title: Job interview

text: Although it is illegal for employers to ask about applicants’ arrest record during an interview as a deciding factor in applicant hiring decisions, employers do have the right to obtain information about applicants’ criminal convictions before hiring, including during the interview phase. Many companies consider hiring applicants with criminal history a liability. For instance, if a company hired someone with an assault charge and that person later assaulted another employee or vendor, some people would say that the company was liable or legally responsible for not maintaining a safe work environment. Although the legalities are more complex, this potential responsibility an organization may carry often is a reason why many companies conduct criminal background checks. When making hiring decisions that somewhat depend on one's criminal background, employers must consider the following:


title: Job interview

text: Although not much research has been conducted to examine whether applicants should talk about their criminal histories or not, a 2012 study found that employers were more likely to hire someone with a criminal record if the applicant made face-to-face contact with the employer and was prepared and willing to discuss his/her job related knowledge. Applicants also had an increased chance of being hired if they discussed what they learned from their experience in the justice system, as well as how they were rehabilitated, during the interview. This study found that employers preferred applicants that revealed their criminal records upfront and were willing to take responsibility for their actions.


title: Job interview

text: Ban the Box is a campaign to remove the question about criminal history from job applications as an opportunity to give people with criminal histories a reasonable chance in the employment selection process. By allowing applicants to be interviewed before disclosing their criminal histories, this campaign seeks to increase the number of applicants with criminal histories in the workplace. The campaign focuses on how discrimination in the recruiting phase of selection makes it harder for people with criminal convictions to obtain employment. Not having employment makes it harder for people with criminal histories to support their families, and a lack of a job can lead to an increased chance of the person becoming a repeat offender.


title: Job interview

text: Job applicants who are underweight (to the point of emaciation), overweight or obese may face discrimination in the interview. The negative treatment of overweight and obese individuals may stem from beliefs that weight is controllable and those who fail to control their weight are lazy, unmotivated, and lack self-discipline. Underweight individuals may also be subject to appearance-related negative treatment. Underweight, overweight and obese applicants are not protected from discrimination by any current United States laws. However, some individuals who are morbidly obese and whose obesity is due to a physiological disorder may be protected against discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act.


title: Job interview

text: Discrimination against pregnant applicants is illegal under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, which views pregnancy as a temporary disability and requires employers to treat pregnant applicants the same as all other applicants. Yet, discrimination against pregnant applicants continues both in the United States and internationally. Research shows that pregnant applicants compared to non-pregnant applicants are less likely to be recommended for hire. Interviewers appear concerned that pregnant applicants are more likely than non-pregnant applicants to miss work and even quit. Organizations who wish to reduce potential discrimination against pregnant applicants should consider implementing structured interviews, although some theoretical work suggests interviewers may still show biases even in these types of interviews.


title: Job interview

text: Employers are using social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn to obtain additional information about job applicants. While these sites may be useful to verify resume information, profiles with pictures also may reveal much more information about the applicant, including issues pertaining to applicant weight and pregnancy. Some employers are also asking potential job candidates for their social media logins which has alarmed many privacy watch dogs and regulators.


title: Job interview

text: Although this article does discuss some issues of job applicant discrimination, there could be many more types and factors of discrimination in the workplace than noted here. The most common types of discrimination within the workplace are ethnic and gender/sexual orientation discrimination. In an experiment performed in the US by Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, it was noted that job applicants "with white-sounding names got 50 percent more callbacks for interviews than those with African-American-sounding names" This shows that something as simple as a persons name could be the reason they do or do not get a chance to have a job interview.


title: Job interview

text: Another note to add to this article, is the idea of how discrimination within a workplace/job interview can affect a person's health and wellbeing. A person that is looking to find a job, no matter the industry, should not have to worry about whether or not they are a good candidate because of what discrimination might be placed against them. "Perceived discrimination can cause a lot of stress to an individual" which in turn could make it more difficult for a person to get job/job interview.


title: Job interview

text: As with the common comparisons between Eastern and Western cultures, interviews and the constructs assessed by the interview have been found to differ across the world. For example, studies of the United States of America (USA) to Canada have found conflicting results in average levels of agreeableness in each country. People tend to use social comparison when reporting their own level of agreeableness. Even though Canadians are likely to be more agreeable, they might score similarly to those individuals from the USA. In situations where social comparison is a factor, an honest answer could result in under- or over-estimation.


title: Job interview

text: Because of these cultural differences, more businesses are adding cross-cultural training to their HR training. The goal of cross-cultural training is to improve one's ability to adapt and judge people from other cultures. This training is a first step in ensuring the process of using the job interview to decide whom to hire works the same in a selection situation where there are cross-cultural factors.


title: Job interview

text: One cultural difference in the job interview is in the type of questions applicants will expect and not expect to be asked. Interviewers outside the USA often ask about family, marital status and children. These types of questions are usually not allowed by USA job laws but acceptable in other countries. Applicants can be surprised by questions interviewers ask them that are not appropriate or consistent with their own cultures. For example, in Belgium and Russia interviewers are unlikely to ask about an applicant's personal values, opinions and beliefs. Thus, USA interviewers who do ask applicants about their values can make non-USA applicants uneasy or misinterpret the reason they are not prepared.


title: Job interview

text: Another difference is in the consistency with which common constructs, even those that generalize across cultures, predict across different countries and cultures. For example, those who seem high in Agreeableness can do less well on the job in European workplaces. But those high in Agreeableness in the USA or Japan will do better on the job as measured on the same criteria. In some cases the structured Behavior Description Interview (BDI) that predicts who will do well on the job in some countries, from their interview scores, fails to predict accurately which applicants to hire in other countries.


title: Job interview

text: There are a few ways that cross-cultural differences can mess up the results of our attempts to predict job performance. The first source of error is construct bias, the possibility that the construct being measured is viewed differently by those from another culture, if it exists at all. One way this could happen is if the behaviors a person displays, that go with that construct, are viewed differently in different cultures. It could also be the extent to which the construct even exists in their country. For example, the Multidimensional Work Ethic Profile (MWEP), is a scale demonstrated to work across many countries. However, in China the MWEP concept/dimension of Leisure has been shown to have poor equivalence with other countries, and may be a culturally inappropriate assessment due to the Confucian concept of hard work without leisure. Research has shown that differences in the levels of established cross-cultural constructs such as Cultural Tightness-Looseness increase or decrease the effect of the Five Factor Model personality traits. Tight cultures have strong social norms and adherence coupled with low tolerance for behavior that deviates from those norms, and loose cultures are the opposite with weak norms and high tolerance for deviance. An interviewer from a tight culture might view the normal behaviors of a loose cultured interviewee as signs of a poor moral character despite the behavior being normal. As such, differences between the tightness-looseness of the interviewer's and interviewee's home countries can introduce method bias, negatively affecting the interviewer's assessment of interviewee answers and behaviors. First construct bias must be measured by comparing groups of persons from distinct cultures and comparing if any real differences are discovered. Then information on those differences can be used to make the adjustments needed to allow the construct to measure what it is intended to measure in people from a different culture.


title: Job interview

text: Response bias is another cross-cultural difference that has been shown to affect how we measure constructs and interpret the results. Social desirability bias is a tendency to give a socially acceptable answer, even if it is a lie, because we want to look good. Giving socially acceptable, but part or completely false, answers can inflate interview scores. One simple example of socially acceptable answers is called acquiescence bias, which is a tendency to agree with all questions with positive meaning. People also have been found to show different attitudes towards answers on the extreme high and low end of a set of options (extremely agree or extremely disagree). In some cases, people from different cultures may just be unfamiliar with a word (term, concept, context) or with a type of question. Another research study found that self and other reports of conscientiousness failed to relate with expected job behaviors across cultures, demonstrating that one of the most predictive constructs in the USA is tied to aspects of USA culture that may not be present in a different type of culture.


title: Job interview

text: For example, in the West, applicants prefer to eliminate details and focus on the larger issue, tending towards a comprehensive evaluation starting from individual elements then moving towards the whole. In Japan, a respondent would go from the general to the specific in answering, preferring to divide a problem and analyze it piece by piece. Likewise, there are differences between individualist and collectivist cultures in the types of answers they chose. When given a series of options, individualists tend to choose the task-oriented option that involves direct communication with others. Yet collectivists choose the option that sees group harmony and protecting or saving face for others as more important. These differences can introduce method bias when interviewers evaluate or score how the applicant did in the interview. This is why it is important to understand how and why the best answer in one culture is not the best elsewhere. It might even be completely wrong.


title: Job interview

text: There is also item bias introduced by the actual items or questions in an interview. Poor item translation can be a problem. This might be incorrectly translating the same item to another language such as in an organization that hires both English and Spanish speaking employees. Or it might be in someone not understanding the wording of an item because they are not native to that country's language. Similar to construct bias, the wording of an item can result in measuring different traits because of different meanings in the two different cultures.


title: Maria Hill

text: Commander Maria Hill ( ) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. As a former Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., she appears in various storylines which often feature the Avengers or members of that group.


title: Maria Hill

text: Cobie Smulders portrays Maria Hill in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), appearing in the films "The Avengers" (2012), "" (2014), "" (2015), "" (2018), and "" (2019). Additionally, Smulders appears as Hill in the television series "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", "" (2019), voices alternate timeline versions of Hill in the Disney+ animated series "What If...?" (2021), and will star as the character in the television series "Secret Invasion" (2023).


title: Maria Hill

text: Maria Hill first appeared in "The New Avengers" #4 (March 2005), and was created by Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch.


title: Maria Hill

text: Joe Quesada, who was Marvel's editor-in-chief during her first appearance, describes the character thus: "[Hill] is such a strong personality, she's like a force of nature and quite frankly, while perhaps not immediately loved by all involved, she's certainly as strong and imposing a figure as Nick Fury. Right now I feel that people view her as the outsider but [while] I don't think she's any harsher than Fury has ever been, what's different is that we aren't quite clear about her motives."


title: Maria Hill

text: She appeared as a supporting character in the 2010–2013 "Avengers" series, from issue #1 (July 2010) through its final issue, #34 (January 2013), but only appeared sporadically after the first half of its run.


title: Maria Hill

text: Hill, who was born in Chicago, joins the United States armed forces and later becomes an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.


title: Maria Hill

text: The Avengers suspect Hill of being complicit in various crimes, but lack evidence to prove her malfeasance. At the same time, Hill suspects the latest incarnation of the Avengers are harboring an illicit agenda in connection with the "House of M" affair. She abducts Spider-Man and the Vision to question the two about the situation.


title: Maria Hill

text: She earns Iron Man's respect when she ignores the President of the United States's orders to nuke an island while the Avengers are on it.


title: Maria Hill

text: In the 2006–2007 storyline "Civil War", Captain America refuses to assist Commander Hill in preparations to arrest any superheroes who refuse to comply with the Superhuman Registration Act, seeing such activity as politically motivated, but Hill, arguing that Captain America must obey the will of the American people, attempts to arrest Steve Rogers to which Captain America fights out of the Helicarrier and escapes. After the Superhuman Registration Act passes into law, Hill is one of the leading enforcers. She blackmails Wonder Man into actively supporting S.H.I.E.L.D.'s crusade to hunt down the superheroes opposed to the Superhuman Registration Act. She sends Kree supersoldier Noh-Varr, already brainwashed, to capture the Runaways. She directs the Thunderbolts to capture Spider-Man; the two Thunderbolts members sent out, Jester and Jack O'Lantern, are slain by the Punisher. After foiling an attack on Stark Tower, Hill thinks that she does not want her job as director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and thinks she should not have been offered the position in the first place. She suggests that the only other person besides Nick Fury who should lead the organization is Stark himself. At the conclusion, the President appoints Tony Stark as the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D., with Hill (displeased) as acting deputy director.


title: Maria Hill

text: After being made Deputy Director, Maria Hill becomes a core member of the S.H.I.E.L.D. cabinet and assists Stark in dealing with a sudden rise in various terrorist groups who have gained access to hyper-advanced biological weapons. Unlike the rest of the cabinet (including Sal Kennedy whom she loathed personally), Hill remains skeptical of a single conspiracy behind all these attacks. When the Mandarin's neoplastic tumor began infecting the Helicarrier, Hill organizes the evacuation; she (wrongly) believed the infection is the main objective of the attack. Subsequently, however, Hill becomes much more trusting in Stark's leadership, a trusted agent in her role as Deputy Director, and far less bound by conventional process, particularly after a confrontation with Dum Dum Dugan, in which she's forced to confront the fact that she was apparently willing to take actions that would allow innocent people to die while still sticking to "the book" because the alternative was to disobey orders. She eventually risks her career by locking down the United Nations under S.H.I.E.L.D. martial law so Stark can escape a tribunal and track down the Mandarin.


title: Maria Hill

text: During the 2008 "Secret Invasion" storyline, after the Helicarrier is disabled by Skrull invaders, Maria Hill, who is left in charge in Iron Man's absence, confronts a number of extraterrestrial Skrulls, shapeshifters who can assume the appearance of anyone or anything, who are revealed to have replaced Edwin Jarvis and a number of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. The Skrulls execute Hill, but Hill is revealed to be a Life Model Decoy of Hill. Hill then activates the Helicarrier's self-destruct system, killing all the Skrull infiltrators on board, escaping via jet pack.


title: Maria Hill

text: In the aftermath of the Skrull Invasion's failure, during the "Dark Reign" storyline, S.H.I.E.L.D is disbanded by the President, and Hill and Stark lose their jobs, replaced by the newly appointed director Norman Osborn who then reforms the fallen S.H.I.E.L.D. into H.A.M.M.E.R. In the "Iron Man" monthly series, Hill tries to go about having a normal life but Osborn dispatches H.A.M.M.E.R. to arrest her for theft. She joins her former boss as a fugitive after Iron Man stole the Superhuman Registration Database. The night before Tony leaves the two have a sexual tryst. Hill is sent on a mission by Tony to retrieve a hard drive. Hill finds the Controller holed up in the basement of Futurepharm, hooked into a large machine holding many people in containers. She barely manages to escape him, before downloading the data Tony sent her for. The skirmish with the Controller would leave her in a state of paranoia for a while. She then enlists the Black Widow to deliver the data to Captain America, all the while evading H.A.M.M.E.R. agents. However, they are captured when H.A.M.M.E.R. intercepts an e-mail from Stark. They are rescued by Pepper Potts, disguised as Madame Masque.


title: Maria Hill

text: During the 2010 "Siege" storyline, Hill comes to the aid of Thor after Osborn launches an attack on Asgard. Hill becomes a supporting cast member in the Iron Man series, protecting him and his friends from multiple threats. In the 2010 "Heroic Age" storyline, which followed "Siege", Hill is appointed by Captain Steve Rogers to work with a new team of Avengers.


title: Maria Hill

text: Following the apparent death of Fury, she was appointed commander, then acting director, and finally director of S.H.I.E.L.D. following Daisy Johnson's actions that involved the Secret Avengers invading A.I.M. Island.


title: Maria Hill

text: During the "" storyline, Hill and S.H.I.E.L.D. have established Pleasant Hill, a super villain prison designed to resemble a gated community. While working at Pleasant Hill, Maria Hill operates as the Mayor of Pleasant Hills. A training video for the S.H.I.E.L.D. cadets working there showed that she and the S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists have used reality-warping technology derived from the Cosmic Cube called "Kobik" as a demonstration was used where Graviton is turned into a mild-mannered Pleasant Hill chef named Howie Howardson. When Commander Steve Rogers is brought before Maria Hill, he tells her of his knowledge that the Kobik project was not disposed of. Maria Hill presented the inhabitants of Pleasant Hill to Steve Rogers: she mentions that the citizens are reformed supervillains. When Steve Rogers demanded to know where were the fragments of Cosmic Cubes used for Kobik, she directed him to the eerie little girl who was the fragments of the Cosmic Cube that have taken the form of a near-omnipotent child.


title: Maria Hill

text: Following the "Civil War II" storyline, Hill was later seen being kidnapped by Diablo, who attempted to extract the security code clearances for all the active helicarriers and the Triskelion, when she was rescued by Victor Von Doom.


title: Maria Hill

text: Maria Hill is an extremely effective commander, leader, tactician, and military strategist. She is a highly skilled martial artist and hand-to-hand fighter, as well as being a proficient marksman and armed combatant.


title: Maria Hill

text: In the world of the MC2 universe, Maria Hill is a member of the National Security Force. When a government assignment went awry a piece of the Carnage symbiote was released. The Symbiote was stopped by Spider-Girl, the daughter of Spider-Man, as she later reported the success to that world's Nick Fury. She is later seen accusing American Dream of the A-Next, for crimes against the US, as the heroine stumbles upon a government mission.


title: Maria Hill

text: In the Ultimate Marvel universe, Maria Hill is an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent and a homicide detective currently working for the NYPD. She first appears while questioning Miles Morales about the death of Aaron Davis. This investigation led to the discovery that Spider-Man wasn't the killer as the press believed and that Davis had an accidental death when a weapon backfired. She is the one working on the Venom case that involved a home invasion into the Morales house and hurt his father. She notices that Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, Ganke Lee and Miles quickly went into his home. She illegally barges in, but is coy with the kids, only to be thwarted by Gwen's knowledge of law due to her deceased father, and Mary Jane recording her on her tablet. Maria definitely suspects Miles as Spider-Man. Suddenly, there is word that Venom is attacking the hospital where Miles father and mother are at. Maria yells at Miles telling him to save the citizens at the hospital. Miles scales the light post and buildings in front of Maria confirming that he is Spider-Man.


title: Maria Hill

text: In a possible future, a scarred, cyborg Hill is head of the joint Chiefs of Staff under President Kamala Khan. She joins Laura Kinney on an attack on Latveria, where Doctor Doom reigns as the last active supervillain. When the group pass under the energy dome around the city, Maria's cybernetics shut down. Though she is still able to do her part by use of a special bullet hiding a miniaturized Wasp. During a battle against a horde of Doombots, one of the machines fires a laser blast that goes right through Laura and lethally wounds Maria.


title: Maria Hill

text: Maria Hill appears in media set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), portrayed by Cobie Smulders. This version is the deputy director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Nick Fury's close friend and assistant.


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: Four (stylized as all caps) is the fourth studio album by English-Irish boy band One Direction, released on 17 November 2014 by Columbia Records and Syco Music. The album was preceded by two singles, "Steal My Girl" and "Night Changes", both achieving platinum status in the US, and scoring the band their tenth and eleventh UK top-ten hits. The album was also One Direction's last with member Zayn Malik, who announced he was leaving the band on 25 March 2015.


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: The album received generally positive reviews from music critics. It debuted at number one in 18 countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. With "Four", One Direction became the first band to have their first four albums debut at number one in the United States. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), "Four" was the sixth best-selling album of 2014, with 3.2 million copies sold worldwide.


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: On 27 April 2014, it was confirmed that One Direction were working on their fourth studio album. Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne worked on the majority of the album with songwriters Julian Bunetta, John Ryan, and Jamie Scott; Harry Styles and Zayn Malik also co-wrote tracks with Bunetta, Ryan, Scott and producer Johan Carlsson.


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: The name and cover of the album were announced on 8 September on One Direction's official website, along with a free download of a song called "Fireproof", which was available for 24 hours. "Fireproof" was written by Payne and Tomlinson along with John Ryan, Jamie Scott and Julian Bunetta, who also wrote their single "Story of My Life". In the 24-hour span, 1.1 million downloads were generated. The song was uploaded onto the band's Vevo account on 22 September.


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: In an interview with Simon Cowell, it was revealed that one of the songs for the album will be titled "18". The song was written by Ed Sheeran, who also wrote "Little Things" and "Moments" for the group. Horan came up with the name of the album, commemorating the fact that it is the band's fourth album and that it has been four years since their formation.


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: The On the Road Again Tour was announced on the Australian breakfast television program "Today", where the band gave a pre-recorded interview releasing the details of their return to Australia. It was later announced that the band would also be touring Asia and Africa. The group will be making debuts for some countries, particularly in the United Arab Emirates. On 24 October 2014, the official One Direction site announced several more tour dates, with shows across Europe, the US, and Canada.


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: The tour began on 7 February 2015 in Sydney, Australia and ended on 31 October 2015 in Sheffield, England. On 19 March 2015, it was announced that group member Zayn Malik would take a break from the tour due to stress. Malik announced his official departure from the group just six days later. The tour grossed $208 million from 80 shows, selling over 2.3 million tickets.


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: "Steal My Girl" was released as the album's first single on 29 September 2014 worldwide and on 19 October 2014 in the UK. "Night Changes" was then released as the album's second single on 14 November 2014.


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: There were five promotional singles released on five different days; when fans pre-ordered the album, they received an instant download of the songs. "Ready to Run" was released as the first promotional single on 6 November. "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" was released as the second promotional single on 10 November. "18" was released as the third promotional single on 11 November. "Girl Almighty" was released as the fourth promotional single on 12 November. "Fool's Gold" was released as the fifth promotional single on 13 November.


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: "Four" received generally positive reviews from music critics. Some argued that the members' songwriting showed signs of maturity, while others claimed the musical content was too similar to the band's previous work. On Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100, the album received a score of 65, which indicates generally favorable reviews.


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: Neil McCormick of "The Daily Telegraph" found "an unlikely comparison to Bruce Springsteen in the quintet's latest offering", and that "Four" was "hard to dislike: it's cheery, uplifting, high spirited and good fun", but did still say it was "songwriting by numbers". AllMusic's review said it was the group's "fourth well-crafted, packed-with-great-pop-songs album in a row", although did cynically point out the pattern of each of said albums being released just in time for "optimal holiday-season gift-giving". Tshepo Mokoena of "The Guardian" gave the album a more mixed review of three-stars, again drawing comparisons with Springsteen but with the caveat of being "hardly groundbreaking pop", and Jim Faber of the "New York Daily News" also gave three stars and praised the group for "confronting their limitations" but at the same time questioned why whilst doing so they spent "so much time looking back with longing", pointed out an apparent "anxiety" and expressed disappointment that whilst "Four" represents a step forward in their history, it "represents a step back in both sound and sensibility". Andy Gill, writing for "The Independent", commented that the album is "a long way from the standard X Factor fare" while praising the songwriting of Tomlinson and Payne.


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: Kitty Empire, writing for "The Guardian", stated that the album "ups the chords a smidgen further" and that the group's "new direction owes a substantial debt to the big guitar pop of the 80s" while also adding that the group's music is "no longer kids' stuff". Jon Dolan of "Rolling Stone" wrote that "One Direction extend their winning streak, with echoes of the 1970s and 1980s" while also commenting that "the vocal duties are divvied up in ways that highlight the singers’ similarities" and that they "have mastered the ancient boy-band art of whispering directly into listeners’ ears". Jamieson Cox of "Time" wrote that "the album as a whole takes another step towards the stadium-sized rock first suggested by "Midnight Memories" and "their take on the sound is immaculate: arrangements are grand and spacious, with guitar lines glistening and rhythms cavernous and blooming, and the band’s increasingly distinct vocals — allowed to sparkle via the use of harmony more than ever — at the forefront" while commenting that the album sounds similar to "80s arena anthems in the vein of Journey, Bryan Adams, and Bruce Springsteen. Andrew Unterberger of "Spin" praised the album's 80's sound while commenting that the songs are "intoxicating, adrenalizing, and undeniably visceral blasts of old-school pop/rock, furthered by the group’s commitment to patently ridiculous lyrics" while ending the review with "the question of whether they can find a permanent safe haven is less certain — if they pretend to be Bon Jovi for long enough, will we forget that they started out as New Kids on the Block? Probably not, but hell, no boy band has ever made it this far and still managed to sell this much and sound this good".


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: James Reed of the "Boston Globe" commented that the album "is the first one that doesn’t immediately summon memories of "The X Factor" and that although "its mix of driving power pop, muscular harmonies, and acoustic alchemy is as manicured as the group’s previous bestsellers", is also "hints at a broader future for the lads". Mikael Wood of the "Los Angeles Times" said that the album "is their best work yet" while comparing the sound to Fleetwood Mac, The Beach Boys, and David Bowie. Writing with "Vice", Laura Reineke wrote that ""Four" is "a focused, genuinely fun pop-rock album, and a sign of truly promising growth that isn't likely to taper off soon" while adding that "it’s smarter lyrically, warmer emotionally, and considerably more cohesive than any of their three previous studio outings".


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: Less positive reviews came from Chuck Arnold of "Billboard" magazine and James Rainis of Slant Magazine, both awarding just two-and-a-half stars. The former claimed "One Direction aren't ready to let go of their bubble-gum days", whilst Rainis ended his take by saying "the album's irresistibly obvious choruses, hackneyed sentiments, and puppy-eyed earnestness can come off as endearing when the songwriting is clever enough, but every misstep is, despite the band's efforts to assert more control over their music, a painful reminder of One Direction's status as a manufactured, focus-grouped pop entity." Annie Zaleski, writing for "The A.V. Club", wrote that the album lacks "creative urgency" and "is dominated by pastel synth washes and inoffensive whiffs of EDM, as well as midtempo syrupy croons and sonic retreads" while ending her review with "that retreat from distinct personality—something the members possess in spades—is perhaps the most disappointing thing about "Four"." Ed Power of The "Irish Independent" commented that the album "falls short of the radical decoupling from the past such ambitions demand" and that "it's a little rugged around the edges yet at the centre is blandly, tiresomely soppy".


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: The album was placed at number eleven on "Cosmopolitan"s list of "The 20 Best Albums of 2014". Jessica Goodman and Ryan Kistobak of "The Huffington Post" included the album on their list of 2014's best releases, claiming that "2014 will forever be known as the year that we realized One Direction was actually, dare we say, good." Goodman further complimented the album as a "complex, feel-good trip down young love lane". "Billboard" named "Four" the best boy band album of the last thirty years, calling it "the absolute standard-bearer for the last decade of pop".


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: Released on 12 November 2014, the album quickly rose to the top of the UK Albums Chart, with 142,000 copies sold during its first week. The album scored One Direction their third consecutive number one album. Based on UK sales, it was certified Gold by the BPI in its first week, and certified Platinum in its fourth week.


title: Four (One Direction album)

text: The deluxe edition of "Four" became the top charted album on iTunes in some 67 countries. In the US, the album debuted at No. 1 on the "Billboard" 200 chart on the week ending 23 November 2014, with sales of 387,000. One Direction thus became the first musical group to have each of their first four studio albums debut at No. 1; the Monkees and the Kingston Trio also reached No. 1 with their first four albums but not in the first week of sales. One Direction follows three solo artists who have attained No. 1 status with their first four albums: Britney Spears and DMX in 2003, and Beyoncé in 2011. (In 2013, Beyoncé's fifth album also debuted at No. 1.) "Four" sold 814,000 copies in the US in 2014, the ninth best-selling album of the year. The album reached its millionth sales mark in the U.S. in August 2015, and has sold 1,016,000 as of October 2015.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: Angel is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt for the American television programs "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and its spin-off series "Angel". The character is portrayed by actor David Boreanaz. As introduced in "Buffy" in 1997, Angel is a love interest for heroine Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a young woman whose destiny as "the Slayer" is to fight the forces of evil, such as vampires and demons. However, their relationship is complicated by the fact that Angel is himself a vampire cursed with remorse and a human soul, which motivates him to assist Buffy in her duties as Slayer. The character's popularity led to the production of the spin-off "Angel", which follows the character's struggle towards redemption after moving to Los Angeles. In addition to the two television series, the character appears in the comic book continuations of both series, as well as much other expanded universe literature.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: In the character's backstory, he was born Liam in 18th-century Ireland and, after being sired, assumed the name Angelus, achieving infamy as the most sadistic vampire in European history. After angering a Romani clan, he was cursed with his human soul, leading to great personal torment and the decision to resist the evil impulses that come with being a vampire. He later assumes the shortened name Angel, and over the course of "Buffy" and "Angel", he matures into an altruistic champion of mankind, and learns he is a central figure of several prophecies concerning an approaching apocalypse. In later editions of the comic series, Angel adopted the identity of the masked Twilight and gathered a cabal of humans and demons who had become wary of the rise of multiple Slayers.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: "Angel" ended its five-year run in 2004. However, the canonical comic books "" (2007–2009), "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight" (2007–2011) and "Angel & Faith" (2011–2013) depict the character's continued story, in which he is caught up in events of cosmic proportion and must deal with the fallout from enormous mistakes he has made.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: Season two of "Buffy" and season four of "Angel" feature storylines in which, deprived of his soul, he resumes his Angelus persona and torments and kills some of his allies. He has attracted significant interest due to his dichotomous personality in the presence or absence of his soul, and the ways in which his relationship with Buffy conforms to and subverts the tropes of romantic drama and horror fiction.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: Angel's first appearance is in "Welcome to the Hellmouth", the first episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in 1997. In it, he meets the protagonist Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a young girl destined to fight evil in the small town of Sunnydale, California. For the first half of the season, Angel is an enigmatic love interest for Buffy, showing up only to offer her cryptic messages about upcoming threats. It isn't until the episode "Angel" that the character is revealed to be a benevolent vampire from Galway, Ireland, who emigrated to the United States to escape his past as the sadistic Angelus after his soul was restored by a vengeful Romani clan. Although uneasy about trusting a vampire, Buffy and the Scooby Gang eventually come to view Angel as an ally. In the second season (1997–1998), Buffy and Angel's romantic relationship develops and the pair make love in the episode "Surprise". For experiencing a moment of pure happiness, however, the Romani curse on Angel is revoked, unleashing his soulless alter-ego, who reunites with his old friends, vampires Spike (James Marsters) and Drusilla (Juliet Landau), and begins terrorizing Buffy and her friends. Upon discovering Romani descendant Jenny Calendar (Robia LaMorte), who is working to translate the text of a spell to restore Angel's soul, Angelus murders her by breaking her neck, and places her body in the bed of her boyfriend, Giles (Anthony Head), for him to discover. Angelus then attempts to destroy the world by awakening the demon Acathla. In the season finale, neophyte witch Willow (Alyson Hannigan) manages to restore Angel's soul at the last moment, but Buffy is forced to kill him to save the world from Acathla, and Angel is sent to hell. In season three (1998–1999), episode three, "Faith, Hope & Trick", Angel is inexplicably returned from hell by an unknown party and is soon found by Buffy. The Scooby Gang are outraged when they discover that Buffy has been secretly caring for him since his resurrection, but grudgingly accept him after he saves Willow's life in episode seven, "Revelations". In the episode "Amends", the primordial First Evil attempts to manipulate Angel to murder Buffy, but Angel chooses suicide instead by waiting for the sun to rise on Christmas morning. California's heatwave is suddenly interrupted by a freak snowstorm hiding the sun, sparing Angel's life, which he takes as a sign from God that he was brought back for a reason. Buffy and Angel initially attempt to be friends but eventually resume their romance. However, Angel becomes more and more aware of their limitations as a couple and breaks up with her in the hopes that she will be happier without him, leaving Sunnydale altogether after attending Buffy's prom and helping her in the battle against Mayor Wilkins (Harry Groener).


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: After his departure from "Buffy", Angel appeared in his own spin-off series, titled "Angel". Moving to Los Angeles, he starts a supernatural detective agency called Angel Investigations. He dedicates himself to "helping the helpless," and becomes a Champion of The Powers That Be, who send him psychic visions through his employees Doyle (Glenn Quinn), and later Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter). In doing so, he frequently clashes with the powerful law firm Wolfram & Hart, who represent the evil of the world. During this season (1999–2000), Buffy and Angel appear in each other's shows (the "Buffy" episode "Pangs" and the "Angel" episode "I Will Remember You"), but are forced to accept that nothing has changed and they still can't or shouldn't be together. Later in the television season, Buffy crosses over into the episode "Sanctuary" where she attempts to kill rogue Slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku) to whom Angel shows compassion, and Angel appears in "Buffy"'s "The Yoko Factor" where he squares off with Buffy's new boyfriend Riley (Marc Blucas). They finally decide to stay away from each other's business and stick to phone calls at this point. In the season one finale, Angel is given some hope at redemption when the Shanshu prophecy reveals that a vampire with a soul may eventually become human after fulfilling his role in the upcoming apocalypse.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: In season two (2000–2001), Angel discovers that Wolfram & Hart has brought his sire and former lover Darla (Julie Benz) back from the dead in human form. Although Darla is intent on bringing back Angelus, Angel hopes to save her soul and help her seek redemption while she still has a chance. However, just as it looks like he might succeed, Wolfram & Hart bring in Drusilla to turn Darla back into a vampire. Angry at the lawfirm and embracing his darker side, Angel fires his employees, Cordelia, Wesley (Alexis Denisof) and Gunn (J. August Richards) (secretly to protect them from this dark territory, as he later revealed to Lorne (Andy Hallett)), and embarks on a vendetta against Wolfram & Hart, even allowing Darla and Dru to massacre a group of lawyers. Eventually losing faith in his mission, Angel has sex with Darla in the hopes of losing his soul. Instead, he experiences an epiphany and realizes that the good fight is still worth fighting. A disgusted Darla flees L.A. and Angel reconciles with his friends, who eventually forgive him. Angel also appears in "Buffy" season five's "Forever", comforting Buffy after her mother's death.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: Season three (2001–2002) sees Angel struggle with fatherhood when Darla returns pregnant with his child, despite the fact that vampires supposedly are unable to conceive. When Darla kills herself to give birth, Angel is left to raise the baby Connor (played by triplets Connor, Jake and Trenton Tupen) and protect him from those who wish to get their hands on a child of two vampires. False prophecies, time travel, and betrayal lead to Angel losing his infant son to an old enemy, Holtz (Keith Szarabajka), who abducts Connor into a hell dimension where time passes differently. Connor (Vincent Kartheiser) returns days later, fully grown and under the belief that Angel is a soulless monster. Holtz kills himself and Angel is framed for his death by Holtz's lover, prompting Connor to take revenge by sinking his father to the bottom of the ocean. Over the course of this season, Angel's friendship with his colleague Cordelia evolves into romance, but circumstances prevent him from ever confessing his feelings.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: In "Angel"'s fourth season (2002–2003), Angel is rescued from the ocean by his former friend Wesley. As Los Angeles crumbles under signs of the apocalypse, Angel is forced to cope with the romantic relationship between his son and Cordelia. In order to find out more about the Beast (Vladimir Kulich) terrorizing L.A., Angel Investigations remove Angel's soul and bring back Angelus after a vision from Cordelia suggests that Angelus has history with the Beast that Angel does not remember. Angelus, however, manages to escape, kills the Beast for fun and wreaks havoc until an old friend, Willow, manages to return his soul for the second time. It is eventually revealed that Cordelia has been possessed by the Beast's master, Jasmine (Gina Torres), a higher power who manipulated many events in Angel's life in order to be born in this world. Once born, she puts humanity under her thrall in the hopes of achieving world peace. When Angel restores free will and ruins Jasmine's plan, Wolfram & Hart offer him control of their L.A. branch as a reward for putting a stop to world peace. Angel accepts when they agree to rewrite Connor's memories of growing up in hell, allowing him to live a normal life with a new family. Afterwards, Angel appears in the penultimate and final episodes of "Buffy", presenting Buffy with an amulet, which is given to Spike, to help her battle the First Evil.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: In the final season of "Angel" (2003–2004), the character has made a deal with the Devil to become CEO of Wolfram & Hart's Los Angeles office. All of his friends have also become W&H employees, hoping to reform the organization from within under Angel's supervision. Angel's life this season is complicated by the increasingly blurred line between good and evil, the deaths of loved ones Cordelia and Fred (Amy Acker), and the possibility that the Shanshu prophecy may in fact be referring to Spike (who is now also a vampire with a soul and has joined the team) and not Angel. Allowing his friends to believe he is being corrupted, Angel secretly plots to bring down the Senior Partners of Wolfram & Hart by assassinating the Circle of the Black Thorn, the Partners' primary agents on Earth, even signing away his prophesied humanity in the process to convince them of his complex deception. Realizing that he may never be able to fully stop the forces of evil, Angel and his friends enter into a suicidal battle against the armies of the Senior Partners, and the series ends with the question of their survival unanswered.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: Between 2001 and 2004, Joss Whedon and Jeph Loeb developed a 4-minute pilot episode for "Buffy the Animated Series", which was set during the show's first season. Had the series been picked up by a network, it would have featured Angel (voiced by David Boreanaz) in more adventures set during "Buffy"'s first season. Following a 2008 leak of the pilot to YouTube, Loeb expressed some hope that the series may be resurrected in some form.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: In 2007, Angel began appearing in two canonical continuations of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" from Joss Whedon. The first of these was "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight", published by Dark Horse Comics, which continued the story of the "Buffy" television series. Later that year, Whedon and IDW Publishing released the series "", which continued on from the series finale of "Angel". The two series were published by different publishers due to Dark Horse initially giving up the rights to licensed "Angel" comic books several years ago when the series was still on air.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: In Dark Horse's "Buffy" continuation, Angel initially appears to feature in Buffy's dream sequences (in the comic's third and twentieth issues, as well as in the "Dark Horse Presents" special "Season Eight" comic "Always Darkest"), but is later revealed to have been in the series from the beginning. He then features substantially in the remainder of the series. Angel features as the central character in IDW's "After the Fall", however, which has no crossover with the events of "Buffy". Whedon devised the storyline for "After the Fall" issues 1-17 with writer Brian Lynch, but did not write for the series himself as with "Buffy". Beginning with the eighteenth issue of the series, IDW chose to continue telling "Angel" stories in an ongoing comic book with rotating writers and artists, although these stories "did not come from Whedon himself". In the continued series without Whedon's involvement, Angel engages in episodic adventures, while the series also takes breaks to focus on other characters. Subsequent writers included Bill Willingham. When rights to "Angel" settings and characters reverted to Dark Horse, IDW promised to end their ongoing "Angel" series with its forty-fourth issue in 2011, and began negotiating with Dark Horse so that it would bridge continuity with "Season Eight" and the upcoming "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine". Its final "Angel" story is the hardcover send-off "Angel Yearbook". During its tenure, IDW also published various miniseries depicting Angel and related characters, such as John Byrne's "Angel: Blood and Trenches" (2009), and several "Illyria" and "Spike" stories.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: In "After the Fall", set after the fifth season, Angel and his friends struggle as Los Angeles has been moved to a hell dimension by the Senior Partners who have also turned Angel human as a punishment. With the help of Wesley's ghost, magical spells to simulate his old abilities, and a friendly dragon (seen in "Not Fade Away") which he names after Cordelia, Angel continues helping the helpless. Angel eventually outsmarts and kills the Demon Lords of Los Angeles to win the city back for its people. Gunn, now a vampire out for revenge against Angel following the fight in the alley, confronts Angel, and brings him to the point of death. Cordelia's spirit comes to convince Angel to keep fighting, in spite of a vision of the "final battle" which sees Angel responsible for countless deaths. Wesley also confirms that Angel is still viable for the Shanshu prophecy, because his signed contract was never filed. Angel's body is subsequently taken by the Senior Partners and restored to health while Gunn successfully manages to restore the demon Illyria (introduced in season five) to her true form, hoping she will restore time to before the Fall of Los Angeles only to embark on a destructive rampage instead. Gunn kills Connor, but rather than avenge the death Angel allows Gunn to kill him, forcing the Senior Partners to restore time back to before the Fall, as he is necessary to their plans. Restored to the fight in the alley with memories intact, Angel saves Gunn this time and later is happily reunited with Connor. Angel enjoys celebrity status from the citizens of Los Angeles, and gives Cordelia the dragon over to Groosalugg. As a mark of respect for his friends, he names a wing of the Los Angeles public library after Wesley and Fred; Wesley is no longer a ghost. Angel leaves the human, traumatised Gunn an Angel Investigations card and returns to his duties helping the hopeless.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: In "Season Eight", Twilight appears in the premiere issue, written by Whedon; his shoes are seen floating in the air as he surveys Buffy. At the end of the arc, the military general who coordinated a large-scale attack on Buffy is revealed to be a follower of "Twilight"; later issues show that many of the anti-Slayer forces serve under the leadership of a masked person known as Twilight. Buffy herself finally confronts Twilight in "A Beautiful Sunset", along with the Slayer Satsu, but Twilight's superior strength and ability to fly ensures his easy victory. In Jane Espenson's story arc "Retreat", Twilight locates Buffy's allies through their use of magic, forcing them to converge and retreat. In Tibet, Slayers and witches suppress their magic, which ultimately leads to a mutually destructive military conflict between the Slayers and Twilight's forces. In its aftermath, however, Buffy mysteriously acquires abilities conspicuously similar to Twilight's. In the penultimate arc, written by Brad Meltzer, the newly empowered Buffy faces up to her masked enemy again. Twilight reveals himself to be Angel, and claims to have been distracting the various groups that would seek to destroy Buffy while pushing her towards some other end. Buffy and Angel — destiny's agents in discarding the old reality and ushering in a new one — are overcome with desire for one another. They kiss, have sex and fly through space, eventually ascending to a dimension called Twilight. Meanwhile, Giles exposits a prophecy pertaining to the creation of a new universe, brought about by a Slayer falling in love with a vampire. The two come to their senses and return to Earth to fight off the hordes of demons unleashed by their ascension. Espenson's "Riley" one-shot flashes back to an uneasy Angel, early in his Twilight masquerade, convinced by Whistler (Angel's mentor in flashbacks from "Buffy" season two) that this course of actions leads to the only possible future in which Buffy survives. The final arc, "Last Gleaming", depicts Angel's first encounter with the higher power which bestowed Twilight's superheroic abilities on him. Spike explains the next step in the prophecy, which concerns the new universe springing from the mystical Seed of Wonder, a source for all the magic in the universe, buried beneath Sunnydale. Although he tries to stop more of the damage caused by the Twilight dimension's coming, the Twilight dimension (the aforementioned higher power) possesses Angel. To protect the seed, a possessed Angel then tries to kill Buffy and Spike, and goes so far as to snap Giles' neck. This prompts Buffy to destroy the Seed. This stops the Twilight dimension from destroying the existing world, and Angel is dispossessed, but the universe is also stripped of all magic.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: Following on from this, Angel headlines the series "Angel and Faith", primarily set in London. Its stories aim to be respectful to the storylines featured in IDW's forty-four issue "Angel" run, and maintains a very tight continuity with "Buffy Season Nine" and other related comics. In his series, Angel faces the looming threat of his now unstable former mentor Whistler, who helped bring about his transformation into Twilight, as well as his two dangerous former acolytes, half-demons Pearl and Nash, in addition a group of British Slayers who cannot forgive his actions as Twilight. Along with Faith, he lives in Giles' London apartment where they are joined by Giles' ageless aunts, witches Lavinia and Sophronia. Angel intends to honor Giles' memory, and seeks to collect fragments of Giles' soul from magical items as part of a plan to resurrect him. In the series' conclusion, Giles is successfully resurrected, albeit as a young teenage boy, and the gang pursue Whistler, Pearl and Nash to a rooftop, where they plan to unleash a horrific magical plague on the world as an inelegant means to restore magic to the universe. Nash is killed, and Angel is able to persuade Whistler to see the error of his ways, successfully limiting to the extent of the plague to an area of Hackney in London. In the season's denouement, Faith returns to America alongside Giles, while Angel remains behind to guard over the plagued neighborhood, now called Magic Town, where residents—magically mutated into all manner of creature—are already causing problems.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: A second volume of the series launched alongside "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten" in 2014. Angel defends Magic Town against threats such as Amy Madison during Faith's absence, and acquires several new allies: Eldre Koh, an ancient Nitobe demon freed from his prison by the end of magic; Detective Brandt; Rory, a magically-mutated bartender; and the mutant Tricia and her boyfriend Parker. Angel is also aided by Sophronia and Lavinia, as well as Nadira, a Slayer who hated him for his actions as Twilight but found inner peace after being mutated, and has a deep connection with the magic of Magic Town, which has become sentient. Following Illyria's death in "Buffy Season Nine", Angel finds Fred alive again, having been restored by the reset of the laws of magic; she is forced to share her body with Illyria but is able to keep the ancient demon mostly under control. Faith also returns, now working for Zane Pharmaceuticals. A crossover with "Buffy Season Ten" reveals a new demon villain: Archaeus, who sired the Master and is able to control all the vampires from that bloodline, including Angel, Spike and Drusilla. Angel travels to San Francisco to help Buffy combat the demon lord, discovering that Buffy and Spike are now in a relationship, which Angel believes will not last. Meanwhile, Faith and Fred discover Drusilla in Magic Town, building a vampire army for Archaeus, who follows Angel back to London. The season ends with a conflict between Archaeus and his vampire army (including Drusilla and Detective Brandt), and Angel and his makeshift 'family' (Faith, Fred/Illyria, Koh, Nadira, Sophronia and Lavinia, and the Magic Town populace). Observing the battle, the sentient magic is almost convinced to join Archaeus, but ultimately defends Nadira from him and traps Archaeus inside a statue.


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: "SFX" magazine named Angel as the third greatest vampire in television and film, with rival Spike in first place. They stated that, while he could have worked simply as a brooding love-interest ("Buffy") or redemption-seeking hero ("Angel"), the character also has a "wonderfully appealing, self-effacing humour, helped no end by Boreanaz's ability to look like a slapped puppy". While Angel could be "big and hard and manly", he could also be "sulky, pathetic, in need of a hug". They also cite his poor singing and dancing as examples of his "amusing awkwardness", which "spoke volumes about who he was". For his role in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Season Two, "Whatculture" placed Angelus at Number One on their list of "Buffy" Big Bads, alongside Spike and Drusilla, stating that having Buffy's lover become her enemy "emphasiz[es] the tragedy at the show’s centre that Buffy’s Slayer responsibilities mean she has to make difficult choices."


title: Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

text: Angel was voted by thousands of "Hello!" readers as the sexiest on-screen vampire in 2009. He gathered 34 percent of the vote and finished ahead of other popular vampires like Edward Cullen, Eric Northman, Lestat de Lioncourt and Spike. "Forbes" named the series "Angel" as Hollywood's second most powerful vampire show. Rankings were based on television ratings, inflation-adjusted box office performance, as well as presence in popular culture through blog and press mentions since 1979.


title: Tim Schafer

text: Timothy John Schafer (born July 26, 1967) is an American video game designer. He founded Double Fine Productions in July 2000, after having spent over a decade at LucasArts. Schafer is best known as the designer of critically acclaimed games "Full Throttle", "Grim Fandango", "Psychonauts", "Brütal Legend" and "Broken Age", co-designer of "Day of the Tentacle", and assistant designer on "The Secret of Monkey Island" and "". He is well known in the video game industry for his storytelling and comedic writing style, and has been given both a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Game Developers Choice Awards, and a BAFTA Fellowship for his contributions to the industry.


title: Tim Schafer

text: Tim Schafer was born on July 26, 1967 in Sonoma, California, the youngest of five children. His father was a doctor and his mother was a nurse. While studying computer science at UC Berkeley, Schafer became interested in writing, and took inspiration from Kurt Vonnegut, who while a publicist at General Electric wrote short stories in the evenings. Schafer opted for a similar course, interning to help develop databases for small companies while trying to position himself for an opening in a larger corporation such as Atari and Hewlett-Packard, but he was rejected by these. He saw an offering at Lucasfilm Games, looking for programmers who could also write game dialog, which piqued his interest. During his application process for the job, he had a somewhat disastrous phone interview with David Fox in which he mentioned being a fan of "Ballblaster". Fox informed him that the Lucasfilm Games title was "Ballblazer", and that only the pirated version was known as "Ballblaster", but despite the misstep, Fox asked Schafer to submit his resume for further consideration. To make up for the phone interview, Schafer sent in a comic of himself applying for and getting the job at Lucasfilm Games, drawn as a text adventure.


title: Tim Schafer

text: Schafer was hired by LucasArts in 1989, and his first position was as a "scummlet", a programmer who helped to implement features and ideas proposed by the lead game developers within the LucasArts SCUMM engine. He, alongside Dave Grossman, helped to playtest "" and implement the NES version of "Maniac Mansion". Schafer and Grossman, along with two others, were taught by Ron Gilbert as part of a "SCUMM University" on how to use the engine to set up rooms and puzzles. Later, Gilbert approached Schafer and Grossman, offering them the chance to work on his new project, which would ultimately become the pirate-themed adventure game "The Secret of Monkey Island".


title: Tim Schafer

text: According to series creator Gilbert, Schafer and Grossman were responsible for about two thirds of the game's dialogue. "The Secret of Monkey Island" became one of the most acclaimed games of its kind. The same team created the sequel, "".


title: Tim Schafer

text: In his first lead role on a game project, Schafer co-designed (with Dave Grossman) "Day of the Tentacle", a time-travel comedy adventure and the sequel to Ron Gilbert's "Maniac Mansion". Schafer's first solo project, the biker adventure "Full Throttle", was released in 1995. He went on to design the highly acclaimed "Grim Fandango", a noir adventure game set in the Aztec afterlife featuring characters similar to the papier-mâché skeleton decorations from the Mexican holiday Dia De Los Muertos. "Grim Fandango" won many awards, including GameSpot's Game of the Year award of 1998.


title: Tim Schafer

text: Schafer worked on an unannounced PlayStation 2 action-adventure game at LucasArts, but it never entered production. Prior to his departure, a number of other developers were leaving LucasArts as the studio shifted away from adventure games. Schafer was approached by his colleagues with the idea of leaving the company to develop PlayStation 2 games on their own; Schafer was initially wary of this believing he felt secure in his position at LucasArts. He left the company in January 2000, to found Double Fine Productions, where he created the platform game "Psychonauts". The game was first released on Xbox in North America on April 19, 2005. While the game was met with critical acclaim, including a Game of the Year award from Eurogamer, it sold poorly at its initial release and led to financial troubles for its publisher Majesco Entertainment. Double Fine reacquired full rights to "Psychonauts" by 2012, allowing them to release the game with improvements for modern systems, and in that year, Schafer stated that "We made more on "Psychonauts" [in 2012] than we ever have before."


title: Tim Schafer

text: On March 7, 2007, he hosted the annual Game Developers Choice Awards. He later hosted it again in 2009. To coincide, Double Fine released a free Flash minigame entitled "Host Master and the Conquest of Humor", a pastiche of Schafer's LucasArts games in which the player takes on the role of Schafer backstage at the GDC Awards.


title: Tim Schafer

text: Schafer led the development of Double Fine's next game, "Brütal Legend", released on October 13, 2009, after a tortuous development route due to having its original publisher Vivendi Games drop the title following its merge with Activision in 2008 to be picked up later by Electronic Arts. The game was Schafer's tribute to the music and art of heavy metal and featured voice acting from actor/musician Jack Black and cameos from rock musicians including Lemmy Kilmister, Rob Halford, Ozzy Osbourne and Lita Ford. Schafer said "For "Brütal Legend", I've always seen this overlap between medieval warfare and heavy metal. You see heavy metal singers and they'll have like a brace around their arm and they'll be singing about Orcs. So let's just make a world where that all happens. That all gets put together, the heavy metal, and the rock, and the battling, actually does happen. Let's not flirt around with this; let's just do it."


title: Tim Schafer

text: During "Brütal Legend" development, Schafer had Double Fine's staff take two weeks away from the game's development to participate in Amnesia Fortnights once a year starting in 2007. This was an internal game jam where the company was split into four teams to make a pitchable game prototype, an idea he compared to what film director Wong Kar-Wai had used previously. After "Brütal Legend" release, the game had generally positive reviews but did not perform as well as expected, and Electronic Arts cancelled the preliminary work Double Fine had started on the sequel. To keep Double Fine above water financially, Schafer went back to the past Amnesia Fortnight projects and selected games they could reasonably expand into full releases. From these, four smaller games were picked up by publishers, and were the first games in Double Fine's history to have project leaders other than Schafer: "Costume Quest", "Stacking", "Iron Brigade" and "". The titles helped to keep Double Fine financially stable, and Schafer has continued to implement the Amnesia Fortnight as a yearly process; most of the games that result from these are led by someone other than Schafer.


title: Tim Schafer

text: On February 1, 2012, Schafer returned to the role of director in the Kinect-based "Double Fine Happy Action Theater", a game concept he devised based on "Once Upon a Monster" to be able to play a game with his two-year-old daughter that she would be able to enjoy as well.


title: Tim Schafer

text: In February 2012, Schafer launched a crowdfunded project for an unnamed adventure game via the crowd-sourced Kickstarter, using the placeholder title "Double Fine Adventure"; Schafer stated that he had found publishers extremely wary of an adventure in the current video game industry, and decided to turn to crowdfunding to seek player interest. The game and accompanying documentary were projected to cost . Contributions exceeded that amount by more than three times in less than 24 hours, making it the first Kickstarter project to reach a $2 million figure, and the second most successful project on the website at the time. When the project ended on March 13, funding reached a level of $3,336,371 in Kickstarter with an additional $110,000 from premium pledges. Ultimately, the project culminated in "Broken Age", released in two acts over 2014 and 2015.


title: Tim Schafer

text: Schafer and Double Fine had been able to negotiate with The Walt Disney Company, who acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, to obtain the rights to three of the titles that Schafer had directed there: "Day of the Tentacle", "Full Throttle", and "Grim Fandango", by 2014. Double Fine subsequently released remastered versions of all three games over the following years.


title: Tim Schafer

text: Schafer stood in support of Anita Sarkeesian and other game developers that were being harassed by online supporters of the Gamergate controversy that started in August 2014. Schafer had hosted the 2015 Game Developer’s Choice Awards on March 5; during the event one of his jokes referenced the #NotYourShield tag that came out of the Gamergate controversy; while Gamergate supporters claimed #NotYourShield was used to demonstrate women and minorities supported their cause in the controversy, Schafer's remarks implied that the tag's use was largely composed of sockpuppets (mirroring the larger media's assessment). Following the event, Gamergate supporters targeted Schafer with criticism, claiming he had been making a joke that mocked minorities. Gamergate supporters also criticized Schafer claiming he had mishandled the funds of the "Broken Age" Kickstarter, following Schafer's decision to expand the scope of the game and seek more funding for that larger scope by offering the game's first half on early access. Since then, these coupled incidents have caused Schafer to continue to be a target of ridicule from some GamerGate supporters.


title: Tim Schafer

text: Schafer joined with other industry leaders with crowdfunding experience to help create the crowdfunding platform Fig in August 2015. Schafer currently sits on its advisory board to help curate which projects will be supported, and said that all future Double Fine projects will use Fig for funding. Through Fig, Schafer announced the sequel "Psychonauts 2" in December 2015.


title: Tim Schafer

text: In June 2019, Microsoft announced that it had acquired Double Fine as part of Xbox Game Studios. Schafer stated that while he had not been looking to be acquired, he found the opportunity in his talks with Microsoft to be promising; the acquisition would not affect Double Fine's independence and would still allow the company to publish its pending titles on its own choice of platforms, and would provide the financial security needed for Double Fine to be able to concentrate on developing a quality product. Through this support, Double Fine was able to retain several gameplay elements within "Psychonauts 2", which was eventually released on August 25, 2021 to critical praise.


title: Tim Schafer

text: In an interview at the Game Developers Conference in 2003, Schafer stated that he strives for integrating story into the gameplay, setting a creative goal of someday creating a video game without any cutscenes at all. Furthermore, he said he often sets a story in an established world:


title: Tim Schafer

text: "[O]ften, the world is the initial inspiration for the game. One day I was listening to someone tell me their stories of spending the summer in Alaska. They had hung around this one biker bar, with these people with names like Smilin' Rick and Big Phil. And I thought, 'Wow, what a crazy world that is.' It's so apart from everybody's life, and yet it's right there, it's so mundane in a way. And that's where Full Throttle came from."


title: Tim Schafer

text: The press first previewed "Psychonauts" at the E3 trade show in 2002, where it won the Game Critics Award for Best Original Game.


title: Tim Schafer

text: An hour-long episode of "Icons" on the G4 Network documented the last week of the production of "Psychonauts" and explored Schafer's career. At the 2006 Game Developers Choice Awards, Schafer and Erik Wolpaw won the award for Best Writing for "Psychonauts". Schafer and Double Fine Executive Producer & COO Caroline Esmurdoc also won the award for Best New Studio. In October 2006, Schafer received a BAFTA video game Best Screenplay award for "Psychonauts". In 2012, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) organized the "Game Masters" exhibition, where Schafer was featured as the creator of "Grim Fandango", among a few other visionary designers, credited for having "pushed the boundaries of game design and storytelling, introducing new genres, creating our best-loved characters and revolutionising the way we understand and play games" In 2015, he won the Vanguard Award at Bilbao's Fun & Serious Game Festival. Schafer received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Game Developers Choice Awards in March 2018. He received a BAFTA Fellowship as "a true pioneer of game design, who has pushed the boundaries of the medium through his extraordinary talents" at the British Academy Games Awards in April 2018.


title: President of Syria

text: The president of Syria, officially the president of the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: رئيس سوريا) is the head of state of the Syrian Arab Republic. They are vested with sweeping powers that may be delegated, at their sole discretion, to their vice presidents. They appoint and dismiss the prime minister and other members of the Council of Ministers (the cabinet) and military officers. Bashar al-Assad is the 19th and current president of Syria. Bashar Al-Assad is the son of former president, Hafez al-Assad, who was the longest-serving president serving 29 years. Al-Assad is currently the second longest-serving president marking the 22nd year of his presidency in 2022 when he entered the post on 17 July 2000.


title: President of Syria

text: Article 88 of the 2012 constitution states that the president serves a seven year term and "can be elected for only one more successive term." Article 155 states that Article 88 applies to the president "as of the next presidential elections."


title: President of Syria

text: On 31 January 1973, Hafez al-Assad implemented a new constitution, which led to a national crisis. Unlike previous constitutions, this one did not require that the president of Syria must be a Muslim, leading to fierce demonstrations in Hama, Homs and Aleppo organized by the Muslim Brotherhood and the "ulama". They labeled Assad as the "enemy of God" and called for a "jihad" against his rule. Robert D. Kaplan has compared Assad's coming to power to "an untouchable becoming maharajah in India or a Jew becoming tsar in Russia—an unprecedented development shocking to the Sunni majority population which had monopolized power for so many centuries." The main objection to the constitution from demonstrators was that Islam was not specified as the state religion. In response to riots, the Syrian Constitution of 1973 was amended to stipulate that Islam was the religion of the president.


title: President of Syria

text: A new constitution was approved in February 2012. Article 84 of Syria's 2012 constitution requires that candidates for the presidency must:


title: The Three Faces of Eve

text: The Three Faces of Eve is a 1957 American film noir mystery drama film presented in CinemaScope, based on the book of the same name about the life of Chris Costner Sizemore, which was written by psychiatrists Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley, who also helped write the screenplay. Sizemore, also known as Eve White, was a woman they suggested might have dissociative identity disorder (then known as multiple personality disorder). Sizemore's identity was concealed in interviews about this film and was not revealed to the public until 1977. The film was directed by Nunnally Johnson.


title: The Three Faces of Eve

text: Joanne Woodward won the Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the first actress to win an Oscar for portraying three personalities (Eve White, Eve Black, and Jane). "The Three Faces of Eve" also became the first film since 1936—when Bette Davis won for "Dangerous" (1935)—to win the Best Actress award without getting nominated in another category.


title: The Three Faces of Eve

text: In 1951, Eve White is a timid, self-effacing wife and mother who has severe and blinding headaches and occasional blackouts. Eve eventually goes to see psychiatrist Dr. Luther, and while having a conversation, a "new personality", the wild, fun-loving Eve Black, emerges. Eve Black knows everything about Eve White, but Eve White is unaware of Eve Black.


title: The Three Faces of Eve

text: Eve White is sent to a hospital for observation after Eve Black is found strangling Eve White's daughter, Bonnie. When Eve White is released, her husband Ralph finds a job in another state and leaves her in a boarding house, while Bonnie stays with Eve's parents. When Ralph returns, he tells her that he doesn't believe she has multiple personalities and tries to take her to Jacksonville, Florida, with him but she feels she isn't well enough to leave, and, afraid Eve Black will try to harm Bonnie again, refuses to go. Eve Black confronts Ralph at his motel, where he realizes Eve Black is real, but allows her to convince him to take her to Jacksonville. When Eve Black goes out dancing with another man, Ralph slaps her when she returns and ends up divorcing Eve White.


title: The Three Faces of Eve

text: Dr. Luther considers both Eve White and Eve Black to be incomplete and inadequate personalities. The film depicts Dr. Luther's attempts to understand and deal with these two faces of Eve. Under hypnosis at one session, a third personality emerges, the relatively stable Jane. Dr. Luther eventually prompts her to remember a traumatic event in Eve's childhood. Her grandmother had died when she was six, and according to family custom, relatives were supposed to kiss the dead person at the viewing, making it easier for them to let go. While Eve screams, her mother forces her to kiss the corpse. Apparently, Eve's terror led to the creation of different personalities.


title: The Three Faces of Eve

text: After discovering the trauma, Jane remembers her entire past. When Dr. Luther asks to speak with Eve White and Eve Black, Jane says they are gone. Jane marries a man named Earl whom she met when she was Jane and reunites with her daughter Bonnie.


title: The Three Faces of Eve

text: The book by Thigpen and Cleckley was rushed into publication, and the film rights were immediately sold to director Nunnally Johnson in 1957, apparently to capitalize on public interest in multiple personalities following the publication of Shirley Jackson's 1954 novel "The Bird's Nest," which was also made into a film in 1957 titled "Lizzie".


title: The Three Faces of Eve

text: Chris Costner Sizemore has written at some length about her experiences as the real "Eve". In her 1958 book "The Final Face of Eve", she used the pseudonym Evelyn Lancaster. In her 1977 book "I'm Eve", she revealed her true identity. She also wrote a follow-up book, "A Mind of My Own" (1989).


title: The Three Faces of Eve

text: Critics uniformly praised Joanne Woodward's performance, but opinions of other aspects of the film were more mixed. Bosley Crowther of "The New York Times" wrote that Woodward played her part "with superlative flexibility and emotional power", but that "when you come right down to it, this is simply a melodramatic exercise—an exhibition of psychiatric hocus-pocus, without any indication of how or why. It makes for a fairly fetching mystery, although it is too verbose and too long." "Variety" wrote that the film was "frequently an intriguing and provocative motion picture" and that Woodward "fulfills her assignment excellently", but believed that the comedy elements "will undoubtedly confuse many viewers who won't quite be sure what emotions are suitable". "Harrison's Reports" called the film "a fascinating adult drama" and said that Woodward's performance was "of Academy Award caliber". John McCarten of "The New Yorker" wrote that Woodward "does well in a role that is inevitably full of confusion", but the film "seems rather fantastic when it depicts the heroine going through her mental gyrations at top speed". "The Monthly Film Bulletin" agreed, writing that Woodward "manages the triple role cleverly", but found that the depiction of psychiatric treatment "all looks a good deal too easy, and in spite of Alistair Cooke's introductory assurances of authenticity one is always conscious of being given the case history in capsule form".


title: The Three Faces of Eve

text: Joanne Woodward won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and later went on to play Dr. Cornelia Wilbur in the film "Sybil" (1976).


title: The Three Faces of Eve

text: It was a reversal of roles for Woodward, who played the psychiatrist who diagnosed Sybil Dorsett (played by Sally Field, who subsequently won an Primetime Emmy Award for her portrayal) with multiple personality disorder and subsequently led her through treatment.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: The Bingham Canyon Mine, more commonly known as Kennecott Copper Mine among locals, is an open-pit mining operation extracting a large porphyry copper deposit southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, in the Oquirrh Mountains. The mine is the largest man-made excavation, and deepest open-pit mine in the world, which is considered to have produced more copper than any other mine in history – more than . The mine is owned by Rio Tinto Group, a British-Australian multinational corporation. The copper operations at Bingham Canyon Mine are managed through Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation which operates the mine, a concentrator plant, a smelter, and a refinery. The mine has been in production since 1906, and has resulted in the creation of a pit over deep, wide, and covering . It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 under the name Bingham Canyon Open Pit Copper Mine. The mine experienced a massive landslide in April 2013 and a smaller slide in September 2013.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: Minerals, in the form of copper ore, were first discovered in Bingham Canyon in 1848 by two brothers, Sanford and Thomas Bingham, sons of Erastus Bingham, Latter-Day Saint pioneers of September 1847, who grazed their cattle there. They reported their find to their leader, Brigham Young, who advised against pursuing mining operations because the survival and establishment of settlements were of paramount importance at that time. The brothers applied to that purpose as directed and did not stake a claim. In 1850, the Bingham family went to settle what is now Weber County, leaving the canyon still today known by their name.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: It was not until September 17, 1863, that extraction of ore began, and the potential of the canyon's mineral resources began to be widely recognized. That was when George B. Ogilvie and 23 others "located the West Jordan claim", soon followed by the Vidette claim. At first, mining was confined to placer gold, lead-silver, and copper-gold. Porphyry copper required processing and a railroad, which reached the canyon in 1873.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: Enos Andrew Wall started working claims in 1887. His extensive tunnels and test pits, on his , indicated ore containing 2% copper.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: The canyon's 19th Century mines were relatively small, and it wasn't until the end of the century that very large-scale exploitation of the canyon's ore bodies began to develop with open-pit mining. In 1896, Samuel Newhouse and Thomas Weir acquired the Highland Boy Mine, which was rich in copper, silver, and gold. Together they formed the Utah Consolidated Gold Mines, Ltd. with English investors. They then formed the Boston Consolidated Gold and Copper Co., Ltd., for the development of low-grade copper ore adjacent to the Utah Copper Company site.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: Another significant development took place in 1903, when Daniel C. Jackling and Enos A. Wall organized the Utah Copper Company. Utah Copper immediately began construction of a pilot mill at Copperton, just beyond the mouth of the canyon, and the company actually started mining in 1906.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: The success of Utah Copper in mining the huge but low-grade porphyry copper type ore body at Bingham Canyon was based on Jacklin's 1904 decision to use open-pit mining, steam shovels, and the railroad. The mine became a showplace for "railroad-pit operations," and the industrial complex defined by the mine and the ASARCO smelting operation made it the "largest industrial mining complex in the world" by 1912.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: Utah Copper and Boston Consolidated merged after their separate surface operations approached each other in 1906. The Kennecott Copper Corporation, established to operate mines in Kennecott, Alaska, purchased a 25 percent financial interest in Utah Copper in 1915, which increased to 75 percent in 1923.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: Bingham's Canyon mine expanded rapidly, and by the 1920s, the region was a beehive of activity. Some 15,000 people of widely varying ethnicity lived in the canyon in large residential communities constructed on the steep canyon walls. The population declined rapidly as mining techniques improved, and several of the mining camps were swallowed up by the ever-expanding mine. By 1980, when Lark was dismantled, only Copperton, at the mouth of Bingham Canyon and with a population of 800, remained.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: The 21 separate mining operations in existence by 1911 were consolidated into two in 1970: Kennecott and The Anaconda Minerals Company. In 1985 open-pit mining operations were halted by Kennecott's Utah Copper. In 1986, Kennecott discovered gold in nearby Barney's Canyon.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: KCC was purchased by Sohio in 1981, and the mine reopened in 1987 after BP Minerals purchased the assets. In 1989 the Rio Tinto Group acquired the asset, which modernized the mine, mill, and smelter.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: The open-pit owners replaced an antiquated 1000-car railroad with conveyor belts and pipelines for transporting the ore and waste, which reduced costs by nearly 30% and returned the operation to profitability.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: At 9:30 pm on April 10, 2013, a landslide occurred at the mine. Around of dirt and rock thundered down the side of the pit. It is possibly the largest historic, non-volcanic landslide in North America. On the basis that the mine's steep walls made it a high risk for landslides, an interferometric radar system had been previously installed to monitor the ground's stability. As a result of warnings produced by this system, mining operations had been shut down the previous day in anticipation of the slide and there were no injuries. The massive slide was expected to cut production of mined copper by . A second slide caused an evacuation of 100 workers on September 11, 2013. Another, less severe slide occurred on May 31, 2021.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: Similar to other industrial age mining operations, the mine historically had adverse environmental effects on the habitats of fish and wild animals as well as air and water pollution, creating health hazards to the surrounding public. Different federal agencies concerned with environmental conservation have used strict legal rules to pressure the subsidiary of Kennecott copper mine to comply with environmental regulations. Since the early 1990s, Kennecott has spent more than $400 million on clean-up efforts on the affected areas to avoid regulatory laws that would have placed them on the Superfund National Priorities List (NPL).


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: The figure below shows a comparison of two satellite images used to identify the changes in the Bingham Canyon Mine between 1985 and 2016


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: The Bingham Canyon ore deposits occur in the Bingham nappe. They are a porphyry copper deposit, formed by a quartz monzonite porphyry intruded into sedimentary rocks. They exhibit a concentric alteration pattern and mineralogic zonation around the Bingham stock. These zones include a central core containing magnetite, followed by "a molybdenite zone low in copper, a bornite-chalcopyrite-gold higher grade copper zone, a pyrite-chalcopyrite zone, a pyrite zone, and an outermost lead-zinc zone."


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: Structurally, Late Paleozoic rocks were thrust faulted over the Precambrian craton during the Cretaceous Sevier orogeny. These rocks were later intruded and altered in the Tertiary by granitoid rocks. This igneous event was the source of deposition of gold, silver and other base metals.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: Copper and molybdenum sulfide minerals are dispersed in the intruded stock and in the adjoining carbonate sedimentary skarns. The main stratigraphic rocks in Bingham Canyon are Upper Pennsylvanian sandstones, quartzites, and limestones known as the Bingham Mine Formation in the Oquirrh Group. The central porphyry ores formed from mantle hydrothermal circulation while the outer vein and deposits in the sedimentary rocks formed at lower temperature when magmatic and meteoric waters mixed.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: The extracted ore is treated at the Kennecott smelter at nearby Magna, Utah. The ore is run through a concentrator, where grinding mills reduce it to the consistency of face powder. Flotation then separates the gangue from the metalliferous particles, which float off as a 28-percent concentrate of copper along with lesser amounts of silver, gold, lead, molybdenum, platinum and palladium. A selective flotation step separates the molybdenite (molybdenum disulfide) from the chalcopyrite.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: The filtered concentrate slurry is piped to the smelter, where it is dried, and then injected along with oxygen into a flash smelting furnace to oxidize the iron and sulfur. The oxidized iron is skimmed off, while the sulfur dioxide gas is captured and sent to an on-site acid plant for conversion to valuable sulfuric acid – a million tons of it each year.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: Left behind is a molten copper sulfide called matte. The 70-percent-copper matte is water-quenched to form a sand-like solid, then injected, with oxygen, into a flash-converting furnace that produces molten, 98.6-percent-pure copper. This copper is then cast into anode plates and shipped by rail to the refinery.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: At the refinery, the anode plates are pressed flat and interleaved with stainless steel cathode blanks. Automated robotic vehicles place the prepared anodes in cells containing an acidic electrolyte. When the cells are electrified, the anodes slowly dissolve, freeing copper ions that are deposited on the cathode as 99.99-percent-pure copper.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: Impurities and precious metals settle to the bottom of the electrolytic cells as anode slimes. A chlorination leaching process recovers the gold and silver, which is melted in induction furnaces.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: Kennecott's Bingham Canyon Mine is the largest artificially made excavation in the world, and is visible to the naked eye from an orbiting space shuttle. Employing some 2,000 workers, of material are removed from the mine daily. Electric shovels can carry up to or of ore in a single scoop. Ore is loaded into a fleet of 64 large dump trucks which each carry of ore at a time; the trucks themselves cost about $3 million each. There is a series of conveyors that take ore to the Copperton concentrator and flotation plant. The longest conveyor is long.


title: Bingham Canyon Mine

text: As of 2010, Kennecott Utah Copper was the second largest copper producer in the US, and provided about 13-18% percent of the U.S.'s copper needs. It is one of the top producing copper mines in the world with production at more than 18.7 million short tons (16.7 million long tons; 17.0 Mt). Every year, Kennecott produces approximately 300 thousand short tons (272 kt or 268 thousand long tons) of copper, along with <!--


title: All Summer in a Day

text: "All Summer in a Day" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ray Bradbury, first published in the March 1954 issue of "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction".


title: All Summer in a Day

text: The story is about a class of students on Venus, which, in this story, is a world of constant rainstorms, where the Sun is only visible for one hour every seven years.


title: All Summer in a Day

text: One of the children, Margot, moved to Venus from Earth five years earlier, and she is the only one who remembers sunshine, since the sun shines regularly on Earth.


title: All Summer in a Day

text: She describes the Sun as "penny", or "like fire in the stove". The other children, being too young ever to have seen it themselves, do not believe her. Led by a boy named William, they bully and antagonize her, and just before the sun comes out, William rallies the other children, and they lock her in a closet down a tunnel.


title: All Summer in a Day

text: As the sun is about to appear, their teacher arrives to take the class outside to enjoy their hour of sunshine and, in their astonishment and joy, they all forget about Margot. They run, play, skip, jump, and prance about, savoring every second of their newfound freedom. "Oh, it's better than the sunlamps, isn't it?"


title: All Summer in a Day

text: Suddenly, a girl catches a raindrop in her hands. A kid starts crying because of it, realizing that they won't get to see the sun again for another seven years. Thunder sounds, then the lightning comes, and the children run back inside as the sun disappears and it starts to pour again. At this point, one of them remembers Margot, who is still locked in the closet. Ashamed, they let her out of the closet, standing frozen, embarrassed over what they have done and unable to "meet each other's glances."


title: All Summer in a Day

text: The precious sun has come and gone, and because of their jealousy, Margot, who loved the sun the most, has missed out.


title: All Summer in a Day

text: A 30-minute television adaptation was created, originally broadcast on the PBS' children's series "WonderWorks" in 1982. The ending is expanded to show the children atoning for their horrible act by giving Margot flowers that they picked while the Sun was out. The director of photography was Robert Elswit, who went on to become an Academy Award winning cinematographer.


title: All Summer in a Day

text: The story has been discussed in the context of magic realism, as a metaphor for the importance of Earth and difficulty in surviving outside of the human natural environment.


title: Linear-feedback shift register

text: In computing, a linear-feedback shift register (LFSR) is a shift register whose input bit is a linear function of its previous state.


title: Linear-feedback shift register

text: The most commonly used linear function of single bits is exclusive-or (XOR). Thus, an LFSR is most often a shift register whose input bit is driven by the XOR of some bits of the overall shift register value.


title: Linear-feedback shift register

text: The initial value of the LFSR is called the seed, and because the operation of the register is deterministic, the stream of values produced by the register is completely determined by its current (or previous) state. Likewise, because the register has a finite number of possible states, it must eventually enter a repeating cycle. However, an LFSR with a well-chosen feedback function can produce a sequence of bits that appears random and has a very long cycle.


title: Linear-feedback shift register

text: Applications of LFSRs include generating pseudo-random numbers, pseudo-noise sequences, fast digital counters, and whitening sequences. Both hardware and software implementations of LFSRs are common.


title: Linear-feedback shift register

text: The mathematics of a cyclic redundancy check, used to provide a quick check against transmission errors, are closely related to those of an LFSR. In general, the arithmetics behind LFSRs makes them very elegant as an object to study and implement. One can produce relatively complex logics with simple building blocks. However, other methods, that are less elegant but perform better, should be considered as well.


title: Linear-feedback shift register

text: The bit positions that affect the next state are called the taps. In the diagram the taps are [16,14,13,11]. The rightmost bit of the LFSR is called the output bit. The taps are XOR'd sequentially with the output bit and then fed back into the leftmost bit. The sequence of bits in the rightmost position is called the output stream.


title: Linear-feedback shift register

text: The sequence of numbers generated by an LFSR or its XNOR counterpart can be considered a binary numeral system just as valid as Gray code or the natural binary code.


title: Linear-feedback shift register

text: The arrangement of taps for feedback in an LFSR can be expressed in finite field arithmetic as a polynomial mod 2. This means that the coefficients of the polynomial must be 1s or 0s. This is called the feedback polynomial or reciprocal characteristic polynomial. For example, if the taps are at the 16th, 14th, 13th and 11th bits (as shown), the feedback polynomial is


title: Linear-feedback shift register

text: The "one" in the polynomial does not correspond to a tap – it corresponds to the input to the first bit (i.e. "x", which is equivalent to 1). The powers of the terms represent the tapped bits, counting from the left. The first and last bits are always connected as an input and output tap respectively.


title: Linear-feedback shift register

text: The LFSR is maximal-length if and only if the corresponding feedback polynomial is primitive over the Galois field GF(2). This means that the following conditions are necessary (but not sufficient):


title: Linear-feedback shift register

text: Tables of primitive polynomials from which maximum-length LFSRs can be constructed are given below and in the references.


title: Linear-feedback shift register

text: There can be more than one maximum-length tap sequence for a given LFSR length. Also, once one maximum-length tap sequence has been found, another automatically follows. If the tap sequence in an "n"-bit LFSR is , where the 0 corresponds to the "x" = 1 term, then the corresponding "mirror" sequence is . So the tap sequence has as its counterpart . Both give a maximum-length sequence.


title: Linear-feedback shift register

text: If a fast parity or popcount operation is available, the feedback bit can be computed more efficiently as the dot product of the register with the characteristic polynomial:


title: Linear-feedback shift register

text: This LFSR configuration is also known as standard, many-to-one or external XOR gates. The alternative Galois configuration is described in the next section.


title: Linear-feedback shift register

text: Where a register of 16 bits is used and the xor tap at the fourth, 13th, 15th and sixteenth bit establishes a maximum sequence length.