title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: "Oceanic" had been built under a deal with the Admiralty, which made an annual grant toward the maintenance of any ship on the condition that it could be called upon for naval work, during times of war. Such ships were built to particular naval specifications, in the case of "Oceanic" so that the 4.7 inch guns she was to be given could be quickly mounted. "The greatest liner of her day" was commissioned into Naval service on 8 August 1914 as an armed merchant cruiser.


title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: On 25 August 1914, the newly designated HMS "Oceanic" departed Southampton on naval service that was to last just two weeks. "Oceanic" was to patrol the waters from the North Scottish mainland to the Faroes, in particular the area around Shetland. She was empowered to stop shipping at her Captain's discretion, and to check cargoes and personnel for any potential German connections. For these duties, she carried Royal Marines and Captain William Slayter RN was appointed in command. Her former Merchant Master, Captain Henry Smith, with two years' service, remained in the ship with the rank of Commander RNR. Many of the original crew also continued to serve on "Oceanic". In effect therefore "Oceanic" had two captains, and this would lead to confusion about the chain of command.


title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: "Oceanic" headed for Scapa Flow in Orkney, Britain's main naval anchorage, with easy access to the North Sea and the Atlantic. From here she proceeded north to Shetland travelling continuously on a standard zigzag course as a precaution against being targeted by U-boats. This difficult manoeuvring required extremely accurate navigation, especially with such a large vessel. In the end it appears to have been poor navigation, rather than enemy action that was to doom "Oceanic".


title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: An inaccurate fix of their position was made on the night of 7 September by navigator Lieutenant David Blair RNR (previously assigned to, then reassigned from, the ). While everyone on the bridge thought they were well to the southwest of the Isle of Foula, they were in fact an estimated thirteen to fourteen miles farther north than they believed and to the east of the island instead of the west. This put them directly on course for a reef, the notorious Shaalds of Foula (also known as the Hoevdi Grund and so marked on charts), which poses a major threat to shipping, coming within a few feet of the surface, and in calm weather giving no warning sign whatsoever.


title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: Captain Slayter had retired after his night watch, unaware of the situation, with orders to steer to Foula. Commander Smith took over the morning watch. Having previously disagreed with his naval superior about navigating a ship as large as "Oceanic" in the dangerous waters around the Scottish islands, he instructed the navigator to plot a course west, and out to sea, away (so he thought) from hidden dangers like outlying reefs. Unbeknown to Smith, this put the ship onto a course between the island and the reef just south of it. Slayter must have felt the course change, as he reappeared on the bridge to countermand Smith's order and made what turned out to be a hasty and ill-informed judgement, as the ship again changed course directly towards the reef.


title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: The ship ran aground on the Shaalds on the morning of 8 September, approximately 2.5 nautical miles (5 km) east of Foula's southern tip. She was wrecked in a flat calm and clear weather. She was the first Allied passenger ship to be lost in the war. She lies at , grid reference .


title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: The Aberdeen trawler "Glenogil" was the first vessel on the scene, and although she attempted to pull off the massive ship, it proved an impossible task, and with the hull already ruptured, "Oceanic" would not have stayed afloat long in open waters. Other ships in the area were called in to assist in the rescue operation that was to follow. All of the ship's crew transferred to the trawler via the ship's lifeboats and were then ferried to the waiting armed merchant cruiser HMS "Alsatian", and HMS "Forward". Charles Lightoller, the ship's First Officer (and also the most senior officer to survive the sinking of the "Titanic"), was the last man off, taking the navigation room's clock as a souvenir.


title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: The 573-ton Admiralty salvage vessel "Lyons" was dispatched to the scene hurriedly, and in the words of the Laird of Foula, Professor Ian Holbourn, writing about the disaster in his book "The Isle of Foula":


title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: The launch of the Lyons, a salvage boat which hurried to the scene, was capable of a speed of ten knots, yet was unable to make any headway against the tide although she tried for fifteen minutes. Even then it was not the top of the tide, and the officer in charge reckoned the full tide would be 12 knots, he confessed he would not have believed it had he been told.


title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: Commander Smith is said to have come ashore at the remote island's tiny pier, and on looking back out to sea toward his stranded ship two miles away, commented that the ship would stay on the reef as a monument and nothing would move it. One of the Foula men, wise to the full power and fury of a Shetland storm, is said to have muttered with a cynicism not unknown in those parts "I‘ll give her two weeks".


title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: Remarkably, following a heavy gale that had persisted throughout the night of 29 September, just two weeks after the incident the islanders discovered the following day that the ship had been entirely swallowed up by the sea, where she remains to this day scattered as she fell apart under the pressure of the seas on the Shaalds.


title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: The disaster was hushed up at the time, since it was felt that it would have been embarrassing to make public how a world-famous liner had run aground in friendly waters in good weather within a fortnight of beginning its service as a naval vessel. The revelation of such gross incompetence at this early stage of the war would have done nothing for national morale.


title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: Lt. Blair was court-martialled at Devonport in November 1914, when he was found guilty of "stranding or suffering to be stranded" HMS "Oceanic", and was ordered to be reprimanded. He offered in his defence that he was exonerated by the evidence given by Captain Slayter and Commander Smith that he was under their supervision, and that the stranding was due to abnormal currents.


title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: A similar charge was made against Commander Smith at a second court-martial; the evidence for the prosecution was the same as in the previous case, but witnesses were cross-examined with a view to showing that the position of the accused on "Oceanic" was not clearly defined by the naval authorities, and that he was understood to be acting solely in an advisory capacity. He was acquitted the following day, as he was found not to have been in command on 8 September.


title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: In 1924, a salvage company which had been engaged on the scuttled German warships at Scapa Flow attempted to salvage what remained of the wreck; however they were unsuccessful. In 1973 another attempt was made to salvage parts of the wreck and the propellers for scrap.


title: RMS Oceanic (1899)

text: In 2016, "Oceanic's" Lifeboat 6 was rediscovered and subsequently restored. It is in the collection of the Shetland Museum in Lerwick. The lifeboat is one of the last two White Star Line lifeboats still intact in the world, the other being Lifeboat 2 from .


title: Astrological aspect

text: In astrology, an aspect is an angle that planets make to each other in the Horoscope; as well as to the Ascendant, Midheaven, Descendant, Lower Midheaven, and other points of astrological interest. As viewed from Earth, aspects are measured by the angular distance in degrees and minutes of ecliptic longitude between two points. According to astrological tradition, they indicate the timing of transitions and developmental changes in the lives of people and affairs relative to the Earth.


title: Astrological aspect

text: For example, if an astrologer creates a Horoscope that shows the apparent positions of the celestial bodies at the time of a person's birth (Natal Chart), and the angular distance between Mars and Venus is 92° ecliptic longitude, the chart is said to have the aspect "Venus Square Mars" with an orb of 2° (i.e., it is 2° away from being an exact Square; a Square being a 90° aspect). The more exact an aspect, the stronger or more dominant it is said to be in shaping character or manifesting change.


title: Astrological aspect

text: With Natal charts, other signs may take precedence over a Sun sign. For example, an Aries may have several other planets in Cancer or Pisces. Therefore, the two latter signs may be more influential.


title: Astrological aspect

text: In medieval astrology, certain aspects and planets were considered to be either favorable (benefic) or unfavorable (malefic). Modern usage places less emphasis on these fatalistic distinctions. The more modern approach to astrological aspects is exemplified by research on astrological harmonics. In 1619, Johannes Kepler advocates this in his book "Harmonice Mundi". Thereafter, John Addey was a major proponent. However, even in modern times, aspects are considered to be either easy (60° "Sextile" or


title: Astrological aspect

text: 120° "Trine") or hard (90° "Square" or 180° "Opposition"). Depending on the involved planets, a "Conjunction" (0°, which is a discounting orb) may be in either category.


title: Astrological aspect

text: Hard aspects may be negative, because they enhance a challenge where an adjustment must be made to reach balance. Typically, manifestation may occur with a Conjunction, Square or Opposition.


title: Astrological aspect

text: Planets may be considered. Mars and Uranus tend to ignite while Saturn and Neptune inhibit. Whether a planet is direct or retrograde is of great significance. An eclipse of the Sun or Moon is even more significant. The South Node of the Moon denotes innate wisdom from past experience while the North Node denotes karma and evolution.


title: Astrological aspect

text: Astrological Signs may be considered. For example, the fire signs of Aries, Leo and Sagittarius are more compatible with the air signs of Gemini, Libra and Aquarius. The Earth signs of Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn are more compatible with the water signs of Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. The mutable signs of Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces may be flexible. The cardinal signs of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn may change their mind. The fixed signs of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius may be difficult.


title: Astrological aspect

text: Since they were defined and used by Ptolemy in the 1st Century AD, the traditional major aspects are sometimes called Ptolemaic Aspects. These aspects are the Conjunction (0°), Sextile (60°), Square (90°), Trine (120°), and Opposition (180°). Major aspects are those that are divisible by 10 and evenly divided in relation to 360° (with the exception of the Semisextile).


title: Astrological aspect

text: When calculating or using aspects, it is important to note that different astrologers and separate astrological systems/traditions utilize differing orbs, which is the degree of separation between exactitude. Orbs may also be subject to variation, depending on the need for detail and personal preferences. Although, when compared to other aspects, almost all astrologers use a larger orb for a Conjunction.


title: Astrological aspect

text: Collective astrological data along with Johannes Kepler described 13 aspects in his book "Harmonice Mundi". Astrological data grouped together in five degrees of influentially picked from symbol ratios encountered in geometry and music: 0/2, 1/2, 1/5, 2/6, 1/3, 1/12 along with 1/5, 2/5, 15/5, 10, 10/3, 8, and 8/3. The general names for whole divisors are (Latin) "n"-ile for whole fractions 1/"n", and "m"-"n"-ile for fraction "m"/"n". A Semi-"n"-tile is a "2n"-tile, 1/(2"n"), and Sesqui-n-tile is a Tri-2"n"-tile, 3/(2"n").


title: Astrological aspect

text: All aspects can be seen as small whole number harmonics, (1/"n" of 360°). Multiples of "m"/"n" create new aspects where there are no common factors between "n" and "m", gcd(n,m)=1.


title: Astrological aspect

text: A Conjunction (abbreviated as "Con") is an angle of approximately (~) 0–10°. Typically, an orb of ~10° is considered to be a Conjunction. If neither the Sun or Moon are involved, some astrologers consider a maximum orb of 8°.


title: Astrological aspect

text: Conjunctions are a major aspect in a horoscope chart. They are said to be the most powerful aspects, because they mutually intensify the effects of the involved planets.


title: Astrological aspect

text: Depending on the involved planets, a Conjunction may be beneficial or detrimental. Highly favourable Conjunctions may involve the Sun, Venus, and/or Jupiter as well as any of the three possible combinations. Highly "un"favourable Conjunctions may involve the Moon, Mars, and/or Saturn as well as any of the three possible combinations.


title: Astrological aspect

text: Exceptionally, on November 9–10 of 1970, the Sun, Venus, and Jupiter were in a 3-way beneficial Conjunction. In that same year, on March 10, the Moon, Mars, and Saturn were in 3-way detrimental Conjunction.


title: Astrological aspect

text: If either of two planets involved in a Conjunction is also under tension from one or more hard aspects with one or more other planets, then the added presence of a Conjunction will further intensify the tension of that hard aspect.


title: Astrological aspect

text: If a planet is in "very" close Conjunction to the Sun (within 17 minutes of arc or only about 0.28°),


title: Astrological aspect

text: the Conjunction is of great strength. The planet is said to be "Cazimi", which is an ancient astrological term meaning "in the heart" (of the Sun). For example, "Venus "Cazimi"" means Venus is in Conjunction with the Sun with an orb of less than ~0.28°.


title: Astrological aspect

text: If a planet is moderately close to the Sun, the specific orb limit may depend on the particular planet. It is said to be "Combust".


title: Astrological aspect

text: In the past, Great Conjunctions between the two slowest classical planets, Jupiter and Saturn, have attracted considerable attention as celestial omens. This interest can be traced back to Arabic translations found in Europe; most notably Albumasar's book on Conjunctions. During the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, these omens were a topic broached by most astronomers. This included scholastic thinkers, such as Roger Bacon and Pierre D'Ailly. Omens are also mentioned in popular literary writings by authors, such as Dante and Shakespeare. This interest continued up to the times of Tycho Brahe and Kepler.


title: Astrological aspect

text: Every 20 years, successive Great Conjunctions move retrograde ~120°. Sequential Conjunctions appear as triangular patterns. They repeat after every third Conjunction; they return after some 60 years to the vicinity of the first. These returns are observed to be shifted by ~8° relative to the fixed stars; no more than four of them occur in the same zodiac sign. Typically, Conjunctions occur in one of the following "Triplicities" or "Trigons" of Zodiac signs:


title: Astrological aspect

text: After about 220 years the pattern shifts to the next Trigon; in ~900 years, the pattern returns to the first Trigon.


title: Astrological aspect

text: To each triangular pattern, astrologers have ascribed one from a series of four elements. Particular importance has been accorded to the occurrence of a Great Conjunction in a new Trigon, which is bound to happen after ~240 years at most. Greater importance is attributed to the beginning of a new cycle, which may occur after all four Trigons have been visited, which occurs in ~900 years.


title: Astrological aspect

text: Typically, medieval astrologers used 960 years as the length of the full cycle, because, in some cases, it took 240 years to pass from one trigon to the next. If a cycle is defined by when the Conjunctions return to the same right ascension rather than to the same constellation, the cycle is only ~800 years, because of axial precession. Use of the Alphonsine tables apparently led to the use of precessing signs; Kepler gave a value of 794 years, which created 40 Conjunctions.


title: Astrological aspect

text: Up to the end of the 16th century, despite the inaccuracies and some disagreement about the beginning of the cycle, the belief in the significance of such events generated a steady stream of publications. In 1583, the last Great Conjunction occurred in the watery trigon. It was widely supposed to herald apocalyptic changes. In 1586, a Papal Bull was issued against divinations. By 1603, public interest rapidly died, because nothing really significant had happened with the advent of a new Trigon.


title: Astrological aspect

text: An Opposition (abbreviated as "Opp") is an angle of 180°, which is 1/2 of the 360° ecliptic. Depending on the involved planets, an orb of 5-10° is allowed.


title: Astrological aspect

text: An Opposition is said to be the second most powerful aspect. It resembles a conjunction, but an Opposition is fundamentally relational and it is not unifying like a conjunction. Some astrologers say it is prone to exaggeration, because it has a dichotomous quality and an externalizing effect.


title: Astrological aspect

text: All important axes in astrology are essentially Oppositions. Therefore, at its most basic level, an Opposition may often signify a relationship that can be oppositional or complementary.


title: Astrological aspect

text: A Sextile (abbreviated as "SXt or Sex") is an angle of 60°, which is 1/6 of the 360° ecliptic or 1/2 a trine (120°). Depending on the involved planets, an orb of 3-4° is allowed. The symbol is the radii of a hexagon.


title: Astrological aspect

text: Traditionally, a Sextile is said to be similar in influence to a Trine, but less intense. It indicates compatibility and harmony, which eases communication between the two involved elements. It also provides opportunity. To gain its benefit, make an expended effort. See information below on the Semisextile.


title: Astrological aspect

text: A Square or "Quartile" (abbreviated as "SQr or Squ") is an angle of 90°, which is 1/4 of the 360° ecliptic or 1/2 an opposition (180°). Depending on the involved planets, an orb of 5-10° is allowed.


title: Astrological aspect

text: Typically, with a Square, Trine or Sextile, the outer or superior planet has an effect on the inner or inferior planet. A Square creates a strong and usable tension. It may integrate between two different areas of your life or it may offer a turning point where an important decision needs to be made that involves an opportunity at a cost. Typically, if it involves Houses in different quadrants, it is the smallest major aspect.


title: Astrological aspect

text: A Trine (abbreviated as "Tri") is an angle of 120°, which is 1/3 of the 360° ecliptic. Depending on the involved planets, an orb of 5-10° is allowed.


title: Astrological aspect

text: Traditionally, a Trine is extremely beneficial. It indicates harmony, ease and what is natural. A Trine may involve innate talent or ability. In transit, an event may emerge from a current or past situation in a natural way.


title: Astrological aspect

text: A Semisextile or "Duodecile" is an angle of 30°, which is 1/12 of the 360° ecliptic. An orb of ±1.2° is allowed. The symbol is 1/2 a Sextile (60°), which is the top radii of a hexagon; the internal angles are 60°.


title: Astrological aspect

text: Of the minor aspects, it may be the most often used, because it can be easily seen. It indicates a mental interaction between planets; it is more sensually than externally experienced.


title: Astrological aspect

text: With a Semisextile, energy gradually builds and potentiates. Consider other planets, Signs and Houses. A major aspect transit may be involved. To gain its benefit, make an effort.


title: Astrological aspect

text: A Quincunx or "Quinduodecile" or "Inconjunct" is an angle of 150°, which is 5/12 of the 360° ecliptic. Depending on the involved planets, an orb of ±3.5° is allowed. The symbol is the bottom radii of a hexagon, which is 1/2 a Sextile (60°) less than a semicircle; the internal angles are 60°.


title: Astrological aspect

text: An interpretation of a Quincunx may mostly rely on the involved planets, Signs and Houses. Different areas of your life, that are not usually in communication, may come together. Planets may be far apart in different house quadrants. With a shift in perspective, clarity may reveal what was not previously seen. If a third planet, in a major aspect, triangulates a Qunicunx, the effect may be very obvious.


title: Astrological aspect

text: For Quincunx, keywords are karmic, mystery, unpredictable, imbalance, surreal, resourceful, creative, and humor.


title: Astrological aspect

text: A Quincunx does not offer equal divisions of a circle. It represents the 150° turn angles of a Dodecagram, {12/5}.


title: Astrological aspect

text: A Septile is a mystical aspect that indicates a hidden flow of energy between the involved planets. Often, it involves spiritual or energetic sensitivity as well as an inner awareness of a more subtle, hidden level of reality.


title: Astrological aspect

text: An Octile or "Semisquare" is an angle of 45°, which is 1/8 of the 360° ecliptic. An orb of ±2° is allowed. The symbol is drawn with a 60-90° angle; the original angle is 90°, which is 1/2 a Square.


title: Astrological aspect

text: An Octile is an important minor aspect. It indicates stimulating or challenging energy. It is similar to a Square, but less intense and more internal.


title: Astrological aspect

text: A Semisquare is considered to be a minor hard aspect, because it causes friction and prompts action to reduce that friction. For example, a Semisquare may occur if the Sun is 10° Aquarius and Venus is 25° Pisces. This may indicate unhappiness in love. Incompatibility may prompt action to reduce friction.


title: Astrological aspect

text: A Sesquiquadrate or "Trioctile" is an angle of 135°, which is 3/8 of the 360° ecliptic. An orb of ±1.5° is allowed.


title: Astrological aspect

text: A Sesquiquadrate is a harmonic of a Semisquare, which involves challenge. It is not an exact division of the 360° ecliptic. Therefore, when a Semisquare is present, it does not function as a standalone aspect, but as part of a series.


title: Astrological aspect

text: An Undecile or "Elftile" is an angle of 32.73°, which is 1/11 of the 360° ecliptic. An orb of ±1° is allowed.


title: Astrological aspect

text: A Semioctile or "Sexdecile" is an angle of 22.5°, which is 1/16 of the 360° ecliptic. An orb of ±0.75° is allowed.


title: Astrological aspect

text: A Semioctile is part of the square family. It is considered to be a more minor version of the Semisquare, which triggers challenge. Its harmonic aspects are 45°, 67.5°, 90°, 112.5°, 135°, 157.5° and 180°. It was discovered by Uranian astrologers.


title: Astrological aspect

text: The Parallel and Contraparallel or "Antiparallel" are two other aspects which refer to degrees of declination above or below the Celestial Equator. They are not widely used by astrologers.


title: Astrological aspect

text: A Parallel may be similar to a Semisquare or Quincunx, because it is not clearly seen. It represents an opportunity for perspective and communication between energies that requires some work to be made conscious. An orb of the same degree ±1° with a 12-minute arc is allowed.


title: Astrological aspect

text: A Contraparallel may be similar to the Parallel. Some astrologers that use the Parallel do not consider the Contraparallel to be an aspect. An orb of the opposite degree ±1° with a 12-minute arc is allowed.


title: Graduated cylinder

text: A graduated cylinder, also known as a measuring cylinder or mixing cylinder, is a common piece of laboratory equipment used to measure the volume of a liquid. It has a narrow cylindrical shape. Each marked line on the graduated cylinder represents the amount of liquid that has been measured.


title: Graduated cylinder

text: Large graduated cylinders are usually made of polypropylene for its excellent chemical resistance or polymethylpentene for its transparency, making them lighter and less fragile than glass. Polypropylene (PP) is easy to repeatedly autoclave; however, autoclaving in excess of about (depending on the chemical formulation: typical commercial grade polypropylene melts in excess of ), can warp or damage polypropylene graduated cylinders, affecting accuracy.


title: Graduated cylinder

text: A traditional graduated cylinder is usually narrow and tall so as to increase the accuracy and precision of volume measurement. It has a plastic or glass base (stand, foot, support) and a "spout" for easy pouring of the measured liquid. An additional version is wide and low.


title: Graduated cylinder

text: Mixing cylinders have ground glass joints instead of a spout, so they can be closed with a stopper or connected directly with other elements of a manifold. With this kind of cylinder, the metered liquid does not pour directly, but is often removed using a Cannula. A graduated cylinder is meant to be read with the surface of the liquid at eye level, where the center of the meniscus shows the measurement line. Typical capacities of graduated cylinders are from 10 mL to 1000 mL.


title: Graduated cylinder

text: Graduated cylinders are often used to measure the volume of a liquid. Graduated cylinders are generally more accurate and precise than laboratory flasks and beakers, but they should not be used to perform volumetric analysis; volumetric glassware, such as a volumetric flask or volumetric pipette, should be used, as it is even more accurate and precise. Graduated cylinders are sometimes used to measure the volume of a solid indirectly by measuring the displacement of a liquid.


title: Graduated cylinder

text: For accuracy the volume on graduated cylinders is depicted on scales with 3 significant digits: 100mL cylinders have 1ml grading divisions while 10mL cylinders have 0.1 mL grading divisions.


title: Graduated cylinder

text: Cylinders can have single or double scales. Single scales allow to read the volume from top to bottom (filling volume) while double scale cylinders allow reading for filling and pouring (reverse scale).


title: Graduated cylinder

text: Graduated cylinders are calibrated either “to contain” (indicated liquid volume inside the cylinder) and marked as "TC" or “to deliver” (indicated liquid volume poured out, accounting for liquid traces left in the cylinder) and marked “TD”. Formerly the tolerances for “to deliver” and “to contain” cylinders are distinct; however now these are the same. Also, the international symbols “IN” and “EX” are more likely to be used instead of “TC” and “TD” respectively.


title: Graduated cylinder

text: To read the volume accurately, the observation must be at an eye level and read at the bottom of a meniscus of the liquid level.


title: Graduated cylinder

text: The main reason as to why the reading of the volume is done via meniscus is due to the nature of the liquid in a closed surrounded space. By nature, liquid in the cylinder would be attracted to the wall around it through molecular forces. This forces the liquid surface to develop either a convex or concave shape, depending on the type of the liquid in the cylinder. Reading the liquid at the bottom part of a concave or the top part of the convex liquid is equivalent to reading the liquid at its meniscus. From the picture, the level of the liquid will be read at the bottom of the meniscus, which is the concave. The most accurate of the reading that could be done here is reduced down to 1 mL due to the given means of measurement on the cylinder. From this, the derived error would be one tenth of the least figure. For instance, if the reading is done and the value calculated is set to be 36.5 mL. The error, give or take 0.1 mL, must be included too. Therefore, the more precise value equates to 36.5 formula_1 0.1; 36.4 or 36.6 mL. Therefore, there are 3 significant figures can be read from the given graduated cylinder picture. Another example, if the reading is done and the value calculated is set to be 40.0 mL. The precise value would be 40.0 formula_1 0.1; 40.1 or 39.9 mL.


title: Majority minority in the United States

text: In the United States of America, majority-minority area or minority-majority area is a term describing a U.S. state or jurisdiction whose population is composed of less than 50% non-Hispanic whites. Racial data is derived from self-identification questions on the U.S. Census and on U.S. Census Bureau estimates. (See Race and ethnicity in the United States Census). The term is often used in voting rights law to designate voting districts that are designed under the Voting Rights Act to enable ethnic or language minorities "the opportunity to elect their candidate of choice." In that context, the term was first used by the Supreme Court in 1977. The Court had previously used the term in employment discrimination and labor relations cases.


title: Majority minority in the United States

text: From colonial times to the early-twentieth century, much of the Deep South had a black majority. Three Southern states had populations that were majority-black: Louisiana (from 1810 until about 1890), South Carolina (until the 1920s), and Mississippi (from the 1830s to the 1930s.)


title: Majority minority in the United States

text: Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia had black populations approaching or exceeding 40%. Texas's black population reached 30%.


title: Majority minority in the United States

text: The demographics of these states changed markedly from the 1890s through the 1960s, as two waves of the Great Migration resulted in more than 6,500,000 African Americans to abandon the economically depressed, segregated Deep South in search of better employment opportunities and living conditions, first in Northern and Midwestern industrial cities, and later west to California. One-fifth of Florida's black population had left the state by 1940, for instance. During the last thirty years of the twentieth century into the twenty-first century, scholars have documented a reverse New Great Migration of black people to southern states, but typically to urban destinations in the New South, which have pleasant climates and developing economies.


title: Majority minority in the United States

text: Washington, D.C. was one of the magnets for black people during the Great Migration, and reached a majority-black status during the migration's latter stages. The black proportion has declined since the 1990s due to gentrification and expanding opportunities elsewhere, with some leaving the district because of rising housing costs or for opportunities in the South. Many black people have moved to Maryland, Georgia, Florida, and Texas. They are joined by others migrating to jobs in states of the New South in a reverse of the Great Migration. Per the 2020 Census, the Black population represented 40.9% of the D.C. population — a considerable decline from 75% in the late-1970s. At the same time, Asian and Hispanic populations have increased in the District, and it is still classified as a majority-minority area.


title: Majority minority in the United States

text: Since 1965, changes in the origin of foreign immigration have resulted in increases in the number of majority-minority areas, most notably in California. Its legal resident population was 89.5% 'non-Hispanic white' in the 1940s, but by 2020, was 34.7% 'non-Hispanic white'.


title: Majority minority in the United States

text: In 2010, minority children comprised the majority among children in the six states that were already majority-minority, plus the following four: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi.


title: Majority minority in the United States

text: Hawaii is the only state to have never had a non-Hispanic white majority. In addition, all populated United States territories have never had a non-Hispanic white majority.


title: Majority minority in the United States

text: Many cities in the United States became majority-minority by 2010. Out of the top 15 cities by population, Columbus, Ohio is the only city not classified as majority-minority.


title: Majority minority in the United States

text: The first data for New Mexico was a 5% sample in 1940, which estimated non-Hispanic whites at 50.9%. Hispanics are not classified as a race, according to the U.S. census, but as an ethnic and cultural group of any race. Of respondents who listed Hispanic origin, some identified as being of the White race, roughly half gave responses tabulated under "Some other race" (e.g. giving a national origin such as "Mexican" or a designation such as "Mestizo" as race), and much smaller numbers listed Black, American Indian, or Asian as their race.


title: Majority minority in the United States

text: In U.S. censuses since 1990, self-identification by respondents has been the primary way to identify race of residents. Presumption of race based on countries or regions given in the ancestry question is used only when a respondent has answered the ancestry question but not the race question. The U.S. Census defines "White people" very broadly as "people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa, i.e. Caucasoid. This definition has changed through the years.


title: Majority minority in the United States

text: Although the census attempts to enumerate both citizens and non-citizens, the undocumented immigrant population of the United States has proven hard to quantify; the census uses a 12 million base estimate nationally.


title: Majority minority in the United States

text: In the United States for the 2018/2019 school year, 78.7% of white public school students attended schools where they are the majority, compared to 55.9% of Hispanics, 42.0% of African Americans, and 14.3% of Asians. At a national level in the US with regards to racial classification, public schools obtained majority minority status in 2014.


title: Majority minority in the United States

text: Normally, a state is classified as majority-minority because of the ethnic or racial makeup of residents, but other criteria are occasionally used, such as religion, disability, or age. For example, the majority of Utah residents are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Christian denomination that is a religious minority throughout the rest of the United States. In addition to Utah, Rhode Island and Louisiana, which have Roman Catholic majorities, are the only states in the U.S. where a single denomination constitutes a majority of the population. (By contrast, numerous denominations are classified as Protestant.) But, no U.S. state has a majority composed of any non-Christian group, except for Hawaii, where 51.1% of the population follow religions that would be non-mainstream in the rest of the United States. Hawaii is classified as religious majority of "Unaffiliated", including agnostics, atheists, humanists, the irreligious, and secularists (non-practicing).


title: Majority minority in the United States

text: In January 2016, CUNY sociologist Richard Alba wrote an article in "The American Prospect" arguing that the way in which majority-minority calculations are made by the Census are misleading. Anyone identifying as of Hispanic, Asian, or Black ancestry is classified as non-white, although they may also have white ancestry. Alba argues that the incomes, marriage patterns, and social identities of people of who are mixed Hispanic-white and Asian-white are closer to those of white people than monoracial Hispanics or Asians. Thus, when the Census says that non-Hispanic whites are projected to be less than 50% of the population by the 2040s, people of mixed-race ancestry are improperly excluded from that category.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Jacob Alexander Wohl (born December 12, 1997) is an American far-right conspiracy theorist, fraudster, and convicted felon. Wohl, and conservative lobbyist and conspiracy theorist Jack Burkman, have been responsible for multiple unsuccessful plots to frame public figures for fictitious sexual assaults. The pair were allegedly behind plots in October 2018 against U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in April 2019 against 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, and in April 2020 against White House Coronavirus Task Force member Anthony Fauci.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Wohl has created and promulgated other false or unfounded claims and conspiracy theories, mainly against Democratic Party politicians such as Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Ilhan Omar, and Elizabeth Warren. To aid his schemes, Wohl has created multiple fake private intelligence agencies, and has fabricated death threats and protests against himself. Formerly highly active on Twitter, and known for his online trolling on social media, Wohl has been banned from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for creating fake accounts in violation of site policies. In August 2020, Wohl and Burkman made tens of thousands of robocalls to residents of battleground states, in a campaign that prosecutors have alleged intentionally targeted non-white communities to spread disinformation in an attempt to suppress voting in the 2020 presidential election. As a result of the campaign, Wohl and Burkman each pled guilty to one felony charge of telecommunications fraud in Ohio, and they face criminal and civil suits in Michigan and New York. They also face a proposed fine from the Federal Communications Commission.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Wohl founded several investment funds as a teenager. The National Futures Association banned Wohl for life in 2017, after investigating multiple investor complaints against him and concluding that Wohl was guilty of refusing to cooperate with the NFA as required, misrepresenting investments, and misleading investors. The same year, the Arizona Corporation Commission charged Wohl with 14 counts of securities fraud and ordered him to pay approximately $35,000 in restitution and penalties. In August 2019, Wohl was arrested on felony charges for allegedly illicit securities sales that took place in July and August 2016. Wohl pleaded not guilty to two charges of selling unregistered securities in February 2020. The settlement hearing that was originally scheduled for April 2020 was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Wohl founded investment funds Wohl Capital Investment Group (WCIG), NeX Capital Management, and Montgomery Assets, Inc. (MAI) as a teenager. Initially, he took investments from classmates and his high school teachers. Wohl appeared on Fox Business in 2015, when he was 17 years old, to discuss his hedge fund. He posted Craigslist ads for "Wohl Girls," models who were hired to help attract clients, and a number of risqué websites including "WohlGirls.com" were registered to his name. One model alleged that Wohl posted photographs of her online without her permission.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: In 2016, the National Futures Association (NFA) investigated NeX Capital Management after receiving an investor complaint. The investor said that Wohl had told him his $75,000 investment had grown, but had paid the investor only $44,000 when the investor demanded the money be returned. The man later died by suicide. Wohl claimed that the difference was due to losses, but the NFA found that Wohl's trading accounts "appeared to have made, not lost, money overall". Some of the money, the NFA alleged, had been diverted into Wohl's mother's brokerage accounts. The NFA said Wohl made an unbalanced presentation of profit potential and risk of loss to clients, and had misled investors by claiming to have been trading for 10 years, which would have been since he was eight or nine years old. Wohl hid from NFA investigators when they came to his house, and his father, an attorney, threatened to sue the NFA for harassment. In March 2017, the NFA banned Wohl for life.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: A 2016 complaint by the same man resulted in the Riverside Superior Court in Riverside County, California issuing felony arrest warrants on August 9, 2019, for Wohl and his former business partner, Matthew Johnson, on charges of unlawful sale of securities. The Riverside County District Attorney's Office alleged that Wohl and Johnson violated California law by selling unqualified securities through Montgomery Assets between July 27 and August 27, 2016. In July 2016, an investigator from the district attorney's office contacted Wohl and Johnson, who at the time were running the Montgomery Assets firm, and claimed to represent a client who was interested in investing with them. According to the 2019 arrest warrant, the investigation resulted in an apparent attempt by Wohl and his partner to sell an unregistered security. Wohl was taken into custody on August 19, 2019. After a brief appearance in court, he was released until arraignment. On February 24, Wohl pleaded not guilty to two felony charges of selling unregistered securities. The settlement hearing was scheduled for April 21, 2020, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: In 2017, the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) issued a cease-and-desist order to Wohl and his three investment funds after it found they were in violation of securities laws. The ACC charged Wohl and his companies with 14 counts of securities fraud, including falsely representing investment risks, misrepresenting the amounts of assets managed, and falsely claiming in online advertisements on Craigslist that he, then 18, and his business partner, then 27, had more than 35 years of experience flipping homes. Wohl at one point claimed that he was managing 178 client accounts and combined total assets under management (AUM) of as much as $10,000,000, although the ACC said that he only had thirteen clients and an AUM of around $500,000. Wohl was ordered by the ACC to pay $32,919 in restitution and $5,000 in penalties. In May 2020, the ACC announced that they were working with the Arizona Attorney General's office in collection efforts against Wohl, who had not made any payments towards the fines.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: In 2018, Wohl created and registered the company Surefire Intelligence, LLC. Reporters who investigated Surefire Intelligence in October 2018, prompted by an alleged plot to frame Robert Mueller for sexual assault that same month, found that the company had been created by Wohl just a few weeks earlier and that its official phone number redirected to a voicemail inbox for a phone number belonging to Wohl's mother. They also reported that employee photographs on the website were actually photographs of people unrelated to Surefire, including actor Christoph Waltz. News agencies found profiles of supposed Surefire Intelligence employees on the LinkedIn professional networking site which used photographs of unrelated celebrities as profile images; a photograph of Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli was used on a profile claiming to be the company's Tel Aviv station chief, and a profile for a person named Matthew Cohen used an altered photo of Wohl. A journalist visited the address listed on Surefire Intelligence's website and found it to be the location of an unrelated company.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Soon after creating the company, Wohl advertised it as a team of private investigators on classified ad site Craigslist. In the ad, Wohl falsely claimed that Surefire consisted of former Israeli intelligence agents and various other investigative experts. At least once, Wohl posed as investigator Matthew Cohen to a potential client who responded to the ad. One paid him a $1,200 advance fee for help in recovering her stolen truck, but Wohl never performed any investigative services for the fee, nor did he return the money or contact her again.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Minutes after Michael Avenatti was reported being arrested on suspicion of domestic violence on November 14, 2018, the Surefire Twitter account posted a news story about the arrest, adding, "Surefire Intelligence strikes again". The following day, Avenatti suggested that Wohl was behind the arrest, and tweeted, "First Mueller and now me. When we are fully exonerated I am coming for you Jacob Wohl aka Surefire." Avenatti was ultimately not charged in relation to the reported incident.<ref name="Lee_11/21/2018"></ref>


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Merritt Corrigan, deputy White House liaison for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), was fired from her position on August 3, 2020, shortly after unlocking her previously private Twitter account and sending several anti-LGBT tweets. The same day, she announced she would be holding a press conference on August 6 with Wohl and Burkman to expose what she described as "rampant anti-Christian sentiment" at USAID. A press release from Wohl and Burkman claimed that Wohl had "been working behind the scenes with Corrigan for months".


title: Jacob Wohl

text: On the afternoon of August 4, Corrigan deleted her tweets from the previous day. Wohl claimed that Corrigan was being convinced by associates of President Donald Trump to go back on her claims against the USAID, and Burkman said that Corrigan had "buyer's remorse" for sending the tweets. Later that day, Corrigan issued a statement apologizing for her tweets, and alleged: "I did NOT send these messages, and while I vehemently protested about them being sent in my name, my devices were not in my control. I see now that I was part of an abusive scheme and I was used to attack people that have nothing to do with me". She said that she would not be participating in any press conferences, and claimed that "individuals... forced me to hand over my devices so they could control me and the output in my name".


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Wohl released his own statement saying that he was being falsely accused of kidnapping, and that he and Burkman would still be holding the August 6 press conference. He also stated that he and Corrigan had been involved in a romantic and sexual relationship. At the press conference, Wohl and Burkman denied the kidnapping allegations, which they claimed had been fabricated by far-right activist Raheem Kassam, a long-time friend of Corrigan's. Following the press conference, Wohl published a 90-second recording of a conversation between him and Corrigan which he said exonerated him of wrongdoing, though according to journalist Ford Fischer, it "shows Corrigan accusing Wohl of preventing her from having contact with her friends, and Wohl accusing Kassam of creating the situation. Corrigan doesn't appear to say anything corroborating Wohl's account of events".


title: Jacob Wohl

text: In August 2020, Wohl and Burkman made tens of thousands of robocalls to residents of battleground states, including Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and others, including New York and Illinois. The robocall campaign appeared to originate from Burkman's personal cell phone number, and the caller identified themself as part of Wohl and Burkman's organization, Project 1599. The messages disseminated the false claims that information provided by those who use mail-in ballots will be used by police to find criminals, by credit card companies for debt collection purposes, and by the CDC to "track people for mandatory vaccines". Several lawsuits against Wohl and Burkman have alleged that the robocalls were an attempt to suppress votes in the 2020 presidential election, and the Attorneys General of Michigan and New York have alleged that the two men intentionally targeted Black communities with the calls.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: On October, 24, 2022 Wohl pleaded guilty to a single felony count of telecommunications fraud for having placed thousands of false robocalls in the state of Ohio. On November 29, both Wohl and Berkman were each fined $2,500, sentenced to two years of probation, and ordered to perform 500 hours of community service registering voters in Washington, DC.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced on August 24, 2021, that they had proposed a $5.1million fine against Wohl and Burkman for the robocalls, the largest fine ever sought by the commission under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: On October 1, 2020, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed four felony charges each against Wohl and Burkman, including conspiring to intimidate voters in violation of election law. Nessel's investigation into the robocalls found that Wohl and Burkman had attempted to suppress people of color from voting in the 2020 presidential election via a robocall campaign that made 85,000 calls across the country, including 12,000 in Detroit. The week before the charges were filed, investigators searched Wohl's Los Angeles home. In a press release, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Attorney General Nessel condemned the robocall campaign as "racist" and as "an unconscionable, indefensible, blatant attempt to lie to citizens about their right to vote". Wohl told the Associated Press that same month that he and Burkman believed "leftist pranksters" had spoofed Burkman's phone number to make the phone calls, and Wohl threatened to sue Benson for defamation; Wohl and Burkman later admitted in court that they were responsible for the calls, but argued that the call was not intended to suppress voting and was rather an exercise of their rights to free speech. Wohl and Burkman turned themselves in to Detroit police on October 8, 2020, and both pled not guilty at a later court appearance. On February 23, 2021, a Michigan circuit court judge denied Wohl and Burkman's motion to dismiss the charges. Wohl and Burkman appealed the decision on March 16, but the appeal was denied by the Michigan Court of Appeals on May 7, meaning the case will go to trial. Their attorneys stated they intend to petition the Michigan Supreme Court to hear the case. Wohl and Burkman each face up to 24 years in state prison if convicted on the Michigan charges.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation filed a federal civil suit against Wohl and Burkman in New York on October 16, 2020, alleging that the two men violated the Voting Rights Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 by making the robocalls. On October 28, a U.S. District Court Judge in New York ordered the men call back the targets of the robocall to tell them the information in their message was false and that the campaign was illegal. The judge also prohibited them from engaging in more robocalls or text message campaigns to attempt to disenfranchise voters. Wohl and Burkman tried multiple times to pause the civil suit while there were active criminal proceedings against them, but a federal judge denied the request on February 22, 2021. On May 19, 2021, a federal judge granted New York Attorney General Letitia James's motion to intervene in the lawsuit.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: The New York Attorney General's Office filed a lawsuit on May 6, 2021, against Wohl and Burkman for their alleged involvement in the robocall campaign. Attorney General James accused Wohl and Burkman of intentionally targeting black communities with the robocalls, after her office reviewed emails in which they discussed focusing the robocalls in areas with high populations of black voters. If successful, the lawsuit would require the two men to pay $2.75million in fines.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: In August 2022, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a settlement was reached with Message Communications, Inc., the robocall company that Wohl and Burkman had used for their scheme. Under the terms of the deal, Message Communications agreed to pay $50,000 in restitution. The Office of the Attorney General confirmed at the time that their case against Wohl, Burkman and their organizations were still ongoing.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: In October 2020, prosecutors in Cuyahoga County, Ohio indicted Wohl and Burkman on eight counts of telecommunications fraud and seven counts of bribery, for a possible 18 years in prison. On October 24, 2022, Wohl and Burkman each pleaded guilty to one felony charge of telecommunications fraud. They paid the maximum fine of $2,500, and face up to a year in prison. As a part of the plea deal, the 14 other charges of telecommunications fraud and bribery were dropped.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: In February 2018, Wohl created a news blog called "The Washington Reporter", which served as a home for his political podcast "Offended America". NBC News reported in November 2018 that Wohl had "adopted and amplified nearly every prominent conspiracy theory to arise in the last year," and had used his blog to publish unfounded claims about Hillary Clinton, George Soros, and Robert Mueller. In June 2018, "The Washington Reporter" was found to have completely plagiarized its Code of Ethics from the journalism non-profit ProPublica. By August 2018, the website was offline and Wohl had stopped releasing podcast episodes.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Wohl was hired as a writer for the far-right website "The Gateway Pundit" in June 2018, before being fired later that year as a result of his failed plot against Mueller.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Wohl became increasingly politically active as Donald Trump launched his 2016 campaign for the presidency. Wohl established a reputation for his vociferous support for Trump on Twitter, and his speed in replying to nearly all of Trump's tweets.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: In 2019, Wohl and Burkman announced they would investigate any rumors about candidates in the 2020 presidential election. Any candidates they fully vet, they said, would receive the "Burkman-Wohl Seal of Approval".


title: Jacob Wohl

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Wohl began selling a physical fitness program on his website. In April 2020, Wohl announced he had begun operating an account on OnlyFans, a subscription-based social media platform.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: "The Washington Post" reported that agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had executed a raid on Jack Burkman's home on the morning of September 14, 2020. Wohl claimed that the agents had taken "all of Jack's files, computers and phones" from the home, which is also the headquarters of Wohl and Burkman's organization, Project 1599. By the afternoon of the same day, "The Washington Post" had updated their story to reflect that the raid had been staged, and they retracted the story shortly after. "The Daily Beast" discovered that Wohl and Burkman had again recruited actors on Craigslist to stage the raid, under the guise of recording a television show. "The Daily Beast" also reported that the Twitter account which published the photos of the raid was likely operated by Wohl.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: On October 22, 2018, Vermont Law School professor Jennifer Taub received an email from Wohl's firm, Surefire Intelligence, asking her to report on "past encounters" with U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller and offering her money to discuss Mueller by phone. Taub stated she had never met Mueller and referred the matter to Mueller's office, which then referred the matter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).


title: Jacob Wohl

text: On October 30, NBC News and "The Atlantic" published articles detailing a scheme to falsely accuse Mueller of sexual misconduct in 1974. The articles reported that on October 17, 2018, several journalists received emails from a person claiming to be named Lorraine Parsons that asserted conservative lobbyist Jack Burkman had hired a man with Wohl's Surefire Intelligence firm, to offer her more than $20,000 to sign an affidavit falsely accusing Mueller of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment. Parsons told the reporters she had worked with Mueller at the law firm Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro in 1974, and that the man from Surefire had asked her to falsely accuse Mueller of engaging in misconduct during that time. Mueller worked at Pillsbury in 1974, but the firm told reporters they had no record of any Lorraine Parsons ever working there. Parsons declined reporters' requests to speak on the phone, and none of the reporters published the story until the scheme became evident.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: On October 30, Wohl tweeted, "Several media sources tell me that a scandalous story about Mueller is breaking tomorrow. Should be interesting. Stay tuned!" Burkman tweeted that he and Wohl would hold a press conference two days later to "reveal the first of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's sex assault victims". "The Gateway Pundit", which employed Wohl, published the Lorraine Parsons allegations on October 30, including claims that there were "exclusive documents" about a "very credible witness" to support the accusations against Mueller. Each document had in its header the phrase "International Private Intelligence," the business slogan of Surefire Intelligence. The article was removed later that day, with owner Jim Hoft stating that the matter and "serious allegations against Jacob Wohl" would be investigated. The following day, Hoft posted a tweet by Wohl that suggested Mueller's office was actually behind the scheme. Also that day, Burkman and Wohl posted a tweet claiming that Parsons did not exist, denying involvement in the matter, and calling it "a hoax designed to distract the nation from [Burkman's] press conference" to be held the next day.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Wohl and Burkman convened a press conference outside Washington, D.C. on November 1, ostensibly to present a woman who they said signed the affidavit previously published by "The Gateway Pundit", accusing Mueller of raping her in a New York hotel room in 2010on a date he was contemporaneously reported by "The Washington Post" to be serving jury duty in Washington.<ref name="Roberts_Argetsinger_4/13/20102"></ref> The men accused Mueller's office of "leaking" the eight-year-old "Post" story to discredit their allegations.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: The purported accuser, Carolyne Cass, did not appear at the press conference as they had initially stated she would, and the men asserted she had panicked and taken a flight to another location. Towards the end of the press conference, one reporter heckled, "Are you both prepared for federal prison?", to which Burkman replied "No we are not". Soon after the press conference, Hoft announced that "The Gateway Pundit" had "suspended [their] relationship" with Wohl.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: On February 26, 2019, "USA Today" published an article about Wohl in which they interviewed Cass. She had initially contacted Wohl, who was then posing as an investigator named Matthew Cohen on Craigslist, in hopes that he would help her recover some stolen money. Wohl did no work to recover the money, and instead offered Cass a position at his "intelligence" firm. Speaking of the document accusing Mueller produced by Wohl and his associates, she said that "they had made it up" with a fabricated signature of hers and that they "needed a credible female to put on the line".


title: Jacob Wohl

text: In April 2019, the FBI declined a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents relating to Surefire Intelligence, explaining that "Acknowledging the existence or non-existence of records could reasonably be expected to interfere with law enforcement proceedings", citing FOIA exemption (b)(7)(A). Reporter Colin Kalmbacher commented in "Law & Crime" that this is a common denial by law enforcement agencies, which suggested that an active FBI criminal probe against Wohl was underway.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: On April 22, 2019, Jack Burkman tweeted, "2020 is shaping up to be more exciting than 2016. Looking like it will be Trump vs. Mayor Pete! Get the popcorn ready!" A Medium post emerged on April 28, published under the name of a gay Republican college student, alleging that Pete Buttigieg had sexually assaulted him in February. At the time, Buttigieg was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana and a Democratic presidential candidate for 2020. David Wohl, Jacob's father, shared an article on Twitter about the post, published by far-right website "Big League Politics". A Twitter account created just a month prior under the student's name also emerged. The next day, "The Daily Beast" reported that Wohl and Jack Burkman had tried to convince several young Republican men to make false accusations of sexual assault against Buttigieg. One man attested that Wohl and Burkman had tried to convince him to falsely accuse Buttigieg of assaulting him when he was too drunk to consent. According to the anonymous source, Wohl and Burkman contacted him under the false identities "Bill" and "Matt Teller", but when they met in person the man recognized Wohl due to Wohl's Internet notoriety and decided to secretly record their conversation. He then provided the recording to "The Daily Beast", which wrote that it corroborated the man's claims with the aid of an audio forensics analyst who determined that one man in the recording was "highly likely" to be Wohl. The source said that he did not agree at the time to participate in the scheme, and that Wohl phoned him shortly thereafter to suggest he recommend his friends who would. The phone number allegedly used by Wohl was discovered to have been listed on the website of "Potomac Intelligence Group", where the company described itself as a private intelligence firm and listed Matt Teller as an employee, along with a link to Teller's LinkedIn profile. Minutes after Wohl was contacted by "The Daily Beast", the website and the LinkedIn page were taken down, and the phone number was disconnected. In addition to Potomac Intelligence, Wohl was later linked to at least four other fake intelligence firms. The student who was being impersonated on Medium and Twitter told "The Daily Beast" that Wohl and Burkman flew him to Washington, D.C. under the guise of speaking about politics from the perspective of a gay Republican, and that he was unaware they were trying to involve him in their scheme. He said they had created the Medium profile and a Twitter profile, claiming to be him without his permission.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Wohl and Burkman announced that they would be holding a press conference at Burkman's house on May 8 to continue their accusations against Buttigieg. On May 7, Burkman tweeted a link to an event called "Protest Against Homophobic Bigots" and wrote, "Hundreds of leftist protestors are set to descend on our Wednesday Press conference. We WILL NOT surrender to the mob. We've called in extra security to guard our safety and that of our partners in the media". The protest was discovered to be fake, organized by Wohl himself, when attendees received confirmation emails containing the email address wohlthinktank@gmail.com, which Wohl had used in the past. "Mediaite" noted that events can be registered with false contact information on Eventbrite, but that Eventbrite would have emailed the address used by the organizer, allowing them to delete or edit the event. Wohl denied involvement in creating the event page, and Eventbrite later took down the event page, citing their rules against "inauthentic content".


title: Jacob Wohl

text: At the May 8 press conference, Wohl and Burkman displayed footage of the student they had flown to Washington, D.C. drinking a coffee, which they said was proof that the student was not being coerced. Wohl stated, "Most forced coercion events... do not involve caramel frappuccino". While the press conference was underway, the student released his own statement describing Wohl and Burkman as "chronic liars" and stating that he would not be at the press conference as they had claimed. No protesters attended the fake protest that Wohl had attempted to organize.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Wohl and Burkman later threatened to sue "The Daily Beast", who had broken the news that the claims were false, for $500 million. , no lawsuit had been filed.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: On October 3, 2019, Wohl and Burkman held a press conference alleging that Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts senator and then-2020 presidential candidate, had engaged in an extramarital affair with a 24-year-old former U.S. Marine. They alleged that Warren hired the man from a website called "Cowboys4Angels", described as "a site for attractive young men who provide companionship escort services to well-heeled women", in August 2018 in Massachusetts. Wohl and Burkman claimed that Warren had hired the man to engage in BDSM with her and told him that she was in an open relationship with her husband. The accuser also showed a supposed "sex scar", which was later debunked when it was discovered the accuser had previously posted on his social media account a picture of the same scar and stated that he had "hit [his] back with a chain trying to take down a swing". The conference was met with mockery and disbelief in the media, and the claim was widely assumed to be another of Wohl and Burkman's false allegations. Posting on Twitter, NBC News reporter Ben Collins joked: "Congrats to Elizabeth Warren on rising so quickly in the polls she forced Jacob Wohl to write erotica about her". Warren herself joked about the baseless allegations indirectly, including "go Cougars" in a tweet about college debt—a reference both to the mascot of her alma mater, the University of Houston, and to the slang term for women who pursue younger men which Wohl and Burkman had used for her.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: On October 9, 2019, Wohl and Burkman held a press conference in which they alleged the California senator and then-2020 presidential candidate Kamala Harris had engaged in an extramarital affair. They were joined by a man who alleged that he had been Harris's personal trainer and that she had paid him thousands of dollars for sex. During the press conference, a man approached Wohl and Burkman and handed them papers, which the two claimed were a cease and desist letter from Harris's campaign. They refused to allow journalists to see the document, first claiming they had disposed of it and later claiming they would release it after their lawyers reviewed it. "The Daily Beast" wrote that the cease and desist was "apparently fake". Wohl and Burkman also claimed they had text messages between the accuser and Harris, but declined to allow reporters to see them. "Newsweek" later wrote that they were unable to find any record that the accuser was a personal trainer, and also found discrepancies in the spelling of the accuser's name. It was later discovered that the accuser was an actor who had responded to a Craigslist ad, which requested a male actor for "performance art". The man was unaware that Harris was a real person, and said that he was led to believe everyone at the press conference, including journalists and hecklers, were also paid actors. He said that Wohl had told him that he was a director, and that they were filming a show for Spike TV (a channel which, as of October 2019, had been shut down for a year). The man, whose real name was attached to the allegations, said that after the conference he started to receive accusations that he was a liar via social media, and that he became scared to go outside.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: In late April 2020, a press release was published in which a woman claimed to have been sexually assaulted in 2014 by Dr. Anthony Fauci, a prominent member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Only "The Daily Dot" reported on the allegation, to debunk it as a likely smear attempt. On May 2, 2020, the woman told "Reason" magazine that she and another woman had been paid by Wohl and Burkman to fabricate allegations against Fauci. She said that she knew Wohl from several years ago when they were romantically involved, and that he had encouraged her to frame Fauci, using the details of a real sexual assault which she had experienced, which she had divulged to Wohl when they were dating. She claimed that Wohl had previously paid her to use the story of her assault to frame an Academy Award-winning actor, but the story gained no traction, and so he had her reuse it to attempt to frame Fauci. According to "Reason," the woman taped a phone call with Wohl and Burkman when she decided to expose the scheme. In the recording, Wohl responds to the woman's concerns over the ramifications of the accusation by saying, "Look, can you just do this for me? Can you just keep your mouth shut and just... just do it for me". The two men also ask her "[who cares if you] made up a story. Grow up, for Christ's sake" and claim that she "readily volunteered" to make the false accusation. The recording reportedly captures Wohl telling the woman: "You did a good job, you got paid. What's the problem? What seems to be the issue?"


title: Jacob Wohl

text: After Wohl made a popular tweet that he had "just left a hipster coffee shop" where he overheard "libs" praising President Donald Trump's interactions with Vladimir Putin at the 2018 Russia–United States summit in Helsinki, other tweets by Wohl were uncovered that repeated the same phrase, alongside claims that he had overheard groups of customers including liberals, Democrats, and Jewish people voicing support for Donald Trump or opposition to his political opponents. These repeated events in similar locations were viewed to be improbable, and the tweets were mocked in an online meme in which people followed the phrase "just left a hipster coffee shop" with unlikely fictional scenarios. Wohl later admitted that he had fabricated the conversations which he claimed to have overheard.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: On January 22, 2019, Wohl falsely claimed on Twitter that Democratic Senator and then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris was not an American citizen on account of her parents not being naturalized citizens at the time of her birth, and as such, was ineligible to be president. Harris was born in Oakland, California, and is therefore a U.S. citizen regardless of her parents' citizenship status at the time. "PolitiFact" rated Wohl's claim "Pants on Fire". In February 2019, Wohl used a fake Twitter account that claimed to represent a group of women who supported Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz's possible 2020 presidential campaign, in order to write that Kamala Harris "does not represent American Women" and that she "traded sexual favors for public office".


title: Jacob Wohl

text: In February 2019, Wohl traveled to Minnesota with far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, claiming to investigate rumors that Ilhan Omar, U.S. Representative for Minnesota's 5th congressional district and a Somali-American, had married her brother to grant him U.S. citizenship. Their trip was organized and attended by Ali Alexander, also a far-right activist and conspiracy theorist. Wohl created an online fundraising campaign to try to raise $25,000 to fund the trip. In a subsequent series of tweets and livestreams, Wohl claimed that Minneapolis had "no-go zones" infested by "Somali jihadists", that a local Somali man had threatened to kill him, that "Islamicist forces have taken over sections of [Minnesota's] police departments", and that he had to wear body armor and travel with hired security in armored cars to avoid hitmen. The security team, however, did not appear in any of their livestreams, and Wohl declined livestream watchers' requests to film the armored cars and security team which he claimed to have hired. "Star Tribune" columnist Jennifer Brooks wrote that the group "cast lie after lie after lie into the wind" and that "for every minute they spent lying about conditions in Minnesota, they spent at least four begging for donations for their cause". Pat Garofalo, a Republican state representative from Minnesota, refuted Wohl's claim about "no-go zones" in a tweet, calling it "a lie" and "a farce".


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Wohl appeared on the grounds of the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) with Jack Burkman, ostensibly to present evidence from their trip, but was ejected. "Vox" debunked Wohl's conspiracy theory as "largely nonsensical", citing that there is no evidence that Ahmed Elmi, Omar's ex-husband whom Wohl claimed to be her brother, was related to Omar in any way; that U.S. law permits a citizen to petition citizenship for their siblings, which would have voided the need for a marriage had they been siblings; and that Elmi, a British citizen, has never received U.S. citizenship. "Mother Jones" wrote that Wohl's claims are "far into tinfoil-hat territory".


title: Jacob Wohl

text: In mid-March 2019, Wohl, Loomer, and Alexander released a documentary about their investigation into Omar in which they claimed that they have secured proof that she had married her brother. In the video, Wohl is shown filing a police report in a Minneapolis police station about death threats he claimed to have received while they were in the city. However, the Twitter account shown sending threats via direct message in the video, supposedly a diversity coordinator in Minneapolis, was one of the fake Twitter accounts Wohl had been operating himself. After news reports about Wohl's faked death threats, Alexander attempted to distance himself from Wohl. "The Daily Dot" noted that Wohl might have filmed himself committing the crime of filing a false police report. On March 15, 2019, a Minnesota man sued Wohl for stealing his Instagram photo and using it as the profile picture for the fake account. The man hired Michael Avenatti for the case, who announced that he would "pursue all available criminal and civil claims against Jacob Wohl. It is time that he face the consequences for his outrageous conduct. And I intend on ensuring that he does".


title: Jacob Wohl

text: In late February 2020, Wohl and Burkman alleged that the jury that convicted Roger Stone on seven felonies related to Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation had been biased against him. In a press conference held on February 27, 2020, Wohl and Burkman distributed copies of confidential juror questionnaires, and they later published some of the questionnaires on Twitter. In September 2020, "The Daily Beast" reported that the FBI was investigating Wohl and Burkman for potentially attempting to influence the jurors or tamper with witnesses, and was investigating how the two obtained the questionnaires.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: On February 6, 2019, Colin Campbell, an editor of "The News & Observer", tweeted photos that showed two white students in Ku Klux Klan robes holding a noose around the neck of another white student wearing blackface. The photos were from the 1979 yearbook page for the Chi Phi fraternity of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Roy Cooper, the incumbent Governor of North Carolina, graduated that year from that university with membership to a different fraternity, Chi Psi. Later that day, "The Daily Mail" published a story with the misleading headline "Blackface lynch pics from Roy Cooper North Carolina yearbook", although the article clarified that there was no evidence that Cooper was in any of the photos. The next day, Wohl tweeted "BREAKING: Racist picture of Democrat North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper emerges just days after he called on Ralph Northam to resign - Daily Mail", but did not include any link to "Daily Mail" articles. Wohl did not respond to an inquiry from "PolitiFact". "PolitiFact" rated Wohl's tweet "Pants on Fire".


title: Jacob Wohl

text: On October 1, 2019, Wohl and Jack Burkman held a press conference on the front steps of Burkman's home in which they claimed to know the identity of the whistleblower who revealed possible impropriety by President Trump involving Ukraine, though they said they could not release the whistleblower's name. The press conference was sparsely attended and described by "The Washington Post" as another in a series of events in which Wohl and Burkman "routinely announce they have discovered smoking-gun revelations against Trump's rivals, then humiliate themselves when they fail to produce any evidence".


title: Jacob Wohl

text: During the May 2019 press conference in which Wohl and Burkman falsely accused Buttigieg of sexual assault, the pair also shared an unsubstantiated rumor that Joe Biden might have Parkinson's disease. In March 2020, Wohl published fake COVID-19 test results, claiming that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden had COVID-19 and would die in 30 days.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Wohl has been described as an Internet troll for his activities on social media. He was active on Twitter, which he used to spread lies and misleading information about Democratic politicians and post in support of Trump. In a February 26, 2019, interview with "USA Today", Wohl said that he planned to create fake left-wing accounts to try to direct votes towards Democrats who would make weaker opponents for Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Wohl also stated that he sought to solicit "damaging information" against left-leaning nonprofits such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, Media Matters for America, and Right Wing Watch by providing insiders money or "moral reconciliation".


title: Jacob Wohl

text: On the same day as the "USA Today" article was published, Twitter permanently banned Wohl after an investigation found that he had already broken the site's rules against creating fake accounts. One account found to be operated by Wohl was that of the Minneapolis diversity coordinator, which Wohl had reported to police for making death threats against him. Another was @Women_4_Schultz, which purported to be a group of women supporting billionaire and former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz's possible 2020 presidential campaign. When contacted by "USA Today" after the ban was placed, Wohl stated that he had created the accounts for his businesses and "future think tank", but maintained that he had "not created fake accounts or bot armies or anything like that". In a February 26 interview with NBC News, he said, "In my entire adult life, I've had three Twitter accounts," indicating his @JacobAWohl account, his intelligence company's Twitter account, and his think tank account. In the same interview, he first denied but later admitted to operating the @Women_4_Schultz account. Wohl said that the veracity of the information he disseminates is not important, and that the spread of the claims and the number of people believing them was what was what mattered. He further said that he believed truth to be an outdated concept, stating that "It's something that can't be thought about in a linear, binary true-false, facts-non-facts – you can't do that anymore... It's just not the way it works". He defended his attempt to manipulate elections, stating, "It is not illegal, unethical, or untoward for Americans to steer an American election". Without providing any evidence, he claimed antisemitism was behind his Twitter suspension, and that it was retribution for his purported "investigation" of Representative Ilhan Omar.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Wohl was banned from both Instagram and Facebook on August 31, 2020. According to the latter platform, the ban was to enforce their rules that disallow "coordinated inauthentic behavior", which they alleged Wohl had violated by creating fake accounts in advance of the November 2020 election. Writing on Telegram about the ban, Wohl said, "Now that I've been banned by Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, I no longer have any reservations about using their platforms to 'manipulate the conversation,' as they put it. Project 1599 will make Cambridge Analytica look like a middle school science fair project".


title: Jacob Wohl

text: Wohl is Jewish, and describes himself as a Zionist. He has co-hosted a podcast for Jewish Trump supporters with Laura Loomer.


title: Jacob Wohl

text: His father, David Wohl, is a defense attorney and conservative commentator who has been a guest on Fox News programs and who has also promoted conspiracy theories.


title: Taylor Swift videography

text: American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift has appeared in 59 music videos, and released five documentaries, three video albums, and a short film, as well as featured in numerous films and television shows. From her eponymous debut studio album (2006), she released music videos for the singles "Tim McGraw", "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", and "Picture to Burn", all directed by Trey Fanjoy and released from 2006 to 2008. She followed with three other music videos in 2008—"Beautiful Eyes" from her extended play of the same name, "Change" from the "AT&T Team USA Soundtrack" and "Love Story" from her second studio album "Fearless" (2008). The latter was nominated for two awards at the 2009 CMT Music Awards—Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year. For the video of "You Belong with Me" she won Best Female Video at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.


title: Taylor Swift videography

text: Swift's third studio album "Speak Now" (2010) spawned the single "Mine", whose music video was directed by herself and Roman White, who previously directed two of her videos. It was followed by videos for "Back to December" and "Mean" in 2010, and "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly" and "Ours" in 2011. The fourth studio album "Red" (2012) was preceded by the music video for the single "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together". The "I Knew You Were Trouble" video won Swift a second MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video in 2013. Swift further released six music videos in 2013—five from "Red"; "22", "Everything Has Changed" featuring Ed Sheeran, "Red", "Begin Again" and "The Last Time", and the Tim McGraw collaboration "Highway Don't Care".


title: Taylor Swift videography

text: Her fifth album "1989" (2014) produced the 2014 music videos for "Shake It Off" and "Blank Space", with the latter becoming the fastest video to reach one billion views on Vevo, "Style", "Bad Blood" and "Wildest Dreams" in 2015, and "Out of the Woods" and "New Romantics" in 2016. The videos for "Blank Space" and "Bad Blood", featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar, won four accolades at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, with the latter winning for Video of the Year and Best Collaboration. It also received a Grammy Award for Best Music Video. Swift released four music videos for her sixth studio album "Reputation" (2017)—"Look What You Made Me Do", "...Ready for It?", "End Game" featuring Sheeran and rapper Future, and "Delicate". Her seventh studio album, "Lover" (2019), was supported by four music videos as well—"Me!" featuring Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco, "You Need to Calm Down", "Lover", and the self-directed "The Man" in her solo directorial debut. The "Lover" videos won four accolades at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year and Video for Good and Best Visual Effects. She also began writing and directing her own music videos, such as for "Cardigan" and "Willow" in 2020, and "Anti-Hero" and "Bejeweled" in 2022. Swift debuted as a filmmaker with "" (2021), writing and directing it.


title: Taylor Swift videography

text: Swift has released the live/video albums "Taylor Swift and Def Leppard" (2009), "Speak Now World Tour – Live" (2011), and "Journey to Fearless" (2011), and the documentary films/specials "The 1989 World Tour Live" (2015), "" (2018), "Miss Americana" (2020), "City of Lover" (2020) and "" (2020). She has appeared in the television shows "" in 2009, "Saturday Night Live" in 2009 and "New Girl" in 2013. In film, she has starred in "Valentine's Day" (2010), and provided her voice in the animated film "The Lorax" (2012). She has also appeared in a number of commercials, including for "Band Hero" (2009), Coca-Cola (2014) and Apple Music (2016).


title: Trackball

text: A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball held by a socket containing sensors to detect a rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down ball mouse with an exposed protruding ball. Users roll the ball to position the on-screen pointer, using their thumb, fingers, or the palm of the hand, while using the fingertips to press the buttons.


title: Trackball

text: With most trackballs, operators have to lift their finger, thumb or hand and reposition in on the ball to continue rolling, whereas a mouse would have to be lifted itself and re-positioned. Some trackballs have notably low friction, as well as being made of a dense material such as phenolic resin, so they can be spun to make them coast. The trackball's buttons may be in similar positions to those of a mouse, or configured to suit the user.


title: Trackball

text: Large trackballs are common on CAD workstations for easy precision. Before the advent of the touchpad, small trackballs were common on portable computers (such as the BlackBerry Tour) where there may be no desk space on which to run a mouse. Some small "thumballs" are designed to clip onto the side of the keyboard and have integral buttons with the same function as mouse buttons.


title: Trackball

text: The trackball was invented as part of a post-World War II-era radar plotting system named Comprehensive Display System (CDS) by Ralph Benjamin when working for the British Royal Navy Scientific Service. Benjamin's project used analog computers to calculate the future position of target aircraft based on several initial input points provided by a user with a joystick. Benjamin felt that a more elegant input device was needed and invented a "ball tracker" system called the "roller ball" for this purpose in 1946. The device was patented in 1947, but only a prototype using a metal ball rolling on two rubber-coated wheels was ever built and the device was kept as a military secret. Production versions of the CDS used joysticks.


title: Trackball

text: The CDS system had also been viewed by a number of engineers from Ferranti Canada, who returned to Canada and began development of the Royal Canadian Navy's DATAR system in 1952. Principal designers Tom Cranston, Fred Longstaff and Kenyon Taylor chose the trackball as the primary input, using a standard five-pin bowling ball as the roller. DATAR was similar in concept to Benjamin's display, but used a digital computer to calculate tracks, and sent the resulting data to other ships in a task force using pulse-code modulation radio signals.


title: Trackball

text: DATAR's trackball used four disks to pick up motion, two each for the X and Y directions. Several additional rollers provided mechanical support. When the ball was rolled, the pickup discs spun and contacts on their outer rim made periodic contact with wires, producing pulses of output with each movement of the ball. By counting the pulses, the physical movement of the ball could be determined.


title: Trackball

text: Since 1966, the American company "Orbit Instrument Corporation" produced a device named "X-Y Ball Tracker", a trackball, which was embedded into radar flight control desks.


title: Trackball

text: A similar trackball device at the German ' was constructed by a team around of Telefunken as part of the development for the Telefunken computer infrastructure around the main frame , process computer TR 86 and video terminal SIG 100-86, which began in 1965. This trackball was called ' (German for "rolling ball"). Somewhat later, the idea of "reversing" this device led to the introduction of the first computer ball mouse (still named "", model RKS 100-86), which was offered as an alternative input device to light pens and trackballs for Telefunken's computer systems since 1968.


title: Trackball

text: In later trackball models the electrical contacts were replaced by a "chopper wheel" which had small slots cut into it in the same locations as the contacts. An LED shone light through the slots to an optical sensor, As the disk rotated the slots alternately lined up and then blocked the light from the LED, causing pulses to be produced in the sensor. The operation was otherwise similar.


title: Trackball

text: Mice used the same basic system for determining motion, but had the problem that the ball was in contact with the desk or mousepad. In order to provide smooth motion the balls were often covered with an anti-slip surface treatment, which was, by design, sticky. Rolling the mouse tended to pick up any dirt and drag it into the system where it would clog the chopper wheels, demanding cleanup. In contrast the trackball is in contact only with the user's hand, which tends to be cleaner. In the late 1990s both mice and trackballs began using direct optical tracking which follows dots on the ball, avoiding the need for anti-slip surface treatment.


title: Trackball

text: As with modern mice, most trackballs now have an auxiliary device primarily intended for scrolling. Some have a scroll wheel like most mice, but the most common type is a “scroll ring” which is spun around the ball. Kensington's SlimBlade Trackball similarly tracks the ball itself in three dimensions for scrolling.


title: Trackball

text: In September 2017 Logitech announced release of MX-Ergo Mouse, which was released after 6 years of its last trackball mouse.


title: Trackball

text: Large trackballs are sometimes seen on computerized special-purpose workstations, such as the radar consoles in an air-traffic control room or sonar equipment on a ship or submarine. Modern installations of such equipment may use mice instead, since most people now already know how to use one. However, military mobile anti-aircraft radars, commercial airliners (such as Airbus A380 and Airbus A350) and submarine sonars tend to continue using trackballs, since they can be made more durable and more fit for fast emergency use. Large and well made ones allow easier high precision work, for which reason they may still be used in these applications (where they are often called "tracker balls") and in computer-aided design.


title: Trackball

text: Trackballs have appeared in video games, particularly early arcade games (see a "List of trackball arcade games"). In March 1978, Sega released "World Cup", an association football game with trackball controls. In October 1978, Atari released "Atari Football", which popularized the use of a trackball, with the game's developers mentioning it was inspired by an earlier Japanese association football game. Other notable trackball games include Atari's "Centipede" and "Missile Command" – though Atari spelled it "trak-ball".


title: Trackball

text: Console trackballs, now fairly rare, were common in the early 1980s: the Atari 2600 and 5200 consoles, as well as the competing ColecoVision console, though using a joystick as their standard controller, each had one as an optional peripheral. The Apple Pippin, a console introduced in 1996, had a trackball built into its gamepad as standard. Trackballs were occasionally used in e-sports prior to the mainstreaming of optical mice in the early 2000s because they were more reliable than ball mice, but now they are extremely rare because optical mice offer superior speed and precision. Trackballs remain in use in pub golf machines (such as Golden Tee) to simulate swinging the club.


title: Trackball

text: Trackballs have also been regarded as excellent complements to analog joysticks, as pioneered by the Assassin 3D, a trackball released in 1996 with joystick pass-through capability. Later in 1996, Mad Catz released the Panther XL, which was based on the Assassin 3D. This combination provides for two-hand aiming and a high accuracy and consistency replacement for the traditional mouse and keyboard combo generally used on first-person shooter games. Many such games natively support joysticks and analog player movement, like Valve's "Half-Life" and id Software's "Quake" series. , one professional eSport player was known for using a trackball.


title: Trackball

text: Trackballs are provided as the pointing device in some public internet access terminals. Unlike a mouse, a trackball can easily be built into a console, and cannot be ripped away or easily vandalized. Two examples are the Internet browsing consoles provided in some UK McDonald's outlets, and the BT Broadband Internet public phone boxes. This simplicity and ruggedness also makes them ideal for use in industrial computers.


title: Trackball

text: Because trackballs for personal computers are stationary, they may require less space for operation than a mouse, simplifying use in confined or cluttered areas such as a small desk or a rack-mounted terminal. They are generally preferred in laboratory setting for the same reason.


title: Trackball

text: Trackballs were often included in laptop computers, but since the late 1990s these have been replaced by touchpads and pointing sticks. Trackballs are still used as separate input devices with standard desktop computers, but this application is also moving to touchpads due to the prevalence of multi touch gesture control in new desktop operating systems.


title: Trackball

text: People with a mobility impairment use trackballs as an assistive technology input device. Access to an alternative pointing device has become even more important for them with the dominance of graphically-oriented operating systems. There are many alternative systems to be considered. The control surface of a trackball is easier to manipulate and the buttons can be activated without affecting the pointer position.


title: Trackball

text: Trackball users also often state that they are not limited to using the device on a flat desk surface. Trackballs can be used whilst browsing a laptop in bed, or wirelessly from an armchair to a PC playing a movie. They are also useful for computing on boats or other unstable platforms where a rolling deck could produce undesirable input.


title: Trackball

text: Trackballs are generally either thumb-operated, with a ball about an inch in diameter or smaller moved by one digit (almost always the thumb) and the buttons clicked by others, or finger-operated, with a ball over two inches in diameter operated by the middle fingers and the buttons by the thumb and little finger. Users favor one format or another for reasons of comfort, mobility, precision, or because it reduces strain on one part of the hand/wrist. Most, but not all, finger-operated designs are symmetrical in design, making them usable by both hands, while thumb-operated designs are by their nature asymmetric or “handed,” allowing the smallest examples to be held in the air. Thumb-operated trackballs are not generally available in left-handed configurations, due to small demand.


title: Trackball

text: Some computer users prefer a trackball over the more common mouse for ergonomic reasons. There seems to be no conclusive evidence from studies performed to determine which type of pointing device works best for most applications. Application users are encouraged to test different devices, and to maintain proper posture and scheduled breaks for comfort. Some disabled users find trackballs easier since they only have to move their thumb relative to their hand, instead of moving the whole hand, while others incur unacceptable fatigue of the thumb. Elderly people sometimes have difficulty holding a mouse still while double-clicking; the trackball allows them to let go of the ball while using the button.


title: Trackball

text: At times when a user is browsing menus or websites rather than typing, it is also possible to hold a trackball in the right hand like a television remote control, operating the ball with the right thumb and pressing the buttons with the left thumb, thus giving the fingers a rest.


title: Trackball

text: Some mobile devices have trackballs, including those in the BlackBerry range, the T-Mobile Sidekick 3, and many early HTC smartphones. These miniature trackballs are made to fit within the thickness of a mobile device, and are controlled by the tip of a finger or thumb. These have mostly been replaced on smartphones by touch screens, although on the blackberry range they were replaced by an "optical trackball" or "optical trackpad" before later being replaced with touch screens.


title: Trackball

text: In lieu of a scroll wheel, some mice include a tiny trackball sometimes called a scroll ball. A popular example is Apple's Mighty Mouse. Mice with a larger trackball on a side may be designed to stay stationary, using the trackball to move the mouse cursor instead of moving the mouse.


title: Lamellar armour

text: Lamellar armour is a type of body armour, made from small rectangular plates (scales or "lamellae") of iron or steel, leather (rawhide), or bronze laced into horizontal rows. Lamellar armour was used over a wide range of time periods in Central Asia, Eastern Asia (especially in China, Japan, Mongolia, and Tibet), Western Asia, and Eastern Europe. The earliest evidence for lamellar armour comes from sculpted artwork of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–609 BCE) in the Near East.


title: Lamellar armour

text: Lamellar armour should not be confused with laminar armour, a related form of plate armour which is made from horizontal overlapping rows or bands of solid armour plates (called lames) rather than scales. By comparison, lamellar armour is made from individual armour scales, which are laced together to form a strip of armour which appears to be solid but is not.


title: Lamellar armour

text: Lamellar armour consists of small platelets known as "lamellae" or "lames", which are punched and laced together, typically in horizontal rows. Lamellae can be made of metal, leather "cuir bouilli", horn, stone, bone or more exotic substances. Metal lamellae may be lacquered to resist corrosion or for decoration. Unlike scale armour, which it resembles, lamellar armour is not attached to a cloth or leather backing (although it is typically worn over a padded undergarment).


title: Lamellar armour

text: In Asia, lamellar armor eventually overtook scale armour in popularity as lamellar restricted the user's movements much less than scale armour.