title: Robert Lowell

text: In 1973, Lowell published three books of sonnets. The first two, "History" and "For Lizzie and Harriet", consisted of revised and reordered versions of sonnets from "Notebook". "History" included poems that primarily dealt with world history from antiquity up to the mid-20th century (although the book did not always follow a linear or logical path and contained many poems about Lowell's friends, peers, and family). The second book, "For Lizzie and Harriet", included poems that described the breakdown of his second marriage and contained poems that were supposed to be in the voices of his daughter, Harriet, and his second wife, Elizabeth. Finally, the last work in Lowell's sonnet sequence, "The Dolphin" (1973), which won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize, included poems about his daughter, his ex-wife, and his new wife Caroline Blackwood whom he had affectionately nicknamed "Dolphin." The book only contained new poems, making it the only book in Lowell's 1973 sonnet trilogy not to include revised and reordered poems from "Notebook".


title: Robert Lowell

text: A minor controversy erupted when Lowell admitted to having incorporated (and altered) private letters from his ex-wife, Elizabeth Hardwick into poems for "The Dolphin". He was particularly criticized for this by his friends Adrienne Rich and Elizabeth Bishop. Bishop presented Lowell with an argument against publishing "The Dolphin". In a letter to Lowell regarding "The Dolphin", dated March 21, 1972, before he'd published the book, Bishop praised the writing, saying, "Please believe that I think it is wonderful poetry." But then she stated, "I'm sure my point is only too plain ... Lizzie [Hardwick] is not dead, etc.--but there is a 'mixture of fact & fiction' [in the book], and you have "changed" [Hardwick's] letters. That is 'infinite mischief,' I think ... One can use one's life as material--one does anyway--but these letters--aren't you violating a trust? IF you were given permission--IF you hadn't changed them ... etc. But "art just isn't worth that much"." Adrienne Rich responded to the controversy quite differently. Instead of sending Lowell a private letter on the matter, she publicly criticized Lowell and his books "The Dolphin" and "To Lizzie and Harriet" in a review that appeared in the "American Poetry Review" and that effectively ended the two poets' long-standing friendship. Rich called the poems "cruel and shallow."


title: Robert Lowell

text: Lowell's sonnets from the "Notebook" poems through to "The Dolphin" met with mixed responses upon publication, and critical consensus on the poems continues to be mixed. Some of Lowell's contemporaries, like Derek Walcott and William Meredith, praised the poems. Meredith wrote about "Notebook: 1967–68", "Complex and imperfect, like most of the accomplishments of serious men and women today, Robert Lowell's "Notebook 1967–68" is nevertheless a beautiful and major work." But a review of "History", "For Lizzie and Harriet", and "The Dolphin" by Calvin Bedient in "The New York Times" was mostly negative. Bedient wrote, "Inchoate and desultory, the poems never accumulate and break in the great way, like a waterfall seen from the lip, more felt than seen. In truth, they are under no pressure to go anywhere, except to the 14th line. Prey to random associations, they are full of false starts, fractures, distractions." The sonnets also received a negative review by William Pritchard in the "Hudson Review". Since the release of Lowell's "Collected Poems" in 2003, a number of critics and poets have praised the sonnets, including Michael Hofmann, William Logan, and Richard Tillinghast (though Logan and Hofmann note that they both strongly preferred the original "Notebook" versions of the sonnets over the revised versions that Lowell published in "History" and "To Lizzie and Harriet"). Still the sonnet volumes have received recent negative responses as well. In an otherwise glowing review of Lowell's "Collected Poems", A.O. Scott wrote, "The three sonnet sequences Lowell published in 1973 ... occupy nearly 300 pages, and reading them, one damn sonnet after the other, induces more stupor than rapture." And in her review of the "Collected Poems", Marjorie Perloff called the sonnet poems "trivial and catty," considering them to be Lowell's least important volumes.


title: Robert Lowell

text: Lowell published his last volume of poetry, "Day by Day", in 1977, the year of his death. In May 1977, Lowell won the $10,000 National Medal for Literature awarded by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and "Day by Day" was awarded that year's National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry. In a documentary on Lowell, Anthony Hecht said that "["Day by Day" was] a very touching, moving, gentle book, tinged with a sense of [Lowell's] own pain and the pain [he'd] given to others." It was Lowell's only volume to contain nothing but free verse. In many of the poems, Lowell reflects on his life, his past relationships, and his own mortality. The best-known poem from this collection is the last one, titled "Epilogue," in which Lowell reflects upon the "confessional" school of poetry with which his work was associated. In this poem he wrote,


title: Robert Lowell

text: In 1987, Lowell's longtime editor, Robert Giroux, edited Lowell's "Collected Prose". The collection included Lowell's book reviews, essays, excerpts from an unfinished autobiography, and an excerpt from an unfinished book, tentatively titled "A Moment in American Poetry".


title: Robert Lowell

text: Lowell's "Collected Poems", edited by Frank Bidart and David Gewanter, was published in 2003. The "Collected Poems" was a very comprehensive volume that included all of Lowell's major works with the exception of "Notebook 1967-1968" and "Notebook". However, many of the poems from these volumes were republished, in revised forms, in "History" and "For Lizzie and Harriet". Soon after the publication of "The Collected Poems", "The Letters of Robert Lowell", edited by Saskia Hamilton, was published in 2005. Both Lowell's "Collected Poems" and his "Letters" received positive critical responses from the mainstream press.


title: Robert Lowell

text: In 2001, the alternative rock band They Might Be Giants wrote and recorded a song called "Robert Lowell" which uses Lowell's poem "Memories of West Street and Lepke" as the basis for the lyrics.


title: Robert Lowell

text: Lowell's friendship with Elizabeth Bishop was the subject of the play "Dear Elizabeth" by Sarah Ruhl which was first performed at the Yale Repertory Theater in 2012. Ruhl used "Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell" as the basis for her play.


title: Robert Lowell

text: Lowell was a featured subject in the 2014 HBO documentary "The 50 Year Argument" about "The New York Review of Books" which Lowell and his second wife, Elizabeth Hardwick, were both involved in founding. Although Lowell was not involved with editing the "review," he was a frequent contributor. Lowell is featured in voice-over, photographs, video, and Derek Walcott reads from an essay on Lowell that Walcott published in "The New York Review of Books" after Lowell's death.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: Pneumatic tubes (or capsule pipelines, also known as pneumatic tube transport or PTT) are systems that propel cylindrical containers through networks of tubes by compressed air or by partial vacuum. They are used for transporting solid objects, as opposed to conventional pipelines which transport fluids. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pneumatic tube networks gained acceptance in offices that needed to transport small, urgent packages, such as mail, other paperwork, or money, over relatively short distances, within a building or, at most, within a city. Some installations became quite complex, but have mostly been superseded. However, they have been further developed in the 21st century in places such as hospitals, to send blood samples and the like to clinical laboratories for analysis.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: A small number of pneumatic transportation systems were built for larger cargo, to compete with train and subway systems. However, they never gained popularity.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: Pneumatic transportation was invented by William Murdoch around 1799. "Capsule pipelines" were first used in the Victorian era, to transmit telegrams from telegraph stations to nearby buildings. The system is known as pneumatic dispatch.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: In 1854, Josiah Latimer Clark was issued a patent "for conveying letters or parcels between places by the pressure of air and vacuum". In 1853, he installed a pneumatic system between the London Stock Exchange in Threadneedle Street, London, and the offices of the Electric Telegraph Company in Lothbury. The Electric Telegraph Company used the system to acquire stock prices and other financial information to pass to subscribers of their service over their telegraph wires. The advantage of the pneumatic system was that, without it, the company would have had to employ runners to carry messages between the two buildings, or else employ trained telegraph operators within the Stock Exchange. In the mid-1860s, the company installed similar systems to local stock exchanges in Liverpool, Birmingham, and Manchester. After the telegraphs were nationalised in Britain, the pneumatic system continued to be expanded under Post Office Telegraphs. That expansion was due to Joseph William Willmot (previously employed at the Electric & International Telegraph Company) improving Latimer-Clark's invention in 1870 with the "double sluice pneumatic valve" and, in 1880, the "intermediate signaller/quick break switch for pneumatic tubes", which dramatically speeded up the process, and made it possible for a number of carrier messages to be in the tube at any one time. By 1880, there were over of tube in London. A tube was laid between the Aberdeen fish market office and the main post office, to facilitate the rapid sale of the very perishable commodity.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: While they are commonly used for small parcels and documents, including cash carriers at banks or supermarkets, in the early 19th century, they were proposed for transport of heavy freight. It was once envisaged that networks of massive tubes might be used to transport people.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: The technology is still used on a smaller scale. While its use for communicating information has been superseded by electronics, pneumatic tubes are widely used for transporting small objects, where convenience and speed in a local environment are important.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: In the United States, drive-up banks often used pneumatic tubes to transport cash and documents between cars and tellers; by the 2020s some of these have been removed, obviated by the rise of mobile banking apps and the increasing sophistication of ATMs. Many hospitals have a computer-controlled pneumatic tube system to deliver drugs, documents and specimens to and from laboratories and nurses' stations. Many factories use them to deliver parts quickly across large campuses. Many larger stores use systems to securely transport excess cash from checkout stands to back offices, and to send change back to cashiers. They are used in casinos to move money, chips, and cards quickly and securely. Japanese love hotels use them to allow customers to settle bills anonymously (no face-to-face contact). NASA's original Mission Control Center had pneumatic tubes connecting controller consoles with staff support rooms. Mission Operations Control Room 2, was last used in its original configuration in 1992 and then remodeled for other missions. Because the room was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985, it was decided in 2017 to restore it to its 1960s condition. The pneumatic tubes were removed and sent to the Cosmosphere in Kansas for restoration.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: Pneumatic tube systems have been used in nuclear chemistry to transport samples during neutron activation analysis. Samples must be moved from the nuclear reactor core, in which they are bombarded with neutrons, to the instrument that measures the resulting radiation. As some of the radioactive isotopes in the sample can have very short half-lives, speed is important. These systems may be automated, with a magazine of sample tubes that are moved into the reactor core in turn for a predetermined time, before being moved to the instrument station and finally to a container for storage and disposal.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: Until it closed in early 2011, a McDonald's in Edina, Minnesota claimed to be the "World's Only Pneumatic Air Drive-Thru," sending food from their strip-mall location to a drive-through in the middle of a parking lot.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: Technology editor Quentin Hardy noted renewed interest in transmission of data by pneumatic tube accompanied discussions of digital network security, and he cited research into London's forgotten pneumatic network.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: Related applications include fish cannons which use mechanisms very similar to pneumatic tube systems.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: Pneumatic post or pneumatic mail is a system to deliver letters through pressurized air tubes. It was invented by the Scottish engineer William Murdoch in the 19th century and was later developed by the London Pneumatic Despatch Company. Pneumatic post systems were used in several large cities starting in the second half of the 19th century (including an 1866 London system powerful and large enough to transport humans during trial runs – though not intended for that purpose), but later were largely abandoned.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: A major network of tubes in Paris (the Paris pneumatic post) was in use until 1984, when it was abandoned in favor of computers and fax machines. The Prague pneumatic post commenced for the public in 1889 in Prague, now in the Czech Republic, and the network extended approximately .


title: Pneumatic tube

text: Pneumatic post stations usually connect post offices, stock exchanges, banks and ministries. Italy was the only country to issue postage stamps (between 1913 and 1966) specifically for pneumatic post. Austria, France, and Germany issued postal stationery for pneumatic use.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: Typical applications are in banks, hospitals and supermarkets. Many large retailers used pneumatic tubes to transport cheques or other documents from cashiers to the accounting office.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: In 1812, George Medhurst first proposed, but never implemented, blowing passenger carriages through a tunnel. Precursors of pneumatic tube systems for passenger transport, the atmospheric railway (for which the tube was laid between the rails, with a piston running in it suspended from the train through a sealable slot in the top of the tube) were operated as follows:


title: Pneumatic tube

text: In 1861, the "London Pneumatic Despatch Company" built a system large enough to move a person, although it was intended for parcels. The inauguration of the new Holborn Station on 10 October 1865 was marked by having the Duke of Buckingham, the chairman, and some company directors blown through the tube to Euston (a five-minute trip).


title: Pneumatic tube

text: The Crystal Palace pneumatic railway was exhibited at the Crystal Palace in 1864. This was a prototype for a proposed "Waterloo and Whitehall Railway" that would have run under the River Thames linking Waterloo and Charing Cross. Digging commenced in 1865 but was halted in 1868 due to financial problems.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: In 1867 at the American Institute Fair in New York, Alfred Ely Beach demonstrated a long, diameter pipe that was capable of moving 12 passengers plus a conductor. One year after New York City's first-ever elevated rail line went into service; in 1869, the Beach Pneumatic Transit Company of New York secretly constructed a long, diameter pneumatic subway line under Broadway, to demonstrate the possibilities of the new transport mode. The line only operated for a few months, closing after Beach was unsuccessful in getting permission to extend it – Boss Tweed, a corrupt influential politician, did not want it to go ahead as he was intending to personally invest into competing schemes for an elevated rail line.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: In the 1920s, the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railways cooperated together to lay an elaborate system of 4,500 metre pneumatic tubing between four of their offices to Postal Station A at Union Station in Toronto, Canada. There was also a connection to the mail room at the Royal York Hotel. The newspapers the Star and Telegram joined into the system, laying pipes.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: In the 1960s, Lockheed and MIT with the United States Department of Commerce conducted feasibility studies on a vactrain system powered by ambient atmospheric pressure and "gravitational pendulum assist" to connect cities on the country's East Coast. They calculated that the run between Philadelphia and New York City would average 174 meters per second, that is 626 km/h (388 mph). When those plans were abandoned as too expensive, Lockheed engineer L.K. Edwards founded Tube Transit, Inc. to develop technology based on "gravity-vacuum transportation". In 1967 he proposed a "Bay Area Gravity-Vacuum Transit" for California that would run alongside the then-under construction BART system. It was never built.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: Research into trains running in partially evacuated tubes, such as the Vactrain and Hyperloop, is continuing.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: A pneumatic elevator consists of a cylindrical vertical shaft (typically made of transparent plastic), and a passenger capsule (also transparent) within the shaft which moves vertically by means of differential air pressure above and below. The main advantage that it requires neither a pit below or a loft above the shaft.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: For ascending operations, a vacuum pump at the top of the elevator shaft creates a low pressure by drawing air from above the capsule while below the greater normal atmospheric pressure is permitted to enter at the lower (ground floor) level below the capsule providing lift.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: To descend, electronically controlled valves inside the tubular shaft regulate the entry and exit of air within the cylinder lowering the car smoothly by means of programmed operation. In the event of a failure of the vacuum pump or electronically controlled valves, the trapped volume of air below the capsule acts as a cushion that is allowed to slowly escape by means of a mechanical valve, gently returning the capsule to the lowest level.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: In large retail stores, pneumatic tube systems were used to transport sales slips and money from the salesperson to a centralized tube room, where cashiers could make change, reference credit records, and so on.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: Many hospitals have pneumatic tube systems which send samples to laboratories. Blood preservations are transported, where weight and transport duration matter as well as preventing haemolysis caused by centrifugal and accelerating forces. Pneumatic tube systems are also used in hospitals to transport X-rays, patient documents, general documents, drugs and test results.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: To manage its mail order business the department store Sears built "massive warehouses, like its central facility in Chicago, in which messages to various departments and assembly workers were sent through pneumatic tubes". Many other department stores had pneumatic tube systems in the 20th century, such as Jacksons of Reading and Myer in Melbourne, Australia. The National Library of Australia's building (opened 1968), incorporates a pneumatic tube system for sending book requests from the reading rooms to the book stacks. The system is no longer used, but remains partially operational, and is demonstrated on behind the scenes tours.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: The use of pneumatic tubes in waste disposal units include the Masjid al-Haram, Mecca, GlashusEtt in the Hammarby Sjöstad area of Stockholm, Sweden, Old Montreal, Canada, Disney World, Florida and Roosevelt Island and Hudson Yards, New York (US).


title: Pneumatic tube

text: Pneumatic tube systems are used in production plants. Uses include conveying spare parts, measuring instruments, tools or work pieces alongside conveyor belts or in the production process. In industrial laboratories samples are transported through the pneumatic tube systems. These can be conveyed in any physical state (solid, liquid, gas) and at any temperature. For example, the industrial company ThyssenKrupp sends steel samples through pneumatic tubes at a rate of per second from the furnace to the laboratory.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: Modern systems (for smaller, i.e. “normal”, tube diameters as used in the transport of small capsules) reach speeds of around per second, though some historical systems already achieved speeds of per second. At the same time, varying air pressures allow capsules to brake slowly, removing the jarring arrival that used to characterise earlier systems and make them unsuitable for fragile contents.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: Very powerful systems can transport items with a weight of up to and a diameter of up to . More than 100 lines and 1000 stations can be connected.


title: Pneumatic tube

text: Further, modern systems can be computer-controlled for tracking of any specific capsule and managing priority deliveries as well as system efficiency. With this technology, time-critical items can be transported, such as tissue samples taken during a surgery in a hospital. RFID chips within the capsules gather data – e. g. about the location of the carrier, its transport speed or its destination. The systems collect and save these data to help users optimize their internal processes and turnaround times. The facilities can be linked to the company's software systems, e.g. laboratory information systems, for full integration into company logistical management and production chains.


title: Pedicure

text: Pedicures include care not only for the toenails; dead skin cells are rubbed off the bottom of the feet using a rough stone (often a pumice stone). Skincare is often provided up to the knee, including granular exfoliation, moisturizing, and massage.


title: Pedicure

text: The word "pedicure" is derived from the Latin words "pedis", which means "of the foot", and "cura", which means "care".


title: Pedicure

text: People have been pedicuring their nails for more than 4,000 years. In southern Babylonia, noblemen used solid gold tools to give themselves manicures and pedicures. The use of fingernail polish can be traced back even further. Originating in China in 3000 BC, nail colour indicated one’s social status, according to a Ming Dynasty manuscript; royal fingernails were painted black and red. Ancient Egyptians have been manicuring all the way back to 2300 BC.


title: Pedicure

text: A depiction of early manicures and pedicures was found on a carving from a pharaoh’s tomb, and the Egyptians were known for paying special attention to their feet and legs. The Egyptians also colored their nails, using red to show the highest social class. It is said that Cleopatra’s nails were painted a deep red, whereas Queen Nefertiti went with a flashier ruby shade. In ancient Egypt and Rome, military commanders also painted their nails to match their lips before they went off to battle.


title: Pedicure

text: According to the US Department of Labor, manicure and pedicure specialists earned a median income of around $20,820 in 2015. Most professionals earn an hourly wage or salary which can be augmented through customer tips. Independent nail techs depend on repeat business and consistent business to earn their livings. The most successful independent manicure technicians may earn salaries of over $50,000 per year. Nail technicians can earn up to $100 per hour from performing more technical nail treatments, such as pink and whites and sculpting. Although these treatments are not particularly popular for the feet, they are, nonetheless, an available option should anyone wish to have such a treatment. A standard pedicure treatment usually costs around $40.


title: Pedicure

text: There are various different types of pedicures. Some of the most common types are as follows (names and products may vary from spa to spa):


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies is a role-playing video game co-developed by Level-5 and Square Enix for the Nintendo DS. Published by Square Enix in Japan in 2009, and by Nintendo overseas in 2010, it is the ninth mainline entry in the "Dragon Quest" series. The storyline follows the protagonist, a member of the angelic Celestrian race, after a disaster in their home scatters magical fruits across the mortal realm. While carrying over traditional gameplay from the rest of the series with turn-based battles, the game is the first "Dragon Quest" entry to feature a customizable player character, and the first to include a multiplayer mode, with the option of trading treasure maps and loaning player characters through Nintendo Wi-Fi. Online functions ended in 2014.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: Development began in 2005, with Level-5's Akihiro Hino both acting as co-director and encouraging the game's development for the DS. Series creator Yuji Horii acted as game and story designer, with artist Akira Toriyama and composer Koichi Sugiyama also returning from previous entries. While an early prototype used an action-based combat system, negative fan feedback and internal testing prompted a return to the turn-based gameplay of earlier entries. Due to the focus on multiplayer, the narrative and game design had to be tailored to that. Some of the game design drew inspiration from "" and "Diablo".


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: Announced in 2006 with a planned release the following year, the game was delayed by two years, with the final delay to allow bug fixes prompting Square Enix to cut its profit forecasts. Localization was handled by PlusAlpha and Schloc, who had previously localized "Dragon Quest VIII". Upon release in Japan, the game posted strong sales, and with over five million copies sold worldwide by 2011 was the best-selling entry in the series until the multiplatform "Dragon Quest XI" (2017). Reviews in both Japan and the West were generally positive, with most of the praise being directed towards its gameplay design and graphics. Several critics felt that its traditional design restricted or undermined its other elements. Hugely popular in Japan, the game's anonymous communication mode would inspire the Nintendo 3DS's in-built SpotPass and StreetPass.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: "Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies" is a role-playing video game set in a fantasy world; the player takes on the role of a customizable player character of the Celestrian people trapped in the mortal world. The display is split between the two screens of the Nintendo DS; the top screen displays the map area and the player's location on it together with party status, while the bottom screen shows the immediate environment and main menu display. The in-game environment is displayed from a overhead isometric perspective, with both the environment and character models being displayed with 3D graphics. In addition to the main story quests, the player can pick up optional side-quests from non-player characters (NPCs) found through the world, with some being standalone and others being related chains of quests. Multiple quests can be taken on and completed at once, and can vary in content from errand tasks to defeating specific monsters. The player can use an alchemy pot to synthesise equipment, items, and weapons using ingredients gathered by foraging or finding them in treasure chests or getting them as drops from defeated monsters. Saving can only be performed at a church in town.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: As with all previous mainline "Dragon Quest" games, "Dragon Quest IX" uses a traditional turn-based battle system, though enemies are displayed as roaming sprites rather than previously established random encounters. Coming into contact with an enemy sprite during exploration triggers a battle in a combat arena themed after the current location, and depending on the party's level an enemy pay give chase or run away. In addition to the protagonist, the player needs to create the remaining three members. The party is restricted to four including the protagonist, with a further eight able to be held in reserve. All party members can be individually controlled or act automatically based on preset commands managed in the battle menu. The player can attack, defend, use an item, use skills dubbed Abilities, perform magic which draws on a magic resource called MP, trigger a special action called a Coup de Gras, or attempt to escape. Consecutive normal attacks trigger a damage multiplier which remains until the sequence is broken by an enemy or a non-attack skill.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: A core part of organising the player part is assigning a character class called a Vocation. The player character starts by default as a Minstrel, with access to defensive, offensive, and supportive skills; they can later branch into other Vocations including Warrior, Thief, and Priest. Vocations are permanently assigned to other characters, with the protagonist able to change Vocations at an in-game location after a certain point in the narrative. By using Vocations, the player can learn skills exclusive to each. Changing Vocation resets the character's experience level to one and removes all learned spells, with skill point abilities purchased by the player along with unspent skill points carrying over, but switching back to a class restores that character's level and spells. At the end of battle, the party is awarded experience points which raise a character's level, skill points to raise specific character statistics, and gold to spend at shops in towns. If the party falls in battle, they are returned to their last save and lose half the gold they hold.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: In addition to single-player gameplay, "Dragon Quest IX" incorporates multiplayer. Up to three designated players can connect locally, with the one who initiated the session acting as host. The party can travel together, or the four can split up and act independently. Guest party members cannot progress the narrative, but are allowed to keep any items, experience points, and gold they acquire. Guests are not restricted by level, allowing a party composition of any level to take part in quests at different parts of the story. After completing a story quest early in the game, the player could engage in a form of passive online interaction dubbed Tag Mode. While the DS is in sleep mode, it can interact with other nearby systems with the game installed, allowing up to three characters to be imported into the game bringing a gift, ranging from items and equipment to treasure maps leading to caves that can hold treasure or dungeons to explore. The online functions were not region locked, allowing trading between systems in Japan, North America, and Europe. While much of the text went untranslated, map titles were automatically translated into the DS system's native language. The online elements lasted until 2014, when the Nintendo Wi-Fi service was shut down.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: In the world of "Dragon Quest IX", an angelic race known as Celestrians act as guardians of the Protectorate, the realm of mortals. The purpose of aiding and protecting them is to collect the mortals' spiritual energy known as benevolessence and feed it to the World Tree Yggdrasil, located in the Celestrians' Observatory. Once fed the appropriate amount, Yggdrasil produces fruit called Fyggs that summons a magical train dubbed the Starflight Express allowing the Celestrians to enter the Realm of the Almighty. The protagonist is a Celestrian assigned to the human village of Angel Falls under the stewardship of Aquila, gathering the last piece of benevolessence to grow the Fyggs. As they board the Starflight Express, a malevolent force attacks from below, sending the Fyggs, the protagonist, and Starflight Express down to the Protectorate. The protagonist awakens as a mortal but is still able to see Celestrians and the spirits of the dead, and is on a mission to help Angel Falls discover the broken-down Starflight Express and its fairy engineer, Stella. Stella promises to help the protagonist return to the Observatory if they can prove they are a Celestrian by gathering benevolessence. Convincing Stella of their identity, the protagonist receives a vision inspiring them to explore the Protectorate and recover the scattered Fyggs.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: The protagonist's quest for the Fyggs reveals they have indiscriminate wish-granting properties, with many mortals who use or eat them driven into madness. The protagonist also faces opposition from the Gittish Empire, an evil organization thought to have been wiped out three centuries ago. Aquila appears to be aiding the Gittish Empire but is later revealed as a double agent who returns the Fyggs to the Observatory after taking them from the protagonist. Travelling to the Realm of the Almighty with the reinvigorated Starflight Express, the protagonist learns that Yggdrasil is the form of the goddess Celestria, who defended the Protectorate from her father the Almighty Zenus, with the Observatory and Celestrians being created to observe and judge the Protectorate.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: In a final battle with the Gittish Empire's King Godwyn, Aquila sacrifices himself to destroy Godwyn, asking the protagonist to save the captured Celestrian Corvus. Once freed, Corvus vows to destroy the Protectorate and leaves. The protagonist and Stella learn that Corvus fell in love with the human woman Serana, but was tricked into believing she had betrayed her when handed by Serena's father to the original Gittish Empire, becoming bitter and delusional; he revived the Gittish Empire as his tool and launched the attack on Yggdrasil. The protagonist pursues Corvus to the now-corrupted Realm of the Almighty, facing him as a mortal after eating one of the Fyggs. Once defeated, Corvus is comforted by Serena's spirit, and the two pass on as the Realm of the Almighty returns to normal. Having used the Fygg to become mortal, the protagonist is trapped in the Protectorate, unable to see Celestrians or travel with Stella. In the epilogue chapter, the protagonist can find another Fygg and use it to restore their ability to see the Celstrians and travel with Stella on the Starflight Express once more.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: "Dragon Quest IX" was co-developed by Square Enix and Level-5, the company which had developed "Dragon Quest VIII" (2004). As with earlier "Dragon Quest" titles, production was overseen by Armor Project, a studio founded by series creator Yuji Horii to supervise the series since the original game. Horii acted as game designer and wrote the storyline. The event planner was Masahiro Kataoka, while the scenario script was written by a team led by Atsushi Narita. Akihiro Hino from Level-5 acted as co-director. The director from Square Enix was Jin Fujisawa, with the game becoming his directorial debut after working as part of the series scenario staff under Horii since the late 1990s. The producer was Ryutaro Ichimura.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: Concept work for a new mainline "Dragon Quest" game began after development wrapped up on "Dragon Quest VIII", with Horii and the rest of the series staff deciding what platform the next mainline entry should be developed for, with Horii wanting to reach as wide an audience as possible. Hino later noted that he suggested the DS as the platform from an early stage, inspired by its widespread commercial success; Level-5 was already working with the DS developing "Professor Layton and the Curious Village". After some hesitation about having a mainline entry on a portable platform, Horii was convinced. Production began in 2005, with Horii keeping its production as secret as possible. During production it went by the codename "Xenlon", named by Ichimura during a conversation in a store called Xenlon Tokyo.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: Horii later described the platform as a great choice for "Dragon Quest" due to its portability and multiplayer options. He called the Wi-fi functionality of the console the final deciding factor. He briefly considered making it a "gaiden" with the next mainline entry coming later, but ultimately chose to commit to making a mainline entry for the DS. While Horii had anticipated a quick development due to working on a portable console, he later admitted it had taken far longer than he anticipated. A challenge for the team was working within the DS hardware, as with each previous "Dragon Quest" they had worked with increasing hardware specs from console to console.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: Horii described the theme of the narrative as "growth", represented principally by the lead character and how they grew through completing the smaller story arcs. In a different interview he said "independence" was the theme in both the lead character and its supporting cast. When describing the game design's impact on the story, Horii stated that the team aimed for the player to become the protagonist of the story more than in earlier entries, and due to this there was no traditional party with their own story arcs. This led to the introduction of Stella as a means of communicating the story and creating interaction. Stella was intended as a beautiful yet "devilish" companion contrasting against the wise yet ugly King Trode of "Dragon Quest VIII". Commenting on the Christian elements in the story such as the angel-like Celestrials, Horii called them a light-hearted inclusion to add flavor to the world.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: "Dragon Quest IX" was the first in the series to include a multiplayer mode and a customisable protagonist. The game's design was intended to create something which would be playable for a long time, and encourage people to keep hold of it rather than sell it on the second-hand market. Horii also wanted players to create their own stories when they had finished the main story quest. The team also increased the overall difficulty, strengthening normal enemies and bosses, to encourage player cooperation through sharing information on the internet. Multiplayer proved challenging for the team to develop as they wanted to incorporate it into the main scenario, as opposed to a separate mode which would have been simpler to develop. The Tag Mode was present in the early design proposals, but map exchanging was a later addition to the mode. Due to the amount of freedom given to players and content within the game, the save data was so large that the team could only provide one save slot. This single slot caused the staff some worries, as they were afraid of problems caused by constant overwriting and there being no backup for players.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: During early stages and with its original trailer, "Dragon Quest IX" broke with series tradition and used an action-based combat system to fit into the multiplayer design. This design approach was first proposed by Hino. Horii explained that this was a prototype design, and after first showing it off it drew heated criticism from series fans and prompted arguments online. Paired with Horii finding that turn-based gameplay still worked and was enjoyable in multiplayer, and that prolonged action combat became "monotonous", the battle system was switched back to the standard turn-based design. The sprite-based monster encounters were taken from the spin-off "" so players had more control over when they got into battle. The quest system was designed with short play sessions in mind. Ichimura elaborated that the quest system drew inspiration from "", while "Diablo" was used as a reference on keeping players engaged for long periods.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: Akira Toriyama, who had worked on the series since the original game, returned as the lead artist, creating the character designs with Eiichirō Nakatsu. Toriyama was surprised at the choice of platform as he had little interest designing for it, but working on a "Dragon Quest" for the platform was invigorating for him. A notable element was the customizable avatar, with the number of aesthetic and armor options being a means to help diversify characters and make them stand out within the multiplayer and online elements. Another notable element was the switch to 3D graphics, which Horii attributed to the work of Level-5 who had been long working with 3D graphics. The opening and in-game full-motion cutscenes were created by animation studio Kamikaze Douga.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: As with other "Dragon Quest" titles, the music was composed by Koichi Sugiyama. As with their earlier collaborations, Horii put together a list of scenes with themes he wanted to accompany them and gave it to Sugiyama. For "Dragon Quest IX", he also specifically requested music with an "angelic" atmosphere due to the planned story. Despite his advancing age and long association with the series, Sugiyama felt eager to work on "Dragon Quest IX" as he felt his age was not impacting his ability to write music. Sugiyama used a Roland JV-2080, Proteus/2, and KORG M1 to create the score before it was converted into MIDI form for the game. He was prepared for composing for the DS sound environment due to his work on the DS remake of "Dragon Quest V". The battle themes went through a process of trial and error, with his initial version boring Horii during test plays. The introductory segment of the Overture, the series' main theme since the first game, was frequently rewritten. For the music which played during a key early cutscene, Sugiyama wrote the score to synch with on-screen events, such as a harp playing when light shone from above.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: The first theme created by Sugiyama was intended as a field exploration theme, but when Horii heard it and assumed it to be a town theme, Sugiyama tested it and found it was better suited to be such. Recalling his favorites, he stated a liking for sombre songs and highlighted the themes "Guide Them to Their Fate" and "Heaven's Prayer". For the latter, he initially only used one choral element, but after listening on the test ROM and realising the amount of time players would spend in the Celestial realm where it played, he increased it to three choruses. "Heaven's Prayer" shared its melody with the opening notes of the Overture, with Sugiyama consequently calling it an "important song". He described himself as "debugger" for the game along with his role as composer, remembering having taken on additional work when his suggestions for extra themes for areas were approved by the team.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: A two-disc soundtrack album was released by King Records on August 5, 2010. Sugiyama supervised the soundtrack creation. Music from the game was featured in a series concert by the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sugiyama, timed to coincide with the soundtrack album's release. A symphonic soundtrack for "Dragon Quest IX" was released by King Records on February 10, 2010. The music was performed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sugiyama, with Tatsuya Yabe as concertmaster.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: A new mainline entry in the "Dragon Quest" series was confirmed by Sugiyama in a post-concert interview in August 2006. The game, along with its name and platform, were announced in November of that year. Its platform was noted as a return to Nintendo consoles after several years on the PlayStation console family. Its subtitle in the region was translated as "Defenders of the Starry Sky". Ichimura wanted "Dragon Quest IX" to reach the widest audience possible and expand both the game's commercial success and the series fandom. This prompted development of the children-oriented "", though a game link with "Dragon Quest IX" was ultimately scrapped, and a wide popular advertising campaign to bring both children and women to the series. Originally planned for release in 2007, the game was initially delayed until the following year so the developers to make a better product. It was delayed a second time in October 2008 into early the following year without explanation.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: The game was scheduled for release in March 2009, but when undergoing the testing process, several serious bugs were discovered made more difficult to resolve due to the multiplayer features, forcing Square Enix to further delay the release to July 11 of that year. Due to being pushed into the following fiscal year, Square Enix cut its projected profits for the 2008-2009 year. Then-CEO Yoichi Wada issued a public apology, blaming the earlier scheduled release on his "arrogance" and lack of knowledge about bug testing. In anticipation of its release, Square Enix sent out extensive promotional displays to stores in Japan, doing a special collaborative launch event with the Shibuya branch of Japanese retailer Tsutaya. On launch day there were long queues around game stores from the early morning onwards. Five guidebooks for the game were published alternately by Shueisha and Square Enix between the game's release date and July 2010. A gag manga anthology was released by Square Enix on December 22, 2009.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: Speaking in August 2009, Square Enix initially stated that they were "considering" a release outside Japan and at that time evaluating which regions to release in. According to a later interview, Horii confirmed they were designing the game with a Western release in mind, meaning few changes were needed between regions. A Western release was confirmed in February 2010. The English subtitle, in addition to other European language translations, was revealed through trademarks registered in December 2009. The localization was handled by PlusAlpha Translations and Schloc, who had previously localized "Dragon Quest VIII" and remakes of earlier titles. Speaking on the process of translation and localization, Will Blatchley noted that due to the lack of voice acting, they toned down some of the less-recognisable accents compared to their earlier work, though the established Cockney was retained. The term glossary for "Dragon Quest IX" was the largest the team had handled up to that point, with most of the naming following group-based themes around its puns. Localizing the Tag Mode messages accurately between the various languages within the DS's space limitations was a major challenge. Horii travelled to Nintendo World Store in North America as part of a pre-launch event. In all Western regions, the game was published in 2010 by Nintendo; it released on July 11 in North America, on July 23 in Europe, and on August 19 in Australia.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: "Dragon Quest IX" saw "generally favorable" reception according to review aggregator website "Metacritic", recording a score of 87 out of 100 based on 67 reviews, and being the best-rated DS title of 2010. It earned multiple perfect scores, including "1Up.com", and Japanese gaming magazine "Famitsu"; "Dragon Quest IX" was the first "Dragon Quest", and the tenth video game overall, to earn a perfect score from "Famitsu". At the 2010 National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers awards, "Dragon Quest IX" was nominated in the "Original Light Mix Score, Franchise" and "Game Sequel RPG" categories. At the 2011 D.I.C.E. Awards, it was nominated for "Portable Game of the Year" and "Role-Playing/Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year".


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: The "Famitsu" reviewers, who delayed their review so they could properly test the multiplayer, gave general praise to the mechanics, visuals and music, summing it up as "an RPG that people from truly any generation can enjoy." Jeremy Parish, writing for "1Up.com", called "Dragon Quest IX" one of the deepest and most engaging portable RPGs produced, with his only complaints being around its story and the lack of true online multiplayer. Simon Parkin of "Eurogamer" called the game a perfect product of the various companies and individuals involved in production, lauding it as a refreshingly straightforward game compared to other games from either Square Enix or within the RPG genre. "Game Informer"s Phil Kollar lauded the exploration and combat as engaging and enjoyable, but felt the multiplayer fell short of the promises made prior to release due to the lack of true online play.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: "GameSpot"s Bethany Massimilla noted the necessity for grinding to ensure the player party could progress through the story and disliked the menu system, but otherwise enjoyed its story, gameplay and side content. "GameTrailers" noted the lack of innovation in its core gameplay structure, but felt the multiplayer elements broadened the style and number of activities enough that it was enjoyable rather than dated. Ryan Clements of "IGN" was pleased with his time on the game, citing exploration for quests and equipment and the multiplayer as some of its best features, but found the overall experience traditional to the detriment of other mechanics. In a notably less positive review for the Australian "IGN" outlet, Daniel Staines did not features which alleviated the amount of grinding required of players, but noted the traditional approach taken by the game served to undermine its strengths, additionally noting a lack of players to join in with the multiplayer sections. "Official Nintendo Magazine"s Simon Bramble called "Dragon Quest IX" "one of the grandest adventures you'll ever play" despite the deceptive tone set by the visuals.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: The battle and class systems met with much praise for their polish and depth of customization, though alongside their praise several reviewers felt the battle system was too traditional or cumbersome due to its menu-based interface. The traditional story was praised for its pacing and length, but others felt that the game's overall focus on multiplayer was detrimental to the narrative. Both Kollar and Parkin noted the story's themes and visual language as befitting the Christian symbolism used in earlier entries. The 3D graphics met with praise, with several comparing them positively to "Dragon Quest VIII" and finding them impressive for the DS hardware. When mentioned, the music also met with positive responses though there was some disappointment in its synthesised nature and low number of tracks. The multiplayer was seen as a positive addition to the game despite its impacts on the narrative, with many citing it as an innovative and engaging system.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: During its debut week in Japan, "Dragon Quest IX" sold 2.32 million units during its first two days on sale, reaching the top of Media Create's gaming charts; its release also prompted a boost in sales of the DS console in contrast to other consoles which had seen recent declining sales. By November 2009, the game had sold four million copies in Japan; in a breakdown of sales, Ichimura said around two million buyers were current fans, 1.4 million were older fans, and around 600,000 were series newcomers. Sales of "Dragon Quest IX" in Japan, paired with worldwide sales of titles including "Final Fantasy XIII", contributed to Square Enix posting record profits for the fiscal year ending March 2010.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: In North America, "Dragon Quest IX" was the eighth best-selling game of July 2010 in the NPD Group charts, with 132,000 units sold. In the United Kingdom, it was the highest-selling new release in its first week, and remained in the top ten best-selling games in the region into the following month. During Nintendo's fiscal year ending 2010, "Dragon Quest IX" sold over one million copies in the United States and Europe, becoming the eighth best-selling DS title for that period. By the end of 2010, the game had sold 5.3 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling entry in the series until the multiplatform release of "Dragon Quest XI" in 2017.


title: Dragon Quest IX

text: "Dragon Quest IX" became a cultural phenomenon in Japan due to its online elements, with gatherings occurring where players swapped treasure maps in search of rare items. Features on "GamesIndustry.biz" and "USGamer" noted its innovative multiplayer and online design. Nintendo producer Hideki Konno, speaking in an interview with Satoru Iwata on the development of the Nintendo 3DS, cited the Tag Mode as inspiration for the development of the console's SpotPass and StreetPass feature. Speaking in 2018 and 2019 on the possibility of a remake for other platforms, different staff members described the multiplayer functions embedded in the game as a bottleneck, but hoped that a port or remake could be developed with a new version of Tag Mode.


title: Rick and Morty (season 1)

text: The first season of the American animated television series, "Rick and Morty" originally aired in the United States on Cartoon Network's late night programming block, Adult Swim. It premiered on December 2, 2013 with "Pilot" and ended on April 14, 2014 with "Ricksy Business", with a total of eleven episodes. The first season received critical acclaim.


title: Rick and Morty (season 1)

text: Other cast members of the season, who each have voiced one or more characters, include: Eric Bauza, Dan Harmon, Phil Hendrie, Brandon Johnson, Ryan Ridley, Kari Wahlgren, Melique Berger, Jess Harnell, Smith Harrison, Maurice LaMarche, Rob Paulsen, Jesse Mendel, Dan Benson, Jackie Buscarino, Echo Kellum, Patricia Lentz, Rob Schrab, Gary Anthony Williams, Steve Agee, Tom Kenny, Vatche Panos, Cree Summer, Reagan Gomez, Megan Adams, Will Jennings, Finnegan Perry, Jeff Bergman, Adam Ray, Scott Chernoff, Rich Fulcher, Tress MacNeille, Nolan North, Alejandra Gollas, Lauren Hillman and Chris Romano.


title: Rick and Morty (season 1)

text: Series co-creator Justin Roiland, John Rice, Jeff Myers, Bryan Newton and Stephen Sandoval served as directors, while Roiland, series co-creator Dan Harmon, Tom Kauffman, Ryan Ridley, Wade Randolph and Eric Acosta served as writers; writer's assistant Mike McMahan was also given writing credit. All episodes in the first season originally aired in the United States on Adult Swim, and are rated TV-14. However, the uncensored version of the episodes released on DVD and Blu-ray are rated TV-MA.


title: Rick and Morty (season 1)

text: All episodes from this season were originally produced and broadcast in 16:9 high-definition on both Adult Swim's SD and HD feeds, resulting in the episodes appearing letterboxed on Adult Swim's standard definition feed. This season began production in January 2013.


title: Rick and Morty (season 1)

text: The first season has an approval rating of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 28 reviews, with an average rating of 8.19 out of 10. The site's critics consensus reads, ""Rick and Morty" zaps onto screens and makes an instant impression with its vivid splashes of color, improvisational voice acting, and densely-plotted science fiction escapades -- bringing a surprising amount of heart to a cosmically heartless premise."


title: Rick and Morty (season 1)

text: The first season was released on DVD (Region 1) and Blu-ray on October 7, 2014. Before its release, Roiland had confirmed that it would contain uncensored audio tracks.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, (17 February 18645 February 1941) was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the district around Binalong, New South Wales, where he spent much of his childhood. Paterson's more notable poems include "Clancy of the Overflow" (1889), "The Man from Snowy River" (1890) and "Waltzing Matilda" (1895), regarded widely as Australia's unofficial national anthem.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: Andrew Barton Paterson was born at the property "Narrambla", near Orange, New South Wales, the eldest son of Andrew Bogle Paterson, a Scottish immigrant from Lanarkshire, and Australian-born Rose Isabella Barton, related to the future first Prime Minister of Australia Edmund Barton. Paterson's family lived on the isolated Buckinbah Station near Yeoval NSW until he was five when his father lost his wool clip in a flood and was forced to sell up. When Paterson's uncle John Paterson died, his family took over John Paterson's farm in Illalong, near Yass, close to the main route between Melbourne and Sydney. Bullock teams, Cobb and Co coaches and drovers were familiar sights to him. He also saw horsemen from the Murrumbidgee River area and Snowy Mountains country take part in picnic races and polo matches, which led to his fondness of horses and inspired his writings.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: Paterson's early education came from a governess, but when he was able to ride a pony, he was taught at the bush school at Binalong. In 1874 Paterson was sent to Sydney Grammar School, performing well both as a student and a sportsman. During this time, he lived in a cottage called Rockend, in the suburb of Gladesville. The cottage is now listed on the Register of the National Estate and New South Wales State Heritage Register. He left the prestigious school at 16 after failing an examination for a scholarship to the University of Sydney.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: Paterson was a law clerk with a Sydney-based firm headed by Herbert Salwey, and was admitted as a solicitor in 1886. In the years he practised as a solicitor, he also started writing. From 1885, he began submitting and having poetry published in "The Bulletin", a literary journal with a nationalist focus. His earliest work was a poem criticising the British war in the Sudan, which also had Australian participation. Over the next decade, the influential journal provided an important platform for Paterson's work, which appeared under the pseudonym of "The Banjo", the name of his favourite horse. As one of its most popular writers through the 1890s, he formed friendships with other significant writers in Australian literature, such as E.J. Brady, Harry "Breaker" Morant, Will H. Ogilvie, and Henry Lawson. In particular, Paterson became engaged in a friendly rivalry of verse with Lawson about the allure of bush life.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: Paterson became a war correspondent for "The Sydney Morning Herald" and "The Age" during the Second Boer War, sailing for South Africa in October 1899. There he met fellow war correspondents Winston Churchill and Rudyard Kipling as well as British army leaders Kitchener, Roberts and Haig.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: His graphic accounts of the relief of Kimberley, surrender of Bloemfontein (the first correspondent to ride in) and the capture of Pretoria attracted the attention of the press in Britain. An untouched box of chocolates, created by the British company Cadburys for Queen Victoria as a 1900 New Year's gift for troops serving in South Africa, was discovered in Paterson's papers at the National Library of Australia in 2020. He also was a correspondent during the Boxer Rebellion, where he met George "Chinese" Morrison and later wrote about his meeting. He was editor of the "Sydney Evening News" (1904–06) and of the "Town and Country Journal" (1907–08).


title: Banjo Paterson

text: In 1908 after a trip to the United Kingdom he decided to abandon journalism and writing and moved with his family to a property near Yass.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: In World War I, Paterson failed to become a correspondent covering the fighting in Flanders, but did become an ambulance driver with the Australian Voluntary Hospital, Wimereux, France. He returned to Australia early in 1915 and, as an honorary vet, travelled on three voyages with horses to Africa, China and Egypt. He was commissioned in the 2nd Remount Unit, Australian Imperial Force on 18 October 1915, serving initially in France where he was wounded and reported missing in July 1916 and latterly as commanding officer of the unit based in Cairo, Egypt. He was repatriated to Australia and discharged from the army having risen to the rank of major in April 1919. His wife had joined the Red Cross and worked in an ambulance unit near her husband.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: Just as he returned to Australia, the third collection of his poetry, "Saltbush Bill JP", was published and he continued to publish verse, short stories and essays while continuing to write for the weekly "Truth". Paterson also wrote on rugby league football in the 1920s for the "Sydney Sportsman".


title: Banjo Paterson

text: On 8 April 1903 he married Alice Emily Walker, of Tenterfield Station, in St Stephen's Presbyterian Church, in Tenterfield, New South Wales. Their first home was in Queen Street, Woollahra. The Patersons had two children, Grace (born in 1904) and Hugh (born in 1906).


title: Banjo Paterson

text: Paterson had been previously engaged to Sarah Riley for eight years, but this was abruptly called off in 1895 following a visit to her at Dagworth Station in Queensland where she was visiting the Macpherson family. It was here that Paterson met his fiancée's best friend from school days, Christina Macpherson, who composed the music for which he then wrote the lyrics of the famous Waltzing Matilda. However, following this collaboration Paterson was suddenly asked to leave the property, leading historians to conclude that he was a womanizer and had engaged in a scandalous romantic liaison with Macpherson.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: Paterson died of a heart attack in Sydney on 5 February 1941 aged 76. Paterson's grave, along with that of his wife, is in the Northern Suburbs Memorial Gardens and Crematorium, Sydney.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: The publication of The Man from Snowy River and five other ballads in "The Bulletin" made "The Banjo" a household name. In 1895, Angus & Robertson published these poems as a collection of Australian verse. The book sold 5000 copies in the first four months of publication.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: In 1895, Paterson headed north to Dagworth station near Winton, Queensland. Travelling with fiancée, Sarah Riley, they met with her old school friend, Christina Macpherson, who had recently attended a race at Warrnambool in Victoria. She had heard a band playing a tune there, which became stuck in her head and replayed it for Paterson on the autoharp. The melody also resonated with him and propelled him to write


title: Banjo Paterson

text: "Waltzing Matilda" While there has been much debate about what inspired the words, the song became one of his most widely known and sung ballads.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: In addition, he wrote the lyrics for songs with piano scores, such as "The Daylight is Dying" and "Last Week". These were also published by Angus & Robertson between the years 1895 to 1899. In 1905, the same publishers released "Old Bush Songs", a collection of bush ballads Paterson had been assembling since 1895.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: Although for most of his adult life, Paterson lived and worked in Sydney, his poems mostly presented a highly romantic view of the bush and the iconic figure of the bushman. Influenced by the work of another Australian poet, John Farrell, his representation of the bushman as a tough, independent and heroic underdog became the ideal qualities underpinning the national character. His work is often compared to the prose of Henry Lawson, particularly the seminal work, "The Drover's Wife", which presented a considerably less romantic view of the harshness of rural existence of the late 19th century.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: Paterson authored two novels; "An Outback Marriage" (1906) and "The Shearer's Colt" (1936), wrote many short stories; "Three Elephant Power and Other Stories" (1917), and wrote a book based on his experiences as a war reporter, "Happy Dispatches" (1934). He also wrote a book for children, "The Animals Noah Forgot" (1933)


title: Banjo Paterson

text: Contemporary recordings of many of Paterson's well known poems have been released by Jack Thompson, who played Clancy in the 1982 film adaptation of "The Man from Snowy River". While having no connection to the movie, an Australian television series of the same name was broadcast in the 1990s.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: Media reports in August 2008 stated that a previously unknown poem had been found in a war diary written during the Boer War.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: Banjo Paterson's image appears on the [[Australian ten-dollar note|$10 note]], along with an illustration inspired by "The Man From Snowy River" and, as part of the copy-protection microprint, the text of the poem itself.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: A. B. Paterson College, at [[Arundel, Queensland|Arundel]] on the [[Gold Coast, Australia]], is named after Paterson.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: The Festival of Arts in [[Orange, New South Wales]], presents a biennial Banjo Paterson Award for poetry and one-act plays and there is also an annual National Book Council Banjo Award. Orange also has an annual Banjo Paterson Poetry Festival.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: A privately owned 47-year-old Wooden Diesel vessel from Carrum, Victoria, was christened with the name Banjo Paterson and coincidentally, runs regularly up and down the Patterson River.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: In 1983, a rendition of "Waltzing Matilda" by country-and-western singer Slim Dusty was the first song broadcast by astronauts to Earth.


title: Banjo Paterson

text: He topped the list of [[The Greatest of All - Our 50 Top Australians]] published in "[[The Australian]]" on 27 June 2013.


title: Sarkar 3

text: Sarkar 3 () is a 2017 Indian Hindi-language political crime thriller film directed by Ram Gopal Varma. This is the third installment of the "Sarkar franchise" and the continuation to the events of "Sarkar Raj". The film stars Amitabh Bachchan again in the titular lead role along with Jackie Shroff, Manoj Bajpayee, Amit Sadh, Yami Gautam, Ronit Roy and Parag Tyagi.


title: Sarkar 3

text: The film was released worldwide on 12 May 2017. The film deals with Sarkar's internal conflict and his palace-politics with top-level officials, and powerbrokers within the Maharashtra government, involving internal rivalry and intrigue. Amitabh Bachchan sang the Ganpati Arti track, and Marathi dialogues.


title: Sarkar 3

text: A businessman named Deven Gandhi (Bajrangbali Singh) approaches Subhash Nagre "Sarkar" (Amitabh Bachchan) for a real estate project over a large slum in Dharavi Mumbai. Sarkar suggests that Gandhi should offer appropriate compensation and relocate the slum dwellers. Gandhi deems that too expensive and would rather offer a smaller commission to Sarkar to force the relocation. Sarkar refuses and, when Gandhi insists that he will go to another power bastion, Sarkar asserts that he will not let Gandhi go ahead. Gandhi reports back to his Dubai-based boss Vallya (Jackie Shroff). They join hands with a rival opposition leader named Govind Deshpande (Manoj Bajpai) and plot to oust Sarkar.


title: Sarkar 3

text: Sarkar's wife (Supriya Pathak) pleads with him to permit their grandson Shivaji Nagre "Chiku" (Amit Sadh) to join him. Sarkar hesitates: the boy is hot-headed and volatile like his deceased father Vishnu Nagre, but ultimately lets him come. Chiku immediately clashes with Gokul (Sarkar's longtime loyal right-hand man) (Ronit Roy) over various matters including whether or not to eliminate Deshpande. It is implied that Chiku's girlfriend Annu (Yami Gautam) is using him to get to Sarkar because Sarkar had apparently ordered the elimination of her father. Meanwhile, Gandhi approaches Gokul with the proposition to help him or Chiku would become the next Sarkar and Gokul will remain a servant.


title: Sarkar 3

text: Deshpande plots with Gandhi and Vallya to instigate mill workers against Sarkar. Chikku is on the warpath to attack Deshpande. Sarkar tries to calculate who is behind everything. One day, Deshpande is hotly pursued and killed and Sarkar, who has long held a reputation for bumping the opposition, is blamed. Sarkar notes that whoever did this is determined and cunning and will stop at nothing. When assassins open fire on Sarkar at the Ganpati Visarjan festival, it becomes clear that Sarkar's inner circle has been breached. Chikku shows Sarkar the video of Gandhi meeting Gokul and, separately, Gokul remonstrates and says that Chiku, used by the wily Annu and his own vengeance for his father, is behind everything. Sarkar expels Chiku whereupon Chiku joins Gandhi.


title: Sarkar 3

text: Vallya orders a bomb blast at the mill. Gokul reports that it was executed by Chikku, who is now out to destroy Sarkar, and Gandhi. Around this time Sarkar's wife passes away, so Gokul beseeches Sarkar to give the order to kill Chikku. Chikku is shot at but he escapes. Gokul begins hunting him down.


title: Sarkar 3

text: Gokul is, presumably, shot dead by Chiku, and Sarkar swears vengeance. Vallya arrives in India to meet Sarkar. He points out that Chiku is too inexperienced to become Sarkar and is therefore useless, and offers to help Sarkar eliminate Chiku. Sarkar discloses that Chiku was dispatched to infiltrate Gandhi by none other than Sarkar himself. He, also, reveals that it was he who ordered Gokul's killing. Annu discovers that it was Gandhi who killed her father, not Sarkar, and she shoots him to death.


title: Sarkar 3

text: Hindsight reveals that; differences with Annu had been cleared and she was taken into confidence, and Gokul had turned to Gandhi and played a part in the mill agitation and the slum development in order to sideline Chiku, eventually hoping to become Sarkar. The objective of this hidden plan was to draw out Vallya. Chiku walks in, there is a gunshot, and Vallya is killed. With their adversaries now dead, Sarkar and Chiku sip tea while Sarkar educates the inexperienced Chiku on palace politics.


title: Sarkar 3

text: In 2009 Ram Gopal Varma stated that he had no plans finalised for the third instalment in the series and shelved "Sarkar 3". However, in 2012 it was reported that the sequel would go ahead once again and currently is in the pre production stage where the script is being written. The film is expected to go on floors at the end of 2013, primarily with the same cast of Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan although his character dies at the end of this film and also Aishwarya Rai is to be left out.


title: Sarkar 3

text: In August 2016 director Ram Gopal Varma confirmed "Sarkar 3". He told on his Twitter that Abhishek and Aishwarya will not be a part of the third installment.


title: Sarkar 3

text: The soundtrack was released by Eros Now Music. The music has been composed by Rohan Vinayak and Ravi Shankar. The full soundtrack was released on 3 May 2017 and has seven songs.


title: Joe Zawinul

text: Josef Erich Zawinul ( ""; 7 July 1932 – 11 September 2007) was an Austrian jazz and jazz fusion keyboardist and composer. First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with Miles Davis and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, a musical genre that combined jazz with rock. He co-founded the groups Weather Report and The Zawinul Syndicate. He pioneered the use of electric piano and synthesizer, and was named "Best Electric Keyboardist" twenty-eight times by the readers of "DownBeat" magazine.


title: Joe Zawinul

text: Zawinul grew up in Vienna, Austria. Accordion was his first instrument. When he was six or seven, he studied clarinet, violin, and piano at the Vienna Conservatory (Konservatorium Wien). During the 1950s he was a staff pianist for Polydor. He worked as a jazz musician with Hans Koller, Friedrich Gulda, Karl Drewo, and Fatty George. In 1959 he moved to the U.S. to attend Berklee College of Music, but a week later he received a job offer from Maynard Ferguson, so he left school and went on tour. He then accompanied Dinah Washington. He spent most of the 1960s with Cannonball Adderley. During this time he wrote "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" and "Walk Tall", and "Country Preacher" and played electric piano. At the end of the decade he recorded with Miles Davis on "In a Silent Way" as Davis was establishing the genre of jazz fusion, combining jazz with rock.


title: Joe Zawinul

text: In 1970, Zawinul founded Weather Report with Wayne Shorter. Their first two years emphasized a relatively open, group improvisation format similar to what Miles Davis was doing in a more rock oriented format. However, Zawinul started making changes with their third album, "Sweetnighter". Funk elements such as bass guitar and wah-wah pedal began to be introduced to the band's sound. With the fourth album, "Mysterious Traveller", the musical forms were composed similar to classical music, and the combination of jazz harmonies with 1970s groove helped move the band into its most commercially successful period.


title: Joe Zawinul

text: The band's biggest commercial success came from Zawinul's composition "Birdland" on the 1977 album "Heavy Weather", which peaked at number 30 on the "Billboard" pop albums chart. "Birdland" is one of the most recognizable jazz pieces of the 1970s, recorded by The Manhattan Transfer, Quincy Jones, Maynard Ferguson, and Buddy Rich among others. The song won him three Grammys.


title: Joe Zawinul

text: Weather Report was active until the mid-1980s, with Zawinul and Shorter remaining the sole constant members through multiple personnel shifts. Shorter and Zawinul went separate ways after recording "Sportin' Life", but it was discovered they had to do one more album to fulfill their contract with CBS Records. "This Is This!" therefore became the band's final album.


title: Joe Zawinul

text: In 1991, Zawinul was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music and on this occasion performed with a group consisting of Matthew Garrison, Torsten de Winkel, Abe Laboriel Jr. and Melvin Butler.


title: Joe Zawinul

text: Their style could be described as a combination of unusual grooves, driving and swinging rhythms and many borrowings from different music cultures.


title: Joe Zawinul

text: Zawinul himself stated that he gave the band its name due to a syndicate bearing more resemblance to a family than "just" a band.


title: Joe Zawinul

text: After the death of Zawinul in 2007, several members of The Zawinul Syndicate decided to reform and performing Zawinul's music live under their shortened name The Syndicate.


title: Joe Zawinul

text: Several major members of the Syndicate over the years include Scott Henderson, Bobby Thomas Jr, Linley Marthe, Paco Sery, Manolo Badrena, Nathaniel Townsley, Sabine Kabongo, Gary Poulson, Richard Bona, and Victor Bailey.


title: Joe Zawinul

text: Zawinul also wrote a symphony, called "Stories of the Danube", which was commissioned by the Brucknerhaus, Linz. It was first performed as part of the "Linzer Klangwolke" (a large-scale open-air broadcast event), for the opening of the 1993 Bruckner Festival in Linz. In its seven movements, the symphony traces the course of the Danube from Donaueschingen through various countries ending at the Black Sea. It was recorded in 1995 by the Czech State Philharmonic Orchestra, Brno, conducted by Caspar Richter.


title: Joe Zawinul

text: Zawinul became ill and was hospitalized in his native Vienna on 7 August 2007, after concluding a five-week European tour. He died a little over a month later from a rare form of skin cancer (Merkel cell carcinoma) on 11 September 2007. He was cremated at Feuerhalle Simmering and his ashes buried in Vienna Central Cemetery.


title: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

text: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is a skateboarding video game and the third installment in the "Tony Hawk's" series. It was developed by Neversoft and published by Activision under the Activision O2 label in 2001 for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Game Boy Color and GameCube. In 2002, it was published for the Xbox, Game Boy Advance, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo 64 (becoming the last game ever released on the console as it had been discontinued 3 1/2 months prior), and Mac OS. It was the first game released for the PlayStation 2 supporting online play and was a launch title for the GameCube in North America.


title: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

text: "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3" received critical acclaim from critics, with the PlayStation 2 version being tied for highest-rated PlayStation 2 game on Metacritic alongside "Grand Theft Auto III". With the PlayStation 2 version selling over 2.1 million copies in the United States by July 2006. "Pro Skater 3" is also considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time.


title: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

text: "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3" saw the introduction of the revert, a trick that enabled vert combos to be tied together with a manual, by tapping a button when landing in a quarterpipe; it allows for much longer combos than in the previous two games, where landing in a quarterpipe would finish a combo. It also added hidden combos. These were variations on standard tricks that could be performed as grab, flip, lip, or grind tricks. For example, double-tapping the kickflip button would make the character perform a double kickflip. This system would later be refined in "Pro Skater 4".


title: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

text: The game stood out in the franchise for being the first title to have online capabilities. Users could connect directly to other players online on the PlayStation 2 version—even prior to the launch of the network adapter, with a USB Ethernet adapter. Due to the shut down of most Sony servers the game is no longer playable with others online, except for via programs like XLink Kai or through websites that allow users to play online through a DNS. The PlayStation and Nintendo 64 versions run on the "Pro Skater 2" engine, with a different revert animation that is the same as the PlayStation version of "Pro Skater 4".


title: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

text: The game features thirteen professional skateboarders, along with several unlockable original characters, depending on the version. Furthermore, the game features Darth Maul, Doomguy and Wolverine via licensing deals, as well as extreme sports athletes Shaun Palmer and Kelly Slater. Additionally, the Japanese and other Asian versions featured three Japanese pro skaters.


title: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

text: In both the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation versions, the wooden sides on the board (around the grip tape) has colors (except Bam Margera, Jamie Thomas, and the custom skater's decks), and the game has new tricks such as the Cannonball, Wrap Around, Fingerflip, Del Mar Indy and a new animation for the Airwalk. The Xbox version has an improved frame rate over the PlayStation 2 and GameCube version, as well as an additional level, the Oil Rig.


title: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

text: Chester Barber reviewed the PlayStation 2 version of the game for "Next Generation", rating it five stars out of five, and stated, "PS2's most impressive game to date. Not just perfectly balanced – "THPS3" offers enough new elements to warrant the coveted fifth star reserved for revolutionary titles".


title: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

text: By July 2006, the PlayStation 2 version of "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3" had sold 2.1 million copies and earned $77 million in the United States. "Next Generation" ranked it as the 14th highest-selling game launched for the PlayStation 2, Xbox or GameCube between January 2000 and July 2006 in the country. Combined sales of "Tony Hawk" console games released in the 2000s reached 10.7 million units in the U.S. by July 2006. Its PlayStation 2 version also received a "Platinum" sales award from the British Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the country.


title: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

text: The PS2 version earned a rare perfect 10 score from Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot (one of only 20 titles to earn this award in GameSpot's history), who stated that the game "makes everything before it almost unplayable by comparison". "GameSpot" named "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3" the best PlayStation game, best alternative sports console game and overall second-best console game of 2001. It was also nominated for the publication's annual "Best GameCube Game" and "Best PlayStation 2 Game" awards. It was also awarded the best sports game award at E3 2001. IGN rated the game 9.7/10, stating that the game "should go down in history as one of the best twitch-fests on PlayStation 2. Yes, Tony Hawk 3 is that good. The perfect skating game remains a small distance out of reach, but if you are not satisfied with your purchase of this game, head examinations are recommended". The game is currently the top rated PS2 game on the review aggregate website Metacritic, with an average score of 97/100, tying with "Grand Theft Auto III". Famitsu gave the game a 30/40.


title: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

text: "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3" was a runner-up for "GameSpot"s 2002 "Best Sports Game on PC" award, which went to "Madden NFL 2003". It won the publication's 2002 "Best Sports Game on Game Boy Advance" award, and was a runner-up for "Game of the Year on Game Boy Advance".


title: Superman (ice cream flavor)

text: Superman ice cream is a three-flavor ice cream that usually appears in red, blue, and yellow. Although it originated in the Midwestern United States, particularly Michigan and Wisconsin, it can also be found in various ice cream parlors such as Baskin-Robbins or where Hershey's ice cream is sold across the United States.


title: Superman (ice cream flavor)

text: The tricolor combination is commonly believed to be named after Superman, the DC Comics superhero character, whose costume comprises those colors, although the flavor originated before the character was created and has never been officially licensed, so some producers sell the flavor under different brand names to avoid potential legal issues. The exact flavor mixture is not defined as well as the color scheme, and different brands often vary the flavor components used to make up the swirl.


title: Superman (ice cream flavor)

text: Many of the traditional versions call for Blue Moon as the blue component of the swirl. Blue Moon has a hard-to-place flavor and, like the Superman flavor which often incorporates it, was created in the early 20th century. The Blue Moon flavor can also be found around the United States in ice cream parlors which serve Hershey's ice cream, as well as select grocery stores and gas stations.


title: Superman (ice cream flavor)

text: The combination is commonly believed to have originated in Detroit, Michigan, at Stroh's Ice Cream during the Prohibition Era, but this is unconfirmed.


title: Fail-safe

text: In engineering, a fail-safe is a design feature or practice that in the event of a specific type of failure, inherently responds in a way that will cause minimal or no harm to other equipment, to the environment or to people. Unlike inherent safety to a particular hazard, a system being "fail-safe" does not mean that failure is impossible or improbable, but rather that the system's design prevents or mitigates unsafe consequences of the system's failure. That is, if and when a "fail-safe" system fails, it remains at least as safe as it was before the failure. Since many types of failure are possible, failure mode and effects analysis is used to examine failure situations and recommend safety design and procedures.


title: Fail-safe

text: Some systems can never be made fail-safe, as continuous availability is needed. Redundancy, fault tolerance, or contingency plans are used for these situations (e.g. multiple independently controlled and fuel-fed engines).


title: Fail-safe

text: As well as physical devices and systems fail-safe procedures can be created so that if a procedure is not carried out or carried out incorrectly no dangerous action results.


title: Fail-safe

text: Fail-safe (foolproof) devices are also known as "poka-yoke" devices. "Poka-yoke", a Japanese term, was coined by Shigeo Shingo, a quality expert. "Safe to fail" refers to civil engineering designs such as the Room for the River project in Netherlands and the Thames Estuary 2100 Plan which incorporate flexible adaptation strategies or climate change adaptation which provide for, and limit, damage, should severe events such as 500-year floods occur.


title: Fail-safe

text: "Fail-safe" and "fail-secure" are distinct concepts. "Fail-safe" means that a device will not endanger lives or property when it fails. "Fail-secure," also called "fail-closed," means that access or data will not fall into the wrong hands in a security failure. Sometimes the approaches suggest opposite solutions. For example, if a building catches fire, fail-safe systems would unlock doors to ensure quick escape and allow firefighters inside, while fail-secure would lock doors to prevent unauthorized access to the building.


title: Fail-safe

text: Fail active operational can be installed on systems that have a high degree of redundancy so that a single failure of any part of the system can be tolerated (fail active operational) and a second failure can be detected – at which point the system will turn itself off (uncouple, fail passive). One way of accomplishing this is to have three identical systems installed, and a control logic which detects discrepancies. An example for this are many aircraft systems, among them inertial navigation systems and pitot tubes.


title: Fail-safe

text: During the Cold War, "failsafe point" was the term used for the point of no return for American Strategic Air Command nuclear bombers, just outside Soviet airspace. In the event of receiving an attack order, the bombers were required to linger at the failsafe point and wait for a second confirming order; until one was received, they would not arm their bombs or proceed further. The design was to prevent any single failure of the American command system causing nuclear war. This sense of the term entered the American popular lexicon with the publishing of the 1962 novel "Fail-Safe".


title: Tarkus

text: Tarkus is the second studio album by English progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, released in June 1971 on Island Records. Following their 1970 European tour, the group returned to Advision Studios in London, in January 1971, to prepare material for a follow-up. Side one has the seven-part "Tarkus", with a collection of shorter tracks on side two.


title: Tarkus

text: "Tarkus" went to number one in the UK Albums Chart, peaked at number 9 in the US, and reached number 12 in Canada on two occasions totalling 4 weeks.


title: Tarkus

text: After their debut live gigs in August 1970, the band toured across the UK and Europe for the rest of the year, during which their debut album, "Emerson, Lake & Palmer", was released. While on tour, Emerson found that he and Palmer were exploring more complex rhythmic ideas. He took patterns that Palmer was playing on his practise drum pads and found that they complemented runs that he had developed on the piano, and used this as a basis for material on "Tarkus". The group approached the album by having a centrepiece track in order to establish a concept, but a definite story or idea for it had not been discussed at this stage.


title: Tarkus

text: The group paused touring commitments in December 1970 and set the following month aside to record. As with their debut, the band recorded at Advision Studios in London with Lake handling the production duties and Eddy Offord returning as engineer. Early into the sessions Emerson presented the basis of the title track to Lake and Palmer; Lake was less than enthusiastic with its direction and threatened to leave the group. A subsequent meeting amongst the band and their management convinced Lake to stay, and he went on to contribute to the track and most of the other songs on the album including the lyrics, for which he used the artwork as inspiration. The band could only work out "Tarkus" during the January 1971 studio sessions, so they booked further time at Adivsion in February to work on side two, for which they had no material prepared.


title: Tarkus

text: Side one is taken up by "Tarkus", a 20-minute piece in seven parts written by Emerson, with Lake credited for the "Battlefield" section and contributions to "Stones of Years" and "Mass". It is a conceptual piece in which its narrative remains ambiguous and open to interpretation, but the artwork depicts the Tarkus character in the form of an armadillo-like tank who is born and loses a fight with a manticore, which concludes with the appearance of an aquatic version of Tarkus named Aquatarkus. The track was written in six days and the band rehearsed it for another six, after which they put it to tape. Lake said the song is about "the futility of conflict, expressed in this context in terms of soldiers and war — but it's broader than that. The words are about revolution, the revolution that's gone, that has happened. Where has it got anybody? Nowhere." He went on to describe the track, which opens "in frustration" with the "Eruption" section, an instrumental in a 5/4 time signature which he considered a "frustrating" meter. The lyrical songs that follow concern "the hypocrisy of it all" and noted the closing march at the end "a joke". The group would not record a longer piece in the studio until 1973, with the 29-minute "Karn Evil 9".


title: Tarkus

text: Side two features a series of shorter numbers unrelated to the conceptual title track. "The Only Way (Hymn)" contains themes from "Toccata and Fugue in F major, BWV 540" and "Prelude and Fugue VI, BWV 851" by Bach. Although not credited, the music to "Are You Ready, Eddy?" was largely inspired by Bobby Troup's 1956 song "The Girl Can't Help It". Emerson refers to the track as "an impromptu jam" played in celebration of completing work on "Tarkus".


title: Tarkus

text: William Neal made the artwork for the album's cover and gatefold. The cover image of a giant armadillo on tank treads has become an iconic image in progressive rock. Emerson said, "To everyone, it represented what we were doing in that studio. The next day on my drive up from Sussex the imagery of the armadillo kept hitting me. It had to have a name. Something guttural. It had to begin with the letter 'T' and end with a flourish. "Tarka the Otter" may have come into it, but this armadillo needed a science fiction kind of name that represented Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in reverse. Some of the species caused by radiation ... 'Tarkus'!"


title: Tarkus

text: The gatefold presents eleven panels that illustrate the events of "Tarkus". It begins with an erupting volcano, below which Tarkus emerges from an egg. Tarkus faces a number of cybernetic creatures, culminating in a battle against the manticore. The manticore stings Tarkus's eye, and Tarkus retreats bleeding into a river.


title: Tarkus

text: "Tarkus" was released on 14 June 1971 in the UK on Island Records, appearing two months later in the US by Atlantic Records' subsidiary label Cotillion Records. It is one of only two ELP studio albums to reach the Top 10 in the United States, making it to ("Trilogy", the following year, got to ), while in Britain it is their only number-one album. Additionally, "Tarkus" spent a total of 17 weeks in the UK Albums Chart. In Japan the album was released on Atlantic Records. Later vinyl reissues were on the Manticore label.


title: Tarkus

text: Although it is now considered a quintessential progressive rock album, "Tarkus" received generally unfavourable reviews from critics upon its release, such as David Lebin in "Rolling Stone" who wrote: "Tarkus records the failure of three performers to become creators. Regardless of how fast and how many styles they can play. Emerson, Lake and Palmer will continue turning out mediocrity like Tarkus until they discover what, if anything, it is that they must say on their own and for themselves."


title: Tarkus

text: François Couture, in a retrospective review for AllMusic, said that "Tarkus" is "a very solid album, especially to the ears of prog rock fans – no Greg Lake acoustic ballads, no lengthy jazz interludes". Couture concluded, "More accomplished than the trio's first album, but not quite as polished as "Brain Salad Surgery", "Tarkus" is nevertheless a must-have." Paul Stump's 1997 "History of Progressive Rock" praised the album's title track but criticized the "enervatingly portentous lyrics" and the traditional form of the solos (beginning and ending on downbeats, using blues voicings). He also said the two comedy songs ("Jeremy Bender" and "Are you Ready Eddie?") "have aged embarrassingly."


title: Tarkus

text: Emerson said that "Tarkus" was one of his favourite albums, "not least because the title track has taken on a life of its own".


title: Tarkus

text: In 2015, Sean Murphy of "PopMatters" ranked "Tarkus" the 21st best classic progressive rock album of all time.


title: Tarkus

text: In 1993, the album was digitally remastered by Joseph M. Palmaccio and released by Victory Music in Europe and Rhino Records in North America. This was followed by two remasters by the Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab in 1994 that are currently out of print.


title: Tarkus

text: In August 2012, "Tarkus" was reissued by Sony Music and released in a 3 CD pack, containing a stereo mix from the Palmaccio master, a stereo mix in the form of an alternate version of the album, and a 5.1 surround sound mix by Steven Wilson. The set also contains previously unreleased tracks recorded during the sessions.


title: Tarkus

text: "Tarkus" was reissued on record as a 12" picture disc by BMG as part of Record Store Day on 12 June 2021.


title: Parosmia

text: Parosmia (from the Greek παρά "pará" and ὀσμή "osmḗ" "smell") is a dysfunctional smell detection characterized by the inability of the brain to correctly identify an odor's "natural" smell. Instead, the natural odor is usually transformed into an unpleasant aroma, typically a "burned", "rotting", "fecal", or "chemical" smell. There can also be rare instances of a pleasant odor called euosmia. The condition was rare and little-researched until it became relatively more widespread since 2020 as a side effect of COVID-19.


title: Parosmia

text: There are numerous diseases with which parosmia is associated. In a case study, Frasnelli "et al." examined five patients that endured parosmia or phantosmia, most as a result of upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs). It is hypothesized that URTIs can result in parosmia because of damage to olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs). The condition has been linked to coronavirus disease 2019 as a rare side effect. Common triggers in COVID-19 related parosmia include coffee, chocolate, meat, onion and toothpaste. Exposure to harmful solvents has also been linked to parosmia, specifically by damaging ORNs.


title: Parosmia

text: Damage to these neurons could render them unable to correctly encode a signal representing a particular odor, which would send an erroneous signal to the odor processing center, the olfactory bulb. This, in turn, leads to the signal triggering a different smell than the stimulating odor, and thus the patient cannot sync the input and output odors. Damage to ORNs describes a peripheral defect in the pathway, but there are also instances where damage to the processing center in the brain can lead to distorted odors.


title: Parosmia

text: Different types of head trauma could also lead to dysfunctions that relate to what the afflicted brain area controls. In humans, the olfactory bulb is located on the inferior side of the brain. Physical damage to this area would alter how the area processes information in a variety of ways, but there are also diseases that can alter how this area works. If the part of the brain that interprets these input signals is damaged, then a distorted output is possible. This would also lead to parosmia. Temporal lobe epilepsy has led to cases of parosmia, but these were only temporary; the onset of parosmia was a seizure and it typically lasted a week or two after. Parosmia is sometimes associated with Parkinson's disease. Although the specific pathway is undetermined, the lack of dopamine has resulted in documented cases of parosmia and phantosmia.


title: Parosmia

text: One method used to diagnose parosmia is the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT). "Sniffin' Sticks" are another diagnostic method. These techniques can help deduce whether a specific case of parosmia can be attributed to just one stimulating odor or if there is a group of odors that will elicit the displaced smell. In one case studied by Frasnelli "et al." certain smells, specifically coffees, cigarettes, onions, and perfumes, induced a "nauseating" odor for the patient, which was artificial and unrelated to a known smell. In another case study cited in the same paper, a woman had parosmia in one nostril but not the other. Medical examination including MRI did not reveal any abnormalities; however the parosmia in this case was degenerative, getting worse in time. The authors report that cases of parosmia can predict regeneration of olfactory senses.


title: Parosmia

text: Symptoms of most patients afflicted with parosmia decrease over time. Although there are instances of parosmia affecting patients for years, this is certainly not the majority of cases. There have been experimental treatments of parosmia with L-Dopa, but there are no other current treatments except inducing anosmia or hyposmia to the point that the odors are negligible.


title: Exponential backoff

text: Exponential backoff is an algorithm that uses feedback to multiplicatively decrease the rate of some process, in order to gradually find an acceptable rate. These algorithms find usage in a wide range of systems and processes, with radio networks and computer networks being particularly notable.


title: Exponential backoff

text: An exponential backoff algorithm is a form of closed-loop control system that reduces the rate of a controlled process in response to adverse events. Each time an adverse event is encountered, the rate of the process is reduced by some multiplicative factor. Examples of adverse events include collisions of network traffic, an error response from a service, or an explicit request to reduce the rate (i.e. "back off").