title: Satellite imagery

text: Earth Resource Observation Satellites, better known as "EROS" satellites, are lightweight, low earth orbiting, high-resolution satellites designed for fast maneuvering between imaging targets. In the commercial high-resolution satellite market, EROS is the smallest very high resolution satellite; it is very agile and thus enables very high performances. The satellites are deployed in a circular sun-synchronous near polar orbit at an altitude of 510 km (± 40 km).


title: Satellite imagery

text: EROS satellites imagery applications are primarily for intelligence, homeland security and national development purposes but also employed in a wide range of civilian applications, including: mapping, border control, infrastructure planning, agricultural monitoring, environmental monitoring, disaster response, training and simulations, etc.


title: Satellite imagery

text: EROS A – a high resolution satellite with 1.9–1.2m resolution panchromatic was launched on December 5, 2000.


title: Satellite imagery

text: EROS B – the second generation of Very High Resolution satellites with 70 cm resolution panchromatic, was launched on April 25, 2006.


title: Satellite imagery

text: GaoJing-1 / SuperView-1 (01, 02, 03, 04) is a commercial constellation of Chinese remote sensing satellites controlled by China Siwei Surveying and Mapping Technology Co. Ltd. The four satellites operate from an altitude of 530 km and are phased 90° from each other on the same orbit, providing 0.5m panchromatic resolution and 2m multispectral resolution on a swath of 12 km.


title: Satellite imagery

text: Because the total area of the land on Earth is so large and because resolution is relatively high, satellite databases are huge and image processing (creating useful images from the raw data) is time-consuming. Preprocessing, such as image destriping, is often required. Depending on the sensor used, weather conditions can affect image quality: for example, it is difficult to obtain images for areas of frequent cloud cover such as mountaintops. For such reasons, publicly available satellite image datasets are typically processed for visual or scientific commercial use by third parties.


title: Satellite imagery

text: Commercial satellite companies do not place their imagery into the public domain and do not sell their imagery; instead, one must acquire a license to use their imagery. Thus, the ability to legally make derivative works from commercial satellite imagery is diminished.


title: Satellite imagery

text: Privacy concerns have been brought up by some who wish not to have their property shown from above. Google Maps responds to such concerns in their FAQ with the following statement: ""We understand your privacy concerns... The images that Google Maps displays are no different from what can be seen by anyone who flies over or drives by a specific geographic location.""


title: Asobo Studio

text: Asobo Studio SAS is a French video game developer based in Bordeaux and founded in 2002. The studio is most known for developing video game adaptations of several Pixar movies, "", and the 2020 version of "Microsoft Flight Simulator". The studio's name is derived from the Japanese word ""asobou"" (遊ぼう) that means "let's play".


title: Asobo Studio

text: In 2002, a group of twelve video game developers purchased the rights to the multiplayer PlayStation 2 video game "Super Farm" and founded Asobo Studio. Their first game was published in 2003 by Ignition Entertainment. During the following years, the studio developed several games for various platforms, until being chosen by publisher THQ to create the video game adaptation of Pixar film "Ratatouille". Asobo started increasing its growth-speed, recruiting about 20% new employees a year, leading to two separate production lines. Asobo was selected to develop the video game adaptation of Pixar's following films "WALL-E" and "Up".


title: Asobo Studio

text: During the 2008 Games Convention, the video game publisher Codemasters announced "Fuel", a racing game developed by Asobo Studio. "Fuel" was released in 2009 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. The studio worked on "" for Xbox 360 Kinect between 2010 and 2012. The game features a scanning process, enabling the player to create their own Pixar avatar, looking like them. It features characters from "Ratatouille", "The Incredibles", "Cars", "Up" and" Toy Story". The game was published by Microsoft and Disney Interactive Studios in March 2012.


title: Asobo Studio

text: In 2014, Asobo Studio partnered with Ubisoft to release "Monopoly Family Fun" pack on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, including "Monopoly Plus", "My Monopoly" and "Monopoly Deal", as well as "The Crew" for Xbox 360. In 2016, Asobo Studio partnered with Microsoft again to release two games on HoloLens: "Fragments" and "Young Conker". Both games are available in the "Development Edition", released on March 30, 2016. Asobo Studio was the first independent developer in Holographic Entertainment and won the 2016 French Video Game Creator Prize awarded by Syntec Numérique EY and SNJV. In 2017, the studio announced "", an adventure game, released for PC and consoles in 2019 and published by Focus Home Interactive. They also worked with Engine Software to develop "Monopoly for Nintendo Switch", which came out later that year. Their latest release was "Microsoft Flight Simulator", published on August 18, 2020 for Microsoft Windows.


title: Asobo Studio

text: In 2021, Sagard NewGen purchased a stake of just over 30% for €20 million, valuing the company at approximately €65 million.


title: Asobo Studio

text: In March 2021, Asobo's "Microsoft Flight Simulator" won the Pégase for Best French video game of the year. This is the second consecutive year that the studio has been awarded after "A Plague Taleː Innocence" in 2020.


title: James Waterston

text: James Waterston (born January 17, 1969) is an American actor whose first role was playing Gerard Pitts in the 1989 film "Dead Poets Society".


title: James Waterston

text: Waterston grew up in New York City, the son of actor Sam Waterston and Barbara Rutledge Johns. His father later remarried, making Waterston the older half-brother of actresses Elisabeth Waterston and Katherine Waterston, and filmmaker Graham Waterston.


title: James Waterston

text: Waterston studied at Yale, where he was a member of The Society of Orpheus and Bacchus, an all-male a cappella group. While still in college, but having already appeared in films and television, he formed the theater company Malaparte with numerous friends, including Ethan Hawke and Robert Sean Leonard. During the 1991 to 2000 life of Malaparte, Waterston and his colleagues did everything from directing to taking tickets. Waterston also formed an improv/sketch group called Circus Maximus.


title: James Waterston

text: Waterston first came to attention playing Gerard Pitts in the 1989 film "Dead Poets Society". While much of his screen work has been in television productions, he did appear in the 2015 film "And It Was Good", working with his father Sam and sister Katherine.


title: James Waterston

text: Waterston has a number of stage credits, such as the lead role in the 2011 world premiere of "Chinglish", by David Henry Hwang, at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. He has starred in many off-Broadway plays in New York City, and New England.


title: James Waterston

text: Like other New York City based actors, Waterston has appeared in different roles across the "Law & Order" television franchise over the years. He played a doctor in the "Law & Order" 1999 episode, "Refuge (Part II)". He also appeared on "", in the 2008 episode "", as a husband whose wife couldn't conceive without in-vitro fertilization. He returned to "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit", in the 2017 episode “”, playing Congressman Luke Bolton, who gets falsely accused of soliciting underage girls.


title: James Waterston

text: Waterston has numerous other appearances on episodes of television dramas, such as "", "The Good Wife", "The Blacklist" and others. He played the role of Rev. David Grantland in three made-for-television movies that served as a wrap-up to the "Christy" television series: "" (2000) and the two-part "Christy, Choices of the Heart" (2001) (part 1: "Christy: A Change of Seasons" and part 2: "Christy: A New Beginning").


title: James Waterston

text: Waterston is on the Board of Directors of "Providence Magazine", with circulation in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, and has contributed photographs to the magazine. His mother, Barbara Waterston, is the editor of the magazine.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: Henry the Fowler ( or ""; ) (c. 876 – 2 July 936) was the Duke of Saxony from 912 and the King of East Francia from 919 until his death in 936. As the first non-Frankish king of East Francia, he established the Ottonian dynasty of kings and emperors, and he is generally considered to be the founder of the medieval German state, known until then as East Francia. An avid hunter, he obtained the epithet "the Fowler" because he was allegedly fixing his birding nets when messengers arrived to inform him that he was to be king.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: He was born into the Liudolfing line of Saxon dukes. His father Otto I of Saxony died in 912 and was succeeded by Henry. The new duke launched a rebellion against the king of East Francia, Conrad I of Germany, over the rights to lands in the Duchy of Thuringia. They reconciled in 915 and on his deathbed in 918, Conrad recommended Henry as the next king, considering the duke the only one who could hold the kingdom together in the face of internal revolts and external Magyar raids.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: Henry was elected and crowned king in 919. He went on to defeat the rebellious dukes of Bavaria and Swabia, consolidating his rule. Through successful warfare and a dynastic marriage, Henry acquired Lotharingia as a vassal in 925. Unlike his Carolingian predecessors, Henry did not seek to create a centralized monarchy, ruling through federated autonomous stem duchies instead. Henry built an extensive system of fortifications and mobile heavy cavalry across Germany to neutralize the Magyar threat and in 933 routed them at the Battle of Riade, ending Magyar attacks for the next 21 years and giving rise to a sense of German nationhood. Henry greatly expanded German hegemony in Europe with his defeat of the Slavs in 929 at the Battle of Lenzen along the Elbe river, by compelling the submission of Duke Wenceslaus I of Bohemia through an invasion of the Duchy of Bohemia the same year and by conquering Danish realms in Schleswig in 934. Henry's hegemonic status north of the Alps was acknowledged by the kings Rudolph of West Francia and Rudolph II of Upper Burgundy, who both accepted a place of subordination as allies in 935. Henry planned an expedition to Rome to be crowned emperor by the pope, but the design was thwarted by his death. Henry prevented a collapse of royal power, as had happened in West Francia, and left a much stronger kingdom to his successor Otto I. He was buried at Quedlinburg Abbey, established by his wife Matilda in his honour.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: Born in Memleben, in what is now Saxony-Anhalt, Henry was the son of Otto the Illustrious, Duke of Saxony, and his wife Hedwiga, who was probably the daughter of Henry of Franconia.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: In 906 he married Hatheburg of Merseburg, daughter of the Saxon count Erwin. She had previously been a nun. The marriage was annulled in 909 because her vows as a nun were deemed by the church to remain valid. She had already given birth to Henry's son Thankmar. The annulment placed a question mark over Thankmar's legitimacy. Later that year he married Matilda, daughter of Dietrich of Ringelheim, Count in Westphalia. Matilda bore him three sons and two daughters, Hedwig and Gerberga, and founded many religious institutions, including the Quedlinburg Abbey where Henry and Matilda are buried. She was later canonized.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: His son Otto I, traditionally known as "Otto the Great", continued his father's work of unifying all German tribes into a single kingdom and greatly expanded the king's powers. He installed members of his family in the kingdom's most important duchies, subjected the clergy to his personal control, defeated the Magyars and conquered the Kingdom of Italy.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: Henry became Duke of Saxony after his father's death in 912. An able ruler, he continued to strengthen the position of his duchy within the weakening kingdom of East Francia, and was frequently in conflict with his neighbors to the South in the Duchy of Franconia.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: On 23 December 918 Conrad I, king of East Francia and Franconian duke, died. Although Henry had rebelled against Conrad I between 912 and 915 over the lands in Thuringia, Conrad recommended Henry as his successor. Kingship now changed from the Franks to the Saxons, who had suffered greatly during the conquests of Charlemagne and were proud of their identity. Henry, as Saxon, was the first non-Frank on the throne.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: Conrad's choice was conveyed by his brother, duke Eberhard III of Franconia at the Imperial Diet of Fritzlar in 919. The assembled Franconian and Saxon nobles elected Henry to be king with other regional dukes not participating in the election. Archbishop Heriger of Mainz offered to anoint Henry according to the usual ceremony, but he refused – the only king of his time not to undergo that rite – allegedly because he wished to be king not by the church's but by the people's acclaim.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: Henry, who was elected to kingship by only the Saxons and Franconians at Fritzlar, had to subdue the other dukes.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: Duke Burchard II of Swabia soon swore fealty to the new king, but when he died, Henry appointed a noble from Franconia to be the new duke.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: Duke Arnulf of Bavaria, lord over a realm of impressive extent, with "de facto" powers of a king and at times even named so in documents, proved a much harder nut to crack. He would not submit until Henry defeated him in two campaigns in 921.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: In the short remnant of a more lengthy text, "Fragmentum de Arnulfo duce Bavariae ()", the author gives a very lively impression of the disconcert Henry's claims caused in Bavaria:


title: Henry the Fowler

text: The piece abruptly starts with a clause. It relates that Henry I ("Saxo Heimricus"), following the advice of an unnamed bishop, had invaded the Bavarian kingdom ("regnum Baioariae") in a hostile way. Decidedly, it hints at the unlawfulness of this encroachment, namely in that Bavaria was a territory in which none of Henry's forefathers had ever possessed even a foot (gressum pedis) of land. This was also the reason – by God's will (Dei nutu) – for him having been defeated in this first campaign. This can be seen as proof that Henry did campaign against Bavaria, and Arnulf, more than once.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: In the second chapter, the unknown chronicler hints that Henry's predecessor on the throne, Conrad I, had also invaded Bavaria in an equally unlawful and hostile (non regaliter, sed hostiliter) fashion. Conrad is said to have marauded through the land, murdering and pillaging, having made many children orphans (orphanos) and women widows (viduas). Ratisbon, the duke's seat, was set to light and looted. After Conrad committed all these crimes (peccatis), it reports that divine providence (divino nutu) forced him to withdraw. The reason for this is not mentioned.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: The last section is a eulogy to Duke Arnulf who is described as a glorious leader (gloriosus dux), being blessed by heaven (ex alto) with all kinds of virtues, brave and dynamic. He alone had saved his people from the scourge of the Saxons (de sevienti gladio paganorum) and given them back their freedom.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: This panegyric to the Bavarian duke is unparalleled for its time and underlines his position of power in the southeast of the East Frankish realm, so endangered by disintegration, so that "Arnulf ... nearly [found] the same resonance in the scarce historiography of his time, as did King Henry".


title: Henry the Fowler

text: Henry besieged Arnulf's residence at Ratisbon and forced the duke into submission. Arnulf had crowned himself as king of Bavaria in 919, but in 921 renounced the crown and submitted to Henry while maintaining significant autonomy and the right to mint his own coins.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: In his time, the king was considered "primus inter pares (first among equals)". The king and princes formulated policies together and the position of the monarchy could only be consolidated gradually. Even under Otto the Great and later monarches, consensus building would remain important.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: In 920, the king of West Francia, Charles the Simple, invaded and marched as far as Pfeddersheim near Worms, but retreated when he learned that Henry was organizing an army. On 7 November 921, Henry and Charles met and concluded the Treaty of Bonn, in which Henry was recognized as the east Frankish king and Charles rule in Lotharingia was recognized. Henry then saw an opportunity to take Lotharingia when a civil war over royal succession began in West Francia after the coronation of King Robert I. In 923 Henry crossed the Rhine twice, capturing a large part of the duchy. The eastern part of Lotharingia was left in Henry's possession until October 924.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: In 925 Duke Gilbert of Lotharingia rebelled. Henry invaded the duchy and besieged Gilbert at Zülpich (Tolbiac), captured the town, and became master of a large portion of his lands. Allowing Gilbert to remain in power as duke, Henry arranged the marriage of his daughter Gerberga to his new vassal in 928. Thus he brought that realm, which had been lost in 910, back into the kingdom as the fifth stem duchy.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: The threat of Magyar raiders improved his situation, as all the dukes and nobles realized that only a strong state could defend their lands against barbarian incursions.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: In 919 Henry was defeated by the Magyars in the Battle of Püchen, hardly escaping from being killed in battle, managing to take refuge in the town of Püchen.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: In 921 the Magyars once again invaded East Francia and Italy. Although a sizable Magyar force was defeated near Bleiburg in the Bavarian March of Carinthia by Eberhard and the Count of Meran and another group was routed by Liutfried, count of Elsass (French reading: Alsace), the Magyars continued raiding East Francia.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: Henry, having captured a Hungarian prince, managed to arrange a ten-year truce in 924, though he agreed to pay annual tribute. By doing so he and the dukes gained time to build new fortified towns and to train a new elite cavalry force. Henry built fortified settlements as a defense against Magyar and Slav invaders. In 932 Henry refused to pay the annual tribute to the Magyars. When they began raiding again, Henry, with his improved army in 933 at the Battle of Riade, crushed the Magyars so completely that they never returned to the northern lands of Henry's kingdom.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: During the truce with the Magyars, Henry subdued the Polabian Slavs who lived on his eastern borders. In the winter of 928 he marched against the Slavic Hevelli tribes and seized their capital, Brandenburg. He then invaded the Glomacze lands on the middle Elbe river, conquering the capital Gana (Jahna) after a siege, and had a fortress (the later Albrechtsburg) built at Meissen. In 929, with the help of Arnulf of Bavaria, Henry entered the Duchy of Bohemia and forced Duke Wenceslaus I to resume the annual payment of tribute to the king.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: Meanwhile, the Slavic Redarii had driven away their chief, captured the town of Walsleben and massacred its inhabitants. Counts Bernard and Thietmar marched against the fortress of Lenzen beyond the Elbe, and, after fierce fighting, completely routed the enemy on 4 September 929. The Lusatians and the Ukrani on the lower Oder were subdued and made tributary in 932 and 934, respectively. In conquered lands Henry did not create march administration, which was implemented by his successor Otto I.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: Henry also pacified territories to the north, where the Danes had been harrying the Frisians by sea. The monk and chronicler Widukind of Corvey in his "Res gestae Saxonicae" reports that the Danes were subjects of Henry the Fowler. Henry incorporated into his kingdom territories held by the Wends, who together with the Danes had attacked Germany, and also conquered Schleswig in 934.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: As the first Saxon king of East Francia, Henry was the founder of the Ottonian dynasty. He and his descendants ruled East Francia, and later the Holy Roman Empire, from 919 until 1024.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: Henry returned to public attention as a character in Richard Wagner's opera, "Lohengrin" (1850), trying to gain the support of the Brabantian nobles against the Magyars. After the attempts to achieve German national unity failed with the Revolutions of 1848, Wagner strongly relied on the picture of Henry as the actual ruler of all German tribes as advocated by pan-Germanist activists like Friedrich Ludwig Jahn.


title: Henry the Fowler

text: There are indications that Heinrich Himmler saw himself as the reincarnation of Henry, who was proclaimed to be the first king of Germany. Himmler traveled to Quedlinburg several times to hold a ceremony in the crypt on the anniversary of the king's death, 2 July. This started in 1936, 1,000 years after Henry died. Himmler considered him to be the "first German king" and declared his tomb a site of pilgrimage for Germans. In 1937, the king's remains were reinterred in a new sarcophagus.


title: Probus (emperor)

text: Marcus Aurelius Probus (; 230–235 – September 282) was Roman emperor from 276 to 282. Probus was an active and successful general as well as a conscientious administrator, and in his reign of six years he secured prosperity for the inner provinces while withstanding repeated invasions of barbarian tribes on almost every sector of the frontier.


title: Probus (emperor)

text: After repelling the foreign enemies of the empire Probus was forced to handle several internal revolts, but demonstrated leniency and moderation to the vanquished wherever possible. In his reign the constitutional authority of the Roman Senate was fastidiously maintained, and the victorious Emperor, who had carried his army to victory over the Rhine, professed himself dependent on the sanction of the Senate.


title: Probus (emperor)

text: Upon defeating the Germans, Probus re-erected the ancient fortifications of emperor Hadrian between the Rhine and Danube rivers, protecting the Agri Decumates, and exacted from the vanquished a tribute of manpower to resettle depopulated provinces within the empire and provide for adequate defense of the frontiers. Despite his widespread popularity, Probus was killed in a mutiny of the soldiers while in the middle of preparations for the Persian war, which would be carried out under his successor Carus.


title: Probus (emperor)

text: Probus was born between 230 and 235 (exact date of birth unknown) in Sirmium (modern day Sremska Mitrovica), Pannonia Inferior, the son of Dalmatius. According to the Alexandrian Chronicle, he was born sometime in the year 232. The unreliable "Historia Augusta" gives his fathers name as Maximus and claims that his mother was of higher status than his father, that he had a sister named Claudia, that he was related to emperor Claudius Gothicus, his personal wealth was modest and his nearest kin unimportant. Besides his best known "nomina" Aurelius which can be found on most inscriptions, papyri and coinage, as well as Equitius attested on his coins from Ticinum and Pseudo-Aurelius Victor, the "Historia Augusta" gives him Valerius and Malalas Aelius.


title: Probus (emperor)

text: Probus entered the army around 25 upon reaching adulthood. He rose rapidly through the ranks, repeatedly earning high military decorations. Appointed at a very young age as a military tribune by the emperor Valerian, in recognition of his latent ability, he justified the choice by a distinguished victory over the Sarmatians on the Illyrian frontier. During the chaotic years of the reign of Valerian, Illyria was the only province, generaled by such officers as Claudius, Aurelian and Probus, where the barbarians were kept at bay, while Gaul was overrun by the Franks, Rhaetia by the Alemans, Thrace and the Mediterranean by the Goths, and the east by Shapur I. Probus became amongst the highest placed lieutenants of Aurelian, reconquering Egypt from Zenobia in 273 A.D. Emperor Tacitus, upon his accession in 275, appointed Probus supreme chief of the east, granting him extraordinary powers in order to secure a dangerous frontier. Though the details are not specified, he is said to have fought with success on almost every frontier of the empire, before his election as emperor by the troops upon Tacitus' death in 276, in his camp in Asia Minor.


title: Probus (emperor)

text: Florian, the half-brother of Tacitus, also proclaimed himself emperor, and took control of Tacitus' army in Asia Minor, but was killed by his own soldiers after an indecisive campaign against Probus in the mountains of Cilicia. In contrast to Florian, who ignored the wishes of the Senate, Probus referred his claim to Rome in a respectful dispatch. The Senate enthusiastically ratified his pretensions. Probus next travelled west, defeating the Goths along the lower Danube in 277, and acquiring the title of "Gothicus".


title: Probus (emperor)

text: In 278, Probus campaigned successfully in Gaul against the Alemanni and Longiones; both tribes had advanced through the Neckar valley and across the Rhine into Roman territory. Meanwhile, his generals defeated the Franks and these operations were directed to clearing Gaul of Germanic invaders (Franks and Burgundians), allowing Probus to adopt the titles of "Gothicus Maximus" and "Germanicus Maximus". Reportedly, 400,000 barbarians were killed during Probus' campaign, and the entire nation of the Lugii were extirpated.


title: Probus (emperor)

text: After the defeat of the Germanic invaders in Gaul, Probus crossed the Rhine to campaign successfully against the barbarians in their homeland, forcing them to pay homage. In the aftermath of the campaign, Probus repaired the ancient fortifications erected by Hadrian in the vulnerable space between the Rhine and Danube, in the territory of Swabia. More significantly, Probus, by forcing from the vanquished tribes a tribute of manpower, established the precedent of settling barbarians within the empire as auxiliaries on a large scale. The provinces were depopulated by war, disease and the chaotic administration, heavy taxation, and extensive army recruitment, during the Crisis of the Third Century, and the barbarian colonies, at least in the short term, helped to restore frontier defense and the practice of agriculture.


title: Probus (emperor)

text: The army discipline which Aurelian had repaired was cultivated and extended under Probus, who was however more shy in the practice of cruelty. One of his principles was never to allow the soldiers to be idle, and to employ them in time of peace on useful works, such as the planting of vineyards in Gaul, Pannonia and other districts, in order to restart the economy in these devastated lands.


title: Probus (emperor)

text: In 279–280, Probus was, according to Zosimus, in Raetia, Illyricum and Lycia, where he fought the Vandals. In the same years, Probus' generals defeated the Blemmyes in Egypt. Either then, or during his previous command in Egypt, he ordered the reconstruction of bridges and canals along the Nile, where the production of grain for the Empire was centered.


title: Probus (emperor)

text: In 280–281, Probus put down three usurpers, Julius Saturninus, Proculus and Bonosus. The extent of these revolts is not clear, but there are clues that they were not just local problems (an inscription with the name of Probus erased has been found as far as Spain). Following this, Probus then put down a revolt by an unnamed rebel in Britain with the assistance of a certain Victorinus, who was later made consul in 282. During the winter of 281, the emperor was in Rome, where he celebrated his well-deserved triumph.


title: Probus (emperor)

text: Probus was eager to start his eastern campaign, delayed by the revolts in the west. He left Rome in 282, travelling first towards Sirmium, his birth city.


title: Probus (emperor)

text: Different accounts of Probus's death exist. According to Joannes Zonaras, the commander of the Praetorian Guard Marcus Aurelius Carus had been proclaimed, more or less unwillingly, emperor by his troops.


title: Probus (emperor)

text: Probus sent some troops against the new usurper, but when those troops changed sides and supported Carus, Probus' remaining soldiers assassinated him at Sirmium (September/October 282). According to other sources, however, Probus was killed by disgruntled soldiers, who rebelled against his orders to be employed for civic purposes, like draining marshes. Allegedly, the soldiers were provoked when they overheard him lamenting the necessity of a standing army. Carus was proclaimed emperor after Probus' death and avenged the murder of his predecessor.


title: Probus (emperor)

text: According to the favorable treatment of Gibbon (whose account is largely derived from the "Augustan History"), Probus was the last of the benevolent constitutional emperors of Rome. While his successor Carus (Imp. 282–284) simply disdained to seek the Senate's confirmation of his title, the latter's successor Diocletian (Imp. 284–305) took active measures to undermine its authority, and established the autocratic nature and divine derivation of the Imperial power. Never again, after Diocletian's reforms, would the Roman Senate play an active role in the management of the empire. On the military sphere, Probus' victories continued the succession of martial Illyrian emperors begun by Claudius Gothicus, which restored the military supremacy of Rome after defeats sustained during the Crisis of the Third Century.


title: Kim Seo-hyung

text: Kim Seo-hyung (born October 28, 1973) is a South Korean actress. She is best known for her portrayal as the evil mistress Shin Ae-ri in the SBS revenge drama "Temptation of Wife" (2008) and as Coach Kim in the JTBC television series "Sky Castle" (2018), for which she received a Best Actress nomination at the 55th Baeksang Arts Awards.


title: Kim Seo-hyung

text: In 2014, she earned the award for Best Lead Actress in a Foreign Language Film at the 3rd Madrid International Film Festival for her performance in the film "Late Spring". She also gained international attention for her role in "The Villainess", which had its world premiere at the 70th Cannes Film Festival in May 2017.


title: Robert Duncan McNeill

text: Robert Duncan McNeill (born November 9, 1964) is an American director, producer, and actor. As an actor, he is best known for his role as Lieutenant Tom Paris on the television series "". He has also served as an executive producer and frequent director of the television series "Chuck", "Resident Alien", "The Gifted", and "Turner & Hooch".


title: Robert Duncan McNeill

text: McNeill and his first wife, Carol, had three children together before their 2015 divorce. In 2005, McNeill directed his then teenaged daughter, Taylor, when she had a small role in the episode "The Pleiades" of the series "Summerland". His son Kyle is a singer songwriter. McNeill married Rebecca Jayne Sims in Vancouver, Canada, on March 7, 2021.


title: Robert Duncan McNeill

text: McNeill grew up in Atlanta, and began his career acting in local and regional productions before becoming a student at Juilliard School in New York City. He enjoyed early success as a professional actor, winning the role of Charlie Brent on "All My Children" and starring in the feature film "Masters of the Universe". He also starred in an episode of the 1980s version of "The Twilight Zone", "A Message From Charity". He then appeared with Stockard Channing in the Broadway production of "Six Degrees of Separation" before returning to Los Angeles to pursue roles on television. He appeared in featured guest roles on numerous TV series, including "L.A. Law"; "Quantum Leap"; and "Murder, She Wrote". He was a featured cast member on the short-lived 1992 series "Going to Extremes", Another guest role that same year was in "The First Duty", an episode of "", in which he played Nick Locarno, a Starfleet Academy cadet and squad leader who pressures fellow cadet Wesley Crusher into covering up their wrongdoings. He would later become a "Trek" regular in 1995 on "", on which he played Tom Paris, a Starfleet officer with a backstory similar to Locarno's. Other credits include Zebulon in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" at the Paper Mill Playhouse and Judas in "Godspell" at the Lamb's Theatre.


title: Robert Duncan McNeill

text: McNeill began his directing career with several episodes of "Voyager". He then wrote, produced, and directed two award-winning short films, "The Battery" and "9mm of Love", and began to direct other episodic television shows. While he has since performed as a guest star on television shows such as "The Outer Limits" and "Crossing Jordan", McNeill is now focusing on his directing career, helming episodes of "Dawson's Creek", "Everwood", "", "Dead Like Me", "The O.C.", "One Tree Hill", "Las Vegas", "Summerland", and "Supernatural". His directing credits for 2006–2007 include episodes of "Desperate Housewives", "Medium", "Standoff", "The Nine", "The Knights of Prosperity", "In Case of Emergency", "What About Brian", and "My Boys". In 2007, he directed the season 5 premiere of "Las Vegas", the pilot of "Samantha Who?" (which features his "" costar Tim Russ) and then signed on as a producer-director of the NBC show "Chuck," helming numerous episodes, including the first episode of a television show to be broadcast entirely in 3D. In 2010, McNeill directed an episode of "V", an ABC science fiction television series produced by Scott Rosenbaum, a former writer and executive producer on "Chuck". As of 2019 he has directed two episodes of the Fox series "The Orville" and "The Gifted". In 2021, McNeill directed several episodes of the Disney+ series "Turner & Hooch".


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: Stiff Little Fingers are a punk rock band from Belfast, Northern Ireland. They formed in 1977 at the height of the Troubles, which informed much of their songwriting. They started out as a schoolboy band called Highway Star (named after the Deep Purple song), doing rock covers, until they discovered punk. They were the first punk band in Belfast to release a record – the "Suspect Device" single came out on their own independent label, Rigid Digits. Their album "Inflammable Material", released in partnership with Rough Trade, became the first independent LP to enter the UK top 20.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: After six years and four albums, they split up. They reformed five years later, in 1987. Despite major personnel changes, they are still touring and recording. In 2014, the band released their tenth studio album and a world tour followed its release. Jake Burns, their lead singer, is the only member to have been with the band during all its incarnations, but in March 2006, original bass guitarist Ali McMordie rejoined them following the departure of The Jam bass player Bruce Foxton after fifteen years.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: Prior to becoming Stiff Little Fingers, Jake Burns, vocals and guitar, Henry Cluney, guitar, Gordon Blair, bass, and Brian Faloon, drums, were playing in a rock music cover band, Highway Star, in Belfast. Upon the departure of Blair (who went on to play with another Belfast group, Rudi), Ali McMordie took over on bass. Cluney had by this time discovered punk, and introduced the rest of the band to it. They decided that Highway Star was not a punk enough name, and after a brief flirtation with the name "The Fast", decided to call themselves Stiff Little Fingers, after The Vibrators' song, which appears on the album "Pure Mania".


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: Stiff Little Fingers, especially the lead singer and main songwriter Jake Burns, were heavily influenced by "The Clash". "What the Clash's first album did more than anything else was give me the confidence, through its lyrical subject matter, to realise it was OK to write about my own life and experiences" (Jake Burns). The group started to write songs about growing up in the Troubles in late 1970s Northern Ireland. Among the first Stiff Little Fingers songs were "State of Emergency" and "Breakout".


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: It was while doing a gig at the Glenmachan Hotel, Belfast, that they first met Gordon Ogilvie, who had been invited along for the evening by Colin McClelland, a journalist whom Burns had been corresponding with.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: Ogilvie further encouraged SLF to play material based upon their experience of the Troubles. He asked the group to look at some lyrics he had drafted. They liked the lyrics and "Suspect Device" became a fixture in their live set. Around the same time as putting a tune to the "Suspect Device" lyrics, Jake Burns wrote "Wasted Life".


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: McClelland arranged to get the band some recording time at a local radio station, and in the studio normally used to record jingles, they recorded "Suspect Device". The single was packaged in the form of a cassette, with a cover depicting a cassette incendiary bomb, apparently causing great hilarity in the group, when one record company phoned them and asked for another copy, as they had thrown the first one in a bucket of water for fear that it was a real bomb.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: "Suspect Device" was released in February 1978. A copy of the single was sent to John Peel. He played it repeatedly leading to a distribution deal through Rough Trade. The single was released on the band's own Rigid Digits label, re-released a month later with the support of Rough Trade records and sold over 30,000 copies.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: Live footage of SLF performing "Suspect Device" at Belfast’s Pound Club on 17 January 1978 - the first time the group played the song live - appeared as part of an Ulster TV Revue programme "'It Makes You Want to Spit about punk in Belfast.  The programme was broadcast on 6 March 1978.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: SLF’s decision to write songs about the experiences of young people growing up in The Troubles proved controversial. Some Northern Ireland punk bands felt songs about the Troubles were exploiting the sectarian conflict. There was also criticism and suspicion over the involvement and influence the management team, especially Gordon Ogilivie, was having on the band. The political differences were reinforced by musical differences as SLF’s rockier punk sound contrasted with the more melodic pop punk of The Undertones and Rudi. Some of the criticism was simply down to band rivalries and jealousy.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: There were a number of well-publicised arguments; The Undertones accused Stiff Little Fingers of sensationalising the Northern Ireland conflict, while they retorted that The Undertones ignored it. Michael Bradley, The Undertones bassist, tells of a confrontation in 1979 between The Undertones’ John O’Neill and SLF’s Jake Burns: "He launched into Jake, not physically but verbally. Slagging his records, slagging the journalist writing the songs and slagging the band." Michael Bradley now describes ‘Suspect Device’ as "a great record, although at the time we weren’t impressed, probably because they’d made a record before us." (Michael Bradley, The Undertones).


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: Terri Hooley, Good Vibrations records, also says: "SLF were really starting to make waves beyond Northern Ireland, and I always see them as the ones that got away. I know I have always said I never rated them, but that was probably jealousy on my part. I actually think they are a great band and deserve their success." (Terri Hooley, Good Vibrations)


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: SLF built up a big following among young people in Belfast: "As a 14 or 15-year-old schoolboy back in the late Seventies, I wasn’t at all concerned with who had written (or contributed to) the lyrics of their songs. To me, it was crystal clear that the band meant what they were singing and even better, they were singing about my life and offering me alternative points of view. Their initial burst of raw energy on the Ulster Punk scene was captivating and as soon as they transferred that energy to vinyl they were truly off and running." (Sean O’Neill, co-author of "It Makes You Want To Spit - The Definitive Guide to Punk in N.Ireland")


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: John Peel arranged for the group to record a session for his Radio One show. The songs broadcast on 13 April 1978 were "Wasted Life", "Johnny Was", "Alternative Ulster" and "State of Emergency".  Another John Peel session was recorded in September - "Law And Order", "Barbed Wire Love", "Suspect Device" and a new longer version of "Johnny Was" were broadcast on 18 September 1978.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: Their second single, "Alternative Ulster", was released on Rough Trade in October 1978. It was originally intended to be given away free with the fanzine of the same name. SLF performing "Alternative Ulster" at a gig in Belfast at the end of October 1978 can be seen in "Shellshock Rock", an independent documentary on punk in Northern Ireland, released in 1979.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: By the end of 1978, SLF's growing popularity was reflected in "Suspect Device" reaching No.4 and "Alternative Ulster" being voted No.11 in the annual Festive Fifty broadcast on the John Peel show.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: In February 1979, SLF released their first album on the Rough Trade Label, "Inflammable Material". The band had signed a contract with Island Records, but it fell through, leaving the group to release the album on Rough Trade, their existing label. Despite the album's independent release, it reached number 14 in the UK Albums Chart and reached Silver status, selling over 100,000 copies. "Inflammable Material" was the first album distributed by Rough Trade Records, and the first independent album to chart in the UK.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: The Inflammable Material album was heavily influenced by the band's experience of growing up in Belfast during the Troubles. However, of the 13 tracks, only 6 were directly about Northern Ireland and the political situation - "Suspect Device", "State of Emergency", "Wasted Life", "No More Of That", "Barbed Wire Love", and "Alternative Ulster". Even "Alternative Ulster", which has references to "You got the Army on the street, and the RUC dog of repression is barking at your feet", is mainly about being a bored teenager in the late 1970's. Another track on the album "Johnny Was" is a cover of a Bob Marley and the Wailers song with the words adapted to place the song in Belfast.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: "Everybody refers to it as "the Irish record" but I always say to go and look at the tracks and there’s probably 4 out of 13 that refer specifically to Northern Ireland. The rest of it is ... just disaffected teenagers kicking against the world" (Jake Burns, SLF)


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: The album received critical acclaim in the music press. "Inflammable Material is the classic punk rock record. A crushing contemporary commentary, brutally inspired by blatant bitter rebellion and frustration" (Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 10 February 1979)


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: "Stiff Little Fingers are the best rock'n'roll band in my world ... The group's first record 'Suspect Device', (one of the all time great debut records) ... 'Alternative Ulster' (one of the all-time great second records by a group) ... By the end of 1978 Stiff Little Fingers were the most popular new group in Britain." (Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 17 February 1979)


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: The new interest in the band inspired their move to London, which led to the departure of Brian Faloon and Colin McClelland (who along with Gordon Ogilvie had been joint manager of the band up until that point). Jim Reilly became their drummer in time for the "Gotta Gettaway" single, and played in the Rock Against Racism tour.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: To coincide with the release of "Gotta Gettaway", SLF headlined their first tour with 21 dates across Britain and Ireland.  The highlight of the tour was the gig at Belfast's Ulster Hall on 21 May 1979. For anyone doubting SLF’s popularity in Northern Ireland, this was the first time a local punk band had headlined what was at the time the biggest music venue in Belfast. The group were welcomed home with a sell-out crowd.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: "Of all the shows, one of the best, without doubt, was the first time we headlined Belfast’s Ulster Hall, on the ‘Gotta Gettaway’ tour. At the height of the Troubles we packed the place and then some, and staring out at that seething mass of young people just enjoying themselves and having a great time to the music, was something that has remained a treasured memory for me all these years. That night I realised we were doing something that none of the politicians were able to do. In that hall, in the midst of a city gripped by sectarian violence, killing and hatred, we brought together the people of our hometown, regardless of religion". (Jim Reilly, Stiff Little Fingers drummer)


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: In mid-1979, Stiff Little Fingers signed their Rigid Digits label to Chrysalis Records, and in 1980 released their second album, "Nobody's Heroes".


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: The "Nobody's Heroes" era brought some success in media terms, with the single "Straw Dogs" narrowly missing the cut for "Top of the Pops"; they eventually got on the show twice, with "At the Edge" and "Nobody's Hero". However, after their appearance with "At The Edge" the band were told they would never be invited on again as they did not take it seriously as they were not playing live; it was to be one of the most infamous "Top of the Pops"'s performances. They subsequently appeared on "Top of the Pops" for "Nobody's Hero", "Just Fade Away" and "Listen".


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: In 1981 the band released their third studio album "Go for It" which was to be Jim Reilly's last involvement with the band. "Go for It" signified the change in Burns' writing style, with much darker and taboo subjects, such as domestic abuse in the song "Hits and Misses" and football hooliganism in the song "Back to Front" (not on the original LP but a bonus track on CD reissue) but the band also still told the story of being a teenager growing up with the song "Kicking Up a Racket".


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: In 1982 came a 4-song EP called "£1.10 or Less" and their fourth studio album, "Now Then..." (actually their fifth album, as they had released a live LP, "Hanx", as their official third album between "Nobody's Heroes" and "Go for It"). "Now Then" was the first album for former Tom Robinson band's drummer Dolphin Taylor. In the face of low sales and concert attendances, they broke up in 1983, when Burns said: "Our last LP "Now Then" was to my mind the best album we have made. But it is also unfortunately the best I think we will ever make. So I have decided to call it a day". The band later revealed the original split had been somewhat acrimonious, with band members apparently having fistfights rather than talking through their differences.<ref name="SLF.com/history"></ref>


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: After Burns had moved on from Stiff Little Fingers, he had a short stint at a band with former The Jam bassist Bruce Foxton. They made a couple of demos, but Foxton received an invitation to make a solo album which ended their collaboration.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: In 1987 the band reformed. Despite some critics who had said "Nobody would be interested in coming to see you" the band had a successful tour including Germany with shows selling out night after night. The band changed their plan of it just being a temporary re-union and decided it was to be permanent.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: Ali McMordie decided he could not commit the time to tour full-time or record and so left, being replaced by Bruce Foxton in time to record 1991's "Flags and Emblems". In Britain, the single from this album, "Beirut Moon", was withdrawn from sale on the first day of release, allegedly because it criticised the government for not acting to free hostage John McCarthy, who had been held in Lebanon.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: In 1993, Henry Cluney was asked to leave the band, and the trio of Jake Burns, Bruce Foxton and Dolphin Taylor continued for the next four years, joined on live shows by either Dave Sharp or Ian McCallum.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: In 1994, they released "Get a Life" in the UK, releasing it in the US in 1996. By the end of 1996 Taylor left due to family commitments. Burns called in Steve Grantley who had played drums for Jake Burns and the Big Wheel in the late 1980s.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: The trio of Burns, Foxton and Grantley recorded 1997's "Tinderbox" album, with help from Ian McCallum who joined as a full-time member for 1999's "Hope Street". This same line-up recorded 2003's "Guitar and Drum".


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: On 23 January 2006, it was announced that original bass guitarist Ali McMordie was to rejoin the band for the duration of their upcoming March tour. The tour was a success, with many fans writing into SLF's message board saying how much they enjoyed it, and how fired up the band seemed to be. After much discussion regarding the status of McMordie within the band after the tour, on 21 April 2006, Burns posted on the message board "For the time being Mr. McMordie is happy to continue as long as his busy schedule allows. It may be that occasionally we have to bring on a "substitute", if he is up to his eyes and we need to do something, but hopefully we can avoid that." Mr. McMordie has occasionally been unable to tour due to other commitments and on those occasions, his place has been taken by Mark DeRosa of Chicago band, Dummy.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: On 25 May 2006, SLF announced Ian McCallum would not be able to join the band on its Spring US tour due to health reasons. John Haggerty of Pegboy and Naked Raygun fame would fill in on guitar. McCallum has since rejoined the band and has toured with them ever since.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: On 9 March 2007, Burns announced that Stiff Little Fingers would record a new album, to be released later that year. A new song, "Liars Club", was added to their set lists that year. The track was named after a bar Burns drove past while listening to a press report about Tony Blair, George W. Bush and the Iraq War. At the Glasgow Barrowlands gig on 17 March 2011 Burns announced that the new album was being recorded – hopefully for a 2011 release – before launching into a new song, "Full Steam Backwards", about the banking crisis in the UK.<ref name="glasswerk.co.uk/reviews/national/9652/Stiff+Little+Fingers"></ref>


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: On 16 October 2013, the band launched a project on Pledgemusic to raise funds for the album to be released in March 2014. The project reached its funding goal within 5 hours. Recording was completed in January 2014 and the album, titled "No Going Back" was released through PledgeMusic on 15 March 2014 and to the general public on 11 August 2014. A tour in support of the album kicked off in early 2014 and included dates in the US on the Summer Nationals tour with The Offspring, Bad Religion, The Vandals, Pennywise and Naked Raygun. The album was the band's first UK chart success since 1983's "All The Best" and their first number 1 record on the BBC Rock Album Chart.


title: Stiff Little Fingers

text: Their single "Alternative Ulster" was featured in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game Skate 2. (2009)


title: Alan Eustace

text: Robert Alan Eustace (born 1956/1957) is an American computer scientist who served as Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google until retiring in 2015. On October 24, 2014, he made a free-fall jump from the stratosphere, breaking Felix Baumgartner's world record. The jump was from and lasted 15 minutes, an altitude record that stands .


title: Alan Eustace

text: The son of a Martin Marietta engineer, Eustace grew up in Pine Hills, Florida, then a working-class suburb of Orlando, where small ranch houses had been built for employees of the Martin Marietta Corporation. After graduating from Maynard Evans High School in 1974, he received a debate scholarship from Valencia College and attended it for a year before transferring to Florida Technological University—now known as the University of Central Florida—to major in mechanical engineering.


title: Alan Eustace

text: As a university student, Eustace worked part-time selling popcorn and ice cream in Fantasyland and working on the monorail at Walt Disney World. However, after taking a class on computer science, he decided to switch majors and ended up completing three academic degrees in the field, including a doctorate in 1984.


title: Alan Eustace

text: After graduation, Eustace worked briefly for Silicon Solutions, a startup in Silicon Valley, before joining Digital, Compaq and then HP's Western Research Laboratory, where he worked 15 years on pocket computing, chip multi-processors, power and energy management, internet performance, and frequency and voltage scaling. In the mid-1990s, he worked with Amitabh Srivastava on ATOM, a binary-code instrumentation system that forms the basis for a wide variety of program analysis and computer architecture analysis tools.


title: Alan Eustace

text: Eustace was appointed head of the laboratory in 1999, but left it three years later to join Google, then a four-year-old startup. At Google, he worked as Senior Vice President of Engineering until he retired from that section of Google on March 27, 2015.


title: Alan Eustace

text: Eustace is currently Technical Advisor at Opener Aerospace, sometimes giving interviews about their electric VTOL aircraft, the Opener BlackFly.


title: Alan Eustace

text: In the course of his professional career, Eustace co-authored nine publications and appeared as co-inventor in ten patents.


title: Alan Eustace

text: In 2011, Eustace decided to pursue a stratosphere jump and met with Taber MacCallum, one of the founding members of Biosphere 2, to begin preparations for the project. Over the next three years, the Paragon Space Development technical team designed and redesigned many of the components of his parachute and life-support system. The Paragon team integrated systems for the Stratospheric Explorer mission code named StratEx.


title: Alan Eustace

text: On October 24, 2014, Eustace made a jump from the stratosphere, breaking Felix Baumgartner's 2012 world record. The launch-point for his jump was from an abandoned runway in Roswell, New Mexico, where he began his gas balloon-powered ascent early that morning. He reached a reported maximum altitude of , but the final number submitted to the World Air Sports Federation was . The balloon used for the feat was manufactured by the Balloon Facility of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Hyderabad, India. Eustace in his pressure suit hung tethered under the balloon, without the kind of capsule used by Felix Baumgartner. Eustace started his fall by using an explosive device to separate from the helium balloon.


title: Alan Eustace

text: His descent to Earth lasted 4 minutes and 27 seconds and stretched nearly with peak speeds exceeding , setting new world records for the highest free-fall jump and total free-fall distance . However, because Eustace's jump involved a drogue parachute, while Baumgartner's did not, their vertical speed and free-fall distance records remain in different categories.


title: Alan Eustace

text: Unlike Baumgartner, Eustace, a twin-engine jet pilot, was not widely known as a daredevil prior to his jump.


title: Alan Eustace

text: Eustace's world record jump was featured in two episodes of "STEM in 30", a television show geared towards middle-school students by the National Air and Space Museum.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: Quinnipiac University () is a private university in Hamden, Connecticut. The university grants undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees through its College of Arts and Sciences, School of Business, School of Engineering, School of Communication, School of Health Sciences, School of Law, School of Medicine, School of Nursing, and School of Education. The university also hosts the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: What became Quinnipiac University was founded in 1929 by Samuel W. Tator, a business professor and politician. Phillip Troup, a Yale College graduate, was another founder, and became its first president until his death in 1939. Tator's wife, Irmagarde Tator, a Mount Holyoke College graduate, also played a major role in the fledgling institution's nurturing as its first bursar. Additional founders were E. Wight Bakke, who later became a professor of economics at Yale, and Robert R. Chamberlain, who headed a furniture company in his name.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: The new institution was conceived in reaction to Northeastern University's abandonment of its New Haven, Connecticut, program at the onset of the Great Depression. Originally, it was located in New Haven and called the "Connecticut College of Commerce". On opening its doors in 1929, it enrolled under 200, and its first graduating class comprised only eight students. At the time, it awarded only associate's degrees. In 1935, the college changed its name to the "Junior College of Commerce".


title: Quinnipiac University

text: From 1943 to 1945, the college closed, as nearly its entire student body was drafted into World War II. Upon re-opening, the college's enrollment nearly quadrupled to approximately 800 students.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: In 1951, the institution was renamed "Quinnipiac College", in honor of the Quinnipiac Indian tribe that once inhabited Greater New Haven. That same year, Quinnipiac began to confer bachelor's degrees. In 1952, Quinnipiac expanded its curriculum, relocated to a larger campus in New Haven, and also assumed administrative control of Larson College, a private women's college.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: In 1966, having outgrown its campus in New Haven, Quinnipiac moved to its current campus in the Mount Carmel section of Hamden, Connecticut, at the foot of Sleeping Giant Park. During the 1970s, Quinnipiac began to offer master's degrees in a variety of disciplines.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: Until the 1990s, Quinnipiac remained primarily a commuter college with only a regional reputation; however, that changed during the next decade. In 1995, the University of Bridgeport's law school migrated to Quinnipiac, and the Quinnipiac School of Law Center was dedicated.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: On July 1, 2000, the college officially changed its name to "Quinnipiac University" to reflect its relatively new breadth in academic offerings. That same year, Quinnipiac University received accreditation by AACSB.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: In 2007 and 2008, Quinnipiac briefly drew national attention over the university's control over student publications and students' speech. In the fall 2007 semester, junior Jason Braff, then-editor of the "Quinnipiac Chronicle", the official newspaper of the school, openly criticized a university policy that forbade the "Chronicle" from publishing news online before the content was published in the weekly print edition. Braff wrote an editorial about the policy and also gave an interview to the local Waterbury paper, "Republican-American", criticizing it. Manuel Carreiro, Quinnipiac's vice president and dean of students, then sent a letter to Braff in November, telling him that his public disagreement with school policies would "seriously place your position and organization at risk with the university." Braff received an $8,000 annual stipend for his position, and the university said that its employees have more of a responsibility than other students to uphold policies. However, Lynn Bushnell, QU's vice president for public affairs, denied threatening to fire Braff for disagreeing with school policies. Braff and the "Chronicle" staff were also openly critical of a public relations policy requiring all news media inquiries and questions (including those from the "Chronicle") for administrators to be sent, via e-mail, to the university's public relations department.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: Quinnipiac officials eventually decided that making the "Chronicle" independent from the university was the best idea. The school set forth a plan of action, which included the university appointing editors for the 2008–2009 academic year. Angry with this plan, Braff and other staff agreed to leave the "Chronicle" at the end of the spring 2008 semester, and all applicants for the editor positions withdrew their applications.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: Former "Chronicle" staff members came back in fall 2008 with "Quad News", an independent newspaper with only a website and no print edition. Plans were to incorporate "Quad News" as its own business venture run on advertising revenue. "Quad News" immediately faced opposition from the university. Staff members learned in September that university officials had instructed all varsity coaches, staff and athletes not to speak to "Quad News" reporters. Shortly after, officials threatened to shut down the university's chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), claiming that they violated school policy by using their meetings as a cover for "Quad News" meetings. The "Quad News" staff had met at two SPJ meetings, after the university took away the meeting reservation for "Quad News", citing the fact that the organization was not a university-recognized club. "Quad News" promptly stopped their meetings with SPJ. The move prompted a public letter from national SPJ leaders, expressing concern over the university's actions.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: On July 21, 2010, a federal judge ruled that Quinnipiac violated Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by failing to provide equal treatment to women's athletic teams. The judge, Stefan Underhill, determined that Quinnipiac's decision to eliminate the women's volleyball team as well as its attempt to treat cheerleading as a competitive sport and its manipulation of reporting with regard to the numbers of male and female athletes amounted to unlawful discrimination against female students. Underhill ruled that competitive cheerleading was currently too underdeveloped and unorganized and then ordered that the school maintain its volleyball program for the 2010–11 season.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: In January 2015, Deirdre M. Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and Acting Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, announced that the government had reached a settlement with Quinnipiac University to resolve allegations that the university violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by placing a student who had been diagnosed with depression on a mandatory medical leave of absence without first considering options for the student’s continued enrollment.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: This matter stemmed from a complaint from a Quinnipiac University (“Quinnipiac”) student who had been removed from the university after she sought mental health counseling at the university.  The complainant also alleged that, after she had been removed, Quinnipiac had denied her request to refund her tuition.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: Title III of the ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability, including depression, by places of public accommodation.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: The investigation determined that Quinnipiac discriminated against the complainant by placing her on mandatory medical leave because of her depression, and failed to consider modifying its mandatory medical leave policy to permit the complainant to complete her coursework while living off campus by attending classes either online or in person.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: Under the settlement agreement, Quinnipiac had agreed to pay to the complainant $17,000 to compensate her for emotional distress, pain and suffering, and $15,126.42 to pay off the loan she obtained to pay tuition to Quinnipiac.  Quinnipiac also had agreed to implement a policy stating that it will not discriminate against applicants or students on the basis of disability, including persons with mental health disabilities, and to examine what modifications it can make to allow students with mental health disabilities to continue to participate in educational programs and attend their classes while seeking treatment for mental health conditions.  The university also provided training on Title III of the ADA, with a focus on mental health-related disability discrimination, to all staff.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: On May 13, 2022 a group of current and former Quinnipiac University Physician Assistant students and their families sent a letter to the Department of Justice to investigate claims of discrimination. The letter was addressed to the Chief of the Civil Division’s Defensive Unit Michelle McConaghy of the Connecticut US Attorney’s Office. It referenced two articles that were recently published by a student run newspaper, the QU Chronicle, with the following titles: “Former PA student sues Quinnipiac for discrimination against her mental disabilities and Ukrainian nationality” and “Recent lawsuit spotlights mental health unease within Quinnipiac PA program.”


title: Quinnipiac University

text: The group of students cited concerns regarding ADA violations, disparate treatment, retaliation, and breach of contracts within the PA Program. They further mentioned that the administration has been aware of multiple complaints of discrimination but does nothing due to the national ranking and influence of the Program. Included in their claims is the unfair ruling by the PA disciplinary committee, and that students with accommodations are punished harshly, their right to privacy violated, and ultimately dismissed more than the rest of their class.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: In response to the negative publicity, the Dean of School of Health Sciences Janelle Chiasera stated her and Program Chair Tim Ferrarotti “always want to hear from students, whether it’s to share feedback, concerns or ideas on how to enhance their learning experience. Quinnipiac’s PA program is committed to giving all of its students the support they need and delivering a high-quality academic experience and clinical training that will position them to be exemplary PAs and PA leaders upon successful completion of the program,” Chiasera said.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: “The discriminatory treatment, including the culture of mental health stigma created by the PA  faculty, has been a destructive force for these students and their families, penalizing them with  immense student debt and loss of career upon their dismissal. This does not include the  investment of years of preparation in order to be selected for this competitive program and  school. They end up with lasting trauma that worsens their mental health for years to come.  Consequently, students are denied equal opportunity to participate in or benefit from the goods,  services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations provided by the university.”


title: Quinnipiac University

text: Quinnipiac offers 58 undergraduate majors, 20 graduate programs, and a Juris Doctor program. Its Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine admitted 60 students to its first class in 2013. Quinnipiac University is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: In 2021, 72.5% of undergraduate applicants were accepted with matriculated students having an average GPA of 3.47. Quinnipiac is “test optional” for standardized tests for undergraduate applicants, but encourages submitting SAT or ACT scores, or both. For those submitting scores, the average SAT score was 1175 and average ACT score was 26. Test scores are required for Quinnipiac's Accelerated Dual-Degree Bachelor's/JD (3+3) and Dual-Degree BS/MHS in Physician Assistant (4+27 months) programs, or for those that have been homeschooled.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: The university operates several media outlets, including a professionally run commercial radio station, WATX, founded by journalist and Quinnipiac professor Lou Adler. The university also operates a student-run FM radio station WQAQ, which concurrently streams on the Internet. An award-winning student-run television station, Q30 Television, is streamed online. Also, a student-produced newspaper, the "Chronicle", established in 1929, publishes 2,500 copies every Wednesday. Students also run a literary magazine, the "Montage", a yearbook, the "Summit", the Quinnipiac Bobcats Sports Network (an online sports-focused broadcast), and "the Quinnipiac Barnacle" (a parody news organization). Unaffiliated with the school, but run by students, is also an online newspaper, "the Quad News".


title: Quinnipiac University

text: Quinnipiac is home to one of the world's largest collections of art commemorating the Great Irish Famine. The collection is contained in Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum () just off the Mount Carmel Campus.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: In May 2014, Quinnipiac laid off 16 full-time but non-tenured faculty, with 11 of those from the College of Arts and Sciences, with no advance notice of the staff reduction. The cuts followed several years of a "stalled hiring" and a faculty salary freeze. The layoffs were mostly in departments that had experienced reduced enrollment in recent years, and enrollment was expected to be down by 12 percent in the fall 2014 term.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: Quinnipiac is 153rd in the "U.S. News & World Report" 2020 rankings of national universities. For 2021, "U.S. News & World Report" ranked the physician assistant school 15th nationwide, the law school 122nd, the medical school 94–122, and the business school 99–131.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: Zippia name Quinnipiac University as the No. 1 college in the United States for getting a job in 2021.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: Quinnipiac University consists of three campuses: the Mount Carmel campus off of Mount Carmel Avenue in Hamden; the York Hill campus off of Sherman Avenue in Hamden, and the North Haven Campus in North Haven, just north of New Haven, Connecticut.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: The oldest of these campuses is the Mount Carmel Campus, at the foot of Sleeping Giant State Park. The Arnold Bernhard Library, Carl Hansen Student Center, university administration, and many of the student residences are found on this campus.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: The York Hill Campus, located on a hill about a half-mile from the Mount Carmel Campus, began with the development of the People's United Center. In 2010 this was joined by a new student center as well as expanded parking and residence facilities as part of a $300 million expansion of the campus. York Hill is a "green" campus, making use of renewable energy and environmentally friendly resources, including one of the first major wind farms integrated into a university campus.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: For statistical reporting purposes, the Mount Carmel and York Hill campuses were listed together as the Quinnipiac University census-designated place prior to the 2020 census.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: In 2007, Quinnipiac acquired a campus in North Haven, Connecticut, from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, and has been gradually converting it for use by graduate programs at the university.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: Quinnipiac's polling institute receives national recognition for its independent surveys of residents throughout the United States. It conducts public opinion polls on politics and public policy as a public service as well as for academic research.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: The poll has been cited by major news outlets throughout North America and Europe, including "The Washington Post", Fox News, "USA Today", "The New York Times", CNN, and Reuters.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: The polling operation began informally in 1988 in conjunction with a marketing class. It became formal in 1994 when the university hired a "CBS News" analyst to assess the data being gained. It subsequently focused on the Northeastern states, gradually expanding during presidential elections to cover swing states as well. The institute receives funding from the university, with its phone callers generally being work study students or local residents. The polls have been rated highly by FiveThirtyEight for accuracy in predicting primary and general elections. In 2018 Politico called the Quinnipiac poll "the most significant player among a number of schools that have established a national polling footprint."


title: Quinnipiac University

text: The National Panhellenic Conference is an umbrella organization which was created in 1902 for 26 women's sororities. The National Panhellenic Conference at Quinnipiac University serves as an advocate for the sororities involved in the conference with the campus and community. The Panhellenic Conference at Quinnipiac University includes Alpha Chi Omega, Alpha Delta Pi, Kappa Alpha Theta, Phi Sigma Sigma, Kappa Delta, and Chi Omega.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: The Quinnipiac Bobcats, previously the Quinnipiac Braves, comprise the school's athletic teams. They play in NCAA Division I in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, except for the men's and women's ice hockey teams, which are part of ECAC Hockey, and the women's field hockey team, which joined Big East Conference starting with the 2016 season.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: The team with the largest following on campus and in the area is the men's ice hockey team under established coach Rand Pecknold, which has been nationally ranked at times; during the 2009–2010 season they entered the top ten of the national polls for the first time. The team was the number-one nationally ranked hockey program for parts of the 2012–2013 season, reaching the Frozen Four for the first time in the program's history. They advanced to the national championship, ultimately falling to rival Yale.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: The Quinnipiac women's ice hockey program had their most success in the 2009–10 NCAA Division I women's ice hockey season. Quinnipiac University added a women's golf and women's rugby team in the 2010–11 academic year.


title: Quinnipiac University

text: In the late 2000s the men's basketball team gained a greater following under new head coach Tom Moore, a disciple of UConn Huskies men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun. Both men's and women's ice hockey and basketball teams play at the $52 million People's United Center, opened in 2007. The women's lacrosse team has also been quite strong. Men's cross country captured 4 NEC titles in 5 years between 2004 and 2008. The athletics program has been under pressures common to other universities, and at the close of the 2008–2009 academic year, men's golf, men's outdoor track, men's indoor track and women's volleyball were dropped as a cost-cutting measure, although the last of these was restored (as a result of a Title IX suit).


title: GM 4L60-E transmission

text: The 4L60E (and similar 4L65E) is a series of automatic transmissions from General Motors. Designed for longitudinal engine configurations, the series includes 4 forward gears and 1 reverse gear. The 4L60E is the electronically commanded evolution of the Turbo-Hydramatic 700R4, originally produced in 1982.


title: GM 4L60-E transmission

text: The 4L60E and 4L65E are built at Toledo Transmission in Toledo, Ohio and have also been built at Romulus Transmission in Romulus, Michigan and Ramos Arizpe, Mexico.


title: GM 4L60-E transmission

text: The two transmissions cannot be differentiated from the outside. The 4L65E shares the same exterior parts but have stronger internals such as 5 pinion planets compared to 4 in the 4L60E. 4L60E uses a 6.5" depth bell with 6 bolts for non gen 3 LS applications and a 7" depth bell with 7 bolts for LS applications. The 4L65E/70E uses a 7" depth bell and 7 bolts.


title: GM 4L60-E transmission

text: They also have different input shafts and torque converters. 4L60E's uses a 298mm input shaft for non LS and a 300mm input shaft for LS applications. 4L65E/4L70E uses a 300mm input shaft and converter designed for LS applications only.


title: GM 4L60-E transmission

text: The TH700R4 was renamed "4L60" (RPO MD8) following the new General Motors naming convention when the electronic version, 4L60E (RPO M30), was phased in as the 4L60 was being phased out. This happened in 1993 for trucks, vans, and SUVs, and 1994 for rear wheel drive passenger cars. In 1996, a bolt-on bell housing was phased in (along with a six-bolt tailhousing) for S-10 Trucks and S-10 Blazers and beginning in 1998 for all other applications. Beginning in 1998 a new 300mm torque converter with improved higher-capacity internals, 300mm style input shaft, and 300mm style pump was also introduced on models coupled to a Gen III Small Block. The 4L60E is rated to handle up to of torque. It weighs 133 pounds without transmission fluid.


title: GM 4L60-E transmission

text: The 4L60E family of transmissions use 2 shift solenoids, initially called Shift Solenoid A & Shift Solenoid B, later changed to comply with OBD II (On Board Diagnostics revision 2) regulations to 1-2 Shift Solenoid & 2-3 Shift solenoid. By activating and deactivating the solenoids in a predetermined pattern by the PCM, 4 distinct gear ratios can be achieved. The last 4L60Es were only used in the GM Vans in 2013, before being replaced by the 6L80E. The shift solenoid pattern, also sometimes referred to as solenoid firing order, is as follows;


title: GM 4L60-E transmission

text: An updated 4L60E, the 4L65E (RPO M32), was phased in the 2001 model year when coupled behind the 6.0 Vortec. Five-pinion front and rear planetaries, along with an additional 3/4 clutch allowing 7 clutches in the input housing and induction hardened input shaft assembly, were improved to withstand up to of torque.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, known in Japan as just , is a 2004 Japanese animated cyberpunk film written and directed by Mamoru Oshii. The film serves as a standalone sequel to Oshii's 1995 film "Ghost in the Shell" and is loosely based on the manga by Masamune Shirow.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: The film was co-produced by Production I.G and Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Toho and D-Rights, and distributed by Toho. It was released in Japan on March 6, 2004, and was later released in the US on September 17, 2004 by Go Fish Pictures. The film's US box office performance had exceeded Go Fish Pictures' expectation.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: "Innocence" received the 2004 Nihon SF Taisho Award. It was also in competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, making it the first and only anime in history to compete for the Palme d'Or. The soundtrack for the film was released under the name "Innocence O.S.T." and a related novel called "Ghost in the Shell: Innocence - After the Long Goodbye" was released on February 29, 2004.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: The story is loosely based on "Ghost in the Shell" manga chapter ""Robot Rondo"" (with elements of ""Phantom Fund""). Opening in 2032, Public Security Section 9 cybernetic operative Batou is teamed with Togusa, an agent with very few cybernetic upgrades, following the events of "Ghost in the Shell".


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: After a series of deaths due to malfunctioning gynoids—doll-like sex robots—Section 9 is asked to investigate. As the gynoids all malfunctioned without clear cause, the deaths are believed to be premeditated murders; Batou and Togusa are sent to investigate possible terrorist or political motives. Additionally, the most recent gynoid's remains show they all contained an illegal "ghost". Section 9 concludes human sentience is being artificially duplicated onto the dolls illegally, making the robots more lifelike, and possibly acting as a motive in the murders.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: Called to a homicide scene, information warfare/technology specialist Ishikawa explains the victim is Jack Walkson, a consignment officer at gynoid company LOCUS SOLUS, who may have been killed by the Yakuza. A previous Yakuza boss was recently killed by a gynoid, so Ishikawa concludes Walkson was held responsible and killed in an act of revenge. Batou and Togusa enter a Yakuza bar to question the current boss, only to be threatened by the bar occupants. Batou opens fire, killing and wounding numerous gang members, including the cyborg that murdered Walkson. The current boss then admits his predecessor was somehow involved in LOCUS SOLUS, but insists he doesn't know how.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: Entering a store on his way home, Batou is then seemingly warned by the Major and shot in the arm by an unseen assailant. Caught in a firefight, Batou nearly kills the store owner in confusion, but is subdued when Ishikawa appears. While having his damaged arm replaced, Batou is informed by Ishikawa that his e-brain was hacked, causing him to shoot himself and attack the store occupants. Ishikawa explains that Batou was hacked in order to cause further scandal following his Yakuza assault in an attempt to stop the Section 9 investigation.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: Batou and Togusa then head for the mansion of Kim, a soldier-turned-hacker with an obsession with dolls. Seemingly dead, Kim soon reveals he "lives" inside the shell of a human-sized marionette, and discusses philosophy with his visitors. Kim admits ties to LOCUS SOLUS, divulging that the company has secret headquarters in international waters. Warned again by the Major, Batou realizes that Kim has secretly hacked into his and Togusa's e-brains, and is currently trapping them in a false reality. Resetting Togusa's brain, Batou subdues Kim, stating he knows Kim hacked his brain in the store.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: Resolved to gather material evidence, Batou infiltrates the LOCUS SOLUS headquarters ship while Togusa remotely hacks its security systems using an unaware Kim as a proxy. The ship's security becomes aware of the hacking and retaliates with a virus that fries Kim's cyberbrain. Simultaneously, a hidden virus loads a combat program into the production-line gynoids, causing them to attack everyone aboard, easily slaughtering the poorly armed and panicked security force. As Batou fights to the ship's center, the Major then appears by controlling a gynoid remotely, helping Batou fight the gynoids and hack the ship's security.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: Taking control of the ship, the Major reveals to Batou the truth about the gynoids. Hiring the Yakuza to traffic young girls, LOCUS SOLUS duplicated their consciousnesses into the gynoids, giving them human "ghosts" to make them more realistic. Batou rescues a young girl from a "ghost dubbing" machine, and she explains that Jack Walkson, having learned the truth about LOCUS SOLUS, promised to save the girls by tampering with the ghosting process. This caused the gynoids to murder their owners, allowing Walkson to attract police attention and indirectly kill the Yakuza boss. Despite Walkson's actions saving the girls, Batou objects that he also victimized the gynoids as well, causing them severe distress by giving them damaged ghosts. Having solved the case, Batou asks the Major if she's happy now. She responds that she'll always be beside him on the network, then disconnects from the gynoid.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: "Innocence" contains many references to fantasy, philosophy and Zen, and addresses aesthetic and moral questions. For example, the film begins with a quotation from Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's "Tomorrow's Eve" from 1886: "If our Gods and our hopes are nothing but scientific phenomena, then let us admit it must be said that our love is scientific as well." Other numerous quotations in the film come from Buddha, Confucius, Descartes, the Old Testament, Meiji-era critic Saitō Ryokuu, Richard Dawkins, Max Weber, Jacob Grimm, Plato, John Milton, 14th century playwright Zeami Motokiyo, the Tridentine Mass, and Julien Offray de La Mettrie, French Enlightenment philosopher and author of "Man a Machine".


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: The characters and their names contain many allusions to other older works. For example, the "Hadaly" model robots refer to a human-like robot named Hadaly featured in "Tomorrow's Eve", also the book that popularized the word "android." The company LOCUS SOLUS is named for the 1914 novel by Raymond Roussel, which also shares certain thematic elements with the film, such as a mansion containing tableaux vivants. The police forensic specialist, Haraway, is most likely named for Donna Haraway, feminist author of "A Cyborg Manifesto". Haraway's character is likely based on Susan Calvin from Asimov's "Robot" series. The "Robot" series is also referenced in the film's androids as they comply with a modified version of Asimov's Third Law of Robotics.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: Dolls are also an important motif in "Innocence"; many have "spirits" of some sort, but at the same time are not quite human. They are based on the art of Hans Bellmer, a dollmaker famous for his disturbing, erotic ball-jointed female dolls.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: In the 2009 English dub, the murdered consignment inspector is called Jacques Vaucanson. His namesake was a 18th century French inventor who created automata in the image of man and of animals.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: "Innocence" had a production budget of approximately $20 million (approximately 2 billion yen). To raise the sum, Production I.G studio's president, Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, asked Studio Ghibli's president, Toshio Suzuki, to co-produce. Polygon Pictures produced the 3DCG in the film.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: On the origins of the movie, director Mamoru Oshii says he didn't envision it solely as a sequel to "Ghost in the Shell". He said, "I had a dozen ideas, linked to my views on life, my philosophy, that I wanted to include in this film ... I attacked "Innocence" as a technical challenge; I wanted to go beyond typical animation limits, answer personal questions and at the same time appeal to filmgoers." During production, the first decision Oshii made was to not make "Motoko Kusanagi" the main character and instead make it a story about someone searching for her. Oshii chose to make the movie have a different tone and feel from the original.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: Oshii traveled the world in order to find inspirations for the film. Oshii based the appearance on the dolls created by Hans Bellmer he saw at the International Center of Photography in New York. He credited Jean-Luc Godard for the idea of including quotes by other authors: "[The texts] ... give a certain richness to cinema because the visual is not all there is. Thanks to Godard, the spectator can concoct his own interpretation ... The image associated with the text is a unifying act that aims at renewing cinema, that it take to new dimensions."


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: Oshii noted his attention to detail might be particularly Japanese: "I get absorbed in the finer points – like what the back of a bottle label looks like when you see it through the glass [demonstrates with a bottle of mineral water]. That's very Japanese, I suppose. I want people to go back to the film again and again to pick up things they missed the first time." Describing the overall look, the director said, "The film is set in the future, but it's looking at present-day society. And as I said, there's an autobiographical element as well. I'm looking back at some of the things I liked as a child — the 1950s cars and so on. Basically, I wanted to create a different world — not a future world."


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: The dog Gabriel, looking once more like the only "real" being, makes a key appearance, as in many of Oshii's movies. A scene with Batou feeding his dog is echoed in Ash in "Avalon" (2001). He explained the reason why all his films feature a basset hound—his companion in real life: "This body you see before you is an empty shell. The dog represents my body. Human beings can be free only if they free themselves from their bodies. When I am playing around with my dog, I forget that I am a human being, and it's only then that I feel free."


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: I think that Hollywood is relying more and more on 3D imaging like that of "Shrek." The strength behind Japanese animation is based in the designer's pencil. Even if he mixes 2D, 3D, and computer graphics, the foundation is still 2D. Only doing 3D does not interest me.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: On the overall message of the film, the director said "This movie ... concludes that all forms of life – humans, animals and robots – are equal. In this day and age when everything is uncertain, we should all think about what to value in life and how to coexist with others." On his narrative intentions Oshii comments: "I had a bigger budget than for "Ghost in the Shell". I also had more time to prepare it. Yet despite the economic leeway, abundant details and orientations, it was still important to tell an intimate story."


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: In order to better market the film outside Japan, the "Ghost in the Shell 2" moniker was added to the title of the film, with Innocence becoming the subtitle. Some fans saw this as conflicting with Oshii's statements that the film wasn't, in actuality, a standard Hollywood-esque sequel, and was able to, and intended to, stand on its own.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: When Go Fish Pictures released "Innocence," they released it subtitled, without English dubbing, a controversial choice since every "Ghost in the Shell" anime released by Manga Entertainment outside of Japan had been dubbed. Anime News Network announced Manga Entertainment UK's co-production of an English dub with Madman Entertainment, their Australian distributor and longtime partner, and Richard Epcar's (the voice of Batou) Epcar Entertainment studio for the dubbing. This was the first dub Manga UK had produced since "X" in 1999 and the first dub Madman produced. This dub was released in the UK by Manga and in Australia by Madman Entertainment (using the Go Fish Pictures transfer). Bandai Entertainment under license from Paramount and DreamWorks created a second dub for the North American market using most of the voice actors from the Manga/Madman version making some changes to the cast and production team and using Animaze's studio.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: The soundtrack was composed by Kenji Kawai, who also did "Ghost in the Shell" soundtrack. As he expressed in the liner notes, he agreed with Mamoru Oshii that the soundtrack pattern itself somewhat after "would follow the music from the original film." Additionally, Oshii made specific requests for "a huge music box," a "jazzy theme," and a "reprise of the song 'Follow Me'".


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: The music box, heard in the "Doll House" tracks, was procured from Sankyo Shoji. Wanting it to sound as if played in a huge space, Kenji Kawai had the music box recorded in studio, and then played back in the underground quarry of Ohya with four speakers and two subwoofers, where it was recorded with eight microphones.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: The minyoh singers chorus, heard in the "Chants" in the first movie, and in the "Ballade of Puppets" in "Innocence", was expanded to include 75 performers, which proved challenging to record. The session lasted for 14 straight hours.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: "Follow Me" is a reprise of a song originally interpreted by Demis Roussos in 1982. The music is based on Joaquín Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez", with lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer and Hal Shaper.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: A novel by Masaki Yamada called serves as a prequel, taking place just before the film and told from Batou's perspective as he searches for his dog Gabriel (Gabu). It was published by Tokuma Shoten on February 29, 2004, and the English-language version was published by Viz Media in the US in October 2005. Viz media later released a four-volume Ani-manga boxset in April 2005.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 64% of critics have given a positive review based on 99 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The consensus states: "The animation is lovely, but the plot is complex to the point of inscrutability, leaving "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence" both original and numbing." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100 based on 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: The film was praised by Manohla Dargis of the "New York Times", who wrote ""Innocence" doesn't just reveal a wealth of visual enchantments; it restates the case that there can and should be more to feature-length animations than cheap jokes, pathos and pandering." In contrast, criticism rests upon a number of factors, often cited to be overly heavy on philosophical dialogue and thus hard to follow, and its ending has been described as weak and unmeaningful in the arc of character development. Helen McCarthy in "500 Essential Anime Movies" praises the quality script and direction, stating that "it's a challenging film, but it's one of the best anime ever".


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: Honored best sci-fi film at the 2004 Nihon SF Taisho Awards, "Innocence" competed at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, only the sixth animated film to be featured at Cannes ever. Along with "Persepolis," it was the only animated feature to be screened in the official selection, competing for the Palme d'Or that year. (The eventual winner was "Fahrenheit 9/11".)


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: The movie was released on VHS and DVD by Buena Vista Home Entertainment Japan (later Walt Disney Studios Japan) on September 15, 2004. A UMD version was later released in 2005, and an "International Version" DVD was released on September 7, 2005, which contained multi-language subtitles. the movie was released on Blu-ray Disc on December 6, 2006.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: Walt Disney Studios Japan released the 4K remaster of the film on Ultra HD Blu-ray and regular Blu-Ray Disc on June 22, 2018. To tie in with this release alongside the first movie's 4K remaster's Ultra HD release. On the same day, Bandai Namco Arts and Disney teamed up to release an Ultra HD Blu-Ray combo pack containing both movies for a limited time.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: "Innocence" ranked 28th at the US box office earning $317,000 on its opening weekend in September 2004. The film eventually grossed $1 million in US box office, which completely exceeded Go Fish Pictures' profitability target.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: On December 28, 2004, DreamWorks Pictures (parent company of theatrical distributor Go Fish Pictures) released "Innocence" on DVD in the US. Reviews immediately began appearing on Amazon and other websites criticizing the movie's subtitle track: Instead of including the overlay subtitles from the theatrical release, DreamWorks produced the DVD subtitles using closed captioning, resulting in subtitles that intruded on the movie's visual effects. In addition to reading dialogue, audiences saw cues like "Footsteps ..." or "Helicopter approaches ..." After receiving numerous complaints, DreamWorks released a statement saying that unsatisfied customers could exchange their DVDs for properly subtitled ones, postage paid; and that version 4 already had the proper subtitling.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: Bandai Entertainment has released the film on Blu-ray and DVD in the US, with an English dub also featuring the cast used in "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex". Bandai had licensed the film for a short period from Paramount.


title: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

text: Funimation released the film on DVD and on Blu-ray combo-pack on February 7, 2017. The combo pack features the Japanese version and includes the official English audio track and subtitles, along with the special features.