title: Kykuit

text: In late 1946, two of Junior's sons, John D. Rockefeller III and Laurance Rockefeller, each offered their respective residences, Rockwood Hall and Fieldwood Farm, as headquarters for the then newly formed United Nations. Family patriarch Rockefeller Junior vetoed the proposals, as the sites were too isolated from Manhattan. He instead tasked his second son, Nelson, to buy a site along the East River in New York City, which was subsequently donated for the construction of the UN Headquarters.


title: Kykuit

text: Among guests hosted by Nelson and his brother David have been American Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and their wives. Other notable visitors have included United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, President of the Republic of South Africa Nelson Mandela, Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, King Hussein of Jordan, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, and Lord Mountbatten of Burma of the United Kingdom.


title: Kykuit

text: , 10 or so Rockefeller families lived within the estate, in the central compound and beyond. Much land has been donated over the decades to New York State, including the Rockefeller State Park Preserve, and is open to the public for horseback riding, biking, and jogging. Bill Clinton, who lives just north of the estate, in Chappaqua, has taken regular runs in the State Park.


title: Kykuit

text: Additionally, family members have had a profound effect on the hamlet of Pocantico Hills, which is situated in the open space of the estate completely surrounded by family-owned land. The Union Church of Pocantico Hills, now owned by Historic Hudson Valley, was built by the Rockefeller family, which commissioned stained-glass windows by Matisse (an abstract rose window, memorializing Abby Aldrich) and by Chagall (the remainder of the windows, emphasizing Biblical prophets and some New Testament themes, and memorializing various members of the family and others). They also helped finance the construction of the local Pocantico Hills School.


title: Spherical cow

text: The spherical cow is a humorous metaphor for highly simplified scientific models of complex phenomena. Originating in theoretical physics, the metaphor refers to physicists' tendency to reduce a problem to the simplest form imaginable in order to make calculations more feasible, even if the simplification hinders the model's application to reality.


title: Spherical cow

text: The phrase comes from a joke that spoofs the simplifying assumptions sometimes used in theoretical physics.


title: Spherical cow

text: It is told in many variants, including a joke about a physicist who said he could predict the winner of any race provided it involved spherical horses moving through a vacuum. A 1973 letter to the editor in the journal "Science" describes the "famous story" about a physicist whose solution to a poultry farm's egg-production problems began with "Postulate a spherical chicken".


title: Spherical cow

text: Alan Turing, in his 1952 paper "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis", asserted: "a system which has spherical symmetry, and whose state is changing because of chemical reactions and diffusion ... cannot result in an organism such as a horse, which is not spherically symmetrical."


title: Spherical cow

text: A 2015 paper on the systemic errors introduced by simplifying assumptions about spherical symmetries in galactic dark-matter haloes was titled "Milking the spherical cow – on aspherical dynamics in spherical coordinates".


title: Spherical cow

text: The concept is familiar enough that the phrase is sometimes used as shorthand for the entire issue of proper modeling. For example, "Consider a Spherical Cow" is a 1988 book about problem solving using simplified models.


title: Spherical cow

text: Even without the concept of scientific modeling the joke is sufficiently well known to be indirectly referenced. "Spherical Cow" was chosen as the codename for the Fedora 18 Linux distribution. In the sitcom "The Big Bang Theory", a joke is told by Dr. Leonard Hofstadter with the punchline mentioning "spherical chickens in a vacuum", in "The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization" episode.


title: Paan Singh Tomar

text: Paan Singh Tomar (1 January 1932 — 1 October 1981) was an Indian soldier, athlete, and later, "Baaghi" (rebel/outlaw).


title: Paan Singh Tomar

text: He served in the Indian Army, where his talent for running was discovered. He was a seven-time national steeplechase champion in the 1950s and 1960s, and represented India at the 1958 Asian Games. After a premature retirement from the army, Tomar returned to his native village. He later gained notoriety as a rebel of Chambal Valley, when he resorted to violence after a land feud there. In late 1981, Tomar was killed in a police encounter, in a village of Bhind district in Madhya Pradesh.


title: Paan Singh Tomar

text: Paan Singh Tomar was born in the small village of Bhidosa, near Porsa, in a Hindu Rajput family, living on banks of the Chambal River, in the erstwhile Tonwarghar district of the princely state of Gwalior, under the rule of the British Raj in India. Tomar's father was Eashwari Singh Tomar, whose younger brother Dayaram Singh Tomar went on to sire a branch of the Tomar family that owns most of the fertile agricultural land in and around the Bhidosa area. Tomar would later go on to murder Babbu Singh Tomar, his nephew and Dayaram Singh Tomar's grandson, in 1977 following a shady land dispute in which Tomar was cheated out of land.


title: Paan Singh Tomar

text: Paan Singh Tomar served as a subedar in 51 Engineer Regiment, Bengal Engineer Group, based at Roorkee. He was a champion sportsman, a national-ranking athlete, back in the 1950s and 60s. Legend has it that his initiation into serious running came off a dispute. When Tomar had just enrolled in his regiment, he got into an argument with an instructor. As punishment, Tomar was ordered to run numerous laps of the parade ground. As he ran, he caught the eye of the other officers. What they saw, impressed them and soon Tomar was exempted from his regular duties and was put on the special diet for army sportsmen and enjoyed other perks and benefits.


title: Paan Singh Tomar

text: He represented India at the 1958 Asian Games in Tokyo, Japan. Tomar was not interested in steeplechase running at first but discovered it in the military. He went on to be the national champion of steeplechasing for seven years. His national record of 9 minutes and 2 seconds in the 3000-meter steeplechase event remained unbroken for 10 years. The army did not allow him to fight in the 1962 Sino-Indian War and Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 due to his career in sports, which ended in 1972.


title: Paan Singh Tomar

text: Upon retiring in 1977, Tomar returned to Bhidosa village. There arose a land dispute between him and his nephews Jandel Singh, Havaldar Singh, and Babbu Singh Tomar. Babbu Singh Tomar was a powerful landowner, who owned seven licensed guns and was the head of the 200-strong extended Tomar family. To solve the dispute, a "panchayat" (congregational meeting) was held with the collector, where Paan Singh was asked to give 3,000 to Babbu Singh Tomar and his siblings, to keep his own land. Tomar obliged, but his own nephew, Balwant Singh Tomar, retaliated for the duplicity. The collector promised to return in 15 days. In the meantime, Babbu Singh Tomar came to Tomar's house and assaulted his 95-year-old mother who was alone in the household at the time. Following Tomar's return, his mother asked him to take revenge and return her "izzat" (honor) by the morning. Balwant and Tomar went to the fields armed where they found Babbu Singh. Tomar then shot at Babbu Singh, who continued to run for about a kilometer before he collapsed, despite being shot several times. Tomar would later give an interview to a local newspaper in Gwalior, which may have prompted the administration to start taking his case seriously. At that time, there was a price of 10,000 on his head. He stated in the interview that he did not want to kill the eight villagers, whose tip-off led to the killing of his elder brother Matadin Singh Tomar. But he could not stop his nephew Balwant, who was Matadin's son.


title: Paan Singh Tomar

text: On October 1, 1981, the Circle Inspector Mahendra Pratap Singh Chauhan, and his special task force of 500 policemen, cornered and shot Tomar before leaving him for dead. 14 other members of his crew were also killed. The standoff and gunfight lasted over 12 hours. Chauhan had been tipped off about Tomar's arrival by Motiram Jatav, one of the village Dalits who was angered by Tomar's discriminatory attitude.


title: Paan Singh Tomar

text: According to newspaper reports, Tomar was shot when he was alive and was asking for water: "Any Rajput here who could please give me some water?"; Havildar Tribhuwan Singh started walking towards Tomar with some water but Circle Inspector Chauhan shouted at him: "Tribhuwan, dacoits have no caste." And he was left to die.


title: Paan Singh Tomar

text: Paan Singh's son, Souram Singh Tomar (b. 1959) is a retired Indian Army subedar who lives in Babina in the Jhansi District of Uttar Pradesh. He moved there to flee the violence in Bhidosa.


title: Paan Singh Tomar

text: A biographic film, "Paan Singh Tomar", was released in 2012, to much critical acclaim. It was written by Sanjay Chouhan and directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia. It starred Irrfan Khan as Paan Singh Tomar, and Mahie Gill as his wife.


title: Gong (band)

text: Gong are a progressive rock band that incorporates elements of jazz and space rock into their musical style. The group was formed in Paris in 1967 by Australian musician Daevid Allen and English vocalist Gilli Smyth. Band members have included Didier Malherbe, Pip Pyle, Steve Hillage, Mike Howlett, Pierre Moerlen, Bill Laswell and Theo Travis. Others who have played on stage with Gong include Don Cherry, Chris Cutler, Bill Bruford, Brian Davison, Dave Stewart and Tatsuya Yoshida.


title: Gong (band)

text: Gong's 1970 debut album, "Magick Brother", featured a psychedelic pop sound. By the following year, the second album, "Camembert Electrique", featured the more psychedelic rock/space rock sound with which they would be most associated. Between 1973 and 1974, Gong released their best known work, the allegorical "Radio Gnome Invisible" trilogy, describing the adventures of Zero the Hero, the Good Witch Yoni and the Pot Head Pixies from the Planet Gong.


title: Gong (band)

text: In 1975, Allen and Smyth left the band, which continued without them, releasing a series of jazz rock albums under the leadership of drummer Pierre Moerlen. This incarnation soon became known as Pierre Moerlen's Gong. Meanwhile, Smyth formed Mother Gong while Allen initiated a series of spin-off groups, including Planet Gong, New York Gong and Gongmaison, before returning to lead Gong once again in 1990 until his death in 2015. With Allen's encouragement, the band decided to continue, releasing the album "Rejoice! I'm Dead!" in September 2016 and "The Universe Also Collapses" in 2019.


title: Gong (band)

text: In September 1967, Australian singer and guitarist Daevid Allen, a member of the English psychedelic rock band Soft Machine, was denied re-entry to the United Kingdom for 3 years following a French tour because his visa had expired. He settled in Paris, where he and his partner, London-born Sorbonne professor Gilli Smyth, established the first incarnation of Gong (later referred to by Allen as "Protogong") along with Ziska Baum on vocals and Loren Standlee on flute. However, the nascent band came to an abrupt end during the May 1968 student revolution, when Allen and Smyth were forced to flee the country after a warrant was issued for their arrest. They headed for Deià in Majorca, where they had lived for a time in 1966.


title: Gong (band)

text: In August 1969, film director Jérôme Laperrousaz, a close friend of the pair, invited them back to France to record a soundtrack for a motorcycle racing movie which he was planning. This came to nothing at the time, but they were subsequently approached by Jean Karakos of the newly-formed independent label BYG Actuel to record an album, and so set about forming a new electric Gong band in Paris, recruiting their first rhythm section of Christian Tritsch (bass) and Rachid Houari (drums and percussion) and re-connecting with a saxophonist called Didier Malherbe whom they had met in Deià. However, Tritsch was not ready in time for the sessions and so Allen played the bass guitar himself. The album, entitled "Magick Brother", was completed in October.


title: Gong (band)

text: The re-born Gong played its debut gig at the BYG Actuel Festival in the small Belgian town of Amougies, on 27 October 1969, joined by Danny Laloux on hunting horn and percussion, and Dieter Gewissler and Gerry Fields on violin, and was introduced to the stage by bemused compere Frank Zappa. "Magick Brother" was released in March 1970, followed in April by a non-album single, "Est-Ce Que Je Suis; Garçon Ou Fille?" b/w "Hip Hip Hypnotise Ya", which again featured Laloux and Gewissler. In October, the band moved into an abandoned 12-room hunting lodge called Pavillon du Hay, near Voisines and Sens, 120 km south-east of Paris. They would be based there until early 1974.


title: Gong (band)

text: Houari left the band in the spring of 1971 and was replaced by English drummer Pip Pyle, whom Allen had been introduced to by Robert Wyatt during the recording of his debut solo album, "Banana Moon". The new line-up recorded a soundtrack for Laperrousaz's movie, now entitled "Continental Circus", backed poet Dashiell Hedayat on his album "Obsolete", and played at the second Glastonbury Festival, later documented on the "Glastonbury Fayre" album. Next, they began work on their second studio album, "Camembert Electrique", later referred to by Allen as "the first real band album". It established the progressive, space rock sound which would make their name, leading, in the autumn, to their first UK tour. However, by the end of the year Pyle had left the group, to be replaced by another English drummer, Laurie Allan.


title: Gong (band)

text: Gong went through increasing line-up disruption in 1972. Laurie Allan left in April to be replaced by Mac Poole, then Charles Hayward and then Rob Tait, before returning again late in the year. Gilli Smyth left for a time, returning to Deià to look after her and Daevid Allen's baby son, and was replaced by Diane Stewart, who was the partner of Tait and the ex-wife of Graham Bond. Christian Tritsch moved to guitar and was replaced on bass by former Magma member Francis Moze, while the band's sound was expanded with the addition of synthesizer player Tim Blake.


title: Gong (band)

text: In October they were one of the first acts to sign to Richard Branson's fledgling Virgin Records label, and in late December traveled to Virgin's Manor Studio in Oxfordshire, England, to record their third album, "Flying Teapot". Towards the end of their recording sessions they were joined by English guitarist Steve Hillage, whom they had met a few weeks earlier in France playing with Kevin Ayers. He arrived too late to contribute much to the album, but would soon become a key component in the Gong sound.


title: Gong (band)

text: "Flying Teapot" was released on 25 May 1973, the same day as "Tubular Bells", and was the first instalment of the "Radio Gnome Invisible" trilogy, which expounded upon the (previously only hinted at) Gong mythology developed by Allen. The second part, "Angel's Egg", followed in December, now featuring the 'classic' rhythm section of Mike Howlett on bass and Pierre Moerlen on drums. In early 1974 Moerlen left to work with the French contemporary ensemble Les Percussions de Strasbourg and Smyth left to give birth to her and Allen's second son. They were replaced once again by Rob Tait and Diane Stewart, and the band moved from its French base at Pavillon du Hay to an English one at Middlefield Farm, near Witney, Oxfordshire. Moerlen, and later Smyth, returned in order to complete the trilogy with the album "You", but by the time of its release, in October 1974, Moerlen was back with Les Percussions de Strasbourg and Smyth had settled permanently in Deià with her young sons. Prior to touring in support of "You", Allen visited Smyth and the boys in Deià, while the rest of the band, including the departed Moerlen, recorded the basic tracks for Hillage's first solo album, "Fish Rising". Moerlen was initially replaced in Gong by a succession of stand-ins (Chris Cutler, Laurie Allan and Bill Bruford) until former Nice and Refugee drummer Brian Davison took the job in early 1975. Smyth had already been replaced by Hillage's partner Miquette Giraudy.


title: Gong (band)

text: In June 1974, "Camembert Electrique" was given a belated UK release by Virgin, priced at 59p, the price of a typical single at the time; a promotional gimmick which they had used before for Faust and would use again for a reggae compilation in 1976. These ultra-budget albums sold in large quantities because of the low price, but the pricing made them ineligible for placement on the album charts. The hope was that new fans would be encouraged to buy the groups' other albums at full price.


title: Gong (band)

text: Increasing tension and personality clashes led to Tim Blake being asked to leave in February 1975 during rehearsals for a tour. He was not replaced. Then, at a gig in Cheltenham on 10 April, the day before the release of Steve Hillage's "Fish Rising" album, Daevid Allen refused to go on stage, claiming that a "wall of force" was preventing him from doing so, and he left the band. The others decided to carry on without him.


title: Gong (band)

text: In August, Pierre Moerlen was persuaded to return, replacing the unhappy and alcoholic Davison, and the band now also added Mireille Bauer on percussion, Jorge Pinchevsky on violin and Patrice Lemoine on synthesizer and, for the first time in Gong, keyboards. They toured the UK in November 1975, as documented on the 2005 release "Live in Sherwood Forest '75", and worked on material for their next album, "Shamal". Hillage, however, was increasingly uncomfortable without Allen, and with now being seen as the band's "de facto" leader. With a solo career beckoning, he and Giraudy decided to leave before "Shamal" was completed, participating in it only as guests. Howlett took over as lead male vocalist and Sandy Colley, Lemoine's partner and the band's cook, became his female counterpart. The album was released in February 1976 and they toured in support until a crisis was precipitated in May when Pinchevsky was refused entry to the U.K. for carrying marijuana. Ex-King Crimson violinist David Cross was tried out as a possible replacement, but before any progress could be made with this new line-up, the band split into two camps: Howlett wanted to keep vocals, but Moerlen and Bauer wanted the music to be entirely instrumental, with Malherbe undecided. Virgin Records executive Simon Draper chose Moerlen's way and Howlett left, quickly followed by Lemoine and Colley.


title: Gong (band)

text: For contractual reasons, the Gong name remained in play for another two years, but the band was now effectively Pierre Moerlen's Gong, having little to do with the psychedelic space rock of Daevid Allen. Moerlen formed a new mallet percussion based line-up, adding his brother Benoit Moerlen, future Weather Report percussionist Mino Cinelu, journeyman guitarist Allan Holdsworth and "Flying Teapot" bassist Francis Moze to record the album Gazeuse! in late 1976. Malherbe, Holdsworth, Moze and Cinelu all left soon afterwards, but Moerlen kept a band going with American bassist Hansford Rowe until the late 1980s. To avoid confusion, it first became known as Gong-Expresso and then, from 1978, as Pierre Moerlen's Gong. One last album, "Pentanine", was recorded in 2002 with Russian musicians before Moerlen died unexpectedly in May 2005, aged 53.


title: Gong (band)

text: A Gong reunion event held in Paris in May 1977 brought together all of the current strands which had developed and re-asserted the primacy of the Daevid Allen-led band. It featured sets by Tim Blake, Lady June, Howlett's Strontium 90, Steve Hillage, 'Shamal Gong', Gong-Expresso, Daevid Allen and Euterpe, and was headlined by Trilogy Gong, the classic lineup of Allen, Smyth, Malherbe, Blake, Hillage, Giraudy, Howlett and Moerlen. Their performance was documented on the live album "Gong est Mort, Vive Gong". Strontium 90 was Mike Howlett's short-lived band which was notable for having two bass players, and for introducing Police members Sting and Stewart Copeland to their future guitarist Andy Summers.


title: Gong (band)

text: Daevid Allen continued to develop the Gong mythology in his solo albums and with two new bands: Planet Gong (1977), which comprised Allen and Smyth playing with the British festival band Here & Now, and New York Gong (1979), comprising Allen and the American musicians who would later become known as Material. At the same time, Gilli Smyth formed Mother Gong with English guitarist/producer Harry Williamson and Didier Malherbe, and played in Spain and England. Allen delighted in this proliferation of groups and considered his role at this time to be that of an instigator, traveling around the world leaving active Gong-related bands in his wake.


title: Gong (band)

text: After spending most of the Eighties in his native Australia, Allen returned to the UK in 1988 with a new project, The Invisible Opera Company of Tibet, whose revolving cast included violinist Graham Clark and Gong saxophonist Didier Malherbe. This morphed into Gongmaison in 1989, which added Harry Williamson from Mother Gong and had a techno-influenced sound with electronic beats, as well as live percussion from Shyamal Maïtra. In 1990, the Gong name was revived for a one-off U.K. T.V. appearance with a line-up featuring Allen, Smyth and Malherbe, plus early 70s drummer Pip Pyle and three members of Here & Now (band): Stephen Lewry (lead guitar), Keith Bailey (bass) and Paul Noble (synth). In April 1992, Gongmaison became Gong permanently with the combined line-up of Allen, Malherbe, Bailey and Pyle, plus Graham Clark and Shyamal Maïtra from Gongmaison. Together they recorded the album "Shapeshifter" (subsequently dubbed "Radio Gnome Invisible, Part 4") and toured extensively.


title: Gong (band)

text: In 1994, Gong celebrated its 25th birthday with a show in London which featured the return of Gilli Smyth, bassist Mike Howlett and lead guitarist Stephen Lewry of Here & Now. This formed the basis of the band which toured worldwide from 1996 to 2001, with Pierre Moerlen replacing Pip Pyle on drums from 1997 through 1999. The album "Zero to Infinity" was released in 2000, by which time the line-up had changed again to Allen, Smyth, Malherbe and Howlett, plus new recruits on sax and Chris Taylor on drums. This line-up was unique in the band's history in having two sax/flute players.


title: Gong (band)

text: 2003 saw a radical new line-up including Acid Mothers Temple members Kawabata Makoto and Cotton Casino, plus University of Errors guitarist Josh Pollock. Allen and Smyth's son Orlando drummed on the 2004 studio album "Acid Motherhood", but for the subsequent live dates the rhythm section was Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida and Acid Mothers Temple bassist Tsuyama Atsushi. A live album recorded by this line-up in 2004 was released as "Acid Mothers Gong Live Tokyo" and they played a few more one-off shows in 2006 and 2007.


title: Gong (band)

text: The European version of Gong had retired from regular touring in 2001, but there were subsequent one-off reunions, most notably at the "Gong Family Unconventions" (Uncons), the first of which was held in 2004 in the Glastonbury Assembly Rooms as a one-day event and featured many ex-members and Gong family bands including Here & Now, House of Thandoy, Thom the Poet, Invisible Opera Company, Andy Bole, Bubbledub and Joie Hinton. The 2005 Uncon was a 2-day affair featuring several Gong-related bands such as Here & Now, System 7, House of Thandoy and Kangaroo Moon. The next Uncon was a 3-day event held at the Melkweg in Amsterdam on 3–5 November 2006, with practically all Gong-related bands present: 'Classic' Gong (Allen, Smyth, Malherbe, Blake, Howlett, Travis, Taylor, plus the return of Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy), System 7, The Steve Hillage Band, Hadouk, Tim Blake and Jean-Philippe Rykiel, University of Errors, Here & Now, Mother Gong, Zorch, Eat Static, Sacred Geometry Band, Acid Mothers Gong and many others. These events have all been compèred by Thom the Poet (now "Thom Moon 10").


title: Gong (band)

text: In November 2007, Daevid Allen held a series of concerts in Brazil with a new band which he called Gong Global Family. This consisted of Allen on vocals and guitar, Josh Pollock on guitar, Fabio Golfetti (of Violeta de Outono) on guitar, Gabriel Costa (also from Violeta de Outono) on bass, Marcelo Ringel on flute and tenor saxophone, and Fred Barley on drums. He also performed with his other band, University of Errors (Allen, Pollock, Barley and Michael Clare). These shows took place in São Paulo on 21 and 22 November and São Carlos on 24 November. The 21 November show was filmed and released in the UK on DVD and CD by Voiceprint Records. These musicians, minus Marcelo, also recorded some new songs at Mosh studio, São Paulo.


title: Gong (band)

text: In June 2008, Gong played two concerts in London, at Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank (opening Massive Attack's Meltdown festival) and at The Forum, with a line-up of Allen, Smyth, Hillage, Giraudy, Howlett, Taylor and Travis. This line-up then released a new album, "2032", in 2009 and toured in support, including the Glade stage at Glastonbury Festival. They played at The Big Chill festival in the UK on 9 August 2009 with Allen, Smyth, Hillage, Giraudy, Travis, Taylor and new bassist Dave Sturt, as well as the Beautiful Days festival in Devon and the Lounge On The Farm festival near Canterbury.


title: Gong (band)

text: Gong played four UK live shows in September 2010 with Allen, Smyth, Hillage, Giraudy, Sturt, Taylor and new wind player Ian East. Support for these shows was provided by Nik Turner's Space Ritual.


title: Gong (band)

text: Gong toured Europe in the fall of 2012 with the line-up of Allen, Smyth, Sturt and East, plus Orlando Allen (Acid Mothers Gong) on drums, and Fabio Golfetti (Gong Global Family) on guitar. It would be Gilli Smyth's final tour with the band.


title: Gong (band)

text: They played in Brazil in May 2013 and again in 2014, this time with the addition of Kavus Torabi on guitar.


title: Gong (band)

text: The 2014 line-up released a new studio album entitled "I See You" on 10 November, with Gilli Smyth guesting. However, Daevid Allen had been diagnosed with a cancerous cyst in his neck and had to undergo radiation therapy followed by an extensive period of recuperation. The "I See You" tour went ahead without him, and the line-up of Sturt, East, Golfetti, Torabi and a "mystery drummer" (revealed to be Cheb Nettles) played five dates in France and two in the UK.


title: Gong (band)

text: On 5 February 2015, Daevid Allen released a statement announcing that the cancer had returned to his neck and had also spread to his lungs, and that he was "not interested in endless surgical operations", leaving him with "approximately six months to live". Just over a month after the initial announcement, on 13 March 2015, Daevid's son Orlando announced through Facebook that Allen had died in Byron Bay, Australia, aged 77.


title: Gong (band)

text: On 11 April 2015, it was revealed that Allen had written an email to the band prior to his death, expressing his wish that the five remaining members continue performing following his passing and suggesting that Kavus Torabi become the new frontman of the band.


title: Gong (band)

text: Gilli Smyth died on 22 August 2016, aged 83. She had been admitted to hospital in Byron Bay with pneumonia a couple of days previously.


title: Gong (band)

text: On 5 July 2016, it was announced that the band line-up consisting of Kavus Torabi, Fabio Golfetti, Dave Sturt, Ian East and Cheb Nettles had recorded a new album entitled "Rejoice! I'm Dead!", featuring guest appearances from Steve Hillage on guitar, Didier Malherbe on duduk and Graham Clark on violin, with Daevid Allen's vocals appearing on two tracks. "Rejoice! I'm Dead!" was released on 16 September 2016 through Snapper Music. On May 2019, the lineup followed up with their fifteenth album "The Universe Also Collapses".


title: Gong (band)

text: On August 2019, Universal Music announced the boxed set, "Love From The Planet Gong: The Virgin Years 1973–75", encompassing Gong's tenure with Virgin Records, would be released on 27 September. Curated by Hillage, it contains remasters of four studio albums and previously unreleased live recordings made between 1973 and 1975.


title: Gong (band)

text: Gong's music fuses many influences into a distinctive style which has been variously described by critics and journalists as experimental rock, jazz fusion, jazz rock, progressive rock, psychedelic rock and space rock. Gong has also been associated with the Canterbury scene of progressive rock bands.


title: Gong (band)

text: "Rolling Stone" described Gong's music as combining "psychedelic English whimsy, German kosmische space jams and Gallic libertine fusion."


title: Gong (band)

text: The Gong mythology is a humorous collection of recurring characters and allegorical themes which permeate the albums of Gong and Daevid Allen, and to a lesser extent the early works of Steve Hillage. The characters were often based on, or used as pseudonyms for, band members, while the story itself was based on a vision which Allen had during the full moon of Easter 1966, in Deià, Majorca, in which he claimed he could see his future laid out before him. This mythology was hinted at through Gong's earlier albums but was not the central theme until the "Radio Gnome Invisible" trilogy of 1973/74. It contains many similarities to concepts from Buddhist philosophy, e.g. optimism, the search for self, the denial of absolute reality and the search for the path to enlightenment. There are frequent references to the production and consumption of "tea", perhaps suggesting mushroom tea, although the word has also long been used to describe cannabis, especially in the 1940s and 1950s. The mentioning of flying teapots was inspired by [Bertrand] Russell's teapot.


title: Gong (band)

text: Gong's influence has been seen in artists such as Ozric Tentacles and Insane Clown Posse, whose member Violent J listened to Gong's music for inspiration during the recording of ICP's 2009 album "Bang! Pow! Boom!". Gong's music has also found fandom in the ambient music scene.


title: Gong (band)

text: The Southern rock band Raging Slab has covered Gong's "The Pot Head Pixies" for NORML's "Hempilation" release. Japanese psych-rock band Acid Mothers Temple frequently covers Gong's "Master Builder", titled as "Om Riff", and have released 2 full albums dedicated to album-length renditions of the song; 2005's "IAO Chant From The Cosmic Inferno" and 2012's "IAO Chant From The Melting Paraiso Underground Freak Out".


title: Gong (band)

text: Actor Sherman Hemsley, best known for his role on "The Jeffersons", was an avowed Gong fanatic, going so far as to have a "Flying Teapot" room in his house. The room, which had darkened windows, played "Flying Teapot" continuously via tape loops.


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: Built by Kawasaki at Kobe, she was laid down on 10 July 1941, launched almost two years later on 7 April 1943 and finally commissioned on 7 March 1944. She sank on 19 June 1944 during the Battle of the Philippine Sea due to explosions resulting from design flaws and poor damage control after suffering a single torpedo hit from the American submarine USS "Albacore".


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: "Taihō" was approved for construction in the 1939 4th Supplementary Programme. Her design was that of a modified . Under the Modified Fleet Replenishment Program of 1942, "Taihō" was to be the first of a new generation of Japanese aircraft carriers, which would include "Taihō", 15 of a modified design (which turned into the ) and five of an improved "Taihō" design (G-15 Project).


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: "Taihō"s waterline belt armor varied between abreast the machinery to around the magazines. The armor below the waterline was designed to withstand a charge.


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: The weight of "Taihō"s armor immersed her hull so deeply that her lower hangar deck was barely above the load waterline and the bottoms of her two elevator wells (which formed the roofs of her fore and aft aviation fuel tanks) were actually below the waterline. This latter fact played an important role in her subsequent destruction during the Battle of the Philippine Sea.


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: "Taihō"s aviation fuel tanks were only partially protected with armor, as naval designers opted earlier to devote greater protection to their carriers' bomb and torpedo magazines. The empty air spaces around the aviation fuel tanks turned out to be the ship's downfall; all subsequent Japanese carriers had theirs filled with concrete to protect against splinters and shock damage, although it was poor damage control that ultimately sank "Taihō".


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: To improve seakeeping and airflow over the forward end of the deck, "Taihō"s bow was plated up to flight deck level, giving her a similar appearance to British s.


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: "Taihō"s eight oil-fired Kampon RO-GO boilers were capable of generating . Her four Kampon steam turbines were each geared to separate propeller shafts. She had a top speed of . "Taihō"s maximum fuel oil storage of gave her a radius of at .<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer5">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.5</ref>


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: "Taihō" had two rudders positioned along the longitudinal center-line of the ship: a semi-balanced main rudder (so-called because a portion of the rudder comes before the hinged axis and therefore requires less force to turn) located astern and an unbalanced auxiliary rudder forward of the main rudder. Both were turned via electro-hydraulically powered steering gears, but the auxiliary rudder could also be turned via a diesel engine in the event the primary steering gear was damaged.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer6">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.6</ref>


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: "Taihō" was the first Japanese aircraft carrier to feature an armored flight deck, designed to withstand multiple bomb hits with minimal damage. The armor varied slightly in thickness between and formed a protective lid over an enclosed upper hangar whose sides and ends were unarmored. The floor of the upper hangar was also unarmored but the lower hangar deck had plating. "Taihō"s flight deck, measuring long and wide, had the largest total area of any Japanese carrier until the completion of and was offset to port to compensate for the weight of her island structure.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer12">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.12</ref> Unlike all pre-war Japanese carriers, "Taihō"s flight deck was not wooden-planked. Rather, the steel deck was covered with a newly developed latex coating approximately thick. This offered several advantages over wood: it was cheaper, it saved weight, it required fewer man-hours to apply and it was less likely to interfere with air operations in the event of minor damage. On the negative side, the material had only mediocre anti-skid qualities and tended to become brittle and crack over time.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer74">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.74</ref>


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: Fourteen hydraulically operated arrester wires were distributed transversely across the flight deck between the fore and aft elevators. "Taihō" also had three hydraulically powered crash barriers, designed to abruptly stop any plane failing to catch an arrester wire upon landing. Two were located abreast the island and one was set at the bow.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer23">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.23</ref> "Taihō" was equipped with two large armored elevators, capable of transferring aircraft weighing up to between decks. The elevators were widely spaced apart, with one at the far aft end of the ship and one forward of the island. It was originally desired to install a third elevator amidship, but because of wartime urgency this was deleted from the final design, thus saving both time and material. The elevators were roughly pentagonal in shape, with the aft elevator measuring long and wide. The forward elevator was slightly smaller in width. It took approximately 15 seconds to raise an aircraft from the lower hangar deck to the flight deck and the same to lower one.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer13">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.13</ref>


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: "Taihō"s upper and lower hangars were approximately long and high. The upper hangar was wider than the lower. Fighters were normally stowed in the middle and forward sections of the upper hangar and were raised to flight deck level using the bow elevator to facilitate more rapid handling. Dive bombers occupied the remaining upper hangar spaces with torpedo bombers stowed in the lower hangar. With greater all-up weights and longer take-off runs than the fighters, these planes were brought up to the flight deck using the aft elevator where they could then be spotted as far astern as possible.


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: As a fire safety precaution, the carrier's two hangars were divided into sections (five on the upper and four on the lower), separated by fire-proofed fabric curtains. The curtains were intended to limit the supply of air to and delay the spread of any fire breaking out on the hangar decks. Further protection against fire was supplied by a foam spray system fed by two rows of pipes and nozzles running along the walls and ends of the hangars. The lower hangar could also be flooded with carbon dioxide where the likelihood of fuel vapor build-up was greatest.


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: "Taihō"s original design specified installation of two catapults on her forward bow for power-assisted take-offs. However, as the Imperial Japanese Navy had not developed a workable catapult for carrier decks by the time of "Taihō"s construction, these were eventually deleted from the requirements. The IJN instead opted to use rocket-assisted take-off gear (RATOG) when necessary. This consisted of two solid-propellant (cordite) rockets attached to either side of a plane's fuselage. Generating of thrust for three seconds, they were able to get an aircraft airborne in a much shorter distance than normally required.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer14">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p. 14</ref>


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: On "Taihō"s port side, abreast the aft elevator, stood a collapsible crane with a lifting capacity. When not in use, it could be folded and lowered below flight deck level through an opening in the deck, thus eliminating a potentially hazardous obstruction during air operations.


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: "Taihō"s single large funnel, built into the island, was angled 26° from the vertical to starboard and carried the ship's exhaust gases well clear of the flight deck. This arrangement, atypical of most Japanese carriers, was similar to that successfully employed on and and would later be repeated on .


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: Three Type 96 searchlights were positioned along the outer edges of the flight deck: two on the port side and one to starboard, just aft of the island. Like the collapsible crane, these could be lowered below flight deck level to prevent interference with normal flight activity. A fourth searchlight was mounted to the starboard side of the carrier's island on a projecting sponson.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer62">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p. 62</ref>


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: "Taihō"s armament comprised 12 of the brand-new /65 caliber Type 98 anti-aircraft guns arranged in six twin-gun turrets: three on the port side and three to starboard. The guns were electro-hydraulically powered; however, in the event of a power failure they could function manually at reduced effectiveness. Operated by a crew of 11, the average firing rate was 15 rounds per minute with a maximum effective horizontal range of and a maximum effective vertical range of .<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer49">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.49</ref>


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: In addition, "Taihō" carried 17 triple-mount anti-aircraft cannons (51 barrels total). Sixteen of these were mounted on sponsons just below flight deck level: eight to port, six to starboard and two at the stern. The 17th unit was positioned on the flight deck, just ahead of the island. The triple-mounts were electrically powered (though manual operation was possible) and normally required a crew of nine. They had a practical firing rate of 110–120 rounds per minute and a maximum effective range of . The Type 96 cannon was the Japanese Navy's standard small-caliber anti-aircraft weapon from 1936 through the end of the war in 1945 and was an adaptation of a French design.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer53">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.53</ref> Additionally, there were 25 portable type 96 guns which was usually hung on hangar walls and after the plane departed was secured on metal fittings which usually holds the aircraft on the deck.


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: "Taihō" had two Type 94 triaxially stabilized fire control directors, one mounted on the flight deck ahead of the island and one amidships on the port side, just below flight deck level. These controlled the gun turrets and were electro-hydraulically powered.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer58">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.58</ref> The triple-mount cannons were controlled by seven Type 95 fire control units, each of which could direct the fire of two or three mounts.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer61">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.61</ref>


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: "Taihō"s original design made no provisions for radar installation as the Imperial Japanese Navy did not possess any shipborne surface, fire control or air search radar at the war's outset in September 1939. Not until January 1941, when a Japanese naval technical mission arrived in Germany, did the IJN learn that European nations were using pulsed radar for combat purposes. In August that same year, the Navy Ministry initiated a crash plan to speed up radar development, resulting in (among others) the Type 21 and Type 13 air search radars.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer64">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.64</ref>


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: Prior to completion in 1944, "Taihō" was fitted with two Type 21 air search radars, one mounted atop the island on the anti-aircraft control platform and one on the lower bridge deck at the aft end of the island. She also had one Type 13 air search set installed with an antenna mounted on the signal mast above the bridge. The Type 21 had a maximum effective range of while the Type 13 had a range of


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: "Taihō"s planned air complement varied considerably throughout her design and construction. Initially, it was envisioned she would carry 126 aircraft (with 30 of these in reserve). Later, this was pared down to 64, raised again to 78 and finally reduced to 53. One reason for the discrepancy in numbers was (in sharp contrast to the United States) the Imperial Japanese Navy's lack of insistence that its carrier planes have the smallest possible folded wingspan (many designs' folded only near the tips, while the wings of the Yokosuka D4Y "Suisei" dive-bomber did not fold at all). Her aircraft capacity was also changed based on previous wartime experience and the fact that "Taihō" was expected to carry larger newer-model carrier planes still under development at the time of her construction: 24 Mitsubishi A7M2 "Reppu" "Sam" fighters, 25 Aichi B7A2 "Ryusei" "Grace" torpedo-dive bombers and four Nakajima C6N1 "Saiun" "Myrt" reconnaissance planes. As none of these types were available at the time of her commissioning, "Taihō" went to sea with older-model aircraft.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer32">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.32</ref>


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: Prior to 13 June 1944, "Taihō" carried 65 aircraft: 22 Mitsubishi A6M5 "Reisen" (Zero) fighters, 22 Yokosuka D4Y1 "Suisei" "Judy" dive bombers (of which four were the D4Y1-C reconnaissance types), three Aichi D3A2 "Val" dive bombers and 18 Nakajima B6N2 "Tenzan" "Jill" torpedo bombers. By 19 June 1944, however, the day the Battle of the Philippine Sea took place, she had already lost nine aircraft due to various causes and had just 56 planes remaining for actual combat.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer48">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.48</ref>


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: "Taihō" was formally commissioned on 7 March 1944. After several weeks of service trials in Japan's Inland Sea, she was deployed to Singapore, arriving there on 5 April. "Taihō" was then moved to Lingga Roads, a naval anchorage off Sumatra, where she joined veteran carriers and in the First Carrier Division, First Mobile Force. All three carriers engaged in working up new air groups by practicing launch and recovery operations and acting as targets for mock aerial attacks staged from Singapore airfields by their own planes. On 15 April, Vice-Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa officially transferred his flag from "Shōkaku" to "Taihō" to take advantage of the carrier's extensive command facilities. Shortly thereafter, the First Mobile Force departed Lingga and arrived on 14 May at Tawi-Tawi off Borneo, where the fleet could directly refuel with unrefined Tarakan Island crude oil and await execution of the planned Kantai Kessen ("decisive battle") known as Operation A-GO.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer84">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.84</ref>


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: When American carrier strikes against the Marianas indicated an invasion of Saipan was imminent, the Japanese Combined Fleet staff initiated Operation A-GO on 11 June. "Taihō" and the rest of Ozawa's First Mobile Force departed Tawi-Tawi on 13 June, threading their way through the Philippine Islands and setting course for Saipan to attack American carrier forces operating in the vicinity.


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: On 19 June 1944, "Taihō" was one of nine Japanese aircraft carriers involved in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. At 07:45 she turned into the wind to launch her contribution (16 Zeros, 17 "Judy" dive bombers and 9 "Jill" torpedo bombers) to Ozawa's second attack wave. As "Taihō"s planes circled overhead to form up, American submarine , which had spotted Ozawa's carriers earlier that morning, reached an ideal attack position and fired a spread of six torpedoes at the carrier. One of "Taihō"s strike pilots, Warrant Officer Sakio Komatsu, saw the torpedo wakes, broke formation and deliberately dived his plane into the path of one torpedo; the weapon detonated short of its target and four of the remaining five missed. The sixth torpedo, however, found its mark and the resulting explosion holed the carrier's hull on the starboard side, just ahead of the island. The impact also fractured the aviation fuel tanks and jammed the forward elevator between the flight deck and upper hangar deck.


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: With the ship down 1.5 m (5 ft) by the bows due to flooding, the forward elevator pit filled with a mixture of seawater, fuel oil and aviation gasoline, "Taihō"s captain marginally reduced her speed by a knot and a half to slow the ingress of seawater into the hull where the torpedo had struck. As no fires had started, Vice-Admiral Ozawa ordered that the open elevator well be planked over by a flight deck damage control party in order to allow resumption of normal flight operations. By 09:20 am, using wooden benches and tables from the petty officers' and sailors' mess rooms, this task was completed. Ozawa then launched two more waves of aircraft.


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: Meanwhile, leaking aviation gasoline accumulating in the forward elevator pit began vaporizing and the fumes soon permeated the upper and lower hangar decks. The crew recognised the danger but, through inadequate training, lack of practice or incompetence, their response was ineffectual. They bungled attempts to pump out the damaged elevator well, and failed to cover the fuel with foam from the hangar's fire suppression system.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer91">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.91</ref>


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: Because "Taihō"s hangars were completely enclosed, mechanical ventilation was the only means of exhausting fouled air and replacing it with fresh air. Ventilation duct gates were opened on either side of hangar sections No. 1 and No. 2 and, for a time, the carrier's aft elevator was lowered to try to increase the draught. But this failed to have any appreciable effect and air operations were resumed about noon, requiring the elevator to be periodically raised as aircraft were brought up to the flight deck. In desperation, damage control parties used hammers to smash out the glass in the ship's portholes.


title: Japanese aircraft carrier Taihō

text: "Taihō"s chief damage control officer eventually ordered the ship's general ventilation system switched to full capacity and, where possible, all doors and hatches opened to try to rid the ship of fumes. However, this just resulted in saturation of areas previously unexposed to the vapors and increased the chances of accidental or spontaneous ignition. About 14:30 that afternoon, 6½ hours after the initial torpedo hit, "Taihō" was jolted by a severe explosion. A senior staff officer on the bridge saw the flight deck heave up, and the sides of the ship blew out. "Taihō" dropped out of formation and began to settle in the water, clearly doomed. Though Admiral Ozawa wanted to go down with the ship, his staff prevailed on him to survive and to transfer his flag to the cruiser . Taking the Emperor's portrait, Ozawa transferred to "Haguro" by destroyer. After he left, "Taihō" was torn by a second thunderous explosion and sank stern first at 16:28, taking 1,650 officers and men out of a complement of 2,150 down with her.<ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer93">Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.93</ref>


title: Deal or No Deal

text: Deal or No Deal is the name of several closely related television game shows, the first of which (launching the format) was the Dutch "Miljoenenjacht" ("Hunt/Chase for Millions"). The centerpiece of this format is the final round (a.k.a. the "case game" or "main game" ) which is played with up to 26 cases (or, in some versions, boxes), each containing randomly assigned sums of money. After the player for the case game is determined, this contender claims (or is assigned) one case or a box at the start of the game, without its contents being revealed. The contestant then chooses the other cases or boxes, one at a time, to be immediately opened and removed from play. Throughout the game, the player is offered an amount of money or prizes to quit, being asked the titular question, "Deal or no deal?" If the contestant rejects every deal and eliminates all the other cases or boxes, the player keeps the money that was in the original case or box. Thus, the contestant "wins" depending on whether the player should have taken one of the deals or should have held onto the original case or box until the very end.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: The gameplay of the show differs from country to country. In some countries, there is a preliminary contest in which the studio audience is whittled down to one final contender by several trivia question rounds, this final contender then proceeds to the main game. This was the format used by the Dutch show "Miljoenenjacht" (Hunt/Chase for Millions) which initiated the "Deal or no Deal" game (originally the Dutch show was based on a German format called "Die Chance deines Lebens" (The Chance of your Lifetime) which was based on trivia questions and did not have the briefcase element at all). There are also some versions with the number of players equal to the number of cases, each player receives one case. Via a short trivia round or a random selection, one player is selected to be the contestant for the main game with his case. In other countries, there is only one preselected contestant who will play the main game without any preliminary contest.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: The main game revolves around the opening of a set of numbered briefcases, each of which contains a different prize (cash or otherwise). The contents (i.e., the values) of all of the cases are known at the start of the game, but the specific location of any prize is unknown. The contestant claims (or is assigned) a case to begin the game. The case's value is not revealed until the conclusion of the game.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: The contestant then begins choosing cases that are to be removed from play. The amount inside each chosen case is immediately revealed; by process of elimination, the amount revealed cannot be inside the case the contestant initially claimed (or was assigned). Throughout the game, after a predecided number of cases have been opened, the "Banker" offers the contestant an amount of money and/or prizes to quit the game; the offer is based roughly on the amounts remaining in play and the contestant's demeanor, so the bank tries to 'buy' the contestant's case for a lower price than what's inside the case. The player then answers the titular question, choosing:


title: Deal or No Deal

text: This process of removing cases and receiving offers continues, until either the player accepts an offer to 'deal', or all offers have been rejected and the values of all unchosen cases are revealed. Should a player end the game by taking a deal, a pseudo-game is continued from that point to see how much the player could have won by remaining in the game. Depending on subsequent choices and offers, it is determined whether or not the contestant made a "good deal", i.e. won more than if the game were allowed to continue.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: Since the range of possible values is known at the start of each game, how much the banker offers at any given point changes based on what values have been eliminated (i.e. the offer increases if lower values are eliminated and decreases if upper values are eliminated). To promote suspense and lengthen games, the banker's offer is usually less than the expected value dictated by probability theory, particularly early in the game. Generally, the offers early in the game are very low relative to the values still in play, but near the end of the game approach (or even exceed) the average of the remaining values.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: Only a few people have ever won the top prize on any version of the show (see table below). For a contestant to win the top prize the player would have to select the case containing the top prize and reject every offer the banker makes during the game. The chances of a player selecting the top prize are 4–5% depending on how many amounts are in the game.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: The first German version, "Die Chance deines Lebens" hosted by Kai Pflaume did not have the case game as the final round (they played a trivia game instead). However this was the show the original "Deal or No Deal" version (the Dutch "Miljoenenjacht" hosted by Linda de Mol) was actually based on. "Miljoenenjacht" started in November 2000 and introduced the case game in December 2002 after a 15-month hiatus of the show.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: Véronique Landry is the only model to appear on more than one version of the show, on both the French and English Canadian versions. Howie Mandel, Héctor Sandarti, and Linda de Mol each have hosted multiple versions of the show: Mandel, with the American English and Canadian English versions, Sandarti with both the American Spanish and Mexican Spanish versions, and de Mol with both the Netherlands Dutch and German (in 2004) versions of the show. In the UK version "Deal Or No Deal" helped relaunch Noel Edmonds' career.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: All amounts below the prizes are their equivalents in United States dollars at the time of their win.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: At the other end of the spectrum, in the UK edition broadcast on December 7, 2009, a contestant named Corinne opened her box to reveal (and thus win) 1p, having turned down first an offer of £88,000 and then an offer to swap boxes, which would have given her the top £250,000 prize. A similar event occurred on the U.S. version on August 25, 2008, where contestant Koshka Blackburn won $5,000 which was in her case after turning down the banker's offer of $530,000 and then the option to switch cases, which would've made her the first $1,000,000 winner. Also in the U.S. on September 22, 2006, Michelle Falco kept in $750,000 and $1,000,000 in play all the way to the end, she turned down the biggest offer of $880,000 and refused to switch her case, in her case was $750,000. She also would have been the first $1,000,000 winner had she switched cases. And again, in the U.S. on October 22, 2008, contestant Richie Bell won $1 which was in his case after rejecting the final offer of $416,000 and the option to switch cases, which would've made him the second $1,000,000 winner. Richie also won an additional $10,000 after completing the "Banker's Challenge" minigame, thus making his total winnings $10,001. Had he had switched, he would have won $1,010,000. Many other contestants around the world would have won the top prize if they had swapped their box/case.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: The game show has attracted attention from mathematicians, statisticians, and economists as a natural decision-making experiment. In 2008 a team of economists analyzed the decisions of people appearing in Dutch, German and U.S. episodes and found, among other things, that contestants are less risk-averse or even risk-seeking when they saw their expected winnings drop. They went so far as to say that the show, "almost appears to be an economics experiment rather than a TV show." They found that contestants behave similarly in different versions of the show, despite large differences in the amounts at stake; amounts appear to be evaluated in relative terms, for example in proportion to the initial average, and not in terms of their absolute monetary value. The research received a great deal of media attention, appearing on the front page of The Wall Street Journal and being featured on National Public Radio. This work was built upon by de Roos and Sarafidis, who analysed the Australian version of the show and determined that the risk-taking behaviour of a number of contestants would be inconsistent within each game (i.e. their aversion to risk would change), depending on the state of play and relative risk aversion of their confidant on the show.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: Australian "Deal or No Deal" contestants are selected "on the basis of being 'outgoing', but there is no screening of contestants on the basis of their risk preferences". It is thought that other versions may screen contestants for being amicable to risk-taking behaviour.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: Despite its air of originality and huge international success—there are more than 60 versions worldwide—there have been, in fact, numerous antecedents to the current run of shows. The first was the "It's in the Bag," a New Zealand radio game show invented by Selwyn Toogood which began in the 1950s and which ran for decades after it was later adapted for television (1970s–90s). The show popularized the catch-phrases, "By hokey," and "What will it be, customers—the money or the bag?" in New Zealand. Similarly, in the 1950s, the UK TV show "Take Your Pick" offered contestants the choice of taking a money offer or risking opening a box. Later, in the 1980s, "The Bong Game," a radio call-in show created by UK's Capital FM, tested contestants by offering them increasing returns in tandem with increasing risk.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: Another long-running game show, "Let's Make a Deal," involved contestants deciding whether or not to take offers based on what may or may not be behind a curtain/door or inside a box. "Let's Make a Deal" ran in the U.S. for nearly three decades from 1963 to 1991, during which time Monty Hall was the program's "Big Dealer," and was revived in 2009 with Wayne Brady as the Big Dealer. Also in the U.S., in the 1970s and 1980s, was a game show called "Treasure Hunt," hosted by Geoff Edwards and produced by Chuck Barris's company, which featured a similar concept to "Deal or No Deal." The show featured contestants selecting a treasure chest or box with surprises inside in the hope of winning large prizes or a cash jackpot. Both game shows, however, also featured worthless or nearly-worthless joke prizes, which "Let's Make a Deal" called "zonks" and which "Treasure Hunt" called "klunks." "Deal or No Deal" does not feature such joke prizes in the US version but does in many international versions. Finally, from 1997 to 2003, "Win Ben Stein's Money" pitted contestants against an in-house adversary.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: There are several theories concerning the algorithm that "The Bank" uses to determine the appropriate bank offer. This is a secret held by the various publishers around the world, however a number of people have approximated the algorithm with various levels of accuracy. In many variations of the format the Bank does not know the contents of the briefcase, and therefore the Monty Hall Problem does not apply to the probability calculations, but this varies from country to country.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: Statistical studies of the US version of the show were undertaken by Daniel Shifflet in 2011, and showed a linear regression of bank offers against expected value. In summary, Shifflet found that in the syndicated 30-minute version of the show the bank would offer a percentage of the expected value (EV) of the remaining cases, and this percentage increased linearly from approximately 37% of EV at the first offer to approximately 84% of EV at the seventh offer. This version of the program also allowed players to ‘hypothetically’ play out the remainder of the game from the point where they accepted the bank's offer, and Shiffler noted that the hypothetical bank offers were significantly higher than real bank offers at equivalent points in the game.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: The Deal or No Deal television game show, based on the original Dutch Miljoenenjacht (Hunt for Millions), was introduced to the world by Endemol. The popular format, which requires the contestant to choose from 26 boxes or cases to reveal cash values, grew in popularity and eventually made its way into the online gambling industry as a result of the 2009 partnership between Playtech's Virtue Fusion and Endemol Games.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: Online Bingo licensees of Virtue Fusion, previously acquired by Playtech, introduced DOND themed 75-ball and 90-ball rooms in addition to a slot game based on the game show, scratch cards and the launch of a new bingo brand named after the game show, Deal or No Deal Bingo.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: Online gamblers experience the show's concept when securing a Full House win in the themed bingo rooms. The winner or winners enter a round of negotiations with the banker where they must make the ultimate decision, Deal or No Deal. The sense of community, often embraced by bingo players, is called upon as they assist the winner in determining the best option by commenting in the room's chat section. The Community Jackpot is divided among the Full House winner (50%) and all game participants (50%).


title: Deal or No Deal

text: In February 2016, Playtech announced the renewal of its licensing agreement with Endemol UK, which will see the availability of DOND licensed online products continue for an additional three years. Under this contract, Playtech is granted exclusive rights to deliver these themed games to the UK market.


title: Deal or No Deal

text: The range of DOND games are available at Virtue Fusion powered bingo brands such as bet365, Gala Bingo, Ladbrokes, Mecca Bingo and William Hill.


title: Visual programming language

text: In computing, a visual programming language (visual programming system, VPL, or, VPS) is any programming language that lets users create programs by manipulating program elements "graphically" rather than by specifying them "textually". A VPL allows programming with visual expressions, spatial arrangements of text and graphic symbols, used either as elements of syntax or secondary notation. For example, many VPLs (known as "dataflow" or "diagrammatic programming") are based on the idea of "boxes and arrows", where boxes or other screen objects are treated as entities, connected by arrows, lines or arcs which represent relations.


title: Visual programming language

text: VPLs may be further classified, according to the type and extent of visual expression used, into icon-based languages, form-based languages, and diagram languages. Visual programming environments provide graphical or iconic elements which can be manipulated by users in an interactive way according to some specific spatial grammar for program construction.


title: Visual programming language

text: The general goal of VPLs is to make programming more accessible to novices and to support programmers at three different levels


title: Visual programming language

text: Current developments try to integrate the visual programming approach with dataflow programming languages to either have immediate access to the program state, resulting in online debugging, or automatic program generation and documentation. Dataflow languages also allow automatic parallelization, which is likely to become one of the greatest programming challenges of the future.


title: Visual programming language

text: The Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual J# etc. languages of the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE are not visual programming languages: the representation of algorithms etc. is textual even though the IDE embellishes the editing and debugging activities with a rich user interface. A similar consideration applies to most other rapid application development environments which typically support a form designer and sometimes also have graphical tools to illustrate (but not define) control flow and data dependencies.


title: Visual programming language

text: Many modern video games make use of behavior trees, which are in principle a family of simple programming languages designed to model behaviors for non-player characters. The behaviors are modeled as trees, and are often edited in graphical editors.


title: Nuclear reaction

text: In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, a nuclear reaction is a process in which two nuclei, or a nucleus and an external subatomic particle, collide to produce one or more new nuclides. Thus, a nuclear reaction must cause a transformation of at least one nuclide to another. If a nucleus interacts with another nucleus or particle and they then separate without changing the nature of any nuclide, the process is simply referred to as a type of nuclear scattering, rather than a nuclear reaction.


title: Nuclear reaction

text: In principle, a reaction can involve more than two particles colliding, but because the probability of three or more nuclei to meet at the same time at the same place is much less than for two nuclei, such an event is exceptionally rare (see triple alpha process for an example very close to a three-body nuclear reaction). The term "nuclear reaction" may refer either to a change in a nuclide induced by collision with another particle or to a spontaneous change of a nuclide without collision.


title: Nuclear reaction

text: Natural nuclear reactions occur in the interaction between cosmic rays and matter, and nuclear reactions can be employed artificially to obtain nuclear energy, at an adjustable rate, on-demand. Nuclear chain reactions in fissionable materials produce induced nuclear fission. Various nuclear fusion reactions of light elements power the energy production of the Sun and stars.


title: Nuclear reaction

text: In 1919, Ernest Rutherford was able to accomplish transmutation of nitrogen into oxygen at the University of Manchester, using alpha particles directed at nitrogen N + α → O + p.  This was the first observation of an induced nuclear reaction, that is, a reaction in which particles from one decay are used to transform another atomic nucleus. Eventually, in 1932 at Cambridge University, a fully artificial nuclear reaction and nuclear transmutation was achieved by Rutherford's colleagues John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, who used artificially accelerated protons against lithium-7, to split the nucleus into two alpha particles. The feat was popularly known as "splitting the atom", although it was not the modern nuclear fission reaction later (in 1938) discovered in heavy elements by the German scientists Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner, and Fritz Strassmann.


title: Nuclear reaction

text: Nuclear reactions may be shown in a form similar to chemical equations, for which invariant mass must balance for each side of the equation, and in which transformations of particles must follow certain conservation laws, such as conservation of charge and baryon number (total atomic mass number). An example of this notation follows:


title: Nuclear reaction

text: To balance the equation above for mass, charge and mass number, the second nucleus to the right must have atomic number 2 and mass number 4; it is therefore also helium-4. The complete equation therefore reads:


title: Nuclear reaction

text: Instead of using the full equations in the style above, in many situations a compact notation is used to describe nuclear reactions. This style of the form A(b,c)D is equivalent to A + b producing c + D. Common light particles are often abbreviated in this shorthand, typically p for proton, n for neutron, d for deuteron, α representing an alpha particle or helium-4, β for beta particle or electron, γ for gamma photon, etc. The reaction above would be written as Li(d,α)α.


title: Nuclear reaction

text: Kinetic energy may be released during the course of a reaction (exothermic reaction) or kinetic energy may have to be supplied for the reaction to take place (endothermic reaction). This can be calculated by reference to a table of very accurate particle rest masses, as follows: according to the reference tables, the nucleus has a standard atomic weight of 6.015 atomic mass units (abbreviated u), the deuterium has 2.014 u, and the helium-4 nucleus has 4.0026 u. Thus:


title: Nuclear reaction

text: In a nuclear reaction, the total (relativistic) energy is conserved. The "missing" rest mass must therefore reappear as kinetic energy released in the reaction; its source is the nuclear binding energy. Using Einstein's mass-energy equivalence formula "E" = "mc", the amount of energy released can be determined. We first need the energy equivalent of one atomic mass unit:


title: Nuclear reaction

text: This is a large amount of energy for a nuclear reaction; the amount is so high because the binding energy per nucleon of the helium-4 nucleus is unusually high because the He-4 nucleus is "doubly magic". (The He-4 nucleus is unusually stable and tightly bound for the same reason that the helium atom is inert: each pair of protons and neutrons in He-4 occupies a filled 1s nuclear orbital in the same way that the pair of electrons in the helium atom occupy a filled 1s electron orbital). Consequently, alpha particles appear frequently on the right-hand side of nuclear reactions.


title: Nuclear reaction

text: When the product nucleus is metastable, this is indicated by placing an asterisk ("*") next to its atomic number. This energy is eventually released through nuclear decay.


title: Nuclear reaction

text: A small amount of energy may also emerge in the form of X-rays. Generally, the product nucleus has a different atomic number, and thus the configuration of its electron shells is wrong. As the electrons rearrange themselves and drop to lower energy levels, internal transition X-rays (X-rays with precisely defined emission lines) may be emitted.


title: Nuclear reaction

text: In writing down the reaction equation, in a way analogous to a chemical equation, one may, in addition, give the reaction energy on the right side:


title: Nuclear reaction

text: For the particular case discussed above, the reaction energy has already been calculated as Q = 22.2 MeV. Hence:


title: Nuclear reaction

text: The reaction energy (the "Q-value") is positive for exothermal reactions and negative for endothermal reactions, opposite to the similar expression in chemistry. On the one hand, it is the difference between the sums of kinetic energies on the final side and on the initial side. But on the other hand, it is also the difference between the nuclear rest masses on the initial side and on the final side (in this way, we have calculated the Q-value above).


title: Nuclear reaction

text: If the reaction equation is balanced, that does not mean that the reaction really occurs. The rate at which reactions occur depends on the energy and the flux of the incident particles, and the reaction cross section. An example of a large repository of reaction rates is the REACLIB database, as maintained by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics.


title: Nuclear reaction

text: In the initial collision which begins the reaction, the particles must approach closely enough so that the short-range strong force can affect them. As most common nuclear particles are positively charged, this means they must overcome considerable electrostatic repulsion before the reaction can begin. Even if the target nucleus is part of a neutral atom, the other particle must penetrate well beyond the electron cloud and closely approach the nucleus, which is positively charged. Thus, such particles must be first accelerated to high energy, for example by:


title: Nuclear reaction

text: Also, since the force of repulsion is proportional to the product of the two charges, reactions between heavy nuclei are rarer, and require higher initiating energy, than those between a heavy and light nucleus; while reactions between two light nuclei are the most common ones.


title: Nuclear reaction

text: Neutrons, on the other hand, have no electric charge to cause repulsion, and are able to initiate a nuclear reaction at very low energies. In fact, at extremely low particle energies (corresponding, say, to thermal equilibrium at room temperature), the neutron's de Broglie wavelength is greatly increased, possibly greatly increasing its capture cross-section, at energies close to resonances of the nuclei involved. Thus low-energy neutrons "may" be even more reactive than high-energy neutrons.


title: Nuclear reaction

text: While the number of possible nuclear reactions is immense, there are several types that are more common, or otherwise notable. Some examples include:


title: Nuclear reaction

text: An intermediate energy projectile transfers energy or picks up or loses nucleons to the nucleus in a single quick (10 second) event. Energy and momentum transfer are relatively small. These are particularly useful in experimental nuclear physics, because the reaction mechanisms are often simple enough to calculate with sufficient accuracy to probe the structure of the target nucleus.


title: Nuclear reaction

text: Energy and charge are transferred between projectile and target. Some examples of this kind of reactions are:


title: Nuclear reaction

text: Usually at moderately low energy, one or more nucleons are transferred between the projectile and target. These are useful in studying outer shell structure of nuclei. Transfer reactions can occur, from the projectile to the target; stripping reactions, or from the target to the projectile; pick-up reactions.


title: Nuclear reaction

text: Reactions with neutrons are important in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. While the best-known neutron reactions are neutron scattering, neutron capture, and nuclear fission, for some light nuclei (especially odd-odd nuclei) the most probable reaction with a thermal neutron is a transfer reaction:


title: Nuclear reaction

text: Either a low-energy projectile is absorbed or a higher energy particle transfers energy to the nucleus, leaving it with too much energy to be fully bound together. On a time scale of about 10 seconds, particles, usually neutrons, are "boiled" off. That is, it remains together until enough energy happens to be concentrated in one neutron to escape the mutual attraction. The excited quasi-bound nucleus is called a compound nucleus.


title: Meow Wolf

text: Meow Wolf is an American arts and entertainment company that creates large-scale interactive and immersive art installations. Founded in 2008, its flagship attraction, "House of Eternal Return" in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a facility, which includes a concert venue in addition to the main immersive art installation. In 2021 their second installation, Omega Mart, opened in Area15 in Las Vegas. A third location in Denver, Convergence Station, opened its doors to the public on September 17, 2021. Two additional locations, both in Texas, are currently in the planning and construction phases, and are scheduled to open in 2023 and 2024. Their CEO is Jose Tolosa, who took the place of co-CEOs Carl Christensen and Ali Rubinstein in 2022. Meow Wolf is the entertainment industry's sole certified B corporation. In 2022, Meow Wolf announced the formation of the Meow Wolf Foundation, which will focus on giving to the communities of new and existing Meow Wolf Locations. Julie Heinrich was named as the foundation's executive director.


title: Meow Wolf

text: With its start in Santa Fe, Meow Wolf was formed in February 2008 as an artist collective by "a group of young residents hoping to supply Santa Fe with an alternative art and music venue. The museum now consists of 200 different artists and employs more than 150 people, and has received widespread praise for its impact on the New Mexico and national art scene. At the first meeting of the collective, everyone present put two scraps of paper with a word on each one in a hat, and the first two scraps drawn became the name of the collective, Meow Wolf.


title: Meow Wolf

text: On July 9, 2022, Meow Wolf co-founder and senior creative director Matt King died unexpectedly according to a statement released by Meow Wolf. The cause of death was not immediately known.


title: Meow Wolf

text: Meow Wolf started in 2008 as a collection of nonestablishment artists whose first large-scale venture was The Due Return, a more than 70-foot-long, two-story ship exhibited at the Center for Contemporary Arts. Some other notable projects include, "Biome Neuro Norb" (2008), a science fiction-inspired installation, "Auto Wolf" (2009), an installation centered around the destruction and reuse of a donated car, "The Moon is to Live On" (2010), a multimedia theatrical play, "Geodecadent I" and "Geodecadent II" (2010), a series of installations based on geodesic domes, and "The Due Return" (2011), an installation consisting of a 70-foot long ship with two levels, filled with rooms and objects suggesting details of implied fictional inhabitants' lives.


title: Meow Wolf

text: In pursuit of teaching collaborative arts practices Meow Wolf formed CHIMERA in 2011. In 2012 CHIMERA worked with approximately one thousand Santa Fe students to create "Omega Mart", a collaborative art installation in the form of a fictitious grocery store stocked with hand-made satirical goods. "Omega Mart" was deliberately placed away from Santa Fe's arts district to attract a more diverse audience. The Omega Mart concept was revived at Area15 in Las Vegas in 2021. In 2013, CHIMERA began working with the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History's classroom mentorship program for gifted students to create an installation named "Project Dreamscape".


title: Meow Wolf

text: Meow Wolf has built notable shows outside of Santa Fe. "Glitteropolis" (2011), at the New Mexico State University Art Gallery, used 50 pounds of glitter for the installation. "Nucleotide" (2013) was a drippy pastel cave-like installation built by Meow Wolf artists in Chicago at the Thomas Robertello Gallery. The majority of "Nucleotide" was conceived and built in Chicago over a three-month period by 18 members of the collective.


title: Meow Wolf

text: In 2016 Meow Wolf opened their first permanent installation, "House of Eternal Return", built by a collective of 135 artists in Santa Fe. Meow Wolf became a Certified B Corporation in 2017.


title: Meow Wolf

text: In January 2018, Meow Wolf announced that it would be opening two new art complexes in Las Vegas and Denver. On November 29, 2018, the documentary "Meow Wolf: Origin Story" was released in movie theaters around the United States in a one-time only showing. In 2019, plans for a Phoenix attraction were announced, featuring a exhibit with a 400-room hotel. Meow Wolf also announced the same year a permanent exhibition in Washington DC. The exhibition, a partnership with the Cafritz Foundation, was planned to open in 2022 and would have been a three-level, 75,000-square-foot structure located in the Fort Totten community."The New York Times Magazine" featured Meow Wolf in an article titled "Can an Art Collective Become the Disney of the Experience Economy?", describing the challenges faced by the group's founders in shifting from work as underground artists to running a multimillion-dollar corporation. In early 2021, the firm announced that they would abandon their plans for a Meow Wolf themed hotel in Phoenix, although the firm still planned to create an exhibition in the city. The permanent exhibition of Washington, DC, in Fort Totten, was also canceled later in the year. In 2021, the permanent exhibition of Las Vegas, a redo of their concept Omega Mart, opened in January, while the Denver art complex, called Convergence Station, opened in September of the same year.


title: Meow Wolf

text: With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Meow Wolf's development plans were delayed in all locations, including layoffs of more than half its staff in Denver. A preliminary collective bargaining group was formed in late 2020 in response to pandemic-related economic challenges and seeking more worker input.


title: Meow Wolf

text: Due to the pandemic, the museum temporarily closed for a year from March 2020 to March 2021. They reopened at 25% capacity, which was only 625 people a day, for four days a week. The company also temporarily laid off some 200 employees and placed another 56 place on furlough. This spearheaded an ongoing unionization effort formed by the Meow Wolf Workers Collective. In 2022, they ratified their contract with Meow Wolf calling for $1 million to go towards wage increases, where each artist gets paid no less that $60,000 annually, at exhibition workers at least $18 an hour.


title: Meow Wolf

text: In January 2015, author George R. R. Martin pledged $2.7 million to renovate and lease a vacant bowling alley to create a permanent facility for Meow Wolf. This was supplemented by additional funding, including $50,000 from the city of Santa Fe and $100,000 from a crowd-funding campaign. The installation, called "House of Eternal Return" opened March 18, 2016. It received a 2017 Thea Award from the Themed Entertainment Association and has been cited as the tenth best music venue in the United States. Multiple musical acts have filmed music videos at "House of Eternal Return" including The Revivalists and T-Pain.


title: Meow Wolf

text: "House of Eternal Return" has a storyline based on the fictional Selig family, who disappeared after experimenting with interdimensional travel by tapping into a mysterious force known as "The Anomaly" in an effort to bring back deceased family members. This caused the house to fracture open paths to alternate dimensions. A secret government organization called the Charter was able to contain the Anomaly's effects and passes off the containment warehouse as an art installation.


title: Meow Wolf

text: On August 22, 2018, Meow Wolf's Kaleidoscape, an "other-worldly" dark ride based around the concept of entering a piece of contemporary art, was announced for Elitch Gardens Theme Park in Denver, Colorado, replacing Ghost Blasters. The exhibit debuted during Elitch Garden's 2019 summer season; the "Denver Post" described Kaleidoscape as "a hallucinogenic gallery of neon art." The attraction was intended as a prequel to their Denver exhibit, Convergence Station, with the ride experience being focused around the Quantum Department of Transportation harnessing the power of a Cosmic Egg to open a path to a new universe.


title: Meow Wolf

text: In January 2018, Meow Wolf announced that it would open its second interactive art installation in Las Vegas, Nevada as the anchor attraction at a new retail, art and entertainment complex called AREA15. Opened in 2021, "Omega Mart" is a multisensory grocery store that blends narrative storytelling, technical wizardry, and commerce. "Omega Mart" aims to guide guests into fantastical areas with themes examining American consumerism and corporate responsibility. The exhibit features more than 325 writers, painters, sculptors, actors, lighting designers, musicians and more.


title: Meow Wolf

text: The "Omega Mart" concept was reused from an earlier temporary installation in Santa Fe. The exhibit follows the hypothetical corporation that owns Omega Mart, Dramcorp, in an alternate dimension. In this dimension, they harness a power titled "The Source" to continue to sell their products.


title: Meow Wolf

text: The exhibition celebrated its one year anniversary in the February of 2022 and welcomed over 1 million visitors.


title: Meow Wolf

text: In January 2018, Meow Wolf announced plans for a permanent installation in downtown Denver, Colorado, located at I-25 and Colfax Ave. It rises 30 feet over three elevated viaducts. This venue opened to the public on September 17, 2021. The building is Meow Wolf's largest installation, employing more than 100 local artists (including indigenous artists) specializing in a wide range of media, including architecture, sculpture, painting, photography, video production, cross-reality (AR/VR/MR), music, audio engineering, narrative writing, costuming, and performance. Meow Wolf Denver houses several exhibits, including a large-scale physical fabrication of "The Cathedral" that the company digitized for "The Infinite Playa", a recognized universe in the "Burning Man’s" multiverse. A rotating exhibit of local artists is on display in "Convergence Station’s Galleri Gallery"; the first to be featured is Denver’s Lumonics collective, with works from light art pioneers Mel and Dorothy Tanner.


title: Meow Wolf

text: Convergence Station also features tributes to Denver's "Gang of 19" (who would later become the organization ADAPT) who played a central role in making mass transit accessible to disabled people.


title: Meow Wolf

text: Convergence Station is presented as an interdimensional transport hub of the Quantum Department of Transportation linking Earth to the Convergence of Worlds, named for a cosmic Convergence event that resulted in fragments of four planets fusing together, consisting of an ecumenopolis's C Street, the crystal mines of the Ossuary, the frozen world of Eemia, and a cosmic superorganism named Numina.


title: Meow Wolf

text: One of Meow Wolf's music festivals, Vortex, was held in Taos, New Mexico in 2018 and 2019, then paused for two years due to COVID. In 2022, Meow Wolf announced that the festival would move to Denver. It took place on August 5–7, 2022.


title: Meow Wolf

text: In May 2022, Meow Wolf announced two new permanent exhibitions coming to Texas, in Grapevine (outside Dallas) and Houston. The Grapevine installation will be settled in Grapevine Mills shopping center, in a former big box store, and is scheduled to open in 2023. The Houston exhibition will be installed in the Fifth Ward, a growing arts and culture district of Houston, and is scheduled to open in 2024. According to the executive creative director, it is the first time that two installations are designed in the same state at the same time, and the two exhibitions will be "deeply rooted in artist collaboration and connected by concealed Easter eggs". The choice of Texas has raised criticism online regarding the controversies over abortion rights and gender affirmative care rights. Meow Wolf replied to the backlash in an instagram post, stating that they "stood with marginalized people and that include LGBTQIA communities and women" and that their presence in Texas was explicitly to provide that support.


title: St. Germain (Theosophy)

text: Count Saint Germain (also sometimes referred to as Master Rákóczi or Master R) is a legendary spiritual master of the ancient wisdom in various Theosophical and post-Theosophical teachings, said to be responsible for the New Age culture of the Age of Aquarius and identified with the Count Saint Germain ("fl." 1710–1784), who has been variously described as a courtier, adventurer, inventor, alchemist, pianist, violinist, and amateur composer.


title: St. Germain (Theosophy)

text: Some write that his name St. Germain was invented by him as a French version of the Latin "Sanctus Germanus", meaning "Holy Brother". In the Ascended Master Teachings (but not in traditional Theosophy), the "Master R", or the "Master Rákóczi", is a separate and distinct being from St. Germain.


title: St. Germain (Theosophy)

text: There are several "authoritative" biographers on St. Germain who usually do not agree with one another. Probably the two best-known biographies are Isabel Cooper-Oakley's "The Count of St. Germain" (1912), and Jean Overton-Fuller's "The Comte de Saint-Germain: Last Scion of the House of Rakoczy" (1988). The former is a compilation of letters, diaries, and private records written about the Count by members of the French aristocracy who knew him in the 18th century.


title: St. Germain (Theosophy)

text: Raymond Bernard's book "The Great Secret – St. Germain" is biographical and covers many aspects of the Count's life, including his conflation with Sir Francis Bacon, and the author of the Shakespearean opus. "The Great Secret, Count St. Germain" purports that St. Germain was actually Francis Bacon by birth, and later authored the complete Plays attributed to Shakespeare. Bernard also contends, as does the Saint Germain Foundation in Schaumburg, Illinois, that Francis Bacon was the child of Queen Elizabeth and Lord Dudley but that it was kept quiet. According to this theory, Francis was raised by the Bacon family, yet knew of his true birth, and left numerous hints throughout the Shakespearean canon of this, in the form of explicit clues in the text of the plays, in pictures, and in the alleged use of Bacon's cipher in the works. Manly Palmer Hall, in his "The Secret Teachings of All Ages", describes some of the same attributes as Bernard, including the attribution of the writings of Shakespeare to a great adept like Francis Bacon, who could be amalgamated with the Count of St. Germain.


title: St. Germain (Theosophy)

text: There have also been numerous French and German biographies, among them "" by Peter Krassa, "Le Comte de Saint-Germain" by Marie-Raymonde Delorme, and "L'énigmatique Comte De Saint-Germain" by Pierre Ceria and François Ethuin.


title: St. Germain (Theosophy)

text: Saint Germain is the central figure in a series of books published by the Saint Germain Press (the publishing arm of the Saint Germain Foundation). The first two volumes, "Unveiled Mysteries" and "The Magic Presence", written by Guy Ballard as "Godfré Ray King", describe Saint Germain as an Ascended Master, like Jesus, who is assisting humanity. In these first two books, Ballard discusses his personal experiences with Saint Germain and reveals many teachings that are in harmony with Theosophy. The third volume, "The 'I AM' Discourses", contains material that is foundational to the sacred scriptures of the "I AM" Religious Activity, founded in 1930 – the first of the Ascended Master Teachings religions.


title: St. Germain (Theosophy)

text: There are 20 volumes in the Saint Germain Series of Books, which are also referred to as the "Green Books". Another significant work, the "Comte de Gabalis", is said to be from the hand of Sir Francis Bacon before he Ascended and returned as Sanctus Germanus or Saint Germain. First printed in 1670, the book includes a picture of the Polish Rider, Rembrandt's famous painting at the Frick Collection in New York City, which is said to be of Sir Francis Bacon, AKA the Comte de Gabalis, or the Count of the Cabala. Lotus Ray King (Edna Ballard's pen name), wife of Guy Ballard, talked about this book having been authored by the Ascended Master Saint Germain in the Round Table Talks of the "I AM" Religious Activity.


title: St. Germain (Theosophy)

text: Several Theosophists and practitioners of alternate esoteric traditions have claimed to have met Saint Germain in the late 19th or early 20th centuries:


title: St. Germain (Theosophy)

text: Many groups honor Saint Germain as a supernatural being called a Master of the Ancient Wisdom or an Ascended master. In the Ascended Master Teachings he is referred to simply as Saint Germain, or as the Ascended Master Saint Germain. As an Ascended Master, Saint Germain is believed to have many magical powers such as the ability to teleport, levitate, walk through walls, and to inspire people by telepathy, among others.


title: St. Germain (Theosophy)

text: The Theosophical Society after Blavatsky's death considered him to be a Mahatma, Master of the Ancient Wisdom, or Adept. Helena Blavatsky said that he was one of her Masters of Wisdom and hinted that he had given her secret documents. Some esoteric groups credit him with inspiring the Founding Fathers to draft the United States Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, as well as providing the design of the Great Seal of the United States.


title: St. Germain (Theosophy)

text: In New Age beliefs, Saint Germain is associated with the color violet, the jewel amethyst, and the "Maltese cross" rendered in violet (usually the "iron cross style cross patee" version). He is also regarded as the "Chohan of the Seventh Ray". According to The Theosophical Society, the Seven Rays are seven metaphysical principles that govern both individual souls and the unfolding of each 2,158-year-long Astrological Age. Since according to Theosophy, the next Astrological Age, the Age of Aquarius, will be governed by the Seventh (Violet) Ray (the Ray of Ceremonial Order), Saint Germain is sometimes called "The Hierarch of the Age of Aquarius". According to the Ascended Master Teachings, Saint Germain is "The God of Freedom for this system of worlds". According to the Ascended Master Teachings, the preliminary lead-up to the beginning of the Age of Aquarius began on 1 July 1956, when Ascended Master Saint Germain became the Hierarch of the Age of Aquarius, replacing the former Astrological Age Hierarch, the Ascended Master Jesus, who had been for almost 2,000 years the "Hierarch of the Age of Pisces".


title: St. Germain (Theosophy)

text: In the works authored by Alice A. Bailey, Saint Germain is called "Master Rakóczi" or the "Master R." In the Ascended Master Teachings, the Master Rakoczi, otherwise known as the Great Divine Director, is regarded as Saint Germain's teacher in the Great White Brotherhood of Ascended Masters. Alice A. Bailey's book "The Externalisation of the Hierarchy" (a compilation of earlier revelations published posthumously in 1957) gives the most information about his reputed role as a Spiritual Master. Saint Germain's spiritual title is said to be "Lord of Civilization," and his task is the establishment of the new civilization of the Age of Aquarius. He is said to telepathically influence people who are seen by him as being instrumental in bringing about the new civilization of the Age of Aquarius. Alice A. Bailey stated that "sometime after AD 2025," the Jesus, the Master Rakóczi (Saint Germain), Kuthumi, and others in the Spiritual Hierarchy would "externalise", i.e., descend from the spiritual worlds, and interact in visible tangible bodies on the Earth in ashrams, surrounded by their disciples.


title: St. Germain (Theosophy)

text: Alice A. Bailey said that St. Germain is the "manager of the executive council of the Christ".(Theosophists regard "the Master Jesus" and "Christ" as two separate and distinct beings. They believe in the Gnostic Christology espoused by Cerinthus ("fl." c. 100 AD), according to which "Christ" is a being who was incarnated in Jesus only during the three years of the ministry of Jesus.) According to certain Theosophists, "Christ" is identified as being a highly developed spiritual entity whose actual name is Maitreya. This Maitreya is the same being known in Buddhism as the Bodhisattva Maitreya, who is in training to become the next Buddha on Earth. According to Alice A. Bailey, the "executive council of the Christ" is a specific subgroup of the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom, charged with preparing the way for the Second Coming of Christ and the consequent inauguration of the Age of Aquarius.


title: St. Germain (Theosophy)

text: According to The Theosophical Society (not to be confused with the United Lodge of Theosophists) and the Ascended Master Teachings, Saint Germain was incarnated as the following. (Note: Not all Theosophical and Ascended Master Teaching groups accept all of these incarnations as valid. St. Germain's incarnations as St. Alban, Proclus, Roger Bacon and Sir Francis Bacon are universally accepted.)


title: St. Germain (Theosophy)

text: According to the Ascended Master Teachings, Francis Bacon made it appear that he died on Easter Sunday, 9 April 1626, and even attended his own "funeral" in disguise. It is believed by the adherents of the Ascended Master Teachings that he then traveled secretly to Transylvania (then part of Hungary, now part of Romania) to the Rakoczy Mansion of the noble family of Hungary. Finally on 1 May 1684 he is believed to have attained (by his knowledge of alchemy) his physical Ascension (attaining immortality and eternal youth – the sixth level of Initiation), at which time Francis Bacon adopted the name "Saint Germain".