title: Mazda MX-3

text: In January 1994, a DOHC version of the familiar B6 engine, the "B6D", replaced the previous version. This provided a useful power increase but conversely also made the considerably more expensive V6 version less desirable. Sales of the V6 in the United States market came to an end after the 1994 model year, although they continued in Canada, Japan and many other export markets. While called "K8-DE" in North American specs, Japanese and other markets received an engine called the "K8-ZE". Aside from emissions equipment and varying power claims due to myriad ratings methods, the differences are negligible.


title: Mazda MX-3

text: The MX-3 was only manufactured for one generation as the MX-5 proved more popular and as the Japanese asset price bubble effects became noticeable, Mazda had to cut back models that weren't selling well and the MX-3 was cancelled.


title: Mazda MX-3

text: The V6 MX-3 has a factory claimed top speed of in European trim. The US-spec MX-3 GS can accelerate from 0 to in 8.4 seconds, and can travel a quarter mile in 16.4 seconds. With a turning rate of 0.89 g (8.7 m/s²), its handling capabilities were among the best in its class.


title: Mazda MX-3

text: The V6 engine belonged to the Mazda K-series, which were used in a range of Mazda vehicles. These engines use a Variable Length Intake Manifold (VLIM), in order to provide optimal torque using intake resonance. Mazda called their system on the MX-3 the "Variable Resonance Induction System" (VRIS). This engine had a 7,000 rpm redline, and a 7,800 rpm fuel cutoff.


title: Mazda MX-3

text: For the rear suspension of the MX-3, Mazda used its proprietary Twin-Trapezoidal Link (TTL) technology, delivering benefits associated with active four-wheel steering systems while lighter and less mechanically complicated. Twin-Trapezoidal Link technology has been used on a range of other Mazda vehicles before and since the MX-3.


title: Mazda MX-3

text: In 1993, Mazda Canada offered a limited special edition model of its Mazda MX-3 GS to celebrate the company's 25th year in Canada. At the same time, Mazda USA offered a similar model in a special edition as well. Only a total of 2,000 were supposedly made. The special edition MX-3 featured the V6 engine, leather interior (including seats, steering wheel and shift knob), heated seats (Canada only), and custom Enkei manufactured 15 inch alloy wheels. Most special edition models came in the color "raspberry metallic"; however, there was also "blaze" red, "brilliant" black, and "laguna" blue.


title: Mazda MX-3

text: In 1993, Mazda Europe produced 100 Mazda MX-3 V6 SEs. These had a leather and suede interior, and all had the clear white body color. There were also a limited number of Mazda MX-3 V6 Equipes, with "sparkle green metallic" or "noble" green exteriors.


title: Mazda MX-3

text: The MX-3 is becoming a rare car, so modifications for it can be difficult to find unless one knows where to look, since it has not been sold in North America since 1997. Since the MX-3 has two engine classes, I4 and V6, many of the engine performance modifications are dependent upon what platform is installed.


title: Mazda MX-3

text: There is now a decent range of body modifications for the MX-3 along with performance brakes and suspension. Most extensive modification must be entirely custom fabricated due to limited availability.


title: Mazda MX-3

text: Swapping of the four-cylinder RS engines is slightly more complicated than the V6 GS mainly due to ECU, wiring harness, and MAF combinations as well as motor mounts. The V6 swaps require specific ECU, intake manifold, and VAF sensor combinations, but there are far fewer variables to deal with. Many improvements can be made after the engine swap and during the engine tuning process to find the best combination of engine peripherals.


title: Mazda MX-3

text: The most common engine swap for MX-3 GS owners with the V6 engine is a 2.5 L V6, either a North American-spec KL-DE , found most commonly in the 1993-1997 Ford Probe GT, the 1993-1997 Mazda MX-6 LS, or the 1993-2002 Mazda 626 LX or ES, and the Japanese-spec KL-ZE , found in such vehicles as the Efini MS-8, Xedos 9, and Eunos 800. A 2.0 L V6 KF-ZE is also available, but this swap is quite difficult due to the unavailability of required components. For this reason, this particular engine swap is not often attempted.


title: Mazda MX-3

text: The GS, apart from the engine has dual tip exhaust, a tighter steering ratio, four disc brakes and front and rear spoiler.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Cliven D. Bundy (born April 29, 1946) is an American cattle rancher who was charged and underwent pre-trial detention for his role in the 2014 Bundy standoff. Bundy vocally advocated a philosophy opposed to what he views as federal government overreach. He is the father of Ammon Bundy, who in 2016 also led another armed standoff against the government, the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Bundy initiated the 2014 Bundy standoff in Nevada, an armed standoff with federal and state law enforcement over defaulted grazing fees. On February 10, 2016, Cliven Bundy was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at the Portland International Airport while he was on his way to support the Malheur Standoff. He was placed in federal custody, facing federal charges related to his own standoff with the Bureau of Land Management in 2014. On January 8, 2018, Judge Gloria Navarro declared a mistrial and dismissed the charges because the federal government had withheld potentially exculpatory evidence.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Bundy has participated in, and had links with various related movements, including anti-government activism, (which opposes federal government involvement in favor of state and local governments) and the sovereign citizen movement (which holds that people are answerable only to their particular interpretation of the common law and are not subject to any government statutes or proceedings). Some view him as a hero for having led a movement of ranchers to encourage more ranchers to join him in defaulting on their grazing fees as per their federal grazing contracts. Bundy's views have also generated significant controversy and criticism; for instance, he came under fire for remarks suggesting that African Americans might have been better off under slavery than living under government subsidy.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Bundy was born on April 29, 1946, in Las Vegas, to David Ammon Bundy and Bodel Jensen Bundy. His father started grazing cattle with his 8-year-old son on an allotment near the farm in Bunkerville, Nevada that he purchased in 1949 while his mother had settled on land near Mesquite, Nevada.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Bundy advocated for limited federal government involvement in local affairs, particularly in ranching.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Bundy supported the ideas of the sovereign citizen movement. Many of the adherents of the movement argue that the federal government is illegitimate and does not have jurisdiction over individuals, meaning that laws do not apply to them. Bundy had asked for the support of members of the Oath Keepers, the White Mountain Militia, and the Praetorian Guard.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Cliven Bundy has said he does not recognize federal police power over land that he believes belongs to the "sovereign state of Nevada."


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Bundy has denied the jurisdiction of the federal court system over Nevada land and filed an unsuccessful motion to dismiss the Bureau of Land Management case against him by claiming the federal courts have no jurisdiction because he is a "citizen of Nevada, not the territory of Nevada". Bundy also believes that federally owned land in Nevada actually belongs to the state.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: According to "The Guardian," Bundy told his supporters that "We definitely don't recognize [the BLM director's] jurisdiction or authority, his arresting power or policing power in any way," and in interviews he used the language of the sovereign citizen movement, thereby gaining the support of members of the Oath Keepers, the White Mountain Militia and the Praetorian Guard militias. The movement is considered by the FBI as a major domestic terrorism threat.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: J. J. MacNab, who writes for "Forbes" about anti-government extremism, described Bundy's views as having been inspired by the sovereign citizen movement, whose adherents claim that the county sheriff is the most powerful law-enforcement officer in the country, with authority superior to that of any federal agent, local law-enforcement agency or any other elected official.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: On April 12, 2014, Bundy demanded Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie to confront the federal agents, disarm them and deliver their arms to Bundy within an hour of his demand, and later expressed disappointment that Gillespie did not comply.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: The Southern Poverty Law Center has described Bundy's views as closely aligned with those of the Posse Comitatus organization, and it has also asserted that such self-described "patriot" groups were focused on secession, nullification, and the principles of the Tenther movement.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: In May 2014, Bundy changed his party affiliation from the Republican Party to the Independent American Party.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Bundy is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and has attributed the outcome of the standoff to divine intervention.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: The Bundy standoff was an armed confrontation between protesters and law enforcement that developed from a 20-year legal dispute between the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Cliven Bundy over unpaid grazing fees on federally owned land in southeastern Nevada.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: The dispute started in 1993, when, in protest against changes to grazing rules, Bundy declined to renew his permit for cattle grazing on BLM-administered lands near Bunkerville, Nevada. According to the Bureau of Land Management, Bundy continued to graze his cattle on public lands without a permit. In 1998, Bundy was prohibited by the United States District Court for the District of Nevada from grazing his cattle on an area of land later called the Bunkerville Allotment. In July 2013, U.S. District Judge Lloyd D. George ordered that Bundy refrain from trespassing on federally administered land in the Gold Butte area of Clark County.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: On March 27, 2014, acres of federal land in Clark County were temporarily closed for the "capture, impound, and removal of trespass cattle". BLM officials and law enforcement rangers began a roundup of such livestock on April 5, and an arrest was made the next day. On April 12, a group of protesters, some of them armed, advanced on what the BLM described as a "cattle gather". Sheriff Doug Gillespie negotiated with Bundy and newly confirmed BLM director Neil Kornze, who elected to release the cattle and de-escalate the situation. As of the end of 2015, Bundy continued to graze his cattle on Federal land and had not paid the fees.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: During an interview with a journalist following the standoff, Bundy cited Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution to assert the federal government is limited to owning ten square miles of land, though the clause actually limits the District of Columbia to "ten Miles square."


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Bundy has claimed he was a descendant of "Mayflower" Pilgrims. Prior to his incarceration, Bundy lived in his family home which he built with his father. A member of the Church of Latter-day Saints, he has many descendants, including 14 adult children and 60 grandchildren. His children include Ammon Bundy and Ryan Bundy, two of the leaders of the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: In a 2015 biography, "The Guardian" reported that Cliven Bundy did not carry a weapon out of concern it would make him an assassination target. "The Guardian" also reported that prior to his 2016 arrest, Bundy was protected by an armed body guard which he then claimed had 100 "heavy operators" in the Nevada area, ready to protect him if called upon.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: About a week after the climax of the standoff, on April 19, 2014, Bundy spoke about witnessing a civil disturbance, the 1965 Watts riots. Bundy described his views about unhappiness at that time and criticized what he saw as government interference and its influence on African Americans. He recalled later seeing a public housing project in North Las Vegas where some of the older residents and the children sat on the porch. He said:


title: Cliven Bundy

text: A year later Bundy called the reaction to his statements a "misunderstanding," saying he was not racist and that he should not have used the term "Negro." He added: "I've never had a black person or a brown person ever say anything bad about me." He then proceeded to make further statements about race, comparing "welfare and housing" to slavery. He expressed support for Blacks who have "raised themselves up to a point where they are equal with the rest of us." As an alternative to government jobs and programs, he touted private-sector work. "We don't need leeches feeding off us and eating off of us," he said. "We need producers."


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Then Minority Leader Democratic U.S. Senator from Nevada, Harry Reid, condemned the Bundy statement and said Bundy had, "...revealed himself to be a hateful racist. But by denigrating people who work hard and play by the rules while he mooches off public land he also revealed himself to be a hypocrite ... It is the height of irresponsibility for any individual or entity in a position of power or influence to glorify or romanticize such a dangerous individual ... For their part, national Republican leaders could help show a united front against this kind of hateful, dangerous extremism by publicly condemning Bundy."


title: Cliven Bundy

text: A number of Republican politicians and talk-show hosts who previously had supported Bundy, forcefully condemned his remarks as racist, including then-U.S. Senator Dean Heller of Nevada, who previously had described Bundy defenders as "patriots", and U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. On April 23, 2014, Heller said through a spokesperson that he "completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy's appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way".


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Sean Hannity, who had supported Bundy in his Fox News talk show, had interviewed Bundy several times, and had called him "a friend and frequent guest of the show", later said that Bundy's remarks were "beyond repugnant". Glenn Beck criticized Bundy's comments as "unhinged from reality" and urged his supporters to "end your relationship" with him.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Writing for the "Los Angeles Times", Patt Morrison saw the incident as one of many where an ordinary person is "turned into the poster boy or the poster girl of some political battle du jour." Morrison wrote, "It happens so often that Las Vegas may have a betting line, not on whether these folks will implode but when. The Cliven Bundys of American politics, bit players who are suddenly promoted to center stage, are never as good as their adherents want them to be. They are not empty vessels, but they are flawed ones."


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Ben Swann questioned whether Bundy's "inarticulate" comments were given a "truthful representation", and published a video segment which includes the comments preceding and following the quotation published by Adam Nagourney of "The New York Times".


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Joseph Curl, writing for "The Washington Times", described Bundy's views as incorrect and noted the "New York Times" had failed to print an entire transcript of the remarks.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: According to Geoffrey Lawrence, deputy policy director at the Nevada Policy Research Institute, Bundy lost personal credibility with his racist remarks. Lawrence argues that the discussion about federal land use in the West should not be abandoned, and that Congress should act to correct the "harsh and unfair federal misuse of state lands".


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Bundy was arrested at Portland International Airport in Oregon on February 10, 2016, while attempting to travel to Burns, Oregon to support militants at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Bundy was booked into the downtown Multnomah County jail.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: In a 32-page criminal complaint, federal prosecutors charged Bundy with one count of conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, one count of assault on a federal officer by use of a deadly weapon and aiding and abetting, two counts of use and carrying of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence and aiding and abetting, one count of interfering with commerce by extortion and aiding and abetting, and one count of obstruction of the administration of justice and aiding and abetting.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Bundy made his first appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice M. Stewart in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon in Portland on February 11. He sought court-appointed counsel. At a detention hearing on February 16, Stewart ordered Bundy to be held without bail, citing the serious nature of the charges and the risk of flight. A preliminary hearing was held on March 4, 2016, at the Las Vegas federal courthouse.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: On March 10, Bundy refused to enter a plea to the charges against him, as well as recognize federal authority in the courtroom. U.S. Magistrate Judge Carl Hoffman subsequently entered a plea of not guilty for Bundy and scheduled his detention hearing on March 17. His trial was initially scheduled for May 2, but it was postponed to February 6, 2017. Two more of his sons, Melvin and David, were arrested on charges related to the Bundy standoff, along with 12 other men who were likewise involved.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: On March 10, 2016, Bundy also filed a lawsuit against Judge Gloria Navarro, Senator Harry Reid, Reid's son Rory, and President Barack Obama, alleging a number of conspiracy theories and describing the judge as a "Latino activist." A day later, Bundy's lawyer attempted to serve the judge with the lawsuit during a detention hearing, demanding that the judge recuse herself from the proceedings because she was now involved in a legal conflict with Bundy. The motion was quickly denied, but the judge gave Bundy's lawyer until May 25 to make a case as to whether her previous work as a prosecutor in Clark County, Nevada merited any recusal. On May 25, Judge Navarro denied Bundy's motion for her recusal from the case, and ruled that he would not be granted bail due to factors including:


title: Cliven Bundy

text: Charlie Pierce, writing for "Esquire", described Bundy's legal maneuvers as "a bubbling stew of pure crazy" sounding "like it was dialed in from someone's car to the worst talk-radio show on Planet Stupid"; while Amanda Marcotte of "Salon" described it as a nuisance lawsuit and an "incoherent scattershot of a lawsuit." On October 17, 2016, Bundy dismissed his lawsuit against Navarro, President Obama, and the Reids.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: In a memo dated November 27, 2017, BLM lead investigator Larry Wooten alleged that he was removed from his role in the Bundy case for objecting to a "widespread pattern of bad judgment, lack of discipline, incredible bias, unprofessionalism and misconduct, as well as likely policy, ethical and legal violations among senior and supervisory [BLM] staff." However, a prior internal investigation by BLM special agent Kent Kleman contradicted Wooten's particular allegations that staff assigned to the case withheld evidence that would assist the Bundy defense.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: On December 21, 2017, a mistrial was declared by Judge Navarro, citing a "willful" failure by federal prosecutors to turn over FBI and BLM documents that would potentially aid the defense. Soon thereafter on January 8, 2018, Navarro dismissed with prejudice all charges against Cliven Bundy and his sons, thus forbidding any retrial of the defendants. In her decision, Navarro further criticized prosecutors for willful violations of defendants' due process rights, as well as the aforementioned failure to properly turn over evidence to their lawyers. The government appealed the dismissal.


title: Cliven Bundy

text: On August 6, 2020, the 9th United States Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco denied an appeal by United States prosecutors to reinstate the criminal prosecution of the Bundys related to the 2014 armed standoff in Nevada and the 2016 armed protest and occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. The appeals court ruled that the dismissal of the case against the Bundys due to the prosecution withholding documents and other materials requested by the defense attorneys was proper and supported by the record of the case. The appeals court stopped short of affirming that prosecutorial misconduct had occurred and stated that “misjudgments" by prosecutors did not rise to professional misconduct in the case.


title: Barry Hankerson

text: Barry Hankerson (born August 3, 1947) is an American record producer, music label owner and manager. Hankerson is the founder of Blackground Records. He is the uncle of singer and actress Aaliyah.


title: Barry Hankerson

text: Born and raised in Harlem, New York City, Hankerson attended Central State University in Ohio, where he majored in sociology and played on the football team. After unsuccessfully auditioning for the New York Jets, he moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he worked as a community organizer in the office of mayor Coleman Young in the early 1970s. Later in the decade, Hankerson moved into the entertainment industry, helping to produce the 1976 film "Pipe Dreams", which he also costarred in with his then-wife Gladys Knight. He produced Ron Milner's play "Don't Get God Started" in 1988.


title: Barry Hankerson

text: Hankerson formed Blackground in 1993, as a result of unsuccessful efforts to sign his niece, Aaliyah, to big record labels. Using his connection with singer R. Kelly, who he managed at the time, Hankerson obtained a contract with Jive to distribute the release of Aaliyah's debut album "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number". Initially named Blackground Enterprises, the label switched its name to Blackground Entertainment and later Blackground Records in 2000. It co-operated with a publishing company founded by Hankerson, named Black Fountain Music. Hankerson served as Aaliyah's manager until 1995 when her father, Michael Haughton, took over as manager. Aaliyah remained on his label until her death on August 25, 2001. Additionally, Hankerson managed and produced The Winans, and was a percussionist on their albums "Let My People Go" and "Decisions". He also managed Toni Braxton.


title: Barry Hankerson

text: Hankerson has been a strong supporter of Barack Obama, contributing heavily to both campaigns and producing a movie on him in 2012 titled "The Obama Effect" for the newly launched Blackground Pictures. It was directed by Charles S. Dutton and stars him, Katt Williams and Meagan Good.


title: Barry Hankerson

text: Hankerson married Gladys Knight in October 1974; after four years the couple divorced. He has one daughter and two sons; one with Knight, Shanga-Ali Hankerson and Jomo Hankerson, his oldest son, from a previous marriage. Hankerson is the brother of Diane Haughton and uncle to her and Michael Haughton's two children, American R&B singer Aaliyah and Rashad Haughton.


title: Barry Hankerson

text: In 2007, Braxton filed a $10 million lawsuit against her former manager, Hankerson, alleging "fraud, deception and double dealing," in addition to mismanaging her relationship with Arista Records. According to Braxton's lawsuit, Hankerson placed his personal financial interests ahead of hers by using 'double-talk' to compromise the relationship between Braxton and her former label, with Hankerson allegedly telling Arista that "Braxton no longer wanted to record for Arista," and telling Braxton that "Arista was not interested in working with her anymore". The suit was settled with Braxton being forced to return a $375,000 advance to Hankerson, who would also receive a percentage of the sales of her next album, and Hankerson releasing Braxton from her contract with him. The settlement also temporarily limited the companies with which Braxton could sign. Hankerson claimed that the problems initially arose due to a number of disputes with Braxton and her wish to include her husband in her music.


title: Barry Hankerson

text: In 2007, Kyme Dang sued the defunct Blackground Records for a $5.8 million settlement, alleging breach of written guaranty. According to Dang's lawsuit, Hankerson went so far as to buy and rename the salon she worked at as a hair stylist, took to the internet to accuse her of having AIDS and then blew up her car in front of the Oceanside home she shared with her family. Dang claimed that Hankerson's private investigator was outside watching when the car exploded and "had the incident reported to the local police in such a manner as to deflect attention away from Hankerson as having involvement in the incident." On January 1, 2012, Blackground Records agreed to act as guaranty for the settlement agreement, but failed to pay Hankerson's debt after he defaulted on the agreement.


title: Barry Hankerson

text: On July 30, 2013, it was reported that JoJo had filed a lawsuit against Blackground Records for "irreparable damages to her professional career". Minors cannot sign contracts that last more than seven years under New York State law and thus she claims that as her contract was signed in 2004, her deal should have expired in 2011. In December 2013, both of JoJo's and Blackground's attorneys agreed to drop the case as both parties came to an agreement outside court. JoJo had claimed her manager and label wouldn't release her from contract, but were also refusing to allow her to release any music.


title: Barry Hankerson

text: In August 2021, it was reported that Blackground had rebranded as Blackground Records 2.0 and that former artists' discographies would be re-released on physical, digital, and streaming services in a deal between the record label and Empire Distribution. However, Aaliyah's estate, run by her mother and brother Rashad, issued a statement preempting Blackground 2.0's announcement, denouncing an "unscrupulous endeavor to release Aaliyah's music without any transparency or full accounting to the estate". Aaliyah's "One In A Million" was reissued on August 20, 2021. Her self titled album was released a few weeks later. Albums from Tank, Timbaland & Magoo, JoJo, Toni Braxton and Ashley Parker Angel and soundtracks to Romeo Must Die and Exit Wounds were also re-released.


Ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, colloquially known as Tommy John surgery (TJS), is a surgical graft procedure where the ulnar collateral ligament in the medial elbow is replaced with either a tendon from elsewhere in the patient's body, or with one from a deceased donor. The procedure is common among collegiate and professional athletes in several sports, particularly in baseball.


title: Ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction

text: The procedure was devised in 1974 by orthopedic surgeon Frank Jobe, a Los Angeles Dodgers team physician who served as a special advisor to the team until his death in 2014. It is named after the first baseball player to undergo the surgery, major league pitcher Tommy John, whose record of 288 career victories ranks seventh among left-handed pitchers. The initial operation, John's successful post-surgery career, and the relationship between the two men was the subject of a 2013 ESPN "30 for 30" documentary.


text: The ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) can become stretched, frayed or torn through the repetitive stress of the throwing motion. The risk of injury to the UCL is believed to be extremely high, as the amount of stress through the structure approaches its ultimate tensile strength during a hard throw.


text: This injury is associated with baseball, although it sometimes appears in other sports. Compared to athletes who play other sports, baseball players are at elevated risk of overuse injuries and injuries caused by early sports specialization among children and teenagers.


text: While some sources say that an individual's style of throwing or the type of pitches that they throw are the most important determinant of their likelihood to sustain an injury, the results of a 2002 study suggest that the total number of pitches thrown is the greatest determinant. A 2002 study examined the throwing volume, pitch type and throwing mechanics of 426 pitchers aged 9 to 14 for one year. Compared to pitchers who threw 200 or fewer pitches in a season, those who threw 201–400, 401–600, 601–800 and 800+ pitches faced an increased risk of 63%, 181%, 234% and 161% respectively. The types of pitches thrown showed a smaller effect; throwing a slider was associated with an 86% increased chance of elbow injury while throwing a curveball was associated with an increase in pain. There was only a weak correlation between throwing mechanics perceived as bad and injury-prone.


text: However, because there are many effective styles of pitching, incorrect throwing mechanics can be difficult to define and determine. One of the most common denominators among virtually all pitchers is "reaching back" with the throwing arm prior to release and follow-through. This repeated motion is believed to be a major contributing factor in UCL injuries, as it stretches the ligament in an unnatural manner and direction. Simply raising the pitching arm and bringing it forward with a complete follow-through produces the same levels of spin rate, velocity, movement and location while helping to protect the UCL from unnecessary injury.


text: Research into throwing injuries in young athletes has led to age-based recommendations for pitch limits. A 2016 study explained 22% of the variation in those needing ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, identifying handedness, standard deviation of release point, days lost to arm and shoulder injuries, previous ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, number of hard pitches, ERA- and age as the known risk factors.


text: In younger athletes whose epiphyseal plate (growth plate) is still open, the force on the inside of the elbow during throwing is more likely to cause the elbow to fail at this point than at the ulnar collateral ligament. This injury is often termed "Little League elbow" and can be serious but does not require reconstructing the UCL.


text: Increasingly often, pitchers require a second procedure after returning to pitching. During the periods from 2001 to 2012 and 2013 to 2015, 18 major-league pitchers underwent the procedure for a second time. As of April 2015, the average amount of time between procedures is 4.97 years.


text: Some baseball pitchers believe that they can throw harder after ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction than they did beforehand. As a result, orthopedic surgeons have reported that parents of young pitchers have asked them to perform the procedure on their uninjured sons in the hope that it will increase performance. However, many people, including Frank Jobe, believe that any postsurgical increases in performance are most likely the result of the increased stability of the elbow joint and pitchers' increased attention to their fitness and conditioning. Jobe believed that, rather than allowing pitchers to gain speed, the surgery and rehab protocols merely allow pitchers to return to their pre-injury levels of performance.


text: A surgical incision of is made near the elbow. Holes to accommodate a replacement graft tendon are drilled in the ulna and humerus bones of the elbow. A harvested tendon, such as the palmaris tendon from the forearm of the same or opposite elbow, the patellar tendon, hamstring, toe extensor or a donor tendon (allograft), is then woven in a figure-eight pattern through the holes and anchored. The ulnar nerve is usually moved to prevent pain, as scar tissue can apply pressure to the nerve. The procedure is performed on an outpatient basis allowing discharge the same day, with the arm in a splint to protect the repair for the first week. After one week, a brace is employed to protect the reconstruction for about six weeks following surgery.


text: Repair has been shown to be largely viable in cases of acute UCL avulsion type-injury at the proximal or distal end, with the main benefit of the procedure being reduced rehabilitation time compared to that of UCL reconstruction. Early attempts at UCL repair yielded poor results and were largely abandoned until anchor fixation was improved in 2008.


text: Full competition throwing is usually permitted at seven to nine months, and pitchers are ready to return to the game at approximately 10 to 18 months.


text: Over the past two decades, the number of UCLR surgeries has increased threefold, a rate that is expected to rise in upcoming years. A study has shown that the rate of UCLR surgery for those aged 15 to 19 is the highest among all age ranges and is increasing by 9% each year.


text: USA Baseball, Major League Baseball and Little League Baseball have initiated the Pitch Smart program designed to lower the risk of elbow injuries in adolescent pitchers. The main risk factors for elbow injury from overhand throwing include number of pitches per game, innings pitched per season, months pitched per year and poor pitching biomechanics that may increase torque and force on the elbow.


text: At the time of John's operation, Jobe estimated the chance for success of the operation at 1 in 100. By 2009, the odds of complete recovery had risen to 85–92%.


text: Following his 1974 surgery, John missed the entire 1975 season rehabilitating his arm before returning for the 1976 season. Before his surgery, John had won 124 games. He won 164 games after surgery, retiring in 1989 at age 46.


text: For baseball players, full rehabilitation takes about 12–15 months for pitchers and about six months for position players. Players typically begin throwing about 16 weeks after surgery. While 80% of players return to pitching at the same level as before the surgery, for those Major League Baseball pitchers who receive the surgery twice, 35% never pitch again in the major leagues.


text: Jobe has stated that if he had invented the technique 10 years earlier, it might have been nicknamed Sandy Koufax surgery, after Dodgers hall of famer Sandy Koufax, who retired with "essentially the same thing as Tommy John."


title: Rodolfo Cadena

text: Rodolfo Alvarado "Cheyenne" Cadena (April 15, 1943 – December 17, 1972) was a Mexican-American mob boss and a prominent figure in the Mexican Mafia prison gang also called "La eMe" (Spanish for the letter M).


title: Rodolfo Cadena

text: Cadena was born on April 15, 1943 in San Antonio, Texas, the son of second-generation Mexican immigrants Anita (née Alvarado) and Daniel Hernandez Cadena. The family later moved to Bakersfield, California where Cadena attended East Bakersfield High School. Cadena became a member of the Varrio Viejo Gang (now known as the Varrio Bakers). He was incarcerated at Deuel Vocational Institution after he and Richard Ruiz, who would become one of the founding members of La eMe, stabbed a man to death outside of a dancehall called 'Salón Juárez' in 1959. At the time of his conviction, Cadena was only 16 years old. While incarcerated, he earned the respect and admiration of the members of the Mexican Mafia which was still in its development stage.


title: Rodolfo Cadena

text: By 1961, administrators at DVI, alarmed by the escalating violence, had transferred a number of the charter eMe members to San Quentin, hoping to discourage their violent behavior by intermingling them with hardened adult convicts. It didn't work. For example, the story goes that Cheyenne Cadena arrived on the lower yard and was met by a six-foot-five, 300-pound black inmate who planted a kiss on his face and announced this scrawny teenager would now be his 'bitch.' Chy returned a short time later, walked up to the unsuspecting predator, and stabbed him to death with a jailhouse knife, or shiv. There were more than a thousand inmates on the yard. No witnesses stepped forward, and only one dead man entertained the idea that Cadena was anybody's bitch.


title: Rodolfo Cadena

text: Cadena and Joe "Pegleg" Morgan, who became his best friend and mentor, led the gang to prominence in the California correctional system by terrorizing other unorganized ethnic inmate groups, gaining a monopoly over the sale of drugs, pornography, prostitution, extortion, and murder for hire.


title: Rodolfo Cadena

text: Cadena continued to run the Mafia's activities and began to look beyond the walls of the prison, envisioning a statewide monopoly of crime. He struck an uneasy alliance with George Jackson and the Black Guerrilla Family and became active in Latino political organizations like the Brown Berets. Cadena made overtures to unite La eMe with the rival Nuestra Familia (NF). His peace talks with ""the farmeros"" were frowned upon by Joe Morgan and other senior eMe leaders. In response, they ordered the murder of two Familia leaders just prior to an important peace conference between Cadena and Death Row inmate Joe Gonzalez, an NF leader at Chino Reception center, undermining Cadena's peace mission and effectively "green-lighting" him. With no remaining influence in the Mexican Mafia, his importance in the eyes of the NF was diminished; he was now a target for retribution. Cadena could have saved himself by requesting Protective Custody, a move that would have shown weakness to the way of life he had fought and killed for. His fate effectively sealed, he chose instead to go out the way he had come in, fighting. On his arrival in Chino for the now sabotaged peace mission, he was taunted by the Norteños and told his time would come.


title: Rodolfo Cadena

text: The night before his death, Cadena had received multiple death threats and knew that when he left his cell in the morning, he would be leaving it permanently. On the morning of December 17, 1972, Cadena was asked if he wanted to leave his cell with the rest of the prisoners; rather than avoiding his fate and staying in his cell, he stepped onto the tier of his cell in "Palm Hall" at the Chino Reception center. He was stabbed repeatedly with shanks, and beaten with a pipe by Nuestra Familia assassins. He was stabbed an estimated fifty times on the tier and thrown off a third story tier onto the concrete floor below and stabbed another dozen times. Cadena was subsequently buried at Union Cemetery in Bakersfield, California with an inscription reading, ""Recuerdo de tu madre y familia"" (Remembered by your mother and family.) His parents would divorce shortly afterwards.


title: Rodolfo Cadena

text: Cadena's murder sparked an era of gang warfare within the California penal system. Over the next year the lives of 31 prisoners were lost in tit-for-tat killings. The carnage and animosity from his murder still exists 48 years after his death, as La eMe still has a "kill on sight" order for any member of Nuestra Familia.


title: Rodolfo Cadena

text: Cadena was the basis for the 1992 movie "American Me", in which, Montoya Santana, a character based upon Cadena, was portrayed by Edward James Olmos. The Mexican Mafia, however, was enraged by certain parts of the movie,


title: Rodolfo Cadena

text: especially the portrayal of Santana being raped in juvenile hall and a climax in which Santana is murdered by his own followers. Two of Olmos' consultants on the film were subsequently murdered and a plot to extort the director was uncovered.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: James Frederick Bridenstine (born June 15, 1975) is an American military officer and politician who served as the 13th administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Bridenstine was the United States representative for Oklahoma's 1st congressional district, based in Tulsa from January 3, 2013, to April 23, 2018. He is a member of the Republican Party. Bridenstine currently works in the private sector and holds positions at Voyager Space Holdings, Viasat, Acorn Growth Companies and Firefly Aerospace.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: On September 1, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Bridenstine to be the Administrator of NASA; he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 19, 2018, by a party-line vote of 50–49. Bridenstine was on the Committee on Science, Space and Technology during his time in Congress. He is the first elected official to be appointed NASA Administrator.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Bridenstine stepped down as the head of NASA on January 20, 2021, to make way for a new leader in the Biden Administration. Former Senator and astronaut Bill Nelson was announced on March 19, 2021, as his chosen successor.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Bridenstine was born on June 15, 1975, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He grew up in Arlington, Texas, the son of an elementary school teacher and an accountant, where he became an Eagle Scout.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: His family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, during his junior year of high school, and during his senior year he was captain of the Jenks High School swim team and Oklahoma Swimmer of the Year; as of mid-2016, was one of a team of four that held the Oklahoma state record in the 200-meter freestyle relay for age group 17–18.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Bridenstine graduated from Jenks High School in 1993, and earned a scholarship to Rice University in Houston, Texas, but injured his shoulder during his second year; he took five years to graduate, in 1998. He triple majored with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, Psychology, and Business. He later received a Master's in Business Administration from Cornell University, awarded in 2009.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Bridenstine joined the Navy in May 1998, after graduating from Rice University. He was a Naval Aviator in both the active duty United States Navy and the United States Naval Reserve. He flew the E-2C "Hawkeye" aircraft as part of a carrier air wing with the U.S. Navy and in Central and South America in support of the War on Drugs with the Naval Reserve. He later moved to the F/A-18 "Hornet" and flew at the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center, in Nevada


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: In 2006, Bridenstine bought stock in the Rocket Racing League (RRL), which planned to begin races in 2008. In January 2007, he met with Tulsa city officials, asking for support for establishing a team in that city, and later in 2007 he invested in an RRL team.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: In 2007, after the end of his active duty in the Navy, Bridenstine moved to Orlando, Florida, where he worked at Wyle Laboratories, a defense consulting firm. In 2008, Bridenstine and his family moved back to Tulsa to be closer to his family, and he became the chief pilot for the Tulsa team of the RRL.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: In December 2008, Bridenstine became the executive director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum. In November 2009, he proposed to the head of RRL that the league put on an air show in Tulsa, and in February 2010 the museum announced that it would partner with RRL for the show. The April 2010 show attracted around 40,000 spectators, but lost $330,000, and overall fundraising events for the museum for 2010 lost $400,000. Bridenstine left the executive director's position in August 2010, along with the museum's financial controller and the director of marketing.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: In 2010, Bridenstine began serving in the Navy Reserve. In 2015, two years after become a U.S. Representative, he transferred his Reserve commission and joined the Oklahoma Air National Guard.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: In September 2011, Bridenstine launched a campaign to unseat five-term incumbent U.S. Congressman John Sullivan. Bridenstine won the June 2012 Republican primary election with 54% of the vote. Although he identified with the Tea Party and was perceived as running to Sullivan's right, Bridenstine's actual policy statements differed little from those of Sullivan.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Bridenstine had effectively clinched a seat in Congress by ousting Sullivan in the Republican primary. The 1st is a heavily Republican district with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+16, and has been in Republican hands since 1987. In the November 2012 general election, Bridenstine defeated Democratic nominee John Olson 63%–32%, winning all five counties in the district.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Bridenstine ran unopposed in the 2014 election. His top campaign contributors were Northrop Grumman, Latshaw Drilling, American Optometric Association, Citizens United and the Every Republican is Crucial Political Action Committee.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: He received $29,000 from donors associated with the Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians and the Assembly of the Friends of Azerbaijan (AFAZ), per an analysis of OpenSecrets.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Bridenstine retained his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2016 election. Following the 2016 presidential election, Bridenstine was viewed as a possible candidate for either NASA administrator or Secretary of the Air Force under the Donald Trump administration. Bridenstine had already declared that he would not run for re-election in 2018 after making a three-term pledge.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Bridenstine sat on the Committee on Armed Services and Committee on Science, Space and Technology during the 113th, 114th, and 115th Congresses.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Within the Armed Services Committee, Bridenstine has sat on the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces and Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. Within the Science Committee, Bridenstine has sat on the Subcommittee on Environment (Chairman) and Subcommittee on Space. He is a member of the Freedom Caucus and the House Baltic Caucus.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Bridenstine's amendment to the defense appropriations bill came following a visit to Baku upon invitation of the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic for ten members of Congress and 32 staff members; the visit became the subject of an ethics investigation. The members received numerous gifts during the trip totaling thousands of dollars in value. In 2013, Bridenstine returned two of the gifts (a pair of rugs worth several thousand dollars) to the donor; he had been the only lawmaker to disclose gifts from the trip on his financial disclosure forms. In 2015, he turned over remaining gifts received during the trip to the House Clerk, around the time that a watchdog report that indicated that the source of the funding for the trip had not been properly declared. The OCE and House Ethics committee found that lawmakers and aides had no way of knowing that the trip was funded improperly.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: On September 1, 2017, the White House announced that Bridenstine was President Donald Trump's preferred pick to head NASA. The choice was quickly criticized by both Republican and Democratic politicians, saying that NASA should be headed by a "space professional", not a politician or a Trump ally. Critics drew attention to Bridenstine's lack of formal qualifications in science or engineering, unlike previous appointees to that post. Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio said that Bridenstine's political history could prove controversial and delay the confirmation process, saying "I just think it could be devastating for the space program", while Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, also of Florida and a former Payload Specialist for NASA who flew on STS-61-C, said "The head of NASA ought to be a space professional, not a politician." Nelson himself would be nominated to lead NASA by President Biden in 2021.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: "CNN" found that Bridenstine's Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts had been entirely deleted, while most of the interviews on his Soundcloud were deleted, at a time when Congress would be examining his record for his confirmation hearing.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Bridenstine has criticized NASA spending on climate science and has supported increased privatization of U.S. civil and military space activities. According to "NPR", Bridenstine's past climate change denial views "are sure to alarm scientists, because NASA conducts a huge amount of the global research on climate change." NASA finds that climate-warming trends are "extremely likely due to human activities" and has written on its website that "the small amount of dissent tends to come from a few vocal scientists who are not experts in the climate field or do not understand the scientific basis of long-term climate processes". Since his confirmation, Bridenstine has said that he agrees with the scientific consensus around human contributions to climate change.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Eric Stallmer, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, said he was "very impressed with [Bridenstine's] deep knowledge of space technology issues and his record of strong leadership in promoting positive change." The decision to pick Bridenstine was also praised by Senator Ted Cruz.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: According to "Science Magazine", "many expect that Bridenstine, who has written about the commercial potential of exploiting lunar resources, could shift the agency's emphasis [from its long-term mission of sending humans to Mars] toward the moon." "ABC News" wrote that Bridenstine was in favor of both human missions to the Moon and Mars.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: The U.S. Senate confirmed Bridenstine on April 19, 2018, by a party-line vote of 50–49. He became the first member of Congress to lead NASA. Bridenstine was sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence at the NASA Headquarters building in Washington, D.C. on April 23, 2018.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: In March 2019, Mike Pence pushed NASA to land humans on the Moon in 2024 instead of the initially planned 2028. Bridenstine stated that for it to happen, the Space Launch System would need to be accelerated, along with various other aspects such as the LOP-G, an orbiting space station around the Moon. Bridenstine also considered commercial Heavy-Lift rockets such as the Delta IV Heavy or Falcon Heavy. The idea was scrapped due to the logistical issue of docking an Orion and a European Service Module and the aerodynamics of using a Falcon Heavy.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Bridenstine established a working relationship with SpaceX CEO and Founder Elon Musk. Following the DM-1 mission in March 2019, Musk posited the need for humans to have a base on the Moon, to which Bridenstine responded, "that's the goal."


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Bridenstine played a huge role in implementing President Trump's Space Policy Directive One and developed the planned architecture for a return to the Moon. Bridenstine later named the program the Artemis program. Bridenstine also decided that the lunar lander for the Artemis program would be developed commercially similar to the model used for NASA's Commercial Crew Program.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Following the end of his tenure as NASA Administrator, Bridenstine returned to his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. On January 25, 2021, Acorn Growth Companies announced that he was hired as a dedicated senior advisor.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: On April 1, 2021, Bridenstine joined the board of directors of satellite operator Viasat in his second private sector role since stepping down as NASA's administrator.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: On April 7, 2021, Denver-based Voyager Space Holdings, which has been buying businesses to build a vertically integrated space exploration company, announced they had appointed Bridenstine to chair its advisory board. Dylan Taylor, chairman and CEO of Voyager, said Bridenstine's expertise would help guide the company's "aggressive and ambitious growth plan."


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Bridenstine focused heavily on space policy during his tenure in Congress, stating "[o]ur very way of life depends on space, the way we communicate, the way we navigate, the way we produce food and energy, the way we conduct banking." In April 2016 at the 32nd Annual Space Symposium, Bridenstine introduced H.R. 4945, the American Space Renaissance Act, comprehensive reform legislation with provisions affecting national security, civil, and commercial space policy.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: In addition, Bridenstine proposed legislation related to the regulatory process overseeing certain non-traditional space activities, and helped secure funding for the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation. Recognizing his efforts, in 2015 SpaceNews named Bridenstine as one of five game changers in the world in space.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: Before becoming the chief administrator of NASA, Bridenstine rejected the scientific consensus behind global climate change and in a 2013 speech on the House floor stated that global temperatures stopped rising ten years earlier. Bridenstine criticized the Obama administration for spending "30 times as much money" on climate science as on weather forecasting. PolitiFact says of this claim that "Bridenstine does have a point that climate change research exceeds weather forecasting expenditures, but he’s overstated the discrepancy," and they rate the assertion as "mostly false".


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: In the 114th Congress, Bridenstine was the Chairman of the Environment Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. In that role, he pushed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration "... to integrate commercial data into its weather forecasting models." In September 2016, NOAA awarded two contracts to private weather satellite firms to provide data for its use.


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: In 2017, Bridenstine supported James Langevin's legislation requiring the Defense Department to report on the effects of climate change on military installations and strategic battle plans. According to journalist Keith Cowing, Bridenstine's support for the Langevin amendment "was widely seen as being instrumental in its passage."


title: Jim Bridenstine

text: By May 2018, Bridenstine had reversed his public position on climate change. At a town hall meeting in Washington D.C., Bridenstine said that "I fully believe and know that the climate is changing. I also know that we humans beings are contributing to it in a major way. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. We're putting it into the atmosphere in volumes that we haven't seen, and that greenhouse gas is warming the planet. That is absolutely happening, and we are responsible for it."


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: A Matter of Loaf and Death is a 2008 British stop-motion animated short film produced by Aardman Animations, created by Nick Park, and is the fourth short to star his characters "Wallace and Gromit", the first one since "A Close Shave" in 1995.


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: "A Matter of Loaf and Death" is a murder mystery, with Wallace and Gromit starting a new bakery business. With an unknown assailant murdering bakers, Gromit tries to solve the case before Wallace ends up a victim himself. It was the last "Wallace and Gromit" film before the retirement of Wallace's voice actor Peter Sallis in 2010. The short was also one of most watched television specials in the United Kingdom in 2008, and received critical acclaim. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short Film at the 82nd Academy Awards losing to "Logorama" and won a BAFTA and an Annie Award for Best Short Animation and Best Animated Short Subject respectively in 2009.


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: A serial killer has murdered twelve bakers. While on a delivery for their bakery business, Wallace and Gromit save Piella Bakewell, a former pin-up girl for the Bake-O-Lite bread company, and her nervous poodle Fluffles when the brakes on her bicycle fail. Gromit finds there is no problem with the brakes, but Wallace is smitten. He and Piella begin a whirlwind romance, and Gromit is angered when she redecorates their house. Fluffles and Gromit share a sensitive moment when she returns Gromit's possessions, discarded by Piella.


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: Wallace sends Gromit to return Piella's forgotten purse. At Piella's mansion, Gromit discovers numbered mannequins representing each of the murdered bakers, and an album containing photographs showing Piella in relationships with each one; Wallace is her planned thirteenth victim, completing a baker's dozen. When he shows Wallace the evidence, Wallace is too distracted with his engagement to Piella to listen.


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: Gromit installs security measures in their home, including a metal-detecting security screener. After Piella tricks Wallace into thinking that Gromit bit her by biting her own arm, Wallace muzzles Gromit and chains him up. Gromit watches helplessly as Piella prepares to push Wallace to his death, but he is saved when Piella is struck by a bag of flour. After an angry outburst about bakers, she leaves but drops by the next day to apologize with a cake. Gromit, suspicious, follows her home, where Piella throws him into a storeroom with Fluffles.


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: Escaping in Piella's old Bake-O-Lite hot air balloon, Gromit and Fluffles arrive at Wallace's house as he lights the candle. After a struggle, the cake falls, revealing it to be a bomb. Wallace and Gromit are attacked by Piella, who reveals she detests bakers after her weight gain ended her career as the Bake-O-Lite girl. She is about to kill Wallace but is attacked by Fluffles in a forklift. In the chaos, the bomb ends up in Wallace's trousers; Gromit and Fluffles neutralize the explosion by filling the trousers with dough while Piella leaps onto her balloon and escapes. However, her weight drags the balloon into the zoo and right to a crocodile enclosure where she is fatally devoured.


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: Dejected, Wallace and Gromit decide to take their mind off their great adventure, especially the battle they had with Piella, with a delivery. Outside, they find Fluffles and she joins them.


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: In October 2007, it was announced that "Wallace and Gromit" were to return to television after an absence of ten years with a new short film titled "Wallace and Gromit: Trouble At' Mill". Filming began in January 2008; creator Nick Park commented that the production period for the short was significantly quicker than that of the feature-length films "Chicken Run" and "", which each took five years to complete. "A Matter of Loaf and Death" was the first Aardman film to be made using the software Stop-Motion Pro. Five models were created for Gromit alone, with scenes being shot simultaneously on thirteen sets.


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: Commenting on the fact that the short would be made directly for a British audience, Nick Park said: "I don't feel like I'm making a film for a kid in some suburb of America — and being told they're not going to understand a joke, or a northern saying." Regardless, Park changed the title from "Trouble at Mill" as he thought it was too obscure a Northern England colloquialism. As well as a final title that references "A Matter of Life and Death", the film also references "Batman", "Aliens" and "Ghost".


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: Park said in an interview with the "Radio Times", "The BBC hardly gave a single note or instruction on the whole thing", and Park goes on to remark how it was better than his previous work with DreamWorks, "Curse of the Were-Rabbit", where they kept on receiving calls to change critical things.


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: Park cast Sally Lindsay after hearing her on the "Radcliffe and Maconie Show" on BBC Radio 2 whilst driving from Preston. Although unfamiliar with her role as Shelly Unwin in "Coronation Street", Park said "Sally has a lot of fun in her voice, flamboyant almost, and I was also looking for someone who could be quite charming too, but with a slightly posh northern accent. Piella needed to at times sound well to do, and then at others sound quite gritty".


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: The short had its world premiere in Australia, on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's ABC1 on 3 December 2008, and was repeated again the following day on ABC2.


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: In the United Kingdom, it aired on Christmas Day at 20:30 on BBC One, although it had been readily available on The Pirate Bay since 3 December 2008. On 19 December 2008, Aardman Animations revealed they had "no idea" of how clips were leaked onto YouTube, ahead of its screening in the United Kingdom.


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: In France, "A Matter of Loaf and Death" ("Sacré pétrin" in French) was shown – dubbed into French – on Christmas Eve 2008, on M6. In Germany, one version, entitled "Auf Leben und Brot" was broadcast on the Super RTL network, the title is a play on "Auf Leben und Tod" meaning a matter of life and death.


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: In a similar style to "A Close Shave", Wallace and Gromit became the theme for BBC One's Christmas presentation for 2008, to promote the showing of "A Matter of Loaf and Death".


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: The programme was watched by the most viewers of any programme on Christmas Day, 2008 in the United Kingdom, and secured the largest Christmas Day audience in five years. It was also the most watched programme in the United Kingdom in 2008, with a peak average audience of 14.4 million. The programme had a share of 53.3%, peaking with 58.1% and 15.88 million at the end of the programme.


title: A Matter of Loaf and Death

text: The repeat showing on New Year's Day even managed 7.2 million, beating ITV's "Emmerdale" in the ratings. The short was shown on British Television for the third time on Good Friday pulling in 3.4 million viewers. In BARB's official ratings published on 8 January 2009, it showed that "A Matter of Loaf and Death" had 16.15 million, making it the highest rated programme of 2008, and the highest rated non sporting event in the United Kingdom since 2004, when an episode of "Coronation Street" garnered 16.3 million.


title: Lovro Majer

text: Lovro Majer (; born 17 January 1998) is a Croatian professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder for Ligue 1 club Rennes and the Croatia national team.


title: Lovro Majer

text: Majer was born in Zagreb in 1998. His father Egon hails from Preko on the island of Ugljan. Majer started his football career with the local team Dinamo Zagreb. He left the team at the age of 12. In 2013, Majer joined Lokomotiva youth academy.


title: Lovro Majer

text: In 2016, Majer was called up to the Lokomotiva first team. On 30 June 2016, Majer made his senior team debut in the UEFA Europa League qualifying phase against Santa Coloma at Estadi Comunal, replacing Eros Grezda in the 76th minute by coach Mario Tokić. On 17 July 2016, he made his Prva HNL debut in the matchday 1 against Dinamo Zagreb, replacing Ivan Fiolić in the 55th minute of the 3–1 loss. On 25 October 2016, he scored in the Croatian Football Cup in the 69th minute of the second round against Vinogradar. His goal led Lokomotiva to advance to the quarter-finals.


title: Lovro Majer

text: On 10 March, Majer scored a brace in a 4–1 away win over Dinamo Zagreb, which was a historic first win for Lokomotiva over Dinamo, with the club winning after 28 attempts. On 8 June 2018, Majer was awarded the Best Young Footballer award by the Croatian Football Federation for his performances in the 2017–18 Prva HNL season, and was also named in the Team of the Season. During his tenure at Lokomotiva, he sparked interest from Newcastle United and Sampdoria.


title: Lovro Majer

text: On 27 June 2018, Majer officially signed for Dinamo Zagreb and chose the number 10 shirt. On 27 July, in his league debut for Dinamo, he injured his ankle as Dinamo drew 1–1 with Rudeš. He was forced to undergo surgery and miss the first half of the season.


title: Lovro Majer

text: However, Majer was not getting many chances during coach Nenad Bjelica's tenure at the club. Most of it was due to the form of his teammate Dani Olmo who played in the same position. On 13 July 2019, in the Croatian Super Cup, Majer was substituted on for Izet Hajrović in the 82nd minute and received two yellow cards within three minutes. On 11 December, he made his Champions League debut as Dinamo lost 4–1 to Manchester City. Dissatisfied with his status in the team, Majer was on the verge of signing for Birmingham City in July 2020, but the move was stopped by Dinamo. After both Bjelica and his successor Igor Jovićević got fired, new coach Zoran Mamić began relying on Majer more, which led to an impressive performance against Varaždin on 24 July 2020, when he scored the opener and provided Mario Ćuže with an assist for the second goal in the 2–0 victory.


title: Lovro Majer

text: Ahead of the 2020–21 season, Dinamo's league rivals Osijek attempted to sign Majer, but failed to do so as Dinamo refused to sell the player. On 16 August, in the first game of the season, he scored a brace in a 6–0 victory over his former club Lokomotiva. Following his good performances during the beginning of the season, Italian media reported that Milan scouts watched Majer in the Europa League match against Feyenoord that ended in a goalless draw on 22 October. On 16 November, Majer tested positive for COVID-19, which forced him to miss the derby against Osijek, now coached by Bjelica, on 21 November. Upon completion of the Europa League group stage, Majer was praised for his performances, as Dinamo topped their group with Majer scoring twice and assisting three times in the process. On 21 December, Majer signed a new contract, tying him up with the club until 2026. During the winter transfer window, Majer attracted attention of Zenit Saint Petersburg, Fiorentina and Marseille, but Dinamo refused to sell the player, dissatisfied with the offered transfer fees.


title: Lovro Majer

text: On 25 August 2021, in the second leg of the Champions League play-offs against Sheriff Tiraspol, Majer made his hundredth and final appearance for Dinamo.


title: Lovro Majer

text: On 26 August 2021, Majer signed a five-year deal with Ligue 1 side Rennes for €12 million with add-ons. He made his league debut three days later, in a 2–0 loss to Angers, getting substituted on for Benjamin Bourigeaud in the 82nd minute. Majer established himself as a key member of the team during the autumn, resulting in a breakthrough performance during the 4–1 victory over Lyon on 7 November. He scored his first goal for Rennes on 20 November, in a 2–0 league victory over Montpellier. On 5 December, he provided Martin Terrier with three assists for his hat-trick, and set Yvann Maçon's own goal alongside Lorenz Assignon, as Rennes defeated Saint-Étienne 5–0. At the end of the season, during which he was praised for his performances, Majer accumulated six goals and nine assists and was named in the Ligue 1 team of the season by "L'Équipe".


title: Lovro Majer

text: Majer debuted for senior Croatia team on 28 May 2017, playing the last three minutes in a 2–1 friendly win over Mexico.


title: Lovro Majer

text: On 7 June 2019, he was named in Nenad Gračan's 23-man squad for UEFA Under-21 Euro 2019. He made only one appearance in the group stage, in the 3–3 draw with England when Croatia were already eliminated. On 9 March 2021, he was again named in Igor Bišćan's 23-man squad for the group stage of UEFA Under-21 Euro 2021. Despite spending most of the tournament on the bench due to a minor injury, he provided Domagoj Bradarić with an assist for Croatia's only goal in the final group game, the 2–1 defeat to England, which turned out to be a decisive one as Croatia progressed to the knockout stage due to a better goal difference.


title: Lovro Majer

text: On 17 May 2021, he was included in Zlatko Dalić's preliminary 34-man squad for the UEFA Euro 2020; however, he did not make the final 26. On 11 November 2021, Majer scored his first two goals for the national team in the 7–1 victory over Malta in the 2022 World Cup qualifying. Lovro opened his World Cup scoring with a Goal vs Canada in the group stages. He also scored a clinical penalty kick in the shootout vs Brazil to help send Croatia to the Semi Final at the 2022 World Cup.


title: Brett Hundley

text: Brett Alan Hundley Jr. (born June 15, 1993) is an American football quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the UCLA Bruins, where he was the school's career leader in both total offense and touchdown passes. He was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the fifth round of the 2015 NFL Draft, and started nine games for them in 2017 following a collarbone injury to Aaron Rodgers.


title: Brett Hundley

text: Hundley attended Chandler High School in Chandler, Arizona, where he played high school football for the Wolves football team. As a junior, he completed 107 of 170 passes for 1,517 yards with 16 touchdown passes and two interceptions. As a senior, he completed 139 of 225 passes for 2,348 yards with 20 touchdowns and two interceptions. Hundley's overall record as a starter in high school was 16–8. He was ranked as the second best dual-threat quarterback recruit in his class by Rivals.com.


title: Brett Hundley

text: After redshirting in 2011, Hundley was named the UCLA starting quarterback for the 2012 season. In his first college game, against Rice, Hundley's first play was a 72-yard run for a touchdown that led to a 49–24 victory. In his second start against the No. 16 Nebraska Cornhuskers, Hundley had 305 passing yards and four touchdown passes as UCLA upset the Cornhuskers 36–30 in their home opener. Hundley also helped UCLA defeat the USC Trojans 38–28 for the first time since 2006, passing for 234 yards including 1 touchdown. In addition, Hundley ran for 2 touchdowns. The Bruins advanced to the Pac-12 Football Championship Game against Stanford, but were defeated 27–24. UCLA finished the season with a record of 9–5, and were ranked No. 17 by the Associated Press. Hundley set a school single season record with 3,740 yards passing.


title: Brett Hundley

text: In 2013, Hundley led the Bruins to a 10-win season. The team beat USC, by a score of 35–14, marking consecutive wins over their crosstown rivals for the first time in over a decade. UCLA won the Sun Bowl, 42–12, over Virginia Tech with Hundley being named the game's co-most valuable player with teammate Jordan Zumwalt. Hundley ran for 161 yards and two touchdowns on just 10 carries while also throwing for 226 yards and another two scores. For the year, his 748 yards rushing were the school's third-most rushing yards in a season by a quarterback. Two NFL teams told Adam Schefter of ESPN that Hundley was potentially the top quarterback of the 2014 NFL Draft if he left school early. However, Hundley elected to return for his junior year at UCLA. Leading up to the draft, some scouts questioned Hundley's passing accuracy and decision making.


title: Brett Hundley

text: Wary of the criticism of his passing skills, Hundley attempted to impress the pro scouts by running the ball less to begin the 2014 season. The team began the season undefeated at 4–0 until the No. 8 Bruins were upset 30–28 by the Utah Utes. In the game, Hundley was sacked a career-high 10 times, renewing concerns over his pocket awareness. Through 32 career games, he was sacked 107 times, the highest among active Football Bowl Subdivision quarterbacks. Hundley eventually ran more, including 24 carries for a season-high 131 yards in a 17–7 win over Arizona. Later in the season, he also became UCLA's all-time leader in touchdown passes, surpassing Cade McNown's record of 68; McNown's record came in four years as a starter (1995–1998), while Hundley broke the record in just his third season. Hundley also became the school's career leader in total offense, breaking McNown's previous mark of 11,285. He was named to the All-Pac-12 second team. He finished his career with 9,966 passing yards, second in school history behind McNown. He had also rushed for 1,747 career yards, behind only John Sciarra (1,813) among quarterbacks in UCLA history.


title: Brett Hundley

text: After the season, Hundley entered the 2015 NFL Draft and was chosen much later than expected, in the fifth round with the 147th overall pick by the Green Bay Packers.


title: Brett Hundley

text: Hundley was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the fifth round of the 2015 NFL Draft with the 147th overall pick. On May 7, 2015, the Packers officially signed Hundley to a four-year deal. He became the third-string quarterback on the depth chart behind Aaron Rodgers and Scott Tolzien. Hundley's success in the preseason and off-the-field maturity eventually led to his being named as the Packers' backup quarterback after Tolzien's departure to the Indianapolis Colts.


title: Brett Hundley

text: During the first quarter of the Week 6 game against the Minnesota Vikings on October 15, 2017, Rodgers suffered a broken collarbone on a hit by Anthony Barr. Hundley then entered the game, completing 18-of-33 passes for 157 yards, one touchdown, and three interceptions as the Packers lost by a score of 23–10. After the game, head coach Mike McCarthy stated that Hundley would take over as the starter due to Rodgers's broken collarbone. In his first start against the New Orleans Saints, Hundley recorded 12 completions on 25 attempts for just 87 yards, no touchdowns, an interception, and a passer rating under 40 for the second consecutive week, though he did contribute a 14-yard rushing touchdown. After a Week 8 bye, Hundley had 245 passing yards and a rushing touchdown in a loss to the Detroit Lions in Week 9. Week 10 continued this improvement, with 18 of 25 passing for 212 yards, no interceptions, and his first 100+ passer rating as a starter in a win over the Chicago Bears. Hundley had 200+ passing yards for his third consecutive outing in Week 11, but had three interceptions and no touchdowns during the team's shutout loss to the Baltimore Ravens. In a Week 12 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, Hundley improved with a 134 passer rating and three touchdowns. During Week 13 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Hundley was held to only 84 passing yards and an interception. He rushed for 66 yards with the Packers combining for 199 rushing yards and winning 26–20 in overtime. He followed that up with 265 passing yards and three touchdowns against the Cleveland Browns in a 27–21 overtime win. After the Packers were eliminated from postseason contention, Hundley struggled going 17-of-40 for 130 passing yards and two interceptions in the 16–0 loss to the Vikings. In the season finale against the Lions, he had 172 passing yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions in the 35–11 loss. He also had his first career reception on a 10-yard pass from wide receiver Randall Cobb on a trick play. Overall, in the 2017 season, Hundley finished with 1,836 passing yards, nine touchdowns, 12 interceptions, 270 rushing yards, and two rushing touchdowns.


title: Brett Hundley

text: On August 29, 2018, Hundley was traded to the Seattle Seahawks for a sixth round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, which was used on RB Dexter Williams.


title: Brett Hundley

text: On March 14, 2019, Hundley signed a one-year contract with the Arizona Cardinals, worth $1.88 million. He served as backup quarterback to rookie Kyler Murray, whom the Cardinals drafted first overall in the 2019 NFL Draft. On December 22, 2019, Hundley came in to relieve of Murray after he suffered a hamstring injury. Hundley finished the game with 4-of-9 passes for 49 yards and scrambled for 35 yards as the Cardinals would go on to win the Week 16 matchup against the Seattle Seahawks 27–13.


title: Brett Hundley

text: On July 31, 2021, Hundley signed with the Indianapolis Colts. He was released on August 31, 2021, and re-signed to the practice squad the next day. On September 25, 2021, Hundley was elevated to the active roster and was returned to the practice squad two days later. On October 2, 2021, Hundley was once again elevated to the active roster and was returned to the practice squad two days later. On October 10, 2021, Hundley was signed to the active roster. He was released on November 1, 2021, and re-signed to the practice squad. His contract expired when the teams season ended on January 9, 2022.


title: Brett Hundley

text: Hundley is an Evangelical Christian. Hundley's father, Brett Sr., was a running back at the University of Arizona, and his uncle played quarterback at Wichita State University. He is also a member of Kappa Alpha Psi. His sister, Paris, deals with epilepsy. Since 2011, Hundley has been involved with many charitable epilepsy organizations and fundraisers.


title: Bonnie Pointer

text: Patricia Eva "Bonnie" Pointer (July 11, 1950– June 8, 2020) was an American singer, best known for having been a member of the vocal group, the Pointer Sisters. Pointer scored several moderate solo hits after leaving the Pointers in 1977, including a disco cover of the Elgins' "Heaven Must Have Sent You" which became a U.S. top 20 pop hit on September 1, 1979.


title: Bonnie Pointer

text: Bonnie and youngest sister June began singing together in their father's West Oakland Church of God in Oakland, California. They formed the Pointers (otherwise known as the Pair) in 1969. After Anita joined the duo that same year, they changed their name to the Pointer Sisters and recorded several singles for Atlantic Records between 1971 and 1972. In December 1972, they recruited oldest sister Ruth and released their debut album as the Pointer Sisters in 1973. Their self-titled debut yielded the hit "Yes We Can Can". Between 1973 and 1977, the Pointers donned 1940s fashions and sang in a style reminiscent of the Andrews Sisters. Their music included R&B, funk, rock and roll, gospel, country and soul.


title: Bonnie Pointer

text: Anita and Bonnie wrote the group's crossover country hit, "Fairytale", in 1974, which also became a Top 20 pop hit and won the group their first Grammy for Best Vocal by a Duo or Group, Country. Anita and Bonnie also were nominated for Best Country Song at the same ceremony. In 1977, Bonnie left the group to begin a solo career. The remaining sisters continued scoring hits from the late-1970s to the mid-1980s and had a major breakthrough with their 1983 album "Break Out". In 1978, Pointer signed with Motown and in the same year, she released "Heaven Must Have Sent You", which reached No. 11 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. Pointer released three solo albums, including two self-titled albums for Motown, before retiring from the studio.


title: Bonnie Pointer

text: Reviewing her 1978 self-titled LP, Robert Christgau wrote in "" (1981): "Thanks to (co-producer) Berry Gordy and the miracle of modern multitracking, Bonnie makes like the Marvelettes of your dreams for an entire side. People didn't conceive vocals this intricate and funky back in Motown's prime, much less overdub them single-larynxed, and the result is remakes that outdo the originals—by Brenda Holloway and the Elgins—and originals that stand alongside. The other side comprises originals of more diminutive stature co-written by (co-producer) Jeffrey Bowen."


title: Bonnie Pointer

text: Pointer appeared on "Soul Train" on March 2, 1985 (Season 14, Episode 20). She still continued to perform, and reunited with her sisters on two occasions: when the group received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994, and during a Las Vegas performance in 1996 singing "Jump (for My Love)". At the beginning of 2008, she embarked on a European tour, and was working on her autobiography. Pointer performed at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City on Saturday, October 25, 2008. Pointer also starred in Monte Hellman's 2010 romantic thriller "Road to Nowhere".


title: Bonnie Pointer

text: In 1978, Pointer married Motown Records producer Jeffrey Bowen. They separated in 2004, and officially divorced in 2016.


title: Bonnie Pointer

text: Due to ten years of alcoholic liver disease and cirrhosis, Pointer died at her home in Los Angeles on June 8, 2020, at the age of 69.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: Lego Mindstorms is a hardware and software structure which develops programmable robots based on Lego building blocks. Each version includes computer Lego bricks, a set of modular sensors and motors, and Lego parts from the Technic line to create the mechanical systems. The system is controlled by the Lego bricks.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: While originally conceptualized and launched as a tool for supporting educational constructivism, Mindstorms has become the first home robotics kit available to a wide audience. It has developed a community of adult hobbyists and hackers following the product's launch in 1998. In October 2022, The Lego Group announced "Lego Mindstorms" will be discontinued at the end of 2022.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: In 1985, Seymour Papert, Mitchel Resnick and Stephen Ocko created a company called Microworlds with the intent of developing a construction kit that could be animated by computers for educational purposes. Papert had previously created the Logo programming language as a tool to "support the development of new ways of thinking and learning", and employed "Turtle" robots to physically act out the programs in the real world. As the types of programs created were limited by the shape of the Turtle, the idea came up to make a construction kit that could use Logo commands to animate a creation of the learner's own design. Similar to the "floor turtle" robots used to demonstrate Logo commands in the real world, a construction system that ran Logo commands would also demonstrate them in the real world, but allowing the child to construct their own creations benefitted the learning experience by putting them in control In considering which construction system to partner with, they wanted a "low floor high ceiling" approach, something that was easy to pick up but very powerful. To this end, they decided to use LEGO bricks due to the system and diversity of pieces, and the Logo language due to the groups familiarity with the software and its ease of use. LEGO was receptive to collaboration, particularly because its educational division had founding goals very similar to those of the Microworlds company. The collaboration very quickly moved to the newly minted MIT Media lab, where there was an open sharing of ideas. As a sponsor of the entire lab, LEGO was allowed royalty free rights to mass-produce any technology produced by Papert, Resnick and Ocko's group; and was also allowed to send an employee over to assist with research, so they sent engineer Alan Tofte (also spelled Toft) who helped with the design of the programmable brick. As another part of the MIT Media Lab was community outreach, so the bricks would be used working with children in schools for both research and educational purposes.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: The first experiments of combining LEGO and the Logo programming language was called LEGO/Logo and it started in 1985. Similar to the "floor turtles" used to demonstrate Logo commands in the real world, LEGO/Logo used Logo commands to animate Lego creations. It is important that children could build their own machines to program, as they would then care more about their projects and be more willing to explore the mathematical concepts involved in making them move. The LEGO/Logo system allowed children to create their own designs and experiments, offered multiple paths for learning and encouraged a sense of community. First, machines are built out LEGO. The machines are then connected to a computer and programmed in a modified version of Logo. The LEGO/Logo system introduced new types of parts for making creations such as: motors, sensors and lights. The motors and sensors are connected to an interface box which is communicates with a computer. LEGO/Logo would later be commercialized by the LEGO group LEGO tc Logo. It was observed that using the LEGO/Logo system, children developed a form of knowledge about the physical world that allowed those even without mathematics or verbal skills to solve problems effectively using the system.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: While LEGO/Logo was powerful, it was restricted somewhat by the requirement to have the creations attached to a computer. The group began working on further iterations of the LEGO/ LOGO environment to produce a robot that could interact not only with the environment but with other robots programmed in the same system.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: The experiments with an untethered brick (called the Logo Brick or "Grey Brick") began in the fall of 1986. To speed up the design process, the Logo Brick contained the processor chip from an Apple II computer. It ran an adapted version of LEGO/Logo written for the Apple II computer. The LEGO/Logo interface box, The previous development of the group, had only two sensor ports available, which the design team observed were not always enough. To address this, they gave the Logo Brick four sensor ports. The Logo Brick was made out of a modified LEGO battery box and was about the size of a deck of cards. The Logo Brick was tested in schools.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: While LEGO had been interested in mass-producing the programmable brick concept for a while, they had to wait until enough people owned personal computers and the components required to produce the intelligent brick went down in price. Development of what would later be known as LEGO Mindstorms started in 1996 as the first product of the newly created home-learning division of LEGO Education (LEGO Dacta). The product's name of "Mindstorms" was intended to express the user experience of the product, it is named after Papert's book Mindstorms, as the user experience was similar to the educational constructivism concepts described in his book. The LEGO home education team used the insights that MIT researchers discovered from testing the 3rd Generation Logo Brick ("Red Brick") in schools as the basis for the development of the mass-produced programmable brick. The physical programmable brick was re-engineered from the ground up, as the experimental programmable bricks were not designed for robustness or cost-effective manufacturing. The programming language of the product was developed with help from members of the MIT Media lab. LEGO decided to use a Visual programming language for Mindstorms, inspired by the LOGOBlocks language previously used with programmable brick experiments, in order to make the product accessible to children who might be unfamiliar with programming. While the technology that Mindstorms was based on was aimed towards "all children", the chosen target demographic of LEGO Mindstorms was intentionally narrow, in order to garner positive press by outselling expectations. The decision was made to aim the product towards 10 to 14-year-old boys, partially because it was LEGO's bread-and-butter demographic, and partially based on market research (not substantiated by the findings of the MIT Media Lab) which concluded that this demographic would be most attracted to computerized toys. This choice of target demographic directly informed the color of the RCX brick (which was made yellow and black to resemble construction equipment) and the sample uses for the Mindstorms kit (such as making autonomous robots).


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: The project's at-first low profile allowed the Mindstorms team the freedom to develop the product using operating procedures then-unorthodox to the LEGO Group. Unlike traditional LEGO sets, the Mindstorms Robotics Invention System did not have a main model, nor was the play driven by storytelling. To bridge the gap between this new play experience and pre-existing LEGO ones, the Mindstorms team created a lot of opportunities for people interested in the product to engage with each other, such as the creation of Mindstorms.com, Mindstorms Discovery Centers, and the FIRST Lego League. The creation of these experiences was done through partnerships with a relatively large amount of external groups that the Mindstorms team interacted with as equal partners, something that was uncommon for the LEGO group at the time. To ease tensions between Mindstorms and more conventional products, the project team was given autonomy from LEGO's product development process and instead reported directly to the company's senior management.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: Promotion of the LEGO Mindstorms Robotics Invention System began 6 months before the product was planned to launch. The product was first soft launched with the opening of the Mindstorms Discovery Center at the Museum of Science and Industry, where children could interact with the Mindstorms Robotics Invention System to complete set tasks, getting them familiar with the product. The Mindstorms product was launched concurrently with LEGO Cybermaster, another LEGO product spun off from the MIT programmable brick technology that was more in line with the traditional product philosophies of the LEGO group.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: Instead of being sold at toy stores, the product was sold at electronics stores like BestBuy and CompUSA, due to the relatively high cost of the set.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: LEGO Mindstorms was released on 1 September 1998 at a retail price of $199. The entire production run (of between 60-100 thousand units) sold out within 3 months. Despite being aimed towards children, the kit quickly found an audience with adults and hackers of all ages; Lego company surveys had determined that seventy percent of Lego Mindstorms Hobbyists were adults. Shortly following the product's launch, hobbyists began sharing reverse-engineered versions of the RCX brick's Microcode and Firmware on the internet, leading to the development of alternative programming languages for the RCX such as "Not Quite C" (NQC) and alternative operating systems for the brick like legOS. The Lego Group was surprised by the products embrace by adult hobbyists, and was not sure how to respond to the sharing of proprietary code. The Mindstorms team would determine that the embrace of the product by the hacking community proved that the product was worth developing; In order to foster this burgeoning community, an official forum was established on the Lego website and a "right to hack" clause was added to end user license agreement of the Lego Mindstorms software.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: The Robotics Discovery Set was a more affordable and simpler package than the Robotics Invention Set. Instead of being based on the RCX, it had its own programmable brick called the Scout. An even simpler version of the Scout would be featured in two Star-Wars-themed Mindstorm sets as well.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: Lego also released a blue computer called the "Scout", which has 2 sensor ports, 2 motor ports (plus one extra if linked with a Micro Scout using a fiber optic cable), and a built-in light sensor, but no PC interface. It comes with the Robotics Discovery Set. The Scout can be programmed from a collection of built-in program combinations. In order to program the Scout, a user must enable "power mode" on it. The Scout can store one program.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: The Scout is based on a Toshiba microcontroller with 32 KB of ROM and 1 KB of RAM, where about 400 bytes are available for user programs. Due to the extremely limited amount of RAM, many predefined subroutines were provided in ROM. The Scout only supports passive external sensors, which means that only touch, temperature and other unpowered sensors can be used. The analog-to-digital converters used in the Scout only have a resolution of 8 bits, in contrast to the 10-bit converters of the RCX.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: There was a plan for Lego to create a booster set that allows you to program the Scout from a computer with software such as RCX code. However, due to the complexity of this project, it was abandoned.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: The RCX can control the Scout brick using the "Send IR Message" program block. The RCX does all of the controlling, and therefore can be programmed with the PC, while the Scout accepts commands. The Scout brick must have all of its options set to "off" during this process.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: The Micro Scout was added as an entry-level to Lego robotics. It is a very limited Pbrick with a single built-in light sensor and a single built-in motor. It has seven built-in programs and can be controlled by a Scout, Spybotics or RCX unit using VLL. Like the Scout, the Micro Scout is also based on a microcontroller from Toshiba.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: The unit was sold as part of the Droid Developer Kit (featuring R2-D2) and later the Dark Side Developer Kit (featuring an AT-AT Imperial Walker).


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: The main core of the first generation of Mindstorms sets were the Robotics Invention System sets. These were based around the RCX (Robotic Command eXplorers) brick and the 9 V LEGO Technic peripherals available at the time. It also includes three touch-sensors and an optical sensor, using the technology from the earlier 9 V sensors from the pre-Mindstorms sets.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: The RCX is based on the 8-bit Renesas H8/300 microcontroller, including 32 KB of ROM for low-level IO functions, along with 32 KB of RAM to store high-level firmware and user programs. The RCX is programmed by uploading a program using a dedicated infrared interface. After the user uploads a program, the RCX can run it on its own without the need for computer access. Programs may make use of three sensor input ports and three 9 V output ports, in addition to the IR interface, enabling several RCX bricks to communicate. A built-in LCD can display the battery level, the status of the input/output ports, which program is selected or running, and other information.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: Version 1.0 RCX bricks feature a power adapter jack in addition to batteries. In version 2.0 (as well as later 1.0s included in the RIS 1.5), the power adapter jack was removed. Power adapter-equipped RCX bricks were popular for stationary robotics projects (such as robot arms) or for controlling Lego model trains. In the latter context, the RCX might be programmed with Digital Command Control (DCC) software to operate multiple wired trains.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: The IR interface on the RCX is able to communicate with Spybots, Scout Bricks, Lego Trains, and the NXT (using a third-party infrared link sensor). The RCX 1.0 IR receiver carrier frequency is 38.5 kHz, while the RCX 2.0 IR carrier frequency is 76 kHz. Both versions can transmit on either frequency. The RCX communicates with a computer using a Serial or USB IR tower. As the RCX is discontinued, support for the interface is limited on more recent operating systems than Windows XP.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: All RCX versions have a unique number printed on them, which could be registered on the now-defunct Lego Mindstorms RCX website. This was necessary to obtain technical support. The first RCX produced is marked "000001," and was on display at the Mindstorms 10th Anniversary event.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: The Lego RCX was available in new sets from 1998 (Lego Set 9719: Robotics Invention System 1.0) through 2003 (Lego Set 9786: Robo Technology Set, with USB cable). The original RCX 1.0 worked with existing Lego power supply products from the Lego Train theme, Lego Product 70931: Electric Train Speed Regulator 9V Power Adaptor for 120v 60 Hz - US version (Years: 1991 thru 2004), Lego Product 70938: Electric Train Speed Regulator 9V Power Adaptor for 230v 50 Hz - European version (Years: 1991 thru 1996). Both of these products converted wall power to 12VAC, through a coaxial power connector (also called a "barrel connector"), 5.5 mm outside, 2.1 mm inside. These were sometimes sold alone and sometimes available as part of other sets such as Lego Set 4563: Load N' Haul Railroad (Year: 1991) and Lego Set 10132: Motorized Hogwarts Express (Year: 2004).


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: Lego Mindstorms NXT was a programmable robotics kit released by Lego in August 2006, replacing the first-generation LEGO Mindstorms kit.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: The kit consists of 577 pieces, including: 3 servo motors, 4 sensors (ultrasonic, sound, touch, and light), 7 connection cables, a USB interface cable, and the NXT Intelligent Brick. The Intelligent Brick is the "brain" of a Mindstorms machine. It lets the robot autonomously perform different operations. The kit also includes NXT-G, a graphical programming environment that enables the creation and downloading of programs to the NXT. The software also has instructions for 4 robots: Alpha-Rex (a humanoid), Tri-Bot (a car), Robo-Arm T-56 (a robotic arm), and Spike (a scorpion)


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: The Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 was launched on 5 August 2009. It contains 619 pieces (includes sensors and motors), two Touch Sensors, an Ultrasonic Sensor, and introduced a new Color Sensor. The NXT 2.0 uses Floating Point operations whereas earlier versions use Integer operation. The kit costs around US$280.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: The Lego Mindstorms EV3 is the third generation Lego Mindstorms product. EV3 is a further development of the NXT. The system was released on 1 September 2013. The LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 set includes motors (2 large servo motor and 1 medium servo motor), sensors (2 touch sensors, ultrasonic sensor, color sensor, infrared sensor, and the new gyro sensor), the EV3 programmable brick, 550+ LEGO Technic elements and a remote control (the Infrared Beacon, which is only on Home/Retail mode). The EV3 can be controlled by smart-devices. It can boot an alternative operating system from a microSD card, which makes it possible to run ev3dev, a Debian-based operating system.


title: Lego Mindstorms

text: Spike Prime was announced in April 2019. While not being part of the Mindstorms product line, the basic set includes three motors (1 large 2 medium) and sensors for distance, force and color a controller brick based on an STM32F413 microcontroller and 520+ LEGO Technic elements.