title: Acid

text: Common examples of monoprotic acids in mineral acids include hydrochloric acid (HCl) and nitric acid (HNO). On the other hand, for organic acids the term mainly indicates the presence of one carboxylic acid group and sometimes these acids are known as monocarboxylic acid. Examples in organic acids include formic acid (HCOOH), acetic acid (CHCOOH) and benzoic acid (CHCOOH).


title: Acid

text: Polyprotic acids, also known as polybasic acids, are able to donate more than one proton per acid molecule, in contrast to monoprotic acids that only donate one proton per molecule. Specific types of polyprotic acids have more specific names, such as diprotic (or dibasic) acid (two potential protons to donate), and triprotic (or tribasic) acid (three potential protons to donate). Some macromolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids can have a very large number of acidic protons.


title: Acid

text: A diprotic acid (here symbolized by HA) can undergo one or two dissociations depending on the pH. Each dissociation has its own dissociation constant, K and K.


title: Acid

text: The first dissociation constant is typically greater than the second (i.e., "K" > "K"). For example, sulfuric acid (HSO) can donate one proton to form the bisulfate anion (HSO), for which "K" is very large; then it can donate a second proton to form the sulfate anion (SO), wherein the "K" is intermediate strength. The large "K" for the first dissociation makes sulfuric a strong acid. In a similar manner, the weak unstable carbonic acid can lose one proton to form bicarbonate anion and lose a second to form carbonate anion (CO). Both "K" values are small, but "K" > "K" .


title: Acid

text: A triprotic acid (HA) can undergo one, two, or three dissociations and has three dissociation constants, where "K" > "K" > "K".


title: Acid

text: An inorganic example of a triprotic acid is orthophosphoric acid (HPO), usually just called phosphoric acid. All three protons can be successively lost to yield HPO, then HPO, and finally PO, the orthophosphate ion, usually just called phosphate. Even though the positions of the three protons on the original phosphoric acid molecule are equivalent, the successive "K" values differ since it is energetically less favorable to lose a proton if the conjugate base is more negatively charged. An organic example of a triprotic acid is citric acid, which can successively lose three protons to finally form the citrate ion.


title: Acid

text: Although the subsequent loss of each hydrogen ion is less favorable, all of the conjugate bases are present in solution. The fractional concentration, "α" (alpha), for each species can be calculated. For example, a generic diprotic acid will generate 3 species in solution: HA, HA, and A. The fractional concentrations can be calculated as below when given either the pH (which can be converted to the [H]) or the concentrations of the acid with all its conjugate bases:


title: Acid

text: A plot of these fractional concentrations against pH, for given "K" and "K", is known as a Bjerrum plot. A pattern is observed in the above equations and can be expanded to the general "n" -protic acid that has been deprotonated "i" -times:


title: Acid

text: Neutralization is the reaction between an acid and a base, producing a salt and neutralized base; for example, hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide form sodium chloride and water:


title: Acid

text: Neutralization is the basis of titration, where a pH indicator shows equivalence point when the equivalent number of moles of a base have been added to an acid. It is often wrongly assumed that neutralization should result in a solution with pH 7.0, which is only the case with similar acid and base strengths during a reaction.


title: Acid

text: Neutralization with a base weaker than the acid results in a weakly acidic salt. An example is the weakly acidic ammonium chloride, which is produced from the strong acid hydrogen chloride and the weak base ammonia. Conversely, neutralizing a weak acid with a strong base gives a weakly basic salt (e.g., sodium fluoride from hydrogen fluoride and sodium hydroxide).


title: Acid

text: In order for a protonated acid to lose a proton, the pH of the system must rise above the p"K" of the acid. The decreased concentration of H in that basic solution shifts the equilibrium towards the conjugate base form (the deprotonated form of the acid). In lower-pH (more acidic) solutions, there is a high enough H concentration in the solution to cause the acid to remain in its protonated form.


title: Acid

text: To determine the concentration of an acid in an aqueous solution, an acid–base titration is commonly performed. A strong base solution with a known concentration, usually NaOH or KOH, is added to neutralize the acid solution according to the color change of the indicator with the amount of base added. The titration curve of an acid titrated by a base has two axes, with the base volume on the x-axis and the solution's pH value on the y-axis. The pH of the solution always goes up as the base is added to the solution.


title: Acid

text: For each diprotic acid titration curve, from left to right, there are two midpoints, two equivalence points, and two buffer regions.


title: Acid

text: Due to the successive dissociation processes, there are two equivalence points in the titration curve of a diprotic acid. The first equivalence point occurs when all first hydrogen ions from the first ionization are titrated. In other words, the amount of OH added equals the original amount of HA at the first equivalence point. The second equivalence point occurs when all hydrogen ions are titrated. Therefore, the amount of OH added equals twice the amount of HA at this time. For a weak diprotic acid titrated by a strong base, the second equivalence point must occur at pH above 7 due to the hydrolysis of the resulted salts in the solution. At either equivalence point, adding a drop of base will cause the steepest rise of the pH value in the system.


title: Acid

text: A titration curve for a diprotic acid contains two midpoints where pH=pK. Since there are two different K values, the first midpoint occurs at pH=pK and the second one occurs at pH=pK. Each segment of the curve that contains a midpoint at its center is called the buffer region. Because the buffer regions consist of the acid and its conjugate base, it can resist pH changes when base is added until the next equivalent points.


title: Acid

text: Acids are fundamental reagents in treating almost all processes in modern industry. Sulfuric acid, a diprotic acid, is the most widely used acid in industry, and is also the most-produced industrial chemical in the world. It is mainly used in producing fertilizer, detergent, batteries and dyes, as well as used in processing many products such like removing impurities. According to the statistics data in 2011, the annual production of sulfuric acid was around 200 million tonnes in the world. For example, phosphate minerals react with sulfuric acid to produce phosphoric acid for the production of phosphate fertilizers, and zinc is produced by dissolving zinc oxide into sulfuric acid, purifying the solution and electrowinning.


title: Acid

text: In the chemical industry, acids react in neutralization reactions to produce salts. For example, nitric acid reacts with ammonia to produce ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer. Additionally, carboxylic acids can be esterified with alcohols, to produce esters.


title: Acid

text: Acids are often used to remove rust and other corrosion from metals in a process known as pickling. They may be used as an electrolyte in a wet cell battery, such as sulfuric acid in a car battery.


title: Acid

text: Tartaric acid is an important component of some commonly used foods like unripened mangoes and tamarind. Natural fruits and vegetables also contain acids. Citric acid is present in oranges, lemon and other citrus fruits. Oxalic acid is present in tomatoes, spinach, and especially in carambola and rhubarb; rhubarb leaves and unripe carambolas are toxic because of high concentrations of oxalic acid. Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) is an essential vitamin for the human body and is present in such foods as amla (Indian gooseberry), lemon, citrus fruits, and guava.


title: Acid

text: Many acids can be found in various kinds of food as additives, as they alter their taste and serve as preservatives. Phosphoric acid, for example, is a component of cola drinks. Acetic acid is used in day-to-day life as vinegar. Citric acid is used as a preservative in sauces and pickles.


title: Acid

text: Carbonic acid is one of the most common acid additives that are widely added in soft drinks. During the manufacturing process, CO is usually pressurized to dissolve in these drinks to generate carbonic acid. Carbonic acid is very unstable and tends to decompose into water and CO at room temperature and pressure. Therefore, when bottles or cans of these kinds of soft drinks are opened, the soft drinks fizz and effervesce as CO bubbles come out.


title: Acid

text: Certain acids are used as drugs. Acetylsalicylic acid (Aspirin) is used as a pain killer and for bringing down fevers.


title: Acid

text: Acids play important roles in the human body. The hydrochloric acid present in the stomach aids digestion by breaking down large and complex food molecules. Amino acids are required for synthesis of proteins required for growth and repair of body tissues. Fatty acids are also required for growth and repair of body tissues. Nucleic acids are important for the manufacturing of DNA and RNA and transmitting of traits to offspring through genes. Carbonic acid is important for maintenance of pH equilibrium in the body.


title: Acid

text: Human bodies contain a variety of organic and inorganic compounds, among those dicarboxylic acids play an essential role in many biological behaviors. Many of those acids are amino acids, which mainly serve as materials for the synthesis of proteins. Other weak acids serve as buffers with their conjugate bases to keep the body's pH from undergoing large scale changes that would be harmful to cells. The rest of the dicarboxylic acids also participate in the synthesis of various biologically important compounds in human bodies.


title: Acid

text: Acids are used as catalysts in industrial and organic chemistry; for example, sulfuric acid is used in very large quantities in the alkylation process to produce gasoline. Some acids, such as sulfuric, phosphoric, and hydrochloric acids, also effect dehydration and condensation reactions. In biochemistry, many enzymes employ acid catalysis.


title: Acid

text: Many biologically important molecules are acids. Nucleic acids, which contain acidic phosphate groups, include DNA and RNA. Nucleic acids contain the genetic code that determines many of an organism's characteristics, and is passed from parents to offspring. DNA contains the chemical blueprint for the synthesis of proteins, which are made up of amino acid subunits. Cell membranes contain fatty acid esters such as phospholipids.


title: Acid

text: An α-amino acid has a central carbon (the α or "alpha" carbon) that is covalently bonded to a carboxyl group (thus they are carboxylic acids), an amino group, a hydrogen atom and a variable group. The variable group, also called the R group or side chain, determines the identity and many of the properties of a specific amino acid. In glycine, the simplest amino acid, the R group is a hydrogen atom, but in all other amino acids it is contains one or more carbon atoms bonded to hydrogens, and may contain other elements such as sulfur, oxygen or nitrogen. With the exception of glycine, naturally occurring amino acids are chiral and almost invariably occur in the . Peptidoglycan, found in some bacterial cell walls contains some -amino acids. At physiological pH, typically around 7, free amino acids exist in a charged form, where the acidic carboxyl group (-COOH) loses a proton (-COO) and the basic amine group (-NH) gains a proton (-NH). The entire molecule has a net neutral charge and is a zwitterion, with the exception of amino acids with basic or acidic side chains. Aspartic acid, for example, possesses one protonated amine and two deprotonated carboxyl groups, for a net charge of −1 at physiological pH.


title: Acid

text: Fatty acids and fatty acid derivatives are another group of carboxylic acids that play a significant role in biology. These contain long hydrocarbon chains and a carboxylic acid group on one end. The cell membrane of nearly all organisms is primarily made up of a phospholipid bilayer, a micelle of hydrophobic fatty acid esters with polar, hydrophilic phosphate "head" groups. Membranes contain additional components, some of which can participate in acid–base reactions.


title: Acid

text: In humans and many other animals, hydrochloric acid is a part of the gastric acid secreted within the stomach to help hydrolyze proteins and polysaccharides, as well as converting the inactive pro-enzyme, pepsinogen into the enzyme, pepsin. Some organisms produce acids for defense; for example, ants produce formic acid.


title: Acid

text: Acid–base equilibrium plays a critical role in regulating mammalian breathing. Oxygen gas (O) drives cellular respiration, the process by which animals release the chemical potential energy stored in food, producing carbon dioxide (CO) as a byproduct. Oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged in the lungs, and the body responds to changing energy demands by adjusting the rate of ventilation. For example, during periods of exertion the body rapidly breaks down stored carbohydrates and fat, releasing CO into the blood stream. In aqueous solutions such as blood CO exists in equilibrium with carbonic acid and bicarbonate ion.


title: Acid

text: It is the decrease in pH that signals the brain to breathe faster and deeper, expelling the excess CO and resupplying the cells with O.


title: Acid

text: A carboxylic acid has the general formula R-C(O)OH, where R is an organic radical. The carboxyl group -C(O)OH contains a carbonyl group, C=O, and a hydroxyl group, O-H.


title: Acid

text: Halogenation at alpha position increases acid strength, so that the following acids are all stronger than acetic acid.


title: Acid

text: Normal carboxylic acids are the direct union of a carbonyl group and a hydroxyl group. In vinylogous carboxylic acids, a carbon-carbon double bond separates the carbonyl and hydroxyl groups.


title: Good Witch (TV series)

text: Good Witch is a fantasy comedy-drama television series that is based on the television film series of the same name, produced by Whizbang Films in association with ITV Studios and the Hallmark Channel. The series premiered on February 28, 2015, and ran for seven seasons, ending on July 25, 2021.


title: Good Witch (TV series)

text: Catherine Bell, who played Cassie Nightingale, the "good witch" in the film series, both co-produced and starred in the series. The series followed the residents of (the fictional town) Middleton, including Cassie and her daughter Grace as they welcomed Dr. Sam Radford and his son to town. Cassie and Grace shared a gift of enchanted insight and magical intuition. The season-five finale marked the last regular appearance for actress Bailee Madison as Grace Russell.


title: Good Witch (TV series)

text: The show made Hallmark network history during the series finale, which featured the first television show same-sex kiss between main characters on the network.


title: Good Witch (TV series)

text: As with the previous seven TV movies, the series continues the spirited life of newly widowed Cassie Nightingale, the good-hearted enchantress of the fictional Middleton, with her now-teenaged daughter Grace. When new neighbors the Radfords, move in next door, they become suspicious of Cassie and her daughter. The dynamics of the series' focus would change during the six seasons, which later saw the Nightingales and Radfords become friendlier and more romantic, leading to Cassie's marrying for the second time, while at the same time shifted to stories involving its residents (including their relationships with others), an ongoing mystery, and a series of curses that tied to Cassie's lineage.


title: Good Witch (TV series)

text: The series is filmed in Toronto, Ontario, primarily at Cinespace Film Studios' Kipling Avenue facility. However, season six had the cast and crew travel to Cambridge, Ontario, to film some pivotal scenes.


title: Good Witch (TV series)

text: As producer Orly Adelson was president of ITV Studios America in 2014, ITV agreed to become the franchise's TV series distributor outside of North America.


title: Good Witch (TV series)

text: In May 2017, the show placed second for four straight weeks, behind AMC’s "Breaking Bad" spin-off, "Better Call Saul". In 2017, Mike Hale of "The New York Times" noted that the series has been "ignored by critics and never nominated for an Emmy or a Golden Globe (or any other major television award in the United States)." Hale continued to explain that the ""Good Witch", averaging more than 2.5 million viewers on Sunday nights on the Hallmark Channel, consistently beat more talked-about shows such as "Fargo", "The Americans", "Silicon Valley", "Veep", and "Pretty Little Liars"." Hale called the series "a gentle, sentimental primetime fable set in an idealized Middle American small city (not an angsty suburb), is the show you find your parents or grandparents watching when you come home for a visit."


title: Good Witch (TV series)

text: In 2019, the show was one of the network's most popular original series, and the "Good Witch" closed its season five in first place among household ratings on Sundays. The success of the series lifted the Hallmark Channel to be the highest-rated and most-watched cable network on the weekends. In July 2019, "Deadline" reported that Hallmark Channel renewed the series for a sixth season, and Bailee Madison would be leaving the show. "Deadline" wrote that "Madison has been on "Good Witch" series since it launched in 2015, so her exit is bittersweet and emotional."


title: Good Witch (TV series)

text: The show won ASCAP Award for Top Television Series at the 2018 ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards. In 2019, the series was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Television Series.


title: Good Witch (TV series)

text: On October 13, 2015, Hallmark released the first season of "Good Witch" on DVD. On October 11, 2016, Hallmark released the second season of "Good Witch" on DVD, which included the Halloween special, "Good Witch Halloween". On September 24, 2019, Hallmark released the fifth season on DVD. The sixth season was released on October 13, 2020. The first five seasons are available internationally on Netflix as of March 23, 2021. Seasons 6 and 7 are available on Netflix as of September 30, 2021.


title: Precognition

text: Precognition (from the Latin 'before', and 'acquiring knowledge') is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future.


title: Precognition

text: There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a real effect, and it is widely considered to be pseudoscience. Precognition violates the principle of causality, that an effect cannot occur before its cause.


title: Precognition

text: Precognition has been widely believed in throughout history. Despite the lack of scientific evidence, many people believe it to be real; it is still widely reported and remains a topic of research and discussion within the parapsychology community.


title: Precognition

text: Precognition is sometimes treated as an example of the wider phenomenon of prescience or foreknowledge, to understand by any means what is likely to happen in the future. It is distinct from premonition, which is a vaguer feeling of some impending disaster. Related activities such as predictive prophecy and fortune telling have been practised throughout history.


title: Precognition

text: Precognitive dreams are the most widely reported occurrences of precognition. Usually, a dream or vision can only be identified as precognitive after the putative event has taken place. When such an event occurs after a dream, it is said to have "broken the dream".


title: Precognition

text: In Judaism it is believed that dreams are mostly insignificant while others "have the potential to contain prophetic messages". Hinduism has a subsystem of psychology called Indian psychology with dreams believed to contain information about the future. There are seven classifications of dream or 'swapna', in which those which become 'manifest' are called 'bhāvita'. Precognition has a role in Buddhism with dreams believed to be 'mind-created phenomena'. Those dreams which 'warn of impending danger or even prepare us for overwhelming good news" are considered the most important.


title: Precognition

text: Throughout history it has been accepted that certain individuals have precognitive abilities, and such visions have sometimes been associated with important historical events. Despite the lack of scientific evidence, many people still believe in precognition. A poll in 2005 showed 73% of Americans believe in at least one type of paranormal experience, with 41% believing in extrasensory perception.


title: Precognition

text: Since ancient times precognition has been associated with dreams and trance states as well as waking premonitions, giving rise to acts of prophecy and fortune telling. Oracles, originally seen as sources of wisdom, became progressively associated with previsions of the future.


title: Precognition

text: Such claims of seeing the future have never been without their sceptical critics. Aristotle carried out an inquiry into allegedly prophetic dreams in his "On Divination in Sleep". He accepted that "it is quite conceivable that some dreams may be tokens and causes [of future events]" but also believed that "most [so-called prophetic] dreams are, however, to be classed as mere coincidences...". Where Democritus had suggested that emanations from future events could be sent back to the dreamer, Aristotle proposed that it was, rather, the dreamer's sense impressions which reached forward to the event.


title: Precognition

text: The term "precognition" first appeared in the 17th century but did not come into common use among investigators until much later.


title: Precognition

text: An early investigation into claims of precognition was published by the missionary Fr. P. Boilat in 1883. He claimed to have put an unspoken question to an African witch-doctor whom he mistrusted. Contrary to his expectations, the witch-doctor gave him the correct answer without ever having heard the question.


title: Precognition

text: In the early 20th century J. W. Dunne, a British soldier and aeronautics engineer, experienced several dreams which he regarded as precognitive. He developed techniques to record and analyse them, identifying any correspondences between his future experiences and his recorded dreams. He reported his findings in his 1927 book "An Experiment with Time". In it he alleges that 10% of his dreams appeared to include some element of future experience. He also persuaded some friends to try the experiment on themselves, with mixed results. He noted a strong cognitive bias in which subjects, including himself, were reluctant to ascribe their dream correspondences to precognition and determinedly sought alternative explanations. Dunne concluded that precognitive elements in dreams are common and that many people unknowingly have them. He suggested also that dream precognition did not reference future events of all kinds, but specifically the future experiences of the dreamer. He was led to this idea when he found that a dream of a volcanic eruption appeared to foresee not the disaster itself but his subsequent misreading of an inaccurate account in a newspaper. Edith Lyttelton, who became President of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), regarded his theory as consistent with her own idea of the superconscious. In 1932 he helped the SPR to conduct a more formal experiment, but he and the Society's lead researcher Theodore Besterman failed to agree on the significance of the results. Nevertheless, the Philosopher C. D. Broad remarked that, "The only theory known to me which seems worth consideration is that proposed by Mr. Dunne in his Experiment with Time." "An Experiment with Time" was widely read and "undoubtedly helped to form something of the imaginative climate of [the interwar] years", influencing many writers of both fact and fiction both then and since. According to Flieger, "Dunne's theory was so current and popular a topic that not to understand it was a mark of singularity." Major writers whose work was significantly influenced by his ideas on precognition in dreams and visions include H. G. Wells, J. B. Priestley and Olaf Stapledon. Vladimir Nabokov was also later influenced by Dunne.


title: Precognition

text: In 1932 Charles Lindbergh's infant son was kidnapped, murdered and buried among trees. Psychologists Henry Murray and D. R. Wheeler used the event to test for dream precognition, by inviting the public to report any dreams of the child. A total of 1,300 dreams were reported. Only five percent envisioned the child dead and only 4 of the 1,300 envisioned the location of the grave as amongst trees.


title: Precognition

text: The first ongoing and organised research program on precognition was instituted by husband-and-wife team Joseph Banks Rhine and Louisa E. Rhine in the 1930s at Duke University's Parapsychology Laboratory. J. B. Rhine used a method of forced-choice matching in which participants guessed the order of a deck of 25 cards, each five of which bore one of five geometrical symbols. Although his results were positive and gained some academic acceptance, his methods were later shown to be badly flawed and subsequent researchers using more rigorous procedures were unable to reproduce his results. His mathematics was sometimes flawed, the experiments were not double-blinded or even necessarily single-blinded and some of the cards to be guessed were so thin that the symbol could be seen through the backing.


title: Precognition

text: Samuel G. Soal, another leading member of the SPR, was described by Rhine as one of his harshest critics, running many similar experiments with wholly negative results. However, from around 1940 he ran forced-choice ESP experiments in which a subject attempted to identify which of five animal pictures a subject in another room was looking at. Their performance on this task was at chance, but when the scores were matched with the card that came "after" the target card, three of the thirteen subjects showed a very high hit rate; Rhine now described Soal's work as "a milestone in the field". However analyses of Soal's findings, conducted several years later, concluded that the positive results were more likely the result of deliberate fraud. The controversy continued for many years more. In 1978 the statistician and parapsychology researcher Betty Markwick, while seeking to vindicate Soal, discovered that he had tampered with his data. The untainted experimental results showed no evidence of precognition.


title: Precognition

text: As more modern technology became available, more automated techniques of experimentation were developed that did not rely on hand-scoring of equivalence between targets and guesses, and in which the targets could be more reliably and readily tested at random. In 1969 Helmut Schmidt introduced the use of high-speed random event generators (REG) for precognition testing, and experiments were also conducted at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab. Once again, flaws were found in all of Schmidt's experiments, when the psychologist C. E. M. Hansel found that several necessary precautions were not taken.


title: Precognition

text: SF writer Philip K Dick believed that he had precognitive experiences and used the idea in some of his novels, especially as a central plot element in his 1956 science fiction short story The Minority Report and in his 1956 novel "The World Jones Made".


title: Precognition

text: In 1963 the BBC television programme "Monitor" broadcast an appeal by the writer J.B. Priestley for experiences which challenged our understanding of Time. He received hundreds of letters in reply and believed that many of them described genuine precognitive dreams. In 2014 the BBC Radio 4 broadcaster Francis Spufford revisited Priestley's work and its relation to the ideas of J.W. Dunne.


title: Precognition

text: In 1965 G. W. Lambert, a former Council member of the SPR, proposed five criteria that needed to be met before an account of a precognitive dream could be regarded as credible:


title: Precognition

text: David Ryback, a psychologist in Atlanta, used a questionnaire survey approach to investigate precognitive dreaming in college students. His survey of over 433 participants showed that 290 or 66.9 percent reported some form of paranormal dream. He rejected many of these reports, but claimed that 8.8 percent of the population was having actual precognitive dreams.


title: Precognition

text: In 2011 the psychologist Daryl Bem, a Professor Emeritus at Cornell University, published findings showing statistical evidence for precognition in the "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology". The paper was heavily criticised and the criticism widened to include the journal itself and the validity of the peer review process. In 2012, an independent attempt to reproduce Bem's results was published, but it failed to do so. The widespread controversy led to calls for improvements in practice and for more research.


title: Precognition

text: Claims of precognition are, like any other claims, open to scientific criticism. However the nature of the criticism must adapt to the nature of the claim.


title: Precognition

text: Precognition would violate the principle of antecedence (causality), that an effect does not happen before its cause. Information passing backwards in time (retrocausality) would need to be carried by physical particles doing the same. Experimental evidence from high-energy physics suggests that this cannot happen. There is therefore no direct justification for precognition from physics.


title: Precognition

text: Precognition would therefore also contradict "most of the neuroscience and psychology literature, from electrophysiology and neuroimaging to temporal effects found in psychophysical research."


title: Precognition

text: A great deal of evidence for precognition has been put forward, both as witnessed anecdotes and as experimental results, but none has been accepted as rigorous scientific proof of the phenomenon. Even the most prominent pieces of evidence have been repeatedly rejected due to errors in those experiments as well as follow-on studies contradicting the original evidence. This suggests that the evidence was not valid in the first place.


title: Precognition

text: Various known psychological processes have been put forward to explain experiences of apparent precognition. These include:


title: Precognition

text: Psychological explanations have also been proposed for belief in precognition. Psychologists have conducted experiments which are claimed to show that people who feel loss of control in their lives will turn to belief in precognition, because it gives them a sense of regaining control.


title: Scatman John

text: John Paul Larkin (March 13, 1942 – December 3, 1999), known professionally as Scatman John, was an American musician. A prolific jazz pianist and vocalist for several decades, he rose to prominence during the 1990s through his fusion of scat singing and dance music. He recorded five albums, which were released between 1986 and 2001.


title: Scatman John

text: In the United States and Europe, Larkin is recognized for his 1995 singles "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)" and "Scatman's World". He achieved his greatest success in Japan, where his album "Scatman's World" (1995) sold over a million copies. Larkin was also a recipient of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's Annie Glenn Award for outstanding service to the stuttering community and a posthumous inductee to the National Stuttering Association Hall of Fame.


title: Scatman John

text: Larkin was born in El Monte, California. He had a severe stutter by the time he learned to speak. This stutter contributed to his emotionally traumatic childhood. At age twelve, he began to learn the piano and was introduced to the art of scat singing two years later through records by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, among others. The piano provided him with a means of artistic expression to compensate for his speech difficulties, and he "hid behind [the] piano because [he] was scared to speak."


title: Scatman John

text: His first known performance on a studio album was in 1981 on the album "Animal Sounds" by Sam Phipps. In 1986, he released the self-titled album "John Larkin" on the Transition label. This album was produced by John himself, along with Marcia Larkin. It featured Joe Farrell on saxophone.


title: Scatman John

text: To advance his career in 1990, Larkin moved to Berlin, Germany. Once there, he discovered an appreciative jazz culture and started playing jazz gigs. This was when he first decided to take a monumental step away from his insecurities and add singing to his act for the first time, heavily inspired by the standing ovation he received for his rendition of the song "On the Sunny Side of the Street". Soon after, his agent Manfred Zähringer from Iceberg Records (Denmark) thought of combining scat singing with modern dance music and hip hop effects. Larkin was hesitant at first, terrified of being laughed at and criticized once again, but BMG Hamburg was open.


title: Scatman John

text: Larkin was worried that listeners would realize he stuttered, and his wife, Judy, suggested that he talk about it directly in his music. Working with dance producers Ingo Kays and Tony Catania, he recorded the first single, "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)". After his first big hit, he adopted the new name and persona of "Scatman" John.


title: Scatman John

text: In 1995, at age 53, Larkin became a worldwide star. Sales of his debut single were slow at first, but they gradually reached number one in many countries and sold over six million records worldwide. "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)" charted highly across Europe and Japan and remains his biggest-selling and most well-known song. He later followed up with the song "Scatman's World" entering the UK Singles chart at number 10, which met lesser but still notable success, selling a million copies and charting highly throughout Europe. In 2019, "Scatman's World" had some resurgence after becoming an internet meme.


title: Scatman John

text: Following the success of these two singles, he released his debut album as Scatman John, also titled "Scatman's World", which entered the top 10 album charts in many countries including his then home Germany as well as in Switzerland, Finland and Norway; the album eventually sold millions of copies worldwide, becoming so popular that a Scatman John design appeared on Coca-Cola cans. He began a promotional and concert tour of Europe and Asia. Referring to a performance in Spain, Larkin said, "the kids screamed for five minutes straight, I couldn't start the song".


title: Scatman John

text: The second Scatman John album, "Everybody Jam!", was released in 1996. While nowhere near as successful on an international level as his debut, the album and accompanying single took off in Japan, the country in which he would see success on a larger scale than anywhere else in the world. In Europe, subsequent singles failed to replicate the chart success of his first two singles, giving him the title two-hit wonder.


title: Scatman John

text: The Japanese version of "Everybody Jam!" included a total of five bonus tracks, including the hit singles there Su Su Su Super Ki Re i and "Pripri Scat", which were commissioned by Japanese companies for commercials for cosmetics and pudding respectively. The Ultraman franchise even jumped on the Scatman bandwagon, releasing a single titled "Scatultraman", the cover art of which featured the Ultraman characters wearing Scatman's trademark hat and mustache. The album reached No. 45 in Switzerland.


title: Scatman John

text: In late 1998, Larkin was diagnosed with lung cancer, but he continued his musical work despite being told to take it easy from his substantial workload. In June 1999, Larkin released his fourth and ultimately final album as Scatman John, "Take Your Time". Shortly afterwards, he was sent into intensive treatment.


title: Scatman John

text: Larkin died at his home in Los Angeles on December 3, 1999, at the age of 57, surrounded by his wife Judy, his mother Harriet, and his brother Bill. He was cremated, and in 2001, his ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean near Malibu, California.


title: Scatman John

text: Even while suffering, Larkin remained positive, saying “Whatever God wants is fine by me ... I’ve had the very best life. I have tasted beauty.”


title: Scatman John

text: In 2022, 23 years after his death, a comic biography about Scatman John's life was published, written with the help of John's manager Manfred Zähringer, the producers of his hit singles and albums and other people who knew him during his career.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Scottsdale is a city in the eastern part of Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, and is part of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Named Scottsdale in 1894 after its founder Winfield Scott, a retired U.S. Army chaplain, the city was incorporated in 1951 with a population of 2,000. As of the 2020 census, the population was 241,361, up from 217,385 in 2010. Its slogan is "The West's Most Western Town". It has been one of the fastest growing cities in the United States over the past decades.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Scottsdale, long and wide at its widest point, shares boundaries with many other municipalities and entities. On the west, Scottsdale is bordered by Phoenix, Paradise Valley and unincorporated Maricopa County land. Carefree is along the western boundary, and shares Scottsdale's northern boundary with the Tonto National Forest. To the south Scottsdale is bordered by Tempe. The southern boundary is also occupied by the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, which extends along the eastern boundary, which also borders Fountain Hills, the McDowell Mountain Regional Park and more unincorporated Maricopa County land.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The area that includes what became Scottsdale was first inhabited by the Hohokam people, from approximately 300 BC to 1450 AD. This ancient civilization farmed the area and developed a complex network of irrigation canals that was unsurpassed in pre-Columbian North America. At its peak, the canals stretched over s. Many remain today, some having been renovated and put into use in the 20th century. Under still-unknown circumstances, the Hohokam left the area about 1450 or 1500, most likely because of a prolonged drought. The next inhabitants, the Akimel O'odham (Pima) and the Tohono O'odham (Papago), are thought to be the Hohokam's direct descendants.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Scottsdale was originally a Pima village known as "Vaṣai S-vaṣonĭ", meaning "rotting hay." Despite its becoming a modern city, some Pima remain there today. Until the late 1960s, there was a still-occupied traditional dwelling on the southeast corner of Indian Bend Road and Hayden Road. The Pima who live in Scottsdale today reside in modern houses, not traditional dwellings. Many Pima and Maricopa people live in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, which borders Scottsdale to the south and east.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: In the early to mid-1880s, U.S. Army Chaplain Winfield Scott visited the Salt River Valley and was impressed with it and its potential for agriculture. Returning in 1888 with his wife, Helen, he purchased for $3.50 an acre ($ as of 2015) for a stretch of land where downtown Scottsdale is now. Winfield and his brother George Washington Scott became the town's first residents. It was soon known as "Orangedale" due to the large citrus groves the Scotts planted. Many of the community's original settlers, recruited by Scott from the East and Midwest, were educated and had an appreciation for cultural activities. The town was renamed Scottsdale in 1894.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: In 1896, these settlers established the Scottsdale Public School system and opened the first schoolhouse, which was followed by the opening of the first general store by J. L. Davis, which also housed the first post office for Scottsdale in 1897. In the early 1900s the community supported an artists and writers culture, culminating in the opening of the region's first resort in 1909, the Ingleside Inn, just south of the Arizona Canal and west of the Crosscut Canal (Indian School Road at about 64th Street) in what is today Scottsdale. Also in 1909, Cavalliere's Blacksmith Shop opened in downtown Scottsdale, and the original schoolhouse was replaced by the much more expansive Little Red Schoolhouse, which stands to this day. While not in its original building, Cavalliere's has been in continuous operation since that time.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: In 1912, both the Phoenix Street Railway Company and a competitor, the Salt River Valley Electric Railway Company, proposed building streetcar lines to Scottsdale, but due to an economic downturn, neither was built.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Between 1908 and 1933, due to the construction of the Granite Reef and Roosevelt dams (in 1908 and 1911, respectively), Scottsdale's population experienced a boom, growing steadily during those years. It became a small market town providing services for families involved in the agricultural industry.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: During the First World War, Scottsdale and its environs supported a large cotton farming industry, due to the creation of Long Staple Egyptian Cotton, developed by the US Department of Agriculture. Cotton is still grown in southern Arizona, but Scottsdale's cotton boom ended with the loss of government contracts at the end of the war.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: In 1920, a second resort was opened on of property owned by the artist Jessie Benton Evans. Called the Jokake Inn, meaning "mud house", the structure still stands on the grounds of the Phoenician Resort.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The Depression years saw an influx of artists and architects to Scottsdale, which included, in 1937, Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright and his wife purchased acres of desert at the foot of the McDowell Mountains and established Taliesin West, his winter home and his architectural firm's southwestern headquarters. Scottsdale and the rest of Phoenix have seen an everlasting influence from Wright. Many buildings throughout the region were designed by him. His influence on the regional architecture is commemorated by a major street bearing his name and a spire memorial designed by Wright in North Scottsdale.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Among the more significant events during the years of World War II was the opening of Thunderbird II Airfield in 1942 (it later became Scottsdale Airport), where 5,500 pilot cadets received their primary flight training before the war's end. Scottsdale was the site of a German POW camp at the intersection of Scottsdale and Thomas Roads in what today is Papago Park.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: In 1950, the town continued to grow as Motorola became the first of many technology companies to build a plant in Scottsdale. It built a second plant in 1956. With a population of approximately 2,000, the city was incorporated on June 25, 1951. It appointed its first mayor, Malcolm White, and adopted the motto "The West's Most Western Town". The seal, depicting a mounted cowboy surrounded by a 64-pointed starburst, was designed by Mrs. Gene Brown Pennington. The city also became a tourist destination with the opening of the city's first modern resorts, the Hotel Valley Ho and the Safari Hotel, in 1956.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The town began a period of rapid population growth after its incorporation in 1951, growing from 2,000 to 10,000 residents during the 1950s. This growth necessitated development into the floodplain known as the Indian Bend Wash. Floodplains throughout history have been enticing locations for development due to their flatness, ease of building and inexpensiveness. This is even more tempting in a desert, where flooding so rarely happens. As Scottsdale expanded, the north-south Indian Bend Wash virtually bisected the city. In the late 1950s, the problem became more and more pronounced, until in 1959 the Arizona State Legislature formed the Maricopa County Flood Control District (MCFCD). The MCFCD became the lead player in developing a comprehensive flood plan for the entire county.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: At the same time, the United States Army Corps of Engineers began to look into flooding in Maricopa County. Over the next several years, it presented several plans, which all revolved around constructing concrete canals and levees to channel and divert the floodwaters, as well as building bridges over the canal, similar to the storm drains of Los Angeles. But during MCFCD meetings between 1961 and 1963, a different course of action was developed. This plan became known as the multi-use, or Greenbelt, concept. The two concepts were at odds with one another until the canal plan was defeated in a bond referendum in 1965. In 1966 a study was commissioned that validated the Greenbelt concept as a way to prevent flood damage. After a major flood in 1972, work on the Greenbelt project began in earnest. It was completed in 1984, although minor projects continue. Today, the Scottsdale Greenbelt connects four city parks—Vista del Camino Park, Eldorado Park, Indian School Park and Chaparral Park—through a bike path.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The 1960s and '70s continued to see the city's growth, the population reaching almost 68,000 by 1970. Most of the unused property within the city limits was to the north, so that was the direction in which the city expanded. The city, which in 1959 had spanned , expanded its borders to encompass . Large ranch tracts covered huge areas in the northern part of the city. One of the largest of these was the McCormick ranch, a ranch serving much of the eastern boundary of Scottsdale owned by Fowler and Anne McCormick. Fowler's paternal grandfather was Cyrus McCormick, the inventor of the grain reaper, and his maternal grandfather was John D. Rockefeller. When Anne died in 1970, the property was sold to Kaiser-Aetna for $12.1 million. This started a series of large-scale, master-planned communities within Scottsdale's borders, including Scottsdale Ranch (1978), Gainey Ranch (1980), McDowell Mountain Ranch (1992), Desert Mountain (1986), and DC Ranch (1990s).


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: In 1975, the city annexed the "east Shea" section, bordering Fountain Hills, expanding its area from . This was followed by a four-year period from 1981 to 1984 during which the city annexed an additional (almost) .


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Faced with this rapid expansion and growth, many residents became concerned about losing their southwestern scenery. The McDowell Sonoran Conservancy was born in 1991. Teaming with developers, a plan was developed to set aside the McDowell Mountains and adjoining areas in a huge preserve. In 1995, Scottsdale's citizens voted to implement a sales tax to purchase acreage for this purpose. When completed, the planned for the McDowell Sonoran Preserve will be nearly one-third of Scottsdale's land area, equal in size to Bryce Canyon National Park.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: From its official incorporation in 1951 with a population of 2,000, Scottsdale has grown to a 2020 census count of 241,361. It is now the state's seventh-largest city. Scottsdale is commonly defined by its high quality of life, and in 1993 was one of several cities to receive a "Most Livable City" award from the United States Conference of Mayors. The Scottsdale Airpark, surrounding the city's airport, became a hotspot for a variety of large and small businesses, ranging from light industry to luxury auto sales. The Airpark in the 2000s emerged as one of the top employment centers in the Phoenix metro area. The airport supported 3,462 jobs, which boosted the Scottsdale economy.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The city is in the Salt River Valley, or the "Valley of the Sun", in the northern reaches of the Sonoran Desert. Scottsdale, long and wide at its widest point, shares boundaries with many other municipalities and entities. On the west, Scottsdale is bordered by Phoenix, Paradise Valley, and unincorporated Maricopa County land. Carefree is along the eastern boundary, as well as sharing Scottsdale's northern boundary with the Tonto National Forest. To the south Scottsdale is bordered by Tempe. The southern boundary is also occupied by the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, which extends along the eastern boundary, which also borders Fountain Hills, the McDowell Mountain Regional Park and more unincorporated Maricopa County land. The highest point is Butte Peak at an elevation of 4,890 ft.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of , of which , or 0.24%, are water.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: From the 1950s through the 1970s, several large manufacturing companies in the Scottsdale and Tempe areas used the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) in their manufacturing and operating processes. In 1981, TCE began to show up in two Scottsdale drinking wells, and in 1983, the Indian Bend Wash superfund site was listed on the Environmental Protection Agency's National Priorities List. Physical construction of environmental remediation systems was completed by 2006, with soil cleanup expected to be completed in five years and groundwater cleanup in 30 years.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The city developed one of the first automated garbage trucks in 1969, replacing crews who dumped cans into a train of open trailers pulled by a truck, with a single operator sitting in an air conditioned cab.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The city is loosely divided into four areas: South Scottsdale (McKellips Road north to Thomas Road), Old Town (Downtown) Scottsdale, Central Scottsdale (also known as the "Shea Corridor," extending from Camelback Road north to Shea Boulevard), and North Scottsdale.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: South Scottsdale has for many years been the working-class neighborhood. The median resale home price is US$291,500, compared to $667,450 in North Scottsdale. Part of McDowell Road in South Scottsdale used to be known as "Motor Mile," having at one time 31 dealerships on the street. The strip at one time generated over $10 million in sales tax revenue each year and was one of the most profitable auto-miles in the United States. In recent years, many of these dealerships have left the city, including 6 in 2008 alone. South Scottsdale is the home to a new research center for Arizona State University known as "SkySong", a collaboration between the university, local business, and global companies. The development has attracted the research and development arms of a number of international corporations.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Old Town Scottsdale is an area with many streets, old-fashioned stores, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and art galleries. It contains the major nightlife for the area and is a major art center of metro Phoenix. Scottsdale's main cultural district is also in this area, which includes the high-end Scottsdale Fashion Square, one of the country's 20 largest malls. The district has seen a revival, with new condominiums and hotels under construction.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The Shea Corridor is so named because it is in close proximity to the east-west Shea Boulevard. The houses in this region were generally built during the 1970s. Real estate in the Shea Corridor (Central Scottsdale) has increased during the 1990s, and overall, the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale real estate market saw the largest gain in house prices in the nation during the mid-2000s with a 38.4% increase in value. A number of communities in this central region of Scottsdale remain among the most highly desired residential areas in the metropolitan area, including Gainey Ranch and McCormick Ranch. A large portion of Scottsdale Road in the Shea Corridor has been dubbed the "Resort Corridor" for the high number of resorts on the street. The second Ritz Carlton in the Phoenix metropolitan area will be along this corridor.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: North Scottsdale is the most actively developed area of Scottsdale, as it was historically the least built up. This part of the city also claims many of the most expensive houses in Arizona, with many exceeding $5 million in value. The city's borders are rapidly expanding to the east and west in this area, containing the McDowell Mountain range. Much of the residential boom in North Scottsdale is driven by available land to build coupled with the fast growth of "Scottsdale Airpark", the second largest employment center in the Phoenix metropolitan, and estimated to become the largest by 2010. The Scottsdale Airpark, home to over 55,000 employees, 2,600 businesses and of office space is expected to continue growing by over 3,000 employees per year. Many important companies are headquartered or have regional headquarters in the park, including Acronis, AXA, GE Capital, DHL, Discount Tire Company, Fidelity Investments, Blue Yonder, GoDaddy.com, The Vanguard Group, and Quicken Loans.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Scottsdale's climate is arid. Winters are mild to warm and summers are extremely hot. The lowest temperature ever recorded in the city is , on January 7, 1913, and the highest was , on June 26, 1990.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: As of the census of 2020, there were 241,361 people. The racial makeup of the city was 78.5% Non-Hispanic White, 2.0% African American, 0.8% Native American, 5% Asian, .1% Pacific Islander, and 9.8% Hispanic or Latino.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: As of the census of 2010, there were 217,385 people, there are 69,967 owner-occupied housing, 32,306 renter occupied, and 101,273 households in the city. The population density was . There were 124,001 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 89.3% White, 1.7% Black or African American, 0.8% Native American, 3.3% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 2.5% from other races, and 2.3% from two or more races. 8.8% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: There were 101,290 households, out of which 20.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them. According to the 2010 census 51.7% of Scottsdale's population was female, while 48.3% was male. In the city the population was spread out, with 17.7% under the age of 18, 5.0% from 20 to 24, 32.6% from 25 to 49, 22.8% from 50 to 64, and 19.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: According to a 2007 estimate, the median income for a household in the city was $90,533, and the median income for a family was $122,289. The per capita income for the city was $59,158. About 3.4% of families and 5.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 5.4% of those under age 18 and 5.9% of those age 65 or over.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Scottsdale is home to a large number of churches, chapels, temples, synagogues, mosques and other places of religious worship. Though the majority of Scottsdale residents consider themselves of, or practicing of, the Christian faith(s) – including Protestant and Roman Catholic – the city's high population growth over the years has resulted in a more diverse population. Most notably, greater numbers of Eastern Orthodox and Jews have been added to the population. Though smaller in number, Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist communities also exist within the city of Scottsdale. There is also a small population of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), as is common throughout Phoenix, Arizona, and the Western United States.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The first church founded in Scottsdale was the First Baptist Church of Scottsdale, which was built by Scott and his family. The church has named a small non-profit coffee shop on the corner of their campus after Scott, called Winfield's.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Congregation Beth Israel, the oldest Reform Judaism congregation in the Phoenix metropolitan area is in Scottsdale, and is the largest congregation in Arizona. In North Scottsdale, there is the Jewish Community Center of Phoenix and the New Shul. The community center was originally in central Phoenix, it had eventually outgrown the location and was looking to relocate and build a more expansive campus.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: In 2009, a new Armenian Apostolic church was built in the city, representing the larger numbers of Armenians in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The tourism industry is Scottsdale's primary employer, accounting for 39% of the city's workforce. In 2005, Scottsdale attracted over 7.5 million visitors to the city, providing an economic impact of over $3.1 billion.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The city of Scottsdale is tied with Atlanta for fourth, after New York City, Las Vegas, and Chicago respectively, as having the most AAA Five-Diamond hotels and resorts in the United States. In 2015, AAA bestowed four such properties in Scottsdale with the highest honor: The Phoenician and The Canyon Suites, part of The Luxury Collection, Four Seasons Hotels Scottsdale at Troon North, and the Fairmont Hotels and Resorts Princess Resort and Spa.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: As of 2016, Scottsdale has the highest number of destination spas per capita of any city in the United States.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The region's year-round warm weather and abundant sunshine is a major factor in Scottsdale's tourism appeal. In particular, during the winter, thousands of tourists and retirees from the midwest, the northeast, and as far away as Canada (known locally as "snowbirds") flood the area with visits from brief to long term. Those who practice the same migration routine annually often end up purchasing winter homes in the area.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The Mayo Clinic has one of its three major campuses in Scottsdale. This and its resulting effects have made Scottsdale an attractive destination for medical care.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The aviation industry has also grown in Scottsdale, with the construction of Scottsdale Airport in North Scottsdale, in the 1960s. Today, it is one of the busiest single-runway airports in the United States in terms of aircraft operations. Though there is little to no commercial air service, nearly all operations are corporate or general aviation.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The immediate area surrounding the Scottsdale Airport, known locally as the Airpark, has developed rapidly as a regional center of commerce. By 2004, the Airpark had grown to become the second-largest employment center in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area, with over 50,000 people being employed within a few-mile radius of the airport itself – notably in financial, retail, service, technological, design and manufacturing fields.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Among the companies headquartered in Scottsdale are APL, Cold Stone Creamery, Carlisle Companies, Discount Tire, Discovery Land Company, Fender, Go Daddy, Blue Yonder, Kahala, Kona Grill, Liveops, Magellan Health, Meritage Homes, Nextiva, Advisor Group, Paradise Bakery & Café, P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Rural Metro, Axon, and United Blood Services.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: According to the city's 2016 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city are:


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: There are many shopping areas within the city of Scottsdale, ranging from small districts to large centers. The most notable regional centers include the Kierland Commons and Scottsdale Quarter in North Scottsdale, and the Scottsdale Fashion Square in Downtown Scottsdale, a major destination for high-end retailers. These shopping centers (and others) in Scottsdale claim dozens of marquee brands that are unique to both Phoenix and the Southwestern region.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: As of 2016, the Scottsdale Fashion Square was ranked in the top 25 most visited malls in the country by "Travel + Leisure" magazine. It has consistently been one of the most profitable malls in the United States, being ranked in 2016 as the second highest sales per square foot mall in the country, The center is anchored by Nordstrom, Macy's, Neiman Marcus, and Dillard's.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: One Scottsdale, a collaboration between Macerich and DMB Associates, aims to be the next luxury retail center for the Phoenix area. In a radius, the center sees an average household income of $110,292, and its zone has more households earning over $100,000 than several famous retail destinations, including Bal Harbour, Naples, Aspen, and The Hamptons.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Palmeraie, a , outdoor mixed-use project planned for the SWC of Indian Bend and Scottsdale Rds, has already received commitments from Hermès, Yves Saint Laurent, and John Varvatos.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The highest concentrations of galleries, studios and museums that are open to the public are in Downtown Scottsdale. Its Scottsdale Arts District can be segmented into three distinct districts. The largest is the Scottsdale Main Street Arts District, home to the largest and most diverse collection of styles and genres, the more contemporary Marshall Way Arts District, and the more touristy and western-themed Old Town district, which has the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. The popular Scottsdale Artwalk is held weekly, every Thursday evening.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Scottsdale's affluent culture has been depicted by shows such as MTV's "My Super Sweet 16", which filmed an episode in the area in 2006, and by the short-lived CBS reality show "Tuesday Night Book Club."


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: "The West's most western town" prides itself in its rich Western history, preserving while heavily promoting its plethora of "western" activities and events. The Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show has taken place since 1955. Today, the show attracts thousands of visitors and tourists, to see nearly 2000 purebred Arabian and Half-Arabian horses competing for various prizes and recognition. The show also features over 300 vendors and exhibitions, and over 25 demonstrations and shows.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The Scottsdale Jaycees Parada del Sol, an annual month-long event that has been held in Scottsdale since 1954. Originally named The Sunshine Festival, the PRCA Rodeo was added in 1956. Cowboys and cowgirls from across the nation converge in Scottsdale to participate in this cultural and historical event. The event begins each year with the "Parada del Sol Parade", the world's largest horse-drawn parade with over 150 entries in any given year.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Since 1971, Scottsdale has been home to the Barrett-Jackson Auto Show. Due to the success of this week-long event held every January, the organizers behind it have more recently inaugurated similar but smaller shows in Palm Beach, Florida and Las Vegas, Nevada. Now held at the expansive West World exhibition complex in North Scottsdale, the event is an auto enthusiast's and collector's spectacle. The show is known for featuring both exotic, luxury automobiles and historic vehicles which have been expertly restored to mint condition.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Since 2007, Scottsdale has been hosting low and high fashion shows in the annual Scottsdale Fashion Week, including popular department store line fashion designers and some higher end ones during the month of November.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The Scottsdale Culinary Festival is held annually during April. Though many of its individual events are held citywide, they concentrate in the downtown area. Entirely, it is estimated the week-long festival draws over 40,000 people. The most heavily attended such event is the festival's Great Arizona Picnic, an outdoor fair-like showcase of both well-known local and national chefs and restaurants. It is held on the lawn of the Scottsdale Civic Center Mall.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The annual Scottsdale International Film Festival concentrates on the use of film to foster of the world's cultures, lifestyles, religions, and ethnicities.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Scottsdale is home to more than 125 professional art galleries and studios, one of the highest per-capita anywhere in the nation. The city has quickly become a center for art in the United States. According to the Scottsdale Convention & Visitor's Bureau and "American Style Magazine", the city has become one of the country's largest art markets, usually only sharing ranks with New York City, New York and Santa Fe, New Mexico in terms of commerce generated as a direct result of art sales and purchasing.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Its galleries and studios are noted for their western and Native American themed art, with a growing interest in contemporary arts over the past couple of decades – an element most visible by the large number of modern art galleries which have opened along the Marshall Way Arts District, and the opening of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (also referred to as SMoCA) in 1999. Both are in Downtown Scottsdale. Located in the Old Town district of Downtown Scottsdale, the Scottsdale Civic Center Mall is home to the two-theater Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, the Scottsdale Historical Museum, as well as the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. SMoCA is the only permanent museum dedicated solely to the contemporary arts in the state of Arizona. Also in Old Town, Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West opened in January 2015, featuring historical and cultural exhibits from 19 states of the American West, including Arizona.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Taliesin West, architect Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home and school from 1937 until 1959, is now one of the most popular tourist attractions in Arizona. The complex is in the northeast fringe of the city, at the base of the McDowell Mountains.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Scottsdale is home to a variety of nightclubs, restaurants, hotels, lounges and bars most notably in the Old-Town district.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: This is evident by the growing number of style-conscious hotels that have opened up throughout Downtown Scottsdale which equally cater to the nightlife crowds. Most notably, the Morgan Hotel Group's Mondrian Hotel, the FireSky Resort & Spa, the independent mid-century Hotel Valley Ho and the W Hotel.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The majority of nightlife is concentrated in Downtown Scottsdale, between Camelback and Osborn roads. This is the most active and popular nightlife destination in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. Similar to well-known nightclub districts in other major cities, much like Atlanta's Buckhead district and Miami's South Beach, most of Downtown Scottsdale's major bars and clubs are generally within walking distance. Crowds of over 40,000-strong are known to congregate to this area. Old Town Scottsdale consists of active night clubs, dive bars, entertainment restaurants and shopping around every corner. Scottsdale Fashion Square introduces the Old Town Scottsdale lifestyle with approximately 2 million square feet of luxury retail space.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: There are several attractions within the city of Scottsdale. There is the newly built Great Wolf Lodge water park and hotel right off of the 101 freeway. The Talking Stick Resort is an attraction and a part of the Scottsdale night life with their 98,000 square feet casino. Within the same vicinity are the Butterfly Wonderland, OdySea Aquarium that holds over 6,000 animals in 2,000,000 gallons of water, iFly Zone and many shopping centers including Fashion Square, just north of Old Town Scottsdale. Scottsdale Fashion Square introduces Old Town Scottsdale being in the top 30 largest malls in the country and providing upscale shopping and luxury.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Southeast Scottsdale borders the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. For several years, the Scottsdale Pavilions, a major outdoor shopping center, marked the only commercial property operating on tribal lands. In 1998, the tribe opened the first permanent casino in the Scottsdale area, Casino Arizona, at Loop 101 and McKellips Road. The success of Casino Arizona led to the construction of a second location, Casino Arizona at Indian Bend, in a temporary facility less than north.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The passage of Proposition 202 in November 2002 redefined casino gaming in Arizona, permitting "Vegas-style" blackjack and poker, expanded number of slot machines and wider food and beverage service options. Both casinos underwent significant expansions following the passage of Proposition 202, with Casino Arizona at Indian Bend more than doubling in size.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: In 2010, the temporary tent facilities hosting the Casino Arizona at Indian Bend were deconstructed following the opening of Casino Arizona at Talking Stick Resort. The casino is adjoined to the newly constructed 15-story Talking Stick Resort & Spa, which features the Talking Stick golf course, a 36-hole golf course designed by Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore. Today, the two casinos collectively have over 2,000 slot machines and 100 table games.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: There are numerous properties in the city of Scottsdale which are considered to be historical and have been included either in the National Register of Historic Places or the Scottsdale Historic Register. The gallery contains images of properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places with a short description of each.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The city is the spring training home of the San Francisco Giants, who practice at Scottsdale Stadium in Downtown Scottsdale. Scottsdale Stadium also hosts the Scottsdale Scorpions, a minor league baseball team in the Arizona Fall League. In February 2011 the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks began sharing a new spring training facility, Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, located on the city's eastern border with the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Though none play specifically in the city of Scottsdale, all of the "Big Four" North American major league sports organizations have franchises and play within the Phoenix Metropolitan Area – NBA's Phoenix Suns, NFL's Arizona Cardinals, MLB's Arizona Diamondbacks and NHL's Arizona Coyotes, as well as a WNBA franchise, the Phoenix Mercury.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Phoenix Rising FC, a member of the United Soccer League, play their home matches at Phoenix Rising FC Soccer Complex, a temporary stadium near Loop 101 and Loop 202.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Since 2010, the historic WM Waste Management Phoenix Open Golf Tournament – formerly the "FBR Open" and "Phoenix Open", which originally began in 1932 – is now held annually each January at the Tournament Players Club (or "TPC") in North Scottsdale. The TPC is adjacent to the large Fairmont Scottsdale Resort. It is the largest-attended stop of the annual PGA Tour, attracting well over 500,000 people to the four-day event alone.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Hiking, rock climbing and other similar outdoor activities are enormously popular throughout the Phoenix area, in large part to the immediate accessibility of mountain areas within or very near the city limits. Citizens flock ritually to local favorite Camelback Mountain, in the eastern section of Phoenix, just adjacent to Scottsdale, as well as the McDowell Mountains in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, at the city's northeastern fringes.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: On January 19, 2013, the Talking Stick Resort hosted King of the Cage's televised mixed martial arts event, "Regulators". The show, now owned by the Ultimate Fighting Championship, featured future UFC talent like Cody East, Jordan Johnson and flyweight championship contender Ray Borg.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Scottsdale is a noted golf and resort destination, with a sizable portion of tax revenue being derived from tourism. It is also home to the Phoenix Open Golf Tournament held at the Tournament Players Club every year and the Barrett-Jackson car show held at WestWorld.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: In all, the city is home to more than 200 area courses offering layouts that range from the rolling green fairways of traditional courses, to desert golf designs. In 2006, the "Robb Report" cited Scottsdale as "America's Best Place to Live for Golf." The Boulders Resort & Golden Spa and Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale at Troon North were selected in 2005 as the second and fourth best golf resorts in the nation by "Travel + Leisure Golf" magazine. Other golf courses in the area include FireRock, Troon North, The Phoenician, and Silverleaf, and Desert Mountain.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Scottsdale National Golf Club is a private golf club in the McDowell Mountain Range, the course itself is a par 72 on . In the past, it has received awards from Golf Digest and Golfweek. It hosts an 18-hole course as well as a nine-hole course called "The Bad Little Nine." The club also hosts the "Wild West Invitational," a tournament including a final round where competitors must contend with loud distractions. It has also been mentioned as a possible location for future PGA Championships.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Scottsdale is governed by a mayor and city council, all of whom are elected "at large" to represent the entire city. A city manager is responsible for the executive leadership of the city staff, as well as implementing council policies, developing programs and budgets to respond to council goals, and ensuring citizens receive effective and efficient city services. The city manager also serves as the city treasurer.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The distinctive Scottsdale City Hall was designed by architect Bennie Gonzales in 1968, and was designed with an interior kiva for community meetings.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Public education in Scottsdale is provided for by both the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD), which serves most of Scottsdale, most of the town of Paradise Valley, as well as parts of Tempe and east Phoenix, and the Paradise Valley Unified School District (PVUSD), which serves northeast Phoenix and North Scottsdale. SUSD serves 25,668 students in 33 schools and employs 3,862, including 1,551 teachers. SUSD's 33 schools include five high schools: Arcadia High School, Coronado High School, Chaparral High School, Desert Mountain High School, and Saguaro High School. PVUSD is the 7th largest school district in the state, with approximately 30,000 students and 3,800 employees. It contains 47 schools, including 7 high schools. The high schools which serve portions of Scottsdale are Horizon High School and Pinnacle High School.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The primary institution of higher education in the city is Scottsdale Community College, which opened in 1970 on the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Reservation. In 1999, the school opened a second campus in the Scottsdale Airpark allowing it to serve the business community and north Scottsdale. Other institutions of higher education with locations in Scottsdale include the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine, University of Phoenix, Gateway Seminary, and the Scottsdale Culinary Institute. Many students at nearby Arizona State University in Tempe live in Scottsdale and commute.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: State Route 101 – locally known as Loop 101 – provides convenient Metropolitan Phoenix Freeways access.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The city is home to Scottsdale Municipal Airport , a single-runway airport in North Scottsdale. While the airport serves some tour and commuter flights, the plurality of aircraft operations are corporate and transient general aviation traffic.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Commercial air travel is served by Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix and Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport in Mesa.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The city of Scottsdale runs a network of local neighborhood circulators, labeled the "Scottsdale Trolley." Using trolley-replica buses, the public service is free to riders. , there are two circulating "routes," known individually as the Downtown Trolley and the Neighborhood Trolley. These connect at the Loloma Station transit center in downtown Scottsdale.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: The Downtown Trolley circulates through downtown Scottsdale, and the Neighborhood Trolley circulates from downtown Scottsdale to neighborhoods throughout South Scottsdale, connecting with the city of Tempe's own free public circulator, the Tempe Orbit at Roosevelt and Scottsdale Road. From there, riders can transfer onto the Tempe Orbit, and travel to Tempe, including Arizona State University's main campus, and the downtown Tempe, or Mill Avenue, area.


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: Between December 2007 and 2009, Scottsdale was a member of the board of Valley Metro Rail line which connects the neighboring cities of Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa. There was a study in 2001, and some discussion since, of extending the light rail line into Scottsdale. The city's Transportation Master Plan identifies Scottsdale Road as the city's high-capacity corridor, which could be light rail, modern streetcar service, or bus rapid-transit (BRT).


title: Scottsdale, Arizona

text: A street railway interurban line was proposed to connect Scottsdale with Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa as early as 1913 but was never built; Scottsdale is the largest American city that has never had a rail line.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: Cities: Skylines is a 2015 city-building game developed by Colossal Order and published by Paradox Interactive. The game is a single-player open-ended city-building simulation. Players engage in urban planning by controlling zoning, road placement, taxation, public services, and public transportation of an area. They also work to manage various elements of the city, including its budget, health, employment, traffic, and pollution levels. It is also possible to maintain a city in a sandbox mode, which provides more creative freedom for the player.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: "Cities: Skylines" is a progression of development from Colossal Order's previous "Cities in Motion" titles, which focused on designing effective transportation systems. While the developers felt they had the technical expertise to expand to a full city simulation game, their publisher Paradox held off on the idea, fearing the market dominance of "SimCity". After the critical failure of the 2013 "SimCity" game, however, Paradox greenlit the title. The developer's goal was to create a game engine capable of simulating the daily routines of nearly a million unique citizens, while presenting this to the player in a simple way, allowing the player to easily understand various problems in their city's design. This includes realistic traffic congestion, and the effects of congestion on city services and districts. Since the game's release, various expansions and other DLC have been released for the game. The game also has built-in support for user-generated content.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: The game was first released for the Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems in March 2015, with ports to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 game consoles being released in 2017, for the Nintendo Switch in September 2018, and for Google Stadia in May 2022 developed by Tantalus Media. The game received favourable reviews from critics, and was a commercial success, with more than twelve million copies sold on all platforms as of June 2022.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: The player starts with a plot of land – equivalent to a area – along with an interchange exit from a nearby highway, as well as a starting amount of in-game money. The player proceeds to add roads and residential, industrial and commercial zones, and basic services like power, water and sewage, to encourage residents to move in and supply them with jobs.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: As the city grows beyond certain population tiers, the player unlocks new city improvements, including schools, fire stations, police stations, health care facilities and waste management systems, tax and government edicts, mass transit systems, and other features for managing the city. One such feature enables the player to designate parts of their city as districts. Each district can be configured by the player to restrict the types of developments permitted or to enforce specific regulations within the district's bounds, such as only allowing for industrial sectors devoted to agriculture, offering free public transportation for the district to reduce traffic, raising or reducing taxes for the various classes of development, or, with the "Green Cities" DLC, discouraging fossil-fuel vehicles from entering a district while not discouraging electric vehicles, reducing noise pollution caused by traffic.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: Buildings in the city have various development levels that are met by improving the local area, with higher levels providing more benefits to the city. For example, a commercial store will increase in level if nearby residents are more educated, which in turn will allow it to hire more employees and increase tax revenue for the city. When the player has accumulated enough residents and money, they can purchase neighbouring plots of land, each equivalent in size to the starting land area, allowing them to build up eight additional parcels out of 25 within a area. The parcel limitation is to allow the game to run across the widest range of personal computers, but players can use Steam Workshop modifications to open not only all of the game's standard 25-tile building area, but the entire map (81 tiles, ).


title: Cities: Skylines

text: The game also features a robust transportation system based on Colossal Order's previous "Cities in Motion", allowing the player to plan out effective public transportation for the city in order to reduce traffic congestion and generate transit revenue. Roads can be built straight or free-form, and the grid used for zoning adapts to the shape of the adjacent roads; cities need not follow a square grid plan. Roads of varying widths (up to major freeways) accommodate different traffic volumes, and variant road types (for example, avenues lined with trees or highways with sound barriers) offer reduced noise pollution or increased property values in the surrounding area at an increased cost to the player. The road system can be augmented with various forms of public transportation such as buses, taxis, trams, trains, ferries, and metro systems.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: Modding, via the addition of user-generated content such as buildings or vehicles, is supported in "Cities: Skylines" through the Steam Workshop. The creation of an active content-generating community was stated as an explicit design goal. The game includes several pre-made terrains to build on, and also includes a map editor to allow users to create their own maps, including the use of real-world geographic features. Mods are also available to affect core gameplay elements; pre-packaged mods include the ability to bypass the aforementioned population tier unlock system, unlimited funds, and a higher difficulty setting.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: Finnish developer Colossal Order, a thirteen-person studio at the time "Cities: Skylines" was released, had established its reputation with the "Cities in Motion" series, which primarily dealt with constructing transportation systems in pre-defined cities. They wanted to move from this into a larger city simulation like the "SimCity" franchise, and in preparation, developed "Cities in Motion 2" using the Unity game engine to assure they had the capability to develop this larger effort. They pitched their ideas to their publisher, Paradox Interactive, but these initial pitches were focused on a political angle of managing a city rather than planning of it; the player would have been mayor of the city and set edicts and regulations to help their city grow. Paradox felt that these ideas did not present a strong enough case as to go up against the well-established "SimCity", and had Colossal Order revise their approach.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: The situation changed when the 2013 version of "SimCity" was released, and was critically panned due to several issues. Having gone back and forth with Colossal Order on the city simulation idea, Paradox used the market opportunity to greenlight the development of "Cities: Skylines".


title: Cities: Skylines

text: One goal of the game was to successfully simulate a city with up to a million residents. To help achieve this goal, the creators decided to simulate citizens navigating the city's roads and transit systems, to make the effects of road design and transit congestion a factor in city design. In this, they found that the growth and success of a city was fundamentally tied to how well the road system was laid out. Colossal Order had already been aware of the importance of road systems from "Cities in Motion", and felt that the visual indication of traffic and traffic congestion was an easy-to-comprehend sign of larger problems in a city's design.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: To represent traffic, Colossal Order developed a complex system that would determine the fastest route available for a simulated person going to and from work or other points of interest, taking into account available roads and public transit systems nearby. This simulated person would not swerve from their predetermined path unless the route was changed mid-transit, in which case they would be teleported back to their origin instead of calculating a new path from their current location. If the journey required the person to drive, a system of seven rules regulated their behaviour in traffic and how this was shown to the user, such as skipping some rules in locations of the simulation that had little impact while the player was not looking at those locations. This was done to avoid cascading traffic problems if the player adjusted the road system in real time. The city's user-designed transportation system creates a node-based graph used to determine these fastest paths and identifies intersections for these nodes. The system then simulates the movement of individuals on the roads and transit systems, accounting for other traffic on the road and basic physics (such as speed along slopes and the need for vehicles to slow down on tight curves), in order to accurately model traffic jams created by the layout and geography of the system. The developers found that their model accurately demonstrates the efficiency, or lack thereof, of some modern roadway intersections, such as the single-point urban interchange or the diverging diamond interchange.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: "Cities: Skylines" was announced by publisher Paradox Interactive on 14 August 2014 at Gamescom. The announcement trailer emphasized that players could "build [their] dream city," "mod and share online" and "play offline"—the third feature was interpreted by journalists as a jab at "SimCity", which initially required an Internet connection during play. "Skylines" uses an adapted Unity engine with official support for modding. The game was released on 10 March 2015, with Colossal Order committed to continuing to support the game after release.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: Tantalus Media assisted Paradox in porting the game to the Xbox One console and for Windows 10, which was released on 21 April 2017. This version includes the "After Dark" expansion bundled with the game, and supports all downloadable content. Tantalus also ported the game and the "After Dark" expansion for PlayStation 4, released on 15 August 2017. Both Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions received physical release versions distributed by Koch Media. Tantalus also ported the game for the Nintendo Switch, which was released on 13 September 2018 and included the "After Dark" and "Snowfall" expansions.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: The game was built from the ground up to be friendly to player-created modifications, interfacing with Steam Workshop. Colossal Order found that with "Cities in Motion", players had quickly begun to modify the game and expand on it. They wanted to encourage that behaviour in "Cities: Skylines", as they recognized that modding ability was important to players and would not devalue the game. Within a month of the game's release, over 20,000 assets had been created in the Workshop, including modifications that enabled a first-person mode and a flying simulator. As of February 2020, over 200,000 user-created items were available. Many of these fans have been able to use crowd-funding services like Patreon to fund their creation efforts. Paradox, recognizing fan-supported mods, started to engage with some of the modders to create official content packs for the game starting in 2016. The first of these was a new set of art deco-inspired buildings created by Matt Crux. Crux received a portion of the sales of the content from Paradox.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: An educational version of "Cities: Skylines" was developed by Colossal Order in conjunction with the group TeacherGaming and released in May 2018. This version includes tutorials and scenarios designed for use in a classroom, as well as a means for teachers to track a student's progress.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: A virtual reality adaptation of the game titled "Cities: VR", developed by Fast Travel Games, was released for Meta Quest 2 on April 28, 2022 and is set for release on PlayStation VR2.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: "Cities: Skylines" offers several DLC expansion packs. Formerly, DLC was developed for the Windows/MacOS/Linux versions first, while release for console versions tended to follow some months later. More recent expansions have been released on all platforms on the same day.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: The game also offers several “Content Creator Packs” that focus on assets created by popular asset creators. For every content creator pack, a portion of the proceeds goes to the pack’s creator.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: Upon release, "Cities: Skylines" received "generally positive" reception from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic. IGN awarded the game a score of 8.5 and said "Don’t expect exciting scenarios or random events, but do expect to be impressed by the scale and many moving parts of this city-builder." "Destructoid" gave the game a 9 out of 10 with the reviewer stating, ""Cities: Skylines" not only returns to the ideals which made the city-building genre so popular, it expands them. I enjoyed every minute I played this title, and the planning, building, and nurturing of my city brought forth imagination and creativity from me like few titles ever have." "The Escapist" gave "Cities: Skylines" a perfect score, noting its low price point and stated that despite a few minor flaws, it is "the finest city builder in over a decade."


title: Cities: Skylines

text: Much critical comparison was drawn between "SimCity" and "Cities: Skylines", with the former seen as the benchmark of the genre by many, including the CEO of Colossal Order. When the game was first announced, journalists perceived it as a competitor to the poorly received, 2013 reboot of "SimCity", describing it as "somewhat ... the antidote to Maxis' most recent effort with "SimCity"" and "out to satisfy where "SimCity" couldn't." A "Eurogamer" article touched upon "something of a size mismatch" between developer Colossal Order (then staffed by nine people) and Maxis, and their respective ambitions with "Skylines" and "SimCity". Critics generally considered "Cities: Skylines" to have superseded "SimCity" as the leading game of the genre, with "The Escapist" comparing the two on a variety of factors and finding "Cities: Skylines" to be the better game in every category considered. However, some critics did consider the absence of disasters and random events to be something that the game lacked in comparison to "SimCity", as well as a helpful and substantial tutorial. Disasters were added to the game in the aptly titled "Natural Disasters" DLC, as well as special buildings for detecting and responding to them.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: The city government of Stockholm, where Paradox's headquarters are located, used "Cities: Skylines" to plan a new transportation system. The developer of "Bus Simulator 18" planned out the roads and highways of the game's world map through "Cities: Skylines" before recreating it within their game to provide a seemingly realistic city and its facilities for the game. A Polish YouTuber recreated an interchange which was due to be built near Kraków in the game, showcasing its issues such as causing congestions and multiple lane-switching. In response, Polish General Directorate for National Roads and Highways ordered additional analysis, which confirmed the issues and the interchange was redesigned.


title: Cities: Skylines

text: "Cities: Skylines" has been Paradox's best-selling published title: within 24 hours, 250,000 copies had been sold; within a week, 500,000 copies; within a month, one million copies; and on its first anniversary, the game had reached two million copies sold. By its second anniversary, the game had reached 3.5 million sales. In March 2018, it was revealed that the game had sold more than five million copies on the PC platform alone. On the game's fourth anniversary in March 2019, Colossal Order announced that "Cities: Skylines" had surpassed six million units sold across all platforms. In June 2022, it was announced that the game had sold 12 million copies on all platforms.


title: Hanna (film)

text: Hanna is a 2011 action thriller film directed by Joe Wright. The film stars Saoirse Ronan as the title character, a girl raised in the wilderness of northern Finland by her father, an ex-CIA operative (Eric Bana), who trains her as an assassin. Cate Blanchett portrays a senior CIA agent who tries to track down and eliminate the girl and her father. The soundtrack was written by The Chemical Brothers.


title: Hanna (film)

text: "Hanna" was released in North America in April 2011 and in Europe in May 2011. It received generally positive reviews. Reviewers praised the performances of Ronan and Blanchett as well as the action sequences and themes.


title: Hanna (film)

text: Hanna Heller is a fifteen-year-old girl who lives with her father, Erik, in rural northern Finland. Since the age of two, Hanna has been trained by him, an ex-CIA operative from Germany, to be a skilled assassin. He teaches her hand-to-hand combat and drills her in target shooting. Erik knows a secret that cannot become public and Marissa Wiegler, a senior CIA officer, seeks to eliminate him.


title: Hanna (film)

text: Erik has trained Hanna with the intent to kill Marissa. One night, she tells him she is "ready" to face their enemies. Erik digs up a radio beacon that will alert the CIA to their presence. Although he warns Hanna that a confrontation with Marissa will be fatal for either her or Marissa, he leaves the final decision to her and she activates the beacon. Erik leaves, instructing her to meet him in Berlin.


title: Hanna (film)

text: Hanna is seized by special forces and taken to an underground CIA complex where a suspicious Marissa sends a decoy to interrogate Hanna when she asks for her by name. While talking to the double, Hanna starts to cry and embraces her tightly, which makes her captors uneasy. They send guards to sedate her.


title: Hanna (film)

text: As they enter the cell, Hanna kills the double along with some guards and escapes, discovering that she is in Morocco. Hanna meets Sebastian and Rachel, who are on a camper-van holiday with their children, Sophie and Miles, and stows away in the vehicle on a ferry to Spain, seeking to reach Berlin. The family is kind to her, and she and Sophie become friends: Hanna even tells her about the Berlin rendezvous and they kiss.


title: Hanna (film)

text: Marissa hires Isaacs, a sadistic former agent, to capture Hanna while other agents are searching for Erik. She kills Hanna's maternal grandmother after failing to learn anything useful from her. Isaacs and two skinheads have discovered from the Moroccan hotelier with whom Hanna escaped and trail them. Cornering her and the family sometime down the road, Isaacs attacks but Hanna manages to escape after a vicious fight.


title: Hanna (film)

text: Marissa interrogates the family and discovers from Miles that Hanna is heading to Berlin. The family is never seen again. Meanwhile, in Berlin, Erik fights off an attempted assassination and tries but fails to kill Marissa.


title: Hanna (film)

text: Arriving at the rendezvous in an abandoned Berlin amusement park, Hanna meets Knepfler, an eccentric magician and friend of Erik's who lives there. Before Erik arrives, Marissa and Isaacs appear. Hanna escapes, but overhears comments that suggest Erik is not her biological father.


title: Hanna (film)

text: Hanna then goes to her grandmother's empty apartment where she finds Erik, who admits he is not her biological father but loves her as his own. He explains that he once recruited pregnant women into a CIA program where their children's DNA was enhanced to create super-soldiers. After the project was shut down, its subjects – all except Hanna – were eliminated.