title: A Thousand Suns

text: In an interview with "Rolling Stone" in May 2009, Shinoda said the band was in the process of writing and recording material for the album. The album was originally scheduled for an early 2010 release, but Shinoda was concerned with "the quality of the tunes" and said, "if we need to take a step back and make sure everything is top, top quality by our standards, we will". Shinoda also said that, in comparison to "Minutes to Midnight", the new album would have a bigger "thread of consistency" and would be more experimental and "hopefully more cutting-edge".


title: A Thousand Suns

text: Christopher Weingarten of "The Village Voice" compared the album to Radiohead's third studio album, "OK Computer", describing the record's composition as "uninhibited hooks, daffy left turns, piano-soaked bathos, explorations of the human relationship with technology, [and] a complete avoidance of metal". Weingarten noted various elements and styles the band incorporated in "A Thousand Suns", saying the band was "sink[ing] their distortion pedals into a tender oblivion, embracing the pulseless Vocoder syrup of Imogen Heap, the cuddly heavenward synths of Yeasayer, the post-apocalyptic stutter-hop of El-P, the head rush of Ibiza house". Jordy Kasko of "Review Rinse Repeat" compared the style of "A Thousand Suns" to that of Pink Floyd's eighth studio album "The Dark Side of the Moon" and Radiohead's fourth studio album "Kid A".


title: A Thousand Suns

text: James Montgomery of MTV compared the album to "Kid A" because of the lack of guitars, the style being completely different from the band's previous works, and the album's message. Montgomery said, "None of these problems, these terrors or these specters that haunt us in 2010 are particularly new. Quite the opposite, in fact. We've just chosen to ignore the warnings. And now it might be too late." According to turntablist Joe Hahn, the album's title is a reference to a line in the Hindu Sanskrit scripture the "Bhagavad Gita" "If the radiance of "a thousand suns" were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one," which was made famous by J. Robert Oppenheimer in reference to the atomic bomb. The title also appears in the album's lead single "The Catalyst", which appears in the line "God save us everyone, will we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns?". The band said Oppenheimer's comments about the nuclear bomb influenced the apocalyptic themes of the album. The band wrote about these comments in the album's liner notes:


title: A Thousand Suns

text: The band has stated that the album's tenth track, "Wretches and Kings", pays homage to the hip-hop group Public Enemy. Speaking to "NME" about the song's reference to Public Enemy, Shinoda said, "There is a homage to Chuck D on there. It's probably the most hip-hop song on the record and one of the most aggressive ... Public Enemy were very three-dimensional with their records because although they seemed political, there was a whole lot of other stuff going on in there too. It made me think how three-dimensional I wanted our record to be without imitating them of course, and show where we were at creatively." Ian Winwood of "Kerrang!" noted that "Wretches and Kings" references the Public Enemy song "Fight the Power" and compared the album's content to Public Enemy's third studio album, "Fear of a Black Planet". Chuck D later provided vocals on a remix by HavocNdeeD. The fifth track "When They Come for Me" references "", the seventh studio album by hip hop artist Jay-Z, with whom the band collaborated on the 2004 EP "Collision Course". The album includes samples of notable speeches by American political figures, including Martin Luther King Jr., J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Mario Savio.


title: A Thousand Suns

text: Chester Bennington stated in an interview with MTV News, which referred to Linkin Park's new style as being less technical and more organic: "When it came to doing things that felt very much like older Linkin Park, like mixing hip-hop with a rock chorus, [we] felt like, if we were going to do it, we need to really do it in a way that felt natural and felt original and felt like it was something we hadn't done in the past ... [While] there are hip-hop songs on the album—'Wretches and Kings', 'When They Come for Me'—they're like nothing the band have tried before: snarling, raw, dark and ... strangely organic."


title: A Thousand Suns

text: Critics and reporters labeled "A Thousand Suns" as electronic rock, art rock, industrial rock, experimental rock, and progressive rock. They also noticed various traces of trip hop, ambient, alternative rock, industrial, and rap rock across the album. Compared to their previous record, "Minutes to Midnight" (2007), Shinoda contributed many more vocals, while Brad Delson's guitar riffs are put further into the background, which Gary Graff of "Billboard" described as "on the back burner (and barely even in the oven)". Shinoda raps on the tracks "When They Come for Me", "Wretches and Kings" and the album's second single "Waiting for the End". Derek Oswald of AltWire.net noted reggae-like influences on Shinoda's verses in "Waiting for the End". He sings verses on "Burning in the Skies", "Robot Boy", "Blackout", "Iridescent" and "The Catalyst". Bennington and Shinoda sing together on "The Catalyst", "Jornada del Muerto" and "Robot Boy", while "Iridescent" features all band members singing together.


title: A Thousand Suns

text: The album was exhibited at a 3-D laser exhibition at Music Box Theater in Hollywood on September 7, 2010. "A Thousand Suns" was officially released on September 10, 2010, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland; and on September 13, 2010, in the US. Linkin Park started worldwide promotion of the album with the A Thousand Suns World Tour, which started on October 7, 2010, in Buenos Aires, Argentina and ended on September 25, 2011, in Singapore. The band performed an entire setlist in the Puerta de Alcalá Gate in Madrid; their live performance of "Waiting for the End" was shown at the 2010 MTV Europe Music Awards.


title: A Thousand Suns

text: Linkin Park also promoted "A Thousand Suns" by featuring songs from the album in video games. Joe Hahn said "The Catalyst" would be included in the video game "Medal of Honor". Hahn also announced he would direct a trailer for the game; it was released on August 1, 2010— one day before the single's release. Dave "Phoenix" Farrell stated that the band's members believed the song's "dark undertones ... fits with the subject matter" of the game, which was the reason "The Catalyst" was chosen for "Medal of Honor". During the Japanese release of the album on September 15, 2010, Warner Music Japan announced that "The Catalyst" would be the official theme song of "" "Blackout" was featured in the soccer video game by EA Sports, "FIFA 11". The band released a video game called "Linkin Park Revenge"—an edition of "Tap Tap Revenge" that features four tracks from the album and six songs from previous Linkin Park albums. "Wretches and Kings" is featured in the trailer for the video game "EA Sports MMA".


title: A Thousand Suns

text: "Blackout", "Burning in the Skies", "The Catalyst", "The Messenger", "Waiting for the End", and "Wretches and Kings" were available as downloadable content in the "Linkin Park Track Pack" for the rhythm video game "", which was released on October 19, 2010, on the PlayStation Store, Xbox Live Marketplace, and Wii Shop Channel. Customers who purchased "Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock" from Amazon.com between October 17 and October 23 received a copy of "A Thousand Suns". Three songs were remixed and released as downloadable content for the rhythm video game "DJ Hero 2" in late 2010. On January 11, 2011, a Linkin Park track pack was released for the rhythm video game "Rock Band 3"; it includes "Waiting for the End" and five songs from the band's previous albums.


title: A Thousand Suns

text: On March 5, 2011, Mike Shinoda announced the European release of "A Thousand Suns +", a limited re-issue of the album that was released on March 28, 2011. The re-release includes a live DVD of the band's MTV Europe Music Awards concert at Puerta de Alcalá, Madrid on November 7, 2010, and an MP3 audio file of the show. On June 19, 2012, a live version of the album, titled "A Thousand Suns: Live Around the World" was released on Spotify. It features ten of the album's fifteen songs. The tracks were recorded in London, Hamburg, Paris, Berlin, and Las Vegas.


title: A Thousand Suns

text: During the announcement of the album's release date, Linkin Park said the album's first single would be "The Catalyst", which was released on August 2, 2010. From July 9, 2010, until July 25, 2010, the band held a contest titled "Linkin Park, Featuring You". In the contest, fans could download stems from "The Catalyst", remix the stems and/or write their own parts for the song on any instrument. The winner of this contest was Czeslaw "NoBraiN" Sakowski from Świdnica, Poland, whose remix is featured as an extra track on a version of the album made available from Best Buy and Napster. The album's liner notes credit Sakowski with "supplemental programming" on "When They Come for Me". The top 20 remixes that were selected by the band are being considered for future use as b-sides and online downloads.


title: A Thousand Suns

text: Two of the remixes by DIGITALOMAT and ill Audio have since been released via the band's webpage as free mp3 downloads, while two by Cale Pellick and DJ Endorphin been released on an exclusive German release of "The Catalyst". The music video for "The Catalyst", directed by Joe Hahn, premiered on August 26, 2010. On August 31, 2010, it was announced that the band would give their first live performance of the single at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010, at Griffith Observatory. The venue was kept secret until the performance, although it was revealed to be a prominent landmark in Los Angeles. The single peaked at number one on the "Billboard" Rock Songs and Alternative Songs charts, and on the UK Rock Chart. The single also peaked at number twenty-seven in the "Billboard" Hot 100 upon the release of "A Thousand Suns", and spent five weeks on the chart. "The Catalyst" was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in July 2011.


title: A Thousand Suns

text: On September 2, 2010, Linkin Park released the promotional single "Wretches and Kings" to those who had pre-ordered the album. On September 8, 2010, the band debuted "Waiting for the End" and "Blackout" on their Myspace page. The band announced on its official website the "Full Experience Myspace Premiere", the streaming of the entire album on its Myspace page on September 10. A remix of "Blackout" by Renholdër was included in the soundtrack of "".


title: A Thousand Suns

text: "Waiting for the End" was released as the album's second single on October 1, 2010. The music video for the song premiered on October 8, 2010, and was directed by Joe Hahn. Linkin Park's performance of "Waiting for the End" at Puerta de Alcala in Madrid was broadcast as part of the 2010 MTV Europe Music Awards. "Waiting for the End" and "When They Come for Me" were performed live on "Saturday Night Live" on February 5, 2011. "Waiting for the End" was featured in an episode of "" broadcast on CBS on October 14, 2010. The single peaked at number one on the Alternative Songs chart; it was Linkin Park's tenth number-one song on the chart. It peaked at number two on the Rock Songs chart and at number forty-two on the "Billboard" Hot 100, spending nine weeks on the chart. The single achieved success in other countries, peaking at number thirty-four in Austria, number twenty in Belgium, number 29 in Germany, and number thirty-four in Japan. "Waiting for the End" was certified gold by the RIAA in April 2011.


title: A Thousand Suns

text: On January 22, 2011, Linkin Park announced that its next international single would be "Burning in the Skies". The music video, directed by Hahn, premiered on February 22 and the single was released on March 21. The single reached number thirty-five in Austria, number 35 in Portugal, number twenty-six in German airplay, and number six in Mexico.


title: A Thousand Suns

text: On April 13, 2011, Shinoda confirmed that the album's third US, fourth international, and overall final single would be "Iridescent". He also said a slightly shorter version of the song would be included the soundtrack of the movie "", and that a music video directed by Hahn had been made to promote the single. Linkin Park performed the single remix of "Iridescent" at the film's premiere at Red Square, Moscow, on June 23, 2011. The single peaked at number eighty-one at the "Billboard" Hot 100, spending three weeks on the chart; it also peaked at number nineteen at the Alternative Songs chart and number twenty-nine at the Rock Songs chart. Despite these low peaks, the single achieved moderate success in other countries, peaking at number thirty-nine in Australia, number ten in Israel, and number two in South Korea and one in the UK Rock Chart.


title: A Thousand Suns

text: "A Thousand Suns" debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200 chart with first-week sales of 241,000 copies in the United States, exceeding sales of Trey Songz's "Passion, Pain & Pleasure" by 1,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It became Linkin Park's fourth US number-one album, although the first-week sales were significantly lower than those of their previous album "Minutes to Midnight" (2007), which opened at 623,000 copies. The album entered "Billboard"'s Rock Albums, Alternative Albums, Hard Rock Albums, and Digital Albums charts at number one. In the second week, the album slid to number three, selling 70,000 copies; in December 2010, two months after its release, its sales passed the half-million mark. On January 11, 2011, "A Thousand Suns" was certified gold by the RIAA for shipments of 500,000 copies sold in the US. It spent 30 weeks on the "Billboard" 200. By June 2014, the album had sold 906,000 copies in the US according to SoundScan.


title: A Thousand Suns

text: In Canada, "A Thousand Suns" peaked at number one on the Canadian Albums Chart with 23,000 copies sold. In February 2011, the album was certified platinum by the Canadian Recording Industry Association for 80,000 units sold. In the United Kingdom album chart, on which it spent seventeen weeks, the album debuted at number two with first-week sales of 46,711 copies, behind The Script's album "Science & Faith". On September 10, 2010, two days after the album's UK release, "A Thousand Suns" was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), marking shipments of 100,000 copies to retailers. In Australia, it debuted at number one on the ARIA Top 50 Albums, and retained the top position for four weeks. The album remained in the chart's top 50 for 18 weeks. By the end of 2010, "A Thousand Suns" had been certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), and the following year it was certified platinum.


title: A Thousand Suns

text: Upon its release, "A Thousand Suns" was well-received by critics, although some were less enthusiastic. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 66 based on 10 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: A Thousand Suns

text: Rick Florino of Artistdirect gave the album five stars out of five, saying, "after "A Thousand Suns", all rock 'n' roll will revolve around Linkin Park"; he credited Linkin Park with creating their own genre. Ian Winwood of "Kerrang!" gave it an "excellent" rating, saying it "can only be best described as a political album". He praised the songwriting, saying, "These are songs that have been "constructed" as much as they've been written", and that its closest comparison was Public Enemy's 1990 album "Fear of a Black Planet". Dave de Sylvia of Sputnikmusic called it "an extremely well-crafted rock album," saying it was somewhat better than its predecessor "Minutes to Midnight" (2007), but does not live up to their debut, "Hybrid Theory" (2000). David Buchanan of Consequence of Sound gave the album three-and-a-half out of five, saying, "Some might argue this new sound is posturing, complete mutation to the point of absurdity; in the band’s associated artwork and videos, evolution has been touted from day one. In essence, Linkin Park has been chasing this all along, and now it has become tangible, complete." Johan Wippsson from "Melodic" said Linkin Park "have created a very cool and unique sound" and described "Blackout" and "When They Come for Me" as "really innovative". Ian Winwood of BBC Music, in his review of the band's succeeding album "Living Things", praised "A Thousand Suns" and described it as "a body of work startling enough that it gambled with the massive commercial success the group had achieved since their debut album, 2000's "Hybrid Theory"."


title: A Thousand Suns

text: James Montgomery of MTV called "A Thousand Suns" a "sprawling, discordant, ambitious and an all-out game changer" and compared it with Radiohead's 2000 album "Kid A", but said "A Thousand Suns" is more optimistic than "Kid A". Jordy Kasko with "Review Rinse Repeat" gave "A Thousand Suns" a perfect rating, calling it an "epic quest". He compared it to Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon" (1973) and Radiohead's "Kid A", saying ""A Thousand Suns" is an ALBUM. It is not a collection of songs. It is not meant to be listened to as such. The band is going so far as to release an iTunes version that is one track, 47 minutes and 56 seconds long. This is no more an 'album' by conventional standards than "Dark Side of the Moon" or "Kid A" are. Sure, there are identifiable songs, but to understand or to appreciate any of them you must take them in the context of the entire album."


title: A Thousand Suns

text: Christopher Weingarten of "The Village Voice" praised the album, calling it "2010's best avant-rock nuclear-anxiety concept record", as well as comparing it to Radiohead's "OK Computer" (1997).


title: A Thousand Suns

text: Mikael Wood of "Spin" gave the album six stars out of ten, saying it "contains plenty of aggressively arty material" and calling "The Messenger" the "most unexpected track on the boldly conceived "A Thousand Suns"". Leah Greenblatt of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the album a B rating and said "at times the band's odd mélange of industrial grind, hip-hop swagger, and teenage-wasteland angst feels jarring". Jody Rosen of "Rolling Stone" gave it three stars out of five; he said Linkin Park were "feeling their way toward a new identity"; he called their skill for melody "obvious" and said they sounded like "a killer Linkin Park tribute band". "Australia's Music Network" magazine gave the album a mixed review, calling it "a radical shift for the band, but it’s also a very uneven one ... while there's some commanding moments ('The Catalyst,' 'Wretches and Kings'), many of the tracks feel like experiments rather than formed songs".


title: A Thousand Suns

text: Johnny Firecloud of Antiquiet condemned the album, called it a "melodramatic farce", and said it was a "mechanized mess of sentimentality ... the 15 track collection is entirely unconvincing as a call to action for uprising and activism". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic said the album was a "clear continuation" of its predecessor but said "the problem is, the subdued rhythms, riffs and raps of "A Thousand Suns" wind up monochromatic". Jim Farber of The "New York Daily News" gave the album one star out of five, saying, "no fewer than 15 cuts crowd the tight 47-minute length of the CD, many of them fragments or, more accurately, sonic non sequiturs". Jamie Primack of "The Badger Herald" wrote, "there are at least five filler tracks that contain nothing more than noise and sound bites ... the full-length songs aren’t particularly daring or interesting".


title: A Thousand Suns

text: Fans of the band were polarized by "A Thousand Suns". Initial signs of the fans' division over the band's new material occurred when "The Catalyst" was released as a single. MTV conducted a poll asking fans how they received the song; most responses were positive but a large amount were dissatisfied with it. Fans then therefore debated on what they thought of the new sound. Sara Ferrer of "Orange County Reloaded" said the album split the views of fans and critics into "love-it versus hate-it groups". Montgomery expressed similar sentiments, saying the album "alternately thrilled and thinned [Linkin Park's] substantial fanbase with its vast swaths of sonic sprawl (and overall lack of guitar solos)." Mike Shinoda shared his thoughts on the divided reception of the fans; he thanked the people who accepted the album and defended it from the criticism of those who disliked it. Commenting on fans' polarized response to the album, Chester Bennington said, "["A Thousand Suns"] is definitely something that we knew people would need to digest and get over the fact that it's not what they thought we would do."


title: A Thousand Suns

text: "Kerrang!" listed "A Thousand Suns" as the nineteenth-best album of 2010 on their list of the top 20 albums that year. James Montgomery of MTV listed the album as twentieth best album of 2010, calling it "the year's most ambitious major-label rock album... there's no denying the dense, dark power it packs".


title: A Thousand Suns

text: The album received numerous awards and nominations. At the 2011 MTV Video Music Aid Japan, "A Thousand Suns" was nominated for Album of the Year, while "The Catalyst" was nominated for Best Group Video and Best Rock Video. The album received two 2011 "Billboard" Music Award nominations; Best Rock Album and Top Alternative Album. "Waiting for the End" was nominated for Top Alternative Song. The music video for "Waiting for the End" was nominated at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards for Best Special Effects. Linkin Park won the Best International Rock/Alternative Group for "A Thousand Suns" at the 2011 ECHO Awards. At the MTV Video Game Awards, "Blackout" won the Best Song in a Video Game award for its use in "FIFA 11". "Waiting for the End" was nominated at the 2011 Teen Choice Awards for Choice Rock Song.


title: Countdown to Ecstasy

text: Countdown to Ecstasy is the second studio album by the American rock band Steely Dan, released in July 1973 by ABC Records. It was recorded at Caribou Ranch in Nederland, Colorado, and at The Village Recorder in West Los Angeles, California. After the departure of vocalist David Palmer, the group recorded the album with Donald Fagen singing lead on every song.


title: Countdown to Ecstasy

text: Although it was a critical success, the album failed to generate a hit single, and consequently charted at only number 35 on the "Billboard" 200. It was eventually certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1978, having shipped 500,000 copies in the United States. Well-received upon its release, "Countdown to Ecstasy" received perfect scores from music critics in retrospective reviews.


title: Countdown to Ecstasy

text: Like Steely Dan's 1972 debut album "Can't Buy a Thrill", "Countdown to Ecstasy" has a rock sound that exhibits a strong influence from jazz. It comprises uptempo, four-to-five-minute rock songs, which, apart from the bluesy vamps of "Bodhisattva" and "Show Biz Kids", are subtly textured and feature jazz-inspired interludes. "Countdown to Ecstasy" was the only album written by Steely Dan for a live band. "My Old School" features reverent horns and aggressive piano riffs and guitar solos. "The Boston Rag" develops from a jazzy song to unrefined playing by the band, including a distorted guitar solo by Jeff "Skunk" Baxter. Jim Hodder's drumming eschews rock music for pop and jazz grooves. Bop-style jazz soloing is set in the context of a pop song on "Bodhisattva". Commenting on the album's style and production, Tom Hull says it is "clean, almost slick", with "no dissonance, no clutter", reminiscent of 1940s bop and "the overproduced early 60s pop rock".


title: Countdown to Ecstasy

text: "Countdown to Ecstasy" has lyrical themes similar to "Can't Buy a Thrill". It explores topics such as drug abuse, class envy, and West Coast excess. "My Old School" is inspired by a drug bust involving Walter Becker and Donald Fagen at Bard College, "King of the World" explores a post-nuclear holocaust United States, and "Show Biz Kids" satirizes contemporary Los Angeles lifestyles. Hull describes their lyrics as "a running paste together joke ... sufraintelligent, witty and slyly devious", citing as an example the following lyrics from "Show Biz Kids": "They got the booze they need / All that money can buy / They got the shapely bods / They got the Steely Dan T-shirt / And for the coup-de-gras / They're outrageous." "Your Gold Teeth" follows a jaded female grifter who uses her attractiveness and cunning.


title: Countdown to Ecstasy

text: According to Rob Sheffield, Fagen and Becker's lyrics on the album portray America as "one big Las Vegas, with gangsters and gurus hustling for souls to steal." He views it as the first in Steely Dan's trilogy of albums that, along with "Pretzel Logic" (1974) and "Katy Lied" (1975), showcase "a film noir tour of L.A.'s decadent losers, showbiz kids, and razor boys." Erik Adams of "The A.V. Club" writes that the album is a "dossier of literate lowlifes, the type of character studies that say, 'Why yes, the name Steely Dan is an allusion to a dildo described in "Naked Lunch".' These characters hang around the corners of the entire Steely Dan discography, but they come into their own on "Countdown to Ecstasy"".


title: Countdown to Ecstasy

text: Other songs explore more spiritual concerns. The opening song "Bodhisattva" is a parody of the idea that the disposal of one's possessions is a prerequisite to spiritual enlightenment. Its title refers to the Bodhisattva, those of the belief that they have achieved spiritual perfection but remain in the material world to help others. Fagen summarized the song's message as "Lure of East. Hubris of hippies. Quick fix". "Razor Boy" is a bitter, ironic pop song with lyrics that subtly criticize complacency and materialism. According to Ivan Kreilkamp of "Spin", "Steely Dan speaks to us from that 'cold and windy day' when the trappings of hipness and sexiness fall away to reveal a lonely figure waiting for a fix. 'Will you still have a song to sing when the razor boy comes and takes your fancy things away?' Fagen asks a generation stupefied by nostalgia and self-involvement".


title: Countdown to Ecstasy

text: The album was titled as a joke about attempts to rationalize a state of spirituality. The original cover painting was by Fagen's then-girlfriend Dorothy White. At the insistence of ABC Records president Jay Lasker, however, several figures had to be added when he found the discrepancy between five band members and three figures on the cover unacceptable. The proofs for the album cover were later stolen during a dispute over the final layout. The back cover features an orchid surrounded by the band and their recording equipment.


title: Countdown to Ecstasy

text: "Countdown to Ecstasy" was released in July 1973 by ABC Records in the United States and Probe Records in the United Kingdom. It was less commercially successful than "Can't Buy a Thrill". The album failed to generate a hit single, and only charted at number 35 on the "Billboard" 200. Nonetheless, it spent 34 weeks on the chart, and was eventually certified gold, in 1978, by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having shipped 500,000 copies in the United States.


title: Countdown to Ecstasy

text: "Countdown to Ecstasy" was met with positive reviews. Reviewing in August 1973 for "Rolling Stone", David Logan said that the album's musical formula, while not redundant, said that despite ordinary musicianship and occasionally absurd lyrics, Steely Dan's "control" of their basic rock format is "refreshing" and "bodes well for the group's longterm success." "Billboard" complimented the "studio effect" of the dual guitar playing and found the "grandiloquent vocal blend" catchy. "Stereo Review" called it a "really excellent album" with "witty and tasteful" arrangements, "winning" performances, "high quality" songs, and a "potent and persuasive" mix of rock, jazz, and pop styles. In "Creem", Robert Christgau observed "studio-perfect licks that crackle and buzz when you listen hard" and "invariably malicious" vocals that back the group's obscure lyrics. He named "Countdown to Ecstasy" the ninth best album of 1973 in his year-end list for "Newsday". Hull, in a review published in "Overdose" in April 1975, said the album is "perhaps the most representative [and] certainly the best realized" of Steely Dan's confounding mix of smooth production quality and intellectual lyrical content. "The effect is strange, strangely comfortable, queasy almost", he explained, calling the band "a dangerous group, one that should be watched".


title: Countdown to Ecstasy

text: In "" (1981), Christgau said that Steely Dan had achieved a "deceptively agreeable studio slickness" with Fagen's replacement of Palmer, who Christgau felt did not fit the group. Music journalist Paul Lester later viewed it as a progression from their debut album and wrote that "Becker and Fagen offered cruel critiques of the self-obsessed 'Me' decade", while their "blend of cool jazz and bebop, Brill Building song craft and rock was unparallelled at the time (only Britain's 10cc were creating such intelligent pop in the early Seventies)." In his 1999 autobiography "A Cure for Gravity", British musician Joe Jackson described "Countdown to Ecstasy" as a musical revelation for him, that bridged the gap between "pure pop" and his jazz-rock and progressive influences, while furthering his attempts at songwriting. In "The Rolling Stone Album Guide" (2004), Rob Sheffield called "Countdown to Ecstasy" "a thoroughly amazing, hugely influential album" with "cold-blooded L.A. studio rock tricked out with jazz piano and tough guitar." Pat Blashill later wrote in "Rolling Stone" that the "joy in these excellent songs" and in the band's playing revealed Steely Dan to be "human, not just brainy," "like good stretches of the Stones' "Exile on Main St."" AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine found "Countdown to Ecstasy" musically "riskier" than the band's debut album, and wrote that the songs are "rich with either musical or lyrical detail that their album rock or art rock contemporaries couldn't hope to match." Chris Jones of BBC Music found Steely Dan's ideas to be "post-modern" and "erudite," and asserted that they were "setting a benchmark that few have ever matched."


title: Countdown to Ecstasy

text: "Countdown to Ecstasy" has appeared on several professional listings of the greatest albums. In 2000, it was voted number 307 in Colin Larkin's "All Time Top 1000 Albums". Based on such rankings, the aggregate website Acclaimed Music lists it as the 662nd most acclaimed album in history and the 183rd most acclaimed from the 1970s. The album was also included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: The Villanova Wildcats men's basketball program represent Villanova University in men's college basketball and competes in the Big East Conference of NCAA Division I. Their first season was the 1920–21 season. Named the "Wildcats", Villanova is a member of the Philadelphia Big Five, five Philadelphia college basketball teams who share a passionate rivalry.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: The Wildcats have won the National Championship three times: 1985, 2016, and 2018. Their 1985 NCAA championship as an 8 seed still stands as the lowest seed ever to win the title. The game is referred to as "The Perfect Game" as they shot a record 78.6% as a team for the game (22 for 28, including 9 for 10 in the second half). Their 2016 NCAA Championship is referred to as "The Perfect Ending" and became the second of only two NCAA Men's Championship games to be won on a buzzer beater when Kris Jenkins drained a shot as time expired. They made the Final Four in 1939, 1971, 1985, 2009, 2016, 2018, and 2022; their six Final Four appearances are 13th most all-time. As of 2019, they have an NCAA Tournament record of 65–37 (). Villanova has defeated six No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament (Michigan and Georgetown in 1985, Pittsburgh in 2009, Kansas and North Carolina in 2016, and Kansas in 2018), which is sixth most all-time. The Villanova Wildcats have appeared in the NCAA tournament 39 times, the eighth highest total in NCAA history. They have won the Big East regular season championship eight times, most recently winning four straight from 2014 to 2017. They won the Big East tournament in 1995, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022. Through 2021, Villanova has 1,817 wins, which is 19th among Division I men's basketball teams and is tied for 9th in all time winning percentage at (.657). Villanova has won the Philadelphia Big Five 27 times, and is tied with Temple University for the most of any team, including five straight from 2014 to 2018. The Wildcats have appeared in the National Invitation Tournament 17 times, winning in 1994.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Villanova began its varsity basketball program in 1920. Michael Saxe coached for six seasons, from 1920 to 1926, compiling a 64–30 record (.681). John Cashman coached three seasons, from 1926 to 1929, compiling a 21–26 record (.447). George "Doc" Jacobs coached seven seasons, from 1929 to 1936, and had a 62–56 record (.525).


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: The team played its first game in 1920 in Alumni Hall on Villanova's campus, beating Catholic University 43–40. In the early years, Villanova's home courts were Alumni Hall and West Catholic High School. In 1932, The Wildcats moved into the Villanova Field House—now known as the Jake Nevin Field House, which was named after Villanova's long-time trainer. Villanova also played many home games at the Palestra on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania beginning in 1929. The Wildcats played home games in both the Villanova Field House and the Palestra until 1986.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Al Severance coached Villanova for 25 seasons, from 1936 to 1961. It was under Severance's leadership that Villanova's basketball program rose to prominence. Severance compiled a 413–201 record (.673).


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: The 1938–39 team won the first-ever NCAA Tournament game, which put them in the inaugural Final Four. Severance led the Wildcats to the NCAA tournament again in 1949, 1951, and 1955. Villanova earned NIT bids in 1959 and 1960.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: The most storied player in Villanova history, Paul Arizin, played during this era. Severance discovered Arizin, already a Villanova student, playing basketball in the Villanova Fieldhouse. Arizin holds the Villanova record for most points in a game (85), and is credited with inventing the jump shot and was the 1949 College Player of the Year.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Other notable players from the Severance era include Joe Lord, Larry Hennessy, Bob Schafer and George Raveling.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Coincidentally, Severance died on April 1, 1985, which was the same day that Villanova upset Georgetown University and Patrick Ewing to take the NCAA basketball championship.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: The inaugural NCAA tournament featured eight teams from throughout the country. Villanova, representing the Middle Atlantic States, beat Brown, representative of the New England States, 43–40 before a crowd of 3,500 at the Palestra. The following night, the Wildcats lost to Ohio State 53–36 in the Eastern Division Championship.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Jack Kraft coached Villanova for 12 years, from 1961 through 1973. He compiled a 238–95 record (.715). Kraft led Villanova to the NCAA tournament six times, and five times to the NIT. Only once did Kraft's teams fail to earn a post-season bid, in his final season.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Notable players during the Jack Kraft era include: Chris Ford, Tom Ingelsby, Wali Jones, Bill Melchionni, Howard Porter, Jim Washington, and Hubie White.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: On March 27, 1971, Villanova made its first appearance in an NCAA basketball tournament championship game. The unheralded Wildcats took on the legendary John Wooden and his mighty UCLA Bruins. The 28–1 UCLA squad featured Sidney Wicks, Curtis Rowe, Henry Bibby, and Steve Patterson. Going into the title game, the Bruins had won six of the previous seven NCAA championships, including the previous four.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Jack Kraft's Villanova squad, nicknamed the "Iron Men", was made up of just nine players. Led by Howard Porter, Clarence Smith, Hank Siemiontkowski, Chris Ford, Tom Ingelsby, Bob Gohl, Mike Daley, John Fox and Joe McDowell. Villanova amassed a 27–6 record, including a shocking 90–47 victory over a previously undefeated powerhouse Penn squad.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Villanova fought from behind for most of the game, twice cutting the lead to three in the final minutes. Villanova lost by six, 68–62. Up to that time, the six-point loss was the narrowest spread of UCLA's six NCAA title game victories.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Despite the loss, Villanova's Howard Porter was named the Tournament's Most Outstanding Player. Porter was later stripped of the award and the team's NCAA victories were vacated after it was discovered that Porter had violated NCAA rules because he had signed a professional contract with the Pittsburgh Condors of the American Basketball Association during the middle of his senior year.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: During Rollie Massimino's tenure, the Villanova Wildcats abandoned their traditional independent status by joining the newly formed Eastern Eight Conference in 1975. In 1980, the 'Cats moved into the new Big East Conference, along with Georgetown, St. John's, and Syracuse. The 1980s were the golden age of the Big East, highlighted by the 1985 NCAA tournament, when Villanova, Georgetown, and St. John's reached the Final Four.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Massimino's teams had tremendous success in the NCAA tournament, usually in an underdog role. Coach Massimino led the Wildcats to the NCAA tournament eleven times, winning in 1985. His teams reached the Elite Eight five times in an 11-year span: 1978, 1982, 1983, 1985, and 1988. Coach Massimino's teams were well-prepared for the Tournament, always playing a difficult schedule, and playing tenacious defense. Massimino lost their opening game in the NCAA tournament only once, to Shaquille O'Neal and Chris Jackson-led LSU in 1990 and he remarkably never lost to a lower seeded team.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Massimino coached for 19 seasons at Villanova, compiling a record of 357–241 (.596). In the NCAA tournament, Massimino had a 20–10 record (.667).


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Notable players from the Massimino era include Alex Bradley, Stewart Granger, Keith Herron, Dwayne McClain, Harold Jensen, Ed Pinckney, John Pinone, Harold Pressley, Rory Sparrow, and Doug West.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: In 1976, the Wildcats played their first game in the Spectrum in Philadelphia. Because of the greater seating capacity, the 'Cats generally played a few home games each year at the Spectrum until the opening of what is now known as the Wells Fargo Center. Villanova christened its current home court as John Eleuthère du Pont Pavilion, now the Pavilion, with a 64–62 victory over Len Bias led Maryland squad on February 1, 1986.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: In 1985, under the direction of coach Rollie Massimino, the men's basketball team completed one of the most surprising runs in NCAA tournament history by winning the national championship in the first year of the 64-team field. The eighth-seeded Wildcats (unranked in the final AP poll) beat Dayton (at Dayton), top-seeded Michigan, Maryland and second-seeded North Carolina to win the Southeast Regional en route to the Final Four in Lexington, Kentucky. After defeating 2-seed Memphis State in the national semifinals, Villanova met defending champion and ten-point-favorite Georgetown, led by Patrick Ewing, in the title game on April Fools' Day.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Top-seeded Georgetown had beaten conference rival Villanova twice during the regular season, and had reached the title game with tenacious defense, which gave up less than 40% of their opponents' shots from the field in both the regular season and the postseason. Before the championship game, Massimino told his team they had to play a perfect game in order to beat Georgetown. In perhaps the greatest shooting performance in NCAA history, the Wildcats went 22-of-28 from the field to convert a blistering 78.6% of their shots, including a second half where they missed only one basket. The Hoyas hung tough, converting 55% of their 53 attempts, but were unable to overcome the astounding shooting performance as Villanova won 66–64 to claim the NCAA championship. The Wildcat squad remains the only eight-seed and the lowest overall seed in tournament history to win the championship, and their overall team shooting percentage remains an NCAA tournament record for a single game. The game is often cited among the greatest upsets in college basketball history. Ed Pinckney, who shot 5-of-7 and had 16 points in the game, was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. This game is featured in the book "The Perfect Game" by Frank Fitzpatrick.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Lappas compiled a very respectable record of 174–110 (.613) during his years at Villanova. The 1994 and 1995 teams, led by Kerry Kittles, Jason Lawson, Eric Eberz, and Alvin Williams, won the NIT and Big East tournaments, respectively. The 1995 Big East tournament title was capped by a decisive victory over a Connecticut team that had been ranked Number 1 during the regular season before being defeated on the Huskies home court by Villanova. This represents the one and only time Villanova won the original Big East tournament before the Conference was reconfigured in 2013. However, five nights after their victory in the 1995 Big East Championship, the Wildcats lost a triple-overtime thriller to underdog Old Dominion on St. Patrick's Night in Albany, New York in a 1st round NCAA game many Villanova fans consider the most painful loss in Villanova history.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Under Coach Lappas, Villanova reached the NCAA tournament in 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1999, compiling a disappointing 2–4 record and never advancing beyond the second round. After a 2001 First round NIT loss at Minnesota, junior center Michael Bradley announced he was forgoing his final year of eligibility to enter the NBA draft, essentially leaving Villanova without a returning star player. Shortly thereafter, Hofstra coach and former Massimino assistant Jay Wright became available, and the Administration decided a coaching change would benefit all parties. Lappas left Villanova to pursue other opportunities, ultimately becoming a respected television analyst for CBS coverage of NCAA basketball, and has been welcomed back with open arms to the Villanova basketball family.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Notable players in the Lappas era include Michael Bradley, Kerry Kittles, Jason Lawson, Tim Thomas, John Celestand and Alvin Williams and Eric Eberz.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: During the Lappas-era, Villanova began playing a few major home games at the Wells Fargo Center beginning in 1996. Villanova's first game in the new arena was a December 1996 loss to the Duke Blue Devils. Wells Fargo Center was known as the CoreStates Center, the First Union Center, and the Wachovia Center before it adopted the Wells Fargo Center name.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Jay Wright was named Villanova's head coach in 2001. As Rollie Massimino's assistant from 1987 through 1992, he was well-acquainted with Villanova. Prior to his hiring by Villanova, Wright was head coach at Hofstra.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Villanova earned a post-season tournament berth in each of Wright's initial ten seasons as Villanova head coach before missing in 2011–12. The Wildcats played in the NIT in 2002, 2003, and 2004, and in 14 of 15 NCAA Tournaments since 2005. Wright's Villanova teams have reached 6 Regionals, 4 Final Fours and have won 2 National Championships. During Wright's tenure, Villanova has compiled a 34–13 record in the NCAA tournament, crowned with the 2016 and 2018 National Championships. Six of Wright's NCAA Tournament losses at Villanova have been to the eventual National Champion.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: One of the highlights of his tenure was an amazing run to the 2009 Final Four when Villanova beat #1 seeded Pittsburgh to win the Elite 8 on a coast-to-coast buzzer beating layup by team captain Scottie Reynolds. Villanova subsequently lost the national semifinals to eventual NCAA Champion North Carolina.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Strong starts to the 2009–10 and 2010–11 seasons were followed by struggling finishes. Villanova barely beat Robert Morris in overtime before taking losses at the hands of St Mary's (2010) and George Mason (2011) in NCAA Tournament play. Villanova had a rebuilding 2011–12 season, compiling a 13–19 record and missing a post-season bid for the only time in Wright's tenure.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: A young nucleus in 2012–13 was a portent of future glory and saw the Wildcats make a return trip to the 2013 NCAA tournament where they fell to once-and-future foe North Carolina. Still, a #2 seed in 2013–14 and a #1 seed in 2014–15 preceded second round NCAA exits at the hands of UCONN (2014) and N.C. State(2015) causing Nova Nation some well-publicized consternation. The 2016 and 2018 Championship runs put the "underachiever" tag to the sword, cementing Wright's Villanova legacy as the program's greatest mentor. The 2016 National Championship victory was accomplished on the strength of Kris Jenkin's NBA-range 3 point buzzer bomb, thwarting North Carolina. The 2018 Championship win over Michigan culminated a six-game NCAA tournament run in which no opponent finished within a dozen points of the Wildcats.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Notable players during the Jay Wright era include Randy Foye, Kyle Lowry, Dante Cunningham, Allan Ray, Mike Nardi, Will Sheridan, Curtis Sumpter, Scottie Reynolds, Corey Fisher, JayVaughn Pinkston, Darrun Hilliard, 2016 champions including Final Four most outstanding player Ryan Arcidiacono, Daniel Ochefu, Kris Jenkins and Josh Hart. Four Villanova players from the 2018 championship team were drafted by the NBA—national player of the year and Final Four most outstanding player Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, Donte Divincenzo and Omari Spellman. National title holdovers Phil Booth and Eric Paschall keyed Villanova' surprising run to the 2019 Big East Regular Season and tournament championships. In the 2019 NCAA Tournament, six seed Villanova gained a measure of revenge against St. Mary's with a first-round victory followed by a loss to Purdue, a strong 3 seed, in the second round. Booth ended his Villanova career as the all-time winningest player in program history with 2 national titles and 4 Big East tournament championships (2015, 2017, 2018, and 2019).


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Under coach Jay Wright, Villanova's men's basketball team reached the 2005 NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, defeating New Mexico and Florida before losing to #1 seed and eventual champion North Carolina by one point. Junior Forward Curtis Sumpter was injured in the Florida game and did not return to the court until the 2006–07 season. There is controversy surrounding a disputed traveling call against Allan Ray made in the closing seconds of the UNC game. With under a minute left and Villanova down by three, Ray drove and made a shot. There was contact with a UNC defender and a whistle. Most assumed the whistle signified a foul on Carolina, giving Ray a chance to tie the game with the resultant free-throw. Incredibly, the officials ruled that Ray committed a traveling violation prior to taking the shot, negating the basket, and rendering Kyle Lowry's buzzer beating 3 pointer a mere footnote to a painful loss. In an ironic twist of fate, Booth, late in the 2016 National Championship game (also against North Carolina), made a crucial "and one" three point opportunity denied Alan Ray 12 years earlier.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Led by senior guards Randy Foye and Allan Ray as well as sophomore guard Kyle Lowry, the Villanova men's basketball team began the 2005–2006 year ranked #4 in the major polls from USA Today and the Associated Press. Having lost only three regular season games, the Wildcats enjoyed a #1 seed in the 2006 tournament—their first.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: The Wildcats' wins over Monmouth, Arizona, and Boston College brought them back to the Elite Eight for the first time since 1988. Villanova's 75–62 upset loss in Minneapolis to eventual champion Florida ended the team's run toward a Regional Final. The loss to Florida was the second consecutive year that Villanova was eliminated in the NCAA tournament by the eventual national champion. The Wildcats' 28 wins during the 2006 campaign was the second most victories for any Villanova Men's Basketball team at that time. Foye, Ray and Lowry all entered the NBA following the season.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Wright's 2006–2007 team was composed mainly of freshmen and sophomores who, at times, struggled to mesh. The Wildcats improved throughout the season, due in large part to the emergence of freshman Scottie Reynolds. Villanova finished the 2006–07 season with a record of 22–11. The Wildcats earned an at-large bid to the 2007 NCAA Tournament, where they lost in the second round to the Kentucky Wildcats. Villanova's 2006–07 free throw percentage of .781 led the NCAA, and set a Villanova season record.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: The 2007–08 campaign was an erratic one for the young Wildcats, a team with no seniors. After a promising 9–1 start, Villanova had a rough start to its Big East season. In mid-season, the Wildcats lost five consecutive games by double digits and lost 6 of 7 games during a 3-week span in the middle of the season, as the freshmen struggled to adjust to the college game, and the experienced players encountered difficulties in adjusting to leadership positions. In February and March, as the players became more comfortable within Coach Wright's system, and with improved defense, the team began to win.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: A win against Syracuse in the Big East tournament was good enough for the Wildcats to secure one of the final at-large bids to the NCAA tournament. Villanova proved it was worthy of the bid when an upset over Clemson and a victory over Siena put them in the final 16 teams in the tournament, where they lost to eventual National Champion Kansas.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Most notable in the 2008–09 season was the rise to prominence of senior forward Dante Cunningham. Cunningham averaged 16.1 points per game, an increase of nearly 6 points over the previous season. He also managed to average 7.5 rebounds, 1.2 blocks, and 1.2 steals per game. Cunningham was honored as the Big East Most Improved Player. His teammate, tenacious sophomore guard Corey Fisher, was also honored as the Big East Sixth Man of the Year for his contributions off the bench.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: The Wildcats finished the regular season with a mark of 26–7, earning a school record for most regular season victories. They lost their final regular season game to the Louisville Cardinals, 69–55, in the fourth round, or semi-finals of the Big East tournament. The Wildcats began the NCAA tournament at the Wachovia Center, a secondary venue for home games. They survived an early scare by American to handily beat two of college basketball's most prestigious programs, UCLA and Duke, in the rounds of 32 and 16 by a combined margin of 43 points.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Villanova won a very close match up against number 1 seed Pittsburgh in the Elite 8 round of the tournament, with guard Scottie Reynolds racing down the court to make a layup with only 0.5 seconds left. Pitt took the final shot, which bounced off the backboard to end the game. The last-second basket by Reynolds was widely hailed as one of the most exciting plays of that year's tournament, with Sports Illustrated's Seth Davis calling the victory "one of the great games in NCAA tournament history". Villanova advanced to the Final Four where they faced the North Carolina Tar Heels. Villanova fell to the Tar Heels in the national semifinals at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan, by a final score of 83–69. This was the fourth time in five years that Villanova's tournament ouster was by the eventual national champion.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: The Wildcats' record of 30–8 broke a previous high for most victories in a season, a distinction previously held by the 2005–06 Wildcats squad. The senior class of 2009, composed of forwards Dante Cunningham, Shane Clark, Dwayne Anderson and Frank Tchuisi, earned the distinction of being the winningest senior class in school history.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: The Wildcats enjoyed another highly successful regular season, finishing with a record of 24–7 and earning a #2 Seed in the NCAA tournament. They lost in the first round of the Big East tournament to Marquette and required overtime to defeat 15th seeded Robert Morris University in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. The Wildcats were defeated in the 2nd round by the 10th seeded St. Mary's Gaels.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Scottie Reynolds ended his career as the second-leading scorer in Villanova history with 2,222 points, 21 points short of breaking Kerry Kittles's all-time record. He finished his college career with 472 assists and 203 steals. Reynolds was named to the 2010 AP All-American 1st team, but was not selected in the NBA draft.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: The Wildcats enjoyed another highly successful regular season and held the AP #1 ranking in the nation for the first time in school history over a 3-week period. They finished the regular season with a 27–4 record losing only to teams (Oklahoma, Virginia, Providence, Xavier) that were ranked at the time of the match-up. Villanova finished Big East Conference play 16–2 for the third year in a row also garnering their 3rd straight outright Regular Season Conference Title.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: After losing in the Big East tournament championship Game to Seton Hall, 69–67, the Wildcats earned a 2 seed in the NCAA tournament South Region where they dispatched the #15 seeded UNC Asheville by 30 points, followed by a 19-point win over #7 seed Iowa. After defeating #3 seed Miami by 23, they moved on to the Elite Eight to face the overall #1 seed Kansas Jayhawks. The Wildcats defense shined as they won by 5 points to advance to their 5th Final Four and the first since 2009. They faced #2 seed Oklahoma Sooners, who had beaten Villanova by 23 on December 7, 2015, at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii early in the season. In the national semi-Finals, Villanova beat the Sooners by 44 points (an NCAA Final Four record) to advance to the NCAA Championship for the first time in 31 years. They faced the second-overall #1 seed North Carolina Tar Heels for the championship.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: On April 4, Villanova defeated UNC on a game-winning three-point shot at the buzzer by Kris Jenkins to win the NCAA Championship by a final score of 77–74, winning their second NCAA championship. UNC had recovered from a 10-point deficit in the final five minutes to tie the game on an off-balance, double-clutch three-point shot that passed through the net with 4.7 seconds left, leaving the Wildcats one last chance to clinch a victory before overtime. Kris Jenkins inbounded the ball to four-year team captain Ryan Arcidiacono, who dribbled down court, passed the ball and set a bubble screen to assist Jenkins' game-winning shot. Coach Jay Wright credits the play to the "Wildcat minute", where the team practices late-game scenarios at every practice. The game has been called one of the greatest in the history of NCAA tournament championships.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Villanova ended the 2016 season at 35–5 including the unanimous #1 ranking in the final Coaches' Poll (USA Today) while capturing their 2nd NCAA basketball championship trophy in the history of the program. In beating #3 seed Miami (AP #10), #1 seed Kansas (AP #1), #2 seed Oklahoma (AP #7) and #1 seed UNC (AP #3), Villanova became the first school in 31 years — since the 1985 Villanova Wildcats — to not only beat four top-three seeds on the way to a national title but to also beat four straight opponents ranked in the AP top 10, in addition to beating AP-ranked Iowa in the Round of 32. Villanova's run included two of the ten most offensively efficient games in the analytics era (2002–present), beating Miami and Oklahoma by scoring 1.56 and 1.51 points per possession in the Sweet Sixteen and Final Four, respectively. It has been called perhaps the most dominant tournament championship run of all time, and the most dominant of the analytics era by a wide margin, with Villanova posting an average margin of victory equal to 20.7 points per game (+124 total point margin).


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: The Wildcats finished second in regular season Big East play, won the Big East tournament, and were undefeated in non-conference play. They were awarded the top seed in the East Regional for the NCAA tournament. They reached the Final Four with wins over 16 seed Radford, 9 seed Alabama, 5 seed West Virginia and 3 seed Texas Tech with each victory coming by double-digit margins. In the national semifinals they faced the Kansas Jayhawks, the one seed from the Midwest Region, and defeated them 95–79. In this game Villanova set the new record for successful 3-point attempts in a Final Four game (breaking the previous full-game record before reaching halftime, finishing with 18 total made attempts). In the NCAA tournament championship Game they played the Michigan Wolverines, the 3 seed from the West Region. The Wildcats earned their third national championship in school history by beating the Wolverines 79–62. The game saw a historic performance by Big East Sixth Man of the Year Donte DiVincenzo (31 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks), named the 2018 Final Four's Most Outstanding Player. Coach Wright led the team to a 36–4 record for the 2017–18 season (14–4 Big East). The 36–4 mark sets the record for most wins in any Villanova season. Jalen Brunson received the Wooden Award as well as Associated Press and Naismith National Player of the Year Awards for his season leading the Wildcats. Mikal Bridges was presented the Julius Erving Award as the nation's best small forward—the second straight year a Villanova player achieved that honor after Josh Hart won it in 2017. Jay Wright was named winner of the John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Award.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Villanova has appeared in 40 NCAA Tournaments, beginning with the first in 1939. The Wildcats have amassed a tournament record of 67–38 (), and were the national champions in 1985, 2016, and 2018. Their three titles are the 8th most of any program. They have reached the Final Four five times, tied for fifteenth most. Villanova has won as the underdog (based on Tournament seeding) 16 times, more than any other program, and they are the highest seed (8) to ever win the NCAA tournament (1985). Villanova is one of only two programs (the other being Ohio State) that has played in the NCAA tournament in every decade since the 1930s.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: The Wildcats have appeared in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) 17 times. Their combined record is 24–17. They were NIT Champions in 1994.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Villanova honors outstanding former players, coaches, and others by retiring their numbers or jerseys. For those honored, a replica jersey is hung in the rafters of the Pavilion. Uniform numbers of retired jerseys remain in circulation, while retired numbers are no longer used. Paul Arizin's #11 is the only retired number. , 21 have been honored with a retired number or jersey, including 16 players, four coaches, and longtime trainer Jake Nevin.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Some Villanovans count Georgetown as their most intense rivalry, having played a historic NCAA Championship game and many competitive Big East tournament and regular season games against the Hoyas. Other rivals from the Big East Conference include founding members of the original Big East—Providence (an eastern rivalry which predates the original Big East) and St. John's, plus Syracuse who left the Big East as part of its 2013 split for the ACC.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Seton Hall has played Villanova more than any other school; due to the proximity of the schools and a series of memorable games since the formation of the new Big East, this has become one of Villanova's top rivalries each season. Games have included critical Seton Hall upsets in 2013, the 2014 Big East tournament, Villanova's first loss of 2015, and the 2016 Big East tournament championship as well as a Villanova blowout in a game that resulted in Seton Hall guard Sterling Gibbs punching Villanova guard Ryan Arcidiacono in 2015 and a narrow victory in the closing seconds of the 2017 Big East tournament semifinals.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Villanova along with Saint Joseph's University, La Salle University, Temple University, and University of Pennsylvania banded together to create the Philadelphia Big 5 in 1954–55. From that date until the mid-1970s all Big 5 games were contested at the Palestra (cap. 9,208) on Penn's campus. The Five competed in a round-robin City Series. Additionally, all participated in numerous doubleheaders against non-Big 5 opponents. Most games were televised locally on WPHL-TV, broadcast by Harry Kalas.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Since the beginning of the 1996–1997 season, Villanova has won 15 out of 21 Big 5 titles. They currently have 25 total Big 5 titles which is second most among the participating schools.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Villanova's most bitter Big 5 rival is Saint Joseph's University, in what has become known as the Holy War.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Villanova basketball athletes traditionally remain enrolled four years, graduate, and go on to enjoy post-college success. Villanova has never fired a head basketball coach (men's or women's). Villanova has won more NCAA tournament games as a lower seed than any school. Villanova won what has been called the greatest college basketball game ever played, defeating Georgetown 66–64 on April 1, 1985 to win the NCAA national championship.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: "V for Villanova" is the Wildcats' fight song. Other Villanova songs include "March of the Wildcats".


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Villanova had a tradition of throwing paper streamers in the school colors of blue and white onto the basketball court at home games, particularly Big Five games, after the first Wildcat basket. This tradition was shared by other Big Five basketball teams, and at Big Five games, streamers were thrown by both teams following their team's first field goal. The tradition was stopped in the late 1980s after the NCAA declared that throwing streamers would result in a technical foul. Since then Villanova has restarted the tradition, throwing the streamers on the first basket of the new season during the blue and white scrimmage game during Hoops Mania.


title: Villanova Wildcats men's basketball

text: Hoops Mania has been an annual tradition to celebrate the start of basketball season. It was originally held in the Jake Nevin Fieldhouse for students and has since grown larger after the success of the 2005–06 season. It is now held in the Pavilion and is open to the public and students. Following an inter-team scrimmage, notable music artists perform.


title: Vector projection

text: The vector projection of a vector on (or onto) a nonzero vector , sometimes denoted formula_1 (also known as the vector component or vector resolution of in the direction of ), is the orthogonal projection of onto a straight line parallel to . It is a vector parallel to , defined as:


title: Vector projection

text: where formula_3 is a scalar, called the scalar projection of onto , and is the unit vector in the direction of .


title: Vector projection

text: where the operator ⋅ denotes a dot product, ‖a‖ is the length of , and "θ" is the angle between and .


title: Vector projection

text: The scalar projection is equal to the length of the vector projection, with a minus sign if the direction of the projection is opposite to the direction of . The vector component or vector resolute of perpendicular to , sometimes also called the vector rejection of "from" (denoted formula_6), is the orthogonal projection of onto the plane (or, in general, hyperplane) orthogonal to . Both the projection and rejection of a vector are vectors, and their sum is equal to , which implies that the rejection is given by: formula_7


title: Vector projection

text: Typically, a vector projection is denoted in a bold font (e.g. ), and the corresponding scalar projection with normal font (e.g. "a"). In some cases, especially in handwriting, the vector projection is also denoted using a diacritic above or below the letter (e.g., formula_8 or "a"). The vector projection of on and the corresponding rejection are sometimes denoted by and , respectively.


title: Vector projection

text: The vector projection of on is a vector whose magnitude is the scalar projection of on with the same direction as . Namely, it is defined as


title: Vector projection

text: where formula_3 is the corresponding scalar projection, as defined above, and formula_12 is the unit vector with the same direction as :


title: Vector projection

text: When is not known, the cosine of can be computed in terms of and , by the following property of the dot product


title: Vector projection

text: In two dimensions, the scalar rejection is equivalent to the projection of onto formula_22, which is formula_23 rotated 90° to the left. Hence,


title: Vector projection

text: The scalar projection on is a scalar which has a negative sign if 90 degrees < "θ" ≤ 180 degrees. It coincides with the length of the vector projection if the angle is smaller than 90°. More exactly:


title: Vector projection

text: The orthogonal projection can be represented by a projection matrix. To project a vector onto the unit vector , it would need to be multiplied with this projection matrix:


title: Vector projection

text: The vector projection is an important operation in the Gram–Schmidt orthonormalization of vector space bases. It is also used in the separating axis theorem to detect whether two convex shapes intersect.


title: Vector projection

text: Since the notions of vector length and angle between vectors can be generalized to any "n"-dimensional inner product space, this is also true for the notions of orthogonal projection of a vector, projection of a vector onto another, and rejection of a vector from another.


title: Vector projection

text: In some cases, the inner product coincides with the dot product. Whenever they don't coincide, the inner product is used instead of the dot product in the formal definitions of projection and rejection. For a three-dimensional inner product space, the notions of projection of a vector onto another and rejection of a vector from another can be generalized to the notions of projection of a vector onto a plane, and rejection of a vector from a plane. The projection of a vector on a plane is its orthogonal projection on that plane. The rejection of a vector from a plane is its orthogonal projection on a straight line which is orthogonal to that plane. Both are vectors. The first is parallel to the plane, the second is orthogonal.


title: Vector projection

text: For a given vector and plane, the sum of projection and rejection is equal to the original vector. Similarly, for inner product spaces with more than three dimensions, the notions of projection onto a vector and rejection from a vector can be generalized to the notions of projection onto a hyperplane, and rejection from a hyperplane. In geometric algebra, they can be further generalized to the notions of projection and rejection of a general multivector onto/from any invertible "k"-blade.


title: Dan Savage

text: Daniel Keenan Savage (born October 7, 1964) is an American author, media pundit, journalist, and LGBT community activist. He writes "Savage Love", an internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column. In 2010, Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, began the It Gets Better Project to help prevent suicide among LGBT youth. He has also worked as a theater director, sometimes credited as Keenan Hollahan.


title: Dan Savage

text: Born in Chicago to Roman Catholic parents, Savage attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in acting. After living in West Berlin from 1988 to 1990, he moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he befriended Tim Keck, co-founder of "The Onion". When Keck moved to Seattle, Washington, Savage moved as well to become an advice columnist for "The Stranger", which Keck founded; he had offered Savage the position after Savage wrote a sample column which impressed him. Savage has since become a sex columnist and a vocal proponent of LGBT rights in the United States, voicing his advocacy through his column, "Savage Love", and a podcast version of his column, the "Savage Lovecast". In 2001, Savage and his readership coined the term 'pegging' to describe a woman anally penetrating a man with a strap-on dildo.


title: Dan Savage

text: Outside of his writings and podcasts, Savage has advocated for progressive politics and advancing the rights of LGBT youth to prevent suicide in the community. He has opposed laws restricting pornography and the sale of sex toys, and founded the It Gets Better Project with his husband Terry Miller, whom he married in 2005. Savage has been featured on numerous television programs and news outlets, including "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" and "Anderson Cooper 360."


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage has attracted controversy over his comments and actions related to LGBT issues. He coined the term "santorum" to define a by-product of sex after former senator Rick Santorum made anti-LGBT comments in 2003, and condemned the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for its support of California Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California. His activism and public speaking has brought praise from celebrities and politicians, including former president Barack Obama.


title: Dan Savage

text: Dan Savage was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Judith "Judy" (née Schneider), who worked at Loyola University, and William Savage Sr. He has German and Irish ancestry. The third of four children, he has two brothers and one sister. Savage was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Quigley Preparatory Seminary North, which he has described as "a Catholic high school in Chicago for boys thinking of becoming priests." Though Savage has stated that he considers himself "a wishy-washy agnostic" and an atheist, he continues to identify as "culturally Catholic".


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he received a BFA in Acting. He lived in West Berlin from late-1988 to 1990.


title: Dan Savage

text: In 1991, Savage was living in Madison, Wisconsin, and working as a night manager at Four Star Fiction and Video (now Four Star Video Cooperative), a local video store that specialized in independent film titles. He befriended Tim Keck, co-founder of "The Onion," who announced that he was moving to Seattle to help start an alternative weekly newspaper titled "The Stranger." Savage "made the offhand comment that forever altered [his] life: 'Make sure your paper has an advice column—everybody claims to hate 'em, but everybody seems to read 'em'." Savage wrote a sample column, and to his surprise, Keck offered him the job.


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage stated in a February 2006 interview in "The Onion"s "A.V. Club" (which publishes his column) that he began the column with the express purpose of providing mocking advice to heterosexuals, since most straight advice columnists were "clueless" when responding to letters from gay people. Savage wanted to call the column "Hey, Faggot!" in an effort to reclaim a hate word. His editors at the time refused his choice of column name, but for the first several years of the column, he attached "Hey, Faggot!" at the beginning of each printed letter as a salutation." In his February 25, 1999, column, Savage announced that he was retiring the phrase, claiming that the reclamation had been successful.


title: Dan Savage

text: He has written in a number of columns about "straight rights" concerns, such as the HPV vaccine and the morning-after pill. In his November 9, 2005, column he wrote that "[t]he right-wingers and the fundies and the sex-phobes don't just have it in for the queers. They're coming for your asses too."


title: Dan Savage

text: As a theater director, Savage (under the name Keenan Hollohan, combining his middle name and his paternal grandmother's maiden name) was a founder of Seattle's Greek Active Theater. Much of the group's work were queer interpretations of classic works, such as a tragicomic "Macbeth" with both the title character and Lady Macbeth played by performers of the opposite sex. In March 2001, he directed his own "Egguus" at Consolidated Works, a parody of Peter Shaffer's 1973 play "Equus" which exchanged a fixation on horses for a fixation on chickens.


title: Dan Savage

text: "Letters from the Earth" (2003), also at Consolidated Works, was Savage's most recent production. "Letters" was a trimmed version of Mark Twain's "The Diary of Adam and Eve." It received scathing reviews, including one from "The Stranger" - "My Boss's Show Stinks".


title: Dan Savage

text: In addition to writing a weekly column and four books, Savage has been involved in several other projects.


title: Dan Savage

text: From 1994 until 1997, he had a weekly three-hour call-in show called "Savage Love Live" on Seattle's KCMU (now KEXP-FM). From 1998 to 2000, he ran the biweekly advice column "Dear Dan" on the news website abcnews.com.


title: Dan Savage

text: He is now the editorial director of the weekly Seattle newspaper "The Stranger", a promotion from his former position as "The Stranger"s editor-in-chief. Savage stars in "Savage U" on MTV, contributes frequently to "This American Life" and "Out" magazine, and acts as a "Real Time Real Reporter" on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher." He has also made multiple appearances on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" and CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360", to discuss LGBT political issues, such as same-sex marriage and Don't Ask Don't Tell.


title: Dan Savage

text: In 2014, he participated in "Do I Sound Gay?", a documentary film by David Thorpe about stereotypes of gay men's speech patterns.


title: Dan Savage

text: In 2016, he was the first guest of "Twice Removed", a family history podcast hosted by A. J. Jacobs. In the episode, Savage's lineage was traced to Nan Britton, Paul Popham, and others.


title: Dan Savage

text: The "Savage Lovecast" is a weekly audio podcast based on the column "Savage Love," available via iTunes and at the "Stranger"s website for free download. It features Savage answering anonymous questions left by callers on a voice recorder (answering machine). He often returns calls to questioners who give their phone numbers, and such phone calls are part of the podcast. He also consults with doctors, sex therapists, and other experts for answers to questions he calls "above my pay grade". There are frequent guest co-hosts, all of them sex-positive. It is routinely rated as the top podcast in the iTunes "Health" category and in the top 20 of all podcasts overall. A.V. Club listed the show as one of "The best podcasts of 2010" and later as one of "The best podcasts of 2013". The Atlantic listed the show as one of "The 50 Best Podcasts of 2016".


title: Dan Savage

text: Based on an idea by Savage (who also served as executive producer), the ABC television series, "The Real O'Neals", starring Noah Galvin, debuted in 2016. The series chronicles the lives of a close-knit, Irish-American Chicago Catholic family whose matriarch takes their reputation in the community very seriously. In the pilot episode, their perfect image is shattered when each family member has a secret revealed to the community: middle child Kenny is gay, oldest child Jimmy is anorexic, youngest child Shannon is running a money scam and might be an atheist, and parents Eileen and Pat are no longer in love and wish to divorce. The series lasted for two seasons before its cancellation.


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage married Terry Miller in Vancouver in 2005. Following the 2012 legalization of same-sex marriage in Washington state, he and Miller were part of the first group of 11 couples to receive Washington state marriage licenses. Savage and Miller were married on December 9, 2012, at Seattle City Hall, opened on Sunday especially for the purpose of hosting the first same-sex weddings in Washington state, with Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and others in attendance. The couple have a son, whom they adopted as an infant . Savage chronicled the experience of adopting their son in his 1999 book "The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant".


title: Dan Savage

text: On September 21, 2010, Savage founded the It Gets Better Project following the suicide of 15-year-old Billy Lucas, who was bullied for his perceived sexual orientation. The project encourages adults, both LGBT and otherwise, to submit videos assuring gay teenagers that life can improve after bullying in early life. As of November 2013, the project had more than 50,000 user-created testimonials and had been viewed over 50 million times.


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage coordinates the annual Hump pornography festival, which is made up of clips of up to five minutes on any pornographic topic, submitted by viewers. Winning submissions are shown in theaters around the United States, providing a unique experience as straight, gay male, bi, lesbian, and fetish porn are all shown together, one after another. Savage publicly destroys the submissions after conclusion of the festival.


title: Dan Savage

text: After Rick Santorum, then a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, made comments in 2003 to a reporter comparing homosexual sex to bestiality and incest, Savage assailed Santorum in his column. Later, he sponsored a contest that led to the term "santorum" being used to refer to "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes a byproduct of anal sex". Savage set up a website to publicize this application of the term. In 2010, Savage offered to take down his website if Rick Santorum would agree to donate US$5 million to a gay rights group. The organization, Freedom to Marry, advocates on behalf of same-sex marriage in the United States. Savage told "Mother Jones" in 2010, "If Rick Santorum wants to make a $5 million donation to [the gay marriage group] Freedom to Marry, I will take it down. Interest starts accruing now." Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, responded in a statement to "Metro Weekly", "Support for Freedom to Marry's national campaign would be welcome—and a good way for Rick Santorum to start cleaning up the discriminatory mess he and his companions have made." Santorum condemned the campaign and accused Savage of defaming him. Savage responded by further denouncing Santorum and accused him of propagating discrimination against the LGBT community through his viewpoints.


title: Dan Savage

text: In 2009 Savage invited his readers to vote to define "saddlebacking" as "the phenomenon of Christian teens engaging in unprotected anal sex to preserve their virginities." He was protesting the vocal support given to California Proposition 8 by Rick Warren (pastor of Saddleback Church), and President Barack Obama's invitation to Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration. When Savage vowed to boycott Utah due to strong Mormon support for Proposition 8, the "Salt Lake City Weekly" dropped Savage's column.


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage strongly supported the War in Iraq in October 2002, stating "Free your people, reform your societies, liberalize, and democratize…or we're going to come over there, remove you from power, free your people, and reform your societies for ourselves." By the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003, however, he opposed the war.


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage has also opposed state legislation prohibiting the sale of sex toys. After an exposé by Kandiss Crone from WLBT in Jackson, Mississippi, precipitated the arrest and fining of an adult video store owner, Savage suggested that readers send Crone any sex toys that they needed to dispose of.


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage's editorship of "The Stranger" has established him as a voice in local Seattle politics. His most high-profile commentary has been as an outspoken critic of the Teen Dance Ordinance and other crackdowns on all-ages events.


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage argues that closing down supervised all-ages dance venues drives teens to boredom and reckless activities: "Places like Ground Zero and the Kirkland Teen Center are invaluable from a law enforcement point of view. They keep kids out of, say, 7-Eleven parking lots or the homes of friends whose parents are away."


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage tends toward liberal political views, with pronounced contrarian and libertarian streaks. Savage frequently mentions political issues in his column, particularly issues that affect family planning, birth control, and sexuality. He often encourages readers to get involved and/or voice a positive or negative opinion about a politician or public official.


title: Dan Savage

text: In a 2006 interview with the "Daily Pennsylvanian", Savage claimed that Carl Romanelli, who was briefly the Green Party's candidate for U.S. Senate in that year's election in Pennsylvania, was partially funded by state Republicans for a spoiler effect against Democrat Bob Casey Jr., and further stated that Romanelli "should be dragged behind a pickup truck until there's nothing left but the rope", as well as remarking that if Romanelli, who had been disqualified from appearing on the general election ballot, was allowed back on the ballot, "someone should run him over with a truck". Immediately after the interview, Savage wrote, "I regret using that truck metaphor, and didn't mean it literally, and it was in poor taste, and I regret it."


title: Dan Savage

text: On a 2011 episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher", during a panel discussion on the debt limit increase negotiations between the U.S. Congress and President Barack Obama, Savage said, "I wish [the Republicans] were all fucking dead." He apologized for the comment on his blog later the same night, saying, "I don't feel that way", adding that his father voted Republican, and calling it "a stupid, rude, thoughtless remark, a flubbed expression of disgust".


title: Dan Savage

text: In January 2000, Savage traveled to Iowa to write about the state's presidential caucuses for "Salon". He wrote that he had planned "to follow one of the loopy conservative Christian candidates around—[Gary] Bauer or [Alan] Keyes—and write something insightful and humanizing about him, his campaign, and his supporters", but he was so angered by remarks that Bauer made in opposition to same-sex marriage that he abandoned the idea.


title: Dan Savage

text: Instead, Savage, who had been sick with influenza, said that he volunteered for the Bauer campaign with the intent to spread his flu to the candidate and his supporters. He claimed to have licked numerous items in the campaign office, including doorknobs, office supplies, and coffee cups, and later covered a pen in his saliva before handing it to Bauer. Savage incurred criticism for the story. Camille Paglia, who also contributed to "Salon" at the time, called his described behavior "sociopathic", and the publication said that they did not "condone or endorse" his actions; Savage later said that the article was exaggerated for comedic effect, stating that the anecdote about "licking doorknobs" was fictitious, and that he was "no longer contagious" by the time he joined the campaign team.


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage also reported registering and participating in the Iowa Republican caucus, which was illegal, as he was not an Iowa resident. He was charged and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of fraudulent voting in a caucus, and was sentenced to a year's probation, 50 hours of community service, and a $750 fine.


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage initially supported the Iraq War and advocated military action against other Middle Eastern states, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, saying, "Islamo-fascism is a regional problem, like European fascism—and the Middle East [has] to be remade just as Europe was remade". However, one week before the war began, Savage spoke against it, citing the inability of President George W. Bush to form a convincing case and sway the UN and NATO allies. By 2005 he deemed the situation "hopeless" and advocated an immediate troop withdrawal.


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage describes his view toward family as "conservative". He has, however, expressed skepticism of "simplistic" views of monogamy. In response to a letter asking "Is the AIDS crisis over?" Savage, in his October 22, 1997 column, answered simply, "Yes". Several weeks of columns were devoted in whole or in part to discussion of the issue. Savage also opposes the tactics of the War on Drugs, and opposes the prohibition of certain controlled substances.


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage stated in a column that he favors outing in some cases, specifically mentioning anti-gay activist Tyler Whitney. However, in the same column he noted that "I recently talked someone "out" of outing a public figure. A "Savage Love" reader was contemplating outing an innocuous celebrity back in April. I advised him against it because, as I wrote to him privately, outing is brutal and it should be reserved for brutes."


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage has spoken out against child sexual abuse. In 2017, when Kevin Spacey was accused of attacking then-14 year old Anthony Rapp while drunk, Spacey released a statement which included coming out as gay. Savage responded that there is "no amount of drunk or closeted that excuses or explains away assaulting a 14-year-old child".


title: Dan Savage

text: In 2011, Lindy West published a piece in "The Stranger" criticizing Savage, her boss at the time, for repeated comments about fat people in his columns, such as "rolls of exposed flesh are unsightly", which she called "a cruel, subjective opinion", concluding "you need to understand that shaming an already-shamed population is, well, shameful." This incident was later fictionalized in the Hulu TV series "Shrill".


title: Dan Savage

text: Savage also came under scrutiny for an anti-bullying speech he gave in 2012, to the National High School Journalism Convention, in which he encouraged the attending students to "learn to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about gay people", prompting some students to leave the auditorium. Savage apologized on April 29 for calling the walkout "a pansy-assed move", saying, "I wasn't calling the handful of students who left pansies (2,800+ students, most of them Christian, stayed and listened), just the walkout itself." Savage stood by the central point of his speech.


title: Dan Savage

text: In 2011, J. Bryan Lowder of "Slate" stated wrote Savage "often takes heat for his less-than-refined statements on issues like the existence of male bisexuality, the responsibility of asexuals to 'come out' before dating, and, indeed, certain issues surrounding transgenderism." Savage has repeatedly been the focus of controversy for his use of slurs regarding the transgender community, other remarks regarding trans issues, and for claiming as a joke that Rob McKenna, who was attorney general of Washington from 2005 to 2013, is a transgender man, though he is not. He has been glitter bombed three times, twice in 2011 and once in 2012, by protesters who alleged that he is transphobic, among other accusations.


title: Dan Savage

text: In 2014, during a seminar at the University of Chicago on social media, Savage discussed his past use of the word "tranny". He objected to a student's request that he use the phrase "T-slur" instead, and gave examples of other slurs. Some students criticized him, claiming that he tried to make the student feel threatened and uncomfortable. A University representative said, "A guest used language that provoked a spirited debate. The speaker was discussing how hurtful words can be repurposed and used to empower; at no point did he direct any slurs at anyone." Savage later thanked the University for standing up for him and demanded an apology from those who had accused him of hatred towards trans people.


title: Dan Savage

text: In addition to his advice column, Savage has written four books, edited one book, and authored various op-ed pieces in "The New York Times".


title: Lottery mathematics

text: Lottery mathematics is used to calculate probabilities of winning or losing a lottery game. It is based primarily on combinatorics, particularly the twelvefold way and combinations without replacement.


title: Lottery mathematics

text: In a typical 6/49 game, each player chooses six distinct numbers from a range of 1-49. If the six numbers on a ticket match the numbers drawn by the lottery, the ticket holder is a jackpot winner—regardless of the order of the numbers. The probability of this happening is 1 in 13,983,816.


title: Lottery mathematics

text: The chance of winning can be demonstrated as follows: The first number drawn has a 1 in 49 chance of matching. When the draw comes to the second number, there are now only 48 balls left in the bag, because the balls are drawn without replacement. So there is now a 1 in 48 chance of predicting this number.


title: Lottery mathematics

text: Thus for each of the 49 ways of choosing the first number there are 48 different ways of choosing the second. This means that the probability of correctly predicting 2 numbers drawn from 49 in the correct order is calculated as 1 in 49 × 48. On drawing the third number there are only 47 ways of choosing the number; but of course we could have arrived at this point in any of 49 × 48 ways, so the chances of correctly predicting 3 numbers drawn from 49, again in the correct order, is 1 in 49 × 48 × 47. This continues until the sixth number has been drawn, giving the final calculation, 49 × 48 × 47 × 46 × 45 × 44, which can also be written as formula_1 or 49 factorial divided by 43 factorial. This works out to 10,068,347,520, which is much bigger than the ~14 million stated above.


title: Lottery mathematics

text: However; the order of the 6 numbers is not significant. That is, if a ticket has the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, it wins as long as all the numbers 1 through 6 are drawn, no matter what order they come out in. Accordingly, given any set of 6 numbers, there are 6 × 5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1 = 6! or 720 orders in which they could be drawn. Dividing 10,068,347,520 by 720 gives 13,983,816, also written as formula_2, or more generally as


title: Lottery mathematics

text: This function is called the combination function. For the rest of this article, we will use the notation formula_4. "Combination" means the group of numbers selected, irrespective of the order in which they are drawn.


title: Lottery mathematics

text: An alternative method of calculating the odds is to note that the probability of the first ball corresponding to one of the six chosen is 6/49; the probability of the second ball corresponding to one of the remaining five chosen is 5/48; and so on. This yields a final formula of


title: Lottery mathematics

text: The range of possible combinations for a given lottery can be referred to as the "number space". "Coverage" is the percentage of a lottery's number space that is in play for a given drawing.


title: Lottery mathematics

text: One must divide the number of combinations producing the given result by the total number of possible combinations (for example, formula_6 ). The numerator equates to the number of ways to select the winning numbers multiplied by the number of ways to select the losing numbers.


title: Lottery mathematics

text: For a score of "n" (for example, if 3 choices match three of the 6 balls drawn, then "n" = 3), formula_7 describes the odds of selecting "n" winning numbers from the 6 winning numbers. This means that there are 6 - n losing numbers, which are chosen from the 43 losing numbers in formula_8 ways. The total number of combinations giving that result is, as stated above, the first number multiplied by the second. The expression is therefore formula_9.


title: Lottery mathematics

text: where formula_11 is the number of balls in lottery, formula_12 is the number of balls in a single ticket, and formula_13 is the number of matching balls for a winning ticket.


title: Lottery mathematics

text: There is only one known way to ensure winning the jackpot. That is to buy at least one lottery ticket for every possible number combination. For example, one has to buy 13,983,816 different tickets to ensure to win the jackpot in a 6/49 game.


title: Lottery mathematics

text: Lottery organizations have laws, rules and safeguards in place to prevent gamblers from executing such an operation. Further, just winning the jackpot by buying every possible combination does not guarantee to break even or make a profit.


title: Lottery mathematics

text: If formula_14 is the probability to win; formula_15the cost of a ticket; formula_16 the cost for obtaining a ticket (e.g. including the logistics); formula_17 one time costs for the operation (such as setting up and conducting the operation); then the jackpot formula_18 should contain at least


title: Lottery mathematics

text: The above theoretical "chance to break-even" point is slightly offset by the sum formula_20 of the minor wins also included in all the lottery tickets:


title: Lottery mathematics

text: Still, even if the above relation is satisfied, it does not guarantee to break even. The payout depends on the number of winning tickets for all the prizes formula_22, resulting in the relation


title: Lottery mathematics

text: In probably the only known successful operations the threshold to execute an operation was set at three times the cost of the tickets alone for unknown reasons


title: Lottery mathematics

text: This does, however, not eliminate all risks to make no profit. The success of the operations still depended on a bit of luck. In addition, in one operation the logistics failed and not all combinations could be obtained. This added the risk of not even winning the jackpot at all.


title: Lottery mathematics

text: Many lotteries have a Powerball (or "bonus ball"). If the powerball is drawn from a pool of numbers different from the main lottery, the odds are multiplied by the number of powerballs. For example, in the 6 from 49 lottery, given 10 powerball numbers, then the odds of getting a score of 3 and the powerball would be 1 in 56.66 × 10, or 566.6 (the "probability" would be divided by 10, to give an exact value of formula_26). Another example of such a game is Mega Millions, albeit with different jackpot odds.


title: Lottery mathematics

text: Where more than 1 powerball is drawn from a separate pool of balls to the main lottery (for example, in the EuroMillions game), the odds of the different possible powerball matching scores are calculated using the method shown in the "other scores" section above (in other words, the powerballs are like a mini-lottery in their own right), and then multiplied by the odds of achieving the required main-lottery score.


title: Lottery mathematics

text: If the powerball is drawn from the "same" pool of numbers as the main lottery, then, for a given target score, the number of winning combinations includes the powerball. For games based on the Canadian lottery (such as the lottery of the United Kingdom), after the 6 main balls are drawn, an extra ball is drawn from the same pool of balls, and this becomes the powerball (or "bonus ball"). An extra prize is given for matching 5 balls and the bonus ball. As described in the "other scores" section above, the number of ways one can obtain a score of 5 from a single ticket is formula_27. Since the number of remaining balls is 43, and the ticket has 1 unmatched number remaining, of these 258 combinations will match the next ball drawn (the powerball), leaving ways of achieving it. Therefore, the odds of getting a score of 5 and the powerball are formula_28.


title: Lottery mathematics

text: Of the 258 combinations that match 5 of the main 6 balls, in 42/43 of them the remaining number will not match the powerball, giving odds of formula_29 for obtaining a score of 5 without matching the powerball.