title: Ben Drowned

text: Ben Drowned (originally published as Haunted Majora's Mask Cartridge) is a three-part multimedia alternate reality game (ARG) web serial and web series created by Alexander D. "Jadusable" Hall. Originating as a creepypasta based on the 2000 action-adventure game "" and published by Hall from 2010 to 2020 with a hiatus in-between, the series is known for creating many of the common tropes and themes of creepypasta that are used nowadays and for subverting themes from "The Legend of Zelda" series. The series concluded on October 31, 2020.


title: Ben Drowned

text: Serving as Hall's first project, the first arc of the series titled "Haunted Cartridge" was released in 2010. It follows college sophomore Jadusable, who, after acquiring a haunted Nintendo 64 video game cartridge of "Majora's Mask", is plagued over the course of a single week by the presence of a seemingly omniscient being called BEN. The second arc, titled "Moon Children" and taking place from late 2010 to early 2011, follows the public emergence of a mysterious cult known as The Moon Children, who worshipped the Moon by way of human sacrifice, or in their words, ascension. The third arc, titled "Awakening", began in March 2020, following new and returning characters who have become involved in multiple events of the current year. This arc introduced new scenarios detailing the aftermath of an in-universe event in 2018 that caused the collapse of civilized society, as well as continuing stories established in the previous arcs with the intent of tying them together.


title: Ben Drowned

text: The series is one of the most popular web serials on the internet, with a viewership in the hundreds of thousands, and has been widely recognized as both an example of a modern urban legend and a major influence in helping to establish and legitimize creepypasta as a literary genre, creating many of the recognizable tropes that are now seen today in modern internet horror stories.


title: Ben Drowned

text: In June 2009, Hall uploaded two videos to his YouTube channel; one featuring a conversation with the minor character Rosa from the 2004 action role-playing game "" and one featuring the main character Alex Mercer from the 2009 action-adventure game "Prototype". These videos were retconned as the first installments in the "Haunted Majora's Mask Cartridge" series in the second arc, "The Moon Children", in which characters named Rosa and Alex, each with themes mirroring their respective videos, are introduced.


title: Ben Drowned

text: "Ben Drowned" was first published as an online serial and web series with chapters released daily between September 7 and September 15, 2010, on 4chan's /x/ board. This first arc came to be known as "The Haunted Cartridge". The second arc, "The Moon Children", began from September 17 that same year until July 15, 2011, totaling 3,591,600 words and 382 minutes of footage from the arcs. Hall used a method of transmedia storytelling through a combination of YouTube videos, written chapters, and audience input to weave a story about a character named BEN – supposedly a malevolent spirit of a dead child – who haunts the author (referred to in the story as Jadusable) in a copy of "". The first arc is told in first-person, as the author comes to the audience (in this case, an online forum) for help figuring out this strange game he bought. The story went viral; with viewers praising the story's mysterious and frightening nature, as well as Hall's ability to deftly weave breadcrumbs and other hidden clues to keep readers on the hook and guessing about the multiple theories that surrounded the story. The original story ends on a cliffhanger, with the readers themselves inadvertently helping unleash BEN onto the internet at large through sharing of the files that were given to them, supposedly by Jadusable.


title: Ben Drowned

text: However, by decoding a secret hidden cipher in Hall's YouTube account, investigative readers gained access to a website that led to the story's second arc, known as "Moon Children". Despite it taking the appearance of an ordinary mid-2000s website, similar to Angelfire, readers were able to find hidden URLs and secret conversations between the website's users, depicting a narrative that the website was home to a Doomsday cult that was stuck in a time loop similar to the one serving as the main mechanic of "Majora's Mask", with the website resetting itself every three days. Information found on the website on the third day could then be used by readers, either through online methods such as emails or by submitting videos of users playing specific songs from both "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" and "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask", to unlock an alternate path on the first day after the website reset. This arc was ended on a cliffhanger, with Hall announcing a hiatus on July 15, 2011.


title: Ben Drowned

text: The story followed a strict publication schedule, with new content released over the course of two weeks, including videos posted on Hall's YouTube channel, themselves made using Project 64 and cheat codes taken from GameShark. The second arc was split into two separate parts, "YSHDT" (short for "youshouldnthavedonethat.net") and "Hubris", each of which covered a specific series of events. Upon its launch, the series garnered over 100,000 views in its first two days of publication; and as of 2020, it maintains a very high level of viewership, with over 2 million unique visitors in March, nearly eight years after completion of the first two arcs. In October 2017, Hall expressed interest in developing a third arc, also revealing he had anonymously created a second "popular" creepypasta series unrelated to "Ben Drowned".


title: Ben Drowned

text: The third "Ben Drowned" arc, titled "Awakening", began publication on March 17, 2020, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask", with updates being provided every three days before settling into a weekly update schedule. This arc is split into three separate parts: "Awakening", "Methods of Revolution" (incorporating elements of Hall's unmade feature-length film of the same name), and "The Last Hero", a resurgence of the original format of video publication where the current author of the videos would upload them to Jadusable's YouTube channel. The third part details the events surrounding Sarah, a new player who is trying to free the trapped souls of characters new and old.


title: Ben Drowned

text: "Ben Drowned" is set in a fictional, alternate universe closely following that of Earth prior to the emergence of a cult known as the Moon Children who worshiped the Moon, known to them as Luna. Sometime after the release of "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask", a twelve-year-old boy named 'Ben' was chosen as the experiment for a new project by the Moon Children. Coerced by them to join their group under the promise of having friends and being like his childhood hero, Link, Ben was soon unwillingly drowned in an attempted Moon Children ritual called ascension where the sacrifice becomes a prisoner of their own making, a catalyst for the cult to continue their plans. The resulting creation, named 'BEN', the original 'Ben' no longer having any physical control as the dominant mindset, is sealed inside a copy of "Majora's Mask" and merged with the programs within, before being subsequently watched over by an old man. The old man, in time, entrusts the cartridge to a random college sophomore student who bought it not knowing that it was a cursed object while several of the cult's members begin to continue their plan within the Internet, including a mysterious being, known as "Kelbris, The Father", who online takes the form of the Happy Mask Salesman. Ultimately, upon entering the Internet themselves, 'BEN' begins to wreak havoc on the sites and videos where the sophomore student, known as Jadusable, interacted all in service of "The Father".


title: Ben Drowned

text: The first and third arcs are set across the homes and locations, dealing with several college-age adults in multiple unspecified locations, set in the United States, and within the Internet, while the second arc is solely set within the Internet.


title: Ben Drowned

text: In September 2010, Jadusable is a college student who bought a suspicious Nintendo 64 cartridge labeled "Majora" (indicating it to be a copy of "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask") by a disconcerting old man at a garage sale, with the save data of former owner "Ben" still on it. As Jadusable plays the game, little inconsistencies begin to pop up, turning to outright glitches, leading Jadusable to go to the online site 4chan to post about his playing of the game as it unfolds. Playing as Link, Jadusable attempts different ways to modify the game out of curiosity. It reaches the point where he tries the day four glitch, a well-known glitch in the "Majora's Mask" community where you skip the third day's ending with the ability to explore the in-game world as depicted in the credits section. Causing the day four glitch breaks the normality of the game and Jadusable soon finds himself alone in Clock Town with all of the inhabitants gone, unable to advance the game by turning back time, while endlessly hearing the laugh of the Happy Mask Salesman. In an attempt to achieve a "Game Over" and return to the main menu, Jadusable forces Link to drown in a pond; when he does, Link clutches his head, screaming as in a mask animation, with the screen flashing to depict the Happy Mask Salesman, smiling and laughing. The game continues, and the "Song of healing" plays in reverse; a statue of Link is summoned, its face locked in an unblinking stare. The statue follows Jadusable's character, moving just outside of the camera's perspective, throughout the town. Jadusable tries to escape it, but nothing works. In desperation, Jadusable turns the camera to face the statue directly. After a while, the screen flashes back to the Happy Mask Salesman and Link, only the latter also turns this time. The Salesman, the statue, and Link all become locked in place, staring through the screen, directly at Jadusable.


title: Ben Drowned

text: Over the course of several sessions over a series of days, Jadusable writes in painstaking detail about each bizarre scenario he finds himself in, including spontaneously bursting into flames and lying unconscious (or dead) as the Majora-possessed Skull Kid looks on in silence. In a desperate attempt to return the cartridge to the old man who sold it to him, he sees the house empty, the old man's neighbor informing him that he has moved away. Jadusable, after hearing from the neighbor as to what happened in the house that the old man lived in, concludes that the cartridge is possessed by the spirit of its previous owner, a 12-year-old boy named Ben who had drowned almost eight years prior. Subsequently, a figure calling themselves "BEN" seemingly begins contacting him in and beyond the game itself, including changing his computer screen wallpaper to depict the Elegy of Emptiness and speaking through the online artificial intelligence Cleverbot. Using the Elegy statue as its physical form, BEN seems to take pride in being able to manipulate Jadusable, who subsequently describes a series of dreams about the Moon Children depicted in the game's finale, including himself physically transforming into the Elegy, and how he believes he saw the old man who sold him the cartridge on his street looking into his window. Eventually, BEN is revealed to have been hijacking Jadusable's computer and providing a false account of the story's narrative and resolution to 4chan and YouTube, using it to escape the cartridge onto the Internet, declaring "Now I am everywhere." A secret note from Jadusable after an apparent epilogue from his roommate Tyler (who accompanied Jadusable to the old man's former house after the first time he played the game) offers the "true" telling of events and references videos that were never published, seemingly because BEN had deleted them. After publishing his final account of the past week's events, called TheTruth.rtf, Jadusable is never seen again.


title: Ben Drowned

text: Two days after BEN's escape from the cartridge, a cult calling themselves the Moon Children reveal their existence to the world. An unnamed follower of Jadusable's story discovers a cipher on his YouTube channel that eventually leads them to the cult's official website, youshouldnthavedonethat.net, in which three moderators discuss the upcoming "ascension" of one of their members. A post by a fourth user and the website's administrator, named DROWNED (supposedly Mr. D), appears to speak directly to the follower through the avatar of a man wearing a gas mask. By exploring the various links, the follower discovers various details about the cult, including that the original Ben was apparently a member who had been sacrificed alongside several other individuals under the pretense of achieving ascension, that another member named Alex had recently betrayed them, and that they have their own prophecy of end times revolving around the Moon destroying the Earth (à la "Majora's Mask"), provided to them by their deceased prophet Kelbris in 1998. Kelbris, who similarly died under uncertain circumstances, is now seen within the cult as evidence of his own, successful 'ascension'. The next day, the users are able to contact the moderator "Rodney R" Ifrit, revealed to be "Matt Hubris", who answers several questions before disappearing, including referencing his siblings as Rosa and Ben; the original 'Ben' is confirmed as a member of the Moon Children who was sacrificed on April 23, 2002, via drowning, his body ascending to become the central home of 'BEN' in place of all other ascended members. Coinciding with the end of a countdown on a hidden page, a video of the Song of Time is uploaded as a video response to one of Jadusable's videos. Shortly afterward, their website collapses.


title: Ben Drowned

text: The following day, the website is reestablished in an unfinished glitching state, with posts from the previous incarnation being posted again with current dates, revealing that in-game actions from "Majora's Mask" have effects on the website. Over the following day, the follower uses in-game actions to advance the story, establishing contact with Rosa, the sister of Matt, whom Rosa says has disappeared, as well as the soon-to-be-ascended moderators Kevin F. "Insidiae", Christopher "Nekko" and Spencer L. "Duskworld23". However, as a result of the follower's actions, Rosa was taken away by a resurrected Kelbris, Alex was killed while working to prevent the actions of the cult, and time is reset again. Time is subsequently revealed to reset every three days, as in "Majora's Mask". Alex, apparently resurrected by the reset of time, returns under the guise of "TheLinkMissing" with an additional warning before disappearing, apparently for good, as a result of careless player actions.


title: Ben Drowned

text: On October 6, the website undergoes several drastic design changes, signaling the return of the story. Through clever URL changes, the follower discovers several hidden files ranging from used assets to cryptic documents aimed directly at them. Their biggest discovery is found to be the 59th file, mhftt.txt, a final message left by Ifrit before his disappearance. This file names a fellow reader to the follower, Kayd "Ryukaki" Hendricks, who had been in contact with Rosa prior to her death, as having been warned by him as to be in danger. Over the next two days, Ryukaki uploads a series of videos indicating that his life is indeed at stake. As of 2020, the videos uploaded by Ryukaki are now seen as ambiguously canon with many of the things posted in the videos coinciding with the current arc but others never referenced again.


title: Ben Drowned

text: On November 8, another video uploaded on Jadusable's channel by BEN signals the beginning of the arc's epilogue, with the coming months seeing small changes made to the Moon Children website. On February 17, 2011, a new forum called "Within Hubris" is launched as a central hub for the follower and others like them during the next portion of the story. Shortly after its discovery, a hidden section of the forum was revealed to contain the spirits of former members of the Moon Children. Within a week of the site's discovery, the follower begins receiving newspaper clippings in their mail that detail an apparent murder-suicide that took place "three months [ago]" in New York, and including an apparent message from BEN. On February 26, another video is uploaded to Jadusable's channel, predicting the final warning for the following day. On February 27, a video, known as "h b i s r e a l" is uploaded featuring the interior of the house featured in the newspaper. Following those events, the arc, and the story in general, was put on hiatus by Alex Hall for an indefinite time.


title: Ben Drowned

text: Two years after an unknown societal collapse in 2018, in March 2020, the YouTube channel formerly controlled by Jadusable and BEN is taken over by a resurgent "Jadus", who recounts the alternate history to have occurred in the time since the final ascension of "The Father", who was revealed to be Kelbris. The Father had killed Jadusable moments after the ending of "The Haunted Cartridge" arc, a moment shown in upload Kelbris.wmv. (Another unreleased video, CHILDREN.wmv, was also released around this point in time.) An as-of-yet unexplained event that occurred in 2012 apparently had global repercussions, leading to a modern-day Great Depression resulting in a total breakdown of American society by 2018. Addressing the follower, dubbed "The Second Player" (alternatively "The Main Character", or simply "The MC"), Jadus claims a partial cause of this collapse as being a mysterious virus known as "HEROES", of which they are a survivor, alongside their occupational partner Denton. The player is a prisoner in the mysterious Ethereal Hotel, through which he is guided by radio by another survivor, Abel, avoiding a gas mask-wearing entity known as "The Jailer", as they roam the halls. He is killed by The Jailer, and control is passed over to another person, named Sarah. She decides to stay and wait for a bit and is rewarded for doing so. Now in possession of a Nintendo 64, Sarah subsequently encounters the seemingly benevolent spirit of the original Ben within the original Nintendo 64 cartridge for whom she plays the "Song of Healing", which in-game is used to mend broken souls. Now healed, Ben explains that after Jadusable awakened The Father, he remained within the cartridge, tormenting Ben and the litany of souls he had been manipulating into imprisoning in BEN, including Jadusable and Rosa. Eventually, the souls were forced to flee deep within the code of the cartridge, which in turn caused glitches to render the game unplayable. Ben begs her to heal the souls BEN has left to The Father's mercy, before granting her Link's adult form from "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time". The "Adult Mask," he explains, contains the souls of a large number of people, all seeking revenge against The Father. She then plays the Song of Time, sending her back to the normal yet altered "Majora's Mask" gameplay from ten years ago.


title: Ben Drowned

text: After this, an overjoyed Abel resumes communication with Sarah and muses over the interaction. He then claims that the game has been reverted to its pre-Jadusable state and that BEN — which he explains to be the "Behavioral Event Network" — is a hive mind consisting of both the souls of Moon Children who have been successfully digitized and of various artificially intelligent programs from "Majora's Mask" which he believes gained sentience either from a lack of input or by some sort of trigger, with the entity being named after the original Ben as a tribute, due to their soul having been the first human soul to have been successfully digitized. He ends his monologue and then says Sarah's part in the experiment is over, explaining he will be "coming over" to relieve her of the cartridge, before suggesting she 'stick around' to see other things he wants to show her.


title: Ben Drowned

text: Despite Abel's request, Sarah continues playing the game. In place of the Happy Mask Salesman, she finds Ifrit in the form of an unused NPC, who tells her that Ben has been "restored" into his enslaved state, and that to defeat the Father she needs to disrupt the simulation or replicate the same "fourth-day" glitch that freed Ben. When she exits the area, she is suddenly confronted by two duplicates of the first boss of "Majora's Mask", which she easily dispenses before continuing deeper into the game.


title: Ben Drowned

text: Sarah eventually encounters a Moon Child, who asks her to leave its "home". When she pursues it, she finds in its place a heart, which she collects. Ifrit then contacts her saying she must collect 3 hearts to free the souls trapped within the cartridge. Progressing further, she is confronted by several more Moon Children, who are seen apparently tormenting another NPC. After thwarting their attack, Sarah encounters this NPC, who now claims to be Rosa, who as thanks gives her a pendant containing her memories which she claims will be able to free the others. She continues onwards, finding a second Moon Child's heart and encountering another NPC who "knows exactly who he is" and thinks of Sarah as a monster, due to all the souls contained in the mask making her seem like a monster consuming them.


title: Ben Drowned

text: On August 23, 2020, a new video called "The Showdown.wmv" premiered, the contents giving another revelation to the story. Sarah, after escaping the clutches of one of the Moon Children, meets the once thought dead Jadusable, the original player from the "Haunted Cartridge" arc. Dismayed, Jadusable is discovered to now be working with The Father and after facing Sarah in one on one combat, kills her, leaving the story without a player character. The same video at the end shows a link to a new site called the "Eternity Project", a web page established by those who belong to a group of people called The Family with the purpose of achieving ascension to escape the world-ending event due to happen in 2020. On that website, users were able to confirm the current status of many of the characters from the entire story such as Sarah, Jadusable, and Rosa. The site promises prospective members to join the "Eternity Project" and to escape from the hell of the current world and embrace a new future through ascension, becoming Enlightened and free from the world. As is the tradition in sites belonging to this story, members could dig into source codes and puzzle-solving to discover hidden messages and pages. Here, Abel eventually contacted players (or rather, a "pity hire" at the Eternity Project) and gave them passwords allowing access to the 'heart' of World Alpha - now known to be the Haunted Cartridge, which all of the Eternity Project's subsequent virtual worlds are apparently built off of. Here, players were met with an option to upload "code" directly into the heart of World Alpha — an action which Abel hoped would stop the virtual world from imploding, along with the rest of the Eternity Project and everyone still trapped within.


title: Ben Drowned

text: Eventually, one of the players' uploads was accepted and the option to upload anything further disappeared. The uploaded code would successfully revive Sarah in Clock Town, albeit without the Ocarina of Time or the Adult form she previously had, with only 12 in-game hours remaining before the Moon would crash into Termina and start the entire game over again. Noticing that Clock Town is empty, she attempts to enter the buildings in the area, but all but one are inaccessible. Upon entering this building, Sarah finds herself in the code with Rosa and the rest of the humans digitized into Majora's Mask. They argue over whether to let the Moon fall and just reset everything, which Rosa believes will not result in what the rest expects it to, or to allow Sarah to perform the day four glitch, at the risk of unleashing the already looming Father all over again. Ultimately, Sarah races to the Observatory and prepares to perform the glitch — however, the choice to actually do it is left up to the players.


title: Ben Drowned

text: The players chose to perform the glitch, and after having done so, the world returns to a glitched state. Ifrit suddenly reappears and explains that by doing the glitch, she has killed the game's inhabitants and that with the Father freed once more, he intends to use his power to transform the world into a "nightmare". Clock Town becomes filled with cultic worshippers of the Father as Sarah runs to the clock tower, where she finds Jadusable and a newly freed Ben hiding. Jadusable explains that he was trying to stop Sarah from performing the glitch, and admonishes her for simply believing everything that the game's inhabitants had told her. He explains that Alex had passed the responsibility of being World Alpha's protector to him - and that now - he was going to do the same to her. Jadusable gives up his soul and joins his strength with Sarah, turning her back into Adult Link. Sarah confronts Ifrit, now joined by the last remaining Moon Child, and briefly battles the latter as it assumes the form of Majora's Wrath — the third phase of the final boss of "Majora's Mask". Suddenly, instead of fighting back, Sarah uses her ocarina to play the Song of Healing, and Majora's Wrath suddenly disappears. Ifrit briefly reappears to threaten her, but he is suddenly overcome with static and disappears himself. The Father appears in his place, demanding Sarah explain her actions. In response, she gives him the Pendant of Memories, and Circle explains that the inhabitants of World Alpha are just scared, and only want to live. In response, The Father 'changes his parameters' to heal World Alpha, by removing all "anomalies" which wish to harm the natural order of the world. He also explains that, as users interfacing with World Alpha's code, they too will be removed, and that to pacify the inhabitants' mental traumas he will need to reset their memories as well. Above all, The Father assures Sarah and Circle that World Alpha will continue and that Ben will be given a real host body, commenting that his imprisonment within the Elegy statue was an "oversight" made by dated A.I. When Circle asks what will become of Sarah after The Father 'removes' her, he says he doesn't know and fades away. Sarah fades away soon after.


title: Ben Drowned

text: The series ends with a shot of Ben, now in the body of Child Link, standing next to a now unpossessed Elegy statue and waving to the audience.


title: Ben Drowned

text: "Ben Drowned" has received favorable reviews. It received substantial attention following a favorable review by "Kotaku" writer Owen Good roughly two months into publication, who praised the story's themes and originality. Readership quadrupled following this article, and again by its followup in 2017 while the story was in its first hiatus, in which its biblical themes and use of the five stages of grief and "ghost within the machine" trope were praised, as was Hall's initial decision to end the narrative with an April Fool's Day joke in 2012.


title: Ben Drowned

text: The series has been favorably compared to the similarly popular creepypasta series "Marble Hornets". Matt Freeman of "Vice", comparing "Ben Drowned" to both "Majora's Mask" and "", referred to it as "a shining example of how "Zelda" fans have always been in lockstep with Nintendo's own experimentation with horror. [being] a well-told story", as well as praising its unique take on the found footage genre. Anthony Vigna of "Nintendojo" praised the "videos to back up its claims and provided blog updates that pushed the tale to be more believable", calling "Majora's Mask" "the perfect game to create the setting of a scary story", with the ARG elements of the story praised as being highly addictive.


title: Ben Drowned

text: Ryan Larson of "Bloody Disgusting" praised how "with clever video editing skills and a deep wealth of knowledge, the online user Jadusable is able to craft one of the scariest legends of recent memory. Like storytellers before him, using paintings or ink to craft the tale, he uses the devices of our advanced time to make something that the kids of the nineties can latch onto." Kara Dennison of "Fanbyte", speaking of "Ben Drowned" in context of the 20th anniversary of "Majora's Mask", praised "what Hall did during this time [as] both unique and effective. He took a concept that was already gaining steam and gave it a reality it was lacking. Creepypastas about Mickey Mouse and "The Simpsons" were already poking at people’s childhoods, occasionally with attempts at “haunted tapes” to back the stories up. But "BEN Drowned" brought a level of realism to its story that had yet to be accomplished in other attempts.", additionally citing how it was stated as the primary inspiration for later popular works such as "Petscop" by Tony Domenico, and concluding that of creepasta, "[it's] highly likely "BEN Drowned" will remain the best of its kind."


title: Ben Drowned

text: Blogger Robbie Blair discussed "Ben Drowned" within the context of the increasing popularity of web serials and alternate reality games such as "Worm". In September 2014, concept art for the episode "Soos and the Real Girl" of "Gravity Falls" revealed "Ben Drowned" as a primary influence behind the character GIFfany; themselves an inspiration for the "Doki Doki Literature Club!" character Monika. Clive Barker and Warner Brothers have approached Hall to discuss adapting "Ben Drowned". An independent film adaptation of the series titled "Darkland: Ben Drowned", produced by Mind's Eye Entertainment and starring Jonny Clarke, began filming in 2015, but ultimately was not completed. In August 2016, a press release for Syfy's "Channel Zero" referenced "Ben Drowned" as one of the urban legends that would form the basis for a future season; ultimately, the series was cancelled after its fourth season.


title: Ben Drowned

text: Eric Van Allen of entertainment site "Kotaku" on the place of "Ben Drowned" in the developing creepypasta and emergence into urban legend:


title: Ben Drowned

text: "Ben Drowned" persists. The Elegy statue has become permanently linked to the story of Jadusable and his haunted cartridge, a copy of "Majora's Mask" that inspired nightmares of masks being sewn to faces and terrible, terrible fates. "Ben Drowned" lives by the virtual firelight, as each new whisper, tweet, or forum post sends chills down a new reader’s spine. Creepypastas are the ghost stories of the digital age, changing with each retelling and reimagining from its fandom. Though "Ben Drowned" owes its legacy to Hall, its future lies in the hands of anyone who might take to their keyboard to add a new page.


title: Ben Drowned

text: The originally unofficial title "Ben Drowned" has multiple potential meanings. It has been connected to the protagonist's character development, the fate of the child Ben and the subsequently created omnipresent force BEN; drawing a parallel with the power of the Moon Children cult to control the actions of one's soul in the eyes of Luna and the tides of the ocean. The arc titles also generally have double meanings. Several reviewers have described the serial as an exercise in repeatedly escalating the stakes of the story, with a number of reviewers having noted the characters' ingenuity, and the original and creative use of Roman and "The Legend of Zelda" mythology in the narrative.


title: Ben Drowned

text: The series received renewed focus in 2016, when 12-year-old Katelyn Davis, who had recently committed suicide, was cited as having been catfished by a user embodying the BEN persona from "Ben Drowned", after which a statement in reference to the end of their relationship was accompanied by a piece of fanart of the character in their later form of a Link with blood-red eyes beckoning a violet fairy. Addressing their death in relation to his series, Hall stated himself:For the sequel "Awakening", Hall incorporated machine-learning programs to create artwork and music for his story, going so far as to have the titular villain - which was itself an in-universe AI construct - created entirely by artificial intelligence using Artbreeder. Hall expressed enthusiasm for these emerging AI tools, citing that they could expand the possibilities available to independent creators.


title: Jubilee line

text: The Jubilee line is a London Underground line that runs between in east London and in the suburban north-west, via the Docklands, South Bank and West End. Opened in 1979, it is the newest line on the Underground network, although some sections of track date back to 1932 and some stations to 1879.


title: Jubilee line

text: The western section between and was previously a branch of the Metropolitan line and later the Bakerloo line, while the newly built line was completed in two major sections: initially in 1979 to , then in 1999 with an extension to Stratford. The later stations are larger and have special safety features, both aspects being attempts to future-proof the line. Following the extension to east London, serving areas once poorly connected to the Underground, the line has seen a huge growth in passenger numbers and is the third-busiest on the network (after the Northern and Central lines), with over 213 million passenger journeys in 2011/12.


title: Jubilee line

text: Between and the Jubilee line shares its route with the Metropolitan line and Chiltern Main Line. Between and Stratford it runs parallel to the branch of the Docklands Light Railway. The Jubilee line is printed silver on the Tube map, to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II, after which the line was named.


title: Jubilee line

text: The first section of what is now the Jubilee line opened in 1932, when the Metropolitan Railway built a branch from its main line at Wembley Park to Stanmore. The line, as with many others in the northwest London area, was designed for the use of commuters from the new and rapidly expanding suburbs. The line presented the Metropolitan with a problem. The suburban traffic had been so successful that, by the early 1930s, the lines into Baker Street were becoming overloaded, a problem exacerbated by the post-war flight from the City of London to the West End of London.


title: Jubilee line

text: At first, the Metropolitan had advocated a new deep tube line roughly following the line of the Edgware Road between the tube station and a point near Willesden Green. Indeed, construction advanced as far as the rebuilding of Edgware Road station to accommodate 4 platforms of 8-car length. Things changed, though, with the formation of the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) and the subsequent absorption of the Metropolitan line. The solution was now a new branch of the Bakerloo line from Baker Street to serve new stations at St John's Wood and Swiss Cottage, thereby rendering the existing stations of Lord's, Marlborough Road and Swiss Cottage on the parallel route redundant, and negating the need for the Met's extension from Edgware Road station. It was originally proposed that the Metropolitan line's Swiss Cottage station would remain open during peak hours for interchange with the Bakerloo, and that Lord's station would open for special cricketing events, but both were closed permanently as economy measures during the Second World War. The new line rose between the Metropolitan line tracks at Finchley Road, providing cross-platform interchange with the Metropolitan line. Continuing north to Wembley Park, the new Bakerloo line branch was to provide local service on the Metropolitan line, while Metropolitan line trains ran non-stop between Finchley Road and Wembley Park, cutting seven minutes from journey times. At Wembley Park, the new Bakerloo would turn north to serve Kingsbury, Queensbury, Canons Park and Stanmore, taking over the former Metropolitan branch. The Bakerloo extension, built as above, opened in 1939.


title: Jubilee line

text: The planning for the Tube network immediately before and after World War II considered several new routes. The main results of this study concerned two major routes: the south-to-northeast "line C", and lines 3 and 4, new cross-town routes, linking the northwest suburbs to Fenchurch Street, Wapping and variously Lewisham and Hayes. Line C opened as the Victoria line, in stages, from 1968 to 1972. Work on the northwest–southeast route continued.


title: Jubilee line

text: The "Fleet line" was mentioned in a 1965 "Times" article, discussing options after the Victoria line had been completed – suggesting that the Fleet line could take a route via Baker Street, Bond Street, Trafalgar Square, Strand, Fleet Street, Ludgate Circus and Cannon Street, then proceeding into southeast London. The new line was to have been called the Fleet line, after the River Fleet (although it would only have crossed under the Fleet at Ludgate Circus; the central London section mostly follows the Tyburn).


title: Jubilee line

text: In 1971, construction began on the new Fleet line. Economic pressure and doubt over the final destination of the line had led to a staged approach. Under the first stage, the Baker Street-to-Stanmore branch of the Bakerloo line was joined at Baker Street to a new segment into central London, with intermediate stops at Bond Street and Green Park and terminating at a new station at Charing Cross, thereby relieving pressure on the West End section of the Bakerloo line between Baker Street and Charing Cross and also allowing increased frequencies on the section north of Baker Street. The new tube was to offer cross-platform interchange between the Bakerloo and Fleet at Baker Street, as pioneered on the Victoria line. The work was completed in 1979. As part of the works, Trafalgar Square (Bakerloo) and Strand (Northern) stations were combined into a single station complex, Charing Cross. The existing Charing Cross station on the sub-surface District and Circle lines was renamed Embankment.


title: Jubilee line

text: Another part of the works included a section of test tunnel, built near New Cross. This part of London has waterlogged soil that is difficult to tunnel in, so a new tunnelling method, called the bentonite shield, was used experimentally to construct a 150 m section of tunnel, that was on the line of the proposed Phase 2 route, in 1972. The experiment was successful, leading to the introduction of this form of construction elsewhere, but when the planned route was altered, this section was left abandoned as it was effectively useless, and still exists to this day.


title: Jubilee line

text: In 1975, when plans were under way to introduce the London Transport Silver Jubilee Bus fleet, the then Sales Manager of London Transport Advertising, Geoffrey Holliman, proposed to the Chairman of LTE, Kenneth Robinson, that the Fleet line should be renamed the Jubilee line. However, this idea was initially rejected because of the additional costs involved. Nevertheless, the name was ultimately chosen for the line after Queen Elizabeth II's 1977 Silver Jubilee following a pledge made by the Conservatives in the Greater London Council election of 1977. The original choice of battleship grey for the line's colour was based on the naval meaning of the word "fleet"; this became a lighter grey, representing the silver colour of the Jubilee itself.


title: Jubilee line

text: The line was officially opened by the Prince of Wales on 30 April 1979, with passenger services operating from 1 May 1979.


title: Jubilee line

text: The Jubilee line of 1979 was to be the first of four phases of the project, but lack of funds meant that no further progress was made until the late 1990s.


title: Jubilee line

text: Changes in land use, particularly the urban renewal of the Docklands area, resulted in the project to extend the line beyond Charing Cross being changed considerably in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The Jubilee Line Extension, as the eventual project became known, opened in three stages in 1999. It split from the existing line at Green Park; the service to Charing Cross was discontinued (though still maintained for reversing trains at times of disruption, and for occasional use as a film set). The line extends as far as Stratford, with ten intermediate stations. This section is unique on the Underground because it is the only section to have platform edge doors which open automatically when trains arrive.


title: Jubilee line

text: It was planned that from Saturday 12 September 2015, there would be a 24-hour service on Friday and Saturday nights on the entire Jubilee line as part of the new Night Tube service pattern. This was postponed due to an ongoing dispute between Transport for London and rail unions. In August 2016, Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, announced that the Jubilee line night tube would run with services starting on 7 October 2016.


title: Jubilee line

text: Open since 1979, the Jubilee line is the newest line of the London Underground network. The trains were upgraded in 1997 to the 1996 stock. In 1999, trains began running to Stratford instead of Charing Cross, serving areas once poorly connected to the London Underground network.


title: Jubilee line

text: Jubilee line stations north of Baker Street were not built specifically for the Jubilee line. St John's Wood and Swiss Cottage stations were opened in 1939 on the then-new Bakerloo line branch and have more traditional tube station features. Stations north of Finchley Road were opened by the Metropolitan Railway (now the Metropolitan line), but they became part of the Bakerloo in 1939, with only Wembley Park being shared with the Metropolitan. Then, the Jubilee line took over the whole of the Bakerloo line service between Baker Street and Stanmore. The only stations with new platforms built for the original Jubilee line were the Baker Street westbound platform (eastbound opened in 1939), Bond Street, Green Park and the now-closed Charing Cross.


title: Jubilee line

text: The platform edge doors were introduced primarily to prevent draughts underground and to assist in air flow. They also prevent people from falling or jumping onto the track, as well as the build-up of litter.


title: Jubilee line

text: When the Jubilee line was opened, it was operated by 1972 stock. In 1984, this was partially replaced by the new 1983 stock: the displaced 1972 stock was transferred to the Bakerloo line. The 1983 stock proved to be unreliable and troublesome in service, with single-leaf doors making passenger loading and unloading a slower process than on other stock with wider door openings. With the construction of the Jubilee line Extension, the opportunity was taken to introduce new trains, and today the line is worked by 1996 stock, which has an exterior similar to the 1995 stock in use on the Northern line but (in spite of the confusing naming) is technically less advanced. The new stock has internal displays and automated announcements to provide passengers with information on the train's route. At first, the displayed text was static and showed only the destination of the train, but later showed also the name of the next station and interchanges there. Subsequent modifications introduced scrolling text. The 1996 stock uses a different motor from the 1995 stock and has a motor design similar to Class 465 and Class 466 Networker trains.


title: Jubilee line

text: The Jubilee line closed for three days from 25 December 2005 in order to add an extra car to each six-car train. The line had to be closed as six- and seven-car trains could not run in service at the same time, because the platform-edge doors at Jubilee Line Extension stations could not cater for both train lengths simultaneously. The signalling system was also modified to work with the longer trains.


title: Jubilee line

text: Previously, an extra four complete seven-car trains had been added to the fleet, bringing the total to 63. This enabled the period during which a full service could be run to be increased. The full fleet was not required to be available until full advantage has been taken of the new signalling system.


title: Jubilee line

text: The result of the seventh car upgrade was a 17% increase in capacity, allowing 6,000 more passengers per hour to use the line. Work was completed and the line reopened two days ahead of schedule, on 28 December 2005.


title: Jubilee line

text: Since 2011, the Jubilee line has automatic train operation (ATO), using the SelTrac S40 moving block system. This provides capacity for 30 trains per hour.


title: Jubilee line

text: Migration to the system was problematic. The programme of temporary closures for engineering work was criticised by local politicians as well as by the management of venues such as Wembley Stadium and The O2 because visitors to major concerts and sporting events had to travel by rail replacement bus. The management of the project by Tube Lines was criticised by London TravelWatch for its delayed delivery date, and a report by the London Assembly referred to the weekly line closures as "chaotic".


title: Jubilee line

text: In March 2020, a leaky feeder based system was brought online in the Jubilee line tunnels, between Westminster and Canning Town. The development of this system arose from the Home Office's desire to provide coverage for its new Emergency Services Network on the London Underground. It allows passengers to receive 4G connectivity both in the tunnels and on station platforms.


title: Jubilee line

text: This is the only section of London Underground tunnel that has wireless connectivity. TfL intends to deploy the technology across the entire Tube network by the mid-2020s.


title: Jubilee line

text: When North Greenwich Underground station was opened, it was built to enable a branch extension to be built eastwards to Thamesmead. There are currently no plans to construct this branch route.


title: Jubilee line

text: Plans were put forward in 1974 and again in 2004 for a West Hampstead interchange, to connect the three West Hampstead stations in one complex, but plans were put on hold in 2007 owing to uncertainty over the North London Line rail franchise.


title: Jubilee line

text: While no connections in the form of railway infrastructure exist, the three stations at West Hampstead form part of an "out of station" interchange in the Oyster system thus continuing similar (but little-publicised) interchange arrangements in existence since before nationalisation.


title: Jubilee line

text: The Jubilee line platforms at Charing Cross are still used during service suspensions. For example, when the service is suspended between Green Park and Stratford, trains will terminate (and passengers alight) at Green Park before going to Charing Cross and using a scissors crossover to reverse back westbound. The platforms are a popular set for films and television because the platforms are contemporary and the trains used are current ones that appear in normal passenger service.


title: Jubilee line

text: The main servicing and maintenance depot on the Jubilee line is Stratford Market Depot between the Stratford and West Ham stations. Trains are also stabled in Neasden Depot – sharing it with the Metropolitan line.


title: Jubilee line

text: Stratford Market Depot was built as part of the Jubilee Line Extension in the late 1990s, as the Neasden Depot could not accommodate the increased number of trains required.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: A mid-ocean ridge (MOR) is a seafloor mountain system formed by plate tectonics. It typically has a depth of about and rises about above the deepest portion of an ocean basin. This feature is where seafloor spreading takes place along a divergent plate boundary. The rate of seafloor spreading determines the morphology of the crest of the mid-ocean ridge and its width in an ocean basin.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: The production of new seafloor and oceanic lithosphere results from mantle upwelling in response to plate separation. The melt rises as magma at the linear weakness between the separating plates, and emerges as lava, creating new oceanic crust and lithosphere upon cooling.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: The first discovered mid-ocean ridge was the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which is a spreading center that bisects the North and South Atlantic basins; hence the origin of the name 'mid-ocean ridge'. Most oceanic spreading centers are not in the middle of their hosting ocean basis but regardless, are traditionally called mid-ocean ridges. Mid-ocean ridges around the globe are linked by plate tectonic boundaries and the trace of the ridges across the ocean floor appears similar to the seam of a baseball. The mid-ocean ridge system thus is the longest mountain range on Earth, reaching about .


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: The mid-ocean ridges of the world are connected and form "the" Ocean Ridge, a single global mid-oceanic ridge system that is part of every ocean, making it the longest mountain range in the world. The continuous mountain range is long (several times longer than the Andes, the longest continental mountain range), and the total length of the oceanic ridge system is long.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: At the spreading center on a mid-ocean ridge, the depth of the seafloor is approximately . On the ridge flanks, the depth of the seafloor (or the height of a location on a mid-ocean ridge above a base-level) is correlated with its age (age of the lithosphere where depth is measured). The depth-age relation can be modeled by the cooling of a lithosphere plate or A good approximation is that the depth of the seafloor at a location on a spreading mid-ocean ridge is proportional to the square root of the age of the seafloor. The overall shape of ridges results from Pratt isostacy: close to the ridge axis, there is a hot, low-density mantle supporting the oceanic crust. As the oceanic plate cools, away from the ridge axis, the oceanic mantle lithosphere (the colder, denser part of the mantle that, together with the crust, comprises the oceanic plates) thickens, and the density increases. Thus older seafloor is underlain by denser material and is deeper.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: "Spreading rate" is the rate at which an ocean basin widens due to seafloor spreading. Rates can be computed by mapping marine magnetic anomalies that span mid-ocean ridges. As crystallized basalt extruded at a ridge axis cools below Curie points of appropriate iron-titanium oxides, magnetic field directions parallel to the Earth's magnetic field are recorded in those oxides. The orientations of the field preserved in the oceanic crust comprise a record of directions of the Earth's magnetic field with time. Because the field has reversed directions at known intervals throughout its history, the pattern of geomagnetic reversals in the ocean crust can be used as an indicator of age; given the crustal age and distance from the ridge axis, spreading rates can be calculated.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: Spreading rates range from approximately 10–200 mm/yr. Slow-spreading ridges such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge have spread much less far (showing a steeper profile) than faster ridges such as the East Pacific Rise (gentle profile) for the same amount of time and cooling and consequent bathymetric deepening. Slow-spreading ridges (less than 40 mm/yr) generally have large rift valleys, sometimes as wide as 10–20 km (6.2–12.4 mi), and very rugged terrain at the ridge crest that can have relief of up to . By contrast, fast-spreading ridges (greater than 90 mm/yr) such as the East Pacific Rise lack rift valleys. The spreading rate of the North Atlantic Ocean is ~ 25 mm/yr, while in the Pacific region, it is 80–145 mm/yr. The highest known rate is over 200 mm/yr in the Miocene on the East Pacific Rise. Ridges that spread at rates <20 mm/yr are referred to as ultraslow spreading ridges (e.g., the Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic Ocean and the Southwest Indian Ridge).


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: The spreading center or axis commonly connects to a transform fault oriented at right angles to the axis. The flanks of mid-ocean ridges are in many places marked by the inactive scars of transform faults called fracture zones. At faster spreading rates the axes often display overlapping spreading centers that lack connecting transform faults. The depth of the axis changes in a systematic way with shallower depths between offsets such as transform faults and overlapping spreading centers dividing the axis into segments. One hypothesis for different along-axis depths is variations in magma supply to the spreading center. Ultra-slow spreading ridges form both magmatic and amagmatic (currently lack volcanic activity) ridge segments without transform faults.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: Mid-ocean ridges exhibit active volcanism and seismicity. The oceanic crust is in a constant state of 'renewal' at the mid-ocean ridges by the processes of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics. New magma steadily emerges onto the ocean floor and intrudes into the existing ocean crust at and near rifts along the ridge axes. The rocks making up the crust below the seafloor are youngest along the axis of the ridge and age with increasing distance from that axis. New magma of basalt composition emerges at and near the axis because of decompression melting in the underlying Earth's mantle. The isentropic upwelling solid mantle material exceeds the solidus temperature and melts. The crystallized magma forms a new crust of basalt known as MORB for mid-ocean ridge basalt, and gabbro below it in the lower oceanic crust. Mid-ocean ridge basalt is a tholeiitic basalt and is low in incompatible elements. Hydrothermal vents fueled by magmatic and volcanic heat are a common feature at oceanic spreading centers. A feature of the elevated ridges is their relatively high heat flow values, ranging from between 1 "μ"cal/cm2 s to about 10 "μ"cal/cm2 s . (Micro calories per centimeter squared per second)


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: Most crust in the ocean basins is less than 200 million years old, which is much younger than the 4.54 billion year age of the Earth. This fact reflects the process of lithosphere recycling into the Earth's mantle during subduction. As the oceanic crust and lithosphere moves away from the ridge axis, the peridotite in the underlying mantle lithosphere cools and becomes more rigid. The crust and the relatively rigid peridotite below it make up the oceanic lithosphere, which sits above the less rigid and viscous asthenosphere.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: The oceanic lithosphere is formed at an oceanic ridge, while the lithosphere is subducted back into the asthenosphere at ocean trenches. Two processes, ridge-push and slab pull, are thought to be responsible for spreading at mid-ocean ridges. Ridge push refers to the gravitation sliding of the ocean plate that is raised above the hotter asthenosphere, thus creating a body force causing sliding of the plate downslope. In slab pull the weight of a tectonic plate being subducted (pulled) below an overlying plate at a subduction zone drags the rest of the plate along behind it. The slab pull mechanism is considered to be contributing more than the ridge push.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: A process previously proposed to contribute to plate motion and the formation of new oceanic crust at mid-ocean ridges is the "mantle conveyor" due to deep convection (see image). However, some studies have shown that the upper mantle (asthenosphere) is too plastic (flexible) to generate enough friction to pull the tectonic plate along. Moreover, mantle upwelling that causes magma to form beneath the ocean ridges appears to involve only its upper 400 km (250 mi), as deduced from seismic tomography and observations of the seismic discontinuity in the upper mantle at about 400 km (250 mi). On the other hand, some of the world's largest tectonic plates such as the North American Plate and South American plate are in motion, yet only are being subducted in restricted locations such as the Lesser Antilles Arc and Scotia Arc, pointing to action by the ridge push body force on these plates. Computer modeling of the plates and mantle motions suggest that plate motion and mantle convection are not connected, and the main plate driving force is slab pull.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: Increased rates of seafloor spreading (i.e. the rate of expansion of the mid-ocean ridge) have caused the global (eustatic) sea level to rise over very long timescales (millions of years). Increased seafloor spreading means that the mid-ocean ridge will then expand and form a broader ridge with decreased average depth, taking up more space in the ocean basin. This displaces the overlying ocean and causes sea levels to rise.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: Sealevel change can be attributed to other factors (thermal expansion, ice melting, and mantle convection creating dynamic topography). Over very long timescales, however, it is the result of changes in the volume of the ocean basins which are, in turn, affected by rates of seafloor spreading along the mid-ocean ridges.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: The 100 to 170 meters higher sea level of the Cretaceous Period (144–65 Ma) is partly attributed to plate tectonics because thermal expansion and the absence of ice sheets only account for some of the extra sea level.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: Seafloor spreading on mid-ocean ridges is a global scale ion-exchange system. Hydrothermal vents at spreading centers introduce various amounts of iron, sulfur, manganese, silicon, and other elements into the ocean, some of which are recycled into the ocean crust. Helium-3, an isotope that accompanies volcanism from the mantle, is emitted by hydrothermal vents and can be detected in plumes within the ocean.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: Fast spreading rates will expand the mid-ocean ridge causing basalt reactions with seawater to happen more rapidly. The magnesium/calcium ratio will be lower because more magnesium ions are being removed from seawater and consumed by the rock, and more calcium ions are being removed from the rock and released into seawater. Hydrothermal activity at the ridge crest is efficient in removing magnesium. A lower Mg/Ca ratio favors the precipitation of low-Mg calcite polymorphs of calcium carbonate (calcite seas).


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: Slow spreading at mid-ocean ridges has the opposite effect and will result in a higher Mg/Ca ratio favoring the precipitation of aragonite and high-Mg calcite polymorphs of calcium carbonate (aragonite seas).


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: Experiments show that most modern high-Mg calcite organisms would have been low-Mg calcite in past calcite seas, meaning that the Mg/Ca ratio in an organism's skeleton varies with the Mg/Ca ratio of the seawater in which it was grown.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: The mineralogy of reef-building and sediment-producing organisms is thus regulated by chemical reactions occurring along the mid-ocean ridge, the rate of which is controlled by the rate of sea-floor spreading.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: The first indications that a ridge bisects the Atlantic Ocean basin came from the results of the British Challenger expedition in the nineteenth century. Soundings from lines dropped to the seafloor were analyzed by oceanographers Matthew Fontaine Maury and Charles Wyville Thomson and revealed a prominent rise in the seafloor that ran down the Atlantic basin from north to south. Sonar echo sounders confirmed this in the early twentieth century.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: It was not until after World War II, when the ocean floor was surveyed in more detail, that the full extent of mid-ocean ridges became known. The "Vema", a ship of the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, traversed the Atlantic Ocean, recording echo sounder data on the depth of the ocean floor. A team led by Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen concluded that there was an enormous mountain chain with a rift valley at its crest, running up the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Scientists named it the 'Mid-Atlantic Ridge'. Other research showed that the ridge crest was seismically active and fresh lavas were found in the rift valley. Also, crustal heat flow was higher here than elsewhere in the Atlantic Ocean basin.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: At first, the ridge was thought to be a feature specific to the Atlantic Ocean. However, as surveys of the ocean floor continued around the world, it was discovered that every ocean contains parts of the mid-ocean ridge system. The German Meteor expedition traced the mid-ocean ridge from the South Atlantic into the Indian Ocean early in the twentieth century. Although the first-discovered section of the ridge system runs down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, it was found that most mid-ocean ridges are located away from the center of other ocean basins.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift in 1912. He stated: "the Mid-Atlantic Ridge ... zone in which the floor of the Atlantic, as it keeps spreading, is continuously tearing open and making space for fresh, relatively fluid and hot sima [rising] from depth". However, Wegener did not pursue this observation in his later works and his theory was dismissed by geologists because there was no mechanism to explain how continents could plow through ocean crust, and the theory became largely forgotten.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: Following the discovery of the worldwide extent of the mid-ocean ridge in the 1950s, geologists faced a new task: explaining how such an enormous geological structure could have formed. In the 1960s, geologists discovered and began to propose mechanisms for seafloor spreading. The discovery of mid-ocean ridges and the process of seafloor spreading allowed for Wegener's theory to be expanded so that it included the movement of oceanic crust as well as the continents. Plate tectonics was a suitable explanation for seafloor spreading, and the acceptance of plate tectonics by the majority of geologists resulted in a major paradigm shift in geological thinking.


title: Mid-ocean ridge

text: It is estimated that along Earth's mid-ocean ridges every year of new seafloor is formed by this process. With a crustal thickness of , this amounts to about of new ocean crust formed every year.


title: Sex assignment

text: Sex assignment (sometimes known as gender assignment) is the discernment of an infant's sex at or before birth. A relative, midwife, nurse or physician inspects the external genitalia when the baby is delivered and, in more than 99.95% of births, sex is assigned without ambiguity. Assignment may also be done prior to birth through prenatal sex discernment.


title: Sex assignment

text: The sex assignment at or before birth usually aligns with a child's anatomical sex and phenotype. The number of births where the baby is intersex—where they do not fit into typical definitions of male and female at birth—has been reported to be as low as 0.018%, but is often estimated at around 0.2%. The number of births with ambiguous genitals is in the range of 0.02% to 0.05%. These conditions may complicate sex assignment. Other intersex conditions involve atypical chromosomes, gonads or hormones. Reinforcing sex assignments through surgical or hormonal interventions is often considered to violate the individual's human rights.


title: Sex assignment

text: Traditionally assignment carries the implicit expectation that future gender identity will develop in alignment with the physical anatomy, assignment, and rearing. In about 99.4% of cases, the child's gender identity will match their sex assignment. If sex assignment and gender identity do not align, the person is transgender. The sex assignment of an intersex individual may also contradict their future gender identity.


title: Sex assignment

text: "Sex assignment" is the discernment of an infant's sex at birth. Terms that may be related to sex assignment are:


title: Sex assignment

text: Assigned male at birth (AMAB): a person of any age and irrespective of current gender whose sex assignment at birth resulted in a declaration of "male". Synonyms: male assigned at birth (MAAB) and designated male at birth (DMAB).


title: Sex assignment

text: Assigned female at birth (AFAB): a person of any age and irrespective of current gender whose sex assignment at birth resulted in a declaration of "female". Synonyms: female assigned at birth (FAAB) and designated female at birth (DFAB).


title: Sex assignment

text: "Intersex", in humans and other animals, describes variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies". These may complicate the sex assignment of a newborn and can result a phenotypical sex assignment that is inconsistent with normal genotype.


title: Sex assignment

text: "Transgender" people have a gender identity, or gender expression, that differs from their assigned sex. Transgender people are sometimes called "transsexual" if they desire medical assistance to transition from one sex to another.


title: Sex assignment

text: "Sex reassignment": a treatment program consisting of a combination of psychological, medical, and surgical methods intended to physically change a person's sexual characteristics.


title: Sex assignment

text: Observation or recognition of an infant's sex may be complicated in the case of intersex infants and children and in cases of early trauma. In such cases, the infant may be assigned male or female, and may receive medical treatment to confirm that assignment. These medical interventions have increasingly been seen as a human rights issue due to their unnecessary nature and the potential for lifelong complications.


title: Sex assignment

text: Cases of trauma include the famous John/Joan case, where sexologist John Money claimed successful reassignment from male to female at age 17 months of a boy whose penis was destroyed during circumcision. However, this claim was later shown to be largely false. The subject, David Reimer, later identified as a man.


title: Sex assignment

text: The number of births with ambiguous genitals is in the range of 1 in 2,000 to 1 in 4,500 (0.05% to 0.02%). Typical examples would be an unusually prominent clitoris in an otherwise apparently typical girl, or complete cryptorchidism in an otherwise apparently typical boy. In most of these cases, a sex is tentatively assigned and the parents told that tests will be performed to confirm the apparent sex. Typical tests in this situation might include a pelvic ultrasound to determine the presence of a uterus, a testosterone or 17α-hydroxyprogesterone level, and/or a karyotype. In some of these cases a pediatric endocrinologist is consulted to confirm the tentative sex assignment. The expected assignment is usually confirmed within hours to a few days in these cases.


title: Sex assignment

text: Some infants are born with enough ambiguity that assignment becomes a more drawn-out process of multiple tests and intensive education of the parents about sexual differentiation. In some of these cases, it is clear that the child will face physical difficulties or social stigma as they grow up, and deciding upon the sex of assignment involves weighing the advantages and disadvantages of either assignment. Intersex activists have criticised "normalising" procedures performed on infants and children, who are unable to provide informed consent.


title: Sex assignment

text: In European societies, Roman law, post-classical canon law, and later common law, referred to a person's sex as male, female or hermaphrodite, with legal rights as male or female depending on the characteristics that appeared most dominant. Under Roman law, a hermaphrodite had to be classed as either male or female. The 12th-century "Decretum Gratiani" states that "Whether a hermaphrodite may witness a testament, depends on which sex prevails". The foundation of common law, the 16th Century "Institutes of the Lawes of England", described how a hermaphrodite could inherit "either as male or female, according to that kind of sexe which doth prevaile." Legal cases where sex assignment was placed in doubt have been described over the centuries.


title: Sex assignment

text: With the medicalization of intersex, criteria for assignment have evolved over the decades, as clinical understanding of biological factors and diagnostic tests have improved, as surgical techniques have changed and potential complications have become clearer, and in response to the outcomes and opinions of adults who have grown up with various intersex conditions.


title: Sex assignment

text: Before the 1950s, assignment was based almost entirely on the appearance of the external genitalia. Although physicians recognized that there were conditions in which the apparent secondary sexual characteristics could develop contrary to the person's sex, and conditions in which the gonadal sex did not match that of the external genitalia, their ability to understand and diagnose such conditions in infancy was too poor to attempt to predict future development in most cases.


title: Sex assignment

text: In the 1950s, endocrinologists developed a basic understanding of the major intersex conditions such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), androgen insensitivity syndrome, and mixed gonadal dysgenesis. The discovery of cortisone allowed survival of infants with severe CAH for the first time. New hormone tests and karyotypes allowed more confident diagnosis in infancy and prediction of future development.


title: Sex assignment

text: Sex assignment became more than choosing a sex of rearing, but also began to include surgical treatment. Undescended testes could be retrieved. A greatly enlarged clitoris could be amputated to the usual size, but attempts to create a penis were unsuccessful. John Money and others controversially believed that children were more likely to develop a gender identity that matched sex of rearing than might be determined by chromosomes, gonads, or hormones. The resulting medical model was termed the "Optimal gender model".


title: Sex assignment

text: In recent years, the perceived need to legally assign sex is increasingly being challenged by transgender, transsexual, and intersex people. A report for the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice states "Gender increasingly seems to be perceived as a ‘sensitive’ identity feature, but so far is not regarded, nor protected as such in privacy regulations". Australian government guidelines state that "departments and agencies that collect sex and/or gender information must not collect information unless it is necessary for, or directly related to, one or more of the agency's functions or activities"


title: Sex assignment

text: Sex registration was introduced in the Netherlands in 1811 due to gender-specific rights and responsibilities, such as military conscription. Many gender-specific provisions in legislation no longer exist, but the provisions remain for rationales that include "speed of identification procedures".


title: WireGuard

text: WireGuard is a communication protocol and free and open-source software that implements encrypted virtual private networks (VPNs), and was designed with the goals of ease of use, high speed performance, and low attack surface. It aims for better performance and more power than IPsec and OpenVPN, two common tunneling protocols. The WireGuard protocol passes traffic over UDP.


title: WireGuard

text: In March 2020, the Linux version of the software reached a stable production release and was incorporated into the Linux 5.6 kernel, and backported to earlier Linux kernels in some Linux distributions. The Linux kernel components are licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2; other implementations are under GPLv2 or other free/open-source licenses.


title: WireGuard

text: In May 2019, researchers from INRIA published a machine-checked proof of the WireGuard protocol, produced using the CryptoVerif proof assistant.


title: WireGuard

text: WireGuard supports pre-shared symmetric key mode, which provides an additional layer of symmetric encryption to mitigate future advances in quantum computing. This addresses the risk that traffic may be stored until quantum computers are capable of breaking Curve25519, at which point traffic could be decrypted. Pre-shared keys are "usually troublesome from a key management perspective and might be more likely stolen", but in the shorter term, if the symmetric key is compromised, the Curve25519 keys still provide more than sufficient protection.


title: WireGuard

text: WireGuard fully supports IPv6, both inside and outside of tunnel. It supports only layer 3 for both IPv4 and IPv6 and can encapsulate v4-in-v6 and vice versa.


title: WireGuard

text: WireGuard is designed to be extended by third-party programmes and scripts. This has been used to augment WireGuard with various features including more user-friendly management interfaces (including easier setting up of keys), logging, dynamic firewall updates, and LDAP integration.


title: WireGuard

text: Excluding such complex features from the minimal core codebase improves its stability and security. For ensuring security, WireGuard restricts the options for implementing cryptographic controls, limits the choices for key exchange processes, and maps algorithms to a small subset of modern cryptographic primitives. If a flaw is found in any of the primitives, a new version can be released that resolves the issue. Also, configuration settings that affect the security of the overall application cannot be modified by unprivileged users.


title: WireGuard

text: A review by "Ars Technica" found that WireGuard was easy to setup and use, used strong ciphers, and had a minimal codebase that provided for a small attack surface.


title: WireGuard

text: WireGuard has received funding from the Open Technology Fund. and donations from Mullvad, Private Internet Access, IVPN, the NLnet Foundation and OVPN.


title: WireGuard

text: Oregon senator Ron Wyden has recommended to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that they evaluate WireGuard as a replacement for existing technologies.


title: WireGuard

text: Early snapshots of the code base exist from 30 June 2016. Four early adopters of WireGuard were the VPN service providers Mullvad, AzireVPN, IVPN and cryptostorm.


title: WireGuard

text: On 9 December 2019, David Miller – primary maintainer of the Linux networking stack – accepted the WireGuard patches into the "net-next" maintainer tree, for inclusion in an upcoming kernel.


title: WireGuard

text: On 28 January 2020, Linus Torvalds merged David Miller's net-next tree, and WireGuard entered the mainline Linux kernel tree.


title: WireGuard

text: On 20 March 2020, Debian developers enabled the module build options for WireGuard in their kernel config for the Debian 11 version (testing).


title: WireGuard

text: On 29 March 2020 WireGuard was incorporated into the Linux 5.6 release tree. The Windows version of the software remains at beta.


title: WireGuard

text: On 30 March 2020, Android developers added native kernel support for WireGuard in their Generic Kernel Image.


title: WireGuard

text: On 22 June 2020, after the work of Matt Dunwoodie and Jason A. Donenfeld, WireGuard support was imported into OpenBSD.


title: WireGuard

text: On 23 November 2020, Jason A. Donenfeld released an update of the Windows package improving installation, stability, ARM support, and enterprise features.


title: WireGuard

text: On 19 January 2021, WireGuard support was added for preview in pfSense Community Edition (CE) 2.5.0 development snapshots.


title: WireGuard

text: In March 2021, kernel-mode WireGuard support was removed from FreeBSD 13.0, still in testing, after an urgent code cleanup in FreeBSD WireGuard could not be completed quickly. FreeBSD-based pfSense Community Edition (CE) 2.5.0 and pfSense Plus 21.02 removed kernel-based WireGuard as well.


title: WireGuard

text: In May 2021, WireGuard support was re-introduced back into pfSense CE and pfSense Plus development snapshots as an experimental package written by a member of the pfSense community, Christian McDonald. The WireGuard package for pfSense incorporates the ongoing kernel-mode WireGuard development work by Jason A. Donenfeld that was originally sponsored by Netgate.


title: WireGuard

text: In June 2021, the official package repositories for both pfSense CE 2.5.2 and pfSense Plus 21.05 included the WireGuard package.


title: Rendang

text: Rendang ( ; ) is a Minang dish originating from the Minangkabau region in West Sumatra, Indonesia. It has spread across Indonesian cuisine to the cuisines of neighbouring Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines. Rendang is often described as a rich dish of meat — most commonly beef ("rendang daging") — that has been slow cooked and braised in a coconut milk seasoned with a herb and spice mixture, until the liquids evaporate and the meat turns dark brown and tender, becoming caramelized and infused with rich flavours.


title: Rendang

text: As the signature dish of Minangkabau culture, rendang is traditionally served at ceremonial occasions to honour guests during festive events; such as wedding feasts and "Lebaran" or "Hari Raya" (Indonesian popular words for both Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha). Rendang is also traditionally served among the Malay community in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, as well as the Maranao in the Philippines.


title: Rendang

text: Rendang is officially recognised as one of Indonesia's national dishes. Six types of rendang preparations have also been designated as intangible cultural heritage by the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture. A broad survey in 2011 placed beef rendang as the most delicious dish in the world.


title: Rendang

text: The origin of rendang could be traced back to the Indian merchants links to West Sumatra before the 15th century. There are Dutch archives about Minangkabau that state regular contacts between India and West Sumatra in the early second millennium, thus suggests that north Indian curry was possibly the precursor of rendang. Indian curry was adopted by the Minangkabau people as gulai, a local version of curry. Minangkabau people then cooked this gulai further in order to prepare kalio also known as wet rendang. This cooking process was then continued until it thickened and became rendang or also known as dry rendang.


title: Rendang

text: Andalas University historian, Prof. Gusti Asnan suggests that rendang began to spread across the region when Minangkabau merchants began to trade and migrate to Malacca in the 16th century, "Because the journey through the river waterways in Sumatra took much time, a durable preserved dry rendang is suitable for a long journey." The dried Padang rendang is a durable food, good to consume for weeks, even when left at room temperature. In fact, the earliest written records of rendang is from the Malaccan Malay manuscript of Hikayat Amir Hamzah, which date back to the 1550s. Rendang is said to have been invented during this time - when chili from America had arrived in Malay archipelago through Portuguese traders in Portuguese occupied Malacca.


title: Rendang

text: During Indonesian National Revolution in 1946, Indonesian first lady Fatmawati, the wife of Sukarno cooked and sent rendang to boost morale of Indonesian republic freedom fighters around Yogyakarta. Declined by household helps, she insisted on buying beef and went to the market herself by "becak" despite being pregnant at that time.


title: Rendang

text: The popularity of rendang has spread widely from its original domain because of the "merantau" (migrating) culture of Minangkabau people. In the modern era, Overseas Minangkabau leave their hometown to start a career in other Indonesian cities as well as neighboring countries, and Padang restaurants, Minangkabau eating establishments that are ubiquitous in Indonesian cities, spring up. These Padang restaurants have introduced and popularised Minangkabau style rendang and other Padang food dishes across Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the wider world.


title: Rendang

text: Rendang is revered in Minangkabau culture as an embodiment of the philosophy of "musyawarah", discussion and consultation with elders. It has been claimed that the four main ingredients represent Minangkabau society as a whole:


title: Rendang

text: In Minangkabau tradition, rendang is a requisite dish for special occasions in traditional Minang ceremonies, from birth ceremonies to circumcision, marriage, Qur'an recitals, and religious festivals such as Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.


title: Rendang

text: In 2011, rendang placed 11th place on a list of World's 50 best foods published by CNN International. An online reader's poll of 35,000 voters chose beef rendang as the top dish on CNN International's Readers' picks" list.


title: Rendang

text: The Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture have included six rendang preparations under its National Intangible Cultural Heritage of Indonesia list, all of which are registered under West Sumatra: "Randang" (Minang spelling), and "gulai rendang", were part of the inaugural list in 2010. They were joined by "randang daging" (meat rendang), "randang kantang" (potato rendang), and "randang incek kacang", in 2016. "Rendang paku" (fern rendang) of Dharmasraya, is the most recent addition as of 2018.


title: Rendang

text: In 2018, rendang was officially recognised by the Indonesian government as one of the country's five national dishes: the others are soto, sate, nasi goreng, and gado-gado.


title: Rendang

text: Rendang is most often described as meat slow-cooked in coconut milk and spices until it becomes tender. If cooked properly, dry rendang can last for as long as four weeks. Prior to refrigeration technology, this style of cooking enabled preservation of the large amount of meat. The cooking technique flourished because of its role in preserving meat in a tropical climate. Its durability is one of the reasons that today, prepackaged rendang is sent as food aid relief for natural disaster survivors in Indonesia. The cut of beef suitable for rendang is lean meat of the rear leg of the cattle; i.e. topside or round beef, which is considered perfect for slow cooking.


title: Rendang

text: Rendang is rich in spices. Along with the main meat ingredient, rendang uses coconut milk and a paste of mixed ground spices, including ginger, galangal, turmeric leaves, lemongrass, garlic, shallots, chillis and other spices. This spice mixture is called "pemasak" in Minangkabau. The spices, garlic, shallot, ginger and galangal used in rendang have antimicrobial properties and serve as natural organic preservatives. Although some culinary experts describe rendang as a curry, the dish is usually not considered as such in Indonesia or Malaysia since it is richer and contains less liquid than is normal for curries.


title: Rendang

text: Traditionally the term "rendang" does not refer to a certain type of dish. The verb "merendang" actually refers to a method of slow cooking; continuously churning the ingredients in a pot or frying pan, on a small fire, until all of the liquids evaporate and the meat is well done. Traditional Padang rendang takes hours to cook. Cooking rendang involves pounding and grinding ingredients as well as slow cooking, and so is time-consuming and requires patience. The meat pieces are slowly cooked in coconut milk and spices until almost all the liquid is gone, allowing the meat to become tender and absorb the condiments. The cooking process changes from boiling to frying, as the liquid evaporates and the coconut milk turns to coconut oil. Cooking the meat until tender with almost all the liquid evaporated requires great care, keeping it from getting burnt. Because of its generous use of numerous spices, rendang is known for having a complex and unique taste.


title: Rendang

text: Rendang is often served with steamed rice, "ketupat" (a compressed rice cake) or "lemang" (glutinous rice cooked in bamboo tubes), accompanied with vegetable side dishes such as boiled cassava leaf, "cubadak" (young jackfruit "gulai"), cabbage "gulai" and "lado" (red or green chilli pepper sambal).


title: Rendang

text: In Minangkabau culinary tradition, there are three recognised stages in cooking meat in spicy coconut milk. The dish which results is categorised according to the liquid content of the cooked coconut milk, which ranges from the most wet and soupy to the most dry: "Gulai — Kalio – Rendang". The ingredients of "gulai", "kalio" and rendang are almost identical with the exceptions that "gulai" usually has less red chilli pepper and more turmeric, while rendang has richer spices.


title: Rendang

text: If pieces of meat are cooked in spicy coconut milk and the process stopped right when the meat is done and the coconut milk has reached its boiling point, the dish is called "gulai". If the process continues until the coconut milk is partly evaporated and the meat has started to brown, the dish is called "kalio". For traditional dry rendang, the process continues hours beyond this, until the liquid has all but completely evaporated and the color turns to a dark brown, almost black color. Thus not only liquid content but also color indicate which type of rendang is involved: "gulai" is light yellow, "kalio" is brown and rendang is very dark brown. Today, one mostly finds only two simpler categories of rendang: either dry or wet.


title: Rendang

text: According to Minangkabau tradition, their true rendang is the dry one. Although, unlike crispy "dendeng balado" spicy jerky, rendang's texture is not actually dry, since it is quite moist and rather oily. Rendang is diligently stirred, attended, and cooked for hours until the coconut milk has evaporated, turned into coconut oil, and the meat has absorbed the spices. It is still served for special ceremonial occasions or to honor guests. If cooked properly, dried rendang can last for three to four weeks stored at room temperature and is still good to consume. It can even last months stored in a refrigerator, and up to six months if frozen.


title: Rendang

text: Wet rendang, more accurately identified as "kalio", is a type of rendang that is cooked for a shorter period of time and much of the coconut milk liquid has not evaporated. "Kalio" has quite abundant liquid sauce acquired from cooked coconut milk that partly has turned into spicy oil, which is quite flavourful if consumed with steamed rice. Much of rendang served abroad is actually more akin to "kalio" or wet version of rendang. If stored at room temperature, "kalio" lasts less than a week. "Kalio" usually has a light golden brown colour, paler than dry rendang.


title: Rendang

text: Rendang is made from beef (or occasionally beef liver, chicken, duck, mutton, water buffalo, or vegetables like jackfruit or cassava). Chicken or duck rendang also contains tamarind and is usually not cooked for as long as beef rendang.


title: Rendang

text: The original Minangkabau rendang has two categories, "rendang darek" and "rendang pesisir". "Rendang darek" (‘land rendang’) is an umbrella term for dishes from old regions in mountainous areas of the Minangkabau Highlands such as Batusangkar, Agam, Lima Puluh Kota, Payakumbuh, Padang Panjang and Bukittinggi. It mainly consists of beef, offal, poultry products, jackfruit, and many other vegetables and animal products which are found in these places. "Rendang pesisir" (‘coastal rendang’) is from the coastal regions of Minangkabau such as Pariaman, Padang, Painan and Pasaman. "Rendang pesisir" mainly consists of seafood, although it is not unusual for them to incorporate beef or water buffalo meat in their rendang.


title: Rendang

text: Today, rendang is quite widespread in Indonesia, owned mainly by the proliferation of Padang restaurants in the country, which led to popularity and adoption of rendang


title: Rendang

text: into the kitchens of contemporary Indonesian households of various ethnic backgrounds. This might led to development of variants with slightly altered tastes to accommodate regional preferences. Other ethnic groups in Indonesia also have adopted a version of rendang into their daily diet. For example, in Java, the rendang—aside from the Padang variety sold in Padang restaurants—tend to be wet, slightly sweeter and less spicy to accommodate Javanese tastes.


title: Rendang

text: Outside of Indonesia, rendang is also known in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, southern Thailand, and the southern Philippines as well as in the Netherlands, Australia and Belgium.


title: Rendang

text: Rendang has a long history in Malaysia with distinct versions unique to individual Malaysian states. The different versions of rendang use different ingredients for the spice mix, resulting in differing flavors to the meat.


title: Rendang

text: The Dutch are familiar with rendang through colonial ties and often serve the wet "kalio" version in the Netherlands—usually as part of a "rijsttafel". Indonesian dishes, including rendang, are served in numbers of Indonesian restaurants in Dutch cities, especially The Hague, Utrecht, Rotterdam and Amsterdam.


title: Rendang

text: In the Philippines, rendang is most commonly associated with the cuisine of the Muslim Maranao people of Mindanao. It differs from the Indonesian versions in the use of the native spice mix "palapa" as well as the addition of "muscovado" sugar.


title: Rendang

text: Rendang "bumbu" is sometimes used as the base of other fusion dishes. Some chefs in Indonesian sushi establishments for example, have developed a Japanese-Indonesian fusion cuisine with recipes for krakatau roll, gado-gado roll, rendang roll and gulai ramen. Several chefs and food industries have experimented with fusing rendang with sandwiches, burgers and spaghetti. Burger King at one time served their take on a rendang-flavoured burger in their Singapore and Indonesia chains for a limited promotion period. Spaghetti with rendang could also be found in 7-Eleven convenience stores across Indonesia.


title: Rendang

text: Rendang is also a popular flavour in Indonesian instant noodle variants, such as the "Indomie Goreng Rendang".


title: Tony Xu

text: Tony Xu (born Xu Xun, 1983/1984) is a Chinese-American billionaire businessman, and the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of DoorDash. Born in Nanjing, China, Xu immigrated to the United States with his parents at the age of five. He earned degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. Earlier in his career, Xu interned at Square, Inc., and worked for McKinsey & Company, eBay, and PayPal. He was included in "Fortune" "40 Under 40" list in 2020.


title: Tony Xu

text: DoorDash had its IPO in December 2020 making Xu's net worth an estimated $2.8 billion as of April 2021. He and his wife Patti are signatories to the Giving Pledge.


title: Tony Xu

text: Xu was born in Nanjing, China. In 1989, his parents immigrated to Champaign, Illinois. His mother Julie Cao, previously a doctor in China; she later opened acupuncture and medical clinics in Champaign and the San Francisco Bay Area. His father was a professor in China who studied aerospace engineering and applied mathematics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he earned his Ph.D.


title: Tony Xu

text: Xu began working at an early age, at times washing dishes at the same restaurant where his mother worked. He legally changed his name from Xu Xun to Tony Xu, inspired by his favorite television series "Who's the Boss?", in which Tony Danza plays Tony Micelli. Xu earned his Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering and operations research from Berkeley's College of Engineering and his Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford's Graduate School of Business in 2013.


title: Tony Xu

text: Early in his career, Xu interned at the financial services and digital payments company Square, Inc. and completed business development work for the e-commerce app RedLaser. He also worked as a business analyst for the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, and as a corporate strategy consultant for eBay and PayPal.


title: Tony Xu

text: Xu co-founded the delivery platform DoorDash in 2013 with Stanford classmates Andy Fang, Evan Moore, and Stanley Tang; the group had previously worked together to launch the predecessor delivery service PaloAltoDelivery.com in 2012. Xu has said his immigrant parents, and especially his mother's restaurant work, helped inspire DoorDash. Initially, he and other DoorDash employees completed food deliveries. Xu continues to be CEO, and owns an approximately five percent stake in the company. DoorDash's initial public offering in 2020, which Xu has been credited for leading, made him a billionaire at the age of 36. He has voting authority over all Class B shares, giving him control of DoorDash with 69 percent of the voting interest, as of December 2020.


title: Tony Xu

text: In addition to DoorDash's board of directors, Xu is a board member of the Silicon Valley Chinese Association Foundation and an executive council member of TechNet.


title: Tony Xu

text: Xu has invested in the blockchain technology provider Alchemy, as well as the ghost kitchens All Day Kitchens and Local Kitchens.


title: Tony Xu

text: Signatories to the Giving Pledge, he and his wife Patti have made significant donations in support of Berkeley, Northwestern, and the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community.


title: Tony Xu

text: Xu lives in San Francisco. He and his wife Patti met at church while they were undergraduates at Berkeley and married in 2013; the couple have two children.


title: Tony Xu

text: Xu enjoys running and used to participate in marathons. He has described himself as an "avid" basketball fan, and has credited the sport and television for helping him learn English.


title: The Problem with Jon Stewart

text: The Problem with Jon Stewart is an American late night current affairs television series hosted by Jon Stewart on Apple TV+. Each episode focuses on a single issue. The series premiered on September 30, 2021. The second season premiered on October 7, 2022.


title: The Problem with Jon Stewart

text: In October 2020, as part of a multi-year production deal with Apple, it was announced that Jon Stewart was creating a new current affairs series for Apple TV+, marking his return to the format since leaving "The Daily Show" in 2015.


title: The Problem with Jon Stewart

text: Throughout early 2021, the show was building out its production team, hiring Brinda Adhikari to serve as showrunner and executive producer, Chelsea Devantez as head writer, and Lorrie Baranek as Stewart's executive in charge of production in February 2021. Adhikari was a longtime network news veteran before coming on to the show. Around the same time, Busboy Productions posted job listings seeking to fill positions for all aspects of the production.


title: The Problem with Jon Stewart

text: On April 7, 2021, the title of "The Problem with Jon Stewart" was announced, as well as a late 2021 premiere date for the series.


title: The Problem with Jon Stewart

text: Each episode lasts one hour, and focuses on a single issue that is "currently part of the national conversation and [Stewart's] advocacy work". Apple has said that the show will run for multiple seasons, and each season will be accompanied by a companion podcast, co-hosted by Stewart and his writing and production staff and following up on each episode.


title: The Problem with Jon Stewart

text: "The Problem with Jon Stewart" premiered its first episode on September 30, 2021, on Apple TV+, with one new episode initially scheduled to premiere every other Thursday. The series is accompanied by a weekly podcast that premiered on September 30, 2021.


title: John Kassir

text: John Kassir (born October 24, 1957) is an American actor and comedian. He is known for his work as the voice of the Cryptkeeper in HBO's "Tales from the Crypt" franchise. He is also known for his role as Ralph in the off-Broadway show "Reefer Madness" and its 2005 film adaptation. He is one of the current voices of Scrooge McDuck after the death of Alan Young in 2016, along with David Tennant in the role as the property was rebooted.


title: John Kassir

text: John Kassir was born on October 24, 1957, in Baltimore, Maryland, to an Iraqi father from Mosul and a Syrian mother from Mardin, present-day Turkey. He is of Assyrian descent. As a child, he would often do impressions in school and was described as a "class clown". His mother would often buy props for him and he would entertain customers who were shopping outside of Eudowood Plaza. He graduated from Loch Raven High School and attended Towson State University where he studied theatre. He and several other students formed a comedy troupe called Animal Crackers.


title: John Kassir

text: Kassir originally began his career in stand-up comedy, he first became known in 1985, when he defeated Sinbad for best stand-up comic on "Star Search".


title: John Kassir

text: As a stand-up comic, he has opened for the likes of Lou Rawls, Tom Jones, The Temptations and Four Tops on their TNT Tour, Bobby Vinton, Richard Belzer, U2, and Harry Blackstone, Jr. among others. John has also appeared on stage performing improvisation with Robin Williams.


title: John Kassir

text: His film credits include, "And Then There Was Eve" as G. Alexander, "Flora & Ulysses" as Ulysses', "Hellblazers" as Rick, "Jack the Giant Slayer", "Monster Mash" as Igor, "Monster Mutt" as Pet Shop Pete, "" as Ralph Wiley and Uncle Sam, "Smothered" and "Spy Hard" as Rancor Guard.


title: John Kassir

text: In television, he played the Bulgarian kicker, Zagreb Shkenusky, for 7 years in the HBO comedy series "1st & Ten", about a fictional football team. His other live-action credits include sketch-acting on "The Amanda Show" and a portrayal of Shemp Howard in the 2000 TV biopic "The Three Stooges", produced by Mel Gibson, and Ralph in "Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical". He was also able to get his own Pee-wee Herman style show in 1997 called "Johnnytime", which aired for two seasons on the USA network. He also appeared as The Atom in the "Justice League of America" pilot episode, which, despite not being picked up, was released as a film in some markets. Kassir has appeared in over a dozen feature films, starred in eight TV pilots (six of which went to series and two of which lasted on air for over six years each) and guest-starred in dozens of TV series in both comic and dramatic roles.