title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: Both ships underwent extensive refits near the end or after the war. "North Carolina" received a secondary air search set (SR) and a SCR-720 zenith search radar on the forward funnel. At the end of the war, it had an SP surface-search, a SK-2 air-search, a Mark 38 main battery fire control system with Mark 13 and 27 radars, a Mark 37 secondary battery fire control system with Mark 12, 22 and 32 radars, and a Mark 57 smaller weaponry fire control system, with a Mark 34 radar. In March 1946, "Washington" had a SK fore and a SR aft, a SG both fore and aft, and a TDY jammer (which could scramble radar on other ships).


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: The ships in the "North Carolina" class were equipped with four General Electric geared turbines and eight Babcock & Wilcox three-drum express type boilers. The ships' powerplant incorporated several recent developments in turbine equipment, including double helical reduction gears and high-pressure steam technology. "North Carolina"s boilers supplied steam at and as hot as . To meet the design requirement of , the engine system was originally designed to supply , but the new technologies increased this output to . Despite this increase, the maximum speed for the ships did not change, since the modifications to the powerplant were incorporated later in the design process. The turbines that had already been installed could not fully take advantage of the higher pressure and temperature steam, and so the level of efficiency was not as high as it should have been. When going astern, the engines provided .


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: The engine system was divided into four engine rooms, all on the centerline. Each room contained a turbine and two boilers, without any division between the boilers and turbines. This was done to limit the risk of capsizing should the ship sustain heavy flooding in the engine rooms. The engine rooms alternated in their layout: the first and third engine rooms were arranged with the turbine on the starboard side and its corresponding boilers on the port, this was reversed in the second and fourth rooms. The forward-most engine room powered the starboard outer shaft, the second turbine drove the outer screw on the port side, the third engine supplied power to the inner starboard propeller, and the fourth turbine drove the port-side inner screw. All four screws had four blades; the two outer propellers were in diameter and the inner pair were wide. Steering was controlled by a pair of rudders.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: At the time of their commissioning, the ships had a top speed of , though by 1945, with the addition of other equipment, such as anti-aircraft weaponry, their maximum speed was reduced to . The increases in weight also reduced the ships' cruising range. In 1941, the ships could steam for at a cruising speed of ; by 1945, the range at that speed was reduced to . At , the range was considerably lower, at .


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: Electrical power was supplied by eight generators. Four were turbo-generators designed for naval use; these provided 1,250 kilowatts each. The other four were diesel generators that supplied 850 kilowatts each. Two smaller diesel generators—each provided 200 kilowatts—supplied emergency power should the main system be damaged. Total electrical output was 8,400 kilowatts, not including the emergency generators, at 450 volts on an alternating current.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: The "North Carolina" class incorporated "all or nothing" armor which weighed 41% of the total displacement; it consisted of an "armored raft" that extended from just forward of the first gun turret to just aft of the rear gun turret. They had a main armored belt of Class A armor that was thick amidships, inclined at 15°, and backed by Special Treatment Steel (STS). This tapered down to on the lower edge of the belt. The ships had three armored decks; their main deck was thick. The second, thickest deck was of Class B armor laminated on STS for a total of . In the outboard sections of the hull the plating was Class B laminated on STS. The third and thinnest deck was thick inboard, and outboard. The first deck was designed to cause delay-fuzed projectiles to detonate, while the thicker second deck would protect the ships' internals. The third deck was intended to protect against shell splinters that might have penetrated the second deck; it also acted as the upper support for the torpedo bulkheads. The conning tower was connected to the armored citadel by a thick communications tube. Armor thickness for the conning tower itself ranged from on both sides to on the front and rear. The roof was thick and the bottom was thick.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: The main battery turrets were heavily armored: the turret faces were thick, the sides were thick, the rear sides were thick, and the roofs were thick. Sixteen–inch-thick armor was the maximum width factories were able to produce at the time of the ships' design; by 1939, however, it was possible to create -thick plates. These were not installed because it was estimated that the conversion would delay completion of the ships by 6 to 8 months. The barbettes that held the turrets were also strongly protected. The front portion was , the sides increased to 16 in, and the rear portion reduced to . The 5-inch gun turrets, along with their ammunition magazines, were armored with STS plates.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: The side protection system incorporated five compartments divided by torpedo bulkheads and a large anti-torpedo bulge that ran the length of the "armored raft". The outer two compartments, the innermost compartment and the bulge would remain empty, while the third and fourth compartments would be filled with liquid. The system was reduced in depth at either end by the forward and rear gun turrets. In these areas, the fifth compartment was deleted; instead, there was an outer empty compartment and two liquid-filled spaces, backed by another empty compartment. To compensate for the reduced underwater protection system, these sections received additional armor plating, up to in thickness. The complete system was deep and designed to withstand warheads of up to of TNT. Underwater protection was rounded out by a triple bottom that was deep. The bottom layer was thick and was kept filled with fluid, while the upper thick layer was kept empty. The triple bottom was also heavily subdivided to prevent catastrophic flooding should the upper layer be penetrated.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: Two ships, each to cost about $50 million, were authorized in January 1937. Five shipyards submitted bids to build one of the two planned ships. Three were privately run corporations: Bethlehem Shipbuilding, New York Shipbuilding and Newport News Shipbuilding. The other two, the New York Naval Shipyard and Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, were run by the government. When bids were reviewed, the privately run shipyards' submissions ranged from $46 to 50 million, while their government counterparts came in at $37 million. Newport News was unique among these in refusing any fixed monetary value in favor of a "cost-plus %" price, but this led to the rejection of their bid out of hand.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: The bids from private companies were heavily influenced by the legislation of the New Deal. The Vinson-Trammell Act limited profit from a ship's construction to 10 percent, while the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act specified a minimum wage and required working conditions for workers. The latter act greatly affected the ability of the navy to acquire steel, as the text of the law caused friction between executives in the industry, who greatly disliked the forty-hour work week and minimum wage requirements, and their workers—who themselves were embroiled in a separate dispute pitting the union of the skilled workers, the American Federation of Labor, against the union of the unskilled, the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Amid the unrest, the navy ran into difficulties trying to acquire 18 million pounds of steel to build six destroyers and three submarines; many more pounds than this would be needed for the new battleships.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: The private shipyards, however, had their own labor problems, so much so that one author described the navy's issues as "minimal" compared to their shipbuilding counterparts. This increased the price of the battleships to $60 million each, so the Bureau of Steam Engineering and Bureau of Construction and Repair recommended to their superiors that the $37 million tenders from the two navy yards be accepted. This was confirmed by Roosevelt, as the private shipyards' bids were seen as unjustly inflated. The contracts for "North Carolina" and "Washington"—names had been officially chosen on 3 May 1937—were sent to the New York and Philadelphia yards, respectively, on 24 June 1937. Shortly after this announcement, Roosevelt was bombarded with heavy lobbying from citizens and politicians from Camden and the state of New Jersey, in an ultimately futile attempt to have the construction of "North Carolina" shifted to Camden's New York Shipbuilding; such a contract would keep many men employed in that area. Roosevelt refused, saying that the disparity in price was too great. Instead, the company was awarded two destroyer tenders in December 1937, and .


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: Construction of the "North Carolina" class was slowed by the aforementioned material issues, the changes made to the basic design after this date—namely the substitution of 16-inch for 14-inch guns—and the need to add both length and strength to the slipways already present in the navy yards. Increased use of welding was proposed as a possible way to reduce weight and bolster the structural design, as it could have reduced the ships' structural weight by 10%, but it was used in only about 30% of the ship. The costs associated with welding and an increase in the time of construction made it impractical.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: was laid down on 27 October 1937, the first battleship begun by the United States since the never-completed "South Dakota" class of the early 1920s. Although "North Carolina" was launched on 13 June 1940 and commissioned on 9 April 1941, it did not go on active duty because of acute longitudinal vibrations from its propeller shafts. A problem shared with its sister "Washington" and some other ships like , it was only cured after different propellers were tested aboard "North Carolina", including four-bladed and cut-down versions of the original three-bladed. This testing required it to be at sea, and the many resulting trips out of New York Harbor to the Atlantic Ocean caused it to be nicknamed "The Showboat".


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: After a shakedown cruise in the Caribbean Sea and participation in war exercises, "North Carolina" transited the Panama Canal "en route" to the Pacific War. Joining Task Force (TF) 16, the battleship escorted the aircraft carrier during the invasions of Guadalcanal and Tulagi on 7 August 1942, and continued to accompany the carrier when it moved to be southeast of the Solomons. The Battle of the Eastern Solomons began when Japanese carriers were spotted on 24 August; although American planes were able to strike first by sinking the light carrier , a strike group from a different force, formed around the fleet carriers and , attacked TF 16. In an intense eight-minute battle, "North Carolina" shot down 7–14 aircraft and was relatively undamaged, though there were seven near-misses and one crewman was killed by strafing. "Enterprise" took three bomb hits.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: "North Carolina" then joined the carrier s screen, and protected it while support was rendered to American troops fighting on Guadalcanal. Although it dodged one torpedo on 6 September, it was not able to avoid another on the 15th. Out of a six-torpedo salvo from the , three hit the carrier , one hit , one missed, and one struck "North Carolina". A warhead hit on the port side below the waterline at a point that was just behind the number one turret. It created a hole, allowed about of water into the ship—which had to be offset with counter-flooding, meaning that another entered—killed five men, and wounded twenty. Although "North Carolina" could steam at soon after the explosion, it was later forced to slow to to ensure that temporary shoring did not fail. Structural damage beneath the first turret rendered it unable to fire unless in absolute need, and the main search radar failed. As this was the first torpedo to strike a modern American battleship, there was a large amount of interest from various officers and bureaus within the navy in learning more about it. The conclusions were seen as a vindication by some who believed that too much had been sacrificed in the design of the "North Carolina"s—the torpedo defense system had come close to breaking near one of the most important areas of the ship (a magazine), after all—and the General Board called for the fifth and sixth s, and , to have a torpedo bulge added outside their magazines. However, the new Bureau of Ships opposed this on the basis that the system performed as it was supposed to; in any case, no modifications were made.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: Repaired and refitted at the facilities in Pearl Harbor, "North Carolina" operated as a carrier escort for "Enterprise" and "Saratoga" for the remainder of 1942 and the majority of 1943 while they provided cover for supply and troop movements in the Solomons. In between, it received advanced fire control and radar gear in March, April and September 1943 at Pearl Harbor. In November, "North Carolina" escorted "Enterprise" while the carrier launched strikes upon Makin, Tarawa and Abemama. On 1–8 December it bombarded Nauru before returning to carrier screening; it accompanied while that carrier launched attacks on Kavieng and New Ireland.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: Joining Task Force 58 in January 1944, "North Carolina" escorted aircraft carriers as the flagship of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee, Commander, Battleships, Pacific Fleet (ComBatPac) for much of the year, providing support for airborne strikes on Kwajalein, Namur, Truk (twice), Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Palau, Woleai, and Hollandia in January–April. Also in April, "North Carolina" destroyed defensive installations on Ponape before setting course for Pearl Harbor for repairs to a damaged rudder. With repairs completed, the battleship joined with "Enterprise" on 6 June for assaults within the Marianas; as part of these, "North Carolina" used its main battery to bombard Saipan and Tanapag.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: In late June, "North Carolina" was one of the American ships which took part in the so-called "Marianas Turkey Shoot", where a majority of attacking Japanese aircraft were shot down out of the air at little cost to the American defenders. Problems with its propeller shafts then caused the battleship to sail to the Puget Sound Navy Yard to receive an overhaul. It returned to active duty in November and to its carrier escort tasks in time to be hit by a typhoon. "North Carolina" protected carriers while they provided air cover for invasion fleets and launched attacks on Leyte, Luzon, and the Visayas. Surviving another typhoon, one which sank three destroyers, "North Carolina" continued escort duty when naval aircraft struck Formosa, Indo-China, China, the Ryukyus and Honshu in January and February 1945. During the invasion of Iwo Jima, the battleship provided bombardment support for troops ashore.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: During the assault on Okinawa, "North Carolina" screened carriers and bombarded targets ashore. Although it was able to shoot down three kamikazes on 6 April, it was also struck by a shell during that time in a friendly fire incident; three were killed and forty-four injured. The battleship shot down a plane on the 7th and two on the 17th. After receiving another overhaul from 9 May to 28 June, this one in the naval yard at Pearl Harbor, "North Carolina" operated as both a carrier escort and shore bombardier for the remainder of the war. Of note was a 17 July bombardment of the industrial area in Hitachi, Ibaraki in company with fellow battleships , , and , along with smaller warships.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: In August, members of "North Carolina"s crew and Marine contingent were sent ashore to assist in occupying Japan. After the official surrender, these men were brought back aboard and the battleship sailed to Okinawa. As part of Operation "Magic Carpet", soldiers were embarked to be returned to the United States. Passing through the locks of Panama Canal on 8 October, it weighed anchor in Boston on the 17th. After an overhaul in the New York Naval Yard, it participated in exercises off New England before beginning a midshipman training cruise in the Caribbean.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: "North Carolina" was decommissioned in Bayonne, New Jersey on 27 June 1947; it remained in the reserve fleet in until 1 June 1960, when it was struck from the Naval Vessel Register. Instead of the scrapping that faced most of the United States' battleships, "North Carolina" was sold to the state of North Carolina for $250,000 on 8 August 1961 to be a museum ship. It was dedicated in Wilmington on 29 April 1962 as a memorial to the citizens of the state who died in the Second World War. Listed on the United States' National Register of Historic Places and designated as a National Historic Landmark on 1 January 1986, it remains there today, maintained by the USS North Carolina Battleship Commission.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: was laid down on 14 June 1938, launched on 1 June 1940 and commissioned on 15 May 1941 at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Although commissioned, its engine had not yet been run at full power—like its sister, "Washington" had major problems with longitudinal vibrations, which were only tempered after many tests conducted aboard "North Carolina". The fixes made it possible to run builder's trials, which "Washington" did on 3 August 1941; loaded at about , the propulsion plant was run up to , and repeated the performance again in February 1942, achieving .


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: In early 1942 Rear Admiral John W. Wilcox chose "Washington" as the flagship of Task Force 39. On 26 March 1942, "Washington", along with "Wasp", , and various smaller ships, sailed to bolster the British Home Fleet. During the voyage, Wilcox fell into the ocean; he was seen soon after by the destroyer , face down in the water, but due to rough seas they were unable to retrieve the body. It is not known what exactly happened; he could have simply been caught by a wave and washed overboard, but there has been speculation that he suffered a heart attack. The force reached the main anchorage of the Home Fleet, Scapa Flow, on 4 April.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: "Washington" and the other ships of TF 39 participated in exercises with the Home Fleet until late April. Along with certain British units, the task force departed the British Isles as TF 99. They escorted some of the Arctic convoys which were carrying vital cargo to the Soviet Union. While carrying out this duty, an accompanying British battleship, HMS "King George V", accidentally rammed a destroyer, cutting it in two. Directly behind "King George V", "Washington" passed through the same stretch of sea and received damage from exploding depth charges. Though damage to the hull was minimal—limited to only one leaking fuel tank—many devices on board the ship were damaged, including main battery range finders, circuit breakers, three fire-control and the search radars. The American ships then put in at an Icelandic port, Hvalfjörður, until 15 May; they returned to Scapa Flow on 3 June. On 4 June, "Washington" hosted the commander of US naval forces in Europe, Admiral Harold Rainsford Stark, who set up a temporary headquarters on the ship for the next few days. On 7 June, King George VI of the United Kingdom inspected the battleship.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: "Washington" left the North Sea bound for the United States on 14 July with an escort of four destroyers; upon arrival at the New York Naval Yard on the 23rd, it was given a full overhaul which took a month to be completed. It set sail for the Panama Canal and the Pacific Ocean on 23 August and reached its destination, Tonga Island, on 14 September, where it became the flagship of Admiral Willis "Ching" Lee. Over the coming months, "Washington" would be focused upon the safe arrival of supply convoys to the men fighting on Guadalcanal. On 13 November, three formations of Japanese ships were discovered on course for Guadalcanal, one of them aiming to bombard Henderson Field while night gave them protection from aircraft. The first Japanese bombardment force was driven back by an American cruiser-destroyer force. On 14 November, the Japanese organized another sortie to neutralize the airfield. "Washington", , and four destroyers were sent to intercept the Japanese force that night. The Japanese, composed of the fast battleship , two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and nine destroyers, initially sank three US destroyers and inflicted significant topside damage to "South Dakota". However, "Washington" remained undetected and at midnight fired on "Kirishima" from , point blank range for "Washington"s 16-inch/45-caliber guns. "Washington" fired seventy-five 16-inch and one hundred and seven 5-inch rounds during the melee, scoring 20 main and seventeen secondary battery hits, knocking out "Kirishima"'s steering and main battery and causing uncontrollable progressive flooding. "Kirishima" capsized at 03:25 on the morning of 15 November 1942, with 212 crewmen lost. Radar-directed fire from "Washington"s secondary battery also damaged destroyer so severely it had to be scuttled. Soon after the battle, the Japanese began evacuating Guadalcanal.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: Until April 1943, "Washington" stayed near its base in New Caledonia, providing protection for convoys and battle groups that were supporting the Solomons campaign. Returning to Pearl Harbor, it practiced for battle and underwent an overhaul before returning to the combat zone in late July. From August to the end of October, "Washington" operated out of Efate. It then joined with four battleships and six destroyers as Task Group (TG) 53.2 for exercises; "Enterprise", and also participated. TG 52.2 then voyaged to the Gilbert Islands to add additional firepower to the strikes currently hitting them. Departing in late November, "Washington" first steamed to Makin to provide protection for ships there, then Ocean Island to prepare to bombard Nauru with its sister "North Carolina", all four "South Dakota"-class battleships, and the carriers "Bunker Hill" and . All of the capital ships struck before dawn on 8 December; the aircraft carriers struck again soon after. The ships then sailed back to Efate, arriving on 12 December. On Christmas, "Washington", "North Carolina", and four destroyers left Efate for gunnery practice. By late January, it was made part of TG 50.1 to escort the fast carriers in that group as they launched strikes on Taroa and Kwajalein. It also moved in to hit Kwajalein with its guns on 30 January.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: Before dawn on 1 February, with the sky still shrouded in darkness, "Washington" collided with when the latter left formation to fuel four destroyers. "Indiana" had radioed that it was going to make a turn to port out of the formation, but soon after starting the turn, its captain ordered a reversal, back to starboard. About seven minutes later, it came into view of lookouts aboard "Washington" at a range of . Although crews on both ships frantically tried to avoid the other, it was to no avail; "Washington" gave "Indiana" a glancing blow, scraping down a large aft portion of the ship's starboard side. "Washington"s fore end was severely damaged, with about of its bow hanging down and into the water. Ten men, six from "Washington", were killed or listed as missing. After temporary reinforcements to the damaged section, it was forced to sail to Pearl Harbor to be fitted with a false bow to make possible a voyage to Puget Sound. Once there, it received a full overhaul, along with a new bow; this work lasted from March until April. "Washington" did not enter the war zone again until late May.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: "Washington" next participated in the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign, serving again as a carrier escort ship, though it was detached on the 13th to fire on Japanese positions on Saipan and Tinian. With the sortie of a majority of the remaining ships in the Imperial Japanese Navy spotted by American submarines, "Washington", along with six other battleships, four heavy cruisers and fourteen destroyers covered the aircraft carriers of TF 58; on the 19th, with the attack of many aircraft, the Battle of the Philippine Sea began. Able to beat off the attacks, "Washington" refueled and continued escorting carriers until it formed a new task group with three battleships and escorts. After a lengthy stop at Enewetak Atoll, it supported troops assaulting Peleliu and Angaur before returning to screening duties. This duty lasted from 10 October to 17 February 1945.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: The battleship bombarded Iwo Jima from 19–22 February in support of the invasion there before escorting carriers which sent aircraft raids against Tokyo and targets on the island of Kyūshū. On 24 March and 19 April, "Washington" bombarded Okinawa; it then departed for Puget Sound to receive a refit, having been in action for the majority of the time since its refit in March–April 1944. This lasted through V-J Day and the subsequent formal ceremony aboard "Missouri", so "Washington" received orders to voyage to Philadelphia, where it arrived on 17 October. Here it was modified to have an additional 145 bunks so it could participate in Operation Magic Carpet. Sailing to Southampton with a reduced crew of 84 officers and 835 crew, it brought 185 army officers and 1,479 enlisted men back to the United States; this was the only voyage it would make in support of the operation. The battleship was placed into reserve at Bayonne, New Jersey on 27 June 1947, after only a little more than six years of service. "Washington" was never reactivated. Struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 June 1960—exactly 21 years to the day since its launch—she was sold on 24 May 1961 to be scrapped.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: "North Carolina" and "Washington" remained in active duty in the years immediately after the war, possibly because their crew accommodations were more comfortable and less cramped than the four "South Dakota"s. The ships received alterations during this period; the Ship Characteristics Board (SCB) directed in June 1946 that four of the quadruple-mounted 40 mm guns be removed, though only two were actually taken off each ship. The 20 mm weapons were also reduced at some point so that both ships were decommissioned with sixteen twin mounts. "North Carolina" and "Washington" were decommissioned on 27 June 1947 and subsequently moved to the reserve fleet.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: In May 1954, SCB created a class improvement project for the "North Carolina"s which included twenty-four 3-inch/50 guns directed by six Mark 56s. A month later, the SCB chairman voiced his belief that the "North Carolina"s and "South Dakota"s would be excellent additions to task forces—if they could be faster. The Bureau of Ships then considered and discarded designs that would move these ships at , four knots faster than their current attainable speed. In order for a "North Carolina" to obtain 31 knots, would be required. This, in turn, would necessitate the installation of an extremely large power plant, one which would not fit into the ship even if the third turret was removed. If the outer external belt armor were removed, would still be required. However, no matter if the belt was taken off or not, all of the hull form aft would have to be greatly modified to accept larger propellers. The last strike against the project was the high estimated cost of $40 million, which did not include the cost of activating battleships that had been out of commission for ten years.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: Later calculations proved that the "North Carolina"s could be lightened from 44,377 long tons to around , at which 210,000 shp would suffice. At the trial displacement figure of , even would be enough; the 210,000 figure was derived from a 12.5% overestimation to account for a fouled bottom or bad weather. A similar power plant to the one used in the "Iowa" class (generating ) would be enough, and if the third turret was removed there would be no problems with weight, but there was not enough space within the "North Carolina"s. When compared, the current power plant measured , but "Iowa"s was . Lastly, there would be an issue with the propellers; the "Iowa" class' were wide, while the "North Carolina"s were . In the end, no conversions were undertaken.


title: North Carolina-class battleship

text: Designs for helicopter carriers also contained a plan for a conversion of the "North Carolina"s. At a cost of $30,790,000, the ships would have been able to embark 28 helicopters, 1,880 troops, of cargo and of oil. All of the 16-inch and 5-inch guns would have been removed, though the number one turret would have remained so that weights added on the stern half of the ship could be balanced. In place, the ships would have received sixteen 3-inch guns in twin mounts. Displacement would be lowered slightly to a fully loaded weight of about , while speed would not have changed. It was estimated that the ships could serve for about fifteen to twenty years at a cost of about $440,000 a year for maintenance. However, it was found that a purpose-built helicopter carrier would be more economical, so the plans were shelved.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: Deen J. Castronovo (born August 17, 1964) is an American drummer and singer, best known for being a member of classic rock band Journey and hard rock acts Bad English and Hardline. He currently plays drums and shares lead vocals for the bands Journey, Generation Radio and the Revolution Saints. He has been a touring and studio player for Ozzy Osbourne, Steve Vai, Paul Rodgers, and Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler's GZR.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: Deen Castronovo was born in the city of Westminster, California and started drumming at the age of 6. He grew up in Keizer, Oregon., where he attended South Salem High School. Castronovo said time in band during high school gave him identity and confidence. Deen cites Steve Smith, Neil Peart, Terry Bozzio, Kiss, Rush, Van Halen and AC/DC as musical influences.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: Castronovo is the former drummer for bands Wild Dogs, Bad English, Hardline, Ozzy Osbourne, and GZR. He currently plays drums and shares lead vocals for the bands Generation Radio, Revolution Saints, and Journey.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: Wild Dogs is an America rock band from Portland, Oregon formed loosely in 1981 by Jeff Mark, Danny Kurth, Matt McCourt, and Pete Holmes. Drummer Pete Holmes was lured away by Black 'n Blue and was replaced by Jaime St. James. The band had an appearance on a compilation series, but before a full album could be recorded with Shrapnel Records, St. James left the band to also join Black 'n Blue. It was at this point Deen was first discovered by McCourt, who recruited the local, and then only 16-year-old drummer Castronovo to join the band.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: Castronovo played on the self-titled debut album "Wild Dogs" (1983), the followup "Man's Best Friend" (1984) and "Reign Of Terror" (1987). The band was known for its live show that featured McCourt's props and Castronovo's showmanship.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: While working with Wild Dogs, Castronovo met and began working with Tony MacAlpine, which led to an introduction to future long-time collaboration partner, Neal Schon. Shortly after, Neal would invite Castronovo to audition for a new band with Jonathan Cain, John Waite and Ricky Phillips, which became Bad English. After two albums, which included being nominated for Best New Group in 1989 at the International Rock Awards, Bad English disbanded in 1991. In 1995 a Greatest Hits was released.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: Again working with Neal Schon, Castronovo played drums and sang backing vocals on Hardline's debut album "Double Eclipse". The album's first single "Takin' Me Down" peaked at No. 37 on "Billboard" Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. The album's second single, a cover of the Danny Spanos song "Hot Cherie," rose to No. 25 on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: Castronovo appeared on the 1995 release "Ozzmosis", the seventh solo studio album by Ozzy Osbourne. The album reached number 22 on the UK Albums Chart and number four on the US "Billboard" 200. Castronovo also toured with Ozzy on a portion of the 1995 leg of the Retirement Sucks Tour.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: Castronovo continued to be in various bands along with Schon, from Hardline to Paul Rodgers. After a 3-year stint with Vasco Rossi, he joined Journey, where he would spend the next 18 years and 5 albums as the drummer, backing and occasional lead vocalist.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: While not the original drummer for Journey, Castronovo is the longest-serving drummer to date, having played on the albums "Arrival" (2001), "Red 13" (2002), "Generations" (2005), "Revelation" (2008), "Eclipse" (2011) and "Freedom" (2022).


title: Deen Castronovo

text: As a vocalist, he sang "Still They Ride", "Mother, Father" and "Keep On Runnin'" (and on rare occasions, "Faithfully" and "Where Were You") in concert in order to let the main lead vocalists take a break. In the studio, he performed lead vocals on "A Better Life" and "Never Too Late" on "Generations", as well as "After Glow" on "Freedom".


title: Deen Castronovo

text: Castronovo was fired by Journey in August 2015 following a June 2015 domestic violence arrest. He was replaced by Omar Hakim on the band's 2015 tour, with longtime drummer Steve Smith subsequently rejoining the band.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: In July 2021, Schon confirmed Castronovo's return to Journey as a second drummer alongside Narada Michael Walden. Following Walden's departure from the group in 2022, he became the sole drummer once again, though they both still appear on "Freedom".


title: Deen Castronovo

text: After the Planet Us project did not produce an album, Neal Schon was determined to see the material he had written come to life. At the 2004 annual NAMM Show in Los Angeles, Schon met up with Jeff Scott Soto and tested the waters with a jam session. While in Los Angeles, Schon also attended a showcase featuring Marco Mendoza. Inviting Soto, Mendoza and Castronovo to join him, the new band, Soul SirkUS, began rehearsing and eventually recorded 11 songs for their debut album, World Play. Although all the foundation tracks on the album were originally written for Planet Us, only one completed song from that band was used for Soul SirkUS debut.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: In early 2005, with a completed album titled "World Play" (the "black sleeve" version) the band was ready to tour, but Castronovo fell ill due to extreme exhaustion. Soon after, Castronovo bowed out of Soul SirkUS based on his doctor's recommendation and was replaced by Australian drummer Virgil Donati.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: Ultimate there were 3 editions of the album. The Black Sleeve version was the original with Castronovo drumming, the Green Sleeve version was an American edition remastered, the Yellow Sleeve had two versions: a European edition of remaster that included a bonus DVD, and a Japanese edition of the remaster included a bonus track. The Black Sleeve version is the only one with Castronovo.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: While still with Journey, Castronovo, Jack Blades (Night Ranger, Damn Yankees and Shaw Blades), and Doug Aldrich (Whitesnake, Dio, The Dead Daisies) formed Revolution Saints. The band, where Deen served as lead vocalist and handled drumming duties, released its self-titled debut album on February 24, 2015. A follow-up album, "Light in the Dark", was released on October 13, 2017. The album was ranked #8 on Dr. Music's 2017 "Album of the Year" list.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: Johnny Gioeli and Castronovo first played together on the debut Hardline album, "Double Eclipse", which was released in 1992. 25 years later, the two were reunited in Italy to commence work on the debut Gioeli-Castronovo album, "Set The World On Fire", available July 13, 2018. Both men have continued on their musical paths since they last saw one another, with Gioeli continuing to lead Hardline as well as being the lead singer of Crush 40 and Axel Rudi Pell's band, while Castronovo spent time with various bands.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: In 2020, Castronovo joined the supergroup, Generation Radio. He plays drums and shares lead vocals with Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts, Jason Scheff, lead vocalist and bass player for Chicago, Chris Rodriguez and Tom Yankton. The band performed their first live concert on October 28, 2020, in Nashville, TN. All proceeds from the concert benefited the ACM Lifting Lives COVID Relief Fund. The group released its debut album on August 12, 2022.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: Castronovo's first big gig came at the age of 16 with a band called The Enemy, who opened up for bands like Blue Öyster Cult and Foghat. He has played in Cacophony, Dr. Mastermind, Planet Us (a short-lived supergroup with Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, Joe Satriani and Neal Schon), Social Distortion, and GZR (formed by Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler), as well as in backing bands for Vasco Rossi, Paul Rodgers, and Matthew Ward.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: He also played on the song "Smoke of the Revolution" on the Neal Schon solo album "Late Nite" (1989).


title: Deen Castronovo

text: After working with Paul Rodgers, he began doing session work with Steve Vai, with whom he made two albums. Steve later called for him to audition for Ozzy Osbourne, which resulted in him recording "Ozzmosis" and doing a South American Tour with Ozzy. After Ozzy, he began doing session work for producer Michael Beinhorn, recording with Social Distortion, Geezer Butler's solo project and Hole.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: He has released an instructional video entitled "High Performance Drumming" in 1991, and has been involved with the Boys & Girls Club of Salem.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: In 2019, he toured with guitarist Neal Schon on the "Journey Through Time" tour, which features former members of Journey performing songs from the band's entire discography (including some no longer performed by the official Journey). He acted as the drummer and shares lead vocal duties with keyboardist Gregg Rolie.


title: Deen Castronovo

text: Castronovo was arrested on June 14, 2015 and charged with fourth-degree assault and menacing after police say he physically injured a woman. As a result, he was dropped immediately from upcoming Journey performances and ultimately replaced by Omar Hakim on the band's 2015 tour. On June 29, 2015, Castronovo was indicted by a Marion County grand jury on felony charges of rape, assault, sexual abuse, unlawful use of a dangerous weapon, and contempt of court (violation of terms of bail after the June 14 arrest). In a plea bargain, Castronovo pleaded guilty to five domestic violence misdemeanor charges and received a suspended sentence of four years of probation.


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: Hunt: Showdown is a first-person shooter video game developed and published by Crytek. It was launched on Steam in early access on 22 February 2018, and for Xbox Game Preview on 29 May 2019. The full release of the game launched on 27 August 2019 for Microsoft Windows, it was also released on Xbox One on 19 September 2019 and PlayStation 4 on 18 February 2020. In the game, the player assumes the role of a bounty hunter who must kill a mythical monster in order to claim the bounty and survive long enough to reach an extraction point.


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: "Hunt: Showdown" was originally in development at Crytek USA, who wished to create a spiritual successor to "Darksiders"—a video game series developed by their predecessor, Vigil Games—under the title "Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age". It was envisioned to be a cooperative multiplayer game. After the initial announcement in June 2014, Crytek USA was shut down due to financial issues, and the development was brought to the Crytek headquarters in Germany. The game, under the new title "Hunt: Showdown", was re-announced in May 2017 and became a competitive multiplayer game in which players need to combat other players and enemies controlled by artificial intelligence in a large map that resembles an open world. The game received generally positive reviews upon release and was praised for its innovative gameplay loop.


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: "Hunt: Showdown" is a multiplayer first-person shooter with two gameplay modes. In "Bounty Hunt", the player plays as a bounty hunter who hunts down one or two of the game's 4 bosses to claim a bounty. Players can work on their own or with up to two other players to find clues about the monster's location in the three maps. Each map functions as a medium-sized open world filled with other environmental dangers and enemies such as Grunts, Hives, or Armoreds. As the player collects more clues, the location of the monster's lair is narrowed down. There are four monsters, including the Butcher, the Spider, the Assassin, and the new boss, the Scrapbeak. Players can use a variety of weapons ranging from shotguns to crossbows to defeat their enemies, though the amount of ammo is scarce in this game, forcing players to rely on making their shots count. They also have access to a large variety of tools such as traps and decoys. Upon killing the monster, players will collect the bounty and need to survive until they can reach one of the extraction points. The locations of these exits are randomly placed in a map. Collecting a bounty gives the player limited ability to see the approximate location of other nearby players, but also reveals the bounty-holder's location to all other players in the in-game map. Players can steal a bounty by killing a current bounty-holder, which is a core strategic component of the game. Each match supports up to 12 players.


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: The game's second mode, "Quickplay", is a battle royale mode that lasts for 15 minutes. In each match, the player is tasked to find an energy wellspring in a map and fend off hostile attacks.


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: Vigil Games, known for the "Darksiders" series, was shut down by THQ in 2013 as part of the publisher's bankruptcy. While Crytek's founder Cevat Yerli had expressed an interest in bidding for the Austin-based studio based on their work on "Darksiders" alone (and because Crytek was already planning to establish a US subsidiary in the city), he did not feel that their products fit with the company's business strategy. However, immediately after Vigil was closed, Yerli brought Vigil head David Adams on board to lead the new studio, Crytek USA, citing Adams' leadership skills. In turn, Crytek USA would hire many former employees from Vigil. It was originally stated that the new studio would focus on developing new projects rather than pursue regaining the rights to its former properties; the studio did attempt to re-gain the rights to "Darksiders" — but they were instead acquired by Nordic Games.


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: "Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age" was announced in June 2014 as Crytek USA's first game. "Hunt" was designed to be a co-operative game; Adams recalled having been frequently asked about the possibility of adding co-op to a future installment of "Darksiders", and stated that "one of the first things we said when we got here was, we are absolutely doing a four-player co-op game. That wasn't even up for discussion." The game is set in the late-19th century, and features weapons and classes reminiscent of the era. In response to comparisons to "", another 19th-century third-person gothic action horror game that was unveiled at E3, Adams contended that there were few similarities between the games, noting their focus on co-op and arguing that the portrayal of the era in "The Hunt" was more "authentic", unlike that of "The Order", which he felt was the ""BioShock" version" of the era. Players will be able to customise their characters with different skills and outfits; Adams said that "if you want to make Sherlock Holmes or a gunslinger from the Old West, or a witch hunter from Eastern Europe, you have the costume choices, you have the weapon choices, you have the skill choices."


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: "Hunt: Showdown" carries "a lot of the DNA" of the "Darksiders" series; Adams noted that the game would incorporate "old school elements" of its genre in new ways (much like "Darksiders", which cited "The Legend of Zelda" as an influence), and feature a large number of distinct creatures and bosses as enemies in contrast to "typical" shooting games, which, in Adam's opinion, only tended to have "maybe a dozen" different enemies. He acknowledged that his staff had experience from "Darksiders" in designing large numbers of distinct enemy types—Adams alone designed 18 of the bosses in "Darksiders II". "Hunt" also utilizes procedurally generated enemy placement, obstacles, and objectives on the map, so that no two missions are identical. "Hunt" is built atop CryEngine; Adams remarked that the transition from the custom engine developed for "Darksiders" to CryEngine made the former look inferior.


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: On 30 July 2014, Crytek announced that as part of a restructuring, development of "Hunt" would be shifted to Crytek, and Crytek USA would cease to operate as a studio-only as a provider of US-based support for CryEngine licensees. "Kotaku" reported that much of the studio's staff, including David Adams, had left the company in response to late wage payments by Crytek. Similar issues had been experienced by Crytek UK, which was shut down the same day with the sale of the "Homefront" franchise to Koch Media.


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: On 16 May 2017, Crytek released a teaser on YouTube announcing that the game was still in production under a new title, "Hunt: Showdown". In October, Crytek revealed via IGN First that the game would have an Early Access release on Steam. A closed alpha test on PC started in January 2018. The closed alpha concluded on 22 February, with the early access launching later the same day. "Hunt" was released for Xbox Game Preview on 29 May 2019.


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: "Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age" was first announced to have a beta in late 2014, after which a planned released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. "Hunt" was initially planned to be a free-to-play game, however, Adams emphasised that the game would still have the quality and size of a "AAA" title. "Hunt" was to be monetised purely through cosmetic items and experience boosts, however, when the game launched in Early Access on 22 February 2018, it was released with a buy-to-play model.


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: On 13 December 2014, Crytek delayed the late 2014 planned closed beta without giving a date or range for when it may come. The delay was due to the transition of development from their Austin studio to their Frankfurt team.


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: "Hunt: Showdown" was launched in early access on 22 February 2018. It was announced at 2018 Gamescom that the game would be released on Xbox One through its Xbox Game Preview program.


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: On 3 July 2019, Crytek announced on the game's website that the official release of the game would be on 27 August 2019, for Microsoft Windows. The Xbox One official release was due to be released on the same day as the official release for Microsoft Windows, but was delayed to 19 September 2019 due to technical issues. The game was released on PlayStation 4 on 18 February 2020.


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: In November 2021, Binge announced a live-action television series adaptation of the game. Binge's Allan Ungar and Vince Talenti will produce, with Crytek's Avni Yerli, Faruk Yerli, and Pascal Tonecker joining as executive producers.


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: The game received generally positive reviews upon release according to review aggregator Metacritic. Critics praised the game for its innovative gameplay loop and noted that the game offered a very unique experience when compared with other multiplayer games on the market, though some critics were disappointed by the game's lack of content at launch.


title: Hunt: Showdown

text: "VG247" praised the unpredictability of Hunt, writing that it " I know where enemies are likely to come from, and what they’re likely to do, and yet every game seems to throw something surprising up... because it simply provides such a broad canvas for imaginative gambits by players." Eurogamer liked the feeling of dread that Hunt created, saying that, "I'm not sure I've played a multiplayer game that breeds such tension since Rainbow Six: Siege." PCGamesN's Benjamin Griffin felt that sound design helped the gameplay be more tense "Flocks of crows, creaking boardwalks, and maimed horses wailing on the ground all signal your presence, while inside, jangling chains and crunching glass are to be avoided." Anthony McGlynn of PC Gamer enjoyed Hunt's twist on the battle royale genre, feeling that the game's focus "about escaping, not killing everyone—is simple but deeply effective". However he criticized the limited number of maps and weapons as making the game feel repetitive past a certain point.


title: Russi Taylor

text: Russi Taylor (May 4, 1944 – July 26, 2019) was an American voice actress. She is best remembered as the official voice of Minnie Mouse from 1986 to 2019, and was notably married to voice actor Wayne Allwine, the voice of Mickey Mouse, until his death on May 18, 2009. She is the longest tenured actress to voice the character, having held the role for 33 years. She also provided the voices of several characters in "The Simpsons".


title: Russi Taylor

text: Taylor began her voice-over career in the mid-1970s. Her first voice-over role was the voice of Ted and Georgette's baby on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show". Taylor became the voice of Minnie Mouse in 1986, and continued to voice the character for 33 years until her death in 2019. She also voiced Huey, Dewey, and Louie and Webby Vanderquack in the television series "DuckTales" and in other appearances. Taylor provided the voices of numerous characters in the animated series "The Simpsons", including fourth-grade nerd Martin Prince, purple-haired twins Sherri and Terri, and German exchange student Üter. After her death, "The Simpsons" producers hired Grey DeLisle to succeed her.


title: Russi Taylor

text: She voiced Pebbles Flintstone in "The Flintstone Comedy Show" for Hanna-Barbera in 1980. Taylor was also the original voice of Strawberry Shortcake and the voice of Baby Gonzo in "Muppet Babies", Nova in "Twinkle, the Dream Being", Pac-Baby in the television series "Pac-Man", the high-pitched Nurses that were mice in "The Rescuers Down Under", Melissa in the Pound Puppies episode "Garbage Night: The Musical", Queen Rosedust in "My Little Pony", and her last non-Disney role was Birdie the Early Bird in McDonaldland commercials. She was also the voice of Drizella and the Fairy Godmother in the Cinderella sequels, "" and "".


title: Russi Taylor

text: She was married to Wayne Allwine, the third voice of Mickey Mouse, from 1991 until his death in 2009. They were both named Disney Legends in 2008.


title: Russi Taylor

text: Taylor died from colon cancer on July 26, 2019, at her home in Glendale, California, at the age of 75. She is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park right next to Allwine’s grave.


title: MasterChef (American season 12)

text: The twelfth season of the American competitive reality television series "MasterChef" (also known as "MasterChef: Back to Win") premiered on Fox on May 25, 2022, and concluded on September 14, 2022. Gordon Ramsay, Aarón Sánchez, and Joe Bastianich all returned as judges.


title: MasterChef (American season 12)

text: The season was won by "MasterChef Junior" season one runner-up Dara Yu, with season five fifth-place finisher Christian Green, and season 10 15th place finisher Michael Silverstein as the runners-up.


title: MasterChef (American season 12)

text: On August 18, 2021, it was announced that the series had been renewed for a twelfth season, with judges Ramsay, Sánchez, and Bastianich announced to be returning as well. On April 5, 2022, it was announced that the season would premiere on May 25, 2022.


title: MasterChef (American season 12)

text: The season featured 20 returning former "MasterChef" contestants, including two former "MasterChef Junior" contestants who competed as adults.


title: Telephone numbers in Malaysia

text: Telephone numbers in Malaysia are regulated by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).


title: Telephone numbers in Malaysia

text: Landline telephone numbers consists of an area code of 1 to 2 digits (excluding the leading zero) followed by a 6 to 8-digit subscriber number. Mobile phone numbers consists of a mobile phone code of 2 digits followed by a 7 to 8-digit subscriber number. Mobile phone codes are originally assigned to specific mobile network operators, however with mobile number portability, a mobile phone number might no longer be associated with its original assigned operator.


title: Telephone numbers in Malaysia

text: Until 2017, calls to Singapore did not require international dialling; calls were made using the 02 domestic access code. However, following a directive from MCMC, it was discontinued in stages in May and June 2017. It was discontinued early on 16 May 2017 by Telekom Malaysia, and discontinued entirely by other Malaysian telecommunications companies on 1 July 2017. The normal international prefix of 0065 has been made mandatory after that date. Similarly, calls to Brunei from East Malaysia can be made using the 080 domestic access code but calls from Peninsular Malaysia to Brunei require the international prefix 00673.


title: Telephone numbers in Malaysia

text: Landline area codes are, excluding the STD prefix 0, one digit in Peninsular Malaysia (area codes 3 to 7 and 9) and two digits in East Malaysia (area codes 8x). In Peninsular Malaysia, an area code is usually shared by multiple states and territories and roughly follows state borders. The two East Malaysian states, Sabah and Sarawak, are split into multiple area codes.


title: Telephone numbers in Malaysia

text: Landline subscriber numbers are seven digits in Peninsular Malaysia (except Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, i.e. area code 3) and six digits in East Malaysia. Until 1995, subscriber numbers in Peninsular Malaysia were six digits in areas other than area code 3. Prior to 2001, subscriber numbers were seven digits in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya. From 1999 to 2001, subscriber numbers in these areas were gradually expanded to eight digits in phases to meet new demands that resulted from the growing population in the Klang Valley.


title: Telephone numbers in Malaysia

text: Thus, a full national number is 10 digits in area code 3 and 9 digits elsewhere, including the STD prefix 0. When writing a telephone number with the area code, the area code and subscriber number is separated with a hyphen. Examples:


title: Telephone numbers in Malaysia

text: When calling from a landline, calls to landlines within the same area code do not require the area code to be dialled. Calls to and from mobile phones require full national dialling codes.


title: Telephone numbers in Malaysia

text: Mobile phone codes and IP telephony codes are in the area code 1, ranging 2 digits excluding the leading zero.


title: Telephone numbers in Malaysia

text: Subscriber number length is seven- or eight-digit, depending on the mobile phone code. Numbers in the 011 and 015 codes are eight digits long, while all other numbers are seven digits long. Therefore, a full national number (including the leading zero) is 11 digits long for 011 and 015 numbers, and 10 digits long for all other numbers.


title: Telephone numbers in Malaysia

text: Calling to and from mobile phones always require full national dialling, even with mobile phones in the same mobile phone code. When calling from outside Malaysia, the leading zero is dropped. For example, a number 016-xxx xxxx is dialled as +60-16-xxx xxxx from outside Malaysia.


title: Telephone numbers in Malaysia

text: Originally, each mobile phone operator was issued one mobile phone code. Through a series of mergers, there were three major mobile phone operators: Celcom, Maxis and Digi as of 2005. As existing numbers began to run out, the three mobile phone operators were assigned numbers in 014 code distinguished by the first digit of the seven-digit subscriber number.


title: Telephone numbers in Malaysia

text: With the proliferation of new mobile virtual network operators and the exhaustion of existing codes, two new ranges 011 and 015 are made available for assignment. Subscriber numbers are eight digits long, resulting in an 11-digit mobile number including the leading zero. 011-1 was made available to mobile phone operators starting 15 December 2010. The two major ISPs in Malaysia, TMNet and Jaring are assigned numbers in the 015-4 prefix to provide VoIP (also known as Telephony Service over IP, TSoIP) service. New numbers are assigned in smaller blocks of 10,000, 100,000 or 1,000,000 numbers, as opposed to the previous practice of assigning a whole prefix to an operator, which is a block of nearly 8,000,000 numbers.


title: Telephone numbers in Malaysia

text: The advent of mobile number portability means the current operator of a particular mobile phone number is not necessarily the original assigned operator of the number.


title: Telephone numbers in Malaysia

text: Mobile number portability was introduced on 1 October 2008 for mobile phone numbers in a bid to increase market competition. Thus, subscribers are allowed to retain their mobile numbers when they switch to another service provider. Therefore, the mobile number prefix only indicates the original service provider.


title: Telephone numbers in Malaysia

text: Number portability has not been offered for landlines, as Telekom Malaysia (TM) holds a monopoly on landlines except in Putrajaya and some areas in the Klang Valley.


title: Ale

text: Ale is a type of beer brewed using a warm fermentation method, resulting in a sweet, full-bodied and fruity taste. Historically, the term referred to a drink brewed without hops.


title: Ale

text: As with most beers, ale typically has a bittering agent to balance the malt and act as a preservative. Ale was originally bittered with gruit, a mixture of herbs or spices boiled in the wort before fermentation. Later, hops replaced gruit as the bittering agent.


title: Ale

text: The word "ale" comes into English from its ancestor-language, Proto- Germanic. English belongs to the West Germanic branch of Proto- Germanic, and some other languages in this branch also attest to the word: Middle Dutch "āle" and "ael", and the Old Saxon word "alo-fat" 'ale-cup'. The word is also found throughout the North Germanic languages, almost certainly appearing in ancient runic inscriptions in the form "alu", and subsequently in Old Norse as "ǫl". Through linguistic reconstruction it is possible to infer that the Common Germanic form of this word was *"alúþ-". According to the third edition of the "Oxford English Dictionary", however, the origin of this word is 'uncertain and disputed'.


title: Ale

text: Research by Harald Bjorvand, however, has favoured the following explanation: the Germanic word *"alú-þ-" descends from the Indo-European word *"*olú-t-" (from an earlier Indo-European base "*h₂elut-"), which originally meant 'golden or reddish colour'. Other Indo-European words related to this root include Old Indic "aruṣá-" ('reddish'; the "r" comes from an earlier "l", *"alu-sá-") and Old High German "elo" ('yellowy, pale yellow, reddish yellow, tawny'). The Indo-European word *"olú-t-" then came to refer specifically to ale because this is its colour, giving rise to both the Germanic word *"alú-þ-" and the Ossetic word "æluton".


title: Ale

text: In this account, the Indo-European word *"olú-t-" was also borrowed into the Finnic languages, giving Finnish "olut" and Estonian "õlu".


title: Ale

text: The relationship of similar words in the Slavonic languages (such as Old Bulgarian "olu" 'cider', Slovenian "ol" 'beer') and the Baltic languages (Lithuanian "alus", Latvian "alus", 'beer', Old Prussian "alu" 'mead') remains uncertain.


title: Ale

text: Ale was an important source of nutrition in the medieval world. It was one of three main sources of grain in the diet at the start of the fourteenth century in England, along with pottage and bread.


title: Ale

text: Scholars believe grains accounted for around 80% of the calorie intake of agricultural workers and 75% for soldiers. Even nobles received around 65% of their calories from grains.


title: Ale

text: Small beer, also known as table beer or mild beer, which was highly nutritious, contained just enough alcohol to act as a preservative, and provided hydration without intoxicating effects. Small beer would have been consumed daily by almost everyone, including children, in the medieval world, with higher-alcohol ales served for recreational purposes. The lower cost for proprietors combined with the lower taxes levied on small beer inevitably led to the selling of some beer labeled "strong beer" that had actually been diluted with small beer.


title: Ale

text: Records from the Middle Ages show that ale was consumed in huge quantities. In 1272 a husband and wife who retired at Selby Abbey were given 2 gallons of ale per day with two loaves of white bread and one loaf of brown bread.


title: Ale

text: Monks at Westminster Abbey consumed 1 gallon of ale each day. In 1299, Henry de Lacys household purchased an average of 85 gallons of ale daily and in 1385-6 Framlingham Castle consumed 78 gallons per day.


title: Ale

text: Brewing ale in the Middle Ages was a local industry primarily pursued by women. Brewsters, or alewives, would brew in the home for both domestic consumption and small scale commercial sale. Brewsters provided a substantial supplemental income for families; however, only in select few cases, as was the case for widows, was brewing considered the primary income of the household.


title: Ale

text: Ale is typically fermented at temperatures between 15 and 24 °C (60 and 75 °F). At temperatures above the yeast can produce significant amounts of esters and other secondary flavour and aroma products, and the result is often a beer with slightly "fruity" compounds resembling those found in fruits, such as apple, pear, pineapple, banana, plum, cherry, or prune.


title: Ale

text: Brown ales tend to be lightly hopped and fairly mildly flavoured, often with a nutty taste. In the south of England they are dark brown, around 3-3.6% alcohol, and quite sweet and palatable; in the north they are red-brown, 4.5-5% and somewhat drier. English brown ales first appeared in the early 1900s, with Manns Brown Ale and Newcastle Brown Ale as the best-known examples. The style became popular with homebrewers in North America in the early 1980s; Pete's Wicked Ale is an example.


title: Ale

text: Pale ale was a term used for beers made from malt dried with coke. Coke had been first used for roasting malt in 1642, but it wasn't until around 1703 that the term pale ale was first used. By 1784 advertisements were appearing in the Calcutta Gazette for "light and excellent" pale ale. By 1830 onward the expressions bitter and pale ale were synonymous. Breweries would tend to designate beers as pale ale, though customers would commonly refer to the same beers as bitter. It is thought that customers used the term bitter to differentiate these pale ales from other less noticeably hopped beers such as porter and mild. By the mid to late 20th century, while brewers were still labelling bottled beers as pale ale, they had begun identifying cask beers as bitter, except those from Burton on Trent, which are often called pale ales regardless of the method of dispatch.


title: Ale

text: In the nineteenth century, the Bow Brewery in England exported beer to India, including a pale ale that benefited from the duration of the voyage and was highly regarded among consumers in India. To avoid spoilage, Bow and other brewers added extra hops as a natural preservative. This beer was the first of a style of export ale that became known as India Pale Ale or IPA.


title: Ale

text: Developed in hope of winning the younger people away from drinking lager in favour of cask ales, it is quite similar to pale ale yet there are some notable differences—it is paler, brewed with lager or low temperature ale malts and it is served at colder temperatures. The strength of golden ales varies from 3.5% to 5.3%.


title: Ale

text: While the full range of ales are produced in Scotland, the term Scotch ale is used internationally to denote a malty, strong ale, amber-to-dark red in colour. The malt may be slightly caramelised to impart toffee notes; generally, Scottish beers tend to be sweeter, darker, and less hoppy than English beers. The classic styles are Light, Heavy and Export, also referred to as 60/-, 70/- and 80/- (shillings) respectively, dating back to the 19th-century method of invoicing beers according to their strength.


title: Ale

text: Barley wines range from 6% to 12%, with some stored for long periods of time, about 18 to 24 months. While drinking barley wine, one should be prepared to taste "massive sweet malt and ripe fruit of the pear drop, orange and lemon type, with darker fruits, chocolate and coffee if darker malts are used. Hop rates are generous and produce bitterness and peppery, grassy and floral notes".


title: Ale

text: Mild ale originally meant unaged ale, the opposite of old ale. It can be any strength or colour, although most are dark brown and low in strength, typically between 3 and 3.5%. An example of a lighter coloured mild is Banks's Mild.


title: Ale

text: Burton ale is a strong, dark, somewhat sweet ale, sometimes used as stock ale for blending with younger beers. Bass No.1 was a classic example of Burton ale. Some consider Fullers 1845 Celebration Ale a rare modern example of a Burton ale.


title: Ale

text: In England, old ale was strong beer traditionally kept for about a year, gaining sharp, acidic flavours as it did so. The term is now applied to medium-strong dark beers, some of which are treated to resemble the traditional old ales. In Australia, the term is used even less discriminately, and is a general name for any dark beer.


title: Ale

text: Belgium produces a wide variety of speciality ales that elude easy classification. Virtually all Belgian ales are high in alcoholic content but relatively light in body due to the substitution of sucrose for part of the grist, which provides an alcohol boost without adding unfermentable material to the finished product. This process is often said to make a beer more digestible.


title: Ale

text: Cask ale is unfiltered and unpasteurised beer which is conditioned (including secondary fermentation) and served from a cask without additional nitrogen or carbon dioxide pressure. Cask ale is also sometimes referred to as real ale in the United Kingdom.


title: Notepad++

text: Notepad++ is a text and source code editor for use with Microsoft Windows. It supports tabbed editing, which allows working with multiple open files in a single window. The product's name comes from the C postfix increment operator.


title: Notepad++

text: Notepad++ is distributed as free software. At first, the project was hosted on SourceForge.net, from where it has been downloaded over 28 million times, and twice won the SourceForge Community Choice Award for Best Developer Tool. The project was hosted on from 2010 to 2015; since 2015, Notepad++ has been hosted on GitHub. Notepad++ uses the Scintilla editor component.


title: Notepad++

text: Notepad++ was developed by Don Ho in September 2003. Ho first used JEXT (a Java-based text editor) at his company but, dissatisfied with its poor performance, he began to develop a text editor written in C++ with Scintilla. He developed it in his spare time since the idea was rejected by his company. Notepad++ was built as a Microsoft Windows application; the author considered, but rejected, the idea of using wxWidgets to port it to the Mac OS X and Unix platforms.


title: Notepad++

text: Notepad++ was first released on SourceForge on 25 November 2003, as a Windows-only application. It is based on the Scintilla editor component, and is written in C++ with only Win32 API calls using only the STL to increase performance and reduce program size.


title: Notepad++

text: In January 2010 the US government obliged US-based open source project hosts to deny access from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria to comply with U.S. law. As a response to what the developer felt was a violation of the free and open-source software (FOSS) philosophy, in June 2010 Notepad++ moved out of US territorial jurisdiction by releasing a version on TuxFamily, in France. Some community services of Notepad++ (such as the forums and bug tracker) remained on SourceForge until 2015 when Notepad++ left SourceForge completely.


title: Notepad++

text: In 2011 "Lifehacker" described Notepad++ as "The Best Programming Text Editor for Windows", stating that "if you prefer a simple, lightweight, and extensible programming plain-text editor, our first choice is the free, open-source Notepad++". "Lifehacker" criticized its user interface, stating that "It is, in fact, fairly ugly. Luckily you can do a lot to customize its looks, and what it lacks in polish, it makes up for in functionality".


title: Notepad++

text: In 2014 "Lifehacker" readers voted Notepad++ as the "Most Popular Text Editor", with 40% of the 16,294 respondents specifying it as their most-loved editor. The Lifehacker team summarized the program as being "fast, flexible, feature-packed, and completely free".


title: Notepad++

text: In 2015 Stack Overflow conducted a worldwide Developer Survey, and Notepad++ was voted as the most used text editor worldwide with 34.7% of the 26,086 respondents claiming to use it daily. Stack Overflow noted that "The more things change, the more likely it is those things are written in JavaScript with NotePad++ on a Windows machine". The 2016 survey had Notepad++ at 35.6%.


title: Notepad++

text: In 2015, in response to the staff hijacking of projects hosted on SourceForge, Notepad++ left SourceForge completely with the forums being moved to NodeBB and the bug tracker to GitHub.


title: Notepad++

text: Notepad++ is a source code editor. It features syntax highlighting, code folding and limited autocompletion for programming, scripting, and markup languages, but not intelligent code completion or syntax checking. As such, it may properly highlight code written in a supported schema, but whether the syntax is internally sound or compilable, cannot be verified. As of version 7.6.3, Notepad++ can highlight the elements of 78 syntaxes:


title: Notepad++

text: The language list also displays two special-case items for ordinary plain text: "Normal text" (default) or "MS-DOS Style", which tries to emulate DOS-era text editors.


title: Notepad++

text: Notepad++ has features for consuming and creating cross-platform plain text files. It recognizes three newline representations (, and ) and can convert between them on the fly. In addition, it supports reinterpreting plain text files in various character encodings and can convert them to ASCII, UTF-8 or UCS-2. As such, it can fix plain text that seem gibberish only because their character encoding is not properly detected.


title: Notepad++

text: Notepad++ has support for macros and plugins, and has been remarked for its robust plugin architecture which enabled various new features to be integrated into the program. Currently, over 140 compatible plugins are developed for Notepad++, 10 of which are included by default in the program. The first plugin to be included in the program was ""TextFX"", which includes W3C validation for HTML and CSS, text sorting, character case alteration and quote handling.


title: Notepad++

text: Notepad++ supports internationalization through XML files in an application-specific format containing all internationalized strings (dialog captions, menu titles and items, etc.) in a certain language; this file can be reloaded from the application settings. Translations to new languages can thus be written by simply editing an existing file.


title: Notepad++

text: In March 2008, the "Boycott Beijing 2008" banner was placed on Notepad++'s SourceForge.net homepage. A few months later most users in China were unable to reach the SourceForge.net website from 26 June to 24 July 2008. This led to the widespread belief that China had banned SourceForge.net in retaliation for the Boycott banner.


title: Notepad++

text: In January 2015, the Notepad++ website was hacked by activists from the Fallaga Team who objected to an Easter egg endorsing Je suis Charlie. The Fallaga Team has been linked to ISIL and is also believed to be responsible for the 2017 hacking of websites of the British National Health Service.


title: Notepad++

text: In October 2019, Notepad++ released a version codenamed "Free Uyghur" (v7.8.1). In the release notice, the author expressed concern that hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs have been "subjected to political indoctrination, and sometimes even torture" in the Xinjiang Re-education Camp. He called for "additional pressure on the Chinese government to stop their oppressive actions and crimes concerning the Uyghur people". The software's dedicated site came under a distributed-denial-of-service attack and its GitHub issue page bombarded with nationalistic rhetoric, though it later recovered after being moved behind Cloudflare's anti-DDoS service.


title: Notepad++

text: In July 2020, Notepad++ released a version codenamed "Stand with Hong Kong" (v7.8.9). In the release notice, the author expressed his concern on the Chinese government implementation of the National Security Law in Hong Kong. In retaliation, Mainland Chinese browsers developed by Tencent (QQ Browser and WeChat’s built-in browser), Alibaba (UC Browser), 360 and Sogou started blocking the official site's "Download" page, but not other pages.


title: Notepad++

text: In early and mid-February 2022, Notepad++ released a version codenamed "Boycott Beijing 2022" (v8.3) and (v8.3.1). In the release notice, the author expressed his concern on human rights in China, especially for Uyghurs and Hongkongers. He suggest his audience "not watch or pay attention to the games".


title: Notepad++

text: In late February 2022, Notepad++ released a version codenamed "Declare variables, not war" (v8.3.2). In the release notice, the author expressed his concern on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In March 2022, Notepad++ released a version codenamed "Make Apps, not war" (v8.3.3). The author continued to express his concern on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.


title: 2015–16 NBA season

text: The 2015–16 NBA season was the 70th season of the National Basketball Association. The regular season began on October 27, 2015, at the United Center, home of the Chicago Bulls, with their game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The 2016 NBA All-Star Game was played at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on February 14, 2016. The regular season ended on April 13, 2016. Golden State's Stephen Curry became the first unanimous MVP in league history. The playoffs started on April 16, 2016, and ended with the 2016 NBA Finals on June 19, 2016, with the Cleveland Cavaliers becoming NBA Champions for the first time in franchise history after defeating the Golden State Warriors in seven games and ending the city's 52-year sports drought. This would also be the final season for Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett.


title: 2015–16 NBA season

text: Free agency negotiations began on July 1, 2015, while players would begin to sign starting on July 7, after the July moratorium ended.


title: 2015–16 NBA season

text: The regular season began on October 27, 2015, at the United Center, home of the Chicago Bulls, who hosted a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers at 8:00 p.m. EDT, then the Atlanta Hawks hosted the Detroit Pistons at 8:00 p.m. EDT. Finally, the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors hosted the New Orleans Pelicans at 10:30 p.m. EDT at the Oracle Arena. Christmas Day games were played on December 25, 2015. The regular season ended on April 13, 2016. The schedule was released at 6:00 p.m. EDT on August 12, 2015.


title: 2015–16 NBA season

text: The 2016 NBA playoffs began on April 16, 2016, and ended with the 2016 NBA Finals which began on June 2, 2016, and ended on June 19, 2016, on ABC. ESPN broadcast the Eastern Conference Finals and TNT broadcast the Western Conference Finals. ABC broadcast the NBA Finals.


title: 2015–16 NBA season

text: This was the eighth and final year of the TV contracts with ABC, ESPN, TNT, and NBA TV before the new nine-year contracts began in 2016.


title: 2015–16 NBA season

text: ABC announced that they would be adding games on Saturday nights followed by NBA Sunday Showcase as well as continuing their games on Sunday afternoons. The first Saturday night game was on January 23, 2016, with the Cleveland Cavaliers hosting the Chicago Bulls.


title: Gary Larson

text: Gary Larson (born August 14, 1950) is an American cartoonist, environmentalist, and former musician. He is the creator of "The Far Side", a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to more than 1,900 newspapers for fifteen years. The series ended with Larson's retirement on January 1, 1995. In September 2019, his website alluded to a "new online era of "The Far Side"". On July 8, 2020, Larson released three new comics, his first in 25 years. His twenty-three books of collected cartoons have combined sales of more than forty-five million copies.


title: Gary Larson

text: Larson was born and raised in University Place, Washington, in suburban Tacoma, the son of Verner, a car salesman, and Doris, a secretary. He graduated from Curtis Senior High School in University Place and from Washington State University in Pullman with a degree in communications. During high school and college, he played jazz guitar and banjo.


title: Gary Larson

text: Larson said his family has "a morbid sense of humor", and that he was influenced by the "paranoid" sense of humor of his older brother, Dan. Dan played pranks on Gary, for example by taking advantage of his fear of monsters under the bed by waiting in the closet for the right moment to pounce. Dan "scared the hell out of me" whenever he could, Gary said, but Dan also nurtured Gary's love of scientific knowledge. They caught animals in Puget Sound and placed them in terrariums in the basement, and also made a small desert ecosystem.


title: Gary Larson

text: In 1987, Larson married Toni Carmichael, an anthropologist. Early in their relationship, Carmichael became his business manager.


title: Gary Larson

text: In "The Complete Far Side", Larson says that his greatest disappointment in life occurred when he was at a luncheon and sat across from cartoonist Charles Addams, creator of "The Addams Family". Larson was not able to think of a single thing to say to him and deeply regretted the missed opportunity. Addams died in 1988.


title: Gary Larson

text: Larson is an environmentalist. "Protecting wildlife is 'at the top of my list', he says." Larson lives in Seattle, Washington.


title: Gary Larson

text: According to Larson in his anthology "The Prehistory of The Far Side", he was working in a music store when he took a few days off, after finally realizing how much he hated his job. During that time, he decided to try cartooning. In 1976, he drew six cartoons and submitted them to "Pacific Search" (afterward "Pacific Northwest Magazine"), a Seattle-based magazine. After contributing to another local Seattle paper, in 1979 Larson submitted his work to "The Seattle Times". Under the title "Nature's Way", his work was published weekly next to the "Junior Jumble".


title: Gary Larson

text: Larson decided that he could increase his income from cartooning by selling his "Nature's Way" strip to another newspaper. While on vacation in San Francisco, he pitched his work to the "San Francisco Chronicle" and, to his surprise, the "Chronicle" bought the strip and promoted it for syndication, renaming it "The Far Side". Its first appearance in the "Chronicle" was on January 1, 1980. A week later, "The Seattle Times" dropped "Nature's Way". Unlike Charles Schulz, who resented the name "Peanuts" imposed by his publisher, Larson had no such qualms, saying, "They could have called it "Revenge of the Zucchini People", for all I cared." "The Far Side" ran for fifteen years, syndicated initially by Chronicle Features and later by Universal Press Syndicate, until Larson retired with his final strip published on January 1, 1995.


title: Gary Larson

text: Themes in "The Far Side" were often surreal. Often, the behavior of supposedly superior humans was compared with animals. For instance, a father explains to his son that a bird song is a territorial marking common to the lower animals, while surrounded by fences and dense housing. Animals and other creatures were frequently presented anthropomorphically. One strip depicts a family of spiders driving in a car with a "Have a Nice Day" bumper sticker, featuring a smiley face with eight eyes.


title: Gary Larson

text: One of Larson's more famous cartoons shows a chimpanzee couple grooming. The female finds a blonde human hair on the male and inquires, "Conducting a little more 'research' with that Jane Goodall tramp?" A representative from the Jane Goodall Institute thought that this was in bad taste and wrote a critical letter to Larson regarding the cartoon. Larson contacted the Goodall Institute to apologize only to find that Jane Goodall, who had been in Africa at the time of the cartoon's publication and only learned of it years after its initial publication, approved of it, stating that she found it amusing. Since then, all profits from sales of a shirt featuring this cartoon go to the Goodall Institute. Goodall wrote a preface to "The Far Side Gallery 5", detailing her version of the "Jane Goodall Tramp" controversy. She praised Larson's creative ideas, which often compare and contrast the behavior of humans and animals.


title: Gary Larson

text: Larson's "The Far Side" cartoons were syndicated worldwide and published in many collections. They were also reproduced extensively on greeting cards which were very popular, but these were discontinued in March 2009. Two animated versions were produced for television: "Tales from the Far Side" (1994) and "Tales from the Far Side II" (1997). A 2007 "The Far Side" calendar donated all author royalties to Conservation International.


title: Gary Larson

text: By late 1994, Larson thought the series was getting repetitive and did not want to enter what he called the "Graveyard of Mediocre Cartoons." He retired the strip on January 1, 1995, when he was 44 years old. Since retiring from "The Far Side", Larson has done occasional cartoon work, including magazine illustrations and promotional artwork for "The Far Side" merchandise. For the most part, he has also retired from public view: "He refuses to have his picture taken and avoids being on TV", "Time" magazine wrote in 2003. To Larson, "cartoonists are expected to be anonymous."


title: Gary Larson

text: In 1998, Larson published his first post-"The Far Side" book "There's a Hair in My Dirt!: A Worm's Story", an illustrated book with thematic similarities to "The Far Side". The short book tells the story of an earthworm who feels that his life is insignificant. The main plot is told by the young worm's father and follows the beautiful (but slightly dim) human maiden Harriet, who takes a stroll across a woodland trail, encountering different aspects of the ecological world. She admires it but knows little about the land around her, and that eventually leads to her downfall.


title: Gary Larson

text: Larson has been playing jazz guitar since his teen years. He took advanced lessons from two famous jazz guitarists, Remo Palmier and Herb Ellis. In exchange for guitar lessons from Ellis, Larson provided him with the cover illustration for the album "Doggin' Around" (Concord, 1988) by Ellis and bassist Red Mitchell.


title: Gary Larson

text: Larson drew a cover for the November 17, 2003, edition of "The New Yorker" magazine, an offer he felt was too prestigious to refuse.


title: Gary Larson

text: Larson was awarded the Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award by the National Cartoonists Society in 1985 and 1988, earned the society's Reuben Award for 1990 and 1994, and has been recognized for various individual strips by the National Cartoonist Society in 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1995.


title: Gary Larson

text: On March 15, 1989, a newly discovered insect species was named after Larson by Dale H. Clayton, head of the Committee of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago. The "Strigiphilus garylarsoni" is a chewing louse of a genus found only on owls. Wrote Larson: "I considered this an extreme honor. Besides, I knew no one was going to write and ask to name a new species of swan after me. You have to grab these opportunities when they come along." An 8" × 11" (20 × 28 cm) magnification of the insect appeared in the "Prehistory of the Far Side" 10th anniversary compilation, along with the letter requesting permission to use his name. Similarly, an Ecuadorian rainforest butterfly was named after him; "Serratoterga larsoni". The term "thagomizer", a feature of stegosaurus anatomy, was coined in a "Far Side" cartoon.


title: Gary Larson

text: Eighteen years after earning his bachelor's degree at Washington State, Larson gave the commencement address at his alma mater in 1990.


title: Gary Larson

text: Since 1999, Larson has objected to his work being displayed on the internet, and has been sending takedown notices to owners of fan websites and users posting his cartoons. In a personal letter included with the requests, Larson claimed that his work is too personal and important to him to have others "take control of it". In 2007, he also published an open letter on the web to the same effect. Larson has been criticized for not providing a legitimate online source for "The Far Side" series and negatively compared to cartoonists who have embraced the internet.


title: Gary Larson

text: In September 2019, "The Far Side" website stated that "a new online era of the Far Side is coming!" On December 17, 2019, www.thefarside.com, authorized by Larson, and dedicated to "The Far Side" cartoon series went live on the internet. On July 7, 2020, Larson released a new section of "The Far Side" website entitled "New Stuff".


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: Alexandra Asanovna Elbakyan (, born 6 November 1988) is a Kazakhstani computer programmer and creator of the website Sci-Hub, which provides free access to research papers without regard for copyright. According to a study published in 2018, Sci-Hub provides access to nearly all scholarly literature.


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: Elbakyan has been described as "Science's Pirate Queen". In 2016, "Nature" included her in their list of the top ten "people who mattered" in science. Since 2011, she has been living in Russia.


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: Elbakyan was born in Almaty, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (then called Alma-Ata in the Soviet Union), on 6 November 1988. She identifies as "multiracial having ... Armenian, Slavic and Asian roots." Alexandra was raised by a single mother, who was an accomplished computer programmer.


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: Alexandra started programming at the age of 12, making web pages in HTML and later writing in PHP, Delphi, and Assembly languages. She attempted to create a Tamagotchi powered by artificial intelligence. She performed her first computer hack at the age of 14; using SQL injection, she obtained access to all logins and passwords of her home internet provider. Later, she discovered there were more vulnerabilities of the cross-site scripting type. She reported these issues to the internet provider, hoping to get a job with them, but this did not happen. Instead, the provider cut off her internet access. Alexandra wrote in her blog that she first hacked a publisher's website when she was 15. The publisher was MIT Press, which published online books on neuroscience, but they were locked behind a paywall that she could not afford. Alexandra wrote a PHP program that exploited a vulnerability on the website to download paywalled books without payment.


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: In 2009, she obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the Kazakh National Technical University, specializing in information security. She studied the possibility of using EEG brainwaves for authentication instead of using a password. While working on her thesis, Elbakyan discovered the paywall problem with accessing journal articles, as her university did not have access to many publications related to her work.


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: Alexandra became interested in developing brain–computer interfaces and in 2010 she joined the University of Freiburg to work on such a project, which eventually led to her summer internship in neuroscience at Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States. The same year, Elbakyan spoke at the Humanity+ Summit at Harvard on the topic "Brain-Computer Interfacing, Consciousness, and the Global Brain". Elbakyan's idea was to develop a new kind of brain-machine interface that would merge human and machine qualia. She also participated in the Towards a Science of Consciousness conference that was held in Tucson, Arizona with the poster "Consciousness in Mixed Systems: Merging Artificial and Biological Minds via Brain-Machine Interface".


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: From 2012 to 2014, she was a master's student at Higher School of Economics in Moscow, but then dropped out. According to a 2016 interview, her neuroscience research was on hold, but she was enrolled in a history of science master's program at a private university in an undisclosed location. Her thesis would focus on scientific communication. In 2019, she graduated from Saint Petersburg State University with a master's degree in linguistics. She currently lives in Moscow and is studying philosophy at the Russian Academy of Sciences.


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: According to Elbakyan, Sci-Hub is a simplified version of a Global Brain because it "connects [the] brains of many researchers."


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: Elbakyan developed Sci-Hub in 2011 when she was in Kazakhstan. It was characterized by "Science" correspondent John Bohannon as "an awe-inspiring act of altruism or a massive criminal enterprise, depending on whom you ask." Elbakyan has stated that the script was initially intended to make access to academic papers fast and convenient, without a global goal of making all science free.


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: When academic publisher Elsevier sued Sci-Hub in the US in 2015, Elbakyan wrote a letter to the judge, wherein she explained her motives for starting the project: she could not afford to pay for each of the hundreds of papers she needed for her research project, so she had to pirate them. She founded her website to help others in the same situation. In the letter Elbakyan has provided various arguments in support for her cause, such as Elsevier not being an author of papers, and not paying the authors, mentioning that "The general opinion in research community is that research papers should be distributed for free (open access), not sold".


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: Elsevier was granted an injunction against her and $15 million in damages. Following a lawsuit, Elbakyan remained in hiding due to the risk of extradition. There were also lawsuits against Sci-Hub and Elbakyan from other publishers and in other countries.


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: In December 2016, "Nature" named Elbakyan as one of the 10 people who most mattered in science that year. Researchers who use Sci-Hub often thank Elbakyan in the Acknowledgments section of their papers.


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: For her actions in creating Sci-Hub, Elbakyan has been called a hero, for example by Nobel laureate Randy Schekman. "Ars Technica" has compared her to Aaron Swartz, and "The New York Times" has compared her to Edward Snowden. Edward Snowden acknowledged Sci-Hub to be one of the most important websites for academics in the world. She has also been called a modern-day "Robin Hood" and a "Robin Hood of science" and "Science's Pirate Queen".


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: Elbakyan was nominated twice for John Maddox Prize and made it to the final shortlist. Some researchers say that Elbakyan deserves a Nobel Prize for her work. Wildlife scientist T R Shankar Raman has stated in an interview: "I am not a fan of the Nobel Prizes, given they have their own biases and have failed to adequately acknowledge scientific contributions of women, for example. But given that its stated purpose is to award those who have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind, Alexandra Elbakyan certainly qualifies."


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: Elbakyan is a strong supporter of the open access movement. According to her, Sci-Hub is a true implementation of open access principle in science. She believes that science should be open to all and not behind paywalls.


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: She has described herself as a devout pirate and thinks that copyright law prevents the free exchange of information online and the free distribution of knowledge on the Internet. In 2018, she asked supporters of Sci-Hub to join their local Pirate Party in order to fight for copyright laws to be changed.


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: Elbakyan has stated that she is inspired by communist ideals, and considers the common ownership of ideas to be essential for scientific progress. In her 2016 interview to "Vox", she said: "I like the idea of communism, and the idea that knowledge should be common and not intellectual property is very relevant. That is especially true for information. Research articles are used for communication in science. But the word "communication" implies common ownership by itself." She referenced the work of Robert Merton, who considered communism to be a part of scientific ethos. According to her, Sci-Hub is fighting for communism in science and against the current state of things when knowledge has become the private property of corporations, because knowledge belongs to everyone.


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: Elbakyan does not consider herself a strict Marxist. She wanted to join either the Communist Party of the Russian Federation or Pirate Party of Russia, but was unable to as membership in political parties is restricted to those with Russian citizenship.


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: Elbakyan justified Sci-Hub by saying that lack of universal access to academic knowledge violates Article 27 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "everyone has the right freely to … share in scientific advancement and its benefits."


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: She has stated that she supports a strong state which can stand up to the Western world, and that she does not want "the scientists of Russia and of my native Kazakhstan to share the fates of the scientists of Iraq, Libya, and Syria, that were 'helped' by the United States to become more democratic." In 2012, she supported Putin's politics, but in 2018 she expressed support for the Pirate Party, which is in opposition to Putin.


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: Elbakyan was in conflict with the liberal, pro-Western wing of the Russian scientific community. According to her interview, she was attacked on the Internet by 'science popularizers' who supported liberal views that led to the shutdown of Sci-Hub in Russia in 2017 for a few days. In particular, Elbakyan was strongly critical of the former Dynasty Foundation (shut down in 2015) and its associated figures. She believes that the foundation was politicized, tied to Russia's liberal opposition, and fit the legal definition of a "foreign agent". Dynasty's founder, in her opinion, financed researchers whose political views agreed with its own. Elbakyan states that after she began to investigate the foundation's activities and published her findings online, she became the target of a cyberharassment campaign by Dynasty's supporters.


title: Alexandra Elbakyan

text: In December 2019, "The Washington Post" reported that Elbakyan was under investigation by the US Justice Department for suspected ties to Russia's military intelligence arm, the GRU, to steal U.S. military secrets from defense contractors. Elbakyan has denied this, saying that Sci-Hub "is not in any way directly affiliated with Russian or some other country's intelligence," but noting that "of course, there could be some indirect help. The same as with donations, anyone can send them; they are completely anonymous, so I do not know who exactly is donating to Sci-Hub. There could be some help that I’m simply unaware of. I can only add that I write all of Sci-Hub code and design myself and I’m doing the server’s configuration."