title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: In early episodes, Leonard is reluctant to let Penny know about his recreational activities (such as "Klingon" Boggle), as he does not want her to see him as a geek. While certainly a geek by most definitions, he is far less socially inept than Sheldon (who is unable to grasp social norms and is often even dismissive of them), Raj (who was unable to talk to women unless he was under the influence of alcohol or anti-anxiety prescription drugs, and even after getting over his handicap still tended to speak inappropriately), and Howard (who was often seen as "creepy" when flirting with women, including Penny).


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Leonard is also musically inclined, as he can play the cello. He claims that his parents made him take cello lessons when he was young. As seen in the season 1 episode "The Hamburger Postulate", he and Leslie Winkle have sex, after meeting to practice their instruments, which Leonard calls "a little musical foreplay".


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Despite his attempts not to appear to be a geek, Leonard owns, among other things, "Star Wars" hygiene products, a prop of the One Ring, Star Trek and officers' uniforms, an expansive Superman comic book collection and a "Battlestar Galactica" Colonial warrior's flight suit. Early in the series, Leonard tried to get rid of his collectables to impress Penny with his maturity. However, he changed his mind when he saw that Penny was already dating another man.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Because he has lived with Sheldon for several years, Leonard knows him better than his other colleagues: this has led Sheldon to believe that Leonard is his best friend. Nevertheless, Leonard often finds himself explaining Sheldon's behavior or serving as a mediator between him and other people in many situations. For instance, when Penny and Sheldon engaged in a fierce dispute, Leonard gave Penny Sheldon's mother's phone number so she would call her son and scold him for his behavior, thus ending the fight. "The Staircase Implementation" features a flashback to when Leonard first moved in with Sheldon. Leonard explains to Penny that he moved in despite the difficulty of living with Sheldon because the rent was so reasonable. Shortly after moving in, during a rocketry experiment that Leonard, Raj and Howard conducted, Sheldon observed miscalculations Leonard made in mixing the rocket fuel and subsequently saved Leonard's life by pulling him out of the building's elevator just before the fuel capsule exploded. This explains why the elevator is out of order for the duration of the series. Leonard says that Sheldon, despite his tendency to alienate others, kept quiet about Leonard's destruction of the elevator – "He didn't rat me out to the landlord, or the police... or Homeland Security."


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Despite Leonard's reasonable and friendly personality, he occasionally demonstrates a mean streak. These include deliberately triggering Sheldon's obsessive compulsive problems, mocking Howard and Raj whenever they slip up, and making sniping comments when Penny's commitment issues flare up. He is also prone to jealousy, often feeling insecure and defensive whenever Penny interacts with other men, and on one occasion trying to frighten off a British college student she was doing a project with, because Penny commented positively on his accent. This incident ironically led to Penny finally, if inadvertently, declaring her love for Leonard.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Leonard's primary health concern is his lactose intolerance – his consuming dairy products results in flatulence. Leonard wears eyeglasses because of myopia and cannot see clearly without them. On one occasion, when his glasses were broken at the movie theater, he had to surreptitiously return to his apartment and retrieve his backup glasses. In order to avoid detection by a sick Sheldon and Penny, who was nursing him, Howard and Raj helped him to navigate through the living room by using a helmet camera. Leonard also states in one episode that he suffers from sleep apnea. He also suffers from asthma, as it is apparent in multiple episodes that he needs his inhaler in order to perform a variety of activities including sports and sex. During his relationship with Leslie Winkle, he tells her that many members of his family have died from heart disease and thus he has a genetic disposition to the condition.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: All of the members of Leonard's family are accomplished scientists, except for his younger brother Michael, who is a tenured law professor at Harvard University.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Leonard's mother, Dr. Beverly Hofstadter, is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist. She has a personality almost identical to Sheldon's, including strict speech patterns, lack of social conventions, and attention to detail, and she is principally responsible for Leonard's difficult childhood. Sheldon and Beverly have a friendly relationship where they share details of each other's lives, with Sheldon often failing to pass on significant information to Leonard such as Leonard's parents divorcing and the family dog Mitsy's death. Leonard is upset with the fact that she tells Sheldon more than she tells him, but later decides it's okay. After a night out of bonding and drinking with Penny in which she notices an attractive busboy, Beverly kisses Sheldon but realizes she "would rather have the busboy".


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Due to his mother's views, Leonard never celebrated his birthday or Christmas when he was a child, and when she visited him she was not impressed with his unoriginal research. Leonard revealed to Penny that he built a "hugging machine" when he was young in order to compensate for the lack of affection from his mother. He further stated that his father used to borrow it. Beverly also belittles Leonard by pointing out that his brother and sister are more successful in their respective fields than he is. Leonard's brother, Michael, is a Harvard law professor and is engaged to the youngest appellate court judge in New Jersey history (and has since gone on to work with a Habitat for Humanity-esque organisation), and his older sister, whose name is unknown, is a cutting-edge medical researcher working with gibbons to cure diabetes. However, Beverly admits in season 11 that Leonard married the best out of his siblings, after she develops a genuine friendship with Penny. Leonard also dislikes his memories of Christmas, not just because he never celebrated it, but also because instead of gifts the Hofstadter kids had to turn in papers to "Santa" which were graded the next day. Over the course of six years, he never got over a "C minus", which according to Sheldon was a true gift, because by Sheldon's lights he never deserved anything better. After the episode "The Peanut Reaction", Leonard likely begins celebrating his birthday after Penny throws him a birthday party after hearing that he had never had one; this is evidenced by Leonard asking Brent Spiner to come to his birthday party at the end of "The Russian Rocket Reaction". As for Christmas, Leonard has come to love it as an adult, unlike Sheldon. Leonard had two childhood pets, a cat named Dr. Boots Hofstadter and a dog named Mitsy. Near the end of season 12, in "The Maternal Conclusion", Leonard's mother seems to be more supportive of her son's new job as co-lead of the University's Photon entanglement project, even spending time with Leonard as he shows her around his new laboratory. However, she reveals that she is doing research for her new book that highlights her parenting technique although difficult most of the time, directly resulting in the success of her children. This deeply upsets Leonard and Penny who thought that Beverly was making a genuine effort to better their mother-son relationship. Leonard finally confronts his mother, telling her of the many ways she has hurt him. After calming down, Leonard tearfully forgives his mother and himself for the emotional toll he has carried for most of his life. Beverly thanked her son for forgiving her and hugged him thus seemingly repairing their relationship.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Leonard's father, Dr. Alfred Hofstadter is an anthropologist. Sheldon reveals that Leonard's middle name, "Leakey", comes from famed anthropologist Louis Leakey, with whom Leonard's father had worked. Leonard is embarrassed by his middle name and its humorous connotations, and rarely mentions it. Apparently, his father was not very affectionate towards him either; he mentions that he had to compete with the bones of an Etruscan boy for his father's attention, but this was likely because his father was away from home a lot for work and wasn't able to get to know his children well. However, they seem to have developed a good, affectionate rapport by the time of Leonard and Penny's impending second wedding ceremony in the season 9 finale.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: When lamenting the possibility that the Hofstadter name would die out with him after Penny expressed a desire not to have children, Sheldon points out that not only did his brother Michael have children but that his sister had five sons who bore the surname Hofstadter.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Though little is known about Leonard's extended family, a few references to it have been made. In the first episode, Sheldon and Leonard discuss Leonard's grandmother, who had visited them on Thanksgiving the year before. She has Alzheimer's disease and apparently "had an episode" during her visit, which resulted in her stripping off her clothes and carving the turkey. On Beverly's first visit, she tells Leonard that his uncle Floyd has died, which greatly upsets him (according to him, Floyd was the only family member he really liked and of whom Leonard has warm memories from his childhood). Leonard also has several other uncles, whom Sheldon says are all very bald; when they gather together, they look "like a half carton of eggs." Leonard describes his aunt, however, as "one of the hairiest women you'll ever meet". He also mentioned an Aunt Nancy, apparently a "crazy cat lady" who had 25 cats, died, and was eaten by them.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Leonard has an IQ of 173, and was 24 years old when he received his PhD from Princeton University. Leonard also received a dissertation of the year award for his doctoral paper on experimental particle physics.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Leonard has been established to have been a child prodigy, and a gifted scientist with an impressive knowledge of theoretical physics. His work as an experimental physicist often includes the use of lasers, such as a helium–neon laser or free-electron laser, and his research topics have varied from Bose–Einstein condensates and foundations of quantum mechanics to soft cosmic rays at sea level and development of novel rocket propellants. Leonard designs experiments in order to test theories but, according to Sheldon, his work is mostly derivative and thus unimportant.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Although Leonard's attempts to disprove the existence of dark matter were made moot by the work of another physicist, Leonard helped to solidify proof of the hypothetical matter's existence with a photomultiplier, and was invited as keynote speaker to a topical conference by the Institute of Experimental Physics for his successful research on super solids.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: From the season 6 finale, "The Bon Voyage Reaction" Leonard heads to the United Kingdom to work on a physics project seeking the hydrodynamics equivalent of the Unruh effect, sponsored by Professor Stephen Hawking, for three months on a ship in the North Sea.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: In season 8, Leonard has a revelation about Superfluid Vacuum and with Sheldon's help was able to come up with a paper that impresses the scientific community including Stephen Hawking. This theory was later used as a foundation for a Quantum Guidance System that Sheldon, Leonard and Howard develops for the US Air Force in Season 10.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Near the end of season 12, Leonard was given the co-leadership of the University's Photon Entanglement project after trying to be more assertive.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Leonard became interested in Penny almost immediately after seeing her for the first time. His infatuation with Penny becomes the major force that drives the series during the first few seasons. By the end of the first season, Leonard finally manages to ask Penny out, and they have their first date. Subsequently, they don't go on any future dates after Penny asks Sheldon if Leonard ever dates "regular" women. She then tells Sheldon that she lied to Leonard about graduating from community college. When she asks Sheldon to keep it a secret, he cannot do it, so he moves out, first to Raj's, then to Howard's after Raj kicks him out. Howard gives him warm milk with a handful of his mother's Valium mixed in, so Sheldon is high and loopy when Howard takes him home to Leonard. In his high state, Leonard tricks him into telling him Penny's secret. The next day, Leonard gives Penny brochures for local colleges. Penny gets offended, thinking Leonard is calling her stupid, so they stop seeing each other.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Besides Penny, Leonard has been involved with only a few other women. One of Leonard's former girlfriends who is mentioned on several occasions is Joyce Kim, who did not appear until the second season. Leonard's friends recalled on many occasions that they were together for only 27 days, after which Joyce, later revealed to be a spy, defected to North Korea.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Initially, after feeling that Penny was not for him, Leonard turned his attention to fellow scientist Leslie Winkle. The first time Leonard asks Leslie out, she rejects him, and his further relationships with her proved to be only short-lived casual sexual encounters that only happened to satisfy Leslie's libido. Leslie briefly started dating Leonard in Season 2, which irritates Sheldon. Leslie and Sheldon get into an argument about String and Loop theories, Leonard sides with Sheldon. Leslie breaks up with Leonard by saying him believing in String theory is a "deal breaker".


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: In the second season, Leonard began a relationship with a physician named Stephanie Barnett (Sara Rue). Leonard met Stephanie when Howard picked her up at a bar by telling her she could drive a car on Mars. He then got the Mars Rover stuck. While Sheldon and Raj stay to help him try to fix the problem, Howard asks Leonard to take Stephanie home, where they start making out in his car. The two start seeing each other in secret, while Howard calls her all the time leaving messages asking her to meet his family. Leonard finally goes to Howard's house to tell him what is happening, but right as he goes to say it, Stephanie calls Howard and tells him first. Howard is extremely upset at first, refusing to talk to either of them, until Stephanie says she had a friend for Howard.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Although the relationship went well, even earning Sheldon's approval, Leonard felt uncomfortable with Stephanie moving in with him, and the relationship ended.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: On another occasion, when Leonard's mother was visiting, he and Penny came very close to having sex, but Leonard ruined the moment by suggesting that they were burying their lifelong issues with their parents by doing so, which offended Penny. In the second-season finale, when Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj were due to leave for a three-month scientific expedition to the North Pole, Penny privately expresses sadness, and wishes that he would not leave.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: In the third season premiere, Leonard and Penny finally started a romantic relationship and had intercourse for the first time. However, the relationship ended after eight months, after Leonard told Penny he loved her and took umbrage at her inability to reciprocate, which led to friction that was exploited by guest star Wil Wheaton who appeared as a fictionalized version of himself, who observed and exacerbated it in order to break them up in the middle of a bowling match Wheaton's team was having against Leonard, Penny, Sheldon, Howard and Raj.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Shortly after his breakup with Penny, in "The Plimpton Stimulation", Leonard has a one-night stand with Dr. Elizabeth Plimpton (Judy Greer), a physicist he admires, when Sheldon invited her to stay in their apartment for a brief visit. This encounter causes some tension between Leonard and Penny, who is somewhat judgmental of Leonard's doing so. However, the two later resolve their feelings and their friendship continues.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: In the third-season finale, "The Lunar Excitation", after Penny's failed attempts to move on from her relationship with Leonard, she becomes intoxicated and has sex with him. In the morning, Leonard believes that their relationship has resumed, though Penny tells him that the previous night was a mistake. This causes a strain on their friendship; at the end of the episode, Leonard becomes intoxicated and tries to have intercourse with her, prompting Penny to push him out of her apartment, to which Leonard suspects a double standard. He immediately makes the same advances towards Leslie Winkle, who replies, 'Let me think about it" and slams the door in his face.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Throughout the fourth season, it becomes obvious that Penny is still in love with Leonard. It is unclear whether or not Leonard has noticed this, though he clearly is still interested in Penny. In "The Benefactor Factor", an older rich woman (Jessica Walter) propositions Leonard in exchange for a large donation to the physics department; he initially resists and she admits that she planned to make the donation anyway, after which they engage in a one-night stand. Leonard arrives home the next morning, whereupon Penny recognizes his "walk of shame" and Sheldon thinks Leonard has a future in becoming a gigolo to rich ladies in exchange for donations.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Leonard also has a sexual relationship with Raj's younger sister Priya (apparently every time she comes to town), despite a pinky swear with Howard that neither of them would attempt to make a move on her, and Raj giving his strong disapproval. When Priya returns, she and Leonard begin a relationship. Raj strongly opposes this, and Penny is secretly uncomfortable with Leonard dating someone else, eventually breaking down and crying while talking with her friend Amy Farrah Fowler. Once again, Leonard is unaware of Penny's true feelings. Subsequently, Priya pressures Leonard into ending his friendship with Penny, which he attempts with extreme reluctance. Penny complies, though it is clear that she does not want Leonard out of her life. Penny eventually resolves to stay in Leonard's life by ingratiating herself to Priya.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: In the Season 4 finale, Leonard runs into Penny and Raj as they come out of his room in the morning after having slept together, just after Leonard and Priya appear to break up upon Leonard's learning that Priya is soon moving back to India. At the start of Season 5, it is revealed Raj and Penny did not actually sleep together. Leonard and Priya try to maintain a long-distance relationship via Skype (including a failed attempt at cybersex) with Priya continuing to treat Leonard like a submissive partner. Despite being the most eager to have sex, Leonard proves he is quite awkward in these situations. Leonard later goes to a wedding with Amy, and after Leonard spends most of the time acting depressed and moping. Amy talks to him and makes him feel better, even getting him to dance. When they are walking up the stairs to Leonard's apartment, he says he pulled something in his crotch doing the Hokey Pokey, and thanks to Amy for breaking the head off the ice swan sculpture to help him. They seem to take a liking to each other, leading Amy to tell Penny that she accidentally made Leonard fall in love with her, but even though she "would love to know they had both been defiled by the same man.", Sheldon is the only man she wants. When Leonard tells Sheldon that he had a great time but his "crotch is a little worse for wear" Sheldon gets upset, karate-chopping Leonard and saying, "She's not for you...not for you!". Later, despite feeling that he and Priya were in love and might get married, Leonard finds himself attracted to a comic book artist named Alice. The attraction is mutual, and they even share a kiss. Right when they are about to have sex, however, he tells Alice that he has a girlfriend, thus ending the relationship. Leonard then decides to confess his behavior to Priya via Skype, but he is shocked to learn that Priya has also betrayed him, sleeping with her former boyfriend; Priya defends that they both slipped up a little, but Leonard corrects her saying that he slipped a little, while she slipped a lot, bringing the conversation to a strained end. In the next episode, Leonard tells Sheldon that he is single, implying that he and Priya have broken up; his actions since then have confirmed their split occurred.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: Through the fourth and fifth seasons, Penny was still single and dating, however, it's evident she still loves Leonard, as she confesses drunkenly that she regrets breaking up with Leonard. In "The Ornithophobia Diffusion", Leonard and Penny go to the movies as friends. Leonard decides that since they are no longer dating, he can be honest and does not have to pay for everything or do whatever Penny wants. The two bicker all evening and sabotage each other's attempts to chat up people in the bar. They decide that "sex is off the table" for them. Penny admits that she likes the new, more assertive Leonard. So Leonard tells her that "Sex IS on the table".


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: On the spur of the moment in "The Recombination Hypothesis", Leonard asks Penny out on a date after he imagines what getting back with her might be like. Their real date ends successfully and they agree to take their relationship slow in "The Beta Test Initiation." During their renewed relationship Penny has dismissed comments about him ever leaving or dumping her or about worrying about his unfaithfulness around other women and strippers as in the episode "The Stag Convergence". After Penny suggested having sex in "The Launch Acceleration", Leonard breaks the mood by proposing to her accidentally. They later meet and Penny does have the courage to tell him "no" and not break up with him as she did two years previously when he told her that he loved her. However, their relationship is still obviously strained. In the season 5 finale, Leonard and Penny watch Howard being launched into space while holding hands to comfort each other. With the start of season 6, he wants a reluctant Penny to define their relationship in "The Date Night Variable".


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: In the "Higgs Boson Observation", Sheldon hires grad student Alex Jensen to review his childhood journals for any potential ideas that might win him a Nobel Prize. After Amy and Penny observes Alex and Leonard in the Caltech cafeteria talking, Penny, although having reservations about her relationship with Leonard is bothered with the thought of him with another woman. Later that day, Alex comes home with Sheldon to work in apartment 4A where Leonard and Penny are. Penny introduces herself to Alex (subtly implying that Leonard is hers) and drags Leonard to her apartment to have sex. Penny finally does admit her love to Leonard, in "The 43 Peculiarity". Penny and Leonard awkwardly stare at each other before running off in opposite directions. Leonard, though, is buoyed by optimism over Penny's admission. Alex Jensen asks Leonard out to dinner in "The Egg Salad Equivalency", which boosts Leonard's ego because two beautiful women are interested in him, however, Alex's interest makes Penny insecure. Leonard later confirms his commitment to Penny and reassures her that nothing will happen between him and Alex. After another dispute with Sheldon, Leonard tries to move in with Penny in "The Spoiler Alert Segmentation", however, she is not ready. During their Valentine's Day dinner in "The Tangible Affection Proof", Leonard again tries to propose to Penny and she cuts him off quickly. She admits that she is very happy with him, but she also admits to commitment issues and the thought of being married forever really "freaks" her out. Leonard then tells her that when she is ready to get married, she can propose to him. In the season finale, Leonard leaves for an overseas job for four months and Penny is confident enough in their relationship to wait for him. In "The Gorilla Dissolution", Leonard and Penny become engaged. Throughout season 8, a running gag is their reluctance to decide upon a wedding date. In the season 8 finale, Penny asks Leonard to marry her that night in Las Vegas. Leonard happily accepts, but during the journey, after Penny expresses happiness that they will get married while knowing everything about each other, Leonard confesses to having shared a drunken kiss with another woman while on the boat in Europe, though he adds that the woman started it and he rejected her. Penny becomes hurt by the revelation, and even though she claims to forgive Leonard, there is clearly tension between them, leaving the season ending in a cliffhanger as to whether or not they will go through with the wedding.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: At the beginning of season 9, Leonard and Penny marry, although not without some initial problems. They both reveal that they were subconsciously trying to sabotage their relationship, feeling unworthy of the other. Leonard, concerned that he was trying to sabotage his relationship with Penny, meets with the woman he kissed on the boat. She barely remembers the incident and quickly grows bored with Leonard's ramblings, taking a sarcastic and dismissive tone toward him. From that meeting, Leonard comes to terms with his insecurities and he and Penny are able to become more comfortable in dealing with their mutual fears about their relationship. Leonard seriously tries to move into Penny's apartment though Sheldon has serious objections and makes them compromise to spend multiple nights a week in Leonard's old room. Early in season 10, the couple is very happy to be finally living alone after Sheldon moves in with Amy.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: In season 11, Leonard, Howard and Raj are trying to recover the bitcoin they mined years ago (now worth thousands of dollars). It is revealed that the bitcoin is in Leonard's old laptop which he gave to Penny while they were dating in Season 3. Penny then said that she gave the laptop to Zack after her breakup with Leonard. After retrieving the laptop from Zack, he shows the couple a video in the laptop that Penny made after her breakup with Leonard showing a drunk Penny apologizing to Leonard and regrets breaking up with him. Leonard is touched by the video and realizes that Penny genuinely loves him and not just out of desperation or pity.


title: Leonard Hofstadter

text: In the twelfth and final season, Penny announces that she doesn't want to have any children which Leonard somewhat reluctantly supports her decision. Later Penny's old boyfriend Zack Johnson and his new wife want Leonard to be a surrogate father to their kid since Zack is infertile. Penny reluctantly agrees to let Leonard do it until Leonard finally changes his mind not wanting a child in the world that he can't raise. At the end of the season; however, Penny accidentally gets pregnant with Leonard's child, and changes her mind about wanting children.


title: Rutina Wesley

text: Rutina Wesley (born December 21, 1978) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Tara Thornton on the HBO television series "True Blood", and Nova Bordelon on OWN’s "Queen Sugar".


title: Rutina Wesley

text: Wesley was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her father, Ivery Wheeler, is a professional tap dancer, and her mother, Cassandra Wesley, was a showgirl. She attended high school at the Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Performing and Visual Arts. She studied dance at Simba Studios and the West Las Vegas Arts Center.


title: Rutina Wesley

text: While at the Las Vegas Academy, Wesley missed some auditions for college training programs. She finally decided to attend the University of Evansville in Indiana.


title: Rutina Wesley

text: After Wesley earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre Performance in 2001, her grandmother suggested that she do a nursing course to have a practical fallback job, but Wesley insisted on pursuing her artistic education. She enrolled at the Juilliard School in 2001 and graduated in May 2005 ("Group 34"). Her studies included a summer spent at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.


title: Rutina Wesley

text: In December 2006, Wesley was featured in David Hare's Broadway play "The Vertical Hour". In 2007, Wesley also appeared in The Public Theater production of "In Darfur" by playwright Winter Miller, co-starring Heather Raffo and Aaron Lohr, among others.


title: Rutina Wesley

text: Wesley had a minor role in the 2005 film "Hitch", which was edited out in the final cut. In 2007, she made her on-screen debut as the main character in the film "How She Move", from British director Ian Iqbal Rashid. The character Raya Green, who enters a step-dancing competition to secure funds for her education, was inspired by Tony Manero, portrayed by John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever". Prior to the shooting of the film, Wesley underwent a five-week dance rehearsal period. Portraying a woman of Jamaican descent, she also took dialect coaching for the role.


title: Rutina Wesley

text: Wesley auditioned for the role Tara Thornton in the HBO series "True Blood" in 2007 and secured the part after creator Alan Ball chose her because "[she] was the first person who showed [Tara's] vulnerable side".


title: Rutina Wesley

text: In January 2015, it was announced that Wesley had been cast in a recurring role on the NBC drama series "Hannibal". She portrayed Reba McClane, "a blind woman who enters into a relationship with Francis Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage), and helps soothe his murderous urges—at least at first." Wesley appeared as Liza Warner in the fourth season of Arrow.


title: Rutina Wesley

text: In 2016, Wesley was cast as the lead character Nova Bordelon in the Oprah Winfrey Network drama series "Queen Sugar", produced by Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey.


title: Rutina Wesley

text: Wesley divides her time between Los Angeles and Astoria, Queens. In 2005, she married her former Juilliard classmate Jacob Fishel, an actor. After separating in July, Wesley filed for divorce on August 16, 2013, citing irreconcilable differences.


title: Rutina Wesley

text: In November 2017, Wesley announced her partnership to Shonda, a chef from New Orleans. They later broke up in 2019.


title: Kenny Wayne Shepherd

text: Kenny Wayne Shepherd (born Kenny Wayne Brobst; June 12, 1977) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He has released several studio albums and experienced significant commercial success as a blues artist.


title: Kenny Wayne Shepherd

text: Shepherd was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He graduated from Caddo Magnet High School in Shreveport. He is "completely self-taught",


title: Kenny Wayne Shepherd

text: Shepherd stated in a 2011 interview that he began playing guitar in earnest at age seven, about six months after meeting and being "pretty mesmerized" by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Labor Day weekend in 1984, at one of his father's promoted concerts. His self-taught method employed a process of learning one note at a time, playing and rewinding cassette tapes, using "a cheap Yamaha wanna-be Stratocaster ... made out of plywood, basically", and learning to play by following along with material from his father's record collection.


title: Kenny Wayne Shepherd

text: Blues musician Bryan Lee invited 13 years old Shepherd to play guitar onstage. He subsequently made demo tapes, and a video was shot at Shepherd's first performance at the Red River Revel Arts Festival in Shreveport. It was this video performance that impressed Giant Records chief Irving Azoff enough to sign Shepherd to a multiple album record deal.


title: Kenny Wayne Shepherd

text: From 1995 on, Shepherd took seven singles into the Top 10, and holds the record for the longest-running album on the "Billboard" Blues Charts with "Trouble Is...". In 1996, Shepherd began a longtime collaboration with vocalist Noah Hunt, who provided the vocals for Shepherd's signature song, "Blue on Black". Shepherd has been nominated for five Grammy Awards, and has received two Billboard Music Awards, two Blues Music Awards, and two Orville H. Gibson Awards.


title: Kenny Wayne Shepherd

text: In September 2008, Fender Musical Instruments Corp. released the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Signature Series Stratocaster, designed exclusively by Shepherd. In 2007, he released a critically acclaimed and two-time Grammy nominated DVD–CD project, "". This documents Shepherd as he travels the country to jam with and interview the last of the authentic blues musicians. As they tour the backroads, Shepherd, with members of the Double Trouble Band, play with a host of blues greats including Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and Bryan Lee, Buddy Flett (with whom he jams at Lead Belly's grave), B. B. King, blues harp master Jerry "Boogie" McCain, Cootie Stark, Neal Pattman, John Dee Holeman, Etta Baker, Henry Townsend with Honeyboy Edwards, and a concert session with the surviving members of Muddy Waters' and Howlin' Wolf's bands, including Hubert Sumlin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, and Pinetop Perkins.


title: Kenny Wayne Shepherd

text: In 2010, Shepherd was nominated for a Grammy for "Live in Chicago", which featured performances with Hubert Sumlin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, Buddy Flett, and Bryan Lee. In 2011, Shepherd released his seventh CD, titled "How I Go", on Roadrunner Records. In 2014 he released "Goin Home" on Mascot Label Group in Europe and on Concord Records in the US and the rest of the world. In 2015 Shepherd released "Something From the Road Vol. 1," a live special release for Record Store Day in the U.S.


title: Kenny Wayne Shepherd

text: In January 2017, the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band went into the studio with producer Marshall Altman to record a new album of all newly written songs titled "Lay It On Down" and released the album on August 4 (July 21 in Europe on "Mascot Label Group"). "Lay It On Down" is the eighth record by the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Blues Chart.


title: Kenny Wayne Shepherd

text: On May 31, 2019, Shepherd released "The Traveler" on Concord Records and Mascot Label Group in Europe. The album, like the previous release "Lay It On Down", was co-produced by Marshall Altman. "The Traveler" was chosen as a 'Favorite Blues Album' by AllMusic.


title: Kenny Wayne Shepherd

text: On December 2, 2022, Shepherd released "Trouble Is... 25", a complete re-recording of his sophomore album for its 25th anniversary. The album includes a never before heard cover of Bob Dylan's "Ballad Of A Thin Man."


title: Kenny Wayne Shepherd

text: In 2013, Shepherd, along with Stephen Stills (Crosby, Stills & Nash) and Barry Goldberg (Electric Flag), formed The Rides. They released their debut album "Can't Get Enough" on August 27, 2013. Stills refers to the band as "the blues band of my dreams." The band toured the US in 2013 supporting their debut record, culminating with an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The three reunited in 2015 for a follow-up album "Pierced Arrow", released on 429 Records and Mascot Label Group in Europe in 2016.


title: Kenny Wayne Shepherd

text: Shepherd married Hannah Gibson, the oldest daughter of actor Mel Gibson, on September 16, 2006. The couple has six children.


title: Kenny Wayne Shepherd

text: In March 2021, the Blues Foundation revoked Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s 2021 Blues Music Awards nomination for Best Blues/Rock Artist. According to a statement from the organization, the decision was made over Confederate flag imagery displayed on Shepherd’s The Dukes of Hazzard “General Lee” car replica.


title: Kenny Wayne Shepherd

text: Shepherd acknowledged the offensiveness of the flag on his car and said he had permanently covered it some time ago. "Years ago I put that car in permanent storage and some time ago, I made the decision to permanently cover the flag on my car because it was completely against my values and offensive to the African American community which created the music I love so much and I apologize to anyone that I have unintentionally hurt because of it." In addition to the Foundation’s rescindment of Shepherd’s nomination, the organization has asked Shepherd’s father, Ken Shepherd, to step down as a member of its Board of Directors. Ken Shepherd declined to comment on being asked to step down.


title: Maxi López

text: Maximiliano Gastón López (born 3 April 1984) is an Argentine former professional footballer who played as a second striker.


title: Maxi López

text: López holds both an Argentine and an Italian passport. He is known as "El Rubio" ("The Blonde"), and "La Gallina de Oro" ("The Golden Hen").


title: Maxi López

text: López began his career in 1997 with River Plate. On 19 August 2001, at age 17, he made his senior debut, against Talleres de Córdoba. That same season, he was officially promoted to the senior squad following five years with the youth program. With River Plate, he was a standout striker and the club won the Torneo Clausura in 2002, 2003 and 2004. López remained with the club until his transfer to Spanish giants Barcelona in January 2005. With River Plate, he made 56 appearances, scoring 13 goals.


title: Maxi López

text: In January 2005, Barcelona signed López for €6.2 million following an injury to striker Henrik Larsson. On his UEFA Champions League debut on 23 February 2005, he came on as a second-half substitute for Ludovic Giuly and within four minutes beat Chelsea defender William Gallas to score an equalizer with his first shot for the club, an eventual 2–1 first-leg win. His only other goal for the club came in a Copa del Rey tie against Zamora on 11 January 2006. López failed to break into the club's first team; in his two seasons in La Liga, he made just 14 league appearances.


title: Maxi López

text: López transferred to Mallorca on loan for the 2006–07 season, scoring 3 goals in 25 matches, and returned to Barcelona in the summer of 2007, only to be sold to FC Moscow on 16 August 2007 after a €2 million transfer fee was agreed by the clubs. With Moscow, López made 22 league appearances and scored 9 goals. On 13 February 2009, Brazilian club Grêmio signed López on a season-long loan. He made his debut the following month in a game against Santa Cruz. His first goal for the club came against São José-PA on 18 March 2009. On 24 June 2009, López was accused of racism by Cruzeiro player Elicarlos in the semi-finals of the Copa Libertadores. López denied the charge and, so far, nothing has been proven. López scored four goals in the 2009 Copa Libertadores and the winner in the centenary Gre-Nal derby match. He was scouted as a transfer target by several European clubs, including Catania, Chievo, Genoa and VfL Wolfsburg.


title: Maxi López

text: On 20 January 2010, López transferred to Catania for a €3 million transfer fee, signing a contract lasting until 30 June 2013. He made his Serie A debut on 31 January, [24] playing 55 minutes in the match against the Udinese. In the next match, away to Lazio (0–1), he scored his first goal and the match-winner for the "Rossazzurri". On 3 April, he scored his first brace in the Italian top flight during the Sicilian derby against Palermo. He closed the season in double figures, scoring 11 goals in 17 appearances and contributed to the safety of the "Etnei" in Serie A.


title: Maxi López

text: The following season, López scored his first goal in a 2–0 home victory against Cesena on 22 September 2010. At the end of the season, he had scored 8 goals in 35 appearances, finishing 12th in the Serie A table with Catania.


title: Maxi López

text: In the 2011–12 season, López scored his first goal on 18 September 2011, converting a penalty against Cesena. On 18 December 2011, in the match won 2–0 by Catania against Palermo, he converted his second penalty of the season and was tearfully substituted by Gonzalo Bergessio for a possible farewell before the winter session of the transfer window.


title: Maxi López

text: On 27 January 2012, López was officially transferred to A.C. Milan in a €1.5 million loan move, with a buying option set at €8 million. He signed a contract with Milan until 30 June 2015 to receive €700,000 until the end of the 2011–12 season and €1.5 million per year for the following three seasons. He chose the number 21 shirt.


title: Maxi López

text: López scored his first goal as a Milan player on 11 February 2012 in an away game against Udinese, equalising for Milan before going on to assist Stephan El Shaarawy to score the game-winning goal. However, at the end of the season, he returned to Catania after Milan opted not to exercise their buying option.


title: Maxi López

text: López returned to Catania from a loan spell for the duration of the 2013–14 season and on 28 January 2014, he rejoined Sampdoria on loan for the remainder of the Serie A campaign. He scored a winning goal in his first match back for Sampdoria against Genoa on 3 February 2014.


title: Maxi López

text: On 30 June 2014, López signed a one-year deal with Chievo with an option to extend his contract for a further year after Catania relegation. He made his debut on the first day of the 2014–15 Serie A season, 30 August, against Juventus, playing the full 90 minutes of a 1–0 home loss. In his second match, on 14 September, he scored the only goal as Chievo defeated Napoli.


title: Maxi López

text: On 13 January 2015, López joined Torino, signing a six-month contract with an option for another year. He debuted the next day against Lazio in the second round of the Coppa Italia. On 18 January, he scored his first goal for Torino, against Cesena in a 3–2 Torino victory. On 19 February, he scored a brace during the UEFA Europa League round of 32 against Athletic Bilbao, therefore managing to score in five different leagues (Argentine, Spanish, Russian, Brazilian and Italian) and in all international competitions (Copa Libertadores, Copa Sudamericana, Champions League and Europa League). He scored again in the victorious return leg in Spain seven days later, then the 28th round of the league away at Parma. On 17 May, he scored his first brace for Torino in Serie A in the 2–0 victory over his former club Chievo.


title: Maxi López

text: After renewing for another year, on 24 November 2015 López signed a new contract with Torino lasting until 2018.


title: Maxi López

text: On 14 July 2018, López joined Vasco da Gama, signing an eighteen-month contract with an option for another year. He debuted against São Paulo. On 27 August, he scored his first goal for Vasco against Chapecoense in a 3–1 Vasco victory and also had two assists, winning man of the match honors. After 14 matches he had great displays, with 7 goals and 6 assists, being considered the best Vasco player in the second semester and becoming the supporters favorite.


title: Maxi López

text: On 23 August 2019, López return to Italy in Serie B club Crotone for free. He signed a one-year contract.


title: Maxi López

text: López represented his birth nation of Argentina at under-15, under-17 and under-20 levels, also taking part to the 2003 South American Youth Championship. He was eligible for both Argentina and Italy, as he holds both citizenships and has never represented any national team at senior level. In July 2010, he explicitly stated he might accept a call-up from the "Azzurri".


title: Maxi López

text: López was married to Argentine model Wanda Nara from 2008 to 2013. The couple have three sons, Valentino Gastón (born 25 January 2009), Constantino (born 19 December 2010) and Benedicto (born 20 February 2012). Nara and López split after her affair with López's former Sampdoria teammate Mauro Icardi, now with Galatasaray, was exposed. López had previously been good friends with Icardi, inviting his countryman on vacations and opening his home to Icardi when he first moved to Italy. She and López began divorce proceedings in December 2013. Nara and Icardi subsequently married on 27 May 2014. During the April 2014 Serie A match between Sampdoria and Inter, López notably refused to shake Icardi's hand, leading the press to dub the game the "Wanda derby".


title: Maxi López

text: López is also a close friend of Lionel Messi, as López was signed by Barcelona while Messi was establishing himself in the first team. Living thousands of miles away from home at a young age, Messi bonded with Maxi as fellow Argentines, with López acting as a big brother to Messi during the latter's rise to stardom. It has long been rumored that this friendship has kept Icardi from playing international football despite his strong performances for Inter Milan and Paris Saint-Germain.


title: Maxi López

text: López's change of luck from being a somewhat criticised forward at River Plate to being signed by Barcelona made him an internet meme in his native Argentina. Satirical blogs were created lobbying for his inclusion in the Argentinian squad for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. After the Argentinian elimination from the World Cup, without López getting any caps at all, the nature of the meme changed to a series of reasons explaining his lack of time play on Barcelona with hyperbolic claims which closely resembled Chuck Norris Facts. In interviews, López has stated that he is "okay" with this unexpected following.


title: Spree killer

text: A spree killer is someone who commits a criminal act that involves two or more murders or homicides in a short time, in multiple locations. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a spree killing as "killings at two or more locations with almost no time break between murders".


title: Spree killer

text: According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the general definition of "spree killer" is a person (or more than one person) who commits two or more murders without a cooling-off period; the lack of a cooling-off period marks the difference between a spree killer and a serial killer. The category has, however, been found to be of no real value to law enforcement, because of definitional problems relating to the concept of a "cooling-off period". Serial killers commit clearly separate murders, happening at different times. Mass murderers are defined by one incident, with no distinctive time period between the murders.


title: Spree killer

text: How to distinguish a spree killer from a mass murderer, or from a serial killer, is subject to considerable debate, and the terms are not consistently applied even within the academic literature. For example, "The Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment" lists five different categories of spree killers and cites Mark O. Barton as an example of the second one. He is also noted alongside mass murderers, such as Patrick Sherrill, in the respective entry about mass murder. In "The Anatomy Of Motive", John E. Douglas cites Charles Starkweather and Andrew Cunanan as examples of spree killers, while Jack Levin calls Starkweather a mass murderer and Cunanan a serial killer.


title: Spree killer

text: In "Controversial Issues in Criminology", Fuller and Hickey write that "[t]he element of time involved between murderous acts is primary in the differentiation of serial, mass, and spree murderers", later elaborating that spree killers "will engage in the killing acts for days or weeks" while the "methods of murder and types of victims vary". Andrew Cunanan is given as an example of spree killing, while Charles Whitman is mentioned in connection with mass murder and Jeffrey Dahmer with serial killing.


title: Spree killer

text: In "Serial Murder," Ronald M. Holmes and Stephen T. Holmes define spree murder as "the killing of three or more people within a 30-day period" and add that killing sprees are "usually accompanied by the commission of another felony." They cite Charles Starkweather and the Beltway Snipers as examples of spree killers.


title: Spree killer

text: Ronald and Stephen Holmes define serial murder as "the killing of three or more people over a period of more than 30 days, with a significant cooling-off period between the killings." Under this definition, Andrew Cunanan would be categorized as a serial killer and not a spree killer.


title: Spree killer

text: Douglas wrote that the identity of a serial killer is generally unknown until they are caught, and a mass murderer's identity is learned only after they have committed the crime. The identity of the spree killer, on the other hand, usually becomes known by police while the spree is still in progress.


title: The Glass Castle

text: The Glass Castle is a 2005 memoir by American author Jeannette Walls. Walls recounts her dysfunctional and nomadic yet vibrant upbringing, emphasizing her resilience and her father's attempts toward redemption. Despite her family's flaws, their love for each other and her unique perspective on life allowed her to create a successful life of her own, culminating in a career in journalism in New York City. The book's title refers to her father's ultimate unfulfilled promise, to build his dream home for the family, a glass castle.


title: The Glass Castle

text: "The Glass Castle" has received broad readership and positive critical feedback for Walls' balanced perspective on the positives and negatives of her childhood. It has been used in North American grade school curriculum, leading to some controversy, as "The Glass Castle" was listed No. 9 on the Office for Intellectual Freedom's list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books in 2012. Noted reasons for challenging the book include its "offensive language" and being "sexually explicit".


title: The Glass Castle

text: The memoir spent over 260 weeks in hardcover on "The New York Times" Best Seller list, and it remained on the paperback nonfiction bestseller list until October 10, 2018, having persisted for 440 weeks. By late 2007, "The Glass Castle" had received many awards, including the Christopher Award, the American Library Association's Alex Award (2006), and the "Books for Better Living Award".


title: The Glass Castle

text: "The Glass Castle" was adapted as a feature film, released in the summer of 2017, starring Brie Larson as Jeannette Walls.


title: The Glass Castle

text: "The Glass Castle" is Jeannette Walls' memoir of her childhood to adulthood, documenting how her parents both inspired and inhibited her life. The book is told in five parts. The first part, "A Woman On the Street", documents her conversation with her mother, Rose Mary, who was squatting in an abandoned apartment in New York City, which pushed her to tell the truth and write this memoir.


title: The Glass Castle

text: Part Two, titled "The Desert", covers young Jeannette Walls living with her parents, Rex and Rose Mary, and her siblings Lori, Brian, and Maureen. Walls opens with her first memory, which takes place when she is three years old and is living in a trailer park in southern Arizona. She is engulfed in flames when attempting to make hot dogs over the stove, resulting in her going to the hospital and receiving skin grafts on her stomach, ribs, and chest. Due to fear of the mounting medical bills as well as skepticism of modern medicine, Rex takes Jeannette out of the hospital without permission or paying. A few months later, the children are woken up in the middle of the night and are told they are "doing the skedaddle" (skipping town). Their parents' nomadic lifestyle imposed by their avoidance of financial responsibilities results in the family frequently moving to Nevada, Arizona, and California. As Jeannette grows older, she is more aware of Rex's alcoholism and its consequences. For her 10th birthday, she asks him to stop drinking, which he successfully does for a few months. Following his relapse, Rose Mary decides that since they have no money it is time to move again, and she takes the family to their paternal grandparents in Welch, West Virginia.


title: The Glass Castle

text: Part Three, titled "Welch", covers approximately a seven-year period and documents Jeannette and her siblings' shifting perspectives on life with their parents from being one of adventure and whimsy to abuse and brokenness. While in Welch, the Walls children face bullying, sexual abuse, and hunger. Ultimately, Lori and Jeannette hatch a plan for Lori to move to New York City, with Jeannette following shortly thereafter. Eventually, Lori moves, and Jeannette joins her shortly before finishing high school.


title: The Glass Castle

text: In Part Four, "New York City", after experiencing the freedom and safety gained from no longer living with her parents, sister Lori offers to help siblings Brian and Maureen move to New York City. Three years after all the children have left Welch, Rose Mary and Rex decide to move to New York City. With little money, the parents fall behind on rent and become homeless. They find themselves at home amongst squatters in an abandoned apartment, and the Walls children discover who they are. Years later, Rex calls Jeannette and tells her that he is dying. A few weeks after they had met and talked about their adventures and struggles, he dies of a heart attack.


title: The Glass Castle

text: Part Five, titled "Thanksgiving", takes place five years after the death of Rex when the family gathers for Thanksgiving at Jeannette's country home where they toast to Rex.


title: The Glass Castle

text: "The Glass Castle" was positively reviewed by "The New York Times", "Kirkus Reviews", "Entertainment Weekly", and "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution", among others. However, several school districts have found the book's inclusion in syllabi to be controversial.


title: The Glass Castle

text: In "The New York Times Book Review", critic and novelist Francine Prose wrote, "The autobiographer is faced with the daunting challenge of... attempting to understand, forgive and even love the witch... Readers will marvel at the intelligence and resilience of the Walls kids."


title: The Glass Castle

text: A review in "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" compared Jeannette Walls to renowned 19th-century writer Charles Dickens, saying that "Dickens's scenes of poverty and hardship are no more audacious and no more provocative than those in the pages of this stunning memoir."


title: The Glass Castle

text: "The Glass Castle" spent more than seven years on the "New York Times" bestseller list and has been translated into 31 languages. In 2006, the memoir peaked on the list at No. 10; however following the release of the film adaptation in 2017, the book became a No. 1 "New York Times" paperback nonfiction best seller and held that position for 15 weeks. As of 2017, the book had sold more than 5 million copies.


title: The Glass Castle

text: "The Glass Castle" has also been the subject of public criticism, most notably in high school English classes.


title: The Glass Castle

text: According to the American Library Association, "The Glass Castle" was the seventeenth most banned and challenged book in the United States 2010 and 2019 and the ninth most challenged book in 2012. The book has been challenged due to offensive language and being sexually explicit.


title: The Glass Castle

text: In 2012, in Traverse City, Michigan, West Senior High School's 9th grade honors English class removed the book due to its "explicit language and references to child molestation, adolescent sexual exploits, and violence." It has since been returned to the curricula after the school board reconsideration committee voted to maintain the book.


title: The Glass Castle

text: In 2017, the book was again challenged in Marshfield, Wisconsin, resulting in the National Coalition Against Censorship defending it, stating that discussing its themes including "poverty, hunger, bullying, assault, and alcoholism" will benefit the students. On March 1, 2017, the committee reviewing the case voted unanimously to recommend keeping the book in the sophomore English curriculum.


title: The Glass Castle

text: Paramount bought the film rights to "The Glass Castle", and in October 2015 announced that actress Brie Larson would play Jeannette Walls in the movie adaptation. In August 2014, it was announced that Destin Daniel Cretton was set to direct. Naomi Watts and Woody Harrelson were cast as Rose Mary and Rex Walls, respectively, with Gil Netter producing. Filming began May 20, 2016, in Welch, West Virginia. The film was released August 11, 2017, to mixed reviews praising the performances while noting the film's overall uneven tone. It holds a 51% rating on RottenTomatoes.com.


title: Soulcalibur

text: There are seven main installments of video games and various media spin-offs, including music albums and a series of manga books. The first game in the series, "Soul Edge" (or "Soul Blade" outside Japan), was released as an arcade game in 1995 and was later ported to video game consoles; the widespread success of its first sequel "Soulcalibur" in 1998 led to "Soulcalibur" becoming the name of the franchise, with all subsequent installments also using the name. More recent games in the series have been released for consoles only and have evolved to include online playing modes.


title: Soulcalibur

text: The central motif of the series, set in a historical fantasy version of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, are mythical swords, the evil weapon called Soul Edge and the subsequent sword used to oppose this evil, Soul Calibur (parsed as two words, while the series' title is written as a single word). While it has developed during its various iterations, some of the characters and gameplay elements have remained consistent throughout the series.


title: Soulcalibur

text: Project Soul is the internal Namco development group responsible for the "Soulcalibur" franchise after the release of "Soulcalibur II". Although the games are usually credited to Namco itself, the team established its name to draw attention to the group's combined accomplishments.


title: Soulcalibur

text: All games in the series before "Soulcalibur III" were originally released as arcade games, and subsequently ported to home consoles. The ported versions are known for their extra features, including characters, weapons, costumes, art galleries, martial arts demonstrations and involved single-player modes, when compared to the original arcade versions. For example, Seung Han Myong (Romanized in later games as Seong Han-myeong) is not featured in the arcade version of "Soul Edge" and in home versions there is a role-playing-type mode titled "Edge Master" where the player can unlock various items including weapons for the default characters.


title: Soulcalibur

text: The first installment, titled "Soul Edge", was released for arcade, and was later updated to "Soul Edge Ver. II". This enhanced version was then ported to the PlayStation, where it was renamed "Soul Blade" outside Japan. Set in the late sixteenth century, the game follows nine warriors in a quest, each of whom has their own reasons for joining the quest but they all share a common goal: to obtain the legendary sword, called 'Soul Edge'. After appearing in arcade, the game was made available for PlayStation in 1996. Along with its soundtrack, it has been praised for being innovative yet traditional to the fighting genre of games. With Versus (one-on-one battle mode), Survival (take on a gauntlet of opponents until the player is unable to continue), Time Attack, Team Battle (a selection of combatants will take on an opposing group, a victor is announced when the last remaining member of a team is defeated) and Training modes, the console port also saw the addition of Edge Master, a single-player mode in which the player would guide one of the ten main characters in a story-like manner while obtaining a variety of weapons for use.


title: Soulcalibur

text: The sequel to "Soul Edge" was released for arcade a year later, with a port for the Dreamcast in 1999. The plot is set two–three years after the first game. The title is derived from Soul Calibur, a legendary weapon which opposes the evil of Soul Edge. Though retaining elements of its predecessor, "Soulcalibur" incorporated an extensive number of new features, including the "8-Way Run". The title "Soulcalibur" became a trademark title to be used throughout the series since. In 2008, Namco Bandai released "Soulcalibur" on the Xbox Live Arcade for the Xbox 360. Although online leaderboards and achievements were supported in this version, there was no online playing mode or mission mode, as there was in the Dreamcast version.


title: Soulcalibur

text: 2002's "Soulcalibur II" further improved and expanded on the "Soulcalibur" original, in both graphics and gameplay. "Soulcalibur II" was released in arcade format three years after the previous release in the series, and was subsequently ported to all three active sixth-generation consoles. This is the first game in the "Soulcalibur" series to feature characters in other media, such as Link from Nintendo's "The Legend of Zelda", playable on the GameCube. Featured on the PlayStation 2 version's roster is Heihachi Mishima of "Tekken", while Image Comic's character Spawn was an addition for the Xbox version.


title: Soulcalibur

text: A high definition-optimized enhanced port of the game, entitled "Soulcalibur II HD Online", was released in November 2013, and features revamped HD visuals, online play, and trophy/achievement support. It is a digital release and is available through Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade and Sony's PlayStation Network digital storefronts. Being based on the original PlayStation 2 and Xbox releases, both ports include the two guest characters (Heihachi Mishima and Spawn) who were originally exclusive to each platform.


title: Soulcalibur

text: Breaking with tradition, the PlayStation 2 version of "Soulcalibur III" was released in 2005 before an "" was seen. It used a different graphics engine. "Soulcalibur III" contains a new single-player mode called "Tales of Souls", a story mode in which the player can make course-altering decisions. Arenas are more interactive, for example with rocks breaking if a character were to impact against them. "Soulcalibur III" is the first game in the series to feature a character creation system, and features a story mode called "Chronicles of the Sword" which is a mode with some strategic aspects for created characters. It is the only game in the "Soulcalibur" series to be THX approved.


title: Soulcalibur

text: Released in 2008 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the fourth installment of the series is the second game with no arcade release prior to the release of the home game, as well as being the first to take bouts online and the last game to conclude the 1590 A.D. trilogy. "Soulcalibur IV" introduces new gameplay mechanics into the series in the form of damage-absorbing armor (that can be shattered) and Critical Finishes (both tied to the new Soul Gauge). Like "Soulcalibur II", the fourth game also included cameos from different media. The "Star Wars" character Darth Vader is a playable character on the PlayStation 3 version, while Yoda is for the Xbox 360 version. Each character was also available for download on the consoles in which they do not appear. Both versions of the game include the Apprentice character from "". Like "Soulcalibur III", the game includes a character creation system with various customizable parts, some of which have to be unlocked. These characters can be taken into online bouts, which in itself is a new addition to the series. However, unlike "Soulcalibur III", the only available weapon disciplines are taken from the existing roster and there are no unique disciplines for created characters.


title: Soulcalibur

text: Released in 2012 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, "Soulcalibur V" is the sixth installment of the series and the second game to take bouts online, as well as the last installment to conclude the original timeline story. Like the other "Soulcalibur" series, this game features guest characters; in this case Ezio Auditore da Firenze from the "Assassin's Creed" series and as well as the fighting style of Devil Jin from the "Tekken" series.


title: Soulcalibur

text: "Soulcalibur VI" was released in 2018. While the storyline takes place after the fifth game, it act as a soft reboot, taking the series back to mostly reimagined after "Soul Edge" and eventually set in a new timeline. Like "Tekken 7", it uses Unreal Engine 4, and features downloadable guests, while one guest character (Geralt of Rivia from "The Witcher" series) acts as one of the base roster and plays a vital role on the storyline.


title: Soulcalibur

text: Released in 2007 for the Wii, "Soulcalibur Legends" is the series' first spin-off title. Departing from the usual fighting game genre, it is an action-adventure game with elements of hack and slash, in which the player controls one out of the game's seven playable characters through a level infested with enemies and defeats the boss in the end. It features competitive and cooperative gameplay in addition to the single-player mode. "Soulcalibur Legends", although set between the events of "Soul Edge" and "Soulcalibur", is non-canon to the series.


title: Soulcalibur

text: Released in 2009 for the Sony PSP, "Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny" is the first portable installment of the "Soulcalibur" series. It uses many of the features used in "Soulcalibur IV", such as the soul crush, armor destruction, critical finishers, and Character Creation, and also brings in some new features such as new lighting effects for stages that correspond to different times of day, and the new Gauntlet Story mode. The game's features are similar to "Soulcalibur IV", including its customization features, but it introduced a new character named Dampierre, a conman who wears twin blades on his wrists. In addition, Kratos from the "God of War" franchise appears as a guest character. "Broken Destiny" received very positive reviews.


title: Soulcalibur

text: Released in 2014, "Soulcalibur: Lost Swords" is a free-to-play video game distributed through the PlayStation Network. It is a strictly single-player game based on "Soulcalibur V" in which the goal is for the player to collect loot, including raw materials and weapons, through battles in the new Quest Mode.


title: Soulcalibur

text: Initially trademarked by Bandai Namco in October 2013, "Soulcalibur: Unbreakable Soul" was announced on Bandai Namco's Global Gamer's Day 2014 for the mobile phones, the first installment made specifically for the platform, this time iOS (the previous mobile game was an Android port of "Soulcalibur"). Released on May 8, 2014, "Unbreakable Soul" is a card-based fighting game where players can pick different attack cards to strike enemies. Elemental system makes a return from "Soulcalibur: Lost Swords"; players can mix the cards with one of the five elements: fire, water, wind, light, and dark. There are over 200 weapons as well as more than 150 player avatars featured. The game's story revolves around Cassandra and Edge Master in their efforts to find the fragments of Soul Edge. "Unbreakable Soul" received unfavorable reviews.


title: Soulcalibur

text: All the games in the "Soulcalibur" series retain some specific features while others features vary from game to game. The basic button layout for the series launches two weapon attacks (horizontally and vertically aligned strikes), a kick button, and a guard button for blocking. Two features that have been kept in the series since its inception are the Guard Impact defense system and the Ring Out condition of victory.


title: Soulcalibur

text: In the first game ("Soul Edge/Blade"), the Guard Impact system is a repelling technique that allows the player to check an incoming strike and push it back to allow a free hit. A Guard Impact requires precise timing (with the player pressing forward and guarding at the instant an opponent strikes) but it results in tactical advantage for the defender. The opposing player is able to counter a Guard Impact with their own and this can result in a stalemate until one of the players misjudges the timing on a subsequent Guard Impact. As the series progressed, the Guard Impact system was developed further. In "Soulcalibur", Namco introduced new Guard Impact techniques: Parry and Weapon Strip, while the original repelling technique was renamed Repelling. These different Guard Impact types have been kept in subsequent installments of the game. In the fifth game, Guard Impacts were slightly altered by giving the Parry maneuver the new property of slamming opponents to the ground rather than just easing their weapon off course. Repels still work in the same way as they have in previous "Soulcalibur" series games.


title: Soulcalibur

text: Ring Outs occur when one of the fighters is forcibly removed from the game's arena (or ring), instantly ending the round and resulting in a round point for their opponent. The idea of Ring Outs in 3D fighting games was originally conceived by the "Virtua Fighter" series of fighting games and adopted by Namco for "Soul Edge". A combatant cannot be knocked out of the ring without being eliminated by some effort from themselves or by their opponent. Later games introduced new ring designs that modified the way Ring Outs were handled ("Soulcalibur" allowed rings to take different shapes instead of a basic square, "Soulcalibur II" introduced stages with walls that blocked off parts of the ring and made Ring Outs possible only in certain parts of the stage or removing that condition altogether, and "Soulcalibur III" introduced low walls that can be destroyed to create a Ring Out opportunity). "Soulcalibur V" introduced a new aspect of Ring Outs; if a Ring Out is declared on certain stages, the battle will continue in a new location that is below the point where the Ring Out occurred. "V" also includes infinite stages (the stages have no edges of any kind, allowing the battle to continue in any direction with no limit) for the first time in the history of the series.


title: Soulcalibur

text: "Soul Edge" is unique in the series as it is the only game to feature the Weapon Meter; a sword-shaped meter under the characters' vitality bars that determined how much damage a weapon could sustain. As a character blocked attacks; the meter would deplete until it emptied which resulted in a weapon breaking (the player would also have to pay half the Weapon Meter to perform a Critical Edge combo). Once the character's weapon was broken, they were forced to fight bare-handed until the end of the round. The Weapon Meter was designed to promote consistent offense and deter constant defense (other fighters have adopted similar means to deter over-defending; "Street Fighter Alpha 3"s Guard Meter is an example of such a device). The Weapon Meter was abandoned following "Soul Edge" and instead replaced with "Soulcalibur"s trademark 8-Way Run system. The 8-Way Run allowed players to walk in any direction at any time instead of using a specific command to sidestep. This kept the fights truly three-dimensional and made it easier to maneuver around attacks or away from ring edges (as well as launch specific 8-Way Run attacks). Each of the sequels to "Soulcalibur" has used the 8-Way Run movement system.


title: Soulcalibur

text: In "Soulcalibur IV", Namco introduced a new variation of the Critical Edge combo, called the Critical Finish. Rather than being a combo, a Critical Finish is more of a finishing move which involves an elaborate move that defeats opponents in a single attack. This new attack is tied to the Soul Gauge that works similarly to the Guard Break meter in "Street Fighter Alpha 3" (the meter decreases whenever the player blocks an attack and is replenished by landing attacks on the opponent, it also refills slowly over time). Also tied to the Soul Gauge is the concept of destructible character armor (akin to "Fighting Vipers") that can be smashed off characters to weaken their resistance to attacks. The Critical Finish itself replaces the Soul Charge from the other three "Soulcalibur" games (a supercharge-like move that can give a character counter properties for the duration of its charge).


title: Soulcalibur

text: Large gameplay changes have been implemented for "Soulcalibur V". Critical Finishes are no longer part of the gameplay, being replaced by the Critical Edge (a different attack from that used in "Soul Blade"). Critical Edge attacks can be used after filling up the new Critical Gauge, which works similarly to "super meters" in other fighting games. Guard Impacts are now tied to this gauge (a segment must be sacrificed to execute one) and the original Guard Impact mechanic is replaced by Just Guard, which works similarly but removes the consequence for missed timing. The Critical Gauge can also be used for Brave Edge attacks, which are stronger attacks than regular ones that don't require an entire bar. In addition to the 8-Way Run, Quick Step allows players to execute a faster sidestep to circle their opponent.


title: Soulcalibur

text: A long time ago, an ordinary sword was soaked with blood through the endless battles of its era, causing the sword to be corrupted and becoming sentient by its own, which earned it the name "Soul Edge". No one dared to wield the sword without getting corrupted by its evil spirit, and only the Hero King, Algol can wield it without getting possessed. However, Algol's son, jealous of his father's feat, wielded the sword and became corrupted. Algol destroyed both his son and the sword, from which he then made a weapon in grief, naming it "Soul Calibur". He was sacrificed to complete the sword's ritual which would then be protected by a cult; no one knew that Soul Edge would reform on its own later on. Soul Calibur itself was lost after it was stolen by a member of the cult, Zasalamel.


title: Soulcalibur

text: In 1553, a Spanish pirate, Cervantes de Leon stole Soul Edge from a dealer's ship, but gradually became corrupted by its spirit until it devoured his soul, influencing him to terrorize the world for over twenty years. This terror made several warriors to venture out and stop him, including a female ninja, Taki, who wanted to destroy Soul Edge for having corrupted her master, and a German rebel, Siegfried Schtauffen, who desperately wanted to blame someone for his accidental murder of his father. Eventually, a Greek warrior, Sophitia Alexandra, confronted and managed to destroy one of Cervantes' blades, but the battle was eventually ended by Taki, who managed to slay Cervantes. Siegfried then came to check Soul Edge, but he became possessed by the release of the "Evil Seed" and turned into the monstrous Nightmare. The Evil Seed event had major impact to the world, including several people going insane, and Nightmare replaced Cervantes in terrorizing the world, wanting to recover the lost Soul Edge fragments. Three years later, Nightmare had prepared for the ritual to complete Soul Edge, but three warriors from Asia, Chai Xianghua, Kilik, and Maxi stormed his castle, the Ostrheinsburg, and managed to defeat Nightmare, with Soul Edge's spirit (Inferno) being shattered by Xianghua's blade, which was revealed to be the lost Soul Calibur. Though Siegfried temporarily regained his sanity, he became possessed again shortly after, as did Soul Calibur, which succumbed to the darkness of Inferno.


title: Soulcalibur

text: Four years later, Nightmare had begun on his Soul Edge ritual again in his old castle, wanting to resurrect Soul Edge, but his ritual was interrupted by an exiled French nobleman, Raphael Sorel, who wanted Soul Edge in order to get revenge on the French nobles who exiled him. Although Raphael was utterly defeated, he was able to penetrate Soul Edge, which gave Siegfried and Soul Calibur the time to break free of its control fully. Soul Edge was then pierced by Siegfried using Soul Calibur, trapping them in the "Soul Embrace". While things seemed to go normal afterwards, Zasalamel had returned to try and free both swords, intending to use their power to break his cycle of reincarnation induced by Soul Calibur. He managed to do so, and Inferno took a physical form to become the "second Nightmare". Siegfried clashed with this new Nightmare, but was wounded in the process and had to be healed by Soul Calibur, tying him with it permanently, while Soul Edge was cast to the void to heal itself. The clash of Soul Edge and Soul Calibur had awakened Algol from his slumber, who rose the Tower of Remembrance to wait for warriors to challenge him. Meanwhile, Nightmare, with his servant Tira, wanting to gather the Soul Edge fragments to complete Soul Edge, forced several warriors, including Astaroth, Sophitia, and Voldo into servitude, while Siegfried, having recovered, set out to confront Nightmare. The two clashed for the second time in the Tower of Remembrance, where Siegfried managed to destroy both Nightmare and Soul Edge, seemingly once and for all.


title: Soulcalibur

text: Seventeen years later, however, Soul Edge had reformed itself, as did Nightmare, who had possessed a swordsman and became the king of Hungary under the alias "Graf Dumas". His former servant, Tira, did not accept him and intended to search for a new vessel for Soul Edge. She eventually found her now-dead nemesis Sophitia's daughter, Pyrrha Alexandra, whom she had once kidnapped to blackmail Sophitia, who had Soul Edge's power in her blood. Though successful in advising her to attack and kill the people who had ostracized her, Tira was confronted by Pyrrha's long-lost brother, Patroklos Alexander, formerly a warrior under Graf Dumas, who had made his life's goal to find his sister and avenge his mother's murder. While he was able to bring her back, they were confronted by Nightmare and Pyrrha awakened her Soul Edge powers. She was disappointed when Patroklos was hesitant in accepting her, and decided to follow Tira again. Patroklos was named as Soul Calibur's new wielder afterwards by Siegfried and also purified the holy sword through the help of several Asian warriors, before going on an all-out battle in Europe. Nightmare was eventually killed by Siegfried's subordinate, Z.W.E.I., who was immediately wounded by the possessed Pyrrha, who proceeded to battle Patroklos. Patroklos accidentally killed his sister, but was given a second chance by Edge Master to purify Pyrrha without killing her. However, Patroklos was trapped subconsciously to fight Soul Calibur's spirit, Elysium, the one who had guided him all this time, as she was angry at him for sparing his malfested sister. After defeating Elysium, he alongside Pyrrha pierced Soul Calibur with Soul Edge, after which he accepted to live with his sister regardless of who she is.


title: Soulcalibur

text: In a parallel timeline, the events after 1583 have been altered. While traveling to Ostrheinsburg to confront Nightmare, Kilik and his companions were aided by Grøh of the Aval Organization, a group created by the late King Arthur to use Soul Calibur to defeat Soul Edge. A few characters have learned of the dark future that was to come, and have started to work on changing that future. Zasalamel received a warning from his future counterpart of the mistakes that he would make, and decided to be a leader for mankind instead of seeking for a permanent death. Cassandra Alexandra, younger sister of the holy warrior Sophitia, was given a warning by her original timeline counterpart, who had been stuck inside the Astral Chaos and became malfested. The warning was about Sophitia's death and Pyrrha's malfestation in the future, and the new Cassandra set off to prevent the tragic fate of her family. Meanwhile, Azwel, who had been a member of the Aval Organization but betrayed them, set about to create the “Ultimate Seed,” which was similar to the original Evil Seed. But his plans were thwarted by the Conduit, a warrior who had the power to absorb astral fissures and who was aided by Grøh. But the Conduit later had to fight Grøh, who had succumbed to his malfestation. The Conduit will either kill or spare Grøh, depending on their actions from their journey.


title: Soulcalibur

text: The "Soul" series features a wide variety of characters hailing from various countries, backgrounds, and disciplines. Most characters typically have their own reasons in partaking their journey, although they frequently meet and interact with each other and most also share a common goal; finding either the cursed sword Soul Edge or its holy counterpart, Soul Calibur. As the game is set in the late 16th century, many real-life events happening during the timeline often influence the story, one example being Oda Nobunaga as the initiator for Yoshimitsu's journey to find Soul Edge.


title: Soulcalibur

text: Out of all the characters in the series, four characters have appeared in all nine games so far: Cervantes, Mitsurugi, Siegfried and Nightmare, the latter two making one appearance each as an alternate costume to each other. Four characters: Astaroth, Ivy, Sophitia, and Taki have come close, appearing in eight games. Other characters who do not appear often make cameos or are commented upon in-game. While continuously being revised in each game, the character lineup generally stay consistent until "Soulcalibur V", in which a major time skip is done and the character roster undergoing major changes, with former mainstays being replaced by their younger successors.


title: Soulcalibur

text: The series is notable for its inclusion of characters from other series appearing as guests. Since "Soulcalibur II", every sequent game have hosted guest characters, usually from other Namco franchises, although more recent games have branched into titles developed by other companies, such as "The Legend of Zelda", "Spawn", "Star Wars", "God of War", "Assassin's Creed" and "The Witcher". The guests, though, can only appear in one game due to licensing. Guest characters who have appeared in the series include Heihachi Mishima, Devil Jin, King, Ling Xiaoyu, Asuka Kazama, and Jun Kazama from "Tekken" (the latter five as attires for custom characters), Link from "The Legend of Zelda", Spawn from "Spawn", Lloyd Irving from "Tales of Symphonia", KOS-MOS from "Xenosaga" (as an attire for custom characters), Darth Vader, Yoda, and The Apprentice from "Star Wars", Kratos from "God of War", Ezio Auditore da Firenze from "Assassin's Creed", Geralt of Rivia from "The Witcher", from "" and Haohmaru from Samurai Shodown. Other than featuring characters from other series, the series' characters have also appeared in other video games as well, including the "Ridge Racer" series, "Pac-Man Fever", "Smash Court Tennis Pro Tournament 2", "Queen's Gate: Spiral Chaos", "Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate", as well as crossover titles such as "Namco × Capcom and Project X Zone 2".


title: Soulcalibur

text: A five-volume manhua based on "Soulcalibur" (劍魂 "Jiànhún lit. translation 'Soul of Sword"') was published in 1999 by author Mó yì (魔翼) and was published by Qingwen (青文). A separate two volume manhua titled "Soulcalibur: Spirit Sword" (靈神劍, "Ling Shenjian, lit. translation: Spirit Holy Sword") was released in 1998 that retold the events of the first game but with Hwang as the central character in a setting with Sci-Fi elements. A two-volume novelization was written by Tobita Mandom (supervised by Project Soul), illustrated by JUNNY, and published by Shueisha in Japan in 2012. Several guide and art books were published in Japan for various installments of the series by Namco, Enterbrain, Gamest, Nintendo and V Jump.


title: Soulcalibur

text: Two soundtrack albums were released for "Soul Edge", and one album for each of "Soulcalibur", "II", "III", "IV", "V" and "VI".


title: Soulcalibur

text: "Soulcalibur" series characters were featured in the 2006 collectible card game "Universal Fighting System". Taki and Ivy were also the subject of a 2011 erotic gamebook in the "Queen's Gate" series. Pyrrah was later included.


title: Soulcalibur

text: During spring 2001, the martial arts film star Sammo Hung announced plans for a film adaptation of "Soulcalibur" entitled "Soul Calibur: The Movie". The film was to be directed by Hung and would be produced by Alan Noel Vega, Michael Cerenzie, Sam Kute and Joseph Jones. According to a statement posted on his website, the film budget would need to be $50 million, locations were to include Eastern Europe and China, and the special effects would be done by Rhythm and Hues Studios because of their relationship with Namco. In 2004, Warren Zide's Sony-owned Anthem Pictures acquired the rights to adapt the game to film, which would be produced by Matthew Rhodes and Noel Vega and released in 2007. It has been stated that the film's plot "revolves around two warriors who are chosen by Shaolin monks to recover and destroy a powerful sword that has fallen into the hands of an evil prince who plans to use it to open the gates of hell and destroy the world." The now-defunct teaser website for the film (soulcaliburthemovie.com) contained a citation from Nostradamus. The film remains in development hell.


title: Soulcalibur

text: The "Soulcalibur" series is a successful fighting game franchise. As of 2012, the "Soulcalibur" series had sold more than 13 million units worldwide, with that number, as of 2018, rising to more than 15 million. As of July 2021 the series has crossed over 17 million units of game worldwide. The series has been rated favorably for the majority of its main series titles.


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: Paul Graham (; born 1964) is an English-born American computer scientist, essayist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and author. He is best known for his work on the programming language Lisp, his former startup Viaweb (later renamed "Yahoo! Store"), cofounding the influential startup accelerator and seed capital firm Y Combinator, his essays, and Hacker News. He is the author of several computer programming books, including: "On Lisp", "ANSI Common Lisp", and "Hackers & Painters". Technology journalist Steven Levy has described Graham as a "hacker philosopher".


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: Graham and his family moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1968, where he later attended Gateway High School. Graham gained interest in science and mathematics from his father who was a nuclear physicist.


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: Graham received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Cornell University (1986). He then attended Harvard University, earning Master of Science (1988) and Doctor of Philosophy (1990) degrees in computer science. He has also studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: In 1996, Graham and Robert Morris founded Viaweb and recruited Trevor Blackwell shortly after. Viaweb was the first application service provider (ASP) according to Graham. Viaweb's software, written mostly in Common Lisp, allowed users to make their own Internet stores. In the summer of 1998, after Jerry Yang received a strong recommendation from Ali Partovi, Viaweb was sold to Yahoo! for 455,000 shares of Yahoo! stock, valued at $49.6 million. After the acquisition, the product became Yahoo! Store.


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: Graham later gained notice for his essays, which he posts on his personal website. Essay subjects range from "Beating the Averages", which compares Lisp to other programming languages and introduced the hypothetical programming language "Blub", to "Why Nerds are Unpopular", a discussion of nerd life in high school. A collection of his essays has been published as "Hackers & Painters" by O'Reilly Media, which includes a discussion of the growth of Viaweb and what Graham perceives to be the advantages of Lisp to program it.


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: In 2001, Graham announced that he was working on a new dialect of Lisp named Arc. It was released on 29 January 2008. Over the years since, he has written several essays describing features or goals of the language, and some internal projects at Y Combinator have been written in Arc, most notably the Hacker News web forum and news aggregator program.


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: In 2005, after giving a talk at the Harvard Computer Society later published as "How to Start a Startup", Graham along with Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris started Y Combinator to provide seed funding to a large number of startups, particularly those started by younger, more technically oriented founders. Y Combinator has now invested in more than 1300 startups, including Reddit, Justin.tv, Xobni, Dropbox, Airbnb and Stripe.


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: "BusinessWeek" included Paul Graham in 2008 edition of its annual feature, "The 25 Most Influential People on the Web".


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: In response to the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), Graham announced in late 2011 that no representatives of any company supporting it would be invited to Y Combinator's Demo Day events.


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: In October 2019, Graham announced a specification for another new dialect of Lisp, written in itself, named Bel.


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: Graham proposed a disagreement hierarchy in a 2008 essay "How to Disagree", putting types of argument into a seven-point hierarchy and observing that "If moving up the disagreement hierarchy makes people less mean, that will make most of them happier." Graham also suggested that the hierarchy can be thought of as a pyramid, as the highest forms of disagreement are rarer.


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: Following this hierarchy, Graham notes that articulate forms of name-calling (e.g., "The author is a self-important dilettante") are no different from crude insults.


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: Graham considers the hierarchy of programming languages with the example of "Blub", a hypothetically average language "right in the middle of the abstractness continuum. It is not the most powerful language, but it is more powerful than Cobol or machine language." It was used by Graham to illustrate a comparison, beyond Turing completeness, of programming language power, and more specifically to illustrate the difficulty of comparing a programming language one knows to one that one does not.


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: Graham considers a hypothetical Blub programmer. When the programmer looks down the "power continuum", they consider the lower languages to be less powerful because they miss some feature that a Blub programmer is used to. But when they look up, they fail to realise that they are looking up: they merely see "weird languages" with unnecessary features and assumes they are equivalent in power, but with "other hairy stuff thrown in as well". When Graham considers the point of view of a programmer using a language higher than Blub, he describes that programmer as looking down on Blub and noting its "missing" features from the point of view of the higher language.


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: Graham describes this as "the Blub paradox" and concludes that "By induction, the only programmers in a position to see all the differences in power between the various languages are those who understand the most powerful one."


title: Paul Graham (programmer)

text: On December 18, 2022, Graham was suspended from Twitter shortly after posting that he was giving up on Twitter, and stating that people could find him on social media network Mastodon, apparently because it violated new Twitter Terms of Service rules banning even indirectly linking to certain other social media networks.


title: Prince Royce

text: Geoffrey Royce Rojas (born May 11, 1989), known professionally as Prince Royce, is an American singer. At an early age, Royce took an interest in music, and in his teenage years began experimenting with music and writing poetry. By age nineteen, Royce met Andrés Hidalgo, who became his manager. Hidalgo later introduced Royce to record producer Sergio George, who immediately signed him to his label after hearing three of his demos.


title: Prince Royce

text: In March 2010, Royce released his eponymous debut studio album, which generated two commercially successful singles, "Stand by Me" and "Corazón Sin Cara". In the United States, both songs reached number-one on the "Billboard" Tropical Songs chart, while "Corazón Sin Cara" reached number-one on the "Billboard" Hot Latin Songs chart. The album itself reached number-one on the US "Billboard" Top Latin Albums and Tropical Albums charts. Royce received three awards at the "Billboard" Latin Music Awards in 2011, which included Tropical Album of the Year. In 2012, Royce released his second studio album, "Phase II", which reached number-one on both the US Latin Albums and Tropical Albums charts. The album featured the singles "Las Cosas Pequeñas" and "Incondicional" and was nominated for the Latin Grammy Award for Best Tropical Fusion Album.


title: Prince Royce

text: His third studio album, "Soy el Mismo", was released in 2013, preceded by the single "Darte un Beso". The album earned Royce his second nomination for the Latin Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Tropical Album. In 2015, Royce released his fourth studio album, "Double Vision", his first primarily in the English language. The album included the singles "Stuck on a Feeling" featuring Snoop Dogg and "Back It Up" featuring Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull, with both charting on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Prince Royce

text: "Five" was released as Royce's fifth studio album in 2017. It became Royce's fourth number-one album on the "Billboard" Top Latin Albums chart. The album's last single, "Déjà Vu", with Shakira, became its most successful commercially and was certified 9× Platinum (Latin) by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the US.


title: Prince Royce

text: Geoffrey Royce Rojas was born and raised in The Bronx, a borough of New York City. He is the second oldest of four children, born to Dominican parents. His father, Ramón Rojas, drove a taxicab and his mother, Ángela de León, worked at a beauty salon. When he was young, Royce participated in choir in elementary school, competed in talent shows and, at the age of thirteen, began writing poetry, which turned into songwriting. Recalling his first time performing before a crowd, he said: "[In] elementary school, I was singing a Christmas song. I felt really comfortable on stage."


title: Prince Royce

text: At age fifteen, Royce had begun making music with a partner named José Chusán, better known as "Jino". The duo was also known as "Jino and Royce, El Dúo Real". At the age of sixteen, Royce adopted the stage name "Prince Royce" and started making music with longtime friend and record producer Donzell Rodríguez, and Vincent Outerbridge, known together as "L Snipe & Vinny". The duo eventually had a meeting with Atlantic Records in early 2007. With the decline of reggaeton music in the Latin music industry at the time, Royce made the ultimate decision to focus on making bachata music. At age nineteen, Royce met producer Andrés Hidalgo, who after hearing his demos, instantly became his manager. Hidalgo began helping Royce work hands-on with bachata music. That was the turning point that helped Royce decide that he wanted to pursue a musical career. Hidalgo later introduced Royce to record producer Sergio George, who immediately signed Royce to his label, Top Stop Music, after listening to three of his demos.


title: Prince Royce

text: Royce released his eponymous debut studio album on March 2, 2010. The album was produced primarily by Hidalgo and Sergio George, with co-production duties by Royce. AllMusic's Jason Birchmeier credited Hidalgo for the "crisp production job, which is often spare but adds touches of urban beats here and there." Shortly after its release, the album debuted on the "Billboard" Top Latin Albums chart at number fifteen. The lead single from the album, "Stand by Me" (a cover of Ben E. King's 1961 song) peaked at number-one on the US "Billboard" Tropical Songs chart, and also reached number eight on the US "Billboard" Hot Latin Songs chart. The album's second single, "Corazón Sin Cara", was released in February 2010 and peaked at number-one on both the US Hot Latin Songs and Tropical Songs charts. The album itself eventually reached number-one on the US "Billboard" Latin Albums chart and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In December 2010, Royce recorded a song with Sergio George called "El Campo de los Sueños", which was used as the theme song for the television program "Domingo de Grandes Ligas" on American TV sports network ESPN in its 2010 season.