title: Crazy Frog

text: In late 2003, another Swede, Erik Wernquist, encountered the sound effect and, not knowing about the previous incarnations of the sound, was inspired to create the 3D animated character he named "The Annoying Thing" to accompany it. Wernquist worked on the first animation in his spare time using the LightWave 3D modeling application, and the whole process took between six and eight weeks. On 7 October 2003 he posted it on his website and on the CGTalk forum.


title: Crazy Frog

text: The animation was a popular attraction at Wernquist's website, but the sound was credited to "Anonymous". Eventually, word reached Malmedahl that his impressions had been used in a now well-known animation studio. He contacted Wernquist, apparently giving an impromptu performance to confirm his claims. Wernquist was convinced, and gave credit to Malmedahl for his creation.


title: Crazy Frog

text: The animation received attention through filesharing and word of mouth and, when Ringtone Europe and Jamster België (now both merged into Jamba!) got wind of this, realizing the monetary possibilities through capitalizing on the underground cult-status, they licensed the rights to the creation, renaming it "Crazy Frog" and starting to market it in mid-2004.


title: Crazy Frog

text: Following 2009, the character went on hiatus. In 2018, a trademark claim by Kaktus Films, the original owners alongside Erik Wernquist, had music listed as one of many rights. On 22 April 2020, an official Twitter account for the character was created, and later that day it was announced that a new album was in development.


title: Crazy Frog

text: In April 2022, the Government of Ukraine uploaded a video on Facebook of Russian tanks being hit by Ukrainian strikes during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine with Crazy Frog playing in the background.


title: Crazy Frog

text: On 1 July 2005, UK-based publishers Digital Jesters announced that they had acquired the rights to the video game licence for the Crazy Frog. "Crazy Frog Racer (featuring the Annoying Thing)", released in December 2005 on PlayStation 2 and PC as a racing game. A year later in 2006 a sequel was released, entitled "Crazy Frog Racer 2". Both were extremely panned by critics.


title: Crazy Frog

text: In 2005, the German production company The League of Good People was in talks with broadcasters about a TV series based on Crazy Frog. The TV series was cancelled.


title: Crazy Frog

text: The Crazy Frog toured Australia in late 2005, beginning in Perth on 4 December and continuing through other major capital cities. He made appearances at numerous shopping centres and major hospitals around the country.


title: Crazy Frog

text: In 2007, the Animation World Network wrote in connection with The Annoying Thing that there was a "planned feature film" to "be completed by the end of next year" into an animated feature film. The feature film was cancelled.


title: Crazy Frog

text: The Crazy Frog was broadcast for the first time on Belgian television in mid-2004, though was named the Annoying Thing There it was marketed as Albert Motàr.


title: Crazy Frog

text: "Axel F" (a remix of the 1980s Harold Faltermeyer song produced by the German band Resource) was released on 23 May 2005 and became one of the most successful singles of the year 2005. The single debuted at number one in the UK, remaining there for four weeks, and it was released on the debut album "Crazy Frog Presents Crazy Hits".


title: Crazy Frog

text: In February 2005, viewers submitted a number of complaints to the United Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) regarding Jamster's advertising campaign, complaining that Crazy Frog appeared to have a visible penis and scrotum. Some parents claimed that it was inappropriate for children. There were also complaints regarding the frequency with which the advertisement appeared on television, reportedly up to twice an hour across most of the day, with some channels showing it more than once per commercial break.


title: Crazy Frog

text: The ASA did not uphold the complaints, pointing out that the advert was already classified as inappropriate for airing during children's television programmes as it contained a premium rate telephone number, and that it was the broadcasters' decision how often an advertisement should be shown. Jamster voluntarily censored the character's genital area in later broadcasts of its advertisements. Similar action occurred in Australia, with similar results. In November 2021, the Crazy Frog Twitter account made light of the controversy, saying, "A lot of people were shocked to see my PP in 2005. And still shocked to see it now in 2021!!"


title: Crazy Frog

text: In March 2005, anti-virus vendors discovered the "codice_1" computer virus (a contraction of Crazy Frog), which spreads through file-sharing networks and MSN Messenger, exploiting the "Crazy Frog" notoriety with a promise of an animation depicting his demise.


title: Crazy Frog

text: In April 2005, UK television viewers complained about misleading advertisements produced by Jamba!, trading as Jamster and RingtoneKing. Viewers felt that it was not made sufficiently clear that they were subscribing to a service, rather than paying a one-time fee for their ringtone. The complaints were upheld.


title: Crazy Frog

text: As the authority had already adjudicated on the matter and confirmed the matter was not within its remit, the unusual step was taken of adding a notice to the ASA's online and telephone complaints system informing viewers that Jamster!-related complaints should be directed towards the broadcaster or the regulator, Ofcom.


title: Crazy Frog

text: In May 2005, viewers inundated the ASA with new complaints regarding the continuous airing of the latest Crazy Frog advertisements. The intensity of the advertising was unprecedented in British television history. According to The Guardian, Jamster bought 73,716 spots across all TV channels in May alone — an average of nearly 2,378 slots daily — at a cost of about £8 million, just under half of which was spent on ITV. 87% of the population saw the Crazy Frog adverts an average of 26 times, 15% of the adverts appeared twice during the same advertising break and 66% were in consecutive ad breaks. An estimated 10% of the population saw the advert more than 60 times. This led to many members of the population finding the Crazy Frog, as its original name suggests, immensely irritating.


title: Crazy Frog

text: On 21 September 2005, the ASA ruled that the Crazy Frog, along with other Jamba ringtone advertisements, could not be shown before 9pm. This adjudication was revised on 25 January 2006, maintaining the 'upheld' decision but revising the wording of one of the points.


title: Crazy Frog

text: Following the release of "Tricky" on 10 December 2021, an official non-fungible token release was planned on "Metabeats". This was met with backlash on Twitter, with the account managers stating they had been receiving death threats over the matter. Despite the controversy, they still plan to release the NFTs.


title: Dracaena trifasciata

text: Dracaena trifasciata is a species of flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to tropical West Africa from Nigeria east to the Congo. It is most commonly known as the snake plant, Saint George's sword, mother-in-law's tongue, and viper's bowstring hemp, among other names. Until 2017, it was known under the synonym Sansevieria trifasciata.


title: Dracaena trifasciata

text: It is an evergreen perennial plant forming dense stands, spreading by way of its creeping rhizome, which is sometimes above ground, sometimes underground. Its stiff leaves grow vertically from a basal rosette. Mature leaves are dark green with light gray-green cross-banding and usually range from long and wide, though it can reach heights above in optimal conditions.


title: Dracaena trifasciata

text: The plant exchanges oxygen and carbon dioxide using the crassulacean acid metabolism process, which allows them to withstand drought. The microscopic pores on the plant's leaves, called the stomata and used to exchange gases, are opened only at night to prevent water from escaping via evaporation in the hot sun.


title: Dracaena trifasciata

text: This plant is often kept as a houseplant due to its non-demanding maintenance. They require very little water and sun, making them perfect for dark rooms and apartments.


title: Dracaena trifasciata

text: To get this plant to go into bloom outside of its natural environment is difficult. Replicating its natural environment is possible. Its flowers vary from greenish white to cream-colored — some are fragrant at night, others not at all — and have a sticky texture.


title: Dracaena trifasciata

text: "Dracaena trifasciata" is commonly called "mother-in-law's tongue", "Saint George's sword" or "snake plant", because of the shape and sharp margins of its leaves that resemble snakes. It is also known as the "viper's bowstring hemp", because it is one of the sources for plant fibers used to make bowstrings.


title: Dracaena trifasciata

text: Like some other members of its genus, "D. trifasciata" yields bowstring hemp, a strong plant fiber once used to make bowstrings.


title: Dracaena trifasciata

text: It is now used predominantly as an ornamental plant, outdoors in warmer climates, and indoors as a houseplant in cooler climates. It is popular as a houseplant because it is tolerant of low light levels and irregular watering; during winter, it needs only one watering every couple of months. It will rot easily if overwatered. It is commonly recommended to beginners interested in cultivating houseplants for its easy care.


title: Dracaena trifasciata

text: The NASA Clean Air Study found "D. trifasciata" has the potential to filter indoor air, removing 4 of the 5 main toxins involved in the effects of sick building syndrome. However, its rate of filtration is too slow for practical indoor use.


title: Dracaena trifasciata

text: It can be propagated by cuttings or by dividing the rhizome. The first method has the disadvantage that the variegation will be lost.


title: Dracaena trifasciata

text: "D. trifasciata" is considered by some authorities a potential weed in Australia, although widely used as an ornamental, in the tropics outdoors in pots and garden beds and in temperate areas as an indoor plant.


title: Dracaena trifasciata

text: The plant contains saponins which are mildly toxic to dogs and cats and can lead to gastrointestinal upset if consumed.


title: Dracaena trifasciata

text: Numerous cultivars have been selected, many of them for variegated foliage with yellow or silvery-white stripes on the leaf margins. Popular cultivars include 'Compacta', 'Goldiana', 'Hahnii', 'Laurentii', 'Silbersee', and 'Silver Hahnii'. 'Hahnii' was discovered in 1939 by William W. Smith, Jr. in the Crescent Nursery Company, New Orleans, Louisiana. The 1941 patent was assigned to Sylvan Frank Hahn, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.


title: Dracaena trifasciata

text: In its native range in Africa, a yellow-tipped cultivar is associated with Oya, the female Orisha of storms. In Nigeria it is commonly linked with Ogun, the Orisha of war, and is used in rituals to remove the evil eye. In Brazil its common name "Espada de São Jorge" links it to Saint George, who by syncretism is also associated with Orisha Ogun.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: James the Just, or a variation of James, brother of the Lord ( from , and , , can also be Anglicized as "Jacob"), was "a brother of Jesus", according to the New Testament. He was an early leader of the Jerusalem Church of the Apostolic Age. Traditionally, it is believed he was martyred in AD 62 or 69 by being stoned to death by the Pharisees on order of High Priest Ananus ben Ananus.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians teach that James, along with others named in the New Testament as "brothers" of Jesus, were not the biological children of Mary, mother of Jesus, but were possibly cousins of Jesus, or step-brothers from a previous marriage of Joseph (as related in the Gospel of James).


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The Catholic tradition holds that this James is to be identified with James, son of Alphaeus, and James the Less. It is agreed by most that he should not be confused with James, son of Zebedee also known as James the Great.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Eusebius records that Clement of Alexandria related, "This James, whom the people of old called the Just because of his outstanding virtue, was the first, as the record tells us, to be elected to the episcopal throne of the Jerusalem church." Other epithets are "James the brother of the Lord, surnamed the Just," and "James the Righteous".


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: He is sometimes referred to in Eastern Christianity as "James Adelphotheos" (), meaning "James the Brother of God". The oldest surviving Christian liturgy, the Liturgy of St James, uses this epithet.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The Jerusalem Church was an early Christian community located in Jerusalem, of which James and Peter were leaders. According to a universal tradition the first bishop was the Apostle James the Less, the "brother of the Lord". His predominant place and residence in the city are implied by . Eusebius says he was appointed bishop by Peter, James (the Greater), and John (II, i).


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: According to Eusebius, the Jerusalem church escaped to Pella during the siege of Jerusalem by the future Emperor Titus in 70 AD and afterwards returned, having a further series of Jewish bishops until the Bar Kokhba revolt in 130 AD. Following the second destruction of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the city as Aelia Capitolina, subsequent bishops were Greeks.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: James the Just was "from an early date, with Peter, a leader of the Church at Jerusalem and from the time when Peter left Jerusalem after Herod Agrippa's attempt to kill him, James appears as the principal authority who presided at the Council of Jerusalem."


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The Pauline epistles and the later chapters of the Acts of the Apostles portray James as an important figure in the Jewish Christian community of Jerusalem. When Paul arrives in Jerusalem to deliver the money he raised for the faithful there, it is to James that he speaks, and it is James who insists that Paul ritually cleanse himself at Herod's Temple to prove his faith and deny rumors of teaching rebellion against the Torah (). This was a charge of antinomianism. In Paul's account of his visit to Jerusalem in -19, he states that he stayed with Cephas (better known as Peter) and James, the brother of the Lord, was the only other apostle he met.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Paul describes James as being one of the persons to whom the risen Christ showed himself, (1 Corinthians 15:3–8). In , Paul mentions James with Cephas and John the Apostle as the three "pillars" of the Church. Paul describes these pillars as the ones who will minister to the "circumcised" (in general Jews and Jewish Proselytes) in Jerusalem, while Paul and his fellows will minister to the "uncircumcised" (in general Gentiles) (Galatians 2:12), after a debate in response to concerns of the Christians of Antioch. The Antioch community was concerned over whether Gentile Christians need be circumcised to be saved, and sent Paul and Barnabas to confer with the Jerusalem church. James played a prominent role in the formulation of the council's decision. James was the last named figure to speak, after Peter, Paul, and Barnabas; he delivered what he called his "decision" (Acts 15:13-21). The original sense is closer to "opinion". James supported them all in being against the requirement (Peter had cited his earlier revelation from God regarding Gentiles) and suggested prohibitions about eating blood as well as meat sacrificed to idols and fornication. This became the ruling of the council, agreed upon by all the apostles and elders and sent to the other churches by letter.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The "Encyclopædia Britannica" relates that "James the Lord's brother was a Christian apostle, according to St. Paul, although not one of the original Twelve Apostles." According to Protestant theologian Philip Schaff, James seems to have taken the place of James the son of Zebedee, after his martyrdom, around 44 AD.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Modern historians of the early Christian churches tend to place James in the tradition of Jewish Christianity; whereas Paul emphasized faith over observance of Mosaic Law, James is thought to have espoused the opposite position.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: According to Schaff, James was the local head of the oldest church and the leader of the most conservative portion of Jewish Christianity. Scholar James D. G. Dunn has proposed that Peter was the "bridge-man" between the two other "prominent leading figures", Paul and James the Just.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Apart from a handful of references in the synoptic Gospels, the main sources for the life of James the Just are the Pauline epistles, the Acts of the Apostles, Josephus, Eusebius and Jerome, who also quote the early Christian chronicler Hegesippus and Epiphanius. There is no mention of James in the Gospel of John or the early portions of the Acts of the Apostles. The Synoptics mention his name, but provide no further information.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: In the extant lists of Pseudo-Hippolytus of Rome, Dorotheus of Tyre, the Chronicon Paschale, and Dimitry of Rostov, he is the first of the Seventy Apostles though some sources, such as the "Catholic Encyclopedia", state that "these lists are unfortunately worthless".


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: According to Josephus, in his work "Antiquities of the Jews" (), refers to the stoning of "James the brother of Jesus" by order of Ananus ben Ananus, a Herodian-era High Priest.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The James referred to in this passage is most likely the James to whom the "Epistle of James" has been attributed. The translations of Josephus' writing into other languages have at times included passages that are not found in the Greek texts, raising the possibility of interpolation, but this passage on James is found in all manuscripts, including the Greek texts.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The context of the passage is the period following the death of Porcius Festus, and the journey to Alexandria by Lucceius Albinus, the new Roman Procurator of Judea, who held that position from 62 CE to 64 CE. Because Albinus' journey to Alexandria had to have concluded no later than the summer of 62 CE, the date of James' death can be assigned with some certainty to around that year. The 2nd century chronicler Hegesippus also left an account of the death of James, and while the details he provides diverge from those of Josephus, the two accounts share similar elements.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Modern scholarship has almost universally acknowledged the authenticity of the reference to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" (τὸν ἀδελφὸν Ἰησοῦ τοῦ λεγομένου Χριστοῦ, Ἰάκωβος ὄνομα αὐτῷ) and has rejected its being the result of later Christian interpolation. Moreover, in comparison with Hegesippus' account of James' death, most scholars consider Josephus' to be the more historically reliable. Some scholars have noted Josephus is more sympathetic to James than his brother.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The New Testament mentions several people named James. The Pauline epistles, from about the sixth decade of the 1st century, have two passages mentioning a James. The Acts of the Apostles, written sometime between 60 and 150 AD, also describes the period before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. It has three mentions of a James. The Gospels, with disputed datings ranging from about 50 to as late as 130 AD, describe the period of Jesus's ministry, around 30-33 AD. It mentions at least two different people named James. The author of the Epistle of Jude notes that he is a brother of James in that epistle's opening paragraph.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The "Epistle of James" has been traditionally attributed to James the Just since 253, but, according to Dan McCartney, it is now common for scholars to disagree on its authorship.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Paul mentions meeting James "the Lord's brother" (τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ κυρίου) and later calls him one of the pillars (στύλοι) in the Epistle to the Galatians :


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: A "James" is mentioned in Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, , as one to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection:


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: In the preceding verse, the same Greek word "adelphos" (brother) is used, but not in a blood-relation sense:


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: There is a James mentioned in Acts, which the "Catholic Encyclopedia" identifies with James, the brother of Jesus: "but he [Peter], beckoning unto them with the hand to hold their peace, declared unto them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, Go show these things unto James, and to the brethren. And he departed, and went into another place. (Acts 12:17)


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: When Peter, having miraculously escaped from prison, must flee Jerusalem due to Herod Agrippa's persecution, he asks for James to be informed (Acts 12:17).


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: James is also an authority in the early church at the Council of Jerusalem (James is quoting Amos 9:11–12):


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: After this, there is only one more mention of James in Acts, meeting with Paul shortly before Paul's arrest: "And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. And the day following Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present. (Acts 21:17–18)


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The Synoptic Gospels, similarly to the Epistle to the Galatians, recognize a core group of three disciples (Peter, John and James) having the same names as those given by Paul. In the list of the disciples found in the Gospels, two disciples whose names are James, the son of Alphaeus and James, son of Zebedee are mentioned in the list of the twelve disciples: (Matthew 10:1–4)


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction. The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew also mention a James as Jesus's brother: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him."


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The Gospel of John never mentions anyone called James, but mentions Jesus's unnamed "brothers" as being present with Mary when Jesus attended the wedding at Cana (John 2:12), and later that his brothers did not believe in him (John 7:5).


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Hegesippus (2nd century), in the fifth book of his Commentaries, mentions that James was made a bishop of Jerusalem but he does not mention by whom: "After the apostles, James the brother of the Lord surnamed the Just was made head of the Church at Jerusalem."


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Hegesippus (c.110–c.180), wrote five books (now lost except for some quotations by Eusebius) of "Commentaries on the Acts of the Church". In describing James's ascetic lifestyle, Eusebius's "Ecclesiastical History" (Book II, 23) quotes Hegesippus' account of James from the fifth book of "Commentaries on the Acts of the Church":


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Clement of Alexandria (late 2nd century) wrote in the sixth book of his Hypotyposes that James the Just was chosen as a bishop of Jerusalem by Peter, James (the Greater) and John:


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: According to Eusebius (3rd/4th century) James was named a bishop of Jerusalem by the apostles: "James, the brother of the Lord, to whom the episcopal seat at Jerusalem had been entrusted by the apostles". Jerome wrote the same: "James... after our Lord's passion... ordained by the apostles bishop of Jerusalem..." and that James "ruled the church of Jerusalem thirty years".


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Epiphanius (4th century), bishop of Salamis, wrote in his work "The Panarion" (AD 374–375) that "James, the brother of the Lord died in virginity at the age of ninety-six".


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: According to Jerome (4th century), James, the Lord's brother, was an apostle, too; Jerome quotes Scriptures as a proof in his work "The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary", writing the following:


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Some apocryphal gospels testify to the reverence Jewish followers of Jesus had for James. The Gospel of the Hebrews confirms the account of Paul in 1 Corinthians regarding the risen Jesus's appearance to James. Jerome (5th century) quotes the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews:


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The non-canonical Gospel of Thomas confirms that Jesus, after his resurrection, names James as a leader of his disciples:


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The Gospel of Thomas confirms the account of Paul in 1 Corinthians regarding the risen Jesus's appearance to James. The Gospel of Thomas relates that the disciples asked Jesus, after his resurrection and before his Ascension, "We are aware that you will depart from us. Who will be our leader?" Jesus said to them, "No matter where you come [from] it is to James the Just that you shall go, for whose sake heaven and earth have come to exist." Epiphanius (Panarion 29.4) describes James as a Nazirite.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The pseudepigraphical First Apocalypse of James associated with James's name mentions that James and Jesus are not biological brothers, with a rather fragmentary account of the departure (possibly meaning martyrdom) of James appended to the bottom of the manuscript.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The pseudepigraphical Second Apocalypse of James names James's father Theudas rather than Joseph, who is presented as the biological father of James.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The Apocryphon of James, the sole copy of which was found in the Nag Hammadi library and which may have been written in Egypt in the 3rd century, recounts a post-resurrection appearance of the risen Christ to James and Peter that James is said to have recorded in Hebrew.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The Gospel of James (or "Infancy Gospel of James"), a work of the 2nd century, also presents itself as written by James so that his authorship would lend authority.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: In a 4th-century letter pseudographically ascribed to the 1st century Clement of Rome, James was called the "bishop of bishops, who rules Jerusalem, the Holy Church of the Hebrews, and all the Churches everywhere".


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Jesus's brothers James as well as Jude, Simon and Joses are named in Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3 and mentioned elsewhere. James's name always appears first in lists, which suggests he was the eldest among them. In "Jewish Antiquities" (20.9.1), Josephus describes James as "the brother of Jesus who is called Christ".


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Interpretation of the phrase "brother of the Lord" and similar phrases is divided between those who believe that Mary had additional children after Jesus (e.g., historian Charles Freeman) and those who hold the perpetual virginity of Mary (Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and some Protestants, such as many Anglicans and some Lutherans). The only Catholic doctrine which has been defined regarding the "brothers of the Lord" is that they are not biological children of Mary; thus, Catholics do not consider them as siblings of Jesus.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Near-contemporary sources insist that James was a "perpetual virgin" from the womb, a term which according to Robert Eisenman was later converted to his mother, Mary.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Some writers, such as R.V. Tasker and D. Hill, interpret the Matthew 1:25 statement that Joseph "knew her not until she had brought forth her firstborn son" as meaning that Joseph and Mary did have normal marital relations after Jesus's birth, and that James, Joses, Jude, and Simon, were the natural sons of Mary and Joseph and, thus, half brothers of Jesus. Others, such as K. Beyer, point out that the Greek ('until') after a negative "often has no implication at all about what happened after the limit of the 'until' was reached". Raymond E. Brown also argues that "the immediate context favors a lack of future implication here, for Matthew is concerned only with stressing Mary's virginity before the child's birth".


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: In addition, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus's brothers or siblings are often described together, without reference to any other relatives (Matthew 12:46–49, Mark 3:31–34, Mark 6:3, Luke 8:19–21, John 2:12, Acts 1:14), and Jesus's brothers are described without allusion to others (John 7:2–5, 1 Corinthians 9:5. For example, Matthew 13:55–56 says, "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude? Aren't all his sisters with us?" and John 7:5 says, "Even his own brothers did not believe in him."


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Clement of Alexandria (), Tertullian (), and Helvidius () were among the theologians who thought that Mary had children other than Jesus. Jerome asserts in his tract "The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary", as an answer to Helvidius, that the term "first-born" was used to refer to any offspring that opened the womb, rather than definitely implying other children. Luke's reporting of the visit of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus to the Temple of Jerusalem when Jesus was 12 years old makes no reference to any of Jesus's half-brothers.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The modern scholar Robert Eisenman is of the belief that Luke, as a close follower of Pauline Gentile Christianity, sought to minimise the importance of Jesus's family by whatever means possible, editing James and Jesus's brothers out of the Gospel record. Karl Keating argues that Mary and Joseph rushed without hesitation straight back to Jerusalem, when they realized Jesus was lost, which they would surely have thought twice about doing if there were other children (Jesus's siblings) to look after.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The Gospel of James (a 2nd-century apocryphal gospel also called the Protoevangelium of James or the Infancy Gospel of James) says that Mary was betrothed to Joseph and that he already had children. In this case, James was one of Joseph's children from his previous marriage and, therefore, Jesus's stepbrother.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The bishop of Salamis, Epiphanius, wrote too in his work "The Panarion" (AD 374–375) that "...James (brother of Jesus) was Joseph's son by Joseph's first wife, not by Mary..." He adds that Joseph became the father of James and his three brothers (Joses, Simeon, Judah) and two sisters (a Salome and a Mary or a Salome and an Anna) with James being the elder sibling. James and his siblings were not children of Mary but were Joseph's children from a previous marriage. After Joseph's first wife died, many years later when he was eighty, "he took Mary (mother of Jesus)". According to Epiphanius the Scriptures call them "brothers of the Lord" to confound their opponents.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: One argument supporting this view is that it would have been against Jewish custom for Jesus to give his mother to the care of John (who is not at all suspected to be a blood relative of Jesus) if Mary had other living sons. This is because the eldest son would take responsibility for his mother after the death of her husband; any other sons of Mary should have taken on this responsibility if they existed, therefore arguing against a direct natural brother relationship.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Also, Aramaic and Hebrew tended to use circumlocutions to point out blood relationships; it is asserted that just calling some people "brothers of Jesus" would not have necessarily implied the same mother. Rather, something like "sons of the mother of Jesus" would have been used to indicate a common mother. Scholars and theologians who assert this point out that Jesus was called " son of Mary" rather than " son of Mary" in his hometown (Mark 6:3).


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: James, along with the others named "brothers" of Jesus, are said by others to have been Jesus's cousins. This is justified by the fact that cousins were also called "brothers" and "sisters" in Jesus's native language, Aramaic, which, like Biblical Hebrew, does not contain a word for 'cousin'. Furthermore, the Greek words and were not restricted to the meaning of a literal brother or sister in the Bible, nor were their plurals. Unlike some other New Testament authors, apostle Paul had a perfect command of Greek, a language which has a specific word for 'cousin' and another for 'brother' calling James "the brother of our Lord" (Galatians 1:19).


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Eusebius of Caesarea () reports the tradition that James the Just was the son of Joseph's brother Clopas and therefore was of the "brothers" (which he interprets as "cousin") of Jesus described in the New Testament. This is echoed by Jerome () in ("On Illustrious Men") James is said to be the son of another Mary, wife of Clopas and the "sister" of Mary, the mother of Jesus in the following manner:


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Jerome refers to the scene of the crucifixion in John 19:25, where three women named Mary Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene are said to be witnesses. John also mentions the "sister" of the mother of Jesus, often identified with Mary of Clopas due to grammar. Mary "of Clopas" is often interpreted as Mary, "wife of Clopas". Mary of Nazareth and Mary of Clopas also need not be literally sisters, in light of the usage of the said words in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Mary of Clopas is suggested to be the same as "Mary, the mother of James the younger and Joses", "Mary the mother of James and Joseph" and the "other Mary" in Jesus's crucifixion and post-resurrection accounts in the Synoptic Gospels. Proponents of this identification argue that the writers of the Synoptics would have called this Mary, simply, "the mother of Jesus" if she was indeed meant to be the mother of Jesus, given the importance of her son's crucifixion and resurrection: they also note that the mother of James and Joses is called "Maria", whereas the mother of Jesus is "Mariam" or "Marias" in Greek. These proponents find it unlikely that Mary would be referred to by her natural children other than Jesus at such a significant time (James happens to be the brother of one Joses, as spelled in Mark, or Joseph, as in Matthew).


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Jerome's opinion suggests an identification of James the Just with the Apostle James, son of Alphaeus; "Clopas" and "Alphaeus" are thought to be different Greek renderings of the same Aramaic name "Khalphai". Despite this, some biblical scholars tend to distinguish them; this is also not Catholic dogma, though a traditional teaching.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Since this Clopas is, according to Eusebius, Joseph of Nazareth's brother (see above) and Mary of Clopas is said to be Mary of Nazareth's sister, James could be related to Jesus by blood and law.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: A variant on this is presented by James Tabor, who argues that after the early and childless death of Joseph, Mary married Clopas, whom he accepts as a younger brother of Joseph, according to the Levirate law. According to this view, Clopas fathered James and the later siblings, but not Jesus.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: On the other hand, another Mary is mentioned as the mother of a James and of a Joseph in the Gospel of Matthew and in the Gospel of Mark:


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Catholic interpretation generally holds that James, the younger is the same James mentioned in Mark 16:1 and Matthew 27:56 and it is to be identified with James, the son of Alphaeus and James, the brother of Jesus. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he is not identified with James the Great, although this is disputed by some.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Jerome believed that the "brothers" of the Lord were Jesus's cousins, thus amplifying the doctrine of perpetual virginity. Jerome concluded that James "the brother of the Lord", () is therefore James, son of Alphaeus, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, and the son of Mary Cleophas.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: In two small but potentially important works of Hippolytus, "On the Twelve Apostles of Christ" and "On the Seventy Apostles of Christ," he relates the following:


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: These two works of Hippolytus are often neglected because the manuscripts were lost during most of the church age and then found in Greece in the 19th century. As most scholars consider them spurious, they are often ascribed to Pseudo-Hippolytus. The two are included in an appendix to the works of Hippolytus in the voluminous collection of Early Church Fathers.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: According to the surviving fragments of the work "Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord" of the Apostolic Father Papias of Hierapolis, who lived , Cleophas and Alphaeus are the same person, and Mary the wife of Cleophas or Alphaeus would be the mother of James the brother of Jesus, and of Simon and Judas (Thaddeus), and of one Joseph.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Thus James, the brother of the Lord would be the son of Alphaeus, who is the husband of Mary the wife of Cleophas or Mary the wife of Alphaeus. The identification of James as the son of Alpheus was perpetuated into the 13th century in the hagiography "The Golden Legend" by Jacobus de Voragine.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Jerome also concluded that James "the brother of the Lord" is the same as James the Less. To explain this, Jerome first tells that James the Less must be identified with James, the son of Alphaeus, and reports in his work "The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary" the following:


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: After saying that James the Less is the same as James, the son of Mary of Cleophas, wife of Alphaeus and sister of Mary the Lord's mother, Jerome describes in his work that James "the brother of the Lord" is the same as James, the son of Alpaheus and Mary of Cleophas:


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Thus, Jerome concludes that James, the son of Alphaeus, James the Less, and James, brother of the Lord, are one and the same person.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Also, Jesus and James could be related in some other way, not strictly "cousins", following the non-literal application of the term and the Aramaic term for 'brother'. According to the apocryphal First Apocalypse of James, James is not the earthly brother of Jesus, but a spiritual brother who according to the Gnostics "received secret knowledge from Jesus prior to the Passion".


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Clement of Alexandria relates that "James was thrown from the pinnacle of the temple, and was beaten to death with a club".


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Hegesippus cites that "the Scribes and Pharisees placed James upon the pinnacle of the temple, and threw down the just man, and they began to stone him, for he was not killed by the fall. And one of them, who was a fuller, took the club with which he beat out clothes and struck the just man on the head".


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: According to a passage found in existing manuscripts of Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews" (20.9.1), "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" met his death after the death of the procurator Porcius Festus but before Lucceius Albinus had assumed office which has been dated to 62. The High Priest Hanan ben Hanan (Ananus ben Ananus) took advantage of this lack of imperial oversight to assemble a Sanhedrin (literally a in Greek, a "Sanhedrin of judges"), which condemned James "on the charge of breaking the law," then had him executed by stoning ("Antiquities" 20.9.1). Josephus reports that Hanan's act was widely viewed as little more than judicial murder and offended a number of "those who were considered the most fair-minded people in the city, and strict in their observance of the Law", who went so far as to arrange a meeting with Albinus as he entered the province in order to petition him successfully about the matter. In response, King Agrippa II replaced Ananus with Jesus son of Damneus.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Origen related an account of the death of James which gave it as a cause of the Roman siege of Jerusalem, something not found in the existing manuscripts of Josephus.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Eusebius wrote that "the more sensible even of the Jews were of the opinion that this (James' death) was the cause of the siege of Jerusalem, which happened to them immediately after his martyrdom for no other reason than their daring act against him. Josephus, at least, has not hesitated to testify this in his writings, where he says, "These things happened to the Jews to avenge James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus, that is called the Christ. For the Jews slew him, although he was a most just man.""


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Eusebius, while quoting Josephus' account, also records otherwise lost passages from Hegesippus (see links below) and Clement of Alexandria ("Historia Ecclesiae", 2.23). Hegesippus' account varies somewhat from what Josephus reports and may be an attempt to reconcile the various accounts by combining them. According to Hegesippus, the scribes and Pharisees came to James for help in putting down Christian beliefs. The record says:


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: Vespasian's siege and capture of Jerusalem delayed the selection of Simeon of Jerusalem to succeed James.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: According to Philip Schaff in 1904, this account by "Hegesippus has been cited over and over again by historians as assigning the date of the martyrdom to 69," though he challenged the assumption that Hegesippus gives anything to denote such a date. Josephus does not mention in his writings how James was buried.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: In the Catholic Church, the feast day of Philip the Apostle, along with that of James the Lesser (Catholics identify him with James the Just as the same person), was traditionally observed on 1 May, the anniversary of the church dedicated to them in Rome (now called the Church of the Twelve Apostles). Then this combined feast transferred to May 3 in the current ordinary calendar.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: In the Eastern Orthodox Church, James is commemorated as "Apostle James the Just, brother of Our Lord", and as such, multiple days are assigned to his feasts. His feast days are on October 23, December 26 and the next Sunday of the Nativity along with King David and Saint Joseph and January 4 among the Seventy Apostles.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: In the Episcopal Church of the United States of America and Lutheran Church, James, brother of Jesus and martyr is commemorated on October 23.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: In the November 2002 issue of "Biblical Archaeology Review", André Lemaire of the Sorbonne University in Paris published the report that an ossuary bearing the inscription ("James son of Joseph brother of Jesus") had been identified belonging to a collector, Oded Golan. The ossuary was exhibited at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, late that year; but on June 18, 2003, the Israeli Antiquities Authority published a report concluding, based on an analysis of the patina, that the inscription is a modern forgery. Specifically, it appeared that the inscription had been added recently and made to look old by addition of a chalk solution. Following this, the Ossuary was removed by the Royal Ontario Museum.


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: On December 29, 2004, Golan was indicted in an Israeli court along with three other men Robert Deutsch, an inscriptions expert who teaches at Haifa University; collector Shlomo Cohen; and antiquities dealer Faiz al-Amaleh. They were accused of being part of a forgery ring that had been operating for more than 20 years. Golan denied the charges against him. According to the BBC, "when the police took Oded Golan into custody and searched his apartment they discovered a workshop with a range of tools, materials, and half finished 'antiquities'. This was evidence for a fraud of a scale far greater than they had suspected." On March 14, 2012, Golan was declared not guilty of all charges of forgery, although with the judge saying this acquittal "does not mean that the inscription on the ossuary is authentic or that it was written 2,000 years ago" and "it was not proven in any way that the words 'the brother of Jesus' necessarily refer to the 'Jesus' who appears in Christian writings" and that there is "nothing in these findings which necessarily proves that the items were authentic".


title: James, brother of Jesus

text: The Israeli Antiquities Authority and several scholars still maintain that the James Ossuary is a modern forgery, and the artefact is not usually quoted by scholars of the historical Jesus.


title: The Hidden Wiki

text: The Hidden Wiki was a dark web MediaWiki wiki operating as Tor hidden services that could be anonymously edited after registering on the site. The main page served as a directory of links to other .onion sites.


title: The Hidden Wiki

text: The first Hidden Wiki was operated through the .onion pseudo top-level domain which can be accessed only by using Tor or a Tor gateway. Its main page provided a community-maintained link directory to other hidden services, including links claiming to offer money laundering, contract killing, cyber-attacks for hire, contraband chemicals, and bomb making. The rest of the wiki was essentially uncensored as well and also offered links to sites hosting child pornography and abuse images.


title: The Hidden Wiki

text: A well known iteration of the Hidden Wiki was founded some time before October 2011, coming to prominence with its associations with illegal content.


title: The Hidden Wiki

text: In March 2014 the site and its kpvz7ki2v5agwt35.onion domain was hacked and redirected to Doxbin. Following this event, the content began to be mirrored to more locations. During Operation Onymous in November 2014, after its Bulgarian hosting was compromised, the site served a message from law enforcement.


title: The Hidden Wiki

text: There are several .onion websites hosting successors based on mirrors of the Hidden Wiki; as such, there is no longer one single official Hidden Wiki. Many are hosted for accessibility reasons, due to frequent downtime and instability of the main wiki, while others were launched in order to filter links to child pornography.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mechanism. IEDs are commonly used as roadside bombs, or homemade bombs.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: IEDs are generally done in these terrorism operations or in asymmetric unconventional warfare by insurgent guerrillas or commando forces in a theatre of operations. In the Iraq War (2003–2011), insurgents used IEDs extensively against U.S.-led forces and, by the end of 2007, IEDs were responsible for approximately 63% of coalition deaths in Iraq. They were also used in Afghanistan by insurgent groups, and caused over 66% of coalition casualties in the 2001–2021 Afghanistan War.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: IEDs were also used frequently by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka during the Sri Lankan Civil War.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: An IED is a bomb fabricated in an improvised manner incorporating destructive, lethal, noxious, pyrotechnic, or incendiary chemicals and designed to destroy or incapacitate personnel or vehicles. In some cases, IEDs are used to distract, disrupt, or delay an opposing force, facilitating another type of attack. IEDs may incorporate military or commercially sourced explosives, and often combine both types, or they may otherwise be made with homemade explosives (HME). An HME lab refers to a Homemade Explosive Lab, or the physical location where the devices are crafted.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: An IED has five components: a switch (activator), an initiator (fuse), container (body), charge (explosive), and a power source (battery). An IED designed for use against armoured targets such as personnel carriers or tanks will be designed for armour penetration, by using a shaped charge that creates an explosively formed penetrator. IEDs are extremely diverse in design and may contain many types of initiators, detonators, penetrators, and explosive loads.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Antipersonnel IEDs typically also contain fragmentation-generating objects such as nails, ball bearings or even small rocks to cause wounds at greater distances than blast pressure alone could. In the conflicts of the 21st century, anti-personnel improvised explosive devices (IED) have partially replaced conventional or military landmines as the source of injury to dismounted (pedestrian) soldiers and civilians. These injuries were reported in BMJ Open to be far worse with IEDs than with landmines resulting in multiple limb amputations and lower body mutilation. This combination of injuries has been given the name "Dismounted Complex Blast Injury" and is thought to be the worst survivable injury ever seen in war.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: IEDs are triggered by various methods, including remote control, infrared or magnetic triggers, pressure-sensitive bars or trip wires (victim-operated). In some cases, multiple IEDs are wired together in a daisy chain to attack a convoy of vehicles spread out along a roadway.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: IEDs made by inexperienced designers or with substandard materials may fail to detonate, and in some cases, they detonate on either the maker or the placer of the device. Some groups, however, have been known to produce sophisticated devices constructed with components scavenged from conventional munitions and standard consumer electronics components, such as mobile phones, consumer-grade two-way radios, washing machine timers, pagers, or garage door openers. The sophistication of an IED depends on the training of the designer and the tools and materials available.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: IEDs may use artillery shells or conventional high-explosive charges as their explosive load as well as homemade explosives. However, the threat exists that toxic chemical, biological, or radioactive (dirty bomb) material may be added to a device, thereby creating other life-threatening effects beyond the shrapnel, concussive blasts and fire normally associated with bombs. Chlorine liquid has been added to IEDs in Iraq, producing clouds of chlorine gas.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: A vehicle-borne IED, or VBIED, is a military term for a car bomb or truck bomb but can be any type of transportation such as a bicycle, motorcycle, donkey (), etc. They are typically employed by insurgents, in particular ISIS, and can carry a relatively large payload. They can also be detonated from a remote location. VBIEDs can create additional shrapnel through the destruction of the vehicle itself and use vehicle fuel as an incendiary weapon. The act of a person's being in this vehicle and detonating it is known as an SVBIED suicide.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Of increasing popularity among insurgent forces in Iraq is the house-borne IED, or HBIED, from the common military practice of clearing houses; insurgents rig an entire house to detonate and collapse shortly after a clearing squad has entered.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: The "Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms" (JCS Pub 1-02) includes two definitions for improvised devices: improvised explosive devices (IED) and improvised nuclear device (IND). These definitions address the "Nuclear" and "Explosive" in "CBRNe". That leaves chemical, biological and radiological undefined. Four definitions have been created to build on the structure of the JCS definition. Terms have been created to standardize the language of first responders and members of the military and to correlate the operational picture.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: A device placed or fabricated in an improvised manner incorporating destructive, lethal, noxious, pyrotechnic, or incendiary chemicals and designed to destroy, incapacitate, harass, or distract. It may incorporate military stores, but is normally devised from non-military components.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: IEDs have been deployed in the form of explosively formed projectiles (EFP), a special type of shaped charge that is effective at long standoffs from the target (50 meters or more), however they are not accurate at long distances. This is because of how they are produced. The large "slug" projected from the explosion has no stabilization because it has no tail fins and it does not spin like a bullet from a rifle. Without this stabilization the trajectory can not be accurately determined beyond 50 meters. An EFP is essentially a cylindrical shaped charge with a machined concave metal disc (often copper) in front, pointed inward. The force of the shaped charge turns the disc into a high velocity slug, capable of penetrating the armor of most vehicles in Iraq.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Directionally focused charges (also known as directionally focused fragmentary charges depending on the construction) are very similar to EFPs, with the main difference being that the top plate is usually flat and not concave. It also is not made with machined copper but much cheaper cast or cut metal. When made for fragmentation, the contents of the charge are usually nuts, bolts, ball bearings and other similar shrapnel products and explosive. If it only consists of the flat metal plate, it is known as a platter charge, serving a similar role as an EFP with reduced effect but easier construction.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: A device incorporating the toxic attributes of chemical materials designed to result in the dispersal of toxic chemical materials for the purpose of creating a primary patho-physiological toxic effect (morbidity and mortality), or secondary psychological effect (causing fear and behavior modification) on a larger population. Such devices may be fabricated in a completely improvised manner or may be an improvised modification to an existing weapon.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: A device incorporating biological materials designed to result in the dispersal of vector borne biological material for the purpose of creating a primary patho-physiological toxic effect (morbidity and mortality), or secondary psychological effect (causing fear and behavior modification) on a larger population. Such devices are fabricated in a completely improvised manner.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: A device making use of exothermic chemical reactions designed to result in the rapid spread of fire for the purpose of creating a primary patho-physiological effect (morbidity and mortality), or secondary psychological effect (causing fear and behavior modification) on a larger population or it may be used with the intent of gaining a tactical advantage. Such devices may be fabricated in a completely improvised manner or may be an improvised modification to an existing weapon. A common type of this is the Molotov cocktail.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: A speculative device incorporating radioactive materials designed to result in the dispersal of radioactive material for the purpose of area denial and economic damage, and/or for the purpose of creating a primary patho-physiological toxic effect (morbidity and mortality), or secondary psychological effect (causing fear and behavior modification) on a larger population. Such devices may be fabricated in a completely improvised manner or may be an improvised modification to an existing nuclear weapon. Also called a Radiological Dispersion Device (RDD) or "dirty bomb".


title: Improvised explosive device

text: A vehicle may be laden with explosives, set to explode by remote control or by a passenger/driver, commonly known as a car bomb or vehicle-borne IED (VBIED, pronounced "vee-bid"). On occasion the driver of the car bomb may have been coerced into delivery of the vehicle under duress, a situation known as a proxy bomb. Distinguishing features are low-riding vehicles with excessive weight, vehicles with only one passenger, and ones where the interior of the vehicles look as if they have been stripped down and built back up. Car bombs can carry thousands of pounds of explosives and may be augmented with shrapnel to increase fragmentation. The U.S. State Department has published a guide on car bomb awareness.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Boats laden with explosives can be used against ships and areas connected to water. An early example of this type was the Japanese Shinyo suicide boats during World War II. The boats were filled with explosives and attempted to ram Allied ships, sometimes successfully, having sunk or severely damaged several American ships by war's end. Suicide bombers used a boat-borne IED to attack the USS Cole; US and UK troops have also been killed by boat-borne IEDs in Iraq. The Tamil Tigers Sea Tigers have also been known to use SWBIEDs during the Sri Lankan Civil War.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Monkeys and war pigs were used as incendiaries around 1000 AD. More famously the "anti-tank dog" and "bat bomb" were developed during World War II. In recent times, a two-year-old child and seven other people were killed by explosives strapped to a horse in the town of Chita in Colombia. The carcasses of certain animals were also used to conceal explosive devices by the Iraqi insurgency.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: IEDs strapped to the necks of farmers have been used on at least three occasions by guerrillas in Colombia, as a way of extortion. American pizza delivery man Brian Douglas Wells was killed in 2003 by an explosive fastened to his neck, purportedly under duress from the maker of the bomb. In 2011 a schoolgirl in Sydney, Australia had a suspected collar bomb attached to her by an attacker in her home. The device was removed by police after a ten-hour operation and proved to be a hoax.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Suicide bombing usually refers to an individual wearing explosives and detonating them to kill others including themselves, the bomber will conceal explosives on and around their person, commonly using a vest, and will use a timer or some other trigger to detonate the explosives. The logic behind such attacks is the belief that an IED delivered by a human has a greater chance of achieving success than any other method of attack. In addition, there is the psychological impact of child soldiers prepared to deliberately sacrifice themselves for their cause.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: In May 2012 American counter-terrorism officials leaked their acquisition of documents describing the preparation and use of surgically implanted improvised explosive devices.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Security officials referred to bombs being surgically implanted into suicide bombers' "love handles".


title: Improvised explosive device

text: According to the "Daily Mirror" UK security officials at MI-6 asserted that female bombers could travel undetected carrying the explosive chemicals in otherwise standard breast implants. The bomber would blow up the implanted explosives by injecting a chemical trigger.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Robots could also be used to carry explosives. First such documented case was during the aftermath of 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers when a bomb disposal robot was used to deliver explosives to kill Micah Xavier Johnson, who was hiding in a place inaccessible to police snipers. As well, drones carrying explosives were used in a suspected assassination attempt against Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in 2018.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: In 2008, rocket-propelled IEDs, dubbed "Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions", "Improvised Rocket Assisted Mortars" and "(IRAM)" by the military, came to be employed in numbers against U.S. forces in Iraq. They have been described as propane tanks packed with explosives and powered by 107 mm rockets. They are similar to some Provisional IRA barrack buster mortars.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: New types of IRAMs including Volcano IRAM and Elephant Rockets, are used during the Syrian Civil War.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Improvised mortars have been used by many insurgent groups including during the civil war in Syria and Boko Haram insurgency. IRA used improvised mortars called barrack busters.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Command-wire improvised, explosive devices (CWIED) use an electrical firing cable that affords the user complete control over the device right up until the moment of initiation.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: The trigger for a radio-controlled improvised explosive device (RCIED) is controlled by radio link. The device is constructed so that the receiver is connected to an electrical firing circuit and the transmitter operated by the perpetrator at a distance. A signal from the transmitter causes the receiver to trigger a firing pulse that operates the switch. Usually the switch fires an initiator; however, the output may also be used to remotely arm an explosive circuit. Often the transmitter and receiver operate on a matched coding system that prevents the RCIED from being initiated by spurious radio frequency signals or jamming. An RCIED can be triggered from any number of different radio-frequency based mechanisms including handheld remote control transmitters, car alarms, wireless door bells, cell phones, pagers and portable two-way radios, including those designed for the UHF PMR446, FRS, and GMRS services.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: A radio-controlled IED (RCIED) incorporating a mobile phone that is modified and connected to an electrical firing circuit. Mobile phones operate in the UHF band in line of sight with base transceiver station (BTS) antennae sites. In the common scenario, receipt of a paging signal by phone is sufficient to initiate the IED firing circuit.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Victim-operated improvised explosive devices (VOIED), also known as booby traps, are designed to function upon contact with a victim. VOIED switches are often well hidden from the victim or disguised as innocuous everyday objects. They are operated by means of movement. Switching methods include tripwire, pressure mats, spring-loaded release, push, pull or tilt. Common forms of VOIED include the under-vehicle IED (UVIED), improvised landmines, and mail bombs.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: The British accused Iran and Hezbollah of teaching Iraqi fighters to use infrared light beams to trigger IEDs. As the occupation forces became more sophisticated in interrupting radio signals around their convoys, the insurgents adapted their triggering methods. In some cases, when a more advanced method was disrupted, the insurgents regressed to using uninterruptible means, such as hard wires from the IED to detonator; however, this method is much harder to effectively conceal. It later emerged however, that these "advanced" IEDs were actually old IRA technology. The infrared beam method was perfected by the IRA in the early 1990s after it acquired the technology from a botched undercover British Army operation. Many of the IEDs being used against the invading coalition forces in Iraq were originally developed by the British Army who unintentionally passed the information on to the IRA. The IRA taught their techniques to the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the knowledge spread to Iraq.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Counter-IED efforts are done primarily by military, law enforcement, diplomatic, financial, and intelligence communities and involve a comprehensive approach to countering the threat networks that employ IEDs, not just efforts to defeat the devices themselves.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Because the components of these devices are being used in a manner not intended by their manufacturer, and because the method of producing the explosion is limited only by the science and imagination of the perpetrator, it is not possible to follow a step-by-step guide to detect and disarm a device that an individual has only recently developed. As such, explosive ordnance disposal (IEDD) operators must be able to fall back on their extensive knowledge of the first principles of explosives and ammunition, to try and deduce what the perpetrator has done, and only then to render it safe and dispose of or exploit the device.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Beyond this, as the stakes increase and IEDs are emplaced not only to achieve the direct effect, but to deliberately target IEDD operators and cordon personnel, the IEDD operator needs to have a deep understanding of tactics to ensure they are neither setting up any of their team or the cordon troops for an attack, nor walking into one themselves. The presence of chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) material in an IED requires additional precautions. As with other missions, the EOD operator provides the area commander with an assessment of the situation and of support needed to complete the mission.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Military and law enforcement personnel from around the world have developed a number of render-safe procedures (RSPs) to deal with IEDs. RSPs may be developed as a result of direct experience with devices or by applied research designed to counter the threat. The supposed effectiveness of IED jamming systems, including vehicle- and personally-mounted systems, has caused IED technology to essentially regress to command-wire detonation methods. These are physical connections between the detonator and explosive device and cannot be jammed. However, these types of IEDs are more difficult to emplace quickly, and are more readily detected.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Military forces and law enforcement from India, Canada, United Kingdom, Israel, Spain, and the United States are at the forefront of counter-IED efforts, as all have direct experience in dealing with IEDs used against them in conflict or terrorist attacks. From the research and development side, programs such as the new Canadian Unmanned Systems Challenge will bring student groups together to invent an unmanned device to both locate IEDs and pinpoint the insurgents.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: The fougasse was improvised for centuries, eventually inspiring factory-made land mines. Ernst Jünger mentions in his war memoir the systematic use of IEDs and booby traps to cover the retreat of German troops at the Somme region during World War I. Another early example of coordinated large-scale use of IEDs was the Belarusian Rail War launched by Belarusian guerrillas against the Germans during World War II. Both command-detonated and delayed-fuse IEDs were used to derail thousands of German trains during 1943–1944.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Starting six months before the invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR on 27 December 1979, the Afghan Mujahideen were supplied by the CIA, among others, with large quantities of military supplies. Among those supplies were many types of anti-tank mines. The insurgents often removed the explosives from several foreign anti-tank mines, and combined the explosives in tin cooking-oil cans for a more powerful blast. By combining the explosives from several mines and placing them in tin cans, the insurgents made them more powerful, but sometimes also easier to detect by Soviet sappers using mine detectors. After an IED was detonated, the insurgents often used direct-fire weapons such as machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades to continue the attack.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Afghan insurgents operating far from the border with Pakistan did not have a ready supply of foreign anti-tank mines. They preferred to make IEDs from Soviet unexploded ordnance. The devices were rarely triggered by pressure fuses. They were almost always remotely detonated. Since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban and its supporters have used IEDs against NATO and Afghan military and civilian vehicles. This has become the most common method of attack against NATO forces, with IED attacks increasing consistently year on year.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: A brigade commander said that sniffer dogs are the most reliable way of detecting IEDs. However, statistical evidence gathered by the US Army Maneuver Support Center at Fort Leonard Wood, MO shows that the dogs are not the most effective means of detecting IEDs. The U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division was the first unit to introduce explosive detection dogs in southern Afghanistan. In less than two years the dogs discovered 15 tons of illegal munitions, IED's, and weapons.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: In July 2012 it was reported that "sticky bombs", magnetically adhesive IED's that were prevalent in the Iraq War, showed up in Afghanistan. By 2021 there was at least one sticky bomb attack a day in Kabul. They are used in both traditional assassinations and targeted killings and as terror weapons against the population at large.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: ISAF troops stationed in Afghanistan and other IED prone areas of operation would commonly "BIP" (blow in place) IED's and other explosives that were considered too dangerous to defuse.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: IEDs are being used by insurgents against government forces during the insurgency in Egypt (2013–present) and the Sinai insurgency.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: On 13 July 2011, three IEDs were used by the Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir to carry out a coordinated attack on the city of Mumbai, killing 19 people and injuring 130 more.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: On 21 February 2013, two IEDs were used to carry out bombings in the Indian city of Hyderabad. The bombs exploded in Dilsukhnagar, a crowded shopping area of the city, within 150 metres of each other.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: On 17 April 2013, two kilos of explosives used in Bangalore bomb blast at Malleshwaram area, leaving 16 injured and no fatalities. Intelligence sources have said the bomb was an Improvised Explosive Device or IED.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: On 21 May 2014, Indinthakarai village supporters of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant were targeted by opponents using over half a dozen crude "country-made bombs". It was further reported that there had been at least four similar bombings in Tamil Nadu during the preceding year.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: On 28 December 2014, a minor explosion took place near the Coconut Grove restaurant at Church Street in Bangalore on Sunday around 8:30 pm. One woman was killed and another injured in the blast.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: In the 2003–2011 Iraq War, IEDs have been used extensively against Coalition forces and by the end of 2007 they have been responsible for at least 64% of Coalition deaths in Iraq.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Since the detonation of the first IED in Iraq in 2003, more than 81,000 IED attacks have occurred in the country, killing and wounding 21,200 Americans.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Beginning in July 2003, the Iraqi insurgency used IEDs to target invading coalition vehicles. According to "The Washington Post", 64% of U.S. deaths in Iraq occurred due to IEDs. A French study showed that in Iraq, from March 2003 to November 2006, on a global deaths in the US-led invading coalition soldiers, were caused by IEDs, i.e. 41%. That is to say more than in the "normal fights" (1027 dead, 34%). Insurgents now use the bombs to target not only invading coalition vehicles but Iraqi police as well.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Common locations for placing these bombs on the ground include animal carcasses, soft drink cans, and boxes. Typically, they explode underneath or to the side of the vehicle to cause the maximum amount of damage. However, as vehicle armour was improved on military vehicles, insurgents began placing IEDs in elevated positions such as on road signs, utility poles, or trees, to hit less protected areas.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: IEDs in Iraq may be made with artillery or mortar shells or with varying amounts of bulk or homemade explosives. Early during the Iraq war, the bulk explosives were often obtained from stored munitions bunkers to include stripping landmines of their explosives.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Despite the increased armor, IEDs are killing military personnel and civilians with greater frequency. May 2007 was the deadliest month for IED attacks thus far, with a reported 89 of the 129 invading coalition casualties coming from an IED attack. According to the Pentagon, 250,000 tons (out of 650,000 tons total) of Iraqi heavy ordnance were looted, providing a large supply of ammunition for the insurgents.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: In October 2005, the UK government charged that Iran was supplying insurgents with the technological know-how to make shaped charge IEDs. Both Iranian and Iraqi government officials denied the allegations.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: During the Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017), ISIL has made extensive use of suicide VBIEDs, often driven by children, elderly and disabled.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Throughout The Troubles, the Provisional IRA made extensive use of IEDs in their 1969–97 campaign. They used barrack buster mortars and remote controlled IEDs. Members of the IRA developed and counter-developed devices and tactics. IRA bombs became highly sophisticated, featuring anti-handling devices such as a mercury tilt switch or microswitches. These devices would detonate the bomb if it was moved in any way. Typically, the safety-arming device used was a clockwork Memopark timer, which armed the bomb up to 60 minutes after it was placed by completing an electrical circuit supplying power to the anti-handling device. Depending on the particular design (e.g., boobytrapped briefcase or car bomb) an independent electrical circuit supplied power to a conventional timer set for the intended time delay, e.g. 40 minutes. However, some electronic delays developed by IRA technicians could be set to accurately detonate a bomb weeks after it was hidden, which is what happened in the Brighton hotel bomb attack of 1984. Initially, bombs were detonated either by timer or by simple command wire. Later, bombs could be detonated by radio control. Initially, simple servos from radio-controlled aircraft were used to close the electrical circuit and supply power to the detonator. After the British developed jammers, IRA technicians introduced devices that required a sequence of pulsed radio codes to arm and detonate them. These were harder to jam.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: The IRA as well as Ulster loyalists have also utilized less sophisticated devices, such as homemade grenades crudely thrown at the target. These are sometimes called "blast bombs".


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Roadside bombs were extensively used by the IRA. Typically, a roadside bomb was placed in a drain or culvert along a rural road and detonated by remote control when British security forces vehicles were passing. As a result of the use of these bombs, the British military stopped transport by road in areas such as South Armagh, and used helicopter transport instead to avoid the danger.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Most IEDs used commercial or homemade explosives, although the use of Semtex-H smuggled in from Libya in the 1980s was also common from the mid-1980s onward. Bomb Disposal teams from 321 EOD manned by Ammunition Technicians were deployed in those areas to deal with the IED threat. The IRA also used secondary devices to catch British reinforcements sent in after an initial blast as occurred in the Warrenpoint Ambush. Between 1970 and 2005, the IRA detonated 19,000 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the Northern Ireland and Britain, an average of one every 17 hours for three and a half decades, arguably making it "the biggest terrorist bombing campaign in history".


title: Improvised explosive device

text: In the early 1970s, at the height of the IRA campaign, the British Army unit tasked with rendering safe IEDs, 321 EOD, sustained significant casualties while engaged in bomb disposal operations. This mortality rate was far higher than other high risk occupations such as deep sea diving, and a careful review was made of how men were selected for EOD operations. The review recommended bringing in psychometric testing of soldiers to ensure those chosen had the correct mental preparation for high risk bomb disposal duties.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: The IRA came up with ever more sophisticated designs and deployments of IEDs. Booby Trap or Victim Operated IEDs (VOIEDs), became commonplace. The IRA engaged in an ongoing battle to gain the upper hand in electronic warfare with remote controlled devices. The rapid changes in development led 321 EOD to employ specialists from DERA (now Dstl, an agency of the MOD), the Royal Signals, and Military Intelligence. This approach by the British army to fighting the IRA in Northern Ireland led to the development and use of most of the modern weapons, equipment and techniques now used by EOD Operators throughout the rest of the world today.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: The bomb disposal operations were led by Ammunition Technicians and Ammunition Technical Officers from 321 EOD, and were trained at the Felix Centre at the Army School of Ammunition.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: The Lebanese National Resistance Front, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, other resistance groups in Lebanon, and later Hezbollah, made extensive use of IEDs to resist Israeli forces after Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Israel withdrew from Beirut, Northern Lebanon, and Mount Lebanon in 1985, whilst maintaining its occupation of Southern Lebanon. Hezbollah frequently used IEDs to attack Israeli military forces in this area up until the Israeli withdrawal, and the end of the invasion of Lebanon in May 2000.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: One such bomb killed Israeli Brigadier General Erez Gerstein on 28 February 1999, the highest-ranking Israeli to die in Lebanon since Yekutiel Adam's death in 1982.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Also in the 2006 War in Lebanon, a Merkava Mark II tank was hit by a pre-positioned Hezbollah IED, killing all 4 IDF servicemen on board, the first of two IEDs to damage a Merkava tank.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Homemade IEDs are used extensively during the post-civil war violence in Libya, mostly in the city of Benghazi against police stations, cars or foreign embassies.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: IEDs were also widely used in the 10-years long civil war of the Maoists in Nepal, ranging from those bought from illicit groups in India and China, to self-made devices. Typically used devices were pressure cooker bombs, socket bombs, pipe bombs, bucket bombs, etc. The devices were used more for the act of terrorizing the urban population rather than for fatal causes, placed in front of governmental offices, street corners or road sides. Mainly, the home-made IEDs were responsible for destruction of majority of structures targeted by the Maoists and assisted greatly in spreading terror among the public.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Taliban and other insurgent groups use IEDs against police, military, security forces, and civilian targets.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: IEDs have also been popular in Chechnya, where Russian forces were engaged in fighting with rebel elements. While no concrete statistics are available on this matter, bombs have accounted for many Russian deaths in both the First Chechen War (1994–1996) and the Second (1999–2009).


title: Improvised explosive device

text: During the Syrian Civil War, militant insurgents were using IEDs to attack buses, cars, trucks, tanks and military convoys. Additionally, the Syrian Air Force has used barrel bombs to attack targets in cities and other areas. Such barrel bombs consist of barrels filled with high explosives, oil, and shrapnel, and are dropped from helicopters.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Along with mines and IEDs, ISIL also used VBIEDs in Syria, including during 2017 Aleppo suicide car bombing.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: On 16 November 2021, suicide bombers set off two powerful explosions in the center of Uganda's capital Kampala during rush hour in an attack later claimed by Islamic State. There have been a number of bomb explosions in 2021. In October, a 20-year-old waitress was killed after a device, left in a shopping bag, detonated in a bar in the city. Days later several people were injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a bus near Kampala.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: In the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols built an IED with ammonium nitrate fertilizer, nitromethane, and stolen commercial explosives in a rental truck, with sandbags used to concentrate the explosive force in the desired direction. McVeigh detonated it next to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people, 19 of whom were children.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: High school students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold used multiple IEDs during the Columbine High School massacre on 20 April 1999, including two large propane bombs that were placed in the cafeteria, powerful enough to kill or injure everyone inside the room, along with pipe bombs, molotov cocktails, and also two car bombs, designed to attack first responders and news reporters responding to the initial bombing. Both propane bombs and both car bombs failed to detonate correctly. They then went on to shoot and kill 13 people before committing suicide. If all bombs detonated, there could have been hundreds killed in the massacre, but nobody was injured by any of the explosives during the massacre. The pair had planned to exceed the death count during the Oklahoma City bombing four years earlier.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: In January 2011, a shaped pipe bomb was discovered and defused at a Martin Luther King Jr. memorial march in Spokane, Washington. The FBI said that the bomb was specifically designed to cause maximum harm as the explosive device was, according to the "Los Angeles Times", packed with fishing weights covered in rat poison, and may have been racially motivated. No one was injured during the event.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: On 15 April 2013, as the annual Boston Marathon race was concluding, two bombs were detonated seconds apart close to the finish line. Initial FBI response indicated suspicion of IED pressure cooker bombs.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: On 17–19 September 2016, several explosions occurred in Manhattan and New Jersey. The sources of the explosions were all found to be IEDs of various types, such as pressure cooker bombs and pipe bombs.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Many IED-related arrests are made each year in circumstances where the plot was foiled before the device was deployed, or the device exploded but no one was injured.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: A number of deaths and property damage occurring during gender reveal parties have been caused by the detonation of improvised explosive devices. These include the 2017 Sawmill Fire, which was started by the detonation of a mass of tannerite intended to disperse coloured powder, and an incident in 2019 where an IED similarly designed to release powder exploded in a manner similar to a pipe bomb, killing a 56-year-old woman after shrapnel struck her in the head.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: IEDs are in use in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and have also been used there for assassinations.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: IEDs were used during the Vietnam War by the Viet Cong against land- and river-borne vehicles as well as personnel. They were commonly constructed using materials from unexploded American ordnance. Thirty-three percent of U.S. casualties in Vietnam and twenty-eight percent of deaths were officially attributed to mines; these figures include losses caused by both IEDs and commercially manufactured mines.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: The "Grenade in a Can" was a simple and effective booby trap. A hand grenade with the safety pin removed and safety lever compressed was placed into a container such as a tin can, with a length of string or tripwire attached to the grenade. The can was fixed in place and the string was stretched across a path or doorway opening and firmly tied down. In alternative fashion, the string could be attached to the moving portion of a door or gate. When the grenade was pulled out of the can by a person or vehicle placing tension on the string, the spring-loaded safety lever would release and the grenade would explode.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: The "rubber band grenade" was another booby trap. To make this device, a Viet Cong guerrilla would wrap a strong rubber band around the spring-loaded safety lever of a hand grenade and remove the pin. The grenade was then hidden in a hut. American and South Vietnamese soldiers would burn huts regularly to prevent them from being inhabited again, or to expose foxholes and tunnel entrances, which were frequently concealed within these structures. When a hut with the booby trap was torched, the rubber band on the grenade would melt, releasing the safety lever and blowing up the hut. This would often wound the soldiers with burning bamboo and metal fragments. This booby trap was also used to destroy vehicles when the modified grenade was placed in the fuel tank. The rubber band would be eaten away by the chemical action of the fuel, releasing the safety lever and detonating the grenade.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Another variant was the "Mason jar grenade." The safety pin of hand grenades would be pulled and the grenades would be placed in glass Ball Mason jars, which would hold back the safety lever. The safety lever would release upon the shattering of the jar and the grenade would detonate. This particular variant was popular with helicopter warfare, and were used as improvised anti-personnel cluster bombs during air raids. They were easy to dump out of the flight door over a target, and the thick Ball Mason glass was resistant to premature shattering. They could also be partially filled with gasoline or jellied gasoline, Napalm, to add to their destructive nature.


title: Improvised explosive device

text: Houthis are using IEDs against Saudi-led coalition and Hadi's forces during Yemeni Civil War (2015–present), Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and Saudi–Yemeni border conflict.


title: Metástasis

text: Metástasis (meaning "metastasis" in Spanish) is a Colombian telenovela series, a Spanish-language remake of the American crime drama "Breaking Bad" that transposes the events of the original from the United States to Colombia. It heavily follows the storyline for all five seasons of "Breaking Bad", with some slight minor alterations to its pacing, direction, and elements.


title: Metástasis

text: The series premiered on June 8, 2014 until September 18, 2014, airing a total of 62 episodes. It has been broadcast in Chile, Venezuela, Peru, the United States, Costa Rica and Mexico, among other countries, by Fox Latin America .


title: Metástasis

text: Walter Blanco is a frustrated high school chemistry teacher, the father of a disabled young man, Walter Blanco Jr., and his wife, Cielo Blanco, has an unexpected pregnancy. Walter also works in a car wash in the afternoons. When he is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, he wonders what will happen to his family when he dies.


title: Metástasis

text: In a raid by the Anti-Narcotics Police organized by his brother-in-law, Henry Navarro, he recognizes a former student of his, José Miguel Rosas, whom he contacts to manufacture and sell methamphetamine and thus ensure the economic well-being of his family. But the approach to the world of drugs and dealing with traffickers and mobsters contaminates Walter's personality, who gradually abandons his straight and predictable personality to become someone without too many scruples when it comes to getting what he wants.


title: Metástasis

text: The idea for a Spanish-language remake of Breaking Bad was originally conceived due to how cable TV is not common in Latin America. The episodes were individually shot in an average of two and a half days, compared to eight for the American counterpart.


title: Metástasis

text: Some minor changes were made to adapt to Colombian geography and culture. The outdoor scenes of "Metástasis" were shot in Bogotá, which has a colder and more mountainous environment compared to Albuquerque's deserts. Pest exterminators are uncommon in the region, so the main characters pose as demolition experts in the latter half of the fifth season. Saúl Bueno (the show's equivalent of Saul Goodman) shows off his legal services on a TV talk show rather than on commercials, which can't advertise legal services in Colombia. The iconic RV which Jesse and Walter use to cook meth is replaced by a school bus, as RV's are rare throughout Latin America.


title: Metástasis

text: Vince Gilligan, the original creator of "Breaking Bad", praised the series' creators for being able to create the original series' entire runtime on a much faster and smaller budget.


title: Pulse-width modulation

text: Pulse-width modulation (PWM), or pulse-duration modulation (PDM), is a method of reducing the average power delivered by an electrical signal, by effectively chopping it up into discrete parts. The average value of voltage (and current) fed to the load is controlled by turning the switch between supply and load on and off at a fast rate. The longer the switch is on compared to the off periods, the higher the total power supplied to the load. Along with maximum power point tracking (MPPT), it is one of the primary methods of reducing the output of solar panels to that which can be utilized by a battery. PWM is particularly suited for running inertial loads such as motors, which are not as easily affected by this discrete switching, because their inertia causes them to react slowly. The PWM switching frequency has to be high enough not to affect the load, which is to say that the resultant waveform perceived by the load must be as smooth as possible.


title: Pulse-width modulation

text: The rate (or frequency) at which the power supply must switch can vary greatly depending on load and application. For example, switching has to be done several times a minute in an electric stove; 100 or 120 Hz (double of the utility frequency) in a lamp dimmer; between a few kilohertz (kHz) and tens of kHz for a motor drive; and well into the tens or hundreds of kHz in audio amplifiers and computer power supplies. The main advantage of PWM is that power loss in the switching devices is very low. When a switch is off there is practically no current, and when it is on and power is being transferred to the load, there is almost no voltage drop across the switch. Power loss, being the product of voltage and current, is thus in both cases close to zero. PWM also works well with digital controls, which, because of their on/off nature, can easily set the needed duty cycle. PWM has also been used in certain communication systems where its duty cycle has been used to convey information over a communications channel.


title: Pulse-width modulation

text: In electronics, many modern microcontrollers (MCUs) integrate PWM controllers exposed to external pins as peripheral devices under firmware control by means of internal programming interfaces. These are commonly used for direct current (DC) motor control in robotics and other applications.


title: Pulse-width modulation

text: The term "duty cycle" describes the proportion of 'on' time to the regular interval or 'period' of time; a low duty cycle corresponds to low power, because the power is off for most of the time. Duty cycle is expressed in percent, 100% being fully on. When a digital signal is on half of the time and off the other half of the time, the digital signal has a duty cycle of 50% and resembles a "square" wave. When a digital signal spends more time in the on state than the off state, it has a duty cycle of >50%. When a digital signal spends more time in the off state than the on state, it has a duty cycle of <50%. Here is a pictorial that illustrates these three scenarios:


title: Pulse-width modulation

text: Some machines (such as a sewing machine motor) require partial or variable power. In the past, control (such as in a sewing machine's foot pedal) was implemented by use of a rheostat connected in series with the motor to adjust the amount of current flowing through the motor. It was an inefficient scheme, as this also wasted power as heat in the resistor element of the rheostat, but tolerable because the total power was low. While the rheostat was one of several methods of controlling power (see autotransformers and Variac for more info), a low cost and efficient power switching/adjustment method was yet to be found. This mechanism also needed to be able to drive motors for fans, pumps and robotic servos, and needed to be compact enough to interface with lamp dimmers. PWM emerged as a solution for this complex problem.


title: Pulse-width modulation

text: The Philips, N. V. company designed an optical scanning system (published in 1946) for variable area film soundtrack which produced the PWM. It was intended for reducing noise when playing back a film soundtrack. The proposed system had a threshold between "white" and "black" parts of soundtrack.


title: Pulse-width modulation

text: One early application of PWM was in the Sinclair X10, a 10 W audio amplifier available in kit form in the 1960s. At around the same time PWM started to be used in AC motor control.


title: Pulse-width modulation

text: Of note, for about a century, some variable-speed electric motors have had decent efficiency, but they were somewhat more complex than constant-speed motors, and sometimes required bulky external electrical apparatus, such as a bank of variable power resistors or rotating converters such as the Ward Leonard drive.


title: Pulse-width modulation

text: Pulse-width modulation uses a rectangular pulse wave whose pulse width is modulated resulting in the variation of the average value of the waveform. If we consider a pulse waveform formula_1, with period formula_2, low value formula_3, a high value formula_4 and a duty cycle D (see figure 1), the average value of the waveform is given by:


title: Pulse-width modulation

text: As formula_1 is a pulse wave, its value is formula_4 for formula_8 and formula_3 for formula_10. The above expression then becomes:


title: Pulse-width modulation

text: This latter expression can be fairly simplified in many cases where formula_12 as formula_13. From this, the average value of the signal (formula_14) is directly dependent on the duty cycle D.


title: Pulse-width modulation

text: The simplest way to generate a PWM signal is the intersective method, which requires only a sawtooth or a triangle waveform (easily generated using a simple oscillator) and a comparator. When the value of the reference signal (the red sine wave in figure 2) is more than the modulation waveform (blue), the PWM signal (magenta) is in the high state, otherwise it is in the low state.


title: Pulse-width modulation

text: In the use of delta modulation for PWM control, the output signal is integrated, and the result is compared with limits, which correspond to a Reference signal offset by a constant. Every time the integral of the output signal reaches one of the limits, the PWM signal changes state. Figure 3


title: Pulse-width modulation

text: In delta-sigma modulation as a PWM control method, the output signal is subtracted from a reference signal to form an error signal. This error is integrated, and when the integral of the error exceeds the limits, the output changes state. Figure 4


title: Pulse-width modulation

text: Space vector modulation is a PWM control algorithm for multi-phase AC generation, in which the reference signal is sampled regularly; after each sample, non-zero active switching vectors adjacent to the reference vector and one or more of the zero switching vectors are selected for the appropriate fraction of the sampling period in order to synthesize the reference signal as the average of the used vectors.