title: Machinima, Inc.

text: Machinima's content was primarily hosted on various YouTube channels. Content uploaded onto these channels are either produced in-house or by signed directors. Machinima has also utilized social media platforms to provide fans with featured uploads, interactive questions, and live event coverage.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: "Inside Gaming" was the main editorial brand of Machinima. Coverage of gaming news, previews, and reviews was provided for more than 600,000 weekly viewers through daily and weekly shows on its YouTube channel hosted by then-employee Adam Kovic under the alias "The Dead Pixel". He was often seen in a "Halo 3"-themed machinima form in his lava-red Recon helmet.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: "Inside Gaming" is the successor to Machinima's discontinued segment, "Inside Halo", which was less successful because of the lack of news surrounding the Halo series. "Inside Halo" was developed and hosted by "Soda God" who alternated weekly hosting with Adam Kovic who became the only host. Eventually an official co-host, Matt Dannevik, joined Kovic on the set of "Inside Gaming Daily"; he was laid off in December 2012. Producers Bruce Greene and James Willems regularly co-hosted with Kovic, and have started their own YouTube channel under "Inside Gaming". "Inside Gaming" also hosted its own annual awards show, the "Inside Gaming Awards" in Los Angeles. The awards show celebrates the biggest developers and achievements in the video-games industry, and features top gaming choices by viewers and the staff of "Inside Gaming". Categories in which games are selected include, among others: Game of the Year, Best Online Multiplayer, and Best Original Games.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: On January 26, 2015, Inside Gaming employees Adam Kovic, Bruce Greene, Lawrence Sonntag, Joel Rubin, Sean "Spoole" Poole, James Willems, and Matt Peake announced that they were leaving Machinima. The group is now known as Funhaus, a subsidiary of Rooster Teeth Productions. On April 9, 2015, Matt Dannevik announced in a video that he would be returning to Machinima and taking over the Inside Gaming channel, with help from other members of Machinima.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: In February 2019, following the sunset of Machinima, it was announced that "Inside Gaming" would be revived as a merger with Rooster Teeth's "The Know", with Sonntag as editor-in-chief, and Kovic and Greene returning as hosts alongside former IGN journalist Alanah Pearce. It was also announced that Rooster Teeth would also manage the archives of the series.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: "ETC News", otherwise known as simply "ETC", was Machinima's entertainment news show that started in 2010. The name originally stood for "Entertainment, Technology, Culture." It was originally hosted by Khail Anonymous, who later left the company in 2014 and currently works for "Yahoo! News". It was most recently hosted by Machinima employees Ricky Hayberg and Eliot Dewberry, before their departure from the company. Originally airing on the primary Machinima channel the show was moved to its own channel on June 30, 2016, though Ricky and Eliot still worked for Machinima and the show was still owned by them.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: "ETC Daily" was the main show, with weekly shows such as "TechNewsDay" (originally Tech Tuesday, but renamed in order to remove the inherent deadline) for technology news, "Weekly Weird News" for exploring odd headlines and going deeper into "crazy" news stories, News Dump for covering film news, and "T.U.G.S." ("The Totally Uninformed Gaming Show") for gaming news meant to satirize what the hosts considered to be game journalists who were far too soft on gaming companies, though the show was later moved to the specialized gaming channel, ETC Party Time. Outside of news, the channel hosted the "ETC Podcast", where the hosts interviewed creators such as Dan Harmon & Justin Roiland, Mike Shinoda, Tony Hale, Ed Skrein, Elijah Wood, Kill The Noise, Verne Troyer, Alicia Malone, Kristian Harloff & Mark Ellis, and Dillon Francis.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: On June 27, 2018 the duo officially cut ties with ETC News and launched a new YouTube channel known as "Internet Today", taking many shows from ETC and continuing them there. "ETC Daily" was renamed to "Internet Today" and "T.U.G.S." was officially canceled. The "ETC Podcast" was reworked into "Idiots Watching Anime", a full series version of a few episodes they did of the "ETC Podcast" where the two hosts watched a few episodes of "Dragon Ball Z", a show they were both unfamiliar with, and discussed it with the friends who suggested the episodes.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: Machinima previously held livestreams on the "Machinima Live" YouTube channel. Currently, the network streams on Twitch, with their channel hosting gameplay events, convention coverage, and more. "Machinima Live" also had 24-hour live streams, such as one that took place in 2010 after the release of "". Machinima staff, directors, and guests took part in playing the game in four-hour shifts in an attempt to reach the 15th prestige. A similar event also occurred after the release of "".


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: In 2012, Machinima branched out to the competitive side of gaming with the inclusion of "Machinima VS", a channel featuring event coverage from some top-ranked players, teams, and casters. It served as Machinima's Esports channel. The channel has since become inactive.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: On December 7, 2009, the "Machinima Respawn" channel was launched as Machinima's gameplay-focused channel. It had a host of shows about games and related topics as well as the show "Respawn" hosted by Adam Montoya, Scott Robison, and Shaun Hutchinson. "Inbox" was a later show that gained a cult following for its comedy and the funny personalities of the hosts Scott Fisher and Scott Robison. At one point "Machinima Respawn" was one of the most subscribed channels on YouTube. Due to budget cuts at Machinima, the lack of views of the newer programming on "Respawn" in later years, and the departure of Scott Robison, Shaun Hutchinson and Adam Montoya along with Scott Fisher, "Machinima Respawn" was discontinued, not having been active since February 22, 2015. The efforts from Respawn were shuttered, and company focus in terms of gameplay driven series were put further more into Machinima Realm, which was later renamed "Realm Games".


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: Originally launched as "Machinima Realm" in 2010, "Realm Games" was one of Machinima's key primarily gameplay-focused franchises. Originally only focusing on MMOs and real-time strategy games among other genres, it has since become Machinima's primary hub for content creator gameplay content after the closure of "Machinima Respawn." Realm also developed original animation series, and one-off creations, such as 'Beyond the Rift' a League of Legends cinematic, focusing on a two character fight scene between Jax and Veigar. Beyond the Rift hit 1,000,000 views within a 52-hour period, and reached the front page of Reddit as a viral hit. The channel also was home to the most successful League of Legends gameplay series of all time on YouTube called 'Random LoL Moments.' Amassing over 500 episodes, across a 5-year span. The Realm Games franchise was operated by Shane Burruss (Shibby) from 2013, up until the company closed its doors in January 2019. Before the Machinima channels, including Realm went private, the focus was mostly "Overwatch" and "League of Legends" content.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: On May 18, 2009, Machinima released "Terminator Salvation: The Machinima Series", an animated web series set before the video game and leading to the events of the film, comprising six episodes. The series is set in 2016 and follows Blair Williams (voiced by Moon Bloodgood) who is fighting the war against the machines in downtown Los Angeles, while tracking down the computer hacker named Laz Howard (voiced by Cam Clarke) and trying to pursue him to join sides with the resistance. The series was created using real-time computer animation from the video game. It was distributed by Warner Premiere, and produced by Wonderland Sound and Vision and The Halcyon Company.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: On April 11, 2011, Machinima aired "", a live-action series produced by Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Warner Premiere featuring Michael Jai White, Darren Shahlavi, and Jeri Ryan. Based on the Mortal Kombat series, "Legacy" succeeds the short film "", which takes place in an alternate universe. This series was aired exclusively on the Machinima YouTube channel and served over 60 million combined views.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: "Bite Me" was a two-season web series released on December 31, 2010, about three gamers as they find themselves in the midst of a real-life zombie outbreak. Relying only on the knowledge and skills they have gain from years of gaming, they drop the controller and pick up anything that can be used as a weapon. For the first season of the show, Machinima partnered with Microsoft and Capcom and accumulated over 14 million viewers. The second season was released on March 6, 2012, and was also aired on FEARnet, a horror cable network.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: On May 23, 2014, Machinima aired "", a live-action Street Fighter series produced by Capcom and created by Joey Ansah and Christian Howard who made the popular short film "," reprising their roles as Ken and Akuma from the film.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: In 2014, Machinima announced that they would air a three-part animated series titled "", which would serve as a companion to the animated movie "". In May 2015, before the series even debuted, Machinima and DC Entertainment revealed that it had been renewed for a ten-episode second season to air in 2016. The first season launched on June 8, 2015, over two weeks before the movie was released. Series creator Sam Liu would later report that the series was shelved and that he had "moved on to other projects".


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: In May 2015 it was revealed that Machinima, in co-development with Blue Ribbon Content and DC Entertainment is developing a live-action adaptation of the DC Comics' cult-favorite classic "Dial H for Hero", called "#4Hero". It was described as a VFX-heavy action-comedy about a young woman named Nellie Tribble who gets her powers from a smartphone app that allows her to instantly become a super hero for a short period of time. Her superpowers are dictated by whatever is trending on social media at that moment.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: "DC's Hero Project" is a contest show developed by Machinima, Blue Ribbon Content, and DC Entertainment. The show is about finding "the next great creator for the world of DC Comics". It is described as a contest between eight competitors who compete in elimination challenges to develop a live-action short video based on their interpretations of the characters from DC Comics' Starman series. One of the confirmed judges was bestselling writer, and DC Entertainment chief creative officer, Geoff Johns.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: "Transformers: Prime Wars Trilogy" is a trilogy of animated series created in partnership with Hasbro for go90. It is based on Hasbro's "Transformers" franchise and set in the "" continuity family. It is split into three parts, "Combiner Wars", "Titans Return" and "Power of the Primes", drawing inspiration from the toylines of the same name as well as the story line from IDW Publishing's "The Transformers".


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: Machinima developed a premium channel to feature quality content produced by network content creators along with major production companies and Hollywood studios known as "Machinima Prime". Weekly shows that run on "Prime" include "Life on the Road", "XARM", "Prank Lab", and "Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn". After a year-long hiatus, the channel was relaunched on August 17, 2016 and rebranded as "Primr", with all previously uploaded videos and series being made private. Some of the short films uploaded on the channel have since been reinstated, while its series remain hidden. The channel has since become inactive.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: Happy Hour was a block (and later a channel) focusing on animation. Eventually, the channel and block were shelved, with the channel being inactive since August 18, 2015, with no new episodes from any of its exclusive shows since July 28, 2015. The shows moved from the primary Machinima channel and were moved back after Happy Hour's discontinuation. However, the channel resurfaced on September 7, 2016, with the premiere of the fourth season of "Happy Hour Saloon", an animated series that parodies video games. It stopped uploading content again on November 11, 2016.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: Machinima used a variety of social networking services including Facebook and Twitter as distribution platforms for its productions. It was integrated with Apple IOS and Microsoft Xbox Live service. Machinima frequently posted content on various social networks core to the concept of sharing and generating hits for Machinima videos.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: As a multi-channel network, Machinima had over 5,000 partners worldwide who were contracted to produce video content under the Machinima brand. The company had been criticised for the use of perpetual contracts. Ben Vacas, known to the YouTube community as "Braindeadly", attracted media attention in January 2013 over contractual issues with Machinima. Under the terms of his contract, Machinima was permitted to place advertisements on Vacas's videos and in return he would receive a percentage of the profits generated. However, the contract also disclosed that it existed "in perpetuity", meaning Machinima would hold the rights to any content created by Vacas, published on his partnered YouTube channel, in his lifetime, a detail Vacas failed to read.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: In January 2014, Machinima was alleged to be paying its YouTube video partners for showing Xbox One content. According to reports, the content must be at least 30 seconds long and the Xbox One must be mentioned by name. An accompanying legal agreement also states that the partner "may not say anything negative or disparaging about Machinima, Xbox One, or any of its games". Additionally, the agreement states that the video producer must keep the details of the promotional agreement confidential, or they do not qualify for the promotional payment. Videos participating in this promotion would tag their videos with the tag XB1M13. Microsoft claims that it had no knowledge of the promotion.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: Machinima has faced criticism from YouTube members and viewers for a lack of transparency with its associates, placing advertisements on their associate channels' videos without permission, and a lack of transparency on the revenues side. One associate member, Clash, also criticised Machinima for insensitively placing an ad on a video dedicated to his ailing dog.


title: Machinima, Inc.

text: On September 2, 2015, Machinima agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it engaged in deceptive advertising by paying "influencers" to post YouTube videos endorsing Microsoft's Xbox One system and several games. The FTC claimed that the influencers failed to adequately disclose that they were being paid for their seemingly objective opinions. Under the proposed settlement, Machinima was prohibited from similar deceptive conduct in the future, and it was required to ensure its influencers clearly disclosed when they are compensated for their endorsements. According to the FTC's complaint, Machinima and its influencers were part of an Xbox One marketing campaign managed by Microsoft's advertising agency, Starcom MediaVest Group. Machinima guaranteed Starcom that the influencer videos would be viewed at least 19 million times.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: The Toyota bZ4X is a battery electric compact crossover SUV manufactured by Toyota. The vehicle debuted in April 2021 as the "bZ4X Concept". It is the first vehicle to be based on the e-TNGA platform co-developed by Toyota and Subaru, and the brand's first model to be part of their Toyota bZ ("beyond Zero") series of zero-emissions vehicles.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: Worldwide sales of the bZ4X commenced in mid-2022, with production planned in Japan and China. Sales in the United States will also start in 2022. Toyota has also stated that there will be seven "bZ" models to be launched globally by 2025.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: According to Toyota, the meaning of the "bZ4X" nameplate breaks down into two meanings: "bZ", representing the nature of a battery-electric vehicle by going "beyond Zero" emissions; and "4X" describing it as a compact crossover SUV, where its numerical digit is sourced from the equivalent-sized RAV4.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: The design of the bZ4X was previewed by pictures of a series of electric concept vehicles released by Toyota in June 2019. The company highlighted the plan to release six electric vehicles between 2020 and 2025, using the e-TNGA platform. The vehicle was also previewed by Subaru, which is developing the vehicle with Toyota as a concept mockup showcasing a similar concept design in January 2020.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: The bZ4X Concept was revealed in 19 April 2021 and was presented at Auto Shanghai on the same day. While it is revealed as a concept vehicle, the vehicle appeared to be nearly production-ready. The bZ4X is similar in size to the RAV4, but stood lower with sharper styling and a longer wheelbase that matches the larger Highlander's. The vehicle has been developed in conjunction with Subaru, which is said to have had input into the car’s all-wheel drive system.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: The overall size, at total length, is comparable to a RAV4 (XA50), but the wheelbase of is similar to that of the Land Cruiser (J300), giving the bZ4X a large interior space. The e-TNGA platform was jointly developed by Toyota and Subaru, with Toyota receiving credit for battery and eAxle development and Subaru for all-wheel-drive control and collision safety.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: Some models also adopt a steer-by-wire system. The steer-by-wire system was developed for the Chinese market and will be available with a yoke in lieu of a conventional steering wheel. Combined with the low instrument panel, Toyota stated the yoke provides a more open interior.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: The bZ4X is powered by the e-Axle, which integrates an electric motor, gears and inverter, and is built by BluE Nexus, a joint venture of Toyota Group companies Aisin and Denso with investment from Toyota Motor. Front-wheel drive models use a single "1XM" model e-Axle that produces , while all-wheel drive models use twin "1YM" model e-Axles that each produce for a combined output of .


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: Front-wheel drive models have an estimated range of and a time of 7.5 seconds, while all-wheel drive models have an estimated range of and time in 6.9 seconds. On AWD models, the 'X-MODE' system is borrowed from the Subaru Forester.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: Front-wheel drive models have a battery built by Prime Planet Energy & Solutions (PPES), a joint venture between Toyota and Panasonic. All-wheel drive models for the North American market have a battery built by CATL. Both models are a 355 volt pack that accepts DC fast charging at a maximum rate of 150 kW for front-wheel drive models or 100 kW for all-wheel drive models. Using a fast charger can charge the PPES pack up to 80% capacity in 30 minutes, and an optional rooftop solar panel system may generate electricity to drive the vehicle for at least per year. The battery is estimated to retain 90% of its original capacity over a ten-year period. The car can act as a power supply in V2H or V2L fashion.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: The Japanese market-spec bZ4X was announced in April 2022 and launched on 12 May 2022. The model is only available for lease through the company's Kinto service to "eliminate customer concerns" regarding battery electric vehicle while "taking the environment into consideration". An application fee of is required to apply for the lease, which requires a monthly payment of during the first four years for the base model (Z, front-wheel drive with 18-inch wheels, standard roof, and no options); the monthly payment includes insurance, tax, inspection, and maintenance. However, a clean energy vehicle subsidy applies for the first four years, which reduces the effective monthly payment to for that period. In the fifth year, the subsidy is no longer available, but the monthly lease payment drops to in year 5, and continues to decrease by for each subsequent year, so the monthly payment is in year 6, in year 7, and so on. The sum of the monthly payments over the ten-year lease is (US$), excluding the application fee.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: In the first phase, up to 3,000 lease applications will be accepted starting from 12 May; a second phase will follow in fall 2022, and Toyota/Kinto plan to lease up to 5,000 vehicles per year thereafter.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: The bZ4X is available in one grade, Z, with front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive options. Specific packages include a choice of roof (standard or panoramic moon roof) and wheel size (18- or 20-inch diameter). The car is available with one of two interior colors and one of eleven exterior colors.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: The North American market-spec bZ4X was unveiled at the 2021 Los Angeles Auto Show, with its specifications also detailed by that time, including its on-sale date set in mid-2022, for the 2023 model year. Toyota-estimated range for the front-wheel-drive XLE model is up to . Supplies are expected to be constrained by supply-chain issues; the bZ4X will have a suggested retail price ranging between (base, FWD) and ("Limited", AWD) before the mandatory destination/delivery fee of .


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: At launch, American buyers qualify for the full federal tax subsidy for purchasing an electric vehicle; each automobile manufacturer may sell up to 200,000 cars that qualify for the tax credit. Because Toyota plug-in hybrid vehicles also qualify for the tax credit, the credits are anticipated to be exhausted shortly after the launch of the bZ4X.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: Under the WLTP driving cycle, the front-wheel drive bZ4X achieves a range of (14.3 kWh/100 km consumption) and the all-wheel drive bZ4X (15.8 kWh/100 km). Deliveries of the first vehicles are expected to commence in summer 2022.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: The bZ4X was first showcased in Indonesia at the 29th Gaikindo Indonesia International Auto Show, and launched to the market on 10 November 2022. It is imported from Japan. It was one of the official VIP vehicles used at the 2022 G20 Bali summit.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: The bZ4X was launched in Thailand on 9 November 2022. As with Indonesia, it is also imported from Japan.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: On 23 June 2022, Toyota recalled 2,700 bZ4Xs due to the possibility that wheels could come loose, they also halted production and sales of any new models.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: As of 6 October 2022, Toyota has found a fix to the loose wheel recall and has resumed production of the bZ4X.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: The bZ4X achieved a five star JNCAP rating from Japan's National agency for Automotive Safety and Victim's Aid (NASVA) for comprehensive safety performance, based on testing conducted on a Subaru Solterra.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: The rebadged version of the bZ4X is sold by Subaru as the , which the name "Solterra" is coined from a combination of the word "sol" and "terra", Latin words for the "sun" and the "earth" respectively. Featuring a minor exterior redesign, it uses the same e-TNGA platform rebranded to "e-Subaru Global Platform" (e-SGP). The Solterra is scheduled to go on sale in mid-2022 in Japan, US, Canada, Europe, and China.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: In Japan, the Solterra is offered in ET-SS (FWD and AWD) and ET-HS (AWD only) grade levels. It is equipped with an active safety system marketed as "Subaru Safety Sense" as standard. Unlike the bZ4X in Japan, the Solterra is available for purchase.


title: Toyota bZ4X

text: The Solterra achieved a five star JNCAP rating from Japan's National agency for Automotive Safety and Victim's Aid (NASVA) for comprehensive safety performance.


title: Volunteering

text: Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve on an as-needed basis, such as in response to a natural disaster.


title: Volunteering

text: The verb was first recorded in 1755. It was derived from the noun "volunteer", in 1600, "one who offers himself for military service," from the Middle French "voluntaire". In the non-military sense, the word was first recorded during the 1630s. The word "volunteering" has more recent usage—still predominantly military—coinciding with the phrase "community service".


title: Volunteering

text: In a military context, a volunteer army is a military body whose soldiers chose to enter service, as opposed to having been conscripted. Such volunteers do not work "for free" and are given regular pay.


title: Volunteering

text: During this time, America experienced the Great Awakening. People became aware of the disadvantaged and realized the cause for movement against slavery. In 1851, the first YMCA in the United States was started, followed seven years later by the first YWCA. During the American Civil War, women volunteered their time to sew supplies for the soldiers and the "Angel of the Battlefield" Clara Barton and a team of volunteers began providing aid to servicemen. Barton founded the American Red Cross in 1881 and began mobilizing volunteers for disaster relief operations, including relief for victims of the Johnstown Flood in 1889.


title: Volunteering

text: The Salvation Army is one of the oldest and largest organizations working for disadvantaged people. Though it is a charity organization, it has organized a number of volunteering programs since its inception.


title: Volunteering

text: In the first few decades of the 20th century, several volunteer organizations were founded, including the Rotary International, Kiwanis International, Association of Junior Leagues International, and Lions Clubs International.


title: Volunteering

text: The Great Depression saw one of the first large-scale, nationwide efforts to coordinate volunteering for a specific need. During World War II, thousands of volunteer offices supervised the volunteers who helped with the many needs of the military and the home front, including collecting supplies, entertaining soldiers on leave, and caring for the injured.


title: Volunteering

text: After World War II, people shifted the focus of their altruistic passions to other areas, including helping the poor and volunteering overseas. A major development was the Peace Corps in the United States in 1960. When President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" in 1964, volunteer opportunities started to expand and continued into the next few decades. The process for finding volunteer work became more formalized, with more volunteer centers forming and new ways to find work appearing on the World Wide Web through organizations like JustServe and AmeriCorps.


title: Volunteering

text: According to the Corporation for National and Community Service (in 2012), about 64.5 million Americans, or 26.5 percent of the adult population, gave 7.9 billion hours of volunteer service worth $175 billion. This calculates at about 125–150 hours per year or 3 hours per week at a rate of $22 per hour. Volunteer hours in the UK are similar; the data for other countries is unavailable.


title: Volunteering

text: Many schools on all education levels offer service-learning programs, which allow students to serve the community through volunteering while earning educational credit. According to Alexander Astin in the foreword to "Where's the Learning in Service-Learning?" by Janet Eyler and Dwight E. Giles, Jr.,"...we promote more wide-spread adoption of service-learning in higher education because we see it as a powerful means of preparing students to become more caring and responsible parents and citizens and of helping colleges and universities to make good on their pledge to 'serve society.'" When describing service learning, the Medical Education at Harvard says, "Service learning unites academic study and volunteer community service in mutually reinforcing ways. ...service learning is characterized by a relationship of partnership: the student learns from the service agency and from the community and, in return, gives energy, intelligence, commitment, time and skills to address human and community needs." Volunteering in service learning seems to have the result of engaging both mind and heart, thus providing a more powerful learning experience; according to Janet Eyler and Dwight E. Giles, it succeeds by the fact that it "...fosters student development by capturing student interest..."


title: Volunteering

text: More recent scholarship has found shortcomings in the early assumptions of mutual benefit, since early studies were interested in educational benefits rather than community outcomes. An Indiana study found that the nonprofit agencies hosting student service-learners do not report a positive impact on service capacity, although service-learners do help to increase agency visibility. In the end, service-learning must follow other principles of effective volunteer management such as screening, training, and supervising.


title: Volunteering

text: "Skills-based volunteering" is leveraging the specialized skills and the talents of individuals to strengthen the infrastructure of nonprofits, helping them build and sustain their capacity to successfully achieve their missions. This is in contrast to traditional volunteering, where volunteers do something other than their professional work. The average hour of traditional volunteering is valued by the Independent Sector at between $18–20 an hour. Skills-based volunteering is valued at $40–500 an hour, depending on the market value of the time.


title: Volunteering

text: Also called "e-volunteering" or "online volunteering", virtual volunteering is a volunteer who completes tasks, in whole or in part, offsite from the organization being assisted. They use the Internet and a home, school, telecenter or work computer, or other Internet-connected device, such as a PDA or smartphone. Virtual volunteering is also known as cyber service, telementoring, and teletutoring, as well as various other names. Virtual volunteering is similar to remote work, except that instead of online employees who are paid, these are online volunteers who are not paid. Contributing to free and open source software projects or editing Wikipedia are examples of virtual volunteering.


title: Volunteering

text: Micro-volunteering is a task performed via an internet-connected device. An individual typically does this task in small, un-paid increments of time. Micro-volunteering is distinct from "virtual volunteering" in that it typically does not require the individual volunteer to go through an application process, screening process, or training period.


title: Volunteering

text: Environmental volunteering refers to the volunteers who contribute towards environmental management or conservation. Volunteers conduct a range of activities including environmental monitoring, ecological restoration such as re-vegetation and weed removal, protecting endangered animals, and educating others about the natural environment.


title: Volunteering

text: Volunteering often plays a pivotal role in the recovery effort following natural disasters, such as tsunamis, floods, droughts, hurricanes, and earthquakes. For example, the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake in Japan was a watershed moment, bringing in many first-time volunteers for earthquake response. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami attracted a large number of volunteers worldwide, deployed by non-governmental organizations, government agencies, and the United Nations.


title: Volunteering

text: During the 2012 hurricane Sandy emergency, Occupy Sandy volunteers formed a "laterally organized rapid-response team" that provided much needed help during and after the storm, from food to shelter to reconstruction. It is an example of mutualism at work, pooling resources and assistance and leveraging social media.


title: Volunteering

text: Resource poor schools around the world rely on government support or on efforts from volunteers and private donations, in order to run effectively. In some countries, whenever the economy is down, the need for volunteers and resources increases greatly. There are many opportunities available in school systems for volunteers. Yet, there are not many requirements in order to volunteer in a school system. Whether one is a high school or TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) graduate or college student, most schools require just voluntary and selfless effort.


title: Volunteering

text: Much like the benefits of any type of volunteering there are great rewards for the volunteer, student, and school. In addition to intangible rewards, volunteers can add relevant experience to their resumes. Volunteers who travel to assist may learn foreign culture and language.


title: Volunteering

text: Volunteering in schools can be an additional teaching guide for the students and help to fill the gap of local teachers. Cultural and language exchange during teaching and other school activities can be the most essential learning experience for both students and volunteers.


title: Volunteering

text: Benefacto, a volunteering brokerage, describe corporate volunteering as "Companies giving their employees an allowance of paid time off annually, which they use to volunteer at a charity of their choice."


title: Volunteering

text: A majority of the companies at the Fortune 500 allow their employees to volunteer during work hours. These formalized Employee Volunteering Programs (EVPs), also called Employer Supported Volunteering (ESV), are regarded as a part of the companies' sustainability efforts and their social responsibility activities. About 40% of Fortune 500 companies provide monetary donations, also known as volunteer grants, to nonprofits as a way to recognize employees who dedicate significant amounts of time to volunteering in the community.


title: Volunteering

text: According to the information from VolunteerMatch, a service that provides Employee Volunteering Program solutions, the key drivers for companies that produce and manage EVPs are building brand awareness and affinity, strengthening trust and loyalty among consumers, enhancing corporate image and reputation, improving employee retention, increasing employee productivity and loyalty, and providing an effective vehicle to reach strategic goals.


title: Volunteering

text: In April 2015, David Cameron pledged to give all UK workers employed by companies with more 250 staff mandatory three days' paid volunteering leave, which if implemented will generate an extra 360 million volunteering hours a year.


title: Volunteering

text: Community volunteering, in the US called "community service", refers globally to those who work to improve their local community. This activity commonly occurs through not for profit organizations, local governments and churches; but also encompasses ad-hoc or informal groups such as recreational sports teams.


title: Volunteering

text: In some European countries government organisations and non-government organisations provide auxiliary positions for a certain period in institutions like hospitals, schools, memorial sites and welfare institutions. The difference to other types of volunteering is that there are strict legal regulations, what organisation is allowed to engage volunteers and about the period a volunteer is allowed to work in a voluntary position. Due to that fact, the volunteer is getting a limited amount as a pocket money from the government. Organizations having the biggest manpower in Europe are the Voluntary social year (German: "Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr"), with more than 50.000 volunteers per year, and the Federal volunteers service (German: "Bundesfreiwilligendienst"), with about 30.000 to 40.000 volunteers per year.


title: Volunteering

text: 25,000 volunteers worked at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. They supported the organisers in more than 20 functional areas: meeting guests, assisting navigation, organising the opening and closing ceremonies, organising food outlets, etc. Volunteer applications were open to any nationals of Russia and other countries. The Sochi 2014 Organising Committee received about 200,000 applications, 8 applicants per place. Volunteers received training over the course of more than a year at 26 volunteer centres in 17 cities across Russia. The majority of participants were between 17 and 22 years old. At the same time, 3000 applications were submitted from people over 55 years old. Some of them worked as volunteers during the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. It was the first experience with such a large-scale volunteer program in the contemporary Russia.


title: Volunteering

text: The FIFA World Cup in 2018 was supported by 17,040 volunteers of the Russia 2018 Local Organising Committee.


title: Volunteering

text: Volunteering in the context of delivering medical care is referred to as medical volunteering. In general, medical volunteering has been lauded as a "ethical responsibility to aid the needy. The activities are often offered by both for profit and not for profit associations. Medical volunteers typically participate in unpaid medical volunteer programs in hospitals, clinics, and underserved areas. Typically, these regions are in underdeveloped nations or nations battling natural disasters, sickness, or violence. These activities typically involves volunteer physicians and nurses. Dental volunteering is a part of medical volunteering which predominantly focused on dental care.


title: Volunteering

text: Designated days, weeks and years observed by a country or as designated by the United Nations to encourage volunteering / community service


title: Volunteering

text: Modern societies share a common value of people helping each other; not only do volunteer acts assist others, but they also benefit the volunteering individual on a personal level. Despite having similar objectives, tension can arise between volunteers and state-provided services. In order to curtail this tension, most countries develop policies and enact legislation to clarify the roles and relationships among governmental stakeholders and their voluntary counterparts; this regulation identifies and allocates the necessary legal, social, administrative, and financial support of each party. This is particularly necessary when some voluntary activities are seen as a challenge to the authority of the state (e.g., on 29 January 2001, President Bush cautioned that volunteer groups should supplement—not replace—government agencies' work).


title: Volunteering

text: Volunteering that benefits the state but challenges paid counterparts angers labor unions that represent those who are paid for their volunteer work; this is particularly seen in combination departments, such as volunteer fire departments.


title: Volunteering

text: Difficulties in the cross-national aid model of volunteering can arise when it is applied across national borders. The presence of volunteers who are sent from one state to another can be viewed as a breach of sovereignty and showing a lack of respect towards the national government of the proposed recipients. Thus, motivations are important when states negotiate offers to send aid and when these proposals are accepted, particularly if donors may postpone assistance or stop it altogether. Three types of conditionality have evolved:


title: Volunteering

text: Some international volunteer organizations define their primary mission as being altruistic: to fight poverty and improve the living standards of people in the developing world, (e.g. Voluntary Services Overseas has almost 2,000 skilled professionals working as volunteers to pass on their expertise to local people so that the volunteers' skills remain long after they return home). When these organizations work in partnership with governments, the results can be impressive. However, when other organizations or individual First World governments support the work of volunteer groups, there can be questions as to whether the organizations' or governments' real motives are poverty alleviation. Instead, a focus on creating wealth for some of the poor or developing policies intended to benefit the donor states is sometimes reported. Many low-income countries' economies suffer from industrialization without prosperity and investment without growth. One reason for this is that development assistance guides many Third World governments to pursue development policies that have been wasteful, ill-conceived, or unproductive; some of these policies have been so destructive that the economies could not have been sustained without outside support.


title: Volunteering

text: Indeed, some offers of aid have distorted the general spirit of volunteering, treating local voluntary action as contributions in kind, i.e., existing conditions requiring the modification of local people's behavior in order for them to earn the right to donors' charity. This can be seen as patronizing and offensive to the recipients because the aid expressly serves the policy aims of the donors rather than the needs of the recipients.


title: Volunteering

text: Based on a case study in China, Xu and Ngai (2011) revealed that the developing grassroots volunteerism can be an enclave among various organizations and may be able to work toward the development of civil society in the developing countries. The researchers developed a "Moral Resources and Political Capital" approach to examine the contributions of volunteerism in promoting the civil society. Moral resource means the available morals could be chosen by NGOs. Political capital means the capital that will improve or enhance the NGOs' status, possession or access in the existing political system.


title: Volunteering

text: Moreover, Xu and Ngai (2011) distinguished two types of Moral Resources: Moral Resource-I and Moral Resource-II (ibid).


title: Volunteering

text: Thanks to the intellectual heritage of Blau and Duncan (1967), two types of political capital were identified:


title: Volunteering

text: Obviously, "Moral resource-I itself contains the self-determination that gives participants confidence in the ethical beliefs they have chosen", almost any organizations may have Moral Resource-I, while not all of them have the societal recognized Moral Resource-II. However, the voluntary service organizations predominantly occupy Moral Resource-II because a sense of moral superiority makes it possible that for parties with different values, goals and cultures to work together in promoting the promotion of volunteering. Thus the voluntary service organizations are likely to win the trust and support of the masses as well as the government more easily than will the organizations whose morals are not accepted by mainstream society. In other words, Moral Resource II helps the grassroots organizations with little Political Capital I to win Political Capital-II, which is a crucial factor for their survival and growth in developing countries such as China. Therefore, the voluntary service realm could be an enclave of the development of civil society in the developing nations.


title: Volunteering

text: Volunteering for community service as part of a college curriculum (service-learning) provides opportunities for students to surround themselves with new people which helps them learn how to work together as a group, improve teamwork and relational skills, reduce stereotypes, and increases appreciation of other cultures. Students participating in service-learning programs are shown to have more positive attitudes toward self, attitudes toward school and learning, civic engagement, social skills, and academic performance. They are also more likely to complete their degree.


title: Volunteering

text: Volunteers are observed to have a reduced mortality risk compared to non-volunteers. Therefore, it is worth noting that the various types of work as a volunteer and psychological effects of such altruistic work may produce enough side-effects to contribute to a longer and more fulfilling life. A systematic review shows that adults over age of 65 years who volunteer may experience improved physical and mental health and potentially reduced mortality.


title: Volunteering

text: A worldwide survey was conducted in a study, suggesting that people who experience the highest levels of happiness are the most successful in terms of close relationships and volunteer work. In comparison, charity in the form of monetary donations, which is another form of altruism (volunteering being one of them) is also known to have a similar effect. Another study finds that helping others is associated with higher levels of mental health, above and beyond the benefits of receiving help. On the subject of service-learning, undergraduate students who volunteered 1 to 9 hours per week were less likely to feel depressed than students who did not volunteer. Among people aged 65 years old or above, volunteering may reduce the risk of depression.


title: Volunteering

text: In the United States, statistics on volunteering have historically been limited, according to volunteerism expert Susan J. Ellis. In 2013, the U.S. Current Population Survey included a volunteering supplement which produced statistics on volunteering.


title: Volunteering

text: In the 1960s, Ivan Illich offered an analysis of the role of American volunteers in Mexico in his speech entitled "To Hell With Good Intentions". His concerns, along with those of critics such as Paulo Freire and Edward Said, revolve around the notion of altruism as an extension of Christian missionary ideology. In addition, he mentions the sense of responsibility/obligation as a factor, which drives the concept of noblesse oblige—first developed by the French aristocracy as a moral duty derived from their wealth. Simply stated, these apprehensions propose the extension of power and authority over indigenous cultures around the world. Recent critiques of volunteering come from Westmier and Kahn (1996) and bell hooks (née Gloria Watkins) (2004). Also, Georgeou (2012) has critiqued the impact of neoliberalism on international aid volunteering.


title: Volunteering

text: The field of the medical tourism (referring to volunteers who travel overseas to deliver medical care) has recently attracted negative criticism when compared to the alternative notion of sustainable capacities, i.e., work done in the context of long-term, locally-run, and foreign-supported infrastructures. A preponderance of this criticism appears largely in scientific and peer-reviewed literature. Recently, media outlets with more general readerships have published such criticisms as well. This type of volunteering is pejoratively referred to as "medical voluntourism".


title: Volunteering

text: Another problem noted with volunteering is that it can be used to replace low paid entry positions. This can act to decrease social mobility, with only those capable of affording to work without payment able to gain the experience. Trade unions in the United Kingdom have warned that long term volunteering is a form of exploitation, used by charities to avoid minimum wage legislation. Some sectors now expect candidates for paid roles to have undergone significant periods of volunteer experience whether relevant to the role or not, setting up 'Volunteer Credentialism'.


title: Volunteering

text: Volunteers can be exposed to stressful situations and attitudes, which can cause them to suffer from burnout which in turn reduces their activism and overall well-being. There is also evidence that volunteering can become a moral obligation that prompts feelings of guilt when not performed.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: "Trapped in the Closet" is the twelfth episode in the ninth season of the American animated television series "South Park". The 137th episode of the series overall, it originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on November 16, 2005. In the episode, Stan joins Scientology in an attempt to find something "fun and free". After the discovery of his surprisingly high "thetan levels", he is recognized as the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the church. The episode was written and directed by series co-creator Trey Parker. The title is a reference to the R. Kelly serialized song of the same name and a satirized version of R. Kelly appears in the episode.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: "Trapped in the Closet" generated significant controversy. Tom Cruise, who is portrayed in the episode, reportedly threatened to back out of his promotional obligations for the Paramount Pictures film "" if Viacom, the owner of both Comedy Central and Paramount, allowed a repeat airing of the episode. A publicist of Cruise denied this, saying "Tom had nothing to do with this matter. He's been promoting "Mission: Impossible III" for the last six months. We have no clue where this came from." Though the episode was originally scheduled for rebroadcast on March 15, 2006, the episode "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls" was shown instead. Comedy Central representatives stated this change was made as a tribute to Isaac Hayes, but "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone thought otherwise; they issued a satirical statement saying they (Parker and Stone) were "servants of the dark lord Xenu". A statement credited to Hayes, the voice of staple character Chef, asked for him to be released from his contract shortly before the start of the tenth season. The reason for his departure, as reported by Stone, was due to his membership in Scientology and this episode, which Hayes—despite initially supporting the show's satirical take on several talk shows—claimed was very offensive. In 2016, Hayes's son Isaac Hayes III confirmed rumors that the statement was written by a Scientologist assistant without the knowledge of his father, who had not recovered from a stroke. The episode has since been rebroadcast on Comedy Central multiple times.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: "Trapped in the Closet" was nominated for an Emmy Award in July 2006, in the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour) category. The episode was featured among Comedy Central's list of "10 South Parks That Changed The World", spoofed by Conan O'Brien in the opening segment of the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards, and mentioned in the Scientology critique film "The Bridge". "TV Guide" ranked the episode #17 on its list of "TV's Top 100 Episodes of All Time".


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: Stan takes a free "personality test" offered by Scientologists on the street. After answering a long questionnaire, Stan is informed that he is extremely depressed and therefore a perfect candidate for Scientology. They offer to help him out for $240. Back home, Stan asks his parents for the money. His father suggests that he use the money he had been saving for a bicycle. Stan pays the Scientologists and is taken into an auditing room where an attendant reads his "thetan levels" using an "E-meter". Stan has such a high reading that the Scientology headquarters in Los Angeles is notified. There, the president of Scientology determines that Stan's high reading makes him a reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology's founder and prophet.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: Later that night, a group of Scientologists, including John Travolta, gather outside the Marsh house to celebrate Hubbard's "second coming". The president of Scientology arrives in a helicopter and talks with Stan's parents. They are opposed to Stan's participation, but the president informs them that "we're not asking him to "join" us; we're asking him to "lead" us". Randy sends Stan to his room, where he finds Tom Cruise waiting. Cruise asks him whether Stan has enjoyed his acting. When "Hubbard" replies that his acting is okay but not as good as others' such as Leonardo DiCaprio or the "Napoleon Dynamite" guy, Tom hears that he is "a failure in the eyes of the prophet" and locks himself in Stan's closet. He refuses to come out, despite the protests of Randy, Nicole Kidman, the police, Travolta and R. Kelly to "come out of the closet". Travolta and Kelly eventually join Cruise in the closet.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: Downstairs, the church president tries to convince Stan's parents to allow their son to participate. He tells to Stan the great secret behind the church—a condensed version of the story of Xenu, according to the Scientology Operating Thetan III document. During this, an onscreen caption reads "This is what Scientologists actually believe". He then begs Stan to continue writing where "L. Ron" left off. Stan is impressed by the story and shows his writings to the president who initially approves of the work. Stan suggests that "to really be a church, you can't charge money to help", to which the president admits to Stan that the church is in reality a global money-making scam. He asks that Stan continue with that in mind. Stan appears to agree and keeps writing.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: Outside the house, the president introduces Stan to his followers, where he will read parts of his new doctrine. However, instead of presenting it to them, Stan states that he is not the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard, and that "Scientology is just a big fat global scam". The Scientologists and celebrities in the closet are angry and threaten to sue Stan. Stan dares them to sue, and the episode ends.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: The closing credits name only "John Smith" and "Jane Smith", a reference to Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology's reputation for litigiousness.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: "South Park" had previously parodied Scientology in a spoof at the 2000 MTV Movie Awards. The MTV short was titled "The Gauntlet" and included "John Travolta and the Church of Scientology" arriving in a spaceship to defeat Russell Crowe (as a gladiator) and attempt to recruit the boys into Scientology. Travolta, along with his fellow Scientologists, was depicted as a Psychlo, as he appeared in the film "Battlefield Earth". They had also made fun of Scientology in an earlier episode, titled "Super Best Friends", in which David Blaine formed his own cult, called "Blaintology". Parker and Stone have acknowledged that this is meant to be a reference to Scientology.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: Parker stated that Isaac Hayes' membership had previously kept the show's creators from writing a full episode which parodies Scientology. However, the decision to ultimately produce a "South Park" episode satirizing Scientology was partially inspired by the friendship the show's creators have with Penn Jillette. Jillette was originally planning to do an episode of "" based on Scientology, but Showtime prohibited him from doing so to avoid the possibility of legal action from the Church of Scientology. Parker commented, "We're going, That's fucked up. And hearing other people say, 'You can't do that' – you can only say 'You can't do that' so many times to Matt and me before we're gonna do it. Finally, we just had to tell Isaac, 'Dude, we totally love working with you, and this is nothing personal, it's just we're South Park, and if we don't do this, we're belittling everything else we've ripped on.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: Although some questions were raised prior to the episode's screening about whether it was wise to take swipes at Cruise and Scientology, Comedy Central declared that it supported Stone and Parker. A Comedy Central spokesman told "Radar" magazine in November 2005 that "they are free, and have been, to satirize anybody and anything they want to. They've made fun of MTV, they've made fun of Viacom, they've made fun of Comedy Central, and we've never interfered with them."


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: During production on the episode, investigative journalist Mark Ebner served as a consultant to Stone and Parker. Ebner had previously authored "The New York Times" best seller "Hollywood, Interrupted", which includes an analysis of the Church of Scientology and its effects on the culture in Hollywood, and has a chapter on Cruise and Travolta's relationship to Scientology. On the official Comedy Central website for the "South Park" episode, it is asserted that the section of "Trapped in the Closet" that explains Scientology's portrayal and beliefs was not exaggerated: "Nothing about what you see here is exaggerated in the slightest. Seriously." The title is a reference to the R. Kelly song and music video series of the same name, and a depiction of R. Kelly appears in the episode to sing a parody of it.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: On March 13, 2006, a statement credited to Hayes, a Scientologist himself, announced that he was quitting the show because of the series' treatment of religion, saying, "There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins. Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times should be respected and honored. As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices." "The Guardian" observed that the show had mocked most other religions, but that he drew the line at Scientology. Later in an interview on CNN's "Showbiz Tonight", Hayes added he did not see the episode itself, but was told about it. In a separate interview, he reportedly said regarding Trey Parker and Matt Stone, "Guys, you have it all wrong. We're not like that. I know that's your thing, but get your information correct, because somebody might believe that shit, you know? But I understand what they're doing. I told them to take a couple of Scientology courses, and understand what we do."


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: Responding to Hayes' departure, Stone asserted that "This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology... He has no problem—and he's cashed plenty of checks—with our show making fun of Christians." According to Stone, neither he nor Parker had "heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin." Stone commented that "In 10 years and over 150 episodes of "South Park", Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslims, Mormons and Jews. He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show. To bring the civil rights struggle into this is just a non sequitur. Of course we will release Isaac from his contract and we wish him well." According to a later commentary by Stone, prior to the episode's screening Hayes had asked the "South Park" creators to have Comedy Central pull the episode before it aired and not include it in the series DVD, which they refused.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: There were many conflicting stories as to the exact nature of Hayes' departure. Additional reasons given by Hayes ten months after the departure include "They didn't pay me enough", and "They weren't that nice". In late 2007, reports emerged claiming that Hayes was in no condition to stay, because of a stroke he suffered in January. According to a Fox News article, Hayes' agent Christina Kimball, herself a practicing Scientologist, was the source of the statements that Hayes quit "South Park". Stone lent support to this view in a 2007 interview with "Rolling Stone", commenting that "There are reports that Isaac had a stroke and Scientology quit the show for him, and I believe it... It was a brutal, up-close, personal thing with Isaac. If you look at the timeline, something doesn't add up." In a 2016 interview with "The Hollywood Reporter" alongside Stone and Parker, Hayes's son Isaac Hayes III confirmed that his father was disabled at the time of his resignation and that the decision must have come from one of his assistants, all of whom were Scientologists. Due to the absence of Hayes, Chef was voiced in "The Return of Chef" using pre-recorded snippets of dialog from previous episodes. The character was written out of the series by being struck by lightning, burned, impaled, and mauled at the end of the episode.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: The creators used the ambiguity of "coming out of the closet", having Tom Cruise literally refusing to come out of Stan's closet, in a parody of rumors that Cruise was homosexual. Cruise has a documented history of litigation against others involving rumors as to his sexuality, and some speculated whether Cruise could sue "South Park". "Entertainment Weekly" asked in December 2005 whether "South Park" was "cruisin' for a bruisin'" and wondered "how that sort of Cruise-bashing is going to go over with "Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone's new bosses: Paramount Pictures just inked the dudes to a three-year deal. Other people with Paramount deals? Oh, just, you know, Tom Cruise. Should be one hell of a studio Christmas party".


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: Concerns over possible litigation were raised in other countries where "South Park" is syndicated. The episode's planned screening on the UK's Paramount Comedy 1 channel was canceled for fear that Cruise would sue. In Australia, SBS TV screened the episode in late February, a spokesman telling Australian "The Daily Telegraph" that "We haven't received any legal threats so we're going to publish and be damned."


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: This episode was scheduled to rebroadcast on March 15, 2006, on Comedy Central, but the broadcast was canceled without prior notice, and was replaced with "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls". Representatives of Comedy Central insist that the episode was changed as a tribute to Isaac Hayes following his departure from the show two days earlier. The following day, the Hollywoodinterrupted.com blog alleged that Comedy Central parent Viacom canceled the rebroadcast due to threats of Cruise to boycott the publicity tour of his upcoming film "". These assertions were soon also reported by "E! News" and "American Morning". "Fox News" attributed threats from Tom Cruise, stating, "to back out of his "Mission: Impossible III" promotional duties if Viacom didn't pull a repeat of the episode", as evidence of "bad blood" between Cruise and Viacom (which also owns Paramount Pictures, the distributor of "MI:III"). CNN's "The Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer also cited "industry sources" who believed the episode was pulled "because the network and Tom Cruise's current movie studio are both owned by the same corporation." The "New York Post" noted that Cruise had "a history of playing hardball", alleging that he had been responsible for having a sex scene featuring his then-fiancée Katie Holmes removed from the film "Thank You for Smoking" prior to its release.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: "The Washington Post" reported that "South Park" fans "struck back", in March 2006, and threatened to boycott "Mission: Impossible III" until Comedy Central put "Trapped in the Closet" back on its schedule. Melissa McNamara of "CBS News" later questioned whether this boycott hurt the "Mission: Impossible III" box office debut. The "South Park" creators did not comment directly on Comedy Central's decision to pull the episode, reportedly because they had been told not to discuss the matter to avoid embarrassing Cruise. Instead, they issued a statement through their lawyer on March 17, 2006, signing the statement, "Trey Parker and Matt Stone, servants of the dark lord Xenu".


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: The "Los Angeles Times" dubbed the controversy surrounding the episode's rebroadcast "Closetgate". "The Independent" later cited the "Los Angeles Times", noting that the controversy generated positive publicity for the show's creators: "For Stone and Parker, Closetgate will be the gift that keeps on giving." "Closetgate" has since been used to refer to the "brouhaha" surrounding Isaac Hayes' departure and rebroadcasts of the episode, by other sources including "Yahoo! Movies", BBC, Turner Classic Movies, the "Herald-Sun", Thoralf Fagertun of the University of Tromsø, and the "Chicago Sun-Times".


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: Cruise's representative responded to the controversy shortly after it broke, telling the Associated Press that the allegations of Cruise's involvement were "not true" and that "he never said that". According to "The Washington Post", Cruise's publicist asserted that "Tom had nothing to do with this matter. He's been promoting 'Mission: Impossible III' for the last six months. We have no clue where this came from." Cruise himself addressed the allegations in an interview on ABC's "Primetime" in mid-April. When asked about whether he had been involved with stopping the rebroadcast on Comedy Central, Cruise stated, "First of all, could you ever imagine sitting down with anyone? I would never sit down with someone and question them on their beliefs. Here's the thing: I'm really not even going to dignify this. I honestly didn't really even know about it. I'm working, making my movie, I've got my family. I'm busy. I don't spend my days going, 'What are people saying about me?'"


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: In April 2006, "TelevisionWeek" reported that fans had posted the episode in multiple locations on the internet. At that time, the episode had been viewed over 700,000 times on YouTube, and an online petition to re-air the episode had garnered 5,000 signatures. "TelevisionWeek" noted that Comedy Central "looked the other way at the online proliferation" of "Trapped in the Closet". A spokesman for MTV Networks, owner of Comedy Central, confirmed they had not asked YouTube to pull the episode from their site. "The Situation Room" also noted that clips from the episode were still available on Comedy Central's web site. In May 2006, "Trapped in the Closet" was shown in London, at the National Film Theatre. The free screening was followed by a discussion with Parker and Stone, who said the screening was a "display of free speech". Free copies of the episode were given out to attendees after the screening.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: On July 19, 2006, Comedy Central did air a rebroadcast of the episode at 10:00 Pacific Time and did so again on July 23 at 11:00pm Eastern Time and on September 24 at 10:00 PM Eastern time. Stone stated "If they hadn't put this episode back on the air, we'd have had serious issues, and we wouldn't be doing anything else with them." After the episode was scheduled to be rebroadcast, Parker and Stone were interviewed on CNN's "Showbiz Tonight", where they stated that all of the controversy increased publicity for the episode. Parker was quoted: "But it's really like a publicist couldn't have orchestrated this any better for us. You know what I mean? It's like it's been phenomenal. Tom Cruise has done more for "South Park" than anyone I think in the world."


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: The episode was released in several DVDs, including "South Park the Hits: Volume 1" and "South Park: The Complete Ninth Season", in contradiction with an alleged request by either the Church of Scientology or Cruise to never put the episode on DVD format. The full episode is also available for viewing on the web site of South Park Digital Studios, along with Parker and Stone's "mini-commentary" on it.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: A few references have been made by the show and Comedy Central to Scientology as an aftermath of the controversy. On August 1, 2006, Comedy Central placed an advertisement in "Variety" showing the "South Park" stars against a background of L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology Celebrity Center, with the headline, "C'mon Jews, show them who "really" runs Hollywood." Although often misunderstood by the public to parody the Mel Gibson DUI incident, the advertisement actually congratulates "South Park" on gaining an Emmy nomination for "Trapped in the Closet" and satirizes the cancellation of the episode's rebroadcast in March.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: The "Rolling Stone" cover article "Still Sick, Still Wrong", celebrating the show's anniversary, also referred to the controversy. The article depicted Stone and Parker spray painting graffiti on the church's Los Angeles organization sign, adding "Is dum" to the Scientology logo and a "Hi Tom" message with an accompanying depiction of Cartman's head.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: In a review of "South Park: The Complete Ninth Season", "The Denver Post" stated the jokes about Tom Cruise "work splendidly and reveal their depth on repeated viewings, much like the show in general." IGN stated that "Perhaps the largest weakness of this season is that the most notorious episodes "Best Friends Forever" and "Trapped in the Closet" just don't carry the eye-popping impact that they did when they were ripped from the headlines", giving the DVD a rating of 7.0. The "San Francisco Chronicle" wrote that Stone and Parker "probably hit their zenith when they made fun of Tom Cruise and Scientology". An article in "The Times" wrote that "South Park" "infamously satirized" texts by L. Ron Hubbard "available only to Operating Thetans". "TV Guide" ranked the episode #17 on its 2009 list of "TV's Top 100 Episodes of All Time".


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: An article in the "Journal of the American Academy of Religion" referred to the episode as a "scathing cartoon parody" of the Church of Scientology. University of Delaware philosophy professor Richard Hanley analyzed the mythology of Scientology, as it relates to the episode "Trapped in the Closet", in his 2007 book "". Hanley called the Xenu story as presented in the episode, "utterly ridiculous". Hanley went on to delve into a philosophical analysis of the "evidential weight" of popularity and tradition in determining the "robustness" of beliefs.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: Southwest Minnesota State University philosophy professor Robert Arp also analyzed the philosophical and cultural aspects of the episode in his book "". Arp analyzed Comedy Central's reaction to the episode itself, in a section of his book entitled "2005–2006: Comedy Central Caves". Arp mentions "South Park's" usage of the onscreen caption—"This is what Scientologists actually believe"—in the episode, noting that the same device was used in the episode "All About the Mormons?" In referencing this similar use of the onscreen caption device, Arp seemed to point to an inconsistency in the behavior of Comedy Central relative to the episode. He explained, "By a long shot, this show was more kind to Scientology than was 'All About the Mormons' to Mormonism." He noted Comedy Central had suggested it would not rebroadcast the episode for the second time, though it later announced on July 12, 2006, that it would.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: The organization Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network, founded by Lawrence Wollersheim, named the "South Park" staff their "FACTNet Person(s) of the Year for 2005" for this episode. Robert Arp cited the series winning a Peabody Award due to its willingness to criticize intolerance in April 2006 as a "special concern for criticizing and countering intolerance", and the notion that "the Church of Scientology suffers from the widely held perceptions that it seeks to silence former members and others who criticize its beliefs and practices", as the motivation behind the episode.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: Stone and Parker submitted the episode for an Emmy Award, though Stone admitted that "We did it to be jerks. A 'fuck you' to Comedy Central." To their surprise the episode was nominated on July 6, 2006, in the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour) category, the show's sixth nomination (one of which they won, for 2005's "Best Friends Forever"). "The Simpsons" episode "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story" was the eventual recipient of the award. It was also among Comedy Central's list of "10 South Parks That Changed The World", which started airing at September 24, 2006, in anticipation of the premiere of the second half of "South Park"'s tenth season.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: The scene where Cruise enters the closet is referenced in the "South Park" segment of the opening of the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards on August 27, 2006, in which Conan O'Brien is trying to get to the show, but suddenly appears in Stan's room in an animated form. Stan begins yelling at him as he runs into the nearby closet. Immediately following the entrance, he exits the closet and says, "There's someone else in there", referring to Cruise, and leaves the door open. Cruise then pops out and closes the door.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: There is a scene in the film "The Bridge" by Brett Hanover, where two young women looking for a laugh tell a Scientology volunteer they learned about the organization from "South Park". The volunteer answers that she has not seen the episode in question, and the two women later leave during the middle of an orientation video.


title: Trapped in the Closet (South Park)

text: On February 8, 2013, while appearing on the "Opie & Anthony Show", Jenna Miscavige Hill, the niece of the Chairman of Scientology, David Miscavige, admitted that she first learned about the story of Xenu from watching this episode.


title: Mansard roof

text: A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The steep roof with windows creates an additional floor of habitable space (a garret), and reduces the overall height of the roof for a given number of habitable storeys. The upper slope of the roof may not be visible from street level when viewed from close proximity to the building.


title: Mansard roof

text: The earliest known example of a mansard roof is credited to Pierre Lescot on part of the Louvre built around 1550. This roof design was popularised in the early 17th century by François Mansart (1598–1666), an accomplished architect of the French Baroque period. It became especially fashionable during the Second French Empire (1852–1870) of Napoléon III. "Mansard" in Europe (France, Germany and elsewhere) also means the attic or garret space itself, not just the roof shape and is often used in Europe to mean a gambrel roof.


title: Mansard roof

text: Two distinct traits of the mansard roof – steep sides and a double pitch – sometimes lead to it being confused with other roof types. Since the upper slope of a mansard roof is rarely visible from the ground, a conventional single-plane roof with steep sides may be misidentified as a mansard roof. The gambrel roof style, commonly seen in barns in North America, is a close cousin of the mansard. Both mansard and gambrel roofs fall under the general classification of "curb roofs" (a pitched roof that slopes away from the ridge in two successive planes).


title: Mansard roof

text: The mansard is a curb hip roof, with slopes on all sides of the building, and the gambrel is a curb gable roof, with slopes on only two sides. (The "curb" is a horizontal, heavy timber directly under the intersection of the two roof surfaces.) A significant difference between the two, for snow loading and water drainage, is that, when seen from above, gambrel roofs culminate in a long crease at the main ridge beam, whereas mansard roofs form a rectangular shaped crease, outlined by the curb beams, with a low-pitched roof inside this rectangle.


title: Mansard roof

text: "French roof" is often used as a synonym for a mansard but is also defined as an American variation of a mansard with the lower pitches nearly vertical and larger in proportion to the upper pitches.


title: Mansard roof

text: In France and Germany, no distinction is made between gambrels and mansards – they are both called "mansards". In the French language, "mansarde" can be a term for the style of roof, or for the garret living space, or attic, directly within it.


title: Mansard roof

text: The mansard style makes maximum use of the interior space of the attic and offers a simple way to add one or more storeys to an existing (or new) building without necessarily requiring any masonry. Often the decorative potential of the mansard is exploited through the use of convex or concave curvature and with elaborate dormer window surrounds.


title: Mansard roof

text: One frequently seen explanation for the popularity of the mansard style is that it served as a method of tax avoidance. One such example of this claim, from the 1914 book "How to Make a Country Place", reads, "Monsieur Mansard is said to have circumvented that senseless window tax of France by adapting the windowed roof that bears his name." This is improbable in many respects: Mansart was a profligate spender of his clients' money, and while a French window tax did exist, it was enacted in 1798, 132 years after Mansart's death, and did not exempt mansard windows.


title: Mansard roof

text: Later examples suggest that either French or American buildings were taxed by their height (or number of storeys) to the base of the roof, or that mansards were used to bypass zoning restrictions. This last explanation is the nearest to the truth: a Parisian law had been in place since 1783, restricting the heights of buildings to 20 metres (65 feet). The height was only measured up to the cornice line, making any living space contained in a mansard roof exempt. A 1902 revision of the law permitted building three or even four storeys within such a roof.


title: Mansard roof

text: The style was popularised in France by architect François Mansart (1598–1666). Although he was not the inventor of the style, his extensive and prominent use of it in his designs gave rise to the term "mansard roof", an adulteration of his name. The design tradition was continued by numerous architects, including Jules Hardouin-Mansart (1646–1708), his great-nephew, who is responsible for Château de Dampierre in Dampierre-en-Yvelines.


title: Mansard roof

text: The mansard roof became popular once again during Haussmann's renovation of Paris beginning in the 1850s, in an architectural movement known as Second Empire style.


title: Mansard roof

text: Second Empire influence spread throughout the world, frequently adopted for large civic structures such as government administration buildings and city halls, as well as hotels and railway stations. In the United States and Canada, and especially in New England, the Second Empire influence spread to family residences and mansions, often incorporated with Italianate and Gothic Revival elements. A mansard-topped tower became a popular element incorporated into many designs, such as Main Building (Vassar College), Poughkeepsie, New York, which shows a large mansard-roofed structure with two towers.


title: Mansard roof

text: The 1916 Zoning Resolution adopted by New York City promoted the use of mansard roofs; rules requiring the use of setbacks on tall buildings were conducive to the mansard design.


title: Mansard roof

text: In the 1960s and 1970s, a modernised form of mansard roof, sometimes with deep, narrow windows, became popular for both residential and commercial architecture in many areas of the United States. In many cases, these are not true mansard roofs but flat on top, the sloped façade providing a way to conceal heating, ventilation and air-conditioning equipment from view. The style grew out of interest in postmodern stylistic elements and the "French eclectic" house style popular in the 1930s and 1940s, and in housing also offered a way to provide an upper storey despite height restrictions. Houses with mansard roofs were sometimes described as French Provincial; architect John Elgin Woolf popularised it in the Los Angeles area, calling his houses Hollywood Regency.


title: Mansard roof

text: The roof of two Victorian Railways hopper wagons resembled a mansard roof. The Australian Commonwealth Railways CL class locomotive also has a mansard roof.


title: Kim Woo-sung (singer)

text: Kim Woo-sung (, born February 25, 1993), also known as Woosung and Sammy, is a Korean-American singer–songwriter and composer, best known as a vocalist and electric guitarist of South Korean band The Rose. He made his solo debut on July 25, 2019 with the extended play "Wolf".


title: Kim Woo-sung (singer)

text: Woosung grew up in the US and came to Korea after auditioning for the first season of the reality show K-pop Star. After being eliminated, he took a break from music and taught English in Korea.


title: Kim Woo-sung (singer)

text: He debuted on August 3, 2017, as a vocalist and electric guitarist of rock band, The Rose which consisted of members Hajoon, Woosung, Dojoon and Jaehyung. The band debuted with their single "'Sorry"'.


title: Kim Woo-sung (singer)

text: On March 20, 2019, it was announced on Twitter that Kim will be the third MC on After School Club, replacing Seungmin. Kim would MC along with Park Jimin and Han Hee-jun beginning with episode 361 on March 26, 2019.


title: Kim Woo-sung (singer)

text: Kim's pre-release single "Lonely" came out on July 19, 2019. His first extended play "Wolf" was released the following week on July 25, along with the single "Face". The EP peaked at number 19 on the Gaon Album Chart.


title: Kim Woo-sung (singer)

text: His full-length album "Genre" was released on December 9, 2021. He then opened for Epik High on their American tour from March 1 to April 12, 2022


title: Kim Woo-sung (singer)

text: His EP "Moth" was released on May 13, 2022. On April 15, he started his own tour in Europe, the USA, and Canada, "Moth EP Showcase", which will end on May 26 in Seoul, for a special appearance with the presence of the members of The Rose for the first time in several years.


title: Kim Woo-sung (singer)

text: "Note: all songs released by The Rose are written and composed by the band, and are thus credited as such."


title: Cat-sìth

text: The ' (, plural ), in Irish ' () is a fairy creature from Celtic mythology, said to resemble a large black cat with a white spot on its chest. Legend has it that the spectral cat haunts the Scottish Highlands. The legends surrounding this creature are more common in Scottish folklore, but a few occur in Irish. Some common folklore suggested that the was not a fairy, but a witch that could transform into a cat nine times.


title: Cat-sìth

text: The may have been inspired by the Scottish wildcat itself. It is possible that the legends of the were inspired by Kellas cats, which are a distinctive hybrid between Scottish wildcats and domestic cats found only in Scotland (the Scottish wildcat is a population of the European wildcat, which is absent from elsewhere in the British Isles).


title: Cat-sìth

text: The is all black with the exception of a white spot on its chest. It is described as being as large as a dog and chooses to display itself with its back arched and bristles erect.


title: Cat-sìth

text: In the British folk tale "The King of the Cats", a man comes home to tell his wife and cat, Old Tom, that he saw nine black cats with white spots on their chests carrying a coffin with a crown on it and one of the cats tells the man to "Tell Tom Tildrum that Tim Toldrum is dead." Old Tom then exclaims, "What?! Old Tim dead! Then I'm the King o' the Cats!" The cat then climbs up the chimney and is never seen again.


title: Cat-sìth

text: The people of the Scottish Highlands did not trust the . They believed that it could steal a person's soul, before it was claimed by the gods, by passing over a corpse before burial; therefore, watches called the ('late wake') were performed night and day to keep the away from a corpse before burial. Methods of "distraction" such as games of leaping and wrestling, catnip, riddles and music would be employed to keep the away from the room in which the corpse lay. In addition, there were no fires where the body lay, as it was said that the was attracted to the warmth.


title: Cat-sìth

text: On Samhain, it was believed that a would bless any house that left a saucer of milk out for it to drink and those houses that did not put out a saucer of milk would be cursed into having all of their cows' udders go dry.


title: Cat-sìth

text: The demonic called Big Ears could be summoned (Gaelic ) to appear and grant any wish to those who took part in the ceremony. The ceremony required practitioners to burn the bodies of cats over the course of four days and nights.


title: Cat-sìth

text: Some people believed that the was a witch that could transform voluntarily into its cat form and back nine times. If one of these witches chose to go back into their cat form for the ninth time, they would remain a cat for the rest of their lives. It is believed by some that this is how the idea of a cat having nine lives originated.


title: The Simpsons shorts

text: The Simpsons shorts are a series of animated shorts that aired as a recurring segment on Fox variety television series "The Tracey Ullman Show" for three seasons, before the characters spun off into "The Simpsons", their own half-hour prime-time show. They feature Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie, and a few secondary characters. The series was created by Matt Groening, who designed the Simpson family and wrote many of the shorts. The shorts first aired on April 19, 1987 starting with "Good Night". The final short to air was "TV Simpsons", originally airing on May 14, 1989. "The Simpsons" later debuted on December 17, 1989, as an independent series with the Christmas special "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire".


title: The Simpsons shorts

text: One marketing study found that only 14 percent of Americans were familiar with the shorts, compared to 85 percent in November 1990 who were familiar with the Simpsons family, 11 months after the full-length show began airing.


title: The Simpsons shorts

text: Only a few of these shorts have been released on DVD. "Good Night" was included on "The Simpsons" Season 1 DVD. Five of these shorts were later used in the clip-show episode "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular" on the half-hour show, which was released on the Season 7 DVD. These five shorts were "Good Night", which was featured in its entirety, and portions of "The Perfect Crime", "Space Patrol", "World War III", and "Bathtime". In "You Kent Always Say What You Want", the short "Family Portrait" replaces the entire opening sequence in celebration of the 400th episode. ("Family Portrait" was previously released as a pre-feature short on the 1989 CBS-Fox VHS release of the film "Working Girl".) In June 2013, it was reported that FXX was trying to acquire the shorts for their "Simpsons" app, "Simpsons World".


title: The Simpsons shorts

text: The version of the Simpson family from the shorts was depicted as ghosts haunting the Simpsons house in the season twenty six episode "Treehouse of Horror XXV".


title: The Simpsons shorts

text: The short's interpretation of Homer was also briefly seen in Homer's dream in the post credits scene of the season 33 episode "Mothers and Other Strangers".


title: The Simpsons shorts

text: When producer James L. Brooks was working on the television variety show "The Tracey Ullman Show", he decided that he wanted to include short animated wraparounds before and after the commercial breaks. Having seen one of cartoonist Matt Groening's "Life in Hell" comic strips, Brooks asked Groening to pitch an idea for a series of animated shorts, which Groening initially intended to present as his "Life in Hell" series. Groening later realized that animating "Life in Hell" would require the rescinding of publication rights for his life's work. He therefore chose another approach while waiting in the lobby of Brooks's office for the pitch meeting, hurriedly formulating his version of a dysfunctional family that became the Simpsons. He named the characters after his own family members, substituting "Bart" for his own name. Bart was modeled after Groening's older brother, Mark, but given a different name which was chosen as an anagram of "brat". The stories were written and storyboarded by Matt Groening. The family was crudely drawn, because Groening had submitted basic sketches to the animators, assuming they would clean them up; instead, they just traced over his drawings. The animation was produced domestically at Klasky-Csupo, with Wesley Archer, David Silverman, and Bill Kopp being animators for the first season. After season one, it would be animated by Archer and Silverman thereafter. Gyorgyi Peluce was the colorist and the person who decided to make the characters yellow.


title: The Simpsons shorts

text: The actors who voiced the characters in the short later reprised their roles in "The Simpsons" series. Dan Castellaneta performed the voices of Homer Simpson, Grampa Simpson, and Krusty the Clown. Homer's voice sounds different in the shorts compared to most episodes of the half-hour show, as Castellaneta originally tried to impersonate Walter Matthau. Although he would retain this characteristic through the early episodes of the regular series, it was gradually dropped as Homer's personality evolved away from that of a stereotypical sitcom father. The producers of the show were in need of someone to do voiceovers, so rather than hire actors, they asked Castellaneta (who had already done some voice work) and Julie Kavner, both members of the Ullman Show cast, to do it. The kids still needed voices, and Nancy Cartwright, a journeyman voice actress, came in to audition. She recalled that "I was already doing voicework for eight different shows at the time and thought this would just be another job. They originally wanted me for Lisa's voice, but I thought 'Nah, I don't want to be the boring middle child, I want to be a bratty 10-year old boy.' So as soon as I gave a demonstration, [Brooks and Groening] hired me on the spot." Some time later, Yeardley Smith, a 22-year-old B-movie actress whose most notable accomplishment to date was featuring in the notorious 1986 Stephen King film "Maximum Overdrive", was brought in to do Lisa's voice. The recording of the shorts was often primitive; according to Cartwright, the dialogue for the Ullman shorts was recorded on a portable tape deck in a makeshift studio, which consisted of the video engineer suite, above the bleachers on the Ullman show set. While most of the characters' personalities are similar to what they are in the series, Lisa is simply a clone of Bart and did not have a distinct personality until a few episodes into the regular series.


title: The Simpsons shorts

text: The shorts were featured on the first three seasons on "The Tracey Ullman Show". By the fourth and last season of "The Tracey Ullman Show", the first season of the half-hour show was on the air. In the two first seasons the shorts were divided into three or four parts, but in the third season they were played as a single story. Tracey Ullman later filed a lawsuit, claiming that her show was the source of "The Simpsons"' success and therefore should receive a share of the show's profit. Eventually the courts ruled in favor of the network.


title: Thames Barrier

text: The Thames Barrier is a retractable barrier system built to protect the floodplain of most of Greater London from exceptionally high tides and storm surges moving up from the North Sea. It has been operational since 1982. When needed, it is closed (raised) during high tide; at low tide, it can be opened to restore the river's flow towards the sea. Built about east of the Isle of Dogs, its northern bank is in Silvertown in the London Borough of Newham and its southern bank is in the New Charlton area of the Royal Borough of Greenwich.


title: Thames Barrier

text: Flooding in London has been a problem since Roman times. In 1954, the Waverley Committee, established to investigate the serious North Sea flood of 1953 which affected parts of the Thames Estuary and parts of London, recommended that "as an alternative to raising the banks, the possibility and cost of erecting a structure across the Thames which could be closed in a surge should be urgently investigated". A number of designs were put forward, from a huge road viaduct with two 500 foot (150 m) sluice gates crossing the Thames at Crayfordness to flap gates lying on the river bed and floated up by compressed air. By 1965, when the Greater London Council (GLC) took over responsibility, two major schemes were under consideration, costed at £24 million and £41 million respectively (£500 million and £800 million at 2020 prices).


title: Thames Barrier

text: In 1966 Sir Hermann Bondi was asked to take an independent view of the situation. He considered the estimated construction costs and the probability of a flood and of damage if the barrier was not built. He strongly recommended that a barrier should be built in order to avoid the catastrophe of flooding central London, and a site was agreed at Woolwich.


title: Thames Barrier

text: The barrier protects central London against a storm surge, caused when a deep depression forms to the north of Scotland and progresses across the North Sea and south-easterly towards southern Scandinavia. When such a surge coincides with a high spring tide, the high winds associated with the depression can funnel the water up the Thames Estuary and cause surges of up to 3.5 metres (11.6 feet). The planners assessed that in the absence of a barrier, such a surge could inundate 45 square miles (117 km) of land, put hospitals, power stations and the London Underground out of action and cause damage estimated in 1966 at £2 billion (about £50 billion at 2020 prices). The barrier was designed to provide a flood defence capable of resisting a once in 1000 year surge tide at a base date of 2030.


title: Thames Barrier

text: The concept of the rising sector gates was devised by (Reginald) Charles Draper. In 1969, from his parents' house in Pellatt Grove, Wood Green, London, he constructed a working model. The novel rotating cylinders were based on the design of the taps on his gas cooker. The barrier was designed by Rendel, Palmer and Tritton for the Greater London Council and the concept tested at the Hydraulics Research Station, Wallingford. The site at New Charlton was chosen because of the relative straightness of the banks, and because the underlying river chalk was strong enough to support the barrier.


title: Thames Barrier

text: The Thames Barrier and Flood Prevention Act, authorising construction, was passed in 1972. In 1974 the GLC placed the two major construction contracts. Civil construction was undertaken by a Costain/Hollandsche Beton Maatschappij/Tarmac Construction consortium. A separate contract for the gates and operating machinery was placed with the Davy Cleveland Barrier Consortium, formed by Davy McKee Ltd of Sheffield and Cleveland Bridge UK Ltd.


title: Thames Barrier

text: Work began at the barrier site in 1974 and progressed in two phases. The southern piers (9 to 6) were built first, with river traffic diverted to the north side, then traffic routed through the completed southern spans whilst the north side piers (1 to 5) were built. During construction of the piers, precast concrete sills were built in a cofferdam on the north side of the river and floated out and sunk between the piers to form the gate recesses, with access tunnels at the upstream and downstream ends.


title: Thames Barrier

text: The gates of the barrier were fabricated in sections at Cleveland Bridge's Darlington works and assembled at Port Clarence on the River Tees. The gates, gate arms and rocking beams were transported from the Tees to the Thames by barge and lifted into position by two very large floating cranes operated by Neptun of Hamburg (now part of Smit International). The mechanical and hydraulic machinery was built by Davy Loewy, Henry Berry and Vickers and trial assembled in Davy's Darnall works. Delays to the civil works required changes to the construction and installation sequence, but commissioning was relatively uneventful and the first trial operation of all the gates together was carried out on 31 October 1982.


title: Thames Barrier

text: In addition to the barrier, the flood defences down river were raised and strengthened. The barrier was officially opened on 8 May 1984 by Queen Elizabeth II. The barrier cost £ (£ now). Total construction cost was around £534 million (£1.6 billion at 2016 prices) with an additional £100 million for river defences.


title: Thames Barrier

text: Built across a wide stretch of the river, the barrier divides the river into four and two approximately 30-metre (100 ft) navigable spans. There are also four smaller non-navigable channels between nine concrete piers and two abutments. The flood gates across the openings are circular segments in cross section, and they operate by rotating, raised to allow "underspill" to allow operators to control upstream levels and a complete 180 degree rotation for maintenance. All the gates are hollow and made of steel up to thick. The gates are filled with water when submerged and empty as they emerge from the river. The four large central gates are high and weigh 3,700 tonnes each. Four radial gates by the river banks, also about 30 metres (100 ft) wide, can be lowered. These gate openings, unlike the main six, are non-navigable.