title: Soviet Top League

text: The league was established on the initiative of head of Spartak sport society, Nikolai Starostin. Starostin proposed to create eight professional club teams in six Soviet cities and hold two championship tournaments per calendar year. With minor corrections, the Soviet Council on Physical Culture accepted the Starostin's proposal creating a league of "demonstration teams of master" which were sponsored by sport societies and factories. Nikolai Starostin de facto became a godfather of the Soviet championships. Numerous mass events took place to promote the newly established competition, among which there was an introduction of football exhibition game as part of the Moscow Physical Culture Day parade, invitation of football team from Basque region which was on the side supported by Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War and others.


title: Soviet Top League

text: In 1936 the first secretary of Komsomol Kosarev came up with an idea of playing an actual football game at the Red Square as part of the Physical Culture Day parade. Stalin never attended any sports events, but the Physical Culture Day was an exclusion to the rule. The 1936 Physical Culture Day parade was directed by Russian theatre director Valentin Pluchek. For the football game, a giant green felt carpet was sewn by Spartak athletes and laid down on the Red Square's cobblestones. A night before the parade, the rug was stitched together in sections, rolled up and then stored in a vestibule of the GUM department store located at the square. Following the 1936 Red Square game, it became a tradition before the World War II and part of the Physical Culture Day parade event.


title: Soviet Top League

text: In the late 1930s Spartak was giving out thousands of tickets per game to members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Among serious football fans was Lavrentiy Beria who proposed to have one team from each of union republics in the league. In July 1937 a conflict erupted following a successful tour to the Soviet Union of a football team from Basque region during which the main governing body of sports in the country, the All-Union Council of Physical Culture, was accused by the party and Komsomol for failing the sports policy. Spartak's leadership and Starostin in particular were accused of corruption and implementing "bourgeoisie methods" in Soviet sport.


title: Soviet Top League

text: The most prominent clubs of the league were FC Dynamo Kyiv, FC Spartak Moscow, and FC Dynamo Moscow. The most popular clubs besides the above-mentioned were PFC CSKA Moscow, FC Ararat Yerevan, and FC Dinamo Tbilisi. Dinamo Tbilisi became famous for finishing third but never winning the title, the first title they won in 1964.


title: Soviet Top League

text: Until the 1960s the main title contenders in the league were the Moscow clubs of Spartak and Dynamo whose dominance was disrupted for only a brief period after World War II by CSKA Moscow, nicknamed 'The team of lieutenants'. The first team that won 10 championships was Dynamo Moscow in 1963, followed by Spartak in 1979.


title: Soviet Top League

text: Eleven clubs spent over 30 seasons in the league with five of them from Moscow. Dynamo Moscow and Dynamo Kyiv were the only clubs that participated in all seasons of the league. Among other prominent Russian clubs were SKA Rostov/Donu (Army team), Zenit Leningrad (Zenith), and Krylia Sovietov Kuibyshev (Wings of the Soviets).


title: Soviet Top League

text: Over the years the league changed, however from the 1970s its competition structure solidified with 16 participants, except from 1979 through 1985 when the number of participants was extended to 18.


title: Soviet Top League

text: One uniquely Soviet innovation around this time was the "draw limit", whereby a team would receive zero points for any draws in excess of a fixed number, first 8, then 10. This rule had consequences for both the title race and relegation while it was in place. A 1973 experiment to resolve drawn games by penalty shoot-out lasted only one season.


title: Soviet Top League

text: Dynamo Kyiv's success as a Ukrainian club was supplemented in the 1980s with the appearance of Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk led by its striker Oleh Protasov who set a new record for goals scored in a season. In 1984, Zenit Leningrad became Soviet champions for the first time.


title: Soviet Top League

text: With the unravelling of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, the structure of the league also became unstable as more and more clubs lost interest in continuing to participate in the league, prompting several rounds of reorganisation. The main effect of these was to boost the numbers of Ukrainian clubs to be on par with the Russians.


title: Soviet Top League

text: Since the fall of the Soviet Union, it has been suggested that the competition be re-established along the lines of the Commonwealth of Independent States Cup, but due to a lack of interest on various levels the venture has never been implemented.


title: Soviet Top League

text: Contrary to popular belief, Russian clubs were never a majority in the Top League, nor did they enjoy any special status. However, the uneven population of the Soviet Union meant that the participants in a typical Top League season fell into three blocs:


title: Soviet Top League

text: Documentation about the league is scarce. Among well-known researchers are Aksel Vartanyan for Sport Express, Andrei Moroz and Georgiy Ibragimov for KLISF Club, Alexandru G.Paloşanu, Eugene Berkovich, Mike Dryomin, Almantas Lauzadis, and Hans Schöggl for RSSSF Archives. Another extensive databases are composed at helmsoccer.narod.ru and FC Dynamo Moscow website.


title: Soviet Top League

text: Prior to World War II the championship was split into several groups usually of eight teams and named by the letters of the Cyrillic script.


title: Soviet Top League

text: Upon the reestablishment of the league after the war for several years it was numbered sequentially with the top league being the First.


title: Soviet Top League

text: Since 1950, the alphabetical classification of the Soviet league hierarchy has resumed. In 1960 through 1962 the league consisted of two groups with the better clubs qualified for the championship pool and less fortunate – the relegation pool.


title: Soviet Top League

text: The first time the Soviet League was represented in Europe in the 1965–66 European Cup Winners' Cup by Dynamo Kyiv. In its first year the club reached the quarterfinals, eliminating on its way Coleraine and Rosenborg and winning all four matches with those clubs. The Ukrainians also knocked out reigning champions Celtic in the first round in the 1967–68 European Cup. In the 1968–69 season the Soviet clubs withdrew from continental competitions after the invasion of Czechoslovakia. From 1974 (except for the 1982–83 season) to 1984 the league was among the best 10 national competitions in the UEFA rankings (based on continental competitions performance) reaching the 4th place in 1976 and 1977. From 1985 the Soviet Top League was among the best four in Europe, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.


title: Soviet Top League

text: In 1987 and 1988 the Soviet Top League was the second best league in Europe, however by the end of the Soviet Union the results of its representatives worsened as top players could now leave and play for foreign leagues in the West. The very last coefficient position that the Soviet League placed was No. 9 in 1992. The 1992/93 season all the results of the Soviet League were transferred to the Russian Premier League. Throughout its history the representatives of the league on four occasions made to the finals of the three primary European competitions being victorious in three. Once a Soviet club was able to win the UEFA Super Cup.


title: Soviet Top League

text: Before establishment of professional competitions among clubs, in the Soviet Union existed another competition that was conducted among collective teams of various cities or republics.


title: Soviet Top League

text: Two points for a win. In 1973, a point for a draw was awarded only to a team that won the subsequent penalty shootout. In 1978–1988, the number of draws for which points were awarded was limited.


title: Soviet Top League

text: Starting since 1958 beside medals of the regular Soviet championship, participants were awarded number of prizes (~ 18 regular prizes) that were established by various sports and public organizations, editorial offices of newspapers and magazines.


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: Since the 2010s, the video game company Electronic Arts has been at the center of numerous controversies involving acquisitions of companies and anti-consumer practices in their individual games, as well as lawsuits alleging anti-competitive practices on EA's part when signing sports-related contracts. In 2012 and 2013, the company was named "Worst Company in America" by "Consumerist", while it was named the 5th most hated company in the United States by "USA Today" in 2018.


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: During the early 2000s, when EA was in a period of fast growth, the company developed a reputation of acquiring development studios, primarily for their intellectual property (IP) assets rather than the studios' talent, and then subsequently forcing changes on the studios' work product that impacted the quality or scope of the game, and/or determining the studios were no longer necessary due to the poor performances of their games and dissolving them. This created an appearance that EA was handling games as if it were an assembly line, only looking to put out as much product as possible without care for the content or the creative staff that were behind the creation of the games. The company gained the derogatory nickname as the "Evil Empire" within the video game industry as a result of these business practices.


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: EA's handling of Origin Systems, the studio behind the "Ultima" series, is considered a key example of this business practice. EA acquired Origin in 1992. Under EA, Origin was pushed into quickly finishing two "Ultima" titles, "Ultima VIII: Pagan" and "Ultima IX: Ascension", despite protests from the studio's founder Richard Garriott. Both titles were poorly received compared to the previous entries in the series. Between these, Origin had also developed "Ultima Online" which had been successful. Following development of "Ultima IX", the studio had started work on "Ultima Online 2", but due to the poor sales of "Ultima IX", EA cancelled that work, leaving Origin primarily to support "Ultima Online" until EA decided to shutter the studio in 2004, moving the remaining staff to other divisions within EA. Other studios considered to have been affected by EA's handling include Bullfrog Productions, Westwood Studios, Maxis, and Pandemic Studios.


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: By 2008, EA had started altering its practices, in part due to the appointment of a new CEO, John Riccitiello. Riccitiello acknowledged in 2008 that the company's prior practices towards acquisition was wrong and that the company now gave acquired studios greater autonomy without "meddling" in their corporate culture. The company's CFO Blake Jorgensen similarly acknowledged this prior practice was "somewhat marginal in performance" in a statement in 2014, and that going forward, the company would likely slow down on acquisitions and giving the opportunity for their internal studios to help produce major titles instead. This sentiment was echoed by those that had worked in EA in the past and present. In 2008, John D. Carmack of id Software, in announcing that EA would publish their upcoming title "Rage", said that EA was no longer the "Evil Empire": Carmack said "I'll admit that, if you asked me years ago, I still had thoughts that EA was the Evil Empire, the company that crushes the small studios... I'd have been surprised, if you told me a year ago that we'd end up with EA as a publisher. When we went out and talked to people, especially EA Partners people like Valve, we got almost uniformly positive responses from them." Peter Molyneux, who had founded Bullfrog, also said that EA was not an "Evil Empire" in an interview in 2014, but acknowledged that when studios are acquired by the likes of EA, the added funds and additional support, such as larger offices, "changes the flavor of the company" and can lead to events that can lead to poor performance from the studio.


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: While the company's reputation in managing studios had improved since 2008, EA's closure of Visceral Games in 2017 was considered by "Engadget" as a return to EA's "bad habit of shuttering well-known studios".


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: EA was once criticized for the acquisition of 19.9 percent of shares of its competitor Ubisoft, a move that Ubisoft's then spokesperson initially described as a "hostile act". However, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot later indicated that a merger with EA was a possibility, stating, "The first option for us is to manage our own company and grow it. The second option is to work with the movie industry, and the third is to merge." However, in July 2010, EA elected to sell its reduced 15 percent share in Ubisoft. That share equated to roughly ().


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: In the video game industry, it is not uncommon for publishers and developers to have employees work extra hours near the last few weeks or months of the development cycle to make sure a game is released on time, often unpaid as such workers are classified as exempt from overtime pay; this is commonly known as "crunch time". In 2004, Electronic Arts was criticized for employees working extraordinarily long hours, up to 100 hours per week, as a routine practice rather than during the "crunch time" period. Erin Hoffman, the fiancée of an EA employee, posted an "EA Spouse" blog anonymously as a "disgruntled spouse" in 2004, describing some of the worktime demands EA had made of her fiancé, such as "The current mandatory hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.—seven days a week—with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior (at 6:30 PM)."


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: Hoffman's blog went viral and brought awareness of this "crunch culture" to the forefront of the industry. Two class action lawsuits were filed against EA by employees. The first was filed originally in 2004 by video game artists looking to be compensated for unpaid overtime. EA settled with the class for by 2006. In addition to the settlement funds, EA reclassified several of the low-level developers into hourly-rate schedules to qualify for overtime in the future, but forgoing company stock options. A second suit was brought against EA by programmers, and was similarly settled in 2006 for . Additionally, Hoffman's blog led a general trend across the game industry to address the matter of crunch time, though as of 2015 it remains a significant industry issue.


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: Since these criticisms first aired, it has been reported that EA has taken steps to address work-life balance concerns by focusing on long-term project planning, compensation, and communication with employees. These efforts accelerated with the arrival of John Riccitiello as CEO in February 2007. In December 2007, an internal EA employee survey showed a 13% increase in employee morale and a 21% increase in perception of management recognition over a three-year period. In May 2008, Hoffman said EA had made significant progress, but may now be falling into old patterns again. She said "I think EA is tremendously reformed, having made some real strong efforts to get the right people into their human resources department", and "I've been hearing from people who have gotten overtime pay there and I think that makes a great deal of difference. In fact, I've actually recommended to a few people I know to apply for jobs there", but she also said she has begun to hear "horror stories" once again.


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: The crunch culture at EA has since been mentioned in association with other games, with the excessive crunch having said to contribute towards the poor quality of the game. Such titles including 2006's "Superman Returns" which suffered from culture changes as EA reacted to the class action lawsuits, and 2019's "Anthem".


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: EA's aggregate review performance had shown a downward trend in quality over recent years and was expected to affect market shares during competitive seasons. Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson had said, "Poor reviews and quality are beginning to tarnish the EA brand. According to our ongoing survey of GameRankings.com aggregated review data, Electronic Arts' overall game quality continues to fall... Although market share has not declined dramatically to date, in years such as 2007, which promises to have tremendous competition, it seems likely if quality does not improve."


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: EA had also received criticism for developing games that lack innovation vis-à-vis the number of gaming titles produced under the EA brand that show a history of yearly updates, particularly in their EA Sports franchises. These typically retail as new games at full market price and feature only updated team rosters in addition to incremental changes to game mechanics, the user interface, soundtracks and graphics. One critique compared EA to companies like Ubisoft and concluded that EA's innovation in new and old IPs "Crawls along at a snail's pace," while even the company's own CEO, John Riccitiello, acknowledged the lack of innovation seen in the industry generally, saying, "We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play. For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat. There's been lots of product that looked like last year's product, that looked a lot like the year before." EA has announced that it is turning its attention to creating new game IPs in order to stem this trend, with recently acquired and critically acclaimed studios BioWare and Pandemic would be contributing to this process. In 2012, EA's games were ranked highest of all large publishers in the industry, according to Metacritic.


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: On June 5, 2008, a lawsuit was filed in Oakland, California alleging Electronic Arts is breaking United States antitrust laws by signing exclusive contracts with the NFL Players Association, the NCAA and Arena Football League, to use players' names, likenesses and team logos. This keeps other companies from being able to sign the same agreements. The suit further accuses EA of raising the price of games associated with these licenses as a result of this action. In an interview with GameTap, Peter Moore said it was the NFL that sought the deal. "To be clear, the NFL was the entity that wanted the exclusive relationship. EA bid, as did a number of other companies, for the exclusive relationship", Moore said. "It wasn't on our behest that this went exclusive... We bid and we were very fortunate and lucky and delighted to be the winning licensee." While EA argued the player's likenesses was incidentally used, this was rejected by the United States Courts of Appeals in 2015. A further appeal to the US Supreme Court was unsuccessful. In June 2016, EA settled with Jim Brown for $600,000.


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: On September 26, 2013, EA settled a series of wide-ranging class action lawsuits filed by former NCAA players accusing EA and others of unauthorized use of player likenesses in their football and basketball games. EA settled the lawsuit for an undisclosed amount. The settlement is reported to be around $40 million, to be paid to between 200,000 and 300,000 players.


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: In April 2012, "Consumerist" awarded EA with the title of "Worst Company in America" along with a ceremonial Golden Poo trophy. The record-breaking poll drew in more than 250,000 votes and saw EA beating out such regulars as AT&T and Walmart. The final round of voting pitted EA against Bank of America. EA won with 50,575 votes or 64.03%. This result came in the aftermath of the "Mass Effect 3" ending controversy which several commentators viewed as a significant contribution to EA's win in the poll. Other explanations include use of day-one DLC and EA's habit of acquiring smaller developers to squash competition. EA spokesman John Reseburg responded to the poll by saying, "We're sure that bank presidents, oil, tobacco and weapons companies are all relieved they weren't on the list this year. We're going to continue making award-winning games and services played by more than 300 million people worldwide."


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: In April 2013, EA won "Consumerist"s poll for "Worst Company in America" a second time, consecutively, becoming the first company to do so. Games mentioned in the announcement included the critically controversial "Mass Effect 3" for its ending, "Dead Space 3" for its use of microtransactions, and the more recent "SimCity" reboot due to its poorly handled launch. Additionally, poor customer support, "nickel and diming", and public dismissiveness of criticisms were also given as explanations for the results of the poll. "Consumerist" summarized the results by asking, "When we live in an era marked by massive oil spills, faulty foreclosures by bad banks, and rampant consolidation in the airline and telecom industry, what does it say about EA’s business practices that so many people have—for the second year in a row—come out to hand it the title of Worst Company in America?"


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: When asked about the poll by VentureBeat, Frank Gibeau, President of EA Labels, responded "we take it seriously, and want to see it change. In the last few months, we have started making changes to the business practices that gamers clearly do not like." Gibeau attributes the elimination of online passes, the decision to make "The Sims 4" a single-player, offline experience, as well as the unveiling of more new games to the shift in thinking. "The point is we are listening, and we are changing," Gibeau said.


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: A loot box is a type of microtransaction in video games, in which players can use in-game rewards or real-world funds to gain a virtual box filled with in-game items, the effects of which can vary. One approach used when creating loot boxes is to limit the system to only provide items that do not alter gameplay, such as visual customization options for characters. In contrast, another approach sees loot boxes dispense items that do alter gameplay. The latter style has drawn criticism from gamers and the wider public.


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: Loot boxes had gained popularity from developers and publishers around 2017, and Electronic Arts had included loot boxes or their equivalents in its games, such as "FIFA 18" in its "FIFA Ultimate Team Mode", "Mass Effect Andromeda", and "Star Wars Battlefront II". EA's initial approach to loot boxes during "Battlefront II" open beta period involved pay-to-win elements, with boxes containing powerful unlockable characters that otherwise would require hours of play to acquire through in game funds, in-game boosts only available through loot boxes, and other effects. Players complained about the pay-to-win aspects, leading EA to change what the "Battlefront II" loot boxes contained, including assuring all items could otherwise be earned through in-game means. The changes still allowed players that spent money on loot boxes to gain game-affecting elements at a faster rate than those trying to earn them in-game, leading to further criticism. Just prior to the game's full release in November 2017, Disney, which owns the "Star Wars" intellectual property, warned EA to disable the game's loot boxes until they could devise a non-pay-to-win system, fearing the loot box system could be seen as encouraging players, including children, into gambling.


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: In response to players who were angered by the way in which the "Battlefront II" progression system was set up, EA issued a statement on Reddit which stated, "The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes. We selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other things, we're looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily basis, and we’ll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay." This currently remains the most down-voted comment on Reddit, with over 668,000 downvotes. A day after the post on Reddit was made, a Twitter user, who claimed to be a developer at Electronic Arts, had reportedly received over 1,600 death threats due to "Battlefront II", and the story was picked up by CNBC. However, the user's story was called into question after Jason Schreier, a lead writer at "Kotaku", reached out to BiggSean66, the user who made the claims. After Schreier sent multiple messages and received no response from the user, BiggSean66 locked their Twitter account and removed any reference to being a developer from their Twitter bio. EA eventually reactivated the loot box system without any pay-to-win elements by March 2018, but the negative attention the game had drawn has impacted EA's financials. Blake Jorgensen stated that they missed "Battlefront II" targeted sales by 10% due to the loot box controversy, and had missed their financial targets for the fiscal quarter after release due to the loot box system being offline for several months.


title: Criticism of Electronic Arts

text: While "Battlefront II" was not the only game criticized for questionable loot box systems at this time, the attention it drew led several governments to evaluate the nature of loot box systems as potential gambling mechanisms. Much attention was drawn to EA's "FIFA" games and their Ultimate Team Mode. Both Belgium and the Netherlands issued rulings that loot boxes may be considered unregulated gambling and instructed developers and publishers of games they found out of compliance (including "FIFA") to take corrective actions. In the case of Belgium, EA contested the ruling, asserting that the "FIFA" system was not in violation of gambling regulations, but eventually by January 2019 disabled the ability for Belgian players to purchase loot boxes in "FIFA" games to bring the game into compliance. In the United Kingdom, EA defended its use of loot boxes, comparing them to "surprise mechanics", akin to the collectable toys found in Kinder Surprise eggs, a statement criticized by the gaming press as downplaying the loot box issue.


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life (acronymed: SITG) is a 2018 nonfiction book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a former options trader with a background in the mathematics of probability and statistics.


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: Taleb's thesis is that skin in the game—i.e., having a measurable risk when taking a major decision—is necessary for fairness, commercial efficiency, and risk management, as well as being necessary to understand the world. The book is part of Taleb's multi-volume philosophical essay on uncertainty, titled the "Incerto", which also includes "Fooled by Randomness" (2001), "" (2007–2010), "The Bed of Procrustes" (2010–2016), and "Antifragile" (2012). The book is dedicated to "two men of courage": Ron Paul, "a Roman among Greeks"; and Ralph Nader, "Greco-Phoenician saint".


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: If an actor pockets some rewards from a policy they enact or support without accepting any of the risks, economists consider it to be a problem of "missing incentives". In contrast, to Taleb, the problem is more fundamentally one of asymmetry: one actor gets the rewards, the other is stuck with the risks.


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: Taleb argues that "For social justice, focus on symmetry and risk sharing. You cannot make profits and transfer the risks to others, as bankers and large corporations do... Forcing skin in the game corrects this asymmetry better than thousands of laws and regulations."


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: Actors - per Taleb - must bear a cost when they fail the public. A fund manager that gets a percentage on wins, but no penalty for losing is incentivized to gamble with his clients funds. Bearing no downside for one's actions means that one has no "Skin In The Game", which is the source of many evils.


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: An evolutionary process is an additional argument for SITG. Those who err and have SITG will not survive, hence evolutionary processes will eliminate (physically or figuratively by going bankrupt etc) those tending to do stupid things. Without SITG, this process cannot work.


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: Robert Rubin, a highly-paid director and senior advisor at Citigroup, paid no financial penalty when Citigroup had to be rescued by U.S. taxpayers due to overreach. Taleb calls this sort of a trade, with upside gain but no or limited downside risk, a "Bob Rubin trade."


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: "Intellectual Yet Idiot (IYI)" is a term coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his essay by the same name that refers to the semi-intelligent well-pedigreed "who are telling us 1) what to do, 2) what to eat, 3) how to speak, 4) how to think… and 5) who to vote for". They represent a very small minority of people but have an overwhelming impact on the vast majority because they affect government policy. IYI are often policy makers, academics, journalists, and media pundits.


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: Taleb points out that being educated and "intellectual" does not always mean that someone isn't an idiot for most purposes. "You can be an intellectual yet still be an idiot. 'Educated philistines' have been wrong on everything from Stalinism to Iraq to low-carb diets."


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: The term was picked up and used late in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by Newt Gingrich when he criticized the negative response Trump received after the first presidential debate stating that "The Intellectual Yet Idiot class is so out of touch with America that they don't even realize how badly they are doing and how well Trump is doing." Gingrich has mentioned the term in interviews and speeches since then and has included in his book "Understanding Trump" a chapter called "The Rise of the IYI".


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: The term has since been used extensively and has been cited in numerous periodicals including "The Guardian", "Financial Times", and "New Statesman". Jonah Goldberg, in an article from "National Review", references the term in defense of non-liberal intellectuals who have been branded "anti-intellectual" by the Left.


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: Graham Vyse in his article "Democrats Should Stop Talking About Bipartisanship and Start Fighting" from "The New Republic" referenced Gingrich's use of IYI as divisive and that until the Republicans become more collaborative, "Democrats need to drop the subject, too, and fight like hell instead."


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: A "stubborn minority" can impose its will on the relatively disinterested majority. A halal eater, for example, will never eat non-halal food, but a non-halal eater isn't banned from eating halal. Thus, a catering company switches to serving halal meat despite its being preferred only by a tiny minority of its customers.


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: The book delves into Christology. Michael Bonner writes: "Observers who are interested in, or baffled by, the Christological debates of the first five hundred years of Christianity may be shocked by Taleb’s explanation for the Church’s insistence upon the full humanity of Jesus. The short answer is that it was essential for God to have—literally—skin in the game, and that Christ’s full participation in crucifixion, self-sacrifice, and death made him the archetypal risk-taker."


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: Branko Milanović wrote that Taleb has created "a full system that goes from empirics to ethics, a thing which is exceedingly rare in modern world." "The Economist" described reading the book as similar to "being trapped in a cab with a cantankerous and over-opinionated driver."


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: Matthew Syed of " The Times" was "mostly persuaded" by the main argument of the book. "The Guardian" published an ambivalent review, noting that Taleb's "combination of fearlessness, self-belief and immodesty adds up to charisma on the page" but that "every idea that sounds as if it might work in the abstract fails in the particular". Taleb responded with a list of the flaws and "reading comprehension" in the reviews in "The Economist" and "The Guardian" (claiming that journalists have an agency problem with subjects criticizing their profession for lack of skin of the game).


title: Skin in the Game (book)

text: The audiobook version is narrated by Joe Ochman and reached #4 on the Audible.com's nonfiction list in March 2018.


title: Observatory

text: An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysical, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. Historically, observatories were as simple as containing an astronomical sextant (for measuring the distance between stars) or Stonehenge (which has some alignments on astronomical phenomena).


title: Observatory

text: Astronomical observatories are mainly divided into four categories: space-based, airborne, ground-based, and underground-based.


title: Observatory

text: Ground-based observatories, located on the surface of Earth, are used to make observations in the radio and visible light portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Most optical telescopes are housed within a dome or similar structure, to protect the delicate instruments from the elements. Telescope domes have a slit or other opening in the roof that can be opened during observing, and closed when the telescope is not in use. In most cases, the entire upper portion of the telescope dome can be rotated to allow the instrument to observe different sections of the night sky. Radio telescopes usually do not have domes.


title: Observatory

text: For optical telescopes, most ground-based observatories are located far from major centers of population, to avoid the effects of light pollution. The ideal locations for modern observatories are sites that have dark skies, a large percentage of clear nights per year, dry air, and are at high elevations. At high elevations, the Earth's atmosphere is thinner, thereby minimizing the effects of atmospheric turbulence and resulting in better astronomical "seeing". Sites that meet the above criteria for modern observatories include the southwestern United States, Hawaii, Canary Islands, the Andes, and high mountains in Mexico such as Sierra Negra. Major optical observatories include Mauna Kea Observatory and Kitt Peak National Observatory in the US, Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in Spain, and Paranal Observatory and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.


title: Observatory

text: Specific research study performed in 2009 shows that the best possible location for ground-based observatory on Earth is Ridge A — a place in the central part of Eastern Antarctica. This location provides the least atmospheric disturbances and best visibility.


title: Observatory

text: Beginning in 1930s, radio telescopes have been built for use in the field of radio astronomy to observe the Universe in the radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Such an instrument, or collection of instruments, with supporting facilities such as control centres, visitor housing, data reduction centers, and/or maintenance facilities are called "radio observatories". Radio observatories are similarly located far from major population centers to avoid electromagnetic interference (EMI) from radio, TV, radar, and other EMI emitting devices, but unlike optical observatories, radio observatories can be placed in valleys for further EMI shielding. Some of the world's major radio observatories include the Very Large Array in New Mexico, United States, Jodrell Bank in the UK, Arecibo in Puerto Rico, Parkes in New South Wales, Australia, and Chajnantor in Chile.


title: Observatory

text: Since the mid-20th century, a number of astronomical observatories have been constructed at very high altitudes, above . The largest and most notable of these is the Mauna Kea Observatory, located near the summit of a volcano in Hawaiʻi. The Chacaltaya Astrophysical Observatory in Bolivia, at , was the world's highest permanent astronomical observatory from the time of its construction during the 1940s until 2009. It has now been surpassed by the new University of Tokyo Atacama Observatory, an optical-infrared telescope on a remote mountaintop in the Atacama Desert of Chile.


title: Observatory

text: Space-based observatories are telescopes or other instruments that are located in outer space, many in orbit around the Earth. Space telescopes can be used to observe astronomical objects at wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that cannot penetrate the Earth's atmosphere and are thus impossible to observe using ground-based telescopes. The Earth's atmosphere is opaque to ultraviolet radiation, X-rays, and gamma rays and is partially opaque to infrared radiation so observations in these portions of the electromagnetic spectrum are best carried out from a location above the atmosphere of our planet. Another advantage of space-based telescopes is that, because of their location above the Earth's atmosphere, their images are free from the effects of atmospheric turbulence that plague ground-based observations. As a result, the angular resolution of space telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope is often much smaller than a ground-based telescope with a similar aperture. However, all these advantages do come with a price. Space telescopes are much more expensive to build than ground-based telescopes. Due to their location, space telescopes are also extremely difficult to maintain. The Hubble Space Telescope was able to be serviced by the Space Shuttles while many other space telescopes cannot be serviced at all.


title: Observatory

text: Airborne observatories have the advantage of height over ground installations, putting them above most of the Earth's atmosphere. They also have an advantage over space telescopes: The instruments can be deployed, repaired and updated much more quickly and inexpensively. The Kuiper Airborne Observatory and the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy use airplanes to observe in the infrared, which is absorbed by water vapor in the atmosphere. High-altitude balloons for X-ray astronomy have been used in a variety of countries.


title: Observatory

text: A volcano observatory is an institution that conducts the monitoring of a volcano as well as research in order to understand the potential impacts of active volcanism. Among the best known are the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and the Vesuvius Observatory. Mobile volcano observatories exist with the USGS VDAP (Volcano Disaster Assistance Program), to be deployed on demand. Each volcano observatory has a geographic area of responsibility it is assigned to whereby the observatory is tasked with spreading activity forecasts, analyzing potential volcanic activity threats and cooperating with communities in preparation for volcanic eruption.


title: Lydia of Thyatira

text: Lydia of Thyatira () is a woman mentioned in the New Testament who is regarded as the first documented convert to Christianity in Europe. Several Christian denominations have designated her a saint.


title: Lydia of Thyatira

text: The name, "Lydia", meaning "the Lydian woman", by which she was known indicates that she was from Lydia in Asia Minor. Though she is commonly known as "St. Lydia" or even more simply "The Woman of Purple," Lydia is given other titles: "of Thyatira," "Purpuraria," and "of Philippi ('Philippisia' in Greek)." "[Lydia's] name is an ethnicon, deriving from her place of origin". The first refers to her place of birth, which is a city in the Greek region of Lydia. The second comes from the Latin word for purple and relates to her connection with purple dye. Philippi was the city in which Lydia was living when she met St. Paul and his companions. All these titles expound upon this woman's background.


title: Lydia of Thyatira

text: Lydia was most likely from Greek background, since originating from Asia Minor, but probably romanized one, while she lived in a Roman settlement. She was evidently a well-to-do agent of a purple-dye firm in Thyatira, a city southeast of Pergamum and approximately inland, across the Aegean Sea from Athens. Lydia insisted on giving hospitality to Apostle Paul and his companions in Philippi. They stayed with her until their departure, through Amphipolis and Apollonia, to Thessalonica (Acts 16:40–17:1).


title: Lydia of Thyatira

text: Paul, Silas and Timothy were traveling through the region of Philippi when they encounter "a reputable businesswoman and possibly a widow... [who] was a righteous Gentile or 'God-fearer' attracted to Judaism". "[S]he was one of a large group [considered]... sympathizers with Judaism, believers in the one God, but who had not yet become 'proselytes' or taken the final step to conversion to Judaism".


title: Lydia of Thyatira

text: Because these encounters and events take place "in what is now Europe," Lydia is considered "the first 'European' Christian convert".


title: Lydia of Thyatira

text: "Thyatira in the province of Lydia (located in what is now western Turkey) was famous for the red [variety of purple] dye". Lydia of Thyatira is most known as a "seller" or merchant of purple cloth, which is the likely reason for the Catholic Church naming her "patroness of dyers." It is unclear as to if Lydia simply dealt in the trade of purple dye or whether her business included textiles as well, though all known icons of the saint depict her with some form of purple cloth. Most portray this holy woman wearing a purple shawl or veil, which allows many historians and theologians to believe that she was a merchant of specifically purple cloth.


title: Lydia of Thyatira

text: There is some speculation regarding Lydia's social status. Theologians disagree as to whether Lydia was a free woman or servant. "There is no direct evidence that Lydia had once been a slave, but the fact that her name is her place of origin rather than a personal name suggests this as at least a possibility". Ascough cites other examples of noble women named Lydia from the first or second centuries, so it is unlikely that she was actually a slave or servant. Furthermore, the book of Acts records, ""When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. "If you consider me a believer in the Lord," she said, "come and stay at my house." And she persuaded us."" This implies that Lydia was in charge of the household, as she was able to persuade the household to be baptised, and had authority in the home to invite Paul and his companions to stay in her house – both things that a servant would be far less able to do.


title: Lydia of Thyatira

text: Because women did not possess the same equality rights as modern women, it appears unusual that Lydia would be capable of inviting a group of foreign men to her house without a man's consent. "The fact that there is no mention of a man has been used to deduce that she was a widow, but this has been challenged as a patriarchal interpretation". Lydia's evident social power exemplified by her control of a household and ownership of a house (which she offered to St. Paul and his companions) indicates that she was most likely a free woman and possibly a widow.


title: Lydia of Thyatira

text: Many Christian denominations recognize Lydia of Thyatira as a saint, though her feast day varies greatly. In the Catholic Church, her feast day is August 3.


title: Lydia of Thyatira

text: Eastern Orthodox Churches remember Lydia on various days, with some jurisdictions remembering her twice during a liturgical year. Many Eastern Orthodox churches, including the Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, remember St. Lydia on May 20. However, some divisions of the Russian Orthodox Church (other than the Orthodox Church in America) observe both June 25 and March 27 as her feast days.


title: Lydia of Thyatira

text: The Lutheran community is also divided. The ELCA commemorates Sts. Lydia, Dorcas and Phoebe on January 27, while the LCMS celebrates the three women on October 25.


title: Lydia of Thyatira

text: Devotion to St. Lydia is greater in the Orthodox Church than in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, and this is evident by the myriad of icons depicting this woman. The Orthodox Churches have given her the title of "Equal to the Apostles," which signifies her importance and level of holiness. There is a church located in Philippi, which many consider to be built in St. Lydia's honor. A modern baptistry is located on the traditional site in Krynides where Lydia was baptized by St. Paul near Philippi as well.


title: House of Godwin

text: The House of Godwin was an Anglo-Saxon family and one of the leading noble families in England during the last 50 years before the Norman Conquest. Its most famous member was Harold Godwinson, king of England for nine months in 1066.


title: House of Godwin

text: The founder of the family's greatness, Earl Godwin, was raised from comparative obscurity by king Cnut and given the earldom of Wessex around the year 1020. He retained his position during the reigns of Cnut's sons Harold Harefoot and Harthacnut, and consolidated it when king Edward the Confessor conferred earldoms on Sweyn and Harold, Godwin's two eldest sons by his Danish wife, Gytha. The family survived a short-lived attempt by the king to exile them. After Godwin's death his sons held the earldoms of Wessex, East Anglia, and later Northumbria; Harold in particular became the most powerful man in England, eclipsing the power of the king. When Edward the Confessor died childless in 1066 he was succeeded by Harold Godwinson. Harold gained a great victory over the Norwegian invader Harald Hardrada and his own estranged brother Tostig Godwinson at the battle of Stamford Bridge. Three weeks later, with his defeat and death at the battle of Hastings, Anglo-Saxon self-rule came to an end. Later generations of the family were scattered around northern Europe, one branch prospering in Norway and furnishing that country with one of its kings, Inge II, and a pretender to the throne, Skule Bårdsson. Through female lines the Godwin family are ancestors of royal houses across Europe.


title: House of Godwin

text: Godwin, Earl of Wessex, after whom the family is named, was the son of one Wulfnoth, probably to be identified with Wulfnoth Cild, a Sussex thegn who in 1009, having been accused of unspecified crimes, deserted the service of the English king Æthelred the Unready along with a fleet of twenty ships. Wulfnoth Cild may also have been father of Ælfwig, abbot of New Minster, who died at the battle of Hastings, and of a daughter called Æthelflaed; he is known to have died by 1014. The writer Alfred Anscombe claimed a lineage for this Wulfnoth stretching back through Æthelmær the Stout and the chronicler Æthelweard to king Æthelred I of Wessex, which would make the house of Godwin a branch of the house of Cerdic; but most historians are skeptical of this theory and treat Wulfnoth's ancestry as unknown.


title: House of Godwin

text: The date of Godwin's birth is estimated to have been around the year 993. He first appears in history as an adherent of Æthelstan Ætheling, the eldest son of Æthelred the Unready, and when that prince died in 1014 he left Godwin an estate. Godwin is surmised to have then given his allegiance to Athelstan's brother Edmund Ironside during the short remainder of Æthelred's life and Edmund's own brief reign, and to have supported him in his campaigns against the invading Danish king Cnut. With Edmund's death in 1016 and Cnut's acquisition of the English crown Godwin seems to have made his peace with the new king. He survived Cnut's purge of English nobles, and indeed prospered, being made earl first of the eastern part of Wessex and then, perhaps in 1020, of the whole province. He also about 1022 married Gytha, sister of the Danish earl Ulf, who was himself Cnut's brother-in-law. He was, by 1023, considered the leading magnate in Cnut's English kingdom, loyally supporting Cnut and implicitly trusted by him. When Cnut died in 1035 the succession was disputed between Cnut's two sons Harthacnut and Harold Harefoot; Godwin was one of Harthacnut's most influential supporters, but Harold ultimately prevailed. In 1036 another of Æthelred's sons, Alfred, made an expedition to England, where he fell into the hands first of Godwin and then of Harold Harefoot, who had him blinded. Alfred did not survive this operation, but it is unclear whether this was a deliberate execution on Harold's part, and still more unclear how much responsibility, if any, attaches to Godwin. Nevertheless, a cloud of suspicion hung over him for the rest of his life, and when, in 1040, Harold died, the new king, Harthacnut, exacted an oath from Godwin that he had been innocent of everything except obeying Harold's orders.


title: House of Godwin

text: In 1042 Harthacnut died, and was succeeded, with Godwin's hefty support, by Edward the Confessor, brother of the unfortunate Alfred. Godwin by now had a large family, six sons and three daughters, and the elder sons were becoming old enough to take on responsibilities of their own, while Edward needed to reward the man who had, more than any other, secured him the crown. Sweyn is usually accounted Godwin's eldest son, though the monk Hemming reported him as believing his real father had been Cnut; in 1043 he was given an earldom consisting of Somerset, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. Godwin's second son, Harold, was made earl of East Anglia the following year. In 1045 Beorn Estrithson, Godwin's wife's nephew, was given an earldom in the east Midlands, and the same year the seal was set on the family's grasp of power when Godwin's eldest daughter, Edith, married king Edward. The Godwin family now held four English earldoms, only Mercia and Northumbria remaining in other hands, and had their representative even in the king's bedchamber. By contrast, Edward's personal estate, though very large, was probably smaller than that held by his ancestors, and was scattered between various earldoms, meaning that he had no local power base; moreover he had only recently returned to England as a half-Norman stranger with no experience of English politics or of any kind of leadership. A struggle for power between king and earl now began.


title: House of Godwin

text: The first setback for the Godwin family stemmed from Sweyn's wild and irresponsible conduct. He first allied himself with Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, king of Gwynedd and Powys, who might be considered a natural enemy of the English, and launched with him a joint expedition into south Wales. On his return he either seduced or abducted the abbess of Leominster and kept her as his wife for a year, a scandal which resulted in his being outlawed by the king. Sweyn's lands were divided between his brother Harold and cousin Beorn, while he himself moved on first to Flanders and then to Denmark. Two years later, in 1049, he returned intending to regain his lands, but instead murdered Beorn. He was again outlawed and returned to Flanders, but the king allowed him to return in 1050. Despite his leniency in this matter, Edward was beginning to move against the Godwin family. He gave the murdered Beorn's earldom to his own nephew Ralph the Timid rather than to anyone allied to Godwin; he countermanded the election to the archbishopric of Canterbury of Godwin's kinsman Ælric, substituting instead Robert of Jumièges, an enemy of the Godwin clan; and he allowed a small number of castles to be built, or at least planned, by various of his foreign favourites in the earldoms held by Godwin and his sons.


title: House of Godwin

text: Matters came to a head in 1051 when the men of Eustace, Count of Boulogne, who was passing through Dover, got involved in a fight with the townspeople. King Edward decided that Dover should be harried as a punishment, and ordered Godwin, within whose earldom Dover lay, to carry out the sentence. Godwin refused, and prepared for the king's displeasure. He and his sons gathered an army, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria assembled their men in defence of the king, and the result was a stalemate in which neither side wanted to attack the other. It was agreed that a meeting of the "witan" would resolve the dispute, but when the king called up the English militia Godwin's side found themselves outnumbered there. The result was that the whole family was banished. Godwin, his wife, and their sons Sweyn, Tostig and Gyrth fled to Bruges in Flanders, and Harold and his brother Leofwine to Ireland, while their sister queen Edith was sent to a nunnery. The following year, 1052, Godwin and Harold both launched small fleets, joined up off the south-west coast of England, then recruited support from the ports of Sussex and Kent. This combined and augmented fleet sailed to London, where Godwin forced a new settlement of his differences with the king, entirely in his own favour. His and his family's earldoms were restored to them, the queen was recalled, and most of the king's numerous French favourites were outlawed. So firmly had the family regained its grip on power that Edward never again tried his strength against them. But Godwin did not enjoy his triumph long. In 1053, while celebrating Easter at Winchester along with some of his sons and the king, he suddenly collapsed and after a few days died. In the following century chroniclers embroidered the story with details suggesting that this was divine retribution; in the fullest form of the legend he takes a mouthful of bread, praying that he may not be allowed to swallow it if he was guilty of murdering the king's brother Alfred, then chokes and dies.


title: House of Godwin

text: Godwin's second son, Harold, succeeded him in the earldom of Wessex, while Harold's old earldom of East Anglia was taken by Ælfgar, son of the earl of Mercia. Godwin's eldest son, Sweyn, could not be considered for any title since he had gone on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and indeed was to die in September 1052 on the return journey. Over the next few years one earldom after another fell vacant and was granted to Harold's various younger brothers. First Siward, earl of Northumbria, died in 1055 and was succeeded by Tostig. Then in 1057 the earl of Mercia died and was succeeded by his son Ælfgar, freeing up East Anglia; a reduced form of this earldom was bestowed on Gyrth, while the counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Middlesex, Surrey and Kent were formed into a new earldom for Leofwine. The same year king Edward's nephew Ralph the Timid died, and his earldom of Hereford was added to Harold's Wessex. The Godwin family thus held the whole of England apart from Mercia under the kingship of Edward the Confessor, who was by now largely content to leave effective rule to his earls.


title: House of Godwin

text: In 1063 Harold launched a cavalry raid intended to kill Gruffydd ap Llewelyn, who since 1055 had been ruling the whole of Wales, but it failed in its objective. He returned to the attack the same year along with his brother Tostig in a joint invasion of Wales, using both land and naval forces, which wreaked such destruction that Gruffydd's own men killed him and sent his head to Harold.


title: House of Godwin

text: Not long afterwards, probably in 1064, Harold is thought to have set out on a voyage in the English Channel and been blown by a storm onto the coast of Ponthieu, whose count delivered him into the hands of William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy. It is not known what the purpose of Harold's journey was. Norman writers later alleged that he had been sent by king Edward to confirm William as heir to the English throne and to swear fealty to him, but his biographer Ian W. Walker considers the most likely possibilities to be, firstly, that he was seeking a marriage alliance between his family and William's; secondly, that he wanted to negotiate the release of his youngest brother Wulfnoth and Sweyn's son Hakon, who had long been held hostage in Normandy; and thirdly, that he was bound elsewhere for reasons unknown. Harold accompanied William on a campaign against Brittany, and then was coerced into swearing an oath that he would support William's claim to be Edward's heir. Finally, he was allowed to return home.


title: House of Godwin

text: Tostig's record as earl of Northumbria was a mixed one. In external affairs he was rather successful, forming a friendship with the king of Scotland which largely prevented trouble on his northern border, and leading a legation to Rome on Edward's behalf. But inside his earldom his over-harsh measures to keep the king's peace made him unpopular with his own nobles. In 1065, while Tostig was at king Edward's court in the south of England, they revolted against him, murdered his men, and demanded his banishment. Harold, unwilling to provoke a civil war, refused to invade Northumbria to reinstate him, and king Edward reluctantly acceded to the rebels' demands and exiled Tostig. Furious at his brother's failure to support him, Tostig left for Flanders, and there is evidence that he visited William of Normandy, king Sweyn II of Denmark, and king Harald Hardrada of Norway, in an attempt to find allies who could return him to power. The earldom of Northumbria was given to Morcar, brother of the Mercian earl Edwin, and Harold allied himself to the brothers by marrying their sister Ealdgyth. At the beginning of 1066 Edward the Confessor died childless, after having apparently named Harold as his heir. The "witan", preferring the claims of Harold to those of the late king's great-nephew, the boy Edgar Ætheling, elected him as king, and he was crowned the day after Edward's death. His reign was to last just nine months, and, as the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" says, "he met little quiet in it as long as he ruled the realm".


title: House of Godwin

text: Harold faced threats from the duke of Normandy, from the king of Norway, and from possible Welsh raiders, but the first to act was his own brother Tostig, who in the spring of 1066 launched raids on the Isle of Wight and various points on the east coast of England before suffering a severe defeat in Lincolnshire and taking refuge in Scotland. Harold, expecting an invasion by William of Normandy, moved to the south coast to prepare his defences, but on 8 September, unable to provision his forces any longer, he was compelled to disband them. The same month, Harald Hardrada set out from Norway on his attempt to take the English crown, sailing via Shetland and Orkney and joining up with Tostig at the river Tyne, where the latter took service under him as one of his earls. Together they engaged a Northumbrian army at Fulford in Yorkshire, gained a complete victory, and took the city of York. Harold Godwinson hurriedly recalled his army and by forced marches was able to surprise Harald and Tostig's army at Stamford Bridge on 25 September, only five days after the battle of Fulford, and inflicted a crushing defeat on them. He allowed the few survivors, including Tostig's sons Skule and Ketel, to return in peace to Norway. Three days later duke William landed his invasion fleet at Pevensey in Sussex, then moved on to Hastings and began to ravage the Sussex countryside, part of Harold's old earldom of Wessex. This achieved its intended effect of provoking Harold to march south with all speed. On 14 October the two armies met seven miles north of Hastings, where the town of Battle now stands. Harold, accompanied by his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine, commanded an army that was now badly overtired and proved unable to withstand the repeated Norman attacks. By the end of the day Harold's army was comprehensively defeated, all three brothers were dead, and the ruin of Anglo-Saxon England was accomplished.


title: House of Godwin

text: Only two members of the family were allowed to live undisturbed in England under Norman rule. Edward the Confessor's widow Edith, daughter of Godwin, lived in retirement, remaining in possession of all her private lands, until her death in 1075. She was buried near her husband in Westminster Abbey. Her niece Gunhild, daughter of Harold Godwinson, was an inmate of the nunnery in Wilton until 1093, when she was abducted by Alan the Red, a Breton who held the lordship of Richmond. She lived with him, and then with his successor Alan the Black, after which she disappears from history.


title: House of Godwin

text: Godwin's youngest son, Wulfnoth (b. "c". 1036), was kept as a hostage in Normandy from 1051 until William the Conqueror's death in 1087, and was then transferred to Winchester by William Rufus, where he may have become a monk. He is thought to have died about 1094.


title: House of Godwin

text: In the aftermath of the battle of Hastings Godwin's widow, Gytha, by then in her sixties, withdrew to the south-west of England, where she held vast estates and where resistance to the Conquest was mounting. William the Conqueror turned his attention to crushing this resistance at the beginning of 1068, and laid siege to the city of Exeter, but Gytha had already fled, probably with her daughter Gunhild and Harold's daughter Gytha, and taken refuge first on an island in the Bristol Channel, probably Steep Holm, and then at Saint-Omer in Flanders. Harold's young sons Godwin and Edmund, and possibly also their brother Magnus, may have been at the siege of Exeter; certainly they made their way to the court of king Diarmait of Leinster in Ireland, from where they launched two unsuccessful raids against south-west England. Two of the sons, probably Godwin and Edmund, survived to join their relatives in Saint-Omer. From there the whole party seems to have proceeded to Denmark in the hope that its king, Sweyn II, would help them regain their position in England. Sweyn failed them in this, but after a few years he arranged an advantageous marriage for the younger Gytha with Vladimir Monomakh, Prince of Smolensk and later Grand Prince of Kiev. Their descendants intermarried with royal houses across Europe, and transmitted the blood of the Godwins to, among many others, the present queens of Great Britain and Denmark.


title: House of Godwin

text: Ulf, a younger son of Harold Godwinson, was captured at some point by William the Conqueror, and was held prisoner in Normandy. At the death of William the Conqueror his son Robert Curthose released and knighted Ulf, but no more is known of his life.


title: House of Godwin

text: Harold, the youngest and probably posthumous son of Harold Godwinson, was taken by his mother to Dublin, and later went to Norway, where he was welcomed by the king. In 1098 he was one of the men Magnus III Barelegs took with him on an expedition to Orkney, the Hebrides, the Isle of Man and Anglesey. No further mention of Harold appears in any source.


title: House of Godwin

text: After the battle of Stamford Bridge and the death of Harald Hardrada, Skule and Ketel, the two sons of Tostig Godwinson, were taken to Norway under the wing of Hardrada's son Olaf. Olaf, who became king of Norway, gave land to Ketel and arranged a good marriage for him; according to the 13th-century saga-writer Snorri Sturluson, "from him are descended many great people". Skule became known as Skule Kongsfostre (king's foster-son), and was remembered as a remarkably intelligent and handsome man who commanded the king's hird. He married a relative of the king, Gudrun Nevsteinsdotter, and their son was Åsolv of Rein (in Rissa), father of the lendmann Guttorm of Rein. Guttorm's son, Bård Guttormsson of Rein, was a close friend and supporter of king Sverre Sigurdsson, fought alongside him in several battles, and was rewarded by being given the king's half-sister, Cecilia Sigurdsdotter, in marriage. Bård and Cecilia's son Inge Bårdsson was born about the year 1185. In 1204, when the child-king Guttorm Sigurdsson died, the two obvious candidates for the crown were Inge and his half-brother Haakon Galen, Cecilia's son by another husband. After a struggle for power Inge was recognized as king, while Haakon retained his former command of the army. This did not produce peace, for a faction known as the "Bagler" succeeded in splitting the kingdom, with Inge ruling the western half and their own candidate, Philip Simonsson, the eastern half. Moreover, earl Haakon renewed his own claim to the crown, a claim which only lapsed with his death in 1214. King Inge himself died in 1217. Since 1213 the leader of the army and the hird had been Inge's half-brother Skule, a son of Bård Guttormsson by another wife, Ragnfrid Erlingsdotter, and therefore, like king Inge, fifth in descent in the male line from Tostig Godwinson. The new king, Haakon IV, was no more than a boy, with Skule acting as his regent. In 1225 Skule married his young daughter, Margrete, to the king, but this did not succeed in establishing perfect amity between the two men, and in 1239 Skule went into open rebellion, claiming the title of king for himself. The subsequent war went against him, and he was killed in 1240. From Haakon IV and Margrete Skulesdotter descend subsequent kings of Norway down to the present day.


title: House of Godwin

text: This family tree shows the generally accepted male-line descendants of Wulfnoth Cild, though some of the known male-line descendants of Guttorm of Rein have been excluded in the interests of clarity.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) is a shipping freight-cost index issued daily by the London-based Baltic Exchange. The BDI is a composite of the Capesize, Panamax and Supramax Timecharter Averages. It is reported around the world as a proxy for dry bulk shipping stocks as well as a general shipping market bellwether.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: The BDI is the successor to the Baltic Freight Index (BFI) and came into operation on 1 November 1999. The BDI continues the established time series of the BFI, however, the voyages and vessels covered by the index have changed over time so caution should be exercised in assuming long term constancy of the data.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: In 1744, the "Virginia and Maryland" coffee house in Threadneedle Street, London, changed its name to "Virginia and Baltick," to more accurately describe the business interests of the merchants who gathered there. Today's Baltic Exchange has its roots in a committee of merchants formed in 1823 to regulate trading and formalize the exchange of securities on the premises, which by then had moved to the Antwerp Tavern.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: Every working day, a panel of international shipbrokers submits their assessment of the current freight cost on various routes to the Baltic Exchange. The routes are meant to be representative, i.e. large enough in volume to matter for the overall market.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: These rate assessments are then weighted together to create both the overall BDI and the size specific Capesize, Panamax, and Supramax indices.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: The index can be accessed on a subscription basis directly from the Baltic Exchange as well as from some financial information and news services such as Bloomberg and Reuters.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: Following consultation with members, in January 2018 the Baltic Exchange announced that it will be implementing changes to the Baltic Dry Index (BDI). From 1 March 2018 the BDI will be re-weighted to the following ratios of timecharter assessments: 40% Capesize, 30% Panamax and 30% Supramax and will no longer include the Handysize timecharter average. A multiplier of 0.1 will be applied.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: External research concluded that the contribution of the various dry bulk vessel types to the dry bulk market was 40% Capesize, 25% Panamax, 25% Supramax and 10% Handysize. This analysis was based on the fleet composition, vessel utilisation including ballasting and total cargo moved – based on import/export reports and AIS data, the BDI weightings will be reviewed on an annual basis. The decision to not include Handysize contributions makes no statistical difference to the calculation of the BDI, based on the above weightings.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: The Baltic Exchange will continue to report the Handysize vessel market and in November 2017, as part of the ongoing review of its indices, launched a trial of a new Handysize Imabari 38 benchmark vessel and seven timecharter routes.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: Most directly, the index measures the demand for shipping capacity versus the supply of dry bulk carriers. The demand for shipping varies with the amount of cargo that is being traded or moved in various markets (supply and demand).


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: The supply of cargo ships is generally both tight and inelastic; it takes two years to build a new ship, and the cost of laying up a ship is too high to take out of trade for short intervals, the way you might park a car safely over the winter. So, marginal increases in demand can push the index higher quickly, and marginal demand decreases can cause the index to fall rapidly. e.g. "if you have 100 ships competing for 99 cargoes, rates go down, whereas if you've 99 ships competing for 100 cargoes, rates go up. In other words, small fleet changes and logistical matters can crash rates..."


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: The index indirectly measures global supply and demand for the commodities shipped aboard dry bulk carriers, such as building materials, coal, metallic ores, and grains.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: Because dry bulk primarily consists of materials that function as raw material inputs to the production of intermediate or finished goods, such as concrete, electricity, steel, and food, the index is also seen as an efficient economic indicator of future economic growth and production. The BDI is considered by some people as a leading economic indicator because it predicts future economic activity.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: Other leading economic indicators, which serve as the foundation of important political and economic decisions, are often measured to serve narrow interests, and subjected to adjustments or revisions. Payroll or employment numbers are often estimates; consumer confidence appears to measure nothing more than sentiment, often with no link to actual consumer behavior; gross national product figures are consistently revised; and so forth. Unlike stock and bond markets, the BDI "is totally devoid of speculative content," says Howard Simons, an economist and columnist at TheStreet.com. "People don't book freighters unless they have cargo to move."


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: On 20 May 2008, the index reached its record high level since its introduction in 1985, reaching 11,793 points. Half a year later, on 5 December 2008, the index had dropped by 94%, to 663 points, the lowest since 1986; though by 4 February 2009 it had recovered a little lost ground, back to 1,316. These low rates moved dangerously close to the combined operating costs of vessels, fuel, and crews.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: By the end of 2008, shipping times had been already increased by reduced speeds to save fuel consumption, but lack of credit meant the reduction of letters of credit, historically required to load cargoes for departure at ports. Debt load of future ship construction was also a problem for shipping companies, with several major bankruptcies and implications for shipyards. This, combined with the collapsing price of raw commodities created a perfect storm for the world's marine commerce.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: During 2009, the index recovered as high as 4661, but then bottomed out at 1043 in February, 2011, after continued deliveries of new ships and flooding in Australia.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: Though rebounding to 2000 on 7 October, by 3 February 2012, the index made a new multi-decade low of 647 on a continued glut of dry bulk carriers and decreases in orders of iron and coal.


title: Baltic Dry Index

text: By 15 November 2016 it rebounded to over 1000 sending the entire shipping industry to massive gains. Some companies reached 2000%+ in share price gains in as little as 5 days.


title: Science Saru

text: , stylized as Science SARU, is a Japanese animation studio headquartered in Kichijōji, Tokyo. Established on February 4, 2013 by producer Eunyoung Choi and director Masaaki Yuasa, the studio has produced four feature films and five animated series, as well as co-productions, a compilation film, and episodes of series for other studios. Science Saru's first animation was the "Food Chain" episode of the American animated series "Adventure Time" (2014); its most recent projects are the animated feature film "Inu-Oh" (2021), two short films for the animated anthology project "" (2021), and the animated series "The Heike Story" (2021) and "Yurei Deco" (2022).


title: Science Saru

text: The studio's work has received critical acclaim both within Japan and internationally, winning awards from Annecy, the Japan Academy Film Prize, the Mainichi Film Awards, and the Japan Media Arts Festival.


title: Science Saru

text: Science Saru utilizes a hybrid animation production method which combines hand-drawn and digital animation (including Flash animation), a technique not previously used in Japanese animation. The studio is currently led by Eunyoung Choi (President and CEO).


title: Science Saru

text: The studio's name Science Saru translates into English as "Science Monkey". Company co-founder Masaaki Yuasa frequently drew himself as a monkey in self-portraits, but wanted his company to be smarter than a monkey; as a result, he added the word "Science" in front of "Saru" with the intent of having a company that possesses both instinct and intelligence.


title: Science Saru

text: "We thought about a lot of possible names for the studio... Science is like logic, business, numbers, plans, technology, and new tools. On the other hand, 'Saru' means monkey in Japanese. As animators, we put in creativity, intuition, art, enjoying moments and being playful… a kind of 'monkeying around'. We want to keep these personalities in Science Saru. Thus, we wanted to create a balance. 'Science' is in English, which highlights being international, and 'Saru' in Japanese maintains traditional anime."


title: Science Saru

text: Science Saru was founded on February 4, 2013 by Masaaki Yuasa and Eunyoung Choi. Yuasa and Choi had previously worked together on numerous projects, and Choi had prior experience leading Ankama Japan, a studio which utilized similar digital animation production techniques and employed a multinational staff. The creation of the studio was proposed by Choi during the making of the short film "Kick-Heart" (2013), which was the first large-scale Japanese animated project to be successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter. The studio's first official production under the Science Saru name was an episode of the American "Adventure Time" animated series entitled "Food Chain" (2014), on which Yuasa worked as director, writer, and storyboard artist; Choi served as co-director. By July 2014, the studio was also recognized for creating the digital animation for Yuasa's animated series "Ping Pong the Animation" (2014).


title: Science Saru

text: Science Saru's first production location was a small suburban house converted into an impromptu animation studio. By the end of 2013, the company had expanded to a staff of five, including Yuasa, Choi, and Abel Góngora, a former member of Ankama Japan; the studio's first productions began with this small crew.


title: Science Saru

text: Science Saru utilizes a combination of traditional hand drawn animation and digital animation created using multiple software programs, including Adobe Animate. The studio refers to its animation production method and resultant style as 'digitally assisted animation.' When utilizing 'digitally assisted animation', the initial animation work, called key animation (where the key poses of movement are established), is drawn by hand, and then recreated digitally for the stages of inbetween animation (used to create smooth movement by filling in the gaps between keyframe poses), as well as for coloring. The advantage of this production technique is increased efficiency, allowing projects to be completed faster and with a smaller crew; the small team focus allows for a strong understanding of the director's artistic vision. This approach to animation production has won praise from creators and industry publications.


title: Science Saru

text: Science Saru's diversity is also unique among Japanese animation studios: it employs a multicultural animation staff. According to Choi, staff are chosen based on skill regardless of national origin, and the inclusion of global perspectives helps create more well-rounded stories.


title: Science Saru

text: Science Saru began its corporate activities by taking on subcontracting work, as well as by collaborating with other studios on projects. The studio's first project was the "Adventure Time" episode "Food Chain" (2014). The episode was produced entirely in-house, and Yuasa and Choi were given free rein by series creator Pendleton Ward to develop the episode as they saw fit. "Food Chain" received critical acclaim as one of the best episodes of the series, was an official competition selection at Annecy, and was nominated for the Annie Award for Outstanding Television Direction. Another early highlight was Yuasa's television series "Ping Pong the Animation" (2014); Science Saru provided 'digitally assisted' animation production services, while Tatsunoko Production served as the primary studio. The series was awarded a Jury Selection Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival, and won the Grand Prize for Television Animation at the Tokyo Anime Awards Festival; additionally, character designer and longtime collaborator Nobutake Ito won the Best Animator award for individual achievement. "Ping Pong the Animation" was subsequently highlighted as one of the best Japanese animated series of the decade. Science Saru also provided production assistance on a pair of episodes of the Bones television series "Space Dandy" (2014); and both received critical acclaim.


title: Science Saru

text: Additional subcontracting work included opening credits animation for several of the animated "" series (2014-15; 2017-18); animation assistance for "" (2014), a pair of "Crayon Shin-chan" films (2014, 2015), and "Typhoon Noruda" (2015); and animation production for the promotional mini-series "What's Debikuro?" (2014), the music video "Song of Four Seasons" (2015), and promotional episodes for the American animated series "" (2015-17).


title: Science Saru

text: By early 2016, Science Saru had gained experience and built a name in the industry; while still a small team, the company was ready to undertake its first large-scale project. The studio's first feature film production, the family-friendly fantasy film "Lu Over the Wall" (2017), was produced in less than 16 months using 'digitally assisted' animation techniques. Yuasa directed and co-wrote "Lu Over the Wall"; it was his first feature film with an original story. During the production of "Lu Over the Wall", Yuasa and Science Saru were offered the opportunity to produce a second feature film, the comedy romance "Night Is Short, Walk On Girl" (2017), based on the novel by Tomihiko Morimi. Prior to the establishment of Science Saru, Yuasa had directed a television series adaptation of Morimi's novel "The Tatami Galaxy" (2010); Yuasa had originally hoped to adapt "Night is Short, Walk On Girl" immediately after that production, but was unable to at the time. When he was offered the opportunity in 2016, he immediately agreed. This resulted in the pre-production work on "Night is Short, Walk On Girl" overlapping with the post-production of "Lu Over the Wall". Although "Lu Over the Wall" was completed first, it was released after "Night is Short, Walk On Girl"; this was in part due to a marketing suggestion that it might be preferable for the studio's first film to be based on a pre-existing property familiar to Japanese audiences.


title: Science Saru

text: Both "Lu Over the Wall" and "Night is Short, Walk On Girl" received immediate critical acclaim. "Lu Over the Wall" received the Annecy Cristal du long métrage, the Mainichi Film Awards' Ōfuji Noburō Award, and the Japan Media Arts Festival Grand Prize for Animation. "The Night is Short, Walk On Girl" was awarded the Japan Academy Film Prize for Animation of the Year, the Ottawa International Animation Festival Grand Prize for Best Animated Feature, a Jury Selection Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival, and has been listed as one of the best Japanese animated films of the decade.


title: Science Saru

text: 2018 was the year that saw Science Saru, and in particular Masaaki Yuasa, achieve international recognition and prominence. "Lu Over the Wall" and "Night is Short, Walk On Girl", as well as Yuasa's pre-Science Saru feature film "Mind Game" (2004), were licensed for North American distribution by GKIDS. Most significant to Science Saru's growing popularity was the Netflix release of Yuasa's animated series "Devilman Crybaby" (2018), based on the manga by Go Nagai. The series represented a dramatic scaling up of Science Saru's production capacity; prior to this project, the company had operated with a limited staff of 20-25 people, but work on the series necessitated expansion, including the hiring of episode directors and new creative talents. "Devilman Crybaby" was an immediate and massive international hit; with 90% of its viewers outside Japan, the series achieved the largest global audience for the studio to that date. The series inspired internet memes, was profiled by YouTuber PewDiePie, and was widely discussed on Twitter. The series was nominated in 7 categories at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards and won for Anime of the Year and Director of the Year, was awarded a Jury Selection Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival, was cited by "Vulture" as containing one of the 100 most influential sequences in global animation history, and was listed as one of the best Japanese animated series of the decade.


title: Science Saru

text: In 2019, Science Saru produced Yuasa's next feature film, the romance "Ride Your Wave" (2019). An original story, the film earned Science Saru the studio's best reviews to date. "Ride Your Wave" was an official competition selection at Annecy, was nominated for the Mainichi Film Award for Best Animation Film, was nominated for Annie Awards in the categories of Best Indie Feature and Outstanding Feature Film Direction, received a Jury Selection Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival, and won Best Animated Feature Film awards at the Shanghai International Film Festival, Fantasia International Film Festival, and Sitges Film Festival. Also in 2019, Science Saru produced the series "Super Shiro" (2019), an installment of the popular "Crayon Shin-chan" franchise created by Yoshito Usui. The series was directed by Yuasa and veteran animator Tomohisa Shimoyama (making his directorial debut). Yuasa's involvement was the culmination of a long association with "Crayon Shin-chan", having first animated for the franchise in the 1990s. The end of the year saw the 2010s heralded as Masaaki Yuasa's "breakout decade"; collectively, "Devilman crybaby" and the release of Yuasa's films in the United States led to him being highlighted as one of the most important and exciting directors in animation.


title: Science Saru

text: In 2020, Science Saru produced the comedy television series "Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!" (2020). Directed by Yuasa and based on the manga by Sumito Ōwara, the series boosted sales of the original manga, inspired internet memes, and won the Japanese Broadcast Critics Association's monthly Galaxy Award during its broadcast run. Following the conclusion of the broadcast, "Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!" received critical acclaim as one of the best Japanese animated series of both the season that it aired and the year as a whole, and was recognized by "The New York Times" and "The New Yorker" as one of the best television series of 2020. The series was nominated in 10 categories at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards and won for Director of the Year and Best Animation, was awarded the Grand Prize for Television Animation at the Tokyo Anime Awards Festival, and received the Japan Media Arts Festival Grand Prize for Animation. Later that year, Science Saru produced the Netflix series "Japan Sinks: 2020" (2020), based on the disaster novel by Sakyo Komatsu. Yuasa directed in conjunction with Pyeon-Gang Ho, who made her directorial debut with the series. The series attracted criticism within Japan for its condemnation of Japanese nationalism, but also received positive attention for its multiculturalism and inclusiveness, and was named as one of the best Japanese animated series of 2020. The first episode of the series was awarded the Annecy Jury Prize for a Television Series, and the series as a whole received two nominations at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards. A film compilation version of the series was subsequently released in Japanese theaters in November 2020, and was awarded a Jury Selection Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival.


title: Science Saru

text: On March 25, 2020, Masaaki Yuasa stepped down as president and representative director of Science Saru. Yuasa cited his desire to take a rest from directing after seven years of continuous work, but reaffirmed his commitment to completing additional projects with Science Saru in the future. Eunyoung Choi subsequently became CEO and president of the studio. She likewise affirmed Yuasa's continued involvement with the company as a creator, and noted that the studio will look to develop additional projects with other directors. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Science Saru was able to adjust quickly and continue production, despite much of the Japanese animation industry being affected. In October 2020, Science Saru entered into a non-exclusive strategic partnership with Netflix covering the development of new series and content.


title: Science Saru

text: In early 2021, Yuasa was recognized by the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs, which awarded him the Cabinet Minister Award for Media Fine Arts for his significant career achievements with Science Saru, as well as for his works prior to establishing the studio. Later that year, Yuasa was further recognized with the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon by the Japanese government in recognition of his distinguished contributions to artistic and cultural development.


title: Science Saru

text: In fall 2021, Science Saru released a pair of interrelated projects: the Masaaki Yuasa feature film "Inu-Oh" (2021), and the animated television series "The Heike Story" (2021). Based on the novel by Hideo Furukawa and featuring character designs by "Ping Pong" creator Taiyō Matsumoto, "Inu-Oh" is a musical drama film set during the 14th Century in Japan which centers on the unique and unexpected friendship between two traveling Noh performers. The film premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival on September 9, 2021, with a worldwide theatrical release to follow in 2022. The film was licensed for North American theatrical and home-video distribution by GKIDS, and was released in US theaters in August 2022. Upon its debut on the international festival circuit, "Inu-Oh" received immediately critical acclaim and excellent reviews from international critics, was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, and won the Best Animated Feature Film award at the Fantasia International Film Festival. Produced simultaneously with "Inu-Oh", the television series "The Heike Story" adapts author Hideo Furukawa's translation of the epic ancient Japanese historical narrative "The Tale of the Heike". The series was directed by Naoko Yamada and focuses on both the politics and devastation of the Genpei War, a cataclysmic civil war in the 12th Century that divided Japan, and the personal lives and tragedies of the women of both warring clans who are caught up in the conflict. The series premiered on September 15, 2021 in North America on the Funimation streaming service, with premieres the following day on the Japanese streaming service FOD (operated by Fuji TV) and the Chinese streaming service Bilibili; a Japanese television broadcast on Fuji TV's +Ultra programming block followed in January 2022. Following the conclusion of its streaming release, "The Heike Story" was named one of the best series of 2021, and was nominated in 3 categories for the 2022 Anime Trending Awards.


title: Science Saru

text: Additionally, in September 2021, Science Saru produced two short films for the animated anthology project "" (2021). The shorts, entitled "Akakiri" and "T0-B1", were part of a nine-film anthology of shorts, all of which premiered on September 22 worldwide on Disney+. "Akakiri" was directed by Eunyoung Choi and centers on the story of a princess and a Jedi, while "T0-B1" was directed by Abel Góngora and follows the adventures of a droid who dreams of becoming a Jedi and exploring the galaxy. The anthology as a whole received stellar reviews, with Science Saru's films highlighted as particular standouts. "Star Wars: Visions" was heralded as one of the best animated projects of the year, as well as one of the best "Star Wars" titles in a decade or more. Episodes of the anthology project were also nominated for multiple awards.


title: Science Saru

text: In 2022, Science Saru released the original television animation series "Yurei Deco". Directed by Tomohisa Shimoyama, written by Dai Satō, and based on a concept by Masaaki Yuasa, the series drew inspiration from Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and premiered to excellent reviews.


title: Science Saru

text: Science Saru's upcoming projects include an animated adaptation of the novel "Tatami Time Machine Blues". Based on the novel of the same name written by Tomihiko Morimi and derived from a concept by Makoto Ueda, "Tatami Time Machine Blues" serves as a sequel to "The Tatami Galaxy", which Yuasa adapted as a television series in 2013, prior to the establishment of Science Saru. The project will be directed by Shingo Natsume, while screenwriter Makoto Ueda, character designer Yusuke Nakamura, and the majority of the original Japanese voice cast will reprise their creative roles from "The Tatami Galaxy". The project will initially debut as a series on Disney+ in 2022, with a theatrical compilation film to follow later that year; the Disney+ release will include an original episode that will not be part of the theatrical compilation.


title: Science Saru

text: For the purposes of the list below, all films and series upon which Science Saru worked are listed. Titles which Science Saru produced or co-produced are shaded in grey; titles for which the studio served as a subcontractor are shaded in yellow.


title: Science Saru

text: Science Saru's projects have received significant global acclaim. The studio's works have been recognized by the Annecy International Animated Film Festival (2 wins, 2 nominations), the Japan Academy Film Prize Association (1 win), the Golden Globe Awards (1 nomination), the Mainichi Film Awards (1 win, 1 nomination), the Japan Media Arts Festival (2 wins, 5 jury selections), the Tokyo Anime Awards (3 wins), the Crunchyroll Anime Awards (4 wins, 16 nominations), the Ottawa International Animation Festival (1 win, 1 nomination), the Shanghai International Film Festival (1 win, 1 nomination) the Sitges Film Festival (1 win, 2 nominations), the Fantasia International Film Festival (2 wins, 1 silver, 1 bronze), the Satellite Awards (1 nomination), and the Annie Awards (3 nominations).


title: André Dae Kim

text: André Dae Kim (born December 2, 1996) is a Canadian actor. He is known for his role as Winston Chu in the Canadian television series "" and "", and as Dylan Edwards in the CBS series "Salvation."


title: André Dae Kim

text: Kim was born in Edmonton and grew up in Mississauga where he joined the drama program at Cawthra Park Secondary School. He attended University of Toronto Mississauga and Sheridan College's joint theatre and drama studies program.


title: André Dae Kim

text: In 2012, while in grade 10, Kim sent a video audition to producers of "Degrassi," which granted him the part of Winston Chu in "Degrassi: The Next Generation" and then "Degrassi: Next Class" which premiered in 2016. In 2017, he was nominated for Joey Award for his role in "Salvation" and for his role in "". Kim was nominated for the Young Entertainer Award in 2017 and 2018 for his role in "Degrassi: Next Class".


title: Caciocavallo

text: Caciocavallo is a type of stretched-curd cheese made out of sheep's or cow's milk. It is produced throughout Southern Italy, particularly in the Apennine Mountains and in the Gargano peninsula. Shaped like a teardrop, it is similar in taste to the aged Southern Italian Provolone cheese, with a hard edible rind.


title: Caciocavallo

text: The Italian name of the cheese "caciocavallo" literally means "horse cheese" and it is generally thought that the name derives from the fact that two cheese forms are always bound together with rope and then left to mature by placing them 'a cavallo', i.e. straddling, upon a horizontal stick or branch.


title: Caciocavallo

text: Apparently caciocavallo was mentioned the first time around 500 BC by Hippocrates, emphasising the "Greeks' cleverness in making cheese". Columella in his classic treatise on agriculture, "De re rustica" (35–45 CE), described precisely the methods used in its preparation, making it one of the oldest known cheeses in the world. Types of cheese with names similar to "caciocavallo" are common throughout the Balkans and Southern Italy (Eastern Mediterranean).


title: Caciocavallo

text: In Sicily, the Ragusano DOP, known locally as "caciocavallo ragusano" had to drop the denomination "caciocavallo" in order to get DOP status.


title: Caciocavallo

text: Many different types of caciocavallo exist in Italy and several are recognized as (traditional regional food product) like (produced using only milk from the Podolica cattle breed), (from Miscano valley in the Apennines) or (often called ).


title: Caciocavallo

text: Caciocavallo Silano is made with cow's milk in designated areas of Southern Italy, in the regions of Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise, and Apulia, and gained protected geographical status in 1993.


title: Benjamin Byron Davis

text: Davis has appeared primarily on television series, including "Without a Trace", "Criminal Minds", "Gilmore Girls", "Windfall", "MADtv", "Six Feet Under", among other series. In addition to television, he also performs on stage. In 2011, Davis directed the theatre production "Awake". Davis voiced and provided performance capture for multiple characters in various Rockstar titles, and is best known for his role as Dutch van der Linde in "Red Dead Redemption" and "Red Dead Redemption 2".


title: Munich Re

text: Munich Re Group or Munich Reinsurance Company () is a German multinational insurance company based in Munich, Germany. It is one of the world's leading reinsurers. ERGO, a Munich Re subsidiary, is the Group's primary insurance arm. Munich Re's shares are listed on all German stock exchanges and on the Xetra electronic trading system. Munich Re is included in the DAX index at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the Euro Stoxx 50, and other indices.


title: Munich Re

text: In 1880 Carl von Thieme, a native of Erfurt who was the representative in Bavaria of his father's "Thuringia" insurance company, founded in Munich "Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft" together with Wilhelm von Finck (co-owner of the Merck Finck & Co. bank) and Theodor von Cramer-Klett. This was followed by the founding of Allianz Versicherungs-Gesellschaft in 1890 in Berlin. Carl von Thieme was head of Munich Re until 1921, and Wilhelm von Finck served as Chairman of the supervisory board until 1924. Munich Re became renowned after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 as the only insurer that remained solvent after paying out all the claims, a total of 15.5 million Marks .


title: Munich Re

text: During the Nazi dictatorship Munich Re benefited from anti-Semitic persecution. Jewish customers had to cancel their life insurances prematurely leading to huge profits for the insurance companies. At the same time Munich Re could acquire several properties owned by Jews at prices below the market rate. Starting from 1940 the company was involved in Allianz' insurance business with the SS: Munich Re served as reinsurance company for contracts insuring the barracks and operations in the concentration and extermination camps Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Neuengamme, Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen and Stutthof. Supervisory board member Kurt Schmitt joined the NSDAP and SS in 1933 and took the position as Reich Economy Minister for one year. In 1938 he became Director General of Munich Re and stayed in this position until the American military authorities relieved him of all offices at the end of the war.


title: Munich Re

text: In February 2010, U.S. investor Warren Buffett became Munich Re's largest single shareholder. As of December 2015, he reduced his holdings to less than 3 percent.


title: Munich Re

text: In 2018, the company's shareholders' equity amounted to €26.5 billion. The group's premium income for the year (gross premiums written) was €49.1 billion, with its consolidated result amounting to €2,275 million.


title: Munich Re

text: Besides its reinsurance business, the Munich Re Group also transacts primary insurance business through the ERGO Group and, since 1999, asset management through MEAG (MUNICH ERGO AssetManagement GmbH).