title: Kiwanis

text: The original purpose of Kiwanis was to exchange business between members and to serve the poor. The debate as to whether to focus on networking or service was resolved in 1919, when Kiwanis adopted a service-focused mission. In 1924, the Objects of Kiwanis were adopted (see above) and remain unchanged today.


title: Kiwanis

text: Each year, clubs sponsor nearly 150,000 service projects, complete more than 18.5 million hours in volunteer service and raise more than $100 million. As a global project in coordination with UNICEF, members and clubs contributed more than $80 million toward the global elimination of iodine deficiency disorders (IDD), the leading preventable cause of mental retardation. Beginning in 2010 Kiwanis International joined with UNICEF to launch a new worldwide health initiative, The Eliminate Project, dedicated to wiping out maternal and neonatal tetanus (MNT), which kills more than 100,000 babies worldwide each year.


title: Kiwanis

text: Until 1987 the organization accepted only men as members. By action of the International Convention in 1987, the rules were changed to admit women as well. Women constitute about 26% of total members. At the 2013 International Convention, Sue Petrisin was elected as the organization's first female international vice president. Petrisin was installed as Kiwanis International President in 2015, the year of the organization's 100th anniversary. She is the first woman to lead any major member service organization.


title: Kiwanis

text: Kiwanis clubs decide for themselves what projects to do in their community, based on their own community's needs and their members' interests. Service to children is a primary focus in Kiwanis. Clubs are encouraged to conduct a community survey each year to determine what unmet needs exist in their community. In some cases, clubs in a geographic region (a "Division" or "District") may take on a project of shared interest, such as paediatric trauma, or children's cancer.


title: Kiwanis

text: Service may be provided directly (e.g. reading to children at the library or taking therapy dogs into seniors' facilities) or through raising funds in the community to meet a community need (such as building a playground). Common fund-raising events include breakfast such as pancake feeds, peanut sales, or food concessions. Areas of service may include assistance to those living in poverty, projects those benefit children and youth, and services for the sick or elderly.


title: Kiwanis

text: As a global project in coordination with UNICEF, members and clubs contributed more than $80 million toward the global elimination of iodine deficiency disorders (IDD), the leading preventable cause of intellectual disability. Beginning in 2010 Kiwanis International once again joined with UNICEF to launch a new worldwide health initiative, dedicated to wiping out maternal and neonatal tetanus (MNT), which kills more than 50,000 babies and a significant number of women each year. The clubs are known for the "Kiwanis doll". Kiwanis dolls are simple white fabric dolls which is distributed to children and allows the children to color them in to represent themselves or someone else.


title: Kiwanis

text: In 2007, the charitable financial arm, Kiwanis International Foundation, was awarded the top rating by an independent evaluator.


title: Kiwanis

text: Kiwanis provides leadership and service opportunities for youth through its Service Leadership Programs. Aktion Club, Key Club, Circle K, Builders Club and K-Kids are part of Kiwanis Service Leadership Programs. They are sponsored by a local Kiwanis club and receive funding and leadership guidance from Kiwanis.


title: Kiwanis

text: Kiwanis founded and supports Key Club International. Started in Sacramento, California in 1925, Key Club is the oldest and largest service program for high school students in the world. As of 2010, Key Club has 250,000 members in 5,000 clubs in 30 nations, primarily in the United States and Canada, but with clubs also in Central and South America, Caribbean nations, Asia, and Australia. KIWIN'S (pronounced "kee-wins"), a high school program exclusive to the California-Nevada-Hawaii district, operates under the umbrella of Key Club but elects its own officers.


title: Kiwanis

text: The collegiate version of Kiwanis, which maintains some autonomy from Kiwanis, is Circle K International, also known as CKI. The first official Circle K club was chartered in September, 1947 at the campus of Carthage College (then in Illinois). As of 2010, Circle K membership is 12,600 members in 500 clubs in 17 countries, making Circle K the largest collegiate service organization of its kind in the world.


title: Kiwanis

text: K-Kids is intended for grades 4-5 in elementary school, and has a membership of 33,000 in 1,100 clubs in 8 nations. Builders Club (middle school) has 42,000 members in 1,400 clubs in 12 nations. Aktion Club (for people who have disabilities) has 8,400 members in 400 clubs in 7 nations. These programs are all led by adult advisors (Kiwanians or faculty members), whereas Key Club and Circle K elect their own club, district, and International officers each year to lead the organization. Kiwanis Junior is part of the European Service Leadership Program, with clubs in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy, and is typically for people ages 18–35.


title: Kiwanis

text: Before 1987, women's auxiliary clubs known as Kiwaniannes also existed, made up of wives of members of the men-only Kiwanis clubs. With the changes that made it possible for women to join Kiwanis clubs, official sponsorship of the Kiwaniannes clubs ended. Some Kiwaniannes clubs merged with their affiliated Kiwanis club, while others converted into independent Kiwanis clubs.


title: And Quiet Flows the Don

text: And Quiet Flows the Don (Quiet Flows the Don or The Silent Don, , literally "The Quiet Don") is a novel in four volumes by Russian writer Mikhail Sholokhov. The first three volumes were written from 1925 to 1932 and published in the Soviet magazine "Oktyabr" in 1928–1932, and the fourth volume was finished in 1940.


title: And Quiet Flows the Don

text: The novel is considered one of the most significant works of world and Russian literature in the 20th century. It depicts the lives and struggles of Don Cossacks during the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and Russian Civil War. In 1965, Sholokhov was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for the novel.


title: And Quiet Flows the Don

text: The novel deals with the life of the Cossacks living in the Don River valley during the early 20th century, starting around 1912, just prior to World War I. The plot revolves around the Melekhov family of Tatarsk, who are descendants of a Cossack who, to the horror of many, took a Turkish captive as a wife during the Crimean War. She is accused of witchcraft by Melekhov's superstitious neighbors, who attempt to kill her but are fought off by her husband. Their descendants, the son and grandsons, who are the protagonists of the story, are therefore often nicknamed "Turks". Nevertheless, they command a high level of respect among people in Tatarsk.


title: And Quiet Flows the Don

text: The second eldest son, Grigory Panteleevich Melekhov, is a promising young soldier who falls in love with Aksinia, the wife of Stepan Astakhov, a family friend. Stepan regularly beats her and there is no love between them. Grigory and Aksinia's romance and elopement raise a feud between her husband and his family. The outcome of this romance is the focus of the plot as well as the impending World and Civil Wars which draw the best young Cossack men into what will be two of Russia's bloodiest wars. The action moves to the Austro-Hungarian front, where Grigory ends up saving Stepan's life, but that doesn't end the feud. Grigory, at his father's insistence, takes a wife, Natalya, but still loves Aksinia.


title: And Quiet Flows the Don

text: Grigory takes part in the Civil War, changing sides four times (Red to White to Red to White to indifferent). Many of his friends and relatives are killed in action or executed by both the Reds and Whites. Natalya dies after a failed amateur abortion, leaving Grigory with two small children who are eventually cared for by Aksinia. This does not prevent Grigory and Aksinia from trying a final escape alone together, but she is killed by a stray bullet during a fight with Red troops. Grief-stricken, Grigory buries her and returns home, with his prospects unclear.


title: And Quiet Flows the Don

text: The book deals not only with the struggles and suffering of the Cossacks but also the landscape itself, which is vividly brought to life.


title: And Quiet Flows the Don

text: "And Quiet Flows the Don" grew out of an earlier, unpublished work, the "Donshina":I began the novel by describing the event of the Kornilov putsch in 1917. Then it became clear that this putsch, and more importantly, the role of the Cossacks in these events, would not be understood without a Cossack prehistory, and so I began with the description of the life of the Don Cossacks just before the beginning of World War I. (quote from "M.A. Sholokhov: Seminarii", (1962) by F.A. Abramovic and V.V. Gura, quoted in "Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov", by L.L. Litus.)


title: And Quiet Flows the Don

text: Protagonist Grigory Melekhov is reportedly based on two Cossacks from Veshenskaya, Pavel Nazarovich Kudinov and Kharlampii Vasilyevich Yermakov, who were key figures in the anti-Bolshevist struggle of the upper Don.


title: And Quiet Flows the Don

text: The novel has been compared to "War and Peace" (1869), written by Leo Tolstoy, notably by Maxim Gorky. Like the Tolstoy novel, "And Quiet Flows the Don" is an epic picture of Russian life during a time of crisis and examines it through political, military, romantic, and civilian lenses. Various rumours of plagiarism had been circulating from 1930. Solzhenitsyn and others accused Sholokhov of plagiarizing a novel by Fyodor Kryukov, a more obscure author who fought against Bolshevism and died in 1920. An investigation in the late 1920s had upheld Sholokhov's authorship of "Silent Don", and the allegations were denounced as malicious slander in "Pravda".


title: And Quiet Flows the Don

text: During the Second World War, Sholokhov's archive was destroyed in a bomb raid, and only the fourth volume survived. Sholokhov had his friend Vassily Kudashov, who was killed in the war, look after it. Following Kudashov's death, his widow took possession of the manuscript, but she never disclosed the fact of owning it. The manuscript was finally found by the Institute of World Literature of Russian Academy of Sciences in 1999 with assistance from the Russian Government. The writing paper dates back to the 1920s: 605 pages are in Sholokhov's own hand, evidencing considerable re-drafting and re-organising of the material by Sholokhov, and 285 are transcribed by his wife Maria and sisters.


title: And Quiet Flows the Don

text: Statistical analysis of sentence lengths in "And Quiet Flows the Don" gives full support to Sholokhov.


title: And Quiet Flows the Don

text: The novel has been adapted for the screen four times: a 1931 film by Ivan Pravov and Olga Preobrazhenskaya; a second, 1958 adaption was directed by Sergei Gerasimov and starred Elina Bystritskaya and Pyotr Glebov. In 1992–1993 a remake was directed by Sergei Bondarchuk (starring Rupert Everett); the film was not finished until 2006, when Fyodor Bondarchuk completed the editing, and was shown on Russian television as a seven-part miniseries. A shorter, 3-hours version of Bondarchuk's "And Quiet Flows the Don" was released on DVD in several countries. In 2015 the novel has been adapted again more comprehensively as a 14-part TV-series, directed by Sergey Ursulyak.


title: And Quiet Flows the Don

text: Ivan Dzerzhinsky based his opera "Quiet Flows the Don" ("Tikhiy Don") on the novel, with the libretto adapted by his brother Leonid. Premiered in October 1935, it became wildly popular after Stalin saw and praised it a few months later. The opera was proclaimed a model of socialist realism in music and won Dzerzhinsky a Stalin Prize.


title: And Quiet Flows the Don

text: The lyrics for the folk song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" by Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson were adapted from the cossack folk "Koloda duda" () song sung by Daria in "And Quiet Flows the Don" Part 1, Chapter 3 (page 17 Knopf edition).


title: And Quiet Flows the Don

text: The English translation by Stephen Garry of the first two volumes appeared under the title "And Quiet Flows the Don" in 1934, while other two were published in 1940 as "The Don Flows Home to the Sea". The whole work was published as a set of two books under the title "The Silent Don". Garry's translation lacks about 25 percent of the novel text. In 1950 Garry's translation was "revised and completed" by Robert Daglish. In 1984 Daglish published his own translation of the novel as "Quiet Flows the Don".


title: The Band discography

text: The discography of The Band, a rock group, consists of ten studio albums, nine live albums, nine compilation albums, and thirty-three singles, as well as two studio and two live albums in collaboration with Bob Dylan. They were active from 1964 to 1976, and from 1983 to 1999.


title: Soundproofing

text: Soundproofing is any means of impeding sound propagation. There are several basic approaches to reducing sound: increasing the distance between source and receiver, decoupling, using noise barriers to reflect or absorb the energy of the sound waves, using damping structures such as sound baffles for absorption, or using active antinoise sound generators.


title: Soundproofing

text: Acoustic quieting and noise control can be used to limit unwanted noise. Soundproofing can reduce the transmission of unwanted direct sound waves from the source to an involuntary listener through the use of distance and intervening objects in the sound path (see sound transmission class and sound reduction index).


title: Soundproofing

text: Soundproofing can suppress unwanted indirect sound waves such as reflections that cause echoes and resonances that cause reverberation.


title: Soundproofing

text: Sound-absorbing material controls reverberant sound pressure levels within a cavity, enclosure or room. Synthetic absorption materials are porous, referring to open cell foam (acoustic foam, soundproof foam). Fibrous absorption material such as cellulose, mineral wool, fiberglass, sheep's wool, are more commonly used to deaden resonant frequencies within a cavity (wall, floor, or ceiling insulation), serving a dual purpose along with their thermal insulation properties. Both fibrous and porous absorption material are used to create acoustic panels, which absorb sound reflection in a room, improving speech intelligibility.


title: Soundproofing

text: Porous absorbers, typically open cell rubber foams or melamine sponges, absorb noise by friction within the cell structure. Porous open cell foams are highly effective noise absorbers across a broad range of medium-high frequencies. Performance can be less impressive at lower frequencies.


title: Soundproofing

text: The exact absorption profile of a porous open-cell foam will be determined by a number of factors including cell size, tortuosity, porosity, thickness, and density.


title: Soundproofing

text: The absorption aspect in soundproofing should not be confused with sound-absorbing panels used in acoustic treatments. Absorption in this sense refers to reducing a resonating frequency in a cavity by installing insulation between walls, ceilings or floors. Acoustic panels can play a role in treatment after walls, ceilings, and floors have been soundproofed, reducing reflections that make the overall sound in the source room louder.


title: Soundproofing

text: Resonant panels, Helmholtz resonators and other resonant absorbers work by damping a sound wave as they reflect it. Unlike porous absorbers, resonant absorbers are most effective at low-medium frequencies and the absorption of resonant absorbers is matched to a narrow frequency range.


title: Soundproofing

text: Damping means to reduce resonance in the room, by absorption or redirection (reflection or diffusion). Absorption will reduce the overall sound level, whereas redirection makes unwanted sound harmless or even beneficial by reducing coherence. Damping can reduce the acoustic resonance in the air, or mechanical resonance in the structure of the room itself or things in the room.


title: Soundproofing

text: Creating separation between a sound source and any form of adjoining mass, hindering the direct pathway for sound transfer.


title: Soundproofing

text: The energy density of sound waves decreases as they become farther apart so that increasing the distance between the receiver and source results in a progressively lesser intensity of sound at the receiver. In a normal three-dimensional setting, with a point source and point receptor, the intensity of sound waves will be attenuated according to the inverse square of the distance from the source.


title: Soundproofing

text: Adding dense material to treatment helps stop sound waves from exiting a source wall, ceiling or floor. Materials include mass-loaded vinyl, drywall, soundproof sheetrock, plywood, fibreboard, concrete or rubber. Different widths and densities in soundproofing material reduces sound within a variable frequency range.


title: Soundproofing

text: When sound waves hit a medium, the reflection of that sound is dependent on the dissimilarity of the surfaces it comes in contact with. Sound hitting a concrete surface will result in a much different reflection than if the sound were to hit a softer medium such as fiberglass. In an outdoor environment such as highway engineering, embankments or paneling are often used to reflect sound upwards into the sky.


title: Soundproofing

text: If a specular reflection from a hard flat surface is giving a problematic echo then an acoustic diffuser may be applied to the surface. It will scatter sound in all directions. This is effective to eliminate pockets of noise in a room.


title: Soundproofing

text: Noise cancellation generators for active noise control are a relatively modern innovation. A microphone is used to pick up the sound that is then analyzed by a computer; then, sound waves with opposite polarity (180° phase at all frequencies) are output through a speaker, causing destructive interference and canceling much of the noise.


title: Soundproofing

text: Residential sound programs aims to decrease or eliminate the effects of exterior noise. The main focus of the residential sound program in existing structures is the windows and doors. Solid wood doors are a better sound barrier than hollow doors. Curtains can be used to dampen sound, either through use of heavy materials or through the use of air chambers known as honeycombs. Single-, double- and triple-honeycomb designs achieve relatively greater degrees of sound damping. The primary soundproofing limit of curtains is the lack of a seal at the edge of the curtain, although this may be alleviated with the use of sealing features, such as hook and loop fastener, adhesive, magnets, or other materials. The thickness of glass will play a role when diagnosing sound leakage. Double-pane windows achieve somewhat greater sound damping than single-pane windows when well-sealed into the opening of the window frame and wall.


title: Soundproofing

text: Significant noise reduction can also be achieved by installing a second interior window. In this case, the exterior window remains in place while a slider or hung window is installed within the same wall openings.


title: Soundproofing

text: In the US the FAA offers sound-reducing for homes that fall within a noise contour where the average decibel level is 65 decibels. It is part of their Residential Sound Insulation Program. The program provides solid-core wood entry doors plus windows and storm doors.


title: Soundproofing

text: Leaving a gap between the joist and subfloor plywood is the most efficient way to install soundproof flooring. Neoprene joist tape or u-shaped rubber spacers help decouple the subfloor from the joist. An additional layer of plywood can be installed with a viscoelastic compound. Mass Loaded Vinyl, in combination with open-cell rubber or a closed-cell foam floor underlayment, will further reduce sound transmission. After applying these techniques, hardwood flooring or carpeting can be installed. Additional area rugs and furniture will help reduce unwanted reflection within the room.


title: Soundproofing

text: A room within a room (RWAR) is one method of isolating sound and preventing it from transmitting to the outside world where it may be undesirable.


title: Soundproofing

text: Most vibration / sound transfer from a room to the outside occurs through mechanical means. The vibration passes directly through the brick, woodwork and other solid structural elements. When it meets with an element such as a wall, ceiling, floor or window, which acts as a sounding board, the vibration is amplified and heard in the second space. A mechanical transmission is much faster, more efficient and maybe more readily amplified than an airborne transmission of the same initial strength.


title: Soundproofing

text: The use of acoustic foam and other absorbent means is less effective against this transmitted vibration. The user is advised to break the connection between the room that contains the noise source and the outside world. This is called acoustic decoupling. Ideal decoupling involves eliminating vibration transfer in both solid materials and in the air, so air flow into the room is often controlled. This has safety implications: inside decoupled space, proper ventilation must be assured, and gas heaters cannot be used.


title: Soundproofing

text: Restaurants, schools, office businesses, and health care facilities use architectural acoustics to reduce noise for their customers. In the United States, OSHA has requirements regulating the length of exposure of workers to certain levels of noise.


title: Soundproofing

text: Commercial businesses sometimes use soundproofing technology, especially when they are an open office design. There are many reasons why a business might implement soundproofing for their office. One of the biggest hindrances in worker productivity is the distracting noises that come from people talking such as on the phone, or with their co-workers and boss. Noise soundproofing is important in mitigating people from losing their concentration and focus from their work project. It is also important to keep confidential conversations secure to the intended listeners.


title: Soundproofing

text: When trying to find places to install soundproofing, acoustic panels should be installed in office areas where many traffic corridors, circulation pathways, and open work areas are connected. Successful acoustic panel installations rely on three strategies and techniques to absorb sound, block sound transmission from one place to another, and cover and masking of the sound, positioned to avoid other services or block light.


title: Soundproofing

text: For educators and students, improving the sound quality of an environment will subsequently improve student learning, concentration, and teacher-student inter-communications. In 2014, a research study conducted by Applied Science revealed 86% of students perceived their instructors more intelligibly, while 66% of students reported experiencing higher concentration levels after sound absorbing materials were incorporated into the classroom.


title: Soundproofing

text: Automotive soundproofing aims to decrease or eliminate the effects of exterior noise, primarily engine, exhaust and tire noise across a wide frequency range. When constructing a vehicle which includes soundproofing, a panel damping material is fitted which reduces the vibration of the vehicle's body panels when they are excited by one of the many high energy sound sources caused when the vehicle is in use. There are many complex noises created within vehicles which change with the driving environment and speed at which the vehicle travels. Significant noise reductions of up to 8 dB can be achieved by installing a combination of different types of materials.


title: Soundproofing

text: The automotive environment limits the thickness of materials that can be used, but combinations of dampers, barriers, and absorbers are common. Common materials include felt, foam, polyester, and Polypropylene blend materials. Waterproofing may be necessary based on the materials used. Acoustic foam can be applied in different areas of a vehicle during manufacture to reduce cabin noise. Foams also have cost and performance advantages in installation since foam material can expand and fill cavities after application and also prevent leaks and some gases from entering the vehicle. Vehicle soundproofing can reduce wind, engine, road, and tire noise. Vehicle soundproofing can reduce sound inside a vehicle from five to 20 decibels.


title: Soundproofing

text: Surface damping materials are very effective at reducing structure-borne noise. Passive damping materials have been used since the early 1960s in the aerospace industry. Over the years, advances in material manufacturing and the development of more efficient analytical and experimental tools to characterize complex dynamic behaviors enabled the expansion of the usage of these materials to the automotive industry. Nowadays, multiple viscoelastic damping pads are usually attached to the body in order to attenuate higher-order structural panel modes that significantly contribute to the overall noise level inside the cabin. Traditionally, experimental techniques are used to optimize the size and location of damping treatments. In particular, laser vibrometer type tests are often conducted on the body in white structures enabling the fast acquisition of a large number of measurement points with a good spatial resolution. However, testing a complete vehicle is mostly infeasible, requiring evaluation of every subsystem individually, hence limiting the usability of this technology in a fast and efficient way. Alternatively, structural vibrations can also be acoustically measured using particle velocity sensors located near a vibrating structure. Several studies have revealed the potential of particle velocity sensors for characterizing structural vibrations, which remarkably accelerates the entire testing process when combined with scanning techniques.


title: Soundproofing

text: Since the early 1970s, it has become common practice in the United States and other industrialized countries to engineer noise barriers along major highways to protect adjacent residents from intruding roadway noise. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in conjunction with State Highway Administration (SHA) adopted Federal Regulation (23 CFR 772) requiring each state to adopt their own policy in regards to abatement of highway traffic noise. Engineering techniques have been developed to predict an effective geometry for the noise barrier design in a particular real-world situation. Noise barriers may be constructed of wood, masonry, earth or a combination thereof.


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Robert Llewellyn (born 10 March 1956) is a British actor, comedian, presenter and writer. He plays the mechanoid Kryten in the sci-fi television sitcom "Red Dwarf" and formerly presented the engineering gameshow "Scrapheap Challenge". He has also founded and hosts a YouTube series, "Fully Charged".


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Llewellyn's first foray into the world of show business started out as a hobby, organising a few amateur cabaret evenings in a riverside warehouse overlooking Tower Bridge in London. The shows were a great success and he eventually helped form an alternative comedy theatre group called The Joeys. Within six months, he had stopped working as a shoemaker and started performing professionally with the group alongside Bernie Evans, Nigel Ordish and Graham Allum. The group toured Britain and France in the early 1980s, with an initial idea of exploring sexual politics between men. Llewellyn wrote much of the material, and also began writing novels. The Joeys split in 1985, having toured for years and done thousands of performances. He co-wrote and starred in "The Corner House", a 1987 sitcom for Channel 4 about a café run by gay men.


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Llewellyn's involvement with "Red Dwarf" came about as a result of his appearance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, performing in his one-man comedy, "Mammon, Robot Born of Woman", about a robot who - as he becomes more human - begins to behave increasingly badly. This was seen by Paul Jackson, producer of "Red Dwarf", and Llewellyn was invited to audition for the role of Kryten.


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Llewellyn joined the cast of "Red Dwarf" in 1989 at the start of the third series. Llewellyn's skills as a physical performer encouraged Rob Grant and Doug Naylor to write him additional characters for the series, namely Jim Reaper ("The Last Day"), Human Kryten ("DNA"), Bongo ("Dimension Jump") and Able ("Beyond A Joke") and the Data Doctor ("Back in the Red"). With Doug Naylor, Llewellyn also co-wrote the episode "Beyond A Joke" which screened in 1997.


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: In the early days of "Red Dwarf", Llewellyn would arrive to do make-up many hours before the rest of the actors; however, that changed as time progressed, as his fellow actors 'have a little bit more help in the makeup department than they used to'. In an interview with "The Skeptic Zone", Llewellyn mentioned that he needs a special pair of glasses to be able to read the script with the Kryten mask on. In "Red Dwarf", he worked hard to get the more technically difficult lines right because the series tried to be factually accurate in reference to scientific theories.


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Llewellyn was also the only British cast member of "Red Dwarf" to originally participate in a proposed American version, though other actors such as Craig Charles and Chris Barrie were also approached to reprise their roles.


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Llewellyn has presented a number of programmes for UK television. His first outing as a presenter was on "Scrapheap Challenge", produced by Channel 4; the series saw teams of engineers competing to build machines to complete a given task from materials scavenged from a scrapheap. His other presenting roles include a version of Discovery Channel's "How Do They Do It?" and the BBC/Open University programme "Hollywood Science".


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: In 1992, Llewellyn acted in "Parade", the fourth episode of series two of "Bottom", as a wounded Falklands War veteran named Mr. N. Stiles.


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Llewellyn's project "it2i2" was released on DVD in March 2006. Since then, he has had a YouTube video blog called "Llewtube". His book "Sold Out: How I Survived a Year of Not Shopping" — based on his YouTube series "Making Do" — was published in October 2008.


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: In February 2009, Llewellyn featured as a guest in episode 127 of the technology-related podcast "MacBreak Weekly" with Leo Laporte".


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: In 2007 Llewellyn has starred as the prime minister in an episode of the CBBC series "M.I. High". He presented the 2008 Channel 5 game show "Top Trumps".


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Since 2009 Llewellyn has provided the voice of news anchor Perry Flynn for "PlayStation Home TV", which airs in the "Home Theatre of the European" version of PlayStation Home.


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Llewellyn has worked as a voice actor, providing the voices of the alien creatures in "Skywhales" (1983), the voice of Feeble for "The Feeble Files" (1997), Old Joe in "", and the gryphon in the 2005 film "MirrorMask". In the documentary "Dwarfing USA" (released on the DVD of "Red Dwarf V"), he described himself as "very much a 'don't want to do it now' kind of person".


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Llewellyn's web series "Carpool" ran from 2009 to 2014, and spawned a television series of the same name on the television channel Dave from 2010-2011. In January 2011, Llewellyn appeared on "Celebrity Mastermind" answering questions on the specialist subject of electric cars; he has expressed an interest in working on a television series about technologies that we might use in the future.


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: In 2010, Llewellyn was the narrator of the Channel 5 series "The Boss is Coming to Dinner". He appeared in the 2013 movie "Ashens and the Quest for the GameChild" alongside Stuart Ashen and Warwick Davis, and the 2020 sequel, "Ashens and the Polybius Heist".


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Llewellyn presented the 2015 BBC Two show "The World's Busiest Railway" alongside Dan Snow and Anita Rani, which later featured on Netflix under the title "Mumbai Railway".


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Prior to becoming a comedian, Llewellyn served an apprenticeship and became a professional shoemaker, working at James Taylor & Son and John Lobb Bootmaker in London. Speaking to Richard Herring, he said he still maintains an interest in the craft: 'There is still a side of me that wants to develop a kind of 3D printed shoe thing...where you just put your foot in a thing and you just get a shoe and it's there. And it fits absolutely exquisitely, immediately.'


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Llewellyn, who is of Welsh ancestry, learned to drive at age of 11 (having been taught by his older brother in a go-kart). Formerly a 'petrol-head', he is now an electric car and renewable energy advocate. As well as being frequently interviewed on the subject, he presents a YouTube series called "Fully Charged".


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: On the evening of 1 July 2009, while Llewellyn was en route to deliver "Carpool" footage to his editor, another vehicle hit him side-on at a junction in Gloucestershire, writing off his Prius and rendering him unconscious for around ten minutes. The force of the impact was such that it bent his laptop 'into a banana shape'. Llewellyn praised the honesty of the other driver for accepting full liability for the accident, as well as the hospital, police and other services for helping him. He also gave special praise to his 'beloved Prius' for protecting him from the impact. He suffered concussion, minor whiplash and dizzy spells but escaped more serious injury.


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: In 2014 he drove, with David Peilow, a Nissan Leaf 400 miles from London to Edinburgh. Stopping nine times, it took 12 hours, beating a previous time set by the BBC three years earlier which took four days in a Mini-E, as well as beating the time set by David Peilow in a 2008 Tesla Roadster, which, having left two days after the Mini-E, took around 19 hours.


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Llewellyn has expressed that his major pseudoscientific irritations are astrology and climate change denial.


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Llewellyn lives in Temple Guiting, Gloucestershire and is married to Australian author Judy Pascoe (who herself had a cameo in "Red Dwarf" as a one-off love interest of Llewellyn's character, in the episode "Camille" playing a character of the same name).


title: Robert Llewellyn

text: Llewellyn is the author of fourteen books, including "Sold Out!", "Therapy and How to Avoid It" (with Nigel Planer) and seven novels.


title: Educating Rita (film)

text: Educating Rita is a 1983 British comedy-drama film directed by Lewis Gilbert with a screenplay by Willy Russell based on his 1980 stage play. The film stars Michael Caine, Julie Walters, Michael Williams and Maureen Lipman. It won multiple major awards for best actor and best actress and was nominated for three Academy Awards.


title: Educating Rita (film)

text: Caine and Walters both won BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for best actor and actress. The British Film Institute ranked "Educating Rita" the 84th greatest British film of the 20th century.


title: Educating Rita (film)

text: Susan (who initially calls herself Rita), a 26-year-old working-class hairdresser, is dissatisfied with the routine of her work and social life; she is reluctant to have a child, fearing it will permanently tie her to the same monotonous routine for life, and she yearns to escape to something more profound, without exactly knowing what that is. She seeks to better herself by signing up for and attending an Open University course in English Literature.


title: Educating Rita (film)

text: Susan's assigned Open University professor, Frank Bryant, is jaded and has long ago openly taken to the bottle, describing his occupational ability as "appalling but good enough for his appalling students". Bryant's passion for literature is reignited by Rita, whose technical ability for the subject is limited by her lack of education but whose enthusiasm Frank finds refreshing. Frank initially has misgivings about Rita's ability to adapt to student culture, but is impressed by her verve and earnestness and is forced to re-examine his attitudes and position in life; Susan finds Frank's tutelage opens doors to a bohemian lifestyle and a new self-confidence.


title: Educating Rita (film)

text: Frank's bitterness and cynicism return as he notices Susan beginning to adopt the pretensions of the university culture he despises. Susan becomes disillusioned by a friend's attempted suicide and realises that her new social niche is rife with the same dishonesty and superficiality she had previously sought to escape. The film ends as Frank, sent to Australia on a sabbatical, welcomes the possibilities of the change.


title: Educating Rita (film)

text: Lewis Gilbert says it was difficult to raise finance for the film. "Columbia wanted me to cast Dolly Parton as Rita". Julie Walters, in her feature film debut, reprised her role from the stage production.


title: Educating Rita (film)

text: The film is set in an unnamed English university and port city: most of the working-class characters have Scouse accents. However, it was shot entirely in and around Dublin, where minor adjustments were made to suggest the city is in the UK: in several street scenes, for example, British red telephone boxes appear. Trinity College, Dublin, is used as the setting for the university, and University College, Dublin, in Belfield, is used for Rita's summer school. The rooms used by Bryant as his office and tutorial room were those of the College Historical Society and the University Philosophical Society, respectively; and while the building was considerably refurnished, the production chose to leave portraits of Douglas Hyde and Isaac Butt and committee photographs in the former, and a bust of John Pentland Mahaffy in the latter. No. 8 Hogan Avenue in Dublin 2, near Grand Canal Dock, was used for Rita's house in the film, and one in Burlington Road, Ballsbridge, for Bryant's. The scene where Rita runs into her ex Denny and his new wife was filmed in the South Lotts area of Ringsend. The scene in France was filmed in Maynooth, County Kildare, and Pearse Station and Dublin Airport were used. The pub scene was shot in The Stag's Head on Dame Court in Dublin. However, the pub which Rita enters is the Dame Tavern which is opposite The Stag's Head. Filming also took place in Stoneybatter, with Aughrim Street Church being used for the wedding scene. Stanhope Street School was used as a production base.


title: Educating Rita (film)

text: "Variety" magazine in December 1982 lauded Walters' interpretation of Rita as "[w]itty, down-to-earth, kind and loaded with common sense". "Rita," the review continues, "is the antithesis of the humorless, stuffy and stagnated academic world she so longs to infiltrate. Julie Walters injects her with just the right mix of comedy and pathos."


title: Educating Rita (film)

text: Ian Nathan reviewing the film for Britain's "Empire" magazine calls the film a "gem," and gives it four out of five stars. He describes Walters's "splendidly rich interpretation" of Rita and characterises her "reactions to the traditions of English lit[erature] [as] carry[ing] the caustic brilliance of true intelligence, a shattering of blithe pretension". Of Walters and Caine, Nathan opines, "they make a beautifully odd couple, in a love story at one remove". This reviewer depicts the director's effort as "effective, and finally optimistic," and observes about the film that the playwright's "angry message that people are trapped by their environment not their abilities, is salved by the sweetness of [Frank's and Rita's] final parting." Nathan's "verdict" of the film is one of "[c]harming, glittering characterisations that, though they don't run deep, nevertheless refresh."


title: Educating Rita (film)

text: Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" called the film "an awkward blend of intellectual pretension and cute obvious humour" and "the perfect play about literature for anyone who wouldn't dream of actually reading books"; she wrote that "the essentially two-character play has been opened up to the point that it includes a variety of settings and subordinate figures, but it never approaches anything lifelike".


title: Educating Rita (film)

text: Film critic Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film two stars out of four, calling the film a "forced march through a formula relationship"; he said Russell's screen adaptation "added mistresses, colleagues, husbands, in-laws, students and a faculty committee, [that were] all unnecessary" and said the playwright/screenwriter "start[ed] with an idealistic, challenging idea, and then cynically tr[ied] to broaden its appeal".


title: Educating Rita (film)

text: In 2007, while promoting the remake of "Sleuth", Caine called "Educating Rita" "the last good picture [he] made before [he] mentally retired."


title: Educating Rita (film)

text: The film was released on DVD in the UK and the US. ITV Studios released the film onto Blu-Ray in the UK (Region B) in 2008 as a 25th Anniversary edition, to mark twenty-five years since the film's release. This edition was discontinued, but in May 2018, ITV Studios released the film onto Blu-ray again.


title: Educating Rita (film)

text: In November 2002, the then-82-year-old director Lewis Gilbert went public with plans to remake his film "with a black cast that could include Halle Berry and Denzel Washington", with principal photography to commence in 2003. The project did not come to pass, and Gilbert's final film was "Before You Go" (2003).


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: Georgia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) enjoy good relations. Georgia is not currently a member of NATO, but has been promised by NATO to be admitted in the future.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: Cooperation officially began in 1994 when Georgia joined the NATO-run Partnership for Peace. Georgia has moved quickly following the Rose Revolution in 2003 to seek closer ties and eventual membership with NATO (although the previous administration had also indicated that they desired NATO membership a year before the revolution took place). Georgia's powerful northern neighbor, Russia, has opposed the closer ties, including those expressed at the 2008 Bucharest summit where NATO members promised that Georgia would eventually join the organization. In the 7 December 2011 statement of the North Atlantic Council Georgia was designated as an "aspirant country".


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: Complications in the relationship between NATO and Georgia includes presence of Russian forces in Georgian territory as a result of multiple recent conflicts, like the 2008 South Ossetia war, over the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which are home to large numbers of Russian nationals. A nonbinding referendum in 2008 resulted in 77% of voters supporting NATO accession.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: The current Georgia–NATO relations occurs in the framework of the Substantial NATO–Georgia Package (SNGP), a set of measures at the strategic, tactical and operational levels launched in 2014. The package includes a Defence Institution Building School, NATO–Georgia Joint Training and Evaluation Centre and Logistics Facility, the facilitation of multi-national and regional military drills, and other measures.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: Georgia has sought to join NATO, which it views as a guarantee of stability to the region by acting as a counterweight to Russia, which it considers a dangerous neighbor. Located on the northeastern border of NATO member Turkey, Georgia is the furthest from the Atlantic of all countries currently considering NATO membership. Article 10 of the "North Atlantic Treaty" limits membership extension to European states. Georgia's location on the juncture of continents is a subject of debate, yet similarly positioned Turkey has been a member of NATO since 1952 but Turkey has a part of its territory clearly in the European continent, over to the West and in the European Shores of the Black Sea, while Georgia has traditionally been considered as the northernmost area of Western Asia.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: In 2006, the Georgian parliament voted unanimously for a bill which calls for the integration of Georgia into NATO. On 5 January 2008 Georgia held a non-binding referendum on NATO membership with 77% voting in favor of joining the organization.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: Russia sees NATO's eastward expansion as a threat against their strategic interests in Europe and has accused the West of having double standards.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia became an independent nation under the nationalistic leadership of Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Georgia immediately had problems with Russian support of Ossetians in Georgia. Like others, Georgia joined the NATO-run North Atlantic Cooperation Council in 1992 and the Partnership for Peace, signing their agreement on March 23, 1994. Georgia was a founding member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, an alternative Russian-led military alliance, in 1994, but withdrew in 1999.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: In 1996, Georgia submitted their first Individual Partnership Plan, and in 1997 ratified the Status of Forces Agreement. Georgia opened official relations with NATO in 1998 by opening a diplomatic mission and presenting an ambassador.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: The 2003 Rose Revolution replaced Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze with Mikheil Saakashvili, who promoted closer ties with western institutions including NATO.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: In 2004, Georgian forces started to work with NATO forces in the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, as part of the election security force.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: On 14 February 2005 NATO and Georgia signed an agreement on the appointment of Partnership for Peace (PfP) liaison officer. The liaison office between them came into force then and was assigned to Georgia. On 2 March 2005, the agreement was signed on the provision of the host nation supporting and aiding transit of NATO forces and NATO personnel. On March 6–9, 2006, the Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) implementation interim assessment team arrived in Tbilisi.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: On 13 April 2006, the discussion of the assessment report on implementation of the IPAP was held at NATO Headquarters, within 26+1 format.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: In September 2006, Georgia became the second country to be offered the "Intensified Dialogue" status, following a rapid change in foreign policy under President Mikhail Saakashvili, and what NATO perceived as a demonstration of military readiness during the 2006 Kodori crisis.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: During NATO's 2008 Bucharest summit in Bucharest, United States and Poland called for Georgia to be allowed to join the Membership Action Plan (MAP). The alliance decided not to offer Georgia a MAP due to opposition from several countries, led by Germany and France, who feared the decision would anger Russia. Instead NATO countries assured the Georgian side in a special communiqué that they would eventually join the alliance once the requirement for membership were met. Members further pledged to review the decision in December 2008 at the meeting of NATO foreign ministers.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: Responding on 11 April 2008 the head of the Russian military general Yuri Baluyevsky stated that if Georgia joins NATO, "Russia will take steps aimed at ensuring its interests along its borders and these will not only be military steps, but also steps of a different nature". The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia released a statement that said that it was "a demonstration of open aggression against Georgia" and called on the international community to react adequately to this "serious threat".


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: The NATO communiqué which promised the country eventual membership still angered Moscow. After the summit, Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin vowed support and protection to then-unrecognized republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and even promising to open official Russian representations in the regions — a move which Georgia said violated international law and constituted a direct attack on a sovereign state. A Russian statement said "Any attempts to apply political, economic or, all the more, military pressure on Abkhazia and South Ossetia are hopeless and counterproductive." After the 2008 South Ossetia war, Russia recognized Georgia's two breakaway regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as independent countries.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: On August 7, 2008, Georgia called for a unilateral ceasefire following days of exchanged gunfire between Georgian forces and South Ossetian separatists. Five and a half hours after Georgia's declared ceasefire, Georgia's Foreign Ministry sent troops into South Ossetia "to restore constitutional order in the entire region" The South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali became the site for a prolonged battle.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: Russia responded with a larger assault that quickly moved beyond South Ossetia in Georgia and included the other breakaway region of Abkhazia. This ongoing dispute complicates NATO's relation with Russia, which has peacekeeping troops in both regions, internationally recognized as Georgian territory. The South Ossetia war further diminished the likelihood of Georgian accession to NATO in the near future according to several analysts. Others however see it as a justification for Georgian membership in NATO.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said during the meeting with Russian president after the signing of a ceasefire agreement that the 2008 promise NATO made to Georgia in Bucharest was still standing. However, she did not indicate a time frame, nor did she retract the earlier insistence of Germany and France that Georgia must resolve its internal problems prior to any NATO membership. As of November 2008, there is not a consensus within NATO on a Georgian Membership Action Plan.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: On April 4, 2009, the NATO heads of state released a joint statement after the Strasbourg–Kehl summit, pledging to maximise their advice, assistance and support for Georgia's and Ukraine's reform efforts. The statement reiterated that the two countries will become NATO members, but did not specify the time. It reaffirmed NATO's "continued support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia within its internationally recognised borders". The statement said that Russia has not completely complied with its commitments undertaken under the August 12 and September 8 ceasefire accords and called for Moscow to reverse its recognition of Georgia's breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: On 21 November 2011, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev while addressing soldiers in Vladikavkaz near the Georgian border stated that the 2008 invasion had prevented any further NATO enlargement into the former Soviet sphere.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: In May 2013, Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili stated that his goal was to get a Membership Action Plan for his country from NATO in 2014. However, in June 2014 NATO officials announced that Georgia would not yet be invited to join the MAP process, but that NATO would implement a "substantive package" of cooperation measures with Georgia.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: In 2014 prior to its 65th anniversary since its creation, NATO under Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced that it would not be offering any new countries membership into the organization that year. Analysts confirmed this as a sign that NATO members were becoming skeptical about further Eastern expansion due to worries about Russian retaliation to these new security guarantees so close to is borders.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: In December 2017 during the US Presidency of Donald J. Trump, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg affirmed the support for Georgia's "eventual NATO membership".


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: In February 2019, in an interview with Voice of America Ben Hodges, a retired lieutenant-general of United States Army Europe and now working for the defence think tank Center for European Policy Analysis said that Georgia has "nothing left to prove about NATO membership" and "accession of West Germany into NATO is a precedent for Georgia".


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: In September 2019, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was quoted as saying that if NATO accepts Georgian membership with the article on collective defence covering only Tbilisi-administered territory (i.e., excluding the two Georgian territories Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (aka South Ossetia), both of which are currently occupied by Russia), "we will not start a war, but such conduct will undermine our relations with NATO and with countries who are eager to enter the alliance."


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: On 29 September 2020, Stoltenberg called on Georgia to use every opportunity to move closer to the Alliance and speed up preparations for membership. Stoltenberg stressed that earlier this year, the Allies agreed to further strengthen the NATO-Georgia partnership. According to him, NATO welcomes the progress made by Georgia in carrying out reforms, modernizing its armed forces and strengthening democracy. It is worth noting that so far Georgia's calls for membership in such formulations have not appeared in the rhetoric of the Secretary General of the Alliance. At the same time, NATO recognizes Georgia's aspirations for membership in the Alliance, as in the case of Ukraine.


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: At the end of November 2020, it became known that the NATO Summit in 2021 will consider a return to the "NATO open door policy", including the issue of providing Georgia with a Membership Action Plan (MAP).


title: Georgia–NATO relations

text: On 17 February 2022, Georgian Defence Minister, Juansher Burchuladze, was quoted as saying that joining NATO is the only way to preserve Georgia's territorial integrity. This occurred following a meeting with Stoltenberg in Brussels. Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, who took office in 2018, has conceded that NATO membership might not be possible while Russia occupies Georgian territory, and has sought to focus on European Union membership, which Georgia submitted its application for in May 2022.


title: Hella Mega Tour

text: The Hella Mega Tour was a concert tour by American rock bands Green Day, Fall Out Boy, and Weezer that was announced on September 10, 2019 and originally included dates from March to August 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Oceania and Asian legs of the tour were canceled, as well as some European dates and the sole Canadian date. The rest of the tour was rescheduled to 2021 and 2022.


title: Hella Mega Tour

text: On September 10, 2019, all three bands simultaneously announced the tour and new music. On the same day, each band also released a new single: Green Day released "Father of All..." and announced its 13th album, "Father of All Motherfuckers"; Fall Out Boy released "Dear Future Self (Hands Up)" and announced its second compilation album, ""; and Weezer released "The End of the Game" and announced its fifteenth (fourteenth at the time) album, "Van Weezer". Weezer would also go on to release their fourteenth studio album "OK Human" on January 29, 2021, preceded eight days earlier by the lead single "All My Favorite Songs".


title: Hella Mega Tour

text: All three bands performed at 29 shows across the North American and European legs. The venues consisted of outdoor and indoor arenas as well as outdoor park venues. On February 28, 2020, Green Day announced all nine Asia tour dates were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 23, 2020, it was announced on the social media pages of the Hella Mega Tour that a number of the European dates would be postponed. On May 19, 2020, it was announced that all dates on the North American leg would be postponed to 2021. On July 15, 2020, it was announced that all dates on the Oceania leg would be cancelled and tickets refunded. On February 27, 2022, Green Day announced their solo concert in Moscow prior to the European Hella Mega Tour leg on May 29 would be canceled due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.


title: Hella Mega Tour

text: This set list is from the concert on July 24, 2021, in Arlington, Texas. It is not intended to represent all shows from the tour.


title: Optical mouse

text: An optical mouse is a computer mouse which uses a light source, typically a light-emitting diode (LED), and a light detector, such as an array of photodiodes, to detect movement relative to a surface. Variations of the optical mouse have largely replaced the older mechanical mouse design, which uses moving parts to sense motion.


title: Optical mouse

text: The earliest optical mice detected movement on pre-printed mousepad surfaces. Modern optical mice work on most opaque diffusely reflective surfaces like paper, but most of them do not work properly on specularly reflective surfaces like polished stone or transparent surfaces like glass. Optical mice that use dark field illumination can function reliably even on such surfaces.


title: Optical mouse

text: Though not commonly referred to as optical mice, nearly all mechanical mice tracked movement using LEDs and photodiodes to detect when beams of infrared light did and didn't pass through holes in a pair of incremental rotary encoder wheels (one for left/right, another for forward/back), driven by a rubberized ball. Thus, the primary distinction of “optical mice” is not their use of optics, but their complete lack of moving parts to track mouse movement, instead employing an entirely solid-state system.


title: Optical mouse

text: The first two optical mice, first demonstrated by two independent inventors in December 1980, had different basic designs:


title: Optical mouse

text: One of these, invented by Steve Kirsch of MIT and Mouse Systems Corporation, used an infrared LED and a four-quadrant infrared sensor to detect grid lines printed with infrared absorbing ink on a special metallic surface. Predictive algorithms in the CPU of the mouse calculated the speed and direction over the grid. The other type, invented by Richard F. Lyon of Xerox, used a 16-pixel visible-light image sensor with integrated motion detection on the same ntype (5µm) MOS integrated circuit chip, and tracked the motion of light dots in a dark field of a printed paper or similar mouse pad. The Kirsch and Lyon mouse types had very different behaviors, as the Kirsch mouse used an x-y coordinate system embedded in the pad, and would not work correctly when the pad was rotated, while the Lyon mouse used the x-y coordinate system of the mouse body, as mechanical mice do.


title: Optical mouse

text: The optical mouse ultimately sold with the Xerox STAR office computer used an inverted sensor chip packaging approach patented by Lisa M. Williams and Robert S. Cherry of the Xerox Microelectronics Center.


title: Optical mouse

text: Modern surface-independent optical mice work by using an optoelectronic sensor (essentially, a tiny low-resolution video camera) to take successive images of the surface on which the mouse operates. As computing power grew cheaper, it became possible to embed more powerful special-purpose image-processing chips in the mouse itself. This advance enabled the mouse to detect relative motion on a wide variety of surfaces, translating the movement of the mouse into the movement of the cursor and eliminating the need for a special mouse-pad. A surface-independent coherent light optical mouse design was patented by Stephen B. Jackson at Xerox in 1988.


title: Optical mouse

text: The first commercially available, modern optical computer mice were the Microsoft IntelliMouse with IntelliEye and IntelliMouse Explorer, introduced in 1999 using technology developed by Hewlett-Packard. It worked on almost any surface, and represented a welcome improvement over mechanical mice, which would pick up dirt, track capriciously, invite rough handling, and need to be taken apart and cleaned frequently. Other manufacturers soon followed Microsoft's lead using components manufactured by the HP spin-off Agilent Technologies, and over the next several years mechanical mice became obsolete.


title: Optical mouse

text: The technology underlying the modern optical computer mouse is known as digital image correlation, a technology pioneered by the defense industry for tracking military targets. A simple binary-image version of digital image correlation was used in the 1980 Lyon optical mouse. Optical mice use image sensors to image naturally occurring texture in materials such as wood, cloth, mouse pads and Formica. These surfaces, when lit at a grazing angle by a light emitting diode, cast distinct shadows that resemble a hilly terrain lit at sunset. Images of these surfaces are captured in continuous succession and compared with each other to determine how far the mouse has moved.


title: Optical mouse

text: To understand how optical flow is used in optical mice, imagine two photographs of the same object except slightly offset from each other. Place both photographs on a light table to make them transparent, and slide one across the other until their images line up. The amount that the edges of one photograph overhang the other represents the offset between the images, and in the case of an optical computer mouse the distance it has moved.


title: Optical mouse

text: Optical mice capture one thousand successive images or more per second. Depending on how fast the mouse is moving, each image will be offset from the previous one by a fraction of a pixel or as many as several pixels. Optical mice mathematically process these images using cross correlation to calculate how much each successive image is offset from the previous one. The output of the optical sensor is usually delta coordinates. Some optical ICs allow to get image data as well. Mice usually embeds DSP processors for fast data processing.


title: Optical mouse

text: An optical mouse might use an image sensor having an 18 × 18 pixel array of monochromatic pixels. Its sensor would normally share the same ASIC as that used for storing and processing the images. One refinement would be accelerating the correlation process by using information from previous motions, and another refinement would be preventing deadbands when moving slowly by adding interpolation or frame-skipping.


title: Optical mouse

text: The development of the modern optical mouse at Hewlett-Packard Co. was supported by a succession of related projects during the 1990s at HP Laboratories. In 1992 William Holland was awarded US Patent 5,089,712 and John Ertel, William Holland, Kent Vincent, Rueiming Jamp, and Richard Baldwin were awarded US Patent 5,149,980 for measuring linear paper advance in a printer by correlating images of paper fibers. Ross R. Allen, David Beard, Mark T. Smith, and Barclay J. Tullis were awarded US Patents 5,578,813 (1996) and 5,644,139 (1997) for 2-dimensional optical navigational (i.e., position measurement) principles based on detecting and correlating microscopic, inherent features of the surface over which the navigation sensor travelled, and using position measurements of each end of a linear (document) image sensor to reconstruct an image of the document. This is the freehand scanning concept used in the HP CapShare 920 handheld scanner. By describing an optical means that explicitly overcame the limitations of wheels, balls, and rollers used in contemporary computer mice, the optical mouse was anticipated. These patents formed the basis for US Patent 5,729,008 (1998) awarded to Travis N. Blalock, Richard A. Baumgartner, Thomas Hornak, Mark T. Smith, and Barclay J. Tullis, where surface feature image sensing, image processing, and image correlation was realized by an integrated circuit to produce a position measurement. Improved precision of 2D optical navigation, needed for application of optical navigation to precise 2D measurement of media (paper) advance in HP DesignJet large format printers, was further refined in US Patent 6,195,475 awarded in 2001 to Raymond G. Beausoleil, Jr., and Ross R. Allen.


title: Optical mouse

text: While the reconstruction of the image in the document scanning application (Allen et al.) required resolution by the optical navigators on the order of 1/600th of an inch, implementation of optical position measurement in computer mice not only benefit from the cost reductions inherent in navigating at lower resolution, but also enjoy the advantage of visual feedback to the user of the cursor position on the computer display. In 2002, Gary Gordon, Derek Knee, Rajeev Badyal and Jason Hartlove were awarded US Patent 6,433,780 for an optical computer mouse that measured position using image correlation. Some small trackpads (such as those on Blackberry smartphones) work like an optical mouse.


title: Optical mouse

text: Optical mice often used light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for illumination when first popularized. The color of the optical mouse's LEDs can vary, but red is most common, as red diodes are inexpensive and silicon photodetectors are very sensitive to red light. IR LEDs are also widely used. Other colors are sometimes used, such as the blue LED of the V-Mouse VM-101 illustrated at right.


title: Optical mouse

text: A laser mouse uses an infrared laser diode instead of an LED to illuminate the surface beneath their sensor. As early as 1998, Sun Microsystems provided a laser mouse with their Sun SPARCstation servers and workstations.


title: Optical mouse

text: However, laser mice did not enter the mainstream consumer market until 2004, following the development by a team at Agilent Laboratories, Palo Alto, led by Doug Baney of a laser-based mouse based on a 850 nm VCSEL that offered a 20X improvement in tracking performance. Tong Xie, Marshall T. Depue, and Douglas M. Baney were awarded US patents 7,116,427 and 7,321,359 for their work on low power consumption broad navigability VCSEL-based consumer mice. Paul Machin at Logitech, in partnership with Agilent Technologies introduced the new technology as the "MX 1000" laser mouse. This mouse uses a small infrared laser (VCSEL) instead of an LED and significantly increased the resolution of the image taken by the mouse. The laser illumination enabled superior surface tracking compared to LED-illuminated optical mice.


title: Optical mouse

text: "Glass laser" (or "glaser") mice have the same capability of a laser mouse but work far better on mirror or transparent glass surfaces than other optical mice on those surfaces. In 2008, Avago Technologies introduced laser navigation sensors whose emitter was integrated into the IC using VCSEL technology.


title: Optical mouse

text: In August 2009, Logitech introduced mice with two lasers, to track on glass and glossy surfaces better; they dubbed them a "Darkfield" laser sensor.


title: Optical mouse

text: Manufacturers often engineer their optical mice—especially battery-powered wireless models—to save power when possible. To do this, the mouse dims or blinks the laser or LED when in standby mode (each mouse has a different standby time). A typical implementation (by Logitech) has four power states, where the sensor is pulsed at different rates per second:


title: Optical mouse

text: Movement can be detected in any of these states; some mice turn the sensor fully off in the sleep state, requiring a button click to wake.


title: Optical mouse

text: Optical mice utilizing infrared elements (LEDs or lasers) offer substantial increases in battery life over visible spectrum illumination. Some mice, such as the Logitech V450 848 nm laser mouse, are capable of functioning on two AA batteries for a full year, due to the low power requirements of the infrared laser.


title: Optical mouse

text: Mice designed for use where low latency and high responsiveness are important, such as in playing video games, may omit power-saving features and require a wired connection to improve performance. Examples of mice which sacrifice power-saving in favor of performance are the Logitech G5 and the Razer Copperhead.


title: Optical mouse

text: Unlike mechanical mice, whose tracking mechanisms can become clogged with lint, optical mice have no moving parts (besides buttons and scroll wheels); therefore, they do not require maintenance other than removing debris that might collect under the light emitter. However, they generally cannot track on glossy and transparent surfaces, including some mouse-pads, causing the cursor to drift unpredictably during operation. Mice with less image-processing power also have problems tracking fast movement, whereas some high-quality mice can track faster than 2 m/s.


title: Optical mouse

text: Some models of laser mouse can track on glossy and transparent surfaces, and have a much higher sensitivity.


title: Optical mouse

text: Optical models outperform mechanical mice on uneven, slick, soft, sticky, or loose surfaces, and generally in mobile situations lacking mouse pads. Because optical mice render movement based on an image which the LED (or infrared diode) illuminates, use with multicolored mouse pads may result in unreliable performance; however, laser mice do not suffer these problems and will track on such surfaces.


title: Old Alton Bridge

text: Old Alton Bridge, also known as Goatman's Bridge, is a historic iron truss bridge connecting the Texas cities of Denton and Copper Canyon. Built in 1884 by the King Iron Bridge Manufacturing Company, it originally carried horses and later automobiles over Hickory Creek at a location that once was a popular ford for crossing cattle. The bridge takes its name from the abandoned community of Alton, which between 1850 and 1856 was the seat of Denton County.


title: Old Alton Bridge

text: The heavily traveled Old Alton Bridge remained in constant use until 2001 when vehicle traffic was moved to an adjacent concrete-and-steel bridge. Prior to the new bridge, it was necessary for motorists to signal with a car horn before crossing the single-lane span. The new bridge straightened out a sharp curve on both sides of the creek and provided additional travel lanes.


title: Old Alton Bridge

text: With vehicle traffic removed, the bridge became an important link connecting the Elm Fork and Pilot Knoll Hiking and Equestrian Trails. Today, it is a popular location for nature enthusiasts and photographers. Old Alton Bridge was included in the National Register of Historic Places on July 8, 1988.


title: Old Alton Bridge

text: Locally, the bridge is known as Goatman's Bridge, as it is said to be haunted by a half-man half-goat figure called Goatman. The belief is based on the legend of a black goat farmer named Oscar Washburn, who was said to have moved his family to a residence just north of the bridge. A few years later, Washburn, having become known as a dependable and honest businessman and dubbed the "Goatman" by locals, displayed a sign on Alton Bridge reading "This way to the Goatman". But the success of a black man was still unwelcome to many, and, in August 1938, Klansmen in the local government crossed the bridge and kidnapped Washburn from his family. They hung a noose on Old Alton Bridge and, after securing it around his neck, threw him over the side. When they looked down to see if he had died, the noose was empty. In a panic, they returned to his family home and slaughtered his wife and children.


title: Old Alton Bridge

text: Locals warn that if you cross the bridge at night without headlights (as the Klansmen are said to have done), you will be met on the other side by the Goatman. Ghostly figures and strange lights are said to appear in the surrounding woods, as well as reports of visitors being touched, grabbed, and having rocks thrown at them.


title: Old Alton Bridge

text: This legend results in the area around Old Alton Bridge being popular among paranormal investigators, such as the crews from "Ghost Adventures" and "BuzzFeed Unsolved: Supernatural".


title: Late Night Talking

text: "Late Night Talking" is a song by English singer Harry Styles. The song was released to US pop radio as the second single from his third studio album "Harry's House" on 21 June 2022. A music video for the song was later released on 13 July 2022, in which Styles is shown exploring the world on different beds.


title: Late Night Talking

text: On 1 April 2022, Styles released the lead single "As It Was" to critical acclaim and commercial success. The song was debuted during his Coachella performance. He also performed "Boyfriends""," another unreleased track off of "Harry's House".


title: Late Night Talking

text: "Late Night Talking" was described as a "glossy R&B shifter" that fills "every available space with some or other moving part, right down to vocal parts mimicking brass".


title: Late Night Talking

text: The video, directed by Bradley and Pablo and released on 13 July 2022, finds Styles following a portal in his own bed that leads him to an array of other beds — one in an art gallery, another in a restaurant, a theatre, and another that speeds through the streets of London past Buckingham Palace. The clip also comes complete with a pillow fight and Styles officiating a bed-ridden wedding, before falling through the sky on his bed.


title: Late Night Talking

text: He performed a live version of the song on the "Today Show" on May 19, and also included the song in a set he performed for BBC Radio 1, along with "As It Was", "Boyfriends" and a cover of "Wet Dream" by Wet Leg on 24 May 2022.


title: Gary Dauberman

text: Gary Dauberman is an American screenwriter and director. He is known for writing The Conjuring Universe horror films "Annabelle" (2014), "" (2017), "The Nun" (2018), and "Annabelle Comes Home" (2019). He made his directorial debut with the latter film. Dauberman also co-wrote the supernatural horror film "It" (2017), and wrote its follow-up "It Chapter Two" (2019), which are based on the novel of the same name.


title: Gary Dauberman

text: Dauberman grew up in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania and graduated from Penncrest High School in 1995. He attended Delaware County Community College for two years, where he majored in communications, before transferring to Temple University, where he graduated with a degree in Film and Media Studies in 2001.


title: Find Me Guilty

text: Find Me Guilty is a 2006 American courtroom comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Sidney Lumet. The film is based on the true story of the longest Mafia trial in American history. Much of the courtroom testimony was taken from the original court transcripts. Vin Diesel stars as Jackie DiNorscio, a New Jersey mobster who is on trial with 19 of his colleagues for racketeering. A wrench is thrown into the system when DiNorscio fires his lawyer and decides to represent himself. The film also stars Peter Dinklage, Linus Roache, Alex Rocco, and Ron Silver.


title: Find Me Guilty

text: In the mid 1980s, Mafia soldier Jackie DiNorscio (Vin Diesel) and 19 of his peers have been waiting a year for their federal racketeering trial to begin. While out on bail, Jackie is shot by his drug addict cousin Tony Compagna (Raúl Esparza). Afraid of being killed by the extended mob family run by Nick Calabrese (Alex Rocco), Tony agrees to be a government witness for district attorney Sean Kierney (Linus Roache). Shortly after, Jackie is arrested and sentenced to 22–30 years in prison after being set up in an unrelated drug sting by the DEA. Kierney tries to pressure Jackie into cooperating with the government against his codefendants in order to get an early release date, but Jackie flatly refuses.


title: Find Me Guilty

text: Upset over the results of his previous trial, Jackie fires his lawyer and decides to represent himself. This adds to the burdens of the court, already having to deal with 20 defendants and their lawyers. Judge Sidney Finestein (Ron Silver) strongly advises against it, but lead defense attorney Ben Klandis (Peter Dinklage) agrees to assist Jackie. Both Klandis and Kierney recognize Jackie's ability to charm the jury, but his arrogant, vulgar behavior eventually start irritating everyone. As revenge, Kierney arranges for Jackie to have all of his prison privileges revoked. No one is more upset than Nick, who believes Jackie will cost them the trial and threatens to sever himself from the case. As weeks turn into months, the court case evolves into a marathon affair. Kierney wants Jackie kicked off the case, but Judge Finestein reluctantly agrees to keep the trial going. Jackie realizes he has gone too far and apologizes to the judge.


title: Find Me Guilty

text: Wanting to remove the possibility that even one defendant gets acquitted, Kearny offers a final plea deal to all the defendants. In return for pleading guilty, they will all get shorter sentences than they would be facing if found guilty. Jackie tells his codefendants that he refuses to take a deal even though he is already serving a long sentence for drug trafficking. This convinces Nick and the others to turn down the deal too. The final witness is Jackie's cousin Tony. Klandis is able to use Tony's heavy drug use to discredit him as a witness and Jackie emotionally cross-examines his cousin and asks why he betrayed his love for him.


title: Find Me Guilty

text: After 21 months of testimony, the trial concludes with closing arguments. The prosecution and defense teams return to their homes expecting the jury to deliberate for at least a week. However, after only 14 hours of deliberation the jury returns a verdict of not guilty on all charges. While the rest of the defendants leave the courtroom with their families, Jackie returns to prison to finish his sentence. He receives a hero's welcome at the correctional facility, where fellow prisoners chant his name and reach out to shake his hand.


title: Find Me Guilty

text: The end title cards explain that the real Jackie DiNorscio served 17 and a half years before being paroled in 2002. He died of natural causes during filming.


title: Find Me Guilty

text: "Find Me Guilty" received mostly positive reviews. , the film holds a 62% approval rating on review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes, based on 106 reviews with an average rating of 6.02 out of 10. The critical consensus is: ""Find Me Guilty"s excessive length and heavy-handed narrative keep it from reaching its full potential, but Vin Diesel's performance is well worth watching."


title: Find Me Guilty

text: Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, calling Diesel "a good choice for this role, bringing it sincerity without nobility." Ebert also praised the film's director, Lumet, who "was able to see the serious dramatic potential of Vin Diesel, dismissed as an action star, and use it for a remarkable performance."


title: Find Me Guilty

text: The film did poorly at the box office; on its first weekend, it grossed only $608,804 (439 theaters, averaging $1,386 per theater). It grossed $1,173,643 in the domestic market, and $1,457,700 overseas, for a total of $2,631,343. The film's budget was $13 million, and so it was considered a box office bomb.


title: Find Me Guilty

text: "Find Me Guilty" was released in theatres on March 17, 2006. The film was released on DVD on June 27, 2006. The film was released on Blu-ray in Spain on August 31, 2011 and in the United States on October 9, 2012.


title: Find Me Guilty

text: In August 1985, authorities in New Jersey indicted Anthony Accetturo, Martin and Michael Taccetta, and eighteen of the men who ran the New Jersey faction of the New York-based Lucchese crime family. It was the first time in New Jersey history that an entire organized crime family had been indicted in one prosecution. However, this crime family proved to be only a faction of the Lucchese crime family, only operating in New Jersey. But due to the crew's membership and 20 defendants, U.S. law enforcement recognized the crew as its own crime family.


title: Find Me Guilty

text: The case went to trial in November 1986, based on a 65-page indictment. It started in March 1987 at the federal courthouse in Newark. It ended on August 26, 1988. The U.S. Clerk’s Office in Newark confirmed that officially "The United States v. Anthony Accetturo et al." was the longest criminal case on record in the federal courts of the nation.


title: Find Me Guilty

text: The jury found a verdict of not guilty in favor of all the defendants. The trial followed a ten-year investigation and generated 240 volumes and 850 exhibits of evidence. It cost taxpayers millions of dollars, and was the result of a 76 count Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) indictment.


title: The Oath of Love

text: The Oath of Love (), is a 2022 Chinese romance medical drama television series directed by Lü Ying, starring Yang Zi and Xiao Zhan. It premiered from March 15 to March 31, 2022 on WeTV internationally, Hunan TV Primetime and Tencent Web Platform.


title: The Oath of Love

text: Lin Zhi Xiao (Yang Zi) is a gifted young cellist about to graduate from university. She works hard to overcome her flightiness from her youth, and is hoping to make a career in playing cello. However, when her father is diagnosed with cancer, she stops everything and spends time at the hospital caring for him. Gu Wei is his surgical doctor. He is very solemn and almost cold, although glimpses of his warm heart can be seen from time to time. As Zhi Xiao's father progresses through treatment, she and Dr. Gu become close - she helps him learn how to enjoy life, and he helps her focus on what she truly wants in life.


title: The Oath of Love

text: Filming began in August 2019 and officially ended on November 6, 2019. Filming took place in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China.


title: The Oath of Love

text: On August 5, 2021, it was announced that the drama would air on September 8, 2021. However, on September 5, 2021, just 3 days before the previously confirmed airing date, it was announced that the airing of the drama would be postponed, and that the specific airing date would be announced at further notice. On March 14, 2022, The new release date was officially announced, premiers March 15, on the Chinese streaming platform Tencent Video and WeTV. It can also be seen on the Rakuten Viki streaming service.


title: Emmanuel Nwude

text: Emmanuel Nwude Odinigwe popularly known as Owelle of Abagana is a Nigerian advance-fee fraud artist and former Director of Union Bank of Nigeria. He is known for defrauding Nelson Sakaguchi, a Director at Brazil's Banco Noroeste based in São Paulo, of $242 million: $191 million in cash and the remainder in the form of outstanding interest, between 1995 and 1998. His accomplices were Emmanuel Ofolue, Nzeribe Okoli, and Obum Osakwe, along with the husband and wife duo, Christian Ikechukwu Anajemba and Amaka Anajemba, with Christian later being assassinated.


title: Emmanuel Nwude

text: After Nick Leeson's trading losses at Barings Bank, and the looting of the Iraqi Central Bank by Qusay Hussein, the crime was the third largest in banking history. After a large-scale attack on a town in Nigeria in August 2016, Nwude was alleged to be a ringleader and was arrested on murder charges. He was later released.


title: Emmanuel Nwude

text: Nwude impersonated Paul Ogwuma, then Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and successfully convinced Sakaguchi, a then director at Brazil's Banco Noroeste, to "invest" in a new airport in the nation's capital, Abuja, in exchange for a $10 million commission. In August 1997, the Spanish Banco Santander wanted to take over the Banco Noroeste Brazil. The fraud was uncovered after a December 1997 joint board meeting, in which an official from Santander inquired about why a large sum of money, two-fifths of Noroeste's total value and half of their capital, was sitting in the Cayman Islands unmonitored.


title: Emmanuel Nwude

text: This led to criminal investigations in Brazil, Britain, Nigeria, Switzerland, and the United States. To guarantee the sale to Santander, the Simonsen and Cochrane families, the owners of Banco Noroeste, paid the $242 million bill themselves. However, Banco Noroeste collapsed in 2001.


title: Emmanuel Nwude

text: As for Nelson Sakaguchi, he was later arrested at New York's John F. Kennedy airport and dispatched to Switzerland, to stand trial on charges relating to setting up bank accounts there as part of the fraud.


title: Emmanuel Nwude

text: At the request of former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was created by the Nigerian Parliament in 2002. In February 2004, Amaka Anajemba, Emmanuel Nwude, Emmanuel Ofolue, Nzeribe Okoli, and Obum Osakwe (Christian Anajemba was deceased at this point), were all arrested and charged in the Abuja High Court with 86 counts of "fraudulently seeking advance fees" and 15 counts of bribery related to the case. They pleaded not guilty. They were immediately warned off of bribing the court staff by Abuja High Court Judge Lawal Gumi, after he alleged that money was going around.


title: Emmanuel Nwude

text: The defense team assured that "nothing would be done to bring scandal to the administration of justice." Four Nigerian companies, Fynbaz, Emrus, Ocean Marketing and the African Shelter Bureau also faced charges and pleaded not guilty. In July 2004, Judge Lawal Gumi threw out the case, claiming that since the crime did not take place in Abuja, he had no jurisdiction, and said that the proper place for the case would be the Lagos High Court.


title: Emmanuel Nwude

text: The defendants were immediately rearrested after stepping outside the courthouse and the case was moved to Lagos. In 2005, Nwude attempted to bribe Nuhu Ribadu, then head of the commission, with $75,000 cash. He was charged in connection with the attempted bribery in addition to the attempted kidnapping of a prosecution witness. In July 2005, Amaka Anajemba admitted to helping Anajemba and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and ordered to repay $25.5 million.


title: Emmanuel Nwude

text: During Nwude's trial, there was a bomb scare that caused the courthouse to be evacuated. Emmanuel Nwude and Nzeribe Okoli pleaded guilty after testimony from Sakaguchi in hopes of a more lenient sentence, and were sentenced to 29 years in prison collectively, with Nwude receiving five concurrent sentences of five years, totaling 25, and Okoli receiving four. The entirety of Nwude's assets were confiscated to be returned to the victim and a $10 million fine was imposed to be paid to the Nigerian federal government. It was the first major conviction for the EFCC. He was released from prison in 2006.


title: Emmanuel Nwude

text: Nwude filed a lawsuit to recover his seized assets after he was released from prison, on the grounds that some of the assets were acquired before the offense was committed. He has already reclaimed at least $52 Million. As of May 8, 2015, the matter is being heard by the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal.


title: Emmanuel Nwude

text: On August 19, 2016, the town of Ukpo in the Dunukofia area was attacked by over 200 people, apparently due to a land dispute with the neighboring Abagana community. Four policemen were shot, and Emmanuel Okafor, a security guard at a construction site, was killed. The Anambra State Police Command alleged that Emmanuel Nwude was a ringleader, and arrested him on 27 charges including murder, attempted murder, and terrorist attacks. He was being held at Awka Prison in Anambra State, but was released on bail on December 8, 2016.


title: Emmanuel Nwude

text: On Thursday 25 February 2021, Emmanuel Nwude, while testifying before Justice Mojisola Dada of the Ikeja Special Offences Court, denied knowing the source of the $242m that was transferred into his account. Mr. Nwude, after serving part of his 25 year jail term, is back in court alongside two lawyers – Emmanuel Ilechukwu and Roland Kalu.


title: Emmanuel Nwude

text: All three face a 15-count charge of forging the documents of a property Justice Oyewole had earlier ordered Mr. Nwude to forfeit to his victims. The property is located at Plot Y, Mobolaji Johnson street, Oregun Alausa, Ikeja, Nigeria. Justice Mojisola Dada adjourned the case until 24 May 2021, for continuation of trial.


title: Planter class

text: The planter class, known alternatively in the United States as the Southern aristocracy, was a racial and socioeconomic caste of pan-American society that dominated 17th and 18th century agricultural markets. The Atlantic slave trade permitted planters access to inexpensive African slave labor for the planting and harvesting of crops such as tobacco, cotton, indigo, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugarcane, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, hemp, rubber trees, and fruits. Planters were considered part of the American gentry.


title: Planter class

text: In the Southern United States, planters maintained a distinct culture, which was characterized by its similarity to the manners and customs of the British nobility and gentry. The culture had an emphasis on chivalry, gentility, and hospitality. The culture of the Southern United States, with its landed plantocracy, was distinctly different from areas north of the Mason–Dixon line and west of the Appalachian Mountains. The northern and western areas were characterized by small landed property, worked by yeoman farmers without the use of slave labor.


title: Planter class

text: After the American Civil War (1861–1865), many in the social class saw their wealth greatly reduced, as slavery was abolished in the United States. After emancipation, many plantations were converted to a sharecropping model with African American freedmen working as sharecroppers on the same land which they had worked as slaves before the war. During the Gilded Age, many plantations, no longer viable as agricultural operations, were purchased by wealthy northern industrialists as hunting retreats. Later some plantations became museums, often on the National Register of Historic Places.


title: Planter class

text: Planters were prolific throughout European colonies in North and South America and the West Indies. Members of the class include colonists Robert "King" Carter, William Byrd of Westover; many signers of the Declaration of Independence, including Benjamin Harrison V, Thomas Nelson, Jr., George Wythe, Carter Braxton and Richard Henry Lee; several Founding Fathers, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe; Confederate leaders, including President Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee; Mary Chesnut, Valcour Aime, Sallie Ward, and the fictional Scarlett O'Hara from the film "Gone with the Wind" (1939).


title: Planter class

text: The search for gold and silver was a constant theme in overseas expansion, but there were other European demands that the New World could also satisfy, which contributed to its growing involvement in the Western-dominated world economy. While Spanish America seemed to fulfill dreams of mineral wealth, Brazil became the first major plantation colony in 1532, organized to produce a tropical crop, sugar, in great demand and short supply in Europe. The other major powers of Western Europe soon hoped to establish profitable colonies of their own. Presented with new opportunities, Europeans who were disenchanted by the rigid social structures of feudalism emigrated to the abundant virginal lands of the colonial frontier.


title: Planter class

text: Arriving in the late 16th and the early 17th centuries, settlers landed on the shores of an unspoiled and hostile countryside. Early planters first began as colony farmers providing for the needs of settlements besieged by famine, disease, and tribal raids. Native Americans friendly to the colonists taught them to cultivate native plant species, including tobacco, sugar and fruits, which, within a century, would become a global industry itself that funded a multinational slave trade. Colonial politics would come to be dominated by wealthy noble landowners interested in commercial development.


title: Planter class

text: In an effort to reduce the financial burden of continental wars, European governments began instituting land pension systems by which a soldier, typically an officer, would be granted land in the colonies for services rendered. That incentivized military professionals to settle in the Americas and thus contribute to colonial defense against foreign colonists and hostile Natives.


title: Planter class

text: John Rolfe, a settler from Jamestown, was the first colonist to grow tobacco in North America. He arrived in Virginia with tobacco seeds procured from an earlier voyage to Trinidad, and in 1612, he harvested his inaugural crop for sale on the European market. In the 17th century, the Chesapeake Bay area was immensely hospitable to tobacco cultivation. Ships annually hauled 1.5 million lb (680,000 kg) of tobacco out to the Bay by the 1630s and about 40 million lb (18 million kg) by the end of the century. Tobacco planters financed their operations with loans from London. When tobacco prices dropped precipitously in the 1750s, many plantations struggled to remain financially solvent. In an effort to combat financial ruin, planters pushed to increase crop yield or, with the depletion of soil nutrients, converted to growing other crops such as cotton or wheat.


title: Planter class

text: In 1720, coffee was first introduced to the West Indies by French naval officer Gabriel de Clieu, who procured a coffee plant seedling from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Paris and transported it to Martinique. He transplanted it on the slopes of Mount Pelée and was able to harvest his first crop in 1726, or shortly thereafter. Within 50 years, there were 18,000 coffee trees in Martinique, enabling the spread of coffee cultivation to Saint-Domingue, New Spain, and other islands of the Caribbean. The French territory of Saint-Domingue began cultivating coffee in 1734, and by 1788, it supplied half the global market. The French colonial plantations relied heavily on African slave laborers. However, the harsh conditions that slaves endured on coffee plantations precipitated the Haitian Revolution. Coffee had a major influence on the geography of Latin America.


title: Planter class

text: An age of enlightenment dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century. Philosophers began writing pamphlets against slavery and its moral and economic justifications, including Montesquieu in "The Spirit of the Laws" (1748) and Denis Diderot in the "Encyclopédie". The laws governing slavery in the French West Indies, the "Code Noir" of Louis XIV, granted unparalleled rights for slaves to marry, gather publicly, and abstain from work on Sundays. It forbade slave owners to torture or to separate families; though corporal punishment was sanctioned, masters who killed their slaves or falsely accused a slave of a crime and had the slave put to death would be fined. Masters openly and consistently broke the "Code" and passed local legislation that reversed its less desirable articles.


title: Planter class

text: The Enlightenment writer Guillaume Raynal attacked slavery in the 1780 edition of his history of European colonization. He also predicted a general slave revolt in the colonies by saying that there were signs of "the impending storm." Sugar production in Saint-Domingue was sustained under especially harsh conditions, including the humid climate of the Caribbean, where diseases such as malaria and yellow fever caused high mortality. White planters and their families, together with the merchants and shopkeepers, lived in fear of slave rebellion. Thus, in the functions of society and efforts to combat dissent, cruelty was noted in the form of overwork, inadequate food and shelter, insufficient clothing and medical care, rape, lashings, castration and burnings. Runaway slaves, called Maroons, hid in the jungles away from civilization and lived off the land and what could be stolen in violent raids on the island's sugar and coffee plantations. Although the numbers in the bands grew large (sometimes into the thousands), they generally lacked the leadership and strategy to accomplish large-scale objectives. In April 1791, a massive slave insurgency rose violently against the plantation system, setting a precedent of resistance to slavery.


title: Planter class

text: On 4 February 1794, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly of the First Republic abolished slavery in France and its colonies. The military successes of the French Republic and of Napoleon Bonaparte carried across Europe the ideals of egalitarianism and brought into question the practice of slavery in the colonies of other European powers.


title: Planter class

text: The legality of slave ownership under English common law was abolished in 1772 as a result of "Somerset v Stewart". In 1783, an abolitionist movement began among the British population, and that same year a group of Quakers founded the first British abolitionist organisation. William Wilberforce led the cause of abolition through his campaign in Parliament. His efforts finally abolished the slave trade in the British Empire with the 1807 Slave Trade Act. He continued to campaign for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, which he did to see in the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act.