title: Cotton gin

text: Whitney's gin used a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through, while brushes continuously removed the loose cotton lint to prevent jams. It revolutionized the cotton industry in the United States, but also led to the growth of slavery in the American South. Whitney's gin made cotton farming more profitable, so plantation owners expanded their plantations and used more enslaved people to pick the cotton. Whitney never invented a machine to harvest cotton: it still had to be picked by hand. The invention has thus been identified as an inadvertent contributing factor to the outbreak of the American Civil War. Modern automated cotton gins use multiple powered cleaning cylinders and saws, and offer far higher productivity than their hand-powered precursors.


title: Cotton gin

text: Cotton fibers are produced in the seed pods ("bolls") of the cotton plant where the fibers ("lint") in the bolls are tightly interwoven with seeds. To make the fibers usable, the seeds and fibers must first be separated, a task which had been previously performed manually, with production of cotton requiring hours of labor for the separation. Many simple seed-removing devices had been invented, but until the innovation of the cotton gin, most required significant operator attention and worked only on a small scale.


title: Cotton gin

text: The gin stand uses the teeth of rotating saws to pull the cotton through a series of "ginning ribs", which pull the fibers from the seeds which are too large to pass through the ribs. The cleaned seed is then removed from the gin via an auger conveyor system. The seed is reused for planting or is sent to an oil mill to be further processed into cottonseed oil and cottonseed meal. The lint cleaners again use saws and grid bars, this time to separate immature seeds and any remaining foreign matter from the fibers. The bale press then compresses the cotton into bales for storage and shipping. Modern gins can process up to 15 tonnes (33,000 lb) of cotton per hour.


title: Cotton gin

text: A single-roller cotton gin came into use in India by the 5th century. An improvement invented in India was the two-roller gin, known as the "churka", "charki", or "wooden-worm-worked roller".


title: Cotton gin

text: The earliest versions of the cotton gin consisted of a single roller made of iron or wood and a flat piece of stone or wood. The earliest evidence of the cotton gin is found in the fifth century, in the form of Buddhist paintings depicting a single-roller gin in the Ajanta Caves in western India. These early gins were difficult to use and required a great deal of skill. A narrow single roller was necessary to expel the seeds from the cotton without crushing the seeds. The design was similar to that of a mealing stone, which was used to grind grain. The early history of the cotton gin is ambiguous, because archeologists likely mistook the cotton gin's parts for other tools.


title: Cotton gin

text: Between the 12th and 14th centuries, dual-roller gins appeared in India and China. The Indian version of the dual-roller gin was prevalent throughout the Mediterranean cotton trade by the 16th century. This mechanical device was, in some areas, driven by water power.


title: Cotton gin

text: The worm gear roller gin, which was invented in the Indian subcontinent during the early Delhi Sultanate era of the 13th to 14th centuries, came into use in the Mughal Empire sometime around the 16th century, and is still used in the Indian subcontinent through to the present day. Another innovation, the incorporation of the crank handle in the cotton gin, first appeared sometime during the late Delhi Sultanate or the early Mughal Empire. The incorporation of the worm gear and crank handle into the roller cotton gin led to greatly expanded Indian cotton textile production during the Mughal era.


title: Cotton gin

text: It was reported that, with an Indian cotton gin, which is half machine and half tool, one man and one woman could clean 28 pounds of cotton per day. With a modified Forbes version, one man and a boy could produce 250 pounds per day. If oxen were used to power 16 of these machines, and a few people's labour was used to feed them, they could produce as much work as 750 people did formerly.


title: Cotton gin

text: The Indian roller cotton gin, known as the "churka" or "charkha", was introduced to the United States in the mid-18th century, when it was adopted in the southern United States. The device was adopted for cleaning long-staple cotton, but was not suitable for the short-staple cotton that was more common in certain states such as Georgia. Several modifications were made to the Indian roller gin by Mr. Krebs in 1772 and Joseph Eve in 1788, but their uses remained limited to the long-staple variety, up until Eli Whitney's development of a short-staple cotton gin in 1793.


title: Cotton gin

text: Eli Whitney (1765–1825) applied for a patent of his cotton gin on October 28, 1793; the patent was granted on March 14, 1794, but was not validated until 1807. Whitney's patent was assigned patent number 72X. There is slight controversy over whether the idea of the modern cotton gin and its constituent elements are correctly attributed to Eli Whitney. The popular image of Whitney inventing the cotton gin is attributed to an article on the subject written in the early 1870s and later reprinted in 1910 in "The Library of Southern Literature". In this article, the author claimed Catharine Littlefield Greene suggested to Whitney the use of a brush-like component instrumental in separating out the seeds and cotton. To date, Greene's alleged role in the invention of the gin has not been verified independently.


title: Cotton gin

text: Whitney's cotton gin model was capable of cleaning of lint per day. The model consisted of a wooden cylinder covered by rows of slender wires which caught the fibers of the cotton balls. Each row of wires then passed through the bars of a comb-like grid, pulling the cotton fibers through the grid as they did. The comb-like teeth of the grids were closely spaced, preventing the seeds, fragments of the hard dried calyx of the original cotton flower, or sticks and other debris attached to the fibers from passing through. A series of brushes on a second rotating cylinder then brushed the now-cleaned fibers loose from the wires, preventing the mechanism from jamming.


title: Cotton gin

text: Many contemporary inventors attempted to develop a design that would process short staple cotton, and Hodgen Holmes, Robert Watkins, William Longstreet, and John Murray had all been issued patents for improvements to the cotton gin by 1796. However, the evidence indicates Whitney did invent the saw gin, for which he is famous. Although he spent many years in court attempting to enforce his patent against planters who made unauthorized copies, a change in patent law ultimately made his claim legally enforceable – too late for him to make much money from the device in the single year remaining before the patent expired.


title: Cotton gin

text: While Whitney's gin facilitated the cleaning of seeds from short-staple cotton, it damaged the fibers of extra-long staple cotton ("Gossypium barbadense"). In 1840 Fones McCarthy received a patent for a "Smooth Cylinder Cotton-gin", a roller gin. McCarthy's gin was marketed for use with both short-staple and extra-long staple cotton, but was particularly useful for processing long-staple cotton. After McCarthy's patent expired in 1861, McCarthy type gins were manufactured in Britain and sold around the world. McCarthy's gin was adopted for cleaning the Sea Island variety of extra-long staple cotton grown in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. It cleaned cotton several times faster than the older gins, and, when powered by one horse, produced 150 to 200 pounds of lint a day. The McCarthy gin used a reciprocating knife to detach seed from the lint. Vibration caused by the reciprocating motion limited the speed at which the gin could operate. In the middle of the 20th Century gins using a rotating blade replaced ones using a reciprocating blade. These descendants of the McCarthy gin are the only gins now used for extra-long staple cotton in the United States.


title: Cotton gin

text: For a decade and a half after the end of the Civil War in 1865, a number of innovative features became widely used for ginning in the United States. They included steam power instead of animal power, an automatic feeder to assure that the gin stand ran smoothly, a condenser to make the clean cotton coming out of the gin easier to handle, and indoor presses so that cotton no longer had to be carried across the gin yard to be baled. Then, in 1879, while he was running his father's gin in Rutersville, Texas, Robert S. Munger invented additional system ginning techniques. Robert and his wife, Mary Collett, later moved to Mexia, Texas, built a system gin, and obtained related patents.


title: Cotton gin

text: The Munger System Ginning Outfit (or system gin) integrated all the ginning operation machinery, thus assuring the cotton would flow through the machines smoothly. Such system gins use air to move cotton from machine to machine. Munger's motivation for his inventions included improving employee working conditions in the gin. However, the selling point for most gin owners was the accompanying cost savings while producing cotton both more speedily and of higher quality.


title: Cotton gin

text: By the 1960s, many other advances had been made in ginning machinery, but the manner in which cotton flowed through the gin machinery continued to be the Munger system.


title: Cotton gin

text: Economic Historian William H. Phillips referred to the development of system ginning as "The Munger Revolution" in cotton ginning. He wrote,


title: Cotton gin

text: "The Munger innovations were the culmination of what geographer Charles S. Aiken has termed the second ginning revolution, in which the privately owned plantation gins were replaced by large-scale public ginneries. This revolution, in turn, led to a major restructuring of the cotton gin industry, as the small, scattered gin factories and shops of the nineteenth century gave way to a dwindling number of large twentieth-century corporations designing and constructing entire ginning operations."


title: Cotton gin

text: One of the few (and perhaps only) examples of a Munger gin left in existence is on display at Frogmore Plantation in Louisiana.


title: Cotton gin

text: Prior to the introduction of the mechanical cotton gin, cotton had required considerable labor to clean and separate the fibers from the seeds. With Eli Whitney's gin, cotton became a tremendously profitable business, creating many fortunes in the Antebellum South. Cities such as New Orleans, Louisiana; Mobile, Alabama; Charleston, South Carolina; and Galveston, Texas became major shipping ports, deriving substantial economic benefit from cotton raised throughout the South. Additionally, the greatly expanded supply of cotton created strong demand for textile machinery and improved machine designs that replaced wooden parts with metal. This led to the invention of many machine tools in the early 19th century.


title: Cotton gin

text: The invention of the cotton gin caused massive growth in the production of cotton in the United States, concentrated mostly in the South. Cotton production expanded from 750,000 bales in 1830 to 2.85 million bales in 1850. As a result, the region became even more dependent on plantations that used black enslaved labor, with plantation agriculture becoming the largest sector of its economy. While it took a single laborer about ten hours to separate a single pound of fiber from the seeds, a team of two or three enslaved people using a cotton gin could produce around fifty pounds of cotton in just one day. The number of enslaved people rose in concert with the increase in cotton production, increasing from around 700,000 in 1790 to around 3.2 million in 1850. The invention of the cotton gin led to increased demands for enslaved labor in the American South, reversing the economic decline that had occurred in the region during the late 18th century. The cotton gin thus "transformed cotton as a crop and the American South into the globe's first agricultural powerhouse".


title: Cotton gin

text: Because of its inadvertent effect on American slavery, and on its ensuring that the South's economy developed in the direction of plantation-based agriculture (while encouraging the growth of the textile industry elsewhere, such as in the North), the invention of the cotton gin is frequently cited as one of the indirect causes of the American Civil War.


title: Cotton gin

text: In modern cotton production, cotton arrives at industrial cotton gins either in trailers, in compressed rectangular "modules" weighing up to 10 metric tons each or in polyethylene wrapped round modules similar to a bale of hay produced during the picking process by the most recent generation of cotton pickers. Trailer cotton (i.e. cotton not compressed into modules) arriving at the gin is sucked in via a pipe, approximately in diameter, that is swung over the cotton. This pipe is usually manually operated, but is increasingly automated in modern cotton plants. The need for trailers to haul the product to the gin has been drastically reduced since the introduction of modules. If the cotton is shipped in modules, the module feeder breaks the modules apart using spiked rollers and extracts the largest pieces of foreign material from the cotton. The module feeder's loose cotton is then sucked into the same starting point as the trailer cotton.


title: Cotton gin

text: The cotton then enters a dryer, which removes excess moisture. The cylinder cleaner uses six or seven rotating, spiked cylinders to break up large clumps of cotton. Finer foreign material, such as soil and leaves, passes through rods or screens for removal. The stick machine uses centrifugal force to remove larger foreign matter, such as sticks and burrs, while the cotton is held by rapidly rotating saw cylinders.


title: Cotton gin

text: The gin stand uses the teeth of rotating saws to pull the cotton through a series of "ginning ribs", which pull the fibers from the seeds which are too large to pass through the ribs. The cleaned seed is then removed from the gin via an auger conveyor system. The seed is reused for planting or is sent to an oil mill to be further processed into cottonseed oil and cottonseed meal. The lint cleaners again use saws and grid bars, this time to separate immature seeds and any remaining foreign matter from the fibers. The bale press then compresses the cotton into bales for storage and shipping. Modern gins can process up to of cotton per hour.


title: Cotton gin

text: Modern cotton gins create a substantial amount of cotton gin residue (CGR) consisting of sticks, leaves, dirt, immature bolls, and cottonseed. Research is currently under way to investigate the use of this waste in producing ethanol. Due to fluctuations in the chemical composition in processing, there is difficulty in creating a consistent ethanol process, but there is potential to further maximize the utilization of waste in the cotton production.


title: Noah Jupe

text: Noah Jupe (born ) is a British actor. He is known for his roles in the television series "The Night Manager" (2016); the dark comedy film "Suburbicon" (2017); the drama film "Wonder" (2017); the horror film "A Quiet Place" (2018) and its sequel "A Quiet Place Part II" (2021); the sports drama film "Ford v Ferrari" (2019); the drama film "Honey Boy" (2019), for which he was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male; and the miniseries "The Undoing" (2020).


title: Noah Jupe

text: Noah Jupe was born to filmmaker Chris Jupe and actress Katy Cavanagh. He has a younger sister and a younger brother.


title: Noah Jupe

text: Jupe started his acting career in 2015 by appearing in the television series "Penny Dreadful" and "Downton Abbey". Later in 2016, he played a significant role in the spy thriller series "The Night Manager". In 2016, he also played a significant role in the series "Houdini & Doyle".


title: Noah Jupe

text: In 2017, he started his career in films, with his first major role being in "The Man with the Iron Heart", a World War II drama. Also that year, he appeared in the British film "That Good Night"; had one of the lead roles in the black comedy film "Suburbicon", directed by George Clooney; and appeared in the comedy-drama "Wonder" as Jack Will, best friend to Auggie Pullman. Also in 2017, he was cast in the short film adaptation of Stephen King's "My Pretty Pony".


title: Noah Jupe

text: In 2018, he starred in the science fiction film "The Titan", and in the horror film "A Quiet Place". John Krasinski, who cowrote and directed "A Quiet Place", cast Jupe on Clooney's recommendation.


title: Noah Jupe

text: In 2019, Jupe starred in "Honey Boy" opposite Shia LaBeouf. The independent film is based on LaBeouf's coming-of-age in the entertainment industry, with Jupe playing the young version of the character based on LaBeouf. That same year, Jupe also starred in the film "Ford v Ferrari". In 2020, he starred in the miniseries "The Undoing".


title: Noah Jupe

text: Jupe was featured among "The 12 Young Creatives" in British "Vogue"'s March 2021 issue. He reprised his role as Marcus Abbott in "A Quiet Place Part II" later that year. Jupe will voice Peter in the upcoming animated film "The Magician's Elephant". In 2022, it was announced that he had been cast in the sci-fi drama film "Morning", directed by Justin Kurzel. Additionally, he was cast to star in Apple TV+'s two miniseries "Franklin" and "Lady in the Lake".


title: American Horror Story: Cult

text: American Horror Story: Cult, stylised onscreen as AHS: Cult, is the seventh season of the FX horror anthology television series "American Horror Story", created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. It premiered on September 5, 2017, and concluded on November 14, 2017. The subtitle "Cult" was announced on July 20, 2017. This season takes place in the fictional suburb of Brookfield Heights, Michigan, during the year 2017, and centers on a cult terrorizing the residents in the aftermath of Donald Trump winning the 2016 U.S. presidential election.


title: American Horror Story: Cult

text: Returning cast members from previous seasons include Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Cheyenne Jackson, John Carroll Lynch, Chaz Bono, Adina Porter, James Morosini, Emma Roberts, Mare Winningham, Frances Conroy, and Jamie Brewer, along with new cast members Billie Lourd and Alison Pill.


title: American Horror Story: Cult

text: "Cult" received mostly positive reviews from critics, although the depiction of U.S. politics received some criticism. Paulson, Peters, and Porter, all received Saturn Awards nominations for their performances. Additionally, Paulson and Porter were nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie respectively at the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards while Peters received a nomination for Best Actor in a Movie or Limited Series at the 8th Critics' Choice TV Awards.


title: American Horror Story: Cult

text: Skyler Samuels and Esai Morales reportedly had roles in the series, but they were cut for unknown reasons. Samuels previously starred in "Freakshow".


title: American Horror Story: Cult

text: On October 4, 2016, the series was renewed for a seventh cycle, which premiered on September 5, 2017. Ryan Murphy confirmed that the season will be connected to "", but will be set in modern day. In February 2017, on "Watch What Happens Live", Murphy announced that the season would revolve around the 2016 U.S. election and suggested that it may feature a character based on President Donald Trump. Murphy has said that the season will be representative of both sides of the political divide. He also said that he will be "illuminating and highlighting" groups of people he believes to be "ignored by the current [Trump] administration and who are afraid and feel terrorized that their lives are going to be taken away."


title: American Horror Story: Cult

text: It was later confirmed that the season would be set in the aftermath of the presidential election, with the first episode taking place on election night. Murphy explained it will be about "the fallout of that night, which to many people, from all sides of the camps is a horror story." He also revealed the season would not feature Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, stating ""Horror Story" is always about allegory, so the election is allegory." In April 2017, Murphy confirmed that archive footage of the election night would be used in the season premiere.


title: American Horror Story: Cult

text: Murphy revealed via Twitter that the details of the seventh season, including the title, would be revealed on July 20. He also teased that the opening sequence of the series would return in this season, following its absence in "".


title: American Horror Story: Cult

text: On July 20, 2017, it was announced at the San Diego Comic-Con that the title of the season would be "Cult". Murphy also revealed it would be set in Michigan, and confirmed it would consist of a total of 11 episodes, premiering on September 5, 2017. For the first time, the series did not air on Wednesdays but rather on Tuesdays. On August 3, 2017, online posters revealed the names of multiple characters of the season. On August 21, 2017, the opening title sequence of the season was revealed, following its absence in the previous season. That same month, Murphy confirmed that, contrary to the past seasons, "Cult" would not feature supernatural elements.


title: American Horror Story: Cult

text: During the Winter 2017 TCA Press Tour, series mainstays Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters were reported to be starring as the leads in the season. In March 2017, "Billy on the Street" host Billy Eichner was announced to be cast in the series, playing a role in the life of Paulson's character. His character is slated for appearing in "six or seven" episodes. The next month, it was reported that "Scream Queens" actress Billie Lourd will also star in the seventh installment of the series. In May 2017, Leslie Grossman, who starred in Murphy's series "Popular", joined the cast of the series, and Angela Bassett hinted she may return in a recurring role. Despite this, Bassett didn't appear, but she did direct the episode "Drink the Kool-Aid". Later that month, it was confirmed via set pictures that Adina Porter and Cheyenne Jackson were also returning. In June 2017, Murphy confirmed via his Instagram account that Colton Haynes, whom Murphy worked with previously on second season of "Scream Queens", was joining the casting for the seventh season. Later that month, set pictures revealed that Alison Pill was joining the cast of the season, seemingly portraying the partner of Sarah Paulson's character. In July 2017, Murphy revealed via his Twitter account that Lena Dunham was joining the season. She played Valerie Solanas, author of the "SCUM Manifesto" and attempted murderer of Andy Warhol, via flashbacks. Murphy also confirmed the returns of Frances Conroy and Mare Winningham. Conroy has appeared in all the seasons except "Hotel", while Winningham has appeared in "Coven", "Freak Show", and "Hotel". In August 2017, Murphy confirmed the return of Emma Roberts, who appeared in "Coven" and "Freak Show", while "Roanoke" actors Chaz Bono and James Morosini also confirmed their returns. In the seventh episode, "Murder House", "Coven", and "Freak Show" actress Jamie Brewer returned to the show.


title: American Horror Story: Cult

text: On June 26, 2017, it was confirmed that Lady Gaga would not return for the seventh season due to other projects. Despite rumors, "Entertainment Weekly" reported on July 7, 2017, that Vera Farmiga, sister of "American Horror Story" actress Taissa Farmiga, would not appear in the season. Later that month, it was confirmed by "The Hollywood Reporter" that Kathy Bates will not appear in "Cult", after four seasons of regular appearances.


title: American Horror Story: Cult

text: Murphy also revealed via his Instagram account that "" character Twisty the Clown would return in the seventh season, indicating that John Carroll Lynch would reprise his role.


title: American Horror Story: Cult

text: In February 2017, it was announced the season would begin principal photography in June 2017. By the next month, filming was moved to May 2017. On May 24, 2017, writer and producer John J. Gray confirmed the show started filming.


title: American Horror Story: Cult

text: On October 7, 2017, it was confirmed that the sixth episode of the season would be edited as a direct result of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting that occurred on October 1, 2017. The episode originally featured a scene lasting 2 minutes and 16 seconds where Leslie Grossman's character Meadow Wilton begins to fire at Evan Peters' character, as well as a crowd, during a campaign speech. The episode was edited to de-emphasize the violence and to mostly have it featured completely off-screen - as a result the opening sequence of the episode was cut in half, several on-screen deaths were removed and two separate close-up shots of the handgun firing were removed.


title: American Horror Story: Cult

text: While only the edited episode was broadcast on FX, the original uncut episode was released via VOD, FXNOW and FX+.


title: American Horror Story: Cult

text: "American Horror Story: Cult" received mostly positive reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the season a 73% approval rating, with an average rating of 7.05/10, based on 49 reviews. The site's consensus reads, ""American Horror Story: Cult" intrigues with timely, over-the-top creepiness - and lots of clowns - despite being hampered by broad political generalizations and occasional holes in the narrative's logic." On Metacritic, the season was given a score of 66 out of 100 based on 24 reviews, indicating "generally positive reviews".


title: Desktop computer

text: A desktop computer (often abbreviated desktop) is a personal computer designed for regular use at a single location on or near a desk due to its size and power requirements. The most common configuration has a case that houses the power supply, motherboard (a printed circuit board with a microprocessor as the central processing unit, memory, bus, certain peripherals and other electronic components), disk storage (usually one or more hard disk drives, solid state drives, optical disc drives, and in early models a floppy disk drive); a keyboard and mouse for input; and a computer monitor, speakers, and, often, a printer for output. The case may be oriented horizontally or vertically and placed either underneath, beside, or on top of a desk.


title: Desktop computer

text: Personal computers with their cases oriented vertically are referred to as towers. As the majority of cases offered since the mid-1990s are in this form factor, the term "desktop" has been retronymically used to refer to modern cases offered in the traditional horizontal orientation.


title: Desktop computer

text: Prior to the widespread use of microprocessors, a computer that could fit on a desk was considered remarkably small; the type of computers most commonly used were minicomputers, which, despite the name, were rather large and were "mini" only compared to the so-called "big iron". Early computers, and later the general purpose high throughput «mainframes», took up the space of a whole room. Minicomputers, on the contrary, generally fit into one or a few refrigerator-sized racks, or, for the few smaller ones, "built into" a fairly large desk, not put "on top" of it.


title: Desktop computer

text: It was not until the 1970s when fully programmable computers appeared that could fit entirely on top of a desk. 1970 saw the introduction of the Datapoint 2200, a "smart" computer terminal complete with keyboard and monitor, was designed to connect with a mainframe computer but that didn't stop owners from using its built-in computational abilities as a stand-alone desktop computer. The HP 9800 series, which started out as programmable calculators in 1971 but was programmable in BASIC by 1972, used a smaller version of a minicomputer design based on ROM memory and had small one-line LED alphanumeric displays and displayed graphics with a plotter. The Wang 2200 of 1973 had a full-size cathode-ray tube (CRT) and cassette tape storage. The IBM 5100 in 1975 had a small CRT display and could be programmed in BASIC and APL. These were generally expensive specialized computers sold for business or scientific uses.


title: Desktop computer

text: Apple II, TRS-80 and Commodore PET were first generation personal home computers launched in 1977, which were aimed at the consumer market – rather than businessmen or computer hobbyists. "Byte" magazine referred to these three as the "1977 Trinity" of personal computing. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, desktop computers became the predominant type, the most popular being the IBM PC and its clones, followed by the Apple Macintosh, with the third-placed Commodore Amiga having some success in the mid-1980s but declining by the early 1990s.


title: Desktop computer

text: Early personal computers, like the original IBM Personal Computer, were enclosed in a ""desktop case"", horizontally oriented to have the display screen placed on top, thus saving space on the user's actual desk, although these cases had to be sturdy enough to support the weight of CRT displays that were widespread at the time. Over the course of the 1990s, desktop cases gradually became less common than the more-accessible tower cases that may be located on the floor under or beside a desk rather than on a desk. Not only do these tower cases have more room for expansion, they have also freed up desk space for monitors which were becoming larger every year. Desktop cases, particularly the compact form factors, remain popular for corporate computing environments and kiosks. Some computer cases can be interchangeably positioned either horizontally (desktop) or upright (mini-tower).


title: Desktop computer

text: Influential games such as "Doom" and "Quake" during the 1990s had pushed gamers and enthusiasts to frequently upgrade to the latest CPUs and graphics cards (3dfx, ATI, and Nvidia) for their desktops (usually a tower case) in order to run these applications, though this has slowed since the late 2000s as the growing popularity of Intel integrated graphics forced game developers to scale back. Creative Technology's Sound Blaster series were a "de facto" standard for sound cards in desktop PCs during the 1990s until the early 2000s, when they were reduced to a niche product, as OEM desktop PCs came with sound boards integrated directly onto the motherboard.


title: Desktop computer

text: While desktops have long been the most common configuration for PCs, by the mid-2000s the growth shifted from desktops to laptops. Notably, while desktops were mainly produced in the United States, laptops had long been produced by contract manufacturers based in Asia, such as Foxconn. This shift led to the closure of the many desktop assembly plants in the United States by 2010. Another trend around this time was the increasing proportion of inexpensive base-configuration desktops being sold, hurting PC manufacturers such as Dell whose build-to-order customization of desktops relied on upselling added features to buyers.


title: Desktop computer

text: Battery-powered portable computers had just a 2% worldwide market share in 1986. However, laptops have become increasingly popular, both for business and personal use.


title: Desktop computer

text: In 2008, it was estimated that 145.9 million notebooks were sold and that the number would grow in 2009 to 177.7 million. The third quarter of 2008 was the first time when worldwide notebook PC shipments exceeded desktops, with 38.6 million units versus 38.5 million units.


title: Desktop computer

text: The sales breakdown of the Apple Macintosh has seen sales of desktop Macs staying mostly constant while being surpassed by that of Mac notebooks whose sales rate has grown considerably; seven out of ten Macs sold were laptops in 2009, a ratio projected to rise to three out of four by 2010. The change in sales of form factors is due to the desktop iMac moving from affordable G3 to upscale G4 model and subsequent releases are considered premium all-in-ones. By contrast, the MSRP of the MacBook laptop lines have dropped through successive generations such that the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro constitute the lowest price of entry to a Mac, with the exception of the even more inexpensive Mac Mini (albeit without a monitor and keyboard), and the MacBooks are the top-selling form factors of the Macintosh platform today.


title: Desktop computer

text: The decades of development mean that most people already own desktop computers that meet their needs and have no need of buying a new one merely to keep pace with advancing technology. Notably, the successive release of new versions of Windows (Windows 95, 98, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10 and so on) had been drivers for the replacement of PCs in the 1990s, but this slowed in the 2000s due to the poor reception of Windows Vista over Windows XP. Recently, some analysts have suggested that Windows 8 has actually hurt sales of PCs in 2012, as businesses have decided to stick with Windows 7 rather than upgrade. Some suggested that Microsoft has acknowledged "implicitly ringing the desktop PC death knell" as Windows 8 offers little upgrade in desktop PC functionality over Windows 7; instead, Windows 8's innovations are mostly on the mobile side.


title: Desktop computer

text: The post-PC trend has seen a decline in the sales of desktop and laptop PCs. The decline has been attributed to increased power and applications of alternative computing devices, namely smartphones and tablet computers. Although most people exclusively use their smartphones and tablets for more basic tasks such as social media and casual gaming, these devices have in many instances replaced a second or third PC in the household that would have performed these tasks, though most families still retain a powerful PC for serious work.


title: Desktop computer

text: Among PC form factors, desktops remain a staple in the enterprise market but have lost popularity among home buyers. PC makers and electronics retailers have responded by investing their engineering and marketing resources towards laptops (initially netbooks in the late 2000s, and then the higher-performance Ultrabooks from 2011 onwards), which manufacturers believe have more potential to revive the PC market than desktops.


title: Desktop computer

text: In April 2017, StatCounter declared a "Milestone in technology history and end of an era" with the Android operating system more popular than Windows (the operating system that made desktops dominant over mainframe computers). Windows is still most popular on desktops (and laptops), while smartphones (and tablets) use Android, iOS or Windows 10 Mobile.


title: Desktop computer

text: Although for casual use traditional desktops and laptops have seen a decline in sales, in 2018, global PC sales experienced a resurgence, driven by the business market. Desktops remain a solid fixture in the commercial and educational sectors. In addition, gaming desktops have seen a global revenue increase of 54% annually. For gaming, the global market of gaming desktops, laptops, and monitors is expected to grow to 61.1 million shipments by the end of 2023, up from 42.1 million, with desktops growing from 15.1 million shipments to 19 million. PC gaming as a whole now accounts for 28% of the total gaming market as of 2017. This is partially due to the increasing affordability of desktop PCs.


title: Desktop computer

text: Full-sized desktops are characterized by separate display and processing components. These components are connected to each other by cables or wireless connections. They often come in a tower form factor. These computers are easy to customize and upgrade per user requirements, e.g. by expansion card.


title: Desktop computer

text: Early extended-size (significantly larger that mainstream ATX case) tower computers sometimes were labeled as "deskside computers", but currently this naming being quite rare.


title: Desktop computer

text: Compact desktops are reduced in physical proportions compared to full-sized desktops. They are typically small-sized, inexpensive, low-power computers designed for basic tasks such as web browsing, accessing web-based applications, document processing, and audio/video playback. Hardware specifications and processing power are usually reduced and hence make them less appropriate for running complex or resource-intensive applications. A nettop is a notable example of a compact desktop. A laptop without a screen can functionally be used as a compact desktop, sometimes called a "slabtop".


title: Desktop computer

text: An "all-in-one" (AIO) desktop computer integrates the system's internal components into the same case as the display, thus occupying a smaller footprint (with fewer cables) than desktops that incorporate a tower. The All-in-one systems are rarely labeled as desktop computers.


title: Desktop computer

text: Gaming computers are desktop computers with high performance CPU, GPU, and RAM optimized for playing video games at high resolution and frame rates. Gaming computer peripheries usually include mechanical keyboards for faster response time, and a gaming computer mouse which can track higher dots per inch movement.


title: Desktop computer

text: These desktops are connected to home entertainment systems and typically used for amusement purpose. They come with high definition display, video graphics, surround sound and TV tuner systems to complement typical PC features.


title: Desktop computer

text: Over time some traditional desktop computers have been replaced with thin clients utilizing off-site computing solutions like the cloud. As more services and applications are served over the internet from off-site servers, local computing needs decrease, this drives desktop computers to be smaller, cheaper, and need less powerful hardware. More applications and in some cases entire virtual desktops are moved off-site and the desktop computer runs only an operating system or a shell application while the actual content is served from a server. Thin client computers may do almost all of their computing on a virtual machine in another site. Internal, hosted virtual desktops can offer users a completely consistent experience from anywhere.


title: Desktop computer

text: Workstations are advanced class of personal computers designed for a user and more powerful than a regular PC but less powerful than a server in regular computing. They are capable of high-resolution and three-dimensional interfaces, and typically used to perform scientific and engineering work. Like server computers, they are often connected with other workstations. The main form-factor for this class is a Tower case, but most vendors produce a compact or all-in-one low-end workstations. Most of tower workstations can be converted to a rack-mount version.


title: Desktop computer

text: Oriented for small business class of servers; typically entry-level server machines, with similar to workstation/gaming PC computing powers and with some mainstream servers features, but with only basic graphic abilities; and some desktop servers can be converted to workstations.


title: Desktop computer

text: On January 29, 2021 Shenzhen SpinQ Technology announced that they will release the first-ever desktop quantum computer. this will be a miniaturized version of their previous quantum computer based on the same technology (nuclear magnetic resonance) and will be 2 qubit device. Applications will mostly be educational for high school and college students. the company claims SpinQ will be released to the public by the fourth quarter of 2021.


title: Desktop computer

text: Desktops have an advantage over laptops in that the spare parts and extensions tend to be standardized, resulting in lower prices and greater availability. For example, the size and mounting of the motherboard are standardized into ATX, microATX, BTX or other form factors. Desktops have several standardized expansion slots, like conventional PCI or PCI Express, while laptops tend to have only one mini-PCI slot and one PC Card slot (or ExpressCard slot). Procedures for assembly and disassembly of desktops tend to be simple and standardized as well. This tends not to be the case for laptops, though adding or replacing some parts, like the optical drive, hard disk, or adding an extra memory module is often quite simple. This means that a desktop computer configuration, usually a tower case, can be customized and upgraded to a greater extent than laptops. This customization has kept tower cases popular among gamers and enthusiasts.


title: Desktop computer

text: Another advantage of the desktop is that (apart from environmental concerns) power consumption is not as critical as in laptop computers because the desktop is exclusively powered from the wall socket. Desktop computers also provide more space for cooling fans and vents to dissipate heat, allowing enthusiasts to overclock with less risk. The two large microprocessor manufacturers, Intel and AMD, have developed special CPUs for mobile computers (i.e. laptops) that consume less power and lower heat, but with lower performance levels.


title: Desktop computer

text: Laptop computers, conversely, offer portability that desktop systems (including small form factor and all-in-one desktops) can not due to their compact size and clamshell design. The laptop's all-in-one design provides a built-in keyboard and a pointing device (such as a touchpad) for its user and can draw on power supplied by a rechargeable battery. Laptops also commonly integrate wireless technologies like WiFi, Bluetooth, and 3G, giving them a broader range of options for connecting to the internet, though this trend is changing as newer desktop computers come integrated with one or more of these technologies.


title: Desktop computer

text: A desktop computer needs a UPS to handle electrical disturbances like short interruptions, blackouts, and spikes; achieving an on-battery time of more than 20–30 minutes for a desktop PC requires a large and expensive UPS. A laptop with a sufficiently charged battery can continue to be used for hours in case of a power outage and is not affected by short power interruptions and blackouts.


title: Desktop computer

text: A desktop computer often has the advantage over a comparable laptop in computational capacity. Overclocking is often more feasible on a desktop than on a laptop; similarly, hardware add-ons such as discrete graphics co-processors may be possible to install only in a desktop.


title: Leo Sayer

text: Gerard Hugh "Leo" Sayer (born 21 May 1948) is an English-Australian singer and songwriter whose singing career has spanned five decades. He has been an Australian citizen and resident since 2009.


title: Leo Sayer

text: Sayer launched his career in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s, and he became a top singles and album act on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1970s. His first seven hit singles in the United Kingdom all reached the Top 10 – a feat first accomplished by his first manager, Adam Faith. His songs have been sung by other notable artists, including Cliff Richard ("Dreaming"), Roger Daltrey, and Three Dog Night.


title: Leo Sayer

text: Sayer was born and raised in Shoreham-by-Sea in Sussex to an Irish mother and an English father. His mother was Theresa Nolan, who was born in Maguiresbridge in County Fermanagh in the north of Ireland. Theresa was raised on her father's small farm at Edenmore, a townland near the hamlet of Killesher, also in County Fermanagh. Killesher is close to the village of Florencecourt in the south-west of Fermanagh. His father was Thomas E.G. Sayer. Leo attended St Peter's Catholic Primary School in Shoreham-by-Sea, and he was the second of three brothers: Michael was born in 1939 and Brian in 1951. He later attended Blessed Robert Southwell (now St Oscar Romero Catholic School) in Goring-by-Sea, before studying commercial art and graphic design at West Sussex College of Art and Design in Worthing, Sussex.


title: Leo Sayer

text: He was initially discovered by musician David Courtney, who then co-managed and co-produced him with former pop singer turned manager, Adam Faith. In January 1967, while 18-year-old Sayer was working as a hall porter at the King's Hotel in Hove, he assisted in the rescue of elderly guests from a serious fire that damaged the hotel's first floor. He himself was rescued from the blazing hotel by builders working on a block of flats beside the hotel.


title: Leo Sayer

text: Sayer began his music career co-writing songs with David Courtney, including "Giving It All Away", which gave Roger Daltrey of the Who his first solo hit in 1973. The same year, Sayer began his career as a recording artist under the management of Adam Faith, who signed Sayer to the Chrysalis label in the United Kingdom and Warner Bros. Records in the United States.


title: Leo Sayer

text: His debut single, "Why Is Everybody Going Home", failed to chart, but he achieved national prominence in the United Kingdom with his second single, the music hall-styled song "The Show Must Go On", which Sayer performed on British television wearing a pierrot costume and makeup. The single went to No. 2 on the United Kingdom singles chart, as did his debut album, "Silverbird", co-written with David Courtney who also co-produced the album with Adam Faith. Three Dog Night's cover, the group's last Billboard Hot 100 top 10 record, reached No. 4 on 25 May 1974.


title: Leo Sayer

text: His subsequent singles were all major hits in the United Kingdom"One Man Band" went to No. 6 in 1974, "Long Tall Glasses" (UK No. 4, 1974) became his first Top Ten hit in the United States, reaching No. 9, and "Moonlighting" went to No. 2 in the United Kingdom in 1975. In 1976, Sayer recorded three Beatles songs, "I Am the Walrus", "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road", for the Beatles-themed concept film "All This and World War II". His albums in this period were also consistently successful in the United Kingdom: he scored five consecutive Top 10 placings on the United Kingdom album chart between 1973 and 1977.


title: Leo Sayer

text: He also garnered success as an album artist in the United States, beginning with his second LP "Just A Boy" (1974), which reached No. 16. His fourth album "Endless Flight" (1976) consolidated his international popularity, reaching No. 4 in the United Kingdom and No. 10 in the United States; it also charted strongly in other countries including Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, and was certified as a platinum album in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and double-platinum in Canada.


title: Leo Sayer

text: The peak of his career came in 1977, when he achieved two consecutive number one hits in the United States, first with the disco-styled "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" (a Grammy Award winner for the year's best Rhythm and Blues Song), followed by a romantic ballad, "When I Need You" (1977), which reached number one in both the United Kingdom and United States. Written by Albert Hammond and Carole Bayer Sager, it was Sayer's first No. 1 single in the United Kingdom (after three number two hits). It was also the first of two chart-toppers in a row in the United Kingdom for producer Richard Perry. Also from "Endless Flight", Sayer covered the Danny O'Keefe song "Magdalena", which served as the B-side to the "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" single version.


title: Leo Sayer

text: In 1979, the compilation album "The Very Best of Leo Sayer" (originally released by Chrysalis in the UK and elsewhere, with its first release in the US in 2000 by Rhino Records with different cover art) became Sayer's first United Kingdom No. 1 LP and his seventh consecutive United Kingdom Top 20 album. Sayer also guest-starred in the second episode of the third season of "The Muppet Show", and performed "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing", "The Show Must Go On", and "When I Need You".


title: Leo Sayer

text: Sayer also made cover versions of Bobby Vee's Sonny Curtis-Jerry Allison composition "More Than I Can Say" (his fourth UK No. 2 hit and US #2), and Buddy Holly's "Raining in My Heart" (1979) and the brothers Gibb's Heart (Stop Beating in Time)" in 1982. In the United States, three of his singles"You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" (1977), "When I Need You" (1977) and "More Than I Can Say" (1980)were certified gold.


title: Leo Sayer

text: Sayer provided songs for the soundtrack of the French–Belgian animated film "The Missing Link" ("Le Chainon manquant") in 1980. In 1981, he voiced Dan the forest ranger in "The Raccoons on Ice", the second of four specials serving as a predecessor to the Canadian animated series "The Raccoons". He also sang several songs for the special, all of which were included on the 1983 album "Lake Freeze" and the 1984 album ""


title: Leo Sayer

text: In 1990, he contributed to the last studio collaboration between Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson, Woolfson's solo album "Freudiana", performing "I Am A Mirror". Sayer performed at the Sanremo Music Festival in 1990, with "The Moth And The Flame" (English version of "Tu... sì" by Mango) and, in 1991, with "All Alone" (English version of "Dubbi No" by Mietta).


title: Leo Sayer

text: After a decade of success, Sayer's career suffered repeated setbacks due to a series of financial and legal problems. When Sayer and his first wife Janice divorced in 1985, subsequent financial disclosure revealed Adam Faith had badly mishandled his business affairs and that much of the millions of pounds he had earned over the previous decade had been lost through Faith's questionable investments and business expenses.


title: Leo Sayer

text: Sayer sued Faith for mismanagement; and the case was eventually settled out of court in 1992, with Sayer receiving a reported payout of £650,000. In the early 1990s, his career stalled again while he fought a protracted but ultimately successful legal battle against his former label, Chrysalis, to regain the publishing rights to his songs.


title: Leo Sayer

text: In 1996, Sayer sued his new management, after he discovered that his pension fund had allegedly been mismanaged to around £1 million. Despite spending more than £90,000 in legal fees the case never made it to court and Sayer abandoned the suit for reasons of cost. He assembled a band led by former Van Morrison guitarist Ronnie Johnson and toured his way back to financial security. They recorded a live album, "Live in London", which was released in 1999.


title: Leo Sayer

text: On 12 February 2006, Sayer made a return to number one in the UK Singles Chart, with DJ Meck's remix of "Thunder In My Heart". It was his first appearance in the United Kingdom Top 10 for almost twenty-four years, and his second chart-topper in the United Kingdom, almost three decades after his first. "Leo Sayer: At His Very Best", a career spanning compilation album, was released in the United Kingdom on 6 March 2006. It featured the Meck single, alongside "When I Need You" and "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing".


title: Leo Sayer

text: In June 2008, Sayer released a new album only in Australia, "Don't Wait Until Tomorrow". This album, produced by Garth Porter (from the Australian pop band Sherbet) and released by Universal Music Australia, features selections from his catalog rearranged with strings and acoustic and jazz instrumentation.


title: Leo Sayer

text: Sayer has appeared in various television shows including "The Muppet Show" (1978's Episode 3.02 on which he sang "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing", "The Show Must Go On", and "When I Need You"); the 1998 Vic and Bob game show "Families at War" (on which he performed "When I Need You" while given a piggyback by a contestant running on a treadmill);


title: Leo Sayer

text: In January 2015, Sayer released his album, "Restless Years", and toured from Perth across many places in Australia to Singapore, with various support acts including Jason Ayres. In January 2015, Sayer also featured in Singapore's "Leo Sayer in Concert – 40 Years at the Top", presented by the British Theatre Playhouse. In October 2015, Sayer was awarded with a Gold Badge of Merit from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.


title: Leo Sayer

text: On 3 May 2019, Sayer released his latest album, "Selfie" on Demon Records. It was recorded at his home studio at The Barn in Plainland, Queensland, Australia.


title: Leo Sayer

text: Sayer and his wife Janice married in 1973 and divorced in 1985. He then had a relationship with Donatella Piccinetti, with whom he moved to live in Australia, but they separated in 2007. Sayer resides in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.


title: Leo Sayer

text: In January 2009, Sayer became an Australian citizen at the Australia Day citizenship ceremony in Canberra. In 2020 he became an ambassador for the Canberra Hospital Foundation.


title: Leo Sayer

text: Sayer is dyslexic. He still suffers from the effects of injuries to his legs and ankles that were caused by a fall off a stage in 1977.


title: Leo Sayer

text: Sayer's family has a history of cancer; both his parents died of cancer as did other family members on both sides. On his 65th birthday, after experiencing intestinal problems, Sayer was given a colonoscopy which revealed he had intestinal ulcers and a tumour. He underwent surgery which successfully treated both problems and said that the tumour was benign.


title: Sophie Thatcher

text: Sophie Bathsheba Thatcher (born October 18, 2000) is an American actress. She is best known for starring as Natalie in Showtime's psychological drama series "Yellowjackets" (2021–present), and for her appearance in "The Book of Boba Fett" (2022). In 2018, she made her big screen debut in the American science fiction film "Prospect". Thatcher's work on stage includes productions of "Oliver!", "Seussical", "The Diary of Anne Frank", and "The Secret Garden".


title: Sophie Thatcher

text: Thatcher attended Evanston Township High School. She grew up singing and started acting when she was 4 years old. She went to a performing arts school for musical theater, and her on-camera experience led her to pursue acting more than singing.


title: Sophie Thatcher

text: Thatcher began her career with a guest role in the police procedural series "Chicago P.D." (2016), one of the many entries in the widely known "Chicago" franchise. The same year, she made another guest appearance in Fox's supernatural horror television series "The Exorcist", where she played a younger version of Regan MacNeil.


title: Sophie Thatcher

text: In 2018, Thatcher made her big screen debut in the science fiction film "Prospect", co-starring Pedro Pascal. The film tells the story of a teenage girl and her father (played by Jay Duplass), who travel to an alien moon with a contract to mine gems in the moon's poisonous forest. For her performance, she received mostly positive reviews, with Peter Debruge of "Variety" stating her character "owes almost entirely to Thatcher", and describing her as "a fresh face who tricks us into assuming she’s just a callow teen, when in fact, she proves to be the film’s toughest character".


title: Sophie Thatcher

text: The following year, she appeared in Noble Jones' directorial debut "The Tomorrow Man". During this time, Thatcher landed the role of Natalie in "Yellowjackets". Regarding the process, creator Bart Nickerson said the casting department was searching for "someone who was really free-spirited and unique who could play both a sort of wildness and a vulnerability." Though most of the auditions were held in-person, Thatcher submitted a self-recorded audition tape and was cast as Natalie before Juliette Lewis, who portrays the character's adult counterpart. The pilot episode was greenlit in September and shot in Los Angeles in November 2019.


title: Sophie Thatcher

text: In 2020, Thatcher starred in "When the Streetlights Go On", a short-form streaming series directed by Rebecca Thomas. The series debuted on Quibi on April 6. In November 2020, Thatcher was rumored to be joining "The Mandalorian" franchise but it was unknown in which series she would appear. In December 2020, Showtime gave "Yellowjackets" a series order.


title: Sophie Thatcher

text: "Yellowjackets" premiered in November 2021 to rave reviews and became the second-most streamed series in Showtime's history behind "". After months of speculation, Thatcher was also confirmed to be appearing in "The Book of Boba Fett". She starred as Drash, the leader of a group of cyborgs who work for Boba Fett.


title: Sophie Thatcher

text: Thatcher is set to star alongside Chris Messina in 2023's "The Boogeyman", based on the Stephen King short story of the same name.


title: Amaury Guichon

text: Amaury Guichon (born 15 March 1991) is a French-Swiss pastry chef. He is known for his pastry designs and chocolate sculptures.


title: Amaury Guichon

text: Guichon was born to a Swiss mother and a French father and grew up on the Haute-Savoie–Romandy border near Geneva. He has an older brother. In 2005 at the age of 14, he began his culinary training at the École Hôtelière Savoie Leman in Thonon-les-Bains and participating in local competitions. He perfected his pastry making through a job at the Wolfisberg bakery in Geneva.


title: Amaury Guichon

text: He took up an apprenticeship at the Maison Lenôtre in Paris. In 2010, he was awarded the title of Best Apprentice in France, by the council of the MOF association.


title: Amaury Guichon

text: After completing his training, Guichon was hired to run the Lenôtre boutique and school back in Cannes. He later returned to Paris to work as an executive pastry chef at the Hugo & Victor patisserie and chocolate shop; he reached the level of executive chef by the age of 21.


title: Amaury Guichon

text: Guichon was a contestant on the France 2 reality cooking series "Who will be the next great pastry chef?" () in 2013. Guichon placed third in the competition.


title: Amaury Guichon

text: Guichon moved to the United States in 2014 upon receiving an invitation from Jean-Philippe Maury to work at the Las Vegas branch of his Patisserie, with shops in the Aria Resort and Casino and Bellagio. He worked as a private consultant and conducted masterclasses, leading Guichon to eventually co-found the Pastry Academy with Belgian chef Michel Ernots in the city of Las Vegas in 2019.


title: Amaury Guichon

text: In 2016, Guichon began to post his desserts and chocolate creations on social media. He has gained over 17 million followers on TikTok and 10 million on Instagram.


title: Amaury Guichon

text: Guichon hosted the 2021-2022 eight-episode reality series "School of Chocolate" on Netflix, a competition in which contestants construct chocolate sculptures with Guichon both guiding them and judging the final result.


title: Earth's orbit

text: Earth orbits the Sun at an average distance of 149.60 million km (92.96 million mi) in a counterclockwise direction as viewed from above the Northern Hemisphere. One complete orbit takes  days (1 sidereal year), during which time Earth has traveled 940 million km (584 million mi). Ignoring the influence of other Solar System bodies, Earth's orbit is an ellipse with the Earth-Sun barycenter as one focus and a current eccentricity of 0.0167. Since this value is close to zero, the center of the orbit is relatively close to the center of the Sun (relative to the size of the orbit).


title: Earth's orbit

text: As seen from Earth, the planet's orbital prograde motion makes the Sun appear to move with respect to other stars at a rate of about 1° eastward per solar day (or a Sun or Moon diameter every 12 hours). Earth's orbital speed averages 29.78 km/s (107,208 km/h; 66,616 mph), which is fast enough to cover the planet's diameter in 7 minutes and the distance to the Moon in 4 hours.


title: Earth's orbit

text: From a vantage point above the north pole of either the Sun or Earth, Earth would appear to revolve in a counterclockwise direction around the Sun. From the same vantage point, both the Earth and the Sun would appear to rotate also in a counterclockwise direction about their respective axes.


title: Earth's orbit

text: Heliocentrism is the scientific model that first placed the Sun at the center of the Solar System and put the planets, including Earth, in its orbit. Historically, heliocentrism is opposed to geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center. Aristarchus of Samos already proposed a heliocentric model in the third century BC. In the sixteenth century, Nicolaus Copernicus' "De revolutionibus" presented a full discussion of a heliocentric model of the universe in much the same way as Ptolemy had presented his geocentric model in the second century. This "Copernican revolution" resolved the issue of planetary retrograde motion by arguing that such motion was only perceived and apparent. According to historian Jerry Brotton, "Although Copernicus's groundbreaking book ... had been [printed more than] a century earlier, [the Dutch mapmaker] Joan Blaeu was the first mapmaker to incorporate his revolutionary heliocentric theory into a map of the world."


title: Earth's orbit

text: Because of Earth's axial tilt (often known as the obliquity of the ecliptic), the inclination of the Sun's trajectory in the sky (as seen by an observer on Earth's surface) varies over the course of the year. For an observer at a northern latitude, when the north pole is tilted toward the Sun the day lasts longer and the Sun appears higher in the sky. This results in warmer average temperatures, as additional solar radiation reaches the surface. When the north pole is tilted away from the Sun, the reverse is true and the weather is generally cooler. North of the Arctic Circle and south of the Antarctic Circle, an extreme case is reached in which there is no daylight at all for part of the year, and continuous daylight during the opposite time of year. This is called polar night and midnight sun, respectively. This variation in the weather (because of the direction of the Earth's axial tilt) results in the seasons.


title: Earth's orbit

text: By astronomical convention, the four seasons are determined by the solstices (the two points in the Earth's orbit of the maximum tilt of the Earth's axis, toward the Sun or away from the Sun) and the equinoxes (the two points in the Earth's orbit where the Earth's tilted axis and an imaginary line drawn from the Earth to the Sun are exactly perpendicular to one another). The solstices and equinoxes divide the year up into four approximately equal parts. In the northern hemisphere winter solstice occurs on or about December 21; summer solstice is near June 21; spring equinox is around March 20, and autumnal equinox is about September 23. The effect of the Earth's axial tilt in the southern hemisphere is the opposite of that in the northern hemisphere, thus the seasons of the solstices and equinoxes in the southern hemisphere are the reverse of those in the northern hemisphere (e.g. the northern summer solstice is at the same time as the southern winter solstice).


title: Earth's orbit

text: In modern times, Earth's perihelion occurs around January 3, and the aphelion around July 4. In other words, the Earth is closer to the Sun in January, and further away in July, which might seem counter-intuitive to those residing in the northern hemisphere, where it is colder when the Earth is closest to the sun and warmer when it is furthest away. The changing Earth-Sun distance results in an increase of about 7% in total solar energy reaching the Earth at perihelion relative to aphelion. Since the southern hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun at about the same time that the Earth reaches the closest approach to the Sun, the southern hemisphere receives slightly more energy from the Sun than does the northern over the course of a year. However, this effect is much less significant than the total energy change due to the axial tilt, and most of the excess energy is absorbed by the higher proportion of surface covered by water in the southern hemisphere.


title: Earth's orbit

text: The Hill sphere (gravitational sphere of influence) of the Earth is about 1,500,000 kilometers (0.01 AU) in radius, or approximately four times the average distance to the Moon. This is the maximal distance at which the Earth's gravitational influence is stronger than the more distant Sun and planets. Objects orbiting the Earth must be within this radius, otherwise, they may become unbound by the gravitational perturbation of the Sun.


title: Earth's orbit

text: The following diagram shows the relation between the line of the solstice and the line of apsides of Earth's elliptical orbit. The orbital ellipse goes through each of the six Earth images, which are sequentially the perihelion (periapsis—nearest point to the Sun) on anywhere from January 2 to January 5, the point of March equinox on March 19, 20, or 21, the point of June solstice on June 20, 21, or 22, the aphelion (apoapsis—the farthest point from the Sun) on anywhere from July 3 to July 5, the September equinox on September 22, 23, or 24, and the December solstice on December 21, 22, or 23. The diagram shows a very exaggerated shape of Earth's orbit; the actual orbit is virtually circular.


title: Earth's orbit

text: Mathematicians and astronomers (such as Laplace, Lagrange, Gauss, Poincaré, Kolmogorov, Vladimir Arnold, and Jürgen Moser) have searched for evidence for the stability of the planetary motions, and this quest led to many mathematical developments and several successive "proofs" of stability for the Solar System. By most predictions, Earth's orbit will be relatively stable over long periods.


title: Earth's orbit

text: In 1989, Jacques Laskar's work indicated that Earth's orbit (as well as the orbits of all the inner planets) can become chaotic and that an error as small as 15 meters in measuring the initial position of the Earth today would make it impossible to predict where Earth would be in its orbit in just over 100 million years' time. Modeling the Solar System is a subject covered by the n-body problem.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: Heartbeat is a British police procedural period drama series, based upon the "Constable" series of novels written by Nicholas Rhea, and produced by ITV Studios (formerly Yorkshire Television until it was merged by ITV) from 1992 until 2010. The series is set during the 1960s around real-life and fictional locations within the North Riding of Yorkshire, with most episodes focused on stories that usually are separate but sometimes intersect with one another; in some episodes, a singular story takes place focused on a major incident.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: The programme initially starred Nick Berry, Niamh Cusack, Derek Fowlds, William Simons, Mark Jordon, and Bill Maynard, but as more main characters were added to the series, additional actors included Jason Durr, Jonathan Kerrigan, Philip Franks, Duncan Bell, Clare Wille, Lisa Kay, Tricia Penrose, Geoffrey Hughes, Peter Benson and Gwen Taylor. Production of episodes involved filming of outdoor and exterior scenes around the North Riding, including in and around Whitby and Goathland, with interior scenes filmed at The Leeds Studios.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: "Heartbeat" proved popular from the beginning, when early series consistently drew over 10 million viewers, achieving a peak audience of 13.82 million in 2001, and 12.8 million viewers in 2003. Its success eventually led to a spin-off series, titled "The Royal", as well as a special episode, and three documentaries. In June 2010, ITV announced the cancellation of "Heartbeat" after its eighteenth series, following discussions on its future.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: "Heartbeat" is a period drama set within the North Riding of Yorkshire during 1960s. Plots for each episode take place within both the fictional village of Aidensfield and the fictional town of Ashfordly, as well as several other fictional villages and farms in the surrounding moors and countryside. On occasions, plots also include the real-life town of Whitby. Each episode in the series focuses on a set of at least one or two main storylines and a side story, some or all of which would cross over with each other and influence the outcome of their plots. Political tones for storylines, coinciding with the decade the programme was set in, were rarely featured in episodes, though some episodes featured occasional references to the counterculture movement, while others would sometimes delve into a dramatic single storyline concerning a major incident that characters would deal with and sometimes be affected by.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: The programme's title was chosen by writers to represent the series' key characters who worked as police officers and medical staff "heart" for the medical themes featured regularly in the programme; and "beat" based on the phrase "the bobby's beat" ("bobby" being British slang for a police officer (from Robert Peel)). Each episode's set of storylines were inspired by those created for the "Constable" series of books, written by Nicholas Rhea (the pen-name of former policeman Peter Walker), which were focused on a police constable in the 1960s who came to Aidensfield, in order to serve the local community and solve crimes that took place on his new patch. Much of the characters and locations in the "Constable" series were directly used for creating the setting and plots in "Heartbeat", under guidance from Rhea.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: The series was originally intended as a launch platform for actor Nick Berry, following his involvement on the BBC's soap drama "EastEnders", who alongside actress Niamh Cusack, were the prominent main actors of the programme for its first two series. Storylines mainly focused around both their characters, as they offered aid to those around the village and beyond, though the tone of plots was portrayed with grittiness and social realism. From the third series onwards, the role of the village policeman continued to be central to the storyline, but supporting actors were redefined as the programme's main cast, with their characters elevated in presence, effectively evolving "Heartbeat" into an ensemble drama that was themed as more cosy and comfortable compared to more modern TV police dramas. The changes were more notable by how supporting actors gained more prominence in the opening titles after being elevated into the series' main cast up until the fifth series, both Berry and Cusack were prominently featured in the opening credits, but this changed in later series so that by the beginning of the seventh series, all actors in the main cast were given proper credit for their involvement in the drama series.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: After the fifth series, storylines became less centralized around the village constable, focusing on separate storylines that retained a set structure within episodes: one focusing on a crime solved by the village constable and his colleagues at Ashfordly police; one focused on a medical issue that the village doctor and/or nurse would treat; and a side story focused on the programme's "lovable rogue" character which mainly was designed as comic relief, but sometimes featured light-hearted plots delving into heart-warming moments. In addition, over-arching storylines covering several episodes or even series, provided sub-plots between main characters, allowing for character and relationship development between them, with additional characters added in over time. In time, "Heartbeat" saw the cast being changed throughout its broadcast history, as new characters were introduced to replace those who left the show after being written out.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: Sixties pop music features prominently in episodes, notably from the Beatles and Chuck Berry, forming the backbone of "Heartbeat"s soundtrack, although music from other decades sometimes is played in episodes. Some 1970s records appear anachronistically, such as the Hollies' 1974 song "The Air That I Breathe", Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog" (1971) or Pink Floyd's 1971 instrumental "One of These Days." The series 17 finale "You Never Can Tell" is accompanied by the Flying Pickets' 1983 song "Only You", an episode which featured a guest appearance by the band's lead singer Brian Hibbard.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: The following is a list of specials made for "Heartbeat", most of which were behind-the-scene documentaries. All were later included in DVD boxsets for specific series of the programme:


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: The series was filmed at various locations around North Yorkshire. These include shots on the moors and frequent mentions of local roads (like the A171.) Exterior scenes of Aidensfield are filmed in the village of Goathland in North Yorkshire, with the village's railway station also appearing occasionally. Other prominent filming locations include Whitby, Otley and Scarborough. The "Heartbeat: Changing Places" special includes location filming in Canada and in series 18, two episodes were filmed on location in Queensland, Australia.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: When "Heartbeat" first began on 10 April 1992 it aired on Fridays at 9.00 pm (on the ITV Network) but from series 2 it was moved to Sunday evenings in the 7.00 pm or 8.00 pm timeslot. All "Heartbeat" episodes are around 42–51 minutes long (one hour with adverts). The opening episode of Series 11 was planned to be the show's first two-hour episode, but it was eventually split into a two-part story, "Sweet Sixteen" and "She's Leaving Home". In 1994 a one-off feature-length episode was filmed, starring Lloyd Owen as constable Tom Merriweather.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: "Heartbeat" repeats have appeared on ITV during the summer months (often billed on-screen as "Classic Heartbeat"), typically at 5.00 pm or, in 2006, at 4.00 pm. In 2006, episodes from the first few series were repeated again. Most of the swearing ("bloody", "bastard", etc.) and violence that was present in the early episodes was edited out for these daytime broadcasts.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: For several years (as of 2016) "Heartbeat" reruns from series 11–18 have shown on ITV3, formerly in the original two-commercial-break format and latterly with three breaks. These repeats run daily each weekday lunchtime, with a second airing in an early-evening timeslot. Episodes from different series were shown on ITV3 at weekends.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: As of Autumn 2015, series 1–10 of "Heartbeat" is being aired on the new ITV Encore channel, which is only available on the Sky TV platform (until ITV Encore ceased broadcasting). These episodes were broadcast at a time when ITV had two commercial breaks and therefore have a running time of around 50 minutes. However ITV Encore has 60-minute programme slots which include three commercial breaks, so some scenes are edited or have been completely removed, purely for timing reasons. An example of this was the series 7 episode 22 "Unconsidered Trifles", in which the scene with PC Mike Bradley and Bernie Scripps herding cows back into the farm shed was completely omitted.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: As of January 2017 (and for the last three years), ITV Encore (on the Sky TV platform) has been airing Series 1–10, and freeview channel ITV3 Series 11–18.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: Ratings slowly declined after series 13. The schedule was split in half to incorporate the launch of "The Royal" from Series 12. Series 1 and 2 (1992–1993) aired between April and June, Series 3–6 (1993–1996) moved to the autumn schedule between September and December when there were either 10 or 16 episodes per series. Series 7–11 (1997–2002), comprising 24 episodes, aired between September and March.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: The ITV medical drama series "The Royal" was originally a spin-off from "Heartbeat", with the twelfth-series "Heartbeat" episode "Out of the Blue" serving as an introductory pilot for the show, with the Aidensfield police officers conducting parts of their investigations in "The Royal" hospital. The series initially had close ties with "Heartbeat", and several "Heartbeat" characters made an appearance. Over time, however, the crossovers were dropped and "The Royal" developed its own identity.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: On 5 June 2001, ITV planned cutbacks for dramas such as "London's Burning", "Heartbeat" and "Peak Practice" to make room for new commissions which could have seen the programme's demise. A spokesman said "The temptation is to just cancel long running shows. But if you do that you can spend years trying to find replacements that achieve the same viewing figures."


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: Kathleen Beedles, the new producer as of series 18, originally said "Heartbeat" was expected to continue until at least series 20 (at the time scheduled for 2010–11). However, it was announced on 28 January 2009 that production of both "Heartbeat" and its spin off show "The Royal" would be suspended for an unspecified period of time so that a large backlog of unbroadcast episodes could be cleared. Some newspaper reports interpreted this as meaning the show would be permanently cancelled. A report in "The Telegraph" suggested "Heartbeat" may return in "a new lower budget form".


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: In March 2009 a meeting to discuss the future of the show took place between ITV bosses and "Heartbeat" cast and crew members. The mood after the meeting was reportedly pessimistic about the show's long-term survival. Actor Steven Blakeley, who plays PC Younger, said the cast were to be released after series 18, indicating the show had been cancelled and filming had finished.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: News of the show's alleged cancellation prompted protests from "Heartbeat" fans around the world as well as from communities in the Yorkshire Television region where the series was filmed and where the "Heartbeat"-themed tourist trade is seen as an important part of the local economy.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: In January 2010, rumours were published that Sky might buy "Heartbeat" from ITV and take over its production. In February 2010, it was reported that Adam Crozier, the newly appointed ITV chief executive, would be responsible for making the decision about the future of the show. In March 2010, a survey was carried out by the "Whitby Gazette", a newspaper local to the area in which the show is set, asking "Do you think that popular ITV show "Heartbeat" should be axed after 16 years?" 71% of respondents voted "No", 19% voted "Yes" and 10% voted "Don't Care".


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: Series 18 was unusually protracted. Filming ran from May 2008 to May 2009. It premiered on 12 October 2008 and took a break after the sixth episode, then continued from 19 April 2009 to 14 June 2009. The last nine episodes were shown between 18 July 2010 and 12 September 2010 in the UK, but in Sweden on TV4 from 25 August 2009 to 4 September 2009, and in Denmark on TV2 Charlie from 16 December 2009 to 24 December 2009. As at 3 November 2021, Heartbeat continues to be aired on TVO, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.


title: Heartbeat (British TV series)

text: During the period of uncertainty about the show's future, ITV continued to maintain that reports of the show being "axed" were untrue, saying that production was "taking a rest" so that stockpiled episodes could be aired. However, on 25 June 2010, ITV finally confirmed that the show would be cancelled after series 18, with a spokesman saying ""Heartbeat" has been an important part of the television landscape over the last 18 years and we are incredibly proud of what it achieved in its heyday as one of ITV1's top rated dramas".


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: 10,000 BC is a 2008 American action-adventure film directed by Roland Emmerich, starring Steven Strait and Camilla Belle. The film is set in the prehistoric era and depicts the journeys of a prehistoric tribe of mammoth hunting Neanderthals. The world premiere was held on February 10, 2008, at Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: The film was a box office hit, but consistently regarded by professional critics as Emmerich's worst film, as well as one of the worst films of 2008.


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: Circa 10,000 BC, a hunter-gatherer tribe called the Yagahl live in the Ural Mountains and survive by hunting woolly mammoths. The tribe is led by a hunter who has killed a mammoth single-handedly and earned the White Spear, and venerate Old Mother, an elderly woman with shamanistic powers. The mammoths begin to dwindle, and the village chief finds a young girl named Evolet who survived a massacre of her village, perpetrated by what Old Mother calls "four-legged demons" who will come when "the Yagahl go on their last hunt". She prophesies that whoever kills the leader of the "demons" will win both Evolet and the White Spear, becoming the next village chief. The tribe believe that the "demons" are mammoths, whose return will save them from starvation. The chief, however, does not believe the prophecy and leaves to find another way to save his people. He entrusts the White Spear, his son D'Leh, and the true purpose of his quest to his friend Tic'Tic. The rest of the tribe, including D'Leh's rival Ka'Ren, believe that D'Leh's father was a coward and fled. Over time, D'Leh and Evolet fall in love.


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: When the mammoths finally return, D'Leh hunts them with the men of the tribe under Tic'Tic's leadership and manages to kill one by accident, inadvertently winning both the White Spear and marriage to Evolet. The village believes Old Mother's prophecy is coming true, but D'Leh is consumed by guilt for not earning the White Spear fairly. After speaking with Tic'Tic, he gives up the White Spear, forfeiting his marriage to Evolet. The next day, horse-raiders attack the camp, enslaving Evolet and several others, and killing many of the tribe. D'Leh, Tic'Tic, Ka'Ren, and young boy Baku set out to rescue their fellow Yagahl, but Evolet is recaptured with Ka'Ren and Baku during an attack on the slavers by terror birds, and Tic'Tic is wounded. While hunting, D'Leh falls into a pit, where he rescues a "Smilodon" (saber-toothed tiger) before escaping himself. After Tic'Tic recovers, they make their way to a village of sedentary farmers and learn of a prophecy from the Naku, another tribe; whoever talks to a Smilodon they call the "Spear-Tooth" will help free their people. D'Leh realizes the prophecy is about him when the Smilodon he rescued arrives and refuses to kill him. They also learn that D'Leh's father was a guest of the Naku until the slavers captured him. Tic'Tic finally reveals to D'Leh that his father did not abandon the tribe. Rather he set out to save it, but let the others believe he had fled to prevent them from following him.


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: Several tribes form a coalition to pursue the raiders with D'Leh as their leader. They find the ships holding Evolet and their families but fail to reach them before the raiders cast off. The war party nearly dies out while journeying through a treacherous desert, but D'leh learns to use the North Star to navigate the dunes. On the other side of the desert, they discover an advanced civilization, ruled by an enigmatic god-king known as the "Almighty". Here it is discovered that the kidnapped Yagahl are used as slave labor to build a pyramid. The warlord who kidnapped Evolet tries unsuccessfully to win her love, only to be arrested by the Almighty's priests when they find he has taken her without permission. During a night scouting raid, D'Leh learns of the Almighty and the fate of his father, who perished as a slave. The party is spotted by the guards, who are killed by Tic'Tic before he succumbs to his wounds. Meanwhile, the Almighty's priests believe that Evolet is destined to kill The Almighty, based on the whip scars on her hands matching the stars they call the "Mark of the Hunter" and an ancient prophecy foreseeing their civilization's downfall. The Almighty deduces that Evolet is merely the herald of the true Hunter, which leaves him and his priests unsettled. D'Leh starts a rebellion among the slaves, killing many of the Almighty's forces, though Ka'Ren is killed.


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: The Almighty offers Evolet and the other hunters to D'Leh in exchange for abandoning his rebellion. D'Leh feigns acceptance but kills the Almighty with a spear, breaking his illusion of godhood. During the ensuing battle, Evolet is killed by the warlord who is then killed by D'Leh, but is restored to life when Old Mother sacrifices herself. With the Almighty dead and his civilization destroyed, the Yagahl bid farewell to the other tribes and return home with seeds given to them by the Naku to start a new life.


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: Emmerich opened casting sessions in late October 2005. In February 2006, Camilla Belle and Steven Strait were announced to star in the film, with Strait as the mammoth hunter and Belle as his love. Emmerich decided that casting well known actors would distract from the realistic feel of the prehistoric setting. "If like, Jake Gyllenhaal turned up in a movie like this, everybody would be, 'What's that?'", he explained. The casting of unknown actors also helped keep the film's budget down.


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: At the 2008 Wondercon, Emmerich mentioned the fiction of Robert E. Howard as a primary influence for the film's setting, as well as his love for the film "Quest for Fire" and the book "Fingerprints of the Gods". He invited composer Harald Kloser to help write the screenplay after he liked his story suggestions to "The Day After Tomorrow". When the project received the greenlight from Columbia Pictures, screenwriter John Orloff began work on a new draft of the original script. Columbia Pictures, under Sony Pictures Entertainment, dropped the project due to a busy release calendar, and Warner Bros. picked up the project in Sony's absence. The script went through a second revision with Matthew Sand and a final revision with Robert Rodat.


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: Production began in early 2006 in South Africa and Namibia. Location filming also took place in southern New Zealand and Thailand. Emmerich wanted to shoot the entire film in Africa but was barred from shooting a certain helicopter scene which led to them going to New Zealand for those shots. Before shooting began, the production had spent eighteen months on research and development for the computer-generated imagery. Two companies recreated prehistoric animals. To cut time (it was taking sixteen hours to render a single frame) 50% of the CGI models' fur was removed, as "it turned out half the fur looked the same" to the director. Filming took place for a total of 102 days, 20 days longer than planned.


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: Emmerich rejected making the film in an ancient language (similar to "The Passion of the Christ" or "Apocalypto"), deciding that it would not be as emotionally engaging.


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: Dialect coach Brendan Gunn was hired by Emmerich and Kloser to create "a half dozen" languages for the film. Gunn has stated that he collaborated informally with film lead Steven Strait to improvise what the languages would sound like. He also used some local African languages and their dialects, including the Oshiwambo language native to Namibia, which can be heard faintly by the wise blind man.


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: In an alternative ending, the scene shifts forward many years into the future, showing Baku's retelling of the story by the camp fire. It ends with a child asking what had happened to the "Mountains of the Gods", and Baku responds, "They were taken back by the sands. Lost to time, lost to man".


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: The mammoths in the movie were based on elephants and fossils of mammoths, while the saber-toothed cat was based on tigers and ligers (a lion/tiger hybrid).


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: The sounds made by the saber-toothed cat in the movie are based on the vocalization of tigers and lions.


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: Critics noted that the film is archaeologically inaccurate and contains many factual errors and anachronisms. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 9% based on 150 reviews, with an average rating of 3.40/10. The website's critics' consensus states: "With attention strictly paid to style instead of substance, or historical accuracy, "10,000 BC" is a visually impressive but narratively flimsy epic." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 34 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: Todd McCarthy of "Variety" wrote: "Conventional where it should be bold and mild where it should be wild, "10,000 BC" reps a missed opportunity to present an imaginative vision of a prehistoric moment." Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" wrote: "Roland Emmerich's great big CGI blockbuster lumbers along like one of the woolly mammoths that roam across the screen."


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: The film was a moderate success at the box office. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $35.8 million in 3,410 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking No. 1 at the box office, and grossing over $22 million more than the film in second place, "College Road Trip". , it has grossed approximately $268.6 million worldwide—$94.6 million in the United States and Canada and $174 million in other territories—including $17.2 million in Mexico, $13.1 million in Spain, $11.3 million in the United Kingdom, and $10.8 million in China. This also makes it the first film of 2008 to surpass the $200 million mark.


title: 10,000 BC (film)

text: The DVD of the film was released on June 17, 2008, in single-disc editions of DVD and Blu-ray Disc in the United States. Best Buy released a 2-disc limited edition along with the DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases. It was released on July 1, 2008, in the United Kingdom. The film grossed $31,341,721 in DVD sales, bringing its total film gross to $300,414,491.


title: Roch Thériault

text: Roch Thériault (; May 16, 1947 – February 26, 2011) was a Canadian cult leader and convicted murderer. Thériault, a self-proclaimed prophet under the name Moïse , founded the Ant Hill Kids in 1977. They were a doomsday cult whose beliefs were based on Seventh-day Adventist Church beliefs. In 1978, Thériault was removed from Seventh-day Adventist Church. Thériault maintained multiple wives and concubines, impregnating all female members as a religious requirement, and fathering 26 children. Thériault's followers, including 12 adults and 22 children, lived under his totalitarian rule at the commune and were subject to severe physical and sexual abuse.


title: Roch Thériault

text: Thériault was arrested for assault in 1989, dissolving the cult, and was convicted for murder in 1993 for the death of follower Solange Boilard. He had previously killed an infant named Samuel Giguère, while two of his disciples, Geraldine Gagné Auclair and Gabrielle Nadeau, died following homeopathic treatments administered to them by Thériault. Thériault received a life sentence, which he was serving when he was murdered at Dorchester Penitentiary in 2011. Thériault, along with Robert Pickton, Clifford Olson and Paul Bernardo, has been considered one of Canada's most notorious criminals since the 1980s.


title: Roch Thériault

text: Roch Thériault was born on May 16, 1947, in Saguenay, Quebec, Canada, into a French-Canadian family, and raised in Thetford Mines. As a child Thériault was considered to be very intelligent, but dropped out of school in the seventh grade and began to teach himself the Old Testament of the Bible. Thériault believed that the end of the world was near, and would be brought on by the war between good and evil. Thériault converted from Catholicism to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and began practising the denomination's regular holistic beliefs which encouraged a healthy lifestyle free of unhealthy foods and tobacco.


title: Roch Thériault

text: In the mid-1970's, Thériault convinced a group of people to leave their jobs and homes to join him in a religious movement. Thériault formed the cult in 1977 in Sainte-Marie, Quebec with the goal to form a commune where people could freely listen to his motivational speeches, live in unity and equality, and be free of sin. He prohibited the group from remaining in contact with their families and with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as this was against his cult's values of freedom. Thériault's fear of the end of the world grew, claiming that God had warned him that it would come in February 1979, and used the commune to prepare for it. In 1978, in preparation, Thériault moved his commune by hiking to a mountainside he called "Eternal Mountain" in Saint-Jogues, in the sparsely populated Gaspé Peninsula, where he claimed they could all be saved. There, Thériault made the commune build their town while he relaxed, comparing them to ants working in an ant hill, naming the group the Ant Hill Kids. In February 1979, when the apocalypse did not occur, people started questioning Thériault's wisdom, but he defended himself saying that time on Earth and in God's world were not parallel, and that therefore it was a miscalculation. To expand the community as well as keep the members devoted, Thériault married and impregnated all of the women, fathering over 20 children with 9 female members of the group, and by the 1980s there were nearly 40 members. Followers were made to wear identical tunics to represent equality and their devotion to the commune.


title: Roch Thériault

text: In 1984, the group relocated from Quebec to a new site near Burnt River, a hamlet in Central Ontario now part of the city of Kawartha Lakes.


title: Roch Thériault

text: Following the cult's formation, Thériault began to move away from being a motivational leader as his drinking problem worsened, becoming increasingly totalitarian over the lives of his followers and irrational in his beliefs. Members were not allowed to speak to each other when he was not present, nor were they allowed to have sex with each other without his permission. Thériault used his charisma to cover for his increasingly abusive and erratic behaviour, and none of the other members questioned his judgement or openly blamed him for any physical, mental or emotional damage. Thériault began to inflict punishments on followers that he considered to be straying, by spying on them and claiming that God told him what they did. If a person wished to leave the commune, Thériault would hit them with either a belt or hammer, suspend them from the ceiling, pluck each of their body hairs individually, or even defecate on them. The Ant Hill Kids raised money for living by selling baked goods, and members who did not bring in enough money were also punished.


title: Roch Thériault

text: Over time, Thériault's punishments became increasingly extreme and violent, including making members break their own legs with sledgehammers, sit on lit stoves, shoot each other in the shoulders, and eat dead mice and feces. A follower would sometimes be asked to cut off another follower's toes with wire cutters to prove loyalty. The abuse extended to the cult's children, who were sexually abused, held over fires, or nailed to trees while other children threw stones at them. One of Thériault's wives left a newborn child, Eleazar Lavallée, outside to die in freezing temperatures to keep him away from the abuse. Thériault attempted to backtrack to the original religious mission of the commune, beginning to strongly believe in purifying his followers and ridding them of their sins through abusive purification sessions where the members would be completely nude as he whipped and beat them. Thériault claimed to be a holy being, and started performing unnecessary amateur surgical operations on sick members to demonstrate his healing powers. These "surgeries" included injecting a 94% ethanol solution into stomachs, or performing circumcisions on the children and adults of the group. In 1987, social workers removed 17 of the children from the commune. However, Thériault faced no repercussions for his abusive acts.


title: Roch Thériault

text: In 1989, when follower Solange Boilard complained of an upset stomach, Thériault performed another amateur surgery without anaesthesia. He laid her naked on a table, and punched her in the stomach, then forced a plastic tube into her rectum to perform a crude enema with molasses and olive oil. He cut open her abdomen with a knife and ripped off part of her intestines with his bare hands. Thériault made another member, Gabrielle Lavallée, stitch her up using needle and thread, and had the other women shove a tube down her throat and blow through it. Boilard died the next day from the damage inflicted by the procedures. Claiming to have the power of resurrection, Thériault bored a hole into Boilard's skull with a drill and then had other male members (along with himself) ejaculate into the cavity. When Boilard did not return to life, her corpse was buried a short distance from the Ant Hill Kids' commune.


title: Roch Thériault

text: Lavallée underwent harsh treatment at the Ontario commune during the late 1980s, suffering welding torch burns to her genitals, a hypodermic needle breaking off in her back, and eight of her teeth being forcibly removed. Lavallée attempted to escape from the commune after Thériault cut off parts of her breast and smashed her head in with the blunt side of an axe, but upon her return he removed one of her fingers with wire cutters, pinned her hand to a wooden table with a hunting knife, and then used a cleaver to amputate her arm.