title: Fahrenheit 451 (2018 film)

text: Fahrenheit 451 is a 2018 American dystopian drama film directed and co-written by Ramin Bahrani, based on the 1953 book of the same name by Ray Bradbury. It stars Michael B. Jordan, Michael Shannon, Khandi Alexander, Sofia Boutella, Lilly Singh, Grace Lynn Kung and Martin Donovan. Set in a future America, the film follows a "fireman" whose job it is to burn books, which are now illegal, only to question society after meeting a young woman. After premiering at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, the film aired on HBO on May 19, 2018 receiving mixed critical reviews, with praise for the performances and visuals, but criticism for the screenplay and lack of faithfulness to the source material.


title: Fahrenheit 451 (2018 film)

text: In the future, after a Second American Civil War, most reading in the United States is confined to the Internet, called "The 9", and most books are banned (except for greatly simplified versions of books such as The Bible, "To the Lighthouse" and "Moby Dick"). The fire department is not the same, what it has been. The firemen do not contain fires, because the buildings are safe from fire, they have to burn books. Books are ordered to be burned by "Firemen", who are part of the "Ministry", a totalitarian dictatorship that blames unhappiness, mental illness, and conflicting opinions on reading the "wrong" literature.


title: Fahrenheit 451 (2018 film)

text: Guy Montag is a fireman living in Cleveland and goes about his work without question, believing that by following in his captain's footsteps he is serving and protecting society. All this changes when he meets an informant named Clarisse, who makes him challenge his actions and convictions by sharing some of the real history of the US and the rise of the Ministry with him. When he finally decides to rebel and understand how the "Eels" (book-reading outcasts) read, he comes to a realization—he now wants to read as well. Montag decides to help a rebel who has a plan to reproduce their information through animals. This rebel group encoded books into a starling's DNA so that it can live on and survive the efforts of the firemen. Montag was supposed to steal a transponder from the fire department in order to attach it to the bird so that it can be located by a group of scientists who will transfer the DNA to other animals.


title: Fahrenheit 451 (2018 film)

text: After Montag steals the transponder, fireman Beatty goes to Montag to confirm his intention to continue as a fireman burning books. The firemen go to Montag's house and find a large stash of planted books. On Beatty's orders Montag starts burning the stash. Montag remembers that Captain Beatty was among the group of firemen who beat up his father for being an Eel and stops burning the books. Montag is confronted by Captain Beatty who erases his identity. After burning a fireman alive, Montag finds himself on the run, eventually connecting with the group of Eels. The Eels' house is discovered by the firemen; Montag finds the bird and places a transponder inside it so that it can find its way to scientists in Canada. Captain Beatty confronts him and attempts to stop him, but allows the bird to fly away. After Montag releases the bird, Beatty burns him alive in a fit of rage. The starling makes it to Canada, and joins with an immense flock of other starlings.


title: Fahrenheit 451 (2018 film)

text: Ramin Bahrani had been developing an adaptation of Bradbury's novel as early as June 2016. In April 2017, Michael Shannon and Michael B. Jordan were cast in the film, with Jordan also assuming an executive producer role. In June, Sofia Boutella became attached to the project, YouTube personality Lilly Singh was cast as a vlogger, and Laura Harrier was cast as Millie, Montag's wife, though she was ultimately cut from the film. Filming began in July 2017, with the additions of Martin Donovan, Andy McQueen and Grace Lynn Kung to the cast in August.


title: Fahrenheit 451 (2018 film)

text: On January 11, 2018, HBO's Twitter account released a trailer for the film, featuring the tagline, "Fact. Fiction. It all burns." The film was released on May 19, 2018, after premiering at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Fahrenheit 451 (2018 film)

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, and an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, ""Fahrenheit 451" fails to burn as brightly as its classic source material, opting for slickly mundane smoke-blowing over hard-hitting topical edge." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a score of 47 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Fahrenheit 451 (2018 film)

text: For "IndieWire", Ben Travers gave the film a grade of "C+", writing that "Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon make for a compelling pair in an aptly modernized update that still feels far too conventional." Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" praised the production value but wrote that (referring to the ending of the adaptation) "as disturbing as the forecast for American life and politics may be in "Fahrenheit 451", this wrinkle nonetheless serves to seriously diminish the absolute need to preserve texts when they're known to still exist elsewhere; when America gets its head on straight again, there is backup to resupply the intellectually deprived."


title: Fahrenheit 451 (2018 film)

text: In his review for "RogerEbert.com", Odie Henderson noted the steering of Bradbury's ideas into the factual realm, drawing parallels with the satirical direction of "Network" being weakened by the evolution of television, adding that "much of the novel's shock value and allegorical power also feels weakened as a result."


title: Fahrenheit 451 (2018 film)

text: "IGN"s Matt Fowler wrote that the film "features strong performances and a dancing, flickering visual flare, but all that's not enough to cover up the clunkiness of the script and the strain of reconfiguring this always relevant-yet still very 1950s-story to fit within our 2018 specifics". "Entertainment Weekly"s Darren Franich wrote that the film "has its heart in the right place, but its head sure crawled up somewhere."


title: Fahrenheit 451 (2018 film)

text: In "The Baffler", Alexander Zaitchik described HBO's adaption as "gut[ting] "Fahrenheit" of its core idea ... roughly akin to a GlaxoSmithKline production of Aldous Huxley’s "Brave New World"."


title: Koji Kondo

text: Kondo was born in Nagoya, Japan, on August 13, 1961. He began taking lessons on the electronic organ from the age of five. He improved his skills in the instrument in a cover band that played jazz and rock music. Kondo studied at the Art Planning Department of Osaka University of Arts, but was never classically trained or academically dedicated to music.


title: Koji Kondo

text: With a love of arcade video games such as "Space Invaders" and the early "Donkey Kong" series, he said video games were the only place where he could find the kind of sound creation that he was looking for. He gained some experience in composing and arranging pieces, using the piano, and a computer by programming sounds in BASIC.


title: Koji Kondo

text: In 1984, during Kondo's senior year, Nintendo sent his university a message recruiting for music composition and sound programming. He successfully applied for the job without requiring any demo tapes. He recalls, "I found my way to Nintendo by looking at the school's job placement board. You're supposed to apply to many different companies, but I saw the Nintendo ad, and had a love of making synthesizers, and loved games, and thought – that's the place for me. I interviewed with one company, Nintendo, and that's where I've been ever since." Kondo was the third person hired by Nintendo to create music and sound effects for its games, joining Hirokazu Tanaka and Yukio Kaneoka. However, he was the first at Nintendo to actually specialize in musical composition.


title: Koji Kondo

text: His first work at Nintendo was the audio design for the 1984 arcade game "Punch-Out!!". As the Famicom had become popular in Japan by then, Kondo was assigned to compose music for the console's subsequent games at Nintendo's new development division, Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development (EAD). His second work at Nintendo was an instruction manual on how to program Japanese popular music into the Famicom using the peripheral "Family BASIC". To conclude his first year at Nintendo, he created some of the music of "Devil World", alongside Akito Nakatsuka. In 1985, Nintendo started marketing the Famicom abroad as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) to capitalize on the 1983 video game crash that had devastated Atari, Inc. and other companies. "Super Mario Bros." was Kondo's first major score. The game's melodies were created with the intention that short segments of music could be endlessly repeated during the same gameplay without causing boredom. The main theme is iconic in popular culture and has been featured in more than 50 concerts, been a best-selling ringtone, and been remixed or sampled by various musicians.


title: Koji Kondo

text: Kondo's work on "The Legend of Zelda" scores has also become highly recognized. He produced four main pieces of background music for the first installment of the series; the overworld theme has become comparable in popularity with the "Super Mario Bros." main theme. After the success of "The Legend of Zelda", he provided the score for two Japanese-exclusive games, "The Mysterious Murasame Castle" (1986) and "Shin Onigashima" (1987). He created the soundtrack to "" (1987), which was later rebranded outside Japan as "Super Mario Bros. 2" in 1988.


title: Koji Kondo

text: Kondo returned to the "Super Mario" series to produce the scores to "Super Mario Bros. 3" (1988) and the SNES launch title "Super Mario World" (1990). Koichi Sugiyama directed a jazz arrangement album of "Super Mario World" music and oversaw its performance at the first Orchestral Game Musical Concert in 1991. After finishing the soundtrack to "Super Mario World", Kondo was in charge of the sound programming for "Pilotwings" (1990), while also composing the "Helicopter Theme" for it, and created the sound effects for "Star Fox" (1993). In 1995, he composed for the sequel to "Super Mario World", "Yoshi's Island". Until the early 2000s, Kondo would usually write all compositions by himself on a project, with "" being the last one Kondo worked on alone. Since then, he has been collaborating with other staff members at Nintendo, advising and supervising music created by others, as well as providing additional compositions for games, including "Super Mario Galaxy", "", "" and "Super Mario 3D World". He also served as the sound director and lead composer of "Super Mario Maker" and its sequel, "Super Mario Maker 2".


title: Koji Kondo

text: He has also worked alongside Brian Tyler to compose for Illumination's "The Super Mario Bros. Movie".


title: Koji Kondo

text: Kondo attended the world premiere of Play! A Video Game Symphony at the Rosemont Theater in Rosemont, Illinois in May 2006, where his music from the "Super Mario Bros." and "The Legend of Zelda" series was performed by a full symphony orchestra. He also attended and performed in a series of three concerts celebrating the 25th anniversary of "The Legend of Zelda" series in late 2011. He performed piano with the American rock band Imagine Dragons live at The Game Awards 2014 ceremony in December 2014.


title: Koji Kondo

text: Kondo's music for "Super Mario Bros." was designed around the feeling of motion that mirrors the player's physical experience. This followed the philosophy of series creator and designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, who demanded that audio for the game be made "with substance" and are synchronized with elements of the game. As a result, Kondo based a number of the score around genres that are primarily used for dancing, such as Latin music and the waltz.


title: Koji Kondo

text: In the first "The Legend of Zelda", Kondo juxtaposes the game's overworld theme with the theme that plays in dungeons. Kondo remarked on the importance of projecting distinct characters through music, so that players know almost immediately where they are within the game. Kondo used this contrast in other games he worked on, including "Super Mario Bros."


title: Koji Kondo

text: "All works below were composed solely by Kondo, unless otherwise noted. Some other non-musical roles are included, such as sound effects and programming."


title: Jackie Speier

text: Karen Lorraine Jacqueline Speier ( ; born May 14, 1950) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. representative for , serving in Congress since 2008. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district, numbered as the 12th District from 2008 to 2013, includes the northern two-thirds of San Mateo County and the southwest quarter of San Francisco.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier represents much of the territory that her political mentor, Leo Ryan, represented. In 1978, while working as his aide, Speier survived five gunshot wounds when Ryan was assassinated during the Jonestown massacre. Speier was a member of the California State Senate, representing parts of San Francisco and San Mateo counties. On April 8, 2008, she won the special election for the vacated United States House of Representatives seat of the late Congressman Tom Lantos. In 2021, she announced that she would not seek reelection in the 2022 midterm elections.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier was born in 1950 in San Francisco, and grew up in an apolitical family, the daughter of Nancy (née Kanchelian) and Manfred "Fred" Speier (). Her mother, who was born in Fresno of Armenian descent, lost most of her extended family in the Armenian genocide, while her father was an immigrant from Germany. He was the son of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. Speier took Jacqueline as her confirmation name after Jackie Kennedy. She is a graduate of Mercy High School in Burlingame. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Davis, and a Juris Doctor from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1976.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier's first marriage was to Steven Sierra, an emergency-room doctor, in 1987. In 1988, they had a son, Jackson Kent, while she was a member of the California State Assembly. Sierra died in a car crash in 1994 at age 53. At the time, Speier was two months pregnant with their second child, a daughter she named Stephanie.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier entered politics by serving as a congressional staffer for Congressman Leo Ryan. Speier was part of his November 1978 fact-finding mission organized to investigate allegations of human rights abuses by Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple followers, almost all of whom were American citizens who had moved to Jonestown, Guyana, with Jones in 1977 and 1978.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Several Peoples Temple members ambushed the investigative team and others boarding the plane to leave Jonestown on November 18. Five people were killed, including Ryan. While trying to shield herself from rifle and shotgun fire behind small airplane wheels with other team members, Speier was shot five times and waited 22 hours before help arrived. The same day, over 900 remaining members of the Peoples Temple died in Jonestown and Georgetown in a mass murder-suicide.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier's political career began with an unsuccessful run to fill the vacancy caused by Ryan's death (the seat she holds now). She lost the Democratic primary to another former Ryan staffer, G. W. "Joe" Holsinger. He lost the special election to the Republican nominee, San Mateo County Supervisor Bill Royer, who served the remaining 21 months of the term before losing to Tom Lantos.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier won her first election in 1980, when she ran for the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and defeated a 20-year incumbent. At the time, she was the youngest person ever elected to the board. She was reelected in 1984, and was later selected as chairwoman.


title: Jackie Speier

text: In 1986, midway through her second term on the Board of Supervisors, Speier ran for the California State Assembly from a district in northern San Mateo County. She won by a few hundred votes. She was reelected four more times, the last time as the nominee of both the Democratic and Republican parties.


title: Jackie Speier

text: State law prevented Speier from running for reelection to the Assembly in 1996, but in 1998 she was elected to the California State Senate. In 2002, she was elected to a second term with 78.2% of the vote. As a state senator, Speier was instrumental in securing $127 million to start the "Baby Bullet" express service for Caltrain, for which the commuter rail agency named a new locomotive (no. 925) after her. Speier also focused on representing consumer rights. She was termed out of the California State Senate in 2006. During her last term, she served as assistant president pro tempore of the State Senate.


title: Jackie Speier

text: In 2006, Speier ran in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor of California against insurance commissioner John Garamendi and state senator Liz Figueroa. In the June 6 election, Garamendi defeated Speier with 42.5% of the vote. Speier received 39.7% and Figueroa the remaining 17.8%.


title: Jackie Speier

text: On January 13, 2008, Speier announced she was running in the Democratic primary for the 12th District, Ryan's old district. The seat was being vacated by 14-term incumbent Tom Lantos, who announced on January 2, 2008, that he was not seeking reelection. Speier had spent much of 2007 building support to challenge Lantos in the Democratic primary.


title: Jackie Speier

text: On January 17, 2008, Lantos endorsed Speier as his successor. She also picked up endorsements from Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, Congressman Mike Thompson and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Lantos died on February 11, 2008. Speier won a special primary election on April 8, 2008, to fill the remainder of his term, which ended in January 2009. She won an outright majority, avoiding a runoff that would have been held on June 3, coinciding with the regular primary election. She was elected to a full term in November with 75% of the vote and has been reelected three more times with no substantive opposition.


title: Jackie Speier

text: On July 11, 2008, Speier introduced her first bill, the Gasoline Savings and Speed Limit Reduction Act, which would set a national speed limit of 60 mph in urban areas and 65 mph on less-populated stretches of highway.


title: Jackie Speier

text: In a January 2016 speech on the House floor, Speier announced that she would introduce legislation requiring schools to disclose disciplinary proceedings of faculty.


title: Jackie Speier

text: On August 16, 2017, Speier advocated the use of the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to remove President Trump from office because of erratic behavior and mental instability "that place the country in great danger", following his response to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and dealings with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.


title: Jackie Speier

text: In September 2016, Speier proposed a bill to stop sexual abuse and harassment of women in STEM fields known as the Federal Funding Accountability for Sexual Harassers Act.


title: Jackie Speier

text: On October 27, 2017, Speier, as part of the #MeToo movement, posted a video sharing her experience with sexual harassment on Capitol Hill. She said that when she was in her 20s, Joe Holsinger, a chief of staff for Representative Leo Ryan, "kissed me and stuck his tongue in my mouth." Speier called Congress a breeding ground for hostile work environments and called for more sexual harassment training.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier and Representative Bennie Thompson have been seeking to prohibit sleeping in United States Congress offices.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Following the election of Joe Biden as President of the United States, Speier was mentioned as a possible contender for a position in his administration, owing to her experience on national security issues. She indicated she would be willing to serve in a role in the Biden administration, but was not chosen for a position.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier has worked to remove cases of sexual assault and serious felonies from the chain of command in the military justice system. She introduced the "I am Vanessa Guillén Act", named for Army Spc Vanessa Guillén, on September 16, 2020, and reintroduced it on May 13, 2021. The bill would remove cases of sexual assault and sexual harassment from the chain of command, make sexual harassment a standalone offense in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and provide a process for compensating servicemembers who survive sexual violence when the military has been negligent. She has been quoted by CNN: "This piece of legislation is going to transform a tragedy into change."


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier introduced the "Vanessa Guillén Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevent Act" on Jun 23, 2021, which would move the decision to prosecute serious crimes in the military from the chain of command. She has been quoted by NPR: "We're here today for the service members who have spoken out or who have suffered in silence because the message and culture in the military has been clear: Shut up, suck it up and don't rock the boat."


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier is a critic of the F35 Joint Strike Fighter Program. She has been quoted by CNN: "To continue pouring money into building planes that have ejector seat issues, cyber vulnerabilities, flawed aerodynamics, maintenance problems, an inability to fly at full speed while using weapons, and overheating issues is borderline malfeasance."


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier co-sponsored the Protecting NATO Skies Act of 2019 to prevent the delivery of F-35s to Turkey after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to purchase and deploy Russian S-400 air defense systems.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier supports legal abortion. When she took the National Political Awareness Test in 2002, she answered, "Abortions should always be legally available." The organization NARAL Pro-Choice America rated Speier as 100% on interest group ratings because she supported the choice of abortion in her voting for legislation. Also in 2008 the Planned Parenthood Organization gave Speier a 100% on her actions regarding abortion. In a February 17, 2011, speech on the House floor, Speier said that she herself had undergone an emergency D&E procedure when complications developed in a wanted pregnancy.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier opposed the Trump administration's reinstatement and expansion of the Mexico City Policy, which blocks foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that receive U.S. health aid from providing referrals for abortion services with their own funding. Research shows that by limiting access to care, this policy has previously led to a 14% decrease in contraceptive use, 12% increase in pregnancies, and 40% increase in abortion rates. She is a cosponsor of H.R. 1055, the "Global HER Act", to permanently repeal the Global Gag Rule.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier opposed the 2022 overturning of "Roe v. Wade", calling the decision "government mandated pregnancy."


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier believes in stricter gun control. According to her answers on the NPAT (National Political Awareness Test) she would like to require safety locks on all guns and background checks on prospective buyers as well as ban certain guns (other than for hunting) and strengthen state restrictions on buying and owning guns. Gun Owners of America gave her an "F" grade and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Jack Berman Advocacy Center gave her a 100% rating. The National Rifle Association (NRA) and Gun Owners of California also gave Speier a low grade on gun rights.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier is concerned for the protection of the environment. She lists the decline of salmon on the West Coast as evidence of global warming. Speier believes global warming poses a growing danger and negatively affects the environment. When she spoke to the House on the subject, she expressed a desire "to craft a bipartisan and commonsense energy plan that makes polluters pay, provides for middle-class energy tax credits, and creates a new industry and lots of good, clean, green jobs". Speier worked to improve energy legislation with the Clean Air Rebate Act of 2009, the Home Star Act and the American Clean Energy and Security Act.


title: Jackie Speier

text: In January 2019, Speier introduced H.R. 1028, the "RIGHT Act", to prevent foreign money from influencing U.S. elections. She also introduced the "PUTIN Act" in 2017, legislation to prevent any federal funding for a cybersecurity unit with Russia, as proposed by then President Donald Trump.


title: Jackie Speier

text: On June 27, 2019, Speier introduced a resolution condemning the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and demanding a reevaluation of the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia from the secretary of state in response to reports of numerous violations of the human rights of Saudi activists.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier formed the bipartisan Congressional Unexploded Ordnance/Demining Caucus in 2018 to address unexploded ordnance and mines from the U.S. and other countries throughout the world that impact post-conflict economic and social development.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier led the successful effort to secure funding in the FY 2020 House-passed appropriations bill for humanitarian demining assistance and ensured that unclassified Department of Defense demining research would be shared with humanitarian demining organizations.


title: Jackie Speier

text: In September 2017, as co-chair of the Ahmadiyya Caucus, Speier condemned the human rights abuses perpetrated against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and supported assistance programs that help partner nations build accountable, transparent governance structures.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier opposed the Trump administration's unilateral cuts to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which works in more than 150 countries to end preventable maternal deaths, provide voluntary family planning, combat gender-based violence such as child marriage, and train health care workers. She led a letter with 145 of her colleagues urging the administration to reverse its decision to withhold U.S. funding.


title: Jackie Speier

text: Speier also supports efforts to educate girls worldwide, eradicate gender-based violence, promote women's participation in peace and security efforts, and ensure their access to jobs and an economic marketplace free from discrimination.


title: Jackie Speier

text: As co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Armenian Caucus and an Armenian American, Speier works to build close U.S.-Armenia cooperation with Armenian American groups, the State Department, USAID, and the Armenian government. That includes her amendment that passed the House to provide more than $40 million to Armenian Democracy Assistance and establish direct flights between California and Yerevan.


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: The Aston Martin Vantage is a two-seater sports car manufactured by British luxury car manufacturer Aston Martin as a successor to the previous outgoing model which had been in production for 12 years.


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: The Vantage AMR is a track-focused variant of the Vantage. The main highlight of the model is the replacement of the ZF 8-speed automatic transmission with a dog-leg Graziano Trasmissioni 7-speed manual transmission previously used on the V12 Vantage S. The AMR also comes with a driver-selectable AMSHIFT system which controls the throttle during gear shifting. A new limited-slip differential ensures linear delivery of power. The power-band of the engine is wider and the unit is designed to deliver of torque from 2,000 rpm to 5,000 rpm. The use of a manual transmission and carbon-ceramic brakes reduce the weight by . New adaptive dampers with the section of Sport, Sport + and Track modes improve handling. Performance figures include a 0– acceleration time of 3.9 seconds, half a second more than the standard Vantage while the top speed remains the same as the standard model. Visual changes include 20-inch forged wheels as available on the Rapide AMR, new carbon fibre side vents and cooling vents present on the hood a sports exhaust system with quad tailpipes and racing bucket seats. Production of the AMR will be limited to 200 units worldwide. Available exterior colours for the AMR include Sabiro Blue, Pnyx Black, China Grey and White Stone. The final 59 cars will be finished in a Sterling Green exterior colour with Lime accents and will pay homage to the 1959 24 Hours of LeMans victory of Aston Martin. Once the production of the AMR ceases, the 7-speed manual transmission will become available on the standard Vantage.


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: Revealed in February 2020, it is a convertible version of V8 Coupe with a fabric roof. The roof claimed to be the fastest of any automotive automatic convertible system, takes 6.7 seconds to lower and 6.8 seconds to raise and can be operated at speeds of up to . The Vantage Roadster has a dry weight of .


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: It is a version of V8 Coupe commemorating the No Time to Die movie. Inspired by the Aston Martin V8 Vantage from the 1987 James Bond film "The Living Daylights", the Vantage 007 Edition comes equipped with a unique mesh grille and chrome bezel, as well as Cumberland Grey exterior paint over an obsidian black leather interior. Production is limited to 100 units.


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: In March 2020, Aston Martin introduced the V12 Speedster, a production car inspired by the 2013 CC100 concept. Aston Martin will produce 88 units at a base price of $950,000. It uses a 5.2-litre twin turbo V12 based on the one from the DBS Superleggera but with less power and torque. The engine sends its power to a ZF 8-speed gearbox.


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: Vantage became the official Safety Car of Formula One, alongside the Mercedes-AMG GT R Safety Car in early 2021. The Vantage Safety Car has a British Racing Green livery with neon yellow accents, and it has been modified to fit with Safety Car standards. The car made its debut as the Safety Car at the 2021 Bahrain Grand Prix. In 2021 it was based on the normal V8 Vantage but in 2022 its based on the Vantage F1 Edition


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: It is a version of V8 Coupe and V8 Roadster commemorating Aston Martin's return to Formula One after 61 years. The car features a fixed rear wing at the back, increased engine power to , a top speed of , new 21-inch wheel rims, and a acceleration time of 3.5 seconds. The car is available in three colours: Aston Martin Racing Green, Jet Black, and Lunar White. A convertible version called the Roadster is also available.


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: In December 2021, Aston Martin confirmed that a V12 Vantage is in development and is slated to be released in 2022. The V12 Vantage was officially unveiled in 16 March 2022, and its production is limited to just 333 units. Its 5.2-litre V12 engine has a power output of and of torque. It has a acceleration time of 3.5 seconds, and a kerb weight of . It marks the last Aston Martin vehicle to use V12 engine.


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: Aston Martin revealed at 2022 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elégance a convertible version of the V12 Vantage. It develops 700 hp and will be only produced at 249 units, all sold out.


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: The design of the new Vantage is inspired by the track-only Vulcan and the purpose made DB10 that appeared in the James Bond film Spectre. The front grille, specifically inspired by the Vulcan, helps in efficient engine cooling.


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: The Vantage's interior configuration also differs from the DB11 in various ways apart from seating capacity, such as the centre console design. Whereas the DB11's centre stack controls are quite intuitive and more spatial in terms of button/switch arrangement, the Vantage's appears more cluttered and lacks an optical disc drive, as well as separate temperature displays for the automatic climate control. For purpose of weight saving, the Vantage also forfeits the passenger glove compartment and maintains a simple centre console design (as opposed to the DB11's deluxe power-sliding variant).


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: The Vantage GTE is the GTE-class racing version of the Vantage made to compete in the FIA World Endurance Championship. Like the road-going car, the GTE uses the Mercedes-AMG V8 engine, though it is paired with a 6-speed Xtrac sequential gearbox. Additional changes are made to the engine to increase power. The car is convertible to GT3 specification.


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: HWA AG, in partnership with Aston Martin and R-Motorsport, made an all-new car for the 2019 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, based on the new Vantage. The Vantage competed in place of Mercedes-Benz's entry after the manufacturer left the competition to focus on Formula E.


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: The Vantage GT3 is the successor of the V12 Vantage GT3. The engine has a power output of and of torque. It features a quick-shifting Xtrac 6-speed sequential gearbox, an Alcon motorsport multi-plate clutch, Öhlins four-way adjustable dampers, Alcon brakes, and a Bosch anti-lock braking system. The Vantage GT3 has a dry weight of .


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: The Vantage GT4 is the replacement of the previous generation GT4, and is intended for entry-level drivers in competitive motorsports. The Vantage GT4 made its debut in the 2019 24 Hours Nürburgring.


title: Aston Martin Vantage (2018)

text: The Vantage uses powertrain and infotainment technology from Mercedes-Benz, like the DB11. The Vantage uses Mercedes-AMG's M177 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine that has a power output of and of torque as is equipped with the Mercedes COMAND system. The Vantage is capable of accelerating from in 3.6 seconds, and attaining a top speed of . The Vantage uses a rear-mounted 8-speed automatic gearbox manufactured by ZF Friedrichshafen, and will be the only vehicle that pairs the Mercedes-AMG V8 with a manual transmission when the combination is made available. The engine is positioned as far back with the chassis as possible, and a 50/50 front/rear weight distribution has been achieved with the car. The Vantage is also the first Aston Martin production car to feature an electronically controlled differential with torque vectoring, and is built around the same all-new bonded-aluminium platform as the DB11, although around 70% of its components are said to be unique to the Vantage. The car has a dry weight of .


title: Jan and Dean

text: Jan and Dean was an American rock duo consisting of William Jan Berry (April 3, 1941 – March 26, 2004) and Dean Ormsby Torrence (born March 10, 1940). In the early 1960s, they were pioneers of the California Sound and vocal surf music styles popularized by the Beach Boys.


title: Jan and Dean

text: Among their most successful songs was 1963's "Surf City", the first surf song ever to reach the #1 spot. Their other charting top 10 singles were "Drag City" (1963), "Dead Man's Curve" (1964; inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008), and "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena" (1964).


title: Jan and Dean

text: In 1972, Torrence won the Grammy Award for Best Album Cover for the psychedelic rock band Pollution's first eponymous 1971 album, and was nominated three other times in the same category for albums of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. In 2013, Torrence's design contribution of the Surf City Allstars' "In Concert" CD was named a Silver Award of Distinction at the Communicator Awards competition.


title: Jan and Dean

text: William Jan Berry (April 3, 1941 – March 26, 2004), was born in Los Angeles to Clara Lorentze Mustad (born September 2, 1919, Bergen, Norway – died July 9, 2009) and aeronautical engineer William L. Berry (born December 7, 1909, New York City – died December 19, 2004, Camarillo, California), He was raised in Bel Air, Los Angeles. Jan's father worked for Howard Hughes as a project manager of the "Spruce Goose" and flew on its only flight with Hughes.


title: Jan and Dean

text: Dean Ormsby Torrence (born ) was born in Los Angeles, the son of Natalie Ormsby (April 10, 1911 – August 10, 2008) and Maurice Dean Torrence (December 5, 1907 – November 16, 1997). His father, Maurice, was a graduate of Stanford University, and was a sales manager at the Wilshire Oil Company.


title: Jan and Dean

text: Berry and Torrence met while both were students at Emerson Junior High School in Westwood, Los Angeles, and both were on the school's football team. By 1957, they were students in the class of 1958 at the nearby University High School, where again they were both on the school's football team, the Warriors. Berry and Torrence had adjoining lockers, and after football practice, they began harmonizing together in the showers with several other football players, including future actor James Brolin.


title: Jan and Dean

text: In order to enter a talent competition at University High School, Berry and Torrence helped form a doo-wop group known as "The Barons" (named after their high school's Hi-Y club, of which they were members), which was composed of fellow University High students William "Chuck" Steele (lead singer), Arnold P. "Arnie" Ginsburg (born November 19, 1939; 1st tenor), Wallace S. "Wally" Yagi (born July 20, 1940; 2nd tenor), John 'Sagi" Seligman (2nd tenor), with Berry singing bass and Torrence providing falsetto.


title: Jan and Dean

text: During its short duration, Sandy Nelson, Torrence's neighbor, played drums, and future Beach Boy Bruce Johnston occasionally sang and played piano. The Barons rehearsed for hours in Berry's parents' garage, where Berry's father provided an upright piano and two two-track Ampex reel-to-reel tape recorders.


title: Jan and Dean

text: In 1958, the Barons performed to popular acclaim at the talent competition at University High School, covering contemporary hits like "Get a Job", "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay", and "Short Shorts". Following the contest, various members of the Barons drifted away, leaving only Berry and Torrence, who tried to write their own songs.


title: Jan and Dean

text: After being inspired by a poster featuring a local Hollywood burlesque performer, Virginia Lee Hicks, who was then performing as Jennie Lee, the "Bazoom Girl", at the New Follies Burlesk at 548 S. Main St, Los Angeles, Ginsburg wrote a tribute song, "Jennie Lee", that he brought to Berry and Torrence. Berry adapted the Civil War tune "Aura Lea" and arranged the harmonies. After weeks of practice, Berry, Ginsburg, and Torrence planned to make a demo recording in Berry's garage, but Torrence was conscripted into the United States Army Reserve, forcing Berry and Ginsburg to record "Jennie Lee" without Torrence, with Berry's friend and fellow University High student Donald J. Altfeld (born March 18, 1940, in Los Angeles ) "beating out the rhythm on a children's metal high chair". The next day Berry took their recording to Radio Recorders, a small recording studio, to have it transferred to an acetate disc. Joe Lubin, Vice President and Head of A & R of Arwin Records, was impressed and offered to add instruments and to release it through Arwin.


title: Jan and Dean

text: In March 1958, the fathers of Berry and Ginsburg signed contracts authorizing Lubin to produce, arrange, and manage their sons.


title: Jan and Dean

text: Produced by Lubin, "Jennie Lee" (Arwin 108), backed with "Gotta Get a Date" (credited to Ginsburg, Berry & Lubin), became a surprise commercial success. According to Berry biographer Mark A. Moore, "The song (with backing vocals, plus additional instruments added by the Ernie Freeman combo) had a raucous R&B flavor, with a bouncing bomp-bomp vocal hook that would become a signature from Jan on future recordings." Distributed by Dot Records, "Jennie Lee" was released in mid-April, entered the charts on May 10, 1958, the same day they appeared on ABC's "Dick Clark Show". "Jennie Lee" peaked at No. 3 on the "Cash Box" charts on June 21, 1958, No. 4 on the R&B charts, and No. 8 on the Billboard charts on June 30, 1958. Billy Ward and his Dominoes's R&B cover of "Jennie Lee" reached No. 55 in the Pop charts in June 1958, while other cover versions including that of Moon Mullican (Coral 9-61994) and Bobby Phillips & the Toppers (Tops 45-R422-49), released in 1958 failed to chart.


title: Jan and Dean

text: In July 1958, Jan & Arnie released their second single, "Gas Money" backed with "Bonnie Lou" (Arwin 111), both written by Berry, Ginsburg, and Altfeld. Like "Jennie Lee", "Gas Money" contained a few elements of what would later become surf music. It entered the "Billboard" charts on August 24, 1958, and peaked at No. 81 a week later. Jan & Arnie were a featured act on the Summer Dance Party that toured the US East Coast, including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Connecticut in July 1958. By the end of the month, they traveled to Manhattan to appear on "The Dick Clark Show".


title: Jan and Dean

text: On August 24, 1958, Jan & Arnie played in a live show hosted by Dick Clark that featured Bobby Darin, the Champs, Sheb Wooley, the Blossoms, the Six Teens, Jerry Wallace, Jack Jones, Rod McKuen and the Ernie Freeman Orchestra in front of nearly 12,000 fans at the first rock-n-roll show ever held at the Hollywood Bowl.


title: Jan and Dean

text: By September 6, 1958, Jan & Arnie's third and final single, "The Beat That Can't Be Beat" backed with "I Love Linda" (Arwin 113), again composed by the Berry, Ginsburg and Altfeld team, was released. However this single failed to chart, due in part to a lack of distribution. On October 19, 1958, Jan & Arnie performed "The Beat That Can't Be Beat" on CBS's "Jack Benny Show".


title: Jan and Dean

text: Arnie Ginsburg recorded a one-off single with a band named the Rituals on the Arwin label. The single, "Girl in Zanzibar" b/w "Guitarro", was released on vinyl in January 1959, preceding Jan and Dean's first single "Baby Talk", released in May 1959. Other than Arnie, the single featured Richard Podolor on guitar, Sandy Nelson on drums, Bruce Johnston on piano, Dave Shostac on sax, Harper Cosby on bass and Mike Deasy on guitar. It is unclear if the actual single was released for the general public but there are several promotional copies pressed to vinyl in existence.


title: Jan and Dean

text: By the end of the year, when Torrence had completed his six-month stint at Fort Ord, Ginsburg had become disenchanted with the music business. Ginsburg enrolled in the School of Architecture and Design at the University of Southern California and graduated in the field of product design in 1966. After graduation Ginsburg worked for several noted Los Angeles architects, among them Charles Eames, and in December 1973 he was granted a U.S. patent for a table he designed.


title: Jan and Dean

text: Ginsburg moved in 1975 to Santa Barbara, California, where he worked as an architectural designer. designing the innovative Ginsburg House. In September 1976, Ginsburg and Michael W. O'Neill were granted a patent for a portable batting cage.


title: Jan and Dean

text: After Torrence returned from a six-month compulsory stint in the US Army Reserve, Berry and Torrence began to make music as "Jan and Dean". With the help of record producers Herb Alpert and Lou Adler, Jan and Dean scored a No. 10 hit on the Dore label with "Baby Talk" (1959) (which was incorrectly labeled as Jan & Arnie when it initially was released), then scored a series of hits over the next couple of years. Playing local venues, they met and performed with the Beach Boys, and discovered the appeal of the latter's "surf sound". By this time Berry was co-writing, arranging, and producing all of Jan and Dean's original material.


title: Jan and Dean

text: During this time Berry co-wrote or arranged and produced songs for other artists outside of Jan and Dean, including the Angels ("I Adore Him", Top 30), the Gents, the Matadors (Sinners), Pixie (unreleased), Jill Gibson, Shelley Fabares, Deane Hawley, the Rip Chords ("Three Window Coupe", Top 30), and Johnny Crawford, among others.


title: Jan and Dean

text: Unlike most other rock 'n roll acts of the period, Jan and Dean did not give music their full-time attention. Jan and Dean were college students, maintaining their studies while writing and recording music and making public appearances on the side. Torrence majored in advertising design in the school of architecture at USC, where he also was a member of the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity. Berry took science and music classes at UCLA, became a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, and entered the California College of Medicine (now the UC Irvine School of Medicine) in 1963.


title: Jan and Dean

text: Jan and Dean reached their commercial peak in 1963 and 1964, after they met Brian Wilson. The duo scored sixteen Top 40 hits on the "Billboard" and "Cash Box" magazine charts, with a total of twenty-six chart hits over an eight-year period (1959-1966). Berry and Wilson collaborated on roughly a dozen hits and album cuts for Jan and Dean, including "Surf City", co-written by Jan Berry and Brian Wilson, (#1, 1963). Subsequent top 10 hits included "Drag City" (#10, 1964), the eerily portentous "Dead Man's Curve" (#8, 1964), and "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena" (#3, 1964).


title: Jan and Dean

text: In 1964, at the height of their fame, Jan and Dean hosted and performed at "The T.A.M.I. Show," a historic concert film directed by Steve Binder. The film also featured such acts as the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Gerry & the Pacemakers, James Brown, Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, Lesley Gore, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles and the Beach Boys. Also in 1964, the duo performed the title track for the Columbia Pictures film "Ride the Wild Surf", starring Fabian Forte, Tab Hunter, Peter Brown, Shelley Fabares, and Barbara Eden. The song, penned by Jan Berry, Brian Wilson and Roger Christian, was a Top 20 national hit. The pair were also to have appeared in the film, but their roles were cut following their friendship with Barry Keenan, who had engineered the Frank Sinatra Jr. kidnapping.


title: Jan and Dean

text: Jan and Dean also filmed two unreleased television pilots: "Surf Scene" in 1963 and "On the Run" in 1966. Their feature film for Paramount Pictures "Easy Come, Easy Go" was canceled when Berry, as well as the film's director and other crew members, were seriously injured in a railroad accident while shooting the film in Chatsworth, California, in August 1965.


title: Jan and Dean

text: After the surfing craze, Jan and Dean scored two Top-30 hits in 1965: "You Really Know How to Hurt a Guy" got up to 27 and "I Found a Girl" got to 30—the latter from the album "Folk 'n Roll". During this period, they also began to experiment with cutting-edge comedy concepts such as the original (unreleased) "Filet of Soul" and "Jan & Dean Meet Batman". The former's album cover shows Berry with his leg in a cast as a result of the accident while filming "Easy Come, Easy Go".


title: Jan and Dean

text: In 1966 Jan Berry recorded THE UNIVERSAL COWARD, an angry response to Donovan’s anti-war single Universal Soldier (originally written by Buffy Sainte-Marie) even though Berry never served in the military.


title: Jan and Dean

text: On April 12, 1966, Berry received severe head injuries in an automobile accident on Whittier Drive, just a short distance from Dead Man's Curve in Beverly Hills, California, two years after the song had become a hit. He was on his way to a business meeting when he crashed his Corvette into a parked truck on Whittier Drive, near the intersection of Sunset Boulevard, in Beverly Hills. He also had separated from his girlfriend of seven years, singer-artist Jill Gibson, later a member of the Mamas & the Papas for a short time, who also had co-written several songs with him. Berry was in a coma for more than two months; he awoke on the morning of June 16.


title: Jan and Dean

text: Berry recovered from brain damage and partial paralysis. He had limited use of his right arm, and had to learn to write with his left hand and had to learn to walk again.


title: Jan and Dean

text: In Berry's absence, Torrence released several singles on the J&D Record Co. label and recorded "Save for a Rainy Day" in 1966, a concept album featuring all rain-themed songs. Torrence posed with Berry's brother Ken for the album cover photos. Columbia Records released one single from the project ("Yellow Balloon") as did the song's writer, Gary Zekley, with the group the Yellow Balloon.


title: Jan and Dean

text: Berry returned to the studio in April 1967, almost one year to the day after his accident. Working with Alan Wolfson, he began writing and producing music again. In December 1967, Jan and Dean signed an agreement with Warner Bros. Records. Warner issued three singles under the name "Jan and Dean", but a 1968 Berry-produced album for Warner Bros., the psychedelic "Carnival of Sound", remained unreleased until February 2010, when Rhino Records' "Handmade" label put out CD and vinyl compilations of all tracks recorded for "Carnival", along with various outtakes and remixes from the project.


title: Jan and Dean

text: In 1971, Jan and Dean released the album "Jan & Dean Anthology Album" under the label United Artists Records. The album included many of their top hits, starting with 1958's "Jennie Lee" and ending with 1968's "Vegetables".


title: Jan and Dean

text: Berry began to sing again in the early 1970s, touring with his Aloha band, while Dean began performing with a band called Papa Doo Run Run.


title: Jan and Dean

text: On August 26, 1973, Torrence was scheduled to appear at the Hollywood Palladium as part of Jim Pewter's "Surfer's Stomp" reunion. Torrence had recently released some Jan & Dean songs with new vocal parts by Bruce Johnston (of the Beach Boys) and producer Terry Melcher under the moniker the Legendary Masked Surfers. Torrence arranged with Berry to join him lip-syncing on stage to a pre-recorded track. The two anticipated that the audience would know it was a tape recording, and they decided to make light of it during the performance. That night, they joked around and stopped lip-syncing on stage while the music continued, but the audience became angry and started booing. The duo's first live performance after Berry's accident occurred at the Palomino Nightclub in North Hollywood on June 5, 1976, ten years after the accident, as guests of Disneyland regulars Papa Doo Run Run. Their first actual multi-song concert billed as Jan and Dean took place in 1978 in New York City at the Palladium as part of the Murray the K Brooklyn Fox Reunion Show. This was followed by a handful of East Coast shows as guests of their longtime friends the Beach Boys. Four nationwide J & D headlining tours followed through 1980. Berry was still suffering the effects of his 1966 accident, with partial paralysis and aphasia.


title: Jan and Dean

text: The duo experienced a resurgence after Paul Morantz's "Road back from Deadman's Curve" article appeared in "Rolling Stone" in 1974, writing the piece after spending extensive time with the two singers, their families, doctors and associates. Morantz first submitted the story to "Playboy", who recommended it to "Rolling Stone". He then wrote a film treatment from his story which was purchased by CBS.


title: Jan and Dean

text: On February 3, 1978, CBS aired a made-for-TV film about the duo titled "Deadman's Curve". The biopic starred Richard Hatch as Jan Berry and Bruce Davison as Dean Torrence, with cameo appearances by Dick Clark, Wolfman Jack, Mike Love of the Beach Boys, and Bruce Johnston (who at that time was temporarily out of the Beach Boys), as well as Berry himself. Near the end of the film he can be seen sitting in the audience, watching "himself" (Richard Hatch) perform onstage. The part of Jan & Dean's band was played by Papa Doo Run Run, which included Mark Ward and Jim Armstrong, who went on to form Jan & Dean and the Bel-Air Bandits. Johnston and Berry had known each other since high school, and had played music together in Berry's garage in Bel Air — long before Jan & Dean or the Beach Boys were formed. Following the release of the film, the duo made steps toward an official comeback that year, including touring with the Beach Boys, and performing with Papa Doo Run Run at Cupertino High School. In the Netherlands the showing on television of the movie by Veronica in August 1979 earned them a huge hit record of the re-recorded "Surf City" and "Deadman's Curve" songs as a double A-sided single record release, and a golden oldies record having "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena" as its flip side reached a lower position in the charts.


title: Jan and Dean

text: In the early 1980s, Papa Doo Run Run left to explore other performance and recording ventures. Berry struggled to overcome drug addiction. In 1979, Berry had performed over 100 concerts of Jan and Dean songs with another front man from Hawaii, Randy Ruff. Torrence also toured briefly as "Mike & Dean", with Mike Love of the Beach Boys. Later, the duo reunited for good. In "Phase II" of their career, Torrence led the touring operation.


title: Jan and Dean

text: Jan and Dean continued to tour on their own throughout the 1980s, the 1990s, and into the new millennium – with 1960s nostalgia providing them with a ready audience, headlining oldies shows throughout North America. Sundazed Records reissued Torrence's "Save for a Rainy Day" in 1996 in CD and vinyl formats, as well as the collector's vinyl 45 rpm companion EP, "Sounds For A Rainy Day", featuring four instrumental versions of the album's tracks.


title: Jan and Dean

text: Between the 1970s and the early 2000s, Torrence issued a number of re-recordings of classic Jan and Dean and Beach Boys hits. A double album titled "One Summer Night / Live" was issued by Rhino Records in 1982. Torrence released the album "Silver Summer" with the help of Mike Love in 1985 for Jan & Dean's 25th anniversary. "Silver Summer" was officially released as a Jan & Dean album, but falsely gives credit to Berry as co-producer and singer; Berry did not contribute to the album. Torrence participated with Berry on "Port to Paradise", released as a cassette on the J&D Records label in 1986. In 1997, after many years of hard work, Berry released a solo album called "Second Wave" on One Way Records. June 11, 2002, Torrence released a solo album titled "Anthology: Legendary Masked Surfer Unmasked".


title: Jan and Dean

text: On August 31, 1991, Berry married Gertie Filip at the Stardust Convention Centre in Las Vegas, Nevada. Torrence was Berry's best man at the wedding.


title: Jan and Dean

text: Jan and Dean's career together ended with Jan Berry's death on March 26, 2004, after he suffered a seizure eight days before his 63rd birthday. Jan Berry was an organ donor, and his body was cremated. On April 18, a "Celebration of Life" was held in Berry's memory at the Roxy Theatre on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California. Attendees included Torrence, Lou Adler, Jill Gibson, and Nancy Sinatra, along with many family members, friends, and musicians associated with Jan and Dean and the Beach Boys, including the original members of Papa Doo Run Run.


title: Jan and Dean

text: In February 2010, the Jan & Dean album "Carnival of Sound" was released on the Rhino Handmade label. The album cover was designed by Torrence. Along with the CD, there was a limited edition (1500 copies), which included a 10-track LP. The album was released in Europe in April 2010 in its original US form.


title: Jan and Dean

text: In 2012, Torrence reunited with Bruce Davison, who portrayed him in the 1978 film "Deadman's Curve", to perform with the Bamboo Trading Company on their "From Kitty Hawk To Surf City" album. The songs were "Shrewd Awakening" and "Tonga Hut", which was featured on the film "Return of the Killer Shrews", a sequel to the 1959 film "The Killer Shrews" and also "Tweet (Don't Talk Anymore)", "Drinkin' In the Sunshine", and "Star Of The Beach". The album also features Dean's two daughters, Jillian and Katie Torrence. Torrence and his two daughters were featured in the music video of "Shrewd Awakening".


title: Jan and Dean

text: After Berry's death, Torrence began touring occasionally with the Surf City All-Stars. He serves as a spokesman for the City of Huntington Beach, California, which, thanks in part to his efforts, is nationally recognized as "Surf City USA". Torrence's website features—among other things—rare images, a complete Jan & Dean discography, a biography, and a timeline of his career with cohort Jan Berry. He currently resides in Huntington Beach, California, with his wife and two daughters.


title: Jan and Dean

text: In 1964, Jan and Dean were signed to host what became the first multi-act rock and roll show that was edited into a motion picture designed for wide distribution. "The T.A.M.I. Show" became a seminal and original production – in essence one of the first rock videos – on its release in 1964. Using a high-resolution videotape process called Electronovision (transferred from television directly onto 35mm motion picture stock as a kinescope), new sound recording techniques and having a remarkable cast, "The T.A.M.I. Show" set the standard for all succeeding music film and video work, including many of the early videos shown by MTV 17 years later. The revolutionary technical achievements of "The T.A.M.I. Show" and the list of performers (including a performance by James Brown that many critics have called the best of his career) marked a high point for Jan and Dean, as they were the hosts and one of the main featured acts as well. They became one of the main faces of mid-1960s music, until Berry's auto accident two years later, through their "T.A.M.I. Show "appearance.


title: Jan and Dean

text: According to rock critic Dave Marsh, the attitude and public persona of punk rock can be traced to Jan and Dean.


title: Jan and Dean

text: In an interview conducted by Jan & Dean fan and historian David Beard for the Collectors' Choice release, "Jan & Dean, the Complete Liberty Singles", Dean Torrence stated that he felt the duo should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: "We have the scoreboard if you just want to compare number of hits and musical projects done. We beat 75 percent of the people in there. So what else is it? I've got to think that we were pretty irreverent when it came to the music industry. They kind of always held that against us. That's okay with me."


title: Jan and Dean

text: Jan & Dean were inducted into the Hollywood Rock Walk of Fame on April 12, 1996, exactly 30 years after Jan Berry had his near fatal car accident.


title: Jan and Dean

text: The Who covered Jan and Dean's "Bucket T" on their UK EP "Ready Steady Who" from 1966. It is one of only a few songs the group performed where surf-fan Keith Moon provided the lead vocals.


title: Jan and Dean

text: Alternative rock group the Red Hot Chili Peppers referenced the duo in their song "Did I Let You Know", on the album "I'm with You".


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: Season of the Witch is a 2011 American supernatural action-adventure film starring Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman, and directed by Dominic Sena. Cage and Perlman star as Teutonic Knights who return from the Crusades to find their homeland devastated by the Black Death. Two church elders accuse a young woman (Claire Foy) of being a witch responsible for the plague. They command the two knights to transport her to a distant monastery so the monks can lift her curse. The film reunited Sena and Cage, who had previously worked together on "Gone in 60 Seconds".


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: Development on the film began in 2000 when the spec script by screenwriter Bragi F. Schut was purchased by MGM. The project moved from MGM to Columbia Pictures to Relativity Media, where the film was finally produced by Charles Roven and Alex Gartner. Filming took place primarily in Austria, Hungary, and Croatia. "Season of the Witch" was released on January 7, 2011, in the United States, Canada, and several other territories.


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: In Villach in the 13th century, three women are accused by a priest of witchcraft. The first confesses in an attempt to earn mercy. The second claims she made ointments but not magic potions. The third, a hag with a blind eye, does not deny the charge and curses the priest. All three are first hanged and then drowned. The priest pulls the three hanged corpses from the water for a religious ritual so they can never return to life. The priest performs the ritual on each using "The Key of Solomon". The first shows no sign of life. The hag's body vomits and twitches violently. The third corpse, the woman who had claimed to be an ointment maker, takes on a demonic appearance, sets the book on fire, and hangs the priest.


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: In the 14th century, German Teutonic Knights Sir Behmen von Bleibruck and Sir Felson join crusades throughout the 1330s (1332 Gulf of Edremit, 1334 Siege of Tripoli, 1337 Imbros, and 1339 Artah), eventually joining the Smyrniote crusades. After witnessing a civilian massacre during the 1344 capture of Smyrna, the two abandon their knightly order and return to Austria.


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: Traveling through Styria in Austria, Behmen and Felson encounter the sight of those infected with the Black Death, learning that the plague has swept the Holy Roman Empire. Trying to conceal their identities as deserters, Behmen's known sword crest reveals that they are crusader knights. They are arrested and taken to Cardinal D'Ambroise, who is near death from the plague. The Cardinal asks the knights to escort an alleged witch, suspected of causing the pestilence, to a remote monastery, where a group of monks can determine if she is truly a witch. If found guilty, they can perform a sacred ritual to cancel her powers and stop the plague. Both knights agree under the condition that she be given a fair trial and the charges of desertion against them be dropped. The Cardinal agrees, and they are accompanied by the priest Debelzaq; the altar boy, Kay von Wollenbarth, who wants to become a knight like his deceased father; another knight, Sir Johann Eckhardt, whose family was killed by the Black Death; finally, Hagamar, a well-traveled swindler, who will serve as their guide in return for his pardon. The young woman Anna from Marburg shows hatred towards Debelzaq, while forming a connection with Behmen.


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: The group camp for the night and Johann takes first watch. When Debelzaq comes to relieve him, Johann says how much she reminds him of his dead daughter. He then goes on to speak of the ritual politics of her coming trial and how she can never be found "not guilty" by the Church with a plague curse everywhere. Johann decides to give up the mission and to convince the others to do the same, leaving Anna alone with Debelzaq. Anna becomes hysterical at the prospect of being left with him. She attacks and grabs his key to her cage and escapes. The search for her leads the group to a mass grave, where Johann begins having visions of his dead daughter calling to him. Chasing those visions, he accidentally impales himself on Kay's drawn sword and dies. When Anna is recaptured, the tearful young woman explains that she only ran away for fear of Debelzaq. They cross an old, crumbling suspension bridge, where Anna saves Kay from falling, grabbing him with unnatural strength. The group enters the dark forest, Wormwood, where Hagamar attempts to kill Anna, only to be stopped by the others. Anna appears to summon packs of wolves, which chase the group and kill Hagamar. An enraged Behmen tries to kill her but is stopped by Debelzaq and Felson, who point to their destination on a nearby summit.


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: At the monastery, the men discover that all the monks have succumbed to the plague. They locate the ancient volume, "The Key of Solomon", filled with the holy rituals used to defeat evil. Debelzaq begins speaking the ritual used on witches. In a deep voice, Anna begins recounting Behmen's horror of Crusader cruelties, just as Debelzaq realizes that she is not a witch, but has been possessed by a demon. He frantically performs an exorcism. The demon that is possessing Anna finally reveals its form and melts the cage's metal, escaping, while fighting off the knights. When Debelzaq throws a container of holy water on it, the demon flies screeching out of sight. As the men search for it, they realize it is not trying to escape, but to destroy the book so that nothing can kill it. They find a room where the monks were making copies for others to use. The demon destroys the copies and possesses the dead monks to use as weapons. The three men fight the monks' possessed corpses, as Debelzaq continues the exorcism ritual. The demon snaps Debelzaq's neck and incinerates Felson. Kay continues the ritual, weakening it. Behmen fights the demon and is mortally wounded by it. Kay finishes the ritual, and the demon is consumed by holy fire. Behmen asks Kay to keep Anna safe just before he dies. After their fallen friends are buried, Anna asks Kay to tell her about the men who saved her. They both leave the monastery, the "Book of Solomon" safely in Kay's possession for mankind to use against the forces of evil.


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: Screenwriter Bragi F. Schut wrote "Season of the Witch" as a spec script that was placed on the open market in 2000. Numerous studios bid on the script, and producers Charles Roven and Alex Gartner collaborated with the studio MGM to place a winning bid. MGM could not find traction to produce the film, and in 2003–2004 the studio "was essentially obtained by a number of concerns". Columbia Pictures earmarked several properties for themselves, including "Season of the Witch". The producers worked with director Dominic Sena to perform location shooting throughout Europe. They sought a 14th-century castle to use as a setting for the story; castles visited in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic could not fit the period. With the film yet to be produced, the project eventually moved to Relativity Media, and Sena was officially attached to direct. Business and creative discussions led to avoiding too much violence or gore in the film so a broader audience could see it. Actor Nicolas Cage was considered for the starring role but was unavailable during the time of the location shooting. Cage eventually became available in 2008 and was cast in the role. He explained his interest, "I wanted to make movies that celebrated actors like Christopher Lee and Vincent Price, and the great Roger Corman classics that are unafraid to explore the paranormal and the supernatural."


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: The crew began production immediately after Cage finished "" (2009). The film had a budget of approximately US$40 million, and much of the budget was covered by Relativity with pre-sales to distributors outside the United States. Filming took place in Austria, Hungary and Croatia. Most of the principal photography took place in practical locations, with several days committed to filming on greenscreen. Scenes were filmed at Burg Kreuzenstein and on the Loser mountain. Principal photography was completed by April 2009, but the cast and crew re-gathered a few months later to film additional battle sequences, filming on greenscreen to save on travel.


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: Cage stars as Behman of Bleibruck, a Teutonic knight who returns from the Crusades to discover the devastation caused by the Black Plague. The actor had worked with director Dominic Sena on "Gone in 60 Seconds" (2000) and with producer Charles Roven on "City of Angels" (1998). Cage was interested in the film's fantastical subject matter, also having recently starred in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". He also described Behmen as "the first" conscientious objector, saying, "I admired... the idea of him breaking from whatever religious propaganda was forced upon him, and still finding an even closer connection with his faith and with God. Those iconoclastic elements to the character made him very interesting to me." For the role, Cage learned horseback riding from Camilla Naprous and her team of horse trainers in England. Cage also worked with a fight choreographer to learn swordfighting.


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: Perlman plays Felson, a knight who is Behmen's best friend and fellow combatant during the Crusades. Perlman said of choosing the role, "I love the character. I'm actually more comfortable being a sidekick, because I don't get blamed if it is a complete disaster. I really liked ... his mindset, I liked his irreverence. In the world of seriousness, he's a guy who thinks it's all bullshit. He's just in it for the whores and the sword fights." Perlman described Felson's religion, "Whereas Behmen has a very well-articulated idea of his relationship to country and church and spirituality and God, Felson has none. He doesn't bother to spend any time thinking about that."


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: Foy appears in her feature-film debut as the young woman who is accused of being a witch. Known for her titular role in the British miniseries "Little Dorrit", she met Sena and sought the role in "Season of the Witch". She explained the choice, "It's quite a manipulative role. The character does a "lot" of manipulating, pitting other people against each other, being quite mischievous... That was something I thought would obviously be good to do". Foy researched witchcraft and demonic possession for the role. She described its appeal, "Playing a character that was making things happen, and mainly in control of an entire group of men. And for once, be the character that is completely in the know about everything. There is nothing that she doesn't know. Nothing is a surprise. And she is able to deal with every single situation that arises the way that she sees fit. And I think that was quite refreshing to be able to play a character that wasn't entirely beholden to everyone else".


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: For "Season of the Witch", Tippett Studio designed the demon that manifests in the film's denouement. The art directors researched woodcuts and other artwork for classic demonic appearances. The filmmakers requested an entity "lithe and feminine", and the visual effects crew designed a demon that had "cloven feet, a dog ankle, and a fawn leg". Designing visual effects for the demon's wings was the biggest challenge since wings tend to get in the way or do not move convincingly. The filmmakers also requested holes in the demon's wings. The crew designed holes that appeared worn instead of ripped, since ripped holes would require an added billowing effect.


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: The demon was also designed to have dark gray skin, which presented the crew a challenge in the film's dark settings. Tippett's Blair Clark said, "We played the skin like a rotten mummy: nothing too moist, with a lot of wear marks on it". The crew's final visual effects shot was the death of the demon, and they researched previous films and terminology for how demons' deaths have been designed. They drew inspiration from "Hellboy" (2004), where they focused on the buildup to the demon's death. Clark said, "We built it over a series of shots so it doesn't just happen in one shot. We had little patches on the demon that start to crack and result in a glow that looks like it's burning from within".


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: Lionsgate scheduled "Season of the Witch" to be released on March 19, 2010, but five weeks before the date, the studio decided to pull the film from release. Lionsgate originally had an output deal with Relativity Media, but since Relativity had formed its own marketing and distribution arm in 2010, Relativity chose to release the film themselves and in October 2010 the film was pushed back a year from its original release date of March 19, 2010 to January 7, 2011. "Season of the Witch" was Relativity's first inhouse production.


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: "Season of the Witch" in January 2010 had been rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America, citing "thematic elements, violence, and disturbing content". The studio edited the film and re-submitted it to the MPAA in November 2010 for a new rating. The MPAA gave the film the same rating and reason for it as before.


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: The film had its world premiere in New York City on January 4, 2011. The film was released commercially on January 7, 2011 in several territories. Pre-release polling had indicated young men were the core demographic for the film, though more women than expected expressed interest in the film. Experts anticipated that the film would gross US$10–12 million on its opening weekend in the United States and Canada. The film was released in 2,816 theaters in the two territories. It grossed , ranking third at the box office after "True Grit" and "Little Fockers", which were both released at the end of 2010. Relativity Media's exit polling showed that the audience was 52% male and that 61% were 25 years old and up. The "Los Angeles Times" reported that an "unusually high" 69% of the audience was nonwhite. "Entertainment Weekly" noted that the racial diversity of "Season of the Witch"s audiences was common for supernatural thrillers; the breakdown was 36% Hispanic, 31% Caucasian, 14% Asian, 10% African-American, and 9% "other". The film was the second release by Relativity and performed better than its first release, "The Warrior's Way" (2010). The opening weekend was not the lowest of Nicolas Cage's career to that point; it was better than "The Wicker Man" (2006), "Next" (2007) and "Bangkok Dangerous" (2008).


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (under a new output license deal with Relativity) released the film on DVD and Blu-ray on , 2011. 20th Television holds pay-per-view, on-demand, and television rights to this film under Fox's new deal with Relativity/Rogue.


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: "Season of the Witch" grossed in the United States and Canada and in other territories for a worldwide total of .


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: "Season of the Witch" received mostly negative reviews. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 11%, based on 125 reviews, with an average rating of 3.80/10. The site's consensus reads, "Slow, cheap-looking, and dull, "Season of the Witch" fails even as unintentional comedy". Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 28 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: Associated Press film critic Christy Lemire called "Season of the Witch" "a supernatural action thriller that's never actually thrilling" and added that "the scenery is drab, the battles are interchangeable, and no one seems particularly interested in being here". According to the "Los Angeles Times", critics said that Cage was the primary reason that "this swords-and-sorcery romp is a collosal [sic] waste of time". Andrew Barker of "Variety" said "Season of the Witch" was "both overblown and undercooked" and thought the film would have been more fun if it had a sense of humor. He called the film "too inert for midnight-movie schadenfreudists, and not nearly competent enough for even the most forgiving of fantasy fans". Of the film's production value, he said, ""Witch"s photography, costumes and production design are of good quality; editing, scoring and visual effects are most decidedly not". Tom Huddleston of "Time Out London" wrote, "Despite its admirably straight face, "Season of the Witch" is a silly romp through Pythonesque medieval cliché and knockabout Hammer horror with a dash of cut-price Tolkien chucked in to keep things moving". Huddleston criticized Cage's performance but praised Perlman's. The critic concluded, ""Season of the Witch" is not for everyone: it’s creaky, predictable and frequently idiotic. But for a tipsy Saturday night, this should tick all the right boxes".


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: Writing for "The Observer", Mark Kermode described it as "like a cross between Michael Reeves's brilliant "Witchfinder General" and Renny Harlin's abysmal "", with a fair (if unintentional) sprinkling of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" thrown in for good measure... It's all utter balderdash from start to finish, with everyone sporting terrible period haircuts, and characters appearing and disappearing in a manner which suggests that the editors' minds were on other things; namely, the big finale which is, sadly, a bit rubbish". "Salon"s Andrew O'Hehir thought the film "resembles a Hollywood-by-way-of-Hungary remake of Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" filtered through the B-movie aesthetic of, say, Roger Corman". O'Hehir wrote, ""Season of the Witch" is an unremitting schlockfest, full of blood and filth, bloated, purulent corpses, ghastly one-eyed witches and undead monks. If there were more such Corman-esque thrills and chills, and a whole bunch less ponderous Bergman references, we'd all be better off".


title: Season of the Witch (2011 film)

text: The film earned a Razzie Award nomination for Nicolas Cage as Worst Actor, but lost to Adam Sandler for "Jack and Jill" and "Just Go with It".


title: Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing

text: In telecommunications, orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a type of digital transmission and a method of encoding digital data on multiple carrier frequencies. OFDM has developed into a popular scheme for wideband digital communication, used in applications such as digital television and audio broadcasting, DSL internet access, wireless networks, power line networks, and 4G/5G mobile communications.


text: OFDM is a frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) scheme that was introduced by Robert W. Chang of Bell Labs in 1966. In OFDM, multiple closely spaced orthogonal subcarrier signals with overlapping spectra are transmitted to carry data in parallel. Demodulation is based on fast Fourier transform algorithms. OFDM was improved by Weinstein and Ebert in 1971 with the introduction of a guard interval, providing better orthogonality in transmission channels affected by multipath propagation. Each subcarrier (signal) is modulated with a conventional modulation scheme (such as quadrature amplitude modulation or phase-shift keying) at a low symbol rate. This maintains total data rates similar to conventional single-carrier modulation schemes in the same bandwidth.


text: The main advantage of OFDM over single-carrier schemes is its ability to cope with severe channel conditions (for example, attenuation of high frequencies in a long copper wire, narrowband interference and frequency-selective fading due to multipath) without the need for complex equalization filters. Channel equalization is simplified because OFDM may be viewed as using many slowly modulated narrowband signals rather than one rapidly modulated wideband signal. The low symbol rate makes the use of a guard interval between symbols affordable, making it possible to eliminate intersymbol interference (ISI) and use echoes and time-spreading (in analog television visible as ghosting and blurring, respectively) to achieve a diversity gain, i.e. a signal-to-noise ratio improvement. This mechanism also facilitates the design of single frequency networks (SFNs) where several adjacent transmitters send the same signal simultaneously at the same frequency, as the signals from multiple distant transmitters may be re-combined constructively, sparing interference of a traditional single-carrier system.


text: In coded orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (COFDM), forward error correction (convolutional coding) and time/frequency interleaving are applied to the signal being transmitted. This is done to overcome errors in mobile communication channels affected by multipath propagation and Doppler effects. COFDM was introduced by Alard in 1986 for Digital Audio Broadcasting for Eureka Project 147. In practice, OFDM has become used in combination with such coding and interleaving, so that the terms COFDM and OFDM co-apply to common applications.


text: The following list is a summary of existing OFDM-based standards and products. For further details, see the Usage section at the end of the article.


text: The OFDM-based multiple access technology OFDMA is also used in several 4G and pre-4G cellular networks, mobile broadband standards and the next generation WLAN:


text: The advantages and disadvantages listed below are further discussed in the Characteristics and principles of operation section below.


text: Conceptually, OFDM is a specialized frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) method, with the additional constraint that all subcarrier signals within a communication channel are orthogonal to one another.


text: In OFDM, the subcarrier frequencies are chosen so that the subcarriers are orthogonal to each other, meaning that crosstalk between the sub-channels is eliminated and inter-carrier guard bands are not required. This greatly simplifies the design of both the transmitter and the receiver; unlike conventional FDM, a separate filter for each sub-channel is not required.


text: The orthogonality requires that the subcarrier spacing is formula_1 Hertz, where "T" seconds is the useful symbol duration (the receiver-side window size), and "k" is a positive integer, typically equal to 1. This stipulates that each carrier frequency undergoes "k" more complete cycles per symbol period than the previous carrier. Therefore, with "N" subcarriers, the total passband bandwidth will be "B" ≈ "N"·Δ"f" (Hz).


text: The orthogonality also allows high spectral efficiency, with a total symbol rate near the Nyquist rate for the equivalent baseband signal (i.e., near half the Nyquist rate for the double-side band physical passband signal). Almost the whole available frequency band can be used. OFDM generally has a nearly 'white' spectrum, giving it benign electromagnetic interference properties with respect to other co-channel users.


text: OFDM requires very accurate frequency synchronization between the receiver and the transmitter; with frequency deviation the subcarriers will no longer be orthogonal, causing "inter-carrier interference" (ICI) (i.e., cross-talk between the subcarriers). Frequency offsets are typically caused by mismatched transmitter and receiver oscillators, or by Doppler shift due to movement. While Doppler shift alone may be compensated for by the receiver, the situation is worsened when combined with multipath, as reflections will appear at various frequency offsets, which is much harder to correct. This effect typically worsens as speed increases, and is an important factor limiting the use of OFDM in high-speed vehicles. In order to mitigate ICI in such scenarios, one can shape each subcarrier in order to minimize the interference resulting in a non-orthogonal subcarriers overlapping. For example, a low-complexity scheme referred to as WCP-OFDM ("Weighted Cyclic Prefix Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing") consists of using short filters at the transmitter output in order to perform a potentially non-rectangular pulse shaping and a near perfect reconstruction using a single-tap per subcarrier equalization. Other ICI suppression techniques usually increase drastically the receiver complexity.


text: The orthogonality allows for efficient modulator and demodulator implementation using the FFT algorithm on the receiver side, and inverse FFT on the sender side. Although the principles and some of the benefits have been known since the 1960s, OFDM is popular for wideband communications today by way of low-cost digital signal processing components that can efficiently calculate the FFT.


text: The time to compute the inverse-FFT or FFT transform has to take less than the time for each symbol, which for example for DVB-T means the computation has to be done in or less.


text: The computational demand approximately scales linearly with FFT size so a double size FFT needs double the amount of time and vice versa. As a comparison an Intel Pentium III CPU at 1.266 GHz is able to calculate a FFT in using FFTW. Intel Pentium M at 1.6 GHz does it in Intel Core Duo at 3.0 GHz does it in .


text: One key principle of OFDM is that since low symbol rate modulation schemes (i.e., where the symbols are relatively long compared to the channel time characteristics) suffer less from intersymbol interference caused by multipath propagation, it is advantageous to transmit a number of low-rate streams in parallel instead of a single high-rate stream. Since the duration of each symbol is long, it is feasible to insert a guard interval between the OFDM symbols, thus eliminating the intersymbol interference.


text: The guard interval also eliminates the need for a pulse-shaping filter, and it reduces the sensitivity to time synchronization problems.


text: The cyclic prefix, which is transmitted during the guard interval, consists of the end of the OFDM symbol copied into the guard interval, and the guard interval is transmitted followed by the OFDM symbol. The reason that the guard interval consists of a copy of the end of the OFDM symbol is so that the receiver will integrate over an integer number of sinusoid cycles for each of the multipaths when it performs OFDM demodulation with the FFT.


text: In some standards such as Ultrawideband, in the interest of transmitted power, cyclic prefix is skipped and nothing is sent during the guard interval. The receiver will then have to mimic the cyclic prefix functionality by copying the end part of the OFDM symbol and adding it to the beginning portion.


text: The effects of frequency-selective channel conditions, for example fading caused by multipath propagation, can be considered as constant (flat) over an OFDM sub-channel if the sub-channel is sufficiently narrow-banded (i.e., if the number of sub-channels is sufficiently large). This makes frequency domain equalization possible at the receiver, which is far simpler than the time-domain equalization used in conventional single-carrier modulation. In OFDM, the equalizer only has to multiply each detected subcarrier (each Fourier coefficient) in each OFDM symbol by a constant complex number, or a rarely changed value. On a fundamental level, simpler digital equalizers are better because they require fewer operations, which translates to fewer round-off errors in the equalizer. Those round-off errors can be viewed as numerical noise and are inevitable.


text: If differential modulation such as DPSK or DQPSK is applied to each subcarrier, equalization can be completely omitted, since these non-coherent schemes are insensitive to slowly changing amplitude and phase distortion.


text: In a sense, improvements in FIR equalization using FFTs or partial FFTs leads mathematically closer to OFDM, but the OFDM technique is easier to understand and implement, and the sub-channels can be independently adapted in other ways than varying equalization coefficients, such as switching between different QAM constellation patterns and error-correction schemes to match individual sub-channel noise and interference characteristics.


text: Some of the subcarriers in some of the OFDM symbols may carry pilot signals for measurement of the channel conditions (i.e., the equalizer gain and phase shift for each subcarrier). Pilot signals and training symbols (preambles) may also be used for time synchronization (to avoid intersymbol interference, ISI) and frequency synchronization (to avoid inter-carrier interference, ICI, caused by Doppler shift).


text: OFDM was initially used for wired and stationary wireless communications. However, with an increasing number of applications operating in highly mobile environments, the effect of dispersive fading caused by a combination of multi-path propagation and doppler shift is more significant. Over the last decade, research has been done on how to equalize OFDM transmission over doubly selective channels.


text: OFDM is invariably used in conjunction with channel coding (forward error correction), and almost always uses frequency and/or time interleaving.


text: Frequency (subcarrier) interleaving increases resistance to frequency-selective channel conditions such as fading. For example, when a part of the channel bandwidth fades, frequency interleaving ensures that the bit errors that would result from those subcarriers in the faded part of the bandwidth are spread out in the bit-stream rather than being concentrated. Similarly, time interleaving ensures that bits that are originally close together in the bit-stream are transmitted far apart in time, thus mitigating against severe fading as would happen when travelling at high speed.


text: However, time interleaving is of little benefit in slowly fading channels, such as for stationary reception, and frequency interleaving offers little to no benefit for narrowband channels that suffer from flat-fading (where the whole channel bandwidth fades at the same time).


text: The reason why interleaving is used on OFDM is to attempt to spread the errors out in the bit-stream that is presented to the error correction decoder, because when such decoders are presented with a high concentration of errors the decoder is unable to correct all the bit errors, and a burst of uncorrected errors occurs. A similar design of audio data encoding makes compact disc (CD) playback robust.


text: A classical type of error correction coding used with OFDM-based systems is convolutional coding, often concatenated with Reed-Solomon coding. Usually, additional interleaving (on top of the time and frequency interleaving mentioned above) in between the two layers of coding is implemented. The choice for Reed-Solomon coding as the outer error correction code is based on the observation that the Viterbi decoder used for inner convolutional decoding produces short error bursts when there is a high concentration of errors, and Reed-Solomon codes are inherently well suited to correcting bursts of errors.


text: Newer systems, however, usually now adopt near-optimal types of error correction codes that use the turbo decoding principle, where the decoder iterates towards the desired solution. Examples of such error correction coding types include turbo codes and LDPC codes, which perform close to the Shannon limit for the Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel. Some systems that have implemented these codes have concatenated them with either Reed-Solomon (for example on the MediaFLO system) or BCH codes (on the DVB-S2 system) to improve upon an error floor inherent to these codes at high signal-to-noise ratios.


text: The resilience to severe channel conditions can be further enhanced if information about the channel is sent over a return-channel. Based on this feedback information, adaptive modulation, channel coding and power allocation may be applied across all subcarriers, or individually to each subcarrier. In the latter case, if a particular range of frequencies suffers from interference or attenuation, the carriers within that range can be disabled or made to run slower by applying more robust modulation or error coding to those subcarriers.


text: The term (DMT) denotes OFDM-based communication systems that adapt the transmission to the channel conditions individually for each subcarrier, by means of so-called "bit-loading". Examples are ADSL and VDSL.


text: The upstream and downstream speeds can be varied by allocating either more or fewer carriers for each purpose. Some forms of rate-adaptive DSL use this feature in real time, so that the bitrate is adapted to the co-channel interference and bandwidth is allocated to whichever subscriber needs it most.


text: OFDM in its primary form is considered as a digital modulation technique, and not a multi-user channel access method, since it is used for transferring one bit stream over one communication channel using one sequence of OFDM symbols. However, OFDM can be combined with multiple access using time, frequency or coding separation of the users.


text: In orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA), frequency-division multiple access is achieved by assigning different OFDM sub-channels to different users. OFDMA supports differentiated quality of service by assigning different number of subcarriers to different users in a similar fashion as in CDMA, and thus complex packet scheduling or Media Access Control schemes can be avoided. OFDMA is used in:


text: OFDMA is also a candidate access method for the IEEE 802.22 "Wireless Regional Area Networks" (WRAN). The project aims at designing the first cognitive radio-based standard operating in the VHF-low UHF spectrum (TV spectrum).


text: In multi-carrier code-division multiple access (MC-CDMA), also known as OFDM-CDMA, OFDM is combined with CDMA spread spectrum communication for coding separation of the users. Co-channel interference can be mitigated, meaning that manual fixed channel allocation (FCA) frequency planning is simplified, or complex dynamic channel allocation (DCA) schemes are avoided.


text: In OFDM-based wide-area broadcasting, receivers can benefit from receiving signals from several spatially dispersed transmitters simultaneously, since transmitters will only destructively interfere with each other on a limited number of subcarriers, whereas in general they will actually reinforce coverage over a wide area. This is very beneficial in many countries, as it permits the operation of national single-frequency networks (SFN), where many transmitters send the same signal simultaneously over the same channel frequency. SFNs use the available spectrum more effectively than conventional multi-frequency broadcast networks (MFN), where program content is replicated on different carrier frequencies. SFNs also result in a diversity gain in receivers situated midway between the transmitters. The coverage area is increased and the outage probability decreased in comparison to an MFN, due to increased received signal strength averaged over all subcarriers.


text: Although the guard interval only contains redundant data, which means that it reduces the capacity, some OFDM-based systems, such as some of the broadcasting systems, deliberately use a long guard interval in order to allow the transmitters to be spaced farther apart in an SFN, and longer guard intervals allow larger SFN cell-sizes. A rule of thumb for the maximum distance between transmitters in an SFN is equal to the distance a signal travels during the guard interval — for instance, a guard interval of 200 microseconds would allow transmitters to be spaced 60 km apart.


text: A "single frequency network" is a form of transmitter macrodiversity. The concept can be further used in "dynamic single-frequency networks" (DSFN), where the SFN grouping is changed from timeslot to timeslot.


text: OFDM may be combined with other forms of space diversity, for example antenna arrays and MIMO channels. This is done in the IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN standards.


text: An OFDM signal exhibits a high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) because the independent phases of the subcarriers mean that they will often combine constructively. Handling this high PAPR requires:


text: The linearity requirement is demanding, especially for transmitter RF output circuitry where amplifiers are often designed to be non-linear in order to minimise power consumption. In practical OFDM systems a small amount of peak clipping is allowed to limit the PAPR in a judicious trade-off against the above consequences. However, the transmitter output filter which is required to reduce out-of-band spurs to legal levels has the effect of restoring peak levels that were clipped, so clipping is not an effective way to reduce PAPR.


text: Although the spectral efficiency of OFDM is attractive for both terrestrial and space communications, the high PAPR requirements have so far limited OFDM applications to terrestrial systems.


text: For example, the DVB-T signal in 2K mode is composed of 1705 subcarriers that are each QPSK-modulated, giving a crest factor of 35.32 dB.


text: Many PAPR (or crest factor) reduction techniques have been developed, for instance, based on intertaive clipping.


text: The dynamic range required for an FM receiver is while DAB only require about As a comparison, each extra bit per sample increases the dynamic range by


text: The performance of any communication system can be measured in terms of its power efficiency and bandwidth efficiency. The power efficiency describes the ability of communication system to preserve bit error rate (BER) of the transmitted signal at low power levels. Bandwidth efficiency reflects how efficiently the allocated bandwidth is used and is defined as the throughput data rate per hertz in a given bandwidth. If the large number of subcarriers are used, the bandwidth efficiency of multicarrier system such as OFDM with using optical fiber channel is defined as


text: where formula_9 is the symbol rate in giga-symbols per second (Gsps), formula_10 is the bandwidth of OFDM signal, and the factor of 2 is due to the two polarization states in the fiber.


text: There is saving of bandwidth by using multicarrier modulation with orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing. So the bandwidth for multicarrier system is less in comparison with single carrier system and hence bandwidth efficiency of multicarrier system is larger than single carrier system.


text: There is only 1dB increase in receiver power, but we get 76.7% improvement in bandwidth efficiency with using multicarrier transmission technique.


text: This section describes a simple idealized OFDM system model suitable for a time-invariant AWGN channel.