title: Kaala (2018 film)

text: The film collected at the worldwide box office in the first weekend. The film collected in the international box office. The film collected in Telangana, in Andhra Pradesh, in Tamil Nadu, in Karnataka, in Kerala, in the Rest of India, in India, in United States, in UAE, in Australia/New Zealand, in UK and the rest is estimated as ."Kaala" had a worldwide gross of at the end of its theatrical run. It also collected for its global distributors, who shelled out on its theatrical rights.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Christopher John Tarrant, (born 10 October 1946) is an English broadcaster, television personality and former radio DJ. He presented the ITV children's television show "Tiswas" from 1974 to 1981, and the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" from 1998 to 2014. He was a Capital Radio host from 1984 to 2004. Tarrant received an OBE in 2004 for his charity work, in particular his campaigning on behalf of disadvantaged children.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Tarrant's career began in 1972, when he was hired by the since-dissolved television network ATV. He presented "ATV Today," a current affairs programme serving the Midlands area of England, until 1982. Tarrant rose to prominence after becoming a co-host on "Tiswas", the children's television show broadcast on a Saturday morning from 1974 to 1981.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: In January 1982, along with Bob Carolgees, John Gorman, Randolph Sutherland and Lenny Henry, Tarrant launched a late-night show, "O.T.T.", thought of as an "adult" version of "Tiswas", but it did not prove popular. Tarrant was a Capital Radio host from 1984 to 2004, presenting the early-morning show "Capital Breakfast". The show was highly popular, increasing Capital Radio's audience share in London.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Tarrant presented the ITV game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" from 1998 to 2014, while also providing some audio recordings for some console games, and a tabletop game made by Tiger Electronics based on the show. He recorded 592 episodes, in which a total of five contestants won the cash prize of £1 million. Since "Millionaire", Tarrant found successful presenting parts harder to come by, hosting a series of failed game shows for ITV. In 2012, Tarrant began a travel documentary series, "", which has been compared with similar programmes presented by Michael Palin and Michael Portillo.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Chris Tarrant was born on Thursday 10 October 1946 in Reading, England, to Basil and Joan Tarrant. His father had joined a territorial unit of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in 1936 and was among those evacuated from Dunkirk in the retreat of May 1940. He was also active in the Normandy landings. Tarrant was educated as a boarder in Choir House at the King's School, Worcester from 1960 to 1964. He represented the school at hockey and cricket and gained A, B and D grades at A-level in English, history and ancient history. He then studied English at the University of Birmingham, graduating in 1967.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Tarrant worked as a schoolteacher and also briefly as a film director for the Central Office of Information before joining ATV as a newsreader on "ATV Today".


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Tarrant rose to prominence after becoming a co-host on "Tiswas", a children's television show broadcast on a Saturday morning from January 1974 to 1981. In 1982, he hosted the short-lived Saturday late-night show "O.T.T.", which was billed as an adult version of "Tiswas" but was not such a success. After this, he did a stint on the breakfast television station "TV-am".


title: Chris Tarrant

text: In 1984, Tarrant joined Capital Radio as a presenter, initially presenting the station's Sunday lunchtime show before moving to a late-morning weekday slot, following David Jensen. From March 1987 until April 2004 he hosted "Capital Breakfast". The show was highly popular, increasing Capital Radio's audience share in London. Tarrant had regular co-presenter Kara Noble (eventually replaced by Zabe Newsome for a very short duration) as his sidekick for the early years until Noble moved to Heart FM in 1995 with regular contributions from Flying Eye traffic reporter Russ Kane and newsreader Howard Hughes. It was on this show that he first coined his "Is that your final answer?" catchphrase.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: At 9:00 am on 2 April 2004, after hosting 4,425 shows, 20 years on Capital Radio and giving away prizes to the value of £3.5 million, Tarrant said his farewell to the station.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Tarrant began hosting the popular television quiz show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" in 1998. The format was sold to over 100 other countries. Tarrant coined the format's catchphrase, "But we don't want to give you that," and continued his older catchphrase, "Is that your final answer?" contributing it to the format.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: It was confirmed by UKGameshows.com that Tarrant is among the leading regular game show hosts for at least one full series on British television, with sixteen different series to his credit.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: In September 2001, an oblivious Tarrant asked the questions of contestant Charles Ingram, then a British Army Major who was found to be cheating in a 2003 trial. The same year ITV themselves made a documentary about the incident: "A Major Fraud".


title: Chris Tarrant

text: In October 2013, it was confirmed that "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" was to come to an end after airing for 15 years on ITV. The channel made the decision to coincide with Tarrant stepping down as host. Of this, Tarrant said:


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Tarrant's final live edition of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" was a celebrity edition which aired live on 19 December 2013. On the day before, Tarrant pre-recorded two other celebrity episodes that were shown in February 2014.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: In 2018, ITV commissioned a new series of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?", to be presented by new host Jeremy Clarkson. In a television interview, Tarrant stated he had chosen not to watch the revived series, saying, "I did it for 15 years, about 600 shows. I loved it – I had a fantastic time but I don't want to do any more, so good luck. It’s a great show." Tarrant said he would have "politely turned down" an offer by the network to return to the show had he been approached.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Tarrant narrated the schools programme "Stop, Look, Listen", made by ATV and later Central Television.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Tarrant hosted "Everybody's Equal" in 1989, although the programme came to an end in 1990 (the format was revived in 1997 by Channel 5 as "Whittle", with Tim Vine as host). In 1991 he hosted the second series of "Cluedo" which was part panel quiz and part murder drama, based on the board game of the same name. On 1 January 1993, after Thames Television lost its ITV franchise and been replaced by Carlton Television, Tarrant hosted the first programme of the new contractor, "A Carlton New Year". Also in 1993, Tarrant hosted "Lose A Million", in which contestants started off with a (fictional) million pounds and were required to lose it by aiming to answer a set of questions incorrectly. Tarrant would later host "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?", in which the objective of the game is to do the opposite. From 1996 to 1999 Tarrant hosted the UK edition of "Man O Man".


title: Chris Tarrant

text: In 1994, Tarrant hosted a revival of "Pop Quiz", previously hosted by Mike Read. It ran one series and eight episodes in total, airing again on Saturday nights (as Read's version did).


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Tarrant was also the long-term host of "Tarrant on TV", a programme which shows clips featuring a number of unusual television programmes from around the world. He presented the show from 1990 to 2006. In 1998, Tarrant released a compilation album entitled "Ultimate Party Megamix" on PolyGram Television's record label. A second edition entitled "Ultimate Summer Party" was also released. Both albums contain songs compiled by Tarrant himself in the form of a megamix.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: In 2003, he did voice over work on the film "Johnny English", where he starred as himself hosting a radio presentation of Sauvage's coronation. In 2008, he presented the game show "It's Not What You Know" on Challenge. In January 2009, Tarrant began hosting a new ITV show, "The Colour of Money", which was cancelled after seven episodes after failing to perform well in the ratings.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: In June 2008 it was announced he would return to radio, hosting a weekly Saturday morning show for the GMG Radio network of stations including London's 102.2 Smooth Radio, Real Radio in Scotland and the North West's Century Radio. The show would air in direct competition to Jonathan Ross's show on BBC Radio 2 and began on 26 July. It was aired for 12 months until July 2009.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: In 2009, UKTV signed Tarrant to present a show for Watch called "Tarrant Lets the Kids Loose". The eight-part series, beginning on 4 October, gave three- to six-year-olds the chance to fulfil their greatest ambitions in the adult world, whether running a photographic studio, a radio station or an ice-cream van. The show was executively produced by Lisa Perrin and Tess Cumming.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: In April 2010, Tarrant become one of the first three celebrities to be subjected to the British version of the American institution of a comedy roast, on Channel 4's "A Comedy Roast".In August 2010, Tarrant launched the "Fishing with Chris Tarrant" application for iOS devices in association with "Angling Times" magazine. Also in 2010 he presented ITV1's "The Door", a game show in which celebrities faced unpleasant and scary challenges to win money for charity.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: In January 2011, he appeared on BBC's "The Magicians" and was voted to do the forfeit trick (walking barefoot on broken glass and swords)


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Tarrant has sat in for Steve Wright on his BBC Radio 2 show on at least ten occasions between 2010 and 2013.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: On 13 April 2012, Tarrant made an appearance in the BBC show "Would I Lie to You?" on David Mitchell's team alongside Mel Giedroyc.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: In 2012, Tarrant filmed the "" series for Channel 5, with locations including the Congo-Ocean Railway, the Ghan across Australia and the Konkan Railway in India. The series was aired in December 2012. A second series was shown in 2015. In 2013, Channel 5 aired a new series called "Chris Tarrant Goes Fishing". A year later Tarrant began appearing in the ITV daytime game show "Show Me the Telly" as the TV legends team captain.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Tarrant had two children from his marriage to Sheila Roberton, Helen in 1977 and Jennifer in 1980. The couple married in Southend-on-Sea in 1976 and divorced in 1982. Tarrant met his second wife, Ingrid Dupre-Walsh, when they both worked for TV-am. The couple married in 1991 and divorced in 2007. After a series of tabloid stories, on 18 September 2006 the couple announced that they were separating. The couple previously lived with their two children, Sammy and Toby, in Esher, plus two children from Ingrid's previous marriage, Dexter and Fia, the latter a radio presenter with Heart. In a statement in September 2006, Tarrant said: "I am deeply sorry for the hurt I have caused to my loyal wife and wonderful children, all of whom I adore. I have only myself to blame for the breakdown of my marriage." Since 2008, Tarrant has been in a long-term relationship with legal assistant Jane Bird.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: In June 2000, Tarrant's River Thames launch boat the "Ben Gunn" was vandalised and burnt at its mooring in East Molesey. Tarrant's father died in 2005 and his mother died in 2012. Whilst Tarrant was preparing for his mother's funeral, he discovered his father's war diary in an open desk. Tarrant stated, "For the first time, I had his own record of his wartime experiences."


title: Chris Tarrant

text: On 12 March 2014, it was reported that Tarrant had suffered a mini stroke whilst on board a return flight from Bangkok to London Heathrow on 1 March 2014, returning from overseas shooting for "". Upon landing, he was rushed to Charing Cross Hospital where doctors did emergency surgery to remove a blood clot from his right leg.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Tarrant is a fan of rock group Status Quo, and in 1991 followed them on their Rock 'til You Drop tour, which covered four concerts in one day (Sheffield, Glasgow, Birmingham and London) in aid of Nordorff-Robbins. In 2013, he attended the premiere of the band's feature film Bula Quo! in London.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Two of Tarrant's children also work in radio, both employed by Global Radio: Toby hosted programmes initially for Capital FM and, as of 2017, for Radio X, and Fia presents on Heart.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Tarrant's charity work, for which he received an OBE in 2004, includes: being an ambassador for the homeless charity, Centrepoint; trustee/patron of West Heath School for disadvantaged children (the school previously being a private school for girls that Diana, Princess of Wales attended); patron of Milly's Fund, set up in memory of murdered Surrey teenager Amanda Dowler; patron of Swings & Smiles, a charity for children with special needs.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: Tarrant is a patron of the Trooper Potts VC Memorial Trust, Reading. As well as Berkshire Vision , a charity that supports the visually impaired in the Berkshire County.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: On 13 May 2007, Tarrant was arrested on suspicion of assault at an Indian restaurant and was released on police bail. The incident took place at the MemSaab Restaurant on Maid Marian Way, Nottingham, where Tarrant, who had been joking with a couple dining at an adjacent table, threw an item of cutlery towards the man. Tarrant admitted to the BBC that he did jokingly "lob" some cutlery onto the couple's table after asking them to leave him alone to discuss work with his colleagues. He said: "I've no idea what his [the accuser's] motives were – it genuinely makes no sense. I got back from the station at 1 am and to this minute I am completely bemused by what happened." On 25 May 2007, Tarrant was formally cautioned by Nottinghamshire Constabulary with regard to the incident.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: On 5 March 2009, Tarrant was arrested on suspicion of assault at his home in Esher. He was later released without charge.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: On 18 December 2017, Tarrant appeared in court charged with drink-driving. He returned to court on 18 January 2018 and received a £6,000 fine and a 12-month driving ban.


title: Chris Tarrant

text: In 2020, a TV mini-series, "Quiz", about Charles Ingram's attempt to win a million pounds on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" by cheating, was released. Tarrant was portrayed by the actor Michael Sheen.


title: Samkhya

text: Samkhya or Sankya (; Sanskrit सांख्य), IAST: "") is a dualistic school of Indian philosophy. It views reality as composed of two independent principles, "puruṣa" ('consciousness' or spirit); and "prakṛti", (nature or matter, including the human mind and emotions).


title: Samkhya

text: "Puruṣa" is the witness-consciousness. It is absolute, independent, free, beyond perception, above any experience by mind or senses, and impossible to describe in words.


title: Samkhya

text: Unmanifest "prakriti" is matter or nature. It is inactive, unconscious, and is a balance of the three "guṇas" (qualities or innate tendencies), namely "sattva" , "rajas", and "tamas". When prakṛti comes into contact with Purusha this balance is disturbed, and Prakriti becomes manifest, evolving twenty-three tattvas, namely intellect (buddhi, mahat), ego (ahamkara) mind (manas); the five sensory capacities; the five action capacities; and the five "subtle elements" or "modes of sensory content" ("tanmatras"), from which the five "gross elements" or "forms of perceptual objects" (earth, water, fire, air and space) emerge, in turn giving rise to the manifestation of sensory experience and cognition.


title: Samkhya

text: "Jiva" ('a living being') is the state in which "purusha" is bonded to "prakriti". Human experience is an interplay of the two, purusha being conscious of the various combinations of cognitive activities. The end of the bondage of purusha to prakriti is called liberation or kaivalya (isolation).


title: Samkhya

text: Samkhya's epistemology accepts three of six "pramanas" ('proofs') as the only reliable means of gaining knowledge, as does yoga. These are "pratyakṣa" ('perception'), "anumāṇa" ('inference') and "śabda" ("āptavacana", meaning, 'word/testimony of reliable sources'). Sometimes described as one of the rationalist schools of Indian philosophy, it relied exclusively on reason.


title: Samkhya

text: While samkhya-like speculations can be found in the Rig Veda and some of the older Upanishads, some western scholars have proposed that Samkhya may have non-Vedic origins, and developed in ascetic milieus. Proto-samkhya ideas developed from the 8th/7th c. BCE onwards, as evidenced in the middle Upanishads, the "Buddhacharita", the "Bhagavad Gita", and the "Mokshadharma"-section of the Mahabharata. It was related to the early ascetic traditions and meditation, spiritual practices, and religious cosmology, and methods of reasoning that result in liberating knowledge ("vidya", "jnana", "viveka") that end the cycle of "dukkha" (suffering) and rebirth. allowing for "a great variety of philosophical formulations." Pre-"karika" systematic Samkhya existed around the beginning of the first millennium CE. The defining method of Samkhya was established with the Samkhyakarika (4th c. CE).


title: Samkhya

text: The oldest strands of Samkhya may have been theistic or nontheistic, but with its classical systematization in the early first millennium CE the existence of a deity became irrelevant. Samkhya is strongly related to the Yoga school of Hinduism, for which it forms the theoretical foundation, and it was influential on other schools of Indian philosophy.


title: Samkhya

text: "Sāṃkhya" (सांख्य) or "sāṅkhya", also transliterated as s"amkhya" and s"ankhya", respectively, is a Sanskrit word that, depending on the context, means 'to reckon, count, enumerate, calculate, deliberate, reason, reasoning by numeric enumeration, relating to number, rational'. In the context of ancient Indian philosophies, "Samkhya" refers to the philosophical school in Hinduism based on systematic enumeration and rational examination.


title: Samkhya

text: The word "samkhya" means 'empirical' or 'relating to numbers'. Although the term had been used in the general sense of metaphysical knowledge before, in technical usage it refers to the Samkhya school of thought that evolved into a cohesive philosophical system in early centuries CE. The Samkhya system is called so because 'it "enumerates'" twenty five "Tattvas" or true principles; and its chief object is to effect the final emancipation of the twenty-fifth Tattva, i.e. the puruṣa or soul'.


title: Samkhya

text: Samkhya makes a distinction between two "irreducible, innate and independent realities," purusha, the witness-consciousness, and prakṛti, "matter," the activities of mind and perception. According to Dan Lusthaus,


title: Samkhya

text: Puruṣa is considered as the conscious principle, a passive enjoyer ("bhokta") and the prakṛti is the enjoyed ("bhogya"). Samkhya believes that the puruṣa cannot be regarded as the source of inanimate world, because an intelligent principle cannot transform itself into the unconscious world. It is a pluralistic spiritualism, atheistic realism and uncompromising dualism.


title: Samkhya

text: Puruṣa is the witness-consciousness. It is absolute, independent, free, imperceptible, unknowable through other agencies, above any experience by mind or senses and beyond any words or explanations. It remains pure, "nonattributive consciousness". Puruṣa is neither produced nor does it produce. No appellations can qualify purusha, nor can it substantialized or objectified. It "cannot be reduced, can't be 'settled'." Any designation of purusha comes from prakriti, and is a limitation. Unlike Advaita Vedanta, and like Purva-Mīmāṃsā, Samkhya believes in plurality of the puruṣas.


title: Samkhya

text: Prakṛti is the first cause of the world of our experiences. Since it is the first principle ("tattva") of the universe, it is called the "pradhāna" (chief principle), but, as it is the unconscious and unintelligent principle, it is also called the "jaḍa" (unintelligent). It is composed of three essential characteristics ("triguna"s). These are:


title: Samkhya

text: Unmanifested prakriti is infinite, inactive, and unconscious, with the three gunas in a state of equilibrium. This equilibrium of the gunas is disturbed when prakṛti comes into contact with consciousness or Purusha, giving rise to the manifestation of the world of experience from unmanifested prakṛti. Prakriti becomes manifest as twenty-three "tattvas": intellect (buddhi, mahat), ego (ahamkara) mind (manas); the five sensory capacities; the five action capacities; and the five "subtle elements" or "modes of sensory content" ("tanmatras": form ("rūpa"), sound ("shabda"), smell ("gandha"), taste ("rasa"), touch ("sparsha")), from which the five "gross elements" or "forms of perceptual objects" emerge (earth (prithivi), water (jala), fire (Agni), air (Vāyu), ether (Ākāsha)). Prakriti is the source of our experience; it is not "the evolution of a series of material entities," but "the emergence of experience itself." It is description of experience and the relations between its elements, not an explanation of the origin of the universe.


title: Samkhya

text: All "prakriti" has these three "gunas" in different proportions. Each "guna" is dominant at specific times of day. The interplay of these "gunas" defines the character of someone or something, of nature and determines the progress of life. The Samkhya theory of "gunas" was widely discussed, developed and refined by various schools of Indian philosophies. Samkhya's philosophical treatises also influenced the development of various theories of Hindu ethics.


title: Samkhya

text: Thought processes and mental events are conscious only to the extent they receive illumination from Purusha. In Samkhya, consciousness is compared to light which illuminates the material configurations or 'shapes' assumed by the mind. So intellect, after receiving cognitive structures from the mind and illumination from pure consciousness, creates thought structures that appear to be conscious. Ahamkara, the ego or the phenomenal self, appropriates all mental experiences to itself and thus, personalizes the objective activities of mind and intellect by assuming possession of them. But consciousness is itself independent of the thought structures it illuminates.


title: Samkhya

text: Samkhya regards ignorance (avidyā) as the root cause of suffering and bondage ("Samsara"). Samkhya states that the way out of this suffering is through knowledge (viveka). Mokṣa (liberation), states Samkhya school, results from knowing the difference between prakṛti (avyakta-vyakta) and puruṣa (jña).


title: Samkhya

text: Puruṣa, the eternal pure consciousness, due to ignorance, identifies itself with products of prakṛti such as intellect (buddhi) and ego (ahamkara). This results in endless transmigration and suffering. However, once the realization arises that puruṣa is distinct from prakṛti, is more than empirical ego, and that puruṣa is deepest conscious self within, the Self gains isolation ("kaivalya") and freedom ("moksha").


title: Samkhya

text: Other forms of Samkhya teach that Mokṣa is attained by one's own development of the higher faculties of discrimination achieved by meditation and other yogic practices. Moksha is described by Samkhya scholars as a state of liberation, where "Sattva" guna predominates.


title: Samkhya

text: Samkhya considered "Pratyakṣa" or "Dṛṣṭam" (direct sense perception), "Anumāna" (inference), and "Śabda" or "Āptavacana" (verbal testimony of the sages or shāstras) to be the only valid means of knowledge or "pramana". Unlike some other schools, Samkhya did not consider the following three "pramanas" to be epistemically proper: "Upamāṇa" (comparison and analogy), "Arthāpatti" (postulation, deriving from circumstances) or "Anupalabdi" (non-perception, negative/cognitive proof) .


title: Samkhya

text: The Samkhya system is based on Sat-kārya-vāda or the theory of causation. According to Satkāryavāda, the effect is pre-existent in the cause. There is only an apparent or illusory change in the makeup of the cause and not a material one, when it becomes effect. Since, effects cannot come from nothing, the original cause or ground of everything is seen as prakṛti.


title: Samkhya

text: More specifically, Samkhya system follows the "prakṛti-Parināma Vāda". "Parināma" denotes that the effect is a real transformation of the cause. The cause under consideration here is prakṛti or more precisely Moola-prakṛti (Primordial Matter). The Samkhya system is therefore an exponent of an evolutionary theory of matter beginning with primordial matter. In evolution, prakṛti is transformed and differentiated into multiplicity of objects. Evolution is followed by dissolution. In dissolution the physical existence, all the worldly objects mingle back into prakṛti, which now remains as the undifferentiated, primordial substance. This is how the cycles of evolution and dissolution follow each other. But this theory is very different from the modern theories of science in the sense that prakṛti evolves for each Jiva separately, giving individual bodies and minds to each and after liberation these elements of prakṛti merges into the Moola prakṛti. Another uniqueness of Sāmkhya is that not only physical entities but even mind, ego and intelligence are regarded as forms of Unconsciousness, quite distinct from pure consciousness.


title: Samkhya

text: Samkhya theorizes that prakṛti is the source of the perceived world of becoming. It is pure potentiality that evolves itself successively into twenty four tattvas or principles. The evolution itself is possible because prakṛti is always in a state of tension among its constituent strands or gunas – Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. In a state of equilibrium of three gunas, when the three together are one, "unmanifest" prakṛti which is unknowable. A guna is an entity that can change, either increase or decrease, therefore, pure consciousness is called nirguna or without any modification.


title: Samkhya

text: The evolution obeys causality relationships, with primal Nature itself being the material cause of all physical creation. The cause and effect theory of Samkhya is called "Satkārya-vāda" (theory of existent causes), and holds that nothing can really be created from or destroyed into nothingness – all evolution is simply the transformation of primal Nature from one form to another.


title: Samkhya

text: Samkhya cosmology describes how life emerges in the universe; the relationship between Purusha and prakṛti is crucial to Patanjali's yoga system. The strands of Samkhya thought can be traced back to the Vedic speculation of creation. It is also frequently mentioned in the Mahabharata and Yogavasishta.


title: Samkhya

text: Larson (1987) discerns three phases of development of the term "samkhya", relating to three different meanings:


title: Samkhya

text: The early, speculative phase took place in the first half of the first millennium BCE, when ascetic spirituality and monastic ("sramana" and "yati") traditions came into vogue in India, and ancient scholars combined "enumerated set[s] of principles" with "a methodology of reasoning that results in spiritual knowledge ("vidya, jnana, viveka")." These early non-Samkhya speculations and proto-Samkhya ideas are visible in earlier Hindu scriptures such as the Vedas, early Upanishads such as the Chandogya Upanishad, and the "Bhagavad Gita". However, these early speculations and proto-Samkhya ideas had not distilled and congealed into a distinct, complete philosophy.


title: Samkhya

text: Anthony Warder (1994; first ed. 1967) writes that the Samkhya and Mīmāṃsā schools appear to have been established before the Sramana traditions in India (~500 BCE), and he finds that "Samkhya represents a relatively free development of speculation among the Brahmans, independent of the Vedic revelation." Warder writes, '[Samkhya] has indeed been suggested to be non-Brahmanical and even anti-Vedic in origin, but there is no tangible evidence for that except that it is very different than most Vedic speculation – but that is (itself) quite inconclusive. Speculations in the direction of the Samkhya can be found in the early Upanishads."


title: Samkhya

text: The earliest mention of dualism is in the "Rigveda", a text that was compiled in the second millennium BCE., in various chapters.


title: Samkhya

text: At a mythical level, dualism is found in the Indra–Vritra myth of chapter 1.32 of the Rigveda. Enumeration, the etymological root of the word "samkhya", is found in numerous chapters of the Rigveda, such as 1.164, 10.90 and 10.129. According to Larson, it is likely that in the oldest period these enumerations were occasionally also applied in the context of meditation themes and religious cosmology, such as in the hymns of 1.164 (Riddle Hymns) and 10.129 (Nasadiya Hymns). However, these hymns present only the outline of ideas, not specific Samkhya theories and these theories developed in a much later period.


title: Samkhya

text: The Riddle hymns of the Rigveda, famous for their numerous enumerations, structural language symmetry within the verses and the chapter, enigmatic word play with anagrams that symbolically portray parallelism in rituals and the cosmos, nature and the inner life of man. This hymn includes enumeration (counting) as well as a series of dual concepts cited by early Upanishads . For example, the hymns 1.164.2 - 1.164-3 mention "seven" multiple times, which in the context of other chapters of Rigveda have been interpreted as referring to both seven priests at a ritual and seven constellations in the sky, the entire hymn is a riddle that paints a ritual as well as the sun, moon, earth, three seasons, the transitory nature of living beings, the passage of time and spirit.


title: Samkhya

text: The chapter 1.164 asks a number of metaphysical questions, such as "what is the One in the form of the Unborn that created the six realms of the world?". Dualistic philosophical speculations then follow in chapter 1.164 of the Rigveda, particularly in the well studied "allegory of two birds" hymn (1.164.20 - 1.164.22), a hymn that is referred to in the Mundaka Upanishad and other texts . The two birds in this hymn have been interpreted to mean various forms of dualism: "the sun and the moon", the "two seekers of different kinds of knowledge", and "the body and the atman".


title: Samkhya

text: The emphasis of duality between existence (sat) and non-existence (asat) in the Nasadiya Sukta of the "Rigveda" is similar to the vyakta–avyakta (manifest–unmanifest) polarity in Samkhya. The hymns about Puruṣa may also have had some influence on Samkhya. The Samkhya notion of buddhi or mahat is similar to the notion of hiranyagarbha, which appears in both the "Rigveda" and the "Shvetashvatara Upanishad".


title: Samkhya

text: The oldest of the major Upanishads (c. 900–600 BCE) contain speculations along the lines of classical Samkhya philosophy. The concept of ahamkara was traced back by Van Buitenen to chapters 1.2 and 1.4 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad and chapter 7.25 of the "Chāndogya Upaniṣad", where it is a "cosmic entity," and not a psychological notion. Satkaryavada, the theory of causation in Samkhya, may in part be traced to the verses in sixth chapter which emphasize the primacy of sat (being) and describe creation from it. The idea that the three gunas or attributes influence creation is found in both Chandogya and Shvetashvatara Upanishads.


title: Samkhya

text: Yajnavalkya's exposition on the Self in the "Brihadaranyaka Upanishad", and the dialogue between Uddalaka Aruni and his son Svetaketu in the "Chandogya Upanishad" represent a more developed notion of the essence of man ("Atman") as "pure subjectivity - i.e., the knower who is himself unknowable, the seer who cannot be seen," and as "pure conscious," discovered by means of speculations, or enumerations. Acdording lo Larson, "it seesm quite likely that both the monistic trends in Indian thought and the duslistic samkhya could have developed out of these ancient speculations." According to Larson, the enumeration of tattvas in Samkhya is also found in Taittiriya Upanishad, Aitareya Upanishad and Yajnavalkya–Maitri dialogue in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.


title: Samkhya

text: The Katha Upanishad in verses 3.10–13 and 6.7–11 describes a concept of puruṣa, and other concepts also found in later Samkhya. The "Shvetashvatara Upanishad" in chapter 6.13 describes samkhya with Yoga philosophy, and Bhagavad Gita in book 2 provides axiological implications of Samkhya, therewith providing textual evidence of samkhyan terminology and concepts. Katha Upanishad conceives the Purusha (cosmic spirit, consciousness) as same as the individual soul (Ātman, Self).


title: Samkhya

text: While some earlier scholars have argued for Upanishadic origins of the Samkhya-tradition, and the Upanisads contain dualistic speculations which may have influenced proto-samkhya, other scholars have noted the dissimilarities of Shamkhya with the Vedic tradition. As early as 1898, Richard Karl von Garbe, a German professor of philosophy and Indologist, wrote in 1898,


title: Samkhya

text: Dandekar, similarly wrote in 1968, 'The origin of the Sankhya is to be traced to the pre-Vedic non-Aryan thought complex'. Heinrich Zimmer states that Samkhya has non-Aryan origins. According to Ruzsa in 2006, "Sāṅkhya has a very long history. Its roots go deeper than textual traditions allow us to see," stating that "Sāṅkhya likely grew out of speculations rooted in cosmic dualism and introspective meditational practice." The dualism is rooted in agricultural concepts of the union of the male sky-god and the female earth-goddess, the union of "the spiritual, immaterial, lordly, immobile fertilizer (represented as the Śiva-liṅgam, or phallus) and of the active, fertile, powerful but subservient material principle (Śakti or Power, often as the horrible Dark Lady, Kālī)." In contrast,


title: Samkhya

text: Burley argues for an ontegenetic or incremental development of Shamkya, instead of being established by one historical founder. Burley states that India's religio-cultural heritage is complicated and likely experienced a non-linear development. Samkhya is not necessarily non-Vedic nor pre-Vedic nor a 'reaction to Brahmanic hegemony', states Burley. It is most plausibly in its origins a lineage that grew and evolved from a combination of ascetic traditions and Vedic "guru" (teacher) and disciples. Burley suggests the link between Samkhya and Yoga as likely the root of this evolutionary origin during the Vedic era of India. According to Van Buitenen, various ideas on yoga and meditation developed in the interaction between various "sramanas" and ascetic groups.


title: Samkhya

text: The "Mokshadharma" chapter of Shanti Parva (Book of Peace) in the Mahabharata epic, composed between 400 BCE to 400 CE, explains Samkhya ideas along with other extant philosophies, and then lists numerous scholars in recognition of their philosophical contributions to various Indian traditions, and therein at least three Samkhya scholars can be recognized – Kapila, Asuri and Pancasikha. The 12th chapter of the Buddhist text "Buddhacarita" suggests Samkhya philosophical tools of reliable reasoning were well formed by about 5th century BCE. According to Rusza, "The ancient Buddhist Aśvaghoṣa (in his Buddha-Carita) describes Āḷāra Kālāma, the teacher of the young Buddha (ca. 420 B.C.E.) as following an archaic form of Sāṅkhya."


title: Samkhya

text: Samkhya and Yoga are mentioned together for first time in chapter 6.13 of the Shvetashvatra Upanishad, as "samkhya-yoga-adhigamya" (literally, "to be understood by proper reasoning and spiritual discipline"). Bhagavad Gita identifies Samkhya with understanding or knowledge. The three gunas are also mentioned in the Gita, though they are not used in the same sense as in classical Samkhya. The Gita integrates Samkhya thought with the devotion (bhakti) of theistic schools and the impersonal Brahman of Vedanta.


title: Samkhya

text: Sage Kapila is traditionally credited as a founder of the Samkhya school. It is unclear in which century of the 1st millennium BCE Kapila lived. Kapila appears in Rigveda, but context suggests that the word means 'reddish-brown color'. Both Kapila as a 'seer' and the term "Samkhya" appear in hymns of section 5.2 in Shvetashvatara Upanishad (~300 BCE), suggesting Kapila's and Samkhya philosophy's origins may predate it. Numerous other ancient Indian texts mention Kapila; for example, Baudhayana Grhyasutra in chapter IV.16.1 describes a system of rules for ascetic life credited to Kapila called "Kapila Sannyasa Vidha". A 6th century CE Chinese translation and other texts consistently note Kapila as an ascetic and the founder of the school, mention Asuri as the inheritor of the teaching and a much later scholar named Pancasikha as the scholar who systematized it and then helped widely disseminate its ideas. Isvarakrsna is identified in these texts as the one who summarized and simplified Samkhya theories of Pancasikha, many centuries later (roughly 4th or 5th century CE), in the form that was then translated into Chinese by Paramartha in the 6th century CE.


title: Samkhya

text: Buddhism and Jainism had developed in eastern India by the 5th century BCE. It is probable that these schools of thought and the earliest schools of Samkhya influenced each other. According to Burely, there is no evidence that a systematic samkhya-philosophy existed prior to the founding of Buddhism and Jainism, sometime in the 5th or 4th century BCE. A prominent similarity between Buddhism and Samkhya is the greater emphasis on suffering (dukkha) as the foundation for their respective soteriological theories, than other Indian philosophies. However, suffering appears central to Samkhya in its later literature, which likely suggests a Buddhist influence. Eliade, however, presents the alternate theory that Samkhya and Buddhism developed their soteriological theories over time, benefiting from their mutual influence.


title: Samkhya

text: Likewise, the Jain doctrine of plurality of individual souls (jiva) could have influenced the concept of multiple purushas in Samkhya. However Hermann Jacobi, an Indologist, thinks that there is little reason to assume that Samkhya notion of Purushas was solely dependent on the notion of jiva in Jainism. It is more likely, that Samkhya was moulded by many ancient theories of soul in various Vedic and non-Vedic schools.


title: Samkhya

text: Larson, Bhattacharya and Potter state it to be likely that early Samkhya doctrines found in oldest Upanishads (~700-800 BCE) provided the contextual foundations and influenced Buddhist and Jaina doctrines, and these became contemporaneous, sibling intellectual movements with Samkhya and other schools of Hindu philosophy. This is evidenced, for example, by the references to Samkhya in ancient and medieval era Jaina literature.


title: Samkhya

text: According to Ruzsa, about 2,000 years ago "Sāṅkhya became the representative philosophy of Hindu thought in Hindu circles", influencing all strands of the Hindu tradition and Hindu texts.


title: Samkhya

text: Between 1938 and 1967, two previously unknown manuscript editions of "Yuktidipika" (ca. 600–700 CE) were discovered and published. "Yuktidipika" is an ancient review by an unknown author and has emerged as the most important commentary on the "Samkhyakarika", itself an ancient key text of the Samkhya school. This commentary as well as the reconstruction of pre-"karika" epistemology and Samkhya emanation text (containing cosmology-ontology) from the earliest Puranas and "Mokshadharma" suggest that Samkhya as a technical philosophical system existed from about the last century BCE to the early centuries of the Common Era. "Yuktidipika" suggests that many more ancient scholars contributed to the origins of Samkhya in ancient India than were previously known and that Samkhya was a polemical philosophical system. However, almost nothing is preserved from the centuries when these ancient Samkhya scholars lived.


title: Samkhya

text: The earliest surviving authoritative text on classical Samkhya philosophy is the "Samkhya Karika" (c. 200 CE or 350–450 CE) of Īśvarakṛṣṇa. There were probably other texts in early centuries CE, however none of them are available today. Iśvarakṛṣṇa in his "Kārikā" describes a succession of the disciples from Kapila, through "Āsuri and "Pañcaśikha to himself. The text also refers to an earlier work of Samkhya philosophy called Ṣaṣṭitantra (science of sixty topics) which is now lost. The text was imported and translated into Chinese about the middle of the 6th century CE. The records of Al Biruni, the Persian visitor to India in the early 11th century, suggests Samkhyakarika was an established and definitive text in India in his times.


title: Samkhya

text: "Samkhyakarika" includes distilled statements on epistemology, metaphysics and soteriology of the Samkhya school. For example, the fourth to sixth verses of the text states it epistemic premises,


title: Samkhya

text: The most popular commentary on the Samkhyakarika was the Gauḍapāda Bhāṣya attributed to Gauḍapāda, the proponent of Advaita Vedanta school of philosophy. Other important commentaries on the karika were "Yuktidīpīka" (c. 6th century CE) and "Vācaspati"’s "Sāṁkhyatattvakaumudī" (c. 10th century CE).


title: Samkhya

text: The 13th century text "Sarvadarsanasangraha" contains 16 chapters, each devoted to a separate school of Indian philosophy. The 13th chapter in this book contains a description of the Samkhya philosophy.


title: Samkhya

text: The "Sāṁkhyapravacana Sūtra" (c. 14th century CE) renewed interest in Samkhya in the medieval era. It is considered the second most important work of Samkhya after the karika. Commentaries on this text were written by Anirruddha ("Sāṁkhyasūtravṛtti", c. 15th century CE), Vijñānabhikṣu ("Sāṁkhyapravacanabhāṣya", c. 16th century CE), Mahādeva (vṛttisāra, c. 17th century CE) and Nāgeśa ("Laghusāṁkhyasūtravṛtti"). In his introduction, the commentator Vijnana Bhiksu stated that only a sixteenth part of the original Samkhya Sastra remained, and that the rest had been lost to time. While the commentary itself is no doubt medieval, the age of the underlying sutras is unknown and perhaps much older. According to Surendranath Dasgupta, scholar of Indian philosophy, Charaka Samhita, an ancient Indian medical treatise, also contains thoughts from an early Samkhya school.


title: Samkhya

text: Although the Samkhya school considers the Vedas a reliable source of knowledge, samkhya accepts the notion of higher selves or perfected beings but rejects the notion of God, according to Paul Deussen and other scholars, although other scholars believe that Samkhya is as much theistic as the Yoga school. According to Rajadhyaksha, classical Samkhya argues against the existence of God on metaphysical grounds. Samkhya theorists argue that an unchanging God cannot be the source of an ever-changing world and that God was only a necessary metaphysical assumption demanded by circumstances.


title: Samkhya

text: "We do not completely reject the particular power of the Lord, since he assumes a majestic body and so forth. Our intended meaning is just that there is no being who is different from prakrti and purusa and who is the instigator of these two, as you claim. Therefore, your view is refuted. The conjunction between prakrti and purusa is not instigated by another being.


title: Samkhya

text: A medieval commentary of Samkhakarika such as "" in verse no. 1.92 directly states that existence of "Ishvara (God) is unproved". Hence there is no philosophical place for a creationist God in this system. It is also argued by commentators of this text that the existence of Ishvara cannot be proved and hence cannot be admitted to exist. However, later in the text, the commentator Vijnana Bhiksu clarified that the subject of dispute between the Samkhyas and others was the existence of an "eternal" Isvara. Samkhya did accept the concept of an "emergent" Isvara previously absorbed into Prakriti.


title: Samkhya

text: A key difference between the Samkhya and Yoga schools, state scholars, is that the Yoga school accepts a 'personal, yet essentially inactive, deity' or 'personal god'. However, Radhanath Phukan, in the introduction to his translation of the "Samkhya Karika of Isvarakrsna" has argued that commentators who see the unmanifested as non-conscious make the mistake of regarding Samkhya as atheistic, though Samkhya is equally as theistic as Yoga. A majority of modern academic scholars are of view that the concept of Ishvara was incorporated into the "nirishvara" (atheistic) Samkhya viewpoint only after it became associated with the Yoga, the Pasupata and the Bhagavata schools of philosophy. Others have traced the concept of the emergent Isvara accepted by Samkhya to as far back as the Rig Veda, where it was called Hiranyagarbha (the golden germ, golden egg). This theistic Samkhya philosophy is described in the Mahabharata, the Puranas and the Bhagavad Gita.


title: Samkhya

text: Chandradhar Sharma in 1960 affirmed that Samkhya in the beginning was based on the theistic absolute of Upanishads, but later on, under the influence of Jaina and Buddhist thought, it rejected theistic monism and was content with spiritualistic pluralism and atheistic realism. This also explains why some of the later Samkhya commentators, e.g. Vijnanabhiksu in the sixteenth century, tried to revive the earlier theism in Samkhya.


title: Samkhya

text: According to Sinha, the following arguments were given by Samkhya philosophers against the idea of an eternal, self-caused, creator God:


title: Samkhya

text: Therefore, Samkhya maintained that the various cosmological, ontological and teleological arguments could not prove God.


title: Samkhya

text: The Vaisheshika atomism, Nyaya epistemology may all have roots in the early Samkhya school of thought; but these schools likely developed in parallel with an evolving Samkhya tradition, as sibling intellectual movements.


title: Samkhya

text: The Yoga school derives its ontology and epistemology from Samkhya and adds to it the concept of Isvara. However, scholarly opinion on the actual relationship between Yoga and Samkhya is divided. While Jakob Wilhelm Hauer and Georg Feuerstein believe that Yoga was a tradition common to many Indian schools and its association with Samkhya was artificially foisted upon it by commentators such as Vyasa. Johannes Bronkhorst and Eric Frauwallner think that Yoga never had a philosophical system separate from Samkhya. Bronkhorst further adds that the first mention of Yoga as a separate school of thought is no earlier than Śankara's (c. 788–820 CE) Brahmasūtrabhaśya.


title: Samkhya

text: The dualistic metaphysics of various Tantric traditions illustrates the strong influence of Samkhya on Tantra. Shaiva Siddhanta was identical to Samkhya in its philosophical approach, barring the addition of a transcendent theistic reality. Knut A. Jacobsen, Professor of Religious Studies, notes the influence of Samkhya on Srivaishnavism. According to him, this Tantric system borrows the abstract dualism of Samkhya and modifies it into a personified male–female dualism of Vishnu and Sri Lakshmi. Dasgupta speculates that the Tantric image of a wild Kali standing on a slumbering Shiva was inspired from the Samkhyan conception of prakṛti as a dynamic agent and Purusha as a passive witness. However, Samkhya and Tantra differed in their view on liberation. While Tantra sought to unite the male and female ontological realities, Samkhya held a withdrawal of consciousness from matter as the ultimate goal.


title: Samkhya

text: According to Bagchi, the Samkhya Karika (in karika 70) identifies Sāmkhya as a Tantra, and its philosophy was one of the main influences both on the rise of the Tantras as a body of literature, as well as Tantra sadhana.


title: Samkhya

text: The Advaita Vedanta philosopher Adi Shankara called "Samkhya" as the 'principal opponent' ("pradhana-malla") of the Vedanta. He criticized the "Samkhya" view that the cause of the universe is the unintelligent "Prakruti" ("Pradhan"). According to Shankara, the Intelligent Brahman only can be such a cause. He considered "Samkhya" philosophy as propounded in Samkhyakarika to be inconsistent with the teachings in the Vedas, and considered the dualism in Samkhya to be non-Vedic. In contrast, ancient Samkhya philosophers in India claimed Vedic authority for their views.


title: Great blue heron

text: The great blue heron (Ardea herodias) is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North America and Central America, as well as the Caribbean and the Galápagos Islands. It is a rare vagrant to coastal Spain, the Azores, and areas of far southern Europe. An all-white population found in south Florida and the Florida Keys is known as the great white heron. Debate exists about whether this represents a white color morph of the great blue heron, a subspecies of it, or an entirely separate species. The status of white individuals known to occur elsewhere in the Caribbean, and their existence is rarely found elsewhere besides in eastern North America.


title: Great blue heron

text: The great blue heron was one of the many species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his 18th-century work, "Systema Naturae". The scientific name comes from Latin "ardea", and Ancient Greek (), both meaning "heron".


title: Great blue heron

text: The great blue heron is replaced in the Old World by the very similar grey heron ("Ardea cinerea"), which differs in being somewhat smaller (), with a pale gray neck and legs, lacking the browner colors that the great blue heron has there. It forms a superspecies with this and also with the cocoi heron from South America, which differs in having more extensive black on the head and a white breast and neck.


title: Great blue heron

text: The great blue heron is the largest heron native to North America. Among all extant herons, it is surpassed in size only by the goliath heron ("Ardea goliath") and the white-bellied heron ("Ardea insignis"). It exhibits a minor degree of sexual dimorphism; with males slightly larger than females, but otherwise the sexes are not easily outwardly distinguishable. It has head-to-tail length of , a wingspan of , a height of , and a weight of . In British Columbia, adult males averaged and adult females . In Nova Scotia and New England, adult herons of both sexes averaged , while in Oregon, both sexes averaged Thus, great blue herons are roughly twice as heavy as great egrets ("Ardea alba"), although only slightly taller than them, but they weigh only about half as much as a large goliath heron.


title: Great blue heron

text: Notable features of great blue herons include slaty (gray with a slight azure blue) flight feathers, red-brown thighs, and a paired red-brown and black stripe up the flanks; the neck is rusty-gray, with black and white streaking down the front; the head is paler, with a nearly white face, and a pair of black or slate plumes runs from just above the eye to the back of the head. The feathers on the lower neck are long and plume-like; it also has plumes on the lower back at the start of the breeding season. The bill is dull yellowish, becoming orange briefly at the start of the breeding season, and the lower legs are gray, also becoming orangey at the start of the breeding season. Immature birds are duller in color, with a dull blackish-gray crown, and the flank pattern is only weakly defined; they have no plumes, and the bill is dull gray-yellow. Among standard measurements, the wing chord is , the tail is , the culmen is , and the tarsus is . The heron's stride is around , almost in a straight line. Two of the three front toes are generally closer together. In a track, the front toes, as well as the back, often show the small talons.


title: Great blue heron

text: The subspecies differ only slightly in size and plumage tone, with the exception of "A. h. occidentalis", native to South Florida, which also has a distinct white morph, known as the great white heron (not to be confused with the great egret, for which "great white heron" was once a common name). The great white heron differs from other great blues in bill morphology, head plume length, and in having a total lack of pigment in its plumage. It averages somewhat larger than the sympatric race "A. h. wardi" and may be the largest race in the species. In a survey of "A. h. occidentalis" in Florida, males were found to average and females average , with a range for both sexes of . This is mainly found near salt water, and was long thought to be a separate species. Birds intermediate between the normal morph and the white morph are known as Würdemann's heron; these birds resemble a "normal" great blue with a white head.


title: Great blue heron

text: The theory that great white herons may be a separate species ("A. occidentalis") from the great blue heron has again been given some support by David Sibley.


title: Great blue heron

text: The "great white heron" could be confused with the great egret ("Ardea alba"), but is larger, with yellow legs as opposed to the great egret's black legs. The reddish egret ("Egretta rufescens") and little blue heron ("Egretta caerulea") could be mistaken for the great blue heron, but are much smaller, and lack white on the head and yellow in the bill. At the southernmost extent of its range (e.g., Colombia and Panama), the great blue heron sometimes overlaps in range with the closely related and similarly sized cocoi heron ("A. cocoi"). The cocoi is distinguished by a striking white neck and solid black crown, but the duller juveniles are more easily confused. More superficially similar is the slightly smaller grey heron, which may sometimes vagrate to the northern coasts of North America. The grey heron (which occupies the same ecological niche in Eurasia as the great blue heron) has very similar plumage, but has a solidly soft-gray neck. Erroneously, the great blue heron is sometimes referred to as a "crane". A heron is differentiated from a crane in flight. The crane's neck is straight and the heron's is always curved.


title: Great blue heron

text: The great blue heron is found throughout most of North America, as far north as Alaska and the southern Canadian provinces in the summer. In winter, the range extends south through Florida, Mexico, and the Caribbean to South America. Birds east of the Rocky Mountains in the northern part of their range are migratory and winter in the coastal areas of the Southern United States, Central America, or northern South America. From the Southern United States southwards, and on the lower Pacific coast, they are year-round residents. However, their hardiness is such that individuals often remain through cold northern winters, as well, so long as fish-bearing waters remain unfrozen (which may be the case only in flowing water such as streams, creeks, and rivers).


title: Great blue heron

text: The great blue heron can adapt to almost any wetland habitat in its range. It may be found in numbers in fresh and saltwater marshes, mangrove swamps, flooded meadows, lake edges, or shorelines. It is quite adaptable and may be seen in heavily developed areas as long as they hold bodies of fish-bearing water.


title: Great blue heron

text: Great blue herons rarely venture far from bodies of water, but are occasionally seen flying over upland areas. They usually nest in trees or bushes near water's edge, often on islands (which minimizes the potential for predation) or partially isolated spots.


title: Great blue heron

text: The great white heron is unique to South Florida, including Great White Heron National Wildlife Refuge in the Florida Keys.


title: Great blue heron

text: The primary food for the great blue heron is small fish. It is also known to opportunistically feed on larger fish and a wide range of shrimp, crayfish, crabs, aquatic insects (such as dragonflies), other insects (such as grasshoppers), rodents, and other small mammals, amphibians (such as frogs, toads, and salamanders), reptiles (such as lizards and snakes), and birds, especially ducklings. Primary prey is variable based on availability and abundance. In Nova Scotia, 98% of the diet was flounder. In British Columbia, the primary prey species are sticklebacks, gunnels, sculpins, and perch. California herons were found to live mostly on sculpin, bass, perch, flounder, and top smelt. Non-piscine prey is rarely quantitatively important, though one study in Idaho showed that from 24 to 40% of the diet was made up of voles. Remains of muskrats ("Ondatra zibethicus") and long-tailed weasels ("Mustela frenata") was also found in pellets during the study.


title: Great blue heron

text: Herons locate their food by sight and usually swallow it whole. They have been known to choke on prey that is too large. It is generally a solitary feeder. Individuals usually forage while standing in water, but also feed in fields or drop from the air, or a perch, into water. Mice are occasionally preyed on in upland areas far from the species' typical aquatic environments. Occasionally, loose feeding flocks form and may be beneficial since they are able to locate schools of fish more easily.


title: Great blue heron

text: As large wading birds, great blue herons are capable of feeding in deeper waters, thus are able to harvest from niche areas not open to most other heron species. Typically, the great blue heron feeds in shallow waters, usually less than deep, or at the water's edge during both the night and the day, but especially around dawn and dusk. The most commonly employed hunting technique of the species is wading slowly with its long legs through shallow water and quickly spearing fish or frogs with its long, sharp bill. Although usually ponderous in movements, the great blue heron is adaptable in its fishing methods. Feeding behaviors variably have consisted of standing in one place, probing, pecking, walking at slow speeds, moving quickly, flying short distances and alighting, hovering over water and picking up prey, diving headfirst into the water, alighting on water feet-first, jumping from perches feet-first, and swimming or floating on the surface of the water.


title: Great blue heron

text: This species usually breeds in colonies, in trees close to lakes or other wetlands. Adults generally return to the colony site after winter from December (in warmer climes such as California and Florida) to March (in cooler areas such as Canada). Usually, colonies include only great blue herons, though sometimes they nest alongside other species of herons. These groups are called a heronry (a more specific term than "rookery"). The size of these colonies may be large, ranging between five and 500 nests per colony, with an average around 160 nests per colony. A heronry is usually relatively close, usually within , to ideal feeding spots. Heronry sites are usually difficult to reach on foot (e.g., islands, trees in swamps, high branches, etc.) to protect from potential mammalian predators. Trees of any type are used when available. When not, herons may nest on the ground, sagebrush, cacti, channel markers, artificial platforms, beaver mounds, and duck blinds. Other waterbirds (especially smaller herons) and, occasionally, even fish and mammal-eating raptors may nest amongst colonies.


title: Great blue heron

text: Although nests are often reused for many years and herons are socially monogamous within a single breeding season, individuals usually choose new mates each year. Males arrive at colonies first and settle on nests, where they court females; most males choose a different nest each year. Great blue herons build a bulky stick nest. Nests are usually around across when first constructed, but can grow to more than in width and deep with repeated use and additional construction. If the nest is abandoned or destroyed, the female may lay a replacement clutch. Reproduction is negatively affected by human disturbance, particularly during the beginning of nesting. Repeated human intrusion into nesting areas often results in nest failure, with abandonment of eggs or chicks. However, Vancouver B.C. Canada's Stanley Park has had a healthy colony for some years right near its main entrance and tennis courts adjacent to English Bay and not far from Lost Lagoon. The park's colony has had as many as 183 nests.


title: Great blue heron

text: The female lays 3 to 6 pale blue eggs, which can measure from in length and in width, though the smallest eggs in the above sample may have been considered "runt eggs" too small to produce viable young. Egg weights range from . One brood is raised each year. First broods are laid generally from March to April. Eggs are usually laid at two-day intervals, incubated around 27 days, and hatch asynchronously over a period of several days. Males incubate for about 10.5 hours of each day, while females usually incubate for the remainder of each day and the night, with eggs left without incubation for about 6 minutes of each hour.


title: Great blue heron

text: The first chick to hatch usually becomes more experienced in food handling and aggressive interactions with siblings, so often grows more quickly than the other chicks. Both parents feed the young at the nest by regurgitating food. Parent birds have been shown to consume up to four times as much food when they are feeding young chicks (about 4300 kJ/day) than when laying or incubating eggs (about 1200 kJ/day). By the time they are 45 days old, the young weigh 86% of the adult's mass. After about 55 days at the northern edge of the range (Alberta) and 80 days at the southern edge of the range (California), young herons take their first flight. They return to the nest to be fed for about another 3 weeks, following adults back from foraging grounds, and are likely to gradually disperse away from their original nest over the course of the ensuing winter. Young herons are not as successful at fish capture as adults, as strike rates are similar, but capture rates are about half that of adults during the first 2 months after fledging.


title: Great blue heron

text: Predators of eggs and nestlings include turkey vultures ("Cathartes aura"), common ravens ("Corvus corax"), and American crows ("Corvus brachyrhynchos"). Red-tailed hawks ("Buteo jamaicensis"), American black bears ("Ursus americanus"), and raccoons ("Procyon lotor") are known to take larger nestlings or fledglings, and in the latter predator, many eggs. Adult herons, due to their size, have few natural predators, but a few of the larger avian predators have been known to kill both young and adults, including bald eagles ("Haliaeetus leucocephalus") (the only predator known to attack great blue herons at every stage of their lifecycle from in the egg to adulthood), golden eagles ("Aquila chrysaetos"), and less frequently, great horned owls ("Bubo virginianus") and Harris's hawks ("Parabuteo unicinctus").


title: Great blue heron

text: An occasional adult heron, or more likely, an unsteady fledgling, may be snatched by an American alligator ("Alligator mississippiensis") or an American crocodile ("Crocodylus acutus"). Using its considerable size and dagger-like bill, a full-grown heron can be a formidable foe to a predator. In one instance, during an act of attempted predation by a golden eagle, a heron was able to mortally wound the eagle, although it succumbed to injuries sustained in the fight. When predation on an adult or chick occurs at a breeding colony, the colony can sometimes be abandoned by the other birds. The primary source of disturbance and breeding failures at heronries is human activities, mostly through human recreation or habitat destruction, as well as by egg-collectors and hunters.


title: Great blue heron

text: John James Audubon illustrates the great blue heron in "Birds of America", Second Edition (published, London 1827–38) as Plate 161. The image was engraved and colored by Robert Havell's London workshops. The original watercolor by Audubon was purchased by the New-York Historical Society.


title: Great blue heron

text: The great blue heron (with its color changed to orange) is the basis of logos for the Delmarva Shorebirds minor league baseball team from the team's 1996 inception.


title: Great blue heron

text: Great white herons feature prominently in the logo for the Major League Soccer club Inter Miami CF. They were chosen for their local connection, as well as their quickness when hunting.


title: The medium is the message

text: "The medium is the message" is a phrase coined by the Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan and the name of the first chapter in his "", published in 1964. McLuhan proposes that a communication medium itself, not the messages it carries, should be the primary focus of study. He showed that artifacts such as media affect any society by their characteristics, or content.


title: The medium is the message

text: McLuhan uses the term 'message' to signify content and character. The content of the medium is a message that can be easily grasped and the character of the medium is another message which can be easily overlooked. McLuhan says "Indeed, it is only too typical that the 'content' of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium". For McLuhan, it was the medium itself that shaped and controlled "the scale and form of human association and action". Taking the movie as an example, he argued that the way this medium played with conceptions of speed and time transformed "the world of sequence and connections into the world of creative configuration and structure". Therefore, the message of the movie medium is this transition from "lineal connections" to "configurations." Extending the argument for understanding the medium as the message itself, he proposed that the "content of any medium is always another medium" – thus, speech is the content of writing, writing is the content of print, and print itself is the content of the telegraph.


title: The medium is the message

text: McLuhan frequently punned on the word "message", changing it to "mass age", "mess age", and "massage". A later book, "The Medium Is the Massage" was originally to be titled "The Medium is the Message", but McLuhan preferred the new title, which is said to have been a printing error.


title: The medium is the message

text: Concerning the title, McLuhan wrote: The title "The Medium Is the Massage" is a teaser—a way of getting attention. There's a wonderful sign hanging in a Toronto junkyard which reads, 'Help Beautify Junkyards. Throw Something Lovely Away Today.' This is a very effective way of getting people to notice a lot of things. And so the title is intended to draw attention to the fact that a medium is not something neutral—it does something to people. It takes hold of them. It rubs them off, it massages them and bumps them around, chiropractically, as it were, and the general roughing up that any new society gets from a medium, especially a new medium, is what is intended in that title".


title: The medium is the message

text: McLuhan argues that a "message" is, "the change of scale or pace or pattern" that a new invention or innovation "introduces into human affairs".


title: The medium is the message

text: McLuhan understood "medium" as a medium of communication in the broadest sense. In "Understanding Media" he wrote: "The instance of the electric light may prove illuminating in this connection. The electric light is pure information. It is a medium without a message, as it were, unless it is used to spell out some verbal ad or name." The light bulb is a clear demonstration of the concept of "the medium is the message": a light bulb does not have content in the way that a newspaper has articles or a television has programs, yet it is a medium that has a social effect; that is, a light bulb enables people to create spaces during nighttime that would otherwise be enveloped by darkness. He describes the light bulb as a medium without any content. McLuhan states that "a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence". Likewise, the message of a newscast about a heinous crime may be less about the individual news story itself (the content), and more about the change in public attitude towards crime that the newscast engenders by the fact that such crimes are in effect being brought into the home to watch over dinner.


title: The medium is the message

text: In "Understanding Media", McLuhan describes the "content" of a medium as a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. This means that people tend to focus on the obvious, which is the content, to provide us valuable information, but in the process, we largely miss the structural changes in our affairs that are introduced subtly, or over long periods of time. As society's values, norms, and ways of doing things change because of the technology, it is then we realize the social implications of the medium. These range from cultural or religious issues and historical precedents, through interplay with existing conditions, to the secondary or tertiary effects in a cascade of interactions that we are not aware of.


title: The medium is the message

text: On the subject of art history, McLuhan interpreted Cubism as announcing clearly that the medium is the message. For him, Cubist art required "instant sensory awareness of the whole" rather than perspective alone. In other words, with Cubism one could not ask what the artwork was about (content), but rather consider it in its entirety.


title: Brandon Williams (footballer)

text: Brandon Paul Brian Williams (born 3 September 2000) is an English professional footballer who plays as a full-back for Premier League club Manchester United. Although he mainly plays as a left-back, he has also been used as a right-back.


title: Brandon Williams (footballer)

text: Williams is a graduate of the Manchester United youth academy and made his first-team debut in September 2019. He has represented England at under-20 and under-21 levels.


title: Brandon Williams (footballer)

text: Williams was born on 3 September 2000 in Manchester. He grew up in the Harpurhey area were he would attend nearby secondary school Co-op Academy Manchester.


title: Brandon Williams (footballer)

text: Williams was included in the Manchester United travelling squad for the UEFA Champions League match against Paris Saint-Germain in March 2019, but was not named in the match squad. He made his first-team debut on 25 September as a substitute in an EFL Cup match against Rochdale. He made his first start on 3 October in the UEFA Europa League match against AZ Alkmaar. Williams signed a new long-term contract on 17 October, keeping him at the club until June 2022. He made his Premier League debut on 20 October against Liverpool at Old Trafford as a late substitute. With Ashley Young suspended and Luke Shaw injured, Williams was handed his first league start on 10 November against Brighton & Hove Albion, playing 90 minutes before being substituted for Marcos Rojo in injury time; he was voted Man of the Match by his club's fans. On 24 November, Williams scored his first goal for Manchester United in a 3–3 draw with Sheffield United.


title: Brandon Williams (footballer)

text: On 4 August 2020, Williams signed a new four-year deal at United, with the option to extend a further year.


title: Brandon Williams (footballer)

text: On 23 August 2021, Williams joined Norwich City on loan for the duration of the 2021–22 season. On 28 August, Williams made his debut against Leicester City in a 2–1 loss.


title: Brandon Williams (footballer)

text: On 30 August 2019, Williams received his first England call-up for the under-20 squad ahead of fixtures against the Netherlands and Switzerland. He made his debut during the 0–0 draw with the Netherlands at the stadium of Shrewsbury Town on 5 September.


title: Brandon Williams (footballer)

text: On 5 October 2020, Williams received his first call-up to the England U21 squad. Williams started and made his debut in a 3–3 draw against Andorra U21 on 7 October.


title: Brandon Williams (footballer)

text: In October 2020, Williams came under fire on social media for allegedly sending messages to a 15-year-old girl on the video-sharing application TikTok. The girl reportedly posted a video to prove he had contacted her. Williams and his representatives denied the claims, with Manchester United defending him.


title: Desiigner

text: Sidney Royel Selby III (born May 3, 1997), better known by his stage name Desiigner, is an American rapper and singer. In December 2015, his debut single "Panda" reached number one on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100. In 2019, he was released from Def Jam and was an independent artist.


title: Desiigner

text: Desiigner was born on May 3, 1997, in Brooklyn, New York City. He is of Afro-Barbadian and African American descent, and is the grandson of blues musician Sidney "Guitar Crusher" Selby. He grew up in the Louis Armstrong housing projects in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood. He began practicing vocals at school choir and church. At the age of 14, he embarked on his musical career.


title: Desiigner

text: Desiigner embarked on his music career under his original nickname Dezolo, before he began putting out work on these tracks under the alias of Designer Royel, especially with Royel (his middle name). His sister convinced him to drop the "Royel" part and then keep the "Designer" part as his new stage name, doubling the "I". On December 3, 2015, under his new pseudonym, Desiigner released his debut track, called "Zombie Walk". The song was produced by The Shell God. On December 15, 2015, Desiigner released his commercial debut single, titled "Panda" on SoundCloud. The song released on iTunes within five days later, before being re-released as of February 2016. On February 11, 2016, Desiigner signed a recording contract with Kanye West's GOOD Music imprint, under the aegis of Def Jam Recordings. After signing a record deal, Desiigner subsequently appeared on two tracks — "Pt. 2" (which features an interpolation of "Panda") and "Freestyle 4" — that was taken from Kanye West's seventh album "The Life of Pablo". Desiigner then went on to perform at the 2016's South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival. In an interview with "Billboard", Desiigner confirmed the release of his first upcoming mixtape, titled "Trap History Month".


title: Desiigner

text: On May 5, 2016, producer Mike Dean announced that he would be serving as the executive producer for Desiigner's upcoming debut studio album. On May 24, Desiigner announced that the title to his upcoming debut album would be called "The Life of Desiigner". In June 2016, "XXL" magazine revealed their annual "Freshmen Class" for 2016, and Desiigner was included on the list with nine other new artists. In June 2016, "Champions" was released as the lead single from the GOOD Music's upcoming compilation album, "Cruel Winter". Desiigner made a guest appearance on this track, alongside his label-mate Kanye West, and other rappers such as Gucci Mane, Big Sean, 2 Chainz, Travis Scott, Yo Gotti and Quavo. In the same month, Desiigner made his US television debut, when he performed his single, "Panda" at the 2016's BET Awards. On June 26, 2016, Desiigner released his first full-length mixtape, titled "New English" on Tidal, following a live premiere of the mixtape on June 22. In July 2016, American pop singer Demi Lovato brought out Desiigner at their concert in New York. On July 21, 2016, Desiigner premiered the track, called "Tiimmy Turner", which was released as a single on iTunes the next day. Desiigner appeared as a special guest on the Netflix series "Bill Nye Saves the World". On November 7, 2017, it was reported that BTS would release a remix of their song "Mic Drop" featuring Desiigner and remixed by Steve Aoki. It was set to be released on November 17, 2017, but was postponed and released on November 24, 2017, instead.


title: Desiigner

text: On May 3, 2018, Desiigner announced via social media that his debut EP, "L.O.D.", would be released at midnight on May 4, 2018.


title: Desiigner

text: In a 2022 interview with VladTV, Desiigner explained why he left GOOD Music in 2019, saying he was "going through a little mental thing" including his father having been comatose, and had tried to contact Kanye and his other labelmates for guidance but didn't receive any.'


title: Desiigner

text: On the morning of November 1, 2022, Desiigner went to Instagram Live saying "I'm done rapping," after hearing the news of Migos rapper Takeoff's death from a shooting in Houston, Texas that same morning. On November 26, he returned to rap, released a track and a video.


title: Desiigner

text: On September 8, 2016, Desiigner and three other people were arrested in New York City, after a 911 caller claimed that he pulled a gun on them. Desiigner was later found in an SUV with four other people and the vehicle was searched. The police allegedly found oxycodone and guns, for which he and the other individuals received drug and weapon charges. They were all detained in custody. On September 10, 2016, his felony gun charge was dropped by prosecutors. He was cleared of the charges on September 12, 2016, when it was found that the pills were anabolic steroids belonging to his driver.


title: Desiigner

text: Desiigner's musical style is influenced by Southern hip hop, namely trap music which originated in Atlanta, Georgia. His rapping technique and vocals have been heavily compared to that of Atlanta-based rapper Future. When asked about the frequent comparisons, he told "Complex": "God gave him a blessing, but he gave me a blessing too. I ain't gonna doubt the man's music. He makes beautiful music too. Music is made every day. Big ups to him, big ups to Future. I actually like Future's music. I like his music, you feel me. I'm not a hater or a critic on him, you know, I do me. God bless him, God bless me."


title: Sand Castle (film)

text: Sand Castle is a 2017 American war drama film directed by Fernando Coimbra and written by Chris Roessner. The film stars Nicholas Hoult, Henry Cavill, Logan Marshall-Green, Tommy Flanagan, Glen Powell, Beau Knapp, and Neil Brown Jr. The film centers on Matt Ocre, a young soldier in the United States Army, who is tasked with restoring water to a village in Iraq. It is inspired by Roessner's experience as a soldier in the Iraq War. It was released on April 21, 2017 on Netflix.


title: Sand Castle (film)

text: At the beginning of the 2003 Iraq War, Private Matt Ocre, a young civil affairs soldier with the Army Reserve slams his hand in the door of a Humvee in an attempt to get sent home. Narration reveals that he enlisted in July 2001, in order to get money for college. Some time later, he is seen with a cast on his arm, his attempt having been unsuccessful. His cast gets cut off just in time to be sent to Baghdad. During the battle, Ocre spots a sniper and Sergeant Dylan Chutsky calls in a helicopter strike that destroys the building the sniper is in.


title: Sand Castle (film)

text: The film then skips forward to some time after the battle, when Ocre's squad is tasked with repairing a broken water system in the dangerous village of Baqubah. They arrive in the village and meet up with a Special Forces unit led by Captain Syverson. Syverson introduces them to their interpreter and explains that they are to travel to the pump station and fill a tanker with water to bring back to the village every day. At the station, the Army engineers working on the pump explain that it will take many weeks to finish repairs, but that the repairs would go much faster if Staff Sergeant Harper could recruit some of the villagers to help. Back at the village, they inform the locals that they will pay anyone who shows up to work the next morning. However, when the morning comes, there is no one there by the time they are ready to leave. With no labor forthcoming from the village, they are forced to help the engineers themselves. During one return trip, a vehicle is spotted coming up behind them at high speed. They stop the vehicle and interrogate the driver, but learn he is taking his young daughter to another village for medicine. During another trip, they are attacked by several insurgents with small arms, who shoot holes in the tank. The next day, while passing out water, gunfire breaks out. They engage in a pitched firefight with several enemy shooting from the rooftops, during which Chutsky is killed.


title: Sand Castle (film)

text: After finally getting help from Kadeer, the administrator of the local school, who desperately needs water to keep the school open, they begin making better progress on the station. One morning, none of the Iraqis show up to work and the squad returns to the village, where they find the administrator's body burned and tied to a stake in the schoolyard. The administrator's brother Arif angrily tells Syverson where the insurgents have been meeting. A plan is quickly formed to attack them that night. The attacks succeeds, killing several enemy and capturing more, but Corporal Enzo and Sergeant Burton are both injured and need to be evacuated by helicopter. Work on the pump station finally resumes, with Arif bringing in a crew of local workers. However, soon after, the pump station is hit by an improvised explosive device brought by one of the workers in a suicide bombing, destroying all of the work done by the group and killing several Americans and Iraqis.


title: Sand Castle (film)

text: Ocre and Harper return to their base in Baghdad. Harper is given three weeks leave, and Ocre is told he is going home. Ocre protests, but is overruled. Later that day, he is escorted to the airfield by Harper and Sergeant Major MacGregor. After asking MacGregor if it is a beautiful day for the infantry and receiving an enthusiastic affirmation, he boards the plane.


title: Sand Castle (film)

text: Chris Roessner's script "Sand Castle", based on his own experience as a machine gunner in Iraq's Sunni Triangle, appeared among the 2012 unproduced Black List screenplays. On March 13, 2014 it was announced that Nicholas Hoult would lead the cast of the Iraq war drama to play the role of Matt Ocre, a young machine gunner. The film would be produced by Mark Gordon through The Mark Gordon Company, who had bought the script. Commercial director Seb Edwards was hired to direct the film centered on Sergeant Harper, the leader of a platoon, and one of his soldiers, Ocre. On May 9, 2014 uMedia came on board to finance the film and handle the international sales. Additionally. Toby Kebbell was cast in the film to play Sergeant Harper.


title: Sand Castle (film)

text: On October 8, 2015 Luke Evans and Henry Cavill joined the film with Evans playing Sergeant Harper and Cavill playing Captain Syverson from Special Forces who runs the operation in the dangerous village of Baqubah. Fernando Coimbra, director of "A Wolf at the Door", was now set to direct the film which Treehouse Pictures would fully finance and produce, while other producers would be Roessner, Gordon, Justin Nappi, and 42's Ben Pugh. Voltage Pictures took over handling the international sales. On October 9, 2015 Beau Knapp joined the film to play a sergeant who has to repair a broken water system in village. On October 14, 2015 Glen Powell was cast in the film to play Sergeant Falvy, a tough-minded soldier. On October 26, 2015 The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Logan Marshall-Green had replaced Evans for his role of Sergeant Harper, the leader of a platoon. On October 29, 2015 Neil Brown Jr. joined the film to play the role of Enzo. Tommy Flanagan was cast in the film for a lead role of Sgt. McGregor.


title: Sand Castle (film)

text: In May 2016, Netflix acquired the distribution rights to the film. The film was released on April 21, 2017.


title: Sand Castle (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, "Sand Castle" has an approval rating of 47% based on 15 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10. On Metacritic, the film has a score 45 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Vertical integration

text: In microeconomics, management and international political economy, vertical integration is a term that describes the arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company. Usually each member of the supply chain produces a different product or (market-specific) service, and the products combine to satisfy a common need. It contrasts with horizontal integration, wherein a company produces several items that are related to one another. Vertical integration has also described management styles that bring large portions of the supply chain not only under a common ownership but also into one corporation (as in the 1920s when the Ford River Rouge Complex began making much of its own steel rather than buying it from suppliers).


title: Vertical integration

text: Vertical integration and expansion is desired because it secures supplies needed by the firm to produce its product and the market needed to sell the product. Vertical integration and expansion can become undesirable when its actions become anti-competitive and impede free competition in an open marketplace. Vertical integration is one method of avoiding the hold-up problem. A monopoly produced through vertical integration is called a "vertical monopoly".


title: Vertical integration

text: Vertical in a supply chain measures a firm’s distance from the final consumers; for example, a firm that sells directly to the consumers has a vertical position 0, the firm that supplies to this firm has a vertical position 1, and so on.


title: Vertical integration

text: Vertical integration is often closely associated with vertical expansion which, in economics, is the growth of a business enterprise through the acquisition of companies that produce the intermediate goods needed by the business or help market and distribute its product. Such expansion is desired because it secures the supplies needed by the firm to produce its product and the market needed to sell the product. Such expansion can become undesirable when its actions become anti-competitive and impede free competition in an open marketplace.


title: Vertical integration

text: The result is a more efficient business with lower costs and more profits. On the undesirable side, when vertical expansion leads toward monopolistic control of a product or service then regulative action may be required to rectify anti-competitive behavior. Related to vertical expansion is lateral expansion, which is the growth of a business enterprise through the acquisition of similar firms, in the hope of achieving economies of scale.


title: Vertical integration

text: Vertical expansion is also known as a vertical acquisition. Vertical expansion or acquisitions can also be used to increase sales and to gain market power. The acquisition of DirecTV by News Corporation is an example of forwarding vertical expansion or acquisition. DirecTV is a satellite TV company through which News Corporation can distribute more of its media content: news, movies, and television shows. The acquisition of NBC by Comcast is an example of backward vertical integration. For example, in the United States, protecting the public from communications monopolies that can be built in this way is one of the missions of the Federal Communications Commission.


title: Vertical integration

text: Scholar's findings suggest that a reduction in inefficiencies caused by the market vertical value chains including downstream prices, double mark-up can be negated with vertical integration. Application in more complex environments can help firms overcome market failures. (markets with high transaction costs or assets specificities) Scholars also identified potential risks and boundaries which may occur under vertical integration. This includes the potential competitor, the enhancements to horizontal collusion, development of barriers to entry. However, it is still debated over if vertical integration expected efficiencies can lead to competitive harm to the market. Some conclude that in many cases that the efficiencies outweigh the potential risks.


title: Vertical integration

text: Contrary to horizontal integration, which is a consolidation of many firms that handle the same part of the production process, vertical integration is typified by one firm engaged in different parts of production (e.g., growing raw materials, manufacturing, transporting, marketing, and/or retailing). Vertical integration is the degree to which a firm owns its upstream suppliers and its downstream buyers. The differences depend on where the firm is placed in the order of the supply chain.


title: Vertical integration

text: There are three varieties of vertical integration: backward (upstream) vertical integration, forward (downstream) vertical integration, and balanced (both upstream and downstream) vertical integration.


title: Vertical integration

text: Disintermediation is a form of vertical integration when purchasing departments take over the former role of wholesalers to source products.


title: Vertical integration

text: Problems that can stem from vertical integration can include large capital investments needed to set up and buy factories and maintain efficient profits. Rapid technology development can increase integration difficulties and further increase costs. The requirement of different business skills venturing into new portions of the supply chain can be challenging for the firm. Implementation of vertical integration can yield increased profit margins or eliminate the leverage that other firms or buyers may have over the firm.


title: Vertical integration

text: There are internal and external society-wide gains and losses stemming from vertical integration, which vary according to the state of technology in the industries involved, roughly corresponding to the stages of the industry lifecycle. Static technology represents the simplest case, where the gains and losses have been studied extensively.


title: Vertical integration

text: A vertically integrated company usually fails when transactions within the market are too risky or the contracts to support these risks are too costly to administer, such as frequent transactions and a small number of buyers and sellers.


title: Vertical integration

text: During a hunting trip American explorer and scientist Clarence Birdseye discovered the beneficial effects of "quick-freezing". For example, fish caught a few days previously that were kept in ice remained in perfect condition.


title: Vertical integration

text: In 1924, Clarence Birdseye patented the "Birdseye Plate Froster" and established the General Seafood Corporation. In 1929, Birdseye's company and the patent were bought by Postum Cereals and Goldman Sachs Trading Corporation. It was later known as General Foods. They kept the Birdseye name, which was split into two words (Birds eye) for use as a trademark. Birdseye was paid $20 million for the patents and $2 million for the assets.


title: Vertical integration

text: Birds Eye was one of the pioneers in the frozen food industry. During these times, there was not a well-developed infrastructure to produce and sell frozen foods. Hence Birds Eye developed its own system by using vertical integration. Members of the supply chain, such as farmers and small food retailers, could not afford the high cost of equipment, so Birdseye provided it to them.


title: Vertical integration

text: Until now, Birds Eye has faded slowly because they have fixed costs associated with vertical integration, such as property, plants, and equipment that cannot be reduced significantly when production needs decrease. The Birds Eye company used vertical integration to create a larger organization structure with more levels of command. This produced a slower information processing rate, with the side effect of making the company so slow that it could not react quickly. Birds Eye did not take advantage of the growth of supermarkets until ten years after the competition did. The already-developed infrastructure did not allow Birdseye to quickly react to market changes.


title: Vertical integration

text: In order to increase profits and gain more market share, Alibaba, a China-based company, has implemented vertical integration deepening its company holdings to more than the e-commerce platform. Alibaba has built its leadership in the market by gradually acquiring complementary companies in a variety of industries including delivery and payments.


title: Vertical integration

text: One of the earliest, largest and most famous examples of vertical integration was the Carnegie Steel company. The company controlled not only the mills where the steel was made, but also the mines where the iron ore was extracted, the coal mines that supplied the coal, the ships that transported the iron ore and the railroads that transported the coal to the factory, the coke ovens where the coal was coked, etc. The company focused heavily on developing talent internally from the bottom up, rather than importing it from other companies. Later, Carnegie established an institute of higher learning to teach the steel processes to the next generation.


title: Vertical integration

text: Oil companies, both multinational (such as ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips or BP) and national (e.g., Petronas) often adopt a vertically integrated structure, meaning that they are active along the entire supply chain from locating deposits, drilling and extracting crude oil, transporting it around the world, refining it into petroleum products such as petrol/gasoline, to distributing the fuel to company-owned retail stations, for sale to consumers. Standard Oil is a famous example of both horizontal and vertical integration, combining extraction, transport, refinement, wholesale distribution, and retail sales at company-owned gas stations.


title: Vertical integration

text: Telephone companies in most of the 20th century, especially the largest (the Bell System) were integrated, making their own telephones, telephone cables, telephone exchange equipment and other supplies.


title: Vertical integration

text: Apple Inc. is one the key figure in a successful vertically integrated business model. Apple Inc. centered its business strategy on its own development of integrated hardware and software. Present-day Apple Inc. produces and designs most of the products in-house and does not allow its own hardware and operating system to be licensed out. This strategic decision has allowed Apple Inc. to apply its company vision to its products. This differentiates itself from other companies by becoming a company focused on quality products. They have further pursued vertical integration through its product distribution by placing its stores in major cities.


title: Vertical integration

text: From the early 1920s through the early 1950s, the American motion picture had evolved into an industry controlled by a few companies, a condition known as a "mature oligopoly", as it was led by eight major film studios, the most powerful of which were the "Big Five" studios: MGM, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, and RKO. These studios were fully integrated, not only producing and distributing films, but also operating their own movie theaters; the "Little Three", Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures, and United Artists, produced and distributed feature films but did not own theaters.


title: Vertical integration

text: The issue of vertical integration (also known as common ownership) has been the main focus of policy makers because of the possibility of anti-competitive behaviors affiliated with market influence. For example, in "United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.", the Supreme Court ordered the five vertically integrated studios to sell off their theater chains and all trade practices were prohibited ("United States v. Paramount Pictures", Inc., 1948). The prevalence of vertical integration wholly predetermined the relationships between both studios and networks and modified criteria in financing. Networks began arranging content initiated by commonly owned studios and stipulated a portion of the syndication revenues in order for a show to gain a spot on the schedule if it was produced by a studio without common ownership. In response, the studios fundamentally changed the way they made movies and did business. Lacking the financial resources and contract talent they once controlled, the studios now relied on independent producers supplying some portion of the budget in exchange for distribution rights.


title: Vertical integration

text: Certain media conglomerates may, in a similar manner, own television broadcasters (either over-the-air or on cable), production companies that produce content for their networks, and also own the services that distribute their content to viewers (such as television and internet service providers). AT&T, Bell Canada, Comcast, Sky plc, and Rogers Communications are vertically integrated in such a manneroperating media subsidiaries (such as WarnerMedia, Bell Media, NBCUniversal, and Rogers Media), and provide "triple play" services of television, internet, and phone service in some markets (such as Bell Satellite TV/Bell Internet, Rogers Cable, Xfinity, and Sky's satellite TV and internet services). Additionally, Bell and Rogers own wireless providers, Bell Mobility and Rogers Wireless, while Comcast is partnered with Verizon Wireless for an Xfinity-branded MVNO. Similarly, Sony has media holdings through its Sony Pictures division, including film and television content, as well as television channels, but is also a manufacturer of consumer electronics that can be used to play content from itself and others, including televisions, phones, and PlayStation video game consoles. AT&T is the first ever vertical integration where a mobile phone company and a film studio company are under same umbrella.