title: Curse of the pharaohs

text: Though not superstitious, Hawass decided not to disturb the mummies. However, he later was involved in the removal of two child mummies from Bahariya Oasis to a museum and reported he was haunted by the children in his dreams. The phenomena did not stop until the mummy of the father was reunited with the children in the museum. He concluded that mummies should not be displayed, though it was a lesser evil than allowing the general public into the tombs. Hawass also recorded an incident of a sick young boy who loved Ancient Egypt and was subject to a "miracle" cure in the Egyptian Museum when he looked into the eyes of the mummy of King Ahmose I.


title: Curse of the pharaohs

text: The idea of a mummy reviving from the dead, an essential element of many mummy curse tales, was developed in "", an early work combining science fiction and horror, written by Jane C. Loudon and published anonymously in 1827. Louisa May Alcott was thought by Dominic Montserrat to have been the first to use a fully formed "mummy curse" plot in her 1869 story "Lost in a Pyramid, or The Mummy's Curse", a hitherto forgotten piece of mummy fiction that he rediscovered in the late 1990s. However, two stories subsequently discovered by S. J. Wolfe, Robert Singerman and Jasmine Day – "The Mummy’s Soul" (Anonymous, 1862) and "After Three Thousand Years" (Jane G. Austin, 1868) – have similar plots, in which a female mummy takes magical revenge upon her male desecrator. Jasmine Day, therefore, argues that the modern European concept of curses is based upon an analogy between desecration of tombs and rape, interpreting early curse fiction as proto-feminist narratives authored by women. The Anonymous and Austin stories predate Alcott's piece, raising the possibility that even earlier "lost" mummy curse prototype fiction awaits rediscovery.


title: Curse of the pharaohs

text: The belief in a curse was brought to many people's attention due to the deaths of a few members of Howard Carter's team and other prominent visitors to the tomb shortly thereafter. Carter's team opened the tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62) in 1922, launching the modern era of Egyptology.


title: Curse of the pharaohs

text: The famous Egyptologist James Henry Breasted worked with Carter soon after the first opening of the tomb. He reported how Carter sent a messenger on an errand to his house. On approaching his home the messenger thought he heard a "faint, almost human cry". Upon reaching the entrance he saw the birdcage occupied by a cobra, the symbol of the Egyptian monarchy. Carter's canary had died in its mouth and this fueled local rumors of a curse. Arthur Weigall, a previous Inspector-General of Antiquities to the Egyptian Government, reported that this was interpreted as Carter's house being broken into by the Royal Cobra, the same as that worn on the King's head to strike enemies (see Uraeus), on the very day the King's tomb was being broken into. An account of the incident was reported by "The New York Times" on 22 December 1922.


title: Curse of the pharaohs

text: The first of the deaths was that of Lord Carnarvon, who financed the excavation. He had been bitten by a mosquito, and later slashed the bite accidentally while shaving. It became infected and that resulted in blood poisoning. Two weeks before Carnarvon died, Marie Corelli wrote an imaginative letter that was published in the "New York World" magazine, in which she quoted an obscure book that confidently asserted that "dire punishment" would follow any intrusion into a sealed tomb. A media frenzy followed, with reports that a curse had been found in the King's tomb, though this was untrue. The superstitious Benito Mussolini, who had once accepted an Egyptian mummy as a gift, ordered its immediate removal from the Palazzo Chigi.


title: Curse of the pharaohs

text: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes and spiritualist, suggested that Lord Carnarvon's death had been caused by "elementals" created by Tutankhamun's priests to guard the royal tomb, and this further fueled the media interest. Arthur Weigall reported that six weeks before Carnarvon's death, he had watched the Earl laughing and joking as he entered the King's tomb and said to a nearby reporter (H. V. Morton), "I give him six weeks to live." The first autopsy carried out on the body of Tutankhamun by Dr. Derry found a healed lesion on the left cheek, but as Carnarvon had been buried six months previously it was not possible to determine if the location of the wound on the King corresponded with the fatal mosquito bite on Carnarvon.


title: Curse of the pharaohs

text: A study of documents and scholarly sources led "The Lancet" to conclude it unlikely that Carnarvon's death had anything to do with Tutankhamun's tomb, refuting another theory that exposure to toxic fungi (mycotoxins) had contributed to his demise. The report points out that the Earl was only one of many to enter the tomb, on several occasions and that none of the others were affected. The cause of Carnarvon's death was reported as "'pneumonia supervening on [facial] erysipelas,' (a streptococcal infection of the skin and underlying soft tissue). Pneumonia was thought to be only one of various complications, arising from the progressively invasive infection, that eventually resulted in multiorgan failure." The Earl had been "prone to frequent and severe lung infections" according to "The Lancet" and there had been a "general belief ... that one acute attack of bronchitis could have killed him. In such a debilitated state, the Earl's immune system was easily overwhelmed by erysipelas."


title: Curse of the pharaohs

text: In 1925, the anthropologist Henry Field, accompanied by Breasted, visited the tomb and recalled the kindness and friendliness of Carter. He also reported how a paperweight given to Carter's friend Sir Bruce Ingram was composed of a mummified hand with its wrist adorned with a scarab bracelet marked with, "Cursed be he who moves my body. To him shall come fire, water, and pestilence." Soon after receiving the gift, Ingram's house burned down, followed by a flood when it was rebuilt.


title: Curse of the pharaohs

text: Howard Carter was entirely skeptical of such curses, dismissing them as 'tommy-rot' and commenting that "the sentiment of the Egyptologist ... is not one of fear, but of respect and awe ... entirely opposed to foolish superstitions". In May 1926 he reported in his diary a sighting of a jackal of the same type as Anubis, the guardian of the dead, for the first time in over thirty-five years of working in the desert, although he did not attribute this to supernatural causes.


title: Curse of the pharaohs

text: Skeptics have pointed out that many others who visited the tomb or helped to discover it lived long and healthy lives. A study showed that of the 58 people who were present when the tomb and sarcophagus were opened, only eight died within a dozen years. All the others were still alive, including Howard Carter, who died of lymphoma in 1939 at the age of 64. The last survivors included Lady Evelyn Herbert, Lord Carnarvon's daughter who was among the first people to enter the tomb after its discovery in November 1922, who lived for a further 57 years and died in 1980, and American archaeologist J.O. Kinnaman who died in 1961, 39 years after the event.


title: Curse of the pharaohs

text: The Universal horror films "The Mummy" (1932), "The Mummy's Hand" (1940), and the latter's sequels, contain references to a curse foretelling death to those who enter the tombs.


title: Saiga-12

text: The Saiga-12 () is a shotgun available in a wide range of configurations, patterned after the Kalashnikov series of rifles and named after the Saiga antelope native to Russia. Like the Kalashnikov rifle variants, it is a rotating bolt, long-stroke gas piston operated firearm that feeds from a box magazine. All Saiga-12 configurations are recognizable as Kalashnikov-pattern guns by the large lever-safety on the right side of the receiver, the optic mounting rail on the left side of the receiver and the large top-mounted dust cover held in place by the rear of the recoil spring assembly. Saiga firearms are meant for civilian domestic sale in Russia, and export to international markets.


title: Saiga-12

text: The Saiga-12 is manufactured by the Kalashnikov Concern (the merger of Izhmash and Izhevsk), in Russia. Kalashnikov Concern also manufactures Saiga 20s and Saiga 410s in 20-gauge and .410 bore, as well as the Saiga semi-automatic hunting rifles in a number of centerfire calibers. Russian armed forces use a combat shotgun variant called the KSK (Karabin Spetsialniy Kalahnikov, "Kalashnikov Special Carbine"), with the 12-gauge size expressed in its metric equivalent of 18.5 mm. The Picatinny rail layout is similar to the civilian 030 version.


title: Saiga-12

text: Since shotgun shells are nearly twice as wide as 7.62×39mm cartridge, the extraction port in the side of the dust cover had to be increased in size. However, since the bolt had to remain the same length to fit inside the AK-47 sized receiver, the rear section of the bolt is covered by a sliding metal flap that rides on the recoil spring. This allows the gun to be sealed against dirt when the bolt is forward, but the compression of the recoil spring during firing moves the flap rearward to clear the extracted shells.


title: Saiga-12

text: For the likely reason of simplifying production of Izhmash's other Kalashnikov-pattern guns, the Saiga-12 extractor does not rotate, but instead delegates the bolt-locking function to a caliber-neutral lug directly behind the bolt-face.


title: Saiga-12

text: The Saiga-12 incorporates an adjustable two-position gas system, with "standard" and "magnum" settings for firing 2-3/4" and 3"-length shells respectively.


title: Saiga-12

text: This is because firing 3" shells with high power loads such as slugs and buckshot generates so much force that the receiver will be damaged if the full power of the gas system is employed without some sort of recoil buffer. The problem is that making the gun durable with such high power loads would make it more likely to experience a cycle failure with the less powerful 2-3/4" shells and likely not to cycle at all when used with low-powered less lethal ammunition. This would essentially render it a straight-pull mechanism.


title: Saiga-12

text: The Saiga-12 is manufactured in several different configurations ranging from more traditional styled hunting models to military-style models utilizing AK or SVD hardware. All these versions are available for purchase by civilians in Russia after applying for a firearms permit.


title: Saiga-12

text: Civilian barrel lengths are 430 mm and 580 mm (17 and 23 inches). The 580-mm version is standard with a traditional rifle stock or with an AK-style separate pistol grip and folding stock (version S for "skladnaya", "folding"). The 430-mm version (K for "korotkaya", "short") has an AK-style pistol grip and folding stock. The civilian version of the 12K for the Russian domestic market features a specially-designed safety, preventing operation with stock folded (due to Russian gun laws, it is illegal to own a firearm with a barrel length of less than 500 mm and capable of firing while being less than 800 mm long). "Taktika" versions with 580-mm or 430-mm barrels feature various AK, SVD or original "Legion" furniture (handguards, folding and non-folding stocks) and AK-style open sights with high post and tangent rear. Optional screw-in chokes are available. A standard AK rail for optics may be mounted on the left side of the receiver.


title: Saiga-12

text: Two, five, seven, eight and twelve round box magazines are available, as well as ten, twelve, and twenty round aftermarket drums. All magazines may be interchanged with all 12 gauge models (sometimes minor fitting may be necessary), although factory-original magazines from Russia only exist in 5-, 7- and 8-round box configurations. The magazine configuration is significantly altered compared to more typical Kalashnikov rifles in order to accommodate the larger 12 gauge cartridge.


title: Saiga-12

text: Prior to importation to the US, all Saiga shotguns are configured with a traditional fixed "hunting-style" rifle stock and 5-round magazine. Factory 8-round box magazines are not imported in the US (though they are legal for import in other countries), making them quite rare on the civilian market.


title: Saiga-12

text: Recently, a newly configured version of the Saiga 12 was introduced. Called the Saiga Taktika mod 040, it features an extended magazine well, last round bolt hold open (recently produced very rarely and replaced with manual bolt hold), hinged dust cover with Picatinny rail for mounting optics, picatinny rail gas block, and a newly designed 8-round magazine (not interchangeable with other Saiga-12 models).


title: Saiga-12

text: This design seems to address deficiencies that the Saiga 12 had in function. The traditional AK "rock and lock" magazine system and the difficulties associated with magazine has been replaced by a vertical insertion system that allow the magazine to be inserted with only one hand. The hinged dustcover with picatinny rail makes mounting optics simpler, and is closer to the bore axis, making sighting of optics easier. The gas-block rail system allows for the addition of combat lights and vertical fore grips. The last round bolt hold open gives the user instant feedback that the firearm is empty and allows for a quicker magazine change.


title: Saiga-12

text: In late September 2014 the IZ109T was released in the USA. This model featured a shortened barrel with a permanently attached brake. The barrel length was 18 inches (460 mm) including the brake. The IZ109T also had military style features including a rear pistol grip and 6 position stock. Various modifications were made to the trigger group, bolt, and bolt carrier that allowed loaded magazine insertion without locking the bolt back. The IZ109T also featured a fully parkerized military finish.


title: Saiga-12

text: The Saiga shotgun is also available in 20-gauge and .410 calibers known as the Saiga-20 and Saiga-410, respectively.


title: Saiga-12

text: In Russia, this shotgun can be relatively simply obtained, requiring only a "smoothbore-gun license" (which is relatively easy to obtain, compared to a "rifle license" that requires a five-year period of owning a smoothbore gun and a hunting permit).


title: Saiga-12

text: In response to the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, U.S. President Barack Obama issued on July 16, 2014 blocking the importation of all Russia-produced firearms.


title: Kik Messenger

text: Kik Messenger, commonly called Kik, is a freeware instant messaging mobile app from the Canadian company Kik Interactive, available free of charge on iOS and Android operating systems. It uses a smartphone's data plan or Wi-Fi to transmit and receive messages, photos, videos, sketches, mobile web pages, and other content after users register a username. Kik is known for its features preserving users' anonymity, such as allowing users to register without the need to provide a telephone number or valid email address. However, the application does not employ end-to-end encryption, and the company also logs user IP addresses, which could be used to determine the user's ISP and approximate location. This information, as well as "reported" conversations, are regularly surrendered upon request by law enforcement organizations, sometimes without the need for a court order.


title: Kik Messenger

text: Kik was originally intended to be a music-sharing app before transitioning to messaging, briefly offering users the ability to send a limited number of SMS text messages directly from the application. During the first 15 days after Kik's re-release as a messaging app, over 1 million accounts were created. In May 2016, Kik Messenger announced that they had approximately 300 million registered users, and was used by approximately 40% of United States' teenagers.


title: Kik Messenger

text: Kik Interactive was founded in 2009 by a group of students from the University of Waterloo in Canada who wished to create new technologies for use on mobile smartphones. Kik Messenger is the first app developed by Kik Interactive, and was released on October 19, 2010. Within 15 days of its release, Kik Messenger reached one million user registrations, with Twitter being credited as a catalyst for the new application's popularity.


title: Kik Messenger

text: On November 24, 2010, Research In Motion (RIM) removed Kik Messenger from BlackBerry App World and limited the functionality of the software for its users. RIM also sued Kik Interactive for patent infringement and misuse of trademarks. In October 2013, the companies settled the lawsuit, with the terms undisclosed.


title: Kik Messenger

text: In November 2014, Kik announced a $38.3 million Series C funding round and its first acquisition, buying GIF Messenger "Relay". The funding was from Valiant Capital Partners, Millennium Technology Value Partners, and SV Angel. By this time, Kik had raised a total of $70.5 million.


title: Kik Messenger

text: On August 16, 2015, Kik received a $50 million investment from Chinese Internet giant Tencent, the parent company of the popular Chinese messaging service WeChat. The investment earned the company a billion dollar valuation. Company CEO Ted Livingston stated Kik's aspirations to become "the WeChat of the West" and said that attracting younger users was an important part of the company's strategy.


title: Kik Messenger

text: In March 2016, the arrest of registered sex offender Thomas Paul Keeler II uncovered more than 200 Kik groups dedicated to the distribution and sale of child pornography on the site. In September 2016, CBS News published a story on the murder of 13-year-old Nicole Lovell, highlighting how easy it was to track and abuse children on kik and calling it a "predator's paradise". Kik released a public statement through CBS on June 3, 2017 stating, "We take online safety very seriously, and we're constantly assessing and improving our trust and safety measures. Nicole Lovell suffered a terrible tragedy and our sincere condolences continue to go out to her family. Since the time of the incident, Kik has taken a variety of proactive measures to help increase safety on our platform." In an online investigation in August 2017, Forbes staffers signed up for the service posing as 14-year-old girls and encountered 20 profiles of charged or sentenced pedophiles. In November 2017, Kik Messenger was silently removed from the Windows Store. As of 23 January 2018, neither the developers nor Microsoft have provided a statement or an explanation on the removal of the app. In January of 2018, Kik updated its Terms of Service and Community Standards to "make Kik a more respectful and fun place". The site also introduced a moderation and trust and safety team to enforce the new community standards.


title: Kik Messenger

text: Also in 2017, Kik decided against more VC funding, instead raising nearly $100 million in a high-profile initial coin offering (ICO) on the Ethereum blockchain. In this crowd sale, they sold "Kin" digital tokens to the contributors.


title: Kik Messenger

text: In July 2018, the Kin Foundation released the Kinit beta app on the Google Play store, restricted to US residents only. It offers different ways of earning and spending the Kin coin natively; for example, a user can do simple surveys to earn Kin and spend it on digital goods like gift cards.


title: Kik Messenger

text: In September 2019, Kik's CEO and founder Ted Livingston, announced in a blog post that Kik Messenger would be shut down on 19 October 2019, with over 100 employees laid off. However this decision was later reversed and in October 2019, Medialab acquired Kik Messenger.


title: Kik Messenger

text: A main attraction of Kik that differentiates it from other messaging apps is its anonymity. To register for the Kik service, a user must enter a first and last name, e-mail address, and birth date (which must show that the user is at least 13 years old), and select a username. The Kik registration process does not request or require the entry of a phone number (although the user has the option to enter one), unlike some other messaging services that require a user to provide a functioning mobile phone number.


title: Kik Messenger

text: "The New York Times" has reported that, according to law enforcement, Kik's anonymity features go beyond those of most widely used apps. As of February 2016, Kik's guide for law enforcement said that the company cannot locate user accounts based on first and last name, e-mail address and/or birth date; the exact username is required to locate a particular account. The guide further said that the company does not have access to content or "historical user data" such as photographs, videos, and the text of conversations, and that photographs and videos are automatically deleted shortly after they are sent. A limited amount of data from a particular account (identified by exact username), including first and last name, birthdate, e-mail address, link to a current profile picture, device-related information, and user location information such as the most recently used IP address, can be preserved for a period of 90 days pending receipt of a valid order from law enforcement. Kik's anonymity has also been cited as a protective safety measure for good faith users, in that "users have screennames; the app doesn't share phone numbers or email addresses."


title: Kik Messenger

text: Kik introduced several new user features in 2015, including a full-screen in-chat browser that allows users to find and share content from the web; a feature allowing users to send previously recorded videos in Kik Messenger for Android and iOS; and "Kik Codes", which assigns each user a unique code similar to a QR code, making it easier to connect and chat with other users. Kik joined the Virtual Global Taskforce, a global anti-child-abuse organization, in March 2015. Kik began using Microsoft's PhotoDNA in March 2015 to premoderate images added by users. That same month, Kik released native video capture allowing users to record up to 15 seconds in the chat window. In October 2015, Kik partnered with the Ad Council as part of an anti-bullying campaign. The campaign was featured on the app and Kik released stickers in collaboration with the campaign. Kik released a feature to send GIFs as emojis in November 2015. Kik added SafePhoto to its safety features in October 2016 which "detects, reports, and deletes known child exploitation images" sent through the platform. Kik partnered with ConnectSafely in 2016 to produce a "parents handbook" and joined The Technology Coalition, an anti-sexual exploitation group including Facebook, Google, Twitter and LinkedIn.


title: Kik Messenger

text: Kik added promoted chats in 2014, which used bots to converse with users about promoted brands through keywords activating responses. The feature allows companies to communicate with more potential clients than would be possible manually. Promoted messages reach target audiences by gender, country and device. In April 2016, Kik added a bot store to its app, which allows users to order food or products through an automated chat. Third-party companies release bots which will access the company's offerings. The bot shop added a web bubble (also known as "wubbles") feature to allow rich media content to be shared in conversation threads, as well as suggested responses and a feature allowing bots to be active in group threads. An update, released in September 2016, added concierge bots which can give users tips, tutorials, or recommendations within a specific brand.


title: Kik Messenger

text: On November 4, 2014, Kik scored 1 out of 7 points on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's secure messaging scorecard. Kik received a point for encryption during transit but lost points because communications are not encrypted with a key to which the provider does not have access, users cannot verify contacts' identities, past messages are not secure if the encryption keys are stolen, the code is not open to independent review, the security design is not properly documented, and there had not been a recent independent security audit.


title: Kik Messenger

text: On October 1, 2014, Sony Music and Kik Interactive were given a Smarties award by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) for their global music marketing campaign with One Direction. In October 2016, company CEO Ted Livingston was recognized as Toronto's most brilliant tech innovator by "Toronto Life" for his work with Kik. Livingston was also recognized for being one of the "Most Creative People in Business" on "Fast Company"s 2017 list.


title: Kik Messenger

text: Like many other social media services Kik has garnered negative attention due to instances of minors exchanging explicit messages and photos with adults causing law enforcement and the media to frequently express concerns about the app. Automated spam bots have also been used to distribute explicit images and text over Kik Messenger. A state law enforcement official interviewed by "The New York Times" in February 2016 identified Kik as "the problem app of the moment". Police said they found Kik's response frustrating and one detective said obtaining information from Kik was a "bureaucratic nightmare". Constable Jason Cullum of Northamptonshire Police paedophile online investigation team stated delays in obtaining information from the company increased the risk to children. Cullum stated, "It's incredibly frustrating. We're banging our heads against a brick wall. There's a child that's going to be abused for probably another 12 months before we know who that is." Since its acquisition by Medialab Kik has revamped its policies and launched a variety of tools and resources including a guide for law enforcement and parents.


title: Kik Messenger

text: Prior to 2015, Kik Interactive addressed this issue by informing parents and police about their options to combat child exploitation. In March 2015, the company adopted a more aggressive strategy by utilizing Microsoft's PhotoDNA cloud service to automatically detect, delete, and report the distribution of child exploitation images on its app. (Some experts have noted that because PhotoDNA operates by comparing images against an existing database of exploitative images, it does not effectively prevent "realtime" online child abuse and may not detect material not yet added to its comparison database.) Kik Interactive also began collaborating internationally with law enforcement by joining the Virtual Global Taskforce, a partnership between businesses, child protection agencies, and international police services that combats online child exploitation and abuse. The company also sponsors an annual conference on crimes against children.


title: Kik Messenger

text: Kik has been criticized for providing inadequate parental control over minors' use of the app. The ability to share messages without alerting parents has been noted as "one of the reasons why teens like Kik". Parents cannot automatically view their child's Kik communications remotely from another device, but instead must have the password to their child's user account and view the communications on the same device used by their child. As of February 2016, Kik's parents' guide stresses that teens between 13 and 18 should have a parent's permission to use Kik, but there is no technical way to enforce the requirement or to guarantee that a minor will not enter a false birthdate. Kik Interactive has said that it uses "typical" industry standards for age verification, that "perfect age verification" is "not plausible", and that the company deletes accounts of users under 13 when it finds them, or when a parent requests the deletion.


title: Kik Messenger

text: In March 2016, Kik Interactive was involved in a high-profile dispute over use of the name "kik" with independent code developer Azer Koçulu, the author of numerous open-source software modules published on npm, a package manager widely used by JavaScript projects to install dependencies. Koçulu had published an extension to Node.js on npm under the name "kik". Kik Interactive contacted him objecting to his use of the name, for which the company claimed intellectual property rights, and asked him to change the name. When Koçulu refused, Kik Interactive contacted npm management, who agreed to transfer ownership of the module to Kik without Koçulu's consent. Koçulu then unpublished all of his modules from npm, including a popular eleven-line code module called "left-pad" upon which many JavaScript projects depended. Although Koçulu subsequently published left-pad on GitHub, its sudden removal from npm caused many projects (including Kik itself) to stop working, due to their dependency on the Node and Babel packages. In view of widespread software disruption, npm restored Koçulu's left-pad and made Cameron Westland of Autodesk its maintainer. The incident sparked controversies over the assertion of intellectual property rights and the use of dependencies in software development.


title: Kik Messenger

text: Kin is an ERC-20 cryptocurrency token issued on the public Ethereum blockchain. Kin was first announced in early 2017 which marked a pivot in Kik's strategy, a response to difficulties faced from competing with larger social networks such as Facebook. Kin was launched in September 2017 with an initial coin offering (ICO) raising $98 million from 10,000 participants. The purpose of the token is to facilitate value transfers in digital services such as gaming applications and social media, and was initially launched on Kik Messenger to leverage the application's 15 million monthly active users.


title: Kik Messenger

text: The enforcement division of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission considers the cryptocurrency offering to have been an unregulated security issue and is expected to begin legal action against the company. Kik has challenged the SEC's ability to regulate cryptocurrencies.


title: Kik Messenger

text: On September 7, 2017, only days before the Kin ICO, Kik announced that Canadian citizens would be barred from participating, citing weak guidance from the Ontario Securities Commission for the decision.


title: WrestleMania III

text: WrestleMania III was the third annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). The event was held on March 29, 1987, at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan. There were 12 matches, with the main event featuring WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan successfully defending his title against André the Giant.


title: WrestleMania III

text: WWF claimed that paid attendance was 93,173, which would have made it the largest crowd for a WWF event as well as the largest recorded attendance of a live indoor event in North America at the time, although the total has been disputed. The event is considered to be the pinnacle of the 1980s wrestling boom, with almost one million fans watching the event at 160 closed-circuit locations in North America and the number of people watching via pay-per-view estimated at several million. The WWF generated $1.6 million in ticket sales, and pay-per-view revenue was estimated at $10.3 million, setting a record for the time. The promotion's only event with an official higher attendance was WrestleMania 32, held at AT&T Stadium in 2016. The record for the largest indoor event stood until January 27, 1999, when it was surpassed by the papal mass with Pope John Paul II at the TWA Dome in St. Louis, Missouri, which drew an audience of 104,000.


title: WrestleMania III

text: WrestleMania is considered the World Wrestling Federation's (WWF, now WWE) flagship pay-per-view (PPV) event, having first been held in 1985. It is held annually between mid-March to mid-April. Unlike the previous year's WrestleMania 2, WrestleMania III was only scheduled to be held at one location. It was scheduled to be held on March 29, 1987, at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan.


title: WrestleMania III

text: Like the previous WrestleMania events, WrestleMania III was promoted for several months in advance. The main feud stemmed from André the Giant's heel turn and betrayal of his friend, the WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan, which began on an episode of "Piper's Pit" when WWF President Jack Tunney presented Hogan with a trophy for being the WWF World Heavyweight Champion for three years, and André, his good friend, came out to congratulate him but cryptically remarked: "Three years to be a champion, it's a long time". A week later on another episode of "Piper's Pit", Tunney presented André with a visibly smaller trophy for being "undefeated in the WWF for 15 years" and Hogan came out to congratulate André, but before The Giant could speak, Hogan ended up being the focal point of the interview. Annoyed by this, André walked out during Hogan's congratulation speech. A week later on yet another "Piper's Pit" segment, Jesse Ventura hinted he knew something about Andre but wasn't telling. This infuriated Piper and the two nearly came to blows before Jesse challenged that he could produce André next week, asking Piper “can you produce Hogan?” Piper agreed and nervously asked Hogan later on who agreed. The following week Hogan was on Pipers Pit first when Andre walked out with Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, a long-time adversary of Hogan and André. He announced himself to be André's new manager. André then challenged Hogan to a title match at WrestleMania III and attacked Hogan, ripping off Hogan's T-shirt and crucifix necklace.


title: WrestleMania III

text: Another main feud leading up to the event was between Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat and the Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion "Macho Man" Randy Savage. The feud began during a title match between the two when Savage attacked Steamboat as he greeted fans at ringside. Savage then pushed Steamboat over the security rail and delivered an elbow shot that thrust Steamboat's throat into the rail and dropped the ring bell onto his throat from the top rope, injuring his larynx and sending him to the hospital. This resulted in a long, bitter feud that lasted for six months, included several bloody match-ups and finally culminated at WrestleMania. George "The Animal" Steele was in Steamboat's corner, having developed a crush on Savage's valet, Miss Elizabeth.


title: WrestleMania III

text: Billy Jack Haynes and Hercules' feud started when Bobby Heenan continuously taunted Haynes, telling him that Hercules was the real master of Haynes' finishing move, the full nelson; which came to a boiling point when Hercules attacked Haynes on an edition of "Superstars of Wrestling", which led to their match at WrestleMania. This battle was advertised as the "Full Nelson Challenge."


title: WrestleMania III

text: Another heated feud leading up to this event was between "The King" Harley Race and the Junkyard Dog. When The "WWF Wrestling Classic" became the "King of the Ring" tournament, Harley Race went on to win the tournament and began referring to himself as "King" Harley Race, and coming to the ring in a royal crown and cape to the ceremonial accompaniment of the classical music piece "Great Gates of Kiev" by Modest Mussorgsky. After each of his victories, Race forced his defeated opponent to "bow and kneel" before him. Usually, Race's manager, Bobby Heenan, forced the defeated opponent to "bow and kneel" by grabbing his hair. Junkyard Dog protested Race's self-proclaimed monarchy in the WWF and stated there would never be a complete ruler in the WWF, which led to a match on "Saturday Night's Main Event IX", in which the King and his manager both tried to make Junkyard Dog bow for them. This set the stage for the WrestleMania match, which included the stipulation that the loser had to bow to the winner.


title: WrestleMania III

text: On January 26, 1987, The British Bulldogs lost the WWF Tag Team Championship to The Hart Foundation in a match that saw the Dynamite Kid so debilitated with a back injury that he was virtually carried to the ring by Davey Boy Smith and did not see any physical activity after being knocked out by the Harts' manager "The Mouth of the South" Jimmy Hart who had hit him with his megaphone as the match began. Danny Davis was the referee and allowed The Hart Foundation to use illegal double-team maneuvers. After being given some time off for Dynamite to recuperate, the Bulldogs continued their rivalry with The Hart Foundation when they teamed up with Tito Santana against the Foundation and the referee-turned-wrestler Danny Davis in a six-man tag team match at WrestleMania III. The match was billed as a revenge match with Santana's inclusion due to Davis being the referee in the Boston Garden in early 1986 when he had lost the Intercontinental title to the Macho Man who used a foreign object to get the win.


title: WrestleMania III

text: Rock singer and Detroit native Alice Cooper was in Jake "The Snake" Roberts' corner during his match with The Honky Tonk Man managed by "Colonel" Jimmy Hart. The Honky Tonk Man had attacked Roberts with a guitar on Roberts' interview segment "The Snake Pit", which legitimately injured Roberts' neck. This event began Roberts' turn into a babyface as well as the feud between the wrestlers, which culminated in their WrestleMania match.


title: WrestleMania III

text: The feud between "Adorable" Adrian Adonis and Rowdy Roddy Piper began when, following a leave of absence from the WWF in mid-1986, Piper returned to find his "Piper's Pit" segment replaced by "The Flower Shop", a segment hosted by then-effeminate wrestler Adrian Adonis. Piper, who returned as a face, spent weeks crashing Adonis' show and trading insults, leading to a "showdown" between the two segments that ended with Piper being assaulted and humiliated by Adonis, Piper's former bodyguard Bob Orton, and Don Muraco. The trio left Piper with his face covered in red lipstick, lying in the middle of the remnants of the destroyed Piper's Pit set. In response, Piper stormed the set of Adonis' show and destroyed it with a baseball bat. This led to their Hair vs. Hair match at WrestleMania III, which was billed as Piper's retirement match from wrestling before becoming a full-time actor.


title: WrestleMania III

text: WWF owner Vince McMahon claims that as he was about to announce "Welcome to WrestleMania III," he felt the spirit of his father Vincent J. McMahon, who had died three years earlier. After McMahon welcomed the audience, he introduced Aretha Franklin, who opened the show singing a rendition of ""America the Beautiful"."


title: WrestleMania III

text: The first match of the night was The Can-Am Connection (Rick Martel and Tom Zenk) versus Bob Orton Jr. and The Magnificent Muraco (with Mr. Fuji). This match ended when Martel gave Muraco a high cross-body with Zenk on his hands and knees giving Muraco what Gorilla Monsoon called "A little schoolboy trip from behind" allowing Martel to get the win for his team.


title: WrestleMania III

text: The next match that aired was Hercules (with Bobby "The Brain" Heenan in his corner) against Billy Jack Haynes in the "Full Nelson Challenge." The match ended when Haynes locked Hercules in the full nelson outside the ring and both were counted out. After the match, Heenan assaulted Haynes by kneeing him in the back after Haynes had applied the full nelson to Hercules outside the ring. Haynes then chased Heenan into the ring, where Hercules then blindsided Haynes with his chain, hitting him a number of times with it before locking a bloodied Haynes into his own full nelson.


title: WrestleMania III

text: The Mixed Tag Team Match between King Kong Bundy and his professional wrestling team of Lord Littlebrook and Little Tokyo against Hillbilly Jim and his own team of The Haiti Kid and Little Beaver was next. The rules were that only midgets could fight midgets and that neither Bundy nor Hillbilly was allowed to attack the midgets, though at one point Bundy tagged in and Little Beaver refused to tag out immediately, even hitting the "Walking condominium" with a dropkick to no effect before bailing with a tag to Hillbilly Jim. King Kong Bundy's team was disqualified when Bundy attacked Little Beaver because Bundy was not supposed to be in the ring with the midgets. After Beaver had "attacked" Bundy on occasion during the match, he finally got caught and Bundy attacked Little Beaver, hitting him with a body slam before dropping an elbow across his chest.


title: WrestleMania III

text: The "Loser Must Bow" match between the Junkyard Dog and Harley Race (with Bobby Heenan and "The Queen of Wrestling" The Fabulous Moolah) followed. Prior to the match "Mean" Gene Okerlund interviewed Heenan, Race, and Moolah backstage, where Moolah predicted that Junkyard Dog would have to bow to the King as he is supposed to do. Bobby then gave Moolah the crown and told her to put it on the King's head after the match, "As only the Queen of Wrestling can do". Junkyard Dog came out to the ring to a big ovation in the Silverdome. During the match, the two battled back and forth, with Race even trying unsuccessfully to give the prone Dog a falling headbutt which naturally failed. Following this Race recovered enough to give the Junkyard Dog a belly to belly suplex when he was distracted by Bobby Heenan to get the win. Due to the pre-match stipulation, JYD did a little bow and then hit Race from the blindside with a steel chair to a rousing ovation from the crowd. After attacking Race, Junkyard Dog took the King's royal robe and left the ring with it in hand to a standing ovation.


title: WrestleMania III

text: The next match was The Dream Team (Brutus Beefcake and Greg "The Hammer" Valentine), with Luscious Johnny V and Canadian strong man Dino Bravo in their corner, against The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers, Jacques and Raymond. Ray Rougeau started off the match by locking up with Beefcake. The two men later tagged out, and Valentine brawled with Jacques Rougeau as Bravo looked on from the outside of the ring. Raymond performed a sleeper hold on Valentine and was followed by Beefcake jumping off the ropes and accidentally hitting The Hammer with a double axe handle. The Rougeau Brothers gave Valentine a double team move, but the referee was arguing with Beefcake. The match ended when Dino Bravo jumped off the top rope and hit Raymond while he was pinning Valentine, then rolling Valentine on top of him for the win. The Dream Team argued for most of the match, which led to Valentine, Bravo and Luscious Johnny departing together, without Beefcake.


title: WrestleMania III

text: Footage of an interview with Rowdy Roddy Piper was aired as Piper made his way to the ring to face "Adorable" Adrian Adonis, who was accompanied by "The Mouth of the South" Jimmy Hart, in Piper's retirement match. Piper and Adonis began the match by attacking each other with Piper's belt. Adonis put a sleeper hold on Piper in the middle of the ring and released the hold prior to Piper's arm going down for a 3rd time, thinking that he won the match. When Jimmy Hart got in the ring to celebrate with Adonis, Brutus Beefcake came to the ring to help Piper recover, and Piper attacked Adonis and performed a sleeper hold of his own. Piper got the victory, and after the match was over, Brutus got in the ring and cut Adrian Adonis' hair as Piper held Jimmy Hart down. After being woken by Beefcake and seeing himself in the mirror he had brought to the ring that Piper was holding, Adonis hit the mirror and chased Piper around the ring before leaving the ring in embarrassment with Hart using his jacket to cover Adonis' head.


title: WrestleMania III

text: Up next was a six-man tag team match featuring former referee Danny Davis (in his debut as a WWF wrestler) and the WWF Tag Team Champions, The Hart Foundation (Bret "Hitman" Hart and Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart), against The British Bulldogs (Dynamite Kid and Davey Boy Smith) and Tito Santana with Matilda the Bulldog in their corner. As a referee Davis' bias towards heel wrestlers had led to the Bulldogs losing the tag titles to the Harts and also led to Santana losing the WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship to "Macho Man" Randy Savage. The Bulldogs had many near-falls, yet Neidhart broke up most of them. After all three members of the Bulldogs/Santana team had got a measure of revenge on Davis, all six wrestlers ended up brawling in the ring. Danny Davis recovered and hit Davey Boy with Jimmy Hart's megaphone and pinned him for the win.


title: WrestleMania III

text: "The Natural" Butch Reed's making his pay-per-view debut against Koko B. Ware, was the following match. Reed won the match with a rollup (and a handful of tights) after a high cross-body from Koko. After the contest, Reed's manager Slick got in the ring and attacked Koko B. Ware with his cane, but Tito Santana quickly rushed to the ring and stopped Slick, and ripped some of his clothes off. Slick retreated as Reed got back in the ring, only for Reed to get a double drop kick from Koko and Santana.


title: WrestleMania III

text: The next contest was a title match involving reigning WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion Randy "Macho Man" Savage (with Miss Elizabeth) and Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat (with George "The Animal" Steele). The match itself lasted for nearly fifteen minutes At one point, Savage was about to use the ring bell as a weapon but was stopped by Steele who knocked him off of the top rope. When Savage attempted to give Steamboat a scoop slam, Steamboat reversed it into a small package to get the win and become the new WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion, marking the first time in WrestleMania history that the Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship changed hands. This match is considered by many to be one of the greatest matches in WWE history.


title: WrestleMania III

text: The tenth match of the night was between The Honky Tonk Man (with "Colonel" Jimmy Hart) and Jake "The Snake" Roberts, who along with his pet Python "Damien", had Detroit native Alice Cooper in his corner. When Jake went for the DDT, Honky Tonk Man's manager Jimmy Hart pulled Roberts' legs, and the Honky Tonk Man rolled up Roberts from behind, held on to the ropes, and pinned him for the win. After the match Roberts narrowly missed hitting Honky with his own guitar, smashing it against a ring post and causing Honky to run off down the aisle, leaving Hart alone in the ring. Alice Cooper got in the ring and with Roberts' holding Hart in a Full Nelson, attacked him with Roberts' python Damien.


title: WrestleMania III

text: Ring announcer Howard Finkel then introduced "Mean" Gene Okerlund to the crowd. Okerlund then announced the indoor attendance record of 93,173.


title: WrestleMania III

text: The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff (with Slick) were in action next, against The Killer Bees ("Jumping" Jim Brunzell and B. Brian Blair). Slick asked all of the fans to rise to respect Nikolai Volkoff's singing of the Soviet National Anthem, and when Volkoff began singing, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan came to the ring with his two-by-four, which had a tiny American flag attached to it, got on the microphone and said that Volkoff was not going to sing because America is the land of the free and the home of the brave. While the match ensued, Duggan stayed at ringside. When The Iron Sheik locked a camel clutch on Brunzell, Duggan, who was chasing Volkoff around the ring and finally into it, stopped and hit an unsuspecting Sheik across the back with his 2x4 in front of the referee, resulting in The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff winning the bout by disqualification.


title: WrestleMania III

text: In what was billed as the "biggest main event in sports entertainment," the final match pitted WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan defending the title against André the Giant. Howard Finkel introduced the guest ring announcer, Bob Uecker, who in turn introduced the guest timekeeper, "Entertainment Tonight" host Mary Hart. The fans booed André heavily and pelted him and his manager Bobby Heenan with trash as they rode the cart to the ring. In contrast, Hogan, who walked to the ring, came out to a huge ovation. Approximately two minutes into the match, Hogan attempted to body slam André, but he was unable to lift The Giant and nearly lost the match when Andre fell on him and almost pinned him. After the match had battled back and forth, André gave Hogan an Irish whip to the far side of the ring and attempted a big boot on Hogan, but Hogan ducked it and came off the ropes to give André a clothesline to take him off his feet for the first time in the match. Hogan then "Hulked up" and scoop slammed the Giant before hitting the ropes and executing his patented leg drop pin to get the win and retain the championship.


title: WrestleMania III

text: The event has received positive reviews. In the years after WrestleMania III, the Savage vs. Steamboat match has been ranked by critics and other wrestlers as one of the greatest matches in professional wrestling. "Pro Wrestling Illustrated" and "Wrestling Observer Newsletter" named it 1987's Match of the Year. IGN ranked it at number 6 in their Top 20 Matches in WrestleMania History. Steamboat described the match as "the moment in time that defined me as a wrestler." Thomas Golianopoulos of "Complex Sports" ranked it at number two in his list of the 50 Greatest Matches in WrestleMania History, citing that "Both guys worked lightning fast and everything from Steamboat's aggressiveness to the involvement of George "The Animal" Steele played off their part." David Otunga picked it as WWE.com's Five-Star Match of the Week in December 19, 2012.


title: WrestleMania III

text: The main event between Hulk Hogan and André the Giant is regarded as one of the pivotal matches in the history of the WWE, with Hogan's final bodyslam on André having become an iconic moment of both wrestlers' careers as well as the 1980s professional wrestling boom overall. Despite its historic importance, the match was also criticized for its quality. At the time, it received a negative four star rating from Dave Meltzer and the "Wrestling Observer Newsletter" named it the "Worst Worked Match of the Year." In 2020, 411Mania's Larry Csonka gave the match one star, stating "The match is not good in any way shape or form; but is one I completely appreciate for its historical importance." Kevin Pantoja, also a writer for 411Mania, gave the match two stars in 2019, stating "Technically, this isn’t any good. However, I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as some people do".


title: WrestleMania III

text: There have been numerous claims since WrestleMania III that the quoted attendance figure of 93,173 which established a world record attendance for an indoor event was false and that the real attendance figure was only around 78,000. This is based on claims by Dave Meltzer upon receiving information from the event's promoter Zane Bresloff, and that wrestling promoters (including Vince McMahon) were said to regularly inflate attendance figures to make things look better. While WWE and Silverdome management both have always maintained that the 93,173 figure is correct, the debate continues among wrestling fans as to what the true attendance was on the day. Also, Meltzer claimed that the 1992 SummerSlam at Wembley did 79,127, more than WrestleMania III. The record would be decisively broken by WrestleMania 32 in 2016.


title: WrestleMania III

text: Officially WrestleMania III ranks as the second highest attended event in WWE history behind WrestleMania 32 at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas in 2016 with an official figure of just over 101,000 in attendance, although Meltzer claims the actual number was between 93–94,000.


title: WrestleMania III

text: In a You Tube video entitled 'Honky Tonk Man and Billy Graham on Andre the Giant', Wayne Farris [Honky Tonk] dismisses Wrestlemania III entirely, stating that the wrestlers had been on the road for fifty days and by then, they were exhausted and too tired to care about the size of the crowd. He says, 'Man, are you kidding me? We'd been on the road for fifty days. Go back and look at the video. We were beat. We didn't care.'


title: WrestleMania III

text: Roddy Piper went on to film "Hell Comes to Frogtown" and "They Live" and made sporadic appearances on television before finally returning to host a "Piper's Pit" segment at WrestleMania V. Piper continued to be active in professional wrestling at various points for more than two decades. The first televised match between André and Hogan after WrestleMania III was on The Main Event I on NBC on February 5, 1988, drawing a record 33 million viewers, making it the most-watched match in North American professional wrestling history. The angle surrounding this match was that after winning the match, André ended Hogan's four-year reign as WWF champion with the help of a worked screwjob finish involving twin referees Earl and Dave Hebner. Their feud culminated in a rematch at WrestleMania IV as part of a tournament to crown a new champion (both ended up being disqualified during the match for using a steel chair in front of referee Joey Marella). The Hogan/Andre match at WrestleMania IV was the first-ever WrestleMania rematch.


title: WrestleMania III

text: Randy Savage continued to challenge Ricky Steamboat for the Intercontinental title in rematches at house shows across the country. Steamboat eventually lost the title to The Honky Tonk Man, and not long after, Savage became a face and feuded with Honky Tonk over the title. On September 4, 1987 Randy Savage won the King of the Ring by defeating King Kong Bundy.


title: WrestleMania III

text: Twenty years later, WrestleMania 23 celebrated WrestleMania III by returning to the Detroit metropolitan area, showing footage from WrestleMania III, having Aretha Franklin ("Who's Zoomin' Who?" by Franklin was the theme song to WrestleMania III) sing "America the Beautiful", and having Kane scoop slam The Great Khali. WrestleMania 23 had the highest buyrate of any WrestleMania in history, before getting beaten by WrestleMania XXVIII.


title: WrestleMania III

text: Also in 2007, WrestleMania III was re-released on DVD. The DVD included pre-WrestleMania interviews and matches, including the battle royal from "Saturday Night's Main Event X" that Hercules won, and optional pop-up trivia facts about the event.


title: WrestleMania III

text: WrestleMania III was re-released on DVD on March 12, 2013. Fox Sports 1 later rebroadcast the event on May 12, 2020.


title: Fatal Frame

text: Fatal Frame, titled in Japan and Project Zero in Europe and Australia, is a Japanese survival horror video game series created, published and developed by Koei Tecmo (originally Tecmo). Debuting in 2001 with the first entry in the series for the PlayStation 2, the series consists of five main entries. The series is set in 1980s Japan, with each entry focusing on a location beset by hostile supernatural events. In each scenario, the characters involved in the present investigation use Camera Obscura, objects created by Dr. Kunihiko Asou that can capture and pacify spirits. The series draws on staple elements of Japanese horror, and is noted for its frequent use of female protagonists.


title: Fatal Frame

text: The series was conceived by Makoto Shibata and Keisuke Kikuchi. After being introduced to the PlayStation 2 hardware and after the success of the "Silent Hill" series, the pair decided to develop a horror series inspired by Shibata's own spiritual experiences and popular Japanese horror films of the time. Their main goal was to make the most frightening game experience possible. Later installments have refined the gameplay mechanics while also adding more complex narrative elements.


title: Fatal Frame

text: The series has received critical acclaim, being ranked alongside other horror series including the "Resident Evil" and "Silent Hill" series, and individual games have been ranked among the best survival horror games in existence. While the sales of individual games have never been high, the series as a whole has sold over one million copies worldwide as of April 2014. Multiple Japanese media adaptations have been made, including manga and a 2014 live-action feature film.


title: Fatal Frame

text: As of 2014, the series consists of five mainline video games, not counting remakes, re-releases and spin-offs. The only main "Fatal Frame" title yet to be released in the west is the fourth entry. While a European release was planned, it was eventually cancelled, and no North American release was planned. A fan translation of the fourth game was released in 2010, which enabled the game to be played on any Wii system. Outside their international releases, the "Fatal Frame" games are not numbered. This was due to the series' creators considering each entry to be a standalone game, with minimal connections to previous titles. Since the fourth game, new "Fatal Frame" titles have been funded and co-developed by Nintendo, resulting in new series titles since the fourth game originally only appearing on Nintendo consoles. Koei Tecmo would later purchase Nintendo's publishing rights for multi platform rereleases of "Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse" and "Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water".


title: Fatal Frame

text: The titular first entry in the series was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2001 in Japan and 2002 in North America and Europe and on the Xbox in 2002 in North America and 2003 in Europe. The second game, "", was released again for PlayStation 2 in 2003 in Japan and North America, and 2004 in Europe as well as for Xbox in 2004 in North America and in 2005 in Europe. "" likewise released for the PlayStation 2 in 2005 for Japan and North America, and 2006 in Europe. In 2008, "" released in Japan for the Wii, and has not been released overseas. The fifth title, "", was released for the Wii U in 2014 in Japan and 2015 in North America, Europe and Australia. During Nintendo's E3 2021 Nintendo Direct, it was announced that a remaster of "Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water" will be available later in 2021. The new version was released on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Microsoft Windows.


title: Fatal Frame

text: The first two titles have received expanded re-releases. An expanded port of the original game was released for the Xbox in 2002 in Japan and 2003 in Western territories. It featured additional story elements, gameplay refinements and a new difficulty setting. For "Crimson Butterfly", a "Director's Cut" for the Xbox was released in 2004 in Japan and North America, and 2005 in Europe. A new for the Wii was released in Japan and Europe in 2012.


title: Fatal Frame

text: A mobile title, "Real Zero", was released in 2004 for FOMA and DoCoMo mobile devices. The game involves users taking pictures of their environments and superimposing ghost images somewhere in the frame. Seventy different ghosts were available to collect, with each new ghost triggering the sending of an email to provide clues for finding the next ghost or other messages. The game's service was terminated in 2011. A spin-off for the Nintendo 3DS, "Spirit Camera", was released in all regions in 2012. The story follows a girl named Maya, who is trapped in a haunted house controlled by a mysterious woman in black, and seeks to escape the woman's control.


title: Fatal Frame

text: In May 2020, a pachislot machine simply titled "Pachislot Zero" was announced by Yamasa Group. Set to be released in Japan for pachinko parlors in July 2020, the game recreates scenes from the first game in the series with updated graphics, along with additions like new characters and a third ending.


title: Fatal Frame

text: To commemorate the release of "Crimson Butterfly", a special interactive attraction titled "Zero4D" opened in 2004. It featured movie scenes designed by the same team behind the CGI movies for "Crimson Butterfly". A manga based on the series written by Shin Kibayashi, "Fatal Frame: Shadow Priestess", was released in both Japanese and English through DeNA's website in July 2014. A Japanese live-action movie directed by Mari Asato for Kadokawa Pictures was released in cinemas in 2014. The novel it was based on, "Fatal Frame: A Curse Affecting Only Girls" by Eiji Ohtsuka, was released a few months prior to the movie.


title: Fatal Frame

text: A Hollywood film adaptation of the first game was announced in 2003. Robert Fyvolent and Mark R. Brinker were hired as the project's writers, and John Rogers was hired as its producer. The title was being produced by DreamWorks. Later that year, Steven Spielberg was helping Rogers to polish the game's script, and that sessions to find a director and cast the movie would follow. In 2014 alongside the formal announcement of "Maiden of Black Water", it was confirmed that the Hollywood film was still planned. Now produced by Samuel Hadida, it was set to begin production after the completion and release of the game. Christophe Gans said in an interview that the movie will take place in Japan in an attempt to capture its Japanese haunted house setting.


title: Fatal Frame

text: The gameplay has remained consistent through the series' lifetime. Each environment is filled with ghosts, with separate games having different attack behaviors for them. While navigating these environments, the main character's only means of defense is the Camera Obscura, which can be used to damage ghosts, capturing them on film and pacifying them. When using the camera, the view switches from a third-person to a first-person perspective. The camera locks onto a ghost, with the amount of damage dealt depending on how much of a focus the Camera Obscura has on the ghost, but ghosts fade in and out of existence, making focusing more challenging. Shots of varying closeness and angles also affect how much damage the ghost takes. The most damaging is a "fatal frame", which hits a ghost weak spot. A ghost's captured spirit energy is converted into points, which can be used to buy items to upgrade the Camera Obscura and obtain more powerful film.


title: Fatal Frame

text: In addition to hostile ghosts, there are passive ghosts encountered in parts of the environment: if they are not caught on film at once, they vanish from the rest of the game. Ghosts captured on film are added to a list, which reveals a ghost's past. For the first three games, navigation is done using semi-fixed third-person view of environments, with characters moving at a slow pace through them. For "Mask of the Lunar Eclipse" and later entries, the camera perspective was altered to a third-person over-the-shoulder view and character movement was increased a little to speed up gameplay. The ability to either dodge or break free from a ghost's grip was added in "Maiden of Black Water".


title: Fatal Frame

text: The "Fatal Frame / Project Zero" series is set in the 1980s, before mobile phones were commonly used in Japan. Aside from a few recurring characters, each game has a self-contained story focusing on a different supernatural threat. The main unifying factor is navigating through haunted locations struck by a supernatural catastrophe, with a recurring setting being abandoned Japanese mansions. Recurring characters include Dr. Kunihiko Asou, an occultist who lived in the 1800s and created objects such as the Camera Obscura; and Miku Hinasaki, the protagonist of "Fatal Frame" and one of three protagonists in "The Tormented", who also appears in "Maiden of Black Water" as one of the main characters' missing mother. A second recurring feature is the exclusive or frequent use of female characters in the leading role. This was explained as being due to the overall tone of the series: since traditional violence was not used, it was better to use a female character to convey this. It was also felt that women were more spiritually aware than men. Another recurring concept is a pseudo-physical location bridging the physical and spiritual worlds, inspired by a tanka written by Japanese poet Taeko Kuzuhara: these were represented by the Hellish Abyss in "Crimson Butterfly" and the lake in "Maiden of Black Water".


title: Fatal Frame

text: The first chronological entry in the series, "Mask of the Lunar Eclipse", takes place in 1980. The story revolves around three girls who travel back to the fictional Rougetsu Island to recover memories of being kidnapped while they lived there ten years before. On the island, they must investigate the secrets behind a local ritual dance and an ancient mask related to the ritual. "Fatal Frame" is set six years after "Mask of the Lunar Eclipse", with "Crimson Butterfly" being set two years after that. "The Tormented" is set two months after the second game's events. "Maiden of Black Water" is set at an unspecified date after the third game. It takes place around the fictional Mount Hikami, a site infamous for suicides and rituals associated with local bodies of water. The main protagonists are each drawn to the mountain intent on rescuing someone, confronting hostile ghosts along the way.


title: Fatal Frame

text: The concept for "Fatal Frame / Project Zero" first occurred by Makoto Shibata. The idea occurred after the development of "". Inspired by his own experiences of supernatural events, and heartened by the success of the "Silent Hill" series, Shibata and Keisuke Kikuchi set to work on creating the basics for the game. Shibata was in charge of the majority of game and scenario development, while Kikuchi was in charge of general oversight. When creating the atmosphere, the team watched both high and low-budget Japanese horror films, and war films. One of their goals was to make the game as scary as possible. The Camera Obscura was not in the initial discussions between Shibata and Kikuchi, with the original idea being that ghosts would be avoided and repelled by light. Ultimately, they decided to have a type of offensive power, which resulted in the Camera's creation. Kikuchi was initially opposed to the idea, but saw that it fitted very well into the game's context as development progressed. The first game was marketed in the west as being based on a true story, and while this was not accurate, the story of "Fatal Frame" was inspired by both real locations noted for apparent haunting and local ghost-related folklore.


title: Fatal Frame

text: For "Crimson Butterfly", the team toned down the frightening aspects so players would be willing to complete a playthrough, alongside creating a stronger story. The story was inspired by a dream Shibata had, with the interpretive nature of the game's events being inspired by his feelings about the dream. For "The Tormented", they decided to focus on horror elements emerging out of everyday life, focusing on the effects of dreams upon reality. "Mask of the Lunar Eclipse" was co-produced by Koei Tecmo, Nintendo and Grasshopper Manufacture, with Grasshopper Manufacture's Goichi Suda acting as a co-director with Shibata. The gameplay was constructed around the Wii hardware, with the main concept being for players to feel the fear physically. The entire concept occurred by Kikuchi when he saw the specifications for the Wii. "Maiden of Black Water" originated when Kikuchi saw the Wii U hardware, and was co-produced by Koei Tecmo and Nintendo. As they wanted to bring more people into the series, they included a stronger narrative and new gameplay elements to make the experience easier for newcomers.


title: Fatal Frame

text: Since "Crimson Butterfly", theme songs have been created for each title, primarily performed by Japanese singer Tsuki Amano. The development team wanted an image song for "Crimson Butterfly", and Shibata found the then-newly debuted Amano in the Japanese independent community. Amano created the song using documents on the game's story, themes and setting. Amano returned multiple times to create theme songs for "The Tormented", "Mask of the Lunar Eclipse", and a new theme song for the Wii remake of "Crimson Butterfly". She again returned for "Maiden of Black Water", and a second new singer AnJu contributed a second theme song to the title.


title: Fatal Frame

text: In Japan, each title in the "Fatal Frame / Project Zero" series has seen modest success: the first game's lifetime sales are the lowest in the series, while "Mask of the Lunar Eclipse" currently stands as the best-selling title in the series to date. Since its debut in 2001, the "Fatal Frame" series has sold 1.3 million copies worldwide.


title: Fatal Frame

text: Multiple video game journalists have singled out the series. IGN's Clara Barraza, in an article on the evolution of the survival horror genre, said that the first game "broke away from the use of weapons like guns and planks of wood to switch it up and try something completely different", praising the use of the Camera Obscura in evoking a sense of fear and calling the game "[a] unique spin on the genre". In a different article for IGN on the history of survival horror, editor Travis Fahs stated that the series gave a much-needed boost to the genre during a period of decline in the early 2000s, highlighting the Japanese horror aesthetic as a selling point that attracted players in tandem with the popularity of "The Ring". As part of an interview with the series' creators in 2006, GameSpy writer Christian Nutt referred to it as one of the three best-known horror video game series alongside "Resident Evil" and "Silent Hill". Similarly, as part of a review of "Maiden of Black Water", Dennis Scimeca of "The Daily Dot" ranked the "Fatal Frame" series alongside "Resident Evil" and "Silent Hill". In an article on the series, Kotaku writer Richard Eisenbeis said that "Fatal Frame" succeeded in drawing his attention when most other horror games did not, generally praising the settings and the "master stroke" of the Camera Obscura in gameplay. In an interview, "" art leader Dave Matthews stated that the gameplay of "F.E.A.R. 2" was influenced by the "Fatal Frame" series. In multiple articles, "Crimson Butterfly" has been singled out by video game publications and industry developers as one of the scariest games of the horror genre in general.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Forrest Griffin (born July 1, 1979) is an American retired mixed martial artist and former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion. He was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2013 and currently serves as the Vice President of Athlete Development at the UFC Performance Institute. Griffin, a former Georgia police officer, first rose to prominence after winning the first season of "The Ultimate Fighter". In the tournament finals, he defeated Stephan Bonnar, which is widely credited as sparking the success of the UFC.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Griffin, who is of Irish descent, graduated from Evans High School in Evans, GA, a suburb of Augusta where he played football. He then graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of Georgia. Thereafter, Griffin served as a law enforcement officer for the Richmond County Sheriff's Office in Augusta, Georgia. He also served as a patrol officer with the University of Georgia police.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: He trained at The HardCore Gym (now SBG Athens) in Athens for seven years under Adam and Rory Singer. He later left law enforcement to pursue a career in professional mixed martial arts. Griffin is also an MMA instructor at Throwdown Training Center and Robert Drysdale Brazilian jiu-jitsu in Las Vegas, Nevada.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Before "The Ultimate Fighter", he fought the likes of Jeff Monson, Jeremy Horn, Chael Sonnen and early UFC veteran Dan Severn in his first pro fight. Forrest Griffin is also known for a fight with Edson Paradeo, in which Edson broke Griffin's left arm with what appeared to be a badly blocked roundhouse kick aimed at the body. Forrest continued on to win the fight by knockout. As a result of the badly blocked body kick, he has a huge permanent lump on his left forearm.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Griffin first became well known by taking part in the first-season of Spike TV's "The Ultimate Fighter", a mixed martial arts reality show. At the time, he had given up mixed martial arts and taken a job with the Augusta/Richmond County Sheriff's Department in Georgia, but he was persuaded by Dana White to take part in the show.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: On the show, he reached the finals where he defeated Stephan Bonnar by unanimous decision. The fight was credited by Dana White as the "most important fight in UFC history" and the fight that brought the UFC into the mainstream. For winning the competition he was given a six-figure professional contract to fight with the UFC.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: The Stephan Bonnar fight was declared the #1 UFC fight of all time in the UFC Ultimate 100 Greatest Fights program.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: On April 15, 2006, Griffin fought former light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz at "UFC 59", in which he lost a controversial split decision.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: At "UFC 62", Griffin then fought Stephan Bonnar in a rematch from their earlier fight. Griffin won by unanimous decision, sweeping all three rounds.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Griffin was defeated by "Ultimate Fighter 2" semifinalist Keith Jardine at "UFC 66" by TKO at 4:41 of the first round. After the fight, Griffin sat in his corner crying. Moments later, he walked away from Joe Rogan's attempt to interview him, saying "I don't ev...Keith came in and he did exactly what I wanted to do and he knocked me the fuck out. Let's go home."


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Griffin was scheduled to fight at "UFC 70" against Lyoto Machida on April 21, 2007 but he was unable to fight due to a staph infection.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: On June 16, 2007 Griffin defeated Hector Ramirez at "UFC 72" in Belfast, Northern Ireland via unanimous decision with all three judges scoring the fight 30–27 to Griffin. During the fight, Forrest was able to land 38 leg kicks breaking the UFC record for most leg kicks landed in three five-minute rounds. This record has since been broken by Amir Sadollah, who landed 46 against Peter Sobotta at UFC 122.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: At "UFC 76", Griffin fought against PRIDE Middleweight Grand Prix Champion Maurício Rua. At the time, Shogun was ranked the number one light heavyweight fighter in the world by several MMA publications. Griffin won by rear naked choke at 4:45 of round three. Griffin required surgery after the fight due to a shoulder injury that was sustained before the bout. Griffin's shoulder has been a recurring problem since.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: On "The Ultimate Fighter 6" finale, Dana White announced that Griffin was not only the number one contender for the Light Heavyweight title, but also one of the coaches for "The Ultimate Fighter 7" and would fight the other coach at the end of the series. The other coach, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson was announced by Dana White on December 9 at Spike TV's Video Game Awards show.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: On June 20, 2008, Griffin co-hosted the "25 Tuffest Moments in The Ultimate Fighter" with Stephan Bonnar and Dana White.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: On July 5, 2008, Griffin fought the UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. Viewed as a heavy underdog by many going into the fight, Griffin faced Jackson in a hard-fought battle that was named "Fight of the Night" by UFC president Dana White. Griffin won a unanimous decision victory and became the new undisputed UFC Light Heavyweight Champion.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Griffin appeared to be in trouble in the first round after being dropped by an uppercut, but he rallied in the second round and landed a damaging leg kick early that severely wobbled Jackson. Griffin followed up with ground strikes and cemented his control, preventing Jackson from mounting any significant offense for the entire round. After three more back and forth rounds, Griffin would go on to win the fight by unanimous decision to capture the light heavyweight title.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: The decision was described as controversial by some commentators. After the fight, Jackson's trainer Juanito Ibarra, unhappy with the judges scoring, expressed plans to protest the unanimous decision with the Nevada State Athletic Commission but never filed as it would not have changed the decision.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Griffin's documented pay for the fight was $310,000. $100,000 to fight, win bonus of $150,000 and $60,000 for the Fight of the Night award.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Griffin's first title defense came at UFC 92: The Ultimate 2008, against undefeated challenger Rashad Evans. After Griffin controlled most of the first two rounds with effective striking, Evans caught one of Griffin's kicks and took him down, defeating Griffin by TKO in the third round with ground and pound from inside the champion's guard. The loss was Griffin's third loss since entering the UFC. During the fight Griffin broke his hand, sidelining him for several months.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: After recovery, Griffin signed on to fight pound-for-pound stalwart Anderson Silva at UFC 101. Griffin was slated to take on Brazilian Thiago Silva, but on April 28, 2009, UFC President Dana White confirmed that he would instead accommodate Anderson's return to the light heavyweight division following his middleweight title defense against Thales Leites at UFC 97. During the bout, Griffin was knocked down three times in the first round by Silva. Before the third knockdown, Griffin charged Silva with a flurry of punches, all of which were avoided by sways from Silva, who then countered with a compact right hand whilst retreating, knocking Griffin out.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: After the fight, Griffin got up from the canvas, left the cage, and jogged out of the arena. It was initially suggested that Griffin was rushed to a hospital due to a dislocated jaw and trouble hearing in one ear. However, it turned out there was no injury to Griffin's jaw.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Both fighters were awarded $60,000 as Fight of the Night bonuses and Silva received an additional $60,000 in bonus money for Knockout of the Night.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: When Mark Coleman got injured and had to drop out of his matchup against Tito Ortiz, Griffin accepted a rematch against Ortiz at UFC 106. Griffin also wore white and black fight shorts instead of his trademark tan shorts for the fight. Griffin went on to win the gory battle by split decision, showing superior striking skills and a stronger ground game than in their previous fight. After the fight Griffin said, “Tito was a great fight for me to come back, we’ll have to do a third that’s 1-1 man.” With a split decision in both of their fights, Griffin seemed more than willing to get a rubber match put together with Ortiz to settle the score once and for all. “You could tell he was a guy getting ready for Mark Coleman, no offense, and he’s a guy coming off back surgery. We’ll do it again, I won’t break my foot, he’ll be in better shape,” commented Griffin.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Griffin was expected to face Antônio Rogério Nogueira on May 29, 2010 at UFC 114, but Griffin pulled out of the fight due to a shoulder injury. He was replaced by Jason Brilz.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Griffin faced former UFC Middleweight Champion Rich Franklin on February 5, 2011 at UFC 126. Griffin controlled the majority of the fight: in the first round he took Franklin down and controlled him on the ground and in the second he used superior kicks and combinations to knock Franklin down. Griffin went on to win by unanimous decision.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: A rematch with Maurício Rua took place on August 27, 2011 at UFC 134. Griffin lost the bout via KO (punches) in the first round and would be out up to 6 months with possible right-foot and jaw injuries.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Before the fight, Griffin was updated that his wife had gone into labor. Dana White also voiced his support for Griffin, stating that he was very proud of him regardless of the loss.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Griffin faced Tito Ortiz for a third time on July 7, 2012 at UFC 148. He won the fight via a 29-28 unanimous decision out-striking Ortiz 2:1 despite being knocked down by Ortiz as well as being taken down twice. The fight also won Fight of the Night earning both Griffin and Ortiz a fight bonus.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: This fight marked the third time in his career that he left the Octagon on unusual terms, simply walking out before the fight results were read. He later went back to the ring and gave Tito Ortiz an unexpected interview.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Griffin was expected to fight Chael Sonnen in a rematch on December 29, 2012 at UFC 155. Instead Sonnen was pulled out of the fight to coach TUF season 17. Griffin was then expected to face Phil Davis at the event. However, on December 5 it was announced that Forrest was forced out of the bout due to an MCL tear and ACL strain.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: On May 26, 2013, it was announced at the post-event news conference for UFC 160 that Griffin had retired from MMA fighting, citing chronic injuries as the reason for his decision. After the announcement of Griffin's retirement, Dana White announced that Griffin and Stephan Bonnar would be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame on July 6.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Griffin and his longtime girlfriend Jaime Logiudice were married on September 18, 2009. The couple welcomed their first child, a daughter, in September 2011. Forrest's wife was going into labor (nine days early) as he competed against Maurício "Shogun" Rua at UFC 134 on August 27, 2011.


title: Forrest Griffin

text: Griffin is the author of two books, 2009's "Got Fight?: 50 Zen Principles of Hand-to-Face Combat" and 2010's "Be Ready When The Shit Goes Down: A Survival Guide to the Apocalypse", which both received positive reviews.


title: Pablo Acosta Villarreal

text: Pablo Acosta Villarreal, commonly referred to as El Zorro de Ojinaga ("The Ojinaga Fox") was a Mexican narcotics smuggler who controlled crime along a 200-mile stretch of U.S.-Mexico border. At the height of his power, he was smuggling 60 tons of cocaine per year for the Colombians—in addition to the incalculable amounts of marijuana and heroin that were the mainstay of his business. He was the mentor and business partner of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the "Lord of the Skies", who took over after Acosta's death.


title: Pablo Acosta Villarreal

text: He made his operation base in the once little dusty border town of Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico, and had his greatest power in the period around 1984–1986. Through a protection scheme with Mexican federal and state police agencies and with the Mexican army, Acosta was able to ensure the security for five tons of cocaine being flown by turboprop aircraft every month from Colombia to Ojinaga — sometimes landing at the municipal airport, sometimes at dirt airstrips on ranches upriver from Ojinaga.


title: Pablo Acosta Villarreal

text: Chains of luxurious restaurants and hotels laundered his drug money. While at first he managed only marijuana and heroin, Acosta Villarreal became increasingly involved in the cocaine trade near the end of his life. He established contacts with Colombians who wanted to smuggle cocaine into the United States using the same routes to Texas Acosta Villarreal was using to ship marijuana and heroin from across the border in Chihuahua.


title: Pablo Acosta Villarreal

text: Acosta Villarreal was killed in April 1987, as detailed in the documentary film "American Federale", during a cross-border raid into the Rio Grande village of Santa Elena, Chihuahua, by Mexican Federal Police helicopters, with assistance from the FBI. Rafael Aguilar Guajardo took Acosta's place but he was killed soon after by Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who took control of the organization. The book "Drug Lord" by investigative journalist Terrence Poppa, chronicles the rise and fall of Acosta Villarreal through direct interviews he did with the drug lord.


title: Pablo Acosta Villarreal

text: There is a popular rumor in Mexico that states that he was an informant for the US government on communism and guerrilla movements near the Mexico-US border. As narrated by the famous Mexican-folk (norteño) group Los Tigres del Norte, in the drug-ballad (narco-corrido) called "El Zorro de Ojinaga", written by Paulino Vargas, that narrates some of the exploits of Acosta Villarreal.


title: Pragmatics

text: In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the interpreted. Linguists who specialize in pragmatics are called pragmaticians.


title: Pragmatics

text: Pragmatics encompasses phenomena including implicature, speech acts, relevance and conversation, as well as nonverbal communication. Theories of pragmatics go hand-in-hand with theories of semantics, which studies aspects of meaning, and syntax which examines sentence structures, principles, and relationships. The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called "pragmatic competence". Pragmatics emerged as its own subfield in the 1950s after the pioneering work of J.L. Austin and Paul Grice.


title: Pragmatics

text: Pragmatics was a reaction to structuralist linguistics as outlined by Ferdinand de Saussure. In many cases, it expanded upon his idea that language has an analyzable structure, composed of parts that can be defined in relation to others. Pragmatics first engaged only in synchronic study, as opposed to examining the historical development of language. However, it rejected the notion that all meaning comes from signs existing purely in the abstract space of "langue". Meanwhile, historical pragmatics has also come into being. The field did not gain linguists' attention until the 1970s, when two different schools emerged: the Anglo-American pragmatic thought and the European continental pragmatic thought (also called the perspective view).


title: Pragmatics

text: Ambiguity refers to when it is difficult to infer meaning without knowing the context, the identity of the speaker or the speaker's intent. For example, the sentence "You have a green light" is ambiguous, as without knowing the context, one could reasonably interpret it as meaning:


title: Pragmatics

text: Another example of an ambiguous sentence is, “I went to the bank.” This is an example of lexical ambiguity, as the word bank can either be in reference to a place where money is kept, or the edge of a river. To understand what the speaker is truly saying, it is a matter of context, which is why it is pragmatically ambiguous as well.


title: Pragmatics

text: Similarly, the sentence "Sherlock saw the man with binoculars" could mean that Sherlock observed the man by using binoculars, or it could mean that Sherlock observed a man who was holding binoculars ("syntactic ambiguity"). The meaning of the sentence depends on an understanding of the context and the speaker's intent. As defined in linguistics, a sentence is an abstract entity: a string of words divorced from non-linguistic context, as opposed to an utterance, which is a concrete example of a speech act in a specific context. The more closely conscious subjects stick to common words, idioms, phrasings, and topics, the more easily others can surmise their meaning; the further they stray from common expressions and topics, the wider the variations in interpretations. That suggests that sentences do not have intrinsic meaning, that there is no meaning associated with a sentence or word, and that either can represent an idea only symbolically. "The cat sat on the mat" is a sentence in English. If someone were to say to someone else, "The cat sat on the mat," the act is itself an utterance. That implies that a sentence, term, expression or word cannot symbolically represent a single true meaning; such meaning is underspecified (which cat sat on which mat?) and potentially ambiguous. By contrast, the meaning of an utterance can be inferred through knowledge of both its linguistic and non-linguistic contexts (which may or may not be sufficient to resolve ambiguity). In mathematics, with Berry's paradox, there arises a similar systematic ambiguity with the word "definable".


title: Pragmatics

text: The referential uses of language are how signs are used to refer to certain items. A sign is the link or relationship between a signified and the signifier as defined by de Saussure and []. The signified is some entity or concept in the world. The signifier represents the signified. An example would be:


title: Pragmatics

text: The relationship between the two gives the sign meaning. The relationship can be explained further by considering what we mean by "meaning." In pragmatics, there are two different types of meaning to consider: semantic-referential meaning and indexical meaning. Semantic-referential meaning refers to the aspect of meaning, which describes events in the world that are independent of the circumstance they are uttered in. An example would be propositions such as:


title: Pragmatics

text: In this case, the proposition is describing that Santa Claus eats cookies. The meaning of the proposition does not rely on whether or not Santa Claus is eating cookies at the time of its utterance. Santa Claus could be eating cookies at any time and the meaning of the proposition would remain the same. The meaning is simply describing something that is the case in the world. In contrast, the proposition, "Santa Claus is eating a cookie right now," describes events that are happening at the time the proposition is uttered.


title: Pragmatics

text: If someone were to say that a tiger is a carnivorous animal in one context and a mammal in another, the definition of tiger would still be the same. The meaning of the sign tiger is describing some animal in the world, which does not change in either circumstance.


title: Pragmatics

text: Indexical meaning, on the other hand, is dependent on the context of the utterance and has rules of use. By rules of use, it is meant that indexicals can tell you when they are used, but not what they actually mean.


title: Pragmatics

text: As mentioned, these meanings are brought about through the relationship between the signified and the signifier. One way to define the relationship is by placing signs in two categories: referential indexical signs, also called "shifters," and pure indexical signs.


title: Pragmatics

text: Referential indexical signs are signs where the meaning shifts depending on the context hence the nickname "shifters." 'I' would be considered a referential indexical sign. The referential aspect of its meaning would be '1st person singular' while the indexical aspect would be the person who is speaking (refer above for definitions of semantic-referential and indexical meaning). Another example would be:


title: Pragmatics

text: A pure indexical sign does not contribute to the meaning of the propositions at all. It is an example of a "non-referential use of language."


title: Pragmatics

text: A second way to define the signified and signifier relationship is C.S. Peirce's Peircean Trichotomy. The components of the trichotomy are the following:


title: Pragmatics

text: These relationships allow us to use signs to convey what we want to say. If two people were in a room and one of them wanted to refer to a characteristic of a chair in the room he would say "this chair has four legs" instead of "a chair has four legs." The former relies on context (indexical and referential meaning) by referring to a chair specifically in the room at that moment while the latter is independent of the context (semantico-referential meaning), meaning the concept chair.


title: Pragmatics

text: Referring to things and people is a common feature of conversation, and conversants do so collaboratively. Individuals engaging in discourse utilize pragmatics. In addition, individuals within the scope of discourse cannot help but avoid intuitive use of certain utterances or word choices in an effort to create communicative success. The study of referential language is heavily focused upon definite descriptions and referent accessibility. Theories have been presented for why direct referent descriptions occur in discourse. (In layman's terms: why reiteration of certain names, places, or individuals involved or as a topic of the conversation at hand are repeated more than one would think necessary.) Four factors are widely accepted for the use of referent language including (i) competition with a possible referent, (ii) salience of the referent in the context of discussion (iii) an effort for unity of the parties involved, and finally, (iv) a blatant presence of distance from the last referent.


title: Pragmatics

text: Referential expressions are a form of anaphora. They are also a means of connecting past and present thoughts together to create context for information at hand. Analyzing the context of a sentence and determining whether or not the use of referent expression is necessary is highly reliant upon the author/speaker's digression- and is correlated strongly with the use of pragmatic competency.


title: Pragmatics

text: Michael Silverstein has argued that "nonreferential" or "pure" indices do not contribute to an utterance's referential meaning but instead "signal some particular value of one or more contextual variables." Although nonreferential indexes are devoid of semantico-referential meaning, they do encode "pragmatic" meaning.


title: Pragmatics

text: In all of these cases, the semantico-referential meaning of the utterances is unchanged from that of the other possible (but often impermissible) forms, but the pragmatic meaning is vastly different.


title: Pragmatics

text: J.L. Austin introduced the concept of the performative, contrasted in his writing with "constative" (i.e. descriptive) utterances. According to Austin's original formulation, a performative is a type of utterance characterized by two distinctive features:


title: Pragmatics

text: To be performative, an utterance must conform to various conditions involving what Austin calls felicity. These deal with things like appropriate context and the speaker's authority. For instance, when a couple has been arguing and the husband says to his wife that he accepts her apology even though she has offered nothing approaching an apology, his assertion is infelicitous: because she has made neither expression of regret nor request for forgiveness, there exists none to accept, and thus no act of accepting can possibly happen.


title: Pragmatics

text: Roman Jakobson, expanding on the work of Karl Bühler, described six "constitutive factors" of a speech event, each of which represents the privileging of a corresponding function, and only one of which is the referential (which corresponds to the context of the speech event). The six constitutive factors and their corresponding functions are diagrammed below.


title: Pragmatics

text: There is considerable overlap between pragmatics and sociolinguistics, since both share an interest in linguistic meaning as determined by usage in a speech community. However, sociolinguists tend to be more interested in variations in language within such communities. Influences of philosophy and politics are also present in the field of pragmatics, as the dynamics of societies and oppression are expressed through language


title: Pragmatics

text: Pragmatics helps anthropologists relate elements of language to broader social phenomena; it thus pervades the field of linguistic anthropology. Because pragmatics describes generally the forces in play for a given utterance, it includes the study of power, gender, race, identity, and their interactions with individual speech acts. For example, the study of code switching directly relates to pragmatics, since a switch in code effects a shift in pragmatic force.


title: Pragmatics

text: According to Charles W. Morris, pragmatics tries to understand the relationship between signs and their users, while semantics tends to focus on the actual objects or ideas to which a word refers, and syntax (or "syntactics") examines relationships among signs or symbols. Semantics is the literal meaning of an idea whereas pragmatics is the implied meaning of the given idea.


title: Pragmatics

text: Speech Act Theory, pioneered by J.L. Austin and further developed by John Searle, centers around the idea of the performative, a type of utterance that performs the very action it describes. Speech Act Theory's examination of Illocutionary Acts has many of the same goals as pragmatics, as outlined above.


title: Pragmatics

text: Computational Pragmatics, as defined by Victoria Fromkin, concerns how humans can communicate their intentions to computers with as little ambiguity as possible. That process, integral to the science of natural language processing (seen as a sub-discipline of artificial intelligence), involves providing a computer system with some database of knowledge related to a topic and a series of algorithms, which control how the system responds to incoming data, using contextual knowledge to more accurately approximate natural human language and information processing abilities. Reference resolution, how a computer determines when two objects are different or not, is one of the most important tasks of computational pragmatics.


title: Pragmatics

text: There has been a great amount of discussion on the boundary between semantics and pragmatics and there are many different formalizations of aspects of pragmatics linked to context dependence. Particularly interesting cases are the discussions on the semantics of indexicals and the problem of referential descriptions, a topic developed after the theories of Keith Donnellan. A proper logical theory of formal pragmatics has been developed by Carlo Dalla Pozza, according to which it is possible to connect classical semantics (treating propositional contents as true or false) and intuitionistic semantics (dealing with illocutionary forces). The presentation of a formal treatment of pragmatics appears to be a development of the Fregean idea of assertion sign as formal sign of the act of assertion.


title: Pragmatics

text: Pragmatics (more specifically, Speech Act Theory's notion of the performative) underpins Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity. In "Gender Trouble", they claim that gender and sex are not natural categories, but socially constructed roles produced by "reiterative acting."