title: Air handler

text: Common control components include temperature sensors, humidity sensors, sail switches, actuators, motors, and controllers.


title: Air handler

text: The blowers in an air handler can create substantial vibration and the large area of the duct system would transmit this noise and vibration to the occupants of the building. To avoid this, vibration isolators (flexible sections) are normally inserted into the duct immediately before and after the air handler and often also between the fan compartment and the rest of the AHU. The rubberized canvas-like material of these sections allows the air handler components to vibrate without transmitting this motion to the attached ducts.


title: Air handler

text: The fan compartment can be further isolated by placing it on spring suspension, neoprene pads, or hung on spring hangers, which will mitigate the transfer of vibration through the structure.


title: Air handler

text: The blower in the air handler also generates noise, which should be attenuated before ductwork enters a noise-sensitive room. To achieve meaningful noise reduction in a relatively short length, a sound attenuator is used. The attenuator is a specialty duct accessory that typically consists of an inner perforated baffle with sound-absorptive insulation. Sound attenuators may take the place of ductwork; conversely, inline attenuators are located close to the blower and have a bellmouth profile to minimize system effects.


title: Nick Menza

text: Nicholas Menza (July 23, 1964 – May 21, 2016) was an American musician best known as the drummer for thrash metal band Megadeth from 1989 to 1998. He recorded drums on four of Megadeth's albums: "Rust in Peace" (1990), "Countdown to Extinction" (1992), "Youthanasia" (1994), and "Cryptic Writings" (1997).


title: Nick Menza

text: Menza was born in Munich, Germany, where his father, jazz musician Don Menza, had been stationed with the U.S. Army. He began playing drums at the age of two, at which age he performed at his first public concert when during the intermission someone sat him down on Jack DeJohnette's drums and he proceeded to play. Menza's influences stem from being nurtured around the tutelage of such notables as Buddy Rich, Steve Gadd, Nick Ceroli, Jeff Porcaro, and Louie Bellson.


title: Nick Menza

text: Beginning his professional musical career at the age of 18, drumming in the band Rhoads featuring singer Kelle Rhoads, brother of the late Randy Rhoads, Menza released his first record with Rhoads, titled "Into the Future", in Europe in 1986.


title: Nick Menza

text: Following Rhoads, Menza was part of a succession of Los Angeles metal bands, including The Green (with Rhoads bandmates John Goodwin on guitar and Darwin Ballard on bass), Von Skeletor (another collaboration with Goodwin and Michael Guillory on guitars, Cam Daigneault on drums, and Menza handling lead vocals on the band's demo and self-released album, "Injection of Death"), and Cold Fire (also featuring Warrior guitarist Joe Floyd) before joining Megadeth.


title: Nick Menza

text: Moving on to session playing including styles ranging from R&B to gospel, funk and heavy metal, recording with the likes of John Fogerty, Menza caught the attention of then Megadeth drummer Chuck Behler and became his tech. When Megadeth needed a drummer in 1989, Menza was asked by Dave Mustaine to join the band. Mustaine noted that Menza previously filled in on drums when Behler was unable to. Menza first played live with Megadeth on May 12, 1988, in Bradford, England. This prior experience and personal relationship led to the invitation to join Megadeth for the 1990 recording "Rust in Peace".


title: Nick Menza

text: For the next ten years, Menza became associated with Megadeth's "classic" period and also his Greg Voelker Rack System. This included a double-bass drum kit with the tom-toms mounted on a lower chrome rack and all cymbal crashes mounted on a higher rack, which was supported by two chrome bars behind the drummer. This was later adopted by Megadeth on 2004's Blackmail the Universe tour, which featured a similar rack system.


title: Nick Menza

text: During his stint in Megadeth, Menza also played drums on his bandmate Marty Friedman's three solo albums, "Scenes" (1992), "Introduction" (1994) and "True Obsessions" (1996).


title: Nick Menza

text: By the summer of 1998, while the band was still touring in support of "Cryptic Writings", Menza was having knee problems and sought medical advice. He was informed he had a tumor, which was later found to be benign, and had it removed. Rather than cancel any dates, Megadeth hired Jimmy DeGrasso as a temporary replacement. When the time came to record a follow-up album, Menza was not asked back and DeGrasso became the band's official drummer. Menza has said in several interviews that, while in the hospital recovering from knee surgery, he received a phone call from Mustaine that simply said "Your services are not needed anymore". After his departure, he began work on "Menza: Life After Deth" with guitarist Anthony Gallo, bassist Jason Levin, and guitarist Ty Longley. The album was initially intended to have a 2002 release date and tour to follow; however, on the tour in 2003 with the reformed Great White, Longley was among the 100 people killed in The Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island and a year later Jason Levin died of heart failure, Menza and Gallo were devastated and the "Life After Deth" tour was never announced. Guest guitarist Christian Nesmith, son of The Monkees' Michael Nesmith, did some leads and Menza hired producer Max Norman (Ozzy Osbourne, Megadeth).


title: Nick Menza

text: Following the reissue of the entire Megadeth catalog, Menza was invited to reunite with Megadeth in 2004. Days after a reunion was announced, Menza was fired after rehearsals and replaced with Shawn Drover. Mustaine said that this was because Menza "just wasn't prepared" for a full-scale U.S. tour, physically.


title: Nick Menza

text: In April 2006, Menza joined the Los Angeles-based metal band Orphaned to Hatred. The group describe their sound as "a continuation of the heavy style of '90s Pantera". He left the band in late 2010.


title: Nick Menza

text: Menza nearly suffered the loss of an arm in 2007, after having an accident with a power saw. He required reconstructive surgery and metal plates in his arm and a lengthy rehabilitation, but later recovered. Menza later auctioned off the blood-stained saw blade and an original copy of an X-ray from the incident.


title: Nick Menza

text: In March 2011, Menza appeared in a music video for Mindstreem's "We Up Next", a song originally written by SIN 34 guitarist Anthony Gallo featuring Tony Lanza and Daniel Wayne, Jr. on vocals. The actual recording is Menza (drums), Gallo (guitars), Gregg Babuccio (bass), and Tony Lanza and Daniel Wayne Jr. (vocals).


title: Nick Menza

text: Also in March 2011, Menza's band Deltanaut posted a video for the song "Sacrifice" in conjunction with the release of their Roy Z produced digital-only five-song EP. The lineup consisted of Menza, his old Rhoads and The Green bandmate, bassist Darwin Ballard, guitarists Christopher Grady and Colin Reid, and lead vocalist Brian Williams. Menza's father Don plays saxophone on the song "The King"; other guests include Roy Z on guitar and Ed Roth on keyboards.


title: Nick Menza

text: In 2015, Menza contributed drum tracks to the song "Are We Alone?" on the album "Warless Society (The Global Invasion)" by Ci2i, with John Goodwin and Darwin Ballard on guitar and bass, respectively. In 2015, he also began working with Los Angeles band Sweet Eve on their follow up album "The Immortal Machine" as producer and drummer.


title: Nick Menza

text: On May 21, 2016, Menza was performing with his band OHM at The Baked Potato jazz club in Studio City, Los Angeles. Only three songs into the set, Menza collapsed onstage. He was rushed to a hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. An autopsy later showed the cause of death to be atherosclerotic, hypertensive-induced congestive heart failure. Menza was 51.


title: Systemically important financial institution

text: A systemically important financial institution (SIFI) is a bank, insurance company, or other financial institution whose failure might trigger a financial crisis. They are colloquially referred to as "too big to fail".


text: As the financial crisis of 2007–2008 unfolded, the international community moved to protect the global financial system through preventing the failure of SIFIs, or, if one does fail, limiting the adverse effects of its failure. In November 2011, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) published a list of global systemically important financial institutions (G-SIFIs).


text: Also in November 2010, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) introduced new guidance (known as Basel III) that also specifically target SIFIs. The main focus of the Basel III guidance is to increase bank capital requirements and to introduce capital surcharges for G-SIFIs. However, some economists warned in 2012 that the tighter Basel III capital regulation, which is primarily based on risk-weighted assets, may further negatively affect the stability of the financial system.


text: It is important to note that both the FSB and the BCBS are only policy research and development entities. They do not establish laws, regulations or rules for any financial institution directly. They merely act in an advisory or guidance capacity when it comes to non G-SIFIs. It is up to each country's specific lawmakers and regulators to enact whatever portions of the recommendations they deem appropriate for their own domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs) or national SIFIs (N-SIFIs). Each country's internal financial regulators make their own determination of what is a SIFI. Once those regulators make that determination, they may set specific laws, regulations and rules that would apply to those entities.


text: Virtually every SIFI operates at the top level as a holding company made up of numerous subsidiaries. It is not unusual for the subsidiaries to number in the hundreds. Even though the uppermost holding company is located in the home country, where it is subject, at that level, to that home regulator, the subsidiaries may be organized and operating in several different countries. Each subsidiary is then subject to potential regulation by every country where it actually conducts business.


text: At present (and for the likely foreseeable future) there is no such thing as a global regulator. Likewise there is no such thing as global insolvency, global bankruptcy, or the legal requirement for a global bail out. Each legal entity is treated separately. Each country is responsible (in theory) for containing a financial crisis that starts in their country from spreading across borders. Looking up from a country prospective as to what is a SIFI may be different than when looking down on the entire globe and attempting to determine what entities are significant. The FSB hired Mark Carney to write the report that coined the term G-SIFI for this reason in 2011.


text: As of November 2011 when the G-SIFI paper was released by the FSB, a standard definition of N-SIFI had not been decided. However, the BCBS identified factors for assessing whether a financial institution is systemically important: its size, its complexity, its interconnectedness, the lack of readily available substitutes for the financial infrastructure it provides, and its global (cross-jurisdictional) activity. In some cases, the assessments of experts, independent of the indicators, will be able to move an institution into the N-SIFI category or remove it from N-SIFI status.


text: Banks in Japan deemed systemically important are stress tested by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Banks in China are mostly state run and are stress tested by the national banking authority.


text: Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) are determined based on four main criteria: (a) size, (b) cross-jurisdiction activity, (c) complexity, and (d) substitutability. The list of G-SIBs is published annually by the Financial Stability Board (FSB). The G-SIBs must maintain a higher capital level – capital surcharge – compared to other banks.


text: In November 2021, the FSB updated the list of G-SIBs, and the following banks were included: Agricultural Bank of China, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A., Banco Santander, S.A., Bank of America, Bank of China, Bank of New York Mellon, Barclays, BNP Paribas, China Construction Bank, Citigroup, Crédit Agricole Group, Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs, Groupe BPCE, HSBC Holdings plc, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited, ING Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc, Mizuho Financial Group, Inc., Morgan Stanley, Nordea Bank Abp, Royal Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Scotland plc, Société Générale S.A., Standard Chartered plc, State Street, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Group, UBS Group AG, UniCredit S.p.A., Wells Fargo.


text: Compared with the group of G-SIBs published in 2011, three banks have been added: Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A., Standard Chartered plc, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited; and three banks removed: Dexia N.V./S.A., as it is undergoing an orderly resolution process, and Commerzbank AG and Lloyds Banking Group plc, as a result of a decline in their global systemic importance.


text: In the USA, the largest banks are regulated by the Federal Reserve (FRB) and the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC). These regulators set the selection criteria, establish hypothetical adverse scenarios and oversee the annual tests. 19 banks operating in the U.S. (at the top tier) have been subject to such testing since 2009. Banks showing difficulty under the stress tests are required to postpone share buybacks, curtail dividend plans and if necessary raise additional capital financing.


text: In December 2014, the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) issued a long-awaited proposal to impose additional capital requirements on the U.S.’s global systemically important banks (G-SIBs). The proposal implements the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s (BCBS) G-SIB capital surcharge framework that was finalized in 2011, but also proposes changes to BCBS’s calculation methodology resulting in significantly higher surcharges for US G-SIBs compared with their global peers. The proposal has not been finalized, and leading experts such a PwC believe it will be finalized in 2015.CN


text: The proposal, which industry experts expect will be finalized in 2015, requires U.S. G-SIBs to hold additional capital (Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) as a percentage of risk-weighted assets (RWA)) equal to the greater of the amount calculated under two methods. The first method is consistent with BCBS’s framework, and calculates the amount of extra capital to be held based on the G-SIB’s size, interconnectedness, cross-jurisdictional activity, substitutability, and complexity. The second method is introduced by the U.S. proposal, and uses similar inputs but replaces the substitutability element with a measure based on a G-SIB’s reliance on short-term wholesale funding (STWF).


text: Stress testing has limited effectiveness in risk management. Dexia passed the European stress tests in 2011. Two months later it requested a €90 billion bailout guarantee. Goldfield, a former Senior Partner of Goldman Sachs and Economics Professors, Jeremy Bulow at Stanford and Paul Klemperer at Oxford, argue that "Equity Recourse Notes"' (ERNs), similar in some ways to contingent convertible debt, (CoCos), should be used by all banks rated SIFI, to replace non-deposit existing unsecured debt. "ERNs would be long-term bonds with the feature that any interest or principal payable on a date when the stock price is lower than a pre-specified price would be paid in stock at that pre-specified price." Through ERNs, distressed banks would have access to much-needed equity as willing investors purchase tranches of ERNs similar to pooling tranches of subprime mortgages. In this case, however, the market, not the public takes the risks. Banking can be pro-cyclical by contributing to booms and busts. Stressed banks become reluctant to lend since they are often unable to raise capital equity through new investors. claim that ERNs would provide a "counterweight against pro-cyclicality."


text: The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requires that bank holding companies with total consolidated assets of $50 billion or more and nonbank financial companies designated by the Financial Stability Oversight Council for supervision by the Federal Reserve submit resolution plans annually to the Federal Reserve (FRB) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Each plan, commonly known as a living will, must describe the company's strategy for rapid and orderly resolution under the Bankruptcy Code in the event of material financial distress or failure of the company.


text: Starting in 2014, category 2 firms will be required to submit resolution plans while category 1 firms will submit their third resolution plans.


text: The resolution plan requirement under the Dodd Frank Act in Section 165(d), is in addition to the FDIC's requirement of a separate covered insured depository institution ("CIDI") plan for CIDIs of large bank holding companies. The FDIC requires a separate CIDI resolution plan for US insured depositories with assets of $50 billion or more. Most of the largest, most complex BHCs are subject to both rules, requiring them to file a 165(d) resolution plan for the BHC that includes the BHC’s core businesses and its most significant subsidiaries (i.e., “material entities”), as well as one or more CIDI plans depending on the number of US bank subsidiaries of the BHC that meet the $50 billion asset threshold. Similar to the assumptions made for resolution plans, the FDIC recently issued assumptions to be made in CIDI plans including the assumption that the CIDI will fail.


text: When a company enters insolvency (either through bankruptcy or FDIC receivership), an automatic stay is triggered that generally prohibits creditors and counterparties from terminating, offsetting against collateral, or taking any other mitigating action with respect to their outstanding contracts with the insolvent company. However, under US law counterparties to qualified financial contracts (QFCs) are exempt from this stay and may usually begin to exercise their contractual rights after the close of business the next day. In case of receivership, the FDIC must decide within this time period whether to transfer the QFC to another institution, retain the QFC and allow the counterparty to terminate it, or repudiate the QFC and pay out the counterparty.


text: In January 2015, the US Secretary of the Treasury issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR) that would establish new recordkeeping requirements for QFCs. The NPR requires US systemically important financial institutions and certain of their affiliates to maintain specific information electronically on end-of-day QFC positions and to be able to provide this information to regulators within 24 hours if requested. The NPR is intended to help the FDIC with decision-making by making available detailed information on a failed company’s QFCs, given the FDIC’s expanded receivership powers under Dodd–Frank’s Orderly Liquidation Authority (OLA).


text: The concept of a systemically important financial institution in the U.S. extends well beyond traditional banks and is often included under the term Non-banking financial company. It includes large hedge funds and traders, large insurance companies, and various and sundry systemically important financial market utilities. For historical background see Arguments for a systemic risk regulator.


text: Regarding which entities will be so designated the Dodd–Frank Act of 2010 contains the following in Title I—Financial Stability, Subtitle A—Financial Stability Oversight Council, Sec. 113. "Authority to require supervision and regulation of certain nonbank financial companies" (2) considerations:


text: FSOC subsequently issued clarification under Final Rule on Authority to Designate Financial Market Utilities as Systemically Important, which includes the following chart recasting the above statutory requirements into a six-category FSOC analytical framework including:


text: The following are quotes from the FSOC final rule regarding each element of the six factor framework.


text: Interconnectedness captures direct or indirect linkages between financial companies that may be conduits for the transmission of the effects resulting from a nonbank financial company's material financial distress or activities.


text: Substitutability captures the extent to which other firms could provide similar financial services in a timely manner at a similar price and quantity if a nonbank financial company withdraws from a particular market. Substitutability also captures situations in which a nonbank financial company is the primary or dominant provider of services in a market that the Council determines to be essential to U.S. financial stability.


text: Size captures the amount of financial services or financial intermediation that a nonbank financial company provides. Size also may affect the extent to which the effects of a nonbank financial company's financial distress are transmitted to other firms and to the financial system.


text: Leverage captures a company's exposure or risk in relation to its equity capital. Leverage amplifies a company's risk of financial distress in two ways. First, by increasing a company's exposure relative to capital, leverage raises the likelihood that a company will suffer losses exceeding its capital. Second, by increasing the size of a company's liabilities, leverage raises a company's dependence on its creditors' willingness and ability to fund its balance sheet. Leverage can also amplify the impact of a company's distress on other companies, both directly, by increasing the amount of exposure that other firms have to the company, and indirectly, by increasing the size of any asset liquidation that the company is forced to undertake as it comes under financial pressure. Leverage can be measured by the ratio of assets to capital, but it can also be defined in terms of risk, as a measure of economic risk relative to capital. The latter measurement can better capture the effect of derivatives and other products with embedded leverage on the risk undertaken by a nonbank financial company.


text: Liquidity risk generally refers to the risk that a company may not have sufficient funding to satisfy its short-term needs, either through its cash flows, maturing assets, or assets salable at prices equivalent to book value, or through its ability to access funding markets. For example, if a company holds assets that are illiquid or that are subject to significant decreases in market value during times of market stress, the company may be unable to liquidate its assets effectively in response to a loss of funding. In order to assess liquidity, the Council may examine a nonbank financial company's assets to determine if it possesses cash instruments or readily marketable securities, such as Treasury securities, which could reasonably be expected to have a liquid market in times of distress. The Council may also review a nonbank financial company's debt profile to determine if it has adequate long-term funding, or can otherwise mitigate liquidity risk. Liquidity problems also can arise from a company's inability to roll maturing debt or to satisfy margin calls, and from demands for additional collateral, depositor withdrawals, draws on committed lines, and other potential draws on liquidity.


text: A maturity mismatch generally refers to the difference between the maturities of a company's assets and liabilities. A maturity mismatch affects a company's ability to survive a period of stress that may limit its access to funding and to withstand shocks in the yield curve. For example, if a company relies on short-term funding to finance longer-term positions, it will be subject to significant refunding risk that may force it to sell assets at low market prices or potentially suffer through significant margin pressure. However, maturity mismatches are not confined to the use of short-term liabilities and can exist at any point in the maturity schedule of a nonbank financial company's assets and liabilities.


text: The Council will consider the extent to which nonbank financial companies are already subject to regulation, including the consistency of that regulation across nonbank financial companies within a sector, across different sectors, and providing similar services, and the statutory authority of those regulators.


text: FSB plan to expand the above list also to include G-SII status for the world's largest reinsurers, pending a further development of the G-SII assessment methodology, to be finalized by IAIS in November 2015. The revised G-SII assessment methodology will be applied from 2016.


text: In October 2014, IAIS published the first-ever global insurance capital standard entitled "Basic Capital Requirements (BCR)", to apply to all group activities (incl. non-insurance activities) of G-SIIs, as a foundation for the "higher loss absorbency" (HLA) requirements. Beginning in 2015, the BCR ratio will be reported on a confidential basis to group-wide supervisors - and be shared with the IAIS for purposes of refining the BCR as necessary. IAIS currently work to develop the methodology for the introduction of HLA requirements, to be published by end-2015, and to be applied starting from January 2019 towards those G-SIIs being identified in November 2017. From January 2019, all G-SIIs will be required to hold capital no lower than the BCR plus HLA. Subjecting insurers to enhanced supervisory oversight is not up to FSB/IAIS, but up to individual jurisdictions.


text: When MetLife—the United States’s largest life insurer—was designated as a systemically important institution in late 2014 by the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) which had been established by the Dodd–Frank Act, they challenged the designation as "arbitrary and capricious" in federal court and won. In April 2016 when judge Rosemary Collyer, found in favor of Metlife in a federal district court decision, the value of MetLife stocks rose sharply. On January 23, 2018 a panel of judges on the US Court of Appeals dropped the appeal after the Financial Stability Oversight Council dropped the appeal at the request of the Trump administration.


text: The U.S. government legislation defines the term "financial market utilities" (FMU) for other organizations that play a key part in financial markets such as clearing houses settlement systems. They are entities whose failure or disruption could threaten the stability of the financial system.


text: It is widely anticipated that the Financial Stability Oversight Council will eventually designate certain significant asset managers as nonbank systematically important financial institutions (nonbank SIFIs). The FSOC recently asked the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Research (OFR) to undertake a study that provides data and analysis on the asset management industry. The study analyzed the industry and describes potential threats to U.S. financial stability from vulnerabilities of asset managers. The study suggested the industry’s activities as a whole make it systemically important and may pose a risk to financial stability. Furthermore, it identified the extent of assets managed by the major industry players. This request for the study is considered by some as a first step in by the FSOC in reviewing the industry and individual player to determine which are systematically important. Once designated as systematically important those entities will be subject to additional oversight and regulatory requirements.


text: In 2013, the Treasury Department's Office of Financial Research released its report on "Asset Management and Financial Stability", the central conclusion was that the activities of the asset management industry as a whole make it systemically important and may pose a risk to US financial stability. Furthermore, in 2014 the Financial Stability Board and the International Organization of Securities Commissions issued the Consultative Document which proposed methodologies for identifying globally active systemically important investment funds. Both reports further the conclusion that is likely the U.S. Financial Stability Oversight Council will designate a few large US asset managers as systemically important.


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: The NBA draft is a major annual event in which the 30 franchises in the National Basketball Association select new players for their teams. Eligibility rules for prospective players have changed several times during the history of the league. No player may sign with the NBA until they are 19 years or older. Players who have played at least one year of college basketball are eligible for the NBA draft; this has been colloquially called the one-and-done rule, with such players called "one-and-done players".


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: In the earliest days of the NBA, three players entered the NBA without having played in college (although one of them did not enter the league until he was 39 years old). However, the league eventually established a rule that "a player could not make himself available" for the draft until two years after his high school graduation.


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: The first major challenge to the NBA's eligibility rules came from Spencer Haywood. He graduated from high school in 1968, at a time when college freshmen were not allowed to play varsity sports for NCAA member schools. He played a year at a Colorado junior college, followed by a season at the University of Detroit. After the 1969–70 season, he left college for the NBA's rival at the time, the American Basketball Association (ABA), which offered a hardship exemption for players who were not four years removed from high school. Haywood had a spectacularly successful rookie season with the Denver Rockets (the predecessor to today's Denver Nuggets), being named the ABA's Rookie of the Year and MVP. Near the end of the season, he turned 21; shortly after its end, he repudiated his contract with the Rockets, claiming he had been defrauded. Haywood then signed a contract with the Seattle SuperSonics (later relocated to become the Oklahoma City Thunder), which put him and the Sonics on a collision course with the NBA, as he was only three years removed from his high school graduation.


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: The NBA threatened to disallow the contract and impose sanctions against the Sonics. Haywood responded by filing an antitrust suit against the league, seeking an injunction to prevent the NBA from disallowing the contract or punishing the Sonics. The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued a 7–2 decision in Haywood's favor in 1971.


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: After the decision, the NBA allowed players to enter early as "hardship cases", which essentially meant that the player had to prove financial hardship. This rule quickly developed into one that was observed in the breach, with "Sport" magazine writer Jackie Lapin commenting in the 1970s that "Almost anyone who has been any good at the game in the past decade would qualify [as a hardship case]—with the probable exception of Bill Bradley, the banker's son."


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: As a consequence of the aforementioned "Haywood" decision, and following soon after, three high schoolers chose to enter the professional ranks without ever enrolling in a college. In 1975, Darryl Dawkins and Bill Willoughby both went to the NBA from high school. Dawkins had a solid 14-year career in the NBA, while Willoughby was no more than a journeyman in eight NBA seasons.


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: While underclass draftees are too numerous to list, it can be noted that among the aforementioned 50 Greatest Players, 10 left college early for the NBA.


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: After Dawkins and Willoughby, no high school player went directly to the NBA for 20 years, although Lloyd Daniels and Shawn Kemp went to the NBA without having played college basketball (both had enrolled in college, but never played). That would change in 1995 with the arrival of future NBA MVP Kevin Garnett, who was selected fifth overall. The following year, another future MVP in Kobe Bryant and a future All-Star in Jermaine O'Neal were first-round picks out of high school. Most years after that saw at least one, and often more, high schoolers drafted, most notably Tracy McGrady (1997), Kwame Brown (the first high schooler to be the #1 overall pick, in 2001), Amar'e Stoudemire (2002), LeBron James (#1 in 2003), and Dwight Howard (#1 in 2004).


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: However, the influx of high schoolers caused considerable controversy. When the NBA and its players union negotiated a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in 2005, NBA Commissioner David Stern publicly called for a higher age limit of 20, stating that he wanted the league's scouts and general managers out of high school gyms and that too many young "urban Americans" incorrectly saw the NBA as a viable path to fame and financial security. Most of the players were opposed to an age limit; Jermaine O'Neal was perhaps the most strident critic, accusing the NBA of racism. Ultimately, the union reluctantly agreed to an age limit of 19, accepting it in exchange for tweaks to salary cap rules that were favorable to the players' interests.


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: The current eligibility rules were established under the NBA's collective bargaining agreement (CBA), which expired in , resulting in a lockout. The previous CBA, approved in December 2011, made no changes to the draft rules, but called for the NBA and its players union to form a committee to discuss draft-related issues. In 2016, the NBA and NBA Players Association met to work on a new CBA, which both sides approved in December of that year. This most recent agreement started with the 2017–18 season and will run through 2023–24, with a mutual opt-out after 2022–23. The basic rules that started in the 2006 draft are:


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: The "one year out of high school" requirement is "in addition to" the age requirement. For example, although O. J. Mayo turned 19 in November 2006, six months before his high school graduation, he was not eligible until the 2008 draft, a year after his high school class graduated. Stern stated the rules were business-related and not a "social program", citing the need to see players perform against higher competition before they are evaluated for valuable draft picks. The rule effectively mandated that players spend at least one year in college. High school players who would otherwise have jumped directly into the NBA were instead playing in college for the required year before leaving and entering the draft—a phenomenon known as "one and done". The NBA G League (formerly Development League) is one alternative to college. Players can earn five-figure salaries, but the level of competition is possibly lower than in the Division I level in college. Some players, most notably Brandon Jennings, have also played overseas in lieu of college. However, in recent years, other players like Satnam Singh, Thon Maker, and Matur Maker have looked to enter the NBA draft while still being high schoolers by exploiting a loophole where they enter the draft as high school postgraduates.


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: In April 2018, a report from the Commission on College Basketball was released. It recommended, among its findings, the abolishment of the "one-and-done" rule, thus high school players can be directly eligible for the draft again. The NBA notified its member teams in a memorandum later in June that the earliest possible draft without the one-year rule (not named in the memo), among eligibility changes, was initially in 2021, only to be moved forward in October to 2022. The NBA had looked to revert their ruling from 2005 to change the age limit back to 18 again with a recent report from February 2019, only to keep the "one-and-done" rule in place by April 2020 because discussions stalled over physical tests (physicals) and medical evaluations.


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: Players whose 19th birthday falls during or before the calendar year of the draft, or at least one year removed from the graduation of their high school class, and who do not meet the criteria for "international" players are automatically eligible if they meet any of the following criteria:


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: Those who have reached the minimum eligibility age of 19 and meet the criteria for "international" players are automatically eligible if they meet any of the following criteria:


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: Players who are not automatically eligible but wish to be drafted must declare their eligibility no later than 60 days before the draft. After this date, "early entry" players may attend NBA pre-draft camps and individual team workouts to show off their skills and obtain feedback regarding their draft positions. Under the CBA, a player may withdraw his name from consideration from the draft at any time before the final declaration date, which is 10 days before the draft. However, the NCAA adopted a rule that took effect in August 2009 that requires players at its member institutions to withdraw no later than May 8 to retain their college eligibility; the first draft affected by this rule was the 2010 draft. In 2011, the NCAA shortened its timeline for players to withdraw and retain eligibility to one day before the start of the spring signing period for men's basketball, which occurs in April. The NCAA changed its withdrawal rule again in 2016, effective with that year's draft; its withdrawal deadline is now in late May, specifically 10 days after the final day of the annual NBA Draft Combine. Due to disruptions brought about by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the NCAA announced that for the 2020 draft, the withdrawal deadline was changed to 10 days after the combine or August 3, whichever comes first.


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: The NBA announced on February 26, 2021 that for the 2021 draft only, all college players who wish to enter the draft, regardless of class, will be required to declare eligibility. In October 2020, COVID-19 led the NCAA to declare that the 2020–21 season would not be counted against the college eligibility of any basketball player. The exact language of the CBA with regard to automatic eligibility of college seniors is "The player has graduated from a four-year college or university in the United States, and has no remaining intercollegiate basketball eligibility." Due to the NCAA ruling, "every" college senior in the 2020–21 season had remaining eligibility. The league was required to consult with the players' union and NCAA to determine whether it would require seniors to opt out of the draft (which was implemented by the NFL for its 2021 draft, affected by a similar NCAA ruling for football) or require opt-ins, with the latter option being chosen. Because of uncertainty surrounding dates of the draft and draft combine, the early entry date for the 2021 draft had not been set at that time.


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: A player who declares for the draft and stays in it loses his college eligibility when he is drafted. He can sign with any agent following an evaluation from the NBA Undergraduate Advisory Committee, and if he ends up undrafted, he has the opportunity to return to his school for at least another year only after terminating all agreements with that agent, effective with the 2019 draft; until 2018, college players lost their eligibility when they signed with their agents and stayed in the draft, only to be left undrafted. Before 2016, the NCAA only allowed a player to enter the draft once without losing eligibility, but current NCAA rules now allow players to declare for and withdraw from multiple drafts while retaining college eligibility. The CBA allows a player to withdraw twice.


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: The CBA defines "international players" for draft purposes as those who meet all of the following criteria:


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: Note that this definition is very different from what the NBA uses in listing "international players" on its team rosters. For that purpose, the league defines an "international player" specifically as one born outside the 50 United States or the District of Columbia, even if that player's parent is a natural-born American. Also of note is that a prospective player's birthplace is not relevant to his definition as an "international player" for draft purposes. By contrast, the WNBA requires that, for purposes of its draft, "international players" be born outside the U.S.


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: In the third annual "High School Hoops" magazine, the players weighed in on the subject of the new rules regarding draft eligibility. Many of them felt that it was unfair. Kansas State freshman Bill Walker, said (as a junior in high school), "I'm against it. I don't see why you have to be 19 to play a game of basketball when you can be 18 and go to war for our country and die. It's ridiculous." Jerryd Bayless said "It's not fair at all. If a tennis player can go pro at 13, I don't understand why a basketball player can't go pro at 18." A possible number one pick out of high school, had the rule not been put in place, was Greg Oden (though he was still picked first in 2007). When asked about the agreement he said "It's unfair, but it's over with now, so there's no reason to complain." In spite of the claims that the rule is unfair, Wayne Ellington of North Carolina, said that "…I also think it's going to help the league a little bit. Some guys who come in, like from this year's draft, it will help." Brandan Wright said that "It may hurt guys who need money, but it will help people grow and develop."


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: On the specific topic of Oden entering the draft, Jack Keefer, Oden's high school coach at Lawrence North, Indiana, said, "I really think he thought he was going to college. He seems to be more at ease with himself right now. I think the stress came with worrying about the NBA."


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: While playing college basketball has been the most popular option for players coming out of high school, some have opted for alternative options. Oklahoma City Thunder guard Terrance Ferguson had originally committed to Alabama then Arizona, but then decided to play in Australia for the Adelaide 36ers. He has urged others to do the same, saying: "Most one-and-done players only spend a few months in college. You have to do schoolwork and all this other stuff. You go overseas, you spend the same amount of months, but you’re focusing straight on basketball. I feel like more players should do it." Another argument he made is that he gets paid for playing overseas, while college players don't receive pay, which is one of the biggest issues players have with going to college. Another alternative that can be taken is instead of playing, players may take a year off to train. Recently drafted Portland Trail Blazers guard Anfernee Simons decided to skip out on college altogether, and instead opted to spend a postgraduate year at the IMG Academy. Simons explained his reasoning for skipping college by saying, “I feel like in college you got three classes a day. That’s a big thing — a lot of time. That’s basically time that I was able to spend in the gym getting better.” In 2020 the NBA created the NBA G League Ignite team made of up of prospects and veteran players and touted it as an alternative to playing college basketball with potential prospects on the team earning salaries of up to $500,000. In 2021 Overtime Elite was formed with a similar purpose for 16 to 20 year olds.


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: In March 2015, following a series of meetings that began at the 2014 men's Final Four, the NBA, NCAA, and the trade association for college men's coaches, the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC), announced a plan that would give college underclassmen a better opportunity to make an informed decision about their NBA status than the then-current system. Under this plan:


title: Eligibility for the NBA draft

text: The NCAA rule change was formally presented by the NCAA men's basketball oversight committee on June 24, 2015, and was approved by the NCAA Division I council on January 13, 2016. The new rule, which took effect with the 2016 draft, specifically sets the new withdrawal date at 10 days after the end of the NBA draft combine. Additionally, players may declare for the draft multiple times without losing college eligibility, as long as they withdraw before the new deadline without hiring an agent or signing a professional basketball contract, and are now allowed to attend the draft combine and one tryout per year for each NBA team without losing college eligibility. However, it has been stated that current commissioner Adam Silver has been working to change this rule and meeting with NCAA officials to make the changes for the betterment of the NBA and NCAA basketball players, teams, and coaches alike.


title: Freedom Trail

text: The Freedom Trail is a path through Boston, Massachusetts, that passes by 16 locations significant to the history of the United States. Marked largely with brick, it winds from Boston Common in downtown Boston through the North End to the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. Stops along the trail include simple explanatory ground markers, graveyards, notable churches and buildings, and a historic naval frigate. While most of the sites are free or suggest donations, the Old South Meeting House, the Old State House, and the Paul Revere House charge admission. The Freedom Trail is overseen by the City of Boston's Freedom Trail Commission and is supported in part by grants from various nonprofits and foundations, private philanthropy, and Boston National Historical Park.


title: Freedom Trail

text: The Freedom Trail was conceived by local journalist William Schofield, who in 1951 suggested building a pedestrian trail to link important local landmarks. Boston mayor John Hynes decided to put Schofield's idea into action. By 1953, 40,000 people were walking the trail annually.


title: Freedom Trail

text: The National Park Service operates a visitor's center on the first floor of Faneuil Hall, where they offer tours, provide free maps of the Freedom Trail and other historic sites, and sell books about Boston and United States history.


title: Freedom Trail

text: Some observers have noted the tendency of the Freedom Trail's narrative frame to omit certain historical locations, such as the sites of the Boston Tea Party and the Liberty Tree.


title: Freedom Trail

text: The Black Heritage Trail crosses the Freedom Trail between the Massachusetts State House and Park Street Church. The Boston Irish Famine Memorial is also located along the Freedom Trail.


title: Freedom Trail

text: The Freedom Trail is a part of many fictional pieces of media, such as "Fallout 4", which requires players to walk along the Freedom Trail to find the Railroad faction.


title: Chicago Boys

text: The Chicago Boys were a group of Chilean economists prominent around the 1970s and 1980s, the majority of whom were educated at the Department of Economics of the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger, or at its affiliate in the economics department at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. After they finished their studies and returned to Latin America, they adopted positions in numerous South American governments including, prominently, the military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990), as economic advisors. Many of them reached the highest positions within those governments. While The Heritage Foundation credits them with transforming Chile into Latin America's best performing economy and one of the world's most business-friendly jurisdictions, critics point to drastic increases in unemployment that can be attributed to counter-inflation policies implemented on their advice. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were influenced by Chile's policies and economic reforms.


title: Chicago Boys

text: The term "Chicago Boys" has been used at least as early as the 1980s to describe Latin American economists who studied or identified with the liberal economic theories then taught at the University of Chicago, even though some of them earned degrees at Harvard University or MIT. They advocated widespread deregulation, privatization, and other free market policies for closely controlled economies. The Chicago Boys rose to prominence as leaders of the early reforms initiated in Chile during General Augusto Pinochet's rule. Milton and Rose Friedman used the term "Chicago Boys" in their memoir: "In 1975, when inflation still raged and a world recession triggered a depression in Chile, General Pinochet turned to the "Chicago Boys"; he appointed several of them to powerful positions in the government.


title: Chicago Boys

text: The training program was the result of the "Chile Project" organized in the 1950s by the U.S. State Department, through the Point Four program, the first US program for global economic development. It was funded by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation aimed at influencing Chilean economic thinking. The University of Chicago's Department of Economics set up scholarship programs with Chile's Catholic University. About one hundred select students between 1957 and 1970 received training, first in an apprenticeship program in Chile and then in post-graduate work in Chicago.


title: Chicago Boys

text: The project was uneventful until the early 1970s. The Chicago Boys' ideas remained on the fringes of Chilean economic and political thought, even after a group of them prepared a 189-page "Program for Economic Development" called "El ladrillo" ("the brick"). It was presented in 1969 as part of Jorge Alessandri's unsuccessful presidential candidacy. Alessandri rejected "El ladrillo", but it was revisited after the 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 11 September 1973 brought Augusto Pinochet to power, and it became the basis of the new regime's economic policy.


title: Chicago Boys

text: After the coup when the Chicago boys were given power and el ladrillo was implemented, the Chilean economy began to grow and expand at a rate much higher than that of other similar countries. This was seen as an economic miracle and gave these policies greater credibility worldwide. However, this has led to greater income inequality in Chile which is still an issue that raises concern.


title: Chicago Boys

text: These policies were seen as the natural reaction to Marxism and part of Chile's role as a hotspot during the Cold War. The anti-Marxist junta supported radical free market policies promoted by the Chicago Boys as a part of their destruction of Marxism.


title: Chicago Boys

text: After the end of the military rule and return to democracy this specific group lost power and many joined the private sector, although their policies and effects still remained in place in many areas.


title: Chicago Boys

text: Even though the Chile Project ended, the training connection between Chile and the University of Chicago continued. One of the numerous networking organizations for alumni, including the Chicago Boys, is the "Latin American Business Group at Chicago Booth School of Business" (LATAM). The term continues to be used in popular culture, business magazines, press and media. In 2015, a Chilean film titled Chicago Boys was released.


title: Chicago Boys

text: As the key economic advisors of the Pinochet dictatorship, the Chicago Boys were the forerunners of the economic policies of that government. They sponsored state run policies to decrease national spending, end inflation and promote economic growth. They promoted a policy of strict austerity and cut government expenditures substantially. Free trade agreements and the breakdown of barriers to trade were also promoted to help Chile compete in the world market. They also privatized public companies, and utilized the free market rather than government rule to promote their economic policies. This was part of the neoliberal economic views espoused by Milton Friedman, the ideological backer for their views. Friedman and his connections to the Chicago Boys was highly politicized especially after he received the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1976. The policies are also sometimes referred to as shock therapy based on the fact that they were projected to hurt the economy but overall be beneficial in the long run. These policies influenced future governments and organizations tied to the neoliberal economic viewpoint such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and other International Organizations and governments. However, the relations between these organizations were not always close, and rivalry between neoliberal organizations still existed. The ideology of free market capitalism and laissez faire economics in conjunction with a strong military rule and total political control is the cornerstone of Pinochetism, in conjunction with a strong anti-communist political platform. These policies and their effects are both highly controversial in Chile and around the World, and represent a major divide in Chilean politics to this day.


title: Chicago Boys

text: The economic success of the Chicago boys was a critical part of bolstering the Pinochet regime abroad. The Chilean miracle as it was called attracted a lot of necessary positive attention for the Pinochet government, and allowed Pinochet to exercise political repression without condemnation by economic allies. New policies such as structural adjustment, free trade, and tax cuts became incredibly popular with conservative political groups throughout the western world. These policies eventually spread into the United States and United Kingdom via their conservative leaders. Chile was one of the first countries to embrace these policies and they have since spread in part due to the initial success Chile experienced.


title: Chicago Boys

text: Although the largest and most influential group of so-called Chicago Boys was Chilean in origin, there were many Latin American graduates from the University of Chicago around the same period. These economists continued to shape the economies of their respective countries, and include people like Mexico's Sócrates Rizzo, Francisco Gil Díaz, Fernando Sanchez Ugarte, Carlos Isoard y Viesca, Argentina's Adolfo Diz, Roque Fernández, Carlos Alfredo Rodríguez, Fernando de Santibañes and Ricardo Lopez Murphy, Brazil's Paulo Guedes, as well as others in Peru, Colombia, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Panama.


title: Patch (computing)

text: A patch is a set of changes to a computer program or its supporting data designed to update, fix, or improve it. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, with such patches usually being called bugfixes or bug fixes. Patches are often written to improve the functionality, usability, or performance of a program. The majority of patches are provided by software vendors for operating system and application updates.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Patches may be installed either under programmed control or by a human programmer using an editing tool or a debugger. They may be applied to program files on a storage device, or in computer memory. Patches may be permanent (until patched again) or temporary.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Patching makes possible the modification of compiled and machine language object programs when the source code is unavailable. This demands a thorough understanding of the inner workings of the object code by the person creating the patch, which is difficult without close study of the source code. Someone unfamiliar with the program being patched may install a patch using a patch utility created by another person who is the Admin. Even when the source code is available, patching makes possible the installation of small changes to the object program without the need to recompile or reassemble. For minor changes to software, it is often easier and more economical to distribute patches to users rather than redistributing a newly recompiled or reassembled program.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Although meant to fix problems, poorly designed patches can sometimes introduce new problems (see software regressions). In some special cases updates may knowingly break the functionality or disable a device, for instance, by removing components for which the update provider is no longer licensed.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Patch management is a part of lifecycle management, and is the process of using a strategy and plan of what patches should be applied to which systems at a specified time.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Patches for proprietary software are typically distributed as executable files instead of source code. When executed these files load a program into memory which manages the installation of the patch code into the target program(s) on disk.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Patches for other software are typically distributed as data files containing the patch code. These are read by a patch utility program which performs the installation. This utility modifies the target program's executable file—the program's machine code—typically by overwriting its bytes with bytes representing the new patch code. If the new code will fit in the space (number of bytes) occupied by the old code, it may be put in place by overwriting directly over the old code. This is called an inline patch. If the new code is bigger than the old code, the patch utility will append load record(s) containing the new code to the object file of the target program being patched. When the patched program is run, execution is directed to the new code with branch instructions (jumps or calls) patched over the place in the old code where the new code is needed. On early 8-bit microcomputers, for example the Radio Shack TRS-80, the operating system includes a PATCH/CMD utility which accepts patch data from a text file and applies the fixes to the target program's executable binary file(s).


title: Patch (computing)

text: The patch code must have place(s) in memory to be executed at runtime. Inline patches are no difficulty, but when additional memory space is needed the programmer must improvise. Naturally if the patch programmer is the one who first created the code to be patched, this is easier. Savvy programmers plan in advance for this need by reserving memory for later expansion, left unused when producing their final iteration. Other programmers not involved with the original implementation, seeking to incorporate changes at a later time, must find or make space for any additional bytes needed. The most fortunate possible circumstance for this is when the routine to be patched is a distinct module. In this case the patch programmer need merely adjust the pointers or length indicators that signal to other system components the space occupied by the module; he is then free to populate this memory space with his expanded patch code. If the routine to be patched does not exist as a distinct memory module, the programmer must find ways to shrink the routine to make enough room for the expanded patch code. Typical tactics include shortening code by finding more efficient sequences of instructions (or by redesigning with more efficient algorithms), compacting message strings and other data areas, externalizing program functions to mass storage (such as disk overlays), or removal of program features deemed less important than the changes to be installed with the patch.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Small in-memory machine code patches can be manually applied with the system debug utility, such as CP/M's DDT or MS-DOS's DEBUG debuggers. Programmers working in interpreted BASIC often used the POKE command to alter the functionality of a system service routine or the interpreter itself.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Patches can also circulate in the form of source code modifications. In this case, the patches usually consist of textual differences between two source code files, called "diffs". These types of patches commonly come out of open-source software projects. In these cases, developers expect users to compile the new or changed files themselves.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Because the word "patch" carries the connotation of a small fix, large fixes may use different nomenclature. Bulky patches or patches that significantly change a program may circulate as "service packs" or as "software updates". Microsoft Windows NT and its successors (including Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7) use the "service pack" terminology. Historically, IBM used the terms "FixPaks" and "Corrective Service Diskette" to refer to these updates.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Historically, software suppliers distributed patches on paper tape or on punched cards, expecting the recipient to cut out the indicated part of the original tape (or deck), and patch in (hence the name) the replacement segment. Later patch distributions used magnetic tape. Then, after the invention of removable disk drives, patches came from the software developer via a disk or, later, CD-ROM via mail. With widely available Internet access, downloading patches from the developer's web site or through automated software updates became often available to the end-users. Starting with Apple's Mac OS 9 and Microsoft's Windows ME, PC operating systems gained the ability to get automatic software updates via the Internet.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Computer programs can often coordinate patches to update a target program. Automation simplifies the end-user's task they need only to execute an update program, whereupon that program makes sure that updating the target takes place completely and correctly. Service packs for Microsoft Windows NT and its successors and for many commercial software products adopt such automated strategies.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Some programs can update themselves via the Internet with very little or no intervention on the part of users. The maintenance of server software and of operating systems often takes place in this manner. In situations where system administrators control a number of computers, this sort of automation helps to maintain consistency. The application of security patches commonly occurs in this manner.


title: Patch (computing)

text: The size of patches may vary from a few bytes to hundreds of megabytes; thus, more significant changes imply a larger size, though this also depends on whether the patch includes entire files or only the changed portion(s) of files. In particular, patches can become quite large when the changes add or replace non-program data, such as graphics and sounds files. Such situations commonly occur in the patching of computer games. Compared with the initial installation of software, patches usually do not take long to apply.


title: Patch (computing)

text: In the case of operating systems and computer server software, patches have the particularly important role of fixing security holes. Some critical patches involve issues with drivers. Patches may require prior application of other patches, or may require prior or concurrent updates of several independent software components. To facilitate updates, operating systems often provide automatic or semi-automatic updating facilities. Completely automatic updates have not succeeded in gaining widespread popularity in corporate computing environments, partly because of the aforementioned glitches, but also because administrators fear that software companies may gain unlimited control over their computers. Package management systems can offer various degrees of patch automation.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Usage of completely automatic updates has become far more widespread in the consumer market, due largely to the fact that Microsoft Windows added support for them, and Service Pack 2 of Windows XP (available in 2004) enabled them by default. Cautious users, particularly system administrators, tend to put off applying patches until they can verify the stability of the fixes. Microsoft (W)SUS supports this. In the cases of large patches or of significant changes, distributors often limit availability of patches to qualified developers as a beta test.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Applying patches to firmware poses special challenges, as it often involves the provisioning of totally new firmware images, rather than applying only the differences from the previous version. The patch usually consists of a firmware image in form of binary data, together with a supplier-provided special program that replaces the previous version with the new version; a motherboard BIOS update is an example of a common firmware patch. Any unexpected error or interruption during the update, such as a power outage, may render the motherboard unusable. It is possible for motherboard manufacturers to put safeguards in place to prevent serious damage; for example, the update procedure could make and keep a backup of the firmware to use in case it determines that the primary copy is corrupt (usually through the use of a checksum, such as a CRC).


title: Patch (computing)

text: Video games receive patches to fix compatibility problems after their initial release just like any other software, but they can also be applied to change game rules or algorithms. These patches may be prompted by the discovery of exploits in the multiplayer game experience that can be used to gain unfair advantages over other players. Extra features and gameplay tweaks can often be added. These kinds of patches are common in first-person shooters with multiplayer capability, and in MMORPGs, which are typically very complex with large amounts of content, almost always rely heavily on patches following the initial release, where patches sometimes add new content and abilities available to players. Because the balance and fairness for all players of an MMORPG can be severely corrupted within a short amount of time by an exploit, servers of an MMORPG are sometimes taken down with short notice in order to apply a critical patch with a fix.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Companies sometimes release games knowing that they have bugs. "Computer Gaming World"s Scorpia in 1994 denounced "companies—too numerous to mention—who release shoddy product knowing they can get by with patches and upgrades, and who make "pay"-testers of their customers".


title: Patch (computing)

text: Patches sometimes become mandatory to fix problems with libraries or with portions of source code for programs in frequent use or in maintenance. This commonly occurs on very large-scale software projects, but rarely in small-scale development.


title: Patch (computing)

text: In open-source projects, the authors commonly receive patches or many people publish patches that fix particular problems or add certain functionality, like support for local languages outside the project's locale. In an example from the early development of the Linux kernel (noted for publishing its complete source code), Linus Torvalds, the original author, received hundreds of thousands of patches from many programmers to apply against his original version. For patches that are repetitive, there exists tools, such as Coccinelle to support writing generic patches and applying them at multiple locations at the same time (typically hundreds of locations in the case of the Linux kernel).


title: Patch (computing)

text: The Apache HTTP Server originally evolved as a number of patches that Brian Behlendorf collated to improve NCSA HTTPd, hence a name that implies that it is a collection of patches ("a patchy server"). The FAQ on the project's official site states that the name 'Apache' was chosen from respect for the Native American Indian tribe of Apache. However, the 'a patchy server' explanation was initially given on the project's website.


title: Patch (computing)

text: A hotfix or Quick Fix Engineering update (QFE update) is a single, cumulative package that includes information (often in the form of one or more files) that is used to address a problem in a software product (i.e., a software bug). Typically, hotfixes are made to address a specific customer situation. Microsoft once used this term but has stopped in favor of new terminology: General Distribution Release (GDR) and Limited Distribution Release (LDR). Blizzard Entertainment, however, defines a hotfix as "a change made to the game deemed critical enough that it cannot be held off until a regular content patch".


title: Patch (computing)

text: A point release is a minor release of a software project, especially one intended to fix bugs or do small cleanups rather than add significant features. Often, there are too many bugs to be fixed in a single major or minor release, creating a need for a point release.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Program temporary fix or Product temporary fix (PTF), depending on date, is the standard IBM terminology for a single bug fix, or group of fixes, distributed in a form ready to install for customers. A PTF was sometimes referred to as a “ZAP”.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Customers sometime explain the acronym in a tongue-in-cheek manner as "permanent temporary fix" or more practically "probably this fixes", because they have the option to make the PTF a permanent part of the operating system if the patch fixes the problem.


title: Patch (computing)

text: A "security patch" is a change applied to an asset to correct the weakness described by a vulnerability. This corrective action will prevent successful exploitation and remove or mitigate a threat's capability to exploit a specific vulnerability in an asset. Patch management is a part of vulnerability management the cyclical practice of identifying, classifying, remediating, and mitigating vulnerabilities.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Security patches are the primary method of fixing security vulnerabilities in software. Currently Microsoft releases its security patches once a month, and other operating systems and software projects have security teams dedicated to releasing the most reliable software patches as soon after a vulnerability announcement as possible. Security patches are closely tied to responsible disclosure.


title: Patch (computing)

text: These security patches are critical to ensure that business process does not get affected. In 2017, companies were struck by a ransomware called WannaCry which encrypts files in certain versions of Microsoft Windows and demands a ransom via BitCoin. In response to this, Microsoft released a patch which stops the ransomware from running.


title: Patch (computing)

text: A service pack or SP or a feature pack (FP) comprises a collection of updates, fixes, or enhancements to a software program delivered in the form of a single installable package. Companies often release a service pack when the number of individual patches to a given program reaches a certain (arbitrary) limit, or the software release has shown to be stabilized with a limited number of remaining issues based on users' feedback and bug tracking such as Bugzilla. In large software applications such as office suites, operating systems, database software, or network management, it is not uncommon to have a service pack issued within the first year or two of a product's release. Installing a service pack is easier and less error-prone than installing many individual patches, even more so when updating multiple computers over a network, where service packs are common.


title: Patch (computing)

text: An unofficial patch is a patch for a program written by a third party instead of the original developer. Similar to an ordinary patch, it alleviates bugs or shortcomings. Examples are security fixes by security specialists when an official patch by the software producers itself takes too long. Other examples are unofficial patches created by the game community of a video game which became unsupported abandonware.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Monkey patching means extending or modifying a program locally (affecting only the running instance of the program).


title: Patch (computing)

text: "Hot patching", also known as "live patching" or "dynamic software updating", is the application of patches without shutting down and restarting the system or the program concerned. This addresses problems related to unavailability of service provided by the system or the program.


title: Patch (computing)

text: A patch that can be applied in this way is called a "hot patch" or a "live patch". This is becoming a common practice in the mobile app space. Companies like Rollout.io use method swizzling to deliver hot patches to the iOS ecosystem. Another method for hot-patching iOS apps is JSPatch.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Cloud providers often use hot patching to avoid downtime for customers when updating underlying infrastructure.


title: Patch (computing)

text: In computing, slipstreaming is the act of integrating patches (including service packs) into the installation files of their original app, so that the result allows a direct installation of the updated app.


title: Patch (computing)

text: The nature of slipstreaming means that it involves an initial outlay of time and work, but can save a lot of time (and, by extension, money) in the long term. This is especially significant for administrators that are tasked with managing a large number of computers, where typical practice for installing an operating system on each computer would be to use the original media and then update each computer after the installation was complete. This would take a lot more time than starting with a more up-to-date (slipstreamed) source, and needing to download and install the few updates not included in the slipstreamed source.


title: Patch (computing)

text: However, not all patches can be applied in this fashion and one disadvantage is that if it is discovered that a certain patch is responsible for later problems, said patch cannot be removed without using an original, non-slipstreamed installation source.


title: Patch (computing)

text: Software update systems allow for updates to be managed by users and software developers. In the 2017 Petya cyberpandemic, the financial software "MeDoc"'s update system is said to have been compromised to spread malware via its updates. On the Tor Blog cybersecurity expert Mike Perry states that deterministic, distributed builds are likely the only way to defend against malware that attacks the software development and build processes to infect millions of machines in a single, officially signed, instantaneous update. Update managers also allow for security updates to be applied quickly and widely. Update managers of Linux such as Synaptic allow users to update all software installed on their machine. Applications like Synaptic use cryptographic checksums to verify source/local files before they are applied to ensure fidelity against malware.


title: Webmail

text: Webmail (or web-based email) is an email service that can be accessed using a standard web browser. It contrasts with email service accessible through a specialised email client software. Examples of webmail providers are 1&1 Ionos, AOL Mail, Gmail, GMX Mail, Mailfence, Outlook.com/Hotmail.com, Yahoo! Mail and IceWarp Mail Server. Additionally, many internet service providers (ISP) provide webmail as part of their internet service package. Similarly, some web hosting providers also provide webmail as a part of their hosting package.


title: Webmail

text: ISP providers and hosting companies, typically use webmail software via 3rd party software such as Roundcube or SquirrelMail.


title: Webmail

text: As with any web application, webmail's main advantage over the use of a desktop email client is the ability to send and receive email anywhere from a web browser. Its main disadvantage is the need to be connected to the Internet while using it.


title: Webmail

text: The first Web Mail implementation was developed at CERN in 1993 by Phillip Hallam-Baker as a test of the HTTP protocol stack, but was not developed further. In the next two years, however, several people produced working webmail applications.


title: Webmail

text: In Europe, there were three implementations, Søren Vejrum's "WWW Mail", Luca Manunza's "WebMail", and Remy Wetzels' "WebMail". Søren Vejrum's "WWW Mail" was written when he was studying and working at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, and was released on February 28, 1995. Luca Manunza's "WebMail" was written while he was working at CRS4 in Sardinia, from an idea of Gianluigi Zanetti, with the first source release on March 30, 1995. Remy Wetzels' "WebMail" was written while he was studying at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands for the DSE and was released early January 1995.


title: Webmail

text: In the United States, Matt Mankins wrote "Webex", and Bill Fitler, while at , began working on an implementation which he demonstrated publicly at Lotusphere on January 24, 1995. Matt Mankins, under the supervision of Dr. Burt Rosenberg at the University of Miami, released his "Webex" application source code in a post to comp.mail.misc on August 8, 1995, although it had been in use as the primary email application at the School of Architecture where Mankins worked for some months prior.


title: Webmail

text: Bill Fitler's webmail implementation was further developed as a commercial product, which Lotus announced and released in the fall of 1995 as "cc:Mail for the World Wide Web 1.0"; thereby providing an alternative means of accessing a cc:Mail message store (the usual means being a cc:Mail desktop application that operated either via dialup or within the confines of a local area network).


title: Webmail

text: Early commercialization of webmail was also achieved when "Webex" began to be sold by Mankins' company, DotShop, Inc., at the end of 1995. Within DotShop, "Webex" changed its name to "EMUmail"; which would be sold to companies like UPS and Rackspace until its sale to Accurev in 2001. EMUmail was one of the first applications to feature a free version that included embedded advertising, as well as a licensed version that did not.


title: Webmail

text: Hotmail and Four11's RocketMail both launched in 1996 as free services and immediately became very popular.


title: Webmail

text: As the 1990s progressed, and into the 2000s, it became more common for the general public to have access to webmail because:


title: Webmail

text: In some cases, webmail application software is developed in-house by the organizations running and managing the application, and in some cases it is obtained from software companies that develop and sell such applications, usually as part of an integrated mail server package (an early example being Netscape Messaging Server). The market for webmail application software has continued into the 2010s.


title: Webmail

text: Email users may find the use of both a webmail client and a desktop client using the POP3 protocol presents some difficulties. For example, email messages that are downloaded by the desktop client and are removed from the server will no longer be available on the webmail client. The user is limited to previewing messages using the web client before they are downloaded by the desktop email client. However, one may choose to leave the emails on the server, in which case this problem does not occur. The use of both a webmail client and a desktop client using the IMAP4 protocol allows the contents of the mailbox to be consistently displayed in both the webmail and desktop clients and any action the user performs on messages in one interface will be reflected when the email is accessed via the other interface. There are significant differences in rendering capabilities for many popular webmail services such as Gmail, Outlook.com and Yahoo! Mail. Due to the varying treatment of HTML tags, such as <style> and <head>, as well as CSS rendering inconsistencies, email marketing companies rely on older web development techniques to send cross-platform mail. This usually means a greater reliance on tables and inline stylesheets.


title: Webmail

text: Microsoft Windows applications by default create email messages via MAPI. Several vendors produce tools to provide a MAPI interface to webmail.


title: Webmail

text: Although emails stored unencrypted on any service provider's servers can be read by that service provider, specific concerns have been raised regarding webmail services that automatically analyze the contents of users' emails for the purpose of targeted advertising. At least two such services, Gmail and Yahoo! Mail, give users the option to opt out of targeted advertising.


title: Webmail

text: Webmail that is accessed over unsecured HTTP may be readable by a third party who has access to the data transmission, such as over an unsecured Wi-Fi connection. This may be avoided by connecting to the webmail service via HTTPS, which encrypts the connection. Gmail has supported HTTPS since launch and in 2014 began requiring it for all webmail connections. Yahoo! Mail added the option to connect over HTTPS in 2013 and made HTTPS required in 2014.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: Four Past Midnight is a collection of novellas written by Stephen King in 1988 and 1989 and published in August 1990. It is his second book of this type, the first one being "Different Seasons". The collection won the Bram Stoker Award in 1990 for Best Collection and was nominated for a Locus Award in 1991. In the introduction, King says that, while a collection of four novellas like "Different Seasons", this book is more strictly horror with elements of the supernatural.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: Pilot Brian Engle, immediately after a difficult flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles, learns that his ex-wife Anne has died in an accident in Boston, and he boards a red-eye flight to Boston as a passenger. A flight attendant speaks of an unusual phenomenon over the Mojave Desert that resembles an aurora. Brian falls asleep during takeoff, having been awake throughout his previous flight. Dinah Bellman, a young blind girl with psychic abilities, also falls asleep, and awakes to find that her aunt and several other passengers have disappeared. Dinah, mistaking a wig for a scalp, screams and awakes Brian and nine other passengers: teacher Laurel Stevenson, English diplomat Nick Hopewell, writer Bob Jenkins, violinist Albert Kaussner and his girlfriend Bethany Simms, businessman Rudy Warwick, mechanic Don Gaffney, bank manager Craig Toomy and an unknown heavily intoxicated passenger. The passengers find that the crew and the passengers who were awake have disappeared, leaving the airliner under the control of the autopilot. Brian takes control of the plane, but is unable to make any outside contact, and the passengers can only see a dark void below the plane. Brian manages to land in Bangor, Maine despite furious protests from Craig, who insists on reaching Boston for an important conference that will decide his fate.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: Upon arrival, they find the airport deserted. The clocks have stopped, there is no electricity, and the environment seems generally lifeless. As all products and substances have lost their quality, fuel does not burn, thus preventing any further flight. Dinah hears an approaching and threatening sound, and the group agrees to leave before it arrives. The unhinged Craig considers the situation to be a conspiracy against him and takes Bethany hostage at gunpoint, but the environment has robbed the gun of its potency, and the passengers apprehend Craig. Bob concludes that the aforementioned phenomenon was a "time rip" that has sent their plane to the past. As Dinah reports that the sound is growing closer, Craig relates to Dinah and Laurel that the sound is emitted by the "Langoliers", which are said by his oppressive father to hunt and devour negligent and unmotivated boys. Albert theorizes that time is still flowing inside the plane, which is proven when food brought onto the plane is restored to its normal properties. With the realization that fuel pumped into the plane will also return to normal, Brian has the plane refueled and he manages to start the engines. Meanwhile, Craig frees himself from his bonds and stabs Dinah, perceiving her to be the main Langolier. Despite this, Dinah insists that Craig must not be killed as the group needs him alive. As Albert and Don search for a stretcher for Dinah, Craig kills Don before Albert subdues him. Dinah, while being transported onto the plane, telepathically leads Craig to the runway, where he hallucinates his board meeting. The Langoliers appear in the form of toothed spherical creatures, and they are distracted from the departing plane as they devour Craig and the surrounding reality.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: Bob proposes that the Langoliers' purpose is to clean up what is left of the past by devouring it. Dinah succumbs to her injuries, and the plane approaches the time rip. Bob realizes that the passengers must be asleep when passing through the rip, otherwise they will disappear. Albert suggests lowering the cabin pressure to induce unconsciousness, which would require one passenger to sacrifice themself by remaining conscious to restore the pressure just before the plane passes through the rip. Nick volunteers, wishing to atone for mistakenly shooting and killing three Irish children, and he asks Laurel to go to his father to request forgiveness. Nick, wearing an emergency oxygen mask, flies the plane through the rip and disappears. Brian awakes and lands the plane at Los Angeles, but the passengers are again met with a deserted airport. Realizing that they are in the near future, the passengers take shelter against a wall to avoid the airport's human traffic and wait for the present to catch up to them. A wave of rising noise and motion hits them and they find themselves in the present again.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: "The Langoliers" was adapted for a two-part TV movie in 1994. The TV movie stars Kate Maberly, Kimber Riddle, Patricia Wettig, Mark Lindsay Chapman, Frankie Faison, Baxter Harris, Dean Stockwell, David Morse, Christopher Collet, and Bronson Pinchot.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: The movie version of "The Langoliers", produced for broadcast on ABC-TV, was filmed almost exclusively in and around the Bangor International Airport in Bangor, Maine (where author Stephen King attended college) during the summer of 1994. King himself, echoing Alfred Hitchcock's famous numerous cameos, made a cameo appearance in the film as Craig Toomy's boss during Toomy's hallucination.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: "Secret Window, Secret Garden" is similar to King's earlier novel "The Dark Half". Both are about authors who are thinly veiled analogues of King himself—Thad Beaumont in "The Dark Half" and Mort Rainey in "Secret Window, Secret Garden".


title: Four Past Midnight

text: Mort Rainey is a successful novelist in Maine. One day, he is confronted by a man from Mississippi named John Shooter who claims Mort plagiarized a story he wrote. Mort vehemently denies ever plagiarizing anything. Shooter leaves, but not before leaving his manuscript, "Secret Window, Secret Garden." Mort throws the manuscript into the trash can. When Mort's housemaid recovers the manuscript—thinking it belongs to Mort—he finally reads Shooter's story, discovering that it is almost identical to his short story "Sowing Season." The only differences are the title, the character's name, the diction, and the ending. Mort is disturbed by these findings.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: Shooter returns a few days later. Having learned that "Sowing Season" was published two years before Shooter claimed to have written "Secret Window, Secret Garden," Mort confronts Shooter with this information. An enraged Shooter accuses Mort of lying and demands proof, giving Mort three days to show him his published story. Overnight, he kills Mort's cat and burns down the house of Mort's ex-wife, which contained the magazine issue in which "Sowing Season" was published. Mort orders a new copy of the magazine. He also asks his caretaker Greg Carstairs to tail Shooter and to talk to a man named Tom Greenleaf, who drove past Mort and Shooter. Shooter, angry that Mort has involved other people in their business, kills both men and plants evidence framing Mort for the murders. Upon receiving the magazine and returning home, Mort finds that "Sowing Season" has been removed.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: Mort realizes that John Shooter is really his own split personality. Mort had created "Shooter" out of guilt for stealing a story early in his career titled "Crowfoot Mile" and had recently been suspected of another act of plagiarism, although he was innocent the second time. Tom had not seen Shooter while driving by—he saw Mort, by himself. Mort realizes he burned down his own home, killed his own cat, and murdered two people. He blacks out. Fifteen minutes later he awakens, only to hear who he believes to be Shooter pulling into his driveway. Desperate for any sign of his own sanity, he rushes outside only to find his ex-wife, Amy. Devastated, he loses control of his body and mind to Shooter. Amy discovers that Mort has gone insane, having written the word "Shooter" all over the house. She goes to Mort's study, where "Shooter" attempts to kill her in an ambush. She manages to escape. "Shooter," chasing Amy outside, is shot by her insurance agent. Mort becomes himself again, addresses Amy, and dies.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: Later, Amy and Ted Milner—a man she had an affair with before divorcing Mort—discuss her ex-husband's motives. She insists that Mort had become two people, one of them a character so vivid it became real. She then recalls something Tom witnessed—when he drove past Mort alone, he saw Shooter and Mort in his rear view mirror, but Shooter was transparent. Amy then reveals that while digging through Mort's house, she found Shooter's trademark hat. She left it right-side up on a trash bag. When she returned, she found a note from Shooter inside the overturned hat, revealing that he has traveled back to Mississippi with the story he came for, "Crowfoot Mile." Amy remarks that Mort had created a character so vivid, he actually came to life.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: A 2004 film adaptation called "Secret Window" was made, starring Johnny Depp, John Turturro, Maria Bello and Timothy Hutton. The storyline of the movie differs from that of the novel, most notably in their respective endings. In the movie, Mort kills his wife and her lover, while in the novel he is killed before he has a chance to do so. In the movie, after months it is shown that Mort grew corn in his wife's garden, where it is implied that he buried her and her lover, thus removing any proof that he murdered them. Another difference is the titles of the short stories: in the movie, Mort Rainey wrote a story called "Secret Window" and John Shooter wrote "Sowing Season." The story in the movie version is set in upstate New York instead of Maine.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: A three-episode radio adaptation was broadcast in 2003 on BBC Radio 4 starring Henry Goodman, William Roberts, Barbara Barnes, Lee Montague and Kerry Shale.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: King has been the subject of unfounded accusations of plagiarism. A woman claimed that King stole several of her story ideas and based characters from his books on her. All of her cases have been dismissed. In another incident, a deranged man broke into King's home, and when discovered by King's wife, claimed that King stole the plot of "Misery" from the intruder's aunt and that he had a bomb in the shoebox he was holding and was going to blow up the house. The fake bomb was made of pencils with paperclips wrapped around the erasers.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: Peebles is asked to give a speech to his local Rotary Club. An office assistant named Naomi Higgins directs him to the public library to check out books that might help with his speechwriting. At the library, he receives a library card and assistance in finding books from an elderly librarian, Ardelia Lortz. Having noticed a series of disturbing posters in the children's section, including one featuring a frightening "Library Policeman" character, he discusses their appropriateness with Ardelia. After being rebuffed by her, Sam checks out the books with the warning that they must be returned on time or else "I'll have to send the Library Policeman after you."


title: Four Past Midnight

text: The speech is a success, but Naomi informs Sam that Ardelia Lortz has been dead for many years. Ardelia, as a young woman, committed suicide in 1960 after murdering two children and a local deputy sheriff. The books are accidentally destroyed and a menacing Library Policeman terrorizes Sam at his house. Through Naomi, Sam meets Dave "Dirty Dave" Duncan, an alcoholic former sign painter and a former lover of Ardelia's. From Dave's recollections, Sam discovers that Ardelia is not a person but a being which feeds on fear and that Duncan was a sometimes unwilling companion/conspirator in helping her feed from the fear of children. Dave believes Ardelia is seeking revenge and a new host. While the trio attempt to stop Ardelia's return, Sam recalls a repressed memory: a man claiming to be a "Library Policeman" raped and threatened Sam when he was a young child in St. Louis. However, the new Library Policeman is not just a recreation of the man from Sam's past, but also an embodiment of Ardelia, who wants Sam as her new host.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: Dave dies defending Sam and Naomi from Ardelia. Sam and Naomi defeat the Library Policeman/Ardelia, only to discover that Ardelia has already attached to Naomi in the form of a blistery growth, "covered in a spiderweb skein of crisscrossing white threads ... a lump of pinkish jelly that throbbed and pulsed with the beat of her heart." Sam removes the creature from Naomi's neck and destroys it under the wheels of a passing train.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: Kevin Delevan receives a Sun 660 Polaroid camera for his fifteenth birthday. He discovers that there is something strange about the camera: the only pictures it produces are of a malicious black dog which seems to move closer with each shot as though to attack the photographer. On a recommendation, Kevin seeks help from Reginald "Pop" Merrill, the wealthy and unscrupulous owner of a junk shop in the town of Castle Rock, Maine. While just as unsettled by the phenomenon as Kevin, Merrill sees an opportunity to further his own interests; namely, selling the camera to a paranormal enthusiast for a great deal of money. He manages to switch out the camera for another of the same model, which Kevin destroys. Much to his dismay, however, Merrill cannot rid himself of the Sun as his customers either dismiss it as a fake or decline to purchase it due to the discomfort and unease they feel upon viewing the photographs. Furthermore, Merrill finds himself increasingly compelled to use the Sun – the dog slowly advancing and transforming into something more savage and monstrous with every picture he takes.


title: Four Past Midnight

text: In the meantime, Kevin is plagued by recurring nightmares about the dog. Realizing that Merrill tricked him and the Sun was never destroyed, he sets out to prevent Merrill from taking any more pictures for fear that the dog will "break through" into the real world. By this point, the camera's influence over Merrill has caused him to lose his grip on sanity. After waking up one night to find himself holding the Sun and repeatedly pressing its trigger, Merrill resolves to smash it in the morning. However, he hallucinates that one of the cuckoo clocks hanging on the wall of his store is really the camera, and smashes the clock instead. Under the illusion that he is repairing a clock at his workbench, Merrill starts taking pictures again. At this moment, Kevin and his father arrive to confront Merrill, but they are too late to stop him. The dog tears its way out of the final photograph, killing Merrill in the process. Inspired by his nightmares, Kevin has brought another Sun with him, and just as the dog is about to release itself, he takes its picture, trapping it once more in the "Polaroid world".


title: Four Past Midnight

text: In the epilogue, Kevin gets a computer for his following birthday. In order to test its word processor function, he types "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Rather than a printout of this text, the page reads, "The dog is loose again. It is not sleeping. It is not lazy. It's coming for you, Kevin. It's very hungry. And it's "VERY" angry."


title: Four Past Midnight

text: Upon its release, Michael A. Morrison in "Washington Post" called the collection "exceptionally well crafted" with the exception of "Sun Dog", praising King's "unexpected similes" and his use of "dreams to reveal character". Robert Chatain called it possibly King's best book and "a serious, heavyweight effort", characterising the tales as "rich" as well as "fast, tricky, even perverse, like carnival rides that look easy from the ground but turn unexpectedly nasty and vertiginous when we're up in the air".


title: Four Past Midnight

text: However, Josh Rubins in "Entertainment Weekly" graded the anthology a "C+" and considered it formulaic with "enthusiasm" and contemporary setting. Rubins compared a novella "The Langoliers" to—quoting characters of the novella—a "stupid disaster [movie]" and a "bad [television] movie." He found "Secret Window, Secret Garden" bearably suspenseful with a "gimmicky, least convincing [finale]." He called "The Sun Dog" the "simplest, most distinctive story" and praised it as mostly "a delicious black comedy." Andy Solomon in "The New York Times" commented that King's mass appeal comes "ironically from his cliched diction," referring to the anthology's reliance on popular culture for descriptions.