title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: Kazakhstan authorities launched a countrywide antitrust investigation into 180 LNG sellers due to a suspected collusion.


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: On 9 January, the interior ministry, said initial estimates put property damage at about 175 million euros, adding that more than 100 businesses and banks had been attacked and looted and about 400 vehicles destroyed. The ministry confirmed that more than 160 people had been killed and more than 5,000 had been arrested for questioning as part of 125 separate investigations into the unrest. The Interior Ministry reported more than 2,200 people sought treatment for injuries from the protests, and about 1,300 security officers were injured. The office of Kazakhstan's president said that in total 5,800 people had been detained. The health ministry said in total 164 people, including two children, had been killed. It also specified that 103 people had died in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty. Interior Minister Erlan Turgumbayev held a press conference, saying, "Today the situation is stabilised in all regions of the country... the counterterror operation is continuing in a bid to re-establish order in the country".


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: On 10 January, the government declared a day of mourning for the victims of the protests. Kazakhstan's Interior Ministry reported that a total of 7,939 people have been detained across the country. The National Security Committee, Kazakhstan's counterintelligence and anti-terrorism agency, said that the situation in the country had "stabilized and is under control." Tokayev called the protests a "coup attempt." The government also stated that "foreign-trained Islamist radicals" were among those who had attacked government buildings and security forces in the last week and that police had then detained almost 8,000 people to bring the situation under control.


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: Military general and politician Zhanat Suleimenov committed suicide, at the age of 59, after a criminal case was opened against him during the protests.


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: On 11 January, in a speech to an online meeting of the CSTO military alliance by video link, Tokayev said that order had now been restored in Kazakhstan and called the protests over. He announced that the CSTO had completed its mission in Kazakhstan and would begin withdrawing from the country on January 13 and would be fully withdrawn in the next 10 days. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory in defending Kazakhstan from what he described as a "foreign-backed terrorist uprising", and promised leaders of other ex-Soviet states that a Moscow-led alliance (CSTO) would protect them too.


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: In a speech to parliament regarding the past days, Tokayev promised reform and acknowledged public discontent over income inequality and criticized Nazarbayev and his associates due to their wealth. He said the public discontent was justified and that he wanted associates of the former president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, to share their wealth to the people. Tokayev told parliament, "Thanks to Nazarbayev, a group of very profitable companies emerged in the country as well as a group of people wealthy even by international standards, I think it is time they pay their dues to the people of Kazakhstan and help them on a systemic and regular basis." He went on to say that the financial system is dominated by large business groups, "based on the principle 'everything for friends, and laws for everyone else'". He spoke of initiatives to narrow the wealth gap, raise taxes on the mining sector, and eliminate irregularities in state procurement and areas where associates of Nazarbayev have business interests.


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: The Interior Ministry mentioned that security forces had detained over 9,900 people in connection with the protests. Tokayev nominated a new prime minister, Älihan Smaiylov. International flights were resumed to and from the country's capital, Astana.


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: On 5 January, authorities in Almaty reported that over 400 businesses were damaged from the protests and that 200 people had been arrested; police in Atyrau fired into protesters which resulted in the death of at least one individual. The government reported on 5 January that eight law enforcement personnel were killed and 317 were wounded. A report carried by the French AFP news agency stated that dozens of protestors had been killed, while the Russian TASS news agency aired footage of a heavy gunfight near Almaty's Republic Square. On 6 January, dozens of protestors were killed during an operation, while the number of security forces killed rose to 18. According to local authorities, two of the security officers were found decapitated.


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: On 7 January, President Tokayev stated that the army and law enforcement agencies had been ordered "to shoot to kill without warning."


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: Dosym Satpaev, a Kazakh political analyst, said that the Kazakh government would mainly use force to respond to protests, stating: "The authorities are trying everything to calm things down, with a mix of promises and threats, but so far it's not working... There will be imitations of dialogue but essentially the regime will respond with force because they have no other tools." Political scientist Arkady Dubnov of the Carnegie Moscow Center observed that such protests were unsettling for the Russian government, with Dubnov saying: "There is no doubt that the Kremlin would not want to see an example of such a regime beginning to talk to the opposition and conceding to their demands."


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: In an article for "Foreign Policy", Eugene Chausovsky wrote that "Tokayev felt the need to get CSTO assistance in order to secure strategic sites and installations, including government buildings and airports in key cities such as Almaty, while Kazakh security forces could focus on handling the demonstrators directly."


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: Joanna Lillis, writing in "Eurasianet" on 7 January, described Tokayev's shoot to kill declared policy and his terminology, including "bandits and terrorists ... to be eliminated", as resembling that of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Lillis saw this as a significant change from Tokayev's earlier promises of liberalising the political situation and consulting civil society. She interpreted the dismissal and arrest of Karim Massimov, head of the National Security Committee and close to Nazarbayev, together with a statement by Nazarbayev's former adviser Ermukhamet Ertysbayev that a coup d'état had been attempted, as signs of a significant shift of power within the Kazakh political elites from Nazarbayev to Tokayev. She considered the claims of an attempted coup d'état to be credible. Other analysts dispute this, as no details were provided upon Massimov's arrest on what actions could have represented an attempted overthrow of the government.


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: Hans-Henning Schröder, a political scientist and expert on Russia, told "Deutsche Welle": "All of Russia's major neighbors have been rocked by social unrest. If I were in the Kremlin, I would start to worry about whether Russia could be next."


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: Daniil Kislov, the founder and General Director of the Ferghana Information Agency, speculated to "The New York Times" that the violence in Almaty was "all artificially organized by people who really had power in their hands," as a proxy for a power struggle between Tokayev and former president Nazarbayev. Kislov claimed that Nazarbayev's nephew Samat Abish, who was previously deputy head of the Kazakh State Security Service before being ousted by Tokayev, was responsible for orchestrating much of the violence. Galym Ageleulov, a human rights activist in Almaty, stated that the violence only started in Almaty when a crowd that was "clearly organized by crime group marauders" started the march to the City Hall, while at the same time police presence dissipated.


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: Sergey Khestanov, macroeconomic adviser to the general director of Otkritie-Broker, claimed that the massive protests weren't caused directly due to economic factors, suggesting Kazakhstan's high standard of living within the former Soviet Union comparably to Russia and that the average age in Kazakhstan being relatively young leads to higher social activity, which played role in fueling discontent due to "a sufficiently long, stable and powerful economic growth" being "sharply inhibited".


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: As Kazakhstan produces more than 40% of the world's uranium, the uranium prices rose since the protests erupted. Canadian uranium company Cameco stated that "any disruption in Kazakhstan could of course be a significant catalyst in the uranium market. If nothing else, it's a reminder for utilities that an over-reliance on any one source of supply is risky." The internet blackout also impacted cryptocurrency mining operations, with the global cryptocurrency computational capacity (hashrate) dropping by 12 percent. Prior to the protests, Kazakhstan accounted for around 18 percent of global hashrate for Bitcoin, due to the fact that neighboring China in 2021 banned the mining of cryptocurrencies and many of the cryptominers moved to Kazakhstan.


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA, suggested that further oil production outages during protests could impact global oil prices by reaching the October 2021 peak and possibly three-digit prices as well. According to Chevron Corporation, which operates Tengiz Field, the production of oil was reduced after its contractors had disrupted railway lines in support of the protests. However just days later, Chevron announced that it would be gradually increasing its output again.


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: During the protests and riot in Kazakhstan, the fortune of four local billionaires shrank by $3 billion according to "Forbes". At the same time, the middle daughter and son-in-law of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Dinara and Timur Kulibayev, lost $200 million. The couple controls the country's largest bank in terms of assets, Halyk Bank; the fortune of each co-owner is estimated at $3.1 billion. One of the most affected billionaires was Kazakh businessman Vyacheslav Kim, who is the chairman of the board of directors of the fintech company Kaspi Bank. In two days, its shares fell immediately by 30%, from $188 as of 4 January to $87 on 6 January; according to "Forbes", decreasing his fortune by $1.4 billion to $4.2 billion. By the end of the week, his assets grew slightly and were estimated at $4.4 billion. The general director of Kaspi.kz, a billionaire from Georgia Mikhail Lomtadze living in Kazakhstan, lost about $1.4 billion. The size of his fortune fell to $3.8 billion.


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: Speaking from France, the leader of Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan, Mukhtar Ablyazov, told Reuters on 7 January 2022: "I see myself as the leader of the opposition". Ablyazov also stated that the West should remove Kazakhstan from Russian influence to prevent Russian President Vladimir Putin from incorporating Kazakhstan into "a structure like the Soviet Union".


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: Unrest in Kazakhstan caught international observers by surprise. President Tokayev began communications with President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, who had quashed the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests, and was in discussions with President of Russia Vladimir Putin, calling for the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to intervene against protesters that he described as "international terrorists". Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, who had just been made chairman of the CSTO on 3 January 2022, responded to Tokayev's request, stating "As the Chairman of the CPC Assembly Security Council, I am starting immediate consultations with the leaders of the CSTO countries".


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: On 6 January, the CSTO agreed to intervene in Kazakhstan with a collective group of forces that it described as having the aim of peacekeeping, with the organization citing the Collective Security Treaty's Article 4, which states "In the case of aggression (an armed attack threatening safety, stability, territorial integrity and sovereignty) against any Member States, all other Member States at the request of this Member State shall immediately provide the latter with the necessary aid, including military". Pashinyan said that the CSTO was to be deployed due to "the threats to national security and sovereignty to the Republic of Kazakhstan, including from external interference". A Russian Air Force regiment in Orenburg was reported to be readying itself for deployment to Kazakhstan. Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: "Peacekeeping forces of the Collective Security Treaty Organization were sent to the Republic of Kazakhstan for a limited time to stabilize and normalize the situation." She confirmed armed forces of Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan were sent to Kazakhstan as part of the wider CSTO effort. According to CSTO, its armed forces are only authorised to participate in the protection of strategic infrastructure facilities, including Almaty International Airport and Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in south-central Kazakhstan. Russian State Duma member Leonid Kalashnikov stated that actions in relation to the protesters themselves were to be handled by local Kazakhstani law enforcement.


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: On 7 January, the Belarusian Telegraph Agency reported that President Lukashenko "discussed in detail the state of affairs in Kazakhstan" via phone with former president and chair of Security Council of Kazakhstan, Nazarbayev.


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: On 11 January, Tokayev announced that the CSTO had completed its mission in Kazakhstan and would begin withdrawing from the country on January 13; they were fully withdrawn by 19 January.


title: 2022 Kazakh unrest

text: On 7 January, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation's regional anti-terrorist structure announced that it was ready to extend assistance to Kazakhstan upon request, and voiced support for the Kazakh government's security measures.


title: Tuesdays with Morrie

text: Tuesdays with Morrie is a memoir by American author Mitch Albom about a series of visits Albom made to his former sociology professor Morrie Schwartz, as Schwartz gradually dies of ALS. The book topped the "New York Times" Non-Fiction Best-Sellers List for 23 combined weeks in 2000, and remained on the "New York Times" best-selling list for more than four years after. In 2006, "Tuesdays with Morrie" was the bestselling memoir of all time.


title: Tuesdays with Morrie

text: An unabridged audiobook was also published, narrated by Albom. The appendix of the audiobook contains excerpts from several minutes of audio recordings that Albom made during his conversations with Schwartz before writing the book.


title: Tuesdays with Morrie

text: In 1995, Albom is a successful sports columnist for the "Detroit Free Press". After seeing his former sociology professor Morrie Schwartz appear on "Nightline", Albom phones Schwartz and is prompted to visit him in Massachusetts. A coincidental newspaper strike allows Albom to visit Schwartz every week, on Tuesdays. The book recounts each of the fourteen visits Albom made to Schwartz, supplemented with Schwartz's lectures and life experiences and interspersed with flashbacks and references to contemporary events.


title: Tuesdays with Morrie

text: After being diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Morrie's final days are spent giving his former student Mitch his final lesson of life. The novel is divided into 14 different "days" that Mitch Albom spent with his professor Morrie. Throughout these days, Mitch and Morrie discuss various topics important to life and living. The novel also recounts Mitch's memories of Morrie as a professor.


title: Tuesdays with Morrie

text: This was the first episode out of three on a "Nightline" special on Morrie and his illness. Morrie caught the eye of a "Nightline" television producer after an article was published titled: "A Professor's Final Course: His Own Death." It was through this airing that Morrie's old student Mitch was reminded of his old professor, causing him to reach out and reconnect.


title: Tuesdays with Morrie

text: Mitch Albom was born in May 1958 in New Jersey. Originally, he was a pianist and wanted to pursue a life as a musician. Instead he became an author, journalist, screenwriter, and television/radio broadcaster. In his college years, he met sociology professor Dr. Morrie Schwartz who would later influence his memoir, "Tuesdays with Morrie".


title: Tuesdays with Morrie

text: Morrie Schwartz was a sociology professor at Brandeis University who was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The son of Russian immigrants, Schwartz had a difficult childhood, indelibly marked by the death of his mother and his brother's infection with the Polio virus. He later went on to work as a researcher in a mental hospital, where he learned about mental illness and how to have empathy and compassion for other people. Later in life, he decided to become a sociology professor in hopes of putting his accumulated wisdom to use. This is where he met his student Mitch Albom, who would later become a lifelong friend. Schwartz was married to Charlotte Schwartz, with whom he had two children. After a long battle with ALS, Morrie died on 4 November, 1995. His tombstone reads, "A teacher until the end."


title: Tuesdays with Morrie

text: The book was adapted into a 1999 television film, directed by Mick Jackson and starring Hank Azaria and Jack Lemmon.


title: Tuesdays with Morrie

text: In 2002, the book was adapted as a stage play that opened off Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theatre. Co-authored by Mitch Albom and Jeffrey Hatcher ("Three Viewings") and directed by David Esbjornson ("The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?"). "Tuesdays with Morrie" starred Alvin Epstein as Schwartz and Jon Tenney as Albom. It received positive reviews.


title: Charles Hoskinson

text: Charles Hoskinson is an American entrepreneur who is a co-founder of the blockchain engineering company Input Output Global, Inc. (formerly IOHK), and the Cardano blockchain platform, and was a co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain platform.


title: Charles Hoskinson

text: Hoskinson attended Metropolitan State University of Denver and the University of Colorado Boulder "to study analytic number theory before moving into cryptography through industry exposure".


title: Charles Hoskinson

text: Hoskinson has claimed that he had entered a PhD program but had dropped out. However, Denver did not have a graduate program in mathematics. Colorado Boulder verified that he had attended as a half-time undergraduate math major, but did not earn a degree. He also claimed repeatedly to have worked for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), though DARPA confirmed he had not.


title: Charles Hoskinson

text: In 2013, Hoskinson quit a consulting job to begin a project called the Bitcoin Education Project. According to Hoskinson, the limited supply makes Bitcoin like a digital form of gold.


title: Charles Hoskinson

text: He joined the Ethereum team as one of five original founders with Vitalik Buterin in late 2013 and held the position of chief executive. Buterin and the Ethereum team removed Hoskinson in 2014 after a dispute over whether the project should be commercial (Hoskinson's view) or a nonprofit (Buterin's view).


title: Charles Hoskinson

text: In late 2014, Hoskinson and former Ethereum colleague Jeremy Wood formed IOHK (Input Output Hong Kong), an engineering and research company, to build cryptocurrencies and blockchains. IOHK's key project is Cardano, a public blockchain and smart contract platform that hosts the ADA cryptocurrency. Hoskinson did not pursue venture capital for Cardano, saying that it ran counter to the blockchain's principles. Hoskinson has also said that venture capital involvement might lead to an outsized control of a project.


title: Charles Hoskinson

text: In 2017, IOHK sponsored research labs focusing on blockchain technology at the University of Edinburgh and the Tokyo Institute of Technology. This resulted in the Ouroboros blockchain consensus protocol. In 2020, IOHK donated $500,000 for the University of Wyoming to create a blockchain laboratory.


title: Charles Hoskinson

text: In 2020, Hoskinson spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he said that blockchain may eventually cause social change. In 2022, he appeared as a witness before the commodity exchanges, energy, and credit sub-committee of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture.


title: Charles Hoskinson

text: In September 2021, Hoskinson donated $20 million to Carnegie Mellon University to build the Hoskinson Center for Formal Mathematics.


title: Charles Hoskinson

text: As of 2022, Hoskinson purchased a ranch near Wheatland, Wyoming, donated equipment to the Platte County Sheriff's Office, and purchased a restaurant in Wheatland.


title: Joystick

text: A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. A joystick, also known as the control column, is the principal control device in the cockpit of many civilian and military aircraft, either as a centre stick or side-stick. It often has supplementary switches to control various aspects of the aircraft's flight.


title: Joystick

text: Joysticks are often used to control video games, and usually have one or more push-buttons whose state can also be read by the computer. A popular variation of the joystick used on modern video game consoles is the analog stick. Joysticks are also used for controlling machines such as cranes, trucks, underwater unmanned vehicles, wheelchairs, surveillance cameras, and zero turning radius lawn mowers. Miniature finger-operated joysticks have been adopted as input devices for smaller electronic equipment such as mobile phones.


title: Joystick

text: Joysticks originated as controls for aircraft ailerons and elevators, and are first known to have been used as such on Louis Bleriot's Bleriot VIII aircraft of 1908, in combination with a foot-operated rudder bar for the yaw control surface on the tail.


title: Joystick

text: The name "joystick" is thought to originate with early 20th century French pilot Robert Esnault-Pelterie. There are also competing claims on behalf of fellow pilots Robert Loraine, James Henry Joyce, and A. E. George. Loraine is cited by the "Oxford English Dictionary" for using the term "joystick" in his diary in 1909 when he went to Pau to learn to fly at Bleriot's school. George was a pioneer aviator who with his colleague Jobling built and flew a biplane at Newcastle in England in 1910. He is alleged to have invented the "George Stick" which became more popularly known as the joystick. The George and Jobling aircraft control column is in the collection of the Discovery Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.


title: Joystick

text: Joysticks were present in early planes, though their mechanical origins are uncertain. The coining of the term "joystick" may actually be credited to Loraine, as his is the earliest known usage of the term, although he most certainly did not invent the device.


title: Joystick

text: The electrical two-axis joystick was invented by C. B. Mirick at the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and patented in 1926 (U.S. Patent no. 1,597,416)". NRL was actively developing remote controlled aircraft at the time and the joystick was possibly used to support this effort. In the awarded patent, Mirick writes: "My control system is particularly applicable in maneuvering aircraft without a pilot."


title: Joystick

text: The Germans developed an electrical two-axis joystick around 1944. The device was used as part of the Germans' "Funkgerät" FuG 203 "Kehl" radio control transmitter system used in certain German bomber aircraft, used to guide both the rocket-boosted anti-ship missile "Henschel Hs 293", and the unpowered pioneering precision-guided munition "Fritz-X", against maritime and other targets. Here, the joystick of the "Kehl" transmitter was used by an operator to steer the missile towards its target. This joystick had on-off switches rather than analogue sensors. Both the Hs 293 and Fritz-X used FuG 230 "Straßburg" radio receivers in them to send the "Kehl's" control signals to the ordnance's control surfaces. A comparable joystick unit was used for the contemporary American Azon steerable munition, strictly to laterally steer the munition in the yaw axis only.


title: Joystick

text: This German invention was picked up by someone in the team of scientists assembled at the "Heeresversuchsanstalt" in Peenemünde. Here a part of the team on the German rocket program was developing the Wasserfall missile, a variant of the V-2 rocket, the first ground-to-air missile. The Wasserfall steering equipment converted the electrical signal to radio signals and transmitted these to the missile.


title: Joystick

text: In the 1960s the use of joysticks became widespread in radio-controlled model aircraft systems such as the Kwik Fly produced by Phill Kraft (1964). The now-defunct Kraft Systems firm eventually became an important OEM supplier of joysticks to the computer industry and other users. The first use of joysticks outside the radio-controlled aircraft industry may have been in the control of powered wheelchairs, such as the Permobil (1963). During this time period NASA used joysticks as control devices as part of the Apollo missions. For example, the lunar lander test models were controlled with a joystick.


title: Joystick

text: In many modern airliners aircraft, for example all Airbus aircraft developed from the 1980s, the joystick has received a new lease on life for flight control in the form of a "side-stick", a controller similar to a gaming joystick but which is used to control the flight, replacing the traditional yoke. The sidestick saves weight, improves movement and visibility in the cockpit, and may be safer in an accident than the traditional "control yoke".


title: Joystick

text: Ralph H. Baer, inventor of the Magnavox Odyssey console, released in 1972, created the first video game joysticks in 1967. They were able to control the horizontal and vertical position of a spot displayed on a screen. The earliest known electronic game joystick with a fire button was released by Sega as part of their 1969 arcade game "Missile", a shooter simulation game that used it as part of an early dual-control scheme, where two directional buttons are used to move a motorized tank and a two-way joystick is used to shoot and steer the missile onto oncoming planes displayed on the screen; when a plane is hit, an explosion is animated on screen along with an explosion sound. In 1970, the game was released in North America as "S.A.M.I." by Midway Games.


title: Joystick

text: Taito released a four-way joystick as part of their arcade racing video game "Astro Race" in 1973, while their 1975 run and gun multi-directional shooter game "Western Gun" introduced dual-stick controls with one eight-way joystick for movement and the other for changing the shooting direction. In North America, it was released by Midway under the title "Gun Fight". In 1976, Taito released "Interceptor", an early first-person combat flight simulator that involved piloting a jet fighter, using an eight-way joystick to aim with a crosshair and shoot at enemy aircraft.


title: Joystick

text: The Atari standard joystick, developed for the Atari 2600, released in 1977, was a digital controller, with a single fire button. The Atari joystick port was for many years the "de facto" standard digital joystick specification. Joysticks were commonly used as controllers in first and second generation game consoles, but they gave way to the familiar game pad with the Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Master System during the mid-1980s, though joysticks—especially arcade-style one—were and are popular after-market add-ons for any console.


title: Joystick

text: In 1985, Sega's third-person arcade rail shooter game "Space Harrier" featured a true analog flight stick, used for movement. The joystick could register movement in any direction as well as measure the degree of push, which could move the player character at different speeds depending on how far the joystick was pushed in a certain direction.


title: Joystick

text: A variation of the joystick is the rotary joystick. It is a type of joystick-knob hybrid, where the joystick can be moved in various direction while at the same time being able to rotate the joystick. It is mainly used in arcade shoot 'em up games, to control both the player's eight-directional movement and the gun's 360-degree direction. It was introduced by SNK, initially with the tank shooter "TNK III" (1985) before it was popularized by the run-and-gun shooter "Ikari Warriors" (1986). SNK later used rotary joystick controls in arcade games such as "Guerrilla War" (1989).


title: Joystick

text: A distinct variation of an analog joystick is a positional gun, which works differently from a light gun. Instead of using light sensors, a positional gun is essentially an analog joystick mounted in a fixed location that records the position of the gun to determine where the player is aiming on the screen. It is often used for arcade gun games, with early examples including Sega's "Sea Devil" in 1972; Taito's "Attack" in 1976; "Cross Fire" in 1977; and Nintendo's "Battle Shark" in 1978.


title: Joystick

text: During the 1990s, joysticks such as the CH Products Flightstick, Gravis Phoenix, Microsoft SideWinder, Logitech WingMan, and Thrustmaster FCS were in demand with PC gamers. They were considered a prerequisite for flight simulators such as "F-16 Fighting Falcon" and "LHX Attack Chopper". Joysticks became especially popular with the mainstream success of space flight simulator games like "" and "Wing Commander", as well as the "Six degrees of freedom" 3D shooter "Descent". VirPil Controls' MongoosT-50 joystick was designed to mimic the style of Russian aircraft (including the Sukhoi Su-35 and Sukhoi Su-57), unlike most flight joysticks.


title: Joystick

text: However, since the beginning of the 21st century, these types of games have waned in popularity and are now considered a "dead" genre, and with that, gaming joysticks have been reduced to niche products. In NowGamer's interview with Jim Boone, a producer at Volition Inc., he stated that "FreeSpace 2"s poor sales could have been due to joysticks' being sold poorly because they were "going out of fashion" because more modern first-person shooters, such as "Quake", were "very much about the mouse and [the] keyboard". He went further on to state "Before that, when we did "Descent" for example, it was perfectly common for people to have joysticks – we sold a lot of copies of Descent. It was around that time [when] the more modern FPS with mouse and keyboard came out, as opposed to just keyboard like "Wolfenstein [3D]" or something.".


title: Joystick

text: Since the late 1990s, "analog sticks" (or "thumbsticks", due to their being controlled by one's thumbs) have become standard on controllers for video game consoles, popularized by Nintendo's Nintendo 64 controller, and have the ability to indicate the stick's displacement from its neutral position. This means that the software does not have to keep track of the position or estimate the speed at which the controls are moved. These devices usually use potentiometers to determine the position of the stick, though some newer models instead use a Hall effect sensor for greater reliability and reduced size.


title: Joystick

text: In 1997, ThrustMaster, Inc. introduced a 3D programmable controller, which was integrated into computer games to experience flight simulations. This line adapted several aspects of NASA's RHC (Rotational Hand Controller), which is used for landing and navigation methods.


title: Joystick

text: In 1997 the first gaming joystick with force feedback (haptics) was manufactured by CH Products under license from technology creator, Immersion Corporation. The product, called the Force FX joystick was followed by force feedback joysticks from Logitech, Thrustmaster, and others, also under license from Immersion.


title: Joystick

text: An arcade stick is a large-format controller for use with home consoles or computers. They use the stick-and-button configuration of some arcade cabinets, such as those with particular multi-button arrangements. For example, the six button layout of the arcade games "Street Fighter II" or "Mortal Kombat" cannot be comfortably emulated on a console joypad, so licensed home arcade sticks for these games have been manufactured for home consoles and PCs.


title: Joystick

text: A hat switch is a control on some joysticks. It is also known as a POV (point of view) switch. It allows one to look around in one's virtual world, browse menus, etc. For example, many flight simulators use it to switch the player's views, while other games sometimes use it as a substitute for the D-pad. Computer gamepads with both an analogue stick and a D-pad usually assign POV switch scancodes to the latter.


title: Joystick

text: The term hat switch is a shortening of the term "Coolie hat switch", named for the similar-looking headgear.


title: Joystick

text: Apart from buttons, wheels and dials as well as touchscreens also miniature joysticks have been established for the efficient manual operation of cameras.


title: Joystick

text: In recent times, the employment of joysticks has become commonplace in many industrial and manufacturing applications, such as cranes, assembly lines, forestry equipment, mining trucks, and excavators. In fact, the use of such joysticks is in such high demand, that it has virtually replaced the traditional mechanical control lever in nearly all modern hydraulic control systems. Additionally, most unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and submersible remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) require at least one joystick to control either the vehicle, the on-board cameras, sensors and/or manipulators.


title: Joystick

text: Due to the highly hands-on, rough nature of such applications, the industrial joystick tends to be more robust than the typical video-game controller, and able to function over a high cycle life. This led to the development and employment of Hall effect sensing to such applications in the 1980s as a means of contactless sensing. Several companies produce joysticks for industrial applications using Hall effect technology. Another technology used in joystick design is the use of strain gauges to build force transducers from which the output is proportional to the force applied rather than physical deflection. Miniature force transducers are used as additional controls on joysticks for menu selection functions.


title: Joystick

text: Some larger manufacturers of joysticks are able to customize joystick handles and grips specific to the OEM needs while small regional manufacturers often concentrate on selling standard products at higher prices to smaller OEMs.


title: Joystick

text: Specialist joysticks, classed as an assistive technology pointing device, are used to replace the computer mouse for people with fairly severe physical disabilities. Rather than controlling games, these joysticks control the pointer. They are often useful to people with athetoid conditions, such as cerebral palsy, who find them easier to grasp than a standard mouse. Miniature joysticks are available for people with conditions involving muscular weakness such as muscular dystrophy or motor neurone disease as well. They are also used on electric powered wheelchairs for control since they are simple and effective to use as a control method.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The Coco or Coca (also known as the Cucuy, Cuco, Cuca, Cucu or Cucuí) is a mythical ghost-like monster, equivalent to the bogeyman, found in many Hispanophone and Lusophone countries. It can also be considered an Iberian version of a bugbear as it is a commonly used figure of speech representing an irrational or exaggerated fear. The Cucuy is a male being while Cuca is a female version of the mythical monster. The "monster" will come to the house of disobedient children and make them "disappear".


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The myth of the "Coco", or "Cucuy", originated in northern Portugal and Galicia. According to the Real Academia Española, the word "coco" derives from the Galician and Portuguese "côco" , which means "coconut". The word "coco" is used in colloquial speech to refer to the human head in Spanish. "Coco" also means "skull". The word "cocuruto" in Portuguese means "the crown of the head" or "the highest place" and with the same etymology in Galicia, "crouca" means "head", from proto-Celtic "*krowkā-", with variant "cróca"; and either "coco" or "cuca" means "head" in both Portuguese and Galician. It is cognate with Cornish "crogen", meaning "skull", and Breton "krogen ar penn", also meaning "skull". In Irish, "clocan" means "skull".


title: Coco (folklore)

text: Many Latin American countries refer to the monster as "el Cuco". In northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, where there is a large Hispanic population, it is referred to by its anglicized name, "the Coco Man". In Brazilian folklore, the monster is referred to as "Cuca" and pictured as a female humanoid alligator, derived from the Portuguese "coca", a dragon.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: In Spain, Portugal, and Latin America, parents sometimes invoke the Coco or Cuca as a way of discouraging their children from misbehaving; they sing lullabies or tell rhymes warning their children that if they don't obey their parents, "el Coco" will come and get them and then eat them.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: It is not the way the Coco looks but what it does that scares most. It is a child eater and a kidnapper; it may immediately devour the child, leaving no trace, or it may spirit the child away to a place of no return, but it only does this to disobedient children. It is on the lookout for children's misbehavior from the rooftops; it takes the shape of any dark shadow and stays watching. It represents the opposite of the guardian angel and is frequently compared to the devil. Others see the Coco as a representation of the deceased of the local community.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The oldest known rhyme about the Coco, which originated in the 17th century, is in the "Auto de los desposorios de la Virgen" by Juan Caxés.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The Portuguese lullaby recorded by José Leite de Vasconcelos tells Coca to go to the top of the roof. In other versions of the same lullaby, the name of Coca is changed to that of "papão negro" (black eater), the name of another bogeyman.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: Both Brazilians and Portuguese also have a bogeyman version, which sometimes acquires regional colors where the bogeyman (the shape-shifting "Bicho Papão" is a monster that is shaped by what the child fears most) is a small owl, "murucututu", or other birds of prey that could be on the roof of homes at night (in Brazil) or a mysterious old man with a bag who is also waiting on the roof of the house (in Portugal).


title: Coco (folklore)

text: Verses and songs were used in pre-Roman Iberia to transmit history to the younger generations, as told by ancient authors. Sallust said the mothers sang the military feats of the fathers to incite the children to battle. He was later quoted by Servius, who emphasised that it was the role of the mothers to remember and teach the young men about the war feats of their fathers. Silius Italicus added more; he said that the young warriors sang songs in their native language while hitting their shields in the rhythm of the songs and that they were well versed in magic. Strabo, too, commented that history was recorded in verse.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: During the Portuguese and Spanish colonization of Latin America, the legend of the Coco was spread to countries such as Mexico, Argentina and Chile.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: There is no general description of the "cucuy", as far as facial or body descriptions, but it is stated that this shapeshifting being is extremely horrible to look at. The "coco" is variously described as a shapeless figure , sometimes a hairy monster, that hides in closets or under beds and eats children that misbehave when they are told to go to bed.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: Coca is also the name of a female dragon who featured in various medieval celebrations in the Iberian Peninsula. In Portugal one still survives in Monção; she fights in some sort of medieval tournament with Saint George during the Corpus Christi celebrations. She is called "Santa Coca" ("Saint Coca"), an allusion to the Irish saint, or "Coca rabicha" ("Tailed Coca"). If she defeats Saint George by scaring the horse, there will be a bad year for the crops and famine; if the horse and Saint George win by cutting off one of her ears with earring and her tongue, the crops will be fertile. Oddly enough, the people cheer for Saint Coca. In Galicia there are still two dragon cocas, one in Betanzos and the other in Redondela.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The legend says that the dragon arrived from the sea and was devouring the young women until she was killed in combat by the young men


title: Coco (folklore)

text: of the city. In Monção, the legend says, she lives in the Minho; in Redondela she lives in the Ria of Vigo. The dragon shared the same name that was given in Portuguese and Spanish to the cog (a type of ship), and although used mainly for trade, it was also a war vessel common in medieval warfare and piracy raids on coastal villages.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The oldest reference to Coca is in the book "Livro 3 de Doações de D. Afonso III" from the year 1274, where it is referred to as a big fish that appears on the shore: "And if by chance any whale or sperm whale or mermaid or coca or dolphin or Musaranha or other large fish that resembles some of these die in Sesimbra or Silves or elsewhere[.]"


title: Coco (folklore)

text: In Catalonia, the "Cuca fera de Tortosa" was first documented in 1457. It is a zoomorphic figure that looks like a tortoise with a horned spine, dragon claws and a dragon head. The legend says she had to dine every night on three cats and three children. This legend of the Coca can be compared to the one of Peluda or Tarasque.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: In Brazil, the Coco appears as a humanoid female alligator called "Cuca". She is dressed like a woman with ugly hair and a sack on her back. Cuca appears as the one of the main villains in children's books Sítio do Picapau Amarelo by Monteiro Lobato, but in the books she appears like a powerful witch that attacks innocent children. Artists illustrating these books depicted the Cuca as an anthropomorphic alligator. She is an allusion to "Coca", a dragon from the folklore of Portugal and Galicia.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: Traditionally in Portugal, however, the "coco" is represented by an iron pan with holes, to represent a face, with a light inside; or by a vegetable lantern carved from a pumpkin with two eyes and a mouth, which is left in dark places with a light inside to scare people. In the Beiras, heads carved on pumpkins, called "coca", would be carried by the village boys, stuck on top of wooden stakes.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The same name [Coca] is given to the pumpkin perforated with the shape of a face, with a candle burning in the inside—this gives the idea of a skull on fire—that the boys on many lands of our Beira carry stuck on a stick.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: An analogous custom was first mentioned by Diodorus Siculus (XIII.56.5;57.3), in which Iberian warriors, after the battle of Selinunte, in 469 BC, would hang the heads of the enemies on their spears. According to Rafael López Loureiro, this carving representation would be a milenar tradition from the Celtiberian region that spread all over the Iberian Peninsula.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The autumnal and childish custom of emptying pumpkins and carving on its bark, eyes, nose and mouth looking for a sombre expression, far from being a tradition imported by a recent Americanizing cultural mimicry, is a cultural trait in ancient Iberian Peninsula.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: This representation would be related to the Celtic cult of the severed heads in the Iberian peninsula. According to João de Barros, the name of the "coconut" derived from "coco" and was given to the fruit by the sailors of Vasco da Gama, c.1498, because it reminded them of this mythical creature.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: This bark from which the pome receives its vegetable nourishment, which is through its stem, has an acute way, which wants to resemble a nose placed between two round eyes, from where it throws the sprout, when it wants to be born; by reason of such figure, it was called by our [men] coco, name imposed by the women on anything they want to put fear to the children, this name thus remained, as no one knows another.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: Coco or Coca. We make use of these words to frighten children, because the inner shell of the Coco has on its outside surface three holes giving it the appearance of a skull.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: In the first half of the 20th century the coca was an integral part of festivities like All Souls' Day and the ritual begging of Pão-por-Deus. The tradition of Pão-por-Deus, already mentioned in the 15th century, is a ritual begging for bread and cakes, done door to door by children, though in the past poor beggars would also take part. Its purpose is to share the bread or treats gathered door to door with the dead of the community, who were eagerly awaited and arrived at night in the shape of butterflies or little animals, during the traditional magusto. In Portugal, depending on the region, the Pão-por-Deus assumes different names: "santoro" or "santorinho", "dia dos bolinhos" (cookies day), or "fieis de deus". This same tradition extends to Galicia, where it is called "migallo". It has a close resemblance with the traditions of souling or nowadays trick-or-treating. While the Pão-por-Deus or Santoro is the bread or offering given to the souls of the dead, the Molete or Samagaio is the bread or offering that is given when a child is born.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: In this same city of Coimbra, where we find ourselves today, it is customary for groups of children to walk on the streets, on the 31st October and 1st and 2nd November, at nightfall, with a hollow pumpkin with holes that were cut out pretending to be eyes, nose and mouth, as if it was a skull, and with a stump of candle lit from within, to give it a more macabre look.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: In Coimbra the begging mentions "Bolinhos, bolinhós" and the group brings an emptied pumpkin with two holes representing the eyes of a personage and a candle lit in the inside [...] another example of the use of the pumpkin or gourd as a human representation, is in the masks of the muffled young men during the desfolhada, the communal stripping of the maize, in Santo Tirso de Prazins (Guimarães), which after, they carry hoisted on a stick and with a candle in the inside, and leave them stuck on any deserted place to put fear to who is passing by.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: To ensure that the souls found their way back home, the "Botador de almas", whose mission was to lay souls (botar almas), would go every night through valleys and mountains and up on trees ringing a little bell, or carrying a lantern and singing a prayer to the souls. Every Portuguese village had one. Calling and singing to the souls is an ancient tradition done either by one person alone or in groups and it has many names: "lançar as almas", "encomendar as almas", "amentar as almas", "deitar as almas", "cantar às almas santas".


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The "serandeiros" are disguised young men, covered with a blanket, a bed sheet or a hooded cloak. They carry a staff (a stick of quince or of honeyberry, about their own height) in one hand, and in the other they carry a small bundle of basil or apples that they make the girls that take part of the desfolhada smell, or with which they tickle people's cheeks; sometimes, to play a prank, they bring stinging nettles. When a girl recognizes the serandeiro or if she recognizes her boyfriend masked as a serandeiro, she throws him an apple brought from home. The serandeiros represent the spirits of the dead, the spirits of nature.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The heads would have protective and healing powers, protecting people and communities. They would also be cherished for their divinatory, prophetic and healing powers.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The display places for the Iron Age severed heads were in the inside or outside of buildings with a preference for public places, with streets and people passing by and always preferring high places.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: In Portugal, rituals among the Catholic religious order of Our Lady of Cabeza, a Black Madonna, include the offering of heads of wax to the Lady, praying the Hail Mary while keeping a small statue of Our Lady on top of the head; the pilgrims pray with their own heads inside a hole in the wall of the chapel. The Chapel of Our Lady of the Heads (Nossa Senhora das Cabeças) situated northwest of the ruins of the Roman era temple of Our Lady of the Heads (Orjais, Covilhã) evidences a continuity in the use of a sacred space that changed from a pagan worship cult area to a Christian one and continued to be a place of worship for centuries after. According to Pedro Carvalho, the pre-Roman findings and the unusual location of the ruins inside an 8th-century BC hillfort suggest it was the place of a pre-Roman cult.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The Lady of the Head and Lady of the Heads are two of the many names given to Our Lady. Several of her names are thought to be of pre-Roman origin. Names like "Senhora da Noite" ("Lady of the Night"), "Senhora da Luz" ("Lady of the Light"), "Señora de Carbayo" ("Lady of the Oak Tree") are spread all over the peninsula. In Portugal alone 972 titles for Our Lady have been found in churches, altars and images, not including the names of villages and places. Spain has a similar proliferation of titles for Our Lady.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The common element to all these names is the title Lady. But the title "Senhora" (Portuguese) or "Señora" (Spanish) is of Latin origin, and derives from the Latin "senior"; thus there had to be another one of pre-Roman origin. In ancient times the titles that were used in Portugal by the ladies of the court were "Meana" (me Ana) or "Miana" (mi Ana) and "Meona" (me Ona); these words meant the same as miLady, that is, "Ana" and "Ona" were synonyms of "Senhora" and "Dona". "Ana" is the name of the river Guadiana, thus pre-Roman in origin. "Ana" is also the name of a goddess of Irish mythology.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: In the village of Ponte, parish of Mouçós, on a hill that overlooks the River Corgo, there is a chapel called Santo Cabeço which legend says was built by the "mouros encantados". On the wall facing south there is a hole, where legend says the "mouros" used to put their head to hear the sound of the sea. The local people also have the custom of putting their head inside the hole: some to hear the whisper that is similar to the waves of the sea, others to heal headaches.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: In Portugal, "coca" is a name for a hooded cloak; it was also the name of the traditional hooded black wedding gown still in use at the beginning of the 20th century. In Portimão during the holy week celebrations, in the "procissão dos Passos" (Spanish: "Procesión de los Pasos"), a procession organized by the Catholic brotherhoods, the herald, a man dressed with a black hooded cloak that covered his face and had three holes for the eyes and mouth, led the procession and announced the death of Christ. This man was either named coca, farnicoco, (farricunco, farricoco from Latin "far, farris" and coco) or death. The name "coca" was given to the cloak and to the man who wore the cloak.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: In 1498, the Portuguese King Manuel I gave permission to the Catholic brotherhood of the Misericórdia to collect the bones and remains from the gallows of those that had been condemned to death and put them in a grave every year on All Saints' Day. The brotherhood in a procession, known as Procissão dos Ossos, were followed by the "farricocos", who carried the tombs and collected the bones.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: In the travels of the Baron Rozmital, 1465-1467, a paragraph was written commenting on the traditional mourning clothes of the Portuguese of that time. The relatives of the deceased who accompanied his funeral would be clad in white and hooded like monks, but the paid mourners would be arrayed in black."[...] white was


title: Coco (folklore)

text: worn as the garb of mourning until the time of King Manuel, at the death of whose aunt, Philippa, black was adopted for the first time in Portugal as the symbol of sorrow for the dead".


title: Coco (folklore)

text: In Ribadeo, two giant figures represent "el coco y la coca" that dance at the sound of drummers and Galician bagpipe players.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The 'land of the dead' is a mythic land which appears in traditions from various cultures around the ancient world.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: Probably the oldest mention of a mythic land of the dead located in the Iberian Peninsula is in the Lebor Gabála Érenn.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The legends of Portugal and Spain speak of an enchanted land, the Mourama, the land where an enchanted people, the Mouros (Celtic *MRVOS) dwell under the earth in Portugal and Galicia. The lore of Galicia says that "In Galicia there are two overlapped people: a part lives on the surface of the land; they are the Galician people, and the other in the subsoil, the Mouros". Mourama is the otherworld, the world of the dead from where everything comes back.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The Mourama is ruled by an enchanted being who is called "rei Mouro" (king Mouro). His daughter is the princesa Moura (princess Moura), a shapeshifter who changes herself into a snake, also called "bicha Moura", or can even be seen riding a dragon.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: In the last chapter of the work of Miguel de Cervantes, the epitaph of "Don Quijote" identifies him as the scarecrow and "el coco".


title: Coco (folklore)

text: "Que Viene el Coco", a painting that depicts a cloaked, menacing figure, was painted by Goya in 1799.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The Cuco appears in "AdventureQuest Worlds". It is among the creatures that attack Terra da Festa before the Carnaval Party. The Cuco resembles a Carnaval version of Blister. The Cuca later appears where it is depicted as a humanoid alligator in witch attire.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: A wealthy family of Cucuys appear in "Wizards of Waverly Place" episode "Alex Gives Up". Their abilities include shapeshifting in which they can change their face to a dark-gray skull shape, with large red eyes. The family consists of Carlos Cucuy (portrayed by David Barrera), Julie Cucuy (portrayed by Roxana Brusso), and Lisa Cucuy (portrayed by Samantha Boscarino). Staying somewhat true to folklore, they enjoy scaring children. Suprsingly, they are afraid of werewolves which evident at the end of the episode when the parents jump overboard their boat once they find out Mason, the boyfriend of Alex Russo, is in fact a werewolf. Interestingly, Lisa Cucuy wasn't phased by the reveal and only jumped overboard once she was rejected by Mason.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: The 2013 Universal Studios Hollywood "Halloween Horror Nights" event featured El Cuco (here known as El Cucuy) at a Scarezone who was voiced by Danny Trejo.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: On the television series "Grimm", in the fifth episode of season three, El Cucuy poses as a little, old lady who answers the prayers of crime victims, changes into beast form, and brutally slays criminals, thus rendering a version of vigilante justice that is a departure from the standard El Cucuy legend.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: Stephen King's 2018 novel "The Outsider" (and the HBO 2020 series based on King's novel) features a variation of El Cuco as its main villain.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: El Cucuy is featured in "The Casagrandes" episode "Monster Cash," voiced by Eric Bauza. Carl Casagrande starts a ghost tour revolving around El Cucuy after hearing about it from his grandmother Rosa. Enlisting the assistance from Lalo, Sergio, and Stanley, Carl invites Ronnie Anne, Bobby, Adelaide, and Vito to partake in it. Afterwards, Carl, Lalo, and Sergio soon find that the El Cucuy legend appears to be true when it shows up and haunts Carl. It leaves when Carl does his chores and refunds the money he made. When El Cucuy visits the hot dog vendor Bruno, he was spooked until it was discovered to be a disguise worn by Rosa.


title: Coco (folklore)

text: On the Netflix Brazilian series "Invisible City", the Cuca is featured as a witch who uses its powers to put people asleep and enter their minds.Alessandra Negrini's character is also the leader of the entities displayed at the show.


title: Eve Myles

text: Eve Myles (born 26 July 1978) is a Welsh actress. She is best known for her television roles portraying Ceri Lewis in the long-running BBC Wales drama series "Belonging" (2000–2009), Gwen Cooper in the BBC science-fiction series "Torchwood" (2006–2011) and Faith Howells in the bilingually produced BBC / S4C drama series "Keeping Faith" / "Un Bore Mercher" (2017–2020). She is also an accomplished theatre actress.


title: Eve Myles

text: Myles graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in 2000. Later that year, she began playing Ceri Lewis in the BBC Wales-produced drama series "Belonging", a role she was to continue with until the end of the series in 2009. Her early UK-wide television credits included the 2001 miniseries "Tales from Pleasure Beach" and the 2003 television drama "Colditz".


title: Eve Myles

text: In 2005, she auditioned for a part in the revived series of "Doctor Who", and landed the role of servant girl Gwyneth, in the series 1 episode "The Unquiet Dead", alongside Billie Piper and Christopher Eccleston. Her appearance in "Doctor Who" led to her winning a lead role in the science-fiction drama's spin-off series "Torchwood", in which she portrayed the character Gwen Cooper for four series between 2006 and 2011. Her role in "Torchwood" earned her a Bafta Cymru award for Best Actress in 2007.


title: Eve Myles

text: Myles's subsequent television credits include the 2008 miniseries "Little Dorrit", the 2008 premiere episode of the fantasy drama "Merlin" and the title role in the 2013 drama series "Frankie".


title: Eve Myles

text: In 2013, for the TV channel GOLD, she appeared alongside Anthony Head in the comedy-drama "You, Me & Them", in a role she reprised in 2015 for the second series. In 2014, she was cast in the second series of the crime drama series "Broadchurch", portraying Claire Ripley. In 2011, she voiced one of the main characters in the video game "Dragon Age II". In 2016, she once again played a Victorian servant, this time Mrs. Jenkins in the ITV period drama series "Victoria"; she did not reprise the role for series 2.


title: Eve Myles

text: Myles is an accomplished theatre actress, winning an Ian Charleson Award in 2004 for her performances in Royal Shakespeare Company productions of the plays "Titus Andronicus" and "The Taming of the Shrew". Further theatre credits include both "Henry IV, Part 1" and "Henry IV, Part 2" at the National Theatre in 2004, and the role of Emma in the first UK run of Zach Braff's play "All New People" in 2012.


title: Eve Myles

text: Myles was born on 26 July 1978 in Ystradgynlais. Her father is Scottish. She attended Ysgol Maes Y Dderwen, where she learned only basic Welsh phrases. She grew up with a strong interest in boxing, although she gave up the sport after breaking her knuckle by punching a wet sandbag. In 2000, Myles gained a Bachelor of Arts in acting at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff. Then she moved to London.


title: Eve Myles

text: In 2000 Myles took on the central role of Ceri Owen (née Lewis) in the BBC Wales drama "Belonging." Her longest role to date, Myles played Ceri from the series' first episode through to its final series in 2008, returning for a one-off special in 2009. In 2001, Myles undertook a role in the television film "Score" and the TV miniseries "Tales from Pleasure Beach." From 2003, Myles based herself in Stratford-upon-Avon, playing Lavinia in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of "Titus Andronicus" and Bianca in "The Taming of The Shrew""", for both of which she received the "Sunday Times" Ian Charleson award in 2004. In 2005, appeared opposite Michael Gambon in "Henry IV, Part I" and "II" at the National Theatre. She took the part of Gwenfar in the BBC Radio Four series of plays "Arthur" by Sebastian Baczkiewicz and Steve May in November 2004. Myles appeared in the ITV drama "Colditz" in 2005.


title: Eve Myles

text: She took a supporting role in the "Doctor Who" episode "The Unquiet Dead", playing servant girl Gwyneth. This brought her to the attention of lead writer Russell T Davies, who went on to create and produce "Torchwood". Considering her to be "one of Wales' best-kept secrets", Davies wrote the role of Gwen Cooper in "Torchwood" specifically for Myles. Speaking on her casting, Myles stated that having the part written for her was like having her "own personal Oscar." Gwen, an audience surrogate character, is characterised by Myles as Torchwood's "social worker", who "can run and fight and stand in her own corner and win." Her role in "Torchwood" also led to Myles making a second appearance in "Doctor Who", for its Fourth series' finale, alongside "Torchwood" co-stars John Barrowman and Gareth David-Lloyd. Myles appeared in every episode of "Torchwood".


title: Eve Myles

text: Myles also appeared in the first episode of "Merlin", "The Dragon's Call", where she played Lady Helen of Mora and Mary Collins, a witch who impersonated her. Her performance in this role was described positively by Anthony Head, who said that "she did it dead straight and very scarily. There was one moment she was delivering a speech to me in full prosthetic make-up... The French background artists didn't speak English but burst into applause at the end because they were moved by the emotion of it."


title: Eve Myles

text: She portrayed the character of Maggy Plornish in Andrew Davies' 2008 adaptation of "Little Dorrit", which later went on to win seven Emmy awards. Early 2008 also saw the actress host a radio show centred around Welsh boxer Joe Calzaghe and narrate a short story, "Sorry for the Loss" by Bridget Keehan, both airing on BBC Radio Wales.


title: Eve Myles

text: 2009 saw her star in the award-winning independent Welsh film "A Bit of Tom Jones", as well as the one-off drama "Framed" for BBC Wales, alongside Trevor Eve. In July 2010, Myles announced she would appear in an original BBC Cymru Wales TV series, "Baker Boys", co-written by Helen Raynor and Gary Owen and airing in early 2011. 2011 also saw Myles provide the voice of the Dalish elf Merrill in the Bioware video game "Dragon Age II". In July 2011, to coincide with "Torchwood"s fourth series Myles presented part of a BBC Wales Documentary entitled "Wales and Hollywood", which featured the actress travelling to the Hollywood Walk of Fame to find the Welsh talent honoured there.


title: Eve Myles

text: In 2012 Myles returned to the stage in Zach Braff's play "All New People", which ran for ten consecutive weeks at the West End's Duke of York's Theatre following runs at the Manchester Opera House (8–11 February 2012) and the King's Theatre in Glasgow (14–18 February). In 2013 she took the title role in the BBC1 drama "Frankie", filmed in Bristol, which follows the life of a district nurse who cares more about her patients than her own life.


title: Eve Myles

text: In August 2016, Myles starred alongside Jenna Coleman, Tom Hughes and Rufus Sewell in the ITV drama "Victoria", which follows the early life of Queen Victoria from her ascension to the throne at the age of 18, through to her courtship and marriage to Prince Albert. She portrayed Mrs Jenkins, the Queen's personal dresser.


title: Eve Myles

text: In 2017, Myles starred alongside her real life husband Bradley Freegard in the Welsh drama "Un Bore Mercher" for S4C. She learnt to speak Welsh for the role. "Un Bore Mercher" was also filmed in English and aired the following year on BBC One as "Keeping Faith". Myles played Faith Howells, a solicitor whose husband Evan, with whom she works at their family-run law firm, disappears whilst she is on maternity leave following the birth of their third child. The show was a runaway success for the BBC and the second series was broadcast 2019 on S4C in May–June and on BBC One in July–August.


title: Eve Myles

text: In 2018, Myles played the role of Norman Scott's lover Gwen Parry-Jones in the BBC drama "A Very English Scandal". The drama relates the real-life story of politician Jeremy Thorpe's affair with Scott and subsequent trial for attempted murder, based on the novel of the same name by John Preston.


title: Eve Myles

text: Myles was among many others nominated for Wales online Dafftas' best actress and won for her role as Frankie with almost 45% of the votes. Myles was nominated for and won Wales' sexiest woman in 2013.


title: Eve Myles

text: Myles has been nominated for a total of six BAFTA Cymru awards, winning one. In 2002, 2003, and 2009, Myles was nominated for Best Actress in the BAFTA Cymru Awards for her role as Ceri on the BBC Wales drama "Belonging".


title: Eve Myles

text: In 2007, Myles won the BAFTA Cymru Best Actress award for her portrayal of Gwen Cooper in "Torchwood"s first series, a role she also received Best Actress BAFTA Cymru nominations for in 2008 and 2010. In 2010, Myles won the Best Actress award in the "SFX" Reader's awards poll, and was crowned best actress in the 11th annual Airlock Alpha Portal Awards. For her role as Gwen Cooper in "", Myles was nominated for a Satellite Awards in the Best Television Actress category. and reached the shortlist for the 2012 UK National Television Awards.


title: Eve Myles

text: In 2006, "Wales on Sunday" named Myles as its "Bachelorette of the Year". Myles also regularly ranks highly in the "Western Mail"s annual list of the 50 sexiest women in Wales. In 2005, the "Western Mail" ranked Myles seventh whilst she ranked fifth in 2008, 7th in 2009, 8th in 2010 and 10th in 2011.


title: Eve Myles

text: Myles met Bradley Freegard at the National Youth Theatre in 1994, and they married in Italy on 18 May 2013. Myles and Freegard have three daughters, born in 2009, 2014, and 2021. After learning Welsh for "Keeping Faith" with the assistance of her husband, she now speaks conversational Welsh with her daughters.


title: Eve Myles

text: Filming "Torchwood"s fourth series in 2011 saw Myles relocate with her family to America's Hollywood Hills, living "literally underneath the Hollywood sign". Myles has described California as the "land of dreams", and her experience filming the fourth series of "Torchwood" in Hollywood as the best year of her life, adding that she would love to spend more time there as an actress if possible.


title: Parmenides

text: Parmenides was born in the Greek colony of Elea, from a wealthy and illustrious family. His dates are uncertain; according to doxographer Diogenes Laërtius, he flourished just before 500 BC, which would put his year of birth near 540 BC, but in the dialogue "Parmenides" Plato has him visiting Athens at the age of 65, when Socrates was a young man, c. 450 BC, which, if true, suggests a year of birth of c. 515 BC. He is thought to have been in his prime (or "floruit") around 475 BC.


title: Parmenides

text: The single known work by Parmenides is a poem whose original title is unknown but which is often referred to as "On Nature." Only fragments of it survive. In his poem, Parmenides prescribes two views of reality. The first, the Way of "Alethia" or truth, describes how all reality is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless and uniform. The second view, the way of "Doxa", or opinion, describes the world of appearances, in which one's sensory faculties lead to conceptions which are false and deceitful.


title: Parmenides

text: Parmenides has been considered the founder of ontology and has, through his influence on Plato, influenced the whole history of Western philosophy. He is also considered to be the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, which also included Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos. Zeno's paradoxes of motion were developed to defend Parmenides' views. In contemporary philosophy, Parmenides' work has remained relevant in debates about the philosophy of time.


title: Parmenides

text: Parmenides was born in Elea (called Velia in Roman times), a city located in Magna Graecia. Diogenes Laertius says that his father was Pires, and that he belonged to a rich and noble family. Laertius also transmits two divergent sources in as regards the teacher of the philosopher. One, dependent on Sotion, indicates that he was first a student of Xenophanes, but did not follow him, and later became associated with a Pythagorean, Aminias, whom he preferred as his teacher. Another tradition, dependent on Theophrastus, indicates that he was a disciple of Anaximander.


title: Parmenides

text: Everything related to the chronology of Parmenides - the date of his birth, of his death, as well as the time of his philosophical activity - is uncertain;


title: Parmenides

text: All conjectures about Parmenides' date of birth are based on two ancient sources. One comes from Apollodorus and is transmitted to us by Diogenes Laertius: this source marks the Olympiad 69th (between 504 BC and 500 BC) as the moment of maturity, placing his birth 40 years earlier (544 BC – 540 BC). The other is Plato, in his dialogue "Parmenides". There Plato composes a situation in which Parmenides, 65, and Zeno, 40, travel to Athens to attend the Panathenaic Games . On that occasion they meet Socrates, who was still very young according to the Platonic text.


title: Parmenides

text: The inaccuracy of the dating from Apollodorus is well known, who chooses the date of a historical event to make it coincide with the maturity —the "floruit"— of a philosopher, a maturity that they invariably reached at forty years of age. He also tries to always match the maturity of a philosopher with the birth of his alleged disciple. In this case Apollodorus, according to Burnet, based his date of the foundation of Elea (540 BC) to chronologically locate the maturity of Xenophanes and thus the birth of his supposed disciple, Parmenides. Knowing this, Burnet and later classicists like Cornford, Raven, Guthrie, and Schofield preferred to base the calculations on the Platonic dialogue. According to the latter, the fact that Plato adds so much detail regarding ages in his text is a sign that he writes with chronological precision. Plato says that Socrates was very young, and this is interpreted to mean that he was less than twenty years old. We know the year of Socrates' death, 399 BC., And his age: he was about seventy years old. That is why we also know the date of his birth: 469 BC The Panathenaic games were held every four years, and of those held during Socrates' youth (454, 450, 446), the most likely is that of 450 BC, when Socrates was 19 years old. And, if at this meeting Parmenides was about 65 years old, his birth occurred around 515 BC


title: Parmenides

text: However, neither Raven nor Schofield, who follows the former, finds a dating based on a late Platonic dialogue entirely satisfactory. Other scholars directly prefer not to use the Platonic testimony and propose other dates. According to a scholar of the Platonic dialogues, R. Hirzel, indicates that the historical has no value for Plato. The fact that the meeting between Socrates and Parmenides is also mentioned in the dialogues "Theaetetus" (183e) and "Sophist" (217c) only indicates that it is referring to the same fictional event, and this is possible because both the "Theaetetus" and the "Sophist" are considered after the "Parmenides". In "Soph." 217c the dialectic procedure of Socrates is attributed to Parmenides, which would confirm that this is nothing more than a reference to the fictitious dramatic situation of the dialogue. Eggers Lan also proposes a correction of the traditional date of the foundation of Elea. Based on Herodotus I, 163–167, which indicates that the Phocians, after defeating the Carthaginians in naval battle, founded Elea, and adding the reference to Thucydides I, 13, where it is indicated that such a battle occurred in the time of Cambyses II, the foundation of Elea can be placed between 530 BC and 522 BC So Parmenides could not have been born before 530 BC or after 520 BC, given that it predates Empedocles. This last dating procedure is not infallible either, because it has been questioned that the fact that links the passages of Herodotus and Thucydides is the same. also rejects the chronology based on the Platonic text, and the historical reality of the encounter, in favor of the traditional date of Apollodorus. He follows the traditional datum of the founding of Elea in 545 BC, pointing to it not only as "terminus post quem", but as a possible date of Parmenides' birth. From which he concludes that his parents were part of the founding contingent of the city, and that he was a contemporary of Heraclitus. The evidence also suggests that Parmenides could not have written much after the death of Heraclitus.


title: Parmenides

text: Beyond the speculations and inaccuracies about his date of birth, some specialists have turned their attention to certain passages of his work to specify the relationship of Parmenides with other thinkers. It was thought to find in his poem certain controversial allusions to the doctrine of Anaximenes and the Pythagoreans (fragment B 8, verse 24, and frag. B 4), and also against Heraclitus (frag .B 6, vv.8–9), while Empedocles and Anaxagoras frequently refer to Parmenides.


title: Parmenides

text: The reference to Heraclitus has been debated. Bernays's thesis that Parmenides attacks Heraclitus, to which Diels, Kranz, Gomperz, Burnet and others adhered, was discussed by Reinhardt, whom Jaeger followed.


title: Parmenides

text: Guthrie finds it surprising that Heraclitus would not have censured Parmenides if he had known him, as he did with Xenophanes and Pythagoras. His conclusion, however, does not arise from this consideration, but points out that, due to the importance of his thought, Parmenides splits the history of pre-Socratic philosophy in two, therefore his position with respect to other thinkers it is easy to determine. And, from this point of view, the philosophy of Heraclitus seems to him pre-Parmenidean, while those of Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Democritus are post-Parmenidean.


title: Parmenides

text: Plutarch, Strabo and Diogenes —following the testimony of Speusippus— agree that Parmenides participated in the government of his city, organizing it and giving it a code of admirable laws.


title: Parmenides

text: In 1969, the plinth of a statue dated to the 1st century AD was excavated in Velia. On the plinth were four words: ΠΑ[Ρ]ΜΕΝΕΙΔΗΣ ΠΥΡΗΤΟΣ ΟΥΛΙΑΔΗΣ ΦΥΣΙΚΟΣ. The first two clearly say «Parmenides, son of Pires». The fourth word φυσικός ("fysikós", "physicist") was commonly used to designate philosophers who devoted themselves to the observation of nature. On the other hand, there is no agreement on the meaning of the third (οὐλιάδης, "ouliadēs"): it can simply mean "a native of Elea" (the name "Velia" is in Greek Οὐέλια), or "belonging to the Οὐλιος" ("Ulios"), that is, to a medical school (whose patron was Apollo Ulius). If this last hypothesis were true, then Parmenides would be, in addition to being a legislator, a doctor. The hypothesis is reinforced by the ideas contained in fragment 18 of his poem, which contains anatomical and physiological observations. However, other specialists believe that the only certainty we can extract from the discovery is that of the social importance of Parmenides in the life of his city, already indicated by the testimonies that indicate his activity as a legislator.


title: Parmenides

text: Plato, in his dialogue "Parmenides", relates that, accompanied by his disciple Zeno of Elea, Parmenides visited Athens when he was approximately 65 years old and that, on that occasion, Socrates, then a young man, conversed with him. Athenaeus of Naucratis had noted that, although the ages make a dialogue between Parmenides and Socrates hardly possible, the fact that Parmenides has sustained arguments similar to those sustained in the Platonic dialogue is something that seems impossible. Most modern classicists consider the visit to Athens and the meeting and conversation with Socrates to be fictitious. Allusions to this visit in other Platonic works are only references to the same fictitious dialogue and not to a historical fact.


title: Parmenides

text: Parmenides' sole work, which has only survived in fragments, is a poem in dactylic hexameter, later titled "On Nature." Approximately 160 verses remain today from an original total that was probably near 800. The poem was originally divided into three parts: An introductory proem that contains an allegorical narrative which explains the purpose of the work, a former section known as "The Way of Truth" ("aletheia", ἀλήθεια), and a latter section known as "The Way of Appearance/Opinion" ("doxa", δόξα). Despite the poem's fragmentary nature, the general plan of both the proem and the first part, "The Way of Truth" have been ascertained by modern scholars, thanks to large excerpts made by Sextus Empiricus and Simplicius of Cilicia. Unfortunately, the second part, "The Way of Opinion," which is supposed to have been much longer than the first, only survives in small fragments and prose paraphrases.


title: Parmenides

text: The introductory proem describes the narrator's journey to receive a revelation from an unnamed goddess on the nature of reality. The remainder of the work is then presented as the spoken revelation of the goddess without any accompanying narrative.


title: Parmenides

text: The narrative of the poet's journey includes a variety of allegorical symbols, such as a speeding chariot with glowing axles, horses, the House of Night, Gates of the paths of Night and Day, and maidens who are "the daughters of the Sun" who escort the poet from the ordinary daytime world to a strange destination, outside our human paths. The allegorical themes in the poem have attracted a variety of different interpretations, including comparisons to Homer and Hesiod, and attempts to relate the journey towards either enlightenment or darkness, but there is little scholarly consensus about any interpretation, and the surviving evidence from the poem itself, as well as any other literary use of allegory from the same time period, may be too sparse to ever determine any of the intended symbolism with certainty.


title: Parmenides

text: In the "Way of Truth", an estimated 90% of which has survived, Parmenides distinguishes between the unity of nature and its variety, insisting in the "Way of Truth" upon the reality of its unity, which is therefore the object of knowledge, and upon the unreality of its variety, which is therefore the object, not of knowledge, but of opinion. This contrasts with the argument in the section called "the way of opinion," which discusses that which is illusory.


title: Parmenides

text: In the significantly longer, but far worse preserved latter section of the poem, "Way of Opinion", Parmenides propounds a theory of the world of seeming and its development, pointing out, however, that, in accordance with the principles already laid down, these cosmological speculations do not pretend to anything more than mere appearance. The structure of the cosmos is a fundamental binary principle that governs the manifestations of all the particulars: "the aether fire of flame" (B 8.56), which is gentle, mild, soft, thin and clear, and self-identical, and the other is "ignorant night", body thick and heavy. Cosmology originally comprised the greater part of his poem, explaining the world's origins and operations. Some idea of the sphericity of the Earth also seems to have been known to Parmenides.


title: Parmenides

text: As the first of the Eleatics, Parmenides is generally credited with being the philosopher who first defined ontology as a separate discipline distinct from theology. His most important pupil was Zeno, who appears alongside him in Plato's "Parmenides" where they debate dialectic with Socrates. The pluralist theories of Empedocles and Anaxagoras and the atomist Leucippus, and Democritus have also been seen as a potential response to Parmenides' arguments and conclusions. Parmenides is also mentioned in Plato's "Sophist" and "Theaetetus." Later Hellenistic doxographers also considered Parmenides to have been a pupil of Xenophanes. Eusebius, quoting Aristocles of Messene, says that Parmenides was part of a line of skeptical philosophy that culminated in Pyrrhonism. Parmenides' proto-monism of the One also influenced Plotinus and Neoplatonism.


title: Parmenides

text: In the Diels-Kranz numbering for testimony and fragments of Pre-Socratic philosophy, Parmenides is catalogued as number 28. The most recent edition of this catalogue is:


title: The Shins

text: The Shins is an American indie rock band formed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1996. The band is the project of singer-songwriter James Mercer, who has served as the band's sole constant member throughout numerous line-up changes. The band's current line-up consists of Mercer, alongside Yuuki Matthews (bass, keyboards), Mark Watrous (guitar, keyboards, lap steel), Patti King (keyboards), and Jon Sortland (drums). They are based in Portland, Oregon.


title: The Shins

text: The band was formed by Mercer as a side project to Flake Music, who were active from 1992 to 1999. Flake Music released two 7-inch singles and a full-length album, "When You Land Here It's Time to Return", on Omnibus Records and were touring with Modest Mouse when the Shins became signed to Sub Pop Records. The Shins' first two records, "Oh, Inverted World" (2001) and "Chutes Too Narrow" (2003), performed well commercially and received critical acclaim. The single "New Slang" brought the band to mainstream attention when it was featured in the 2004 film "Garden State". Consequently, the band's third album, "Wincing the Night Away" (2007), was a major success for the group, peaking at number two on the "Billboard" 200 and earning a Grammy Award nomination.


title: The Shins

text: Following this, the Shins signed to Columbia Records and Mercer parted ways with the entire original lineup, deeming it "an aesthetic decision". Following a near five-year hiatus, "Port of Morrow", the band's fourth studio album, was released in 2012. Their fifth album, "Heartworms", was released in March 2017.


title: The Shins

text: The Shins was formed in 1996 by James Mercer, a member of the band Flake Music in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Flake Music (formerly known simply as Flake) consisted of members guitarist/vocalist James Mercer, drummer Jesse Sandoval, keyboardist Martin Crandall, and bassist Neal Langford. The group began in 1992 and released a string of singles and an album, "When You Land Here, It's Time to Return", which was well received. The band toured with Modest Mouse and Califone. Mercer formed the Shins for a change of pace and enlisted Sandoval on drums. When asked what it was that began his interest in music, Mercer said "... it got me out of my shell and gave me a social life." They began performing as a duo alongside Cibo Matto and the American Analog Set. Mercer became the band's primary songwriter, and consequently, "the group developed a more focused, crafted sound than Flake Music's charming, if somewhat rambling, collaborative style." His focus on percussive guitar playing still led friends to compare his demos as too similar to Flake, and he focused on taking the music in a different direction. Unlike Flake, Mercer was the band's sole lyricist, and songs were built from his initial structure. The group added Scared of Chaka's Dave Hernandez and Ron Skrasek to complete their lineup, but the two musicians left before the end of the decade to pursue their work with Scared of Chaka. By 1999, Flake Music disbanded and Neal Langford joined the Shins.


title: The Shins

text: The Shins issued their first release — the 7" single "Nature Bears a Vacuum" — in 1998 via Omnibus Records. Following the completion of their debut single release, "When I Goose-Step", the Shins embarked on a tour with Modest Mouse. Mercer became a "hermit" crafting what would become the group's debut album, and became depressed with his life in Albuquerque. Friends of the band, including Zeke Howard from Love As Laughter and Isaac Brock from Modest Mouse sent record labels cassette demos of the band's songs. Mercer sent a demo to Sub Pop Records in Seattle, Washington, and label co-founder Jonathan Poneman caught a concert in San Francisco while the band was on tour with Modest Mouse. He offered the band a one-off single deal, and the Shins' second single, "New Slang", was included as part of their Single-of-the-Month series, issuing a 7" single to fan club members in February 2001. Positive press for "New Slang" made the group's debut album one of the most anticipated indie rock albums of 2001, and Sub Pop signed the band in full. "Before you knew it, my whole life was upside down: I got signed, I quit my job, I moved out of town, the big relationship I'd had for five years ended. All of a sudden my whole life was up in smoke," recalled Mercer.


title: The Shins

text: The band's debut LP, "Oh, Inverted World" (2001), was released in June 2001, with a compact disc version following the next month. Much of the album was recorded prior to the Sub Pop deal in Mercer's basement. The album received critical acclaim and solidified the band as one of indie rock's definitive artists, while also placing Albuquerque on the musical map with "Oh, Inverted World's" "gloriously skewed pop and [how it is] dripping with yearning, whimsy and brittle innocence." The album helped re-establish Sub Pop Records as a dominant force in the independent community; the label had been without a marquee artist for many of the prior years. The group spent the rest of the year touring with acts such as Preston School of Industry and Red House Painters. "New Slang" proved to be a "stealth hit", helping "Oh, Inverted World" move over 100,000 copies within two years, considered remarkable for an independent label; Sub Pop had hoped the record would sell 10,000 copies. Mercer was positive in licensing the song to a variety of media, confirming to "The New York Times" that he received more money from touring and licensing than record sales. The song was featured in a McDonald's advert that aired during the 2002 Winter Olympics, which led to criticism from several corners, among those independent music fans and the band's own hometown alt weekly.


title: The Shins

text: The royalties Mercer earned from the commercial allowed him to purchase a home and relocate to Portland, Oregon, where the group built a basement studio and recorded their second album, "Chutes Too Narrow" (2003). During this period, the group replaced Langford on bass with Dave Hernandez (from Scared of Chaka). Having cut ties with a bad relationship and a bad job, Mercer felt his songwriting reflected a broader perspective as a result. Although recording in the basement was less than pleasant, the band found it "cheaper than a real studio". The home was broken into at one point, and thieves stole the master tapes for "Oh, Inverted World". The album was released in October 2003 to critical acclaim, appearing on numerous music critics' and publications' end-of-year albums lists. It also became their first album to chart, peaking at number 86 on the "Billboard" 200.


title: The Shins

text: "New Slang" was repurposed when it was prominently featured in the film "Garden State" (2004). In a scene from the film, Sam (portrayed by Natalie Portman) tells Andrew Largeman (played by director Zach Braff) that the song "will change your life." The song "changed everything" for the group, causing their first two albums to sell more than twice what they had sold prior to the film's debut. "Almost overnight, the Shins became indie-rock icons," wrote Robert Levine of "Spin". The band extended their tour in support of the song and its popularity. "We saw a change in our audience. By the time we were done touring for "Chutes Too Narrow", there was this new interest," said Mercer. "We toured again almost as the soundtrack to that movie, and colleges were all of a sudden interested in us playing on their campuses. We wanted to consummate the new relationship by touring and having a relationship with them. I mean, it just kept growing!" This additional exposure helped "Oh, Inverted World" move 500,000 units in the United States. Fans of the group had mixed reactions at their newfound success; some regarded their unknown nature as an integral part of their appeal. The band also appeared in season four, episode 17 of Gilmore Girls while Rory and Paris are on spring break in Florida.


title: The Shins

text: Mercer began writing the band's third record in late 2005, employing ideas and riff fragments collected over the band's various tours. Suffering from insomnia, he would often wake up in the middle of the night and piece together songs in his home studio until dawn. For their third album, the group for the first time turned to an outside producer: Joe Chiccarelli, who produced Frank Zappa. Inspired primarily by a painful breakup and the group's newfound success, the album was initially set to be released in the summer of 2006. It was later pushed back to fall, and finally released in January 2007. "Wincing the Night Away" represented a major jump for the Shins in terms of commercial success: the album peaked at number two (in comparison to its predecessors' peak of number 86), setting a record for Sub Pop. It moved over 100,000 copies in its opening week, and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album. Following the success of the album, The Shins left their longtime label, Sub Pop, for Mercer's own label, Aural Apothecary.


title: The Shins

text: Having worked on The Shins for nearly a decade, Mercer felt exhausted and ready to quit the band. "Mainly I was tired of being right in the middle and everything sort of revolving around me, including the friendship dynamics-slash-bandmate dynamics and the creative aspect," Mercer explained in 2012. Noting that the band had never been bigger, some aspects of the limelight made him uncomfortable. Mercer was approached by Brian Burton (Danger Mouse) around this same period regarding a possible collaboration on a new project, which became Broken Bells. Enjoying the fresh approach with Broken Bells in regard to meeting new musicians, Mercer desired to continue that feeling. Mercer parted ways with longtime bandmates Dave Hernandez, Marty Crandall and Jesse Sandoval, terming it "an aesthetic decision". Sandoval instead told "The Portland Mercury" he was "unequivocally fired" from the group by Mercer. Mercer would later relate that his decision was "tremendously difficult", but instead wished to view it as a new phase.


title: The Shins

text: Working with Burton on Broken Bells helped Mercer overcome fears of collaboration, which in turn influenced the rotating "cast of characters" that grouped together around him to record "Port of Morrow", which became the Shins' fourth album upon its March 2012 release. Mercer returned to The Shins as the only original member. "I always loved these auteurs who presented themselves as bands," Mercer later explained, referencing Neutral Milk Hotel and Lilys as examples, which led to him feeling as though he could pursue something similar, allowing the concept of The Shins to carry on. Producer Greg Kurstin had a particular influence on "Port of Morrow", encouraging Mercer to experiment in the studio. Mercer began touring with an all new backing band, including fellow songwriters Jessica Dobson and Richard Swift, Modest Mouse drummer Joe Plummer, and Yuuki Matthews from the Crystal Skulls. "Port of Morrow" debuted at number three on US charts, and lead single "Simple Song" represented the band's best chart performance, peaking within the top 10 on the Alternative Songs chart.


title: The Shins

text: In 2014, The Shins recorded and released a new song, "So Now What", for the soundtrack of "Wish I Was Here" (directed by Zach Braff of "Garden State"). Mercer noted to "Billboard" that he was immensely proud of how the track came out: "I think it's one of the best things I've ever done." That November, a reissue of Flake Music's first album, "When You Land Here It's Time to Return", was released.


title: The Shins

text: In 2016, the group recorded a cover of the Beatles' "The Word" for the Netflix show "Beat Bugs". During this time, Mercer was at work on the band's fifth album, which he felt was closer in sound to the Shins' earlier work than "Port of Morrow": "I made a concerted effort on certain songs to fit the palette, to use the palette that I've used historically for the band." The group announced their new album, "Heartworms", in January; it was released on March 10, 2017. In January 2018, they released "The Worm's Heart," an album which reimagined their previous album "Heartworms".


title: The Shins

text: Former band member Swift died on July 3, 2018. He was admitted to the hospital in June for hepatitis.


title: The Shins

text: In April 2021, a 20th anniversary reissue of "Oh, Inverted World" was announced for release on June 11, 2021. The reissue was remastered by Bob Ludwig, with Mercer serving as an assistant. A "21st birthday" tour of North America was announced in May 2022, where The Shins will play "Oh Inverted World" in its entirety.


title: The Shins

text: Mercer described the Shins as a "pop project" from the beginning. The group were inspired by any and all music that they discovered. "Everything we listen to [...] makes its way in somehow, but we've been inspired by a bunch of bands who basically just keep reinventing the same thing," said Mercer. The group received comparisons to the "pop revivalists" at the Elephant 6 Recording Collective early in their career, such as The Apples in Stereo, whilst Mercer's vivid, often surrealist lyrics and infectious melodies drew comparisons to the songwriting style of Robert Pollard from Guided by Voices. "Rolling Stone" credited the band with bringing "the pop traditions of 1960s pop bands—groups like the Zombies, and the Beach Boys—to a new generation of music fans."


title: The Game Awards 2019

text: The Game Awards 2019 was an award show that honored the best video games of 2019. The event was produced and hosted by Geoff Keighley, creator and producer of The Game Awards, and was held to an invited audience at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on December 12, 2019. The preshow ceremony was hosted by Sydnee Goodman. The event was live streamed across more than 50 digital platforms; it was the first to broadcast live in India and was simulcast in 53 movie theaters across the United States. The show featured musical performances from Chvrches, Grimes, and Green Day, and presentations from celebrity guests including Stephen Curry, Vin Diesel, Norman Reedus, and Michelle Rodriguez. In association with the event, a virtual games festival was held online, allowing free demos to be played through Steam over a 48-hour period.


title: The Game Awards 2019

text: "Death Stranding" received ten nominations, the most of any Game Awards to date, while "Disco Elysium" tied for the highest-awarded game in the show's history with four wins. "" was awarded Game of the Year. Several new games were revealed during the show, including "Bravely Default II", "Godfall", and "", and Microsoft revealed the Xbox Series X as the successor to the Xbox One. "Death Stranding"s nominations prompted allegations of impropriety due to Keighley's friendship with game director Hideo Kojima; Keighley clarified he does not partake in voting. Reviews for the ceremony were mixed, with praise for announcements but criticism directed at the decreasing focus on awards. The show was viewed by over 45 million streams, the most in its history to date, with 7.5 million concurrent viewers at its peak.


title: The Game Awards 2019

text: As with previous iterations of The Game Awards, the show was hosted and produced by Canadian games journalist Geoff Keighley. He returned as an executive producer alongside Kimmie H. Kim, and Richard Preuss and LeRoy Bennett returned as director and creative director, respectively. The preshow was hosted by Sydnee Goodman. The presentation was held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on December 12, 2019, and live streamed across more than 50 digital platforms, including Facebook, Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube. By partnering with Nodwin Gaming, the 2019 show was the first to broadcast live in India, on television via MTV and online through services such as JioTV, MX Player, and Voot. The show was simulcast in 53 Cinemark movie theaters across the United States alongside the opening night screening of "" in partnership with Sony Pictures. Keighley had previously wanted to broadcast in theaters and felt the release of "Jumanji"—which largely focuses on a video game—was a perfect fit.