title: Ritwik Ghatak

text: Ghatak's only major commercial success was "Madhumati" (1958), a Hindi film which he wrote the screenplay for. It was one of the early ones to deal with the theme of reincarnation and is believed to have been the source of inspiration for many later works dealing with reincarnation in Indian cinema, Indian television, and perhaps world cinema. It may have been the source of inspiration for the American film "The Reincarnation of Peter Proud" (1975) and the Hindi film "Karz" (1980), both of which dealt with reincarnation and have been influential in their respective cultures. "Karz" in particular was remade several times: as the Kannada film "Yuga Purusha" (1989), the Tamil film "Enakkul Oruvan" (1984), and more recently the Bollywood "Karzzzz" (2008). "Karz" and "The Reincarnation of Peter Proud" may have inspired the American "Chances Are" (1989). The most recent film to be directly inspired by "Madhumati" was the hit Bollywood film "Om Shanti Om" (2007), which led to the late Bimal Roy's daughter Rinki Bhattacharya accusing it of plagiarism and threatening legal action against its producers.


title: Ritwik Ghatak

text: Ghatak's work as a director influenced many later Indian filmmakers, including those from the Bengali film industry and elsewhere. Ghatak is said to have influences on Kumar Shahani, Mani Kaul, Ketan Mehta, and Adoor Gopalakrishnan. For example, Mira Nair has cited Ghatak as well as Ray as the reasons she became a filmmaker. Ghatak's influence as a director began to spread beyond India much later; beginning in the 1990s, a project to restore Ghatak's films was undertaken, and international exhibitions (and subsequent DVD releases) have belatedly generated an increasingly global audience. In a critics' poll of all-time greatest films conducted by the Asian film magazine "Cinemaya" in 1998, "Subarnarekha" was ranked at No. 11. In the 2002 "Sight & Sound" critics' and directors' poll for all-time greatest films, "Meghe Dhaka Tara" was ranked at No. 231 and "Komal Gandhar" at No. 346. In 2007, "A River Named Titas" topped the list of 10 best Bangladeshi films, as chosen in the audience and critics' polls conducted by the British Film Institute.


title: Ritwik Ghatak

text: Russia-born German actress Elena Kazan once said Ghatak's "Jukti Takko Gappo" has the most profound influence on her view about world cinema.


title: Ritwik Ghatak

text: Bangladeshi filmmaker Shahnewaz Kakoli said she has been greatly influenced by Ritwik Ghatak's films and regarded Ghatak as her idol. She said "like all Bengalis, I too have grown up watching movies of Satyajit Ray and Ghatak, though I like Ghatak more and I idolize him. I am greatly inspired by him and consequently my movie 'Uttarer Sur' (Northern Symphony) too is influenced by Ghatak."


title: Ritwik Ghatak

text: Ghatak was a theorist as well. His views and commentaries on films have been parts of scholarly studies and researches. As a filmmaker, his main concentration was on men and life, especially the day-to-day struggle of ordinary people. He could never accept the partition of India of 1947 which divided Bengal into two countries. In almost all his films, he dealt with this theme.


title: Ritwik Ghatak

text: For him, filmmaking was an art form and a means to the end of serving people. It was a means of expressing his anger at the sorrows and sufferings of his people.


title: Justify My Love

text: "Justify My Love" is a song by American singer Madonna from her first greatest hits album "The Immaculate Collection" (1990). It was released on November 6, 1990, by Sire Records as the lead single from "The Immaculate Collection". The song was written by Lenny Kravitz and Ingrid Chavez, with additional lyrics by Madonna. Chavez was not credited on the song, which led to a lawsuit against Kravitz. Chavez settled out-of-court, the terms of which included a songwriting credit. Madonna's vocals are primarily spoken and whispered, but almost never sung, a style that she later employed on her following studio album "Erotica" (1992).


title: Justify My Love

text: Musically, "Justify My Love" is a house song with mid-tempo settings and instrumentation. The lyrics of the song are primarily about sex and romance. "Justify My Love" received mixed reviews from older critics but was appreciated by many contemporary critics, who noted it as one of Madonna's best songs to date. The song became Madonna's ninth number-one single on the "Billboard" Hot 100, peaking at number one in Canada and Finland, while reaching the top-five on several countries including, the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, Netherlands and Switzerland.


title: Justify My Love

text: The accompanying music video portrayed Madonna as a woman walking in a hotel hallway, looking distressed and tired from work, until being seduced into having sex with a mysterious man and woman. It caused controversy worldwide, due to its explicit sexual images, and was subsequently banned from MTV and other TV networks. The video, which contained imagery of sadomasochism, voyeurism and bisexuality, made its US television debut December 3, 1990, on ABC during its late-night news program "Nightline". Commercially, the accompanying video was released as a video single and marked the first time an artist released this format in the United States. It became the first-ever short-form clip to be certified multiplatinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and remains the best-selling video single of all-time with about 800,000 to 1 million copies sold.


title: Justify My Love

text: The song was part of the setlist of three of her concert tours, the most recent being The MDNA Tour in 2012. In 2003, "Q Magazine" ranked "Justify My Love" at number 842 in their list of the "1001 Best Songs Ever".


title: Justify My Love

text: "Justify My Love" was originally written and recorded by Ingrid Chavez, Prince's protégé and friend, and Lenny Kravitz: he and producer André Betts composed the music while Chavez penned the lyrics based on a poem she had written for Kravitz, and read them aloud. Kravitz added the title hook and chorus to the demo while Madonna corrected one line. Chavez was not credited for the song and later sued Kravitz in 1992: she received an out-of-court settlement, and gained a co-writing credit for her work. When the lawsuit was settled, Chavez's attorney Steven E. Kurtz clarified that Madonna's additional writing credit was not questioned in the lawsuit. The song was released on November 6, 1990, three days before the release of "The Immaculate Collection".


title: Justify My Love

text: Producer Kravitz used the drums found on Public Enemy's instrumental, "Security of the First World", without consent, which was in turn based on the end drum break of James Brown's "Funky Drummer", and used it as the basis of the song. The song was unusual in that Madonna's vocals are primarily spoken and whispered, but almost never sung. This style served as a prelude to her next album "Erotica", in which she spoke the lyrics on some of the songs rather than singing them. Kravitz and Madonna provided background vocals. Chavez' had previously provided the "spoken intro" to Prince's 1988 song "Eye No", and Chavez' vocal style on her 1991 debut album has been described as "breathy spoken passages".


title: Justify My Love

text: Composed as a midtempo song, "Justify My Love" is a house song. According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Alfred Publishing, the song is set in common time, with a tempo of 100 beats per minute. It is composed in the key of B minor with Madonna's voice ranging from the tonal nodes of A to D. According to Jim Farber from "Entertainment Weekly", he described the song's musical beat and Madonna's vocals as "vague, tuneless phrases chanted in Madonna's most breathless voice over a minimal house groove — serves mainly to justify the visuals." In a review for "The Immaculate Collection", David Browne said that she introduced an "adult" pop. The song features "heavy breathing with a backbeat." Robert Christgau had compared the song composition to the songs on Madonna's "Erotica" album. Bill Lamb from "About.com" said the song is "quite powerful and enthralling in its dreamy, beat heavy celebration of carnal coupling."


title: Justify My Love

text: Madonna and Lenny Kravitz remixed the song and named it "The Beast Within". It was included on the 12" vinyl and CD maxi-single release in North America. The remix uses only the chorus and certain lines of the original song, with the verses being replaced by passages from the Book of Revelation. Subsequent live concert performances have simply billed the song as "The Beast Within", a song in its own right, it is now no longer referred to as a remix. The song first garnered media attention early in 1991 when the Simon Wiesenthal Center accused the song of containing anti-semitic lyrics; specifically the lyric "those who say that they are Jews, but they are not. They are a Synagogue of Satan".


title: Justify My Love

text: In 2009 singer Beth Orton discussed assisting William Orbit on his remix of the song: “I started working with him on projects, just helping him. I'd come in and listen to mixes of Madonna and go 'Ah, I think you should bring this up or put that down', how funny is that? 'Justify My Love' it was. I love that song and every time I hear it, it takes me back to that time. It was a strange time because my mum had just died and I was putting her clothes in black bin liners and then going round to William's and listening to 'Justify My Love' and having opinions on it.”


title: Justify My Love

text: "Justify My Love" received acclaim from many music critics. In a separate review from AllMusic, they gave the song four-and-a-half stars out of five, stating "[Justify My Love] stands as one of the best of Madonna's long history of well-packaged maxi-singles, and further helped set a precedent for the maxi-single market." Larry Flick from "Billboard" commented that "her steamy collaboration" with Lenny Kravitz "has the juice to become the '90s equivalent" of Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby". He noted that "the chameleonlike singer writhes and whispers on top of a sparse, hypnotic hip-hop beat that strays miles away from the chirpy pop of her past. Break a sweat." In a review from "Entertainment Weekly" by David Browne, he gave it a positive remark saying that people who have a "hoo-haa" surrounding the banning of the single "underestimate her". "Music & Media" commented, "The unlikely collaboration of Madonna and Lenny Kravitz is a marriage made in heaven. Kravitz brought that beat back, while Madonna's sultry moans would make the Pope faint with certain desires. Atmospheric, yet brutal in an unconventional manner, this record whispers the word SEX very loudly and very convincingly. Most of all, it's a gutsy product." "Music Week" called it a "mumbling sexy judderer". "Rolling Stone" said that the song and contemporaneous Rescue Me were "worthy sensual newies". While reviewing "Celebration", Bill Lamb from "About.com" said "Songs such as "Justify My Love" that sounded a little over-indulgent when first released have worn very well over time." Alexandra Capotorto from PopCrush.com said "'Justify My Love' is perfectly constructed lovemaking music. While this track might be oozing sex, it's the NSFW music video that caused the most drama [...]"


title: Justify My Love

text: In the United States, "Justify My Love" debuted at number 46 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 singles chart, on the issue dated November 17, 1990. Eight weeks later it reached number one, staying there for two weeks. It also topped "Billboard"s Hot Dance Club Songs, and peaked at number 42 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs component charts. On February 22, 1991, the song was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of over a million units. As of December 2020, "Justify My Love" has sold 5 million copies in United States. In 1991, "Justify My Love" ranked at number 21 on the year-end "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. It was also successful in Canada, where it topped the charts on the week dated February 2, 1991. The song eventually received a Gold certification by Music Canada (MC) for shipments of 50,000 copies. In Oceania, the song debuted at number 14 on the ARIA Charts, eventually peaking at number four. It was certified Gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). In New Zealand, the song debuted at number 22, and peaked at number five for two consecutive weeks.


title: Justify My Love

text: In the United Kingdom, the song debuted at number nine on December 2, 1990, and reached number two a week later. It was also certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). As of August 2017, the song had sold 275,500 copies in the United Kingdom and was Madonna's 23rd best selling single in the region. The song also achieved success in other parts of Europe. In Austria, "Justify My Love" debuted at number 21 on the week of January 13, 1991, before peaking at number nine within a month. On December 17, 1990, the song debuted at number 50 in Germany, eventually peaking at number ten for two weeks. The song debuted at number 16 in Sweden, eventually peaking at number eight for one week. In Switzerland it experienced more success, debuting at number 12 on January 13, 1991, and peaking at number three for two weeks. "Justify My Love" also reached number three on the European Hot 100 Singles chart, on the issue dated January 12, 1991.


title: Justify My Love

text: The music video for "Justify My Love" was directed in Paris on November 9, 1990, by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, who had also worked with Madonna in her video for "Open Your Heart". It features Madonna's then-boyfriend, model and actor Tony Ward. Some of the dancers featured in the video were also dancers from her Blond Ambition World Tour. It is a tribute to Jeanne Moreau of "La Baie des Anges". In 2013, she declared it her favorite music video.


title: Justify My Love

text: The video was filmed in grainy black and white in the style of a 1960s European art film. There are also several shadowy film-noir elements such as characters seen only in silhouette. The action takes place in an elegant hotel that apparently caters to alternate lifestyle couples. Madonna (or the character she's playing) enters looking tired and distressed as she walks down the hallway toward her room. There she has a romantic fling with a mysterious man (played by Tony Ward). Some of the doors to the other rooms are ajar and we catch glimpses of various couples cavorting in BDSM fetish outfits (leather, PVC T-shirts, latex underwear, and corsets).


title: Justify My Love

text: In a dream-like sequence, Madonna rolls around in bed wearing skimpy lace underwear and a garter belt and stockings while various figures come and go. The entire nudity (which led to the video being banned) occurs when a topless dominatrix-type woman, played by model Wallis Franken—suspenders partly covering her breasts—appears and roughly grabs a bound man (the same man who is with Madonna) by the hair. Her outfit, which includes a peaked leather hat and black gloves, copies the ensemble worn by Charlotte Rampling in the controversial film "The Night Porter". (Both the film and the video share elements of sadomasochism.) The theme of androgyny is also briefly alluded to when a woman who closely resembles Madonna's lover is seen in men's clothing with a drawn-on pencil mustache. The overall presentation is surreal and deliberately ambiguous. The retinue of strange characters may be real or simply fantasies from Madonna's imagination. In the end, a rejuvenated Madonna rushes out of the hotel room smiling and laughing.


title: Justify My Love

text: The video was deemed too sexually explicit for MTV and was banned from the network. Madonna responded to the banning: "Why is it that people are willing to go and watch a movie about someone getting blown to bits for no reason at all, and nobody wants to see two girls kissing and two men snuggling?" On December 3, 1990, ABC's "Nightline" played the video in its entirety, then Forrest Sawyer interviewed Madonna live about the video's sexual content and censorship. She accused MTV of double standards regarding censorship, expressing that she did not understand why they banned the video yet allowed videos that contained violence and degradation to women to continue receiving regular airplay. She also stated that the controversy surrounding the video was not planned and after MTV rejected it, she then decided to release the video on VHS.


title: Justify My Love

text: The video for "Justify My Love" was banned also from regular rotation on MuchMusic in Canada, although the controversy (as well as the subsequent banning of a video by Mitsou) led MuchMusic to launch a new series, "Too Much 4 Much", which played controversial music videos accompanied by panel discussions on their artistic and cultural context. In 2002, the video was aired in its entirety on MTV2 as part of a special countdown showing the most controversial videos ever to air on MTV. This countdown was shown only late at night because of the graphic imagery of "Justify My Love" and several other videos on the countdown.


title: Justify My Love

text: Although many complaints were received, the video was played without restriction on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's popular music video show "Rage"; as, being a public broadcaster, the ABC is not bound to follow classification guidelines.


title: Justify My Love

text: "Justify My Love" was the first VHS video single to be released by Madonna. This was the first time an artist had released a single in this format in the U.S. (Queen released "Who Wants To Live Forever" as a Video Single in the U.K. four years earlier). It was described as a move unprecedented in the video industry. The retail price for the video single was $9.98. Label executives and retailers interviewed by "Billboard" agreed that she has been the exception rather than the rule for music video sales. For instance, "Ray of Light" another Madonna's video single was sold at $5.98 in 1998, when a typical video single price were between $3.49 and $3.98. Released on VHS only, the packaging in North America was a plain black slip cover with a sticker around it, so that it resembled a "seedy video".


title: Justify My Love

text: In Europe, it was given the full cover artwork treatment, and they also included a bonus video of Madonna's performance of "Vogue" at the 1990 MTV Music Video Awards. In the UK, the video was given an "18" certificate by the BBFC, meaning no one under that age could legally buy or see the release. The music video was released on DVD for the first time on the greatest hits package "" in 2009. This version of the video was censored with black bars in a scene that contains female nudity. In Australia, the video was rated "M" and in New Zealand, the video was rated "R16" for sex scenes.


title: Justify My Love

text: Writing for "Sounds", Kathy Ball commented about the video that "Justify My Love" "is art, junk, provocation and a marketing coup. But it's still only a pop video when all the shouting's over".


title: Justify My Love

text: Commercially, the video peaked at number two on the "Billboard"'s Top Music Videos Chart for two weeks and spent 39 weeks in the chart overall. It also become the first video single to reach the top of the "RPM"s Long Form Music Videos Chart in Canada. Despite the high price, American music stores reported record-breaking sales of the video within days of its release. On top of this, according to biographer Nicole Claro, the video sold so quickly that within days of its release, stores were already ordering more. Two months later its release, in February 1991, the video single became the first-ever short-form clip to be certified multiplatinum for sales of more than 400,000 copies in the US. Later, next month in April 1991, the video achieved sales of 500,000 units; it was highlighted as a hit because an average video sold fewer than 50,000 units.


title: Justify My Love

text: After its release the VHS single sold about 800,000 units to one million copies in the United States, and become the best-selling video single of all-time. In Canada, the video sold 20,000 copies in its first-week. In Italy, "Justify My Love" sold 7,000 units as of March 1991. In Japan, the video scanned sales of over 14,000 copies. In Australia, the video was certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for shiptments of 7,500 units.


title: Justify My Love

text: On May 11, 1991, Madonna made a guest appearance on "Saturday Night Live" on the recurring sketch "Wayne's World"; it spoofed the song's music video as well as her documentary "". It consisted on Wayne (Mike Myers) and Garth (Dana Carvey) encountering a seductive Madonna lying on a bed in a hotel room during a fantasy dream sequence, filmed in black and white. After some back-and-forth banter, Wayne and Madonna play Truth or Dare. Wayne begins by saying "truth". Madonna then asks "Have you ever made love with two women at the same time?" Wayne answers "Uh... yes!" to which Madonna says "Okay, I believe you... Not!" Wayne then dares Madonna to make out with him. As they kiss, the music for "Justify My Love" begins playing. Garth is then seen dancing in a parody of the video before being abducted by two women in fetish-wear outfits.


title: Justify My Love

text: Madonna performed the song twice during The Girlie Show World Tour in 1993, the original version and also the "Beast Within remix". The latter was used as a dancers interlude during the show. The "remix" was again used as the video introduction to the 2004 Re-Invention World Tour, including imagery of Madonna from the exhibition "X-STaTIC Pro=CeSS", prior to her appearing on stage. It was subsequently included on the 2006 live album, "I'm Going to Tell You a Secret". This new version omits the controversial lyrics which caused the 1991 accusations.


title: Justify My Love

text: The song was remixed again by William Orbit and used on The MDNA Tour as a video interlude. The black-and-white backdrop video, directed by Tom Munro, features Madonna being chased by people in carnival masks and locks herself in a room to indulge into her fantasies, while the masked followers search for her. The video is said to be a metaphor for everybody trying to take advantage of her, judge her or exploit her private life, and the interlude is her expression of escaping the judgement.


title: Justify My Love

text: Samples of the song were also used during the SEX video/performance interlude on the Rebel Heart Tour.


title: Justify My Love

text: "Justify My Love" has remained one of Madonna's most controversial singles to date. As a result of all the controversy, the single was released as a video-single and went on to become the highest selling video single of all time, eventually becoming certified four-times Platinum by the RIAA. In 2003, Madonna fans were asked to vote for their Top 20 Madonna singles of all time by "Q" magazine. "Justify My Love" was allocated the number 12 spot.


title: Justify My Love

text: Bill Lamb from About.com had listed the song at number 21 on his "The Biggest Madonna Songs". He also made a list entitled "Top 10 Madonna Music Videos", where it ended up at number four. PopCrush.com had listed the song at number one on their "Top 10 Sex Songs". In 2016, "Rolling Stone" ranked the song number 17 on its list of the 50 greatest Madonna songs. "Billboard" had listed the song at number five on their Madonna's 40 Biggest Billboard Hits, while in 2022 they named it the 48th best love song of all time.


title: Soviet aircraft carrier Kiev

text: Kiev () is an aircraft carrier (heavy aircraft cruiser in Russian classification) that served the Soviet Navy and the Russian Navy from 1975 to 1993. It was built between 1970 and 1975 at Chernomorski factory in Mykolaiv and was the first vessel to be built. It is currently part of a theme park in China.


title: Soviet aircraft carrier Kiev

text: "Kiev" was laid down on 21 July 1970 and launched on 26 December 1972. She was completed and commissioned on 28 December 1975, but officially entered service only in February 1977, after completing all trials.


title: Soviet aircraft carrier Kiev

text: On 16 July 1976 she sailed from Sevastopol in the Black Sea, and on 20 July began testing her Yakovlev Yak-36M aircraft (four Yak-36M and one Yak-36MU onboard) under sea conditions in the Mediterranean off Crete. On 10 August 1976 she arrived in Severomorsk, Murmansk Oblast, and was attached to the Northern Fleet's 170th Anti-Submarine Warfare Brigade, and conducted extensive tests up to December. Between 12 and 19 April 1977 she took part in the "Sever-77" exercise, and on 26 June 1977 was reclassified from "Protivolodochnyye Kreysery" (PKR) "ASW cruiser" to "Tyazhelyye Avianesushchiye Kreysery" (TAVKR) "Heavy aircraft carrying cruiser". Between 20 December 1977 and 21 April 1978 she participated in operations in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean. On 3 November 1978 she hit a sand bar, but suffered no damage. She took part in a local exercise on 4 August 1978, and on 11 October in final tests of the main missiles in the White Sea.


title: Soviet aircraft carrier Kiev

text: From 1977 to 1987, "Kiev" undertook 10 practice voyages to the Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea. In March 1979 she undertook manoeuvres with her sister ship "Minsk" on the Mediterranean. In October 1981 she was a flagship in the massive fleet exercise Zapad-81 on the Baltic Sea. From December 1982 to November 1984 she underwent an overhaul and modernization in Mykolaiv. From 1985, the practice of operating Yakovlev Yak-38s in STOL mode instead of VTOL was introduced, allowing an increase in aircraft payload and range, and a replacement of Kamov Ka-25 helicopters with Kamov Ka-27 started. In 1985 "Kiev" went back to the Northern Fleet. From 1987 she mainly stayed in Severomorsk. In December 1989 she was moved to reserve. After the disintegration of the USSR, the ship was taken by Russia. Due to a low military budget and worsening ship's condition, she was retired on 30 June 1993.


title: Soviet aircraft carrier Kiev

text: In 1996 "Kiev" was sold to Binhai Aircraft Park, a theme park in Tianjin, China. The concept was developed by world tourism and attraction consultant Leisure Quest International.


title: Soviet aircraft carrier Kiev

text: In August 2011, the ex-"Kiev" was developed into a luxury hotel after renovations costing £9.6 million.


title: Experience machine

text: The experience machine or pleasure machine is a thought experiment put forward by philosopher Robert Nozick in his 1974 book "Anarchy, State, and Utopia". It is an attempt to refute ethical hedonism by imagining a choice between everyday reality and an apparently preferable simulated reality.


title: Experience machine

text: If the primary thesis of hedonism is that "pleasure is the good", then any component of life that is not pleasurable does nothing directly to increase one's well-being. This is a view held by many value theorists, but most famously by some classical utilitarians. Nozick attacks the thesis by means of a thought experiment. If he can show that there is something other than pleasure that has value and thereby increases well-being, then hedonism is defeated.


title: Experience machine

text: Nozick asks us to imagine a machine that could give us whatever desirable or pleasurable experiences we could want. In this thought experiment, psychologists have figured out a way to stimulate a person's brain to induce pleasurable experiences that the subject could not distinguish from those he would have apart from the machine. He then asks, if given the choice, would we prefer the machine to real life?


title: Experience machine

text: Nozick also believes that if pleasure were the only intrinsic value, people would have an overriding reason to be hooked up to an "experience machine," which would produce favorable sensations.


title: Experience machine

text: Who would run the machines if everyone plugs in? Nozick asks us to ignore this concern, since it does not adversely affect the thought experiment. One could simply stipulate that the machines have been so well designed as to be fail-proof.


title: Experience machine

text: The experiment is also open to multiple interpretations. For instance, Nozick claims that you could either map out the rest of your life in the machine before plugging in, or you could unplug periodically to choose your programming for the next cycle. While interesting, these variations do not directly affect the argument either.


title: Experience machine

text: These are not quoted by Nozick himself, but rather other philosophers who have come up with or shared additional reasons.


title: Experience machine

text: Hedonism states that the things in life worth pursuing are the highest good, or the things that will make you happiest both long term and short term. Happiness is the highest value in human life. The Experience Machine is hedonistic, and yet people still refuse to be plugged in for the reasons listed above. Therefore, a conclusion is made that being personally happy is not the greatest value everyone carries. (Lin)


title: Experience machine

text: Psychologist and philosopher Joshua Greene says that our intuitions about the experience machine may be affected by status quo bias, and suggests reformulating the thought experiment in a form which counters this. According to his version:


title: Experience machine

text: you wake up in a plain white room. You are seated in a reclining chair with a steel contraption on your head. A woman in a white coat is standing over you. 'The year is 2659,' she explains, 'The life with which you are familiar is an experience machine program selected by you some forty years ago. We at IEM interrupt our client's programs at ten-year intervals to ensure client satisfaction. Our records indicate that at your three previous interruptions you deemed your program satisfactory and chose to continue. As before, if you choose to continue with your program you will return to your life as you know it with no recollection of this interruption. Your friends, loved ones, and projects will all be there. Of course, you may choose to terminate your program at this point if you are unsatisfied for any reason. Do you intend to continue with your program?


title: Experience machine

text: If we feel differently about this version of the story compared to the form that Nozick offers, according to Greene this is due to status quo bias.


title: Experience machine

text: A similar counterargument was raised in a paper titled "If You Like It, Does It Matter If It's Real?" by philosopher Felipe de Brigard. In contrast to the main experiment, Brigard asked participants (72 undergraduate students at a US university) in a study whether they would like to disconnect from the machine, arguing that they were already in it. About their "real" life, they were either told nothing, that they were prisoners in a maximum security prison, or that they were multimillionaire artists living in Monaco (one of the world's wealthiest countries). Of those who were told nothing of their "real" lives, 54% wished to disconnect from the machine. Of those who were told they were prisoners, only 13% wished to disconnect. This would imply that the quality of one's "real" life affects whether or not someone would prefer it to the machine. Notably, of those who were told they were rich inhabitants of the country of Monaco, 50% answered that they wished to disconnect, comparable to the number among those who were given option one. Like Greene, Brigard attributes his findings to status quo bias. He argues that someone's decision not to step into the machine has more to do with them wanting to keep the status quo than with them seeing their current life as preferable to the simulated one.


title: Experience machine

text: Another counterargument Brigard makes is that the theory was never actually empirically verified. Nozick never tested his claims, arguing instead that it must naturally be the case. Later philosophers and psychologists then matched this with their own beliefs.


title: Experience machine

text: Before it became a philosophical thought experiment in the mid-seventies, the pleasurable but simulated experience versus reality dilemma had been a staple of science fiction; for example in the short story "The Chamber of Life" by , published in the magazine "Amazing Stories" in October 1929. The 1996 novel "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace involves a similar formulation of the experience machine. The novel revolves around a film titled "Infinite Jest" that is lethally pleasurable: the film is so entertaining that, once watched, the viewer will desire nothing else but to watch the film over and over. Examples of movies centering on machines capable of replaying experiences previously recorded include the 1983 film "Brainstorm" and the 1995 film "Strange Days".


title: Experience machine

text: The choice between standard human life and transforming into creatures that can experience a much more intense pleasure life is also one of the main twists of the classic novel "City", by Clifford Simak. In that story, as opposed to Nozick's argument, most people opt for the pleasure life, mostly because they can fully appreciate what they can gain in the process thanks to a sophisticated language method, suggesting that the terms of the choice have to be well chosen and fully understood for the experience to be significant.


title: Experience machine

text: It also is a running theme of the 1999 film "The Matrix". Agent Smith's account of the early history of the Matrix includes the idea that humans reject a virtual reality that offers them paradise; however, later his informant Cypher is willing to betray his colleagues because he would prefer to be reinserted into an (admittedly less perfect) Matrix as a wealthy and successful man than continue to live in the harsh realities outside the simulation. While this later version of the Matrix is not a paradise-like reality in the literal sense, it may be argued that it is a lot like a pleasure-inducing experience machine, since Cypher is given the opportunity to have a prominent position of power and wealth in this new simulation. As he says while dining at a simulated restaurant: "You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy, and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss."A more elegant example of Nozick's experience machine, however, would be the PASIV Device as presented within Christopher Nolan's Inception.


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: In mathematics, the Banach fixed-point theorem (also known as the contraction mapping theorem or contractive mapping theorem) is an important tool in the theory of metric spaces; it guarantees the existence and uniqueness of fixed points of certain self-maps of metric spaces, and provides a constructive method to find those fixed points. It can be understood as an abstract formulation of Picard's method of successive approximations. The theorem is named after Stefan Banach (1892–1945) who first stated it in 1922.


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: "Definition." Let formula_1 be a complete metric space. Then a map formula_2 is called a contraction mapping on "X" if there exists formula_3 such that


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: Banach Fixed Point Theorem. Let formula_1 be a non-empty complete metric space with a contraction mapping formula_7 Then "T" admits a unique fixed-point formula_8 in "X" (i.e. formula_9. Furthermore, formula_8 can be found as follows: start with an arbitrary element formula_11 and define a sequence formula_12 by formula_13 for formula_14 Then formula_15.


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: Any such value of "q" is called a "Lipschitz constant" for formula_17, and the smallest one is sometimes called "the best Lipschitz constant" of formula_17.


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: "Remark 2." formula_19 for all formula_20 is in general not enough to ensure the existence of a fixed point, as is shown by the map


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: which lacks a fixed point. However, if formula_22 is compact, then this weaker assumption does imply the existence and uniqueness of a fixed point, that can be easily found as a minimizer of formula_23, indeed, a minimizer exists by compactness, and has to be a fixed point of formula_17. It then easily follows that the fixed point is the limit of any sequence of iterations of formula_17.


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: "Remark 3." When using the theorem in practice, the most difficult part is typically to define formula_22 properly so that formula_27


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: Let formula_11 be arbitrary and define a sequence formula_12 by setting "x" = "T"("x"). We first note that for all formula_30 we have the inequality


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: This follows by induction on "n", using the fact that "T" is a contraction mapping. Then we can show that formula_12 is a Cauchy sequence. In particular, let formula_33 such that "m" > "n":


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: This proves that the sequence formula_12 is Cauchy. By completeness of ("X","d"), the sequence has a limit formula_39 Furthermore, formula_8 must be a fixed point of "T":


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: As a contraction mapping, "T" is continuous, so bringing the limit inside "T" was justified. Lastly, "T" cannot have more than one fixed point in ("X","d"), since any pair of distinct fixed points "p" and "p" would contradict the contraction of "T":


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: Several converses of the Banach contraction principle exist. The following is due to Czesław Bessaga, from 1959:


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: Let "f" : "X" → "X" be a map of an abstract set such that each iterate "f" has a unique fixed point. Let formula_43 then there exists a complete metric on "X" such that "f" is contractive, and "q" is the contraction constant.


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: Indeed, very weak assumptions suffice to obtain such a kind of converse. For example if formula_44 is a map on a "T" topological space with a unique fixed point "a", such that for each formula_45 we have "f"("x") → "a", then there already exists a metric on "X" with respect to which "f" satisfies the conditions of the Banach contraction principle with contraction constant 1/2. In this case the metric is in fact an ultrametric.


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: Let "T" : "X" → "X" be a map on a complete non-empty metric space. Then, for example, some generalizations of the Banach fixed-point theorem are:


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: In applications, the existence and uniqueness of a fixed point often can be shown directly with the standard Banach fixed point theorem, by a suitable choice of the metric that makes the map "T" a contraction. Indeed, the above result by Bessaga strongly suggests to look for such a metric. See also the article on fixed point theorems in infinite-dimensional spaces for generalizations.


title: Banach fixed-point theorem

text: A different class of generalizations arise from suitable generalizations of the notion of metric space, e.g. by weakening the defining axioms for the notion of metric. Some of these have applications, e.g., in the theory of programming semantics in theoretical computer science.


title: Sports club

text: A sports club or sporting club, sometimes an athletics club or sports society or sports association, is a group of people formed for the purpose of playing sports.


title: Sports club

text: Sports clubs range from organisations whose members play together, unpaid, and may play other similar clubs on occasion, watched mostly by family and friends, to large commercial organisations with professional players which have teams that regularly compete against those of other clubs and attract sometimes very large crowds of paying spectators. Clubs may be dedicated to a single sport or to several (multi-sport clubs).


title: Sports club

text: The term "athletics club" is sometimes used for a general sports club, rather than one dedicated to athletics proper.


title: Sports club

text: Larger sports clubs are characterized by having professional and amateur departments in various sports such as bike polo, football, basketball, futsal, cricket, volleyball, handball, rink hockey, bowling, water polo, rugby, track and field athletics, boxing, baseball, cycling, tennis, rowing, gymnastics, and others, including less traditional sports such as airsoft, billiards, e-sports, orienteering, paintball, or roller derby. The teams and athletes belonging to a sports club may compete in several different leagues, championships and tournaments wearing the same club colors and using the same club name, sharing also the same club fan base, supporters and facilities.


title: Sports club

text: Many professional sports clubs have an associate system where the affiliated supporters pay an annuity fee. In those cases, supporters become eligible to attend the club's home matches and exhibitions across the entire season, and have the right to practice almost every kind of sport at the club's facilities. Registered associate member fees, attendance receipts, sponsoring contracts, team merchandising, TV rights, and athlete/player transfer fees, are usually the primary sources of sports club financing. In addition, there are sports clubs, or its teams, which are publicly traded and listed on a stock exchange - several professional European football clubs belonging to a larger multistports club are examples of this (namely, Portuguese SADs (Sociedade Anónima Desportiva) such as Sport Lisboa e Benfica and Sporting Clube de Portugal, or Spanish SADs (Sociedad Anónima Deportiva) Real Zaragoza, S.A.D. and Real Betis Balompié S.A.D., as well as Italian clubs like Società Sportiva Lazio S.p.A.).


title: Sports club

text: Some sports teams are owned and financed by a single non-sports company, for example the several sports teams owned by Red Bull GmbH and collectively known as Red Bulls. Other examples of this are the several sports teams owned by Bayer AG and Philips corporations through the Bayer 04 Leverkusen and PSV Eindhoven respectively, that originally were works teams, the teams owned by the Samsung Group (Samsung Sports), and the teams owned by the Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG). They may compete in several different sports and leagues, being headquartered in some cases across several countries.


title: Sports club

text: In the field of competitive club sports, an athlete will typically be registered to only one club for a given discipline and will compete for that club exclusively for the duration of a competition or season. Exceptions to this include player trades and transfers, athlete loan agreements and unattached trialists. Where an athlete competes in multiple disciplines, or where club membership has social or training aspects such as local athletic clubs, then athletes may register with multiple clubs.


title: Sports club

text: Multiple membership is more common in the case of individual sports, such as the sport of athletics, where a distance runner may compete for a track and field team as well as a road running team, and also have further membership at a local sports club for training purposes. Some national sports bodies require an athlete to state a priority order of their club membership, outlining which club has the higher, or first, claim on the athlete's services.


title: Sports club

text: In many regions of the world like Europe, North Africa, West Asia, the Indian subcontinent or Central and South America, sports clubs with several sports departments (multisports clubs) or branches, including highly competitive professional teams, are very popular and have developed into some of the most powerful and representative sports institutions in those places. In general, student sports can be described as composed by multisports clubs, each one representing its educational institution and competing in several sport disciplines.


title: Sports club

text: In the United States major institutions like The New York Athletic Club and Los Angeles Athletic Club serve as athletic clubs that participate in multiple sports. Examples also abound of sports clubs that are in effect one sports team. Each team from the NFL (American football), CFL (Canadian football), NBA (basketball), MLB (baseball), NHL (ice hockey) or MLS (association football) North American sports leagues, can be called sports clubs, but in practice, they focus solely on a single sport. There are some exceptions, especially when multiple such teams are under one ownership structure, in which case the club may be referred to as a "sports and entertainment" company; see, for example, the One Buffalo sports club, which fields an NFL team (the Buffalo Bills), two hockey teams (Buffalo Sabres and Rochester Americans), professional lacrosse (Buffalo Bandits and Rochester Knighthawks), and general athletics and fitness (Impact Sports and Performance). Even in such circumstances, collective bargaining agreements and contract laws generally do not allow a player on one sports team within a sports and entertainment company to automatically play for another team in the same company. On the other hand, American varsity teams are generally organized into a structure forming a true multi-sport club belonging to an educational institution, but varsity collegiate athletics are almost never referred to as clubs; "club sports" in American colleges and universities refer to sports that are not directly sponsored by the colleges but by student organizations (see National Club Football Association and American Collegiate Hockey Association for two leagues consisting entirely of college "club" teams in American football and ice hockey, respectively).


title: Sports club

text: In the United Kingdom, almost all major sports organisations are dedicated to a single sport, the exception to this is Cardiff Athletic Club based in Cardiff, Wales, which is the owner of the Cardiff Arms Park site. It is responsible for much of the premier amateur sporting activities in city with cricket (Cardiff Cricket Club), rugby union (it's the major shareholder of the semi-professional Cardiff Rugby Club), field hockey (Cardiff & Met Hockey Club), tennis (Lisvane (CAC) Tennis Club) and bowls (Cardiff Athletic Bowls Club) sections. Catford Wanderers Sports Club is also a multisports organisation, with badminton, cricket, association football and tennis facilities. In addition, like in several other countries, many universities and colleges develop a wide range of student sport activities including at a professional or semi-professional level. Fulham F.C. once ran a professional rugby league team and rowing club, which other football clubs have emulated since. Many football clubs originate from cricket teams. Today, most major cities have separate clubs for each sport (e.g. Manchester United Football Club and Lancashire County Cricket Club are based in Manchester).


title: Sports club

text: Many clubs internationally describe themselves as football clubs ("FC", "Football Club" in British English and "Fußball-Club" in German; "CF", "Clube de Futebol" in Portuguese and "Club de Fútbol" in Spanish). Generally, British football clubs field only football teams. Their counterparts in several other countries tend to be full multi-sport clubs, even when called football clubs (Futebol Clube do Porto; Fußball-Club Bayern München; Futbol Club Barcelona). The equivalent abbreviation "SC" (for "Soccer Club") is occasionally used in North American English (for example, Nashville SC and Orlando City SC), but a general reluctance to North Americanize the sport terminology means that most North American teams, somewhat ambiguously, as "football" in North American English refers to North American gridiron-style football still use "F.C." in their name instead (e.g. FC Dallas or Toronto FC).


title: Revival (Bulgarian political party)

text: Revival () is an ultranationalist political party in Bulgaria, founded in August 2014. Its chairman is Kostadin Kostadinov. The party is defined by various analysts and media as anti-EU, anti-American and pro-Russian.


title: Revival (Bulgarian political party)

text: In June 2014, Kostadin Kostadinov told media that on 2 August in the same year, in the city of Pliska there would be held a Constituent Assembly which was to create the party "Revival". The initiators choose the day that is the celebrated anniversary of the Ilinden Uprising. Kostadinov founded the party after he became unhappy following Krasimir Karakachanov's reelection as leader of IMRO-BNM in 2012.


title: Revival (Bulgarian political party)

text: The party entered the Bulgarian parliament after the 2021 general election, gaining 13 seats. A member of Revival's parliamentary group left them in June 2022.


title: Revival (Bulgarian political party)

text: The party has promoted conspiracy theories regarding COVID-19 and had strong reservations regarding COVID-19 vaccines.


title: Caroline Langrishe

text: Born in London, Langrishe is the elder daughter of Patrick Nicholas Langrishe (1932–2022), of The Manor House, Sellindge, Kent, a Lieutenant in the 11th Hussars, later Major in the Leicestershire and Derbyshire Yeomanry, and Penelope Jill, daughter of Royal Navy Lieutenant-Commander Kenneth Horley. Patrick Langrishe was the second son of Sir Terence Hume Langrishe, 6th Baronet (1895–1973) and brother of Sir Hercules Langrishe, 7th Baronet. In 1964, she moved with her parents and sister to Kent, where she grew up. She trained at the Elmhurst Ballet School, but after deciding that she could not become a soloist for the Royal Ballet, moved into acting.


title: Caroline Langrishe

text: In 1976, Langrishe made her acting debut when she appeared in the BBC production of "The Glittering Prizes." The next year, she played the role of Kitty in the BBC1 adaptation of "Anna Karenina," before working in the theatre with Peter Gill. Amongst her roles was Anya in Gill's 1978 production of The Cherry Orchard Her first big part was in the 1978 British adaptation of "Les Misérables." That same year, she made her big-screen debut, playing the part of Loretta, the receptionist to Robert Morley's character in "Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?"


title: Caroline Langrishe

text: She also starred as Jane Winters in the futuristic BBC "Play for Today" episode "The Flipside of Dominick Hide" (1980) and its sequel, "Another Flip for Dominick" (1982) both by Jeremy Paul and Alan Gibson. She played Janet Hollywell, wife of Fred Hollywell, in a film adaptation of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" (1984), starring George C. Scott. She also appeared in one episode of "Minder" broadcast in 1984, as Julie, a journalist. Onstage, she played in Kenneth Branagh's production of "Twelfth Night". She became a leading actress, taking the female lead in the BBC detective series "Pulaski" (1987) and appearing in several episodes of "Chancer" (1990).


title: Caroline Langrishe

text: Langrishe is perhaps best known for her role as Charlotte Cavendish in the BBC series "Lovejoy" in which she appeared for two series in 1993–1994. After appearing in some episodes of "The Good Sex Guide" in the mid-1990s, she appeared in "Sharpe's Regiment" (1996) and "Sharpe's Justice" (1997) as the Dowager Countess Anne Camoynes. She played the unhappy landlady to Hywel Bennett's James Shelley in the seventh series of "Shelley" on ITV. She has also appeared in "Heartbeat," in the episode "Echoes of the Past" that aired in December 1998. In 1999 she starred in "Brotherly Love". From 2001 to 2007, she appeared as regular character Georgina Channing, Donald Sinden's daughter, alongside Martin Shaw in the BBC TV drama "Judge John Deed," playing his ex-wife and then joined the BBC medical drama "Casualty," playing executive director Marilyn Fox.


title: Caroline Langrishe

text: In 2010, she played Ros, an 'older woman' in an open marriage in "Pete Versus Life" on Channel 4. In September 2010, she played the character of Susan Fincher in an episode of "Midsomer Murders" entitled Blood on the Saddle. In late December 2011, she appeared in teen soap opera, "Hollyoaks" as Barney Harper-McBride's mother. In December 2014, she appeared as Sheila in the Sky1 television film adaptation of the M. C. Beaton novel "Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death."


title: Caroline Langrishe

text: Langrishe married the actor Patrick Drury in London on 15 November 1984, but the couple divorced in 1995 after having two daughters. She currently lives in Putney and her hobbies include rowing, running, swimming and tennis.


title: Malachi Kirby

text: Malachi Kirby is a British actor and writer. He gained prominence through his roles in the 2016 "Roots" remake and the "Black Mirror" episode "Men Against Fire". He earned a BAFTA for his performance in "Small Axe": "Mangrove".


title: Malachi Kirby

text: Kirby grew up an only child on the Patmore Estate in Battersea. His father died when he was 6. His parents were born in London where his grandparents had arrived from Jamaica. The cast of "Roots" were invited to take DNA tests, and Kirby's results came up as mostly West African with some South Asian and a small amount European. He stated he hopes to do more specific research.


title: Malachi Kirby

text: Kirby attended Southfields Academy. Originally into literature, he discovered acting in year nine through a course at the Battersea Arts Centre. He was admitted to Identity School of Acting in 2007.


title: Malachi Kirby

text: Kirby began his career in theatre, and describes himself as a theatre actor "at heart". He was shortlisted for Outstanding Newcomer at the 2011 "Evening Standard" Theatre Awards after appearing in a production of "Mogadishu". He also appeared in a number of television shows and films, including a stint on "EastEnders" and the lead in the television film "My Murder. He was named a "Screen International" Star of Tomorrow in 2013.


title: Malachi Kirby

text: In 2016, Kirby starred as Kunta Kinte in the American miniseries "Roots", a remake of the 1977 miniseries of the same name. His performance was well received by critics. That October, Kirby starred in an episode of the anthology series "Black Mirror" entitled "Men Against Fire", directed by Jakob Verbruggen.


title: Malachi Kirby

text: He won the Rising Star and Male TV Performance awards at the 2016 and 2017 Screen Nation Film and Television Awards respectively. For "Roots", he also received nominations at the 2017 Black Reel Awards and NAACP Image Awards.


title: Malachi Kirby

text: Kirby went on to star as Michael Garwick in the 2019 Sky One dystopian drama "Curfew" and Oliver Harris in the Italian series "Devils". He penned his first play "Level Up", which first premiered at the Bush Theatre in 2019.


title: Malachi Kirby

text: Kirby landed the role of Darcus Howe in the "Mangrove" installment of Steve McQueen's "Small Axe" anthology, which premiered in 2020. It was the first time he got to play an explicitly Caribbean character. For his performance, he won the 2021 British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actor.


title: Malachi Kirby

text: In September 2021, it was announced Kirby would star opposite Delroy Lindo as both of Mr. Nancy's sons Charlie and Spider in the Amazon Prime adaptation of Neil Gaiman's "Anansi Boys".


title: Sausage roll

text: A sausage roll is a savoury pastry snack, popular in current and former Commonwealth nations, consisting of sausage meat wrapped in puffed pastry. Sausage rolls are sold at retail outlets and are also available from bakeries as a take-away food. A miniature version can be served as buffet or party food.


title: Sausage roll

text: The basic composition of a sausage roll is sheets of puff pastry formed into tubes around sausage meat and glazed with egg or milk before being baked. They can be served either hot or cold. In the 19th century, they were made using shortcrust pastry instead of puff pastry.


title: Sausage roll

text: A vegetarian or vegan approximation of a sausage roll can be made in the same manner, using a meat substitute.


title: Sausage roll

text: In the UK, the bakery chain Greggs sells around 2.5 million sausage rolls per week, or around 140 million per year.


title: Sausage roll

text: The wrapping of meat or other foodstuffs into dough can be traced back to the Classical Greek or Roman eras. However sausage rolls in the modern sense of meat surrounded by rolled pastry, appear to have been conceived at the beginning of the 19th century in France. From the beginning, use was made of flaky pastry, which in turn originated with the Austrian croissant of the late 17th century. Early versions of the roll with pork as a filling proved popular in London during the Napoleonic Wars and it became identified as an English dish.


title: Sausage roll

text: On 20 September 1809, the "Bury and Norwich Post" mentions T. Ling, aged 75, (an industrious vendor of saloop, buns, and sausage rolls). The Times first mentions the food item in 1864 when William Johnstone, "wholesale pork pie manufacturer and sausage roll maker", was fined £15 ("2015: £"), under the Nuisances Removal Act (Amendment) Act 1863, for having on his premises a large quantity of meat unsound, unwholesome and unfit for food. In 1894, a theft case provided further insights into the Victorian sausage roll production whereby the accused apprentice was taught to soak brown bread in red ochre, salt, and pepper to give the appearance of beef sausage for the filling.


title: Sausage roll

text: Similar meat and pastry recipes include the Czech "klobásník", the Belgian "worstenbroodje", the Dutch "saucijzenbroodje", the German "Münsterländer Wurstbrötchen" and sausage bread in the United States.


title: Sausage roll

text: Hong Kong has developed its own style of sausage roll. Instead of having sausage meat wrapped in puff pastry like the traditional western style, the Hong Kong style "sausage bun" (Chinese: 腸仔包) consists of a sausage wrapped inside a soft milk bread style bun.


title: Imprint (trade name)

text: An imprint of a publisher is a trade name under which it publishes a work. A single publishing company may have multiple imprints, often using the different names as brands to market works to various demographic consumer segments.


title: Imprint (trade name)

text: An imprint of a publisher is a trade name—a name that a business uses for trading commercial products or services—under which a work is published. Imprints typically have a defining character or mission. In some cases, the diversity results from the takeover of smaller publishers (or parts of their business) by a larger company. In the case of Barnes & Noble, imprints have been used to facilitate the venture of a bookseller into publishing.


title: Imprint (trade name)

text: In the video game industry, some game companies operate various publishing labels with Take-Two Interactive credited as "the father of label" in their case the labels are wholly owned incorporated entities with their own publishing and distributing, sales and marketing infrastructure and management teams and their own respective subsidiaries also incorporated (Rockstar North Limited, 2K Vegas, Inc.). This model has influenced rivals including Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax, Electronic Arts from 2008–2018, Warner Bros. Interactive, Embracer Group, and Koei Tecmo. Take-Two have had such models in place since 1997–1998, and is seen as "a game holding company with autonomous game publishing and development subsidiaries".


title: Imprint (trade name)

text: Independently-owned game publishers like Devolver Digital also use the word label to describe itself.


title: Imprint (trade name)

text: A single publishing company may have multiple imprints, with the different imprints often used by the publisher to market works to different demographic consumer segments. For example, the objective of Viking—an imprint of the Penguin Group—is "[t]o publish a strictly limited list of good nonfiction, such as biography, history and works on contemporary affairs, and distinguished fiction with some claim to permanent importance rather than ephemeral popular interest."


title: Sandip Ray

text: Sandip Ray (born 8 September 1953) is an Indian film director and music director who mainly works in Bengali cinema. He is the only child of the famous Bengali director Satyajit Ray and Bijoya Ray.


title: Sandip Ray

text: Sandip Ray was born in Calcutta. Initially schooled at the South Point School and the Patha Bhavan, Kolkata, he subsequently attended the University of Calcutta.


title: Sandip Ray

text: Ray started his professional career in film at the age of 24 as assistant director on the sets of his father's film "Shatranj Ke Khilari" ("The Chess Players", 1977). Prior to this, he had aided his father in various capacities including still photographer on set. His own directorial debut was "Phatik Chand" (1983) based on Satyajit Ray's Fatik Chand – the film received an award in the International Children's Film Festival in Vancouver.


title: Sandip Ray

text: Sandip Ray is also a noted photographer. He was the director of photography on Satyajit Ray's last three films, "Ganashatru" ("An Enemy of the People", 1989), "Shakha Proshakha" ("The Branches of the Tree", 1990) and "Agantuk" ("The Stranger", 1991).


title: Sandip Ray

text: Sandip Ray also guided the children's magazine "Sandesh", which was founded by his great-grandfather Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury, and continued by his grandfather Sukumar Ray and his father Satyajit Ray. From 1992, after the death of Satyajit, Sandip was the Joint Editor of the Sandesh. Since 2003 he has been the editor of the magazine.


title: Sandip Ray

text: Sandip Ray has recently come up with his account of the time he has had with Feluda, the famous Bengali detective created by his father, in a book named "Aami aar Feluda", published by Deep Prakashan. "Aami aar Feluda" was one of the best sellers in the last Kolkata Book Fair. First published in the magazine "Sukhi Grihokon" as a short series, "Aami aar Feluda" retains the flavour of "Ekei Bole Shooting", written by Satyajit Ray. Sandip's book deals with the background stories of all Feluda movies and telefilms. "Aami aar Feluda" is ghost-written by author Sebabrata Banerjee. Sebabrata has tried to follow the smart and fluent style of writing introduced by Satyajit Ray which has made the new Feluda number a good reading experience. He has made a video-documentary film on the late Kishore Kumar in the year 1989.


title: Sandip Ray

text: In 2003, Sandip Ray began working on adapting his father Satyajit Ray's original 1962 story "Bankhubabur Bandhu" into a Bengali television film of the same name. The film, directed by Kaushik Sen, was eventually shown on Indian television in 2006. He started to score background music for Feluda from the film "Bombaiyer Bombete" (2003). Sandip Ray used his first written thriller story for his own directed film "Hitlist", 2009. In 2016, he directed a new Feluda film titled "Double Feluda" which is the sequel to "Royal Bengal Rohosso" (2011). During the shooting of "Double Feluda", produced by Eros International, Sandip Ray filmed his father's famous library.


title: Sandip Ray

text: Currently he is directing a new film titled "Professor Shonku O El Dorado", based on a story of Satyajit Ray's Professor Shonku series called "Nakur Babu O El Dorado". The film will star veteran actor Dhritiman Chatterjee as Professor Shonku. The film is being produced by SVF Entertainment.


title: Marathon des Sables

text: Marathon des Sables, or MdS, (French for Marathon of the Sands, also known as Sahara Marathon) is a six-day, ultramarathon, which is approximately the distance of six regular marathons. The longest single stage (2009) is long.


title: Marathon des Sables

text: This multiday race is held every year in southern Morocco, in the Sahara Desert. It has been regarded as the toughest foot race on Earth. The first event of the Marathon started in 1986.


title: Marathon des Sables

text: The marathon was the brainchild of French concert promoter Patrick Bauer who in 1984 traversed the Sahara desert on foot and alone. He covered 350 km (214 mi) in 12 days without encountering a single oasis or desert community along the way. Two years later in 1986 the first "Marathon des Sables" was run. Twenty-three runners participated in the race with Bernard Gaudin and Christiane Plumere, both of France, finishing as the winning man and woman.


title: Marathon des Sables

text: By 2009 over 1,000 runners participated in the event and the "Solidarité Marathon des Sables" association was created. The aim is to develop projects to assist children and disadvantaged populations in the domains of health, education and sustainable development in Morocco.


title: Marathon des Sables

text: In 2017, two new "Marathon des Sables" events took place for the first time: the "Half Marathon des Sables" on Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands in September, and another full-length "Marathon des Sables" event in Peru in November.


title: Marathon des Sables

text: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the 2020 Marathon des Sables (35ème) was postponed from 3–13 April to 18–28 September, following a warning officially issued by the Ministry of the Interior of the Kingdom of Morocco as stated in the marathon's official website. It was eventually cancelled.


title: Alastair Windsor, 2nd Duke of Connaught and Strathearn

text: Alastair Arthur Windsor, 2nd Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (9 August 1914 – 26 April 1943) was a member of the British Royal Family. He was the only child of Prince Arthur of Connaught and Princess Alexandra, 2nd Duchess of Fife. He was a great-grandson of Queen Victoria through his father and the first great-grandchild of Edward VII through his mother. He was also a descendant of Victoria's paternal uncle and predecessor, William IV, through an illegitimate line.


text: In 1942, he became the second Duke of Connaught and Strathearn and Earl of Sussex when he inherited his grandfather's title. In 1943, at the age of 28, he died of exposure in Canada.


text: Alastair was born on 9 August 1914 at his parents' home at 54 Mount Street, Mayfair, London (now the Brazilian Embassy). His father was Prince Arthur of Connaught, the only son of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, and Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia. His mother was Princess Alexandra, 2nd Duchess of Fife, the eldest daughter of Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife, and Louise, Princess Royal. Alastair was thus a great-grandchild of Queen Victoria through his father and great-great grandchild of her through his mother.


text: Alastair was baptised on 1 September 1914 at his parents' home and his godparents were King George V (his maternal great-uncle and his father's paternal cousin), King Alfonso XIII of Spain (for whom Lord Farquhar, a Lord in Waiting to King George, stood proxy), Queen Alexandra (his maternal great-grandmother and paternal great-aunt), the Duke of Connaught (his grandfather, for whom the Duke's equerry Major Malcolm Murray stood proxy), Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll (his great aunt), and Princess Mary (his cousin).


text: Alastair was born shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, during which George V restructured the royal family by restricting the titles of prince and princess to the children of the sovereign, the children of the sovereign's sons, and the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales. This excluded Alastair from a princely title, but as the heir apparent to his mother's "suo jure" dukedom of Fife, he was entitled to use her secondary peerage Earl of Macduff as a courtesy title.


text: Lord Macduff was educated at Bryanston and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned on 31 January 1935 as a second lieutenant into the Royal Scots Greys (2nd Dragoons), his father's regiment, then based in Egypt. On 14 July 1939, Lord Macduff was promoted to lieutenant and was later assigned to Ottawa as aide-de-camp to his kinsman the Earl of Athlone, then Governor General of Canada; his own grandfather had held the same post during the First World War.


text: His father having died in 1938, Alastair succeeded, on his grandfather's death in 1942, to the titles Duke of Connaught and Strathearn and Earl of Sussex. However, he died in 1943 at the age of 28 "on active service" in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in unusual circumstances. Newspapers at the time reported that he died of "natural causes."


text: Theo Aronson, in his 1981 biography of Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, simply stated that the Duke "was found dead on the floor of his room at Rideau Hall on the morning of 26 April 1943. He had died, apparently, from hypothermia." The diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles, King George VI's private secretary, published in 2006, recorded that both the regiment and Athlone had rejected him as incompetent, and he fell out of a window when drunk and perished of hypothermia overnight.


text: In 1942, on the inheritance of his paternal grandfather's dukedom, he was granted arms, being, quarterly, first and fourth his paternal grandfather's arms (being the royal arms, differenced with a three-point label argent, the first and third points bearing fleurs-de-lys azure, the second a cross gules), second and third his maternal grandfather's arms (quartering Fife and Duff).


text: Upon his death, the Dukedom of Connaught and Strathearn and the Earldom of Sussex became extinct. His first cousin, James Carnegie (23 September 1929 – 22 June 2015), succeeded as 3rd Duke of Fife and Earl of Macduff upon Princess Alexandra's death on 26 February 1959.


title: A Holly Jolly Christmas

text: "A Holly Jolly Christmas" (also called "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas") is a Christmas song written by Johnny Marks and most famously performed by Burl Ives. The song has since become one of the top 25 most-performed "holiday" songs written by ASCAP members, for the first five years of the 21st century.


title: A Holly Jolly Christmas

text: "A Holly Jolly Christmas" was written by Johnny Marks in 1962. It was the title song of The Quinto Sisters' first album, "Holly Jolly Christmas", recorded in June 1964 for Columbia Records, featuring guitarist Al Caiola with arrangements by Frank Hunter and Marty Manning.


title: A Holly Jolly Christmas

text: The song was featured in the 1964 Rankin-Bass Christmas special, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", in which Burl Ives voiced the narrator, Sam the Snowman. Originally to be sung by Larry D. Mann as Yukon Cornelius, the song, as well as "Silver and Gold", was given to Ives due to his singing fame. This version was also included on the soundtrack album.


title: A Holly Jolly Christmas

text: The song was re-recorded by Ives and released in 1964 as a single and later featured the following year in his 1965 holiday album, "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas". This version of the song has a somewhat slower arrangement than the "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" version and features a twelve-string guitar solo introduction; it is this version that has since become the more commonly heard rendition on radio. This song mentions mistletoe in the bridge, where the singer asks the younger lover to "Kiss her once for me". The song features a mixed-gender chorus, whose repeated "Ding-dong" imitation of Christmas bells are heard in the outro of the song, before it fades out.


title: A Holly Jolly Christmas

text: The song's enduring popularity is evidenced by its reaching No. 30 on the "Billboard" Adult Contemporary chart in 1998, as well as No. 21 on the US Country Digital Songs chart and No. 5 on the Holiday 100 chart in 2011. The song charted on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in 2017, after rules on chart eligibility for older songs had been relaxed several years before, and reached a peak of No. 38.


title: A Holly Jolly Christmas

text: On the week ending December 8, 2018, the song re-entered the Hot 100 chart. It reached No. 10 on the week ending January 5, 2019. On the week ending January 4, 2020, it reached a new peak of No. 4. With this feat, Ives now holds the record for the longest break between Hot 100 Top Tens as he returned to this minimum ranking after 56 years, seven months and two weeks since his previous Top 10 hit and, at 109 years after birth, surpassing Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" (which reached the Top 40 when Armstrong would have been 86 years old) as the oldest artist, living or deceased, to have a Top 40 hit. As of December 2019, Burl Ives' recording has sold 664,000 copies in the United States since becoming available for download in the digital era.


title: Graph isomorphism

text: In graph theory, an isomorphism of graphs "G" and "H" is a bijection between the vertex sets of "G" and "H"


title: Graph isomorphism

text: such that any two vertices "u" and "v" of "G" are adjacent in "G" if and only if formula_2 and formula_3 are adjacent in "H". This kind of bijection is commonly described as "edge-preserving bijection", in accordance with the general notion of isomorphism being a structure-preserving bijection.


title: Graph isomorphism

text: If an isomorphism exists between two graphs, then the graphs are called isomorphic and denoted as formula_4. In the case when the bijection is a mapping of a graph onto itself, i.e., when "G" and "H" are one and the same graph, the bijection is called an automorphism of "G".


title: Graph isomorphism

text: If a graph is finite, we can prove it to be bijective by showing it is one-one/onto; no need to show both.


title: Graph isomorphism

text: Graph isomorphism is an equivalence relation on graphs and as such it partitions the class of all graphs into equivalence classes. A set of graphs isomorphic to each other is called an isomorphism class of graphs. The question of whether graph isomorphism can be determined in polynomial time is a major unsolved problem in computer science.


title: Graph isomorphism

text: In the above definition, graphs are understood to be undirected non-labeled non-weighted graphs. However, the notion of isomorphic may be applied to all other variants of the notion of graph, by adding the requirements to preserve the corresponding additional elements of structure: arc directions, edge weights, etc., with the following exception.


title: Graph isomorphism

text: Under one definition, an isomorphism is a vertex bijection which is both edge-preserving and label-preserving.


title: Graph isomorphism

text: Under another definition, an isomorphism is an edge-preserving vertex bijection which preserves equivalence classes of labels, i.e., vertices with equivalent (e.g., the same) labels are mapped onto the vertices with equivalent labels and vice versa; same with edge labels.


title: Graph isomorphism

text: For example, the formula_5 graph with the two vertices labelled with 1 and 2 has a single automorphism under the first definition, but under the second definition there are two auto-morphisms.


title: Graph isomorphism

text: The second definition is assumed in certain situations when graphs are endowed with "unique labels" commonly taken from the integer range 1...,"n", where "n" is the number of the vertices of the graph, used only to uniquely identify the vertices. In such cases two labeled graphs are sometimes said to be isomorphic if the corresponding underlying unlabeled graphs are isomorphic (otherwise the definition of isomorphism would be trivial).


title: Graph isomorphism

text: The formal notion of "isomorphism", e.g., of "graph isomorphism", captures the informal notion that some objects have "the same structure" if one ignores individual distinctions of "atomic" components of objects in question. Whenever individuality of "atomic" components (vertices and edges, for graphs) is important for correct representation of whatever is modeled by graphs, the model is refined by imposing additional restrictions on the structure, and other mathematical objects are used: digraphs, labeled graphs, colored graphs, rooted trees and so on. The isomorphism relation may also be defined for all these generalizations of graphs: the isomorphism bijection must preserve the elements of structure which define the object type in question: arcs, labels, vertex/edge colors, the root of the rooted tree, etc.


title: Graph isomorphism

text: The notion of "graph isomorphism" allows us to distinguish graph properties inherent to the structures of graphs themselves from properties associated with graph representations: graph drawings, data structures for graphs, graph labelings, etc. For example, if a graph has exactly one cycle, then all graphs in its isomorphism class also have exactly one cycle. On the other hand, in the common case when the vertices of a graph are ("represented" by) the integers 1, 2... "N", then the expression


title: Graph isomorphism

text: The Whitney graph isomorphism theorem, shown by Hassler Whitney, states that two connected graphs are isomorphic if and only if their line graphs are isomorphic, with a single exception: "K", the complete graph on three vertices, and the complete bipartite graph "K", which are not isomorphic but both have "K" as their line graph. The Whitney graph theorem can be extended to hypergraphs.


title: Graph isomorphism

text: While graph isomorphism may be studied in a classical mathematical way, as exemplified by the Whitney theorem, it is recognized that it is a problem to be tackled with an algorithmic approach. The computational problem of determining whether two finite graphs are isomorphic is called the graph isomorphism problem.


title: Graph isomorphism

text: Its practical applications include primarily cheminformatics, mathematical chemistry (identification of chemical compounds), and electronic design automation (verification of equivalence of various representations of the design of an electronic circuit).


title: Graph isomorphism

text: The graph isomorphism problem is one of few standard problems in computational complexity theory belonging to NP, but not known to belong to either of its well-known (and, if P ≠ NP, disjoint) subsets: P and NP-complete. It is one of only two, out of 12 total, problems listed in whose complexity remains unresolved, the other being integer factorization. It is however known that if the problem is NP-complete then the polynomial hierarchy collapses to a finite level.


title: Graph isomorphism

text: In November 2015, László Babai, a mathematician and computer scientist at the University of Chicago, claimed to have proven that the graph isomorphism problem is solvable in quasi-polynomial time. He published preliminary versions of these results in the proceedings of the 2016 Symposium on Theory of Computing, and of the 2018 International Congress of Mathematicians. In January 2017, Babai briefly retracted the quasi-polynomiality claim and stated a sub-exponential time complexity bound instead. He restored the original claim five days later. , the full journal version of Babai's paper has not yet been published.


title: Graph isomorphism

text: The main areas of research for the problem are design of fast algorithms and theoretical investigations of its computational complexity, both for the general problem and for special classes of graphs.


title: Mathematical operators and symbols in Unicode

text: Unicode Technical Report #25 provides comprehensive information about the character repertoire, their properties, and guidelines for implementation.


text: Mathematical operators and symbols are in multiple Unicode blocks. Some of these blocks are dedicated to, or primarily contain, mathematical characters while others are a mix of mathematical and non-mathematical characters. This article covers all Unicode characters with a derived property of "Math".


text: The Mathematical Operators block (U+2200–U+22FF) contains characters for mathematical, logical, and set notation.


text: The Supplemental Mathematical Operators block (U+2A00–U+2AFF) contains various mathematical symbols, including N-ary operators, summations and integrals, intersections and unions, logical and relational operators, and subset/superset relations.


text: The Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block (U+1D400–U+1D7FF) contains Latin and Greek letters and decimal digits that enable mathematicians to denote different notions with different letter styles. The reserved code points (the "holes") in the alphabetic ranges up to U+1D551 duplicate characters in the Letterlike Symbols block.


text: The Letterlike Symbols block (U+2100–U+214F) includes variables. Most alphabetic math symbols are in the Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block shown above.


text: The math subset of this block is U+2102, U+2107, U+210A–U+2113, U+2115, U+2118–U+2119, U+2124, U+2128–U+2129, U+212C, U+212F, U+2133, U+2135, U+213C–U+2149, and U+214B.


text: The Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-A block (U+27C0–U+27EF) contains characters for mathematical, logical, and database notation.


text: The Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-B block (U+2980–U+29FF) contains miscellaneous mathematical symbols, including brackets, angles, and circle symbols.


text: The math subset of this block is U+2308–U+230B, U+2320-U+2321, U+237C, U+239B-U+23B5, 23B7, U+23D0, and U+23DC-U+23E2.


text: The math subset of this block is U+25A0–25A1, U+25AE–25B7, U+25BC–25C1, U+25C6–25C7, U+25CA–25CB, U+25CF–25D3, U+25E2, U+25E4, U+25E7–25EC, and U+25F8–25FF.


text: The Miscellaneous Symbols and Arrows block (U+2B00–U+2BFF Arrows) contains arrows and geometric shapes with various fills.


text: The Arrows block (U+2190–U+21FF) contains line, curve, and semicircle arrows and arrow-like operators.


text: The Supplemental Arrows-B block (U+2900–U+297F) contains arrows and arrow-like operators (arrow tails, crossing arrows, curved arrows, and harpoons).


text: The Combining Diacritical Marks for Symbols block contains arrows, dots, enclosures, and overlays for modifying symbol characters.


text: The Arabic Mathematical Alphabetic Symbols block (U+1EE00–U+1EEFF) contains characters used in Arabic mathematical expressions.


text: Mathematical characters also appear in other blocks. Below is a list of these characters as of Unicode version 15.0:


title: Grain elevator

text: A grain elevator is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lower level and deposits it in a silo or other storage facility.


title: Grain elevator

text: In most cases, the term "grain elevator" also describes the entire elevator complex, including receiving and testing offices, weighbridges, and storage facilities. It may also mean organizations that operate or control several individual elevators, in different locations. In Australia, the term describes only the lifting mechanism.


title: Grain elevator

text: Before the advent of the grain elevator, grain was usually handled in bags rather than in bulk (large quantities of loose grain). Dart's Elevator was a major innovation. It was invented by Joseph Dart, a merchant, and Robert Dunbar, an engineer, in 1842 and 1843, in Buffalo, New York. Using the steam-powered flour mills of Oliver Evans as their model, they invented the marine leg, which scooped loose grain out of the hulls of ships and elevated it to the top of a marine tower.


title: Grain elevator

text: Early grain elevators and bins were often built of framed or cribbed wood, and were prone to fire. Grain-elevator bins, tanks, and silos are now usually made of steel or reinforced concrete. Bucket elevators are used to lift grain to a distributor or consignor, from which it falls through spouts and/or conveyors and into one or more bins, silos, or tanks in a facility. When desired, silos, bins, and tanks are emptied by gravity flow, sweep augers, and conveyors. As grain is emptied from bins, tanks, and silos, it is conveyed, blended, and weighted into trucks, railroad cars, or barges for shipment.


title: Grain elevator

text: In Australian English, the term "grain elevator" is reserved for elevator towers, while a receival and storage building or complex is distinguished by the formal term "receival point" or as a "wheat bin" or "silo". Large-scale grain receival, storage, and logistics operations are known in Australia as bulk handling.


title: Grain elevator

text: In Canada, the term "grain elevator" is used to refer to a place where farmers sell grain into the global grain distribution system, and/or a place where the grain is moved into rail cars or ocean-going ships for transport. Specifically, several types of grain elevators are defined under Canadian law, in the "Canadian Grain Act", section 2.


title: Grain elevator

text: Both necessity and the prospect of making money gave birth to the steam-powered grain elevator in Buffalo, New York, in 1843. Due to the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, Buffalo enjoyed a unique position in American geography. It stood at the intersection of two great all-water routes; one extended from New York Harbor, up the Hudson River to Albany, and beyond it, the Port of Buffalo; the other comprised the Great Lakes, which could theoretically take boaters in any direction they wished to go (north to Canada, west to Michigan or Wisconsin, south to Toledo and Cleveland, or east to the Atlantic Ocean). All through the 1830s, Buffalo benefited tremendously from its position. In particular, it was the recipient of most of the increasing quantities of grain (mostly wheat) that was being grown on farms in Ohio and Indiana, and shipped on Lake Erie for trans-shipment to the Erie Canal. If Buffalo had not been there, or when things got backed up there, that grain would have been loaded onto boats at Cincinnati and shipped down the Mississippi River to New Orleans.


title: Grain elevator

text: By 1842, Buffalo's port facilities clearly had become antiquated. They still relied upon techniques that had been in use since the European Middle Ages; work teams of stevedores use block and tackles and their own backs to unload or load each sack of grain that had been stored ashore or in the boat's hull. Several days, sometimes even a week, were needed to serve a single grain-laden boat. Grain shipments were going down the Mississippi River, not over the Great Lakes/Erie Canal system.


title: Grain elevator

text: A merchant named Joseph Dart Jr., is generally credited as being the one who adapted Oliver Evans' grain elevator (originally a manufacturing device) for use in a commercial framework (the trans-shipment of grain in bulk from lakers to canal boats), but the actual design and construction of the world's first steam-powered "grain storage and transfer warehouse" was executed by an engineer named Robert Dunbar. Thanks to the historic Dart's Elevator (operational on 1 June 1843), which worked almost seven times faster than its nonmechanized predecessors, Buffalo was able to keep pace with—and thus further stimulate—the rapid growth of American agricultural production in the 1840s and 1850s, but especially after the Civil War, with the coming of the railroads.


title: Grain elevator

text: The world's second and third grain elevators were built in Toledo, Ohio, and Brooklyn, New York, in 1847. These fledgling American cities were connected through an emerging international grain trade of unprecedented proportions. Grain shipments from farms in Ohio were loaded onto ships by elevators at Toledo; these ships were unloaded by elevators at Buffalo that shipped their grain to canal boats (and, later, rail cars), which were unloaded by elevators in Brooklyn, where the grain was either distributed to East Coast flour mills or loaded for further shipment to England, the Netherlands, or Germany. This eastern flow of grain, though, was matched by an equally important flow of people and capital in the opposite direction, that is, from east to west. Because of the money to be made in grain production, and of course, because of the existence of an all-water route to get there, increasing numbers of immigrants in Brooklyn came to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to become farmers. More farmers meant more prairies turned into farmlands, which in turn meant increased grain production, which of course meant that more grain elevators would have to be built in places such as Toledo, Buffalo, and Brooklyn (and Cleveland, Chicago, and Duluth). Through this loop of productivity set in motion by the invention of the grain elevator, the United States became a major international producer of wheat, corn, and oats.


title: Grain elevator

text: In the early 20th century, concern arose about monopolistic practices in the grain elevator industry, leading to testimony before the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1906. This led to several grain elevators being burned down in Nebraska, allegedly in protest.


title: Grain elevator

text: Today, grain elevators are a common sight in the grain-growing areas of the world, such as the North American prairies. Larger terminal elevators are found at distribution centers, such as Chicago and Thunder Bay, Ontario, where grain is sent for processing, or loaded aboard trains or ships to go further afield.


title: Grain elevator

text: Buffalo, New York, the world's largest grain port from the 1850s until the first half of the 20th century, once had the United States' largest capacity for the storage of grain in over 30 concrete grain elevators located along the inner and outer harbors. While several are still in productive use, many of those that remain are presently idle. In a nascent trend, some of the city's inactive capacity has recently come back online, with an ethanol plant started in 2007 using one of the previously mothballed elevators to store corn. In the early 20th century, Buffalo's grain elevators inspired modernist architects such as Le Corbusier, who exclaimed, "The first fruits of the new age!" when he first saw them. Buffalo's grain elevators have been documented for the Historic American Engineering Record and added to the National Register of Historic Places. Currently, Enid, Oklahoma, holds the title of most grain storage capacity in the United States.


title: Grain elevator

text: In farming communities, each town had one or more small grain elevators that served the local growers. The classic grain elevator was constructed with wooden cribbing and had nine or more larger square or rectangular bins arranged in 3 × 3 or 3 × 4 or 4 × 4 or more patterns. Wooden-cribbed elevators usually had a driveway with truck scale and office on one side, a rail line on the other side, and additional grain-storage annex bins on either side.


title: Grain elevator

text: In more recent times with improved transportation, centralized and much larger elevators serve many farms. Some of them are quite large. Two elevators in Kansas (one in Hutchinson and one in Wichita) are half a mile long. The loss of the grain elevators from small towns is often considered a great change in their identity, and efforts to preserve them as heritage structures are made. At the same time, many larger grain farms have their own grain-handling facilities for storage and loading onto trucks.


title: Grain elevator

text: Elevator operators buy grain from farmers, either for cash or at a contracted price, and then sell futures contracts for the same quantity of grain, usually each day. They profit through the narrowing "basis", that is, the difference between the local cash price, and the futures price, that occurs at certain times of the year.


title: Grain elevator

text: Before economical truck transportation was available, grain elevator operators sometimes used their purchasing power to control prices. This was especially easy, since farmers often had only one elevator within a reasonable distance of their farms. This led some governments to take over the administration of grain elevators. An example of this is the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. For the same reason, many elevators were purchased by cooperatives.


title: Grain elevator

text: A recent problem with grain elevators is the need to provide separate storage for ordinary and genetically modified grain to reduce the risk of accidental mixing of the two.


title: Grain elevator

text: In the past, grain elevators sometimes experienced silo explosions. Fine powder from the millions of grains passing through the facility would accumulate and mix with the oxygen in the air. A spark could spread from one floating particle to the other, creating a chain reaction that would destroy the entire structure. (This dispersed-fuel explosion is the mechanism behind fuel-air bombs.) To prevent this, elevators have very rigorous rules against smoking or any other open flame. Many elevators also have various devices installed to maximize ventilation, safeguards against overheating in belt conveyors, legs, bearings, and explosion-proof electrical devices such as electric motors, switches, and lighting.


title: Grain elevator

text: Grain elevators in small Canadian communities often had the name of the community painted on two sides of the elevator in large block letters, with the name of the elevator operator emblazoned on the other two sides. This made identification of the community easier for rail operators (and incidentally, for lost drivers and pilots). The old community name often remained on an elevator long after the town had either disappeared or been amalgamated into another community; the grain elevator at Ellerslie, Alberta, remained marked with its old community name until it was demolished, which took place more than 20 years after the village had been annexed by Edmonton.


title: Grain elevator

text: One of the major historical trends in the grain trade has been the closure of many smaller elevators, and the consolidation the grain trade to fewer places and among fewer companies. For example, in 1961, 1642 "country elevators" (the smallest type) were in Alberta, holding of grain. By 2010. only 79 "primary elevators" (as they are now known) remained, holding .


title: Grain elevator

text: The city of Buffalo is not only the birthplace of the modern grain elevator, but also has the world's largest number of extant examples. A number of the city's historic elevators are clustered along "Elevator Alley", a narrow stretch of the Buffalo River immediately adjacent to the harbor. The alley runs under Ohio Street and along Childs Street in the city's First Ward neighborhood.


title: Grain elevator

text: In Canada, the term "elevator row" refers to a row of four or more wood-crib prairie grain elevators.


title: Grain elevator

text: In the early pioneer days of Western Canada's prairie towns, when a good farming spot was settled, many people wanted to make money by building their own grain elevators. This brought in droves of private grain companies. Towns boasted dozens of elevator companies, which all stood in a row along the railway tracks. If a town were lucky enough to have two railways, it was to be known as the next Montreal. Many elevator rows had two or more elevators of the same company. Small towns bragged of their large elevator rows in promotional pamphlets to attract settlers. With so much competition in the 1920s, consolidation began almost immediately, and many small companies were merged or absorbed into larger companies.


title: Grain elevator

text: In the mid-1990s, with the cost of grain so low, many private elevator companies once again had to merge, this time causing thousands of "prairie sentinels" to be torn down. Because so many grain elevators have been torn down, Canada has only two surviving elevator rows; one located in Inglis, Manitoba, and the other in Warner, Alberta. The Inglis Grain Elevators National Historic Site has been protected as a National Historic Sites of Canada. The Warner elevator row is, as of 2019, not designated a historic site, and is still in use as commercial grain elevators.


title: Grain elevator

text: During the Battle of Stalingrad, one particularly well-defended Soviet strongpoint was known simply as "the Grain Elevator" and was strategically important to both sides.


title: Grain elevator

text: This is a list of grain elevators that are either in the process of becoming heritage sites or museums, or have been preserved for future generations.


title: Grain elevator

text: The Manchester Ship Canal grain elevator was completed in 1898. It had a capacity of 40,000 tons and its automatic conveying and spouting system could distribute grain into 226 bins.


title: Grain elevator

text: Given a large enough suspension of combustible flour or grain dust in the air, a significant explosion can occur. A historical example of the destructive power of grain explosions is the 1878 explosion of the Washburn "A" Mill in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which killed 18, leveled two nearby mills, damaged many others, and caused a destructive fire that gutted much of the nearby milling district. (The Washburn "A" mill was later rebuilt and continued to be used until 1965.) Another example occurred in 1998, when the DeBruce grain elevator in Wichita, Kansas, exploded and killed seven people. A recent example is an explosion on October 29, 2011 at the Bartlett Grain Company in Atchison, Kansas. The death toll was six people. Two more men received severe burns, but the remaining four were not hurt.


title: Grain elevator

text: Almost any finely divided organic substance becomes an explosive material when dispersed as an air suspension; hence, a very fine flour is dangerously explosive in air suspension. This poses a significant risk when milling grain to produce flour, so mills go to great lengths to remove sources of sparks. These measures include carefully sifting the grain before it is milled or ground to remove stones, which could strike sparks from the millstones, and the use of magnets to remove metallic debris able to strike sparks.


title: Grain elevator

text: The earliest recorded flour explosion took place in an Italian mill in 1785, but many have occurred since. These two references give numbers of recorded flour and dust explosions in the United States in 1994: and 1997 In the ten-year period up to and including 1997, there were 129 explosions.


title: Grain elevator

text: Canadian Prairie grain elevators were the subjects of the National Film Board of Canada documentaries "Grain Elevator" and "Death of a Skyline".