text: They confront Mr. Electric in his lair, but he drops them into the Dream Graveyard, where many of Max's dreams have been dumped. They find Tobor, a robot toy Max never finished building after being discouraged by his father. Tobor carries them to other parts of the planet. The three of them bond during their journey but face hardships, such as Sharkboy's anger that the oceans are frozen over and Lavagirl's desperation to find her true purpose. While being pursued by Mr. Electric and his evil plug-hounds, they plan to reach the Ice Princess and obtain the Crystal Heart, with which they could freeze time, granting them enough time to reach the center of Planet Drool and for Max to repair the dreamworld by re-dreaming it. Instead, they are captured by Mr. Electric and delivered to the mastermind, who is revealed to be Minus, a villain resembling Linus who has altered Max's journal and hence the dreamworld. After being trapped in a cage, Sharkboy becomes enraged by singing bubbles and destroys the cell in a "shark frenzy". Max retrieves his dream journal while Minus is sleeping. Reading the book, Max informs Sharkboy that his father is still alive, but when Lavagirl wishes to learn what it says about her true identity, she grabs the book, and it burns to ash. In a desperate rage, Lavagirl asks Max why he made her out of lava and runs off. Max wants to follow, but Sharkboy tells him to let her cool down.


title: The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D

text: The three eventually reach the Ice Princess, who resembles Marissa. She hands over the Crystal Heart, but they cannot stop the corruption since the Ice Princess is the only one who can use the Crystal Heart's power and cannot leave her home. Afterward, Mr. Electric knocks Sharkboy unconscious by tricking him into jumping into a lake filled with electric eels, which are his weakness. Lavagirl sacrifices herself by jumping into the water to retrieve him. Max realizes he has been selfish in wanting to return to Earth. Tobor appears and convinces Max to dream a better, unselfish dream. Just then, Sharkboy regains consciousness and races Lavagirl to a volcano to revive her. Max realizes that Lavagirl's purpose is as a light against the darkness, engulfing Planet Drool. Max becomes the Daydreamer and gains reality-warping powers to defeat Minus. He then offers that the two join to make a better dreamworld, and Minus agrees. Lavagirl thanks Max and Sharkboy for saving her.


text: Minus offers to let Mr. Electric return to running Planet Drool, but Mr. Electric reveals that he never enjoyed doing so in the first place. He tells Max that he made a terrible mistake of dreaming him up and flies to Earth to kill Max while he is dreaming. Max awakens back in his classroom during the tornado storm. Mr. Electric arrives in the tornado in front of the class and an astonished Mr. Electricidad. Max's parents are caught in the tornado but are saved by Sharkboy and Lavagirl. Max gives the Crystal Heart to Marissa so she can use the Ice Princess's powers to freeze and destroy Mr. Electric. Mr. Electricidad, Linus, and Max make peace with one another, and Max reunites with his now-reconciled parents.


text: Later, Max informs his class that Planet Drool is a proper dreamworld again, that Sharkboy is now King of the Ocean and that Lavagirl is Queen of Earth's Volcanoes. As Max finally repairs Tobor, he reminds the class (and the audience) to "dream a better dream and work to make it real".


text: Director Robert Rodriguez has an uncredited role voicing a shark, and his children, Rebel and Racer, portray Sharkboy at age five and age seven respectively. Rico Torres portrays Sharkboy's father. Marc Musso and Shane Graham play children at Max's school.


text: Parts of the film were shot on location in Texas from September to December 2004, where Max resides and goes to school in the film. Much of the film was shot in a studio against green screen. Most of the ships, landscapes and other effects including some creatures and characters, were accomplished digitally. According to Lautner and Dooley, when filming the scene with the dream train, the front part of the train was an actual physical set piece. "The whole inside was there and when they have all the gadgets you can pull on, that was all there but everything else was a green screen," said Dooley.


text: Eleven visual effects companies (Hybride Technologies, CafeFX, The Orphanage, Post Logic, Hy*drau*lx, Industrial Light & Magic, R!ot Pictures, Tippett Studio, Amalgamated Pixels and Intelligent Creatures and Rodriguez's Texas-based Troublemaker Digital) worked on the film in order to accomplish over 1,000 visual effect shots.


text: Robert Rodriguez appears in the credits fourteen times, most notably as director, a producer, a screenwriter (along with Marcel Rodriguez), visual effects supervisor, director of photography, editor, a camera operator, and a composer and performer. The story is credited to Racer Max Rodriguez, with additional story elements by Rebecca Rodriguez, who also wrote the lyrics for the main song, "Sharkboy and Lavagirl". Other members of the Rodriguez family can be seen in the film or were involved in the production.


text: Miley Cyrus had auditioned for the film with Lautner, and said it came down to her and another girl who was also auditioning; however, Cyrus then began production on "Hannah Montana", and thus the other girl, presumably Dooley, got the role.


text: For its opening weekend, "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D" earned $12.6 million in 2,655 theaters. It was placed at number 5 at the box office, being overshadowed by "Mr. & Mrs. Smith", "Madagascar", "", and "The Longest Yard". Grossing $39.2 million in the United States and $32.8 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $72 million, the film was a box office flop.


text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 20% based on 123 reviews, with an average rating of . The critical consensus reads, "The decision to turn this kiddie fantasy into a 3-D film was a miscalculation." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 38 out of 100 based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "B+" on scale of A to F.


text: Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars and agreed with the other criticisms in which the 3-D process used was distracting and muted the colors, thus, he believes, "spoiling" much of the film and that the film would look more visually appealing when released in the home media market.


text: Director Robert Rodriguez composed parts of the score himself, with contributions by composers John Debney and Graeme Revell.


text: Around the time of the film's debut Rodriguez co-wrote a series of children's novels entitled "Sharkboy and Lavagirl Adventures" with acclaimed science fiction writer Chris Roberson. They include Book 1, "The Day Dreamer", and Book 2, "Return to Planet Drool", which announces that it will be continued in a third volume, "Deep Sleep", which was never released. There was also a release of "Max's Journal" which shows more of the character's dream journal from the movie, as well as "The Illustrated Screenplay", which shows the script with concept designs, preproduction art, character sketches, and behind the scenes photos. They are illustrated throughout by Alex Toader, who designed characters and environments for the film and the previous Spy kids franchise.


text: Jeff Jensen of "Entertainment Weekly" praised another book appearing around the time of the film, "The Adventures of SharkBoy and LavaGirl: The Movie Storybook" (by Racer Max Rodriguez and Robert Rodriguez), as a far cry from the usual movie storybook tie-in, and also praised Alex Toader's "cartoony yet detailed" illustrations.


text: The Total Nonstop Action professional wrestler Dean Roll, who trademarked the name "Shark Boy" in 1999, sued Miramax on June 8, 2005, claiming that his trademark had been infringed and demanding "[any] money, profits and advantages wrongfully gained". In April 2007, the suit was settled for a disclosed amount of $200,000.


text: In an interview during the 2020 Comic-Con@Home event, Rodriguez confirmed that a character in his then-upcoming film "We Can Be Heroes" was the youngest daughter of Sharkboy and Lavagirl who has shark powers. Taylor Dooley was confirmed to reprise her role in the film as Lavagirl, although Lautner did not reprise his role. "We Can Be Heroes" was released through Netflix in December 2020. In January 2021, a sequel was announced.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: A Canadian postal code () is a six-character string that forms part of a postal address in Canada. Like British, Irish and Dutch postcodes, Canada's postal codes are alphanumeric. They are in the format "A1A 1A1", where "A" is a letter and "1" is a digit, with a space separating the third and fourth characters. As of October 2019, there were 876,445 postal codes using "Forward Sortation Areas" from A0A in Newfoundland to Y1A in Yukon.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: Canada Post provides a postal code look-up tool on its website, via its mobile application, and sells hard-copy directories and CD-ROMs. Many vendors also sell validation tools, which allow customers to properly match addresses and postal codes. Hard-copy directories can also be consulted in all post offices, and some libraries.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: When writing out the postal address for a location within Canada, the postal code follows the abbreviation for the province or territory.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: Numbered postal zones were first used in Toronto in 1925. Mail to a Toronto address in zone 5 would be addressed in this format:


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: As of 1943, Toronto was divided into 14 zones, numbered from 1 to 15, except that 7 and 11 were unused, and there was a 2B zone.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: By the early 1960s, other cities in Canada had been divided into postal zones, including Quebec, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Vancouver as well as Toronto and Montreal. For example, an address in Vancouver would be addressed as:


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: In the late 1960s, however, the Post Office began implementing a three-digit zone number scheme in major cities to replace existing one- and two-digit zone numbers, starting in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. For example, an address in Metropolitan Toronto would be addressed as:


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: Toronto's renumbering took effect 1 May 1969, accompanied by an advertising campaign under the slogan "Your number is up". However, with impending plans for a national postal code system, Postmaster General Eric Kierans announced that the Post Office would begin cancelling the new three-digit city zone system. Companies changed their mail addressing at their own expense, only to find the new zoning would prove to be short-lived.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: As the largest Canadian cities grew in the 1950s and 1960s, the volume of mail passing through the country's postal system also grew, to billions of items by the 1950s and tens of billions of items by the mid-1960s. Consequently, it became progressively more difficult for employees who handsorted mail to memorize and keep track of all the individual letter-carrier routes within each city. New technology that allowed mail to be delivered faster also contributed to the pressure for these employees to properly sort the mail.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: A report tabled in the House of Commons in 1969 dealt with the expected impact of "environmental change" on the Post Office operations over the following 25 years. A key recommendation was the "establishment of a task force to determine the nature of the automation and mechanization the Post Office should adopt, which might include design of a postal code".


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: In December 1969, Communications Minister Eric Kierans announced that a six-character postal code would be introduced, superseding the three-digit zone system.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: He later tabled a report in February 1970, entitled "A Canadian Public Address Postal Coding System", submitted by the firm of Samson, Belair, Simpson, Riddell Inc.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: Coding of Ottawa was followed by a provincial-level rollout of the system in Manitoba, and the system was gradually implemented in the rest of the country from 1972 to 1974, although the nationwide use of the code by the end of 1974 was only 38.2 per cent.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: The introduction of such a code system allowed Canada Post to easily speed up and simplify the flow of mail in the country, with sorting machines being able to handle 26,640 objects an hour.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: The Canadian Union of Postal Workers objected to the automated sorting system mainly because the wages of those who ran the new automated machines were much lower than those who had hand-sorted mail.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: The unions ended up staging job action and public information campaigns, with the message that they did not want people and business to use postal codes on their mail.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: The union declared 20 March 1975 National "Boycott the Postal Code" Day, also demanding a reduction in the work week from 40 to 30 hours.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: One 1975 advertisement in the Toronto magazine "Byliner" generated controversy by showing a man writing a postal code on the bottom of a thonged woman with the following ditty:


title: Postal codes in Canada

text:
"We're not 'stringing' you along,
 Use postal codes – you'll 'thing our 'thong',
 Don't be cheeky – you've all got 'em
 Please include them on the bottom."


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: The advertisement was denounced as "sexist garbage" in the House of Commons by NDP MP John Rodriguez, prompting an apology from Postmaster General Bryce Mackasey.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: A "forward sortation area" (FSA) is a geographical region in which all postal codes start with the same three characters. The first letter of an FSA code denotes a particular "postal district", which, outside Quebec and Ontario, corresponds to an entire province or territory.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: The large populations of both Quebec and Ontario cause both provinces to be subdivided into three and five postal districts, respectively, and each has at least one urban area so populous that it has a dedicated postal district (""H"" for the Montreal region, and ""M"" for Toronto). On the other hand, the low populations in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories (NWT) mean that even after Nunavut separated from the Northwest Territories and became its own territory in 1999, they continue to share a postal district.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: The digit identifies the FSA as urban or rural. A zero indicates a wide-area rural region (or, in rare instances, a special-purpose code); all other digits indicate urban areas. The second letter represents a specific rural region, an entire medium-sized city, or a section of a major metropolitan area. In the extreme case, some FSAs in downtown Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver are assigned to individual buildings. Rural FSAs also vary widely in population, with the Northwest Territories' "X0G" covering only the hamlet of Fort Liard, but adjoining "X0E" covering every other community in the territory except Yellowknife.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: A directory of FSAs is provided, divided into separate articles by postal district. Individual FSA lists are in a tabular format, with the numbers (known as "zones") going across the table and the second letter going down the table.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: The FSA lists specify all communities covered by each rural FSA. Medium-sized cities may have one dedicated FSA; larger cities have more than one FSA within their limits.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: For FSAs spanning more than one city, the city which is allocated the most codes in each such FSA is listed. For cities with a small number of FSAs (but more than one), the lists specify the relative location of each FSA in those cities. For cities with a large number of FSAs, applicable neighbourhoods and boroughs are specified.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: The last three characters denote a "local delivery unit" (LDU). An LDU denotes a specific single address or range of addresses, which can correspond to an entire small town, a significant part of a medium-sized town, a single side of a city block in larger cities, a single large building or a portion of a very large one, a single (large) institution such as a university or a hospital, or a business that receives large volumes of mail on a regular basis.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: LDUs ending in zero correspond to postal facilities, from post offices and small franchised retail postal outlets all the way up to sortation plants. In urban areas, LDUs may be specific postal carriers' routes. In rural areas where direct door-to-door delivery is not available, an LDU can describe a set of post office boxes or a rural route. LDU 9Z9 is used exclusively for Business Reply Mail. In rural FSAs, the first two characters are usually assigned in alphanumerical order by the name of each community.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: LDU 9Z0 refers to large regional distribution centre facilities, and is also used as a placeholder, appearing in some regional postmarks such as the "K0H 9Z0" which formerly appeared on purely local mail within the Kingston, Ontario, area.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: Postal codes use 20 uppercase letters of the English alphabet; they do not include the letters D, F, I, O, Q or U. The first position also does not make use of the letters W or Z. This means the maximum number of FSAs available is 18×10×20 = 3,600. With 10×20×10 = 2,000 possible LDUs in each FSA, there is a theoretical limit of 7.2 million postal codes. The practical limit is a bit lower, as Canada Post reserves some FSAs for special functions, such as for test or promotional purposes, (e.g. the H0H 0H0 for Santa Claus, see below) as well as for sorting mail bound for destinations outside Canada. The current Statistics Canada estimate of over 830,000 active postal codes represents about 12% of the entire postal code "space", leaving ample room for expansion. There is less room with regard to FSAs, however. In particular as of 2021, only five FSAs remain unused in British Columbia: V3P, V4H, V4J, V4Y and V8H.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: "Urbanization" is the name Canada Post uses to refer to the process where it replaces a rural postal code (a code with a zero as its second character) with urban postal codes. The vacated rural postal code can then be assigned to another community or retired. Canada Post decides when to urbanize a certain community when its population reaches a certain level, though different factors may also be involved.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: For example, in early 2008, the postal code G0N 3M0 (covering Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier, Fossambault-sur-le-Lac and Lac-Saint-Joseph, Quebec) was urbanized to postal codes beginning with G3N to remove ambiguities and confusions caused by similar street names. Unique among province-wide districts, New Brunswick (postal district E) is completely urbanized, its rural codes having been phased out.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: In 1974, staff at a Canada Post office in Montreal were noticing a considerable number of letters addressed to Santa Claus entering the postal system, and those letters were being treated as undeliverable. Since employees handling those letters did not want the writers (mostly young children) to be disappointed at the lack of response, they started answering the letters themselves.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: The amount of mail sent to Santa Claus increased every Christmas, to the point that Canada Post established an official Santa Claus letter-response program in 1983. By 2011, Santa's mail was being handled with the assistance of 11,000 volunteers, mostly current or former postal workers, at multiple locations across Canada devoting an average of twenty-one hours to this seasonal task.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: Approximately 1,000,000 letters are addressed to Santa Claus each Christmas, including some originating outside Canada, and all of them are answered in the same language in which they are written. Canada Post introduced a special address for mail to Santa Claus, complete with its own postal code:


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: The H0- prefix is an anomaly: the 0 indicates a rural delivery zone, but H is used to designate Montreal, the second-largest city in Canada. As such, the H0- prefix is almost completely empty. H0M, assigned to the international Akwesasne tribal reserve on the Canada–US border, is the only other H0- postal code in active use.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: In 2013, Santa was dragged into the ongoing Arctic sovereignty debate to support Canadian territorial claims extending to the North Pole. During a parliamentary debate, Conservative MP Paul Calandra accused the opposition Liberal Party of "not think[ing] that the North Pole or Santa Claus are in Canada". Liberal leader Justin Trudeau responded by saying, "Everyone knows that Santa Claus is Canadian. His postal code is H0H 0H0." The Official Opposition New Democratic Party disagreed, insisting that Santa is a "citizen of the world".


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: For transition of mail from the civilian to the Canadian Forces Postal Service, the postal codes of the three military post offices on Canadian soil are used, depending on the final destination.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: These postal codes each represent a number of military post offices abroad, which are specified not by postal code but by CFPO or FMO number. The LDUs in this case corresponding not so much to a physical as to a virtual delivery unit since mail is not delivered locally but is forwarded to the actual delivery units at Canadian military bases and ships abroad.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: In this example, Canada Post will deliver to the CFPO at Belleville and the Canadian Forces Postal System will continue transport to the addressee at CFPO 5053 (in Geilenkirchen, Germany) by whatever means and timing the military will deem appropriate.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: Postal codes can be correlated with databased information from censuses or health registries to create a geographic profile of an area's population. For instance, postal codes have been used to compare children's risk of developing cancer.


title: Postal codes in Canada

text: As Canadian electoral districts frequently follow postal code areas, citizens can identify their local elected representative using their postal code. Provincial and federal government websites offer an online "look-up" feature based on postal codes. Although A1A 1A1 is sometimes displayed as a generic code for this purpose, it is actually a genuine postal code in use in the Lower Battery, St. John's Harbour, Newfoundland. Another common "example" code in Canada Post materials, K1A 0B1, is the valid code for the Canada Post headquarters building in Ottawa.


title: Dice

text: Dice (singular die or dice) are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing games, and games of chance.


title: Dice

text: A traditional die is a cube with each of its six faces marked with a different number of dots (pips) from one to six. When thrown or rolled, the die comes to rest showing a random integer from one to six on its upper surface, with each value being equally likely. Dice may also have polyhedral or irregular shapes, may have faces marked with numerals or symbols instead of pips and may have their numbers carved out from the material of the dice instead of marked on it. Loaded dice are designed to favor some results over others for cheating or entertainment.


title: Dice

text: Dice have been used since before recorded history, and it is uncertain where they originated. It is theorized that dice developed from the practice of fortune-telling with the talus of hoofed animals, colloquially known as knucklebones. The Egyptian game of senet was played with flat two-sided throwsticks which indicated the number of squares a player could move, and thus functioned as a form of dice. Senet was played before 3000 BCE and up to the 2nd century CE. Perhaps the oldest known dice were excavated as part of a backgammon-like game set at the Burnt City, an archeological site in south-eastern Iran, estimated to be from between 2800 and 2500 BCE. Bone dice from Skara Brae, Scotland have been dated to 3100–2400 BCE. Excavations from graves at Mohenjo-daro, an Indus Valley civilization settlement, unearthed terracotta dice dating to 2500–1900 BCE.


title: Dice

text: Games involving dice are mentioned in the ancient Indian "Rigveda", "Atharvaveda," "Mahabharata" and Buddhist games list. There are several biblical references to "casting lots" ( "yappîlū ḡōrāl"), as in Psalm 22, indicating that dicing (or a related activity) was commonplace when the psalm was composed. Knucklebones was a game of skill played in ancient Greece; a derivative form had the four sides of bones receive different values like modern dice.


title: Dice

text: Although gambling was illegal, many Romans were passionate gamblers who enjoyed dicing, which was known as "aleam ludere" ("to play at dice"). There were two sizes of Roman dice. "Tali" were large dice inscribed with one, three, four, and six on four sides. "Tesserae" were smaller dice with sides numbered from one to six. Twenty-sided dice date back to the 2nd century CE and from Ptolemaic Egypt as early as the 2nd century BCE.


title: Dice

text: Dominoes and playing cards originated in China as developments from dice. The transition from dice to playing cards occurred in China around the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), and coincides with the technological transition from rolls of manuscripts to block printed books. In Japan, dice were used to play a popular game called sugoroku. There are two types of sugoroku. "Ban-sugoroku" is similar to backgammon and dates to the Heian period (794–1185 CE), while "e-sugoroku" is a racing game.


title: Dice

text: Dice are thrown onto a surface either from the hand or from a container designed for this (such as a cup or tray). The face of the die that is uppermost when it comes to rest provides the value of the throw.


title: Dice

text: The result of a die roll is determined by the way it is thrown, according to the laws of classical mechanics. A die roll is made random by uncertainty in minor factors such as tiny movements in the thrower's hand; they are thus a crude form of hardware random number generator.


title: Dice

text: One typical contemporary dice game is craps, where two dice are thrown simultaneously and wagers are made on the total value of the two dice. Dice are frequently used to introduce randomness into board games, where they are often used to decide the distance through which a piece will move along the board (as in backgammon and "Monopoly").


title: Dice

text: Common dice are small cubes, most often across, whose faces are numbered from one to six, usually by patterns of round dots called pips. (While the use of Arabic numerals is occasionally seen, such dice are less common.)


title: Dice

text: Opposite sides of a modern die traditionally add up to seven, requiring the 1, 2, and 3 faces to share a vertex. The faces of a die may be placed clockwise or counterclockwise about this vertex. If the 1, 2, and 3 faces run counterclockwise, the die is called "right-handed". If those faces run clockwise, the die is called "left-handed". Western dice are normally right-handed, and Chinese dice are normally left-handed.


title: Dice

text: The pips on standard six-sided dice are arranged in specific patterns as shown. Asian style dice bear similar patterns to Western ones, but the pips are closer to the center of the face; in addition, the pips are differently sized on Asian style dice, and the pips are colored red on the 1 and 4 sides. Red fours may be of Indian origin.


title: Dice

text: Non-precision dice are manufactured via the plastic injection molding process, often made of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). The pips or numbers on the die are a part of the mold. Different pigments can be added to the dice to make them opaque or transparent, or multiple pigments may be added to make the dice speckled or marbled.


title: Dice

text: The coloring for numbering is achieved by submerging the die entirely in paint, which is allowed to dry. The die is then polished via a tumble finishing process similar to rock polishing. The abrasive agent scrapes off all of the paint except for the indents of the numbering. A finer abrasive is then used to polish the die. This process also produces the smoother, rounded edges on the dice.


title: Dice

text: Precision casino dice may have a polished or sand finish, making them transparent or translucent respectively. Casino dice have their pips drilled, then filled flush with a paint of the same density as the material used for the dice, such that the center of gravity of the dice is as close to the geometric center as possible. This mitigates concerns that the pips will cause a small bias. All such dice are stamped with a serial number to prevent potential cheaters from substituting a die. Precision backgammon dice are made the same way; they tend to be slightly smaller and have rounded corners and edges, to allow better movement inside the dice cup and stop forceful rolls from damaging the playing surface.


title: Dice

text: While the terms "ace", "deuce", "trey", "cater", "cinque" and "sice" are generally obsolete, with the names of the numbers preferred, they are still used by some professional gamblers to designate different sides of the dice. "Ace" is from the Latin "as", meaning "a unit"; the others are 2 to 6 in Old French.


title: Dice

text: When rolling two dice, certain combinations have slang names. The term "snake eyes" is a roll of one pip on each die. The "Online Etymology Dictionary" traces use of the term as far back as 1919.


title: Dice

text: The US term "boxcars", also known as "midnight", is a roll of six pips on each die. The pair of six pips resembles a pair of boxcars on a freight train. Many rolls have names in the game of craps.


title: Dice

text: Using Unicode characters, the faces can be shown in text using the range U+2680 to U+2685 or using decimal codice_1 to codice_2.


title: Dice

text: A loaded, weighted, cheat, or crooked die is one that has been tampered with so that it will land with a specific side facing upwards more or less often than a fair die would. There are several methods for making loaded dice, including rounded faces, off-square faces, and weights. Casinos and gambling halls frequently use transparent cellulose acetate dice as tampering is easier to detect than with opaque dice.


title: Dice

text: Various shapes like two-sided or four-sided dice are documented in archaeological findings; for example, from Ancient Egypt and the Middle East. While the cubical six-sided die became the most common type in many parts of the world, other shapes were always known, like 20-sided dice in Ptolemaic and Roman times.


title: Dice

text: The modern tradition of using "sets" of polyhedral dice started around the end of the 1960s when non-cubical dice became popular among players of wargames, and since have been employed extensively in role-playing games and trading card games. Dice using both the numerals 6 and 9, which are reciprocally symmetric through rotation, typically distinguish them with a dot or underline.


title: Dice

text: Dice are often sold in sets, matching in color, of six different shapes. Five of the dice are shaped like the Platonic solids, whose faces are regular polygons. Aside from the cube, the other four Platonic solids have 4, 8, 12, and 20 faces, allowing for those number ranges to be generated. The only other common non-cubical die is the 10-sided die, a pentagonal trapezohedron die, whose faces are ten kites, each with two different edge lengths, three different angles, and two different kinds of vertices. Such sets frequently include a second 10-sided die either of contrasting color or numbered by tens, allowing the pair of 10-sided dice to be combined to generate numbers between 1 and 100.


title: Dice

text: Using these dice in various ways, games can closely approximate a variety of probability distributions. For instance, 10-sided dice can be rolled in pairs to produce a uniform distribution of random percentages, and summing the values of multiple dice will produce approximations to normal distributions.


title: Dice

text: Unlike other common dice, a four-sided (tetrahedral) die does not have a side that faces upward when it is at rest on a surface, so it must be read in a different way. On some four-sided dice, each face features multiple numbers, with the same number printed near each vertex on all sides. In this case, the number around the vertex pointing up is used. Alternatively, the numbers on a tetrahedral die can be placed at the middles of the edges, in which case the numbers around the base are used.


title: Dice

text: Normally, the faces on a die will be placed so opposite faces will add up to one more than the number of faces. (This is not possible with 4-sided dice and dice with an odd-number of faces.) Some dice, such as those with 10 sides, are usually numbered sequentially beginning with 0, in which case the opposite faces will add to one less than the number of faces.


title: Dice

text: Some twenty-sided dice have a different arrangement used for the purpose of keeping track of an integer that counts down, such as health points. These "spindown dice" are arranged such that adjacent integers appear on adjacent faces, allowing the user to easily find the next lower number. They are commonly used with collectible card games.


title: Dice

text: "Uniform fair dice" are dice where all faces have equal probability of outcome due to the symmetry of the die as it is face-transitive. In addition to the Platonic solids, these theoretically include:


title: Dice

text: Two other types of polyhedra are technically not face-transitive, but are still fair dice due to symmetry:


title: Dice

text: Long dice and teetotums can in principle be made with any number of faces, including odd numbers. Long dice are based on the infinite set of prisms. All the rectangular faces are mutually face-transitive, so they are equally probable. The two ends of the prism may be rounded or capped with a pyramid, designed so that the die cannot rest on those faces. 4-sided long dice are easier to roll than tetrahedra, and are used in the traditional board games dayakattai and daldøs.


title: Dice

text: The faces of most dice are labelled using sequences of whole numbers, usually starting at one, expressed with either pips or digits. However, there are some applications that require results other than numbers. Examples include letters for Boggle, directions for "Warhammer Fantasy Battle", Fudge dice, playing card symbols for poker dice, and instructions for sexual acts using sex dice.


title: Dice

text: Dice may have numbers that do not form a counting sequence starting at one. One variation on the standard die is known as the "average" die. These are six-sided dice with sides numbered codice_3, which have the same arithmetic mean as a standard die (3.5 for a single die, 7 for a pair of dice), but have a narrower range of possible values (2 through 5 for one, 4 through 10 for a pair). They are used in some table-top wargames, where a narrower range of numbers is required. Other numbered variations include Sicherman dice and intransitive dice.


title: Dice

text: A die can be constructed in the shape of a sphere, with the addition of an internal cavity in the shape of the dual polyhedron of the desired die shape and an internal weight. The weight will settle in one of the points of the internal cavity, causing it to settle with one of the numbers uppermost. For instance, a sphere with an octahedral cavity and a small internal weight will settle with one of the 6 points of the cavity held downwards by the weight.


title: Dice

text: Polyhedral dice are commonly used in role-playing games. The fantasy role-playing game "Dungeons & Dragons" (D&D) is largely credited with popularizing dice in such games. Some games use only one type, like "Exalted" which uses only ten-sided dice. Others use numerous types for different game purposes, such as D&D, which makes use of all common polyhedral dice. Dice are usually used to determine the outcome of events. Games typically determine results either as a total on one or more dice above or below a fixed number, or a certain number of rolls above a certain number on one or more dice. Due to circumstances or character skill, the initial roll may have a number added to or subtracted from the final result, or have the player roll extra or fewer dice. To keep track of rolls easily, dice notation is frequently used.


title: Dice

text: Many board games use dice to randomize how far pieces move or to settle conflicts. Typically, this has meant that rolling higher numbers is better. Some games, such as "Axis & Allies", have inverted this system by making the lower values more potent. In the modern age, a few games and game designers have approached dice in a different way by making each side of the die similarly valuable. In "Castles of Burgundy", players spend their dice to take actions based on the die's value. In this game, a six is not better than a one, or vice versa. In "Quarriors" (and its descendant, "Dicemasters"), different sides of the dice can offer completely different abilities. Several sides often give resources while others grant the player useful actions.


title: Dice

text: Dice can be used for divination and using dice for such a purpose is called cleromancy. A pair of common dice is usual, though other forms of polyhedra can be used. Tibetan Buddhists sometimes use this method of divination. It is highly likely that the Pythagoreans used the Platonic solids as dice. They referred to such dice as "the dice of the gods" and they sought to understand the universe through an understanding of geometry in polyhedra.


title: Dice

text: Astrological dice are a specialized set of three 12-sided dice for divination; the first die represents the planets, the Sun, the Moon, and the nodes of the Moon, the second die represents the 12 zodiac signs, and the third represents the 12 houses. A specialized icosahedron die provides the answers of the Magic 8 Ball, conventionally used to provide answers to yes-or-no questions.


title: Dice

text: Dice can be used to generate random numbers for use in passwords and cryptography applications. The Electronic Frontier Foundation describes a method by which dice can be used to generate passphrases. Diceware is a method recommended for generating secure but memorable passphrases, by repeatedly rolling five dice and picking the corresponding word from a pre-generated list.


title: Dice

text: In many gaming contexts, especially tabletop role-playing games, shorthand notations representing different dice rolls are used. A "d" or "D" is used to indicate a die with a specific number of sides; for example,codice_4denotes a four-sided die. If several dice of the same type are to be rolled, this is indicated by a leading number specifying the number of dice. Hence,codice_5 means the player should roll six eight-sided dice and add the results. Modifiers to a die roll can also be indicated as desired. For example, codice_6 instructs the player to roll three six-sided dice, calculate the total, and add four to it.


title: Infrastructure

text: Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and private physical structures such as roads, railways, bridges, tunnels, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, and telecommunications (including Internet connectivity and broadband access). In general, infrastructure has been defined as "the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions" and maintain the surrounding environment.


title: Infrastructure

text: Especially in light of the massive societal transformations needed to mitigate and adapt to climate change, contemporary infrastructure conversations frequently focus on sustainable development and green infrastructure. Acknowledging this importance, the international community has created policy focused on sustainable infrastructure through the Sustainable Development Goals, especially Sustainable Development Goal 9 "Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure".


title: Infrastructure

text: One way to describe different types of infrastructure is to classify them as two distinct kinds: hard infrastructure and soft infrastructure. Hard infrastructure is the physical networks necessary for the functioning of a modern industry. This includes roads, bridges, and railways. Soft infrastructure is all the institutions that maintain the economic, health, social, environmental, and cultural standards of a country. This includes educational programs, official statistics, parks and recreational facilities, law enforcement agencies, and emergency services.


title: Infrastructure

text: The word "infrastructure" has been used in French since 1875 and in English since 1887, originally meaning "installations that form the basis for any operation or system". It is a loanword from French, where it was already used for establishing a roadbed of substrate material, required before railroad tracks or constructed pavement could be laid on top of it. The word is a combination of the Latin prefix "infra", meaning "below", as many of these constructions are underground (for example, tunnels, water and gas systems, and railways), and the French word "structure" (derived from the Latin word "structure"). The army use of the term achieved currency in the United States after the formation of NATO in the 1940s, and by 1970 was adopted by urban planners in its modern civilian sense.


title: Infrastructure

text: A 1987 US National Research Council panel adopted the term "public works infrastructure", referring to:


title: Infrastructure

text: "... both specific functional modes – highways, streets, roads, and bridges; mass transit; airports and airways; water supply and water resources; wastewater management; solid-waste treatment and disposal; electric power generation and transmission; telecommunications; and hazardous waste management – and the combined system these modal elements comprise. A comprehension of infrastructure spans not only these public works facilities, but also the operating procedures, management practices, and development policies that interact together with societal demand and the physical world to facilitate the transport of people and goods, provision of water for drinking and a variety of other uses, safe disposal of society's waste products, provision of energy where it is needed, and transmission of information within and between communities."


title: Infrastructure

text: The American Society of Civil Engineers publishes an "Infrastructure Report Card" which represents the organizations opinion on the condition of various infrastructure every 2–4 years. they grade 16 categories, namely aviation, bridges, dams, drinking water, energy, hazardous waste, inland waterways, levees, parks and recreation, ports, rail, roads, schools, solid waste, transit and wastewater. The United States has received a rating of “D+” on its infrastructure. This aging infrastructure is a result of governmental neglect and inadequate funding. As the United States presumably looks to upgrade its existing infrastructure, sustainable measures could be a consideration of the design, build, and operation plans.


title: Infrastructure

text: A way to embody personal infrastructure is to think of it in terms of human capital. Human capital is defined by the Encyclopædia Britannica as “intangible collective resources possessed by individuals and groups within a given population". The goal of personal infrastructure is to determine the quality of the economic agents’ values. This results in three major tasks: the task of economic proxies in the economic process (teachers, unskilled and qualified labor, etc.); the importance of personal infrastructure for an individual (short and long-term consumption of education); and the social relevance of personal infrastructure. Essentially, personal infrastructure maps the human impact on infrastructure as it is related to the economy, individual growth, and social impact.


title: Infrastructure

text: Institutional infrastructure branches from the term "economic constitution". According to Gianpiero Torrisi, institutional infrastructure is the object of economic and legal policy. It compromises the grown and sets norms. It refers to the degree of fair treatment of equal economic data and determines the framework within which economic agents may formulate their own economic plans and carry them out in co-operation with others.


title: Infrastructure

text: Sustainable infrastructure refers to the processes of design and construction that take into consideration their environmental, economic, and social impact. Included in this section are several elements of sustainable schemes, including materials, water, energy, transportation, and waste management infrastructure. Although there are endless other factors of consideration, those will not be covered in this section.


title: Infrastructure

text: Material infrastructure is defined as “those immobile, non-circulating capital goods that essentially contribute to the production of infrastructure goods and services needed to satisfy basic physical and social requirements of economic agents". There are two distinct qualities of material infrastructures: 1) fulfillment of social needs and 2) mass production. The first characteristic deals with the basic needs of human life. The second characteristic is the non-availability of infrastructure goods and services. Today, there are various materials that can be used to build infrastructure. The most prevalent ones are asphalt, concrete, steel, masonry, wood, polymers and composites.


title: Infrastructure

text: According to the business dictionary, economic infrastructure can be defined as "internal facilities of a country that make business activity possible, such as communication, transportation and distribution networks, financial institutions and markets, and energy supply systems". Economic infrastructure support productive activities and events. This includes roads, highways, bridges, airports, cycling infrastructure, water distribution networks, sewer systems, and irrigation plants.


title: Infrastructure

text: Social infrastructure can be broadly defined as the construction and maintenance of facilities that support social services. Social infrastructures are created to increase social comfort and promote economic activity. These include schools, parks and playgrounds, structures for public safety, waste disposal plants, hospitals, and sports areas.


title: Infrastructure

text: Core assets provide essential services and have monopolistic characteristics. Investors seeking core infrastructure look for five different characteristics: income, low volatility of returns, diversification, inflation protection, and long-term liability matching. Core infrastructure incorporates all the main types of infrastructure, such as roads, highways, railways, public transportation, water, and gas supply.


title: Infrastructure

text: Basic infrastructure refers to main railways, roads, canals, harbors and docks, the electromagnetic telegraph, drainage, dikes, and land reclamation. It consist of the more well-known and common features of infrastructure that we come across in our daily lives (buildings, roads, docks).


title: Infrastructure

text: Complementary infrastructure refers to things like light railways, tramways, and gas/electricity/water supply. To complement something means to bring it to perfection or complete it. Complementary infrastructure deals with the little parts of the engineering world that make life more convenient and efficient. They are needed to ensure successful usage and marketing of an already finished product, like in the case of road bridges. Other examples are lights on sidewalks, landscaping around buildings, and benches where pedestrians can rest.


title: Infrastructure

text: Engineers generally limit the term "infrastructure" to describe fixed assets that are in the form of a large network; in other words, hard infrastructure. Efforts to devise more generic definitions of infrastructures have typically referred to the network aspects of most of the structures, and to the accumulated value of investments in the networks as assets. One such definition from 1998 defined infrastructure as the network of assets "where the system as a whole is intended to be maintained indefinitely at a specified standard of service by the continuing replacement and refurbishment of its components".


title: Infrastructure

text: Civil defense planners and developmental economists generally refer to both hard and soft infrastructure, including public services such as schools and hospitals, emergency services such as police and fire fighting, and basic services in the economic sector. The notion of infrastructure-based development combining long-term infrastructure investments by government agencies at central and regional levels with public private partnerships has proven popular among economists in Asia (notably Singapore and China), mainland Europe, and Latin America.


title: Infrastructure

text: Military infrastructure is the buildings and permanent installations necessary for the support of military forces, whether they are stationed in bases, being deployed or engaged in operations. Examples include barracks, headquarters, airfields, communications facilities, stores of military equipment, port installations, and maintenance stations.


title: Infrastructure

text: Communications infrastructure is the informal and formal channels of communication, political and social networks, or beliefs held by members of particular groups, as well as information technology, software development tools. Still underlying these more conceptual uses is the idea that infrastructure provides organizing structure and support for the system or organization it serves, whether it is a city, a nation, a corporation, or a collection of people with common interests. Examples include IT infrastructure, research infrastructure, terrorist infrastructure, employment infrastructure, and tourism infrastructure.


title: Infrastructure

text: Land improvement and land development are general terms that in some contexts may include infrastructure, but in the context of a discussion of infrastructure would refer only to smaller-scale systems or works that are not included in infrastructure, because they are typically limited to a single parcel of land, and are owned and operated by the landowner. For example, an irrigation canal that serves a region or district would be included with infrastructure, but the private irrigation systems on individual land parcels would be considered land improvements, not infrastructure. Service connections to municipal service and public utility networks would also be considered land improvements, not infrastructure.


title: Infrastructure

text: The term "public works" includes government-owned and operated infrastructure as well as public buildings, such as schools and courthouses. Public works generally refers to physical assets needed to deliver public services. Public services include both infrastructure and services generally provided by the government.


title: Infrastructure

text: Infrastructure may be owned and managed by governments or by privately held companies, such as sole public utility or railway companies. Generally, most roads, major airports and other ports, water distribution systems, and sewage networks are publicly owned, whereas most energy and telecommunications networks are privately owned. Publicly owned infrastructure may be paid for from taxes, tolls, or metered user fees, whereas private infrastructure is generally paid for by metered user fees. Major investment projects are generally financed by the issuance of long-term bonds.


title: Infrastructure

text: Government-owned and operated infrastructure may be developed and operated in the private sector or in public-private partnerships, in addition to in the public sector. in the United States for example, public spending on infrastructure has varied between 2.3% and 3.6% of GDP since 1950. Many financial institutions invest in infrastructure.


title: Infrastructure

text: According to researchers at the Overseas Development Institute, the lack of infrastructure in many developing countries represents one of the most significant limitations to economic growth and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Infrastructure investments and maintenance can be very expensive, especially in such areas as landlocked, rural and sparsely populated countries in Africa. It has been argued that infrastructure investments contributed to more than half of Africa's improved growth performance between 1990 and 2005, and increased investment is necessary to maintain growth and tackle poverty. The returns to investment in infrastructure are very significant, with on average thirty to forty percent returns for telecommunications (ICT) investments, over forty percent for electricity generation, and eighty percent for roads.


title: Infrastructure

text: The demand for infrastructure both by consumers and by companies is much higher than the amount invested. There are severe constraints on the supply side of the provision of infrastructure in Asia. The infrastructure financing gap between what is invested in Asia-Pacific (around US$48 billion) and what is needed (US$228 billion) is around US$180 billion every year.


title: Infrastructure

text: In Latin America, three percent of GDP (around US$71 billion) would need to be invested in infrastructure in order to satisfy demand, yet in 2005, for example, only around two percent was invested leaving a financing gap of approximately US$24 billion.


title: Infrastructure

text: In Africa, in order to reach the seven percent annual growth calculated to be required to meet the MDGs by 2015 would require infrastructure investments of about fifteen percent of GDP, or around US$93 billion a year. In fragile states, over thirty-seven percent of GDP would be required.


title: Infrastructure

text: The source of financing for infrastructure varies significantly across sectors. Some sectors are dominated by government spending, others by overseas development aid (ODA), and yet others by private investors. In California, infrastructure financing districts are established by local governments to pay for physical facilities and services within a specified area by using property tax increases. In order to facilitate investment of the private sector in developing countries' infrastructure markets, it is necessary to design risk-allocation mechanisms more carefully, given the higher risks of their markets.


title: Infrastructure

text: The spending money that comes from the government is less than it used to be. From the 1930s to 2019, the United States went from spending 4.2% of GDP to 2.5% of GDP on infrastructure. These under investments have accrued, in fact, according to the 2017 ASCE Infrastructure Report Card, from 2016 to 2025, infrastructure will be underinvested by $2 trillion. Compared to the global GDP percentages, The United States is tied for second-to-last place, with an average percentage of 2.4%. This means that the government spends less money on repairing old infrastructure and or on infrastructure as a whole.


title: Infrastructure

text: In Sub-Saharan Africa, governments spend around US$9.4 billion out of a total of US$24.9 billion. In irrigation, governments represent almost all spending. In transport and energy a majority of investment is government spending. In ICT and water supply and sanitation, the private sector represents the majority of capital expenditure. Overall, between them aid, the private sector, and non-OECD financiers exceed government spending. The private sector spending alone equals state capital expenditure, though the majority is focused on ICT infrastructure investments. External financing increased in the 2000s (decade) and in Africa alone external infrastructure investments increased from US$7 billion in 2002 to US$27 billion in 2009. China, in particular, has emerged as an important investor.


title: Infrastructure

text: The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the underfunding of infrastructure globally that has been accumulating for decades. The pandemic has increased unemployment and has widely disrupted the economy. This has serious impacts on households, businesses, and federal, state and local governments. This is especially detrimental to infrastructure because it is so dependent on funding from government agencies—with state and local governments accounting for approximately 75% of spending on public infrastructure in the United States.


title: Infrastructure

text: Governments are facing enormous decreases in revenue, economic downturns, overworked health systems, and hesitant workforces, resulting in huge budget deficits across the board. However, they must also scale up public investment to ensure successful reopening, boost growth and employment, and green their economies. The unusually large scale of the packages needed for COVID-19 was accompanied by widespread calls for “greening” them to meet the dual goals of economic recovery and environmental sustainability. However, as of March 2021, only a small fraction of the G20 COVID-19 related fiscal measures was found to be climate friendly.


title: Infrastructure

text: Although it is readily apparent that much effort is needed to repair the economic damage inflicted by the Coronavirus epidemic, an immediate return to business as usual could be environmentally harmful, as shown by the 2007-08 financial crisis in the United States. While the ensuing economic slowdown reduced global greenhouse gas emissions in 2009, emissions reached a record high in 2010, partially due to governments' implemented economic stimulus measures with minimal consideration of the environmental consequences. The concern is whether this same pattern will repeat itself. The post-COVID-19 period could determine whether the world meets or misses the emissions goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement and limits global warming to 1.5 degrees C to 2 degrees C.


title: Infrastructure

text: Unfortunately, as a result of the COVID-19 epidemic, a host of factors could jeopardize a low-carbon recovery plan: this includes reduced attention on the global political stage (2020 UN Climate Summit has been postponed to 2021), the relaxing of environmental regulations in pursuit of economic growth, decreased oil prices preventing low-carbon technologies from being competitive, and finally, stimulus programs that take away funds that could have been used to further the process of decarbonization. Research suggests that a recovery plan based on lower-carbon emissions could not only make significant emissions reductions needed to battle climate change, but also create more economic growth and jobs than a high-carbon recovery plan would. A study published in the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, more than 200 economists and economic officials reported that “green” economic-recovery initiatives performed at least as well as less “green” initiatives. There have also been calls for an independent body could provide a comparable assessment of countries’ fiscal policies, promoting transparency and accountability at the international level.


title: Infrastructure

text: In addition, in an econometric study published in the Economic Modelling journal, an analysis on government energy technology spending showed that spending on the renewable energy sector created five more jobs per million dollars invested than spending on fossil fuels. Since sustainable infrastructure is more beneficial in both an economic and environmental context, it represents the future of infrastructure. Especially with increasing pressure from climate change and diminishing natural resources, infrastructure not only needs to maintain economic development and job development, and a high quality of life for residents, but also protect the environment and its natural resources.


title: Infrastructure

text: Sustainable energy infrastructure includes types of renewable energy power plants as well as the means of exchange from the plant to the homes and businesses that use that energy. Renewable energy includes well researched and widely implemented methods such as wind, solar, and hydraulic power, as well as newer and less commonly used types of power creation such as fusion energy. Sustainable energy infrastructure must maintain a strong supply relative to demand, and must also maintain sufficiently low prices for consumers so as not to decrease demand. Any type of renewable energy infrastructure that fails to meet these consumption and price requirements will ultimately be forced out of the market by prevailing non renewable energy sources.


title: Infrastructure

text: Sustainable water infrastructure is focused on a community’s sufficient access to clean, safe drinking water. Water is a public good along with electricity, which means that sustainable water catchment and distribution systems must remain affordable to all members of a population. "Sustainable Water" may refer to a nation or community's ability to be self-sustainable, with enough water to meet multiple needs including agriculture, industry, sanitation, and drinking water. It can also refer to the holistic and effective management of water resources. Increasingly, policy makers and regulators are incorporating Nature-based solutions (NBS or NbS) into attempts to achieve sustainable water infrastructure.


title: Infrastructure

text: Sustainable waste management systems aim to minimize the amount of waste products produced by individuals and corporations. Commercial waste management plans have transitioned from simple waste removal plans into comprehensive plans focused on reducing the total amount of waste produced before removal. Sustainable waste management is beneficial environmentally, and can also cut costs for businesses that reduce their amount of disposed goods.


title: Infrastructure

text: Sustainable transportation includes a shift away from private, greenhouse gas emitting cars in favor of adopting methods of transportation that are either carbon neutral or reduce carbon emissions such as bikes or electric bus systems. Additionally, cities must invest in the appropriate built environments for these ecologically preferable modes of transportation. Cities will need to invest in public transportation networks, as well as bike path networks among other sustainable solutions that incentivize citizens to use these alternate transit options. Reducing the urban dependency on cars is a fundamental goal of developing sustainable transportation, and this cannot be accomplished without a coordinated focus on both creating the methods of transportation themselves and providing them with networks that are equally or more efficient than existing car networks such as aging highway systems.


title: Infrastructure

text: Another solution to transition into a more sustainable infrastructure is using more sustainable materials. A material is sustainable if the needed amount can be produced without depleting non-renewable resources. It also should have low environmental impacts by not disrupting the established steady-state equilibrium of it. The materials should also be resilient, renewable, reusable, and recyclable.


title: Infrastructure

text: Today, concrete is one of the most common materials used in infrastructure. There is twice as much concrete used in construction than all other building materials combined. It is the backbone of industrialization, as it is used in bridges, piers, pipelines, pavements, and buildings. However, while they do serve as a connection between cities, transportation for people and goods, and protection for land against flooding and erosion, they only last for 50 to 100 years. Many were built within the last 50 years, which means many infrastructures need substantial maintenance to continue functioning.


title: Infrastructure

text: However, concrete is not sustainable. The production of concrete contributes up to 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. A tenth of the world’s industrial water usage is from producing concrete. Even transporting the raw materials to concrete production sites adds to airborne pollution. Furthermore, the production sites and the infrastructures themselves all strip away agricultural land that could have been fertile soil or habitats vital to the ecosystem.


title: Infrastructure

text: Green infrastructure is a type of sustainable infrastructure. Green infrastructure uses plant or soil systems to restore some of the natural processes needed to manage water and create healthier urban environments. In a more practical sense, it refers to a decentralized network of stormwater management practices, which includes green roofs, trees, bioretention and infiltration, and permeable pavement. Green infrastructure has become an increasingly popular strategy in recent years due to its effectiveness in providing ecological, economic, and social benefits—including positively impacting energy consumption, air quality, and carbon reduction and sequestration.


title: Infrastructure

text: A green roof is a rooftop that is partially or completely covered with growing vegetation planted over a membrane. It also includes additional layers, including a root barrier and drainage and irrigation systems. There are several categories of green roofs, including extensive (have a growing media depth ranging from two to six inches) and intensive (have a growing media with a depth greater than six inches). One benefit of green roofs is that they reduce stormwater runoff because of its ability to store water in its growing media, reducing the runoff entering the sewer system and waterways, which also decreases the risk of combined sewer overflows. They reduce energy usage since the growing media provides additional insulation, reduces the amount of solar radiation on the roof’s surface, and provides evaporative cooling from water in the plants, which reduce the roof surface temperatures and heat influx. Green roofs also reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide since the vegetation sequesters carbon and, since they reduce energy usage and the urban heat island by reducing the roof temperature, they also lower carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation.


title: Infrastructure

text: Tree planting provides a host of ecological, social, and economic benefits. Trees can intercept rain, support infiltration and water storage in soil, diminish the impact of raindrops on barren surfaces, minimize soil moisture through transpiration, and they help reduce stormwater runoff. Additionally, trees contribute to recharging local aquifers and improve the health of watershed systems. Trees also reduce energy usage by providing shade and releasing water into the atmosphere which cools the air and reduces the amount of heat absorbed by buildings. Finally, trees improve air quality by absorbing harmful air pollutants reducing the amount of greenhouse gases.


title: Infrastructure

text: There are a variety of types of bioretention and infiltration practices, including rain gardens and bioswales. A rain garden is planted in a small depression or natural slope and includes native shrubs and flowers. They temporarily hold and absorb rain water and are effective in removing up to 90% of nutrients and chemicals and up to 80% of sediments from the runoff. As a result, they soak 30% more water than conventional gardens. Bioswales are planted in paved areas like parking lots or sidewalks and are made to allow for overflow into the sewer system by trapping silt and other pollutants, which are normally left over from impermeable surfaces. Both rain gardens and bioswales mitigate flood impacts and prevent stormwater from polluting local waterways; increase the usable water supply by reducing the amount of water needed for outdoor irrigation; improve air quality by minimizing the amount of water going into treatment facilities, which also reduces energy usage and, as a result, reduces air pollution since less greenhouse gases are emitted.


title: Infrastructure

text: Smart cities use innovative methods of design and implementation in various sectors of infrastructure and planning to create communities that operate at a higher level of relative sustainability than their traditional counterparts. In a sustainable city, urban resilience as well as infrastructure reliability must both be present. Urban resilience is defined by a city’s capacity to quickly adapt or recover from infrastructure defects, and infrastructure reliability means that systems must work efficiently while continuing to maximize their output. When urban resilience and infrastructure reliability interact, cities are able to produce the same level of output at similarly reasonable costs as compared to other non sustainable communities, while still maintaining ease of operation and usage.


title: Infrastructure

text: Masdar City is a proposed zero emission smart city that will be contracted in the United Arab Emirates. Some individuals have referred to this planned settlement as “utopia-like”, due to the fact that it will feature multiple sustainable infrastructure elements, including energy, water, waste management, and transportation. Masdar City will have a power infrastructure containing renewable energy methods including solar energy.


title: Infrastructure

text: Masdar City is located in a desert region, meaning that sustainable collection and distribution of water is dependent on the city’s ability to use water at innovative stages of the water cycle. The city will use groundwater, greywater, seawater, blackwater, and other water resources to obtain both drinking and landscaping water.


title: Infrastructure

text: Initially, Masdar City will be waste-free. Recycling and other waste management and waste reduction methods will be encouraged. Additionally, the city will implement a system to convert waste into fertilizer, which will decrease the amount of space needed for waste accumulation as well as provide an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional fertilizer production methods.


title: Infrastructure

text: No cars will be allowed in Masdar City, contributing to low carbon emissions within the city boundaries. Instead, alternative transportation options will be prioritized during infrastructure development. This means that a bike lane network will be accessible and comprehensive, and other options will also be available.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: Jeong Yong-jun (born December 20, 1976), better known as Jang Hyuk, is a South Korean actor. He is best known for his leading roles in the films "Volcano High" (2001) and "Windstruck" (2004), and the television dramas "Successful Story of a Bright Girl" (2002), "Thank You" (2007), "The Slave Hunters" (2010), "Deep Rooted Tree" (2011), "You Are My Destiny" (2014), "Voice" (2017), "Money Flower" (2017) and "The Swordsman" (2020).


title: Jang Hyuk

text: Jang Yong-jun spent most of his childhood and adolescence in his birthplace, Busan, before making his acting debut in 1997 in the television drama "Model" under his stage name Jang hyuk. Besides the teen series "School" and a minor role in the little-seen film "Zzang (The Best)", Jang appeared in the music video of "To Mother", the 1999 debut single of popular boyband g.o.d, whom he was housemates with at that time. Also in 1999, he played the good-hearted yet aggressive Myung-ha in the series "Into the Sunlight". Using the stage name "TJ", he had a brief career as a rapper and acted in several music videos from his rap album "TJ Project", which was released in 2000.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: Jang's career first began to take off in 2001, when he was cast in the lead role of the special-effects extravaganza "Volcano High" with actress Shin Min-a. His acting in the eccentric role drew praise from fans and critics.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: In 2002 he continued to make a name for himself, starring in the sleeper hit "Jungle Juice", which made the top of the weekly box-office. His popularity continued to increase when he starred in the hugely popular TV drama "Successful Story of a Bright Girl" with actress Jang Na-ra. He also took a role in "Public Toilet", the HK-Korea co-production by acclaimed Hong Kong director Fruit Chan which won a Special Mention in the Upstream section of the 2002 Venice Film Festival.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: Jang continued to appear in high-profile projects; in 2003, Jang starred alongside Lee Na-young in the comedy "Please Teach Me English", by director Kim Sung-su and the following year, he starred opposite Jun Ji-hyun in Kwak Jae-yong's "Windstruck". Although "Windstruck" was generally not well received in Korea, it went on to beat "Shiri" and become one of the best-selling Korean films in Japan.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: In late 2004, together with fellow actors Song Seung-heon and Han Jae-suk, Jang was found to have illegally avoided his mandatory military service through his and Han's agency SidusHQ. Amid widespread public condemnation, Jang apologized to his fans, then began to serve his two-year term.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: After his discharge from the military in 2006, Jang made his comeback in the drama series "Thank You". A heartwarming story about a young single mother (played by Gong Hyo-jin) with an HIV-positive daughter and the cynical doctor who enters their lives, "Thank You" surprisingly became a modest hit, and with it Jang left the stigma of his draft-dodging scandal behind him.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: He then signed up for the international movie production "Dance of the Dragon" (2008), a love story that mixed ballroom dancing with martial arts action and costarred Singaporean actress Fann Wong. He won the Best Actor award at the inaugural West Hollywood International Film Festival for his role. Jang also made a cameo in Japanese drama "Ryokiteki na Kanojo", a remake of the 2001 Korean film "My Sassy Girl". After his earlier guesting on star Tsuyoshi Kusanagi's talk show, the director of the drama reportedly added new scenes for Jang that were not included in the original script. Jang then appeared as the love interest in three music videos of Taiwanese singer Elva Hsiao.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: More leading roles in TV dramas followed, including "Robber" (2008) and "Tazza" (2008) adapted from the gambling manhwa. In 2009, he appeared in the short film "His Concern" in the omnibus "Five Senses of Eros", the risque thriller "Searching for the Elephant", and the melodrama "Maybe".


title: Jang Hyuk

text: In 2010, he received the best reviews of his career for his leading role as the slave hunter ("chuno") Dae-gil in the hit fusion period drama "The Slave Hunters". His acting coach of 14 years described Jang as being relentless in his analysis of a character. According to Jang, "It is easy to fail if you don't understand the steps one has to take to be famous." He won several acting awards, most significantly the Grand Prize ("Daesang") at the KBS Drama Awards, and a Best Actor nomination at the 2011 International Emmy Awards.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: In the same year, he starred in "Fall in Love with Anchor Beauty", the Chinese remake of 2000 Korean drama "All About Eve". "Fall in Love with Anchor Beauty" received high ratings in China during its run.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: Back in Korea, Jang played a fund manager-turned-lawyer in 2011's "Midas", also starring Lee Min-jung and Kim Hee-ae. He next starred in legal thriller "The Client" (2011) with Ha Jung-woo and Park Hee-soon, saying the film satisfied his wish to portray a more emotionally complex persona. Playing a man accused of murdering his wife, Jang said he had to find "the right balance" "as someone who can appear at times like a criminal or at other times like an innocent man."


title: Jang Hyuk

text: Initially reluctant to sign on to period drama "Deep Rooted Tree" (2011) because he found the role of low-level royal guard Kang Chae-yoon uninteresting in the original novel, Jang changed his mind upon reading that the character had been dramatized and made richer in the TV script. It tells the story of Kang investigating a case involving the serial murders of Jiphyeonjeon scholars in Gyeongbok Palace while King Sejong (played by Han Suk-kyu) is developing the Korean alphabet.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: In 2013, he headlined "Iris II", the sequel to the 2009 spy action series. This was his third acting collaboration with actress Lee Da-hae, after "Robber" and "The Slave Hunters". He also returned to the big screen in 2013 blockbuster disaster film "The Flu", in which he and Soo Ae played a firefighter and a doctor racing against time to find the cure for a deadly strain of the cold virus.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: To the surprise of many given his past draft-dodging scandal, he then joined "Real Men", a weekly show in which six male celebrities are filmed documentary-style as they enter army boot camp. This was Jang's first regular appearance on a variety/reality show in his 17-year acting career. He said, "I'd like to use this opportunity to reflect on myself through "Real Men" and to experience army life again." He appeared on "Real Men" from June 2013 to February 2014. He then wrote a collection of essays on his life experiences titled "Jang Hyuk, Hot-Blooded Man", published on August 6, 2013.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: In 2014, he reunited with "Volcano High" director Kim Tae-kyun in "Innocent Thing", a thriller about a high school girl who becomes obsessed with her married gym teacher. He also teamed up again with "Successful Story of a Bright Girl" costar Jang Na-ra in "You Are My Destiny", a Korean remake of the similarly titled 2008 Taiwanese drama. Shortly after, he and Jang starred together for the third time in "Old Farewell", about a boxer who travels into the past and re-encounters his recently deceased wife. It was part of the single-episode anthology "Drama Festival", and helmed by one of their directors on "Fated".


title: Jang Hyuk

text: In 2015, Jang returned to the milieu of period dramas with "Shine or Go Crazy", a fictional romance between a cursed Goryeo prince and the last princess of Balhae. The film "Empire of Lust" followed, in which he played the wily and ambitious Yi Bang-won who launched a coup to become the king of Joseon. He was next cast in the Chinese film "Inside or Outside", a detective mystery co-starring Simon Yam and Wallace Huo. Jang then played a Joseon innkeeper merchant in "".


title: Jang Hyuk

text: In 2016, Jang was cast in the Chinese drama "New Sea". Back in Korea, Jang starred in KBS's medical drama "Beautiful Mind", playing a genius neurosurgeon. Though the drama was critically praised, the number of episodes were brought down from 16 to 14 because of low viewer ratings.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: In 2017, he starred in his first cable drama, crime thriller "Voice" by OCN, where he played an ex-detective who joined a call center's team to track his wife's killer. "Voice" became a hit and its ratings broke OCN's dramas records when it was aired in Korea. His movie "Ordinary Person" opposite Son Hyun-joo was released in March 2017, where he acted as a manipulative National Planning Security chief. He also starred in weekend drama "Money Flower", earning much acclaim and a Baeksang Arts Awards Best Actor nomination for his role as a revenge-seeking lawyer. The same year, he was cast in action film "The Swordsman".


title: Jang Hyuk

text: In 2018, Jang returned to the small screen with SBS' romantic comedy drama "Wok of Love", playing a former gangster turned restaurant owner; and MBC's action melodrama "Bad Papa", playing a former champion boxer who chose to become a bad man in order to become a good father.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: In 2019, he took part in reality TV program "Urban Cops" where celebrities team up with real life cops to solve crimes in the city. The same year, he was cast in the historical drama "My Country", playing the role of Yi Bang-won.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: In 2020, Jang acted as a genius profiler in OCN drama "Tell Me What You Saw". His movie "The Swordsman" was released in September 2020. The same year, he took part in reality TV program "Yacht Expedition: The Beginning".


title: Jang Hyuk

text: In 2021, Jang took part in outdoor survival variety TV program "Law of the Jungle-Pioneers" and cooking show "National Bang Bang Cook Cook". His noir movie "Tomb of the River" was released in November 2021.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: In 2022, Jang returned to the small screen with KBS2's historical drama "Bloody Heart", playing the first vice-premier and a living symbol of power and a figure that everyone obeys. His movie "" made its world premiere at the Udine Far East Film Festival in April 2022, held a red carpet premiere at Los Angeles in June 2022 and hit the big screens simultaneously in South Korea and North America on 13 July 2022. He also won the Daniel A. Craft award for Excellence in Action Cinema at the 21st New York Asian Film Festival. In November 2022, he took part as a judge in tvN's variety programme "Super Action".


title: Jang Hyuk

text: Jang began dating his girlfriend, Kim Yeo-jin, in 2002. They met at a fitness club, where Kim was his Pilates instructor. The couple's marriage was registered in January 2008, and the ceremony was held in June. His close friends, singer Kim Jong-kook and actor Cha Tae-hyun, participated in the wedding ceremony. The couple have two sons and a daughter, born in February 2008, November 2009 and April 2015 respectively.


title: Jang Hyuk

text: Jang has practiced Jeet Kune Do for more than 10 years and is a former professional Taekwondo athlete.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Melissa Lou Etheridge (born May 29, 1961) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and guitarist. Her eponymous debut album was released in 1988 and became an underground success. It peaked at No. 22 on the "Billboard" 200 and its lead single, "Bring Me Some Water", garnered Etheridge her first Grammy Award nomination for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female in 1989. Her second album, "Brave and Crazy", appeared that same year and earned Etheridge two more Grammy nominations. In 1992, Etheridge released her third album, "Never Enough", and its lead single, "Ain't It Heavy", won Etheridge her first Grammy Award.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: In 1993, she released what would become her mainstream breakthrough album: "Yes I Am". Its tracks "I'm the Only One", "If I Wanted To", and "Come to My Window" all reached the Top 40 in the United States, while the latter earned Etheridge her second Grammy Award. "Yes I Am" spent 138 weeks on the "Billboard" 200, peaking at No. 15, and earned a RIAA certification of 6× Platinum, her largest selling album to date. Her fifth album, "Your Little Secret", was released in 1995 and peaked at No. 6 on the "Billboard" 200, her highest charting album to date. Its tracks "Nowhere to Go" and "I Want to Come Over" both reached the Top 40 in the United States.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Etheridge achieved further success with her albums "Breakdown" (1999), "Skin" (2001), and "Lucky" (2004). In October 2004, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and underwent surgery and chemotherapy. At the 2005 Grammy Awards, she made a return to the stage, performing a tribute to Janis Joplin with Joss Stone. Stone began the performance with "Cry Baby" and Etheridge, bald from chemotherapy, joined her to perform the song "Piece of My Heart". Their performance was widely acclaimed, and India.Arie later wrote "I Am Not My Hair" about Etheridge. Later that year, Etheridge released her first compilation album, "". A great commercial success, it peaked at No. 14 on the "Billboard" 200, and went Gold almost immediately. Etheridge has released 16 studio albums to date, the most recent being "One Way Out" (2021).


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Etheridge is known for music with a mixture of "confessional lyrics, pop-based folk-rock, and raspy, smoky vocals". She has been a gay and lesbian activist since her public coming out in January 1993. Among her various accolades, Etheridge has received two Grammy Awards (from 15 nominations), and an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "I Need to Wake Up" from the film "An Inconvenient Truth" (2006). She received the Berklee College of Music Honorary Doctor of Music Degree in 2006. The following year, she was honored with the ASCAP Founders Award. In September 2011, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Etheridge was born in Leavenworth, Kansas, the younger of two daughters of Elizabeth (Williamson), a computer consultant, and John Etheridge, an American Constitution teacher at her alma mater, Leavenworth High School. John Etheridge died in August 1991.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Etheridge began guitar lessons aged eight. She started to play in local country music groups in her teenage years and graduated from high school in 1979. While attending college at Berklee College of Music, Etheridge played the club circuit around Boston. After three semesters, Etheridge decided to drop out of Berklee and move to Los Angeles to attempt a career in music.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Etheridge was discovered at Vermie's, a bar in Pasadena, California. She had made some friends on a women's soccer team, and those new friends came to see her play. One of the women was Karla Leopold, whose husband, Bill Leopold, was a manager in the music business. Karla convinced Bill to see Etheridge perform live. He was impressed, and became a pivotal part of Etheridge's career. This, in addition to her gigs in lesbian bars around Los Angeles, led to her discovery by Island Records chief Chris Blackwell. She signed a publishing deal to write songs for films including the 1986 movie "Weeds".


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: After an unreleased first effort that was rejected by Island Records as being too polished and glossy, she completed her stripped-down, self-titled debut in just four days. Her eponymous debut album "Melissa Etheridge" (1988), was an underground hit, and the single "Bring Me Some Water" performed well on radio and was nominated for a Grammy Award.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: At the time of the album's release, it was not generally known that Etheridge was a lesbian. While on the road promoting the album, she paused in Memphis, Tennessee, to be interviewed for the syndicated radio program "Pulsebeat—Voice of the Heartland", explaining the intensity of her music by saying: "People think I'm really sad—or really angry. But my songs are written about the conflicts I have...I have no anger toward anyone else." She invited the radio syndication producer to attend her concert that night. He did and was surprised to find himself one of the few men in attendance.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Etheridge's second album, "Brave and Crazy", was released in 1989. "Brave and Crazy" followed the same musical formula as her eponymous debut; it also garnered a Grammy nomination. The album peaked at No. 22 on the "Billboard" charts (equal to her first album). Etheridge then went on the road, like one of her musical influences, Bruce Springsteen, and built a loyal fan base.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: In 1992, Etheridge released her third album, "Never Enough". Similar to her prior two albums, "Never Enough" didn't reach the top of the charts peaking at #21 but gave Etheridge her first Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female for her single "Ain't It Heavy". "Never Enough" was considered a more personal and mature album from Etheridge at that time. With rumors circulating around her sexuality (Etheridge was not out yet at this point), the album seemed to inadvertently address these rumors.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: In 1992, Etheridge established a performing arts scholarship at Leavenworth High School in honor of her recently deceased father. According to Etheridge, her father purchased her first guitar and "would come with me to bars in the area when I played because I was underage".


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: In January 1993, Etheridge came out publicly as a lesbian. On September 21, 1993, she released "Yes I Am", which became her mainstream breakthrough album. Co-produced with Hugh Padgham, "Yes I Am" spent 138 weeks on the "Billboard" 200 charts and peaked at No. 15. It scored two mainstream hits: "Come to My Window" and her only "Billboard" Top 10 single, "I'm the Only One", which also hit #1 on "Billboard"s Adult Contemporary chart. "Yes I Am" earned a RIAA certification of 6× platinum.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Etheridge earned her second Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female for her single "Come to My Window", based on an unsettling scene in the Pavarotti film, "Yes, Giorgio". She also garnered two additional nominations in the Best Rock Song category for "I'm the Only One" and "Come to My Window", losing to Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia".


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Also in 1994, she was honored by VH-1 for her work with the AIDS organization L.A. Shanti. During the televised occasion, she highlighted the appearance with a performance of "I'm the Only One" and a duet with Sammy Hagar covering The Rolling Stones' song, "Honky Tonk Woman."


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: The album's fifth single, "If I Wanted To", debuted in February 1995 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 at No. 25, the highest debut for a single in 1995.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: The success of "Yes I Am" helped increase sales of Etheridge's earlier albums. In 1995, "Melissa Etheridge" earned a RIAA certification of 2× platinum, while "Never Enough" earned a RIAA certification of platinum.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Etheridge's follow-up to "Yes I Am" was the successful "Your Little Secret" (1995). The album was not as well received by critics as Etheridge's prior recordings. Featuring a lead single of the same name, "Your Little Secret" is the highest-charting album of Etheridge's career, having reached No. 6 on the "Billboard" album charts; however, the album spent only 41 weeks on the chart. The album produced two Top 40 singles "I Want to Come Over" ("Billboard" #22, "RPM" #1) and "Nowhere to Go" ("Billboard" #40) and earned a RIAA certification of 2× platinum.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: In 1996, Etheridge won an ASCAP Songwriter of the Year award. She also took a lengthy break from the music business to concentrate on her family when her first two children Bailey (1997) and Beckett (1998) were born. She also recorded "Sin Tener A Donde Ir (Nowhere to Go)" for the AIDS benefit album "" produced by the Red Hot Organization.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Etheridge returned to the music charts with the release of "Breakdown" in October 1999. "Breakdown" peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard charts and spent 18 weeks in the charts. Despite this, "Breakdown" was the only album of Etheridge's career to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album (losing to Santana's "Supernatural"). In addition, her single "Angels Would Fall" was nominated in two categories: Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female (losing to Sheryl Crow) and Best Rock Song (losing to the Red Hot Chili Peppers) in 2000. A year later, another single from the album--"Enough of Me"—was nominated for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female (also losing to Sheryl Crow). The album was certified gold by the RIAA.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: The year 2001 saw the release of "Skin", an album she described as "the closest I've ever come to recording a concept album. It has a beginning, middle and end. It's a journey." "Skin" garnered generally positive reviews with Metacritic scoring the album 73/100 from 9 reviews. Recorded after her breakup with partner Julie Cypher, "Skin" was described as "[a] harrowing, clearly autobiographical dissection of a decaying relationship." Despite positive reviews, "Skin" sold less than 500,000 copies. On the Billboard charts, it peaked at No. 9 but dropped out of the Top 200 after just 12 weeks. The single "I Want to Be in Love" was nominated for the Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female (losing to Lucinda Williams). The music video for the song starred Jennifer Aniston.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Etheridge began 2004 with the release of her eighth album "Lucky" on February 10. Etheridge was now in a new relationship with actress Tammy Lynn Michaels, whom she had begun dating in 2001. "Lucky" performed similarly to "Skin", selling fewer than 500,000 copies, peaking on the Billboard charts at No. 15 and spending 13 weeks on the charts. It also garnered a Grammy nomination for Etheridge's cover of the Greenwheel song "Breathe" for the Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo (losing to Bruce Springsteen).


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: In October 2004, Etheridge was diagnosed with breast cancer. At the 2005 Grammy Awards (the same ceremony for which "Breathe" was nominated), she made a return to the stage and, although bald from chemotherapy, performed a tribute to Janis Joplin with the song "Piece of My Heart". Etheridge's performance was lauded in song in India.Arie's "I Am Not My Hair".


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: On September 10, 2005, Etheridge participated in , a telethon in support for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. ReAct Now, part of an ongoing effort by MTV, VH1, CMT, seeks to raise funds for the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and America's Second Harvest. Etheridge introduced a new song specially written for the occasion called "Four Days". The a cappella song included themes and images that were on the news during the aftermath of the hurricane. Other charities she supports include The Dream Foundation and Love Our Children USA.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: In November 2005, Etheridge appeared on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" to perform her song "I Run for Life".


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Etheridge wrote "I Need to Wake Up" for the film documentary "An Inconvenient Truth", which won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2006. The song was released only on the enhanced version of her greatest hits album, "".


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Etheridge was also a judge for the 5th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: In August 2006, Melissa also produced and sang the vocal tracks on the "Brother Bear 2" soundtrack, including collaborations with Josh Kelley.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: On July 7, 2007, Etheridge performed at the Giants Stadium on the American leg of Live Earth. Etheridge performed the songs "Imagine That" and "What Happens Tomorrow" from "The Awakening", her tenth album, released on September 25, 2007, as well as the song "I Need To Wake Up" before introducing Al Gore. On December 11, 2007, she performed at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway, together with a variety of artists, a concert which was broadcast live to over 100 countries. In addition, she performed at the U.S. 2008 Democratic National Convention on August 27, 2008.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Etheridge was featured in UniGlobe Entertainment's breast cancer docudrama titled "1 a Minute" released in 2010.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Etheridge performed the role of St. Jimmy in Green Day's hit Broadway musical, American Idiot from February 1–6, 2011.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: Etheridge performed her new song "Uprising of Love" in the 2013–2014 New Year's Eve celebration in New York City's Times Square along with the rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine" before the ball drop. The single was released on iTunes on January 28, 2014.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: In 2014, she was one of the performers at the opening ceremonies of WorldPride in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, alongside Tom Robinson, Deborah Cox and Steve Grand.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: On July 1, 2014, she released "Take My Number", the first single from her 13th studio album "This Is M.E.". The cover art for the album is a mosaic that includes pictures submitted by fans. Melissa explains the album cover on her official website: "Because my fans are such a huge part of ME, and I wouldn't be ME without YOU, I took photos submitted by my fans and turned it into my album cover." The album was released on September 30, 2014.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: On June 9, 2015, she released a live album titled: "A Little Bit of Me: Live in L.A.". It was recorded at the closing show of the U.S. leg of her This Is M.E. Tour on December 12, 2014, at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Los Angeles.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: On October 6, 2016, Etheridge released her 14th studio album, "MEmphis Rock and Soul", a covers album made of blues tracks originally recorded by blues legends such as Otis Redding, William Bell, and the Staples Singers.


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: On April 12, 2019, Etheridge released her 15th studio album "The Medicine Show". The first single released from the album was titled "Faded by Design".


title: Melissa Etheridge

text: On September 17, 2021, Etheridge released a new album, "One Way Out" on BMG. The album is composed of songs written in the late 80's and early 90's, but recorded recently with her original band, although the last two songs were recorded live at the Roxy in Los Angeles in 2002.