title: Spider-Man (Ultimate Marvel character)

text: Spider-Man gained the ability to adhere to any solid surface using his hands and feet because of van der Waals force, which depend on the interactions between his body and surfaces. His ability to stick to objects is seemingly unconscious – e.g., he accidentally pulled off pieces of plaster when having a heated argument with his aunt and uncle. He does not seem to have the ability to stick any part of him to walls other than his hands and feet, but it has not been officially revealed. Many characters find this ability of his disgusting, most namely Wolverine of the X-Men.


title: Spider-Man (Ultimate Marvel character)

text: Spider-Man's most subtle power is his spider-sense. A form of precognition or sixth sense, it unconsciously activates and alerts him to any threat to himself, manifesting as an inexplicable tingle in the base of his skull. While it cannot tell him of the exact nature of the threat, it is vaguely directional and Spider-Man can judge the severity of the threat by the intensity of the tingling.


title: Spider-Man (Ultimate Marvel character)

text: The spider-sense not only alerts Spider-Man to threats to his physical safety, but also helps him in web-swinging across the city and warns him to threats to his privacy, such as being observed while changing identities. Spider-Man also uses the spider-sense as a means to time his evasive maneuvers to the point where he can easily avoid gunfire. When combined with his superhuman reflexes and agility, this makes him an extremely difficult target to shoot in combat and formidable in close quarters.


title: Spider-Man (Ultimate Marvel character)

text: Unlike in the official continuity, Peter can be sneaked up on as long as whoever is sneaking up on him means no harm. This is revealed when the Black Cat sneaks up on him from behind and covers his eyes. He rarely refers to it as a "Spider-Sense", although he has referred to it as such on occasion.


title: Spider-Man (Ultimate Marvel character)

text: Wavy lines emanating from Peter's head often show the activation of the spider-sense; sometimes the whole panel is completely red-tinted (as it is in the first time he uses it). Also, Venom has shown the ability to overload Spidey's Spider-Sense, or avoid it completely, like in normal mainstream continuity.


title: Spider-Man (Ultimate Marvel character)

text: Apart from his physical abilities, Peter is an intellectually-gifted scientific teen genius and has a prodigious aptitude in the physical sciences, with a high IQ level of around 250. He has a facility for chemistry and physics, and while he is depicted as less intellectually-skilled than his mainstream counterpart, he is still considered to be exceptionally bright and intelligent in his own right, impressing the likes of Tony Stark and Reed Richards. He designed his self-devised web-shooters, but the adhesive formula was one his father had been working on, which he managed to crack and is usually depicted as the brightest student in his class. Spending years throughout his fighting experience, he's able to perform martial art skills that are most reliable to his spider powers.


title: Spider-Man (Ultimate Marvel character)

text: Although he is of limited financial means, Spider-Man has developed personal equipment that plays an important role in his superhero career.


title: Spider-Man (Ultimate Marvel character)

text: Spider-Man's web-shooters are the character's most distinguishing trait. They are wrist-mounted devices that fire a fibrous adhesive very similar to the material spiders use to construct webs. The trigger rests high in the palm but does not require a double tapping from the middle and ring fingers to activate, unlike in the official continuity. It requires only one tap, but somehow he has found a way not to hit it when making a fist.


title: Spider-Man (Ultimate Marvel character)

text: His late father worked on the formula for the webbing itself. After fighting crime for a whole night, Peter finally solved the formula and used it to create his own webs. At this stage, Peter does not seem to be able to shoot different types of webbing, only one, though neither did the main Marvel continuity Parker for the first few years of his career. He has, on the other hand, shown the ability to not stick to his own webbing and have approximately enough webbing to fill up a living room.


title: Spider-Man (Ultimate Marvel character)

text: An amalgamated incarnation of Spider-Man based on his Ultimate and mainstream appears in an interactive attraction built in Niagara Falls as part of "Marvel Superhero Adventure City". His appearance is based on his Ultimate version, but he is more experienced like his mainstream counterpart.


title: Spider-Man (Ultimate Marvel character)

text: Brian Michael Bendis' modernized re-imagining of Peter Parker/Spider-Man has been met with a widely positive response from fans and critics, with many considering the Ultimate Marvel version of Spider-Man to be the one of best modern interpretations of Spider-Man and has even influenced other non-comic Spider-Man adaptations in the television, video game and cinematic mediums. Many critics and fans praised Ultimate Peter Parker/Spider-Man as a fresh, unique and distinctively contemporary, but familiar and faithful twist on the classic Spider-Man mythos, being called as a well-rounded and likable, but also vulnerable, humanly flawed and struggling everyman teen hero, with a commendable character-arc from being a selfish, angry teen who irresponsibly uses his super-powers for his own personal gain to a more heroic and altruistic figure as Spider-Man and accepting his new life as a solo teen superhero and the consequences and negative side-effects that comes from it, his relatable struggles, internal conflicts, the constant mental self-doubts about his responsibilities as a superhero and his struggles with said responsibility and the realistic depiction of how being a super-hero would negatively affect an individual's life and his relations with his close ones, similar to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's original depiction of Spider-Man in the early 1960s Spider-Man comic-books.


title: Spirit (Depeche Mode album)

text: Spirit is the fourteenth studio album by English electronic music band Depeche Mode, released on 17 March 2017 by Columbia Records and Mute Records. The album was recorded with new producer James Ford, and was preceded by the single "Where's the Revolution". It was the final Depeche Mode studio album to feature co-founder and keyboardist Andy Fletcher before his death on 26 May 2022.


title: Spirit (Depeche Mode album)

text: Much of the inspiration behind "Spirit" arose from their distaste for the political climate in both the United States and the United Kingdom. In an interview with Vevo, Dave Gahan stated, "We're really kind of upset about what's going on in the world." In the same interview, when hearing of being praised by alt-right activist Richard Spencer, Gahan rejected the praise and did not want to be associated with him or the alt-right. Depeche Mode would embrace their political message heavily in the music video for "Where's the Revolution", which represents the band in a very Marxist style. One of the themes that appears is climate change as Martin confirmed: "'The Worst Crime' is about destroying the environment. We are not just destroying it for those of us who live in the present. We are condemning the planet and the next generations, our children and our grandchildren." Gore confirmed that the opening track "Going Backwards" is about the regression of society as well as technology's role in the regression, but Gore also believed "that new technologies would bring the world together – the world would be united by them. We were all enthusiastic about the Arab Spring, when people started organizing themselves with social media and fought for their freedom. But then everything went wrong: the Middle East seems to be falling apart". One of the major differences about the delivery on "Spirit" compared to past albums is how direct and straightforward some of the lyrics are. Gahan told Billboard, "There are songs that are quite literal on the album. 'Scum' for instance, it was a lot of fun recording that song and singing it." Perhaps the closing track "Fail" is one of the band's most direct and angry songs as it is the first time they used profanity in their music. When asked about why "Fail" was chosen to be the closing track, Gore explained that it "sums up the album in a way. The good thing about it is the lyrics might be depressing but the music is so pretty". When the band was deciding on the tracklist, Gahan wanted to end the album on a happy note with "So Much Love", but was ultimately outvoted by the other members.


title: Spirit (Depeche Mode album)

text: Depeche Mode does not only tackle political subject matter on "Spirit". The track "Poison Heart" is written like a breakup song, but Gahan explained that it is not a breakup song and is about the inability to relate to other people. Gore wrote the track "Eternal" for his younger daughter and, despite its dark tone and dramatic composition, Gore believes that "it's my way of romance. I think that when you put a child into this era, you have to take the worst into account".


title: Spirit (Depeche Mode album)

text: Gahan revealed that Gore had many instrumentals left over from his solo album "MG" (2015). One of those instrumentals was later developed into the track "You Move". "You Move" was also the first time Gore and Gahan wrote a song together. Some of the tracks ended up with a very cinematic composition such as "Cover Me". According to an interview with keyboard programmer Matrixxman, working on "Cover Me" was initially difficult, but Gahan inspired everyone to get very creative on that track. In the same interview, Matrixxman confirmed that there were several tracks that didn't make it onto the album but they never made it past the demo stage. It was also his first time working with modular synthesizers. Compared to 2013's "Delta Machine", "Spirit" is in many ways more electronic-oriented compared to the blues-inspired sound on the previous album, but the track "Poorman" still sees the band explore their blues influences.


title: Spirit (Depeche Mode album)

text: On 11 October 2016, the band announced that they would embark on the Global Spirit Tour to support the album. The tour began in Stockholm, Sweden, on 5 May 2017 and ended on 25 July 2018 in Berlin, Germany. The Global Spirit Tour went on to become the band's largest tour, and saw the band play to more than 3 million fans around the world. The final two shows of the Global Spirit Tour were recorded for their concert film and documentary "Spirits in the Forest", released in theaters in November 2019. The full concert film later received a home release on 26 June 2020.


title: Spirit (Depeche Mode album)

text: "Spirit" received generally positive reviews from critics upon release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 74, based on 24 reviews. Neil Z. Yeung of AllMusic stated, "Robust and fearless, "Spirit" may end up being one of the earliest and best salvos of its political era. Despite dour lyrics to the contrary, Depeche Mode haven't given up on humanity". Saby Reyes-Kulkarni of Pitchfork wrote that ""Spirit" is so convincing in spite of its radical shift in tenor. For both the band and audience, that shift couldn't have come at a better time". Kitty Empire of "The Guardian" stated that "By the time cosseted arena bands reach their 37th year, their need to engage with the real world is moot, but here's Martin Gore – DepMo's chief songwriter – lambasting greedy corporations". Various critics have cited the album's conscious lyrics and bleak instrumentals as a positive aspect.


title: Spirit (Depeche Mode album)

text: In contrast to the generally positive reviews, Andy Gill of "The Independent" criticized the album, stating that "Depeche Mode get serious and political, which doesn't really suit them." While many critics praised the band's ability to tackle political and social commentary, a significant number were left unsatisfied. Despite mixed reception from some critics, "Spirit" still appeared on many end-of-year 2017 lists such as those from "Q Magazine" and AllMusic.


title: Spirit (Depeche Mode album)

text: On many review aggregate sites, "Spirit" received mixed to positive ratings from site users. On Sputnikmusic, the user rating average is 3.2/5; on RateYourMusic, it is 2.83/5; and on Albumoftheyear, the user score is at 65/100. It is notable that the average user scores are slightly lower than the critic score, though still mixed to positive.


title: Spirit (Depeche Mode album)

text: "Spirit" debuted at number five on the UK Albums Chart with 23,658 units sold in its first week, becoming the band's 17th top-10 album in the United Kingdom. The following week, it dropped out of the top 10 to number 17 with sales of 5,658 copies. The album debuted at number five on the US "Billboard" 200, selling 64,000 album-equivalent units (62,000 in pure album sales). Even though "Spirit"s first week of sales wasn't as successful as "Delta Machine"s in the United Kingdom, "Spirit"s first week outperformed "Delta Machine"s first week of sales in the United States by 12,000 album-equivalent units.


title: Shay Carl

text: Shay Carl Butler (born March 5, 1980), known professionally as Shay Carl, is an American YouTube personality. He has three YouTube channels, two of which ("shaycarl" and "SHAYTARDS") have over three million subscribers. Butler and Corey Vidal developed a documentary called "Vlogumentary" on a $200,000+ budget that was funded with an Indiegogo campaign and raised by mostly from his viewers. "Vlogumentary" was released on April 20, 2016. "Forbes" called Butler one of the "most successful video entrepreneurs on YouTube" and in 2011 "The New York Times" featured Butler's production company Maker Studios.


title: Shay Carl

text: Shay Carl Butler was born on March 5, 1980, in Logan, Utah, to Carl and Laurie Butler. Butler is the oldest of four children. His siblings Casey, Carlie, and Logan are all active in the YouTube community. Casey Butler is married to Kayli Butler . Carlie Wood each have over 500,000 subscribers on their YouTube channels, while Logan Butler has just under 400,000. At the age of four, Butler's family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, and subsequently to Pocatello, Idaho. After graduating from high school, Butler served a full-time, two year mission in Barbados, Trinidad and Guyana for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He briefly attended Idaho State University, but dropped out to start working on his own. Prior to appearing on YouTube, Butler installed granite countertops for a living and worked as a school bus driver. He also worked as a radio DJ for Z103.


title: Shay Carl

text: Butler became more popular on YouTube after Philip DeFranco watched one of his videos and gave him a shout-out. The shout-out resulted in a rise of Butler's subscribers and a friendship with DeFranco. By working with other YouTubers at "The Station", Butler more than quadrupled his subscribers. Butler later joined the YouTube Partner Program and co-founded Maker Studios. In November 2009, he collaborated with Midi Mafia to create a flash mob at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. In 2009, Butler's "SHAYTARDS" channel won "Best YouTube Channel or Personality" at Mashable's 3rd annual Open Web Awards. In 2013, the same channel was one of the nominees in the "Best Non-Fiction or Reality Series" category of the 3rd Streamy Awards. Butler and his wife, Colette, run a podcast called "When the Kids Go to Sleep", where they interview YouTubers and celebrities such as Terry Crews and Bas Rutten. In February 2013, actor Matt Damon made a guest appearance in one of Butler's vlogs after he and Damon had collaborated on a video to promote a Water.org project. Butler sometimes creates sponsored videos, in which he promotes brands or companies in exchange for financial benefits, including with General Electric, Foot Locker, Kia and Skype.


title: Shay Carl

text: In 2014 the Shay Carl YouTube channel was listed on New Media Rockstars Top 100 Channels, ranked at #31.


title: Shay Carl

text: In late 2015, Shay, along with his 12-year-old son Gavin, wrote a lifestyle, self-help book, "Fat Dad, Fat Kid".


title: Shay Carl

text: On September 28, 2016, Butler announced that he would suspend the Shaytards YouTube channel for one year on March 5, 2017, which was the date of his 37th birthday.


title: Shay Carl

text: On February 12, 2017, Butler announced he would be leaving YouTube for the time being. In his announcement on his Twitter page, Butler said that due to alcoholism, his "purpose is to rehab". "International Business Times" ran a story about Carl allegedly exchanging sexual messages through Twitter with an adult webcam model named Aria Nina. The Shaytards channel became active again in March 2018 with a video where Shay and his wife Colette talk about their relationship and the YouTube channel, and the family announced they would start uploading videos again, but would "take it one day at a time" and not commit to a daily vlog schedule. In the following videos, Shay has been openly talking about going to addiction meetings and working on his and Colette's relationship.


title: Shay Carl

text: Butler married Colette Crofts ("Colette Kati") in January 2003. The couple have five children: Gavin, Avia, Emmi, Brock and Daxton. His family is known as the "Shaytards" and as "YouTube's first family". Butler stated that much of his children's lives have been recorded and distributed in public. Butler's son, Brock, has been noted as the internet's "first Truman baby" as his life has been documented since birth. His daughter, Emmi, was featured on the front cover of James Blunt's album "Some Kind of Trouble". Butler's other daughter, Avia, released the song "Forever Love" on June 12, 2014.


title: Shay Carl

text: In 2014, Butler bought a property extending 1000-acres in Pocatello, Idaho. In 2016, he purchased the nearby Pebble Creek Ski Area in Inkom, Idaho.


title: Shay Carl

text: Butler lost 112 lbs (50.8 kg) in the space of a year and subsequently ran three marathons, one of which he ran with motivational speaker Dave Ramsey, with whom he is good friends. Butler documented his weight loss journey on his "ShayLoss" channel.


title: Shay Carl

text: Butler has two YouTube channels. His "shaycarl" and "SHAYTARDS" channels have over one million and five million subscribers, respectively. For his "shaycarl" channel, Butler frequently works with celebrities such as retired basketball player Charles Barkley and retired mixed martial artist Bas Rutten.


title: Shay Carl

text: Butler originally moved out to Los Angeles in 2009 to form the company Maker Studios, along with friends and fellow YouTubers Lisa and Ben Donovan, Dan Zappin, Philip DeFranco and Kassem Gharaibeh. Maker's programming is divided into four networks: "Men", "Women", "Family", and "Entertainment".


title: Shay Carl

text: These four networks include "The Mom's View", which Butler's wife Colette appears on regularly as a part of the weekly "Mom's View Talk Show". Maker Studios was sold to The Walt Disney Company for $500 million on March 24, 2014. During its 25th season, "America's Funniest Home Videos", whose YouTube channels are being managed by Maker Studios since January 2014, will promote its brand via two web series, one of which will be created by Butler.


title: Shay Carl

text: Butler has also done voice acting work for Cartoonium's "Shaybeard" online cartoon series, which features Butler as a Viking. He also co-starred in a public service announcement of the Adopt the Arts Foundation.


title: Methane clathrate

text: Methane clathrate (CH·5.75HO) or (8CH·46HO), also called methane hydrate, hydromethane, methane ice, fire ice, natural gas hydrate, or gas hydrate, is a solid clathrate compound (more specifically, a clathrate hydrate) in which a large amount of methane is trapped within a crystal structure of water, forming a solid similar to ice. Originally thought to occur only in the outer regions of the Solar System, where temperatures are low and water ice is common, significant deposits of methane clathrate have been found under sediments on the ocean floors of the Earth. Methane hydrate is formed when hydrogen-bonded water and methane gas come into contact at high pressures and low temperatures in oceans.


title: Methane clathrate

text: Methane clathrates are common constituents of the shallow marine geosphere and they occur in deep sedimentary structures and form outcrops on the ocean floor. Methane hydrates are believed to form by the precipitation or crystallisation of methane migrating from deep along geological faults. Precipitation occurs when the methane comes in contact with water within the sea bed subject to temperature and pressure. In 2008, research on Antarctic Vostok Station and EPICA Dome C ice cores revealed that methane clathrates were also present in deep Antarctic ice cores and record a history of atmospheric methane concentrations, dating to 800,000 years ago. The ice-core methane clathrate record is a primary source of data for global warming research, along with oxygen and carbon dioxide.


title: Methane clathrate

text: Methane hydrates were discovered in Russia in the 1960s, and studies for extracting gas from it emerged at the beginning of the 21st century.


title: Methane clathrate

text: The nominal methane clathrate hydrate composition is (CH)(HO), or 1 mole of methane for every 5.75 moles of water, corresponding to 13.4% methane by mass, although the actual composition is dependent on how many methane molecules fit into the various cage structures of the water lattice. The observed density is around 0.9 g/cm, which means that methane hydrate will float to the surface of the sea or of a lake unless it is bound in place by being formed in or anchored to sediment. One litre of fully saturated methane clathrate solid would therefore contain about 120 grams of methane (or around 169 litres of methane gas at 0 °C and 1 atm), or one cubic metre of methane clathrate releases about 160 cubic metres of gas.


title: Methane clathrate

text: Methane forms a "structure-I" hydrate with two dodecahedral (12 vertices, thus 12 water molecules) and six tetradecahedral (14 water molecules) water cages per unit cell. (Because of sharing of water molecules between cages, there are only 46 water molecules per unit cell.) This compares with a hydration number of 20 for methane in aqueous solution. A methane clathrate MAS NMR spectrum recorded at 275 K and 3.1 MPa shows a peak for each cage type and a separate peak for gas phase methane. In 2003, a clay-methane hydrate intercalate was synthesized in which a methane hydrate complex was introduced at the interlayer of a sodium-rich montmorillonite clay. The upper temperature stability of this phase is similar to that of structure-I hydrate.


title: Methane clathrate

text: Methane clathrates are restricted to the shallow lithosphere (i.e. < 2,000 m depth). Furthermore, necessary conditions are found only in either continental sedimentary rocks in polar regions where average surface temperatures are less than 0 °C; or in oceanic sediment at water depths greater than 300 m where the bottom water temperature is around 2 °C. In addition, deep fresh water lakes may host gas hydrates as well, e.g. the fresh water Lake Baikal, Siberia. Continental deposits have been located in Siberia and Alaska in sandstone and siltstone beds at less than 800 m depth. Oceanic deposits seem to be widespread in the continental shelf (see Fig.) and can occur within the sediments at depth or close to the sediment-water interface. They may cap even larger deposits of gaseous methane.


title: Methane clathrate

text: Methane hydrate can occur in various forms like massive, dispersed within pore spaces, nodules, veins/fractures/faults, and layered horizons. Generally, it is found unstable at standard pressure and temperature conditions, and 1 m^3 of methane hydrate upon dissociation yields about 164 m^3 of methane and 0.87 m^3 of freshwater. There are two distinct types of oceanic deposits. The most common is dominated (> 99%) by methane contained in a structure I clathrate and generally found at depth in the sediment. Here, the methane is isotopically light (δC < −60‰), which indicates that it is derived from the microbial reduction of CO. The clathrates in these deep deposits are thought to have formed in situ from the microbially produced methane since the δC values of clathrate and surrounding dissolved methane are similar. However, it is also thought that freshwater used in the pressurization of oil and gas wells in permafrost and along the continental shelves worldwide combines with natural methane to form clathrate at depth and pressure since methane hydrates are more stable in freshwater than in saltwater. Local variations may be widespread since the act of forming hydrate, which extracts pure water from saline formation waters, can often lead to local and potentially significant increases in formation water salinity. Hydrates normally exclude the salt in the pore fluid from which it forms. Thus, they exhibit high electric resistivity like ice, and sediments containing hydrates have higher resistivity than sediments without gas hydrates (Judge [67]).


title: Methane clathrate

text: These deposits are located within a mid-depth zone around 300–500 m thick in the sediments (the gas hydrate stability zone, or GHSZ) where they coexist with methane dissolved in the fresh, not salt, pore-waters. Above this zone methane is only present in its dissolved form at concentrations that decrease towards the sediment surface. Below it, methane is gaseous. At Blake Ridge on the Atlantic continental rise, the GHSZ started at 190 m depth and continued to 450 m, where it reached equilibrium with the gaseous phase. Measurements indicated that methane occupied 0-9% by volume in the GHSZ, and ~12% in the gaseous zone.


title: Methane clathrate

text: In the less common second type found near the sediment surface, some samples have a higher proportion of longer-chain hydrocarbons (< 99% methane) contained in a structure II clathrate. Carbon from this type of clathrate is isotopically heavier (δC is −29 to −57 ‰) and is thought to have migrated upwards from deep sediments, where methane was formed by thermal decomposition of organic matter. Examples of this type of deposit have been found in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caspian Sea.


title: Methane clathrate

text: Some deposits have characteristics intermediate between the microbially and thermally sourced types and are considered formed from a mixture of the two.


title: Methane clathrate

text: The methane in gas hydrates is dominantly generated by microbial consortia degrading organic matter in low oxygen environments, with the methane itself produced by methanogenic archaea. Organic matter in the uppermost few centimeters of sediments is first attacked by aerobic bacteria, generating CO, which escapes from the sediments into the water column. Below this region of aerobic activity, anaerobic processes take over, including, successively with depth, the microbial reduction of nitrite/nitrate, metal oxides, and then sulfates are reduced to sulfides. Finally, methanogenesis becomes a dominant pathway for organic carbon remineralization.


title: Methane clathrate

text: If the sedimentation rate is low (about 1  cm/yr), the organic carbon content is low (about 1% ), and oxygen is abundant, aerobic bacteria can use up all the organic matter in the sediments faster than oxygen is depleted, so lower-energy electron acceptors are not used. But where sedimentation rates and the organic carbon content are high, which is typically the case on continental shelves and beneath western boundary current upwelling zones, the pore water in the sediments becomes anoxic at depths of only a few centimeters or less. In such organic-rich marine sediments, sulfate becomes the most important terminal electron acceptor due to its high concentration seawater. However, it too is depleted by a depth of centimeters to meters. Below this, methane is produced. This production of methane is a rather complicated process, requiring a highly reducing environment (Eh −350 to −450 mV) and a pH between 6 and 8, as well as a complex syntrophic, consortia of different varieties of archaea and bacteria. However, it is only archaea that actually emit methane.


title: Methane clathrate

text: In some regions (e.g., Gulf of Mexico, Joetsu Basin) methane in clathrates may be at least partially derive from thermal degradation of organic matter (e.g. petroleum generation), with oil even forming an exotic component within the hydrate itself that can be recovered when the hydrate is disassociated. The methane in clathrates typically has a biogenic isotopic signature and highly variable δC (−40 to −100‰), with an approximate average of about −65‰ . Below the zone of solid clathrates, large volumes of methane may form bubbles of free gas in the sediments.


title: Methane clathrate

text: The presence of clathrates at a given site can often be determined by observation of a "bottom simulating reflector" (BSR), which is a seismic reflection at the sediment to clathrate stability zone interface caused by the unequal densities of normal sediments and those laced with clathrates.


title: Methane clathrate

text: Gas hydrate pingos have been discovered in the Arctic oceans Barents sea. Methane is bubbling from these dome-like structures, with some of these gas flares extending close to the sea surface.


title: Methane clathrate

text: The size of the oceanic methane clathrate reservoir is poorly known, and estimates of its size decreased by roughly an order of magnitude per decade since it was first recognized that clathrates could exist in the oceans during the 1960s and 1970s. The highest estimates (e.g. 3 m) were based on the assumption that fully dense clathrates could litter the entire floor of the deep ocean. Improvements in our understanding of clathrate chemistry and sedimentology have revealed that hydrates form in only a narrow range of depths (continental shelves), at only some locations in the range of depths where they could occur (10-30% of the Gas hydrate stability zone), and typically are found at low concentrations (0.9–1.5% by volume) at sites where they do occur. Recent estimates constrained by direct sampling suggest the global inventory occupies between . This estimate, corresponding to 500–2500 gigatonnes carbon (Gt C), is smaller than the 5000 Gt C estimated for all other geo-organic fuel reserves but substantially larger than the ~230 Gt C estimated for other natural gas sources. The permafrost reservoir has been estimated at about 400 Gt C in the Arctic, but no estimates have been made of possible Antarctic reservoirs. These are large amounts. In comparison, the total carbon in the atmosphere is around 800 gigatons (see Carbon: Occurrence).


title: Methane clathrate

text: These modern estimates are notably smaller than the 10,000 to 11,000 Gt C (2 m) proposed by previous researchers as a reason to consider clathrates to be a geo-organic fuel resource (MacDonald 1990, Kvenvolden 1998). Lower abundances of clathrates do not rule out their economic potential, but a lower total volume and apparently low concentration at most sites does suggest that only a limited percentage of clathrates deposits may provide an economically viable resource.


title: Methane clathrate

text: Methane clathrates in continental rocks are trapped in beds of sandstone or siltstone at depths of less than 800 m. Sampling indicates they are formed from a mix of thermally and microbially derived gas from which the heavier hydrocarbons were later selectively removed. These occur in Alaska, Siberia, and Northern Canada.


title: Methane clathrate

text: In 2008, Canadian and Japanese researchers extracted a constant stream of natural gas from a test project at the Mallik gas hydrate site in the Mackenzie River delta. This was the second such drilling at Mallik: the first took place in 2002 and used heat to release methane. In the 2008 experiment, researchers were able to extract gas by lowering the pressure, without heating, requiring significantly less energy. The Mallik gas hydrate field was first discovered by Imperial Oil in 1971–1972.


title: Methane clathrate

text: Economic deposits of hydrate are termed natural gas hydrate (NGH) and store 164 m of methane, 0.8 m water in 1 m hydrate. Most NGH is found beneath the seafloor (95%) where it exists in thermodynamic equilibrium. The sedimentary methane hydrate reservoir probably contains 2–10 times the currently known reserves of conventional natural gas, . This represents a potentially important future source of hydrocarbon fuel. However, in the majority of sites deposits are thought to be too dispersed for economic extraction. Other problems facing commercial exploitation are detection of viable reserves and development of the technology for extracting methane gas from the hydrate deposits.


title: Methane clathrate

text: In August 2006, China announced plans to spend 800 million yuan (US$100 million) over the next 10 years to study natural gas hydrates. A potentially economic reserve in the Gulf of Mexico may contain approximately of gas. Bjørn Kvamme and Arne Graue at the Institute for Physics and technology at the University of Bergen have developed a method for injecting into hydrates and reversing the process; thereby extracting CH by direct exchange. The University of Bergen's method is being field tested by ConocoPhillips and state-owned Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC), and partially funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. The project has already reached injection phase and was analyzing resulting data by March 12, 2012.


title: Methane clathrate

text: On March 12, 2013, JOGMEC researchers announced that they had successfully extracted natural gas from frozen methane hydrate. In order to extract the gas, specialized equipment was used to drill into and depressurize the hydrate deposits, causing the methane to separate from the ice. The gas was then collected and piped to surface where it was ignited to prove its presence. According to an industry spokesperson, "It [was] the world's first offshore experiment producing gas from methane hydrate". Previously, gas had been extracted from onshore deposits, but never from offshore deposits which are much more common. The hydrate field from which the gas was extracted is located from central Japan in the Nankai Trough, under the sea. A spokesperson for JOGMEC remarked "Japan could finally have an energy source to call its own". Marine geologist Mikio Satoh remarked "Now we know that extraction is possible. The next step is to see how far Japan can get costs down to make the technology economically viable." Japan estimates that there are at least 1.1 trillion cubic meters of methane trapped in the Nankai Trough, enough to meet the country's needs for more than ten years.


title: Methane clathrate

text: Both Japan and China announced in May 2017 a breakthrough for mining methane clathrates, when they extracted methane from hydrates in the South China Sea. China described the result as a breakthrough; Praveen Linga from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the National University of Singapore agreed "Compared with the results we have seen from Japanese research, the Chinese scientists have managed to extract much more gas in their efforts". Industry consensus is that commercial-scale production remains years away.


title: Methane clathrate

text: Experts caution that environmental impacts are still being investigated and that methane—a greenhouse gas with around 25 times as much global warming potential over a 100-year period (GWP100) as carbon dioxide—could potentially escape into the atmosphere if something goes wrong. Furthermore, while cleaner than coal, burning natural gas also creates carbon dioxide emissions.


title: Methane clathrate

text: Methane clathrates (hydrates) are also commonly formed during natural gas production operations, when liquid water is condensed in the presence of methane at high pressure. It is known that larger hydrocarbon molecules like ethane and propane can also form hydrates, although longer molecules (butanes, pentanes) cannot fit into the water cage structure and tend to destabilise the formation of hydrates.


title: Methane clathrate

text: Once formed, hydrates can block pipeline and processing equipment. They are generally then removed by reducing the pressure, heating them, or dissolving them by chemical means (methanol is commonly used). Care must be taken to ensure that the removal of the hydrates is carefully controlled, because of the potential for the hydrate to undergo a phase transition from the solid hydrate to release water and gaseous methane at a high rate when the pressure is reduced. The rapid release of methane gas in a closed system can result in a rapid increase in pressure.


title: Methane clathrate

text: It is generally preferable to prevent hydrates from forming or blocking equipment. This is commonly achieved by removing water, or by the addition of ethylene glycol (MEG) or methanol, which act to depress the temperature at which hydrates will form. In recent years, development of other forms of hydrate inhibitors have been developed, like Kinetic Hydrate Inhibitors (increasing the required sub-cooling which hydrates require to form, at the expense of increased hydrate formation rate) and anti-agglomerates, which do not prevent hydrates forming, but do prevent them sticking together to block equipment.


title: Methane clathrate

text: When drilling in oil- and gas-bearing formations submerged in deep water, the reservoir gas may flow into the well bore and form gas hydrates owing to the low temperatures and high pressures found during deep water drilling. The gas hydrates may then flow upward with drilling mud or other discharged fluids. When the hydrates rise, the pressure in the annulus decreases and the hydrates dissociate into gas and water. The rapid gas expansion ejects fluid from the well, reducing the pressure further, which leads to more hydrate dissociation and further fluid ejection. The resulting violent expulsion of fluid from the annulus is one potential cause or contributor to the "kick". (Kicks, which can cause blowouts, typically do not involve hydrates: see Blowout: formation kick).


title: Methane clathrate

text: At sufficient depths, methane complexes directly with water to form methane hydrates, as was observed during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. BP engineers developed and deployed a subsea oil recovery system over oil spilling from a deepwater oil well below sea level to capture escaping oil. This involved placing a dome over the largest of the well leaks and piping it to a storage vessel on the surface. This option had the potential to collect some 85% of the leaking oil but was previously untested at such depths. BP deployed the system on May 7–8, but it failed due to buildup of methane clathrate inside the dome; with its low density of approximately 0.9 g/cm the methane hydrates accumulated in the dome, adding buoyancy and obstructing flow.


title: Methane clathrate

text: Since methane clathrates are stable at a higher temperature than liquefied natural gas (LNG) (−20 vs −162 °C), there is some interest in converting natural gas into clathrates (Solidified Natural Gas or SNG) rather than liquifying it when transporting it by seagoing vessels. A significant advantage would be that the production of natural gas hydrate (NGH) from natural gas at the terminal would require a smaller refrigeration plant and less energy than LNG would. Offsetting this, for 100 tonnes of methane transported, 750 tonnes of methane hydrate would have to be transported; since this would require a ship of 7.5 times greater displacement, or require more ships, it is unlikely to prove economically feasible.. Recently, methane hydrate has received considerable interest for large scale stationary storage application due to the very mild storage conditions with the inclusion of tetrahydrofuran (THF) as a co-guest. With the inclusion of tetrahydrofuran, though there is a slight reduction in the gas storage capacity, the hydrates have been demonstrated to be stable for several months in a recent study at −2 °C and atmospheric pressure. A recent study has demonstrated that SNG can be formed directly with seawater instead of pure water in combination with THF.


title: Janice Rand

text: Janice Rand is a fictional character in the American science fiction television series "" during its , as well as three of the "Star Trek" films. She is the Captain's yeoman on board the USS "Enterprise" (NCC-1701), and first appeared in the episode "The Man Trap". She had significant roles in the episodes "", where she fights off an evil version of Captain James T. Kirk; "Charlie X" where a young man with god-like powers falls in love with her; and "" where she is infected with a deadly disease while on an away mission and is kidnapped by jealous children.


title: Janice Rand

text: Rand was portrayed by American actress Grace Lee Whitney, who had previously worked with "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry in both "The Lieutenant" and a pilot for a show he created called "Police Story". Whitney as Rand was involved in promoting "Star Trek" before it aired, but did not appear in the first two pilots. Roddenberry set out the role of Rand to Whitney, saying that she and Kirk were meant to have feelings for one another, but should never act on them. Part way through the first season, Whitney was released from her contract. The official explanation was that the production team wanted to free up Kirk to have relationships with other women, but it was actually necessitated because the series was over budget and was looking to cut costs. It is unclear who suggested that her contract should be terminated, or who made the final decision. Roddenberry later blamed NBC for her release and said he regretted it.


title: Janice Rand

text: After Whitney was reintroduced to "Star Trek" through conventions, she came back into contact with Roddenberry, who wanted to include her in the new series in development at the time, "". This was subsequently cancelled, but Rand did reappear in "". Whitney made further appearances as Rand in "" and "", as well as scenes in the "" episode "" set during the events of the latter film. Whitney made further appearances as Rand in the fan series "" and "", and Rand was also portrayed by Meghan King Johnson in "New Voyages".


title: Janice Rand

text: Prior to the start of "The Original Series", Whitney was used to promote the series and was popular with the media. Critics later called the character a stereotype in her initial appearances, but the expansion of the role in "Flashback" was praised.


title: Janice Rand

text: Gene Roddenberry's original pitch for "" featured a female Captain's Yeoman named "Colt". She was described as "blonde and with a shape that even a uniform could not hide." In this first version of "Star Trek", she worked as Captain Robert April's "secretary, reporter, bookkeeper, and undoubtedly wishes she could serve him in more personal departments." Roddenberry's description of her ended with "She is not dumb; she is very female, disturbingly so." This character was cast for the first pilot of the series, "", with Laurel Goodwin cast in that role. A similar character was created for the second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", this time called "Smith", and she was played by model Andrea Dromm.


title: Janice Rand

text: However, during discussions with the casting director on "Star Trek", Roddenberry stood up in the casting process for three women he had worked with before – Majel Barrett, Nichelle Nichols and Grace Lee Whitney. Whitney had previously appeared in Roddenberry's "The Lieutenant" and was then cast in his unsold pilot "Police Story" where she played Police Lieutenant Lily Monroe. She was available to appear in the series and was promptly cast in the role, being paid $750 per episode and being guaranteed to appear in seven episodes out of the first thirteen. The casting led to rumours that she and Roddenberry had been previously involved romantically, something she strenuously denied later saying that "I never had a romantic relationship with Gene Roddenberry before "Star Trek", during "Star Trek", or after "Star Trek"." She admitted that he had made numerous passes at her, but she wanted their relationship to remain professional only.


title: Janice Rand

text: Roddenberry explained to Whitney that he wanted Rand to be Captain Kirk's confidante but never wanted them to express their affection for one another; instead he wanted it to be played as an ongoing undercurrent. In the early publicity photos, Whitney was dressed in the same manner that the women had been in the two pilots – a loose gold colored tunic and black trousers. She complained to Roddenberry about them hiding her "dancer's legs", so he had William Ware Theiss design a short skirt and tunic for her to wear, a uniform which was adopted by the other female characters on the series. She said the outfit was "sensational" and that "it stopped traffic". Despite the outfit being designed specifically for Whitney, Theiss was concerned and would tell her to lose weight. She was subsequently prescribed amphetamines by her doctor for the purpose of weight loss. Whitney stated that this was the start of her addiction to them, and in order to come down off them at night, she began drinking in the evening to take away the "edginess".


title: Janice Rand

text: He also developed her hair styles for the series, which Roddenberry insisted must be unique and futuristic so that the viewers could believe they were seeing the future on television. She originally appeared with straight hair in promotion photos, but this was changed to a beehive, which was so solid looking that Bob Justman joked that "You could hit it with a sledgehammer and never make a dent." It was created by weaving two Max Factor wigs into a mesh cone. Whitney described the application of the wig, saying "they nailed it to my head every morning." It was created by placing a cone on her head and then weaving the blonde hair from two separate wigs together resulting in such an unusual look that Whitney said she was unrecognizable without it. In the press, she explained that on the show, Rand would have stuck her head in a machine which would have made up her hair instantly. The wig was later stolen from the Desilu lot after Whitney was no longer on the series; it was never recovered.


title: Janice Rand

text: When interviewed by the media at the time, Whitney expressed enthusiasm in the role and about science fiction in general. She described Rand's role on board the "Enterprise" as "She's in charge of the other women aboard the space ship. She's Miss Efficiency." She also added that the character did not go into space "to catch a man." At the time, the media described Rand's position on the "Enterprise" as "chief female executive officer" and her image was used to promote the series before it began to air. Whitney enjoyed several of the episodes she appeared in, and found it hard to choose between "", "Charlie X" and "".


title: Janice Rand

text: She was particularly affectionate toward the latter because it allowed her to appear on camera with her two children, and said it was her favorite. Certain elements of Rand's characterization were developed by Whitney and Shatner; Whitney would go to Shatner's side when their characters were put in danger – in response, Shatner would put his arms around her, such as in "Balance of Terror". The character was written out of the episode "Dagger of the Mind", which Whitney attributed to the romantic liaison that Kirk has with the female lead in that episode being so overt that it would have caused issues for later plots. This was because the script had Kirk and the female lead sleep with each other. Although Whitney found it difficult to watch as her character had been removed from the episode, she understood why. Part of her outfit was dictated by attempting to increase the duties of the Captain's Yeoman on screen. In order to provide support while part of an away team on a planet, Roddenberry suggested that she could wear a device on an over-the-shoulder strap which she could use as an electronic camera. He also suggested immediately that it could be expanded in order to be sold as a toy for young girls. This was part of the development process that led to the creation of the tricorder.


title: Janice Rand

text: Grace Lee Whitney was released during the filming of the first season. The official reason given for Whitney's departure from the show was that her character limited romantic possibilities for Captain Kirk. This idea was supported by Whitney, saying "They didn't want to give the fans the idea [Kirk] was in love with Janice Rand. That would limit him. They wanted him to go out and fool around. So, I was axed."


title: Janice Rand

text: But the real reason was that the production had financial issues, with the acquisition of new crew members and the increase in popularity of Doctor Leonard McCoy meaning that those salaries needed to come out of the original budget. In Justman and Herb Solow's 1996 book "Inside Star Trek", they stated that following a discussion between Roddenberry, Solow and Bernie Weitzman in which they discussed her contract, they decided to terminate it because of Whitney's limited appearances and the financial issues that the series was having. The decision was attributed elsewhere in David Alexander's 1995 authorized biography of Gene Roddenberry, "Star Trek Creator", which said that during the first batch of episodes, casting director Joseph D'Agosta reviewed the contracts for the main actors due to rising costs.


title: Janice Rand

text: At the time Whitney was guaranteed to appear in seven of the first 13 episodes, and contracted for four days work on each. However, she was used for nine additional days, leading D'Agosta to suggest to Roddenberry that if guest stars instead played the similar role but with different characters then they "would cost less and hold as much value". He added that they should instead look to using Whitney on a free-lance basis instead of under permanent contract. By September 8, 1966, Whitney's agent had been informed that her contract had been terminated, which was around a week prior to the shoot of her penultimate episode, "The Conscience of the King". Roddenberry told Whitney that he did not want to lose Rand as he wanted her relationship with Kirk to continue. In a memo to Gene Coon on October 27, 1966, Roddenberry suggested bringing Whitney back as Rand, albeit with a different hairstyle similar to the way she wore it in "Police Story" as this "made her look much younger and softer", but she was never invited back to the series.


title: Janice Rand

text: Because of Whitney's termination, drafts of the episode "The Galileo Seven" were revised to replace Rand with a new yeoman, Mears. Writer Paul Schneider was not informed of Whitney's departure when he submitted his first draft of "The Squire of Gothos" in early October 1966, so another character, Yeoman Ross, was then subsequently created for that episode. And Robert Hamner's September 1966 outlines for "A Taste of Armageddon" also included Rand; that part was then given to another new character, Tamura.


title: Janice Rand

text: In Solow and Justman's book, there was also a reference to a "rift" between Whitney and Roddenberry that occurred just prior to her departure and was expected to ensure that she never returned to the series. In her autobiography, Whitney states that an unnamed television executive sexually assaulted her on August 26, 1966, while working on the episode "Miri", and she draws a link between this and her sacking a few days later. Whitney's departure was around the time when she was an alcoholic. In an interview in 1988, Whitney blamed her alcoholism and anorexia at the time for being released by the series. She later explained in an interview with "Starlog" magazine to promote "", that due to being adopted, she had a fear of rejection when she was younger which stemmed from her mother giving her away, and linked this to "Star Trek" saying "when I was let go from "Star Trek", it was a psychic pain which pushed me into alcoholism. I couldn't stand the pain, so I drank to get away from it."


title: Janice Rand

text: Whitney returned to the set on several occasions during the production of the series, and was also invited to come back for cast parties. But over time these visits decreased gradually as she found it painful to be on set with her friends, but not able to appear on the show. She was continuing to take amphetamines and had developed a drinking problem. Despite this, and despite Whitney being let go from the show, Harlan Ellison wrote the character into his original script for "The City on the Edge of Forever". Roddenberry rewrote the script, resulting in a feud between the writers – but the writer was also very disappointed in general that Rand had been removed from the series. After Whitney had left "Star Trek", she dated Ellison for a time.


title: Janice Rand

text: Whitney had no further involvement with "Star Trek" until 1976, when she happened to meet DeForest Kelley at an unemployment office in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. He informed her about a "Star Trek" convention coming up that was organised by Bjo and John Trimble called Equicon. She received such a reception upon making an appearance there that she was inspired to think more about the series and wanted to appear at more events. In 1977, after reading the back cover of the book "Letters to Star Trek" by Susan Sackett and finding that "Whatever happened to Grace Lee Whitney?" was one of the ten most frequently asked queries, Whitney got in touch with Sackett and was invited to meet at Roddenberry's office at Paramount. When he entered, he was happy and excited to see her and immediately offered to bring back Rand for the new television series "". Roddenberry told her that removing Rand was the biggest mistake he had made, saying that the character should have stayed so that "when Captain Kirk came back from having affairs with all these other women on all these other planets – he'd have to deal with [Rand]. What a great plot-thickener that would have been!" Instead, he blamed the decision on executives at NBC, but apologized for it to Whitney.


title: Janice Rand

text: When "Phase II" was discussed in the media, the return of Whitney as Rand was one of the things highlighted. Two weeks before the series was about to shoot, it was canceled by Paramount executives. Instead there was going to be a film. Whitney returned for "", with Roddenberry bringing her back as Rand who was now the transporter chief on board the "Enterprise". The film reunited the entire main cast of "Star Trek". She did not appear in "", and was not in the script for "". But for the latter film, Nimoy, who was directing the movie, gave Whitney a cameo as another character who was looking out of a window in spacedock watching the return of the damaged "Enterprise" at the start of the production. As he was also directing "The Voyage Home", he was looking to give Whitney a larger role. By this time, she had hoped that Rand had moved over to become a counselor – an idea originally suggested by a fan. Alongside Majel Barrett as Christine Chapel, the duo were given four pages of dialogue initially which was trimmed down to one scene in the final film. Following the reappearance, Whitney was enthusiastic about returning as Rand, saying "I think Janice Rand is going to be around for a long time, as long as they don't kill our characters off, we have a chance of constantly coming back."


title: Janice Rand

text: After a further appearance as Rand in "", Whitney returned for a final official appearance in the "" episode "". She praised the "incredible experience" and enjoyed working with Kate Mulgrew and Tim Russ. Following the appearance in "Voyager", Whitney was supportive of a new "Star Trek" series focused on the adventures of the "Excelsior" with Rand appearing once more alongside George Takei as Captain Hikaru Sulu.


title: Janice Rand

text: Following the relaunch of "Star Trek" in 2009 with a new cast playing those roles seen in "The Original Series", there was commentary online about the lack of female characters and whether Rand might be appearing in future installments. While the sequel, "Star Trek Into Darkness", was in production, Rand was one of five characters who was stated not to be appearing in the film by writer Roberto Orci. But there was still speculation at the time of the broadcast of the first trailer about who Alice Eve was portraying in the film. The options given by Tor.com was that it was either Janice Rand or Carol Marcus. "Daily Variety" reported that she was cast as someone new to the franchise, but she was actually cast as Marcus.


title: Janice Rand

text: Rand's first filmed appearance is in the episode "The Corbomite Maneuver", wherein Captain James T. Kirk is annoyed that he has been assigned a pretty female yeoman and discusses this with McCoy. After Kirk is split into two beings in "The Enemy Within", the evil version of the Captain heads to Rand's quarters and reveals his attraction to her. He kisses her forcefully, but she fights back and scratches him across the face. Crewman Fisher intervenes and fights him off – the duo later explain that it was Kirk who attacked her to a surprised good version of the Captain, along with Spock and Doctor McCoy. In "The Man Trap", she becomes friends with Sulu while refuting the advances of Crewman Green. Kirk admits his feelings for Rand while under the influence of an affliction in "The Naked Time".


title: Janice Rand

text: When Charlie Evans is brought on board the "Enterprise" in the episode "Charlie X", he falls for Rand. She is older than the adolescent boy and attempts to dissuade his affections by introducing him to Yeoman Tina Lawton. But he declares his feelings for Rand. Concerned, Rand seeks the advice of the Captain who intervenes and involves Evans in some sparring practice. After he falls over, he reveals his powers to make people disappear when one of the other sparring partners laughs at him. Charlie takes control of the ship, and goes to Rand's quarters with a rose. She refuses his approach; Spock and Kirk arrive but Charlie attacks them, and Rand slaps the boy. In response, he makes her vanish. It is only after a Thasian vessel appears that the "Enterprise" and Rand are returned to normal, as Charlie is taken away by the aliens.


title: Janice Rand

text: Rand joins the away team in the episode "Miri", and is infected by the disease that wiped out all of the adults on the planet. She finds comfort in the arms of Kirk, causing Miri to become jealous and the girl kidnaps the Yeoman to attract the attention of the Captain. Kirk convinces Miri to take him to Rand, but the other children attack him. They realise what they're doing is wrong and allow Kirk and Rand to return to the rest of the away team – where McCoy has synthesized a cure for the disease. Rand's second to last appearance in "The Original Series" was in "The Conscience of the King", where she has no lines but shoots a jealous look at a woman Kirk is attracted to. Her final appearance in the original TV series was on the episode Balance of Terror.


title: Janice Rand

text: She next appeared in the 1979 film "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" as the chief transporter operator and non-commissioned officer on board the "Enterprise". During the events of "The Voyage Home", Rand was stationed in San Francisco as a communications officer, but was reunited with the other former members of the "Enterprise" when they are court-martialed at the end of the film. She subsequently served as a communications officer aboard the USS "Excelsior" during the events of "The Undiscovered Country". The character's final appearance on screen was as part of Tuvok's memories of the events of that final film, as part of the "Voyager" episode "". Afterwards, Whitney remained hopeful that a new Captain Sulu based series would be created, allowing her to return to the role of Rand once more.


title: Janice Rand

text: Whitney made a further two appearances in "Star Trek" fan productions as Rand. These included the "" episode "", where Rand was once again on the bridge of the "Excelsior" alongside Takei's Sulu. Despite being fan produced, the episode was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. She also returned as Rand in the film "". It was directed by Tim Russ, who she had worked with on "Voyager", and featured a number of other former "Star Trek" actors. It was produced in association with "New Voyages".


title: Janice Rand

text: Rand was also portrayed by Meghan King Johnson in "New Voyages". She was initially going to work on a film with producer Jack Marshall, but when that fell through, he suggested she worked on the "Star Trek" production. Johnson was first hired to portray Christine Chapel, with Andrea Ajemian playing Rand. However, Ajemian was re-cast to play Onabi in the pilot "Come What May", Johnson was moved to play Rand and Shannon Giles recruited to play Chapel. Johnson said that highlights of the role included taking the conn in the pilot, and later working around her pregnancy in the episode "In Harm's Way".


title: Janice Rand

text: In print media, Vonda N. McIntyre's non-canon novel "" expanded on Rand's early history saying that she was originally a refugee, before being sold into slavery and enlisting in Starfleet. But in order to do so, she also had to lie about her age. Once on the "Enterprise", she is teased by her new colleagues until her friendship with Uhura helps her to settle in and become the Yeoman that appeared on the television series. During the production of "The Original Series", Janice Rand still appeared in the first draft of the script for the episode "The Galileo Seven", but was replaced by Yeoman Mears in later versions. When the comic book series by IDW Publishing based on the 2009 film revisited the events of that episode, this was changed to allow Rand to appear.


title: Janice Rand

text: In the initial previews for "Star Trek" when reporting on Rand, the media discussed Whitney's looks. The "Independent Press-Telegram" went as far as printing her bust/waist/hip measurements. Other newspapers were also complimentary of how Whitney looked, calling her attractive and shapely. Whitney said that she was popular with the media at the time because she was "very glib and very eager", but felt that she may have been seen to be overshadowing other members of the cast with her appearances. Her hairstyle was placed fifth in a list of unforgettable hairstyles in science fiction on Tor.com. It was suggested that when "you think of the 60s and science fiction hairstyles, the first image is probably Rand's beehive hair".


title: Janice Rand

text: Rand's role is described within Terry J. Erdmann and Paula M. Block's "Star Trek 101" as attending to Kirk, and bringing him reports, meals and coffee as well as having developed a crush on him. Jan Johnson-Smith, in her book "American Science Fiction TV: Star Trek, Stargate and Beyond", said that Rand was one of a number of "recognisable stereotypes" of women who appeared in "Star Trek". This was despite an initially progressive agenda towards women in authority by the appearance of Number One in "The Cage", which was rejected by NBC. Johnson-Smith described Rand's position as being a typical example of a female character who was only intended to be a romantic interest for a male lead.


title: Janice Rand

text: Zack Handlen, while writing for "The A.V. Club" in 2009, said that Whitney was a "competent actress", but that Rand "represents some of "Trek"s most egregious offenses against feminism". He criticized her role within the show, and specifically in "Charlie X" when Charlie slaps her bottom and none of the characters can explain why he should not do that. Michelle Erica Green praised the "substantial" role given to Rand in "Flashback" while writing for TrekNation, adding that this was the first time such a role had been given to the character in the franchise. However, she criticized Rand's being written out part way through the episode as she felt that the character could have had more to contribute to the plot.


title: Janice Rand

text: In 2015, SyFy rated Yeoman Rand as among the top 21 most interesting supporting characters of "Star Trek". In 2019, she was listed as one of the underrated characters of the "Star Trek" universe by CBS.


title: Overclocking

text: In computing, overclocking is the practice of increasing the clock rate of a computer to exceed that certified by the manufacturer. Commonly, operating voltage is also increased to maintain a component's operational stability at accelerated speeds. Semiconductor devices operated at higher frequencies and voltages increase power consumption and heat. An overclocked device may be unreliable or fail completely if the additional heat load is not removed or power delivery components cannot meet increased power demands. Many device warranties state that overclocking or over-specification voids any warranty, however there are an increasing number of manufacturers that will allow overclocking as long as performed (relatively) safely.


title: Overclocking

text: The purpose of overclocking is to increase the operating speed of a given component. Normally, on modern systems, the target of overclocking is increasing the performance of a major chip or subsystem, such as the main processor or graphics controller, but other components, such as system memory (RAM) or system buses (generally on the motherboard), are commonly involved. The trade-offs are an increase in power consumption (heat), fan noise (cooling), and shortened lifespan for the targeted components. Most components are designed with a margin of safety to deal with operating conditions outside of a manufacturer's control; examples are ambient temperature and fluctuations in operating voltage. Overclocking techniques in general aim to trade this safety margin by setting the device to run in the higher end of the margin, with the understanding that temperature and voltage must be more strictly monitored and controlled by the user. Examples are that operating temperature would need to be more strictly controlled with increased cooling, as the part will be less tolerant of increased temperatures at the higher speeds. Also base operating voltage may be increased to compensate for unexpected voltage drops and to strengthen signalling and timing signals, as low-voltage excursions are more likely to cause malfunctions at higher operating speeds.


title: Overclocking

text: While most modern devices are fairly tolerant of overclocking, all devices have finite limits. Generally for any given voltage most parts will have a maximum "stable" speed where they still operate correctly. Past this speed, the device starts giving incorrect results, which can cause malfunctions and sporadic behavior in any system depending on it. While in a PC context the usual result is a system crash, more subtle errors can go undetected, which over a long enough time can give unpleasant surprises such as data corruption (incorrectly calculated results, or worse "writing to storage" incorrectly) or the system failing only during certain specific tasks (general usage such as internet browsing and word processing appear fine, but any application wanting advanced graphics crashes the system).


title: Overclocking

text: At this point, an increase in operating voltage of a part may allow more headroom for further increases in clock speed, but the increased voltage can also significantly increase heat output, as well as shorten the lifespan further. At some point, there will be a limit imposed by the ability to supply the device with sufficient power, the user's ability to cool the part, and the device's own maximum voltage tolerance before it achieves destructive failure. Overzealous use of voltage or inadequate cooling can rapidly degrade a device's performance to the point of failure, or in extreme cases outright destroy it.


title: Overclocking

text: The speed gained by overclocking depends largely upon the applications and workloads being run on the system, and what components are being overclocked by the user; benchmarks for different purposes are published.


title: Overclocking

text: Conversely, the primary goal of underclocking is to reduce power consumption and the resultant heat generation of a device, with the trade-offs being lower clock speeds and reductions in performance. Reducing the cooling requirements needed to keep hardware at a given operational temperature has knock-on benefits such as lowering the number and speed of fans to allow quieter operation, and in mobile devices increase the length of battery life per charge. Some manufacturers underclock components of battery-powered equipment to improve battery life, or implement systems that detect when a device is operating under battery power and reduce clock frequency.


title: Overclocking

text: Underclocking and undervolting would be attempted on a desktop system to have it operate silently (such as for a home entertainment center) while potentially offering higher performance than currently offered by low-voltage processor offerings. This would use a "standard-voltage" part and attempt to run with lower voltages (while attempting to keep the desktop speeds) to meet an acceptable performance/noise target for the build. This was also attractive as using a "standard voltage" processor in a "low voltage" application avoided paying the traditional price premium for an officially certified low voltage version. However again like overclocking there is no guarantee of success, and the builder's time researching given system/processor combinations and especially the time and tedium of performing many iterations of stability testing need to be considered. The usefulness of underclocking (again like overclocking) is determined by what processor offerings, prices, and availability are at the specific time of the build. Underclocking is also sometimes used when troubleshooting.


title: Overclocking

text: Overclocking has become more accessible with motherboard makers offering overclocking as a marketing feature on their mainstream product lines. However, the practice is embraced more by enthusiasts than professional users, as overclocking carries a risk of reduced reliability, accuracy and damage to data and equipment. Additionally, most manufacturer warranties and service agreements do not cover overclocked components nor any incidental damages caused by their use. While overclocking can still be an option for increasing personal computing capacity, and thus workflow productivity for professional users, the importance of stability testing components thoroughly "before" employing them into a production environment cannot be overstated.


title: Overclocking

text: Overclocking offers several draws for overclocking enthusiasts. Overclocking allows testing of components at speeds not currently offered by the manufacturer, or at speeds only officially offered on specialized, higher-priced versions of the product. A general trend in the computing industry is that new technologies tend to debut in the high-end market first, then later trickle down to the performance and mainstream market. If the high-end part only differs by an increased clock speed, an enthusiast can attempt to overclock a mainstream part to simulate the high-end offering. This can give insight on how over-the-horizon technologies will perform before they are officially available on the mainstream market, which can be especially helpful for other users considering if they should plan ahead to purchase or upgrade to the new feature when it is officially released.


title: Overclocking

text: Some hobbyists enjoy building, tuning, and "Hot-Rodding" their systems in competitive benchmarking competitions, competing with other like-minded users for high scores in standardized computer benchmark suites. Others will purchase a low-cost model of a component in a given product line, and attempt to overclock that part to match a more expensive model's stock performance. Another approach is overclocking older components to attempt to keep pace with increasing system requirements and extend the useful service life of the older part or at least delay a purchase of new hardware solely for performance reasons. Another rationale for overclocking older equipment is even if overclocking stresses equipment to the point of failure earlier, little is lost as it is already depreciated, and would have needed to be replaced in any case.


title: Overclocking

text: Technically any component that uses a timer (or clock) to synchronize its internal operations can be overclocked. Most efforts for computer components however focus on specific components, such as, processors (a.k.a. CPU), video cards, motherboard chipsets, and RAM. Most modern processors derive their effective operating speeds by multiplying a base clock (processor bus speed) by an internal multiplier within the processor (the CPU multiplier) to attain their final speed.


title: Overclocking

text: Computer processors generally are overclocked by manipulating the CPU multiplier if that option is available, but the processor and other components can also be overclocked by increasing the base speed of the bus clock. Some systems allow additional tuning of other clocks (such as a system clock) that influence the bus clock speed that, again is multiplied by the processor to allow for finer adjustments of the final processor speed.


title: Overclocking

text: Most OEM systems do not expose to the user the adjustments needed to change processor clock speed or voltage in the BIOS of the OEM's motherboard, which precludes overclocking (for warranty and support reasons). The same processor installed on a different motherboard offering adjustments will allow the user to change them.


title: Overclocking

text: Any given component will ultimately stop operating reliably past a certain clock speed. Components will generally show some sort of malfunctioning behavior or other indication of compromised stability that alerts the user that a given speed is not stable, but there is always a possibility that a component will permanently fail without warning, even if voltages are kept within some pre-determined safe values. The maximum speed is determined by overclocking to the point of first instability, then accepting the last stable slower setting. Components are only guaranteed to operate correctly up to their rated values; beyond that different samples may have different overclocking potential. The end-point of a given overclock is determined by parameters such as available CPU multipliers, bus dividers, voltages; the user's ability to manage thermal loads, cooling techniques; and several other factors of the individual devices themselves such as semiconductor clock and thermal tolerances, interaction with other components and the rest of the system.


title: Overclocking

text: There are several things to be considered when overclocking. First is to ensure that the component is supplied with adequate power at a voltage sufficient to operate at the new clock rate. Supplying the power with improper settings or applying excessive voltage can permanently damage a component.


title: Overclocking

text: In a professional production environment, overclocking is only likely to be used where the increase in speed justifies the cost of the expert support required, the possibly reduced reliability, the consequent effect on maintenance contracts and warranties, and the higher power consumption. If faster speed is required it is often cheaper when all costs are considered to buy faster hardware.


title: Overclocking

text: All electronic circuits produce heat generated by the movement of electric current. As clock frequencies in digital circuits and voltage applied increase, the heat generated by components running at the higher performance levels also increases. The relationship between clock frequencies and thermal design power (TDP) are linear. However, there is a limit to the maximum frequency which is called a "wall". To overcome this issue, overclockers raise the chip voltage to increase the overclocking potential. Voltage increases power consumption and consequently heat generation significantly (proportionally to the square of the voltage in a linear circuit, for example); this requires more cooling to avoid damaging the hardware by overheating. In addition, some digital circuits slow down at high temperatures due to changes in MOSFET device characteristics. Conversely, the overclocker may decide to "decrease" the chip voltage while overclocking (a process known as undervolting), to reduce heat emissions while performance remains optimal.


title: Overclocking

text: Stock cooling systems are designed for the amount of power produced during non-overclocked use; overclocked circuits can require more cooling, such as by powerful fans, larger heat sinks, heat pipes and water cooling. Mass, shape, and material all influence the ability of a heatsink to dissipate heat. Efficient heatsinks are often made entirely of copper, which has high thermal conductivity, but is expensive. Aluminium is more widely used; it has good thermal characteristics, though not as good as copper, and is significantly cheaper. Cheaper materials such as steel do not have good thermal characteristics. Heat pipes can be used to improve conductivity. Many heatsinks combine two or more materials to achieve a balance between performance and cost.


title: Overclocking

text: Water cooling carries waste heat to a radiator. Thermoelectric cooling devices which actually refrigerate using the Peltier effect can help with high thermal design power (TDP) processors made by Intel and AMD in the early twenty-first century. Thermoelectric cooling devices create temperature differences between two plates by running an electric current through the plates. This method of cooling is highly effective, but itself generates significant heat elsewhere which must be carried away, often by a convection-based heatsink or a water cooling system.


title: Overclocking

text: Other cooling methods are forced convection and phase transition cooling which is used in refrigerators and can be adapted for computer use. Liquid nitrogen, liquid helium, and dry ice are used as coolants in extreme cases, such as record-setting attempts or one-off experiments rather than cooling an everyday system. In June 2006, IBM and Georgia Institute of Technology jointly announced a new record in silicon-based chip clock rate (the rate a transistor can be switched at, not the CPU clock rate) above 500 GHz, which was done by cooling the chip to using liquid helium. Set in November 2012, the CPU Frequency World Record is 8.794 GHz as of January 2022. These extreme methods are generally impractical in the long term, as they require refilling reservoirs of vaporizing coolant, and condensation can form on chilled components. Moreover, silicon-based junction gate field-effect transistors (JFET) will degrade below temperatures of roughly and eventually cease to function or "freeze out" at since the silicon ceases to be semiconducting, so using extremely cold coolants may cause devices to fail.


title: Overclocking

text: Submersion cooling, used by the Cray-2 supercomputer, involves sinking a part of computer system directly into a chilled liquid that is thermally conductive but has low electrical conductivity. The advantage of this technique is that no condensation can form on components. A good submersion liquid is Fluorinert made by 3M, which is expensive. Another option is mineral oil, but impurities such as those in water might cause it to conduct electricity.


title: Overclocking

text: Amateur overclocking enthusiasts have used a mixture of dry ice and a solvent with a low freezing point, such as acetone or isopropyl alcohol. This cooling bath, often used in laboratories, achieves a temperature of −78 °C. However, this practice is discouraged due to its safety risks; the solvents are flammable and volatile, and dry ice can cause frostbite (through contact with exposed skin) and suffocation (due to the large volume of carbon dioxide generated when it sublimes).


title: Overclocking

text: As an overclocked component operates outside of the manufacturer's recommended operating conditions, it may function incorrectly, leading to system instability. Another risk is silent data corruption by undetected errors. Such failures might never be correctly diagnosed and may instead be incorrectly attributed to software bugs in applications, device drivers, or the operating system. Overclocked use may permanently damage components enough to cause them to misbehave (even under normal operating conditions) without becoming totally unusable.


title: Overclocking

text: A large-scale 2011 field study of hardware faults causing a system crash for consumer PCs and laptops showed a four to 20 times increase (depending on CPU manufacturer) in system crashes due to CPU failure for overclocked computers over an eight-month period.


title: Overclocking

text: In general, overclockers claim that testing can ensure that an overclocked system is stable and functioning correctly. Although software tools are available for testing hardware stability, it is generally impossible for any private individual to thoroughly test the functionality of a processor. Achieving good fault coverage requires immense engineering effort; even with all of the resources dedicated to validation by manufacturers, faulty components and even design faults are not always detected.


title: Overclocking

text: A particular "stress test" can verify only the functionality of the specific instruction sequence used in combination with the data and may not detect faults in those operations. For example, an arithmetic operation may produce the correct result but incorrect flags; if the flags are not checked, the error will go undetected.


title: Overclocking

text: To further complicate matters, in process technologies such as silicon on insulator (SOI), devices display hysteresis—a circuit's performance is affected by the events of the past, so without carefully targeted tests it is possible for a particular sequence of state changes to work at overclocked rates in one situation but not another even if the voltage and temperature are the same. Often, an overclocked system which passes stress tests experiences instabilities in other programs.


title: Overclocking

text: In overclocking circles, "stress tests" or "torture tests" are used to check for correct operation of a component. These workloads are selected as they put a very high load on the component of interest (e.g. a graphically intensive application for testing video cards, or different math-intensive applications for testing general CPUs). Popular stress tests include Prime95, Everest, Superpi, OCCT, AIDA64, Linpack (via the LinX and IntelBurnTest GUIs), SiSoftware Sandra, BOINC, Intel Thermal Analysis Tool and Memtest86. The hope is that any functional-correctness issues with the overclocked component will manifest themselves during these tests, and if no errors are detected during the test, then the component is deemed "stable". Since fault coverage is important in stability testing, the tests are often run for long periods of time, hours or even days. An overclocked computer is sometimes described using the number of hours and the stability program used, such as "prime 12 hours stable".


title: Overclocking

text: Overclockability arises in part due to the economics of the manufacturing processes of CPUs and other components. In many cases components are manufactured by the same process, and tested after manufacture to determine their actual maximum ratings. Components are then marked with a rating chosen by the market needs of the semiconductor manufacturer. If manufacturing yield is high, more higher-rated components than required may be produced, and the manufacturer may mark and sell higher-performing components as lower-rated for marketing reasons. In some cases, the true maximum rating of the component may exceed even the highest rated component sold. Many devices sold with a lower rating may behave in all ways as higher-rated ones, while in the worst case operation at the higher rating may be more problematical.


title: Overclocking

text: Notably, higher clocks must always mean greater waste heat generation, as semiconductors set to high must dump to ground more often. In some cases, this means that the chief drawback of the overclocked part is far more heat dissipated than the maximums published by the manufacturer. Pentium architect Bob Colwell calls overclocking an "uncontrolled experiment in better-than-worst-case system operation".


title: Overclocking

text: Benchmarks are used to evaluate performance, and they can become a kind of "sport" in which users compete for the highest scores. As discussed above, stability and functional correctness may be compromised when overclocking, and meaningful benchmark results depend on the correct execution of the benchmark. Because of this, benchmark scores may be qualified with stability and correctness notes (e.g. an overclocker may report a score, noting that the benchmark only runs to completion 1 in 5 times, or that signs of incorrect execution such as display corruption are visible while running the benchmark). A widely used test of stability is Prime95, which has built-in error checking that fails if the computer is unstable.


title: Overclocking

text: Using only the benchmark scores, it may be difficult to judge the difference overclocking makes to the overall performance of a computer. For example, some benchmarks test only one aspect of the system, such as memory bandwidth, without taking into consideration how higher clock rates in this aspect will improve the system performance as a whole. Apart from demanding applications such as video encoding, high-demand databases and scientific computing, memory bandwidth is typically not a bottleneck, so a great increase in memory bandwidth may be unnoticeable to a user depending on the applications used. Other benchmarks, such as 3DMark, attempt to replicate game conditions.


title: Overclocking

text: Commercial system builders or component resellers sometimes overclock to sell items at higher profit margins. The seller makes more money by overclocking lower-priced components which are found to operate correctly and selling equipment at prices appropriate for higher-rated components. While the equipment will normally operate correctly, this practice may be considered fraudulent if the buyer is unaware of it.


title: Overclocking

text: Overclocking is sometimes offered as a legitimate service or feature for consumers, in which a manufacturer or retailer tests the overclocking capability of processors, memory, video cards, and other hardware products. Several video card manufactures now offer factory-overclocked versions of their graphics accelerators, complete with a warranty, usually at a price intermediate between that of the standard product and a non-overclocked product of higher performance.


title: Overclocking

text: It is speculated that manufacturers implement overclocking prevention mechanisms such as CPU multiplier locking to prevent users from buying lower-priced items and overclocking them. These measures are sometimes marketed as a consumer protection benefit, but are often criticized by buyers.


title: Overclocking

text: Many motherboards are sold, and advertised, with extensive facilities for overclocking implemented in hardware and controlled by BIOS settings.


title: Overclocking

text: CPU multiplier locking is the process of permanently setting a CPU's clock multiplier. AMD CPUs are unlocked in early editions of a model and locked in later editions, but nearly all Intel CPUs are locked and recent models are very resistant to unlocking to prevent overclocking by users. AMD ships unlocked CPUs with their Opteron, FX, Ryzen and Black Series line-up, while Intel uses the monikers of "Extreme Edition" and "K-Series." Intel usually has one or two Extreme Edition CPUs on the market as well as X series and K series CPUs analogous to AMD's Black Edition. AMD has the majority of their desktop range in a Black Edition.


title: Overclocking

text: Users usually unlock CPUs to allow overclocking, but sometimes to allow for underclocking in order to maintain the front side bus speed (on older CPUs) compatibility with certain motherboards. Unlocking generally invalidates the manufacturer's warranty, and mistakes can cripple or destroy a CPU. Locking a chip's clock multiplier does not necessarily prevent users from overclocking, as the speed of the front-side bus or PCI multiplier (on newer CPUs) may still be changed to provide a performance increase. AMD Athlon and Athlon XP CPUs are generally unlocked by connecting bridges (jumper-like points) on the top of the CPU with conductive paint or pencil lead. Other CPU models may require different procedures.


title: Overclocking

text: Increasing front-side bus or northbridge/PCI clocks can overclock locked CPUs, but this throws many system frequencies out of sync, since the RAM and PCI frequencies are modified as well.


title: Overclocking

text: One of the easiest ways to unlock older AMD Athlon XP CPUs was called the "pin mod" method, because it was possible to unlock the CPU without permanently modifying bridges. A user could simply put one wire (or some more for a new multiplier/Vcore) into the socket to unlock the CPU. More recently however, notably with Intel's Skylake architecture, Intel had a bug with the Skylake (6th gen Core) processors where the base clock could be increased past 102.7 MHz, however functionality of certain features would not work. Intel intended to block base clock (BCLK) overclocking of locked processors when designing the Skylake architecture to prevent consumers from purchasing cheaper components and overclocking to previously-unseen heights (since the CPU's BCLK was no longer tied to the PCI buses), however for LGA1151, the 6th generation "Skylake" processors were able to be overclocked past 102.7 MHz (which was the intended limit by Intel, and was later mandated through later BIOS updates). All other unlocked processors from LGA1151 and v2 (including 7th, 8th, and 9th generation) and BGA1440 allow for BCLK overclocking (as long as the OEM allows it), while all other locked processors from 7th, 8th, and 9th gen were not able to go past 102.7 Mhz. 10th gen however, could reach 103 Mhz on the BCLK.


title: Overclocking

text: Overclocking components can only be of noticeable benefit if the component is on the critical path for a process, if it is a bottleneck. If disk access or the speed of an Internet connection limit the speed of a process, a 20% increase in processor speed is unlikely to be noticed, however there are some scenarios where increasing the clock speed of a processor actually allows an SSD to be read and written to faster. Overclocking a CPU will not noticeably benefit a game when a graphics card's performance is the "bottleneck" of the game.


title: Overclocking

text: Graphics cards can also be overclocked. There are utilities to achieve this, such as EVGA's Precision, RivaTuner, AMD Overdrive (on AMD cards only), MSI Afterburner, Zotac Firestorm, and the PEG Link Mode on Asus motherboards. Overclocking a GPU will often yield a marked increase in performance in synthetic benchmarks, usually reflected in game performance. It is sometimes possible to see that a graphics card is being pushed beyond its limits before any permanent damage is done by observing on-screen artifacts or unexpected system crashes. It is common to run into one of those problems when overclocking graphics cards; both symptoms at the same time usually means that the card is severely pushed beyond its heat, clock rate, and/or voltage limits, however if seen when not overclocked, they indicate a faulty card. After a reboot, video settings are reset to standard values stored in the graphics card firmware, and the maximum clock rate of that specific card is now deducted.


title: Overclocking

text: Some overclockers apply a potentiometer to the graphics card to manually adjust the voltage (which usually invalidates the warranty). This allows for finer adjustments, as overclocking software for graphics cards can only go so far. Excessive voltage increases may damage or destroy components on the graphics card or the entire graphics card itself (practically speaking).


title: Overclocking

text: Flashing and unlocking can be used to improve the performance of a video card, without technically overclocking (but is much riskier than overclocking just through software).


title: Overclocking

text: Flashing refers to using the firmware of a different card with the same (or sometimes similar) core and compatible firmware, effectively making it a higher model card; it can be difficult, and may be irreversible. Sometimes standalone software to modify the firmware files can be found, e.g. NiBiTor (GeForce 6/7 series are well regarded in this aspect), without using firmware for a better model video card. For example, video cards with 3D accelerators (most, ) have two voltage and clock rate settings, one for 2D and one for 3D, but were designed to operate with "three" voltage stages, the third being somewhere between the aforementioned two, serving as a fallback when the card overheats or as a middle-stage when going from 2D to 3D operation mode. Therefore, it could be wise to set this middle-stage prior to "serious" overclocking, specifically because of this fallback ability; the card can drop down to this clock rate, reducing by a few (or sometimes a few dozen, depending on the setting) percent of its efficiency and cool down, without dropping out of 3D mode (and afterwards return to the desired high performance clock and voltage settings).


title: Overclocking

text: Some cards have abilities not directly connected with overclocking. For example, Nvidia's GeForce 6600GT (AGP flavor) has a temperature monitor used internally by the card, invisible to the user if standard firmware is used. Modifying the firmware can display a 'Temperature' tab.


title: Overclocking

text: Unlocking refers to enabling extra pipelines or pixel shaders. The 6800LE, the 6800GS and 6800 (AGP models only) were some of the first cards to benefit from unlocking. While these models have either 8 or 12 pipes enabled, they share the same 16x6 GPU core as a 6800GT or Ultra, but pipelines and shaders beyond those specified are disabled; the GPU may be fully functional, or may have been found to have faults which do not affect operation at the lower specification. GPUs found to be fully functional can be unlocked successfully, although it is not possible to be sure that there are undiscovered faults; in the worst case the card may become permanently unusable.


title: Overclocking

text: Overclocked processors first became commercially available in 1983, when AMD sold an overclocked version of the Intel 8088 CPU. In 1984, some consumers were overclocking IBM's version of the Intel 80286 CPU by replacing the clock crystal. Xeon W-3175X is the only Xeon with a multiplier unlocked for overclocking.


title: Rick Hurst

text: Richard Douglas Hurst (born January 1, 1946) is an American actor who portrayed Deputy Cletus Hogg, Boss Hogg's cousin, in the 1980 to 1983 seasons of "The Dukes of Hazzard" as well as "" in 1997 and "" in 2000.


title: Rick Hurst

text: He appeared in many movies, including "The Karate Kid Part III" (1989) as the Announcer. He makes numerous appearances at various Dukes of Hazzard events and at Cooters in Nashville and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. He also has made appearances at The World Of Wheels in Birmingham, Alabama.


title: Rick Hurst

text: His sons are actor Ryan Hurst, and Collin Hurst. He was married to Shelly Weir, the mother of Collin.


title: The Simpsons (season 3)

text: The third season of the American animated television series "The Simpsons" originally aired on the Fox network between September 19, 1991 and August 27, 1992. The showrunners for the third production season were Al Jean and Mike Reiss who executive produced 22 episodes for the season, while two other episodes were produced by James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, and Sam Simon, with it being produced by Gracie Films and 20th Century Fox Television. An additional episode, "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?", aired on August 27, 1992 after the official end of the third season and is included on the Season 3 DVD set. Season three won six Primetime Emmy Awards for "Outstanding Voice-Over Performance" and also received a nomination for "Outstanding Animated Program" for the episode "Radio Bart". The complete season was released on DVD in Region 1 on August 26, 2003, Region 2 on October 6, 2003, and in Region 4 on October 22, 2003.


title: The Simpsons (season 3)

text: Al Jean and Mike Reiss, who had written for "The Simpsons" since the start of the show, took over as showrunners this season. Their first episode as showrunners was "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington" and they felt a lot of pressure about running the show. They also ran the following season and Jean would return as executive producer in season 13. There were two episodes, "Kamp Krusty" and "A Streetcar Named Marge", that were produced at the same time, but aired during season four as holdover episodes. Two episodes that aired during this season, "Stark Raving Dad" and "When Flanders Failed", were executive produced during the previous season by James L. Brooks, Matt Groening and Sam Simon.


title: The Simpsons (season 3)

text: Carlos Baeza and Jeffrey Lynch received their first directing credits this season. Alan Smart, an assistant director and layout artist, would receive his only directing credit. One-time writers from this season include Robert Cohen, Howard Gewirtz, Ken Levine and David Isaacs. Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, who would later become executive producers, became a part of the writing staff to replace Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky both of whom had decided to leave the next season. The current arrangement of the theme song by music composer Alf Clausen was introduced during this season, corresponding with the show now being produced and broadcast in Dolby Surround.