title: Hawthorne effect

text: Despite the observer effect as popularized in the Hawthorne experiments being perhaps falsely identified (see above discussion), the popularity and plausibility of the observer effect in theory has led researchers to postulate that this effect could take place at a second level. Thus it has been proposed that there is a secondary observer effect when researchers working with secondary data such as survey data or various indicators may impact the results of their scientific research. Rather than having an effect on the subjects (as with the primary observer effect), the researchers likely have their own idiosyncrasies that influence how they handle the data and even what data they obtain from secondary sources. For one, the researchers may choose seemingly innocuous steps in their statistical analyses that end up causing significantly different results using the same data; e.g., weighting strategies, factor analytic techniques, or choice of estimation. In addition, researchers may use software packages that have different default settings that lead to small but significant fluctuations. Finally, the data that researchers use may not be identical, even though it seems so. For example, the OECD collects and distributes various socio-economic data; however, these data change over time such that a researcher who downloads the Australian GDP data for the year 2000 may have slightly different values than a researcher who downloads the same Australian GDP 2000 data a few years later. The idea of the secondary observer effect was floated by Nate Breznau in a thus far relatively obscure paper.


title: Hawthorne effect

text: Although little attention has been paid to this phenomenon, the scientific implications are very large. Evidence of this effect may be seen in recent studies that assign a particular problem to a number of researchers or research teams who then work independently using the same data to try and find a solution. This is a process called crowdsourcing data analysis and was used in a groundbreaking study by Silberzahn, Rafael, Eric Uhlmann, Dan Martin and Brian Nosek et al. (2015) about red cards and player race in football (i.e., soccer).


title: Alexander Vindman

text: Alexander Vindman (Ukrainian: Олекса́ндр Семенович Ві́ндман; born June 6, 1975) is a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel who was the Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council (NSC) until he was reassigned on February 7, 2020. Vindman came to national attention in October 2019 when he testified before the United States Congress regarding the Trump–Ukraine scandal. His testimony provided evidence that resulted in a charge of abuse of power in the impeachment of Donald Trump.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: Commissioned in 1999 as an infantry officer, Vindman received a Purple Heart medal for wounds he received from an IED attack in the Iraq War in 2004. Vindman became a foreign area officer specializing in Eurasia in 2008, and assumed the position of Director for European Affairs with the NSC in 2018.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: In July 2020, Vindman retired after 21 years in the military. He cited vengeful behavior and bullying by President Trump and administration officials after he complied with a subpoena to testify in front of Congress during Trump's impeachment hearings. At the time of his retirement, Vindman's promotion to the rank of colonel had been abnormally stalled by the administration. In February 2022, he unsuccessfully sued several Trump allies, alleging that they had intimidated and retaliated against him while he testified in Congress,


title: Alexander Vindman

text: Alexander Semyon Vindman ("né" Aleksandr Semyonovich Vindman) and his identical twin brother Yevgeny were born in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union to a Jewish family. After the death of their mother, the three-year-old twins and their older brother, Leonid, were brought to New York in December 1979 by their father, Semyon (Simon). They grew up in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach neighborhood. The twins appear briefly with their maternal grandmother in the Ken Burns documentary "The Statue of Liberty". Vindman speaks fluent Russian and Ukrainian. He graduated in 1993 from Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: In 1999, Vindman graduated from the State University of New York at Binghamton with a bachelor of arts degree in history. He took part in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps while in college and received a second lieutenant's commission in the Army's Infantry Branch in January 1999. He later received a master of arts degree from Harvard University in Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian studies.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: Vindman completed the Infantry Officer Basic Course (IOBC) at Fort Benning in 1999 and was sent the next year to South Korea, where he led both infantry and anti-armor platoons. In addition to overseas assignments to South Korea and Germany, Vindman is a combat veteran of the Iraq War, and he served in Iraq from September 2004 to September 2005. In October 2004, he sustained an injury from a roadside bomb in Iraq, for which he received a Purple Heart. He was promoted to the rank of major in 2008, and to lieutenant colonel in September 2015.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: During his Army career, Vindman earned the Ranger Tab, Combat Infantryman Badge, Expert Infantryman Badge, and Parachutist Badge, as well as four Army Commendation Medals and two Defense Meritorious Service Medals.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: Beginning in 2008, Vindman became a Foreign Area Officer specializing in Eurasia. In this capacity he served in the U.S. embassies in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Moscow, Russia. Returning to Washington, D.C. he was then a politico-military affairs officer focused on Russia for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Vindman was on the Joint Staff at the Pentagon from September 2015 to July 2018.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: In July 2018, Vindman accepted an assignment with the National Security Council. In his role on the NSC, Vindman became part of the U.S. delegation at the inauguration of Ukraine's newly elected President, Volodymyr Zelensky. The five-member delegation, led by Rick Perry, United States Secretary of Energy, also included Kurt Volker, then U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations; Gordon Sondland, United States Ambassador to the European Union; and Joseph Pennington, then acting chargé d'affaires.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: Vindman was subpoenaed to testify before Congressional investigators on October 29, 2019, as part of the U.S. House of Representatives' impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump. He is the first White House official to testify who was actually on a July 25, 2019, telephone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump asked Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden, while his father was campaigning for President. Based on his opening statement, obtained in advance by "The New York Times", Vindman's testimony corroborates previous testimony from Fiona Hill, his former manager, and William B. Taylor Jr., acting Ambassador to Ukraine.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: On October 28, 2019, Vindman's opening statement to a closed session of the House Intelligence Committee, House Foreign Affairs Committee, and House Oversight Committee was released, ahead of his testimony the following day. Vindman testified that: "In Spring of 2019, I became aware of outside influencers promoting a false and alternative narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency," which was "harmful to U.S. national security" and also "undermined U.S. Government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine."


title: Alexander Vindman

text: Vindman states that, additionally, he was concerned by two events, both of which he objected to with senior officials in real time, and which he reported to the National Security Council's lead attorney. The first event occurred at a July 10 meeting between Ukraine's then Secretary of National Security and Defense Council Oleksandr Danylyuk, and then US National Security Advisor John Bolton, at which Ambassadors Volker and Sondland, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry were in attendance, and at which Sondland asked Ukraine to launch investigations into the Bidens in order to get a meeting with President Trump. Vindman states that Bolton cut the meeting short, and that both Vindman and Hill told Ambassador Sondland that his comments were inappropriate and reported their concerns to the NSC's lead counsel.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: The second event occurred on a July 25 phone call between Presidents Trump and Zelensky. Vindman states, "I was concerned by the call. I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. Government's support of Ukraine. I realized that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma, it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play which would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing the bipartisan support it has thus far maintained. This would all undermine U.S. national security." Vindman also stated that he reported his concern to the NSC's lead counsel, John Eisenberg.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: Vindman later testified in person before the US House of Representatives on November 19, 2019. In his testimony, Vindman stated that he made a report to an intelligence official about what he heard during Trump's call with the Ukrainian President and felt what the President mentioned during the phone conversation was "improper."


title: Alexander Vindman

text: Because of his testimony, Vindman was denounced by Trump and repeatedly attacked by Republican lawmakers and television commentators. As a result, he reached out to the Army regarding his and his family's safety.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: In his opening statement, Vindman assured his father that he had made the right decision in emigrating from the Soviet Union to the United States. Vindman stated, "In Russia, my act of ... offering public testimony involving the President would surely cost me my life. I am grateful for my father's brave act of hope 40 years ago and for the privilege of being an American citizen and public servant, where I can live free of fear for mine and my family's safety. Dad, my sitting here today, in the U.S. Capitol talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision forty years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to United States of America in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth."


title: Alexander Vindman

text: On February 7, 2020, Vindman told NSC colleagues he expected to leave the White House's National Security Council to return to the Department of Defense. Trump had earlier implied he might remove Vindman from his post. Later that day Vindman was escorted out of the White House, according to his attorney. His twin brother, Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny Vindman, was also escorted off the White House grounds at the same time. Both were slated for reassignment within the Army. Subsequent news reports indicated that Vindman had been chosen to attend the in-residence course at the United States Army War College during its 2020-2021 session.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: On February 10, 2020, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sent a letter in an apparent response to the firing of the two brothers that requested federal Inspectors General investigate possible retaliation against "anyone who has made, or in the future makes, protected disclosures of presidential misconduct." On February 13, Trump's former chief of staff, retired Marine General John Kelly, defended Vindman's actions and testimony. "He did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle to grave. He went and told his boss what he just heard," Kelly said.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: During a panel discussion held on February 11, 2020, at the Atlantic Council, the president's National Security Advisor, Robert C. O'Brien said that it was his decision to transfer both Vindman brothers back to the Army for re-assignment and denied that the move was ordered by Trump in retaliation for Vindman's testimony. "I can absolutely tell you that they were not retaliated against", O'Brien told the panel. O'Brien also disputed the move as being characterized as "fired" since both brothers remain on active duty. O'Brien noted that their transfer was part of a larger NSA staff reduction. His remarks contradicted Trump, who tweeted that he had ousted Vindman for insubordination and for doing "a lot of bad things."


title: Alexander Vindman

text: On July 2, 2020, Senator Tammy Duckworth announced her intention to block Senate confirmation of over one thousand military promotions unless defense secretary Mark Esper provided written confirmation that the Trump administration would not block Vindman's promotion to colonel. Less than a week later, Vindman announced through his lawyer that he would be retiring from the U.S. military. Vindman's lawyer, David Pressman, described "a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation" by the Trump administration as the reason for his client's retirement.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: In November 2020, Vindman joined the staff of the national security blog "Lawfare" with a fellowship of the Pritzker Military Foundation. Additionally, he is pursuing a Ph.D. in international affairs at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, with an expected completion date in 2022. On August 1, 2020, Vindman authored an opinion piece in the "Washington Post" addressing his retirement. On February 2, 2022, Vindman sued several Trump allies, alleging that they intimidated and retaliated against him while he testified in Congress, and thereby violated the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. The defendants in the lawsuit were Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, former White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, and former White House deputy communications director Julia Hahn. However, on the 8th of November 2022, judges dismissed the case


title: Alexander Vindman

text: Vindman is married to Rachel Vindman, née Cartmill. In 2020, Vindman and his wife Rachel appeared in an advertisement created by The Lincoln Project supporting Joe Biden's presidential campaign. The couple has one daughter, born in 2011.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: His identical twin brother, Yevgeny S. "Eugene" Vindman, is an Army colonel and JAG Officer who was assigned as an attorney on the National Security Council staff handling ethics issues, until he was dismissed from that post on February 7, 2020, the same time as Alexander was removed from his NSC post; Yevgeny was promoted by the Biden administration to colonel on March 16, 2021. The Defense Department inspector general found in May 2022 that the Trump administration unlawfully retaliated against Yevgeny for his role in revealing the Trump-Ukraine scandal.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: Vindman appeared in "The Mormon Advantage", the finale of the 11th season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm", in December 2021.


title: Alexander Vindman

text: At his retirement, Vindman received the Legion of Merit. Vindman's additional awards and decorations include the Purple Heart; Defense Meritorious Service Medal with bronze oak leaf cluster (2nd award); Meritorious Service Medal; Army Commendation Medal with three oak leaf clusters (4th award); Army Achievement Medal with two oak leaf clusters (3rd award); National Defense Service Medal; Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal; Global War on Terrorism Service Medal; Korea Defense Service Medal; Army Service Ribbon; Overseas Service Ribbon (4th award); Valorous Unit Award; Joint Meritorious Unit Award; Navy Unit Commendation; National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation; and Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation. He is a recipient of the Combat Infantryman Badge; Expert Infantryman Badge; Ranger Tab; Basic Parachutist Badge; the Presidential Service Badge; and Joint Chiefs of Staff Identification Badge.


title: Jaye Davidson

text: Jaye Davidson (born Alfred Amey; March 21, 1968) is an English model, fashion stylist, and retired actor. He made his acting debut as the transvestite Dil in the thriller film "The Crying Game" (1992), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Following his breakthrough, he portrayed the villainous Ra in the commercially successful science fiction film "Stargate" (1994). Davidson retired from acting afterwards, disliking the fame that the roles brought him.


title: Jaye Davidson

text: Davidson was born in Riverside, California, and was raised in Borehamwood in Hertfordshire, England. His father is from Ghana and his mother is from England.


title: Jaye Davidson

text: Davidson is gay. During his acting career, he said that his androgynous look alienated him within the gay community. He stated that gay men "love very masculine men. And I'm not a very masculine person. I'm reasonably thin. I have long hair, which isn't very popular with gay men."


title: Jaye Davidson

text: Davidson, who had no prior professional acting experience, was discovered at a wrap party for Derek Jarman's "Edward II" and was invited to audition for "The Crying Game". He was cast in the role of Dil. The film was a critical and popular success. It is known for a surprise plot twist: a love scene in which Dil undresses and main character Fergus (played by Stephen Rea) discovers that Dil is transgender. The scene required full-frontal nudity. Rea later said, “If Jaye hadn’t been a completely convincing woman, my character would have looked stupid.” When the film was released, Miramax requested that reviewers keep Davidson's gender a secret.


title: Jaye Davidson

text: For his work in "The Crying Game", Davidson was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1993. Davidson also received nominations for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actor and the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress in 1993.


title: Jaye Davidson

text: Davidson starred as Ra, an alien impersonating a god, in the 1994 science fiction adventure film "Stargate". He was surprised when they agreed to pay his $1 million fee.


title: Jaye Davidson

text: Davidson later retired from acting, stating that he "genuinely hated the fame" he was receiving. He became more involved in modelling, and has since worked on several high-profile photo shoots, in addition to working as a fashion stylist in Paris.


Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD) is a non-psychotic disorder in which a person experiences apparent lasting or persistent visual hallucinations or perceptual distortions after a previous use of drugs, including but not limited to psychedelics, dissociatives, entactogens, THC, SSRIs and antibiotics. Despite being designated as a hallucinogen-specific disorder, the specific contributory role of psychedelic drugs is unknown.


title: Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder

text: The hallucinations and perceptual changes consist of, but are not limited to, visual snow, trails and after images (palinopsia), light fractals on flat surfaces, intensified colors, altered motion perception, pareidolia, micropsia, and macropsia. People who have never previously taken drugs have also reported some visual anomalies associated with HPPD (such as floaters and visual snow).


text: HPPD is a DSM-5 diagnosis with diagnostic code 292.89 (F16.983). For the diagnosis to be made, other psychological, psychiatric, or neurological conditions must be ruled out and it must cause distress in everyday life. - something that does not necessarily occur, with many adjusting to or enjoying their perceptual changes. In the ICD-10, the diagnosis code F16.7 corresponds most closely to the clinical picture. HPPD is little known among both hallucinogen users and psychiatrists, and is often misdiagnosed as a substance-induced psychosis.


text: Newer research makes a distinction between HPPD I and HPPD II. The more drastic cases, as seen in HPPD II, are believed to be caused by abuse of psychedelics as well as comorbid mental disorders. Some people who have this disorder report that they developed symptoms of HPPD after their first use of such drugs (most notably LSD). Because HPPD is recognized as under-researched, we lack understanding about effective treatments, its aetiology and relationship to other disorders, and precise mechanism.


text: In 1898, the English writer and intellectual Havelock Ellis reported a heightened sensitivity to "the more delicate phenomena of light and shade and color" for a prolonged period of time after exposure to the psychedelic drug mescaline. This may have been one of the first recorded symptoms of what would later be called HPPD. Hallucinogen-persisting perception disorder was first described in 1954, with other observations made in early psychedelic research. Horowitz first introduced the term flashbacks, referring to recurrent and spontaneous perceptual distortions and unbidden images. When these “flashbacks” present as recurrent, but without a current acute, or chronic hallucinogen intake, the disturbance is referred to as HPPD. Horowitz classified also three types of visual flashbacks: (a) perceptual distortions (e.g., seeing haloes around objects); (b) heightened imagery (e.g., visual experiences as much more vivid and dominant in one’s thoughts); and (c) recurrent unbidden images (e.g., subjects see objects that are not there). The famed LSD therapist Dr. Stanislav Grof noted an HPPD phenomenon in his book LSD Psychotherapy from 1978, which noted that


text: “[l]ong after the pharmacological effect of the drug has subsided, the patient may still report anomalies in color-perception, blurred vision, after-images, spontaneous imagery, alterations in body image, intensification of hearing, ringing in the ears, or various strange physical feelings.”


text: HPPD has been introduced under the diagnosis of Post- hallucinogen Perception Disorder in 1987 within the DSM-III-R. Subsequently, the DSM-IV-TR recognized the syndrome as Hallucinogen-Persisting Perception Disorder (Flashbacks) (code 292.89) (15). The Neurosensory Research Foundation was founded by HPPD sufferers to promote research and awareness around the condition. Subsequently, in 2021, the Perception Restoration Foundation was launched to bolster efforts for research, awareness and harm reduction. In 2022, journalists at Psymposia and New York Magazine revealed that a participant in MAPS' landmark MDMA trials for PTSD developed post-psychedelic visual effects similar to HPPD. Subclinical HPPD phenomena have occurred in other trial settings.


text: Typical symptoms of the disorder include: halos or auras surrounding objects, trails following objects in motion, difficulty distinguishing between colors, apparent shifts in the hue of a given item, the illusion of movement in a static setting, visual snow, distortions in the dimensions of a perceived object, intensified hypnagogic & hypnopompic hallucinations, monocular double vision, seeing an excessive amount of floaters and blue field entopic phenomenon. The visual alterations experienced by those with HPPD are not homogeneous and there appear to be individual differences in both the number and intensity of symptoms.


text: Visual aberrations can occur periodically in healthy individuals – e.g. afterimages after staring at a light, noticing floaters inside the eye, blue field entoptic phenomenon or seeing specks of light in a darkened room. However, in people with HPPD, symptoms seem typically to be worse, but complication comes from the additional roles played anxiety and fixation. Indeed, anxiety has been implicated in visual perceptual effects similar to HPPD, and authors have recognized the crucial role of attending to underlying anxiety and panic in recovering from the disorder.


text: There is some uncertainty about to what degree visual snow constitutes a true HPPD symptom. There are individuals who have never used a drug which could have caused the onset, but yet experience the same grainy vision reported by those with HPPD, like people with the closely-linked neurological disorder known as Visual snow syndrome. There are a few potential reasons for this, the most obvious of which being the theory that the drug usage may exaggerate the intensity of visual snow. At the same time, beyond the characteristic visual snow symptom, there is considerable overlap between the conditions, including after-images, palinopsia, tinnitus, dissociation and free-floating anxiety, leading some to suggest that HPPD shares a strong relationship with Visual snow syndrome. Visual snow syndrome is defined as lacking any known cause and is specifically distinguished from HPPD in its nosology, yet further research may clarify the relationship.


text: HPPD usually has a visual manifestation, but some hallucinogenic and psychiatric drugs affect the auditory sense and can produce tinnitus-like symptoms as a side effect, and there's many anecdotal reports of people getting tinnitus with their HPPD.


text: A significant number of those reporting HPPD also describe comorbid depersonalization-derealization and anxiety disorders. Anxiety, PTSD and panic can promote depersonalization-derealization and visual disturbances, and vice versa, so these features may run in multidirectional relationships. Abraham suggested that all three can arise from a broader mechanism of disinhibition in sensory perception, affect and sense-of-self occasioned by psychedelic experience. It is not uncommon for depersonalization-derealization to be the most distressing symptom of the condition.


text: According to a 2016 review, there are two theorized subtypes of the condition. Type 1 HPPD is where people experience random, brief flashbacks. Type 2 HPPD entails experiencing persistent changes to vision, which may vary in intensity. This model has faced scrutiny, however, due to "flashbacks" often being considered a separate condition and not always a perceptual one.


text: HPPD is not related to psychosis due to the fact those affected by the disorder can easily distinguish their visual disturbances from reality. A vast list of psychoactive substances has been identified and linked with the development of this condition, including lysergamides like LSD and LSA, tryptamines like psilocybin and DMT, phenethylamines like 2C-B, MDMA, MDA and mescaline. Dissociatives such as ketamine and dextromethorphan as well as cannabis and synthetic cannabinoids, salvia divinorum, datura and iboga are also known to trigger HPPD. It is therefore clear that HPPD is not strictly associated with psychedelic consumption as a number of hallucinogen-inducing substances may be correlated with its arising. For some, the dosage and how frequent one uses these substances doesn't seem to matter in the development of this condition, since there are several reports in the literature where patients were diagnosed after a single use. This strongly indicates that there may be a genetic predisposition to this condition. It also seems that combining recreational or medical drugs that act on the 5HT2-a receptors, like SSRIs, drastically increases the chances of developing HPPD due to the drug-drug interaction.


text: The exact pathophysiologic mechanism underlying HPPD is poorly understood. The primary neurobiological hypothesis is that persistent hallucinations are the result of chronic disinhibition of visual processors and subsequent dysfunction in the central nervous system following consumption of hallucinogens. Chronic disinhibition may occur from destruction and/or dysfunction of cortical serotonergic inhibitory interneurons involving the inhibitory neurotransmitter, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). This ultimately can cause disruption of the normal neurological mechanisms that are responsible for filtration of unnecessary stimuli in the brain. On a macroscopic level, the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of the thalamus, which is important in visual processing, has also been implicated in the pathophysiology of HPPD.


text: Other researchers have suggested HPPD may be related to drug-induced elevations in neuroplasticity - an effect also noted to occur for SSRIs. Reverse neuroplasticity effects may account for anecdotal reports of individuals treating their HPPD symptoms with further psychedelic drug use, while others report significant deterioriations in their symptoms.


text: Which drugs are most prone to causing HPPD is not entirely known. While LSD has been described as the leading cause of HPPD, this may be a function of LSD's historically higher relative popularity as a recreational psychedelic drug. Popularity effects may explain the high proportion of cases precipitated by cannabis. A recent clinical review found no significant difference in the induction of subclinical visual phenomena between MDMA, LSD and psilocybin. Curiously, lasting visual effects have also occurred as complications of benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome.


text: Being characterized by clinical distress and impairment, however, HPPD is also shaped by psychosocial factors. There is tentative evidence that those who develop distressing HPPD have higher trait anxiety, or experienced elevations in baseline anxiety from possibly negative psychedelic experiences. Elevations in anxiety, and anxious responses to visual and related symptoms, may provoke direct elevations in symptom intensity and fuel the distress that defines HPPD as a clinical entity. Certain core beliefs and automatic thoughts are observed to occur among those reporting HPPD: fears of brain damage, a 'never-ending trip', the development of schizophrenia or a related psychosis spectrum disorder, a more generalized concern surrounding insanity, and destructive thoughts concerning the loss of one's previous self or a new identity centred on brokenness and alienation from others. Being a drug-related disorder, HPPD is therefore vulnerable to internalized anti-drug stigma, specifically around 'flashbacks' and 'brain frying', which were heavily propagandized in prohibitionist campaigns in the 20th-century.


text: As of January 2022 there is no officially recognized cure or therapy for HPPD, but those affected with HPPD are heavily advised to discontinue all recreational drug use. Discontinuation of legal stimulants, like caffeine, taurine, and nicotine, may also be beneficial, as many of them are thought to increase symptoms in the short term.. Improving sleep quality, reducing anxiety, lowering screen use, improving diet quality and pursuing regular exercise are encouraged as general lifestyle changes. To decrease fixation and monitoring behaviors with visual symptoms, increased focus on external tasks may also be encouraged.


text: Antipsychotics such as aripiprazole or risperidone intended to treat mental disorders like schizophrenia should only be taken in careful consultation with a psychiatrist experienced in HPPD. The success rate of antipsychotics as a treatment method for HPPD is still debated. Two young men with HPPD and schizophrenia as a comorbidity experienced a remission of visual perceptual disturbance during a 6-month follow-up observation under treatment with risperidone. There was a case study in 2013 where oral risperidone was also successful for treating HPPD. In other cases risperidone has shown no effect on HPPD or where it had a paradoxical effect and lead to permanent symptom exacerbation.


text: Outside of pharmacotherapy, recovery from HPPD as a clinical entity - that, is involving distress and impairment - can come about through psychological and social means. Case reports of psychotherapy for HPPD suggest that anxiety reduction, muscle relaxation, and re-framing one's visual phenomena through personal destigmatization and normalization may be helpful. Some authors have suggested that HPPD be better designated as a particular somatic symptom disorder rather than a disorder defined centrally by hallucinogen use. Cognitive behavioral therapy has shown promise for somatic symptom disorders, as well as related distress from tinnitus. CBT has likewise shown promise for depersonalization-derealization disorder, which occurs as a common comorbidity to HPPD and seems to share many of the same catastrophic thoughts. The Perception Restoration Foundation hosts a Specialists Directory that lists professionals with prior experience or relevant expertise in helping those with HPPD.


text: Estimates in the 1960s and 1970s were around 1 in 20 for intermittent HPPD among regular users of hallucinogens. In a 2010 study of psychedelic users, 23.9% reported constant HPPD-like effects, though only 4.2% considered seeking treatment due to the severity. In a 2022 study that examined data from six double-blind, placebo-controlled studies, flashback phenomena occurred for up to 9.2% of participants after LSD or psilocybin exposure.


text: In the second episode of the first season of the 2014 series "True Detective" ("Seeing Things"), primary character Rustin Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) is depicted as having symptoms similar to HPPD such as light tracers as a result of "neurological damage" from substance use.


text: American journalist Andrew Callaghan, former host of the internet series "All Gas No Brakes" and current host of Channel 5, revealed during a 2021 interview with Vice News that he experiences the symptoms of HPPD as a result of psilocybin use at a young age. Describing his symptoms, he noted that he experiences persistent visual snow and palinopsia.


title: Bridge

text: A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually something that is otherwise difficult or impossible to cross. There are many different designs of bridges, each serving a particular purpose and applicable to different situations. Designs of bridges vary depending on factors such as the function of the bridge, the nature of the terrain where the bridge is constructed and anchored, and the material used to make it, and the funds available to build it.


title: Bridge

text: The earliest bridges were likely made with fallen trees and stepping stones. The Neolithic people built boardwalk bridges across marshland. The Arkadiko Bridge (dating from the 13th century BC, in the Peloponnese) is one of the oldest arch bridges still in existence and use.


title: Bridge

text: The "Oxford English Dictionary" traces the origin of the word "bridge" to an Old English word "brycg", of the same meaning. The word can be traced directly back to Proto-Indo-European "*bʰrēw-." The word for the card game of the same name has a different origin.


title: Bridge

text: The simplest and earliest types of bridges were stepping stones. Neolithic people also built a form of boardwalk across marshes; examples of such bridges include the Sweet Track and the Post Track in England, approximately 6000 years old. Undoubtedly, ancient people would also have used log bridges; that is a timber bridge that fall naturally or are intentionally felled or placed across streams. Some of the first man-made bridges with significant span were probably intentionally felled trees.


title: Bridge

text: Among the oldest timber bridges is the Holzbrücke Rapperswil-Hurden crossing upper Lake Zürich in Switzerland; the prehistoric timber piles discovered to the west of the Seedamm date back to 1523 BC. The first wooden footbridge led across Lake Zürich, followed by several reconstructions at least until the late 2nd century AD, when the Roman Empire built a wooden bridge. Between 1358 and 1360, Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, built a 'new' wooden bridge across the lake that has been used to 1878 – measuring approximately in length and wide. On April 6, 2001, the reconstructed wooden footbridge was opened, being the longest wooden bridge in Switzerland.


title: Bridge

text: The Arkadiko Bridge is one of four Mycenaean corbel arch bridges part of a former network of roads, designed to accommodate chariots, between the fort of Tiryns and town of Epidauros in the Peloponnese, in southern Greece. Dating to the Greek Bronze Age (13th century BC), it is one of the oldest arch bridges still in existence and use. Several intact arched stone bridges from the Hellenistic era can be found in the Peloponnese.


title: Bridge

text: The greatest bridge builders of antiquity were the ancient Romans. The Romans built arch bridges and aqueducts that could stand in conditions that would damage or destroy earlier designs. Some stand today. An example is the Alcántara Bridge, built over the river Tagus, in Spain. The Romans also used cement, which reduced the variation of strength found in natural stone. One type of cement, called pozzolana, consisted of water, lime, sand, and volcanic rock. Brick and mortar bridges were built after the Roman era, as the technology for cement was lost (then later rediscovered).


title: Bridge

text: In India, the "Arthashastra" treatise by Kautilya mentions the construction of dams and bridges. A Mauryan bridge near Girnar was surveyed by James Princep. The bridge was swept away during a flood, and later repaired by Puspagupta, the chief architect of emperor Chandragupta I. The use of stronger bridges using plaited bamboo and iron chain was visible in India by about the 4th century. A number of bridges, both for military and commercial purposes, were constructed by the Mughal administration in India.


title: Bridge

text: Although large Chinese bridges of wooden construction existed at the time of the Warring States period, the oldest surviving stone bridge in China is the Zhaozhou Bridge, built from 595 to 605 AD during the Sui dynasty. This bridge is also historically significant as it is the world's oldest open-spandrel stone segmental arch bridge. European segmental arch bridges date back to at least the Alconétar Bridge (approximately 2nd century AD), while the enormous Roman era Trajan's Bridge (105 AD) featured open-spandrel segmental arches in wooden construction.


title: Bridge

text: Rope bridges, a simple type of suspension bridge, were used by the Inca civilization in the Andes mountains of South America, just prior to European colonization in the 16th century.


title: Bridge

text: The Ashanti built bridges over streams and rivers. They were constructed by pounding four large forked tree trunks into the stream bed, placing beams along these forked pillars, then positioning cross-beams that were finally covered with four to six inches of dirt.


title: Bridge

text: During the 18th century, there were many innovations in the design of timber bridges by Hans Ulrich Grubenmann, Johannes Grubenmann, and others. The first book on bridge engineering was written by Hubert Gautier in 1716.


title: Bridge

text: A major breakthrough in bridge technology came with the erection of the Iron Bridge in Shropshire, England in 1779. It used cast iron for the first time as arches to cross the river Severn. With the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, truss systems of wrought iron were developed for larger bridges, but iron does not have the tensile strength to support large loads. With the advent of steel, which has a high tensile strength, much larger bridges were built, many using the ideas of Gustave Eiffel.


title: Bridge

text: In Canada and the United States, numerous timber covered bridges were built in the late 1700s to the late 1800s, reminiscent of earlier designs in Germany and Switzerland. Some covered bridges were also built in Asia. In later years, some were partly made of stone or metal but the trusses were usually still made of wood; in the United States, there were three styles of trusses, the Queen Post, the Burr Arch and the Town Lattice. Hundreds of these structures still stand in North America. They were brought to the attention of the general public in the 1990s by the novel, movie, and play "The Bridges of Madison County".


title: Bridge

text: In 1927 welding pioneer Stefan Bryła designed the first welded road bridge in the world, the Maurzyce Bridge which was later built across the river Słudwia at Maurzyce near Łowicz, Poland in 1929. In 1995, the American Welding Society presented the Historic Welded Structure Award for the bridge to Poland.


title: Bridge

text: Bridges can be categorized in several different ways. Common categories include the type of structural elements used, by what they carry, whether they are fixed or movable, and by the materials used.


title: Bridge

text: Bridges may be classified by how the actions of tension, compression, bending, torsion and shear are distributed through their structure. Most bridges will employ all of these to some degree, but only a few will predominate. The separation of forces and moments may be quite clear. In a suspension or cable-stayed bridge, the elements in tension are distinct in shape and placement. In other cases the forces may be distributed among a large number of members, as in a truss.


title: Bridge

text: Some Engineers sub-divide 'beam' bridges into slab, beam-and-slab and box girder on the basis of their cross-section. A slab can be solid or voided (though this is no longer favored for inspectability reasons) while beam-and-slab consists of concrete or steel girders connected by a concrete slab. A box-girder cross-section consists of a single-cell or multi-cellular box. In recent years, integral bridge construction has also become popular.


title: Bridge

text: Most bridges are fixed bridges, meaning they have no moving parts and stay in one place until they fail or are demolished. Temporary bridges, such as Bailey bridges, are designed to be assembled, taken apart, transported to a different site, and re-used. They are important in military engineering and are also used to carry traffic while an old bridge is being rebuilt. Movable bridges are designed to move out of the way of boats or other kinds of traffic, which would otherwise be too tall to fit. These are generally electrically powered.


title: Bridge

text: The Tank bridge transporter (TBT) has the same cross-country performance as a tank even when fully loaded. It can deploy, drop off and load bridges independently, but it cannot recover them.


title: Bridge

text: Double-decked (or double-decker) bridges have two levels, such as the George Washington Bridge, connecting New York City to Bergen County, New Jersey, US, as the world's busiest bridge, carrying 102 million vehicles annually; truss work between the roadway levels provided stiffness to the roadways and reduced movement of the upper level when the lower level was installed three decades after the upper level. The Tsing Ma Bridge and Kap Shui Mun Bridge in Hong Kong have six lanes on their upper decks, and on their lower decks there are two lanes and a pair of tracks for MTR metro trains. Some double-decked bridges only use one level for street traffic; the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis reserves its lower level for automobile and light rail traffic and its upper level for pedestrian and bicycle traffic (predominantly students at the University of Minnesota). Likewise, in Toronto, the Prince Edward Viaduct has five lanes of motor traffic, bicycle lanes, and sidewalks on its upper deck; and a pair of tracks for the Bloor–Danforth subway line on its lower deck. The western span of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge also has two levels.


title: Bridge

text: Robert Stephenson's High Level Bridge across the River Tyne in Newcastle upon Tyne, completed in 1849, is an early example of a double-decked bridge. The upper level carries a railway, and the lower level is used for road traffic. Other examples include Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait and Craigavon Bridge in Derry, Northern Ireland. The Oresund Bridge between Copenhagen and Malmö consists of a four-lane highway on the upper level and a pair of railway tracks at the lower level. Tower Bridge in London is different example of a double-decked bridge, with the central section consisting of a low-level bascule span and a high-level footbridge.


title: Bridge

text: A viaduct is made up of multiple bridges connected into one longer structure. The longest and some of the highest bridges are viaducts, such as the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and Millau Viaduct.


title: Bridge

text: A multi-way bridge has three or more separate spans which meet near the center of the bridge. Multi-way bridges with only three spans appear as a "T" or "Y" when viewed from above. Multi-way bridges are extremely rare. The Tridge, Margaret Bridge, and Zanesville Y-Bridge are examples.


title: Bridge

text: A bridge can be categorized by what it is designed to carry, such as trains, pedestrian or road traffic (road bridge), a pipeline or waterway for water transport or barge traffic. An aqueduct is a bridge that carries water, resembling a viaduct, which is a bridge that connects points of equal height. A road-rail bridge carries both road and rail traffic. Overway is a term for a bridge that separates incompatible intersecting traffic, especially road and rail. A bridge can carry overhead power lines as does the Storstrøm Bridge.


title: Bridge

text: Some bridges accommodate other purposes, such as the tower of Nový Most Bridge in Bratislava, which features a restaurant, or a bridge-restaurant which is a bridge built to serve as a restaurant. Other suspension bridge towers carry transmission antennas.


title: Bridge

text: Conservationists use wildlife overpasses to reduce habitat fragmentation and animal-vehicle collisions. The first animal bridges sprung up in France in the 1950s, and these types of bridges are now used worldwide to protect both large and small wildlife.


title: Bridge

text: Bridges are subject to unplanned uses as well. The areas underneath some bridges have become makeshift shelters and homes to homeless people, and the undertimbers of bridges all around the world are spots of prevalent graffiti. Some bridges attract people attempting suicide, and become known as suicide bridges.


title: Bridge

text: The materials used to build the structure are also used to categorize bridges. Until the end of the 18th century, bridges were made out of timber, stone and masonry. Modern bridges are currently built in concrete, steel, fiber reinforced polymers (FRP), stainless steel or combinations of those materials. Living bridges have been constructed of live plants such as "Ficus elastica" tree roots in India and wisteria vines in Japan.


title: Bridge

text: Unlike buildings whose design is led by architects, bridges are usually designed by engineers. This follows from the importance of the engineering requirements; namely spanning the obstacle and having the durability to survive, with minimal maintenance, in an aggressive outdoor environment. Bridges are first analysed; the bending moment and shear force distributions are calculated due to the applied loads. For this, the finite element method is the most popular. The analysis can be one-, two-, or three-dimensional. For the majority of bridges, a two-dimensional plate model (often with stiffening beams) is sufficient or an upstand finite element model. On completion of the analysis, the bridge is designed to resist the applied bending moments and shear forces, section sizes are selected with sufficient capacity to resist the stresses. Many bridges are made of prestressed concrete which has good durability properties, either by pre-tensioning of beams prior to installation or post-tensioning on site.


title: Bridge

text: In most countries, bridges, like other structures, are designed according to Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) principles. In simple terms, this means that the load is factored up by a factor greater than unity, while the resistance or capacity of the structure is factored down, by a factor less than unity. The effect of the factored load (stress, bending moment) should be less than the factored resistance to that effect. Both of these factors allow for uncertainty and are greater when the uncertainty is greater.


title: Bridge

text: Most bridges are utilitarian in appearance, but in some cases, the appearance of the bridge can have great importance. Often, this is the case with a large bridge that serves as an entrance to a city, or crosses over a main harbor entrance. These are sometimes known as signature bridges. Designers of bridges in parks and along parkways often place more importance on aesthetics, as well. Examples include the stone-faced bridges along the Taconic State Parkway in New York.


title: Bridge

text: Generally bridges are more aesthetically pleasing if they are simple in shape, the deck is thinner (in proportion to its span), the lines of the structure are continuous, and the shapes of the structural elements reflect the forces acting on them. To create a beautiful image, some bridges are built much taller than necessary. This type, often found in east-Asian style gardens, is called a Moon bridge, evoking a rising full moon. Other garden bridges may cross only a dry bed of stream-washed pebbles, intended only to convey an impression of a stream. Often in palaces, a bridge will be built over an artificial waterway as symbolic of a passage to an important place or state of mind. A set of five bridges cross a sinuous waterway in an important courtyard of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. The central bridge was reserved exclusively for the use of the Emperor and Empress, with their attendants.


title: Bridge

text: The estimated life of bridges varies between 25 and 80 years depending on location and material. However, bridges may age hundred years with proper maintenance and rehabilitation. Bridge maintenance consisting of a combination of structural health monitoring and testing. This is regulated in country-specific engineer standards and includes an ongoing monitoring every three to six months, a simple test or inspection every two to three years and a major inspection every six to ten years. In Europe, the cost of maintenance is considerable and is higher in some countries than spending on new bridges. The lifetime of welded steel bridges can be significantly extended by aftertreatment of the weld transitions. This results in a potential high benefit, using existing bridges far beyond the planned lifetime.


title: Bridge

text: While the response of a bridge to the applied loading is well understood, the applied traffic loading itself is still the subject of research. This is a statistical problem as loading is highly variable, particularly for road bridges. Load Effects in bridges (stresses, bending moments) are designed for using the principles of Load and Resistance Factor Design. Before factoring to allow for uncertainty, the load effect is generally considered to be the maximum characteristic value in a specified return period. Notably, in Europe, it is the maximum value expected in 1000 years.


title: Bridge

text: Bridge standards generally include a load model, deemed to represent the characteristic maximum load to be expected in the return period. In the past, these load models were agreed by standard drafting committees of experts but today, this situation is changing. It is now possible to measure the components of bridge traffic load, to weigh trucks, using weigh-in-motion (WIM) technologies. With extensive WIM databases, it is possible to calculate the maximum expected load effect in the specified return period. This is an active area of research, addressing issues of opposing direction lanes, side-by-side (same direction) lanes, traffic growth, permit/non-permit vehicles and long-span bridges (see below). Rather than repeat this complex process every time a bridge is to be designed, standards authorities specify simplified notional load models, notably HL-93, intended to give the same load effects as the characteristic maximum values. The Eurocode is an example of a standard for bridge traffic loading that was developed in this way.


title: Bridge

text: Most bridge standards are only applicable for short and medium spans - for example, the Eurocode is only applicable for loaded lengths up to 200 m. Longer spans are dealt with on a case-by-case basis. It is generally accepted that the intensity of load reduces as span increases because the probability of many trucks being closely spaced and extremely heavy reduces as the number of trucks involved increases. It is also generally assumed that short spans are governed by a small number of trucks traveling at high speed, with an allowance for dynamics. Longer spans on the other hand, are governed by congested traffic and no allowance for dynamics is needed. Calculating the loading due to congested traffic remains a challenge as there is a paucity of data on inter-vehicle gaps, both within-lane and inter-lane, in congested conditions. Weigh-in-Motion (WIM) systems provide data on inter-vehicle gaps but only operate well in free flowing traffic conditions. Some authors have used cameras to measure gaps and vehicle lengths in jammed situations and have inferred weights from lengths using WIM data. Others have used microsimulation to generate typical clusters of vehicles on the bridge.


title: Bridge

text: Bridges vibrate under load and this contributes, to a greater or lesser extent, to the stresses. Vibration and dynamics are generally more significant for slender structures such as pedestrian bridges and long-span road or rail bridges. One of the most famous examples is the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that collapsed shortly after being constructed due to excessive vibration. More recently, the Millennium Bridge in London vibrated excessively under pedestrian loading and was closed and retrofitted with a system of dampers. For smaller bridges, dynamics is not catastrophic but can contribute an added amplification to the stresses due to static effects. For example, the Eurocode for bridge loading specifies amplifications of between 10% and 70%, depending on the span, the number of traffic lanes and the type of stress (bending moment or shear force).


title: Bridge

text: There have been many studies of the dynamic interaction between vehicles and bridges during vehicle crossing events. Fryba did pioneering work on the interaction of a moving load and an Euler-Bernoulli beam. With increased computing power, vehicle-bridge interaction (VBI) models have become ever more sophisticated. The concern is that one of the many natural frequencies associated with the vehicle will resonate with the bridge first natural frequency. The vehicle-related frequencies include body bounce and axle hop but there are also pseudo-frequencies associated with the vehicle's speed of crossing and there are many frequencies associated with the surface profile. Given the wide variety of heavy vehicles on road bridges, a statistical approach has been suggested, with VBI analyses carried out for many statically extreme loading events.


title: Bridge

text: The failure of bridges is of special concern for structural engineers in trying to learn lessons vital to bridge design, construction and maintenance.


title: Bridge

text: The failure of bridges first assumed national interest in Britain during the Victorian era when many new designs were being built, often using new materials, with some of them failing catastrophically.


title: Bridge

text: In the United States, the National Bridge Inventory tracks the structural evaluations of all bridges, including designations such as "structurally deficient" and "functionally obsolete".


title: Bridge

text: There are several methods used to monitor the condition of large structures like bridges. Many long-span bridges are now routinely monitored with a range of sensors. Many types of sensors are used, including strain transducers, accelerometers, tiltmeters, and GPS. Accelerometers have the advantage that they are inertial, i.e., they do not require a reference point to measure from. This is often a problem for distance or deflection measurement, especially if the bridge is over water.


title: Bridge

text: An option for structural-integrity monitoring is "non-contact monitoring", which uses the Doppler effect (Doppler shift). A laser beam from a Laser Doppler Vibrometer is directed at the point of interest, and the vibration amplitude and frequency are extracted from the Doppler shift of the laser beam frequency due to the motion of the surface. The advantage of this method is that the setup time for the equipment is faster and, unlike an accelerometer, this makes measurements possible on multiple structures in as short a time as possible. Additionally, this method can measure specific points on a bridge that might be difficult to access. However, vibrometers are relatively expensive and have the disadvantage that a reference point is needed to measure from.


title: Bridge

text: Snapshots in time of the external condition of a bridge can be recorded using Lidar to aid bridge inspection. This can provide measurement of the bridge geometry (to facilitate the building of a computer model) but the accuracy is generally insufficient to measure bridge deflections under load.


title: Bridge

text: While larger modern bridges are routinely monitored electronically, smaller bridges are generally inspected visually by trained inspectors. There is considerable research interest in the challenge of smaller bridges as they are often remote and do not have electrical power on site. Possible solutions are the installation of sensors on a specialist inspection vehicle and the use of its measurements as it drives over the bridge to infer information about the bridge condition. These vehicles can be equipped with accelerometers, gyrometers, Laser Doppler Vibrometers and some even have the capability to apply a resonant force to the road surface in order to dynamically excite the bridge at its resonant frequency.


title: Existenz

text: Existenz (stylized as "eXistenZ") is a 1999 science fiction horror film written, produced and directed by David Cronenberg. The film follows Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a game designer who finds herself targeted by assassins while playing a virtual reality game of her own creation. An international co-production between Canada, the United Kingdom, and France, it also stars Jude Law, Ian Holm, Don McKellar, Callum Keith Rennie, Sarah Polley, Christopher Eccleston, Willem Dafoe, and Robert A. Silverman.


title: Existenz

text: The film received mostly positive reviews upon release. Cronenberg was awarded a Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival for the film.


title: Existenz

text: In the near-future, biotechnological virtual reality game consoles known as "game pods" have replaced electronic ones. The pods present "UmbyCords" that attach to "bio-ports", connectors surgically inserted into players' spines. Two game companies, Antenna Research and Cortical Systematics, compete against each other. In addition, a group of fanatics called Realists fight both companies to prevent the "deforming" of reality.


title: Existenz

text: Antenna Research's Allegra Geller, a world renowned game designer, is demonstrating her latest virtual reality game, eXistenZ, to a focus group. A Realist named Noel Dichter shoots Allegra in the shoulder with an organic pistol he smuggled past security. As the security team guns down Dichter, security guard and publicist Ted Pikul rushes to Geller and escorts her outside.


title: Existenz

text: Geller discovers that her pod, which contains the only copy of eXistenZ, may have been damaged. Pikul reluctantly agrees to have a bio-port installed in his spine so they can jointly test the game's integrity. Allegra takes him to a gas station run by a black-marketeer named Gas, who deliberately installs a faulty bio-port. He reveals his intention to kill Geller for the bounty on her head. Pikul kills Gas, and the two escape to a former ski lodge used by Kiri Vinokur, Geller's mentor. Vinokur and his assistant repair the damaged pod and give Pikul a new bio-port.


title: Existenz

text: Geller and Pikul enter the game, and meet with D'Arcy Nader, a video game shop owner, who provides them with new "micro pods". They activate the new pods and enter a deeper layer of virtual reality. They assume new identities as workers in a game pod factory. Another worker in the factory, Yevgeny Nourish, claims to be their Realist contact. At a Chinese restaurant near the factory, Nourish recommends that they order the special for lunch. Pikul eats the unappetizing special, and constructs a pistol from the inedible parts. He sarcastically threatens Geller, then shoots the Chinese waiter. When the pair return to the game store, Hugo Carlaw informs them that Nourish is actually a double agent for Cortical Systematics, and the waiter Pikul murdered was the actual contact.


title: Existenz

text: At the factory, they find a diseased pod. Geller connects it to her bio-port, planning to infect the other pods and sabotage the factory. When Geller quickly becomes ill, Pikul cuts the UmbyCord, but she begins to bleed to death. Nourish appears with a flamethrower and blasts the diseased pod, which bursts into deadly spores.


title: Existenz

text: Geller and Pikul awaken back at the ski lodge, where they discover Geller's game pod is also diseased. Geller surmises that Vinokur must have infected Pikul's new bio-port to destroy her game, and she inserts a disinfecting device into Pikul's bioport. Unexpectedly, Carlaw reappears as a Realist resistance fighter and escorts Geller and Pikul outside to witness the death of eXistenZ. Before Carlaw can kill Geller, Vinokur, who is a double agent for Cortical Systematics, shoots Carlaw in the back and informs Geller that he copied her game data while fixing her pod; she then vengefully kills Vinokur. Pikul then reveals that he himself is a Realist sent to kill her. Geller tells Pikul she had known his intentions since he pointed the gun at her in the Chinese restaurant, and she remotely detonates the disinfecting device in his bioport, killing him.


title: Existenz

text: Suddenly, Pikul and Geller are seated in chairs in a small abandoned church, seeing rows of pews as they come to, together with all of the other members of the cast, all wearing blue electronic virtual reality devices. Nourish explains that the story was all part of a virtual reality game he designed called transCendenZ. He tells his assistant Merle that he feels uneasy, because the anti-game plot elements may have originated from the thoughts of one of the testers. Pikul and Geller approach Nourish and accuse him of distorting reality, before shooting him and Merle to death. As Pikul and Geller leave, they aim their guns at the person who played the Chinese waiter, who first pleads for his life, then asks if they are still in the game. Pikul and Geller stand together silently, not answering.


title: Existenz

text: The film's plot came about after Cronenberg conducted an interview with Salman Rushdie for "Shift" magazine in 1995. At the time, Rushdie was in hiding due to a fatwa having been put on his life, due to his controversial book "The Satanic Verses". Rushdie's dilemma gave Cronenberg an idea of "a Fatwa [sic] against a virtual-reality game designer". "Existenz" was originally pitched to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but they did not green-light the film due to its complex structure.


title: Existenz

text: The film received generally positive reviews, with a 74% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 74 reviews, with an average rating of 6.60/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Gooey, slimy, grotesque fun." Metacritic assigned a score of 68 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Existenz

text: Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four in his review of the film, noting its release after fellow science-fiction film "The Matrix". He compared the two films, stating that while both have special effects, Cronenberg's film was stranger along with having his best effects involve "gooey, indescribable organic things".


title: Existenz

text: Conversely, James Berardinelli gave the film a two out of four star rating in his review. He cites that the film had a "disjointed feel", and called it a "missed opportunity" that suffered from being released near "The Matrix" and "Open Your Eyes", which he states did similar things that were accomplished better in those films.


title: James Best

text: Jewel Franklin Guy (July 26, 1926 – April 6, 2015), known professionally as James Best, was an American television, film, stage, and voice actor, as well as a writer, director, acting coach, artist, college professor, and musician. During a career that spanned more than 60 years, he performed not only in feature films but also in scores of television series, as well as appearing on various country music programs and talk shows. Television audiences, however, perhaps most closely associate Best with his role as the bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the action-comedy series "The Dukes of Hazzard", which originally aired on CBS between 1979 and 1985. He reprised the role in 1997 and 2000 for the made-for-television movies "" and "" (2000).


title: James Best

text: Best was born on July 26, 1926, in Powderly, Kentucky, to Lark and Lena (née Everly) Guy. Lena Guy's brother was Ike Everly, the father of the pop duo the Everly Brothers. After his mother died of tuberculosis in 1929, then three-year-old James was sent to live in an orphanage. He was later adopted by Armen Best and his wife, Essa Myrtle ( Knowland) and went to live with them in Corydon, Indiana.


title: James Best

text: Best served in the United States Army Air Forces in World War II, training in 1944 in Biloxi, Mississippi, as a gunner on a B-17 bomber; but by the time he completed his training the war had almost ended, so he was assigned to the army's law enforcement section. In the military police, as an "MP", Best served in war-torn Germany immediately after the Nazi government's surrender in May 1945. While stationed in Germany, Best soon transferred from the military police to an army unit of actors, who traveled around Europe performing plays for troops. Those experiences formed the beginning of his acting career.


title: James Best

text: Best began his contract career in 1949 at Universal Studios, where he met fellow actors Julie Adams, Piper Laurie, Tony Curtis, Mamie Van Doren and Rock Hudson. Initially, he performed in several uncredited roles for Universal, such as in the 1950 film "One Way Street", but credited performances soon followed that same year in the Westerns "Comanche Territory", "Winchester '73", and "Kansas Raiders". Work in that genre continued to be an important part of his ongoing film career, including roles in "The Cimarron Kid" (1952), "Seven Angry Men" (1955) in which he portrays one of the sons of abolitionist John Brown, "Last of the Badmen" (1957), "Cole Younger Gunfighter" (1958), "Ride Lonesome" (1959), "The Quick Gun" (1964), and "Firecreek" (1968). Yet Best's film roles were not limited to Westerns. He also starred in the 1959 science fiction cult movie "The Killer Shrews" and in its 2012 sequel "Return of the Killer Shrews", as army medic Rhidges in the 1958 film adaptation of Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead", as escaped POW Carter in the James Stewart classic "Shenandoah", as Dr. Ben Mizer in the 1966 comedy "Three on a Couch", and as the cross-dressing Dewey Barksdale in the 1976 drama "Ode to Billy Joe". He also played Burt Reynolds’s partner Cully in the 1978 movie “Hooper”.


title: James Best

text: Best guest-starred more than 280 times in various television series. In 1954, he played outlaw Dave Ridley in an episode of "Stories of the Century". In 1954, Best appeared twice on the syndicated "Annie Oakley" series. In 1955, he played Jim Blake on "The Lone Ranger", Season 4, Episode 47. He was cast in the religion anthology series "Crossroads", in its 1956 episode "The White Carnation." He was also cast on an episode of the NBC sitcom "The People's Choice" and in the crime drama "Richard Diamond, Private Detective".


title: James Best

text: Best made four appearances on the syndicated anthology series "Death Valley Days". His first role was as miner "Tiny" Stoker in the 1955 episode "Million Dollar Wedding".


title: James Best

text: In 1960, Best appeared in the episode "Love on Credit" of CBS's anthology series "The DuPont Show with June Allyson". The same year, he guest-starred on "The Andy Griffith Show" as "The Guitar Player" (Season 1, Episode 3 and 31). He starred in three episodes of "The Twilight Zone" including "The Grave" (Season 3, Episode 7), "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank," (Season 3, Episode 23) and "Jess-Belle" (Season 4, Episode 7). In 1961 he guest-starred in the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode "Make My Death Bed". In 1963, he was cast as the courageous Wisconsin game warden Ernie Swift in the episode "Open Season" of another CBS anthology series, "GE True", hosted by Jack Webb. In the story line, Swift faces the reprisal of organized crime after he tickets gangster Frank MacErlane (David McLean) for illegal fishing.


title: James Best

text: In 1962, he played the part of Art Fuller in the episode "Incident of El Toro" on CBS's "Rawhide"; and in 1963, he returned to play Willie Cain in the episode "Incident at Spider Rock." Best made two guest appearances on "Perry Mason". In 1963 he played title character Martin Potter in "The Case of the Surplus Suitor," and in 1966 he played defendant and oilman Allan Winford in "The Case of the Unwelcome Well." He appeared on a long list of other television series in the 1950s and 1960s, including "Wagon Train" (three times), "Laramie" (three times), "The Adventures of Kit Carson" (twice as Henry Jordan), the western anthology series "Frontier" (twice), "The Rebel", "Bonanza", "Sheriff of Cochise", "Pony Express", "Rescue 8", "The Texan", "Gunsmoke", "Have Gun – Will Travel", "The Barbara Stanwyck Show", "Tombstone Territory", "Whispering Smith", "Trackdown", "The Rifleman", "Cheyenne", "Stagecoach West"," "," Overland Trail"," Bat Masterson"," Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Combat!", "The Green Hornet "("Deadline For Death")," The Mod Squad"," I Spy", "The Fugitive" and "Flipper". He made a guest appearance on "Honey West" "A Matter of Wife and Death" (episode 4) in 1965.


title: James Best

text: Best's highest-profile role was as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on CBS's "The Dukes of Hazzard". He appeared during the entire run of the program, from 1979 until the end of the series in 1985. He later revealed that the caricature-like persona of Sheriff Coltrane was developed from a voice he used when playing with his young children. On set, Best was particularly close to Sorrell Booke, who played the character of Boss Hogg, who was both the boss and the brother-in-law of Rosco. The two actors became close friends; and according to interviews by the series' creators, the two often improvised their scenes together, making up their own dialogue as they went along. Until his death, he also remained close to Catherine Bach, who played the character of Daisy Duke; and long after the show's cancellation, she was a regular visitor to the website dedicated to Best's painting.


title: James Best

text: In 1991, Best appeared in an episode of the NBC crime drama "In the Heat of the Night". He portrayed retired sheriff and repentant killer Nathan Bedford in the episode "Sweet, Sweet Blues."


title: James Best

text: In August 2008, Best was presented the Florida Motion Picture and Television Association's Lifetime Achievement Award.


title: James Best

text: Best later moved to Florida and taught at the University of Central Florida (Orlando). After semi-retiring, he administered a production company and accepted occasional acting roles. He also developed a reputation as an artist for his paintings of landscapes, scenes from "The Dukes of Hazzard" in collaboration with Scott Romine, and other subjects. Later, after residing for a while on Lake Murray near Columbia, South Carolina, he moved once again, this time to Hickory, North Carolina.


title: James Best

text: An acting coach too, Best taught drama and acting techniques for more than 25 years in Los Angeles. He also served as artist-in-residence and taught drama at the University of Mississippi (Oxford) for two years prior to his stint on "The Dukes of Hazzard".


title: James Best

text: On November 9, 2014, Best and fellow actor Robert Fuller (along with their wives) attended the 100th birthday celebration of lifelong friend and fellow actor Norman Lloyd. Best said, "I had the honor to have been directed by Norman in a Hitchcock episode called 'The Jar.' Having worked with hundreds of directors in my career, I found very few that had Norman's qualities. He was most kind, gracious and patient with his actors. He is in all respects a complete gentleman in his personal life and I found it a genuine pleasure just to be in the presence of such a talented man. I am also doubly honored to consider him my friend. We are so blessed to have such a man among us for so long."


title: James Best

text: Best had a son, Gary, with his first wife. In 1959, Best married his second wife, Jobee Ayers. The couple had two daughters, Janeen and JoJami, before divorcing in 1977. Janeen is an actress, screenwriter and producer, first as Janeen Best then as Janeen Damian, after her 1998 marriage to actor and producer Michael Damian. Best married his third wife, Dorothy Collier, in 1986. He had three grandchildren.


title: James Best

text: He enjoyed a wide range of hobbies and interests. He was an accomplished painter, a guitarist, and a black belt in karate; enjoyed writing; and ran his own acting school. His students included Lindsay Wagner, Roger Miller, Glen Campbell, Quentin Tarantino, and Regis Philbin. He was also an animal rights advocate.


title: James Best

text: Best died on April 6, 2015, at the age of 88, in Hickory, North Carolina, from complications of pneumonia.


title: James Best

text: Prior to his death, Best's former "Dukes of Hazzard" co-star and longtime friend John Schneider said: "I laughed and learned more from Jimmie in one hour than from anyone else in a whole year." He also added that, when asked to cry for the camera, "(Best) would say, 'sure thing, which eye?' I'm forever thankful to have cut my teeth in the company of such a fine man." Nearly one year after Best's death, Schneider said about his working relationship with Best:


title: James Best

text: Best, James; Clark, Jim (2009). "Best in Hollywood: The Good, The Bad, And The Beautiful." Albany, New York: BearManor Media, 2009; .


title: Fourth Reich

text: The Fourth Reich () is a hypothetical Nazi Reich that is the successor to Adolf Hitler's Third Reich (1933–1945). The term has also been used to refer to the possible resurgence of Nazi ideas, as well as pejoratively of political opponents.


title: Fourth Reich

text: The term "Third Reich" was coined by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck in his 1923 book "Das Dritte Reich". He defined the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) as the "First Reich", the German Empire (18711918) as the "Second Reich", while the "Third Reich" was a postulated ideal state including all German people, including Austria. In the modern context the term refers to Nazi Germany. It was used by the Nazis to legitimize their regime as a successor state to the retroactively-renamed First and Second Reichs.


title: Fourth Reich

text: The term "Fourth Reich" has been used in a variety of different ways. Neo-Nazis have used it to describe their envisioned revival of an ethnically pure state, mostly in reference to, but not limited to, Nazi Germany. Others have used the term derogatorily, such as conspiracy theorists like Max Spiers, Peter Levenda, and Jim Marrs who have used it to refer to what they perceive as a covert continuation of Nazi ideals.


title: Fourth Reich

text: Neo-Nazis envision the Fourth Reich as featuring Aryan supremacy, anti-Semitism, "Lebensraum", aggressive militarism and totalitarianism. Upon the establishment of the Fourth Reich, German neo-Nazis propose that Germany should acquire nuclear weapons and use the threat of their use as a form of nuclear blackmail to re-expand to Germany's former boundaries as of 1937.


title: Fourth Reich

text: Based on pamphlets published by David Myatt in the early 1990s, many neo-Nazis came to believe that the rise of the Fourth Reich in Germany would pave the way for the establishment of the "Western Imperium", a pan-Aryan world empire encompassing all land populated by predominantly European-descended peoples (i.e., Europe, Russia, Anglo-America, Australia, New Zealand, and White South Africa).


title: Fourth Reich

text: Some commentators in Europe have used the term "Fourth Reich" to point at the influence that they believe Germany exerts within the European Union. For example, Simon Heffer wrote in the "Daily Mail" that Germany's economic power, further boosted by the European financial crisis, is the "economic colonisation of Europe by stealth", whereby Berlin is using economic pressure rather than armies to "topple the leadership of a European nation". This, he says, constitutes the "rise of the Fourth Reich." Likewise, Simon Jenkins of "The Guardian" wrote that it is "a massive irony that old Europe's last gasp should be to seek ... German supremacy". According to Richard J. Evans of the "New Statesman", this kind of language had not been heard since German reunification which sparked a wave of Germanophobic commentary. In a counterbalancing perspective, the "Charlemagne" columnist at "The Economist" reports that the German hegemony perspective does not match reality.


title: Fourth Reich

text: In August 2012, the Italian newspaper "Il Giornale" had as headline the phrase "Fourth Reich" (Quarto Reich) as a protest against German hegemony.


title: Fourth Reich

text: This perspective gained particular traction in the United Kingdom in the run up to 2016 EU referendum and the subsequent negotiations.


title: Fourth Reich

text: In December 2021, against the background of the 2015–present Polish constitutional crisis, Jarosław Kaczyński, Polish deputy Prime Minister and head of Poland’s ruling party, told the far-right Polish newspaper GPC that "Germany is trying to turn the EU into a federal 'German fourth Reich'". He explained that he was referring to the connection with the first Reich (the Holy Roman Empire), not the third one (Nazi Germany), and there was nothing negative about the comparison. But he critized the vision of greater federalism, as displayed by Olaf Scholz and his coalition, as "utopian and therefore dangerous". Kaczynski remarked that, "if we Poles agreed to such a modern submission we would be degraded in many ways".


title: Fourth Reich

text: The term has come to be used by commentators on the left, seeing the rise of right-wing populism as akin to the emergence of fascism in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. In a 1973 interview, black American writer James Baldwin said of Richard Nixon's reelection, "To keep the nigger in his place, they brought into office law and order, but I call it the Fourth Reich." In 2019, a professor of history at Fairfield University named Gavriel D. Rosenfeld remarked that "Too many hyperbolic comparisonsfor example, between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitlerdulls the power of historical analogies and risks crying wolf. Too little willingness to see past dangers lurking in the present risks underestimating the latter and ignoring the former."


title: Fourth Reich

text: In the film "Iron Sky" in 1945 some Nazis escaped to the far side of the Moon and establish the Fourth Reich.


title: Fourth Reich

text: In the TV series Hunters, some Nazi escaped to South America and plan to establish the Fourth Reich. It's revealed that Hitler and Eva Braun are still alive, Hitler has physically and mentally deteriorated, and Braun is leader of the organization.


title: Fourth Reich

text: In the British comic "2000 AD" a storyline called The Shicklgruber Grab from "Strontium Dog" mutant bounty hunters Johnny Alpha and Wulf Sternhammer are hired to go back to 1945 and bring Hitler to the future the stand trial, Hitler who murdered Eva Braun shortly after marrying her, and used his simpleton body double to commit suicide so he could escape and start the Fourth Reich, however gets dragged to the future not understanding what's going on.


title: Fourth Reich

text: At the end of "" some Nazis try to escape falling Nazi Germany to establish the Fourth Reich elsewhere.


title: Bassoon

text: The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuosity. It is a non-transposing instrument and typically its music is written in the bass and tenor clefs, and sometimes in the treble. There are two forms of modern bassoon: the Buffet (or French) and Heckel (or German) systems. It is typically played while sitting using a seat strap, but can be played while standing if the player has a harness to hold the instrument. Sound is produced by rolling both lips over the reed and blowing direct air pressure to cause the reed to vibrate. Its fingering system can be quite complex when compared to those of other instruments. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band, and chamber music literature, and is occasionally heard in pop, rock, and jazz settings as well. One who plays a bassoon is called a bassoonist.


title: Bassoon

text: The word bassoon comes from French and from Italian ( with the augmentative suffix ). However, the Italian name for the same instrument is , in Spanish, Dutch and Romanian it is , and in German . Fagot is an Old French word meaning a bundle of sticks.


title: Bassoon

text: The dulcian came to be known as fagotto in Italy. However, the usual etymology that equates fagotto with "bundle of sticks" is somewhat misleading, as the latter term did not come into general use until later. However an early English variation, "faget", was used as early as 1450 to refer to firewood, which is 100 years before the earliest recorded use of the dulcian (1550). Further citation is needed to prove the lack of relation between the meaning "bundle of sticks" and "fagotto" (Italian) or variants. Some think that it may resemble the Roman fasces, a standard of bound sticks with an axe. A further discrepancy lies in the fact that the dulcian was carved out of a single block of wood—in other words, a single "stick" and not a bundle.


title: Bassoon

text: The range of the bassoon begins at B (the first one below the bass staff) and extends upward over three octaves, roughly to the G above the treble staff (G). However, most writing for bassoon rarely calls for notes above C or D; even Stravinsky's opening solo in "The Rite of Spring" only ascends to D. Notes higher than this are entirely possible, but seldom written, as they are difficult to produce (often requiring specific reed design features to ensure reliability), and at any rate are quite homogeneous in timbre to the same pitches on cor anglais, which can produce them with relative ease. French bassoon has greater facility in the extreme high register, and so repertoire written for it is somewhat likelier to include very high notes, although repertoire for French system can be executed on German system without alterations and vice versa.


title: Bassoon

text: The extensive high register of the bassoon and its frequent role as a lyric tenor have meant that tenor clef is very commonly employed in its literature after the Baroque, partly to avoid excessive ledger lines, and, beginning in the 20th century, treble clef is also seen for similar reasons.


title: Bassoon

text: Like the other woodwinds, the lowest note is fixed, but A is possible with a special extension to the instrument—see "Extended techniques" below.


title: Bassoon

text: Although the primary tone hole pitches are a pitched perfect 5th lower than other non-transposing Western woodwinds (effectively an octave beneath English horn) the bassoon is non-transposing, meaning that notes sounded match the written pitch.


title: Bassoon

text: The bassoon disassembles into six main pieces, including the reed. The bell (6), extending upward; the bass joint (or long joint) (5), connecting the bell and the boot; the boot (or butt) (4), at the bottom of the instrument and folding over on itself; the wing joint (or tenor joint) (3), which extends from boot to bocal; and the bocal (or crook) (2), a crooked metal tube that attaches the wing joint to a reed (1) ().


title: Bassoon

text: The bore of the bassoon is conical, like that of the oboe and the saxophone, and the two adjoining bores of the boot joint are connected at the bottom of the instrument with a U-shaped metal connector. Both bore and tone holes are precision-machined, and each instrument is finished by hand for proper tuning. The walls of the bassoon are thicker at various points along the bore; here, the tone holes are drilled at an angle to the axis of the bore, which reduces the distance between the holes on the exterior. This ensures coverage by the fingers of the average adult hand. Playing is facilitated by closing the distance between the widely spaced holes with a complex system of key work, which extends throughout nearly the entire length of the instrument. The overall height of the bassoon stretches to tall, but the total sounding length is considering that the tube is doubled back on itself. There are also short-reach bassoons made for the benefit of young or petite players.


title: Bassoon

text: A modern beginner's bassoon is generally made of maple, with medium-hardness types such as sycamore maple and sugar maple preferred. Less-expensive models are also made of materials such as polypropylene and ebonite, primarily for student and outdoor use. Metal bassoons were made in the past but have not been produced by any major manufacturer since 1889.


title: Bassoon

text: The art of reed-making has been practiced for several hundred years, some of the earliest known reeds having been made for the dulcian, a predecessor of the bassoon. Current methods of reed-making consist of a set of basic methods; however, individual bassoonists' playing styles vary greatly and thus require that reeds be customized to best suit their respective bassoonist. Advanced players usually make their own reeds to this end. With regards to commercially made reeds, many companies and individuals offer pre-made reeds for sale, but players often find that such reeds still require adjustments to suit their particular playing style.


title: Bassoon

text: Modern bassoon reeds, made of "Arundo donax" cane, are often made by the players themselves, although beginner bassoonists tend to buy their reeds from professional reed makers or use reeds made by their teachers. Reeds begin with a length of tube cane that is split into three or four pieces using a tool called a cane splitter. The cane is then trimmed and "gouged" to the desired thickness, leaving the bark attached. After soaking, the gouged cane is cut to the proper shape and milled to the desired thickness, or "profiled", by removing material from the bark side. This can be done by hand with a file; more frequently it is done with a machine or tool designed for the purpose. After the profiled cane has soaked once again it is folded over in the middle. Prior to soaking, the reed maker will have lightly scored the bark with parallel lines with a knife; this ensures that the cane will assume a cylindrical shape during the forming stage.


title: Bassoon

text: On the bark portion, the reed maker binds on one, two, or three coils or loops of brass wire to aid in the final forming process. The exact placement of these loops can vary somewhat depending on the reed maker. The bound reed blank is then wrapped with thick cotton or linen thread to protect it, and a conical steel mandrel (which sometimes has been heated in a flame) is quickly inserted in between the blades. Using a special pair of pliers, the reed maker presses down the cane, making it conform to the shape of the mandrel. (The steam generated by the heated mandrel causes the cane to permanently assume the shape of the mandrel.) The upper portion of the cavity thus created is called the "throat", and its shape has an influence on the final playing characteristics of the reed. The lower, mostly cylindrical portion will be reamed out with a special tool called a reamer, allowing the reed to fit on the bocal.


title: Bassoon

text: After the reed has dried, the wires are tightened around the reed, which has shrunk after drying, or replaced completely. The lower part is sealed (a nitrocellulose-based cement such as Duco may be used) and then wrapped with thread to ensure both that no air leaks out through the bottom of the reed and that the reed maintains its shape. The wrapping itself is often sealed with Duco or clear nail varnish (polish). Electrical tape can also be used as a wrapping for amateur reed makers. The bulge in the wrapping is sometimes referred to as the "Turk's head"—it serves as a convenient handle when inserting the reed on the bocal. Recently, more players are choosing the more modern heat-shrink tubing instead of the time-consuming and fiddly thread. The thread wrapping (commonly known as a "Turban" due to the criss-crossing fabric) is still more common in commercially sold reeds.


title: Bassoon

text: To finish the reed, the end of the reed blank, originally at the center of the unfolded piece of cane, is cut off, creating an opening. The blades above the first wire are now roughly long. For the reed to play, a slight bevel must be created at the tip with a knife, although there is also a machine that can perform this function. Other adjustments with the reed knife may be necessary, depending on the hardness, the profile of the cane, and the requirements of the player. The reed opening may also need to be adjusted by squeezing either the first or second wire with the pliers. Additional material may be removed from the sides (the "channels") or tip to balance the reed. Additionally, if the "e" in the bass clef staff is sagging in pitch, it may be necessary to "clip" the reed by removing from its length using a pair of very sharp scissors or the equivalent.


title: Bassoon

text: Music historians generally consider the dulcian to be the forerunner of the modern bassoon, as the two instruments share many characteristics: a double reed fitted to a metal crook, obliquely drilled tone holes and a conical bore that doubles back on itself. The origins of the dulcian are obscure, but by the mid-16th century it was available in as many as eight different sizes, from soprano to great bass. A full consort of dulcians was a rarity; its primary function seems to have been to provide the bass in the typical wind band of the time, either loud (shawms) or soft (recorders), indicating a remarkable ability to vary dynamics to suit the need. Otherwise, dulcian technique was rather primitive, with eight finger holes and two keys, indicating that it could play in only a limited number of key signatures.


title: Bassoon

text: Circumstantial evidence indicates that the baroque bassoon was a newly invented instrument, rather than a simple modification of the old dulcian. The dulcian was not immediately supplanted, but continued to be used well into the 18th century by Bach and others; and, presumably for reasons of interchangeability, repertoire from this time is very unlikely to go beyond the smaller compass of the dulcian. The man most likely responsible for developing the true bassoon was Martin Hotteterre (d.1712), who may also have invented the three-piece "flûte traversière" (transverse flute) and the "hautbois" (baroque oboe). Some historians believe that sometime in the 1650s, Hotteterre conceived the bassoon in four sections (bell, bass joint, boot and wing joint), an arrangement that allowed greater accuracy in machining the bore compared to the one-piece dulcian. He also extended the compass down to B by adding two keys. An alternate view maintains Hotteterre was one of several craftsmen responsible for the development of the early bassoon. These may have included additional members of the Hotteterre family, as well as other French makers active around the same time. No original French bassoon from this period survives, but if it did, it would most likely resemble the earliest extant bassoons of Johann Christoph Denner and Richard Haka from the 1680s. Sometime around 1700, a fourth key (G♯) was added, and it was for this type of instrument that composers such as Antonio Vivaldi, Bach, and Georg Philipp Telemann wrote their demanding music. A fifth key, for the low E, was added during the first half of the 18th century. Notable makers of the 4-key and 5-key baroque bassoon include J.H. Eichentopf (c. 1678–1769), J. Poerschmann (1680–1757), Thomas Stanesby, Jr. (1668–1734), G.H. Scherer (1703–1778), and Prudent Thieriot (1732–1786).


title: Bassoon

text: Increasing demands on capabilities of instruments and players in the 19th century—particularly larger concert halls requiring greater volume and the rise of virtuoso composer-performers—spurred further refinement. Increased sophistication, both in manufacturing techniques and acoustical knowledge, made possible great improvements in the instrument's playability.


title: Bassoon

text: The modern bassoon exists in two distinct primary forms, the Buffet (or "French") system and the Heckel ("German") system. Most of the world plays the Heckel system, while the Buffet system is primarily played in France, Belgium, and parts of Latin America. A number of other types of bassoons have been constructed by various instrument makers, such as the rare Galandronome. Owing to the ubiquity of the Heckel system in English-speaking countries, references in English to the contemporary bassoon always mean the Heckel system, with the Buffet system being explicitly qualified where it appears.


title: Bassoon

text: The design of the modern bassoon owes a great deal to the performer, teacher, and composer Carl Almenräder. Assisted by the German acoustic researcher Gottfried Weber, he developed the 17-key bassoon with a range spanning four octaves. Almenräder's improvements to the bassoon began with an 1823 treatise describing ways of improving intonation, response, and technical ease of playing by augmenting and rearranging the keywork. Subsequent articles further developed his ideas. His employment at Schott gave him the freedom to construct and test instruments according to these new designs, and he published the results in "Caecilia", Schott's house journal. Almenräder continued publishing and building instruments until his death in 1846, and Ludwig van Beethoven himself requested one of the newly made instruments after hearing of the papers. In 1831, Almenräder left Schott to start his own factory with a partner, Johann Adam Heckel.


title: Bassoon

text: Heckel and two generations of descendants continued to refine the bassoon, and their instruments became the standard, with other makers following. Because of their superior singing tone quality (an improvement upon one of the main drawbacks of the Almenräder instruments), the Heckel instruments competed for prominence with the reformed Wiener system, a Boehm-style bassoon, and a completely keyed instrument devised by Charles-Joseph Sax, father of Adolphe Sax. F.W. Kruspe implemented a latecomer attempt in 1893 to reform the fingering system, but it failed to catch on. Other attempts to improve the instrument included a 24-keyed model and a single-reed mouthpiece, but both these had adverse effects on tone and were abandoned.


title: Bassoon

text: Coming into the 20th century, the Heckel-style German model of bassoon dominated the field. Heckel himself had made over 1,100 instruments by the turn of the 20th century (serial numbers begin at 3,000), and the British makers' instruments were no longer desirable for the changing pitch requirements of the symphony orchestra, remaining primarily in military band use.


title: Bassoon

text: Except for a brief 1940s wartime conversion to ball bearing manufacture, the Heckel concern has produced instruments continuously to the present day. Heckel bassoons are considered by many to be the best, although a range of Heckel-style instruments is available from several other manufacturers, all with slightly different playing characteristics.


title: Bassoon

text: Because its mechanism is primitive compared to most modern woodwinds, makers have occasionally attempted to "reinvent" the bassoon. In the 1960s, Giles Brindley began to develop what he called the "logical bassoon", which aimed to improve intonation and evenness of tone through use of an electrically activated mechanism, making possible key combinations too complex for the human hand to manage. Brindley's logical bassoon was never marketed.


title: Bassoon

text: The Buffet system bassoon achieved its basic acoustical properties somewhat earlier than the Heckel. Thereafter, it continued to develop in a more conservative manner. While the early history of the Heckel bassoon included a complete overhaul of the instrument in both acoustics and key work, the development of the Buffet system consisted primarily of incremental improvements to the key work. This minimalist approach of the Buffet deprived it of improved consistency of intonation, ease of operation, and increased power, which is found in Heckel bassoons, but the Buffet is considered by some to have a more vocal and expressive quality. The conductor John Foulds lamented in 1934 the dominance of the Heckel-style bassoon, considering them too homogeneous in sound with the horn. The modern Buffet system has 22 keys with its range being the same as the Heckel; although Buffet instruments have greater facility in the upper registers, reaching E and F with far greater ease and less air resistance.