title: LGBT parenting

text: In a 2006 statement, the Canadian Psychological Association released an updated statement on their 2003 and 2005 conclusions, saying, "The CPA recognizes and appreciates that persons and institutions are entitled to their opinions and positions on this issue. However, CPA is concerned that some persons and institutions are misinterpreting the findings of psychological research to support their positions when their positions are more accurately based on other systems of belief or values." Several professional organizations have noted that studies which opponents of LGBT parenting claim as evidence that same-sex couples are unfit parents do not in fact address same-sex parenting, however, and therefore do not permit any conclusions to be drawn about the effects of the sexes or sexual orientations of parents. Rather, these studies, which only sampled heterosexual parents, found that it was better for children to be raised by two parents instead of one, and/or that the divorce or death of a parent had a negative effect on children. In Perry v. Brown, in which Judge Vaughn Walker found that the available studies on stepchildren, which opponents of same-sex marriage cited to support their position that it is best for a child to be raised by its biological mother and father, do not isolate "the genetic relationship between a parent and a child as a variable to be tested" and only compare "children raised by married, biological parents with children raised by single parents, unmarried mothers, step families and cohabiting parents," and thus "compare various family structures and do not emphasize biology." "Perry" also cited studies showing that "adopted children or children conceived using sperm or egg donors are just as likely to be well-adjusted as children raised by their biological parents."


title: LGBT parenting

text: Gregory M. Herek noted in 2006 that "empirical research can't reconcile disputes about core values, but it is very good at addressing questions of fact. Policy debates will be impoverished if this important source of knowledge is simply dismissed as a 'he said, she said' squabble."


title: LGBT parenting

text: Same-sex parenting is often raised as an issue in debates about the recognition of same-sex marriage by law.


title: LGBT parenting

text: There is little to no visibility or public support through pregnancy and parenting resources directed towards trans parents.


title: LGBT parenting

text: Transgender parents, like cisgender and/or heterosexual parents, can have children in a number of ways, such as biological gestation, adoption, surrogacy, and with biomedical interventions. Trans parents often face different barriers to parenthood than non-trans parents, much of which has to do with the societal expectations of what parents look like.


title: LGBT parenting

text: While "once gay and lesbian parents attain parenthood status[…] they almost never lose it" this is not the case for trans parents, as seen with the cases of Suzanne Daly (1983) and Martha Boyd (2007), two trans women who both had their parental rights, with regard to biological children, terminated on the basis of their diagnosis of gender identity disorder and their trans status. They were perceived to have abandoned their role as "fathers" through their MTF transition, and were perceived to have acted selfishly in putting their own sexual/identity needs before the wellbeing of their children. These cases are amongst many legal custody battles fought by trans parents whereby U.S. courts have completely overlooked defendants' suitability as "parents" as opposed to "mothers" or "fathers," roles that are heavily gendered and come with strict societal understandings of normative parental behaviour. In the case of trans individuals who desire to become parents and to be legally recognized as mothers or fathers of their children, courts often refuse to legally acknowledge such roles because of biological discrimination. An example of this is the X, Y and Z vs. U.K case, whereby X, a trans man who had been in a stable relationship with Y, a biological woman who gave birth to Z through artificial insemination through which X was always present, was denied the right to be listed as Z's father on their birth certificate due to the fact that they did not directly inseminate Y.


title: LGBT parenting

text: Recently, Canada has started acknowledging trans parental rights in terms of custody arrangements and of legal recognition of parental status. In 2001, a trans woman was permitted to retain custody of her daughter after her ex-partner filed for sole custody on the basis of her transition. The courts ruled that "the applicant's transsexuality, in itself, without further evidence, would not constitute a material change in circumstances, nor would it be considered a negative factor in a custody determination", marking a landmark case in family law whereby "a person's transsexuality is irrelevant on its own as a factor in his or her ability to be a good parent". Additionally, a resident trans man from Toronto, Canada "was permitted to identify as [the child's] father on the province of Ontario's Statement of Live Birth Form", marking a decoupling of genetics and bio-sex in relation to parental roles.


title: LGBT parenting

text: Transgender families can experience unique social pressure. Consequently, transgender parents may experience stressors or barriers relating to their gender transition, which can have an impact on their overall family dynamics and can influence outcomes for transgender people. Many trans individuals cite, since their younger years, not wanting to have children or become pregnant due to the body and gender dysphoria that accompanies childbearing. This relates back toward a large problem for trans individuals even in a non-parenting context, because much of how society views gender does not leave a space for trans individuals. Additionally, a sense of support, especially from family, was found to be an important factor for coping with stressors in a study from 2014. It revealed that 43% of participants stated that they mostly depended on their children for support to help their coping with stress related to their gender transition, while 29% named their partner as their most important support. A 2016 study examined how potential stressors for families, access to resources, and the trans parent's perceptions impact how the family functions. The functioning of the family refers to their ability to handle stress and in turn, their ability to steer clear of crisis situations. The study's findings indicate that experience of stigma surrounding transgender identities, uncertainty of their role or status of acceptance in their families following gender transition, and sense of coherence had the most profound impact on family functioning. Sense of Coherence refers to viewing one's environment as "comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful." Experiencing stigma, as well as uncertainty of their acceptance within their families, were found to contribute to lower satisfaction in family functioning. The study also found that negative effects of stigma can be offset by a strong sense of coherence, while satisfaction in the family's functioning can be strengthened by a strong sense of coherence.


title: LGBT parenting

text: When stigma is reduced around trans parenting, such as from supportive family, adoption staff, and healthcare professionals, trans people can more easily find satisfaction and a positive family functioning.


title: Bhat

text: Bhat (also spelled as Bhatt or Butt) is a surname in the Indian subcontinent. Bhat and Bhatt are shortened rendition of Bhatta.


title: Bhat

text: The word "Bhat" (, ) means "teacher" in Sanskrit. While the original shortened rendition of "Bhatta" was "Bhat" or "Bhatt," many of the migrants to the Punjab region started spelling their surname as "But" or "Butt" which is the spelling of the clan used in the Pahari language.


title: Bhat

text: The surname is in use among some Konkani Christians who trace their ancestry to the Goud Saraswat Brahmins of Goa.


title: Bhat

text: Bhat, also spelled as Bhatt or Butt, is a Kashmiri surname, found among Kashmiri Brahmins of the Kashmir Valley, as well as Kashmiri émigrés who migrated to Punjab, a region divided between India and neighbouring Pakistan. Many such Kashmiris migrated to Punjab in the late 19th century due to 1878 Kashmir famine. The surname is shared by both Kashmiri Hindus and Muslims. During Sikandar Shah Miri's rule from 1389 to 1413 CE, his prime minister Suha Bhatt embraced Islam along with his family by Mir Muhammad Hamadani and took the name of Saif-ud-Din, along with earning the title of Malik.


title: Bhat

text: Hindu Bhattas who reside in the Bengal region and speak Bengali belong to Kulin Brahmins and are found in the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura.


title: Bhat

text: Hindu Bhattas who reside in Nepal and speak Nepali language and Doteli language are mostly found in the Mahakali zone of Sudurpashchim Province, Nepal. Some Nepali Bhattas are also found from the Gorkha district of Nepal. However, due to migration of people for opportunities nowadays, Bhattas can be found in different parts of Nepal.


title: Bhat

text: Some Muslim Bhats/Butts found in Pakistani Punjab migrated to different cities of (undivided) Punjab from Kashmir and Jammu during the 1878 famine, and are Hindu converts to Islam. Many such Muslim Kashmiris migrated to Punjab in the late 19th century due to natural disasters.


title: Bhat

text: Bhatt residing in Uttarakhand are mostly Hindu Brahmins. They speak Hindi, Kumauni or Garhwali language and are priests in the local temples.


title: Bhat

text: Bhatt residing in Himachal Pradesh belong to Brahmins of Gaddi community. They use Bhatt as a canopy term and are further divided into sub-castes like Lappar, Maradu, Dangnu, Langhe, Daenu, Baune, Bagaedu etc. Rayebhatt also belong to this caste. They speak Kangri and Gaddi languages. They belong to Gotras viz; Vashishth, Bhardwaj, Kaundinya, Gautam etc. Bhatt in Himachal Pradesh are distributed in the districts of Kangra and Chamba. In Kangra they are found near Dharamshala and Palampur. In Chamba they are mostly found in Bharmour region.


title: Hoya (plant)

text: Hoya is a genus of over 500 accepted species of tropical plants in the dogbane family, Apocynaceae. Most are native to several countries of Asia such as Philippines, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Polynesia, New Guinea, and vast variety of species could also be found in Australia.


title: Hoya (plant)

text: Common names for this genus are waxplant, waxvine, waxflower or simply hoya. This genus was named by botanist Robert Brown, in honour of his friend, botanist Thomas Hoy.


title: Hoya (plant)

text: Hoyas are evergreen perennial creepers or vines or rarely, shrubs. They often grow epiphytically on trees; some grow terrestrially, or occasionally in rocky areas. They climb by twining, and with the employment of adventitious roots. Larger species grow , or more, with suitable support in trees. They have simple entire leaves, arranged in an opposite pattern, that are typically succulent. Leaves may exhibit a variety of forms, and may be smooth, felted or hairy; venation may be prominent or not, and many species have leaf surfaces flecked with irregular small silvery spots.


title: Hoya (plant)

text: The flowers appear in axillary umbellate clusters at the tip of peduncles. Hoya peduncles are commonly referred to as spurs. In most species these spurs are perennial and are rarely shed. Each flowering cycle increases the length of the spur, and in the larger species can eventually reach or more. Flowers vary in size from ("Hoya bilobata" Schltr.) to over (in "H. lauterbachii" K. Schuman) in diameter. Flower form is typically star-shaped, with five thick, waxy, triangular petals, topped with another star-shaped structure, the corona. Colours on most species range from white to pink; there are species that exhibit yellow to orange, dark reds to near-black, and there are green flowers. Many are sweetly scented. and most produce abundant nectar.


title: Hoya (plant)

text: Pollinators include moths, flies, and ants. Pollination is poorly understood, but plants left outdoors in temperate regions do sometimes produce seed, indicating pollination by local insects.


title: Hoya (plant)

text: Seeds are borne in twin pods, actually follicles, are generally light, and are dispersed by the wind by means of a small tuft of silky fluff. Germination is rapid, but viability is not long.


title: Hoya (plant)

text: Several species exhibit adaptations for mutualism with ants by providing modified leaves for domatia ("homes"), much as in the related genus "Dischidia"; "H. imbricata" has leaves that form a concave cup over the tree trunk it climbs up to shelter ants, and "H. darwinii" has arrangements of bullate leaves on its stems to form shelters.


title: Hoya (plant)

text: Hoya leaves vary in size, texture, colour and venation. In size, leaves range from as small as 5 mm in length and 2 to 4 mm in width ("Hoya engleriana" Hosseus) to as large as 25 cm by 35 cm. ("Hoya latifolia" G. Don). "Hoya coriacea" Blume, has been reported to have leaves as long as two feet in length. There are hoyas with almost perfectly round leaves and others with linear leaves ("Hoya linearis" Wall. ex. D. Don and "Hoya teretifolia" Griff. ex Hook. f.). One popular species, "Hoya shepherdii" Short ex Hook. has leaves that resemble string beans hanging in bunches from their stalks. "Hoya linearis" Wall. ex D. Don is covered with fine downy hair and resembles masses of Spanish Moss ("Tillandsia usneoides") hanging from trees in its native habitat. Some Hoya leaves appear to be veinless while others have very conspicuous veins of a lighter or darker colour than the rest of the leaves as in "H. cinnomomifolia". Some have leaves that are mottled with speckles of silvery white ("Hoya carnosa" R. Br., "Hoya pubicalyx"). Some hoyas have leaves that are thin and translucent ("Hoya coriacea" Blume); some are so thick and succulent that they look more like crassulas than hoyas ("Hoya australis" ssp. "rupicola", "oramicola" and "saniae" from Australia and "Hoya pachyclada" from Thailand). One of the most succulent, "Hoya kerrii" Craib, has obcordate (inverse heart-shaped) leaves, with the cleft away from the stem.


title: Hoya (plant)

text: Hoya flowers are all shaped like five pointed stars. Some species' petals reflex so far that the flowers appear to be round or ball-like. They grow in umbels, or in some species singly. Umbels can reach impressive proportions in some species, and many species have individual flowers well over in diameter ("H. imperialis" Lindl., "H. lauterbachii" K. Schuman). "H. coriacea" Blume has been known to have as many as 70 in an inflorescence, each individual measuring nearly 2 cm in diameter with the umbels over 30 cm in breadth. The single-flowered "Hoya pauciflora" Wight makes up for its paucity by its flower size of nearly in diameter produced at any time of year. Textures of flower surfaces may be glabrous and shiny, to matte, to finely haired, and some being quite hairy. One of the two clones of "Hoya mindorensis" Schltr., from the Philippines, comes very close to being a true red. Blue, purples, and violets do not appear to be represented in the genus "Hoya".


title: Hoya (plant)

text: Many species of Hoya are popular houseplants in temperate areas (especially "H. carnosa"), grown for their attractive foliage and strongly scented flowers. Numerous cultivars have been selected for different leaf forms or flower colours. Hoyas grow well indoors, preferring bright light, but will tolerate fairly low light levels, although they may not flower without bright light. Hoyas commonly sold in nurseries as houseplants include cultivars of "H. carnosa" (Krimson Queen, Hindu Rope − compacta), "H. pubicalyx" (often mislabelled as "H. carnosa" or "H. purpurea-fusca"), and "H. kerrii". Hoyas are easy to propagate, and are commonly sold as cuttings, either rooted or unrooted, or as a potted plant.


title: Hoya (plant)

text: "Hoya carnosa" has been shown in recent studies at the University of Georgia to be an excellent remover of pollutants in the indoor environment.


title: Hoya (plant)

text: Various cultures have used hoyas medicinally, especially Polynesian cultures. Some are toxic to livestock and sheep poisonings in Australia are reported.


title: Transit of Venus

text: A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black dot moving across the face of the Sun. The duration of such transits is usually several hours (the transit of 2012 lasted 6 hours and 40 minutes). A transit is similar to a solar eclipse by the Moon. While the diameter of Venus is more than three times that of the Moon, Venus appears smaller, and travels more slowly across the face of the Sun, because it is much farther away from Earth.


title: Transit of Venus

text: Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena. They occur in a pattern that generally repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years. The periodicity is a reflection of the fact that the orbital periods of Earth and Venus are close to 8:13 and 243:395 commensurabilities.


title: Transit of Venus

text: The last transit of Venus was on 5 and 6 June 2012, and was the last Venus transit of the 21st century; the prior transit took place on 8 June 2004. The previous pair of transits were in December 1874 and December 1882. The next transits of Venus will take place on 10–11 December 2117 and 8 December 2125.


title: Transit of Venus

text: Venus transits are historically of great scientific importance as they were used to gain the first realistic estimates of the size of the Solar System. Observations of the 1639 transit provided an estimate of both the size of Venus and the distance between the Sun and the Earth that was more accurate than any other up to that time. Observational data from subsequent predicted transits in 1761 and 1769 further improved the accuracy of this initial estimated distance through the use of the principle of parallax. The 2012 transit provided scientists with a number of other research opportunities, particularly in the refinement of techniques to be used in the search for exoplanets.


title: Transit of Venus

text: Venus, with an orbit inclined by 3.4° relative to the Earth's, usually appears to pass under (or over) the Sun at inferior conjunction. A transit occurs when Venus reaches conjunction with the Sun at or near one of its nodes—the longitude where Venus passes through the Earth's orbital plane (the ecliptic)—and appears to pass directly across the Sun. Although the inclination between these two orbital planes is only 3.4°, Venus can be as far as 9.6° from the Sun when viewed from the Earth at inferior conjunction. Since the angular diameter of the Sun is about half a degree, Venus may appear to pass above or below the Sun by more than 18 solar diameters during an ordinary conjunction.


title: Transit of Venus

text: Sequences of transits usually repeat every 243 years. After this period of time Venus and Earth have returned to very nearly the same point in their respective orbits. During the Earth's 243 sidereal orbital periods, which total 88,757.3 days, Venus completes 395 sidereal orbital periods of 224.701 days each, equal to 88,756.9 Earth days. This period of time corresponds to 152 synodic periods of Venus.


title: Transit of Venus

text: The pattern of 105.5, 8, 121.5 and 8 years is not the only pattern that is possible within the 243-year cycle, because of the slight mismatch between the times when the Earth and Venus arrive at the point of conjunction. Prior to 1518, the pattern of transits was 8, 113.5 and 121.5 years, and the eight inter-transit gaps before the AD 546 transit were 121.5 years apart. The current pattern will continue until 2846, when it will be replaced by a pattern of 105.5, 129.5 and 8 years. Thus, the 243-year cycle is relatively stable, but the number of transits and their timing within the cycle will vary over time. Since the 243:395 Earth:Venus commensurability is only approximate, there are different sequences of transits occurring 243 years apart, each extending for several thousand years, which are eventually replaced by other sequences. For instance, there is a series which ended in 541 BC, and the series which includes 2117 only started in AD 1631.


title: Transit of Venus

text: Ancient Indian, Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian and Chinese observers knew of Venus and recorded the planet's motions. The early Greek astronomers called Venus by two names—"Hesperus" the evening star and "Phosphorus" the morning star. Pythagoras is credited with realizing they were the same planet. There is no evidence that any of these cultures knew of the transits. Venus was important to ancient American civilizations, in particular for the Maya, who called it "Noh Ek", "the Great Star" or "Xux Ek", "the Wasp Star"; they embodied Venus in the form of the god Kukulkán (also known as or related to Gukumatz and Quetzalcoatl in other parts of Mexico). In the Dresden Codex, the Maya charted Venus's full cycle, but despite their precise knowledge of its course, there is no mention of a transit. However, it has been proposed that frescoes found at Mayapan may contain a pictorial representation of the 12th or 13th century transits.


title: Transit of Venus

text: The Persian polymath Avicenna claimed to have observed Venus as a spot on the Sun. This is possible, as there was a transit on 24 May 1032, but Avicenna did not give the date of his observation, and modern scholars have questioned whether he could have observed the transit from his location at that time; he may have mistaken a sunspot for Venus. He used his transit observation to help establish that Venus was, at least sometimes, below the Sun in Ptolemaic cosmology, i.e. the sphere of Venus comes before the sphere of the Sun when moving out from the Earth in the prevailing geocentric model.


title: Transit of Venus

text: In 1627, Johannes Kepler became the first person to predict a transit of Venus, by predicting the 1631 event. His methods were not sufficiently accurate to predict that the transit would not be visible in most of Europe, and as a consequence, nobody was able to use his prediction to observe the phenomenon.


title: Transit of Venus

text: The first recorded observation of a transit of Venus was made by Jeremiah Horrocks from his home at Carr House in Much Hoole, near Preston in England, on 4 December 1639 (24 November under the Julian calendar then in use in England). His friend, William Crabtree, also observed this transit from Broughton, near Manchester. Kepler had predicted transits in 1631 and 1761 and a near miss in 1639. Horrocks corrected Kepler's calculation for the orbit of Venus, realized that transits of Venus would occur in pairs 8 years apart, and so predicted the transit of 1639. Although he was uncertain of the exact time, he calculated that the transit was to begin at approximately 15:00. Horrocks focused the image of the Sun through a simple telescope onto a piece of paper, where the image could be safely observed. After observing for most of the day, he was lucky to see the transit as clouds obscuring the Sun cleared at about 15:15, just half an hour before sunset. Horrocks's observations allowed him to make a well-informed guess as to the size of Venus, as well as to make an estimate of the mean distance between the Earth and the Sunthe astronomical unit (AU). He estimated that distance to be about two thirds of the actual distance of , but a more accurate figure than any suggested up to that time. The observations were not published until 1661, well after Horrocks's death. Horrocks based his calculation on the (false) presumption that each planet's size was proportional to its rank from the Sun, "not" on the parallax effect as used by the 1761 and 1769 and following experiments.


title: Transit of Venus

text: In 1663 Scottish mathematician James Gregory had suggested in his "Optica Promota" that observations of a transit of the planet Mercury, at widely spaced points on the surface of the Earth, could be used to calculate the solar parallax and hence the astronomical unit using triangulation. Aware of this, a young Edmond Halley made observations of such a transit on 28 October O.S. 1677 from Saint Helena but was disappointed to find that only Richard Towneley in Burnley, Lancashire had made another accurate observation of the event whilst Gallet, at Avignon, simply recorded that it had occurred. Halley was not satisfied that the resulting calculation of the solar parallax at 45" was accurate.


title: Transit of Venus

text: In a paper published in 1691, and a more refined one in 1716, he proposed that more accurate calculations could be made using measurements of a transit of Venus, although the next such event was not due until 1761 (6 June N.S., 26 May O.S.). Halley died in 1742, but in 1761 numerous expeditions were made to various parts of the world so that precise observations of the transit could be made in order to make the calculations as described by Halley—an early example of international scientific collaboration. This collaboration was, however, underpinned by competition, the British, for example, being spurred to action only after they heard of French plans from Joseph-Nicolas Delisle. In an attempt to observe the first transit of the pair, astronomers from Britain (William Wales and Captain James Cook), Austria (Maximilian Hell) and France (Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche and Guillaume Le Gentil) traveled to destinations around the world, including Siberia, Newfoundland and Madagascar. Most managed to observe at least part of the transit, particularly successful observations were made by Jeremiah Dixon and Charles Mason at the Cape of Good Hope. Less successful, at Saint Helena, were Nevil Maskelyne and Robert Waddington, although they put the voyage to good use by trialling the lunar-distance method of finding longitude.


title: Transit of Venus

text: That Venus might have an atmosphere was widely expected (because of the plurality of worlds belief) even before the transit of 1761. However, few if any seem to have predicted that it might be possible to actually detect it during the transit. The actual discovery of the atmosphere on Venus has long been attributed to the Russian Academician Mikhail Lomonosov on the basis of his observation of the transit of Venus of 1761 from the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg. At least in the English-speaking world, this attribution seems to have been owing to comments from the multi-lingual popular astronomy writer Willy Ley (1966), who consulted sources in both Russian and German, and wrote that Lomonosov observed a luminous ring (this was Ley's interpretation and was not indicated in quotes) and inferred from it the existence of an atmosphere "maybe greater than that of the Earth" (which was in quotes). Because many modern transit observers have also seen a threadlike arc produced by refraction of sunlight in the atmosphere of Venus when the planet has progressed off the limb of the Sun, it has generally, if rather uncritically, been assumed that this was the same thing that Lomonosov saw. Indeed, the term "Lomonosov’s arc" has frequently been used in the literature.


title: Transit of Venus

text: In 2012, Pasachoff and Sheehan consulted original sources, and questioned the basis for the claim that Lomonosov observed the thin arc produced by the atmosphere of Venus. A reference to the paper was even picked up by the Russian state-controlled media group RIA Novosti on 31 January 2013, under the headline "Astronomical Battle in US Over Lomonosov’s discovery." An interesting attempt was made by a group of researchers to experimentally reconstruct Lomonosov's observation using antique telescopes during the transit of Venus on 5–6 June 2012. One of them, Y. Petrunin, suggested that the telescope Lomonosov actually used was probably a 50 mm Dolland with a magnifying power of 40x. It was preserved at Pulkova Observatory but destroyed when the Germans bombed the observatory during World War II. Thus, Lomonosov's actual telescope was not available, but other presumably similar instruments were employed on this occasion, and led the researchers to affirm their belief that Lomonosov's telescope would have been adequate to the task of detecting the arc. Thus A. Koukarine, using a 67 mm Dollond on Mt. Hamilton, where seeing was likely much better than Lomonosov enjoyed at St. Petersburg, clearly observed the spiderweb-thin arc known to be due to refraction in the atmosphere of Venus. However, Koukarine's sketches do not really resemble the diagram published by Lomonosov. On the other hand, Koukarine's colleague V. Shiltsev, who more nearly observed under the same conditions as Lomonosov (using a 40 mm Dollond at Batavia, Illinois), did produce a close duplicate of Lomonosov's diagram; however, the rather large wing of light shown next to the black disk of Venus in his drawing (and Lomonosov's) is too coarse to have been the arc. Instead it appears to be a complicated manifestation of the celebrated optical effect known as the "black drop". (It should be kept in mind that, as stated in Sheehan and Westfall, "optical distortions at the interface between Venus and the Sun during transits are impressively large, and any inferences from them are fraught with peril".


title: Transit of Venus

text: Again, the actual words used by Lomonosov do not refer to an "arc" at all. In the Russian version, he described a brief brightening lasting a second or so, just before third contact, which appeared to Pasachoff and Sheehan to most probably indicate a last fleeting glimpse of the photosphere. As a check against this, Lomonosov's German version (he had learned to speak and write German fluently as a student at Marburg) was also consulted; he describes seeing "ein ganz helles Licht, wie ein Haar breit"=”a very bright light, as wide as a hair". Here, the adverb "ganz" in connection with "helles" (bright) could mean "as bright as possible" or "completely bright"), i.e., as bright as the surface brightness of the solar disk, which is even stronger evidence that this can't be Venus's atmosphere, which always appears much fainter. Lomonosov's original sketches, if they existed, do not appear to have survived, Modern observations made during the nineteenth century transits and especially those of 2004 and 2012 suggest that what Lomonosov saw was not the arc associated with the atmosphere of Venus at all but the bright flash of the solar photosphere before third contact. The first observers to record the actual arc associated with the atmosphere of Venus, in a form comporting with modern observations, appear to have been Chappe, Rittenhouse, Wayles and Dymond and several others at the transit in June 1769.


title: Transit of Venus

text: For the 1769 transit (taking place on 3–4 June N.S., 23 May O.S.), scientists traveled to Tahiti, Norway, and locations in North America including Canada, New England, and San José del Cabo (Baja California, then under Spanish control). The Czech astronomer Christian Mayer was invited by Catherine the Great to observe the transit in Saint Petersburg with Anders Johan Lexell, while other members of the Russian Academy of Sciences went to eight other locations in the Russian Empire, under the general coordination of Stepan Rumovsky. George III of the United Kingdom had the King's Observatory built near his summer residence at Richmond Lodge for him and his royal astronomer Stephen Demainbray to observe the transit. The Hungarian astronomer Maximilian Hell and his assistant János Sajnovics traveled to Vardø, Norway, delegated by Christian VII of Denmark. William Wales and Joseph Dymond made their observation in Hudson Bay, Canada, for the Royal Society. Observations were made by a number of groups in the British colonies in America. In Philadelphia, the American Philosophical Society erected three temporary observatories and appointed a committee, of which David Rittenhouse was the head. Observations were made by a group led by Dr. Benjamin West in Providence, Rhode Island, and published in 1769. The results of the various observations in the American colonies were printed in the first volume of the American Philosophical Society's "Transactions", published in 1771. Comparing the North American observations, William Smith published in 1771 a best value of the solar parallax of 8.48 to 8.49 arc-seconds, which corresponds to an Earth-Sun distance of 24,000 times the Earth's radius, about 3% different from the correct value.


title: Transit of Venus

text: Observations were also made from Tahiti by James Cook and Charles Green at a location still known as Point Venus. This occurred on the first voyage of James Cook, after which Cook explored New Zealand and Australia. This was one of five expeditions organised by the Royal Society and the Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne.


title: Transit of Venus

text: Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche went to San José del Cabo in what was then New Spain to observe the transit with two Spanish astronomers (Vicente de Doz and Salvador de Medina). For his trouble he died in an epidemic of yellow fever there shortly after completing his observations. Only 9 of 28 in the entire party returned home alive.


title: Transit of Venus

text: The unfortunate Guillaume Le Gentil spent over eight years travelling in an attempt to observe either of the transits. His unsuccessful journey led to him losing his wife and possessions and being declared dead (his efforts became the basis of the play "Transit of Venus" by Maureen Hunter) and a subsequent opera, though eventually he regained his seat in the French Academy and had a long marriage. Under the influence of the Royal Society Ruđer Bošković travelled to Istanbul, but arrived too late.


title: Transit of Venus

text: Unfortunately, it was impossible to time the exact moment of the start and end of the transit because of the phenomenon known as the "black drop effect". This effect was long thought to be due to Venus's thick atmosphere, and initially it was held to be the first real evidence that Venus had an atmosphere. However, recent studies demonstrate that it is an optical effect caused by the smearing of the image of Venus by turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere or imperfections in the viewing apparatus along with the extreme brightness variation at the edge (limb) of the Sun as the line-of-sight from Earth goes from opaque to transparent in a small angle.


title: Transit of Venus

text: In 1771, using the combined 1761 and 1769 transit data, the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande calculated the astronomical unit to have a value of 153 million kilometers (±1 million km). The precision was less than had been hoped for because of the black drop effect, but still a considerable improvement on Horrocks's calculations.


title: Transit of Venus

text: Maximilian Hell published the results of his expedition in 1770, in Copenhagen. Based on the results of his own expedition, and of Wales and Cook, in 1772 he presented another calculation of the astronomical unit: 151.7 million kilometers. Lalande queried the accuracy and authenticity of the Hell expedition, but later he retreated in an article of "Journal des sçavans", in 1778.


title: Transit of Venus

text: Transit observations in 1874 and 1882 allowed this value to be refined further. Three expeditions—from Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States—were sent to the Kerguelen Archipelago for the 1874 observations. The American astronomer Simon Newcomb combined the data from the last four transits, and he arrived at a value of about 149.59 million kilometers (±0.31 million kilometers). Modern techniques, such as the use of radio telemetry from space probes, and of radar measurements of the distances to planets and asteroids in the Solar System, have allowed a reasonably accurate value for the astronomical unit (AU) to be calculated to a precision of about ±30 meters. As a result, the need for parallax calculations has been superseded.


title: Transit of Venus

text: A number of scientific organizations headed by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) organized a network of amateur astronomers and students to measure Earth's distance from the Sun during the transit. The participants' observations allowed a calculation of the astronomical unit (AU) of 149,608,708 km ± 11,835 km which had only a 0.007% difference to the accepted value.


title: Transit of Venus

text: There was a good deal of interest in the 2004 transit as scientists attempted to measure the pattern of light dimming as Venus blocked out some of the Sun's light, in order to refine techniques that they hope to use in searching for extrasolar planets. Current methods of looking for planets orbiting other stars only work for a few cases: planets that are very large (Jupiter-like, not Earth-like), whose gravity is strong enough to wobble the star sufficiently for us to detect changes in proper motion or Doppler shift changes in radial velocity; Jupiter or Neptune sized planets very close to their parent star whose transit causes changes in the luminosity of the star; or planets which pass in front of background stars with the planet-parent star separation comparable to the Einstein ring and cause gravitational microlensing. Measuring light intensity during the course of a transit, as the planet blocks out some of the light, is potentially much more sensitive, and might be used to find smaller planets. However, extremely precise measurement is needed: for example, the transit of Venus causes the amount of light received from the Sun to drop by a fraction of 0.001 (that is, to 99.9% of its nominal value), and the dimming produced by small extrasolar planets will be similarly tiny.


title: Transit of Venus

text: The 2012 transit provided scientists numerous research opportunities as well, in particular in regard to the study of exoplanets. Research of the 2012 Venus transit includes:


title: Transit of Venus

text: NASA maintains a catalog of Venus transits covering the period 2000 BC to 4000 AD. Currently, transits occur only in June or December (see table) and the occurrence of these events slowly drifts, becoming later in the year by about two days every 243-year cycle. Transits usually occur in pairs, on nearly the same date eight years apart. This is because the length of eight Earth years is almost the same as 13 years on Venus, so every eight years the planets are in roughly the same relative positions. This approximate conjunction usually results in a pair of transits, but it is not precise enough to produce a triplet, since Venus arrives 22 hours earlier each time. The last transit not to be part of a pair was in 1396. The next will be in 3089; in 2854 (the second of the 2846/2854 pair), although Venus will just miss the Sun as seen from the Earth's equator, a partial transit will be visible from some parts of the southern hemisphere.


title: Transit of Venus

text: Thus after 243 years the transits of Venus return. The 1874 transit is a member of the 243-year cycle #1. The 1882 transit is a member of #2. The 2004 transit is a member of #3 and the 2012 transit is a member of #4. The 2117 transit is a member of #1 and so on. However, the ascending node (December transits) of the orbit of Venus moves backwards after each 243 years so the transit of 2854 is the last member of series #3 instead of series #1. The descending node (June transits) moves forwards, so the transit of 3705 is the last member of #2.


title: Transit of Venus

text: From −125,000 till +125,000 there are only about ten 243-year series at both nodes regarding all the transits of Venus in this very long time-span, because both nodes of the orbit of Venus move back and forward in time as seen from the Earth.


title: Transit of Venus

text: Over longer periods of time, new series of transits will start and old series will end. Unlike the saros series for lunar eclipses, it is possible for a transit series to restart after a hiatus. The transit series also vary much more in length than the saros series.


title: Transit of Venus

text: Sometimes Venus only grazes the Sun during a transit. In this case it is possible that in some areas of the Earth a full transit can be seen while in other regions there is only a partial transit (no second or third contact). The last transit of this type was on 6 December 1631, and the next such transit will occur on 13 December 2611. It is also possible that a transit of Venus can be seen in some parts of the world as a partial transit, while in others Venus misses the Sun. Such a transit last occurred on 19 November 541 BC, and the next transit of this type will occur on 14 December 2854. These effects occur due to parallax, since the size of the Earth affords different points of view with slightly different lines of sight to Venus and the Sun. It can be demonstrated by closing an eye and holding a finger in front of a smaller more distant object; when the viewer opens the other eye and closes the first, the finger will no longer be in front of the object.


title: Transit of Venus

text: The simultaneous occurrence of a transit of Mercury and a transit of Venus does occur, but extremely infrequently. Such an event last occurred on 22 September 373,173 BC and will next occur on 26 July 69,163, and—given unlikely assumptions on the constancy of Earth's rotation—again on 29 March 224,508. The simultaneous occurrence of a solar eclipse and a transit of Venus is currently possible, but very rare. The next solar eclipse occurring during a transit of Venus will be on 5 April 15,232. The last time a solar eclipse occurred during a transit of Venus was on 1 November 15,607 BC. A few hours after the transit of 3–4 June 1769 there was a total solar eclipse, which was visible in Northern America, Europe, and Northern Asia.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Titanfall is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. It was released for Windows and Xbox One on March 11, 2014; an Xbox 360 version ported by Bluepoint Games was released April 8, 2014. The game was anticipated as the debut title from developers formerly behind the "Call of Duty" franchise.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: In "Titanfall", players control "Pilots" and their mech-style Titans, and fight in six-on-six matches set in the war-torn outer space colonies of the Frontier. The game is optimized for fast-paced, continual action, aided by wall-running abilities and populations of computer-controlled soldiers. Up to 50 characters can be active in a single game, and non-player activity is offloaded to Microsoft's cloud computing services to optimize local graphical performance. The game's development team began work on the title in 2011, and their Titan concept grew from a human-sized suit into a battle tank exoskeleton. The team sought to bring "scale, verticality, and story" to its multiplayer genre through elements traditionally reserved for single-player campaigns. The 65-person project took inspiration from "Blade Runner", "Star Wars", "Abrams Battle Tank", and Masamune Shirow of "Ghost in the Shell".


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: "Titanfall" won over 60 awards at its E3 2013 reveal, including a record-breaking six E3 Critics Awards and "Best of Show" from several media outlets. It also won awards at Gamescom and the Tokyo Game Show. "Titanfall" received generally favorable reviews. Reviewers praised its balance, Smart Pistol weapon, player mobility, and overall accessibility for players of all skill sets, but criticized its thin campaign, disappointing artificial intelligence, and lack of community features and multiplayer modes. Critics considered the game a successful evolution for the first-person shooter genre but did not agree as to whether the game delivered on its anticipation. On March 12, 2015, it was announced that a sequel, "Titanfall 2" was in production for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It was released on October 28, 2016.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: "Titanfall" is a shooter game played from a first-person perspective. Players fight as free-running foot soldier "Pilots" who can command agile, mech-style robots"Titans"to complete team-based objectives. The game is set on derelict and war-torn colonies at the Frontier, the fringe of space exploration, as either the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation (IMC) or the Frontier Militia. Online multiplayer is the sole game mode, but contains single-player elements such as cutscenes, plot, character dialogue, and non-player characters (NPCs). "Titanfall" has no offline, single-player, or local splitscreen modes, and does not support system link over a local area network (LAN). Respawn founder Vince Zampella described the game as bringing "scale, verticality, and story" to the first-person shooter genre of multiplayer gaming.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Up to twelve human players choose their pilot types and are dropped on the map, beginning the game. Titans can be deployed periodically, based on an onscreen timer, which must complete its countdown to zero before a Titan can be summoned. Killing other players reduces the amount of time remaining. When summoned, players are told to "standby for Titanfall", whereupon a Titan drops from the sky, surrounded by a protective forcefield. Unlike player-characters in games like "Call of Duty" and "Battlefield", pilots are agile and accumulate momentum while running (similar to "Tribes"). Players run on walls, double jump with a jet pack, vault over obstacles, glide across ziplines, and chain together combos. Pilot and Titan controls are identical except where the pilot's double jump becomes the Titan's dash, as Titans cannot jump. The Titans, somewhere between battle tanks and a mecha, are slower than the nimble pilots but are much better protected and have powerful weapons. Battles include artificial intelligence soldiers (human grunts and robotic spectres) that are designed as human player competition, support, and scenery. Games end with a race to the losing team's evacuation dropship.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: The pilot's tactical abilities include x-ray vision, invisibility cloaking, and regenerating speed boosts. Pilots use ten traditional customizable weapons, including a semi-automatic shotgun, machine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, and the Smart Pistol Mk5. The latter locks onto multiple targets before firing multiple shots in a burst. Players generally require three Smart Pistol shots to die. The pistol can shoot around corners. All pilots have anti-Titan weapons equipped. Pilots can hop on a Titan's back to "rodeo" and shoot its weak spot, or otherwise use four anti-Titan weapons to take them down. Player-pilots can eject from Titans that take too much damage, and the Titan replacement timer is reset upon the Titan's death.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: There are three unique Titan classes, variants of light, medium, and heavy, with inversely related speed and armor: the all-rounder Atlas, the bulky Ogre, and the fleet-footed Stryder. The latter two chassis are unlocked upon finishing both faction campaigns and were later made unlockable by leveling up as well. Each chassis has a respective Core power that works on a cooldown timer: respectively, increased damage, increased shields, and unlimited dashes. Titan tactical ability options include stopping enemy ammunition in midair to throw back in their direction, emitting electrified smoke to hurt and repel pilots climbing the Titan's back, and deploying a defensive wall. Additionally, players can equip two perk kits to customize for their preferred strategy. Their primary weapons include rocket launchers, lightning cannons, and chainguns. Titans can act autonomously when put in guard and follow modes, which directs the Titan either to protect their vicinity or to tail their pilot, respectively.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: There are 15 multiplayer maps and five multiplayer modes in the base game. In Attrition, a traditional Team Deathmatch, teams compete for the greatest kill count, and bot kills and Titan kills are counted. Pilot Hunter is similar to Attrition, but only counts pilot kills. In Hardpoint Domination, the object is to capture and defend areas of the map. In Last Titan Standing, players begin the match in Titans and have a single life. There is also a Capture the Flag mode. All modes are team-based and there are no free-for-alls. Completing challenges unlocks new abilities, weapons, customization opportunities, and burn cards: single-use, single-life power-ups that bestow a temporary gain, such as reduced Titan drop waits, unlimited grenades weapons, or disguise as a computer-controlled Spectre. Players can bring up to three cards into a match. Through multiplayer matches, players earn experience points that unlock new equipment and perks. Players who reach level 50 can "regenerate" to back to level 1, trading their rank and unlocks for faster experience gain and a prestige icon next to their names.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: The game's "campaign multiplayer" is separate from the game's regular multiplayer (called classic internally), and serves as an extended tutorial. It plays as multiplayer with single-player elements, such as scripted cinematic sequences, non-playable character dialogue, an in-game soundtrack, and audio briefings. There are separate campaigns for the Militia and IMC factions, and the game randomly assigns the player to one for a series of nine maps. Each mission is paired with a specific game type and map, supplemented by minimal voiceover narration, which was later removed. The Militia are a paramilitary organization made up of disgruntled civilians, smugglers, pirates, and criminals of the Frontier and the resistance against IMC use of colony resources. They are led by former IMC officer and Titan Pilot James MacAllan, engineer and mission coordinator Cheng "Bish" Lorck, and covert operative Sarah Briggs who handles Titan deployment. The corporate conglomerate IMC specializes in natural resource extraction, and came to the resource-rich Frontier for business. Leading their mercenary forces are Frontier operations commander-in-chief Vice Admiral Marcus Graves, intel specialist Sergeant Kuben Blisk, and artificial intelligence companion Spyglass who handles Titan deployment.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Humanity lives in the deepest reaches of explored space in a vast region known as The Frontier. It contains inhabited star systems, but many more worlds remain uncharted. Most people will never travel this far away from normal civilization, but for pioneers, explorers, mercenaries, outlaws, and soldiers, the Frontier offers both adventure and opportunity.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Major interplanetary corporations such as Hammond Roboticsa major manufacturing, aerospace and defense contractoruse resources of the Frontier to make builds of mecha-combatants such as Titans and Spectres. Titans are descendants of present-day fledgling military exoskeletons. In addition to the obvious combat applications, unarmed forms of Titans are used in heavy industries like cargo transport and deep space ship salvage. They are also used in special applications such as deep space search and rescue, and are very effective in inhospitable environments. The use of Titans is widespread throughout the Frontier in both combat and civilian life. As with Titans, the Frontier contains Pilots of many different styles and experiences. Titan Pilots are rated by 'certifications', most of which apply to civilian applications, such as construction, shipping, and heavy salvage industries. The most prestigious of these is the Full Combat Certification - a widely published series of tests that grade a Titan Pilot's abilities. Because of the extreme physical and mental challenges of mastering both Titan combat and dismounted parkour movement, a fully combat certified Titan Pilot is a rare find, and the combat skills of active Pilots in the field varies widely throughout the Frontier.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: The Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation (IMC) started out small, in natural resource extraction industries, under the name Hammond Engineering. Increasing demand for Titan manufacturing materials, combined with Hammond's market-cornering planetary survey technology and map database rights, contributed to explosive growth for the company. Over the course of a century, a series of acquisitions, mergers, and re-brandings lead to the transformation of Hammond Engineering into the ruthless commercial empire that is the IMC. With the Frontier's valuable shipping lanes and vast planetary resources ripe for exploitation, the IMC is dedicated to maximizing profits and shareholder wealth, using the legal application of force when necessary.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: The Frontier Militia represents the military arm of the Frontier systems' territorial defense pact. The Militia is a loosely governed mishmash of homesteaders, bandits, mercenaries, and pirates, all rising up as 'citizen soldiers' when the need arises. Each brigade within the Militia is responsible for fighting in an assigned section of Frontier territory. Although some brigades are little more than vast pirate organizations, the Militia has enough resources to be a real obstacle to the IMC's ambitions on the Frontier. The Militia claims that direct action against the IMC is in the best interest of the homesteaders whom they allegedly represent, but not everyone on the Frontier sees it that way.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Eventually, a war breaks out on the Frontier between the IMC and the Militia, known as the Titan Wars. Hammond Robotics distributes many resources to these factionsmainly the IMCto use combatants such as Titans, Spectres and MRVN-created technology for advanced warfare. Militia commanders such as Sarah and Cheng "Bish" Lorck struggle against the IMC, led by Vice Admiral Marcus Graves. During the events of "Titanfall", Pilots, Grunts, Spectres and Titans of the IMC and Militia go through stages of war in multiple locations.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Following the death of General Anderson, forces of the 1st Militia Fleet led by Cheng "Bish" Lorck and Sarah Briggs conduct a raid on an IMC fueling facility in an effort to refuel their ships while IMC forces led by Vice Admiral Marcus Graves attempt to stop them by setting up defensive turrets to wipe out the Militia's ships. The raid ends with the Militia stealing enough fuel to last a month but losing several ships in the process.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: After the raid, the IMC chases the Militia to the nearby planet of Troy, where the Militia attempts to hide. The IMC encounters a colony of humans on the planet, which was thought to have been uninhabited. Suspecting the colony to be hiding Militia forces, Graves has Sergeant Kuben Blisk lead ground forces on the planet and decides to use the opportunity to test their new model of robot infantry, Spectres. After killing the majority of the colony, the Militia decides to step in and help the colonists. A battle ensues in the colony during which both sides are contacted by the colony's leader James MacAllen, an ex-IMC officer and Titan Pilot who expresses outrage at its destruction. When he learns that his former commanding officer Graves is involved in the colony's destruction, he contacts the Militia and offers to help them beat the IMC in exchange for evacuating the remaining survivors at the wreckage of the IMS Odessey.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: The Militia makes contact with MacAllan at the Odessey and helps him buy time to allow his people to escape while he attempts to extract data from the ships computers. The IMC attempts to capture MacAllan and secure the crash site. The IMC ultimately fails to capture MacAllen and he escapes with tactical data to destroy the IMC's primary fueling facility on the planet Demeter and cut off its reinforcements from the core systems. MacAllan soon takes command of the 1st Militia Fleet and has it extract a former IMC pilot and MacAllans wingman Robert "Barker" Taube as he is essential for MacAllan's plan to succeed. Having come up with the strategy together with MacAllan, Graves sends his own forces overseen by Spyglass to capture Barker and an all out battle ensues which results in Barker’s escape and the IMS Sentinel suffering severe damage. Although Graves attempts to have the Sentinel repaired at Outpost 207, a surprise attack led by Sarah puts the ship out of action to slow the IMC down.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: MacAllan has Barker lead them to a secret decommissioned IMC facility known as the Boneyard to analyze a prototype of a Repulsor Tower, a device that repels hostile wildlife from Demeter's main defense force on the IMC's Airbase Sierra in an attempt to learn how to shut them down. Knowing MacAllan's plan, Graves has his forces try to scuttle the facility before they learn too much. Regardless, the Militia learns enough to build a device called "The Icepick" to disable the towers and commence their attack on the Airbase. They successfully manage to disable the base's defenses, leaving it vulnerable to attacks from hostile alien fauna.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Now able to attack Demeter directly, MacAllan personally leads the Militia forces on the ground to try and destroy the fueling while Blisk drops in with the IMC's forces in an attempt to stop him. During the battle, MacAllen attempts to find a way to ensure Demeter's destruction while being pursued by Blisk. MacAllan ultimately seals himself inside the facility's reactor chamber and sets it to pulse detonate, sacrificing himself and his ground forces to ensure Demeter's destruction. With no way to save Demeter, Graves orders Blisk to retreat before requesting dropships to evacuate his forces. However, Spyglass countermands his order and cancels the dropships as there is no more time to evacuate their troops safely. MacAllan then requests Graves take his place in leading the 1st Militia Fleet before dying along with both the IMC and Militia forces on the ground. Now cut off from the core systems, the IMC is forced on the defensive while a disillusioned Graves and several high ranking IMC officers defect to the Militia.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Three months later, Graves has taken command of the 1st Militia Fleet and goes on the offensive against the IMC to destroy one of many IMC robotics factories, due to the IMC becoming increasingly dependent on automated infantry. With masses of human combatants having defected from the IMC to the Militia, the newly promoted Vice Admiral Spyglass and Commander Blisk coordinate the factory's defense. During the battle, Graves attempts to reason with Blisk that they will lose the war but is quickly refuted as being a coward and a traitor. Following the battle, Spyglass makes an announcement that although the IMC is on the defensive they are still a force to be reckoned with while the Militia plays an inspirational message recorded by MacAllan before his death stating that they will fight for independence across the Frontier.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Following ""s release, Activision fired Infinity Ward co-founders Jason West and Vince Zampella in March 2010 for "breaches of contract and insubordination". Their departure resulted in a series of lawsuits and a staff exodus. Later that year, West and Zampella founded a game development company, Respawn Entertainment, composed largely of the former Infinity Ward staffthose responsible for the successful "Call of Duty" series. The company started with a completely blank slate. The ideas that became "Titanfall" slowly accreted over the next two years.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Pre-production began in 2011, and Respawn's first game was originally planned for seventh generation consoles. The idea for the game did not come easily, and the team arrived at its multiplayer-only and human-mech focus after much internal debate. The team started with open collaboration about games and game mechanics they found exciting, and no market research. Respawn artist Joel Emslie recalled starting with a human-sized suit as a "second skin", which the designers grew in size. As Respawn didn't have the necessary computers, the artists resorted to kitbashing and model makingEmslie prototyped by putting a figurine inside a plastic model kit. The team progressed to detailed, foot-high "mechettes" made of wood, wire, and plastic, which became the Atlas Titan. Project influences include "Blade Runner", "Star Wars", "Abrams Battle Tank", and Masamune Shirow of "Ghost in the Shell". Emslie refers to the aesthetic as a "used future". Their production was unconventional, similar to Infinity Ward's old practices, and the game lacked design documentation. At E3 2011, Electronic Arts Labels president Frank Gibeau revealed that Respawn's first project was a science fiction shooter published by Electronic Arts. Two project leads left the company to begin their own studio in mid-2012, and West retired in March 2013.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Rather than responding to the outgoing console generation's technical restrictions with code optimization and a tight release near the end of the consoles' life cycle, the team decided to focus on the eighth generation with more time to try new ideas. Zampella announced that Respawn would show at E3 2013 via Twitter on February 25, 2013. Their planned announcement leaked early through the premature release of "Game Informer"s July 2013 issue on Google Play, which revealed their first game's title, premise, and release date. Other advance public information included the company's trademark filing for "Titan" in April 2013, and an April 2013 Kotaku report of the game's Titan mech gameplay and Xbox One exclusivity. The game was officially announced during Microsoft's E3 2013 press conference, with expected Windows PC, Xbox 360, and Xbox One releases in Q1 2014. The Xbox 360 version was announced as in development with Respawn's support at another studio, though Bluepoint Games was not announced as the studio until January 2014. Electronic Arts CFO Blake Jorgensen later added that the Microsoft exclusivity agreement would last "for the life of the title", such that other consoles, including the PlayStation 4, will not receive a "Titanfall" port. In February 2014, Zampella tweeted that Respawn was discussing an OS X port for release some time after launch. The team's small sizeless than a quarter of similar triple A studiosalso contributed to the game's exclusivity.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: The decision to combine modes allowed Respawn to conserve resources traditionally split between separate teams. Player count changed weekly and was playtested often, more as a question of design than technical feasibility. Early "Titanfall" playtest players did not realize that they were playing against human opponents for over 45 minutes. Respawn originally tested teams of eight, 12, and various decreasing sizes before they decided on teams of six Lead designer Justin Hendry said that more human players make the game "uncomfortable" not due to overcrowding but to the intensity of maintaining one's surroundings against many points of entrance. Producer Drew McCoy wrote that the non-human artificial intelligence (AI) players were not bots meant to replace humans, but "a different class of character in the game". Each team supports up to 12 AI players alongside the human players' autonomous mode Titans, for close to 50 active characters per game. The AI players were designed to enliven the battlefield environment with a greater sense of scale and drama, and to increase the game's complexity with new opportunities for strategy and cannon fodder for Titans. McCoy said the team's foremost goal was to make the game fun.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Respawn chose to build "Titanfall" on the Source game engine early in their production cycle due to their developers' familiarity and its ability to maintain 60 frames per second on both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. In an interview, Respawn software engineer Richard Baker said the company chose Source since "Portal 2" performed well on the PlayStation 3 with it, and the console was "the riskiest platform in seventh generation". The company built upon the engine during development in features such as lighting, rendering, visibility, networking, and tools pipelines. The game also uses Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform for multiplayer servers, physics, and artificial intelligence. Offloading this non-player activity frees the local console for visual rendering tasks and better graphics, and the developers for game development (instead of backend maintenance). This arrangement determines world events in the cloud instead of locally, so position and movement data is downloaded simultaneously by all player-clients. The studio's cloud server access is considered vital to the game's viability, and Respawn artist Joel Emslie said they would not have attempted this game without the cloud support. The team ran a small alpha test and followed up with a large beta test to stress test the new Xbox Live compute platform as one of the first games to use the network. The platform broke for seven hours at one point of the test. Lead programmer Jon Shiring figured that the ten problems they found during the test were ten problems they didn't need to find at launch. Respawn felt that Kinect support did not suit the game and chose not to support the peripheral. The development team reported considerable interest in support for esports competitive play, and while such features were not prioritized for the initial release, Respawn indicated that esports accommodations were under consideration for future iterations.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: The game was feature complete as of December 2013, and the Respawn team continued to address game bugs and balancing issues before launch. Respawn ran a closed beta test with an open registration in February 2014 that saw two million unique users. An Xbox One patch to bring support for Twitch streaming video was designed to coincide with "Titanfall" release. Respawn announced that the release version was finalized for distribution ("gone gold") on February 26, 2014.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: "Titanfall"s composer Stephen Barton had previously worked on "Call of Duty" soundtracks and with "Metal Gear Solid" composer Harry Gregson-Williams. Barton joined the project in early 2013. The game's E3 demo had sparse, placeholder audio and did not feature any final mixes, which were expected to be completed by November 2013. Barton sought to make the soundtrack "distinctive", with several main themes that build through the game. The music was designed "as commentary", to not compete with the action. Titanfall being a multiplayer game, Barton produced a large number of tracks to avoid repetition. The sound ranges from "a very abused hurdy-gurdy to heavy electronics" to "Morricone-esque baritone guitars". Barton emphasized "taking sounds out of their context" to match the game's lawless futuristic setting. The two opposing "Titanfall" teams each have their own musical identities. "Titanfall" soundtrack was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London, with some specialty ethnic instrumentation recorded in Los Angeles.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: "Titanfall" was released on Xbox One and Windows PC (via Origin) in North America on March 11, 2014, in Europe and Australia on 13, and in the United Kingdom and New Zealand on 14. The game's South African release was cancelled due to poor connectivity performance during the beta and no nearby Microsoft Azure data center in the region. Australia, in a similar predicament, used Singapore's servers at the time of launch. The delayed Xbox 360 release developed by Bluepoint Games was released on April 8, 2014 in North America, on April 10, 2014 in Australia and New Zealand, and on April 11, 2014 in Europe. The Xbox 360 version is functionally identical to the other releases, albeit with lower-quality graphics. A downloadable Xbox Live Games on Demand option was not available at launch but was implemented later. The PC version did not include modding tools at launch, though it did support the Xbox 360 controller. Microsoft hosted over 6,000 midnight launch events worldwide to prepare for the release.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Respawn produced both free and paid post-release downloadable content (DLC) and offered a season pass discount for pre-purchasing. Three DLC packs are expected with the season pass. The first "Titanfall" downloadable content (DLC) pack, "Expedition", was announced at PAX East 2014 for release in May 2014. Its story occurs after the campaign in the ancient alien ruins of "Swampland", water "Runoff", and training simulator "War Games" maps. Upcoming DLC will likely not change the number of Titan chassis. Electronic Arts designed the game's digital strategy to coexist with their other shooter, "Battlefield 4", and the game does not use microtransactions. The free updates include features such as private matches that were left out of the original release for time restrictions. The private match feature was added in April 2014. An additional, free update will bring new burn cards and multiplayer modes, and an upcoming PC patch will add 4K video and Nvidia graphics processing unit support. The company is also planning a companion smartphone app.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Following release, Respawn tracked user cheating habits with FairFight software and began to dole out community bans for PC users who used exploits such as aimbots and wallhacks on March 21, 2014. FairFight checks gameplay against statistical markers and flags players for graduated penalty levels. Flagged players are restricted to games with other cheaters, as "the Wimbledon of aimbot contests". Respawn rolled out multiplayer matchmaking tweaks around the same time that prioritized fair matches of player skill.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: The collector's edition includes a Titan statue set in a LED-lit diorama, an art book, and a poster. A limited edition Xbox One wireless controller designed after the game's C-101 carbine weapon launched alongside the game. It was built to feel like "a piece of military spec hardware transported from the universe of "Titanfall" ... into players' hands". An Xbox One console bundle was released simultaneously with the game, and includes a digital copy of "Titanfall" and a month of Xbox Live at the price of the standalone console.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: K'Nex announced a toy marketing tie-in for 2014. Respawn announced other marketing tie-ins in late January including apparel, Jinx clothing, Mad Catz peripherals (keyboards, mice, mouse pads, headsets), posters, Prima strategy guides, a Titan Books art book, Turtle Beach Xbox One headsets, USB flash drives. Before release, Electronic Arts and Respawn unveiled a browser game collection of three Atari games ("Asteroids", "Missile Command", and "Centipede") with an added "Titanfall" theme. Respawn also announced forthcoming "Titanfall" live action content from a partnership with Canadian post-production studio Playfight. Figurine manufacturer Threezero announced in March 2014 that they will produce 1/12 to 1/6 scale models of "Titanfall" Titans and pilots. A worldwide marketing campaign included large statues of Titans across multiple cities, and an advertising campaign that spanned billboards, television commercials, Twitch, the web, and YouTube.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Respawn released a Deluxe Edition for Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox 360 platforms in late 2014. The expanded game includes all three downloadable content expansions alongside the main game. Around the same time, Respawn announced that over seven million people had played "Titanfall" across all platforms.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: "Titanfall" took over 60 awards at its E3 2013 reveal, including a record-breaking six E3 Critics Awards: Best in Show, Best Original Game, Best Console Game, Best PC Game, Best Action Game, and Best Online Multiplayer. The game also won Best in Show from IGN, Destructoid, "Game Informer", and "Electronic Gaming Monthly". Reporting for Polygon at E3, Arthur Gies praised the "dynamism" between the Titan's brute force and the pilots' objective-based stealth as the game's greatest asset. IGN's Ryan McCaffrey declared "Titanfall" both "Microsoft's killer app" and multiplayer gaming's "next big thing", adding, "You will buy an Xbox One for Titanfall, and you should." "Forbes"s Erik Kain similarly predicted the game to be a "huge selling point" for the Xbox One. The game won Best Next Generation Console Game and Best Xbox Game at Gamescom 2013. The game was introduced to Japan at the 2013 Tokyo Game Show, where the response was "overwhelmingly positive" and it won a Future Award. "Titanfall" won "Most Anticipated Game" at VGX 2013. Also, at the 2014 National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR) awards the game won "Game, Original Action" and received three nominations: "Original Dramatic Score, New IP" (Stephen Barton), "Control Precision" (Earl Hammon Jr.) and "Animation, Technical"(Bruce Ferriz, Mark Grigsby, Paul Messerly). Many critics considered "Titanfall" to be the next step for the first-person shooter genre, and the game received abundant "hype" and publicity from video game journalists.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: "Titanfall" received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Critics praised the game's pilot–Titan balance, its Smart Pistol, fast-paced player mobility, and accessibility for players of all skill sets. Reviewers complained that the AI grunts were too unintelligent, that private match and community support features were lacking, and that the game had shipped with too few multiplayer modes. Multiple reviewers cited the Titan's feeling of grandiosity in the player experiencespecifically, the thrill of watching a summoned Titan fall from the sky, but also the feeling of entering the Titan exoskeleton and of scaling a Titan to take it down.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Arthur Gies of "Polygon" wrote that the game's controls felt streamlined and natural. He felt empowered by his awareness of his potential strengths and vulnerabilities behind his choices. IGN Ryan McCaffrey praised the balance between weapons. He called the Smart Pistol his "favorite sidearm since the "" pistol", but noted that its range and several-second lock-on balanced the gun's fairness. GameSpot Chris Watters thought the pistol was a "neat twist on the humble sidearm". Dan Whitehead, writing for Eurogamer, compared the Smart Pistol to the inventive weapons of the "Resistance" series and otherwise wasn't impressed with the weapons. Gies of Polygon wished for more customization options and "IGN" McCaffrey praised the maps, which ranged from "very good to great"from the fast-action ziplines in the very good desert "Boneyard" to the great tiny village "Colony" with crowded houses to exchange gunfire across varied heights.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: VG247 Dave Cook wrote that simplifying the game as "just "Call of Duty" with mechs" was unjustified given its freshness and innovation, though The Verge Andrew Webster said "just "Call of Duty" with mechs" is essentially what it is. Cook added that the parkour elements "turn the "Call of Duty" format on its head" and that "Titanfall" addressed all issues with "Call of Duty" game balance. Multiple reviewers referred to "Titanfall" as "Call of Duty: Future Warfare" or a variant whereof. "Edge" noted that the parkour elements made them approach at an angle instead of rushing directly at the dots on the mini-map, and GameSpot Chris Watters said simple player movement was both a pleasure and a challenge. "The Verge" Vlad Savov wrote that wall running "hasn't felt this good since ... the "Prince of Persia" series". Eurogamer Whitehead said other shooters felt "leaden and limited" after playing "Titanfall".


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Reviewers found the campaign poorly executed. "Edge" called it "nonsense", and Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer said it was "as clichéd as it is shallow". IGN McCaffrey wrote that the story became "background noise" in an otherwise chaotic game. Tom Watson said in "New Statesman" that "the game is devoid of a decent plot". Writing for The Verge, Adi Robertson compared the plot to the backstory on 1990s CD-ROM user manuals, and "OXM" Mikel Reparaz felt his actions were unimportant to the narrative. Ars Technica's Peter Bright called the campaign's voice acting "some of the worst ... [he's] ever heardflat and uninspired".


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Reviewers noted how the game borrowed from games in other genres, such as "DOTA" and "League of Legends". McCaffrey of IGN considered the AI soldiers both a valuable game mechanic and "worthless fodder" at once. "Edge" called "Titanfall" "a game of time management", spent planning when timers will deplete and activate powers. Peter Bright of "Ars Technica" wrote that the nature of the Titan timers turned every mode into a deathmatch, regardless of objective. IGN McCaffrey referred to the experience point "grind" and the Titanfall timer as the game's "two economies". He also praised Respawn for not using microtransactions with the game, especially with burn cards. Writing for "Edge", Neil Long compared burn cards to FIFA Ultimate Team's power-ups. Whitehead of "Eurogamer" wrote that the game begins to drag after level 25 and slows into a grind, though its flow overall is effortlessly cool, like a "first-person "Crackdown"". Watson said that "the combat challenges are dull and repetitive".


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: "Edge" wrote that "Titanfall" major issue was the Xbox One, which performed less admirably compared to the PC version. GameSpot Chris Watters acknowledged that the PC's higher resolution was expected and that the Xbox 360 version had an even lower resolution, frame rate issues, and texture pop-in, though it still handled the game well. Peter Bright of Ars Technica wrote that the game's visuals were "lacking", with flat lighting and static environments. "OXM" Mikel Reparaz thought that the title should have been a launch release, where it would have been easier to overlook its sparse content. Minding the processing power behind the battles, the reviewers were not particularly impressed by the graphics. Eurogamer Dan Whitehead compared the game's aesthetics to "Pacific Rim" and "District 9".


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Reviewers thought "Titanfall" was a successful evolution of the genre, with GameSpot Chris Watters calling it "a great leap forward for shooters" and "EGM" Chris Holzworth declaring the game "unquestionably worthy of all the praises sung about it", but Eurogamer Whitehead concluded that the game was "more of a step forward ... than a leap". Polygon Arthur Gies said "Titanfall" was not the "kind sea change "Modern Warfare" started". Peter Bright of Ars Technica wrote that the game's multiplayer was "not groundbreaking" and did not surpass "Call of Duty", and "Edge" decided that "Titanfall" "might not be Xbox One's killer app". Reflecting on a lack of sales data a month after release, Paul Tassi wrote that the "buzz" surrounding "Titanfall" release "seemed to fade abnormally quickly" and that the game has not "capitalized on the goodwill it had ahead of, and even during, launch". Calling the game a disappointment, Watson said "People paid for it, played it for two weeks, then left it completely". While EA COO Peter Moore told investors on a May 2014 call that the game had sold 925,000 retail copies in the United States during its launch month, that number came from an external NPD Group report that "Titanfall" was March's top-selling game. NPD Group reported it was April's top-selling game as well. As of May 2014, EA had not released figures on "Titanfall" sales, an uncommon practice that drew skepticism from journalists such as Paul Tassi. IGN reported that "Titanfall" sold ten million copies as of October 2015, but other sources could not conclude whether the Vince Zampella source tweet meant ten million units sold or unique players.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Starting in 2019, the game's status has been questioned. Customers reported matchmaking issues, years of DDOS attacks and some reported the game thinks they do not have all DLC map packs installed when they do. The game has been called abandonware, unplayable, and "utterly broken".


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Its Steam release is marked with an "Overwhelmingly negative" response from user reviews. The game has been reported to suffer from numerous unpatched vulnerabilities that can be used to crash or overload servers and disconnect players. On April 5, 2021, Respawn Entertaintment said via Twitter "We're aware of ongoing DDOS attacks affecting @Titanfallgame.To the Titanfall community: Help is coming ASAP".


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: On July 4, 2021, the game "Apex Legends", also by Respawn Entertainment, was hacked to include instead of the usual playlists, the URL "savetitanfall.com" with the subheader, "[Titanfall 1] is being attacked so is Apex". Those affected by the hack were reported to be unable to join other playlists. Because of this hack the game was rendered unplayable. The advertised website claims EA and Respawn Entertainment are "...willingly pretending that they do not know about the situation." Going further, claiming EA and Respawn are committing "fraud" by continuing to sell the game. Given the game's instability and low player count, Respawn Entertainment announced that they will be ending sales of "Titanfall" and removing the game from subscription services on March 1, 2022.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: Jaz Rignall of USgamer revisited "Titanfall" in late 2015 and found the game still worthy of its original praise, though he noted that its technical detailsnamely graphics and framerateshowed some age. He felt that the game's content issues, apart from the light campaign, were resolved by the free additional maps. Overall, Rignall said that "Titanfall" had been replaced by newer shooter games.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: On March 12, 2015, Respawn confirmed that a sequel is in development for Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Respawn also announced that the company is working with Nexon to develop multiple "Titanfall" games like "" for iOS and Android on October 29, 2015. Unlike its predecessor, "Titanfall 2" would have a traditional single-player campaign. On April 11, 2016, Respawn released a teaser trailer for "Titanfall 2", stating that more information will be released at E3 2016.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: In 2016, EA had announced that it was partnering with Nexon to create an Asian market specific version of "Titanfall" called "Titanfall Online", similar to "Counter-Strike Online" and "Call of Duty Online". This version was based on the first "Titanfall" rather than the sequel with some slight differences to the original game like four main pilots in the game, the introduction of a new titan, and a new map. The game had a closed beta in 2017. "Titanfall Online" was eventually canceled during 2018.


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: In January 2017, "Titanfall: Frontline" was cancelled, but in that same year, Nexon and Respawn announced that another mobile spin-off game, "", a top-down real-time strategy game, will be released on the same platforms as "Frontline".


title: Titanfall (video game)

text: In early 2019, Respawn Entertainment released a battle royale hero shooter hybrid, set in the same universe as "Titanfall", titled "Apex Legends," which features 60 players split into 20 teams of 3 fighting to be the last team standing. Notably, "Apex Legends" does not feature Titans or Pilots but retains many weapons, abilities and equipment from the preceding Titanfall games. "Apex Legends" has gone on to be one of the most successful live service games of all time, with a player count of 100 million as of May 2022.


title: Lunchables

text: Lunchables is a brand of food and snacks manufactured by Kraft Heinz in Chicago, Illinois and marketed under the Oscar Mayer brand. They were initially introduced in Seattle in 1988 before being released nationally in 1989. Many Lunchables products are produced in a Garland, Texas facility, and are then distributed across the United States.


title: Lunchables

text: In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the product is sold as "Dairylea Lunchables" under the Dairylea brand, originally by Kraft Foods Inc., and currently by its successor Mondelez.


title: Lunchables

text: Tom Bailey created the concept and product known as Lunchables. Lunchables was designed in 1985 by Bob Drane, Tom Bailey, Jeff James, and Deborah Giarusso as a way for Oscar Mayer to sell more bologna and other lunch meat. After organizing focus groups of American mothers Drane discovered that their primary concern was time. Working mothers especially were pressed by the time constraints of fixing breakfast for their families as well as packing a lunch for their children to eat at school. This gave Drane the idea of creating a convenient prepackaged lunch featuring Oscar Mayer's trademark lunch meats. Crackers were substituted for bread because they would last longer in grocery coolers. The cheese was provided by Kraft when Oscar Mayer merged with Kraft in 1988. The design of the package was based on the look of an American TV dinner.


title: Lunchables

text: The term 'Lunchables' emerged from a list of possible names for the prepackaged meal that included, among others: On-Trays, Crackerwiches, Mini Meals, Lunch Kits, Snackables, Square Meals, Walk Meals, Go-Packs, and Fun Mealz.


title: Lunchables

text: Lunchables offers 30 different kinds of meal variety combinations, which include crackers, pizzas, chicken nuggets, small hot dogs, small burgers, nachos, subs, and wraps. A typical package, such as the crackers meal combination, contains an equal number of crackers and small slices of meat and cheese. The brand also created two versions targeting adults, by increasing the amount of food offered in each package, but these have since been discontinued. The first was called the "Deluxe" and contained two types of meats and cheeses as well as a mustard condiment and a mint. The second version, called "Maxed Out" (originally "Mega Packs"), was available with 40% more food than a regular Lunchables.


title: Lunchables

text: Lunchables also carries an assortment of drinks and desserts. In certain meal combinations, Capri Sun juice drinks are offered, either in a traditional flavor or of the "Roarin’ Waters" variant. Other drinks included are bottled water and a generic unlabeled small can of cola; however, the latter was later replaced with Capri Sun drinks due to health concerns. As for dessert, some packages contain Jell-O gelatin or pudding or a candy alternative, such as Butterfingers or Reese's cups.


title: Lunchables

text: As of 2022, the varieties of Lunchables available in the UK are more limited in comparison to the 1990s and 2000s. The burger, pizza, hot dog and sub varieties are no longer sold, and the product is mostly limited to crackers, cheese and ham. Many varieties including turkey, ham, sausage, hot dog and pizza still are sold in Canada.


title: Lunchables

text: A line of the trays called Maxed Out was eventually released that had as many as nine grams of saturated fat, or nearly an entire day's recommended maximum for children, with up to two-thirds of the maximum for sodium and 65 grams (13 tsp) of sugar. Regarding the shift toward more salt, sugar, and fat in meals for kids, Geoffrey Bible, former C.E.O. of Philip Morris USA (prior owner of Kraft Foods), remarked that he read an article that said: "If you take Lunchables apart, the most healthy item in it is the napkin."


title: Lunchables

text: In 1997, Lunchables came under fire for having high saturated fat and sodium content while being marketed as a healthy children's meal. For example, a single serving of Ham and Swiss Lunchables contained 1,780 milligrams of sodium, which is 47 percent of the recommended daily allowance for an adult.


title: Lunchables

text: Due to the growing concern of childhood obesity, UK Lunchables opted to create healthier options for children by eliminating Capri Sun drinks and mini Daim bars, and replacing the sugary drink and candy with orange juice and strawberry yogurt in 2004. The brand also began offering lower calorie candy alternatives, rather than including the standard Reese's cup in the package. Capri Sun and candy are still available as options in the U.S. Lunchables.


title: Lunchables

text: As of 2007, eight varieties of Lunchables are considered Sensible Solution products; the brand has since excluded the exceptionally unhealthy items, replacing Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Cola, Nestle Crunch bars, M&M's, and Kool-Aid Jammers with lower calorie and sugar options, such as Airheads, fruit cups, and Tropical Punch flavored Kool-Aid mix.


title: 2021–22 Serbian SuperLiga

text: The 2021–22 Serbian SuperLiga (known as the Linglong Tire SuperLiga for sponsorship reasons) was the 16th season of the Serbian SuperLiga since its establishment in 2006. Red Star were the defending champions, having won their 7th SuperLiga and 32nd domestic title in the previous season.


title: 2021–22 Serbian SuperLiga

text: Number of teams in the league for this season was reduced from 20 to 16 from last season which had increased number of teams due to COVID-19 pandemic. Before the start of the season, on 16 June 2021, it was announced that number of teams in the league will again be reduced at the end of season - this time to 14. Because of that 4 teams will be relegated while only 2 will be promoted from Serbian First League. Rule about bonus players was also changed for this season - each team now must have at least one player born in 2000 or younger in the squad for the duration of entire match.


title: 2021–22 Serbian SuperLiga

text: Decision about decreasing number of teams for a next season was revised on 6 July 2021 when Football Association of Serbia decided that number of teams in top flight will remain 16. Format was officially reverted to the one used in 19–20 season - each time will play each other twice in round-robin format after which top half will play in Championship round and bottom half in Relegation round Play-offs. Last two teams from Relegation round will be relegated while teams finishing 13th and 14th will play Relegations play-off against teams who finished 3rd and 4th in Serbian First League. Rule about foreign players registration was also changed. Instead of maximum of 4 foreign players in match protocol teams can now have unlimited number of foreign players with maximum of 4 at the pitch at any time. For the first time in Serbian SuperLiga history Video assistant referee will be used on all matches.


title: 2021–22 Serbian SuperLiga

text: This season marked the start of a new three-year TV deal. Deal was signed with Telekom Srbija and their subsidiary Arena Channels Group. They will pay 3 million-a-year for the next three seasons, a record breaking deal for Serbian SuperLiga.


title: 2021–22 Serbian SuperLiga

text: At the start of this season it was announced that, for the first time since 2019–20 season, attendance will be allowed for all matches. With limitation that no more than 50% of maximum capacity can be filled.


title: 2021–22 Serbian SuperLiga

text: Sixteen teams will compete in the league, the top 14 from previous season and two teams promoted from Serbian First League. Promoted teams were Radnički 1923 who return to the top flight after a six years absence and Kolubara who are promoted to the SuperLiga for the first time in their history. They will replace Javor, Rad, Bačka, Inđija, Mačva and Zlatibor.


title: 2021–22 Serbian SuperLiga

text: The bottom eight teams from the regular season play in the relegation round. Teams play each other once.


title: 2021–22 Serbian SuperLiga

text: Two legged relegation play-off matches will be played between the teams placed 13th and 14th at the end of relegation round and the teams placed 3rd and 4th at the end of Serbian First League Promotion round.


title: Garry Chalk

text: Garry Chalk is a British-born Canadian actor. He has provided the voices for Optimus Primal of "" and "Beast Machines", as well as Optimus Prime in the anime English dubs of "", "Transformers Energon", and "". He has lent his voice to over 30 animated television series and has been in films such as "The Fly II", "Godzilla" and "Freddy vs. Jason". He played the recurring role of Col. Chekov on "Stargate SG-1". He is perhaps best known for his recurring role as Inspector Andrew Pawlachuk on "Cold Squad".


title: Garry Chalk

text: Chalk was born in Southampton, Hampshire, England. At the age of 5, his family moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.


title: Garry Chalk

text: Chalk has been involved with theatre since 1978 and has performed at the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company (VPTC), the Arts Club Theatre Company (ACTC), The Vancouver Theatresports League and various low budget theatres in Canada. The last live stage production he did was "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", where he played Miles Gloriosus. He also performed in "Henry IV" and "As You Like It" at the VPTC, as well as "Dracula" and "Passion" at the ACTC.


title: Garry Chalk

text: Most of his career has been in film and television, usually portraying corrupt members of law enforcement. He had a recurring role on "Cold Squad" for four years, for which he won Gemini Awards in two consecutive years, and until the close of its ninth season had a recurring role on the science-fiction series "Stargate SG-1". Known for his perfect enunciation and his mellifluous deep voice, Chalk is also a veteran of over 1,500 animated productions including "Class of the Titans", and the 2002 remake of "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe". He is also known for his voice work in the "Transformers" franchise as the voice of Optimus Primal in "" and "", and as Optimus Prime in the Unicron Trilogy. He also voiced the original Megatron in an episode of "Beast Wars".


title: Garry Chalk

text: In the 2000s, he appeared in the Sci-Fi Channel shows "Eureka", as Col. Briggs and "Painkiller Jane", as Ruben Hennessey.


title: Polar climate

text: The polar climate regions are characterized by a lack of warm summers but with varying winters. Every month in a polar climate has an average temperature of less than . Regions with polar climate cover more than 20% of the Earth's area. Most of these regions are far from the equator and near the poles, and in this case, winter days are extremely short and summer days are extremely long (could last for the entirety of each season or longer). A polar climate consists of cool summers and very cold winters, which results in treeless tundra, glaciers, or a permanent or semi-permanent layer of ice. It is identified with the letter E in the Köppen climate classification.


title: Polar climate

text: There are two types of polar climate: ET, or tundra climate; and EF, or ice cap climate. A tundra climate is characterized by having at least one month whose average temperature is above , while an ice cap climate has no months averaging above . In a tundra climate, even coniferous trees cannot grow, but other specialized plants can grow. In an ice cap climate, no plants can grow, and ice gradually accumulates until it flows or slides elsewhere. Many high altitude locations on Earth have a climate where no month has an average temperature of or higher, but as this is due to elevation, this climate is referred to as Alpine climate. Alpine climate can mimic either tundra or ice cap climate.


title: Polar climate

text: On Earth, the only continent where the ice cap polar climate is predominant is Antarctica. All but a few isolated coastal areas on the island of Greenland also have the ice cap climate. Summits of many high mountains also have ice cap climate due to their high elevation. Coastal regions of Greenland that do not have permanent ice sheets have the less extreme tundra climates. The northernmost part of the Eurasian land mass, from the extreme northeastern coast of Scandinavia and eastwards to the Bering Strait, large areas of northern Siberia and northern Iceland have tundra climate as well. Large areas in northern Canada and northern Alaska have tundra climate, changing to ice cap climate in the most northern parts of Canada. Southernmost Argentina (Tierra del Fuego where it abuts the Drake Passage) and such subantarctic islands such as the South Shetland Islands and the Falkland Islands have tundra climates of slight temperature range in which no month is as warm as . These subantarctic lowlands are found closer to the equator than the coastal tundras of the Arctic basin. Summits of many mountains of Earth also have polar climates, due to their higher elevations.


title: Polar climate

text: Some parts of the Arctic are covered by ice (sea ice, glacial ice, or snow) year-round, especially at the most poleward parts; and nearly all parts of the Arctic experience long periods with some form of ice or snow on the surface. Average January temperatures range from about , and winter temperatures can drop below over large parts of the Arctic. Average July temperatures range from about , with some land areas occasionally exceeding in summer.


title: Polar climate

text: The Arctic consists of ocean that is almost surrounded by landmasses like Russia and Canada. As such, the climate of much of the Arctic is moderated by the ocean water, which can never have a temperature below . In winter, this relatively warm water, even though covered by the polar ice pack, keeps the North Pole from being the coldest place in the Northern Hemisphere, and it is also part of the reason that Antarctica is so much colder than the Arctic. In summer, the presence of the nearby water keeps coastal areas from warming as much as they might otherwise, just as it does in temperate regions with maritime climates.