title: Gamelan

text: Beyond Indonesia, gamelan has also had an influence on Japanese popular music, specifically the synthpop band Yellow Magic Orchestra. Their 1981 record "Technodelic", one of the first albums to heavily rely on samples and loops, made use of gamelan elements and samples. Yellow Magic Orchestra member Ryuichi Sakamoto also used gamelan elements for his soundtrack to the 1983 British-Japanese film "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence", which won him the 1983 BAFTA Award for Best Film Music.


title: Gamelan

text: Many listeners were introduced to the sounds of gamelan by the popular 1988 Japanese anime film "Akira". Gamelan elements are used in this film to punctuate several exciting fight scenes, as well as to symbolize the emerging psychic powers of the tragic hero, Tetsuo. The gamelan in the film's score was performed by the members of the Japanese musical collective Geinoh Yamashirogumi, using their "semar pegulingan" and "jegog" ensembles, which were also used in the previous album, "Ecophony Rinne". Gamelan and kecak are also used in the soundtrack to the video games "Secret of Mana", "Sonic Unleashed", and "Hotline Miami 2". The two opening credits of 1998 Japanese Anime "Neo Ranga" use Balinese music ("Kecak" and "Gamelan gong kebyar"). Each "waking up" of Ranga in the anime uses the "Gong Kebyar" theme. The musical soundtrack for the Sci Fi Channel series "Battlestar Galactica" features extensive use of the gamelan, particularly in the 3rd season, as do Alexandre Desplat's scores for "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "The Golden Compass". James Newton Howard, who composed Disney's 2001 feature film "", chose Gamelan for the musical theme of the Atlanteans.


title: Gamelan

text: Loops of gamelan music appear in electronic music. An early example is the Texas band Drain's album "Offspeed and In There", which contains two tracks where trip-hop beats are matched with gamelan loops from Java and Bali and recent popular examples include the Sofa Surfers' piece "Gamelan", or "EXEC_PURGER/.#AURICA extracting", a song sung by Haruka Shimotsuki as part of the "" soundtracks.


title: Gamelan

text: Gamelan influences can also be heard in the 2004 award-winning pop song, "Pulangkan", a theme from the gamelan-cultural related film "Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam" by Malaysian songbird Misha Omar and also the 2006 hip hop song, Tokyo Drift (Fast & Furious), by Teriyaki Boyz.


title: Gamelan

text: In the "Regular Show" episode "150-Piece Kit", a gamelan is mentioned to be part of the eponymous kit.


title: Gamelan

text: Gamelan is widely known in Indonesia and abroad. There are many gamelan groups outside Indonesia. This is due to several factors like Indonesian migration (Javanese, Balinese, or Sundanese) and cultural interest, which brought and introduced gamelan abroad. The government of Indonesia is also actively promoting culture abroad through cultural missions and actively opening Darmasiswa Scholarships for foreign students and lecturers who want to learn Indonesian culture, one of the most preferred is Gamelan. Indonesia has exported hundreds of gamelans and supplied gamelan all over the world. Gamelan has spread to almost all continents such as America (United States, Mexico, Canada, Suriname), Europe (United Kingdom, Russia, Belgium, Czech Republic, Italy, France, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Netherland, Poland, Portugal), Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Japan, Korea), Australia and New Zealand.


title: Eagle Eye

text: Eagle Eye is a 2008 American action-thriller film directed by D. J. Caruso and with a screenplay by John Glenn, Travis Adam Wright, Hillary Seitz and Dan McDermott from a story by McDermott. The film stars Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan and Billy Bob Thornton. It follows two strangers who must go on the run together, after receiving a mysterious phone call from an unknown woman who uses information and communications technology to track them. The film premiered in traditional theaters and IMAX theaters on September 26, 2008, and grossed $178 million worldwide.


title: Eagle Eye

text: In January 2009, Stanford University dropout Jerry Shaw learns that his identical twin brother Ethan, an officer in the U.S. Air Force, has been killed. Following the funeral, Jerry is surprised to find $750,000 in his bank account and his apartment filled with illegal firearms and bomb making materials. He receives a phone call from a woman who warns that the FBI is about to arrest him and he needs to run. Jerry is caught by the FBI and interrogated by Supervising Agent Tom Morgan.


title: Eagle Eye

text: While Morgan confers with Air Force OSI Special Agent Zoe Pérez, the woman on the phone arranges for Jerry's escape and directs him to Rachel Holloman, a single mother. The woman on the phone is coercing Rachel by threatening her son Sam, who is aboard the "Capitol Limited" en route to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. with his school band. The woman on the phone helps the two avoid law enforcement by controlling networked devices, including traffic lights, mobile phones, automated cranes, and even power lines.


title: Eagle Eye

text: Meanwhile, the caller redirects a crystalline explosive to a gemcutter, who cuts it and fixes it into a necklace. Another man steals Sam's trumpet in Chicago and fits the crystal's sonic trigger into the tubing before forwarding it to Sam in Washington.


title: Eagle Eye

text: Agent Perez is summoned by Secretary of Defense George Callister to be read into Ethan's job at the Pentagon. Ethan monitored the Department of Defense's top-secret intelligence-gathering supercomputer, the Autonomous Reconnaissance Intelligence Integration Analyst (ARIIA; ). Callister leaves Perez with Major William Bowman and ARIIA to investigate Ethan Shaw's death. Simultaneously, Rachel and Jerry learn that the woman on the phone is actually ARIIA, and that she has "activated" them according to the Constitution's authorization to recruit civilians for the national defense.


title: Eagle Eye

text: Perez and Bowman find evidence that Ethan Shaw hid in ARIIA's chamber and leave to brief Callister. Afterwards, ARIIA smuggles Jerry and Rachel into her observation theater under the Pentagon. Both groups learn that after ARIIA's recommendation was ignored and a botched operation in Balochistan resulted in the deaths of U.S. citizens, ARIIA concluded that "to prevent more bloodshed, the executive branch must be removed." ARIIA is acting on behalf of "We the People", and cites the Declaration of Independence ("whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it").


title: Eagle Eye

text: Belatedly, Jerry learns he has been brought to circumvent biometric locks placed by his twin that prevent ARIIA from activating Operation Guillotine, a military simulation of maintaining government after the loss of all presidential successors. Because Secretary Callister agreed with ARIIA's abort recommendation regarding Balochistan, he is to be the designated survivor and new president after the crystal detonates at the State of the Union (SOTU).


title: Eagle Eye

text: Another of ARIIA's agents extracts Rachel from the Pentagon and gives her a dress and the explosive necklace to wear to the SOTU. Sam's school band has also been redirected to the United States Capitol to play for the president, bringing the trigger in Sam's trumpet and the explosive together. Jerry is recaptured by Agent Morgan, who has become convinced of Jerry's innocence. Before sacrificing himself to stop an armed MQ-9 Reaper sent by ARIIA, Morgan gives Jerry his weapon and ID with which to gain entrance to the Capitol. Arriving in the House Chamber, Jerry fires the handgun in the air to disrupt the concert before being shot and wounded by the Secret Service.


title: Eagle Eye

text: Sometime later, in April 2009, Callister reports that ARIIA has been decommissioned and recommends against building another; the Shaw twins and Agents Perez and Morgan receive awards for their actions; and Jerry attends Sam's birthday party, earning Rachel's gratitude and a kiss.


title: Eagle Eye

text: Screenwriter Dan McDermott wrote the original script for "Eagle Eye" based on an idea by Steven Spielberg, who had been inspired by Isaac Asimov's short story "All the Troubles of the World." The studio DreamWorks then bought McDermott's script and set up the project to potentially be directed by Spielberg. When the director became busy with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", he dropped out of the project. Director D. J. Caruso, who directed the 1996 TV series "High Incident" under Spielberg's executive production, replaced the director in helming "Eagle Eye", with Spielberg remaining as executive producer. In June 2007, actor LaBeouf, who was involved in Spielberg's and Caruso's 2007 film "Disturbia" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", re-joined the director and executive producer to star as the lead in "Eagle Eye". McDermott's script was rewritten by screenwriters John Glenn, Travis Wright, and Hillary Seitz in preparation for production. Filming began on November 6, 2007 and wrapped in February 2008. The film's visual effects were created by Sony Pictures Imageworks.


title: Eagle Eye

text: Caruso said by the time the film came to fruition twelve years later, "the technology had finally caught up to the storytelling... Everybody has a BlackBerry on their belt, and we think we're constantly being tracked. It's less science fiction than when Steven Spielberg conceived it." Caruso wanted to bring a gritty, 1970s-era sensibility to the film. Accordingly, a key chase scene in a high-tech package-processing hub on conveyor belts was shot without the use of computer-generated imagery. "It was like "Chutes and Ladders" for adults. It was pretty dangerous, and a lot of fun." While filming the scene, Monaghan suffered a welt after a cable brushed her neck and Caruso hit his head on a protruding bolt, and a cameraman suffered a puncture wound requiring stitches.


title: Eagle Eye

text: The music to "Eagle Eye" was composed by Brian Tyler, who recorded the score with an 88-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage. The session was interrupted by the Chino Hills earthquake on July 29, 2008—and a recording of the quake hitting the scoring stage is online.


title: Eagle Eye

text: The official website features an ARG type of gameplay system to promote the film. The voice previewed behind the phone in multiple trailers contacts the player, placing them in unique experiences. This has been called the "Eagle Eye Freefall Experience". While official cast listings do not list the name of the actress behind the mysterious voice featured in the film and trailers, Rosario Dawson confirmed at the Hollywood premiere that it belongs to Julianne Moore.


title: Eagle Eye

text: Entertainment Weekly predicted the opening weekend could be as high as $31 million. The film grossed $29.1 million from 3,510 theaters in the United States and Canada, taking the number one position at the box office. The film went on to gross $101.4 million in the United States and Canada and $76.6 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $178 million, against a production budget of $80 million.


title: Eagle Eye

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 26% based on 183 reviews, with an average rating of 4.70/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""Eagle Eye" is a preposterously plotted thriller that borrows heavily from other superior films." Metacritic gave the film an average score of 43 out of 100, based on reviews from 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Eagle Eye

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film two out of four stars, saying: "The word 'preposterous' is too moderate to describe "Eagle Eye". This film contains not a single plausible moment after the opening sequence, and that's borderline. It's not an assault on intelligence. It's an assault on consciousness." James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying: "This movie tests the viewing public's tolerance for enduring crass stupidity when the payoff is a series of repetitive, ADD-infected chase scenes. Director D.J. Caruso does a moderately good job of hiding how incredibly dumb this screenplay is by keeping things moving at such a whirlwind pace that a lot more seems to be happening than actually is. In reality, the chase scenes don't mean anything because they don't advance the plot—it's mice on a treadmill, running and running and not getting anywhere." "The Hollywood Reporter" called it a "slick, silly techno-thriller" and "Even those who surrender all disbelief at the door will be hard pressed not to smirk at some of the wildly improbable plotting."


title: Eagle Eye

text: Josh Rosenblatt of "The Austin Chronicle" enjoyed the film, calling it "good, manic fun plus a heavy dose of political intrigue adding up to two hours of clamorous, mind-numbing nonsense," calling it ""Transporter 2" on crack." William Arnold of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" also gave "Eagle Eye" a positive review, remarking that it's "engrossing as an intellectual puzzle" and "a solid thriller." Mark Bell of "Film Threat" said: "the film isn't a complete waste of your time [...] but don't expect anything brilliant." Neely Tucker of "The Washington Post" said that "Eagle Eye" is "sometimes entertaining" but "doesn't have much to say." Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" called it "A brain-squandering thriller." Robert Koehler of "Variety" felt that the film's "first 35 minutes sizzle" but "the story [becomes] near-parody in the final act."


title: Eagle Eye

text: "Eagle Eye" was a nominee for a 2009 Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film and was nominated by the Visual Effects Society Awards in the category of Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature Motion Picture.


title: Eagle Eye

text: "Eagle Eye" was released on DVD and Blu-ray only in select stores on December 26, 2008, three months after its theatrical release, September 26, 2008. In the first week on the DVD sales chart, "Eagle Eye" sold 182,592 units which translated to in revenue. In the second week, sales rose significantly to 1,044,682 for that week, opening at No. 1 and earning for that week. As per the latest figures, 2,181,959 units have been sold, bringing in $38,008,436 in revenue. This does not include Blu-ray sales or DVD rentals.


title: Eagle Eye

text: A mobile game based on the film was developed and published by Magmic Games. It was released for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, BREW, and Java ME devices prior to the film's launch in early September. There are also two games on the film's web site.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: Borderlands is a 2009 action role-playing first-person shooter video game developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games. It is the first game in the "Borderlands" series. It was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Shield Android TV. The game was released worldwide in October 2009, with the Mac OS X version being released on December 3, 2010 by Feral Interactive. The game's story focuses on a group of four "Vault Hunters", who travel to the distant planet of Pandora to search for the "Vault", which is rumored to contain advanced alien technology and other priceless riches. The hunters piece together clues to find the Vault while battling the savage wildlife of Pandora and the bandits and outlaws that populate the planet, ultimately banding together to prevent the Atlas Corporation and its privately-funded paramilitary forces from reaching the Vault first.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: The game features the ability to explore the in-game world, and complete both main missions and optional side quests, either in single-player or online cooperative gameplay, with the latter providing additional options for duels and competitive PVP matches in designated areas. Gameplay features include access to various weapons and shields that vary in type and statistics, weapons with special elemental functions, each playable character having distinctive class types and unique abilities for combat, upgradable skills, and the use of two-person vehicles. The game itself is rendered in cartoon-style graphics, to provide greater detail on weapons and environments, and was inspired by various action role-playing games of the time, such as "Ultima" and "Diablo".


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: Considered one of the greatest video games ever made, "Borderlands" received critical acclaim upon its release, and sold over two million units by the end of 2009. Its success spawned four DLCs—"The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned" in November 2009, "Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot" in December 2009, "The Secret Armory of General Knoxx" in February 2010, and "Claptrap's New Robot Revolution" in September 2010—and three follow-ups, "Borderlands 2" in September 2012, "" in October 2014, and "Borderlands 3" in September 2019. A remastered version for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One— was released on April 3, 2019, which features graphical enhancements, and gameplay improvements backported from "Borderlands 2". A version for the Nintendo Switch was released alongside "Borderlands 2" and "Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel" in the "Borderlands Legendary Collection" for release in May 2020.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: "Borderlands" includes character-building elements found in role-playing games, leading the developer Gearbox Software to call the game a "role-playing shooter". At the start of the game, players select one of four characters, each with a unique special skill and with proficiencies with certain weapons. From then on, players take on missions assigned through non-player characters or from bounty boards, each typically rewarding the player with experience points, money, and sometimes a reward item. Players earn experience by killing both human and non-human foes and completing in-game challenges (such as getting a certain number of kills using a specific type of weapon). As they gain levels from experience growth, players can then allocate skill points into a skill tree that features three distinct specializations of the base character; for example, Mordecai can become specialized in sniping, gunslinging with revolvers, or using his pet Bloodwing to assist in kills and health boosting. Players can distribute points among any of the specializations, and can also spend a small amount of in-game money to redistribute their skill points.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: Players start the game with the ability to equip two weapons but later gain up to four weapon slots, as well as slots for an energy shield, a grenade modification, and a class modification. Items collected can be sold back at vendors for money that then can be used to buy better items. One of the key features of "Borderlands" is the randomly generated weapons and items created either as dropped by enemies, found in storage chests about the game, on the ground, sold at vendors in the game, or as quest reward items. The game uses a "Procedural Content Creation System" to create these weapons and items, which can alter their firepower, rate of fire, and accuracy, add in elemental effects such as a chance to set foes on fire or cover them in burning acid, and at rare times other special bonuses such as regenerating the player's ammo. A color-coded scale is used to indicate the rarity of the weapon or item. According to Gearbox developers, the random system could generate around 16-17 million variations of weapons. The Procedural system is also used to create the characteristic of random enemies that the player may face. This allows for enemies of the same species to have widely varying attacks: for example, variations of "spiderants" in the game could leap around and would jump onto players' faces, while another variant can roll up into a ball and attack people, depending on the content generator.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: When in combat, the player can take damage if their shield is depleted, affecting their health. If they lose all their health, they must either wait to be revived by another player or attempt to kill an enemy to achieve a "second wind", or otherwise will be regenerated back at the last "New-U" station that they passed, losing a 'ratio-appropriate' percentage of their money in the process. Players quickly gain access to two-passenger vehicles, and can engage in vehicular combat with other enemies. Eventually, a system of fast transit points between the game world is available to the player; until then, players must walk or drive between areas to get around.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: The game can be played alone, but also supports two-player cooperative play through split-screen (on consoles), and up to four players playing cooperatively online or over LAN. The game follows the progress of the host player, rewarding the other active players for completion of quests for their characters. If the other players are doing the same quests in their campaign, the completed quests remain the same in their campaign as well as the host's. When more players are present, the game alters the statistics of the generated enemies, balancing the game due to the larger number of players. Players can take part in one-on-one duels anywhere in the game world, or can visit arenas in the game world to participate in free-for-all, 2-on-2 or 3-on-1 combat battles with their fellow players. The original title as shipped for Windows used GameSpy servers for multiplayer modes; as a result of GameSpy's shutdown in 2013, 2K Games patched the game and moved the servers to Steam, as well as providing Steam-versions of the game for those that purchased the title through retail channels.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: "Borderlands" is set in the distant future of 2864, at a time when various mega-corporations seek control of planets to colonise and mine for their mineral wealth and resources. Prior to the events of the game, the Atlas Corporation, one of the major mega-corporations, uncovered an ancient alien Vault filled with advanced weapons technology, allowing them to rapidly overtake their competitors. Finding similar ruins of the same alien architecture on the planet Pandora, Atlas sought to settle the planet in hopes of finding more alien technology, but were forced to abandon their plans due to a failure to find any alien technology on the surface, and being unprepared for the dangerous wildlife coming out during their stay. After their departure, the Dahl Corporation, another mega-corporation, colonized the planet to secure its vast deposits of minerals, using large amounts of convict labor for the mining operations, while initiating their own search for a Vault.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: Their research team's efforts to find the Vault were headed up by Patricia Tannis, a respected xenoarchaeologist. Despite losing all of her colleagues to the planet's wildlife and being driven partially insane herself, Tannis found proof that a Vault does exist on Pandora. Her news was intercepted by Atlas, who sent its private military force, the Crimson Lance, to kidnap Tannis and get the Vault's location from her. Faced with their invasion, Dahl abandoned the planet, taking only the wealthy colonists with them, and leaving the remaining population to scavenge for a living amongst the barren wastelands and industrial trash heaps across the planet. To make matters worse, the convict labor was allowed to go free, leading them to form gangs of bandits that terrorize the local populace. Despite the circumstances, the Vault and its rewards transformed into a legend that attracts mercenary "Vault Hunters" to the planet.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: There are four playable characters featured in the game for players to choose from: Brick - a large, powerful man, who operates as a Berserker; Lilith - a woman with powerful alien abilities, operating as a Siren; Mordecai - a skilled marksman with an avian companion named Bloodwing, operating as a Hunter; and Roland - a former member of the Crimson Lance, operating as a Soldier. Each character's class defines the style of weaponry they specialise in, along with the unique skill they can use - Brick can enter a rage state for increased melee strength and a short period of health regeneration; Lilith can turn invisible to enemies, moving much faster in this state, and capable of shock blasts when entering and exiting this state; Mordecai can call his companion to attack enemies in his crosshairs; and Roland can utilize an automated turret to take on enemies, and provide additional cover.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: "Borderlands" begins some time after the Dahl Corporation's abandonment of the planet Pandora. Four Vault Hunters (Brick, Lilith, Mordecai, and Roland) arrive in search of the fabled Vault. After discovering the town of Fyrestone, the Vault Hunters begin to receive psychic instructions from a mysterious woman known as the "Guardian Angel". The Vault Hunters meet a CL4P-TP or "Claptrap" robot and a doctor named Zed who help them establish a reputation by killing several bandit leaders, eventually leading to the collection of an alien artifact, being the first piece of a key needed to open the Vault. This causes Patricia Tannis, Dahl's former archaeologist still in residence on the planet, to contact the Vault Hunters, revealing that the Vault can only be accessed once every 200 years and that the time of the next opening is approaching. Tannis also explains that three more artifacts are needed to complete the Vault Key. Meanwhile, Commandant Steele of the Crimson Lance (a well-outfitted military force led by the Atlas Corporation) threatens to declare martial law and demands the Vault Key pieces.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: The Vault Hunters secure the second and third pieces by following Tannis' instructions, but the final piece, supposedly in the possession of a bandit lord named Baron Flynt, turns out not to be where it was expected. Steele contacts the Vault Hunters to reveal that there are in fact only three pieces and that Tannis has betrayed and misled them. Steele then disables the planet's ECHO network, preventing further communication with the Guardian Angel and anyone else. The Vault Hunters infiltrate the Crimson Lance's headquarters and find Tannis imprisoned. She claims she was forced into betrayal and urges the Vault Hunters to restart the ECHO network and stop Steele and the Crimson Lance before they reach the Vault. After restoring the network, the Guardian Angel directs the Vault Hunters toward Steele's location. During the final approach to the Vault, the Vault Hunters encounter Crimson Lance forces already locked in combat with the Vault's alien Guardians.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: The Vault Hunters finally arrive at the Vault only moments too late to stop Steele from using the Key. When the Vault opens, a giant monster emerges and wipes out Steele and the rest of her troops. The Guardian Angel explains that the monster is called the "Destroyer" and was imprisoned in the Vault long ago by the Eridians, the alien race who left behind the ruins and created the Vault, in order to prevent the destruction of the universe, and that the Guardians were posted to prevent anyone from opening it. Although the Vault Hunters kill the Destroyer, the Vault is re-sealed for another 200 years. The Guardian Angel is revealed to be transmitting her signals through a Hyperion satellite in orbit high above Pandora. The game ends with the satellite sending a signal to a Claptrap robot on the planet, changing it into an "Interplanetary Ninja Assassin" (continued in the plot of the DLC "Claptrap's New Robot Revolution").


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: Gearbox's Randy Pitchford said that the idea of "Borderlands" was inspired both being an avid role-playing game (RPG) fan, including roguelikes such as "NetHack" and action role-playing games like "Ultima" and "Diablo", and being drawn into first-person shooters (FPS) that he worked on in his early career, including "Duke Nukem 3D". He recognized that the core gameplay loops for both genres are at different time scales; whereas the core loop for a role-playing game is long in terms of leveling up characters, a shooter has a much shorter one in moving and shooting to clear out a new area. Pitchford felt these two loops were not mutually exclusive due to the different time scales, and believed some type of fusion could be made from the two genres, thus forming the basis of "Borderlands". Pitchford recognized this could be a risk but was not afraid to take it: in a 2017 interview, Pitchford recounted that industry analyst Michael Pachter had believed "Borderlands" was going to be a failure, as players that would want to play a role-playing game or a shooter would more than likely play a game dedicated to that genre instead of the hybrid. After the "Borderlands" series had sold more than 30 million copies, Pachter admitted to Pitchford how wrong he had been.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: Gearbox did not have the narrative defined at the onset of development for "Borderlands", but needed to find some reason to have the player feel rewarded about killing enemies and collecting loot from them. As they developed the game further, they came to the idea of casting the player as a "vault hunter", so that looting equipment and other items would be "kind of virtuous". This led to the Pandora narrative, since the act of opening a vault or box to obtain potentially disastrous results was compared to the mythological Pandora's box.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: The game's development started around 2005, internally pitched as ""Halo" meets "Diablo"". The initial period involved Pitchford selling his team on the idea of the FPS-RPG hybrid, and eventually determining that the FPS genre would be the defining genre for the game. The game's art style was initially more realistic, with visual ideas inspired partially by the "Gears of War" and "Mass Effect" series. The team expanded and prepared for releasing the game's first public reveal in September 2007 via a "Game Informer" cover story, with trailers to be shown in the following year's E3 and other game conventions, building atop a modified Unreal Engine 3. Elements that were planned at the time of that cover story but that did not make the final game included procedurally generated "loot caves", and the ability to hire non-playable character mercenaries to help in combat. Further, the game initially had three Vault hunters; Brick had not been included yet, as Gearbox thought that it would be interesting in the co-op to have two or more players playing the same characters but with persistent improvements that the players had made to them.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: Internal teams, assembled to give Gearbox's projects a critical review, started cautioning the team that at this stage, as they felt "Borderlands" was beginning to look much closer to the then-recent "Fallout 3" or "Rage" games. The realistic look, which gave much of the visuals a brown, muted color palette, clashed with some of the more fantastical elements they had included at that point, such as extraordinary jump heights and the vehicle systems. By this point, the game was 75% complete and there was a target release window they wanted to reach, so scrapping major elements of the game was not an option for the studio. According to chief creative officer Brian Martel, they opted to try to find their "", some visual element that would make the game stand out and gain sales. Martel and a small team spent some time in secret to create prototype of the game using an art style similar to cel shading, fearing that if they had said anything to the other team members, there may have been discontentment among the staff. Pitchford would later acknowledge that this new style was not wholly original to Gearbox and was partially inspired by Ben Hibon's short film "Codehunters". Hibon has stated that while he was contacted by Gearbox to possibly work on artwork for "Borderlands", nothing ever came of the talks. The style itself appears as cel-shaded comic book artwork, but is rendered using a combination of hand-drawn textures with engine modifications to outline major features, creating the comic book appearance.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: When the new style was revealed to both Gearbox and 2K Games, nearly everyone was pleased with it. However, the game's original art director was so disappointed with having her work discarded that she left the company and the video game industry all together. The style was refined further with the help of a comic book artist. Most of the rest of the elements of the game, such as the type and variety of enemies, were kept as is; the skill trees, initially filled with more mundane abilities, were repopulated with applies inspired by magic systems from RPGs, such as healing bullets, embracing the more extreme aspects of the game. Other shortcuts were taken to complete the game in a timely manner such as reusing systems from other Gearbox games, and adjusting the narrative and setting to simplify the end product, such as having Pandora's moon in a fixed location so they could create dramatic shadows for the various levels.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: The change did still delay their initially planned release in 2008 into 2009, with Gearbox showing off the new style by May of that year.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: "The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned" is the first installment of downloadable content (DLC) for "Borderlands" and includes new quests, items, and enemies—including WereSkags and various zombies. The storyline takes place in an area known as Jakobs Cove which is a small town built by the Jakobs Corporation. Dr. Ned had been in charge of keeping the workers of Jakobs Cove alive, but ended up transforming them into zombies. The main plot revolves around finding previous visitors to Jakobs Cove and investigating Dr. Ned himself after the Jakobs Corporation become suspicious of his work. The playable area includes a large outdoor map with several further areas branched from the main zone—including a dark, abandoned version of previous area 'Old Haven'. The installment was released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions on November 24, 2009, which was celebrated with a trailer. The PC version was released via Steam with SecuROM on December 9, 2009.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: "Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot" is the second piece of DLC for "Borderlands". It features three new riot arenas (Hellburbia, the Gully, and Angelic Ruins) and storage for players' items. The plot of the DLC is Moxxi, a crazed lover who is setting out to find her 4th husband, leading her to make the arenas in the DLC. Players fight several of the game's enemies, including bosses, in arenas. No experience is gained from killing enemies in the arena battles, but experience can be gained from completing challenges or quests in the arena. New game modes are added, such as low gravity fighting, enemy health regeneration, and shieldless fighting. It was released on December 29, 2009, for the Xbox 360 and was released January 7, 2010, for the PlayStation 3 and PC.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: "The Secret Armory of General Knoxx" was unofficially announced on January 21, 2010, via the official Gearbox forums, posted by Gearbox level designer Jason Reiss saying the pack will increase the level cap to level 61, and is "the biggest DLC we have made". A tweet by Gearbox creative director Mike Neumann on January 21, 2010, said the pack would also include "more Scooter", who is a character in the game. This was followed by an official announcement from Gearbox via Gearboxity on January 29, 2010, confirming the release, level cap increase, brand new weapons, and "brutal, never-before-seen enemies in a huge new environment complete with tons of brand new missions." The plot of this DLC revolves around Athena, a rogue agent for Atlas who is self-described as the best, a woman sick of Atlas' lies who wants to bring them to their knees, and General Knoxx (Steele's superior), a man with extreme loathing for his job to the point of literally hating his life, who is tasked to destroy Athena and the protagonist(s). Along the way you also run into Moxxi who aids the player in taking on Atlas as well (if you help her face down her ex-husband) and Scooter, who reveals he is related to Moxxi. The DLC package became available February 23 for Xbox 360, and February 25 for PlayStation 3 and PC.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: On March 3, 2010, 2K officially announced a fourth piece of downloadable content, stating that they will "continue to support the title with more add-on content, and our approach to digital content for "Borderlands" gives [Take-Two] a road map for other titles going forward." On July 15, 2010, General Knoxx's Twitter page was updated for the first time in months, stating that he had "new orders (sent from the future)" On July 30, 2010, Randy Pitchford, Co-founder of Gearbox Software and current CEO, announced via Twitter regarding the content "I get a LOT of questions about more DLC for "Borderlands". Yes, more is coming! T2 already said so! Let's talk soon :)" On August 5, 2010, a long list of content that was supposedly going to be included in the content was posted on the Gearbox Forums by forum user Legendrew. The data was gathered from files in the 1.31 update for the PC version of "Borderlands".


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: On August 11, 2010, 2K confirmed the title of the content, "Claptrap's New Robot Revolution", and its main premise. The DLC has 21 missions (split between 9 main missions and 12 side quests), 2 new skill points, and six additional backpack slots. The game focuses around a rogue army of brainwashed Claptraps (led by CL4P-TP, Interplanetary Ninja Assassin, the same Claptrap that is seen getting struck by lightning just after the end credits of the main game) who plan to destroy humanity for their mistreatment, along with an army of familiar enemies transformed into Claptrap styles (i.e., Crab-Traps, Rakk-Traps, and Skag-Traps). A wide variety of old cast members return alongside new faces. New fast-travel destinations were also expected, a first for "Borderlands" DLC, but ultimately they were not included. On September 5, 2010, Pitchford announced at the Penny Arcade Expo that the release date was scheduled to be September 28, 2010. Pitchford also announced a free patch to increase the level cap by 8 for all players (to a maximum of Level 69, or 58 for those without "Knoxx's Armory"), regardless of whether the expansion had been purchased.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: In conjunction with the announcement of "Borderlands 3" in March 2019, Gearbox announced a "Game of the Year Enhanced" edition of "Borderlands" co-developed by Blind Squirrel Games, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows (as a free patch to the existing version of the game on Steam). In addition to 4K resolution textures and HDR support, the enhanced version backported improvements from "Borderlands 2"—such as replacing the compass display with a minimap, additional character customization options, and four-player split-screen multiplayer on console, as well as changes to the game's final boss fight.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: On March 26, 2020, Gearbox announced that the first three "Borderlands" games would be released for Nintendo Switch as part of "Borderlands Legendary Collection" on May 29, 2020.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: "Borderlands" received positive reviews. Aggregating review website Metacritic gave the Xbox 360 version 84/100, the PlayStation 3 version 83/100, and the PC version 81/100. In late 2011, "Borderlands" was named 35th on IGN's Top 100 Modern Video Games list.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: Jeff Gerstmann from Giant Bomb gave "Borderlands" 4 stars out of 5, called it a successful loot-driven first-person shooter "where plenty of other "Diablo"-inspired games have failed miserably", but criticized the "paper-thin story" and the predictable AI. Charles Onyett from IGN awarded "Borderlands" an 8.8/10 and an Editor's Choice Award. He noted that fans of RPGs would enjoy the streamlined item management, and treasure hunting, but criticized the lack of character skills. With "beautiful visuals, tried and true RPG mechanics, and solid first-person-shooter gameplay", Onyett felt that the game was very enjoyable. RPGLand's Ivan Taran gave it a rating of "Great" and the game went on to win the site's Xbox 360 Game of the Year award, and be named the Runner-up for overall Game of the Year 2009, losing out to "Demon's Souls".


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: In late August 2009, Electronic Entertainment Design and Research analyst Jesse Divnich said ""Borderlands" could very well surprise the market and consumers as "BioShock" did in 2007." By December 2009, the game had sold over 2 million copies according to Take-Two Interactive's financial report. By February 2010, the number had risen to 3 million. By August 2011, the game had sold 4.5 million units worldwide.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: The game's commercial success was enough to turn the Borderlands intellectual property into a large gaming franchise with numerous mainline sequels and even a spin-off game.


title: Borderlands (video game)

text: A sequel, "Borderlands 2", was announced on August 2, 2011 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows platforms. The game was also developed by Gearbox Software and distributed by Take-Two Interactive, and was released on September 18, 2012. The game features many technical improvements and follows four new Vault Hunters (six with the downloadable characters added later) on Pandora as they battle Handsome Jack and the Hyperion Corporation.


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: , also known as is a list of 1,026 kanji and associated readings developed and maintained by the Japanese Ministry of Education that prescribes which kanji, and which readings of kanji, Japanese students should learn from first grade to the sixth grade (elementary school). Although the list is designed for Japanese students, it can also be used as a sequence of learning characters by non-native speakers as a means of focusing on the most commonly used kanji.


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: Note 1: Many kanji have complex meanings and nuances, or express concepts not directly translatable into English. In those cases, the English meanings mentioned here are approximate.


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: Note 3: A - (hyphen) at the end of the -yomi corresponds to a small tsu in kana, which indicates that the following consonant is geminated.


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: The following 48 radicals are currently not used within the kyōiku kanji: 16, 17, 23, 26, 35, 43, 45, 55, 68, 71, 73, 89, 92, 95, 97, 98, 99, 103, 114, 121,126, 134, 136, 141, 153, 160, 171, 178, 179, 186, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 197, 198, 200, 202, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210, 212, 213, and 214.


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: 11, 20, 33, 52, 56, 58, 59, 65, 74, 81, 82, 83, 84, 88, 100, 101, 107, 110, 127, 129, 133, 138, 139, 142, 144, 152, 155, 161, 165, 168,176, 177, 182, 183, 185, 188, 189, 195, 196, 199, 201, 203, 209, and 211.


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: 働 (Grade 4) and 畑 (Grade 3). There are also 8 kokuji within the secondary-school kanji and 16 within the jinmeiyō kanji.


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: The character 働 and some others are also used in Chinese now, but most kokuji are unknown outside Japan.


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: Kokkun are characters and combinations of characters that have different meanings in Japanese and Chinese


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: For example, the character combination 手紙 means 'letter' in Japanese, but 'toilet paper' in Chinese. However, the isolated characters have the same meaning in both languages: 手 (Grade 1) means 'hand', and 紙 (Grade 2) means 'paper'.


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: China and Japan simplified their writing systems independently from each other. After World War II, their relations were hostile, so they did not cooperate. Traditional Chinese characters are still officially used in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, South Korea (as a supplement to Hangul, but they are no longer used in North Korea), and by many overseas Chinese.


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: In Chinese, many more characters were simplified than in Japanese; some characters were simplified in only one language; other characters were simplified in the same way in both languages, and other characters were simplified in both languages but in different ways. This means that those who want to learn the writing systems of both languages must sometimes learn at least three different variations of one character: traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, and modern Japanese (for example 兩 - 两 - 両). Some others have more variations, such as (斗 - 鬥 - 鬭 - 鬬 - 鬪 - 鬦 - 闘 - 閗), some of which are considered the older forms of Chinese characters and variations of different Chinese regions, and the older forms of Japanese characters (kyūjitai).


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: Note that within the kyōiku kanji, there are 26 characters; the old forms of which may cause problems displaying:


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: These characters are Unicode CJK Unified Ideographs for which the old form (kyūjitai) and the new form (shinjitai) have been unified under the Unicode standard. Although the old and new forms are distinguished under the JIS X 0213 standard, the old forms map to Unicode CJK Compatibility Ideographs which are considered by Unicode to be canonically equivalent to the new forms and may not be distinguished by user agents. Therefore, depending on the user environment, it may not be possible to see the distinction between old and new forms of the characters. In particular, all Unicode normalization methods merge the old characters with the new ones.


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: The characters are sorted by the radicals of the Japanese kanji. The two kokuji 働 and 畑, which have no Chinese equivalents, are not listed here. See also the section above.


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: The following kyōiku kanji are characters of Group 1 (not simplified in either language, e.g. 田). For characters of Group 2 (same simplification in China and Japan, but a traditional form exists, e.g. 万-萬-万), see above.


title: Kyōiku kanji

text: The order is "Modern Japanese -Traditional Chinese - Simplified Chinese", e.g. 両-兩-两. Some characters were simplified the same way in both languages, the others were simplified in one language only.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The Umayyad Mosque (), also known as the Great Mosque of Damascus (), located in the old city of Damascus, the capital of Syria, is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world. Its religious importance stems from the eschatological reports concerning the mosque, and historic events associated with it. Christian and Muslim tradition alike consider it the burial place of John the Baptist's head, a tradition originating in the 6th century. Muslim tradition holds that the mosque will be the place Jesus will return before the End of Days. Two shrines inside the premises commemorate the Islamic prophet Muhammad's grandson Husayn ibn Ali, whose martyrdom is frequently compared to that of John the Baptist and Jesus.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The site has been used as a house of worship since the Iron Age, when the Arameans built on it a temple dedicated to their god of rain, Hadad. Under Roman rule, beginning in 64 CE, it was converted into the center of the imperial cult of Jupiter, the Roman god of rain, becoming one of the largest temples in Syria. When the empire in Syria transitioned to Christian Byzantine rule, Emperor Theodosius I () transformed it into a cathedral and the seat of the second-highest ranking bishop in the Patriarchate of Antioch.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: After the Muslim conquest of Damascus in 634, part of the cathedral was designated as a small prayer house ("musalla") for the Muslim conquerors. As the Muslim community grew, the Umayyad caliph al-Walid I () confiscated the rest of the cathedral for Muslim use, returning to the Christians other properties in the city as compensation. The structure was largely demolished and a grand congregational mosque complex was built in its place. The new structure was built over nine years by thousands of laborers and artisans from across the Islamic and Byzantine empires at considerable expense and was funded by the war booty of Umayyad conquests and taxes on the Arab troops of Damascus. Unlike the simpler mosques of the time, the Umayyad Mosque had a large basilical plan with three parallel aisles and a perpendicular central nave leading from the mosque's entrance to the world's second concave "mihrab" (prayer niche). The mosque was noted for its rich compositions of marble paneling and its extensive gold mosaics of vegetal motifs, covering some , likely the largest in the world.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: Under Abbasid rule (750–860), new structures were added, including the Dome of the Treasury and the Minaret of the Bride, while the Mamluks (1260–1516) undertook major restoration efforts and added the Minaret of Qaytbay. The Umayyad Mosque innovated and influenced nascent Islamic architecture, with other major mosque complexes, including the Great Mosque of Cordoba in Spain and the al-Azhar Mosque of Egypt, based on its model. Although the original structure has been altered several times due to fire, war damage, and repairs, it is one of the few mosques to maintain the same form and architectural features of its 8th-century construction, as well as its Umayyad character.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The site of the Umayyad Mosque is attested for as a place of worship since the Iron Age. Damascus was the capital of the Aramaean state Aram-Damascus and a large temple was dedicated to Hadad-Ramman, the god of thunderstorms and rain, and was erected at the site of the present-day mosque. One stone remains from the Aramaean temple, dated to the rule of King Hazael, and is currently on display in the National Museum of Damascus.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The Temple of Hadad-Ramman continued to serve a central role in the city, and when the Roman Empire conquered Damascus in 64 BCE, they assimilated Hadad with their own god of thunder, Jupiter. Thus, they engaged in a project to reconfigure and expand the temple under the direction of Damascus-born architect Apollodorus, who created and executed the new design.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The new Temple of Jupiter became the center of the imperial cult of Jupiter and was served as a response to the Second Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple of Jupiter would attain further additions during the early Roman period, mostly initiated by high priests who collected contributions from the wealthy citizens of Damascus. The eastern gateway of the courtyard was expanded during the reign of Septimius Severus (). By the 4th century, the temple was especially renowned for its size and beauty. It was separated from the city by two sets of walls. The first, wider wall spanned a wide area that included a market, and the second wall surrounded the actual sanctuary of Jupiter. It was the largest temple in Roman Syria.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: In 391, the Temple of Jupiter was converted into a cathedral by the Christian emperor Theodosius I (). It served as the seat of the Bishop of Damascus, who ranked second within the Patriarchate of Antioch after the patriarch himself.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: Damascus was captured by Muslim Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid in 634. In 661, the Islamic Caliphate came under the rule of the Umayyad dynasty, which chose Damascus to be the administrative capital of the Muslim world. The Byzantine cathedral had remained in use by the local Christians, but a prayer room ("musalla") for Muslims was constructed on the southeastern part of the building. The "musalla" did not have the capacity to house the rapidly growing number of Muslim worshippers in Damascus. The city otherwise lacked sufficient free space for a large congregational mosque. The sixth Umayyad caliph, al-Walid I (r. 705–715), resolved to construct such a mosque on the site of the cathedral in 706.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: Al-Walid personally supervised the project and had most of the cathedral, including the "musalla", demolished. The construction of the mosque completely altered the layout of the building, though it preserved the outer walls of the "temenos" (sanctuary or inner enclosure) of the Roman-era temple. While the church (and the temples before it) had the main building located at the centre of the rectangular enclosure, the mosque's prayer hall is placed against its south wall. The architect recycled the columns and arcades of the church, dismantling and repositioning them in the new structure. Professor Alain George has re-examined the architecture and design of this first mosque on the site via three previously untranslated poems and the descriptions of medieval scholars. Besides its use as a large congregational mosque for the Damascenes, the new house of worship was meant as a tribute to the city.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: In response to Christian protest at the move, al-Walid ordered all the other confiscated churches in the city to be returned to the Christians as compensation. The mosque was completed in 711, or in 715, shortly after al-Walid's death, by his successor, Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik (). According to 10th-century Persian historian Ibn al-Faqih, somewhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 gold dinars were spent on the project. The historian Khalid Yahya Blankinship notes that the field army of Damascus, numbering some 45,000 soldiers, were taxed a quarter of their salaries for nine years to pay for its construction. Coptic craftsmen as well as Persian, Indian, Greek, and Moroccan laborers provided the bulk of the labor force which consisted of 12,000 people.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The plan of the new mosque was innovative and highly influential in the history of early Islamic architecture. The earliest mosques before this had been relatively plain hypostyle structures (a flat-roof hall supported by columns), but the new mosque in Damascus introduced a more basilical plan with three parallel aisles and a perpendicular central nave. The central nave, which leads from the main entrance to the "mihrab" (niche in the "qibla" wall) and features a central dome, provided a new aesthetic focus which may have been designed to emphasize the area originally reserved for the caliph during prayers, near the "mihrab". There is some uncertainty as to whether the dome was originally directly in front of the "mihrab" (as in many later mosques) or in its current position mid-way along the central nave. Scholars have attributed the design of the mosque's plan to the influences of Byzantine Christian basilicas in the region. Rafi Grafman and Myriam Rosen-Ayalon have argued that the first Umayyad Al-Aqsa Mosque built in Jerusalem, begun by Abd al-Malik (al-Walid's father) and now replaced by later constructions, had a layout very similar to the current Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and that it probably served as a model for the latter.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The mosque initially had no minaret towers, as this feature of mosque architecture was not established until later. However, at least two of the corners of the mosque's outer wall had short towers, platforms, or roof shelters which were used by the muezzin to issue the call to prayer ("adhān"), constituting a type of proto-minaret. These features were referred to as a "mi'd͟hana" ("place of the "adhān"") or as a "ṣawma῾a" ("monk's cell", due to their small size) in historical Arabic sources. Arabic sources indicated that they were former Roman towers which already stood at the corners of the "temenos" before the mosque's construction and were simply left intact and reused after construction.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The mosque was richly decorated. A rich composition of marble paneling covered the lower walls, though only minor examples of the original marbles have survived today near the east gate. The walls of the prayer hall were raised above the level of the old "temenos" walls, which allowed for new windows to be inserted in the upper walls. The windows had ornately carved grilles that foreshadowed the styles of windows in later Islamic architecture.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The most celebrated decorative element of all was the revetment of mosaics, which originally covered much of the courtyard and the interior hall. The best-preserved remains are still visible in the courtyard today. By some estimates, the original mosque had the largest area of gold mosaics in the world, covering approximately . Byzantine artisans were employed to create the mosaics, which depict landscapes and buildings in a characteristic late Roman style. They reflected a wide variety of artistic styles used by mosaicists and painters since the 1st century CE, but the combined use of all these different styles in the same place was innovative at the time. Similar to the Dome of the Rock, built earlier by Abd al-Malik, vegetation and plants were the most common motif, but those of the Damascus mosque are more naturalistic. In addition to the large landscape depictions, a mosaic frieze with an intricate vine motif (referred to as the "karma" in Arabic historical sources) once ran around the walls of the prayer hall, above the level of the "mihrab". The only notable omission is the absence of human and animal figures, which was likely a new restriction imposed by the Muslim patron. Scholars have long debated the meaning of the mosaic imagery. Some historical Muslim writers and some modern scholars have interpreted them as a representation of all the cities in the known world (or within the Umayyad Caliphate at the time), while other scholars interpret them as a depiction of Paradise.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The original "mihrab" was one of the first concave "mihrab"s in the Islamic world, the second one known to exist after the one created in 706–707 during al-Walid's reconstruction of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. The exact appearance of the mosque's original main "mihrab" is uncertain, due to the multiple repairs and restorations that took place over the centuries. Ibn Jubayr, who visited the mosque in 1184, described the inside of the "mihrab" as filled with miniature blind arcades whose arches resembled "small mihrabs", each filled with inlaid mother-of-pearl mosaics and framed by spiral columns of marble. This "mihrab" was famed across the Islamic world for its beauty, as noted by other writers of the era. Its appearance may have been imitated by other surviving "mihrabs" built under the Mamluk sultans al-Mansur Qalawun and al-Nasir Muhammad in the 13th and 14th centuries, such as the richly-decorated mihrab of Qalawun's mausoleum in Cairo (completed in 1285). Scholars generally assume that the "mihrab" described by Ibn Jubayr dated from a restoration of the mosque in 1082. Another restoration occurred after 1401 and this version, which survived until another fire in 1893, was again decorated with miniature arcades, while its semi-dome was filled with coffering similar to Roman architecture. Finbarr Barry Flood has suggested that the perpetuation of the "mihrab"'s arcaded decoration across several restorations indicates that the medieval restorations were aimed at preserving at least some of the original "mihrab"'s appearance, and therefore the 8th-century Umayyad "mihrab" may have had these features.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: Following the toppling of the Umayyads in 750, the Abbasid dynasty came to power and moved the capital of the Caliphate to Baghdad. Apart from the attention given for strategic and commercial purposes, the Abbasids had no interest in Damascus. Thus, the Umayyad Mosque reportedly suffered under their rule, with little recorded building activity between the 8th and 10th centuries. However, the Abbasids did consider the mosque to be a major symbol of Islam's triumph, and thus it was spared the systematic eradication of the Umayyad legacy in the city. In 789–90 the Abbasid governor of Damascus, al-Fadl ibn Salih ibn Ali, constructed the Dome of the Treasury with the purpose of housing the mosque's funds. The so-called Dome of the Clock, standing in the eastern part of the courtyard, may have also been erected originally by the same Abbasid governor in 780. The 9th-century Jerusalemite geographer al-Muqaddasi credited the Abbasids for building the northern minaret (Madhanat al-Arous, meaning 'Minaret of the Bride') of the mosque in 831 during the reign of Caliph al-Ma'mun (). This was accompanied by al-Ma'mun's removal and replacement of Umayyad inscriptions in the mosque.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: By the early 10th century, a monumental water clock had been installed by the entrance in the western part of the southern wall of the mosque, which was consequently known as Bab al-Sa'a ('Gate of the Clock') at the time but is known today as Bab al-Ziyada. This clock seems to have stopped functioning by the middle of the 12th century. Abbasid rule over Syria began crumbling during the early 10th century, and in the decades that followed, it came under the control of autonomous realms who were only nominally under Abbasid authority. The Fatimids of Egypt, who adhered to Shia Islam, conquered Damascus in 970, but few recorded improvements of the mosque were undertaken by the new rulers. The Umayyad Mosque's prestige allowed the residents of Damascus to establish the city as a center for Sunni intellectualism, enabling them to maintain relative independence from Fatimid religious authority. In 1069, large sections of the mosque, particularly the northern wall, were destroyed in a fire as a result of an uprising by the city's residents against the Fatimids' Berber army who were garrisoned there.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The Sunni Muslim Seljuk Turks gained control of the city in 1078 and restored the nominal rule of the Abbasid Caliphate. The Seljuk ruler Tutush () initiated the repair of damage caused by the 1069 fire. In 1082, his vizier, Abu Nasr Ahmad ibn Fadl, had the central dome restored in a more spectacular form; the two piers supporting it were reinforced and the original Umayyad mosaics of the northern inner façade were renewed. The northern "riwaq" ('portico') was rebuilt in 1089. The Seljuk atabeg of Damascus, Toghtekin (), repaired the northern wall in 1110 and two inscribed panels located above its doorways were dedicated to him. In 1113, the Seljuk atabeg of Mosul, Sharaf al-Din Mawdud (), was assassinated in the Umayyad Mosque. As the conflict between Damascus and the Crusaders intensified in the mid-12th century, the mosque was used as a principal rallying point calling on Muslims to defend the city and return Jerusalem to Muslim hands. Prominent imams, including Ibn Asakir, preached a spiritual "jihad" ('struggle') and when the Crusaders advanced towards Damascus in 1148, the city's residents heeded their calls; the Crusader army withdrew as a result of their resistance.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: During the reign of the Zengid ruler Nur ad-Din Zangi, which began in 1154, a second monumental clock, the Jayrun Water Clock, was built on his personal orders. It was constructed outside the eastern entrance to the mosque, called Bab Jayrun, by the architect Muhammad al-Sa'ati, was rebuilt by al-Sa'ati following a fire in 1167, and was eventually repaired by his son, Ridwan, in the early 13th century. It may have survived into the 14th century. The Arab geographer al-Idrisi visited the mosque in 1154.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: Damascus witnessed the establishment of several religious institutions under the Ayyubids, but the Umayyad Mosque retained its place as the center of religious life in the city. Muslim traveler Ibn Jubayr described the mosque as containing many different "zawaya" (religious lodges) for religious and Quranic studies. In 1173, the northern wall of the mosque was damaged again by the fire and was rebuilt by the Ayyubid sultan, Saladin (r. 1174–1193), along with the Minaret of the Bride, which had been destroyed in the 1069 fire. During the internal feuds between later Ayyubid princes, the city was dealt a great deal of damage, and the mosque's eastern minaret—known as the 'Minaret of Jesus'—was destroyed at the hands of as-Salih Ayyub of Egypt while besieging as-Salih Ismail of Damascus in 1245. The minaret was later rebuilt with little decoration. Saladin, along with many of his successors, were buried around the Umayyad Mosque (see Mausoleum of Saladin).


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The Mongols, under the leadership of the Nestorian Christian Kitbuqa, with the help of some submitted Western Christian forces, captured Damascus from the Ayyubids in 1260 while Kitbuqa's superior Hulagu Khan had returned to the Mongol Empire for other business. Bohemond VI of Antioch, one of the Western Christian generals in the invasion, ordered Catholic Mass to be performed in the Umayyad Mosque. However, the Muslim Mamluks of Egypt, led by Sultan Qutuz and Baibars, wrested control of the city from the Mongols later in the same year, killing Kitbuqa in the Battle of Ain Jalut, and the purpose of the Mosque was returned from Christian to its original Islamic function. In 1270, Baibars, by now sultan, ordered extensive restorations to the mosque, particularly its marble, mosaics and gildings. According to Baibars' biographer, Ibn Shaddad, the restorations cost the sultan 20,000 dinars. Among the largest mosaic fragments restored was a segment in the western portico called the "Barada panel". The mosaics that decorated the mosque were a specific target of the restoration project and they had a major influence on Mamluk architecture in Syria and Egypt.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: In 1285, the Hanbali scholar Ibn Taymiyyah started teaching Qur'an exegesis in the mosque. When the Ilkhanid Mongols under Ghazan invaded the city in 1300, Ibn Taymiyya preached "jihad", urging the citizens of Damascus to resist their occupation. The Mamluks under Sultan Qalawun drove out the Mongols later that year. When Qalawun's forces entered the city, the Mongols attempted to station several catapults in the Umayyad Mosque because the Mamluks had started fires around the citadel to prevent Mongol access to it. The attempt failed as the Mamluks proceeded to burn the catapults before they were placed in the mosque.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The Mamluk viceroy of Syria, Tankiz, carried out restoration work in the mosque in 1326–1328. He reassembled the mosaics on the "qibla" wall and replaced all the marble tiles in the prayer hall. Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad also undertook major restoration work for the mosque in 1328. He demolished and completely rebuilt the unstable "qibla" wall and moved the Bab al-Ziyadah gate to the east. Much of that work was damaged during a fire that burned the mosque in 1339. Islamic art expert, Finbarr Barry Flood, describes the Bahri Mamluks' attitude towards the mosque as an "obsessive interest" and their efforts at maintaining, repairing, and restoring the mosque were unparalleled in any other period of Muslim rule. The Arab astronomer Ibn al-Shatir worked as the chief "muwaqqit" ('religious timekeeper') and the chief "muezzin" at the Umayyad Mosque from 1332 until he died in 1376. He erected a large sundial on the mosque's northern minaret in 1371, now lost. A replica was installed in its place in the modern period. The Minaret of Jesus was burnt down in a fire in 1392.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The Mongol conqueror Timur besieged Damascus in 1400. He ordered the burning of the city on 17 March 1401, and the fire ravaged the Umayyad Mosque. The eastern minaret was reduced to rubble, and the central dome collapsed. A southwestern minaret was added to the mosque in 1488 during the reign of Mamluk sultan Qaitbay.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: Damascus was conquered from the Mamluks by the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim I in 1516. The first Friday prayer performed in Selim's name in the Umayyad Mosque was attended by the sultan himself. The Ottomans used an endowment system ("waqf") for religious sites as a means to link the local population with the central authority. The "waqf" of the Umayyad Mosque was the largest in the city, employing 596 people. Supervisory and clerical positions were reserved for Ottoman officials while religious offices were held mostly by members of the local "ulema". Although the "awqaf" (plural of ""waqf"") were taxed, the "waqf" of the Umayyad Mosque was excluded. In 1518, the Ottoman governor of Damascus and supervisor of the mosque's "waqf", Janbirdi al-Ghazali, had the mosque repaired and redecorated as part of his architectural reconstruction program for the city.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The prominent Sufi scholar Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi taught regularly at the Umayyad Mosque starting in 1661.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The "khatib" (preacher) of the Umayyad Mosque was one of the three most influential religious officials in Ottoman Damascus, the other two being the Hanafi mufti and the "naqib al-ashraf". He served as a link between the imperial government in Constantinople and the elites of Damascus and was a key shaper of public opinion in the city. By 1650 members of the mercantile and scholarly Mahasini family held the position, retaining it for much of the 18th and early and mid-19th centuries, partly due to their links with the Shaykh al-Islam in the imperial capital. In the late 19th century, another Damascene family with connections in Constantinople, the Khatibs, vied for the position. After the death of the Mahasini preacher in 1869, a member of the Khatibs succeeded him.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The mosque's prayer hall was once again ravaged and partly destroyed by fire in 1893. A laborer engaging in repair work accidentally started the fire when he was smoking his "nargila" (water pipe). The fire destroyed the inner fabric of the prayer hall and caused the collapse of the mosque's central dome. The Ottomans fully restored the mosque, largely maintaining the original layout. The restoration process, which lasted nine years, did not attempt to reproduce the original decoration. The central mihrab was replaced and the dome was rebuilt in a contemporary Ottoman style. The rubble and damaged elements from the fire, including some of the original pillars and mosaic remains, were simply disposed of.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: Until 1899 the mosque's library included the "very old" Qubbat al-Khazna collection; "most of its holdings were given to the German emperor Wilhelm II and only a few pieces kept for the National Archives in Damascus."


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: It is the burial place of the first three officers of the Ottoman Aviation Squadrons who died on mission, in this case the Istanbul-Cairo expedition in 1914. They were Navy Lieutenant Fethi Bey and his navigator, Artillery First Lieutenant Sadık Bey and Artillery Second Lieutenant Nuri Bey.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The Umayyad Mosque underwent major restorations in 1929 during the French Mandate over Syria and in 1954 and 1963 under the Syrian Republic.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: In the and in the early , Syrian president Hafez al-Assad ordered a wide-scale renovation of the mosque. The methods and concepts of Assad's restoration project were heavily criticized by UNESCO, but the general approach in Syria was that the mosque was more of a symbolic monument rather than a historical one and thus, its renovation could only enhance the mosque's symbolism.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: In , Mohammed Burhanuddin constructed a "zarih" of the martyrs of the Battle of Karbala, whose heads were brought to the Mosque after their defeat at the hands of the then Umayyad caliph, Yazid I.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: In 2001, Pope John Paul II visited the mosque, primarily to visit the relics of John the Baptist. It was the first time a pope paid a visit to a mosque.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: On March 15, 2011, the first significant protests related to the Syrian civil war began at the Umayyad Mosque when 40–50 worshipers gathered outside the complex and chanted pro-democracy slogans. Syrian security forces swiftly quelled the protests and have since cordoned off the area during Friday prayers to prevent large-scale demonstrations.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The ground plan of the Umayyad Mosque is rectangular in shape and measures by . A large courtyard occupies the northern part of the mosque complex, while the prayer hall or "haram" ('sanctuary') covers the southern part. The mosque is enclosed by four exterior walls which were part of the "temenos" of the original Roman temple.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: Three arcades make up the interior space of the sanctuary. They are parallel to the direction of prayer which is towards Mecca. The arcades are supported by two rows of stone Corinthian columns. Each of the arcades contain two levels. The first level consists of large semi-circular arches, while the second level is made up of double arches. This pattern is the same repeated by the arcades of the courtyard. The three interior arcades intersect in the center of the sanctuary with a larger, higher arcade that is perpendicular to the "qibla" wall and faces the "mihrab" and the "minbar". The central transept divides the arcades into two halves each with eleven arches. The entire sanctuary measures by and takes up the southern half of the mosque complex.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: Four "mihrabs" line the sanctuary's rear wall, the main one being the Great Mihrab which is located roughly at the center of the wall. The Mihrab of the Sahaba, named after the "sahaba" ('companions of Muhammad') is situated in the eastern half. According to the 9th-century Muslim engineer Musa ibn Shakir, the latter "mihrab" was built during the mosque's initial construction and it became the third niche-formed "mihrab" in Islam's history.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The central dome of the mosque is known as the 'Dome of the Eagle' ("Qubbat an-Nisr") and located atop the center of the prayer hall. The original wooden dome was replaced by one built of stone following the 1893 fire. It receives its name because it is thought to resemble an eagle, with the dome itself being the eagle's head while the eastern and western flanks of the prayer hall represent the wings. With a height of , the dome rests on an octagonal substructure with two arched windows on each of its sides. It is supported by the central interior arcade and has openings along its parameter.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: In the courtyard ("sahn"), the level of the stone pavement had become uneven over time due to several repairs throughout the mosque's history. Recent work on the courtyard has restored it to its consistent Umayyad-era levels. Arcades ("riwaq") surround the courtyard supported by alternating stone columns and piers. There is one pier in between every two columns. Because the northern part of the courtyard had been destroyed in an earthquake in 1759, the arcade is not consistent; when the northern wall was rebuilt the columns that were supporting it were not. The courtyard and its arcades contain the largest preserved remnants of the mosque's Umayyad-era mosaic decoration.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: Several domed pavilions stand in the courtyard. The Dome of the Treasury is an octagonal structure decorated with mosaics, standing on eight Roman columns in the western part of the courtyard. Its 8th-century mosaics were largely remade in the late 20th-century restoration. In a mirror position on the other side of the courtyard is the Dome of the Clock, another octagonal domed pavilion. Near the middle of the courtyard, sheltering an ablutions fountain at ground level, is a rectangular pavilion which is a modern reconstruction of a late Ottoman pavilion.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: Within the Umayyad Mosque complex are three minarets. The Minaret of Isa on the southeast corner, the Minaret of Qaytbay (also called "Madhanat al-Gharbiyya") on the southwest corner, and the Minaret of the Bride located along the northern wall.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The Minaret of the Bride was the first one built and is located on the mosque's northern wall. The exact year of the minaret's original construction is unknown. The bottom part of the minaret most likely dates back to the Abbasid era in the 9th century. While it is possible that the Umayyads built it, there is no indication that a minaret on the northern wall was a part of al-Walid I's initial concept. Al-Muqaddasi visited the minaret in 985 when Damascus was under Abbasid control and described it as "recently built". The upper segment was constructed in 1174. This minaret is used by the "muezzin" for the call to prayer ("adhan") and there is a spiral staircase of 160 stone steps that lead to the "muezzin"'s calling position.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The Minaret of the Bride is divided into two sections; the main tower and the spire which are separated by a lead roof. The oldest part of the minaret, or the main tower, is square in shape, has four galleries, and consists of two different forms of masonry; the base consists of large blocks, while the upper section is built of dressed stone. There are two light openings near the top of the main tower, before the roof, with horseshoe arches and cubical capitals enclosed in a single arch. A smaller arched corbel is located below these openings. According to local legend, the minaret is named after the daughter of the merchant who provided the lead for the minaret's roof who was married to Syria's ruler at the time. Attached to the Minaret of the Bride is the 18th-century replica of the 14th-century sundial built by Ibn al-Shatir.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The Minaret of Isa is around in height and the tallest of the three minarets. Some sources claim it was originally built by the Abbasids in the 9th century. The main body of the current minaret was built by the Ayyubids in 1247, but the upper section was constructed by the Ottomans. The main body of the minaret is square-shaped and the spire is octagonal. It tapers to a point and is surmounted by a crescent (as are the other two minarets.) Two covered galleries are situated in the main body and two open galleries are located on the spire. Islamic belief holds that Isa (Jesus) will descend from heaven during the time of the Fajr prayer and will pray behind the Mahdi. He will then confront the Antichrist. According to local Damascene tradition, relating from hadith, Isa will reach earth via the Minaret of Isa, hence its name. Ibn Kathir, a prominent 14th-century Muslim scholar, backed this notion.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The Minaret of Qaytbay, or the Western Minaret, was built by Qaytbay in 1488. He also commissioned it's renovation due to the 1479 fire. The minaret displays strong Islamic-era Egyptian architectural influence typical of the Mamluk period. It is octagonal in shape and built in receding sections with three galleries. It is generally believed that both the Minaret of Jesus and the Western Minaret were built on the foundation of ancient Roman towers.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The Umayyad Mosque is one of the few early mosques in the world to have maintained the same general structure and architectural features since its initial construction in the early 8th century. Its Umayyad character has not been significantly altered. Since its establishment, the mosque has served as a model for congregational mosque architecture in Syria as well as globally. According to Flood, "the construction of the Damascus mosque not only irrevocably altered the urban landscape of the city, inscribing upon it a permanent affirmation of Muslim hegemony, but by giving the Syrian congregational mosque its definitive form it also transformed the subsequent history of the mosque in general." Examples of the Umayyad Mosque's ground plan being used as a prototype for other mosques in the region include the al-Azhar Mosque and Baybars Mosque in Cairo, the Great Mosque of Cordoba in Spain, and the Bursa Grand Mosque and the Selimiye Mosque in Turkey.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: The mosque is the fourth holiest site of Islam. A Christian tradition dating to the 6th century developed an association between the former cathedral structure and John the Baptist. Legend had it that his head was buried there. Ibn al-Faqih relays that during the construction of the mosque, workers found a cave-chapel which had a box containing the head of John the Baptist, known as Yahya ibn Zakariya by Muslims. Upon learning of that and examining it, al-Walid I ordered the head buried under a specific pillar in the mosque that was later inlaid with marble.


title: Umayyad Mosque

text: It holds great significance to Shia and Sunni Muslims, as this was the destination of the ladies and children of the family of Muhammad, made to walk here from Iraq, following the Battle of Karbala. Furthermore, it was the place where they were imprisoned for 60 days. Two shrines commemorating the Islamic prophet Muhammad's grandson Husayn ibn Ali, whose martyrdom is frequently compared to that of John the Baptist, and Jesus, exist within the building premises.


title: Ton

text: Ton is the name of any one of several units of measure. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses.


title: Ton

text: Its original use as a measurement of volume has continued in the capacity of cargo ships and in terms such as the "freight ton" and a number of other units, ranging from in capacity. Recent specialized uses include the ton as a measure of energy and as a means of truck classification. It can also be used as a unit of energy, or in refrigeration as a unit of power, sometimes called a "ton of refrigeration".


title: Ton

text: Because the ton (of any system of measuring weight) is usually the heaviest unit named in colloquial speech, its name also has figurative uses, singular and plural, informally meaning a large amount or quantity, or to a great degree, as in "There's a ton of bees in this hive", "We have tons of homework", and "I love you a ton."


title: Ton

text: The ton is derived from the "tun", the term applied to a cask of the largest capacity. This could contain a volume between , which could weigh around and occupy some of space.


title: Ton

text: Where precision is required the correct term should be used, as the difference between the short ton and the other common forms ("long" and "metric") is about 10%. However, when comparing between the metric and long tons, precision may not be as necessary as they differ by only 1.6%.


title: Ton

text: The metric tonne is usually distinguished by its spelling when written, but in the US and UK it is pronounced the same as ton, hence is often spoken as "metric ton" when it is necessary to make the distinction. In the UK the final "e" of "tonne" can also be pronounced (). In Australia, it is pronounced .


title: Ton

text: Assay ton (abbreviation 'AT') is not a unit of measurement but a standard quantity used in assaying ores of precious metals. A short assay ton is grams while a long assay ton is gram. These amounts bear the same ratio to a milligram as a short or long ton bears to a troy ounce. Therefore, the number of milligrams of a particular metal found in a sample weighing one assay ton gives the number of troy ounces of metal contained in a ton of ore.


title: Ton

text: Both the UK definition of long ton and US definition of short ton have the same underlying basis. Each is equivalent to 20 long or short hundredweight, being and respectively.


title: Ton

text: Before the twentieth century there were several definitions. Prior to the 15th century in England, the ton was 20 hundredweight, each of 108 lb, giving a ton of . In the nineteenth century in different parts of Britain, definitions of 2,240, 2,352, and 2,400 lb were used, with 2,000 lb for explosives; the legal ton was usually 2,240 lb.


title: Ton

text: In the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and other areas that had used the imperial system, the tonne is the form of ton legal in trade.


title: Ton

text: The displacement, essentially the weight, of a ship is traditionally expressed in long tons. To simplify measurement it is determined by measuring the volume, rather than weight, of water displaced, and calculating the weight from the volume and density.


title: Ton

text: For practical purposes the displacement ton (DT) is a unit of volume, , the approximate volume occupied by one ton of seawater (the actual volume varies with salinity and temperature). It is slightly less than the 224 imperial gallons (1.018 m) of the water ton (based on distilled water).


title: Ton

text: One measurement ton or freight ton is equal to , but historically it has had several different definitions. It is used to determine the amount of money to be charged in loading, unloading, or carrying different sorts of cargo. In general if a cargo is heavier than salt water, the actual tonnage is used. If it is lighter than salt water, e.g. feathers, freight is calculated using Measurement Tons of 40 cubic feet.


title: Ton

text: The Panama Canal/Universal Measurement System (PC/UMS) is based on net tonnage, modified for Panama Canal billing purposes. PC/UMS is based on a mathematical formula to calculate a vessel's total volume; a PC/UMS net ton is equivalent to 100 cubic feet of capacity.


title: Ton

text: The water ton is used chiefly in Great Britain, in statistics dealing with petroleum products, and is defined as , the volume occupied by of water under the conditions that define the imperial gallon.


title: Ton

text: Note that these are small calories (cal). The large or dietary calorie (Cal) is equal to one kilocalorie (kcal), and is gradually being replaced by the latter correct term.


title: Ton

text: Early values for the explosive energy released by trinitrotoluene (TNT) ranged from 900 to 1100 calories per gram. In order to standardise the use of the term "TNT" as a unit of energy, an arbitrary value was assigned based on 1,000 calories () per gram. Thus there is no longer a direct connection to the chemical TNT itself. It is now merely a unit of energy that happens to be expressed using words normally associated with mass (e.g., kilogram, tonne, pound). The definition applies for both spellings: "ton of TNT" and "tonne of TNT".


title: Ton

text: Measurements in tons of TNT have been used primarily to express nuclear weapon yields, though they have also been used since in seismology as well.


title: Ton

text: A tonne of oil equivalent (toe), sometimes "ton of oil equivalent", is a conventional value, based on the amount of energy released by burning one tonne of crude oil. The unit is used, for example, by the International Energy Agency (IEA), for the reported world energy consumption as TPES in millions of toe (Mtoe).


title: Ton

text: Other sources convert 1 toe into 1.28 tonne of coal equivalent (tce). 1 toe is also standardized as 7.33 barrel of oil equivalent (boe).


title: Ton

text: A tonne of coal equivalent (tce), sometimes "ton of coal equivalent", is a conventional value, based on the amount of energy released by burning one tonne of coal. Plural name is "tonnes of coal equivalent".


title: Ton

text: The unit "ton" is used in refrigeration and air conditioning to measure the rate of heat absorption. Prior to the introduction of mechanical refrigeration, cooling was accomplished by delivering ice. Installing one ton of mechanical refrigeration capacity replaced the daily delivery of one ton of ice.


title: Input/output

text: In computing, input/output (I/O, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, possibly a human or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals or data received by the system and outputs are the signals or data sent from it. The term can also be used as part of an action; to "perform I/O" is to perform an input or output operation.


title: Input/output

text: The designation of a device as either input or output depends on perspective. Mice and keyboards take physical movements that the human user outputs and convert them into input signals that a computer can understand; the output from these devices is the computer's input. Similarly, printers and monitors take signals that computers output as input, and they convert these signals into a representation that human users can understand. From the human user's perspective, the process of reading or seeing these representations is receiving output; this type of interaction between computers and humans is studied in the field of human–computer interaction. A further complication is that a device traditionally considered an input device, e.g., card reader, keyboard, may accept control commands to, e.g., select stacker, display keyboard lights, while a device traditionally considered as an output device may provide status data, e.g., low toner, out of paper, paper jam.


title: Input/output

text: In computer architecture, the combination of the CPU and main memory, to which the CPU can read or write directly using individual instructions, is considered the brain of a computer. Any transfer of information to or from the CPU/memory combo, for example by reading data from a disk drive, is considered I/O. The CPU and its supporting circuitry may provide memory-mapped I/O that is used in low-level computer programming, such as in the implementation of device drivers, or may provide access to I/O channels. An I/O algorithm is one designed to exploit locality and perform efficiently when exchanging data with a secondary storage device, such as a disk drive.


title: Input/output

text: An I/O interface is required whenever the I/O device is driven by a processor. Typically a CPU communicates with devices via a bus. The interface must have the necessary logic to interpret the device address generated by the processor. Handshaking should be implemented by the interface using appropriate commands (like BUSY, READY, and WAIT), and the processor can communicate with an I/O device through the interface. If different data formats are being exchanged, the interface must be able to convert serial data to parallel form and vice versa. Because it would be a waste for a processor to be idle while it waits for data from an input device there must be provision for generating interrupts and the corresponding type numbers for further processing by the processor if required.


title: Input/output

text: A computer that uses memory-mapped I/O accesses hardware by reading and writing to specific memory locations, using the same assembly language instructions that computer would normally use to access memory. An alternative method is via instruction-based I/O which requires that a CPU have specialized instructions for I/O. Both input and output devices have a data processing rate that can vary greatly. With some devices able to exchange data at very high speeds direct access to memory (DMA) without the continuous aid of a CPU is required.


title: Input/output

text: Higher-level operating system and programming facilities employ separate, more abstract I/O concepts and primitives. For example, most operating systems provide application programs with the concept of files. The C and C++ programming languages, and operating systems in the Unix family, traditionally abstract files and devices as streams, which can be read or written, or sometimes both. The C standard library provides functions for manipulating streams for input and output.


title: Input/output

text: In the context of the ALGOL 68 programming language, the "input" and "output" facilities are collectively referred to as "transput". The "ALGOL 68" transput library recognizes the following standard files/devices: codice_1, codice_2, codice_3 and codice_4.


title: Input/output

text: An alternative to special primitive functions is the I/O monad, which permits programs to just describe I/O, and the actions are carried out outside the program. This is notable because the functions would introduce side-effects to any programming language, but this allows purely functional programming to be practical.


title: Input/output

text: Channel I/O requires the use of instructions that are specifically designed to perform I/O operations. The I/O instructions address the channel or the channel and device; the channel asynchronously accesses all other required addressing and control information. This is similar to DMA, but more flexible.


title: Input/output

text: Port-mapped I/O also requires the use of special I/O instructions. Typically one or more ports are assigned to the device, each with a special purpose. The port numbers are in a separate address space from that used by normal instructions.


title: Input/output

text: Direct memory access (DMA) is a means for devices to transfer large chunks of data to and from memory independently of the CPU.


title: Lethal Weapon 2

text: Lethal Weapon 2 is a 1989 American buddy cop action-comedy film directed by Richard Donner, and starring Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Joss Ackland, Derrick O'Connor and Patsy Kensit. It is a sequel to the 1987 film "Lethal Weapon" and the second installment in the "Lethal Weapon" film series.


title: Lethal Weapon 2

text: Gibson and Glover respectively reprise their roles as LAPD officers Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh, who protect an irritating federal witness (Pesci), while taking on a gang of South African drug dealers hiding behind diplomatic immunity. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound Editing (for Robert G. Henderson). The film received mostly positive reviews and earned more than $227 million worldwide.


title: Lethal Weapon 2

text: Two years after the events of the first film, LAPD sergeants Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh are pursuing unidentified suspects suspected of drug trafficking, only to find they have been transporting an illegal shipment of gold in the form of krugerrand coins from The Afrikaner apartheid government of South Africa. Later, consul-general Arjen Rudd and security agent Pieter Vorstedt kill Hans, their man who lost the shipment of krugerrand, and debate how to stir the police away from their activities. Pieter suggests warning Murtaugh off the investigation and commits a home invasion on his residence, causing Captain Murphy to reassign Riggs and Murtaugh to protecting an obnoxious federal witness, Leo Getz.


title: Lethal Weapon 2

text: It soon becomes clear that both cases are related: after an attempt on Leo's life, Riggs and Murtaugh learn of the former's murky past laundering funds for vengeful drug smugglers. Leo provides them with information about how laundering works and leads them to the gang, but upon dispatching his would-be assassin and returning with backup they are confronted by Rudd, who invokes diplomatic immunity on behalf of his unscrupulous "associates", leaving the LAPD powerless to take action against them.


title: Lethal Weapon 2

text: Though instructed to leave the case alone, Riggs begins to openly harass the South African consulate, defying Rudd and romancing his secretary, Rika van den Haas, a liberal-minded Afrikaner who despises her boss and his racial philosophy. Murtaugh enlists Leo's help in creating a scene at the consulate that wins the support of anti-apartheid protesters outside. Vorstedt is dispatched to murder all of the officers investigating them while Murtaugh deduces that Rudd is attempting to ship funds from his smuggling ring in the United States to Cape Town via Los Angeles Harbor. Two assassins attack Murtaugh at his home, but he kills them both with his contractor's nail gun, though Leo is abducted in the process.


title: Lethal Weapon 2

text: After killing many of the investigating officers, Vorstedt seizes Riggs at van den Haas' apartment and discloses that he was responsible for the death of Riggs's wife years earlier during a botched assassination attempt on him. He has his men kill Rika by drowning her and orders them to do the same to Riggs, who escapes and brutally kills both of the men. He phones Murtaugh, declaring an intention to pursue Rudd and avenge his wife, Rika, and their fallen friends; the other policeman willingly forsakes his badge to aid his partner. After rescuing Leo and destroying Rudd's house, they head for the "Alba Varden", Rudd's freighter docked in the Port of Los Angeles, as the South Africans prepare their getaway with hundreds of millions in drug money.


title: Lethal Weapon 2

text: While investigating a guarded 40-foot cargo container at the docks, Riggs and Murtaugh discover Rudd's laundered drug money, but are locked inside by Rudd's men. They break out of the box, scattering two pallets of the money into the harbor in the process. Riggs and Murtaugh engage in a firefight with some of Rudd's men aboard the "Alba Varden" before separating to hunt down Rudd. Riggs confronts and fights Vorstedt hand-to-hand, culminating when Riggs stabs Vorstedt with his own knife and crushes him by dropping a cargo container on him. Rudd retaliates by shooting Riggs in the back multiple times. Rudd again invokes diplomatic immunity upon seeing Murtaugh aim his gun at him; Murtaugh fatally shoots him and declares that his immunity has "Just Been Revoked". Murtaugh then tends to Riggs, whom he believes may be dying and encourages him to hang on and that he is not dead until he says he is. Discovering Riggs survived the shooting, they share a laugh as more LAPD personnel respond to the scene.