title: Mr. Big (police procedure)

text: The Crown appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, whose decision was released on July 31, 2014. Writing for a unanimous majority, Justice Moldaver declared that confessions arising from Mr. Big operations would henceforth be considered "presumptively inadmissible, subject to a two-pronged admissibility analysis". The court ruled that the onus is on the Crown to overcome this presumption by demonstrating that the probative value of the evidence resulting from a Mr. Big operation, including the confession, outweighs its prejudicial effect (prong 1). Confirmatory evidence would constitute a "powerful guarantee of reliability". In other words, evidence found during a Mr. Big operation would be a vital factor on the issue of reliability, and not the confession per se. The confession itself should be considered carefully to evaluate the markers of reliability. Markers of reliability include components of the confession that coincide with evidence that is known to investigators, information that is unknown to the public, and mundane details that would only be known to the person who had committed the crime. In future operations this evidentiary requirement might shift the goal from getting a confession to unearthing conclusive evidence. The Supreme Court also alerted trial judges to the possible dangers of abuse of process which might take place during Mr. Big stings, and of the need for careful scrutiny during the trials (prong 2). An abuse of process has occurred when police "overcome the will of the accused and coerce a confession", as was said to have taken place in "R. v. Hart". Overwhelming inducements, veiled threats of violence, and intimidation are examples of conduct that could be considered an abuse of process by the police.


title: Mr. Big (police procedure)

text: Following the landmark ruling of "R. v. Hart" the Supreme Court of Canada issued another Mr. Big ruling on September 26, 2014. Dax Mack was suspected of murdering his roommate, who at the time was considered a missing person. A friend of Mack's came forward to the police with claims that Mack had confessed to him about murdering his roommate. With this information, the police began a four-month Mr. Big operation which resulted in two confessions to undercover officers. Mack described shooting the victim and burning his body. During the Mr. Big operation Mack participated in roughly 30 crime scenarios, none of which included high levels of violence and he was paid approximately $5,000 for his work. Eventually the operation led undercover officers to a fire pit in a wooded area that belonged to Mack's father. The search resulted in the discovery of the victim's burned remains, as well as shot gun casings which matched a gun that was confiscated from the defendant's apartment. Mack was tried and found guilty of first degree murder by a jury.


title: Mr. Big (police procedure)

text: Using the 2-pronged analysis from the Hart (2014) ruling, the Supreme Court dismissed Mack's appeal in another unanimous decision. They concluded that the probative value of the confession, which was supported by discovery of new evidence, outweighed any prejudicial effect. The Court also found no abuse of process in the conduct of the undercover officers involved in the investigation.


title: Mr. Big (police procedure)

text: The Court of Appeal for Ontario found in "R. v. Kelly" that presumption of inadmissibility established in "R. v. Hart" was applicable even in circumstances without the hallmarks of a usual Mr. Big operation. The court found that the promise of a large payout from an insurance fraud scheme had the same potential for the same dangers as traditional Mr. Big cases set out in "Hart".


title: Espadrille

text: Espadrilles (Spanish: "alpargatas or esparteñas"; Catalan: "espardenyes"; Basque: "espartinak") are casual, rope-soled, flat but sometimes high-heeled shoes. They usually have a canvas or cotton fabric upper and a flexible sole made of esparto rope. The esparto rope sole is the defining characteristic of an espadrille; the uppers vary widely in style.


title: Espadrille

text: Espadrilles are a typical form of summer footwear, with strong historical ties to the regions of Catalonia, Aragon, and the Basque Country. The word derives from the Catalan "espardenya" and refers to esparto grass, a plant indigenous to the south of Spain that is used to make ropes and basketry. Although they are still widely manufactured in Spain, some production has moved to Bangladesh, the world's largest jute producer.


title: Espadrille

text: Originally peasant footwear, they were popularised throughout the 20th century by many cultural figures including Picasso, Salvador Dalí and later John F. Kennedy or Yves Saint Laurent.


title: Espadrille

text: The existence of this kind of shoe in Europe is documented since at least 1322, when it was described for the first time with its current Catalan name.


title: Espadrille

text: The term "espadrille" is French and derives from the word in the Occitan language, which comes from "espardenya" in Catalan or "alpargata" and "esparteña" in Spanish. Both "espardenya" and "esparteña" refer to a type of shoes made with esparto, a tough, wiry Mediterranean grass used in making rope. Its name in the Basque region is "espartina".


title: Espadrille

text: Espadrilles have been made in the Basque Country, Catalonia and roughly all over Spain as well as the Occitania region of France. They were the usual peasant footwear since the 14th century at least, and are still being produced as from old. The oldest, most primitive form of espadrilles dates as far back as 4,000 years ago. Traditional espadrilles have a canvas upper with the toe and vamp cut in one piece and seamed to the rope sole at the sides. Often they have laces at the throat that are wrapped around the ankle to hold the shoes securely in place. Traditional espadrilles are worn by both men and women.


title: Espadrille

text: Both in Argentina and Uruguay, espadrilles (known as alpargatas) were adopted by rural workers as a substitute for the "bota de potro", part of the traditional gaucho attire, made with leather from the lower leg of the horse. Unlike other clothing, the espadrille became an essential garment for both sexes but, above all, the inseparable companion of the "bombachas" (knickerbockers). In the first half of the 20th century, the use of espadrilles was so common among the lower classes of the population that the company called "Fábrica Argentina de Alpargatas" took great importance, which used to be promoted with the artistic almanacs illustrated by Florencio Molina Campos. Espadrilles entered the Argentine political scene prior to the presidency of Juan Domingo Perón by associating it with the working class. In 1943 and 1944, the student movement opposed to Perón began to use the slogan: "No a la dictadura de las alpargatas" ("Not espadrilles' dictatorship") which was in turn responded by the peronists: "alpargatas sí, libros, no" ("espadrilles, yes, books, not").


title: Espadrille

text: Once peasant footwear, then urban workers' footwear, espadrilles have grown in popularity, especially in the French Atlantic coast of the Basque Country and Spanish Mediterranean coast from Granada to Girona, where many men and women wear them during the spring and summer months. Designer espadrilles are now widely available. They are usually manufactured in Spain, France, and South Asia. Modern espadrilles are predominantly for women, though some men's shoes are made in this style.


title: Espadrille

text: The soles of espadrilles may be flat, platform, or wedge shaped made of natural fiber. Uppers may be made from nearly any substance and may have open or closed toes, open or closed backs, and can be slip-on or tied to the ankle with laces. Thousands of varieties of espadrilles can be found, from inexpensive bargain brands to high priced designer brands.


title: Espadrille

text: Espadrilles became fashionable in the United States in the 1940s. Lauren Bacall's character in the 1948 movie "Key Largo" wore ankle-laced espadrilles.


title: Espadrille

text: Wedge-shaped espadrilles were first popularized by French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. At a trade fair in Paris in 1970, he came into contact with the Spanish espadrille manufacturer Castañer. Yves Saint Laurent had been looking in vain for months for someone to make him a wedge espadrille. Castañer managed to interpret Yves Saint Laurent's vision and the wedge espadrilles were an instant hit, influencing fashion even today.


title: Espadrille

text: The espadrille style was revived in the United States in the 1980s, due to the success of "Miami Vice"—the shoe was worn by the character Sonny Crockett (played by Don Johnson). In 2013 at luxury shoe stores in New York City, a pair of espadrilles could cost nearly $500.


title: Espadrille

text: Due to cost and material availability, the soles of espadrilles are now commonly made with jute rope or braid. The natural bright white color of jute is a major design feature of modern espadrilles.


title: Espadrille

text: Bangladesh is the producer of high quality jute and has become a manufacturing center for premium quality jute soles and complete espadrilles. Ninety percent of the world's total production of complete espadrilles, as well as jute soles, is now manufactured in Bangladesh, although some manufacturers in Spain, France, and Italy import jute soles from Bangladesh to finish espadrilles in those countries. Complete espadrilles are also assembled in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay and Venezuela with imported jute from Bangladesh.


title: Espadrille

text: Jute soles typically include fully or partially vulcanized rubber beneath the jute soles for long-lasting espadrille shoes. Sometimes crepe soles are used as out-soles although those are not as durable compared to vulcanized ones. Jute braid soles might include heels made of wood or EVA foam.


title: Espadrille

text: The manufacture of espadrilles is generally more complex than that of sandals. The jute soles are the most critical part. The jute twines are first machine-braided. These braids are then manually formed into the shape of the sole and hydraulically pressed with heat to form the final shape and completed with vertical stitching with Espadrille Needles. These basic soles are then vulcanized underneath. EVA foam or wooden heels are glued in place and more jute braids are wrapped around it to complete the soles. Uppers of different styles are then built on the jute soles to complete the espadrille.


title: Kurt-Werner Wichmann

text: Kurt-Werner Wichmann (8 August 1949 – 25 April 1993) was a German serial killer who was possibly linked to the Göhrde Murders.


title: Kurt-Werner Wichmann

text: Wichmann was first sent to a young offenders' institution at the age of 14 after he had threatened a subletting tenant in his parents' house with a knife and had tried to strangle her. At that time, Wichmann did not live at home but at a care home in Wichernstift. He did not want to stay there any longer, and to this end stole money from his parents. His father was a violent man who reportedly mistreated his sons.


title: Kurt-Werner Wichmann

text: At 16, Wichmann attacked a cyclist and sexually abused her, for which he received six months' probation.


title: Kurt-Werner Wichmann

text: In 1967, he threatened police officers with a small-calibre weapon. He was sentenced to one year of juvenile detention.


title: Kurt-Werner Wichmann

text: In 1968, 38-year-old Ilse G. was shot four times in the back with a small-calibre rifle while riding a bicycle in a forest near Lüneburg. She died on the spot. Witnesses saw a youth fitting Wichmann's description fleeing the scene, and the police started a file on him. Although small-calibre rifles and newspaper clippings were found in his possession, Wichmann was not charged.


title: Kurt-Werner Wichmann

text: In 1970, Wichmann was sentenced to five-and-a-half years of juvenile punishment for the rape of a hitchhiker, whom he also tried to strangle. The hitchhiker managed to persuade him to let her go. When Wichmann read the news in the newspaper, he felt misrepresented and went to the police to correct this, which led to his arrest.


title: Kurt-Werner Wichmann

text: Wichmann was described as a blond, down-to-earth man with a well-groomed appearance. A witness described him as a silent man with "cold, icy eyes eyeing everything". Others described him as an arrogant and egotistical loner.


title: Kurt-Werner Wichmann

text: He lived in a house in a cul-de-sac on the forested edge of Lüneberg. He grew up in that house, had a German shepherd, and leaned toward fascist political attitudes – on his property he occasionally hoisted the Reichskriegsflagge. In the course of time, he had also made several modifications to the house, including secret caches and a door that led to nothing.


title: Kurt-Werner Wichmann

text: In 1989, a few weeks after the disappearance of Birgit Meier, connections between her and Wichmann became apparent. Initially, investigators suspected that she had died by suicide or had been killed by her husband, but they later focused the investigation on Wichmann, who was working as a gardener at the Lüneberg cemetery. Meier had previously met Wichmann at a party, according to statements from her husband. He had previously done gardening work for some of the Meiers' neighbors. Wichmann was interrogated, and despite the flimsy alibi of being with his wife and walking the dog, he was not checked closely. He also concealed the fact that he was on sick leave at the time of Meier's disappearance, but the police did not inquire further.


title: Kurt-Werner Wichmann

text: Only with the establishment of a new prosecutor in Lüneberg did further investigations begin. In 1993, charges of suspected murder in Birgit Meier's case were brought against Wichmann, and the police searched his house. Investigators found two small-caliber rifles, a converted sharp gas pistol, stun guns, mufflers, handcuffs, sedatives and sleeping pills, as well as a secret torture room with a soundproof door, which only he and his brother were allowed to enter. There was a buried, red Ford sports coupe in the backyard, with blood on its back seat. Body-tracking dogs were used several times to search the property, but no bodies were found.


title: Kurt-Werner Wichmann

text: Wichmann fled and was arrested in Heilbronn when he was involved in a traffic accident; weapons were found in his vehicle. His younger brother, with whom he had a close relationship, was in the seat next to him. Ten days after his arrest, the 43-year-old Wichmann hung himself in the Heimsheim Prison. He had attempted suicide previously. He left strange farewell letters in which he asked, among other things, his brother to clean the gutter. After his death, the murders in the woods around Lüneberg ceased, and further investigation was discontinued. His vehicle and the items found in it were disposed of by police.


title: Kurt-Werner Wichmann

text: Birgit Meier's remains were recovered in 2017 under the concrete floor of a garage of a house on the outskirts of Lüneburg that Wichmann had previously occupied.


title: Kurt-Werner Wichmann

text: On 19 January 2018, it became known via an autopsy report from the Hannover Medical School that Birgit Meier had been shot. Lüneberg Police President Robert Kruse stated that the perpetrator was a serial killer who may have killed beyond Germany. He announced a thorough review of old cases, with Wichmann being considered as a possible suspect. As a result, analysts from the State Criminal Police Office of Lower Saxony filtered out 24 unsolved cases, in particular homicides and missing persons. In February 2018, the case was featured on the television show "Aktenzeichen XY... ungelöst", as the investigators suspected that there was a helper, accomplice or a confidant.


title: Kurt-Werner Wichmann

text: The success of the police investigation was due in part to policeman Wolfgang Sielaff, the brother of the murdered Birgit Meier, who began with private research in 2002 and found his sister's body in 2017. In the same year, the police set up a new six-member investigative force which investigated Wichmann's connections with more than 20 other murder victims.


title: Kurt-Werner Wichmann

text: In December 2017, 28 years after the 1989 murders, the Lower Saxony Police announced that the former cemetery gardener Wichmann was a prime suspect in the Göhrde Murders, and an investigation team was set up. DNA traces from one of the victim's stolen vehicles was linked to Wichmann. The police assumed that there was also an accomplice who may have committed other crimes. The essential clue for a second person involved in the case derives from the fact that Wichmann had driven his own motor vehicle into the Göhrde but had returned with that of the victim. It is unknown if someone brought his car back. According to Sielaff's findings, there were 21 unresolved murder cases in Lüneberg and the surrounding area, which could possibly be assigned to Wichmann.


title: Gang Beasts

text: Gang Beasts is a beat 'em up party game developed and published by British indie studio Boneloaf. The title would originally be published by Double Fine Presents until May 2020 and self-published afterwards, while it would later be published in physical form by Skybound Games The game released for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, and PlayStation 4 on 12 December 2017, following an early access period for the PC platforms that began in August 2014. It was also released on the Xbox One on 27 March 2019.


title: Gang Beasts

text: "Gang Beasts" is a multiplayer beat 'em up party game with gelatinous and floppy characters, melee fight sequences, and hazardous environments, set in the fictional metropolis of Beef City. At initial release, it contained eight multiplayer stages, and costume customization. The core gameplay involves using various physical abilities such as punching or kicking an opponent until they are knocked out, and then attempting to toss them over one of the stage hazards. Opponents that have been knocked down are not completely defenseless however, as they can fight back to be released.


title: Gang Beasts

text: Already in its freeware alpha state, as well as upon Steam Early Access release, the game was met with positive response from critics and fans. Comments include Keith Stuart of "The Guardian" calling it "probably one of the silliest beat-'em-ups ever made," Jessica Conditt from Engadget calling it "a jolly good time," and Steve Hansen from Destructoid highlighting how its weirdness plays out well.


title: Gang Beasts

text: Outside of early access, "Gang Beasts" received mixed reviews from critics on both the PC and PlayStation 4 versions of the game. On Metacritic, the game holds a score of 67/100 for the PlayStation 4 version based on 8 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews."


title: Gang Beasts

text: The game was nominated for "Excellence in Multiplayer" at the 2018 SXSW Gaming Awards, and for "Multiplayer" at the 14th British Academy Games Awards.


title: The Voice (American season 20)

text: The twentieth season of the American reality television series "The Voice" premiered on March 1, 2021, on NBC. Blake Shelton, Kelly Clarkson and John Legend returned as coaches for their twentieth, seventh, and fifth seasons, respectively. Nick Jonas rejoined the panel for his second season, after being replaced by Gwen Stefani the previous season. Meanwhile, Carson Daly returned for his twentieth season as host. Kelsea Ballerini returned for her second season as a guest coach, filling in for Clarkson during the battles round.


title: The Voice (American season 20)

text: Cam Anthony was named the winner of the season, marking Blake Shelton's eighth win as a coach with Anthony being the fourth African-American male winner and the first winning artist that had a coach blocked in their blind audition (Nick Jonas blocking John Legend).


title: The Voice (American season 20)

text: On November 17, 2020, NBC announced there would be a change in the coaches for this season. Blake Shelton returning for his twentieth season, Kelly Clarkson for her seventh, and John Legend for his fifth. However, Gwen Stefani did not return, allowing the return of Nick Jonas after a one-season hiatus, marking his second season as a coach on the show.


title: The Voice (American season 20)

text: This season's advisors for the Battles are: Dan + Shay for Team Blake, Luis Fonsi for Team Kelly, Brandy for Team Legend, and Darren Criss for Team Nick. However, Clarkson was not present for the battles round. Filling in for her during that round was season fifteen "Comeback Stage" coach, Kelsea Ballerini. Knockouts Mega Mentor for all coaches is Snoop Dogg.


title: The Voice (American season 20)

text: The blind auditions began on March 1, 2021, and concluded on March 22, 2021. Each coach has one block to stop another coach from getting an artist. Each coach ends up with 10 artists by the end of the blind auditions. This creates for a total of 40 artists advancing to the battles. In this round, 51 artists auditioned.


title: The Voice (American season 20)

text: The battles began on March 29, 2021, and concluded on April 12, 2021. The advisors for this round were Luis Fonsi for Team Kelly, Brandy for Team Legend, Darren Criss for Team Nick, and Dan + Shay for Team Blake. In this round, each coach can steal one losing artist from another team and save one losing artist on their own team. However, the team coach may only hit their button to save an artist after it is clear that no other coach is going to steal the artist. Artists who win their battles or are stolen by another coach advance to the Knockouts and saved artists move on to the four-way knockout. Coaches will have five battles each on their team. At the end of this round, only seven artists will remain on each team, five will be from battles that were won, and one from a steal and a save respectively. In total, 28 artists advance to the knockouts.


title: The Voice (American season 20)

text: The knockouts began on April 19, 2021, and concluded on April 26, 2021. Snoop Dogg served as the mega mentor. In this round, each coach can steal one losing artist from another team. Artists who win their knockouts or are stolen by another coach advance to the live playoffs. In addition, each saved artist from the Battles will go head-to-head in the four-way knockout. Results for the head-to-head are decided by the public, with the winner being announced at the start of the live playoffs (episode 13). Only 17 artists in total will remain for the live playoffs, three on each team that won their respective knockouts, one stolen from another coach, and the artist that wins the four-way knockout, who will be added as a fifth artist on one of the coaches’ teams.


title: The Voice (American season 20)

text: Continuing from the previous season, the number of weeks of live shows consist of the live playoffs, semi-finals and finale. After the live playoffs, only the top nine artists remain: one of each team saved by the public and another saved by their coach. Then, the artist with more public votes from each team (out of the two or three who have not been previously chosen) receive a chance to compete in the Wildcard instant save, whose winner is added as a third member on a coach's team. On semi-finals, the artist with more public votes per team moves on to the finale, and the remaining five compete in the instant save, whose winner also moves on to the finale. In this round, the top five artists compete to win the competition.


title: The Voice (American season 20)

text: The releasing of performances' studio version started from the Playoffs and switched back to iTunes and Apple Music after 1 season on YouTube Music. However, downloads or streams no longer count as votes. No performance has reached the top 10 on iTunes this season.


title: The Voice (American season 20)

text: With the advancement of Corey Ward in the wildcard, this is the second time that Clarkson advances with three artists in the semi-final, the first being the fifteenth season.


title: The Voice (American season 20)

text: On Monday, the Top 9 artists each sing solos of their choosing and then they'll be put into trios to sing songs celebrating from the '70s. The public vote results will be announced on Tuesday following the format of 2 previous seasons.


title: Triple accreditation

text: Triple accreditation in management education, also known as triple crown accreditation, describes a business school accredited by three major accreditation bodies: AACSB based in the United States, AMBA based in the United Kingdom, and EQUIS based in the European Union. About 1% of business schools are triple-accredited.


title: Triple accreditation

text: In May 2020, there were 100 triple-accredited business schools in 36 countries or regions:. This number has grown to over 110 by November 2021.


title: Triple accreditation

text: Six business schools have previously held Triple Accreditation status but are no longer triple-accredited:


title: CD player

text: A CD player is an electronic device that plays audio compact discs, which are a digital optical disc data storage format. CD players were first sold to consumers in 1982. CDs typically contain recordings of audio material such as music or audiobooks. CD players may be part of home stereo systems, car audio systems, personal computers, or portable CD players such as CD boomboxes. Most CD players produce an output signal via a headphone jack or RCA jacks. To use a CD player in a home stereo system, the user connects an RCA cable from the RCA jacks to a hi-fi (or other amplifier) and loudspeakers for listening to music. To listen to music using a CD player with a headphone output jack, the user plugs headphones or earphones into the headphone jack.


title: CD player

text: Modern units can play audio formats other than the original CD PCM audio coding, such as MP3, AAC and WMA. DJs playing dance music at clubs often use specialized players with an adjustable playback speed to alter the pitch and tempo of the music. Audio engineers using CD players to play music for an event through a sound reinforcement system use professional audio-grade CD players. CD playback functionality is also available on CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive equipped computers as well as on DVD players and most optical disc-based home video game consoles.


title: CD player

text: American inventor James T. Russell is known for inventing the first system to record digital information on an optical transparent foil that is lit from behind by a high-power halogen lamp. Russell's patent application was first filed in 1966, and he was granted a patent in 1970. Following litigation, Sony and Philips licensed Russell's patents (then held by a Canadian company, Optical Recording Corp.) in the 1980s.


title: CD player

text: Prototypes were developed by Philips and Sony independently in the late 1970s. In 1979, Sony and Philips set up a joint task force of engineers to design a new digital audio disc. After a year of experimentation and discussion, the "Red Book" CD-DA standard was published in 1980. After their commercial release in 1982, compact discs and their players were extremely popular. Despite costing up to $1,000, over 400,000 CD players were sold in the United States between 1983 and 1984. The success of the compact disc has been credited to the cooperation between Philips and Sony, who came together to agree upon and develop compatible hardware. The unified design of the compact disc allowed consumers to purchase any disc or player from any company, and allowed the CD to dominate the at-home music market unchallenged.


title: CD player

text: Unlike early LaserDisc players, first CD players already used laser diodes instead of larger helium-neon lasers.


title: CD player

text: In 1974, Lou Ottens, director of the audio division of Philips, started a small group with the aim to develop an analog optical audio disc with a diameter of and a sound quality superior to that of the vinyl record. However, due to the unsatisfactory performance of the analog format, two Philips research engineers recommended a digital format in March 1974. In 1977, Philips then established a laboratory with the mission of creating a digital audio disc. The diameter of Philips's prototype compact disc was set at , the diagonal of an audio cassette.


title: CD player

text: Heitaro Nakajima, who developed an early digital audio recorder within Japan's national public broadcasting organization NHK in 1970, became general manager of Sony's audio department in 1971. His team developed a digital PCM adaptor audio tape recorder using a Betamax video recorder in 1973. After this, in 1974 the leap to storing digital audio on an optical disc was easily made. Sony first publicly demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in September 1976. A year later, in September 1977, Sony showed the press a disc that could play 60 minutes of digital audio (44,100 Hz sampling rate and 16-bit resolution) using MFM modulation. In September 1978, the company demonstrated an optical digital audio disc with a 150-minute playing time, 44,056 Hz sampling rate, 16-bit linear resolution, and cross-interleaved error correction code—specifications similar to those later settled upon for the standard Compact Disc format in 1980. Technical details of Sony's digital audio disc were presented during the 62nd AES Convention, held on 13–16 March 1979, in Brussels. Sony's AES technical paper was published on 1 March 1979. A week later, on 8 March, Philips publicly demonstrated a prototype of an optical digital audio disc at a press conference called "Philips Introduce Compact Disc" in Eindhoven, Netherlands.


title: CD player

text: Sony executive Norio Ohga, later CEO and chairman of Sony, and Heitaro Nakajima were convinced of the format's commercial potential and pushed further development despite widespread skepticism. As a result, in 1979, Sony and Philips set up a joint task force of engineers to design a new digital audio disc. Led by engineers Kees Schouhamer Immink and Toshitada Doi, the research pushed forward laser and optical disc technology. After a year of experimentation and discussion, the task force produced the "Red Book" CD-DA standard. First published in 1980, the standard was formally adopted by the IEC as an international standard in 1987, with various amendments becoming part of the standard in 1996.


title: CD player

text: Philips coined the term "compact disc" in line with another audio product, the Compact Cassette, and contributed the general manufacturing process, based on video LaserDisc technology. Philips also contributed eight-to-fourteen modulation (EFM), which offers a certain resilience to defects such as scratches and fingerprints, while Sony contributed the error-correction method, CIRC. The "Compact Disc Story", told by a former member of the task force, gives background information on the many technical decisions made, including the choice of the sampling frequency, playing time, and disc diameter. The task force consisted of around four to eight persons, though according to Philips, the Compact Disc was "invented collectively by a large group of people working as a team."


title: CD player

text: Philips established the Polydor Pressing Operations plant in Langenhagen near Hannover, Germany, and quickly passed a series of milestones.


title: CD player

text: The Japanese launch was followed in March 1983 by the introduction of CD players and discs to Europe and North America (where CBS Records released sixteen titles). This event is often seen as the "Big Bang" of the digital audio revolution. The new audio disc was enthusiastically received, especially in the early-adopting classical music and audiophile communities, and its handling quality received particular praise. As the price of players gradually came down, and with the introduction of the portable Walkman, the CD began to gain popularity in the larger popular and rock music markets. The first artist to sell a million copies on CD was Dire Straits, with their 1985 album "Brothers in Arms". The first major artist to have his entire catalogue converted to CD was David Bowie, whose 15 studio albums were made available by RCA Records in February 1985, along with four greatest hits albums. In 1988, 400 million CDs were manufactured by 50 pressing plants around the world.


title: CD player

text: The CD was planned to be the successor of the gramophone record for playing music, rather than primarily as a data storage medium, but from its origins as a format for music, its use has grown to encompass other applications. In 1983, following the CD's introduction, Immink and Braat presented the first experiments with erasable compact discs during the 73rd AES Convention. In June 1985, the computer-readable CD-ROM (read-only memory) was introduced and, in 1990, the CD-Recordable, also developed by both Sony and Philips. Recordable CDs were a new alternative to tape for recording music and copying music albums without the defects introduced in the compression used in other digital recording methods. Other newer video formats such as DVD and Blu-ray use the same physical geometry as CD, and most DVD and Blu-ray players are backward compatible with audio CD.


title: CD player

text: By the early 2000s, the CD player had largely replaced the audio cassette player as standard equipment in new automobiles, with 2010 being the final model year for any car in the US to have a factory-equipped cassette player. Currently, with the increasing popularity of portable digital audio players, such as mobile phones, and solid state music storage, CD players are being phased out of automobiles in favor of minijack auxiliary inputs and connections to USB devices.


title: CD player

text: Some CD players incorporate disc changers. Commonly these can hold 3 or 5 discs at once and change from one disc to the next without user intervention. Disc changers capable of holding up to 400 discs at once were available. Also, the user can manually choose the disc to be played, making it similar to a jukebox. They were often built into car audio and home stereo systems, although a 7 disc CD changer was once made by NEC for PCs. Some could also play DVD and Blu-ray discs.


title: CD player

text: Meanwhile, with the advent and popularity of Internet-based distribution of files in lossily-compressed audio formats such as MP3, sales of CDs began to decline in the 2000s. For example, between 2000 and 2008, despite overall growth in music sales and one anomalous year of increase, major-label CD sales declined overall by 20% – although independent and DIY music sales may be tracking better (according to figures released 30 March 2009), and CDs still continue to sell greatly. As of 2012, CDs and DVDs made up only 34 percent of music sales in the United States. In Japan, however, over 80 percent of music was bought on CDs and other physical formats as of 2015. As of 2020, compact cassettes, vinyl records, and CDs are still being released by some musicians, primarily as merchandise, to allow fans to provide financial support while receiving something tangible in return.


title: CD player

text: The process of playing an audio CD, touted as a digital audio storage medium, starts with the plastic polycarbonate compact disc, a medium that contains the digitally encoded data. The disc is placed in a tray which either opens up (as with portable CD players) or slides out (the norm with in-home CD players, computer disc drives and game consoles). In some systems, the user slides the disc into a slot (e.g., car stereo CD players). Once the disc is loaded into the tray, the data is read out by a mechanism that scans the spiral data track using a laser beam. An electric motor spins the disc. The tracking control is done by analogue servoamplifiers and then the high frequency analogue signal read from the disc is digitized, processed and decoded into analogue audio and digital control data which is used by the player to position the playback mechanism on the correct track, do the skip and seek functions and display track, time, index and, on newer players in the 2010s, display title and artist information on a display placed in the front panel.


title: CD player

text: To read the data from the disc, a laser beam shines on the surface of the disc. Surface differences between discs being played, and tiny position differences once loaded, are handled by using a movable lens with a very close focal length to focus the light on the disc. A low mass lens coupled to an electromagnetic coil is in charge of keeping focused the beam on the 600 nm wide data track.


title: CD player

text: When the player tries to read from a stop, it first does a focus seek program that moves the lens up and down from the surface of the disc until a reflection is detected; when there is a reflection, the servo electronics lock in place keeping the lens in perfect focus while the disc rotates and changes its relative height from the optical block.


title: CD player

text: Different brands and models of optical assemblies use different methods of focus detection. On most players, the focus position detection is made using the difference in the current output of a block of four photodiodes. The photodiode block and the optics are arranged in such a way that a perfect focus projects a circular pattern on the block while a far or near focus projects an ellipse differing in the position of the long edge in north–south or west-southwest. That difference is the information that the servoamplifier uses to keep the lens at the proper reading distance during the playback operation, even if the disc is warped.


title: CD player

text: Another servo mechanism in the player is in charge of keeping the focused beam centered on the data track.


title: CD player

text: Two optical pick-up designs exists, the original CDM series from Philips use a magnetic actuator mounted on a swing-arm to do coarse and fine tracking. Using only one laser beam and the 4 photodiode block, the servo knows if the track is centred by measuring side-by-side movement of the light of beam hitting on the block and corrects to keep the light on the centre.


title: CD player

text: The other design by Sony uses a diffraction grating to part the laser light into one main beam and two sub-beams. When focused, the two peripheral beams cover the border of the adjacent tracks a few micrometers apart from the main beam and reflect back on two photodiodes separated from the main block of four. The servo detects the RF signal being received on the peripheral receivers and the difference in output between these two diodes conform the tracking error signal that the system uses to keep the optics in the proper track. The tracking signal is fed to two systems, one integrated in the focus lens assembly can do fine tracking correction and the other system can move the entire optical assembly side by side to do coarse track jumps.


title: CD player

text: The sum of the output from the four photodiodes makes the RF or high frequency signal which is an electronic mirror of the pits and lands recorded on the disc. The RF signal, when observed on an oscilloscope, has a characteristic "fish-eye" pattern and its usefulness in servicing the machine is paramount for detecting and diagnosing problems, and calibrating CD players for operation.


title: CD player

text: The first stage in the processing chain for the analog RF signal (from the photoreceptor device) is digitizing it. Using various circuits like a simple comparator or a data slicer, the analog signal becomes a chain of two binary digital values, 1 and 0. This signal carries all the information in a CD and is modulated using a system called EFM (Eight-to-fourteen modulation). The second stage is demodulating the EFM signal into a data frame that contains the audio samples, error correction parity bits, according with the CIRC error correction code, and control data for the player display and micro-computer.


title: CD player

text: The EFM demodulator also decodes part of the CD signal and routes it to the proper circuits, separating audio, parity and control (subcode) data.


title: CD player

text: After demodulating, a CIRC error corrector takes each audio data frame, stores it in a SRAM memory and verifies that it has been read correctly, if it is not, it takes the parity and correction bits and fixes the data, then it moves it out to a DAC to be converted to an analog audio signal. If the data missing is enough to make recovery impossible, the correction is made by interpolating the data from subsequent frames so the missing part is not noticed. Each player has a different interpolation ability. If too many data frames are missing or unrecoverable, the audio signal may be impossible to fix by interpolation, so an audio mute flag is raised to mute the DAC to avoid invalid data to be played back.


title: CD player

text: The Redbook standard dictates that, if there is invalid, erroneous or missing audio data, it cannot be output to the speakers as digital noise, it has to be muted.


title: CD player

text: The Audio CD format requires every player to have enough processing power to decode the CD data; this is normally made by application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). ASICs do not work by themselves, however; they require a main microcomputer or microcontroller to orchestrate the entire machine. The firmware of basic CD players typically is a real-time operating system.


title: CD player

text: Some early optical computer drives are equipped with an audio connector and buttons for standalone CD playback functionality.


title: CD player

text: Sony released its CDP-101 CD player in 1982 with a slide-out tray design for the CD. As it was easy to manufacture and to use, most CD player manufacturers stayed with the tray style ever since. The tray mechanism is also used in many modern desktop computer cases, as well as the Philips CD-i, PlayStation 2, Xbox and Xbox 360. However, there have been some notable exceptions to this common CD tray design.


title: CD player

text: During the launch of the first prototype "Goronta" CD player by Sony at the Japanese Audio Fair in 1982, Sony showcased the vertical loading design. Although the Sony prototype design was never put into volume production, the concept was for a time adopted for production by a number of early Japanese CD player manufacturers, including Alpine/Luxman, Matsushita under the Technics brand, Kenwood and Toshiba/Aurex. For the early vertical loading players, Alpine sourced their AD-7100 player designs for Luxman, Kenwood and Toshiba (using their Aurex brand). Kenwood added their "Sigma Drive" outputs to this design as a modification. A picture of this early design can be seen on the Panasonic Web site. The vertical loading is similar the one common in cassette decks, where the holder opens, and disc is dropped to it. The holder is closed manually, by motor after pressing a button, or completely automatically. Some CD players combine vertical loading with slot loading due to the disc being drawn further into the disc holder as it closes.


title: CD player

text: In 1983 Philips, at the US and European launch of the CD format, showcased the first top loading CD tray designs with their CD100 CD player. (Philips audio products were sold as Magnavox in the US at the time.) The design had a clamp on the lid which meant the user had to close this over the CD when it was placed inside the machine. Later, Meridian introduced their MCD "high end" CD player, with Meridian electronics in the Philips CD100 chassis.


title: CD player

text: Top-loading was adopted on various equipment designs such as mini systems and portable CD players, but among stereo component CD players, only a handful of top-loading models have been made. Examples include Luxman's D-500 and D-500X series players and Denon's DP-S1, both launched in 1993.


title: CD player

text: Top-loading is also common in players intended for broadcast and live sound "DJ" use, such as Technics' SL-P50 (1984–1985) and Technics SL-P1200 (1986–1992). They more closely mimic the physical arrangement and ergonomics of record turntables used in those applications.


title: CD player

text: The top-loading disc tray design is also used in most fifth-generation video game consoles (the PlayStation, the Sega Saturn and the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer), as well as the Sega Dreamcast, the Nintendo GameCube and the Wii Mini.


title: CD player

text: The Philips CD303 of 1983-1984 was the first player to adopt tray loading with a sliding play mechanism. Basically as the tray came out to collect the CD, the entire player's transport system also came out as one unit. The Meridians 200 and 203 players were of this type. They were also the first to use a design in which the audio electronics were in a separate enclosure from the CD drive and pickup mechanism. A similar mechanism is used in slim optical disc drives (also known as slim internal DVD drive, optical drive or DVD burner), which were once commonly used in laptop computers.


title: CD player

text: Slot loading is the preferred loading mechanism for car audio players. There is no tray that pops out, and a motor is used to assist disc insertion and removal. Some slot-loading mechanisms and changers can load and play back Mini-CDs without the need of an adapter (such as the original Wii model's standard-sized disc slot being capable of accepting smaller GameCube Game Discs) but they may work with limited functionality (a disc changer with a Mini CD inserted will refuse to operate until such disc is removed, for example).


title: CD player

text: Non-circular CDs cannot be used on such loaders because they cannot handle non-circular discs. When inserted, such discs may become stuck and damage the mechanism. It is also used on some laptop computers, the original and slim PlayStation 3, the Wii's original model and its Family Edition and most eighth-generation video game consoles (the Wii U, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One), as well as the ninth-generation PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.


title: CD player

text: The swing-arm mechanism has a distinctive advantage over the other in that it does not "skip" when the rail becomes dirty. The swing arm mechanisms tend to have a much longer life than their radial counterparts. The main difference between the two mechanisms is the way they read the data from the disc. The swing-arm mechanism uses a magnetic coil wound over a permanent magnet to provide the tracking movement to the laser assembly in a similar way a hard drive moves its head across the data tracks. It also uses another magnetic movement mechanism attached to the focusing lens to focus the laser beam on the disc surface. By operating the tracking or the focus actuators, the laser beam can be positioned on any part of the disc.


title: CD player

text: This mechanism employs a single laser beam and a set of four photodiodes to read, focus and keep track of the data coming from the disc.


title: CD player

text: The linear tracking mechanism uses a motor and reduction gears to move the laser assembly radially across the tracks of the disc and it also has a set of six coils mounted in the focusing lens over a permanent magnetic field. One set of two coils moves the lens closer to the disc surface, providing the focusing motion, and the other set of coils moves the lens radially, providing a finer tracking motion. This mechanism uses the three-beam tracking method in which a main laser beam is used to read and focus the data track of the disc using three or four photodiodes, depending on the focus method, and two smaller beams read the adjacent tracks at each side to help the servo keep the tracking using two more "helper" photodiodes.


title: CD player

text: A CD player has three major mechanical components : a drive motor, a lens system or pickup head, and a tracking mechanism.


title: CD player

text: The drive motor (also called spindle) spins the disc to a scanning velocity of 1.2–1.4 m/s (constant linear velocity) – equivalent to approximately 500 RPM at the inside of the disc, and approximately 200 RPM at the outside edge. (A disc played from beginning to end slows its rotation rate during playback.) The tracking mechanism moves the lens system along the spiral tracks in which information is encoded, and the lens assembly reads the information using a laser beam produced by a laser diode. The laser reads information by focusing a beam on the CD, which is reflected off the disc's mirrored surface back to a photodiode array sensor. The sensor detects changes in the beam, and a digital processing chain interprets these changes as binary data. The data are processed, and eventually converted to sound using a digital-to-analog converter (DAC).


title: CD player

text: A TOC or Table of Contents is located after the "lead-in" area of the disc, which is located in an inner ring of the disc, and contains roughly five kilobytes of available space. It is the first information that the player reads when the disc is loaded in the player and contains information on the total number of audio tracks, the running time on the CD, the running time of each track, and other information such as ISRC and the format structure of the disc. The TOC is of such vital importance for the disc that if it is not read correctly by the player, the CD could not be played back. That is why it is repeated 3 times before the first music program starts. The "lead out" area in the end (the outer peripheral) of the disc tells the player that disc has come to an end.


title: CD player

text: CD players can employ a number of ways to improve performance, or reduce component count or price. Features such as oversampling, one-bit DACs, dual DACs, interpolation (error correction), anti-skip buffering, digital and optical outputs are, or were, likely to be found. Other features improve functionality, such as track programming, random play and repeat, or direct track access. Yet others are related to the CD player's intended target, such as anti-skip for car and portable CD players, pitch control and queuing for a DJ's CD player, remote and system integration for household players. Description of some features follows:


title: CD player

text: A portable CD player is a portable audio player used to play compact discs. Portable CD players are powered by batteries and they have a 1/8" headphone jack into which the user plugs a pair of headphones. The first portable CD player released was the D-50 by Sony. The D-50 was made available on the market in 1984, and adopted for Sony's entire portable CD player line.


title: CD player

text: In 1998, portable MP3 players began to compete with portable CD players. After Apple Computer entered the music player market with its iPod line, within ten years it became the dominant seller of portable digital audio players, "...while former giant Sony (maker of the [portable] Walkman and [CD] Discman [was] struggling." This market shift was initiated when the first portable digital audio player, the Rio digital music player, was introduced. The 64 MB Rio MP3 player enabled users to store about 20 songs. One of the benefits of the Rio over portable CD players was that since the Rio had no moving parts, it offered skip-free playback. Since 1998, the price of portable digital audio players has dropped and the storage capacity has increased significantly. In the 2000s, users can "carry [their] entire music collection in a [digital audio] player the size of a cigarette package." The 4 GB iPod, for example, holds over 1,000 songs.


title: CD player

text: A boombox is a common term for a portable cassette and AM/FM radio that consists of an amplifier, two or more loudspeakers and a carrying handle. Beginning in the 1990s, boomboxes typically included a CD player. The boombox CD player is the only type of CD player which produces sound audible by the listener independently, without the need for headphones or an additional amplifier or speaker system. Designed for portability, boomboxes can be powered by batteries as well as by line current. The boombox was introduced to the American market during the mid-1970s. The desire for louder and heavier bass led to bigger and heavier boxes; by the 1980s, some boomboxes had reached the size of a suitcase. Most boomboxes were battery-operated, leading to extremely heavy, bulky boxes.


title: CD player

text: Most boomboxes from the 2010s typically include a CD player compatible with CD-R and CD-RW, which allows the user to carry their own music compilations on a higher fidelity medium. Many also permit iPod and similar devices to be plugged into them through one or more auxiliary input jacks. Some also support formats such as MP3 and WMA. Another modern variant is a DVD player/boombox with a top-loading CD/DVD drive and an LCD video screen in the position once occupied by a cassette deck. Many models of this type of boombox include inputs for external video (such as television broadcasts) and outputs to connect the DVD player to a full-sized television.


title: CD player

text: Disc jockeys (DJs) who are playing a mix of songs at a dance club, rave, or nightclub create their dance mixes by having songs playing on two or more sound sources and using a DJ mixer to transition seamlessly between songs. In the 1970s disco era, DJs typically used two record players. From the 1980s to the 1990s, two compact cassette players became a popular sound source for DJs. In subsequent decades, DJs shifted to CDs and then to digital audio players. DJs who use CDs and CD players typically use specialized DJ CD players that have features not available on regular CD players.


title: CD player

text: DJs who are performing "scratching"–the creation of rhythmic sounds and sound effects from sound recordings–traditionally used vinyl records and turntables. In the 2010s, some specialized DJ CD players can be used to create the same "scratching" effects using songs on CDs.


title: Tent

text: A tent () is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over, attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using guy ropes tied to stakes or tent pegs. First used as portable homes by nomads, tents are now more often used for recreational camping and as temporary shelters.


title: Tent

text: Tents range in size from "bivouac" structures, just big enough for one person to sleep in, up to huge circus tents capable of seating thousands of people.


title: Tent

text: Tents for recreational camping fall into two categories. Tents intended to be carried by backpackers are the smallest and lightest type. Small tents may be sufficiently light that they can be carried for long distances on a touring bicycle, a boat, or when backpacking.


title: Tent

text: The second type are larger, heavier tents which are usually carried in a car or other vehicle. Depending on tent size and the experience of the person or people involved, such tents can usually be assembled (pitched) in between 5 and 25 minutes; disassembly (striking) takes a similar length of time. Some very specialised tents have spring-loaded poles and can be pitched in seconds, but take somewhat longer to strike (take down and pack).


title: Tent

text: Over the past decade, tents have also been increasingly linked with homelessness crises in the United States, Canada, and other regions. Places of multiple homeless people living in tents closely pitched or plotted near each other are often referred to as tent cities.


title: Tent

text: A form of tent called a teepee or tipi, noted for its cone shape and peak smoke hole, was also used by Native American tribes and Aboriginal Canadians of the Plains Indians since ancient times, variously estimated from 10,000 to 4,000 years BC.


title: Tent

text: Tents were used at least as far back as the early Iron Age. They are mentioned in the Bible; for example, in Genesis 4:20 Jabal is described as "the first to live in tents and raise sheep and goats". The Roman Army used leather tents, copies of which have been used successfully by modern re-enactors. Various styles developed over time, some derived from traditional nomadic tents, such as the yurt.


title: Tent

text: Most military tents throughout history were of a simple ridge design. The major technological advance was the use of linen or hemp canvas for the canopy versus leather for the Romans. The primary use of tents was still to provide portable shelter for a small number of men in the field.


title: Tent

text: By World War I larger designs were being deployed in rear areas to provide shelter for support activities and supplies.


title: Tent

text: Tents are used as habitation by nomads, recreational campers, soldiers, and disaster victims. Tents are also typically used as overhead shelter for festivals, weddings, backyard parties, major corporate events, excavation (construction) covers, and industrial shelters.


title: Tent

text: Tents have traditionally been used by nomadic people all over the world, such as Native Americans, Mongolian, Turkic and Tibetan Nomads, and the Bedouin.


title: Tent

text: Armies all over the world have long used tents as part of their working life. Tents are preferred by the military for their relatively quick setup and take down times, compared to more traditional shelters. One of the world's largest users of tents is the U.S. Department of Defense. The U.S. Department of Defense has strict rules on tent quality and tent specifications. The most common tent uses for the military are temporary barracks (sleeping quarters), DFAC buildings (dining facilities), field headquarters, Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) facilities, and security checkpoints. One of the most popular military designs currently fielded by the U.S. DoD is the TEMPER Tent. TEMPER is an acronym for Tent Expandable Modular PERsonnel. The U.S. military is beginning to use a more modern tent called the deployable rapid assembly shelter or DRASH. It is a collapsible tent with provisions for air conditioning and heating.


title: Tent

text: Camping is a popular form of recreation which often involves the use of tents. A tent is economical and practical because of its portability and low environmental impact. These qualities are necessary when used in the wilderness or backcountry.


title: Tent

text: Tents are often used in humanitarian emergencies, such as war, earthquakes and fire. The primary choice of tents in humanitarian emergencies are canvas tents, because a cotton canvas tent allows functional breathability while serving the purpose of temporary shelter. Tents distributed by organisations such as UNHCR are made by various manufacturers, depending on the region where the tents are deployed, as well as depending on the purpose.


title: Tent

text: At times, however, these temporary shelters become a permanent or semi-permanent home, especially for displaced people living in refugee camps or shanty towns who can't return to their former home and for whom no replacement homes are made available.


title: Tent

text: Tents have been increasingly used as shelter for homeless people in the U.S., especially for those in California, Oregon, and Washington. Encampments have spiked in usage and living in the mid-to-late 2010s. Tent cities, places of high number of tents inhabited by homeless and travelers/vagabonds have also, are also commonly found in major cities in the South, including Austin, Texas, which had passed a restriction on homeless encampments in May 2021.


title: Tent

text: Tents are also often used as sites and symbols of protest over time. In 1968 Resurrection City saw hundreds of tents set up by anti-poverty campaigners in Washington D.C. In the 1970s and 1980s anti-nuclear peace camps spread across Europe and North America, with the largest women's-only camp to date set up outside the RAF Greenham Common United States airbase in Newbury, England to protest the deployment there of cruise missiles during the Cold War. The 1990s saw environmental protest camps as part of the campaign for the Clayoquot Sound in Canada and the roads protests in the UK. The first No Border Network camp was held in Strasbourg in 2002, becoming the first in a series of international camps that continue to be organised today. Other international camps of the 2000s include summit counter-mobilisations like Horizone at the Gleneagles G8 gathering in 2005 and the start of Camp for Climate Action in 2006. Since September 2011, the tent has been used as a symbol of the Occupy movement, an international protest movement which is primarily directed against economic and social inequality. Occupy protesters use tents to create camps in public places wherein they can form communities of open discussion and democratic action.


title: Tent

text: Tent fabric may be made of many materials including cotton (canvas), nylon, felt and polyester. Cotton absorbs water, so it can become very heavy when wet, but the associated swelling tends to block any minute holes so that wet cotton is more waterproof than dry cotton. Cotton tents were often treated with paraffin to enhance water resistance. Nylon and polyester are much lighter than cotton and do not absorb much water; with suitable coatings they can be very waterproof, but they tend to deteriorate over time due to a slow chemical breakdown caused by ultraviolet light. The most common treatments to make fabric waterproof are silicone impregnation or polyurethane coating. Since stitching makes tiny holes in a fabric seams are often sealed or taped to block these holes and maintain waterproofness, though in practice a carefully sewn seam can be waterproof.


title: Tent

text: Rain resistance is measured and expressed as hydrostatic head in millimetres (mm). This indicates the pressure of water needed to penetrate a fabric. Heavy or wind-driven rain has a higher pressure than light rain. Standing on a groundsheet increases the pressure on any water underneath. Fabric with a hydrostatic head rating of 1000 mm or less is best regarded as shower resistant, with 1500 mm being usually suitable for summer camping. Tents for year-round use generally have at least 2000 mm; expedition tents intended for extreme conditions are often rated at 3000 mm. Where quoted, groundsheets may be rated for 5000 mm or more.


title: Tent

text: Many tent manufacturers indicate capacity by such phrases as "3 berth" or "2 person". These numbers indicate how many people the manufacturer thinks can use the tent, though these numbers do not always allow for any personal belongings, such as luggage, inflatable mattresses, camp beds, cots, etc., nor do they always allow for people who are of above average height. Checking the quoted sizes of sleeping areas reveals that several manufacturers consider that a width of is enough for three people — snug is the operative word. Experience indicates that camping may be more comfortable if the actual number of occupants is one or even two less than the manufacturer's suggestion, though different manufacturers have different standards for space requirement and there is no accepted standard.


title: Tent

text: Tent used in areas with biting insects often have their vent and door openings covered with fine-mesh netting.


title: Tent

text: Single skin (USA: single wall): Only one waterproof layer of fabric is used, comprising at least roof and walls. To minimize condensation on the inside of the tent, some expedition tents use waterproof/breathable fabrics.


title: Tent

text: Single skin with flysheet: A waterproof "flysheet" or "rain fly" is suspended over and clear of the roof of the tent; it often overlaps the tent roof slightly, but does not extend down the sides or ends of the tent.


title: Tent

text: Double skin (USA: double wall): The "outer tent" is a waterproof layer which extends down to the ground all round. One or more 'inner tents' provide sleeping areas. The outer tent may be just a little larger than the inner tent, or it may be a lot larger and provide a covered living area separate from the sleeping area(s). An inner tent is not waterproof, but allows water vapour to pass through so that condensation occurs only on the exterior side. The double layer may also provide some thermal insulation. Either the outer skin or the inner skin may be the structural component, carrying the poles; the structural skin is always pitched first, though some tents are built with the outer and inner linked so that they are both pitched at the same time.


title: Tent

text: Shelters are not normally used for sleeping. Instead they may act as a store or provide shelter from sun, rain, or dew.


title: Tent

text: With modern materials, tent manufacturers have great freedom to vary types and styles and shapes of tents.


title: Tent

text: Many tents which use rigid steel poles are free-standing and do not require guy ropes, though they may require pegs around the bottom edge of the fabric. These tents are usually so heavy (25 to 80 kg) that it takes a rather strong wind to blow them away.


title: Tent

text: Flexible poles used for tents in this section are typically between long. Cheap poles are made of tubes of fibreglass with an external diameter less than , whereas more expensive aluminium alloys are the material of choice for added strength and durability. For ease of transportation, these poles are made in sections some long, with one end of each section having a socket into which the next section can fit. For ease of assembly, the sections for each pole are often connected by an internal elastic cord running the entire length of the pole.


title: Tent

text: Inflatable pole supports, also known as airbeams, serve as rigid structural supports when inflated but are soft and pliable when deflated. Tents using such technology are neither commonly used nor widely accepted and are available from a very limited number of suppliers.


title: Tent

text: Much like a bicycle tube and tire, airbeams are often composed of a highly dimensionally stable (i.e. no stretch) fabric sleeve and an air-holding inner bladder. However, other airbeam constructions consist of coated fabrics that are cut and manufactured to its intended shape by a method such as thermal welding. Depending on the desired tent size, airbeams can be anywhere from 2-40 inches in diameter, inflated to different pressures. High pressure airbeams (40-80 psi) that are filled by compressors are most often used in larger shelters, whereas low pressure beams (5-7 psi) are preferred for recreational use. The relatively low pressure enables the use of a manual pump to inflate the airbeam to the desired level. Airbeams have the unique quality of bending, rather than breaking, when overloaded. Tents that use inflatable airbeams are structured almost identically to those that use flexible poles.


title: Tent

text: Most of these tent styles are no longer generally available. Most of these are single-skin designs, with optional fly sheets for the ridge tents.


title: Tent

text: All the tents listed here had a canvas fabric and most used a substantial number of guy ropes (8 to 18). The guys had to be positioned and tensioned fairly precisely in order to pitch the tent correctly, so some training and experience were needed. Pup tents might use wooden or metal poles, but all the other styles mentioned here used wooden poles.


title: Tent

text: Tent design has influenced many large modern buildings. These buildings have in turn influenced the next generation of tent design. Tent-style tensile structures are used to cover large public areas such as entertainment venues, arenas and retail areas (example: The O) or sports stadiums (example: Munich Olympic Stadium) and airports (example: Denver International Airport). The Sami Parliament of Norway is inspired by the lavvu, a tent traditionally used by the Sami people.


title: Digital footprint

text: Digital footprint or digital shadow refers to one's unique set of traceable digital activities, actions, contributions and communications manifested on the Internet or digital devices. Digital footprints can be classified as either passive or active. The former is composed of a user's web-browsing activity and information stored as cookies. The latter is often released deliberately by a user to share information on websites or social media. While the term usually applies to a person, a digital footprint can also refer to a business, organization or corporation.


title: Digital footprint

text: The use of a digital footprint has both positive and negative consequences. On one side, it is the subject of many privacy issues. For example, without an individual's authorization, strangers can piece together information about that individual by only using search engines. Corporations are also able to produce customized ads based on browsing history. On the other hand, others can reap the benefits by profiting off their digital footprint as social media influencers. Furthermore, employers use a candidate's digital footprint for online vetting and assessing fit due to its reduced cost and accessibility. Between two equal candidates, a candidate with a positive digital footprint may have an advantage. As technology usage becomes more widespread, even children generate larger digital footprints with potential positive and negative consequences such as college admissions. Since it is hard not to have a digital footprint, it is in one's best interest to create a positive one.


title: Digital footprint

text: Passive digital footprints are a data trail that an individual involuntarily leaves online. They can be stored in various ways depending on the situation. A footprint may be stored in an online database as a "hit" in an online environment. The footprint may track the user's IP address, when it was created, where it came from, and the footprint later being analyzed. In an offline environment, administrators can access and view the machine's actions without seeing who performed them. Examples of passive digital footprints are apps that use geolocations, websites that download cookies onto your appliance, or browser history. Although passive digital footprints are inevitable, they can be lessened by deleting old accounts, using privacy settings (public or private accounts), and occasionally online searching yourself to see the information left behind.


title: Digital footprint

text: Active digital footprints are deliberate, as they are posted or shared information willingly. They can also be stored in a variety of ways depending on the situation. A digital footprint can be stored when a user logs into a site and makes a post or change; the registered name is connected to the edit in an online environment. Examples of active digital footprints include social media posts, video or image uploads, or changes to various websites.


title: Digital footprint

text: Digital footprints are not a digital identity or passport, but the content and metadata collected impacts internet privacy, trust, security, digital reputation, and recommendation. As the digital world expands and integrates with more aspects of life, ownership and rights concerning data become increasingly important. Digital footprints are controversial in that privacy and openness compete. Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, said in 1999 "Get Over It" when referring to privacy on the Internet. The quote later became a commonly used phrase in discussing private data and what companies do with it. Digital footprints are a privacy concern because they are a set of traceable actions, contributions, and ideas shared by users. It can be tracked and can allow internet users to learn about human actions.


title: Digital footprint

text: Interested parties use Internet footprints for several reasons; including "cyber-vetting", where interviewers could research applicants based on their online activities. Internet footprints are also used by law enforcement agencies to provide information unavailable otherwise due to a lack of probable cause. Also, digital footprints are used by marketers to find what products a user is interested in or to inspire ones' interest in a particular product based on similar interests.


title: Digital footprint

text: "Social networking systems" may record the activities of individuals, with data becoming a "life stream". Such social media usage and roaming services allow digital tracing data to include individual interests, social groups, behaviors, and location. Such data is gathered from sensors within devices and collected and analyzed without user awareness. When many users choose to share personal information about themselves through social media platforms, including places they visited, timelines and their connections, they are unaware of the privacy setting choices and the security consequences associated with them. Many social media sites, like Facebook, collect an extensive amount of information that can be used to piece together a user's personality. Information gathered from social media, such as the number of friends a user has, can predict whether or not the user has an introvert or extrovert personality. Moreover, a survey of SNS users revealed that 87% identified their work or education level, 84% identified their full date of birth, 78% identified their location, and 23% listed their phone numbers.


title: Digital footprint

text: While one's digital footprint may infer personal information, such as demographic traits, sexual orientation, race, religious and political views, personality, or intelligence without individuals' knowledge, it also exposes individuals' private psychological spheres into the social sphere. "Lifelogging" is an example of an indiscriminate collection of information concerning an individual's life and behavior. There are actions to take to make a digital footprint challenging to track. An example of the usage or interpretation of data trails is through Facebook-influenced creditworthiness ratings, the judicial investigations around German social scientist Andrej Holm, advertisement-junk mails by the American company OfficeMax or the border incident of Canadian citizen Ellen Richardson.


title: Digital footprint

text: An increasing number of employers are evaluating applicants by their digital footprint through their interaction on social media due to its reduced cost and easy accessibility during the hiring process. By using such resources, employers can gain more insight on candidates beyond their well-scripted interview responses and perfected resumes. Candidates who display poor communication skills, use inappropriate language, or use drugs or alcohol are rated lower. Conversely, a candidate with a professional or family-oriented social media presence receive higher ratings. Employers also assess a candidate through their digital footprint to determine if a candidate is a good cultural fit for their organization. Suppose a candidate upholds an organization's values or shows existing passion for its mission. In that case, the candidate is more likely to integrate within the organization and could accomplish more than the average person. Although these assessments are known not to be accurate predictors of performance or turnover rates, employers still use digital footprints to evaluate their applicants. Thus, job seekers prefer to create a social media presence that would be viewed positively from a professional point of view.


title: Digital footprint

text: In some professions, maintaining a digital footprint is essential. People will search the internet for specific doctors and their reviews. Half of the search results for a particular physician link to third-party rating websites. For this reason, prospective patients may unknowingly choose their physicians based on their digital footprint in addition to online reviews. Furthermore, a generation relies on social media for livelihood as influencers by using their digital footprint. These influencers have dedicated fan bases that may be eager to follow recommendations. As a result, marketers pay influencers to promote their products among their followers, since this medium may yield better returns than traditional advertising. Consequently, one's career may be reliant on their digital footprint.


title: Digital footprint

text: Generation Alpha will not be the first generation born into the internet world. As such, a children's digital footprint is becoming more significant than ever before and their consequences may be unclear. Due to parenting enthusiasm, an increasing amount of parents will create social media accounts for their children at a young age, sometimes even before they are born. Parents may post up to 13,000 photos of a child on social media in their celebratory state before their teen years of everyday life or birthday celebrations. Furthermore, these children are predicted to post 70,000 times online on their own by 18. The advent of posting on social media creates many opportunities to gather data from minors. Since an identity's basic components contain a name, birth date, and address, these children are susceptible to identity theft. While parents may assume that privacy settings may prevent children's photos and data from being exposed, they also have to trust that their followers will not be compromised. Outsiders may take the images to pose as these children's parents or post the content publicly. For example, during the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal, friends of friends leaked data to data miners. Due presence of children on social media, their privacy may be at risk.


title: Digital footprint

text: Some professionals argue that young people entering the workforce should consider the effect of their digital footprint on their marketability and professionalism. Having a digital footprint may be very good for students, as college admissions staff and potential employers may decide to research into prospective student's and employee's online profiles, leading to an enormous impact on the students' futures. Teens will be set up for more success if they consider the kind of impact they are making and how it can affect their future. Instead, someone who acts apathetic towards the impression they are making online will struggle if they one day choose to attend college or enter into the workforce. Teens who plan to receive a higher education will have their digital footprint reviewed and assessed as a part of the application process. Besides, if the teens that have the intention of receiving a higher education are planning to do so with financial help and scholarships, then they need to consider that their digital footprint will be evaluated in the application process to get scholarships.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: "Mah Nà Mah Nà" is a popular song by Italian composer Piero Umiliani. It originally appeared in the Italian film "" ("Svezia, inferno e paradiso"). It was a minor radio hit in the United States and in Britain, but became better known internationally for its use by The Muppets and on "The Benny Hill Show".


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: "Mah Nà Mah Nà" first gained popularity in English-speaking countries from its use in the recurring cold open blackout sketch for the 1969–1970 season of "The Red Skelton Show" first airing in October 1969.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: "Sesame Street" producer Joan Ganz Cooney heard the track on the radio and decided it would be a perfect addition to the show. It was first performed by Jim Henson (Kermit the Frog, "et al."), Frank Oz (Miss Piggy, "et al".) and Loretta Long (Susan) on the fourteenth episode of the show, broadcast on November 27, 1969. The following Sunday, Henson and his Muppets performed the song on "The Ed Sullivan Show". Seven years later the song was part of the premiere episode of "The Muppet Show" in 1976.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: Starting in 1971, "The Benny Hill Show" — in its second incarnation now at Thames Television where it launched in 1969 in colour — implemented "Mah Nà Mah Nà" as part of a comic background music medley that would run during their often-filmed slapstick sketches. The medley became a "Benny Hill Show" tradition for the rest of its run.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: Although Umiliani used a very similar theme in 1966 for the soundtrack of the Italian film (international title: Ring Around The World), "Mah Nà Mah Nà" debuted as part of Umiliani's soundtrack for the Italian mondo film ("Sweden: Heaven and Hell" [lit. "Hell and Heaven"]) (1968), an exploitation documentary film about wild sexual activity and other behaviour in Sweden. The song accompanied a scene in the film set in a sauna which gave its original title "" ("Hooray for the Swedish Sauna"). It was performed by a band called Marc 4 (four session musicians from the RAI orchestra) and the lead part was sung by Italian singer/composer Alessandro Alessandroni and his wife Giulia. The song also appeared on the 1968 U.S. soundtrack album released for the film.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: "Mah Nà Mah Nà" was a hit in many countries in 1968–1969. In the United States, it peaked at No. 55 in the "Billboard" Hot 100 singles chart and No. 44 on the "Cash Box" magazine chart in October 1969. It also reached No. 12 on the United States Adult Contemporary chart. In Canada, the song reached No. 22 in the "RPM" magazine top singles charts, October 11, 1969, and No. 5 on the AC Chart a week later. The original UK single release, on the Pye International label (7N 25499), left the artists name uncredited on the label, and a cover version by Giorgio Moroder, pseudonymously credited to "The Great Unknowns" and released the same year on the Major Minor label (MM 658), featured Moroder's "Doo-be-doo-be-do" on the B side (also sometimes featured in "The Benny Hill Show"). Umiliani's original version, now credited to Umiliani on the label, was reissued by EMI Records in the UK in 1977 and reached No. 8 in the charts. During its 1–15 September 1969 run on the WLS 890 Hit Parade, the surveys erroneously credited the record to someone named Pete Howard. WPTR did much the same, except that the credit was given to the station's Disc Jockey J.W. Wagner.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: The song's lyrics contain no actual words, only iambic nonsense syllables resembling scat singing. At times, melodies from other songs are quoted. One quoted melody is the First Swedish Rhapsody of Hugo Alfvén. The Italian tune "Santa Lucia" is also quoted. In the movie soundtrack version, from which the record was edited, there is a quote of Army bugle call "Assembly", but this verse was omitted from the record, which instead repeated the first three verses. The Muppets' version includes part of "Lullaby of Birdland" by George Shearing.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In 1969, Henri Salvador recorded a variation titled "Mais non, mais non" ("But No, But No" or "Of Course Not, Of Course Not"), with lyrics he had written in French to Umiliani's tune.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: Giorgio Moroder released a version in 1969 under the pseudonyms "The Great Unknowns" (UK 45) and the "Stop Studio Group" (French 45).


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In 1969, the Dave Pell Singers recorded a version for Liberty Records which achieved considerable radio exposure.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: During its 1969–70 season, "The Red Skelton Show" used the Umiliani recording as background music for a recurring blackout sketch (used as a cold open to the program, before the opening introductory sequence). The otherwise silent bits featured Red and another performer, dressed as moon creatures, playing with equipment left behind by the Project Apollo astronauts.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: The song is the title track of a 1970 LP on GRT Records (Cat No.: GRT 20003), released after the initial success of "Sesame Street"; it is purportedly sung by a fuzzy Muppet lookalike, who is pictured on the sleeve. Other songs on the album, including "Peg O' My Heart", "Zip A Dee Doo Dah", "Mississippi Mud", and "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town", are sung with the syllables "mah na mah na" filling in for the actual words of the song. Many tracks also feature kazoo accompaniment.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In 1971, a Hebrew version, "Parah Parah" ("cow by cow", slang for "one thing at a time"), was released by the duo .


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In 1973, a rendition of "Mah Nà Mah Nà" on the Moog synthesizer was released on the album "More Hot Butter" (Musicor MS 3254) by Hot Butter, best known for the pop tune "Popcorn". It was re-released on CD in 2000.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In 1984, Odessa comic and pantomime group Maski debuted on television with their short theatrical performance "Vocal duet" () for "" comedy TV program. A Pierrot characters (Aleksandr Postolenko) spelling "mana mana", while his Harlequin partner () singing motive of the rest of the song.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: A heavy metal version was recorded by UK band Skin in 1996, for the "Perfect Day" single; a minor hit in the UK – No. 33. The song is however titled "The Muppet Song (Mah Na Mah Na)".


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: The British pop group Vanilla also used the song as a basis for their first single "No Way, No Way" in 1997.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: A Canadian Dunkin' Donuts commercial used the song to promote its "Mini Donuts" line in the early 1990s.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In Australia, the song was used as a jingle in television commercials for sunscreen brand Banana Boat in the 1990s and 2000s, with its lyrics modified so that the name of the product was used in place of the song's title.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In 1999, the Brazilian band Pato Fu used samples of "Mah Nà Mah Nà" in the song "Made In Japan" on the album "Isopor".


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In 2003, several cast members perform their version in the opening scene of episode 1, season 2 of the UK series "The Office".


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: A sketch in the final episode of "Jam" in 2000 features a scene where two strangely dressed characters, one carrying a clarinet, sing the song where and when police are trying to find a dead body. When the police find the corpse and are still examining it, the two characters continue to sing the song at the corpse, whilst the clarinet carrier puts the clarinet into the corpse's mouth, who "plays" it out of key.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: The musical group Cake recorded a horn-driven version of this song featuring many different sounds. This version was recorded as a children's song and appears on an album called "For the Kids", released in 2002, and on their compilation album, "B-Sides and Rarities", released in 2007.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: Surrounding Super Bowl XL in 2006, a version of the song was recorded for the Pittsburgh Steelers, replacing the title syllables with "Polamalu", the last name of the Steelers' star strong safety.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: Since 2009, the pro soccer team Philadelphia Union's fan supporters, the Sons of Ben, have used the song, substituting the group's name in place of the song's title.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: A version sung in Arabic was released by actor/singer Samir Ghanem using the words "anam, anam" (meaning "sleep, sleep").


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In 2011, alternative rock band The Fray released a cover of the song on "", though a remaster of the original version from "The Muppet Show" performance appears on the soundtrack from the 2011 film "The Muppets".


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: The Mexican department store chain Sanborns used a version of this song for their animated commercials featuring the "Tecolotes" (Owl) family mascots.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In 1969, British comedian Benny Hill switched from BBC Television to Thames Television. This move also marked the major start of color television in the United Kingdom. As part of the new format by Benny Hill, many risque jokes and sketches were featured. As with the signature "Yakety Sax" instrumental on the end of each show, the implementation of "Mah Na Mah Na" on "Benny Hill" was used to great effect to reflect the comedy action of particular sketches—notably the ones providing the backdrop of the story of the moment, most often sped up and (mostly) with no audible dialogue.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: On the new Thames incarnation of "The Benny Hill Show", "Mah Na Mah Na" was part of an organized, horn-driven, four-song instrumental comic medley, starting off with a percussion tapping beat of the track leading into a rendition of "Doo-Bee-Doo-Bee-Doo", a very early track written by famed record producer Giorgio Moroder, which in itself was loosely based on and, as a result, bears a tightly similar rhythm and style to "Mah Na Mah Na". The four-song medley then continues with a rendition of "Für Elise" (which is always heard with the accompaniment of a flute and a muted trumpet), then "Mah Na Mah Na", finally finishing with "Gimme Dat Ding", then looping back to the start of the progression.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: This medley was first used on Thames Episode 10, which was first screened on British television on November the 24th, 1971. The original recordings of the instrumental medley often featured vocals by Benny Hill's backing chorus, The Ladybirds. However, as there were numerous recordings and renditions of the "Benny Hill Medley" throughout the entire Thames run, some versions featured other female vocalists (after The Ladybirds departed the show) while the rest of them were otherwise completely instrumental.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: Aside from its notoriety as the primary silent comedy sketch scene music for "The Benny Hill Show", "Mahna Mahna" became familiar to many from its renditions by the Muppets on television. In 1969, the first season of "Sesame Street" featured a sketch featuring two Muppet girls voiced by Frank Oz and Loretta Long who are unsure of what to do, until they decide to sing a song. Enter an unusual-looking short, shaggy-haired male Muppet character who begins singing "Mahna Mahna", prompting the girls to join him. None of the characters had names at the time, but the male Muppet who led the "Mahna Mahna" call-and-response was eventually going by the alternate identity Bip Bippadotta (ref. Kip Addotta), so as to distinguish him from the official Mahna Mahna character that would be developed later on. The Muppet character called Mahna Mahna was originally performed by Muppets creator Jim Henson, and is now performed by Muppeteer veteran Bill Barretta.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: On 30 November 1969, "Mahna Mahna" was performed on "The Ed Sullivan Show" by three new and more fully detailed Muppet characters. The male Muppet character was purple with wild, orange hair and a furry, green tunic, while the female Muppet characters were two identical pink cow-like alien creatures with horns and cone-like mouths (with yellow lips) that always remained open. At this point the male Muppet was given the name Mahna Mahna and the female alien creatures were called the Snowths (as a portmanteau of "snout" and "mouth" since their mouth also served as their noses), both performed by Muppeteer veteran Frank Oz. The song "Mahna Mahna" was played at a slower tempo and given a more playful, quintessential "children's"-style arrangement as opposed to the previous arrangement which was slightly reminiscent of early 1960s calypso music.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In 1976, on the first episode of "The Muppet Show" to be recorded (featuring Juliet Prowse), the 1969 "Mahna Mahna" routine from "The Ed Sullivan Show" was reworked and used as the first sketch with the same characters and a new recording of the last musical arrangement. "The Muppet Show" became an immediate hit and "Mahna Mahna" was the highlight of that episode. During the sketch, Mahna Mahna managed to dance his way backstage and out of the Muppet Theater, phoning the Snowths to sing the title lyrics one last time and end the song. At the end of the episode, he managed to enter Statler and Waldorf's box.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: As a result, the original Piero Umiliani recording finally became a hit in the UK (#8 in the UK charts in May 1977), where the "Muppet Show" soundtrack album featuring the Muppets' version went to number one. It was at that point that the name "Mahna Mahna and The Snouths" was given the incorrect credit of "Mahna Mahna and The Snowths," which has served as the definitive spelling ever since then. The single from the album 'Halfway down the stairs" reached the top Ten in the UK charts – and its B side was Mah Na Mah Na – making the song appear three times in the charts at the same time, albeit as a B side, the Piero Umiliani version and also a track on the album.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: Later on in that same episode, a snippet of the song "Lullaby of Birdland" is 'hummed' during one of the improvisational passages, as part of a running gag involving "Mahna Mahna".


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: The later Muppet TV series "Muppets Tonight" (1996–1998) revisited it in a sketch with Sandra Bullock where Kermit the Frog visits a doctor to complain about weird things that happen to him whenever he says the word "phenomena", namely the Snowths suddenly appear with musical accompaniment to sing their part of the song.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In the Muppets version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" at 00:02:25, the Snowths make a cameo appearance, singing the titular lyric.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: The song is performed in the 2011 feature film "The Muppets", in which various celebrities sing with the Snowths in the end credits.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In the late 1960s, the original tune was featured in an American television commercial, but the product being pitched has of yet been undetermined.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: The Muppets filmed a new version of the song in 2005, for a New Zealand charity called CanTeen. In the ad, an updated version of the Mahna Mahna puppet was puppeteered and voiced by Bill Barretta, and the lyrics were changed to "Bandanana", supporting CanTeen's "Bandana Week".


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: It was featured in the 2005 pilot of the sitcom Committed where Marni attempted to get her date to sing a duet with her in a restaurant, and continued to appear in the background in later episodes as her ringtone.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In the 2011 episode "The Firefly" of "Fringe", the song was playing on a record player in Walter Bishop's home while he was creating a formula to restore the missing pieces of his brain—pieces which were surgically removed years before in an agreement with William Bell.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In "This Is My House, This Is My Home," the (2011) season eight finale of "One Tree Hill", Nathan Scott performs this song with his daughter, Lydia, as wife Haley James Scott watches.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: At the BBC's Children in Need 2011 telethon, Kermit and Miss Piggy introduced a performance of the song, which featured many stars of British television, including Harry Hill, Noel Edmonds and Gary Lineker.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: Cee Lo Green samples the song in his original Christmas song "All I Need Is Love" which features guest vocals by The Muppets for his 2012 holiday album "Cee Lo's Magic Moment".


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: A modified version of the song featured in adverts for the BN biscuit in the United Kingdom, which referenced the biscuits' name.


title: Mah Nà Mah Nà

text: In 2017, it served as the soundtrack for a Ford Explorer commercial, "For What Matters Most," in which a father and daughter make repeated trips to a hardware store while building a "Pinewood derby" car.


title: Reuleaux triangle

text: A Reuleaux triangle is a curved triangle with constant width, the simplest and best known curve of constant width other than the circle. It is formed from the intersection of three circular disks, each having its center on the boundary of the other two. Constant width means that the separation of every two parallel supporting lines is the same, independent of their orientation. Because its width is constant, the Reuleaux triangle is one answer to the question "Other than a circle, what shape can a manhole cover be made so that it cannot fall down through the hole?"


title: Reuleaux triangle

text: Reuleaux triangles have also been called spherical triangles, but that term more properly refers to triangles on the curved surface of a sphere.


title: Reuleaux triangle

text: They are named after Franz Reuleaux, a 19th-century German engineer who pioneered the study of machines for translating one type of motion into another, and who used Reuleaux triangles in his designs. However, these shapes were known before his time, for instance by the designers of Gothic church windows, by Leonardo da Vinci, who used it for a map projection, and by Leonhard Euler in his study of constant-width shapes. Other applications of the Reuleaux triangle include giving the shape to guitar picks, fire hydrant nuts, pencils, and drill bits for drilling filleted square holes, as well as in graphic design in the shapes of some signs and corporate logos.


title: Reuleaux triangle

text: Among constant-width shapes with a given width, the Reuleaux triangle has the minimum area and the sharpest (smallest) possible angle (120°) at its corners. By several numerical measures it is the farthest from being centrally symmetric. It provides the largest constant-width shape avoiding the points of an integer lattice, and is closely related to the shape of the quadrilateral maximizing the ratio of perimeter to diameter. It can perform a complete rotation within a square while at all times touching all four sides of the square, and has the smallest possible area of shapes with this property. However, although it covers most of the square in this rotation process, it fails to cover a small fraction of the square's area, near its corners. Because of this property of rotating within a square, the Reuleaux triangle is also sometimes known as the Reuleaux rotor.


title: Reuleaux triangle

text: The Reuleaux triangle is the first of a sequence of Reuleaux polygons whose boundaries are curves of constant width formed from regular polygons with an odd number of sides. Some of these curves have been used as the shapes of coins. The Reuleaux triangle can also be generalized into three dimensions in multiple ways: the Reuleaux tetrahedron (the intersection of four balls whose centers lie on a regular tetrahedron) does not have constant width, but can be modified by rounding its edges to form the Meissner tetrahedron, which does. Alternatively, the surface of revolution of the Reuleaux triangle also has constant width.


title: Reuleaux triangle

text: The Reuleaux triangle may be constructed either directly from three circles, or by rounding the sides of an equilateral triangle.