments of 210,000 and 15,000 copies respectively. In Asia, "Ray of Light" topped the album charts of Israel and Singapore and sold one million units in the continent as of June 1999. It was also the best-selling album from Warner Music company in the Asia-Pacific region during the 1998.


title: Ray of Light

text: "Ray of Light" achieved its biggest commercial reception in European countries, where it topped the European Top 100 Albums chart and was certified seven times platinum by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) for sales of seven million copies, becoming the ninth best selling albums in Europe for the 1998–2007 period. In the United Kingdom, "Ray of Light" debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart with opening sales of nearly 139,000 copies and remained at the top spot for two weeks. It was certified six times platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for shipment of 1.8 million copies. As of 2018, the album sold 1,730,000 units in the UK according to Official Charts Company. In France, "Ray of Light" entered the albums chart at number two, staying there for seven weeks before descending the chart. It was certified three times platinum by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique (SNEP) for shipments of 900,000 copies. In Germany, the album reached number one on the Media Control Charts and remained there for seven weeks. It remains Madonna's best-selling album in Germany with three times platinum certification from Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI) for shipment of 1.5 million copies. "Ray of Light" debuted at number one in Italy and sold 500,000 copies by July 1998, a sum that increased to 600,000 units as of 2000. In the rest of Europe, "Ray of Light" topped the official charts of Belgium, Netherlands, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Norway, Spain and Switzerland.


title: Ray of Light

text: At the 41st Annual Grammy Awards, "Ray of Light" received four awards out of six nominations. The album won Best Pop Album and Best Recording Package, and was nominated for Album of the Year, while the title track won Best Dance Recording and Best Short Form Music Video, and was nominated for Record of the Year. The album gave Madonna her first musical Grammy of her career as previously she only won in the video category. Madonna also became the biggest winner of the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards, winning six awards from nine nominations. "Frozen" won Best Special Effects; "Ray of Light" won Best Choreography, Best Direction, Best Editing, Best Female Video and Video of the Year, and was also nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Dance Video and Breakthrough Video. American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) honored Madonna two awards of Most Performed Song for "Frozen" and "Ray of Light" at the 1999 ASCAP Pop Music Awards, as well as Top Dance Song for "Ray of Light" at the 1999 ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Awards.


title: Ray of Light

text: "Ray of Light" also gave Madonna several trophies from various international award shows—including two Danish Grammy Awards for Best International Album and Best International Female Vocalist from IFPI Denmark, a Fryderyk award for Best Foreign Album from Związek Producentów Audio Video (ZPAV) in Poland, a Golden Giraffe Award for International Pop Album of the Year from Mahasz in Hungary, two Porin awards for Best International Album and Best International Video ("Frozen") in Croatia, and two Rockbjörnen awards for Best International Album and Best International Artist in Sweden.


title: Ray of Light

text: In Canada, Madonna won Best International Video for "Ray of Light" at the 1999 MuchMusic Video Awards and was nominated for Best Selling Album (Foreign or Domestic) at the 1999 Juno Awards. She also received Best Female and Best Album trophies at the 1998 MTV Europe Music Awards. At the 14th annual International Dance Music Awards, Madonna won Best Dance Solo Artist and Best Dance Video for "Ray of Light".


title: Ray of Light

text: "Ray of Light" has been credited for bringing electronica music into global pop culture. The "Los Angeles Times" noted that "aside from occasional breakthroughs such as Fatboy Slim, electronica wasn't totally mainstream fare when Madonna released "Ray of Light"." Until the album brought the genre to the top of music charts, according to author J. Randy Taraborrelli, "techno and electronica had, for years, been the music played at so-called raves, hugely popular, illegal underground parties taking place in abandoned warehouse and deserted areas on the outskirts of town all around the world." AllMusic editor Liana Jonas stated that the album's title track has "brought mainstream attention to electronica music, which ascended from its underground status to wild popularity in the early 21st century." "The Observer"s writer Daryl Deino called "Ray of Light" "a risk-taking album that helped define mainstream electronic dance music."


title: Ray of Light

text: Elliott H. Powell in an American Studies for New York University observed that "Ray of Light" made South Asian culture accessible to the American public in the 1990s. Rhonda Hammer and Douglas Kellner in their book "Media/cultural Studies: Critical Approaches" recalled that "the phenomenon of South Asian-inspired femininity as a Western media trend can be traced to February 1998, when pop icon Madonna released her video "Frozen"." They explained that "although Madonna did not initiate the fashion for Indian beauty accessories [...] she did propel it into the public eye by attracting the attention of the worldwide media."


title: Ray of Light

text: According to Taraborrelli, the album has been hailed as bold and refreshing in contemporary music of the late 1990s, which was dominated by boybands and teenage artists such as the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Larry Flick from "Billboard" said that the album "not only provided the chameleon-like artist with her first universally applauded critical success, it has also proved that she remains a vital figure amongst woefully fickle young audiences." Music critic Lucy O'Brien commented: "1998's "Ray of Light" certainly rehabilitated Madonna's image. Up to that point she had still been written off as an average pop glamour girl who got lucky, but with this record she reached a whole new audience, proving that she was a good songwriter with an intensely productive talent." Mary von Aue from Stereogum stated that ""Ray of Light" reestablished Madonna as a groundbreaking artist."


title: Ray of Light

text: "Ray of Light" has been featured on numerous critics' lists of greatest albums of all time. "Rolling Stone" magazine placed the album at number 367 on the list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In September 2020, an updated edition of the Rolling Stone list was published, showing the album rising 145 spots, at number 222. In 2001, a quarter of a million music fans on VH1 voted "Ray of Light" as the 10th of "100 Best Albums of All Time". In 2003, "Ray of Light" was allocated at number 17 on "Q" magazine readers' list of "100 Greatest Albums Ever". The album is also included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". "Mojo" magazine also listed "Ray of Light" at number 29 on "100 Modern Classics: The Greatest Albums of Our Lifetime". In 2013, the album was also included at number 241 on "NME" magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Canadian singer Nelly Furtado stated that she used "Ray of Light" as a template for her album "Loose" (2006). English singer Adele named "Ray of Light" as "one of the chief inspirations" for her third studio album, "25" (2015). Madonna herself has considered "Ray of Light" the most fulfilling evolution of her career.


title: Ray of Light

text: In September 2022, Pitchfork ranked "Ray of Light" as the 55th best album of the 1990s, "Madonna's trying, with all her might, to evoke the blackest depths and most euphoric joys of the human heart. The album’s title track sounds like it was forged inside a meteor; the surreal, pitch-black poem “Mer Girl” is as still as death itself."


title: Colostrum

text: Colostrum, also known as beestings or first milk, is the first form of milk produced by the mammary glands of mammals (including humans) immediately following delivery of the newborn. Most species will begin to generate colostrum just prior to giving birth. Colostrum has an especially high amount of bioactive compounds compared to mature milk to give the newborn the best possible start to life. Specifically, colostrum contains antibodies to protect the newborn against disease and infection, and immune and growth factors and other bioactives that help to activate a newborn's immune system, jumpstart gut function, and seed a healthy gut microbiome in the first few days of life. The bioactives found in colostrum are essential for a newborn's health, growth and vitality.


title: Colostrum

text: At birth, the surroundings of the newborn mammal change from the relatively sterile environment in the mother's uterus, with a constant nutrient supply via the placenta, to the microbe-rich environment outside, with irregular oral intake of complex milk nutrients through the gastrointestinal tract. This transition puts high demands on the gastrointestinal tract of the neonate, as the gut plays an important part in both the digestive system and the immune system. Colostrum has evolved to care for highly sensitive mammalian neonates and contributes significantly to initial immunological defense as well as to the growth, development, and maturation of the neonate's gastrointestinal tract by providing key nutrients and bioactive factors.


title: Colostrum

text: Colostrum also has a mild laxative effect, encouraging the passing of the baby's first stool, which is called meconium. This clears excess bilirubin, a waste-product of dead red blood cells which is produced in large quantities at birth due to blood volume reduction from the infant's body and which also helps prevent jaundice.


title: Colostrum

text: Newborns have very immature and small digestive systems, and colostrum delivers its bioactives in a very concentrated low-volume form. Colostrum is known to contain immune cells (as lymphocytes) and many antibodies such as IgA, IgG, and IgM. These are some of the components of the adaptive immune system. Other immune components of colostrum include the major components of the innate immune system, such as lactoferrin, lysozyme, lactoperoxidase, complement, and proline-rich polypeptides (PRP). A number of cytokines (small messenger peptides that control the functioning of the immune system) are found in colostrum as well, including interleukins, tumor necrosis factor, chemokines, and others.


title: Colostrum

text: Colostrum also contains a number of growth factors, such as insulin-like growth factors I (IGF-1), and II, transforming growth factors alpha, beta 1 and beta 2, fibroblast growth factors, epidermal growth factor, granulocyte-macrophage-stimulating growth factor, platelet-derived growth factor, vascular endothelial growth factor, and colony-stimulating factor-1.


title: Colostrum

text: Colustrum, which is produced for the first two to four days after childbirth, enhances immunity and is believed to have anti-inflammatory properties. It is suggested infants fed with human colostrum have lower incidence of gastrointestinal infections.


title: Colostrum

text: While it has long been understood that the colostrum a mother produces is vital to a newborn's health in the first few days of life, research has shown that bovine (cow) colostrum and its components can continue to support important biological activities when given to more mature children and adults, so that the benefits of colostrum can extend well beyond the neonatal period of development.


title: Colostrum

text: Bovine colostrum and human colostrum are highly similar in their makeup, both containing many of the same antibodies, immune and growth factors, and other nutrients. Because they share so many of the same components, the way they work in the body is also highly similar. The benefit of bovine colostrum for human health has been studied in many areas including:


title: Colostrum

text: There is also research suggesting that a large proportion of colostrum is not fit for human consumption "due to tremendous bacterial loads". Salmonella was also detected in 15% of unpasteurised samples. Pasteurisation reduces the bioactive proteins many of the benefits rely upon, however.


title: Colostrum

text: Colostrum is crucial for newborn farm animals. They receive no passive transfer of immunity via the placenta before birth, so any antibodies that they need have to be ingested (unless supplied by injection or other artificial means). The ingested antibodies are absorbed from the intestine of the neonate. The newborn animal must receive colostrum within 6 hours of being born for maximal absorption of colostral antibodies to occur. Recent studies indicate that colostrum should be fed to bovines within the first thirty minutes to maximize IgG absorption rates.


title: Colostrum

text: The role of colostrum for newborn animals is to provide nutrition, and essential protection against infection while the immune and digestive systems are developing and maturing. Bovine colostrum provides macro- and micro-nutrients, as well as growth factors, cytokines, nucleosides, oligosaccharides, natural antimicrobials, antioxidants; and a range of immunoglobulins such as IgG, IgA, IgD, IgM and IgE. It is well established that minimal levels of IgG are essential to prevent failure of passive transfer. The iron-binding glycoproteins lactoferrin and transferrin in bovine colostrum assist in attacking pathogens by impacting their cell membrane and making them more susceptible to the immune systems attack by neutrophils. Cytokines present in bovine colostrum enhance B and T cell maturation and increase endogenous antibody production. They also play a major role in regulation of epithelial cell growth and development, proliferation, and restitution. Transfer factors enhance the activity of T cells. Other growth and immune factors such as IGF-1, IGF-2, FGF, EGF, TGF, PDGF, etc.


title: Colostrum

text: Bovine colostrum's components benefit the immune and digestive health of animals of all ages and species. Bovine colostrum's vast array of bioactive components collectively increase resistance to infection and disease caused by a wide range of pathogens including bacteria and viruses. The quality of the colostrum is essential in providing the essential benefits. Both contaminated early bovine colostrum at the farm level or late transition milk or milk are poor sources of the important colostral components necessary to maintain life and achieve and maintain healthy animal maturation and homoeostasis. Bovine colostrum also is beneficial in repairing or healing intestinal damage as well as increasing the absorption of nutrients from the GI tract. These properties and benefits are consistent among human and animal species.


title: Colostrum

text: The transition from fetal to neonatal and shift from maternal to environmental reliance requires an abrupt immunological change. In calves, for example, colostrum provides a significant benefit in neonatal intestine development. This includes villus area, circumference, height and height/crypt ratio. Colostrum is critically important to calves and foals in order to prevent failure of passive transfer and death. Calves, foals and piglets with low IgG levels have an increased risk of morbidity and mortality. Bovine colostrum can be used to reduce the duration and severity of infections so it can be a useful tool to include in the reduction of antibiotic use. Finally, another important and valuable benefit of colostrum is in the reduction in scours and increase in average daily weight gain all of which have a significant farmer and ultimately consumer benefit.


title: Colostrum

text: Much like in humans and production animals, companion animal survival in the newborn stage of life is largely dependent upon colostrum. Companion animal immune systems require several weeks to several months in order to fully develop. Maternal antibodies provide benefit for a relatively short period of time so a gap exists with immune sufficiency where an animal is at risk of infection. Like humans, companion animal immune response changes with age where early life and later in life have similarities. That is, an immune bias whereby the animal has less of an ability to fend off infections and greater prevalence of allergy at both ends of the age spectrum. Stress also affects a companion animal's immune system including changes in environment, diet, etc. Maintaining gut microbial balance is key to maintaining a healthy immune system as well as mucosal integrity, similar to humans. Bovine colostrum has been demonstrated to benefit companion animal immunity and digestive health.


title: Colostrum

text: Bovine colostrum plays a role in increasing Ig levels, increasing lymphocyte proliferation stimulating activity and increasing phagocytosis activity. These are supported by other components of colostrum which further enhance the activity of the immune response. The iron binding glycoproteins lactoferrin and transferrin in bovine colostrum assist in attacking pathogens by impacting their cell membrane and making them more susceptible to the immune systems attack by neutrophils. Cytokines present in bovine colostrum enhance B and T cell maturation and increase endogenous antibody production. They also play a major role in regulation of epithelial cell growth and development, proliferation, restitution. Transfer factors enhance the activity of T cells. Other growth and immune factors such as IGF-1, IGF-2, FGF, EGF, TGF, PDGF, etc. Colostrum contains glycomacropeptides which help to regulate appetite.


title: Colostrum

text: Bovine colostrum has been shown to enhance immune response in animal models including canine, feline and equine animals including maintaining a higher level of vaccine antibody response over time and for a longer period than the vaccine alone. Animals fed colostrum had a significantly higher local immune status resulting in higher IgA through GALT stimulation. Colostrum also plays a key role in reduction or prevention of diarrhea and reduction in respiratory illness.


title: Colostrum

text: Dairy cattle are naturally exposed to pathogens and produce immunoglobulins against them. These antibodies are present in the cow's bloodstream and in the colostrum. These immunoglobulins are specific to many human pathogens, including "Escherichia coli, Cryptosporidium parvum, Shigella flexneri, Salmonella "species", Staphylococcus" species, and rotavirus (which causes diarrhea in infants). Before the development of antibiotics, colostrum was the main source of immunoglobulins used to fight bacteria. In fact, when Albert Sabin made his first oral vaccine against polio, the immunoglobulin he used came from bovine colostrum. When antibiotics began to appear, interest in colostrum waned, but, now that antibiotic-resistant strains of pathogens have developed, interest is once again returning to natural alternatives to antibiotics, namely, colostrum.


title: Colostrum

text: Although bovine colostrum has been consumed by humans for centuries, only in recent decades have we seen an increase in randomized clinical trials to support assertions of health benefits. It is probable that little absorption of intact growth factors and antibodies into the bloodstream occurs, due to digestion in the gastrointestinal tract. However, the presence of casein and other buffering proteins does allow growth factors and other bioactive molecules to pass into the lumen of the small intestine intact, where they can stimulate repair and inhibit microbes, working via local effects. This provides a probable mechanism explaining reductions in gut permeability after colostrum administration in some published studies, while another study found colostrum promising as treatment for distal colitis. Evidence for the beneficial effect of colostrum on extra-gastrointestinal problems is less well developed, due in part to the limited number of randomised double-blind studies published, although a variety of possible uses have been suggested.


title: Colostrum

text: The gut plays several important roles including acting as the main pathway for fluid, electrolyte and nutrient absorption while also acting as a barrier to toxic agents present in the gut lumen including acid, digestive enzymes and gut bacteria. It is also a major immunological defence mechanism, detecting natural commensals and triggering immune response when toxic microbes are present. Failure of homeostasis due to trauma, drugs and infectious microbes not only damages the gut but can lead to influx of damaging agents into the bloodstream. These mechanisms have relevance for multiple conditions affecting all areas of the world and socioeconomic groups such as ulcers, inflammation, and infectious diarrhea. There is currently much interest in the potential value of colostrum for the prevention and treatment of these conditions as it is derived from natural sources and can influence damaging factors through multiple pathways including nutritional support, immunological intervention (through its immunoglobulin and other anti-microbial factors) and growth/healing factor constituents. As pointed out by Kelly, inconsistency between results in some published studies may be due in part to variation in dose given and to the timing of the colostrum collection being tested (first milking versus pooled colostrum collected up to day 5 following calving).


title: Colostrum

text: Some athletes have used colostrum in an attempt to improve their performance, decrease recovery time, and prevent sickness during peak performance levels. Supplementation with bovine colostrum, 20 grams per day (g/d), in combination with exercise training for eight weeks may increase bone-free lean body mass in active men and women.


title: Colostrum

text: Low IGF-1 levels may be associated with dementia in the very elderly, although causation has not been established. Malnutrition can cause low levels of IGF-1, as can obesity. Supplementation with colostrum, which is rich in IGF-1, can be a useful part of a weight reduction program. Although IGF-1 is not absorbed intact by the body, some studies suggest it stimulates the production of IGF-1 when taken as a supplement whereas others do not.


title: Colostrum

text: Colostrum also has antioxidant components, such as lactoferrin and hemopexin, which binds free heme in the body.


title: Colostrum

text: In Finland, a baked cheese called Leipäjuusto is traditionally made with either cow colostrum or reindeer milk.


title: Colostrum

text: A sweet cheese-like delicacy called 'Junnu' or 'Ginna' is made with colostrum in the south Indian states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. It is made with both cow and buffalo milk; in both cases it is the milk produced on the second day after giving birth which is considered best for making this pudding-like delicacy. Colostrum is in very high demand in these states, resulting in product adulteration.


title: Colostrum

text: Hyperimmune colostrum is natural bovine colostrum collected from a population of cows immunized repeatedly with a specific pathogen. The colostrum is collected within 24 hours of the cow giving birth. Antibodies towards the specific pathogens or antigens that were used in the immunization are present in higher levels than in the population before treatment. Although some papers have been published stating that specific human pathogens were just as high as in hyperimmune colostrum, and natural colostrum nearly always had higher antibody titers than did the hyperimmune version. Clinical trials have shown that if the immunization is by surface antigens of the bacteria, the Bovine Colostrum Powder can be used to make tablets capable of binding to the bacteria so that they are excreted in stools. This prevents the successful colonization of the gut, which would otherwise lead to bacteria releasing enterotoxigenic materials.


title: Colostrum

text: These small immune signaling peptides (PRPs) were independently discovered in colostrum and other sources, such as blood plasma, in the United States, Czechoslovakia and Poland. Hence they appear under various names in the literature, including Colostrinin, CLN, transfer factor and PRP. They function as signal transducing molecules that have the unique effect of modulating the immune system, turning it up when the body comes under attack from pathogens or other disease agents, and damping it when the danger is eliminated or neutralized. At first thought to actually transfer immunity from one immune system to another, it now appears that PRPs simply stimulate cell-mediated immunity.


title: Mt. Gox

text: Mt. Gox was a bitcoin exchange based in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Launched in 2010, it was handling over 70% of all bitcoin (BTC) transactions worldwide by early 2014, when it abruptly ceased operations amid revelations of its involvement in the loss/theft of hundreds of thousands of bitcoins, then worth hundreds of millions in US dollars.


title: Mt. Gox

text: In February 2014, Mt. Gox suspended trading, closed its website and exchange service, and filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors. In April 2014, the company began liquidation proceedings. Although 200,000 bitcoins have since been "found", the reasons for the disappearance—theft, fraud, mismanagement, or a combination of these—were initially unclear. New evidence presented in April 2015 by Tokyo security company WizSec led them to conclude that "most or all of the missing bitcoins were stolen straight out of the Mt. Gox hot cryptocurrency wallet over time, beginning in late 2011."


title: Mt. Gox

text: In late 2006, programmer Jed McCaleb thought of building a website for users of the "" tradable card game service, to let them trade "Magic: The Gathering Online" cards like stocks. In January 2007, he purchased the domain name codice_1, short for "Magic: The Gathering Online eXchange". Initially in beta release, sometime around late 2007, the service went live for approximately three months before McCaleb moved on to other projects, having decided it was not worth his time. In 2009, he reused the domain name to advertise his card game "The Far Wilds".


title: Mt. Gox

text: In July 2010, McCaleb read about bitcoin on "Slashdot," and decided that the bitcoin community needed an exchange for trading bitcoin and regular currencies. On 18 July, Mt. Gox launched its exchange and price quoting service deploying it on the spare codice_1 domain name.


title: Mt. Gox

text: In March 2011, McCaleb sold the site to French developer Mark Karpelès, who was living in Japan, stating that "to really make mtgox what it has the potential to be would require more time than I have right now. So I've decided to pass the torch to someone better able to take the site to the next level."


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 13 June 2011, the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange reported some 25,000 BTC (US$400,000 at the time) robbed from 478 accounts. Then on Friday 17 June, Mt. Gox's user database leaked for sale to pastebin, signed by "~cRazIeStinGeR~" and tied to "auto36299386@hushmail.com". The theft of Bitcoins from Mt. Gox accounts continued, reportedly, throughout that day. On 19 June, a stream of fraudulent trades caused the nominal price of a bitcoin to fraudulently drop to one cent on the Mt. Gox exchange, after a hacker allegedly used credentials from a Mt. Gox auditor's compromised computer to transfer a large number of bitcoins illegally to himself. He used the exchange's software to sell them all nominally, creating a massive "ask" order at any price. Within minutes the price corrected to its correct user-traded value. Accounts with the equivalent of more than $8,750,000 were affected. To prove that Mt. Gox still had control of the coins, the move of 424,242 bitcoins from "cold storage" to a Mt. Gox address was announced beforehand, and executed in Block 132749.


title: Mt. Gox

text: In October 2011, about two dozen transactions appeared in the block chain (Block 150951) that sent a total of 2,609 BTC to invalid addresses. As no private key could ever be assigned to them, these bitcoins were effectively lost. While the standard client would check for such an error and reject the transactions, nodes on the network would not, exposing a weakness in the protocol.


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 22 February 2013, following the introduction of new anti-money laundering requirements by e-commerce/online payment system company Dwolla, some Dwolla accounts became temporarily restricted. As a result, transactions from Mt. Gox to those accounts were cancelled by Dwolla. The funds never made it back to Mt. Gox accounts. The Mt. Gox help desk issued the following comment: "Please be advised that you are actually not allowed to cancel any withdrawals received from Mt. Gox as we have never had this case before and we are working with Dwolla to locate your returned funds." The funds were finally returned on 3 May, nearly three months later, with a note: "Please be advised never to cancel any Dwolla withdrawals from us again".


title: Mt. Gox

text: In March 2013, the bitcoin transaction log or "blockchain" temporarily forked into two independent logs, with differing rules on how transactions could be accepted. The Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange briefly halted bitcoin deposits. Bitcoin prices briefly dipped by 23%, to $37, as the event occurred, before recovering to their previous level (approximately $48) in the following hours.


title: Mt. Gox

text: By April 2013 and into 2014 the site had grown to the point where it was handling over 70% of the world's bitcoin trades, as the largest bitcoin intermediary and the world's leading bitcoin exchange. With prices increasing rapidly, Mt. Gox suspended trading from 11 to 12 April for a "market cooldown". The value of a single bitcoin fell to a low of $55.59 after the resumption of trading, before stabilizing above $100. Around mid-May 2013, Mt. Gox traded 150,000 bitcoins per day, per Bitcoin Charts.


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 2 May 2013 CoinLab filed a $75 million lawsuit against Mt. Gox, alleging a breach of contract. The companies had formed a partnership in February 2013 under which CoinLab was to handle all of Mt. Gox's North American services. CoinLab's lawsuit contended that Mt. Gox failed to allow it to move existing U.S. and Canadian customers from Mt. Gox to CoinLab.


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 15 May 2013 the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a warrant to seize money from Mt. Gox's U.S. subsidiary's account with payment processor Dwolla. The warrant suggested the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an investigative branch of the DHS, asserted that the subsidiary, which was not licensed by the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), was operating as an unregistered money transmitter in the US. Between May and July the DHS seized more than $5 million from the subsidiary. On 29 June 2013, Mt. Gox received its money services business (MSB) license from FinCEN.


title: Mt. Gox

text: Mt. Gox suspended withdrawals in US dollars on 20 June 2013. The Mizuho Bank branch in Tokyo that handled Mt. Gox transactions pressured Mt. Gox from then on to close its account. On 4 July 2013, Mt. Gox announced that it had "fully resumed" withdrawals, but as of 5 September 2013, few US dollar withdrawals had been successfully completed.


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 5 August 2013, Mt. Gox announced that it incurred "significant losses" due to crediting deposits which had not fully cleared, and that new deposits would no longer be credited until the funds transfer was fully completed.


title: Mt. Gox

text: "Wired Magazine" reported in November 2013 that customers were experiencing delays of weeks to months in withdrawing cash from their accounts. The article said that the company had "effectively been frozen out of the U.S. banking system because of its regulatory problems".


title: Mt. Gox

text: Customer complaints about long delays were mounting as of February 2014, with more than 3,300 posts in a thread about the topic on the Bitcoin Talk online forum.


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 7 February 2014, Mt. Gox halted all bitcoin withdrawals. The company said it was pausing withdrawal requests "to obtain a clear technical view of the currency processes". The company issued a press release on 10 February 2014, stating that the issue was due to transaction malleability: "A bug in the bitcoin software makes it possible for someone to use the bitcoin network to alter transaction details to make it seem like a sending of bitcoins to a bitcoin wallet did not occur when in fact it did occur. Since the transaction appears as if it has not proceeded correctly, the bitcoins may be resent. Mt Gox is working with the bitcoin core development team and others to mitigate this issue."


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 17 February 2014, with all Mt. Gox withdrawals still halted and competing exchanges back in full operation, the company published another press release indicating the steps it claimed it was taking to address security issues. In an email interview with the "Wall Street Journal", CEO Mark Karpelès refused to comment on increasing concerns among customers about the financial status of the exchange, did not give a definite date on which withdrawals would be resumed, and wrote that the exchange would impose "new daily and monthly limits" on withdrawals if and when they were resumed. A poll of 3,000 Mt. Gox customers by CoinDesk indicated that 68% of polled customers were still awaiting funds from Mt. Gox. The median waiting time was between one and three months, and 21% of poll respondents had been waiting for three months or more.


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 20 February 2014, with all withdrawals still halted, Mt. Gox issued yet another statement, not giving any date for the resumption of withdrawals. A protest by two bitcoin enthusiasts outside the building that houses the Mt. Gox headquarters in Tokyo continued. Citing "security concerns", Mt. Gox moved its offices to a different location in Shibuya. Bitcoin prices quoted by Mt. Gox dropped to below 20% of the prices on other exchanges, reflecting the market's estimate of the unlikelihood of Mt. Gox paying its customers.


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 23 February 2014, Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpelès resigned from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation. The same day, all posts on the company's Twitter account were removed.


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 24 February 2014, Mt. Gox suspended all trading, and hours later its website went offline, returning a blank page. A leaked alleged internal crisis management document claimed that the company was insolvent, after having lost 744,408 bitcoins in a theft which went undetected for years.


title: Mt. Gox

text: Six other major bitcoin exchanges released a joint statement distancing themselves from Mt. Gox, shortly before Mt. Gox's website went offline.


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 25 February 2014, Mt. Gox reported on its website that a "decision was taken to close all transactions for the time being", citing "recent news reports and the potential repercussions on Mt Gox's operations". Chief executive Mark Karpelès told "Reuters" that Mt. Gox was "at a turning point".


title: Mt. Gox

text: From 1 February 2014 until the end of March, during the period of Mt. Gox problems, the value of bitcoin declined by 36%.


title: Mt. Gox

text: The United States Department of Justice identified Alexander Vinnik, owner of the BTC-e bitcoin exchange, as an alleged key figure in the laundering of Mt. Gox's stolen bitcoins.


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 28 February 2014, Mt. Gox filed in Tokyo for a form of bankruptcy protection from creditors called "minji saisei" (or civil rehabilitation) to allow courts to seek a buyer, reporting that it had liabilities of about 6.5 billion yen ($65 million, at the time), and 3.84 billion yen in assets.


title: Mt. Gox

text: The company said it had lost almost 750,000 of its customers' bitcoins, and around 100,000 of its own bitcoins, totaling around 7% of all bitcoins, and worth around $473 million near the time of the filing. Mt. Gox released a statement saying, "The company believes there is a high possibility that the bitcoins were stolen," blamed hackers, and began a search for the missing bitcoins. Chief Executive Karpelès said technical issues opened up the way for fraudulent withdrawals.


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 9 March 2014, Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy protection in the US, to halt U.S. legal action temporarily by traders who alleged the bitcoin exchange operation was a fraud.


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 20 March 2014, Mt. Gox reported on its website that it found 199999.99 bitcoins—worth around $116 million—in an old digital wallet used prior to June 2011. That brought the total number of bitcoins the firm lost down to 650,000, from 850,000.


title: Mt. Gox

text: New evidence presented in April 2015 by Tokyo security company WizSec led them to conclude that "most or all of the missing bitcoins were stolen straight out of the Mt. Gox hot wallet over time, beginning in late 2011."


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 14 April, Mt. Gox lawyers said that Karpelès would not appear for a deposition in a Dallas court, or heed a subpoena by FinCEN.


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 16 April 2014, Mt. Gox gave up its plan to rebuild under bankruptcy protection, and asked a Tokyo court to allow it to be liquidated.


title: Mt. Gox

text: In a 6 January 2015 interview, Kraken bitcoin exchange CEO Jesse Powell discussed being appointed by the bankruptcy trustee to assist in processing claims by the 127,000 creditors of Mt. Gox.


title: Mt. Gox

text: CEO Karpelès was arrested in August 2015 by Japanese police and charged with fraud and embezzlement, and manipulating the Mt. Gox computer system to increase the balance in an account—this charge was not related to the missing 650,000 bitcoins. After he was interrogated, Japanese prosecutors accused him of misappropriating ¥315M ($2.6M) in bitcoin deposited into their trading accounts by investors at Mt. Gox, and moving it into an account he controlled, approximately six months before Mt. Gox failed in early 2014.


title: Mt. Gox

text: By May 2016, creditors of Mt. Gox had claimed they lost $2.4 trillion when Mt. Gox went bankrupt, which they asked be paid to them. The Japanese trustee overseeing the bankruptcy said that only $91 million in assets had been tracked down to distribute to claimants, despite Mt. Gox having asserted in the weeks before it went bankrupt that it had more than $500 million in assets. The trustee's interim legal and accounting costs through that date, to be paid ultimately by creditors, were $5.5 million.


title: Mt. Gox

text: In March 2018, the trustee Kobayashi said that enough BTC has been sold to cover the claims of creditors.


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 14 March 2019, the Tokyo District Court found Karpelès guilty of falsifying data to inflate Mt. Gox's holdings by $33.5 million, for which he was sentenced to 30 months in prison, suspended for four years, meaning he will serve no time unless he commits additional offenses over the next four years. The Court acquitted Karpelès on a number of other charges, including embezzlement and aggravated breach of trust, based on its belief that Karpelès had acted without ill intent. Nonetheless, the verdict said Karpelès had inflicted "massive harm to the trust of his users" and there was "no excuse" for him to "abuse his status and authority to perform clever criminal acts." Karpelès issued a statement saying he was "happy to be judged not guilty" on the more serious charges and was discussing how to proceed with his lawyers regarding his conviction on the falsifying data charge.


title: Mt. Gox

text: On 15 January 2021 Bloomberg News reported CoinLab Inc. had made an agreement with Nobuaki Kobayashi, the trustee to the Mt. Gox bankruptcy, and the Mt. Gox Investment Fund LP (MGIFLP), a unit of Fortress Investment Group. As much as 90% of the remaining Bitcoin tied up in bankruptcy proceedings would be offered to creditors.


title: Mt. Gox

text: At the creditors meeting on 20 October 2021 it was announced that the Civil Rehabilitation Plan was accepted by 99% of the creditors (representing 83% of the total amount of voting rights) and that billions of dollars in Bitcoin would be provided as compensation. The plan was officially approved on 16 November 2021.


title: Paul Walker filmography

text: Paul Walker was an American actor. The following were his roles in film, television and music videos.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Tempe ( ;) is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, with the Census Bureau reporting a 2020 population of 180,587. The city is named after the Vale of Tempe in Greece. Tempe is located in the East Valley section of metropolitan Phoenix; it is bordered by Phoenix and Guadalupe on the west, Scottsdale and the Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community on the north, Chandler on the south, and Mesa on the east. Tempe is also the location of the main campus of Arizona State University.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: The Hohokam lived in this area and built canals to support their agriculture. They abandoned their settlements during the 15th century, with a few individuals and families remaining nearby.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Fort McDowell was established approximately northeast of present downtown Tempe on the upper Salt River in 1865 allowing for new towns to be built farther down the Salt River. US military service members and Hispanic workers were hired to grow food and animal feed to supply the fort, and less than a year later, had set up small camps near the river that were the first permanent communities in the Valley after the fall of the Hohokam. (Phoenix was settled shortly afterward, by 1867–68.) The two settlements were 'Hayden's Ferry', named after a ferry service operated by Charles T. Hayden, and 'San Pablo', and were located west and east of Hayden Butte respectively. The ferry became the key river crossing in the area. The Tempe Irrigating Canal Company was soon established by William Kirkland and James McKinney to provide water for alfalfa, wheat, barley, oats, and cotton.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Pioneer Darrell Duppa is credited with suggesting Tempe's name, adopted in 1879, after comparing the Salt River valley near a -tall butte, to the Vale of Tempe near Mount Olympus in Greece.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Until the early 1960s, Tempe was a sundown town where African Americans were permitted to work but encouraged to live elsewhere. In 1965, Warren and Carol Livingston were the first African Americans to buy property in Tempe.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: In 1885, the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature chose Tempe for the site of the Territorial Normal School, which became Arizona Normal School, Arizona State Teachers College, Arizona State College and finally Arizona State University.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: The Maricopa and Phoenix Railroad, built in 1887, crossed the Salt River at Tempe, linking the town to the nation's growing transportation system. The Tempe Land and Improvement Company was formed to sell lots in the booming town. Tempe became an economic hub for the surrounding agricultural area. The city incorporated in 1894.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: The completion of Roosevelt Dam in 1911 guaranteed enough water to meet the growing needs of Valley farmers. On his way to dedicate the dam, former President Theodore Roosevelt applauded the accomplishments of the people of central Arizona and predicted that their towns would be prosperous cities in the future. Less than a year later, Arizona was admitted as the 48th state, and the Salt River Valley continued to develop.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: In 1971, Tempe was hit by a rare F2 tornado that injured 41 people, the most injuries recorded from a tornado in Arizona, and caused damage in upwards of $3 million. One indirect fatality occurred when a man died from a heart attack during the storm.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: In the 20th and 21st centuries, Tempe has expanded as a suburb of Phoenix, and as a center of education and commerce.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Tempe is an inner suburb, located between the core city of Phoenix and the rest of the East Valley. Due to this as well as being the home of the main campus of Arizona State University, Tempe has a fairly dense, urbanized development pattern in the northern part of the city especially in relation to the Valley Metro Line . Going south, development becomes less dense, consisting of single-family homes, strip malls and lower-density office parks.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: The Salt River runs west through the northern part of Tempe; part of the river is dammed in two places to create Tempe Town Lake.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the landlocked city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. The total area is 0.32% water, including Tempe Town Lake. The city of Tempe is bordered by Mesa to the east, Scottsdale and the Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community to the north, Phoenix and Guadalupe to the west, and Chandler to the south.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Tempe is generally flat, except for Tempe Butte or Hayden Butte (generally known as A-Mountain for Arizona State University's "A" logo located on its south face), located next to Sun Devil Stadium, Twin Buttes and Bell Butte on the western edge of Tempe, and the buttes within Papago Park at northwest corner of Tempe. Elevation ranges from at Tempe Town Lake to atop Hayden Butte.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Tempe experiences a desert climate with a higher degree of diurnal temperature variation than neighboring Phoenix.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: As of the 2010 census, there were 161,719 people, 63,602 households, and 33,645 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 67,068 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 77.5% White, 5.9% Black or African American, 2.9% Native American, 5.7% Asian, 0.4% Pacific Islander, 8.5% from other races, and 3.9% from two or more races. 21.2% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: There were 63,602 households, out of which 24.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 38.4% were married couples living together, 9.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 47.1% were non-families. 28.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 4.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.41 and the average family size was 3.05.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: In the city, 19.8% of the population was under the age of 18, 21.3% from 18 to 24, 33.2% from 25 to 44, 18.5% from 45 to 64, and 7.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 29 years. For every 100 females, there were 106.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 107.1 males.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: The median income for a household in the city was $42,361, and the median income for a family was $55,237. Males had a median income of $36,406 versus $28,605 for females. The per capita income for the city was $22,406. About 7.5% of families and 14.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 13.6% of those under age 18 and 5.1% of those age 65 or over.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Tempe is the headquarters and executive office of one Fortune 500 company: DriveTime. Carvana, NortonLifeLock, First Solar, the Salt River Project, Circle K, and Fulton Homes are also headquartered in Tempe. Cold Stone Creamery was originally headquartered in Tempe and location #0001 is still in operation today at 3330 S McClintock Drive in Tempe. Tempe prides itself in assisting burgeoning businesses and has a variety of resources and programs available, such as FABRiC (Fashion and Business Resource Innovation Center) and BRiC (Business Resource and Innovation Center). Tempe is also home to the first and largest campus of Arizona State University. It was the longtime host of the Fiesta Bowl, although the BCS game moved to University of Phoenix Stadium, located in Glendale, in 2007. It then began hosting the Insight Bowl which is now known as the Guaranteed Rate Bowl. As of 2018, there is no bowl game in Tempe because of renovations to Sun Devil Stadium. Edward Jones Investments and State Farm Insurance have regional headquarters in Tempe.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Tempe houses several performance venues including Gammage Auditorium and the Tempe Center for the Arts.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Tempe Town Lake is home to many national and international events, such as Ironman Arizona and Rock n Roll Marathon. Gammage Auditorium was also the site of one of the three Presidential debates in 2004, and Super Bowl XXX was played at Sun Devil Stadium. Additionally, Tempe is the spring training host city of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: One of Arizona's largest shopping malls, Arizona Mills, sits near the border with the town of Guadalupe. The city was the location of the first IKEA branch in Arizona, also near the southern boundary. Tempe Marketplace, a large open air mall featuring live music and water and laser shows, is located just southeast of Tempe Town Lake. Tempe can boast an array of wholesalers and manufacturers. Mill Avenue, located just west of Hayden Butte, is a shopping and entertainment area in the city popular with pedestrians and students. With the completion of Tempe Town Lake, commercial and high-rise development along the reservoir quickly transformed the cityscape of Mill Avenue and the skyline of downtown Tempe.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: According to Tempe's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the financial year ending June 2020, the top employers in the city are:


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Opened in September 2007, Tempe Center for the Arts (TCA) is a community crown jewel for performing and visual arts. The $65 million venue houses a state-of-the-art 600-seat theater, a 200-seat studio theater, a picturesque 200-seat multi-purpose space, a 3,500 square-foot art gallery.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: The Tempe History Museum explores local history through collections, research services, exhibits, and programs.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: The Tempe Public Art Program coordinates artists with building designers to install permanent and temporary public art projects. Since 1988, more than 50 projects have been commissioned by the Tempe's Community Services Division. The Art in Private Development ordinance of 1991 has helped add more than 60 privately owned pieces of art to the city, accessible by the public.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Tempe enjoyed a thriving alternative music scene throughout the 1980s and '90s, producing acts including as the Gin Blossoms, Meat Puppets, Dead Hot Workshop, The Refreshments, Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, Hans Olson, The Maine, and Injury Reserve. Historic dive-bar Yucca Tap Room, one of the last remaining 'small stage' venues that defined this era, continues to host nightly local live music.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: The Tempe Music Walk honors select bands, musicians and musical venues with plaques embedded in the sidewalk on Mill Avenue. Honorees are Walt Richardson, The Gin Blossoms, Hans Olson, and Long Wong's.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Many of the reasons people visit Tempe are places and events, such as P. F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Marathon & 1/2 Marathon, Tempe Marketplace, Arizona Mills, Mill Avenue, and Tempe Town Lake.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: The Tempe Tourism Office, located on Mill Avenue's downtown district, provides maps and additional information about hotels and upcoming city events.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: There are numerous properties in the city of Tempe which are considered to be historical and have been included either in the National Register of Historic Places.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: There is one major league professional sports team playing in Tempe: The Arizona Coyotes, who currently play their games at Mullett Arena. Also, from 1988 to 2005, Sun Devil Stadium hosted the Arizona Cardinals (named the Phoenix Cardinals from 1988 to 1993) of the National Football League. They have since moved to State Farm Stadium in Glendale for games, but maintain their headquarters and training facility in Tempe. Many residents follow the teams in nearby Phoenix and Glendale. ("For more information, read the sports section on the Phoenix page")


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: The Arizona State University Sun Devils compete in football, basketball, baseball, as well as a number of other sports in the Pac-12 Conference of the NCAA. The Sun Devils football team plays their games at Sun Devil Stadium. Their nearest rival is the University of Arizona Wildcats, in Tucson. The two teams compete in the "Duel in the Desert" for control of the Territorial Cup. The Sun Devil Stadium had hosted the annual Fiesta Bowl, until the 2007 game moved to the new University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: The Los Angeles Angels have their spring training at Tempe Diablo Stadium. Tempe Diablo Stadium was built in 1968 and holds 9,785 people. The Angels moved to Tempe in 1993 from Palm Springs, California.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: The Arizona Hotshots of the Alliance of American Football played their one season in Tempe in early 2019. The league folded before the season was completed.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Rugby union is a developing sport in Tempe as well as in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The multiple clubs, ranging from men's and women's clubs to collegiate and Under 19, are part of the Arizona Rugby Union. Notable clubs are Arizona State University Rugby Football Club and the Tempe "Old Devils" Rugby Club.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Tempe is home to many outdoor activities. Tempe Town Lake is a publicly accessible lake that is run by City of Tempe. The lake provides recreation activities to residents and tourists, but also helps protect the surrounding area from flooding. The City of Tempe estimated that 2.7 million people visited the lake in 2013. Papago and South Mountain Parks offer hiking, mountain and road biking, rock climbing, disc golf, and equestrian activities. In the downtown area of Tempe (at ASU campus) the 300 foot tall Tempe Butte hosts several hiking and cycling trails. Tempe is also home to the annual Ironman Triathlon, which takes place in late November.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Tempe is served by multiple school districts. Most of Tempe is within the Tempe Elementary School District and the Tempe Union High School District; however, other portions are served by the Kyrene School District (K–8), Scottsdale Unified School District (K–12), and Mesa Public Schools (K–12). James Madison Preparatory School and Tempe Preparatory Academy are also located in the area.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Emmanuel Lutheran School is a Christian Pre-K–8 grade school of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod in Tempe.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Tempe also contains one of the state's three major universities, Arizona State University, the Maricopa County Community College District administrative offices and the headquarters of Rio Salado Community College. Arizona State University is known for its numerous studies and innovations, particularly in the field of science which include furthering the knowledge of certain cancers, business management research, and population science. Tempe is also the home of several other schools, including the University of Phoenix, Brookline College, Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine, Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, Bryan University and Lamson Junior College.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Tempe is one of the most densely populated cities in the state and serves as a crossroads for the area's largest communities.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Freeways make up the major transportation system for the Valley. Included in the system surrounding Tempe are Interstate 10 near the western edge as it traverses the Broadway Curve, Loop 202 crossing the northern side, Loop 101 following the eastern border, and U.S. Route 60 running east–west through the center of the city.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Valley Metro operates bus routes and the Valley Metro Rail system that serves Downtown Tempe and Arizona State University, providing service to Phoenix and Mesa. The City of Tempe operates a free neighborhood circulator service called Orbit involving five free shuttle routes near Arizona State University that operate on a regular basis seven days a week. Three other FLASH (Free Local Area Shuttle) circulate in northern Tempe around the university. Tempe residents and commuters make extensive use of public transit and service is offered on a more frequent basis than elsewhere in the greater Phoenix valley, or in the entire state. Most Tempe buses offer 15 minute service during rush hour and 30 minute service throughout the rest of the day.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, located northwest of Tempe, provides extensive air service to points throughout North America and to London, England, and various cities in Hawaii.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport is located in Mesa, and offers air service to many additional destinations.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Tempe was the location of the world's first reported killing of a pedestrian by a self-driving car on 19 March 2018. An Uber car under software control was driving at 38 mph on a 35 mph limit road when it collided with 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg who was crossing the road.


title: Tempe, Arizona

text: Tempe is developing the nation’s first zero-driving community called Culdesac Tempe set to open in 2023.  The $170 million development project will contain 761 apartments, housing 1,000 residents and 16,000 square feet of retail, serving as a form of infill development in the city as it is being built on a vacant 17-acre lot.  In this community, residents are contractually forbidden from parking a vehicle within a quarter mile radius of the area. Prices to live in Culdesac Tempe are projected to be similar to rent prices in the rest of the area and discounted public transport services are included in the monthly rent to allow for residents to travel to other places.


title: Buck Owens

text: Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), known professionally as Buck Owens, was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and band leader. He was the lead singer for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, which had 21 No. 1 hits on the "Billboard" country music chart. He pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound, named in honor of Bakersfield, California, Owens's adopted home and the city from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call "American music".


title: Buck Owens

text: While the Buckaroos originally featured a fiddle and retained pedal steel guitar into the 1970s, their sound on records and onstage was always more stripped-down and elemental. The band's signature style was based on simple story lines, infectious choruses, a twangy electric guitar, an insistent rhythm supplied by a prominent drum track, and high, two-part vocal harmonies featuring Owens and his guitarist Don Rich.


title: Buck Owens

text: From 1969 to 1986, Owens co-hosted the popular CBS television variety show "Hee Haw" with Roy Clark (syndicated beginning in 1971). According to his son Buddy Alan (Owens), the accidental 1974 death of Rich, his best friend, devastated him for years and impacted his creative efforts until he performed with Dwight Yoakam in 1988.


title: Buck Owens

text: Owens was born on a farm in Sherman, Texas, United States, to Alvis Edgar Owens Sr. and Maicie Azel (née Ellington) Owens.


title: Buck Owens

text: In the biography "About Buck"., Rich Kienzle writes: "'Buck' was a donkey on the Owens farm." "When Alvis Jr. was three or four years old, he walked into the house and announced that his name also was "Buck." That was fine with the family, and the boy's name became "Buck" from then on." He attended public school for grades 1–3 in Garland, Texas.


title: Buck Owens

text: Owens' family moved to Mesa, Arizona, in 1937 during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. While attending school in Arizona, Owens found that while he disliked formal schoolwork, he could often satisfy class requirements by singing or performing in school plays. As a result, he began to take part in such activities whenever he could.


title: Buck Owens

text: A self-taught musician and singer, Owens became proficient on guitar, mandolin, horns, and drums. When he obtained his first electric steel guitar, he taught himself to play it after his father adapted an old radio into an amplifier. Owens quit school in the ninth grade in order to help work on his father's farm and pursue a music career. In 1945, he co-hosted a radio show called "Buck and Britt." Co-host Theryl Ray Britten and Owens also played at local bars, where owners usually allowed them and a third member of their band to pass the hat during a show and keep 10% of the take. They eventually became the resident musicians at a Phoenix bar called the Romo Buffet.


title: Buck Owens

text: In the late 1940s, Owens became a truck driver, a job which took him through the San Joaquin Valley of California, where he first experienced and was impressed by the town of Bakersfield. He and his first wife eventually settled there in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Forrest Lee and Clete Stewart, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, and many others.


title: Buck Owens

text: Using the pseudonym "Corky Jones" to prevent the recording of a rock 'n' roll tune from hurting his aspiring Country Music career, Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label. Some time in the 1950s he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band.


title: Buck Owens

text: In 1958 Owens met Don Rich in Steve's Gay 90s Restaurant in South Tacoma, Washington. Owens had observed one of Rich's shows and immediately approached him about collaborating, after which Rich began playing fiddle with Owens at local venues. They were featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV 11. In 1959, Owens' career took off when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the "Billboard" country chart. Soon after, "Under Your Spell Again" made it to No. 4 on the charts and Capitol Records wanted Owens to return to Bakersfield, California.


title: Buck Owens

text: Following their success, Owens tried unsuccessfully to convince Rich to accompany him to Bakersfield. Instead, Rich opted to go to become a music teacher at Centralia College. While there, he tutored on the side but continued playing local venues. In December 1960, however, he left to rejoin Owens in Bakersfield.


title: Buck Owens

text: "Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960, Owens performed the song on ABC-TV's "Ozark Jubilee".


title: Buck Owens

text: In early 1963, the Johnny Russell song "Act Naturally" was pitched to Owens, who initially didn't like it. His guitarist and longtime collaborator Don Rich, however, enjoyed it and convinced Owens to record it with the Buckaroos. Laid down on February 12, 1963, it was released on March 11 and entered the charts of April 13. By June 15 the single began its first of four non-consecutive weeks at the No. 1 position, Owens' first top hit. The Beatles recorded a cover of it in 1965 with Ringo Starr as lead singer. Starr later recorded a duet of it with Owens in 1988.


title: Buck Owens

text: The 1966 album "Carnegie Hall Concert" was a smash hit and further cemented Buck Owens as a top country band. It achieved crossover success on to the pop charts, reinforced by R&B singer Ray Charles releasing cover versions of two of Owens' songs that became pop hits that year: "Crying Time" and "Together Again".


title: Buck Owens

text: In 1967, Owens and the Buckaroos toured Japan, a then-rare occurrence for a country act. The subsequent live album, "Buck Owens and His Buckaroos in Japan", was an early example of a country band recording outside the United States.


title: Buck Owens

text: Owens and the Buckaroos performed at the White House for President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, which was later released as a live album.


title: Buck Owens

text: Between 1968 and 1969, pedal steel guitar player Tom Brumley and drummer Willie Cantu left the band, replaced by JayDee Maness and Jerry Wiggins. Owens and the Buckaroos had two songs reach No. 1 on the country music charts in 1969, "Tall Dark Stranger" and "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass". In 1969, they recorded a live album, "Live in London", where they premiered their rock song "A Happening In London Town" and their version of Chuck Berry's song "Johnny B. Goode".


title: Buck Owens

text: During this time "Hee Haw", starring Owens and the Buckaroos, was at its height of popularity. The series, originally envisioned as a country music's version of "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In", went on to run in various incarnations for 231 episodes over 24 seasons. Creedence Clearwater Revival mentioned Owens by name in their 1970 single "Lookin' Out My Back Door".