title: Fastball (band)

text: The members of Fastball still had side jobs as late as January 1998. Tony Scalzo worked the graveyard shift at The Bagel Manufactory in Austin. He, Shuffield, and Zuniga would be on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" just four months later. Fastball's second album, "All the Pain Money Can Buy", was released on Hollywood Records. Within just six months, it had sold more than a million copies.


title: Fastball (band)

text: The single "The Way" stayed on top of Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart for seven weeks, and was a top five hit on Billboard's Top 40 Mainstream chart. Scalzo was inspired to write the song in 1997, after reading a news article about Lela and Raymond Howard, an elderly couple who had disappeared in Texas. Though Lela had Alzheimer's and Raymond was recovering from brain surgery, the couple had been driving to a local festival. They were discovered two weeks later, dead, at the bottom of a ravine near Hot Springs, Arkansas, hundreds of miles off their intended route. Scalzo chose to imagine that they began reminiscing and decided to become ethereal beings on a permanent romantic trip, the answer to the song's question, "Where were they going without ever knowing the way?"


title: Fastball (band)

text: Fastball followed up "The Way" with a second single "Fire Escape" and a third single, "Out of My Head", which reached the top ten on Billboard's Top 40 chart and was a top ten hit on the Adult Top 40 chart for 29 weeks. The album's promotional tour featured Marcy Playground and Everclear, after which Fastball moved to the H.O.R.D.E. tour.


title: Fastball (band)

text: In 1999, Fastball received two Grammy Award nominations as a result of "All the Pain Money Can Buy". One was for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, and the other was Best Long Form Video for "The Way". They also received an MTV Award nomination for Best New Artist.


title: Fastball (band)

text: The group headed back into the studio to record their third album, "The Harsh Light of Day". Produced by Julian Raymond and Fastball, the album was released in September 2000.


title: Fastball (band)

text: The release included "You're an Ocean", which featured the piano stylings of Billy Preston (who previously collaborated with The Beatles). Singer-guitarist Brian Setzer also contributed to the album with Latin guitar on "Love Is Expensive and Free." "Instead of tailoring the music for short attention spans, we tried to make an album that holds up well to extensive listening... kind of cinematic, where you notice new themes entering the frame each time you see the film," Zuniga said in the band's record company bio.


title: Fastball (band)

text: Although "The Harsh Light of Day" sold fewer than 85,000 copies (compared to "All The Pain Money Can Buy's" 1,000,000+), the trio didn't lose steam and chalked it up to lacking a musical category to fit into. "You can't write down what we do in a sentence," Zuniga told Mac Randall at Launch.com. "Marketing us is a problem. But in a way, that's our saving grace also, because you can't find an easy angle to summarize us and exploit us. We might sell more records if you could, but at the same time, it forces people that really want to be interested in us to pay a little more attention to what we're doing."


title: Fastball (band)

text: In October 2000, Fastball began touring in support of "The Harsh Light of Day" in Amsterdam. Despite the slowed success, the members of the group didn't regret any of their creative decisions, and their aim remained true. "It makes me feel proud that we're one of these song-oriented guitar bands," Scalzo told Richard Skanse in "Rolling Stone." "I think there's a couple of bands that are still putting out real good quality guitar rock songs, and I think we're one of them."


title: Fastball (band)

text: In June 2004, Fastball released their fourth album, "Keep Your Wig On", on a new record label, Rykodisc. "Keep Your Wig On" was home to singles "Airstream", "Drifting Away", and "Lou-ee, Lou-ee", with the last being released as a single in Europe only.


title: Fastball (band)

text: On April 14, 2009, Fastball released its fifth album, "Little White Lies". The album was co-produced by Zuniga and experienced producer CJ Eiriksson, with mixing by Bob Clearmountain.


title: Fastball (band)

text: Scalzo and Zuniga would work on separate solo projects in the following years, with Zuniga's solo album, "These Ghosts Have Bones", being released in September 2011 and Scalzo releasing "My Favorite Year" in February 2013. Both were successfully funded with the help of their respective Kickstarter campaigns.


title: Fastball (band)

text: In April 2013, a new single titled "Love Comes in Waves" was released to digital outlets. The video premiered on YouTube on July 23, 2013.


title: Fastball (band)

text: On February 5, 2015, the band began recording a new album at The Bubble recording studio in Austin. In March, the band announced that "Love Comes in Waves" would be featured on the band's forthcoming album "Step Into Light", which was released on May 19. A video for a second song from the album, "I Will Never Let You Down", was released in early March 2017.


title: Fastball (band)

text: In mid-September 2017 the band played a living room concert at the home of Los Angeles-based comic Chet Wild following a nearly-year long Twitter campaign (#FastballAtChets). The concert raised $12,500 via Indiegogo to assist with Hurricane Harvey relief efforts. Several attendees at the concert took part in the filming of the video for "Best Friend" earlier that day, directed by Nigel Dick.


title: Fastball (band)

text: In 2018 and 2019, the band debuted new songs "The Girl You Pretended to Be", "Help Machine" and "All Gone Fuzzy," from "The Help Machine", their seventh album, which was released on October 18, 2019.


title: Yuri Alberto

text: Yuri Alberto Monteiro da Silva (born 18 March 2001), known as Yuri Alberto, is a Brazilian footballer who plays as a forward for Corinthians on loan from the Russian club Zenit Saint Petersburg.


title: Yuri Alberto

text: Born in the northern neighbourhood of Vila Cristina in São José dos Campos, Yuri Alberto joined Santos' youth setup in 2013 at the age of twelve. On 28 July 2017, he signed his first professional contract after agreeing to a signed a three-year deal.


title: Yuri Alberto

text: On 1 November 2017, Yuri Alberto was promoted to the main squad by interim manager Elano. He made his first team – and Série A – debut fifteen days later, coming on as a substitute for Renato in a 3–1 away loss against Bahia.


title: Yuri Alberto

text: Yuri Alberto scored his first goal for the club on 7 March 2018, netting the equalizer in a 2–1 Campeonato Paulista away loss against Grêmio Novorizontino; aged 16 years, 11 months and 20 days, he became the sixth youngest to score for "Peixe" in their history. He made his Copa Libertadores debut on 24 May, replacing Vitor Bueno in a 0–0 home draw against Real Garcilaso.


title: Yuri Alberto

text: After featuring sparingly during the 2018 campaign, Yuri Alberto only managed to appear twice under Jorge Sampaoli in 2019. In March 2020, he returned to the first team under new manager Jesualdo Ferreira, but still rejected a contract renewal from the club and opted to leave in July.


title: Yuri Alberto

text: On 16 July 2020, it was announced that Yuri Alberto agreed to a five-year contract with fellow top-tier side Internacional, effective as of 1 August. This led to a conflict with Santos, as the club claimed a clause in Yuri Alberto's contract granted them priority for the renewal. Shortly after the announcement in the media, Internacional released an official statement regretting the "leak" of the offer.


title: Yuri Alberto

text: On 3 August 2020, after releasing a note two days earlier stating that the club "wished him success on his career playing for Santos", Internacional announced the signing of Yuri Alberto on a five-year deal. The following 20 January, he scored a second-half hat-trick and made an assist in a 5–1 away routing of São Paulo, taking his tally up to ten league goals in only 16 matches. On 8 August 2021, he scored his second hat-trick for Internacional in a 4–0 away win over the Flamengo, reaching his fourth goal in the Série A season.


title: Yuri Alberto

text: On 30 January 2022, Yuri Alberto signed a five-year deal with Russian Premier League club FC Zenit Saint Petersburg.


title: Yuri Alberto

text: On 29 June 2022, Zenit announced an agreement with Corinthians under which Yuri Alberto would move to Corinthians on loan, and Ivan and Gustavo Mantuan would move on loan in the opposite direction.


title: Yuri Alberto

text: On 16 February 2017, Yuri Alberto was called up to Brazil under-17s for the year's South American Under-17 Football Championship. He also featured in the Montaigu Tournament and in the FIFA U-17 World Cup.


title: Yuri Alberto

text: On 7 March 2018, Yuri Alberto and Santos teammate Rodrygo were called up to the under-20s, but both were cut from the squad six days later after a request from his club's president.


title: Quadratic programming

text: Quadratic programming (QP) is the process of solving certain mathematical optimization problems involving quadratic functions. Specifically, one seeks to optimize (minimize or maximize) a multivariate quadratic function subject to linear constraints on the variables. Quadratic programming is a type of nonlinear programming.


title: Quadratic programming

text: "Programming" in this context refers to a formal procedure for solving mathematical problems. This usage dates to the 1940s and is not specifically tied to the more recent notion of "computer programming." To avoid confusion, some practitioners prefer the term "optimization" — e.g., "quadratic optimization."


title: Quadratic programming

text: where denotes the vector transpose of , and the notation means that every entry of the vector is less than or equal to the corresponding entry of the vector (component-wise inequality).


title: Quadratic programming

text: As a special case when "Q" is symmetric positive-definite, the cost function reduces to least squares:


title: Quadratic programming

text: where follows from the Cholesky decomposition of and . Conversely, any such constrained least squares program can be equivalently framed as a QP, even for generic non-square matrix.


title: Quadratic programming

text: When minimizing a function in the neighborhood of some reference point , is set to its Hessian matrix and is set to its gradient . A related programming problem, quadratically constrained quadratic programming, can be posed by adding quadratic constraints on the variables.


title: Quadratic programming

text: In the case in which is positive definite, the problem is a special case of the more general field of convex optimization.


title: Quadratic programming

text: Quadratic programming is particularly simple when is positive definite and there are only equality constraints; specifically, the solution process is linear. By using Lagrange multipliers and seeking the extremum of the Lagrangian, it may be readily shown that the solution to the equality constrained problem


title: Quadratic programming

text: The easiest means of approaching this system is direct solution (for example, LU factorization), which for small problems is very practical. For large problems, the system poses some unusual difficulties, most notably that the problem is never positive definite (even if is), making it potentially very difficult to find a good numeric approach, and there are many approaches to choose from dependent on the problem.


title: Quadratic programming

text: If the constraints don't couple the variables too tightly, a relatively simple attack is to change the variables so that constraints are unconditionally satisfied. For example, suppose (generalizing to nonzero is straightforward). Looking at the constraint equations:


title: Quadratic programming

text: and if is chosen so that the constraint equation will be always satisfied. Finding such entails finding the null space of , which is more or less simple depending on the structure of . Substituting into the quadratic form gives an unconstrained minimization problem:


title: Quadratic programming

text: Under certain conditions on , the reduced matrix will be positive definite. It is possible to write a variation on the conjugate gradient method which avoids the explicit calculation of .


title: Quadratic programming

text: The Lagrangian dual of a QP is also a QP. To see this let us focus on the case where and is positive definite. We write the Lagrangian function as


title: Quadratic programming

text: Defining the (Lagrangian) dual function as formula_10, we find an infimum of , using formula_11 and positive-definiteness of :


title: Quadratic programming

text: For positive definite , the ellipsoid method solves the problem in (weakly) polynomial time. If, on the other hand, is indefinite, then the problem is NP-hard.


title: Quadratic programming

text: There can be several stationary points and local minima for these non-convex problems. In fact, even if has only one negative eigenvalue, the problem is (strongly) NP-hard.


title: Quadratic programming

text: There are some situations where one or more elements of the vector will need to take on integer values. This leads to the formulation of a mixed-integer quadratic programming (MIQP) problem. Applications of MIQP include water resources and the construction of index funds.


title: Mike Score

text: Michael Gordon Score (born 5 November 1957) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who achieved worldwide fame as the founder, lead vocalist, and rhythm guitarist of the new wave band A Flock of Seagulls. He released a solo album on 1 March 2014 titled "Zeebratta".


title: Mike Score

text: His band is one of the most influential of the 1980s and still shaping much of today's dance music, contemporary pop and electronic music.


title: Mike Score

text: Score was born in Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire, England on November 5, 1957. Score was a hairdresser in Liverpool until in 1978 he formed the post-punk band Tontrix, in which he played bass, along with Hambi Haralambous (vocals), Steve Lovell (guitar), Bobby Carr (keyboards) and Chris Hughes (drums).


title: Mike Score

text: The band released just one 7-inch 45 with two songs, Shell Shocked and Slipping into Life. The band played many shows in the North West of England and, in late 1979, the band was disbanded, with the members following different paths.


title: Mike Score

text: A few months later, in the same year, he founded the New Wave band, A Flock of Seagulls, with his brother Ali Score, (drums), his friend Frank Maudsley, (bass), and Paul Reynolds (guitar). Mike played keyboard, guitar and was a vocalist, A Flock of Seagulls started playing in bars and practiced on top of the hall where Mike worked, until they got a contract with a record label. Soon after that their debut self-titled album, A Flock of Seagulls, was released in 1982, and achieved international success. In 1983 they released the album Listen, which was quite successful. In the same year the band started doing shows together with The Police and The Fixx. In 1984 they released The Story of a Young Heart, which was moderately successful. In 1985 with the album Dream Come True, it was met with mixed reviews and the following year the band broke up.


title: Mike Score

text: But when he decided to reform the band again in 1988, the other members refused to join him. He performed and toured A Flock of Seagulls with different members. In 1995 he released the album The Light at the End of the World which did not perform very well commercially.


title: Mike Score

text: In 1999, Score recorded a song for the compilation album Trackspotting V, called "All I Wanna Do". It was the eighth track (out of 18) on the album, and it is credited as "Scorey".


title: Mike Score

text: In 2003, the original members of A Flock of Seagulls were brought together by VH1's Bands Reunited. They played their hit "I Ran (So Far Away)" in a unique performance in London. In an interview before the performance, it was revealed that his "seagull" or "wings" hairstyle was created when the actor tried to style his hair as David Bowie's character, Ziggy Stardust. AFOS bassist Frank Maudsley was trying to use the mirror at the same time, and put his hand on Score's head, leaving only the hair on the sides of the head up. The band's reunion apparently resolved the tension between him and his brother, Ali Score, the band's former drummer, who has been around since the end of the band.


title: Mike Score

text: On 4 February 2013, Score indicated, through his YouTube account, that he had started a solo career and on the same day, Score sent a video clip of his song "All I Wanna Do" (re-recorded, as the original). (The version is in Trackspotting V). It was released as a single on 18 February 2013, on Right Track Records. The genre of the track is ambient electronica. Score planned to release a solo album soon after, but in July 2013, the van used by Score and his musicians was stolen from a Comfort Inn in Downey, California. The van contained Score's equipment, clothing and hard drives containing the album tracks. The next day, the van was found with nothing inside. The hard drives containing the audio files have been recovered.


title: Mike Score

text: In January 2014, Score released his second single entitled "Somebody Like You". On 1 March 2014, Score released Zeebratta, his first studio album.


title: Mike Score

text: On 3 May 2018, it was announced that the original four members of the band would meet again to record a new album entitled Ascension, their first studio recording since 1984. Featuring the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, it will be a 10-track album composed of exclusive songs. versions of his previous hits and a new song. The video for "Space Age Love Song" debuted on YouTube on 6 June, and a five-track EP featuring five versions of the song was released digitally two days later.


title: Mike Score

text: On 12 July 2019, the original members got together again for another album, Inflight (The Extended Essentials), this time the band reworked their original hits and extended them in a 12 ”remix style from the 80s Ten new recordings, expanded to fill the imagination of dreamers around the world, which is now available in physical and digital stores.


title: Mike Score

text: Mike brought the band a unique New Romantic style, infusing futuristic footprints through synthesizers, vocal tones and science-fiction costumes to create their trademark image. Mike was known for his signature back combed haircut which resembled a 'waterfall'. In an interview for Classic Pop, Mike was quoted as saying "My mom used to say, 'Don't copy people, try to be yourself because then people will remember you". He went onto to say "There was a little bit of David Bowie and Alice Cooper in the band's appearance, without copying them". It was reported that the 'Winged' haircut originated when the band was due to do a show in Trinidad. Whilst in the dressing room before the performance, Mike was combing his hair back when Frank Maudsley hurriedly pushed him away from the mirror only for his hair to fall forward at the front and stay up at the sides.


title: Mike Score

text: Mike Score has large guitar collections that he has used over the years, each used to play a different song, among them we can highlight his red Yamaha SG1000 that he used a lot for songs like Man Made and Pick Me Up, another The guitar used a lot by Score was the Gibson Moderne Electric Guitar which was used a lot by Mike at the beginning of the band, he used this guitar to play songs like Telecommunication and others. Other guitars also used by Mike were guitars like a blue Aria Pro II ZZ Deluxe, which was very marked for being used at the US Festival in 1983, Mike performed this guitar to perform several songs and was one of the most used by Score in the 1980s, another one that Mike used a lot after 1984 was a black Fender Telecaster. He currently uses a black Fender Made in Japan Modern Telecaster HH.


title: Mike Score

text: Score became famous for his riffs with the synthesizer, creating unique sounds, which brought a great mark to his style of composition. Among the various synthesizers in its collection we can highlight the Korg Delta, Korg MS-10, Roland Jupiter-8 Synthesizer, Roland Juno-60, Roland SH-101 Synthesizer, Ensoniq TS-10, Roland SH-09 Synthesizer, Roland Fantom-X6 and among others that have been used throughout the extensive musical career that Mike Score has carried since the late 1970s.


title: Mike Score

text: Mike Score lives in Florida with his wife, both of whom travel regularly between the US and Liverpool with their boats. Score has been married four times, currently being married to Ceena Score since June 25, 2012. Score has a child from his first marriage.


title: Instant Karma!

text: "Instant Karma!" (also titled "Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)") is a song by English rock musician John Lennon, released as a single on Apple Records in February 1970. The lyrics focus on a concept in which the consequences of one's actions are immediate rather than borne out over a lifetime. The single was credited to "Lennon/Ono with the Plastic Ono Band", apart from in the US, where the credit was "John Ono Lennon". The song reached the top five in the British and American singles charts, competing with the Beatles' "Let It Be" in the US, where it became the first solo single by a member of the band to sell a million copies.


title: Instant Karma!

text: "Instant Karma!" was conceived, written, recorded and released within a period of ten days, making it one of the fastest-released songs in pop music history. The recording was produced by Phil Spector, marking a comeback for the American producer after his self-imposed retirement in 1966, and leading to him being offered the producer's role on the Beatles' "Let It Be" album. Recorded at London's EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios), "Instant Karma!" employs Spector's signature Wall of Sound technique and features contributions from George Harrison, Klaus Voormann, Alan White and Billy Preston. The B-side was "Who Has Seen the Wind?", a song composed and performed by Ono. When released in the US, the single was given a minor remix by Spector.


title: Instant Karma!

text: Recently shorn of the long hair synonymous with their 1969 campaign for world peace, Lennon and Ono promoted the single with an appearance on Britain's "Top of the Pops" five days after its release. The song received positive reviews and is considered by some music critics to be among the finest recordings from Lennon's solo career. A live performance recorded at his and Ono's "One to One" concerts in August 1972 was included on the posthumously released "Live in New York City" (1986). Paul Weller, Duran Duran and U2 are among the acts who have covered "Instant Karma!" Its chorus also inspired the title to Stephen King's 1977 novel "The Shining".


title: Instant Karma!

text: Together with his wife, Yoko Ono, John Lennon spent New Year 1970 in Aalborg, Denmark, establishing a relationship with Ono's former husband, artist Tony Cox, and visiting Cox and Ono's daughter Kyoko. The visit coincided with the start of what Lennon termed "Year 1 AP (After Peace)", following his and Ono's heavily publicised Bed-Ins and other peace-campaign activities throughout 1969. To mark the new era, on 20 January 1970, the couple shaved off their shoulder-length hair – an act that Britain's "Daily Mirror" described as "the most sensational scalpings since the Red Indians went out of business". Having been recognised for his peace efforts in a segment on ITV's "Man of the Decade" documentary, and then chosen as "Rolling Stone" magazine's "Man of the Year" for 1969, Lennon said he cut his hair to "stop being hyped by revolutionary image and long hair". Lennon and Ono promised to auction the shorn hair for a charitable cause. This pledge followed the couple's announcement, on 5 January, that they would donate all future royalties from their recordings to the peace movement.


title: Instant Karma!

text: While in Denmark, the Lennons, Cox and the latter's current partner, Melinde Kendall, discussed the concept of "instant karma", whereby the causality of one's actions is immediate rather than borne out over a lifetime. Author Philip Norman writes of the concept's appeal: "The idea was quintessential Lennon – the age-old Buddhist law of cause and effect turned into something as modern and synthetic as instant coffee and, simultaneously, into a bogey under the stairs that can get you if you don't watch out." On 27 January, two days after returning to the UK, Lennon woke up with the beginnings of a song inspired by his conversations with Cox and Kendall. Working at home on a piano, he developed the idea and came up with a melody for the composition, which he titled "Instant Karma!"


title: Instant Karma!

text: Lennon completed the writing of "Instant Karma!" in an hour. Eager to record the song immediately, he then telephoned his Beatles bandmate George Harrison and American producer Phil Spector, who was in London at the invitation of Allen Klein, the manager of the Beatles' Apple Corps organisation. According to Lennon's recollection, he told Spector: "Come over to Apple quick, I've just written a monster."


title: Instant Karma!

text: The song employs a descending three-note melodic progression similar to "Three Blind Mice" and an intro reminiscent of "Some Other Guy". Lennon had used a similar-sounding chord progression in the Beatles' 1967 single "All You Need Is Love". Later in 1970, he would adopt the melody of "Three Blind Mice", an English nursery rhyme, for his song "My Mummy's Dead".


title: Instant Karma!

text: In their book "The Words and Music of John Lennon", Ben Urish and Kenneth Bielen write that in the first verse of "Instant Karma!", Lennon employs sarcasm as he urges the listener to "Get yourself together / Pretty soon you're gonna be dead" and emphasises "It's up to you – yeah, you!" Norman comments on the "hippie catchphrase of the moment" contained in this instruction to "Get yourself together", and he says that the warning of imminent death is "obviously not to be taken literally". Author Mark Hertsgaard cites the lines "Why in the world are we here / Surely not to live in pain and fear?" as a further example of Lennon "asking what purpose his life on earth was to serve", after his 1966 composition "Strawberry Fields Forever". According to Urish and Bielen, "Instant Karma!" conveys the need to recognise and act upon a shared responsibility for the wellbeing of humankind; the karmic rewards of this mindset are available to all, as implied in Lennon's exhortation to "Come and get your share". The same authors pair the song with Lennon and Ono's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" single from 1971, in terms of how the singer "both prods and challenges listeners before providing reassurance".


title: Instant Karma!

text: As with "Give Peace a Chance" and "Power to the People" – Lennon singles from 1969 and 1971 respectively – the chorus has an anthem-like quality, as he sings: "We all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun." Norman describes the chorus as Lennon restating his message of "peace campaigning and non-violent, optimistic togetherness". According to Lennon biographer John Blaney, the song is an appeal "for mankind to take responsibility for its fate" and represents "Lennon developing his own brand of egalitarianism".


title: Instant Karma!

text: Although still officially a member of the Beatles, Lennon had privately announced his departure from the band in September 1969. He was keen to issue "Instant Karma!" immediately as a single, the third under his and Ono's Plastic Ono Band moniker. The recording session took place at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) in north-west London, on the evening of 27 January. Lennon's fellow musicians at the session were Harrison, Klaus Voormann, Alan White and Billy Preston – all of whom had performed at the December 1969 Peace for Christmas Concert, as part of the Plastic Ono Supergroup. The recording engineer for "Instant Karma!" was EMI mainstay Phil McDonald. Spector produced the session, arriving late after Harrison had found him at Apple's office and persuaded him to attend.


title: Instant Karma!

text: According to author Bruce Spizer, the line-up for the basic track, before overdubs, was Lennon (vocals, acoustic guitar), Harrison (electric guitar), Preston (organ), Voormann (bass) and White (drums). Lennon later recalled of the recording: "Phil (Spector) came in and said, 'How do you want it?' And I said, '1950s' and he said 'Right' and BOOM! ... he played it back and there it was." The song uses a similar amount of echo to 1950s Sun Records recordings.


title: Instant Karma!

text: The musicians recorded ten takes, the last of which was selected for overdubbing. To create what Spector biographer Mark Ribowsky terms a "four-man Wall of Sound" production, Lennon added grand piano onto the basic track, while Harrison and White shared another piano and Voormann played electric piano. In addition, Beatles aide Mal Evans overdubbed chimes (or tubular bells) and White added a second, muffled drum part. Rather than an instrumental solo over the third verse, Lennon vocalised a series of what Urish and Bielen term "grunts and moans". Lennon felt that the chorus was missing something, and so Preston and Evans were sent to a nearby nightclub to bring in a group of people to provide backing vocals. These newcomers and all the musicians, along with Allen Klein, then added chorus vocals, with Harrison directing the singing.


title: Instant Karma!

text: Although Lennon and Spector disagreed over the bass sound, Lennon was delighted with the producer's work on "Instant Karma!" White's drums assumed the role of a lead instrument, positioned prominently in the mix. Spector biographer Richard Williams wrote in 1972: "No Beatles record had ever possessed such a unique sound; Spector had used echo to make the drums reverberate like someone slapping a wet fish on a marble slab, and the voices sounded hollow and decayed." Spector wanted to add a string section to the track in Los Angeles, but Lennon insisted that the recording was complete.


title: Instant Karma!

text: Having only recently returned to producing, after the commercial failure of Ike & Tina Turner's 1966 single "River Deep – Mountain High" in America, Spector had "passed the audition", according to "Beatles Forever" author Nicholas Schaffner. "Instant Karma!" was the first of many Beatles-related recordings that Spector worked on during the early 1970s. Lennon and Harrison were sufficiently impressed with his production on the song that they asked Spector to work on the tapes for the Beatles' final album release, "Let It Be", and then to produce their respective 1970 solo albums, "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band" and "All Things Must Pass".


title: Instant Karma!

text: "Instant Karma!" ranks as one of the fastest-released songs in pop music history, arriving in UK record stores just ten days after it was written. Apple Records' tagline in trade advertisements for the single read: "Ritten, Recorded, Remixed 27th Jan 1970." Lennon remarked to the press that he "wrote it for breakfast, recorded it for lunch, and we're putting it out for dinner". Apple issued the single on 6 February 1970 in Britain – credited to the Plastic Ono Band – and on 20 February in America, where the A-side was retitled "Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)" and credited to John Ono Lennon. Spector remixed "Instant Karma!" for the US release without Lennon's knowledge. Continuing the approach of the Plastic Ono Band's previous singles, "Give Peace a Chance" and "Cold Turkey", the B-side was an Ono composition, in this case "Who Has Seen the Wind?"


title: Instant Karma!

text: As with "Cold Turkey", the single's standard Apple Records A-side face label carried the words "PLAY LOUD", in both the UK and America. Reflecting the tender sound of "Who Has Seen the Wind?", the B-side label read "PLAY QUIET" (or "PLAY SOFT" in the US). The front of the US picture sleeve featured a black-and-white photo of Lennon along with a prominent producer's credit for Spector, while the reverse had a similar picture of Ono.


title: Instant Karma!

text: Following a year of highly publicised peace campaigning by the Lennons in 1969, Apple press officer Derek Taylor was concerned that they had exhausted the media's interest in their causes. On 4 February 1970, Lennon and Ono staged a publicity stunt at the Black Centre in north London, where they donated a large plastic bag full of their hair, along with Apple's poster for the new single, to black power activist Michael X, in return for a pair of Muhammad Ali's bloodstained boxing shorts. The "final proof" of the Lennons' "overexpose[ure]", according to Taylor, was that there was a large press turnout for the event, yet "nobody printed anything".


title: Instant Karma!

text: On 11 February, Lennon and Ono filmed an appearance on BBC Television's "Top of the Pops" to promote "Instant Karma!", accompanied by White, Voormann, Evans and BP Fallon. While the other musicians mimed their contributions, Lennon sang a live vocal over a mix of the song's instrumental track, prepared by EMI engineer Geoff Emerick. This was the first appearance on the program by any member of the Beatles since 1966, as well as the public unveiling of the Lennons' new cropped look. Two versions of "Instant Karma!" – known as "knitting" and "cue card" – were taped for "Top of the Pops", and aired on 12 and 19 February, respectively.


title: Instant Karma!

text: The clips differ from one another in terms of Lennon's attire and the nature of Ono's role as, in author Robert Rodriguez's description, "an onstage focal point around which all activity was staged". In addition, for the 19 February broadcast, Lennon's vocal was treated with echo. In the "knitting" clip, Lennon is wearing a black polo-neck jumper as Ono sits beside his piano, blindfolded, and knitting throughout. In "cue card", Lennon wears a flower-pattern shirt under a denim jacket, while Ono, seated on a stool, holds up a series of cryptically worded cue cards and speaks into her microphone. The cards' messages include "Smile", "Hope" and "Peace". Although Ono appears to have a more active role, she is again blindfolded and the words she utters cannot be heard.


title: Instant Karma!

text: Lennon and Ono also promoted the single with an appearance on Emperor Rosko's BBC Radio 1 show "Midday Spin", shortly after the "cue card" clip aired. In response to the many letters asking about her role in the "Top of the Pops" performance, Ono said: "the blindfold means to me like everybody in the world is like blind ... the stool was like a grove ... And everybody's sitting on the grove blindfolded and trying their best, you know." Rodriguez describes both clips as "terrifically engaging, providing suitably dynamic visuals to a powerful song". He says that the "cue card" performance "captures much more of the ambience, with frequent shots of White's stellar work and the studio dancers". In the view of media analyst Michael Frontani, Lennon and Ono's untidy, cropped hairstyle befitted the couple's "new agenda" for 1970 – a year in which Lennon, still mistrusted by the political left for his rejection of their principles in the Beatles' 1968 single "Revolution", sought "greater confrontation with the system". Frontani writes of Lennon's appearance on "Top of the Pops": "This was a stark picture, one at odds with his Beatles past. For Lennon, ragged and ugly in comparison to the Beatle image, it was a means of breaking even more fully with his pop star past."


title: Instant Karma!

text: "Instant Karma!" was commercially successful, peaking at number 3 on America's "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, number 2 in Canada, and number 5 on the UK Singles Chart. The single also reached the top ten in several other European countries and in Australia. The release took place two months before Paul McCartney announced the break-up of the Beatles, whose penultimate single, the George Martin-produced "Let It Be", Lennon's record competed with on the US charts. "Instant Karma!" went on to become the first single by a solo Beatle to achieve US sales of 1 million, earning gold certification by the Recording Industry Association of America on 14 December 1970. Until Lennon's death in December 1980, "Instant Karma!" remained his sole RIAA-certified gold single.


title: Instant Karma!

text: Despite the stated intentions for Lennon and Ono's Year 1 AP, the proceeds from the auctioning of their hair benefited Michael X's Black House commune rather than the peace movement; according to "Beatles Diary" author Barry Miles, the pledge to donate their royalties was also "discreetly forgotten". In March 1970, Lennon publicly split with the organisers of the planned Toronto Peace Festival, as he and Ono began treatment under Arthur Janov's Primal Therapy. Before heading to California in April for intensive therapy through the summer, Lennon accused McCartney of using the Beatles' break-up to sell his album "McCartney", and admitted that he wished that he himself had announced the break-up months before to promote his own solo release.


title: Instant Karma!

text: On release, Chris Welch of "Melody Maker" declared: "Instant hit! John Lennon is singing better than ever. With a beautiful rock 'n' roll echo chamber on his mean but meaningful vocals and some superb drumming, it makes up the Plastics' best piece of boogie yet." "Record World" listed the song first on its three "Single Picks of the Week" predictions, saying: "John Ono Lennon is now produced by Phil Spector. 'Instant Karma' ... is gonna get YOU." "Cash Box" predicted the same success, saying: "'Instant Karma' has made it to New York, full reverb blaring and Lennon's guts pouring out in a most exciting and involving manner. The song tears out with a '50s shuffle style that really makes it." Writing in the "NME" in 1975, Charles Shaar Murray wrote of the song's "volcanically desperate optimism" and rated it "a classic". Shaar Murray added, with reference to "Cold Turkey" also: "I can't remember anybody else who put out two such utter killers in a row over the same period of time."


title: Instant Karma!

text: "Village Voice" critic Robert Christgau described "Instant Karma!" as Lennon's "best political song", while some other reviewers consider it to be the artist's finest post-Beatles recording. In their 1975 book "", Roy Carr and Tony Tyler describe "Instant Karma!" as a "snappy little rocker" that "owes as much to the skilful production of Phil Spector as to the vitality of the overall performance", on which "[d]rummer Alan White excels." Another to highlight White's drumming amid the "collective genius" of all the musicians on "Instant Karma!", author Robert Rodriguez concludes of Lennon's activities on 27 January 1970: "Not many days in the history of rock and roll proved as everlastingly fruitful." In 1981, "NME" critic Bob Woffinden wrote of the single: "It was excellent. Lennon was characteristically simple and direct, but this time on a song with one of those magically catchy refrains."


title: Instant Karma!

text: Among Lennon biographers, Jon Wiener praises Lennon's "rich, deep voice" on a recording where the sound is "irresistible". Philip Norman describes the song as "similar to 'Cold Turkey' in tempo but far more relaxed and humorous", adding that Spector's production gave Lennon's voice "a taut expressiveness it had not had since 'Norwegian Wood'". While noting the significance of the session for George Harrison's career, author Simon Leng praises the recording as being "full of urgency and sheer excitement".


title: Instant Karma!

text: In 1989, "Rolling Stone" ranked "Instant Karma!" the 79th best single of the previous 25 years. In "NME Originals: Beatles – The Solo Years 1970–1980", David Stubbs lists the song second among Lennon's "ten solo gems" (behind "Cold Turkey"), with the comment: "'Instant Karma!' epitomises the Lennon paradox, melding hippie idealism and rock'n'roll primal energy in an exhilarating mix." Matt Melis of Consequence of Sound placed it third on his 2009 list of "Top Ten Songs by Ex-Beatles". According to the website Acclaimed Music, "Instant Karma!" has also appeared in the following critics' best-songs lists and books, among others: Dave Marsh's "The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made" (1989; at number 638), "1000 Songs that Rock Your World" by Dave Thompson (2011; number 56), the "NME"s "The 100 Best Songs of the 1970s" (2012; number 77), and "Q" magazine's "The 1001 Best Songs Ever" (2003; number 193). The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame includes the track among its "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".


title: Instant Karma!

text: "Instant Karma!"'s first appearance on a Lennon album, albeit slightly edited in length, was the 1975 compilation "Shaved Fish". Urish and Bielen observe that the "advertising hyperbole" inherent in the song's title, through the inclusion of an exclamation mark, is given extra emphasis on this album cover. The song has featured – often with the full title "Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)" – on numerous posthumous compilations, including "The John Lennon Collection" (1982), the "Lennon" box set (1990), "" (1997), "" (2005) and "" (2010).


title: Instant Karma!

text: Lennon played "Instant Karma!" at his last full-length concert performance – the One to One benefit shows held at Madison Square Garden, New York, on 30 August 1972. His backing band comprised the group Elephant's Memory, in addition to Ono and drummer Jim Keltner. The 1986 album and video "Live in New York City" contains the afternoon performance of the song.


title: Instant Karma!

text: In July 1992, "Instant Karma!" was re-released as a single in the Netherlands, backed by "Oh My Love". Originally, copies of it were given away with early editions of "The John Lennon Video Collection". When released in the rest of Europe (barring the UK), this single reissue gained two extra B-sides: "Mother" and "Bless You".


title: Instant Karma!

text: Of the two 1970 "Top of the Pops" performances, the "cue card" version appeared on "The John Lennon Video Collection" in October 1992, while the "knitting" performance was remixed and extended for release on the (2003). The "knitting" version was also included on the 2003 UK reissue of Lennon and Ono's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" single, released on 8 December that year.


title: Instant Karma!

text: Artists who have covered "Instant Karma!" include Toad the Wet Sprocket, Paul Weller, Duran Duran, Tater Totz with Cherie Currie and Tokio Hotel. In 2007, the song provided the title for Amnesty International's multi-artist compilation of Lennon compositions, "", for which U2 recorded a cover version.


title: Instant Karma!

text: The title of Stephen King's 1977 horror novel "The Shining" came from Lennon's line "We all shine on". King was going to call the book "The Shine", before realising that "shine" had been used as a derogatory term for black people.


title: Instant Karma!

text: In 1988, Ono allowed the footwear and apparel company Nike to feature "Instant Karma!" in an advertising campaign, after a public outcry the previous year had forced her to withdraw permission for the use of the Beatles' "Revolution". Instant Karma Records was named after the song, and the Flaming Lips recorded their track "I Don't Understand Karma" in 2009 as a reply to "Instant Karma!"


title: Vehicle category

text: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Information from Consolidated Resolution on the Construction of Vehicles (R.E.3), Revision 6.<ref name="ECE/TRANS/WP.29/78/Rev.6"></ref>


title: Vehicle category

text: Some categories have further sub classes. See Consolidated Resolution on the Construction of Vehicles (R.E.3) for further information.


title: Vehicle category

text: Vehicles in the table listed within parentheses are examples of the vehicle in that category, e.g. (Bus).


title: Vehicle category

text: In the European Union, the classifications for vehicle category are based on UNECE standards and defined by:


title: Vehicle category

text: The table below shows a translation of Vehicle Categories to European Driving Licence Categories, indicating which vehicle class can be driven with which category of licence.


title: Vehicle category

text: In the Czech Republic, land vehicle categories are defined by the act No. 56/2001 Sb. and the ordinance No. 341/2002 Sb. Categories M (including M1, M2, M3), N (including N1, N2, N3), of-road symbol G of M and N vehicles (M1G, M2G, M3G, N1G, N2G, N3G) and the category O (including O1, O2, O3 and O4) are defined according to the EU directive. Moreover, there are defined categories:


title: Crayfish as food

text: Crayfish are eaten all over the world. Like other edible crustaceans, only a small portion of the body of a crayfish is edible. In most prepared dishes, such as soups, bisques and étouffées, only the tail portion is served. At crawfish boils or other meals where the entire body of the crayfish is presented, other portions, such as the claw meat, may be eaten.


title: Crayfish as food

text: Claws of larger boiled specimens are often pulled apart to access the meat inside. Another favorite is to suck the head of the crayfish, as seasoning and flavor can collect in the fat of the boiled interior.


title: Crayfish as food

text: Australia is home to genus "Cherax" which is distinct from European, Asian and North and South American species. Two of the Australian edible crayfish are the common yabby ("C. destructor") and the red claw ("C. quadricarinatus"). The common yabby is closest in size to the North American species, but is not considered to be commercially viable outside Australia because of its relatively slow growth and small size. The "red claw" crayfish are twice the size of North American crayfish and they contain 30% edible "meat" compared to 15% for "P. clarkii". Other Australian species are fairly rare and thus usually are not used for food. Their slow growth generally makes them inefficient for aquaculture.


title: Crayfish as food

text: The culinary popularity of crayfish swept across mainland China in the late 1990s. Crayfish is generally served with Mala flavor (a combined flavor of Sichuan pepper and hot chili) or otherwise plainly steamed whole, to be eaten with a preferred sauce. In Beijing, the "ma la" flavored crayfish () is shortened to "ma xiao" () and is often enjoyed with beer in a hot mid-summer evening.


title: Crayfish as food

text: In France, dishes with a base or garnish of crayfish (') are frequently described as ' (in the style of Nantua).


title: Crayfish as food

text: Crayfish tails and butter are also used to flavor the Nantua sauce commonly served with quenelles. Crayfish and fried eggs are the historically common garnish for chicken Marengo, although they are often omitted today.


title: Crayfish as food

text: An invasive species, the Marbled crayfish are eaten in Madagascar. This species is parthenogenic where the eggs hatch without fertilisation, meaning that they are all clones of each other. Human interest in consuming them may be helping them to spread 100-fold from 2007 to 2017.


title: Crayfish as food

text: The Mexican crayfish locally named acocil was a very important nutrition source of the ancient Mexican Aztec culture. Other regional names for crayfish are chacales, chacalines and langostinos. Today, crayfish is consumed mainly boiled, similarly to crayfish dishes in other parts of the world, or prepared with typically Mexican sauces and condiments, particularly in central and southern Mexico. Traditional preparations include soups, tacos and "cocktails" similar to shrimp dishes.


title: Crayfish as food

text: Crayfish are usually smoked, and occasionally sun-dried, and they form an indispensable food item in the diet of the people of the entire southern states in particular and Nigeria as a whole. It is a core of Nigerian cooking.


title: Crayfish as food

text: Crayfish is a popular dish in Sweden and Finland, and is by tradition primarily consumed at a crayfish party, called "kräftskiva", during the fishing season in August. The boil is typically flavored with salt, sugar, ale, and large quantities of stems and flowers of the dill plant. While most Americans eat them warm, the Swedes and Finns normally eat them cold after letting them sit in a brine over night. One traditional Swedish and Finnish practice is to eat crayfish with a vodka or akvavit chaser. Most crayfish in Sweden are fished by professional fishermen or by lakeside property owners. The only lake where crayfish fishing is not limited to professionals and landowners is in Lake Vättern. The catch of domestic freshwater crayfish, "Astacus astacus", and even of a transplanted American species, "Pacifastacus leniusculus", is very limited, and to satisfy demand, the majority of what is consumed has to be imported. Sales depended on imports from Spain and Turkey for several decades, but after a decline in supply, China and the United States are today the biggest sources of import.


title: Crayfish as food

text: In Russia and Ukraine, crayfish (', sing. ') are a traditional seasonal appetizer that is used as an accompaniment to beer and liquor. Although native varieties tend to be larger (usually, "Astacus astacus"), rampant freshwater pollution and years of overfishing largely limit availability to imports—most from Armenia, Kazakhstan and China. Prior to cooking, the crustaceans are soaked in water or milk, then boiled live for 7–15 minutes in rapidly boiling salted water with additional ingredients, such as carrots, onion, dill, parsley, bay leaf, peppercorns. More extravagant preparations include such ingredients as white wine, beer, sour cream, cloves, caraway seed, coriander seed, chili peppers, stinging nettle, etc. Russians rarely incorporate crayfish into complex dishes and, unlike other cultures, they usually consume the entire crayfish, short of the shell and the antennae. Russian and Ukrainian fascination with crayfish goes back quite far and generates considerable lore. An old proverb: "When there is no fish, even crayfish is a fish." There are as many myth associated with picking the freshest live crayfish as there are for picking ripe watermelons. Russians and Ukrainians, generally, will not cook fresh crayfish if the crustaceans are dead or perceptibly lethargic. (But pre-boiled frozen specimens are acceptable.)


title: Crayfish as food

text: In Spain, crayfish is called ' (lit. "river crab"). They used to be widely consumed, especially in Castile and León and Aragon, but over-fishing and the introduction of non-native crayfish species (e.g. "Procambarus clarkii", commonly called ') led to a dramatic decline in crayfish population. Nowadays they remain as a seasonal delicacy, usually stewed in tomato sauce, although fishing the native crayfish is strictly forbidden since the species is nearly extinct. Instead of the native crayfish, it is common to fish "Procambarus clarkii" or "Pacifastacus leniusculus", also present in most of the Spanish rivers.


title: Crayfish as food

text: In the United States, crayfish are often referred to as "crawfish", "crawdads", "fiddlers", "crawdaddies", or "mudbugs". As of 2018, 93% of crawfish farms in the US were located in Louisiana. In 1987, Louisiana produced 90% of the crayfish harvested in the world, 70% of which were consumed locally. In 2007, the Louisiana crayfish harvest was about 54,800 tons, almost all of it from aquaculture. About 70%–80% of crayfish produced in Louisiana are "Procambarus clarkii" (red swamp crawfish), with the remaining 20%–30% being "Procambarus zonangulus" (white river crawfish). Despite the large-scale production in Louisiana, most frozen crayfish available in supermarkets in other states are Chinese imports. As early as 2003, Asian farms and fisheries produced more red swamp crayfish ("P. clarkii") than the Americas, and this trend accelerated in subsequent years. By 2018, "P. clarkii" crawfish production in the Americas represented just 4% of total global "P. clarkii" supply, with Asian production accounting for the rest.


title: Crayfish as food

text: In Louisiana, Mississippi, and Southeast Texas, crayfish are generally served at a gathering known as a crawfish boil. The crayfish are usually boiled live in a large pot with heavy seasoning (salt, cayenne pepper, lemon, garlic, bay leaves, etc.) and other items such as potatoes, corn on the cob, onions, garlic, mushrooms, turkey necks, and sausage. There are many differing methods used to season a crawfish boil, and a wide variety of opinions on which one is best. Other popular dishes in the Cajun and Creole cuisines of Louisiana include crawfish étouffée, fried crawfish, crawfish pie, crawfish dressing, crawfish bread, crawfish bisque and crawfish beignets.


title: Crayfish as food

text: The Cherokee people have a long tradition of catching crawdads by gigging. The crawdads are cleaned, then soaked, "in hot water with about one tablespoon of salt." The crawdads are lightly breaded with cornmeal before frying, and seasoned with salt and pepper.


title: Crayfish as food

text: Like all crustaceans, crawfish are not kosher because they are aquatic animals that have neither fins nor scales. They are therefore not eaten by observant Jews.


title: Crayfish as food

text: Boiling a crayfish alive is considered by many to be inhumane, and protests against this have been increasing. In 2018, Switzerland was the first country to ban the live boiling of lobsters.


title: Crayfish as food

text: Norway, Austria, New Zealand and some Australian territories also place restrictions on the inhumane treatment of lobsters. Cities in Germany and Italy also have explicitly banned the practice of boiling lobsters alive.


title: Crayfish as food

text: In 2021, a study conducted by experts from the London School of Economics concluded there was "strong scientific evidence decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs are sentient". This will probably result in a ban on the boiling of live lobsters in UK under proposed legislation.


title: Red Swoosh

text: Red Swoosh was a peer-to-peer file sharing company founded by Travis Kalanick and Michael Todd in 2001 and acquired by Akamai Technologies in 2007. The Red Swoosh technology included a centralized directory that indexed online clients and caches. The software downloads and sideloads video multicasts from websites that support the Red Swoosh technology. The Red Swoosh peercasting tool is a browser extension that caches data, reflecting and sharing files delivered through the "Swoosh network" or Distributed Network.


title: Red Swoosh

text: Red Swoosh utilizes a proprietary, peer-to-peer (P2P) file distribution protocol designed for bandwidth efficiency in the transfer of large media files.


title: Red Swoosh

text: The company offers a software development kit (SDK) for third-party development. This includes support for predelivery, RSS feeds, web widgets, and JavaScript applications. There is also a forum and a wiki available for the developer community.


title: Red Swoosh

text: On April 12, 2007, Red Swoosh was acquired in an all-stock transaction by Akamai Technologies. The acquisition was valued at approximately $19 million (not including earn-outs).


title: Pinus longaeva

text: Pinus longaeva (commonly referred to as the Great Basin bristlecone pine, intermountain bristlecone pine, or western bristlecone pine) is a long-living species of bristlecone pine tree found in the higher mountains of California, Nevada, and Utah. Methuselah is a bristlecone pine that is years old and has been credited as the oldest known living non-clonal organism on Earth. To protect it, the exact location of this tree is kept secret. In 1987, the bristlecone pine was designated one of Nevada's state trees.


title: Pinus longaeva

text: It is a medium-size tree, reaching tall and with a trunk diameter of up to . The bark is bright orange-yellow, thin and scaly at the base of the trunk. The needles are in fascicles of five, stout, long, deep green to blue-green on the outer face, with stomata confined to a bright white band on the inner surfaces. The leaves show the longest persistence of any plant, with some remaining green for 45 years (Ewers & Schmid 1981).


title: Pinus longaeva

text: The cones are ovoid-cylindrical, long and broad when closed, green or purple at first, ripening orange-buff when 16 months old, with numerous thin, fragile scales, each scale with a bristle-like spine long. The cones open to broad when mature, releasing the seeds immediately after opening. The seeds are long, with a wing; they are mostly dispersed by the wind, but some are also dispersed by Clark's nutcrackers.


title: Pinus longaeva

text: These ancient trees have a gnarled and stunted appearance, especially those found at high altitudes, and have reddish-brown bark with deep fissures. As the tree ages, much of its vascular cambium layer may die. In very old specimens, often only a narrow strip of living tissue connects the roots to a handful of live branches.


title: Pinus longaeva

text: The Great Basin bristlecone pine differs from the Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine in that the needles of the former always have two uninterrupted resin canals, so it lacks the characteristic small white resin flecks appearing on the needles of the latter. The Great Basin bristlecone pine differs from the foxtail pine because the cone bristles of the former are over long, and the cones have a more rounded (not conic) base. The green pine needles give the twisted branches a bottle-brush appearance. The name 'bristlecone pine' refers to the dark purple female cones that bear incurved prickles on their surface.


title: Pinus longaeva

text: The species occurs in Utah, Nevada and eastern California. In California, it is restricted to the White Mountains, the Inyo Mountains, and the Panamint Range, in Mono and Inyo counties. In Nevada, it is found in most of the higher ranges of the Basin and Range from the Spring Mountains near Las Vegas north to the Ruby Mountains, and in Utah, northeast to South Tent in the Wasatch Range. Due to the inaccessibility of many of the sites that this species occupies, information on their location and abundance is incomplete, and thus is needed.  Environmental niche modelling has been used to better map the distribution of Great Basin bristlecone pine using topographic and spectral variables calculated from a geographic information system (GIS).


title: Pinus longaeva

text: The tree grows in large open stands, unlike the related foxtail pine, which sometimes form dense forests. "Pinus longaeva" trees generally do not form closed canopies, usually covering only 15-50%. "Pinus longaeva" shares habitats with a number of other pine species, including the ponderosa pine, the white fir and, notably, the limber pine, a similarly long-lived high-elevation species. The tree is a "vigorous" primary succession species, growing quickly on new open ground. It is a "poor competitor" in good soils, however, and the species does best in harsh terrain. "Pinus longaeva" is often the dominant species in high-elevation dolomite soils, where few plants can grow.


title: Pinus longaeva

text: Bristlecone pines are protected in a number of areas owned by the United States federal government, such as the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the White Mountains of California and the Great Basin National Park in Nevada. These areas prohibit the cutting or gathering of wood.


title: Pinus longaeva

text: Clark's nutcrackers pluck "P. longaeva" seeds out of the opening cones. The nutcrackers use the seeds as a food resource, storing many for later use in the ground, and some of these stored seeds are not used and are able to grow into new plants.


title: Pinus longaeva

text: An introduced fungal disease known as white pine blister rust ("Cronartium ribicola") is believed to affect some individuals. The species was placed on the IUCN Red List and listed as "Vulnerable", or threatened, in 1998. In 2011, however, a population survey found the population of "Pinus longaeva" to be stable, with no known subpopulations decreasing in size. White pine blister rust was found to have a negligible effect on the population. As a result, the species was moved to "Least Concern".


title: Pinus longaeva

text: The tree is extremely susceptible to fire, and is damaged by even low-intensity burns. The resinous bark is capable of igniting quickly, and a crown fire will almost certainly kill the tree. However, populations of "Pinus longaeva" are known to be extremely resilient, and as a primary succession species, it is believed that populations of the tree would reestablish itself quickly after a fire. That said, large-scale fires are extremely uncommon where the species grows, and are not a major factor in the species' long-term viability. Historically, "Pinus longaeva" stands experienced low to high severity fires, and fuels structures changed considerably across elevational gradients. In low elevation, mixed species stands, fuels are often heavy and in close proximity to anthropogenic ignition sources. Yet at high elevations near treeline, "Pinus longaeva" typically grow on limestone outcroppings that provide little or no surface fuels to propagate a wildfire. However, warmer temperatures will likely increase the duration of fire season, and thus the frequency of fire in "Pinus longeava" systems at low and mid elevations could increase where stands are typically denser and surface fuel is greatest. While rare, wild fires such as The Carpenter 1 fire in southern Nevada (July 2013) and the Phillips Fire in Great Basin National Park, (September 2000) that started in lower elevation fuel types and moved through the crowns of trees with the aid of extreme fire weather, could become more likely.


title: Pinus longaeva

text: A specimen located in the White Mountains of California was measured by Tom Harlan, a researcher with the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, to be 5,062 years old as of 2010. This would make it the oldest known non-clonal tree in the world. The identity of the specimen was kept secret by Harlan. Harlan passed away in 2013, and neither the tree nor the core Harlan studied have been found, making the age or existence of this tree unable to be confirmed.


title: Pinus longaeva

text: The confirmed oldest tree of this species, "Methuselah", is also located in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest of the White Mountains. Methuselah is years old, as measured by annual ring count on a small core taken with an increment borer. Its exact location is kept secret.


title: Pinus longaeva

text: Among the White Mountain specimens, the oldest trees are found on north-facing slopes, with an average of 2,000 years, as compared to the 1,000 year average on the southern slopes. The climate and the durability of their wood can preserve them long after death, with dead trees as old as 7,000 years persisting next to live ones.


title: Buffer state

text: A buffer state is a country geographically lying between two rival or potentially hostile great powers. Its existence can sometimes be thought to prevent conflict between them. A buffer state is sometimes a mutually agreed upon area lying between two greater powers, which is demilitarized in the sense of not hosting the military of either power (though it will usually have its own military forces). The invasion of a buffer state by one of the powers surrounding it will often result in war between the powers.


title: Buffer state

text: Research shows that buffer states are significantly more likely to be conquered and occupied than are nonbuffer states. This is because "states that great powers have an interest in preserving—buffer states—are in fact in a high-risk group for death. Regional or great powers surrounding buffer states face a strategic imperative to take over buffer states: if these powers fail to act against the buffer, they fear that their opponent will take it over instead. By contrast, these concerns do not apply to nonbuffer states, where powers face no competition for influence or control."


title: Buffer state

text: Buffer states, when authentically independent, typically pursue a neutralist foreign policy, which distinguishes them from satellite states. The concept of buffer states is part of a theory of the balance of power that entered European strategic and diplomatic thinking in the 18th century.


title: Picasa

text: Picasa was a cross-platform image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, integrated with a now defunct photo-sharing website, originally created by a company named Lifescape (which at that time was incubated by Idealab) in 2002. "Picasa" is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the phrase "mi casa" (Spanish for "my house") and "pic" for pictures.


title: Picasa

text: Native applications for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and macOS were available, and for Linux, the Windows version was bundled with Wine compatibility layer. An iPhoto plugin and a standalone program for uploading photos were available for Mac OS X 10.4 and later.


title: Picasa

text: In July 2004, Google acquired Picasa from Lifescape and began offering it as freeware. On February 12, 2016, Google announced it was discontinuing support for Picasa Desktop and Picasa Web Albums, effective March 15, 2016, and focusing on the cloud-based Google Photos as its successor. Picasa Web Albums, a companion service, was closed on May 1, 2016.


title: Picasa

text: , the latest version of Picasa is 3.9, which supports Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, and has Google+ integration for users of that service. Version 3.9 also removed integration with Picasa Web Albums for users of Google+.


title: Picasa

text: Since June 2006, Linux versions have become available as free downloads for most distributions of the Linux operating system. It is not a native Linux program but an adapted Windows version that uses the Wine libraries. Google has announced that there will be no Linux version for 3.5. Currently, Google has only officially offered Picasa 3.0 Beta for Linux.


title: Picasa

text: On April 20, 2012, Google announced that they were deprecating Picasa for Linux and will no longer maintain it for Linux.


title: Picasa

text: To use latest version of Picasa on Linux, Linux users can use Wine and install Picasa for Windows. Linux users can use other programs to upload to Picasa Web Albums, including Shotwell and Digikam.


title: Picasa

text: On January 5, 2009, Google released a beta version of Picasa for Mac (Intel-based Macs only). Also, a plugin is available for iPhoto to upload to the Picasa Web Albums hosting service. There is also a standalone Picasa Web Albums uploading tools for OS X 10.4 or later. The Picasa for Mac is a Google Labs release.


title: Picasa

text: For organizing photos, Picasa has file importing and tracking features, as well as tags, facial recognition, and collections for further sorting. It also offers several basic photo editing functions, including color enhancement, red eye reduction, and cropping. Other features include slide shows, printing, and image timelines. Images can also be prepared for external use, such as for e-mailing or printing, by reducing file size and setting up page layouts. There is also integration with online photo printing services. Other simple editing features include adding text to the image. Picasa supports Google's WebP image format as well as the JPG format and most Raw image format (RAW files). A user can view and edit RAW files and save the finished edit (as JPG, or other forms) without any changes to the original RAW file.


title: Picasa

text: Picasa uses picasa.ini files to keep track of keywords for each image. In addition to this, Picasa attaches IPTC Information Interchange Model (IPTC) keyword data to JPEG files, but not to any other file format. Keywords attached to JPEG files in Picasa can be read by other image library software like Adobe Photoshop Album, Adobe Bridge, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, digiKam, Aperture, and iPhoto.


title: Picasa

text: According to the Picasa Readme, Picasa can parse Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) data. However, it cannot search local files for existing XMP keywords.


title: Picasa

text: Picasa has a search bar that is always visible when viewing the library. Searches are live, so that displayed items are filtered as one types. The search bar will search filenames, captions, tags, folder names, and other metadata.


title: Picasa

text: Picasa also has an experimental feature that allows searching for images that contain certain colors with the "color" operator.


title: Picasa

text: Picasa has no separate view window. There is only an "edit view" with a viewing area. Fullscreen view is available in slideshow mode, by holding down the ctrl+alt keys while in "edit view", or by pressing the Alt Gr key. This feature is also available through the context menu of Windows Explorer, and provides a way to start the Picasa editor as well.


title: Picasa

text: In Picasa 2 and earlier versions, changes to pictures made in Picasa overwrite the original file, but a backup version of the original is saved in a hidden folder named "Originals" in the same folder as the original picture (codice_1 on Mac OS X).


title: Picasa

text: In Picasa 3, changes to pictures made in Picasa are saved to a hidden file codice_2 in the same folder as the original picture. This allows multiple edits to be performed without altering the original image. Viewing the picture in Picasa or using the Picasa Photo Viewer will apply modifications on the fly, whereas viewing through other programs (such as Windows XP's Photo and Fax Viewer) will display the original image. Changes can also be made permanent using the "Save" function, where the original file is backed up in a hidden folder codice_1 located in the same folder as the original picture and the modified version is written in its place.


title: Picasa

text: On August 15, 2006, Google announced it had acquired Neven Vision, whose technology can be used to search for features within photos such as people or buildings. Google applied this technology for face recognition, and this functionality was launched on Picasa Web Albums on September 2, 2008.


title: Picasa

text: Neven Vision incorporates several patents specifically centered around face recognition from digital photo and video images.


title: Picasa

text: Besides Google+, Picasa also integrated with Picasa Web Albums, an image hosting and sharing web service. The service allowed users with a Google account to store and share their photos on the service. Users with a Google+ account received unlimited storage for photos of a resolution less than 2048x2048 pixels; all others received unlimited storage for photos of a resolution less than 800x800.


title: Picasa

text: Hello by Google's Picasa was a free computer program that enabled users to send images across the Internet and publish them to their blogs. It was similar to an instant messaging program because it allowed users to send text, but "Hello" focused on digital photographs. Users could opt to view the same pictures as their friends in real-time. One of the advantages claimed at the website is that photos could be shared through firewalls.


title: Picasa

text: The service was canceled at the end of 2006, and users were instructed to try the Picasa "Blog This" functionality for uploading pictures to their blogs.


title: Picasa

text: On February 12, 2016, Google announced that the Picasa desktop application would be discontinued on March 15, 2016, followed by the closure of the Picasa Web Albums service on May 1, 2016. Google stated that the primary reason for retiring Picasa was that it wanted to focus its efforts "entirely on a single photos service" the cross-platform, web-based Google Photos. While support for the desktop version of Picasa is ending, Google has stated that users who have downloaded the software, or who choose to download it prior to the March 15th deadline will still be able to use its functionality, albeit with no support from Google.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: The first season of "Smallville", an American television series developed by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, began airing on October 16, 2001, on The WB television network. The series recounts the early adventures of Kryptonian Clark Kent as he adjusts to his developing superpowers in the fictional town of Smallville, Kansas, during the years before he becomes Superman. The first season comprises 21 episodes and concluded its initial airing on May 21, 2002. Regular cast members during season one include Tom Welling, Kristin Kreuk, Michael Rosenbaum, Eric Johnson, Sam Jones III, Allison Mack, Annette O'Toole, and John Schneider.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: The season's stories focus on Martha and Jonathan Kent's (O'Toole and Schneider) attempts to help their adopted son Clark (Welling) cope with his alien origin and control his developing superhuman abilities. Clark must deal with the meteor-infected individuals that begin appearing in Smallville, his love for Lana Lang (Kreuk), and not being able to tell his two best friends, Pete Ross (Jones III) and Chloe Sullivan (Mack), about his abilities or his origins. Clark also befriends Lex Luthor (Rosenbaum) after saving Lex's life. The season also follows Lex, as he tries to assert his independence from his father, Lionel Luthor (John Glover).


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: The episodes were filmed primarily in Vancouver and post-production work took place in Los Angeles. Gough and Millar assisted the writing staff with week-to-week story development. "Villain of the week" storylines were predominant during the first season; physical effects, make-up effects, and computer generated imagery became important components as well. Limited filming schedules sometimes forced guest actors to perform physical stunts, and the series regulars were more than willing to do stunt work. Episode budgets ultimately became strictly regulated, as the show frequently ran over budget during the first half of the season. The pilot broke The WB's viewership record for a debut series, and was nominated for various awards. Although the villain of the week storylines became a concern for producers, critical reception was generally favorable, and the series was noted as having a promising start. The first season was released on DVD on September 23, 2003, and included various special features that focused on individual episodes and the series as a whole. It has also been released on home media in regions 2 and 4 in the international markets.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: Ground rules for story development were established at the outset. Part of the marketing pitch, "no flights, no tights" dictated that Clark would not wear the Superman costume, nor would he fly. After initial discussion of possible storylines, a second rule decreed that Clark could never directly kill anyone. This created a dilemma since Clark must be able to defeat the "bad guys" from week to week. A solution developed in later episodes with the introduction of the Belle Reve sanitarium (Belle Reve is a Federal prison for metahumans and other supervillains in the comics).


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: After setting the ground rules, Gough and Millar conceived ideas that facilitated week-to-week story development. For example, kryptonite's role was expanded to include enhancement of the sins of the antagonist: instead of creating physical monsters, exposure to kryptonite would amplify their personal demons. This was not treated as literally in the pilot and "Metamorphosis" as it was in later episodes. In "Cool", it was "the 'cool' kid literally [becoming] cool, needing human body heat to stay alive". After several episodes, the writers developed a story that would help establish the show as more than a "villain of the week" series. The ninth episode ("Rogue"), which took longer than usual to develop due to its divergence from the standard formula, became their first "true crime story" and demonstrated that "Smallville" could include more than kryptonite-powered villains.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: "What if" episodes were another Millar-Gough concept used to generate first season storylines. These episodes posed underlying questions about Clark. Episodes would evolve from basic questions, including: "what if someone had a crush on Lana, and acted on that obsession"; "what if someone found out Clark's secret"; "what if someone else had Clark's powers?" These three questions developed into the episodes "Metamorphosis", "Rogue", and "Leech", respectively. "Stray", episode 16, answered the question, "what if Clark had been adopted by the wrong parents and his powers were exploited?" "X-Ray" director Mark Verheiden and the rest of the crew realized divergent, unrelated storylines were not the best way to create episodes for "Smallville". Verheiden believes "X-Ray" was the first episode that managed to bring all the side-stories together so that they affected characters other than Clark and Lana.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: "Hourglass" was one of the stories included in Millar and Gough's initial pitch to the network (at the time it was referred to as "Cassandra"). "Hourglass" was the first episode to present two, distinct stories: the vengeful serial killer and the second sighted Cassandra. Two significant storylines in the same episode forced the writers to spend more time developing the episode. Cassandra's "visceral vision" (as it was referred to in the script) of Lex's future was developed into color storyboards to better illustrate to the filmmakers the "blood rain" described in the text.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: When the filmmakers were dissatisfied with the initial drafts of episodes, specifically with the evolution of characters, they would rewrite events, or add scenes to re-establish the original vision. The character of Earl Jenkins (Tony Todd), intended to be a sympathetic villain, came across as "completely unlikable" in the original draft of "Jitters". The character suffers from over-exposure to kryptonite, causing massive seizures; if Jenkins happened to grab someone, they could be shaken to death. Originally, the character is first seen banging on the door of LuthorCorp and killing a security guard during one of his seizures. To present a more favorable aspect to the audience, a scene in which Earl visits his infant child was added to show that he was not a "raving maniac". Similar rewrites occurred with the characters Ryan James (Ryan Kelley) in "Stray" and Tyler Randall (Reynaldo Rosales) in "Reaper". In the original draft of "Stray", Ryan developed his telepathic abilities from exposure to kryptonite.; to emphasize the show was not always about kryptonite-infected villains, the story was revised so that Ryan had his ability from birth. The network also expressed dissatisfaction with Ryan as a murderer, so the character was rewritten to be the "nice kid". The character of Tyler Randall shared Earl Jenkins's issue: he was not sympathetic enough in the filmmakers' eyes; intended to be an escaped prisoner, he was rewritten to be "the world's deadliest nice guy".


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: Production was set up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, because the creators were looking for a "Middle America landscape", and Vancouver was a good substitute for Kansas. David Nutter, the director of the pilot, was given 16 days for main unit filming, twice that of the normal timeframe. Despite the extended schedule, it was still a short amount of time, and he shot the pilot primarily from storyboards created by Adrien Van Viersen.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: Millar developed most of the look for "Smallville" with the idea that Smallville should be the epitome of "Smalltown, USA". Millar's design required existing buildings to be painted, built, and remodeled. The Kent farm is the home of the Andalini family, and their barn was used for the pilot before a new barn was built. The new barn was one of the major additions to the sets of the episode "Metamorphosis". Production designer Doug Higgins and his crew built a fully functioning, three-story barn for the Kent farm on a converted soundstage in Burnaby. For the pilot, the crew built only a loft, with a set of stairs leading up to it, inside the existing barn on the Andalinis' property. To resemble the Andalinis' barn as closely as possible, Higgins had his crew locate 100-year-old wood to match the look of the Andalinis' barn. The episode "Hourglass" called for several scenes to take place at the White House. Instead of building their own set, the "Smallville" producers called John Wells, producer of the political drama television series "The West Wing", and obtained permission to use the "West Wing" set to film the vision of Lex's future.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: When the "Smallville" crew was not filming on one of the constructed sets, or on a sound stage, they were shooting on location at the surrounding Vancouver sites. During the filming of "Metamorphosis", Vancouver was holding a farmers' market, which proved beneficial to the "Smallville" crew, as "Metamorphosis" called for a similar event to take place in the episode. The market was on the verge of ending, so the filmmakers shot what wide-angle scenes they could at the time, and filmed a close up conversation between Whitney and Clark at the Andalini's farm, weeks after the initial market shooting. Other filming locations include Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition and Burnaby's Swangard Stadium. The Pacific National Exhibit provided a storage silo for a scene in "Hourglass", which involved Harry Bollston (Eric Christian Olsen) attacking Martha Kent (O'Toole) in the Kents' corn silo. "Hothead" director Greg Beeman, who had previously worked with Gough and Millar on "The Strip" and "Martial Law", used Swangard Stadium, as a substitution for Smallville High Stadium, for the opening football scene that took place at night.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: When filming fell behind schedule, another director came in to assist the main unit director in finishing the episode. Greg Beeman assisted director Chris Long for the two "visceral visions of the future" that appeared in the episode "Hourglass". "Jitters" was an episode with so many changes that its initial scheduling as the second episode of the season was pushed back to the eighth spot. By the time filming for "Jitters" was completed, three directors had worked on the project: Greg Beeman, Phil Sgriccia, and Michael Watkins; however, Watkins was given sole directing credit for the episode.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: A big part of the "Smallville" series relies on the effects it delivers, whether digital, physical, or special make-up effects. The effects shots, part of the post-production work, are developed and added in Los Angeles. David Nutter hired Thomas Special Effects to create digital cornfields for the pilot episode. After attempting to grow ten thousand stalks of corn in a greenhouse, which only grew two feet tall, Nutter was forced to rely primarily on digital corn. Faux corn was also flown in from Arizona. CGI supervisor Bill Millar created digital butterflies for a scene in Lana's bedroom, and all the insects Greg Arkin (Chad Donella) collected in the episode "Metamorphosis". Greg's insects had to be created digitally, because a green hue was needed to illustrate the kryptonite radiation in the insects. After the opening credits, the first person view of someone, later revealed to be Clark, flying through Lana's open window and into her bedroom was created digitally. The effect was accomplished with stock footage, a sound stage and computer generated imagery. Stock footage shot from a helicopter, as it flew over several farms during the day, was used for the first person point of view. It was altered from day to night, and a CGI house was created in an empty field. Lana's bedroom as built on a soundstage, and CGI was used to create the illusion of someone traveling through her open window and stopping above her bed.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: It was decided the effects of kryptonite poisoning on Clark, "Clark time", and the appearance of kryptonite when in the proximity of Clark would need to be illustrated in a way the audience could understand if they were not familiar with the character. Gough and Millar, after doing some research, learned the female audience was not aware of what was happening when Clark was exposed to kryptonite. Beginning with "Metamorphosis", whenever Clark was exposed to kryptonite, his veins would rise up and develop a green hue to illustrate the effect it was having. Close-up shots of Clark's hand were used for these scenes, and it was all created with digital animation. Gough and Millar developed the idea that kryptonite would only glow when it was around Clark, as it was meant to demonstrate the draining of his powers. "Clark time", the same idea behind bullet time, was created because previous incarnations had not explained the idea of what the world appears like to Clark when he is using his powers. The first instance of "Clark time" was used in the "Metamorphosis" scene where Greg Arkin attacks Clark and Jonathan in their barn. Jonathan is pushed over a banister and falls in the direction of some dangerous farm equipment. The effect involved slowing time down for everything except Clark, who would be moving at normal pace. When tackling Clark's emerging power of X-ray vision, Gough and Millar wanted to be able to see skeletons and bones, as opposed to previous incarnations that treated the ability like "see-through" vision. The recent advances in computer imagery helped them complete that task.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: The digital effects costs for each episode could stretch the budget thin. In "Shimmer", Bill Millar, special effects supervisor, planned to create an artificial sunset for the closing scene involving Clark and Lana. The effects shot was supposed to last only a couple of seconds. James Marshall, the second unit director for the episode, decided to shoot the entire scene over the shoulders of Clark and Lana, looking at the sunset. The scene called for two greenscreen shots, but when Marshall was finished he had created seventeen greenscreen shots. The seventeen shots, which produced the artificial sunset, cost $50,000 to produce. By comparison, the entire effects budget costs between $65,000 and $100,000.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: Over-spending of that nature became a regular occurrence on the "Smallville" set. The regularity of over-spending came to an end with "Kinetic", as the studio decided to be stricter. With the budget on a stiffer guideline, the filmmakers were forced to cut scenes from "Kinetic", an episode that was caught in the push for more budget-friendly scripts. One of the scenes that was cut involved one of the thieves phasing through a safe wall, and acting as a portal for the merchandise to be passed through. When digital effects were not an option, Mike Walls, the physical effects supervisor who began his "Smallville" career with "Leech", still tried to provide big effects. For instance, Walls used 75 cars for the final action scene of "Kinetic", which were cabled off to protect the actors. Stunt coordinator Lauro Chartrand attempts to make sure the actors are used as much as possible when performing fight scenes, unless the scenes are particularly dangerous. The fast shooting schedule forces Chartrand to rely on guest stars who can perform their own stunts, because of the limited time to find a "good double" for the actor.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: Physical effects were not an issue for the series regulars. Allison Mack performed her own stunts for the scene in "Hothead" where her character's office is set on fire, and again in "Kinetic", when she was cabled off and dangled above the ground. For "Nicodemus", the stunt coordinator received twice the help. Kristin Kreuk was expected to go to the tenth rung of a water tower, in a scene which involved her character climbing to the top and falling off. As filming progressed, Kreuk climbed to the top, so the crew cabled her off and dropped her to the bottom. John Schneider's experience from "The Dukes of Hazzard" led to him performing the stunt driving for his character. The scene required Schneider to slide his truck around a corner, while yelling at some pedestrians on the sidewalk. The previous scene had established the driver side window as closed, so Schneider improvised and opened the driver's door as he slid 90° around a corner.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: The series' pilot broke The WB's record for highest-rated debut with 8.35 million viewers, 3.8/9 in the 18-49 demographic, 4.5/12 in the 18–34 demographic and beat its lead-in Gilmore Girls, which was viewed by 5.99 million viewers, 2.4/6 in the 18-49 demographic, 2.8/8 in the 18-34 demographic by 39.4%, 58.3%, 60.7% respectively. In the 18–34 male demographic, its 5.0 rating nearly tripled its lead-in (1.7). After airing the first two episodes, which averaged 7.8 million viewers, the WB placed an order for a full season of 21 episodes. The first season averaged 5.9 million viewers weekly, placing #115 in the Nielsen ratings alongside "Futurama", "The Ellen Show", and "". The pilot and "Tempest" were selected in The Futon Critic's 50 best episodes of 2001 and 2002, respectively. The pilot placed 31st, while "Tempest" placed 15th.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: Often, the show would beat its lead-in, "Gilmore Girls" (which saw a 60% surge in its new timeslot) in the ratings. Towards the end of the season, it was #1 with viewers under 35 in the ratings, which beat "Frasier", "Scrubs", and "24".


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: The season received mostly favorable reviews. "IGN"s Jeremy Conrad, who was initially against the idea of "reimagining" the Superman mythology, gave the first season a 7/10 rating. After reviewing the entire season, Conrad stated the first season of "Smallville" was "a solid start to what will be a great Superman TV series". "Entertainment Weekly" Bruce Fretts believes the series might appear "corny" on the surface, but actually shows "subversively witty spin on the comic-book myths". Clint Morris, founder of Moviehole.net, stated the series was "still finding its feet in season one", although, he commended the acting, citing specifically Michael Rosenbaum's "uncontrollably likeable Lex Luthor". "The Free-Lance Star"'s Rob Hedelt commended the casting as well, comparing Welling's portrayal of a teenage Clark Kent to that of Christopher Reeve's portrayal in the films. Hedelt considered John Schneider and Annette O'Toole to be ideal picks for Jonathan and Martha Kent, but felt Allison Mack and Sam Jones III, important characters, were the weakest part of the ensemble. Judge Byun, of DVD Verdict, felt having Clark Kent and Lex Luthor start their relationship as best friends was a "brilliant concept" that moved the show past a ""Dawson's Creek" with super powers" tone the premise of the show suggested. Byun believes the first season had "solid writing and excellent performances", but is weakened by the freak of the week storylines that plagued the early episodes of the season; the season works best when the episodes focus on character development and not super powers.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: Other critics were less enthusiastic about the season. Peter Bowes of BBC News felt the season was simply a "soap opera" with "pretty young people". Bowes believes the season suffered from the "sentimental boy-girl storyline", but that die-hard Superman fans would still be taken in by this incarnation of the character's early years. A common criticism for the first season was the use of "villain of the week" storylines. By the time the first seven episodes aired, at least one journalist had had enough of the villain of the week format. "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette"'s Rob Owen wrote the series works best with its "character interaction and a nice performance by John Schneider as Pa Kent", but that the show needs more than the "'monster of the week' stories seen so far". Jordan Levin, president of The WB's Entertainment division, recognized the concerns that the show had become a villain of the week series. Levin announced that season two would see more "smaller mini-arcs over three to four episodes, to get away from some of the formulaic storytelling structure" the series has fallen into.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: By 2003, the first season had been nominated for and won various awards. It won an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series", and the pilot episode was nominated for "Outstanding Visual Effects for a Series". The pilot was recognized by other award organizations, receiving a Leo Award for "Best Visual Effects" in 2002. Peter Wunstorf was recognized for his work on the pilot with a nomination by the American Society of Cinematographers. Casting directors Deedee Bradley, Coreen Mayrs, and Barbara Miller were nominated for an Artios Award for their work on the pilot. Chris McGeary was nominated for Golden Reel's "Best Sound Editing in Television" award for his music editing on the pilot. The season one finale, "Tempest", was nominated for Golden Reel's "Best Sound Editing in Television Episodic" in 2003. In 2002, The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers honored the band Remy Zero (which provided the opening theme song for "Smallville") and composer Mark Snow for their contributions to the show; the award recognized the composers of the theme or underscore of the highest rated television series during January 1 – December 31, 2001.


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: Several members of the regular cast were nominated for awards. In 2001, Rosenbaum, Kreuk, and Welling were nominated for Saturn Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Series, Best Actress, and Best Actor, respectively. Rosenbaum and Kreuk received additional nominations for male and female Cinescape Genre Face of the Future awards, and the entire season was nominated for Best Network Television Series. Rosenbaum was the only one to win an award (Best Supporting Actor). Tom Welling won the Teen Choice Award for Choice Breakout TV Star—Male in 2002. "Smallville's" first season placed sixth on the Parents Television Council's list of the "best shows for families".


title: Smallville (season 1)

text: The complete first season of "Smallville" was released on September 23, 2003 in North America. Additional releases in regions 2 and 4 took place on October 13, 2003 and December 3, 2003, respectively. The DVD box set included various special features, including episode commentary, an interactive tour of Smallville, and storyboards from select episodes.


title: We Made You

text: "We Made You" is a song by American rapper Eminem from his sixth studio album "Relapse" (2009). It was released as the second single from the album on April 7, 2009. "We Made You" was written by Eminem, Andre Young, Dawaun Parker, Mark Batson, Trevor Lawrence Jr. and Walter Egan. Production was handled by Dr. Dre, with Eminem and Doc Ish serving as additional co-producers.


title: We Made You

text: "We Made You" received generally positive reviews from music critics, and became a success, peaking inside the Top 10 in fourteen countries and at number nine on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Just like "Shake That", this single is known for being a departure from the serious tone of his second released singles from his previous albums such as "Cleanin' Out My Closet", "The Way I Am" and "Like Toy Soldiers", instead having a more comedic tone.


title: We Made You

text: It features chorus vocals by Charmagne Tripp. Produced by Dr. Dre and co-produced by Doc Ish and Eminem himself, the song samples "Hot Summer Nights" by Walter Egan. The official cover for the single is a picture of the music video, with Eminem, Oxen, Lisa Ann and Bobby Lee.


title: We Made You

text: "We Made You" has generally positive reviews from contemporary music critics. Daniel Kreps of "Rolling Stone" magazine gave it a positive review stating, "It's nice to see Eminem goofing around again after a few years out of the spotlight during which he grappled with serious issues like the death of his friend Proof, and 'We Made You' with its damnation of current celebrities will likely prove to be a solid pop cultural time capsule of this weird 2009 moment we're experiencing now." "Billboard" said, "Atop Dr. Dre's marching beat is primarily piano instrumentation, which amid drums and tubas give the track a carnival feel... And in case his word play was too fast and strange accent too difficult to decipher, Charmagne Tripp sings the chorus." Tim Jonze of "The Guardian" however, reported, "'We Made You' is not Eminem doing what he does best."


title: We Made You

text: "We Made You" sold 167,000 downloads in its first week to enter the Hot Digital Songs chart in "Billboard" Magazine at number three. The song also debuted at number nine on the "Billboard" Hot 100, to become Eminem's second top ten in a row on the chart, ranked "Crack a Bottle", a collaboration with Dr. Dre and 50 Cent. This marks the first time that Eminem has had back-to-back top-ten hits on the Hot 100 as a lead artist since 2002, when he scored with "Without Me", "Cleanin' Out My Closet" and "Lose Yourself". "We Made You" has reached the top ten in twelve countries, including number one in Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and Germany.


title: We Made You

text: The single's music video was directed by Joseph Kahn, who also shot "Without Me" from "The Eminem Show" is in the same vein as previous videos under the "Slim Shady" persona, and the first of its kind since "Encore"s "Ass Like That". The video was filmed in Las Vegas and features guest star appearances by Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, Denaun Porter, Bobby Lee, The Palms hotel owner George Maloof, Francesca Le (playing Kim Kardashian), Melissa Peterman, Vanilla Ice, Trisha Paytas (playing Jessica Simpson's role in "The Dukes of Hazzard"), Derrick Barry (of "America's Got Talent" fame) (playing Britney Spears), actress Gabrielle Salinger (playing Amy Winehouse) and pornographic actress Lisa Ann (playing Sarah Palin). The music video for "We Made You" premiered on April 7, 2009 at 6:00 AM on several MTV networks, as well as MTV.com. The video also premiered on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom on the next day.