City of the Dead (video game)

City of the Dead (also known as George A. Romero's City of the Dead and The Living Dead: City of the Dead) is a canceled first-person shooter video game, based on George A. Romero's "Living Dead" series of zombie films. The game was intended for release on the PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC platforms. Originally announced in December 2004, it was due for release in March 2006. No further details or announcements have been made about the game since its showing at E3 2005. It is presumed cancelled due to the financial constraints of publisher Hip Interactive.
Story.
"City of the Dead" was set on a fictional island called "Ningún Futuro" ("No Future" in Spanish). A zombie outbreak occurs on the island after a series of secret military tests on cadavers backfires.
Reports had said there would be no reference in the game to "Dawn of the Dead" (because the 2004 version ends with the survivors winding up in a zombie-ridden island), one of the more popular films in the "Dead Series" due to copyright issues with the MKR Group who hold the rights to the film.
Development.
Hip Interactive announced on December 15, 2004 that they had made an agreement with Living Dead Productions to produce a series of games based on Romero's films, with "City of the Dead" being the first to be developed and released. The company also expected to develop games based directly on the movies "Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead".
Before the cancellation, it was announced that Tom Savini, make-up artist and regular actor in the "Dead Series", would be providing the voice and likeness of a character in the game. The character would have been William "Red" McLean, a supporting character that later becomes playable himself.
Actual gameplay was shown at E3 2005 (but was not playable by those attending). Those that saw the presentation have commented that "City of the Dead" contained high levels of violence, blood and gore, to the point of excess.


Dan Abrams

Dan Abrams (born May 20, 1966) is an American media entrepreneur, television host, commentator, and New York Times bestselling author. He is currently the ABC News chief legal correspondent and is the host of "The Dan Abrams Show: Where Politics Meets The Law" on SiriusXM's P.O.T.U.S. channel. He was the host of "Live PD" on the A&E cable network. Abrams also created and hosts "Court Cam," a Law&Crime production on A&E. He is a legal commentator, author, and former anchor of "Nightline". Abrams also worked as the chief legal correspondent and analyst for NBC News and general manager of MSNBC, and doubled as an anchor for the same network. In 2021 Abrams purchased Laurel Lake Vineyards on Long Islands' North Fork, which he plans to relaunch in Summer 2021 under a name inspired by his two children, Ev&Em Vineyards.
Early life.
Daniel Abrams was born in Manhattan, the son of Efrat and attorney Floyd Abrams. He is a 1984 graduate of Riverdale Country School. Abrams received his B.A. "cum laude" in political science from Duke University in 1988. While at Duke, he anchored newscasts on the student-run channel Cable 13 and was vice president of the student body. Abrams received a J.D. from Columbia Law School.
Career.
Television and broadcasting.
Early career.
Abrams worked as a reporter for Court TV from May 1994 to June 1997, where he covered the OJ Simpson case, the International War Crimes Tribunal from the Netherlands, and the assisted-suicide trials of Dr. Jack Kevorkian from Michigan.
MSNBC and NBC News.
After leaving Court TV, Abrams was a general assignment correspondent for NBC News from 1997 to 1999 at which time he was named Chief Legal Correspondent. Abrams then began hosting his own show at MSNBC, and "The Abrams Report" began in 2001. Abrams hosted "The Abrams Report" until he accepted the lead managerial position at MSNBC. Abrams held the position of General Manager of MSNBC from June 12, 2006 until October 2007. Abrams left to concentrate on his 9pm show "Live with Dan Abrams", which replaced "Scarborough Country" due to Joe Scarborough's move to mornings. This show would eventually be revamped and renamed "Verdict with Dan Abrams", which aired until August 21, 2008. MSNBC announced on August 19, 2008 that Air America Radio host Rachel Maddow would take over that 9 p.m. time slot beginning September 8, 2008. At that time, Abrams took on additional duties with NBC News including substituting as an anchor on the "Today" show.
ABC.
In March 2011, Abrams left NBC to become the Chief Legal Analyst for ABC News and a substitute anchor on "Good Morning America". ABC announced in June 2013 that Abrams would become the network's Chief Legal Affairs Anchor, as well as an anchor of "Nightline". He stepped down from his full time role as "Nightline" anchor in December 2014 to focus on his expanding media businesses and returned to his freelance role as the network's Chief Legal Analyst. In 2020, The Poynter Report described Abrams as the "go-to analyst on legal affairs."
A&E.
From October 2016 to June 2020, Abrams hosted the A&E show "Live PD", which followed police officers live across the United States as they patrol their communities. Using dash-cam footage, handheld low-light-capable cameras, and fixed-camera rigs, Abrams analyzed each incident with analysts Tom Morris Jr. and Sean "Sticks" Larkin as the police work occurs. He was also co-host of "Grace vs. Abrams", in which Abrams and legal commentator Nancy Grace debated high-profile crime cases. In 2019, Abrams signed on to produce and host Court Cam, a new show that takes viewers inside America's craziest courtroom moments. "Live PD" was canceled on June 10, 2020.
Abrams Media.
Mediaite.
In July 2009, Abrams launched Mediaite, a news site he described as "appreciating the celebrity of the media." The site combines editorial content with analytic rankings of media personalities. In mid-2015, it had over 7 million unique visitors per month.
Law & Crime.
In 2016, Abrams launched LawNewz, a legal news website which also live streams trials as part of its online network. The new live trial network, slated as the new Court TV, launched on February 24, 2017, with A&E Networks taking a stake in the site. On November 13, 2017, LawNewz was rebranded to Law & Crime and is available on most OTT platforms and many cable systems in the United States.
The Mary Sue.
In 2011, Abrams Media launched The Mary Sue, a sister site to Geekosystem with the goal of "highlighting women in the geek world, and providing a prominent place for the voices of geek women." Based on its rapid growth and high engagement, in 2014, Abrams folded Geekosystem into The Mary Sue.
Ambo TV.
On October 15, 2018, Abrams launched his new media service, Ambo TV, a Christian TV streaming service "dedicated to broadcasting Christian sermons with an in-studio discussion." It was announced that the service would be available to the public in November 2018. The station will be located at new studios built especially for Ambo TV at Abrams Media studios in Herald Square in New York City and will feature live programming on the weekends.
Whiskey Raiders.
In December 2020, Abrams launched Whiskey Raiders, a site that uses a proprietary algorithm to rate whiskeys on a scale from 50-100. Abrams purchased Jay West's spirit review site, t8ke.review, as part of the launch.
Gossip Cop.
In 2009, Abrams and Michael Lewittes launched Gossip Cop, a media watchdog site that patrols the celebrity gossip universe. The site has been described by its designer, Rex Sorgatz, as "TMZ meets Smoking Gun". The site rates gossip rumors on a 0–10 scale. For the month of May 2013, the site reported over 8 million unique visitors. In 2019 Gossip Cop was acquired by Gateway Blend.
Geekosystem.
The first official "offspring" of flagship site Mediaite, Geekosystem was launched on January 25, 2010. Geekosystem covered "geek" culture, following developments in science, technology, as well as internet memes and Internet culture. Abrams described the site upon launch as "a broader interest site that will celebrate and cover everything from technology and science fiction to video games and comics."
Styleite.
Abrams's foray into fashion, Styleite, was launched on March 25, 2010. Functioning for fashion the way Mediaite does for journalism, Styleite launched with both news and opinion content as well as a fashion version of the "Power Grid," which ranks designers, models, writers, and others in the style business based on influence and following. Abrams rebranded Styleite as Runway Riot in 2015, appointing model Iskra Lawrence as managing editor. RunwayRiot.com is marketed as a fashion site for "plus-sized women."
SportsGrid.
Launched in May 2010, SportsGrid offers a mix of sports news, video clips and other media tracking both sports and the media world surrounding it. Like the other Abrams Media properties, the site features a Power Grid "tabulated by using a specially developed algorithm that pools a variety of metrics, including TV ratings; Web traffic and circulation counts; attendance; number of Twitter followers; on-field performance for players and coaches; and franchise values." In 2013, SportsGrid was acquired by Anthem Media Group in a stock and cash deal.
The Braiser.
In May 2012, Abrams launched a site focused on the personalities and lifestyles of chefs. Rather than recipes or techniques, The Braiser's topics consist of chefs who "have gone from being food icons to becoming mainstream celebrities," according to an interview Abrams gave to The New York Times in late April. It was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award in 2014. By 2015, The Braiser had gone on "a short hiatus" with plans for a relaunch, but saw no further activity as of 2019.
Writing.
Abrams has published articles in "The New York Times", "The Wall Street Journal", "USA Today" magazine, "The American Lawyer", and the "Yale Law and Policy Review". He has also written for online magazines such as "The Huffington Post", "Daily Beast", and Mediaite.
In March 2010, Abrams published the book "Man Down: Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fund Managers and Just About Everything Else". The book was #10 on "The Washington Post" best seller list of July 17, 2011, and has been translated into Russian, Indonesian, Croatian, Swedish and Hebrew, among other languages.
Abrams' second book, "Lincoln's Last Trial: The Murder Case That Propelled Him to the Presidency", tells the true story of Abraham Lincoln's last murder trial. The book was released in June 2018, and spent five weeks in the top ten New York Times Bestseller list, hardcover non-fiction. Mental Floss rated the book #1 on their list "56 Best Books of 2018."
His book "Theodore Roosevelt for the Defense: The Courtroom Battle to Save His Legacy", released on May 21, 2019, is a New York Times bestseller. Theodore Roosevelt accused his former friend and ally, now turned rival, Republican Party leader William Barnes Jr. of political corruption. Barnes responded by suing Roosevelt for an enormous sum that could have financially devastated him.
Abrams' latest book "John Adams Under Fire: The Founding Father's Fight for Justice in the Boston Massacre Murder Trial," published on March 3, 2020, was a New York Times top ten bestseller. In 1770, British soldiers shot and killed five civilians. As John Adams would later remember, "On that night the formation of American independence was born". Yet when the British soldiers faced trial, the young lawyer Adams was determined that they receive a fair one. He volunteered to represent them, keeping the peace in a powder keg of a colony, and in the process created some of the foundations of what would become United States law.
Abrams has made other on-air appearances covering law, politics, and to promote his books, including on all three late night talk shows. He has appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live", "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on CBS and the "Tonight Show" on NBC.
Personal life.
In June 2012, Abrams had his first child with then-girlfriend Florinka Pesenti, who was part of the winning team on "The Amazing Race 3".
Abrams was a co-owner (with David Zinczenko) of the restaurant The Lion in Manhattan's Greenwich Village neighborhood. The Lion closed in 2015.
Abrams's sister, Ronnie Abrams, was nominated for a federal judgeship by Barack Obama in 2011. She received her commission on March 23, 2012.


Stella Mary Newton

Stella Mary Newton , née Pearce (17 April 1901, London – 18 May 2001, London) was an English fashion designer and dress historian, who brought the history of fashion to bear on art history and the dating of paintings.
Stella Mary Pearce was the daughter of Georgiana Mary Hoby, a concert pianist, and Henry Pearce, a Manchester bookseller and socialist. Educated at Withington Girls' School, she then moved to London with her mother and joined Frank Benson's Shakespearean Company to become an actress. Turning to costume design, she became an assistant to George Sheringham and then an independent designer, designing for T. S. Eliot's pageant play "The Rock" (1934) and his "Murder in the Cathedral" (1935). and "The family Reunion".
Designing for theatre and fashion, she opened her own shop in the 1930s. In 1936 she married the art critic Eric Newton. During the war they lectured on art history and design for Cambridge University's extramural department. A developing expertise in the history of dress enabled her to re-date paintings through the internal evidence of dress, as in her appendix to her husband's "Tintoretto" (1952). She worked as an adviser to the National Gallery between 1952 and 1961. In 1965, she founded a new postgraduate course in the History of Dress at the Courtauld Institute of Art, and ran it until 1976. Her students studied textile conservation as well as garment-making, and she encouraged Karen Finch to found the Textile Conservation Course at Hampton Court in 1975.
Newton received an OBE in 1976. She was the subject of a 1990 documentary for Channel 4's "Third Wave".


Flag of Bremen

The flag of Bremen (used by both the city of Bremen and the state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen) consists of at least eight equal horizontal stripes of red alternating with white, and checked at the hoist. It is colloquially known as "Speckflagge" (bacon flag). The civil flag does not contain the coat of arms.
The state flag exists in three versions


Vickers Wild Goose

Wild Goose was a research unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed and flown by designer Barnes Wallis for his research into tailless variable-sweep aircraft incorporating a radical new control system and capable of high-speed, long-range performance.
Development.
After World War II, designer Barnes Wallis turned his attention from bombs back to aircraft. He undertook a fundamental review of the technology required for high-speed, long-distance flight and concluded that a tailless variable-sweep wing offered major advantages over conventional designs. A major part of this advantage was a radical revision of the flight control system. Control would primarily be effected by moving the wings in flight, avoiding the need for conventional control surfaces or tail. The change was so radical that he even proposed that it should no longer be thought of as an aeroplane but as a new type of flying machine, which he called a wing-controlled aerodyne.
Wallis named the project Wild Goose. His employer Vickers was not able to sponsor such a large-scale project, so the variable-sweep wing anti-aircraft missile Green Lizard was proposed and Wild Goose positioned as necessary preliminary research in order to obtain government funding.
By 1949 he was ready to build a large-scale radio-controlled flying model.
Design.
The wing-controlled aerodyne, as Wallis called his concept, was aerodynamically extremely clean. It comprised a streamlined ichthyoid (fish-like) body with mid-mounted movable wings on either side. He had learned from his work on the stability of airships such as the R100 that such a streamlined body needed only a small deflection to create large control forces. In the wing-controlled aerodyne, these forces are created by moving the whole wing. Conventional control surfaces including ailerons and elevators were not needed. However Wild Goose, his first large-scale design, was given a swept vertical tail fin.
The launching trolley and radio control system proved more complex and Wallis spent more time on these than on the actual airframe. The trolley was rocket-powered and ran on rails. Early problems with separation for flight led to a doubling of rocket power and a late-release system so that the Wild Goose leaped upward when released, beyond the reach of aerodynamic interactions with the airflow around the trolley.
Operational history.
Wild Goose was to be launched from a powered trolley. Teething troubles led to the first two examples crashing on takeoff. The first successful flight came with the third example on 19 January 1950, however the remote pilot crashed it when attempting to land. The next one lasted until 29 April 1952, when it was accidentally flown into a concrete wall after demonstrating that National Physical Laboratory predictions of poor handling were unfounded and vindicating the revolutionary aerodynamics and control system. Further tests and crashes followed, with the project being terminated in 1954 when the military lost interest in the Green Lizard missile to be derived from it.
By this time Vickers had begun studies on a successor to the Valiant V-bomber and for this Wallis was evolving his Wild Goose design into the Swallow.


Neuer Berliner Kunstverein

The Neue Berliner Kunstverein (English: "New Berlin Art Association"), abbreviated nbk, n.b.k. or NBK, is an art association founded in Berlin in 1969 that is dedicated to promoting contemporary art. The association has permanent exhibition rooms on Chausseestrasse in Berlin-Mitte. The Artothek, which has been operated by the NBK since 1970, is an art loan library with 4,000 works of art that can be borrowed. The Video-Forum, founded in 1971, is a collection of video art that today comprises more than 1700 works.


Wade Edward Philpott

Wade Edward Philpott (1918–1985) was an American mathematician and puzzle maker. Several of his puzzles have gone on to become best sellers.
Life.
Philpott was born in Sunnyside, Washington in 1918 as Chester Wade Edwards. He was the son of Chester E. Edwards and Mary Ream Edwards. Later, he was adopted by Viola Ream Philpott, and George Austin Philpott, his aunt and uncle. In 1921, his name was changed from Chester Wade Edwards to Wade Edward Philpott.
Philpott graduated from Ohio Northern University with a degree in Engineering. He married Myra Given in 1941. In 1947, a shooting accident left him paralyzed. During his long hospitalization, he developed an interest in recreational mathematics and puzzles.
Philpott produced several puzzles during his lifetime. Two of his best known puzzles are Multimatch and Sweep. His games and puzzles were sold by Kadon Enterprises, Inc.
Philpott also published several of his works in the Journal of Recreational Mathematics.


Christopher Cloud

In 1973, Christopher Cloud was an alias for Tommy Boyce of Boyce and Hart fame. He released an album called "Blown Away" on Chelsea Records (BCL1-0234) that same year. The band featured members of the group AIM. He also used a second alias on the record simply called "Tomme". This album has never been reissued on CD. It is to note that the last song on side A ("Thank God For Rock'n Roll") is not referenced anywhere but on the actual record label. AIM released an album in 1974 called Aim For The Highest on Blue Thumb Records (BST64).


Return to Mysterious Island

Return to Mysterious Island is a 2004 graphic adventure game developed by Kheops Studio and published by The Adventure Company. Based on Jules Verne's 1875 novel "The Mysterious Island", the game casts the player as Mina, a shipwrecked woman forced to survive on an uncharted island.
Gameplay.
Players explore the world by clicking on different areas to move and to interact with items. Players also have an inventory, in which they can collect and store items and construct new ones.
Plot.
"Return to Mysterious Island" follows Mina, a strong young woman alone on a round-the-world sailing expedition. Caught in a tremendous storm, she becomes stranded on the shores of a wild and apparently uninhabited island. As she explores her new surroundings, she uncovers artifacts, living spaces and technologies left behind by the people who came before her to this uncharted island.
Creating a new life, Mina builds a home from the remains of the previous settlements and uses her survival skills against the wilds of the jungle. She soon becomes aware of a figure in the shadows who, seemingly aware of her troubles, offers her assistance. She eventually identifies this figure as the unsettled ghost of Captain Nemo, whose body is located in a cave on the island. Piecing together the hints and clues he provides, Mina must retrieve his body and give him a proper burial in order to free his tortured soul, and then travel to the Nautilus deep below the island shore to unlock a way to escape the island.
Development.
"Return to Mysterious Island" was conceived by Kheops Studio because "Mystery of the Nautilus" had been a success for publisher DreamCatcher Interactive, selling 117,000 units globally by 2004.
Reception.
According to the NPD Group, "Return to Mysterious Island" sold 21,700 copies at a list price $19.99 by June 2005. It became Kheops Studio's biggest hit worldwide, which company head Benoît Hozjan attributed to word of mouth. The game's later iPhone release sold 100,000 copies by November 2009. Review aggregation website Metacritic reported critical reception of "Return to Mysterious Island"s original computer release as "generally positive", based on 19 reviews.
The game 4 out of 5 from "Modojo" for its iPhone version; the reviewer said that the game have remarkable visuals and audio as well as manageable inventory system but have frustrating puzzles. "Geek.com" who also liked previously states pros but also compared it to "Myst".
"Return to Mysterious Island" was nominated as SME's pick for the best adventure game of 2004, but lost the prize to "Syberia II". In 2011, Adventure Gamers named "Return to Mysterious Island" the 53rd-best adventure game ever released.
Legacy.
On November 25, 2008 Microïds, (Anuman Interactive's adventure games label) announced that a sequel was being made, "Return to Mysterious Island II". Development by Kheops Studio began in April 2008, and the game was released on PC and Apple iPhone on August 14, 2009.
Coladia, founded in 2005, teamed up with Kheops Studio to update and port "Mysterious Island" and other Kheops adventure games to macOS and iOS. A port of the game to Apple's iPhone was released on the iTunes app store on June 15, 2009.


Albrecht Glockendon the Younger

Albrecht Glockendon the Younger (c.1500–1545) was a Nuremberg-based miniaturist and woodcutter. The son of painter and printer Georg Glockendon, his work reflects the influence of both his brother, the illuminator Nikolaus Glockendon, and of Albrecht Dürer.


Marcelle Chaumont

Marcelle Chaumont (born 1891, Eymoutiers, Haute-Vienne; died 1990, Paris) was a French fashion designer.
Chaumont moved to Paris after World War I and became the head seamstress for Jeanne Lanvin and Madeleine Vionnet. Marcelle Chaumont created her fashion house in the late 1930s but World War II and health problems forced her to stop working. Her clients included Gloria Guinness who was voted 'Best Dressed Woman' by Time magazine in 1962. Some of Chaumont's creations can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York The house of Marcelle Chaumont closed in 1953.
Chaumont was married to Robert Chapsal, son of the politician Fernand Chapsal and was the mother of the writer Madeleine Chapsal.


Wahida Mollick Jolly

Wahida Mollick Jolly is a Bangladeshi actress. She works on stage plays, television dramas and films. She won Bangladesh National Film Award for Best Costume Design for the film "Mrittika Maya" (2013).
Background.
Jolly's parents settled in Rajshahi from West Bengal. her father, Tofazzal Hossain, was a stage performer and director. Her elder sister Sharmili Ahmed is an actress. Jolly performed regularly as a child artist in radio dramas. She started stage performances in tenth grade. She earned a degree in social work and then moved to Kolkata to study drama in Rabindra Bharati University. She debuted in a Hindi television series.
Career.
Jolly debuted her stage acting career in 1975 by her role in "Spartacus Bishoyok Jotilota", written by Momtazuddin Ahmed. Her debut television drama, "E Ki Jalaton", also by Momtazuddin Ahmed, was in 1986.
Jolly acted in films including "Adhiar" (1999) and "Shorgo Theke Norok".
Jolly established a theatre group "Drishwakabbo" in 1990. She is a faculty member of the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at University of Dhaka.


Magritte Award for Best Costume Design

The Magritte Award for Best Costume Design (French: Magritte des meilleurs costumes) is an award presented annually by the Académie André Delvaux. It is one of the Magritte Awards, which were established to recognize excellence in Belgian cinematic achievements.
The 1st Magritte Awards ceremony was held in 2011 with Christophe Pidre and Florence Scholtes receiving the award for their work in "Sister Smile". As of the 2020 ceremony, Claudine Tychon is the most recent winner in this category for her work in "Alone at My Wedding".
Winners and nominees.
In the list below, winners are listed first in the colored row, followed by the other nominees.


Martha Scanlan

Martha Scanlan is an old-time, traditional music singer-songwriter. She is originally from Minnesota and has been featured on the "Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour", NPR's World Cafe Next, and Mountain Stage, as well as the "Cold Mountain" soundtrack (as a member of the Reeltime Travelers). In 2002, she won the Chris Austin songwriting contest at the music festival Merlefest.


Self-verifying finite automaton

In automata theory, a self-verifying finite automaton (SVFA)
is a special kind of a nondeterministic finite automaton (NFA)
with a symmetric kind of nondeterminism
introduced by Hromkovič and Schnitger.
Generally, in self-verifying nondeterminism,
each computation path is concluded with any of the three possible answers:
"yes", "no", and "I do not know".
For each input string, no two paths
may give contradictory answers,
namely both answers "yes" and "no" on the same input are not possible.
At least one path must give answer "yes" or "no",
and if it is "yes" then the string is considered accepted.
SVFA accept the same class of languages as deterministic finite automata (DFA)
and NFA but have different state complexity.
Formal definition.
An SVFA is represented formally by a 6-tuple,
"A"=("Q", Σ, Δ, "q0", "Fa", "Fr")
such that ("Q", Σ, Δ, "q0", "Fa")
is an "NFA",
and "Fa", "Fr" are disjoint subsets of "Q".
For each word "w = a1a2 … an",
a "computation" is a sequence of states
"r0,r1, …, rn", in "Q" with the following conditions:
If rn ∈ Fa then the computation is accepting,
and if rn ∈ Fr then the computation is rejecting.
There is a requirement that for each "w"
there is at least one accepting computation
or at least one rejecting computation
but not both.
Results.
Each DFA is a SVFA, but not vice versa.
Jirásková and Pighizzini
proved that
for every SVFA of "n" states,
there exists an equivalent DFA
of formula_1 states.
Furthermore, for each positive integer "n", there exists an "n"-state SVFA
such that the minimal equivalent DFA has exactly formula_2 states.
Other results on the state complexity of SVFA
were obtained by Jirásková and her colleagues.


Roger E. Moore

Roger E. Moore (born July 11, 1955 in Winchester, Kentucky) is a designer of role-playing games. He is best known for his long-running tenure as editor of "Dragon" magazine, and was the founding editor of "Dungeon" magazine.
Early life.
Moore's family moved around Kentucky for the early part of his childhood, and eventually settled down outside of Louisville. Moore attended the University of Kentucky, where he majored in Astronomy before changing his major to Psychology. He married fellow student Georgia Skowlund.
Career.
After he graduated from college he entered the U.S. Army as a mental health counsellor. While in Fort Bragg during the summer of 1977, he first learned about role-playing games. “The place I worked at in West Germany was a combination mental-health clinic/pizza parlor/ham radio shack and library ... It was once a panzer barracks, too. I was quite bored, so I started writing articles for "Dragon" Magazine. I gamed heavily and met some other gamers who now write or work for magazines.” After a number of successful submissions to "Dragon", Moore became a Contributing Editor. “I had a lot of time to write at work, mostly when clients were too busy to show up for appointments. I did articles on the "D&D", "AD&D", and "Traveller" games — just about anything I could find.”
After three years of duty in Mannheim, Moore went to the University of Louisville to work toward a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology. “I wanted to work with the space program as a human-factors engineer,” says Moore. “After awhile, I realized that wasn’t what I wanted, so I called up Kim Mohan and asked if he needed any help on his staff.” Moore became a regular contributor of articles to "Dragon" beginning in 1980. He received the Army Commendation Medal and other awards during his five-year tour of duty at Ft. Bragg, N.C. and Mannheim, West Germany.
Moore joined TSR, Inc. as a magazine editor in May 1983. Moore wrote jokingly, "I lerned alot from Pat Price and KimMohan an picked up the majorty of my edditing skills from them an learnd to pay more attension to grammer and speling then I used too pay to." Moore wrote consistently for "Dragon" magazine, and became editor of "Dungeon Adventures" magazine in 1986, and in the same year became Editor-in-Chief of "Dragon" when Kim Mohan resigned. Moore moved to the games division in 1993, where he became creative director of the "AD&D" core rules product group. He joined Wizards of the Coast in 1997 when TSR was acquired and continued to write and edit gaming materials of all sorts. Moore has written fiction for "Dragonlance" and other game worlds. Wizard of the Coast returned to TSR's original setting, Greyhawk, in 1998 with "Player's Guide to Greyhawk" (1998) by Anne Brown and "Return of the Eight" (1998) and "" (1998) by Moore; these three books moved Greyhawk's metaplot well beyond the Greyhawk Wars to a new era. "The Adventure Begins" won the 1998 Origins Award for "Best Roleplaying Supplement". Moore left Wizards of the Coast in late 2000.
Moore is a past member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.


McGee Brothers

The McGee Brothers were an American old-time performing duo of brothers Sam McGee (b. Samuel Fleming McGee, May 1, 1894, d. August 28, 1975) and Kirk McGee (b. David Kirkland McGee, November 4, 1899, d. October 24, 1983). Sam typically played guitar and Kirk usually played banjo or fiddle, although they were both proficient in multiple string instruments. The McGee Brothers were one of the most enduring acts on the Grand Ole Opry during the show's first fifty years. They made their initial appearance on the Opry in 1926 and the following year joined Uncle Dave Macon's band, the Fruit Jar Drinkers. In the 1930s, the McGees teamed up with early Opry fiddler Arthur Smith to form a string band known as the "Dixieliners," and in the 1940s they played and toured with Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys and several other notable acts.
The McGee Brothers saw a brief resurgence during the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s, when folk artist Mike Seeger managed to reunite them with Arthur Smith. The brothers made their last major appearance as a duo on the Opry in 1974, although Kirk continued to appear regularly on the program until his death in 1983.
Early career.
Sam and Kirk McGee were born and raised in Franklin, Tennessee, a town located just south of Nashville. Their father was a noted fiddler, and both Sam and Kirk learned to play banjo at a young age. As a teenager, Sam picked up slide-guitar and other blues techniques from African-American railroad workers and street musicians in his native Williamson County, and he and Kirk subsequently adapted blues and ragtime styles to the string band format.
Around 1923, Sam and Kirk met Uncle Dave Macon, who had recently gained regional fame as a banjoist and vaudeville performer. In 1926, Sam and Macon appeared together on the WSM "Barn Dance" (which later became the Grand Ole Opry) and recorded several sides, including Sam's guitar solos, "Buck Dancer's Choice" and "Knoxville Blues." Shortly afterward, a recording scout suggested Macon form a larger band, and Sam, Kirk, guitarist Hubert Gregory, and bassist Golden Stewart joined with Macon as "Uncle Dave Macon and the Fruit Jar Drinkers" (Macon chose the name "Fruit Jar Drinkers", ignoring the fact that another band was already using a similar name). The band made several Opry appearances, and travelled to New York to record several tracks, including "I'm Goin' Away in the Morn" and "Bake That Chicken Pie" (by the time it recorded, the band's line-up had shifted to include Macon's neighbor, fiddler Mazy Todd). At the same sessions, the McGees recorded several tracks as a duo, including "Old Master's Runaway," which was based on the American Civil War folk song, "Year of Jubilo." Sam also recorded "Chevrolet Car", which he had learned from a mechanic in Nashville, and tried unsuccessfully to sell it to the Chevrolet Corporation. On "Chevrolet Car" and on several tracks recorded with Macon in the late 1920s, Sam played a banjo-guitar, providing rare early instances of this instrument being played effectively.
1930s and 1940s.
While the McGee Brothers continued performing with Macon over the years, by 1930 their main focus had turned to performing as a duo and with fellow Opry pioneer "Fiddlin'" Arthur Smith. In 1931, the McGees and Smith formed the "Dixieliners," a string band named after the railroad where Smith worked. The group toured and made numerous appearances on the Opry, but didn't make any recordings until their reunion two decades later (Smith's "Dixieliner" recordings from the 1930s were accompanied by the Delmore Brothers, rather than the McGees). Sam and Kirk made several recordings during the 1930s as a duo, however, most notably "Brown's Ferry Blues," which they recorded in 1934. Sam also claimed to have been the first performer to play an electric guitar on the Opry, for which he was chided by Opry founder George D. Hay, who told him the electric guitar was not "down to Earth." The Dixieliners disbanded in 1938.
In the 1940s, the McGee Brothers performed with some of the biggest names in country and bluegrass, among them Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, and Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys. They also continued making appearances on the Grand Ole Opry, sometimes accompanying their old bandmate, Uncle Dave Macon. Early in the decade, they worked briefly with the comedy act, "Sara and Sally".
Later career.
The McGee Brothers continued performing throughout the 1950s, both as a duo and occasionally as solo acts. During the folk revival of the late 1950s, the McGees were "rediscovered", and experienced a brief resurgence in popularity. Folk song enthusiast Mike Seeger managed to reunite them with Arthur Smith in 1957, and the trio made several recordings. The trio played at various folk music festivals throughout the 1960s, including a well-received performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. By the 1970s, the McGees were again playing primarily as a duo. They performed at the Opry's last Ryman Auditorium show on March 15, 1974, and as the Opry's senior members, were among the first acts to play at the show's new Opryland venue the following Saturday night. Journalist Garrison Keillor, covering the Opry's move for the "New Yorker", described the McGee Brothers' performance thus:
It was the acoustic moment of the show, when the skies cleared and the weeping steels were silent and out of the clear blue came a little ole guitar duet. Stunning and simple, and so good after all the "sound" I'd hear that week ...
On August 28, 1975, Sam was killed in a tractor accident on the family farm in Williamson County. After Sam's death, Kirk continued performing, mostly as a regular fiddler on the Opry. He died of a heart attack on October 24, 1983, a few days after his last appearance on the program.


Adam Osborne

Adam Osborne (March 6, 1939 – March 18, 2003) was a British-American author, book and software publisher, and computer designer who founded several companies in the United States and elsewhere. He introduced the Osborne 1, the first commercially successful portable computer.
Early life.
Osborne was born to a British father and Polish mother in Bangkok, Thailand on March 6, 1939. His father, Arthur Osborne, was a teacher of eastern religion and philosophy and a lecturer in English at Chulalongkorn University. All members of the family were fluent in the Tamil language. He spent World War II in southern India, with his mother. He attended Presentation Convent School in Kodaikanal until Class 6. In 1950, the Osborne family moved to England. From the age of 11, he was educated at a Catholic boarding school in Warwickshire but from 1954 to 1957 was a pupil at the grammar school Leamington College for Boys in Royal Leamington Spa, where he played chess. England. He graduated with a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Birmingham in 1961, and received his PhD from the University of Delaware in 1968. It was while living in the United States that he learned to write computer code. He obtained a position as a chemical engineer with Shell Oil, in California, but was dismissed.
Publishing.
Osborne was a pioneer in the computer book field, founding a company in 1972 that specialized in easy-to-read computer manuals. By 1977, Osborne & Associates had 40 titles in its catalogue. In 1979, it was bought by McGraw-Hill and continued as an imprint of McGraw-Hill, "McGraw-Hill/Osborne". He also wrote several books. One of them, "An Introduction To Microcomputers", sold 300,000 copies.
Computers.
Osborne was known to frequent the Homebrew Computer Club's meetings around 1975. He created the first commercially available portable computer, the Osborne 1, released in April 1981. It weighed 24.5 pounds (12 kg), cost US$1795—just over half the cost of a computer from other manufacturers with comparable features—and ran the popular CP/M 2.2 operating system. It was designed to fit under an airline seat. At its peak, Osborne Computer Corporation shipped 10,000 units of "Osborne 1" per month. Osborne was one of the first personal computing pioneers to understand fully that there was a wide market of buyers who were not computing hobbyists: the Osborne 1 included word processing and spreadsheet software. This was at a time when IBM would not bundle hardware and software with their PCs, selling separately the operating systems, monitors, and even cables for the monitor.
Adam Osborne's experience in the computer industry gave his new company credibility. Osborne Computer Corporation advertisements compared Adam Osborne's influence on the personal computer market to Henry Ford's influence on transportation. It is said that in 1983, Osborne bragged about two advanced new computers his company was developing. These statements destroyed consumer demand for the Osborne 1, and the resulting inventory glut forced Osborne Computer to file for bankruptcy on September 13, 1983. This phenomenon, a pre-announcement of a new product causing a catastrophic collapse in demand for older ones, became known as the Osborne effect, but according to some new sources, the real reasons for Osborne Computer's bankruptcy were management errors and insufficient cash flow.
Hypergrowth.
After Osborne Computer's collapse, Adam Osborne wrote a best-selling memoir of his experience, "Hypergrowth: The Rise and Fall of the Osborne Computer Corporation", with John C. Dvorak, which was published in 1984.
Software.
In 1984, Osborne founded Paperback Software International Ltd., a company that specialized in inexpensive computer software. Its advertisements featured Osborne himself, arguing that if telephone companies applied the same logic to their pricing as software companies, a telephone would cost $600. One of its products was VP-Planner, an inexpensive clone of Lotus 1-2-3, which led to legal action. In 1987, Lotus sued Paperback Software. As a result of the lawsuit, consumer confidence waned for Paperback Software, and its revenues dropped 80% by 1989, preventing the firm from getting venture capital for expansion. In February 1990, the case went to court and on June 28, the court ruled that Paperback Software's product, by copying Lotus 1-2-3's look and feel menu interface, violated Lotus's copyright. Osborne stepped down from Paperback Software the same year. Paperback's database application, VP-Info continued to sell well for many more years, and acquired a second life as Sharkbase.
His final venture, in 1992, was to found the company Noetics Software, to work on artificial intelligence.
Personal life and death.
Osborne was a member of Mensa. He married – and divorced – twice, firstly in the mid 1960s, to Cynthia Geddes, an American, and later to Barbara Burdick (Zelnick). Osborne had three children. Both former wives and all his children survived him.
In 1992, Osborne returned to India in declining health, suffering from a brain disorder that triggered frequent minor strokes. He died in his sleep on March 18, 2003, in Kodaikanal, India, aged 64.


Monica Howe

Monica Howe is a British costume designer, who made her film debut in 1976 with "Bugsy Malone", for which she received a BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design nomination at the 31st British Academy Film Awards. She was again nominated in 2001 for her work on the Academy Award-nominated film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?".


Galactic Wrestling

Galactic Wrestling: Featuring Ultimate Muscle, known in Japan as , is a PlayStation 2 game produced by Bandai and released in 2004. "Galactic Wrestling: Featuring Ultimate Muscle" is an expansion of the GameCube game ', which had been released in Japan on November 22, 2002 and in North America on June 5, 2003. The title of "Galactic Wrestling", in Japan, is often abbreviated as '. The game itself has an expansion called "", released in Japan on February 2, 2006 for the PlayStation Portable.
Reception.
"Galactic Wrestling: Featuring Ultimate Muscle" received "mixed" reviews according to video game review aggregator Metacritic. In Japan, "Famitsu" gave it a score of one seven, one six, one seven, and one six, for a total of 26 out of 40.


Anne Gray McCready

Anne C. Gray McCready (born July 7, 1960, in Williams Bay, Wisconsin) is a game designer and editor who has worked on a number of products for the "Dungeons & Dragons" fantasy role-playing game from TSR.
Early life.
Anne Gray grew up in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, and went to the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater majoring in biology, switching to marketing after a year, and switching to English the following year, earning her B.A. in English in 1982. "My first job after college was working at a printing company, where I keylined ads, business cards, and menus, and got interested in graphic design."
Career.
Gray "applied for a nice, normal job at TSR, as an Administrative Assistant with TSR's International Division, but I didn't get it. I did keep in touch with the company, and later that year I got another interview for a job as a Copy Editor. . . and I was hired." Although Gray was not yet familiar with the "Dungeons & Dragons" game at the time, she said "My first real assignment as a Copy Editor was to edit the revised edition of the "D&D Basic Set". I swear, I hardly knew what the "D&D" game was about. . . . and before I knew it, I was stuck with the job of editing boxed set after boxed set." Gray was promoted to full editor after a year, and handled the "D&D" line and other projects. Gray met Ben McCready just after Christmas 1984, and they were married the week before Gen Con 1985.
Works.
Anne Gray McCready worked as an editor on several "Dungeons & Dragons" game products from 1984-1986. She also did design and author work on modules such as "Mystery of the Snow Pearls" and "Red Sonja Unconquered". Her editing work includes products from the Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and Birthright product lines.


Gunbird

 is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up developed by Psikyo and released in arcades in 1994. In the US, it was published by Jaleco. It has been re-released multiple times, including on the Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and Steam. When originally localized outside Japan by XS Games, "Gunbird" was retitled Mobile Light Force. The game was followed by "Gunbird 2" in 1998 and was included in "Gunbird Special Edition" for PlayStation 2.
Gameplay.
When a player collides with the body of an enemy unit, the player loses a shot power level, and a power up flies around the screen and disappears as soon as it reaches the edge. If a player is at the lowest level of shot, the player loses a bomb instead.
There are seven stages in each of the game's two loops. The first three stages are randomly chosen from possible four. In the second loop enemies fire denser bullet patterns moving at faster speeds. Stage 2-1 takes place at the only stage not available on the first loop, instead of the 1-1 counterpart. The remaining two stages are chosen at random, but does not include the replaced stage. After completing first loop with only one player, the player can choose one of two choices for a wish with a magic potion, with unique endings for each choice. If the first loop is completed with two players, a combination-specific ending is played.
The cutscenes between the battles with two players fighting cooperatively are frequently packed with hilarious dialogue and situations. This is often a recurring theme with Psikyo games, the "Gunbird" games being no exception. There are no cutscenes when playing second loop stages. The Korean arcade version contains English dialog but some sound samples are missing during play.
Plot and characters.
"Gunbird" uses manga-styled character as the player's chosen craft. A story plays out in between levels and before boss fights, telling a tale of how the protagonists are trying to collect pieces of a magic mirror to make a wish.
Development and release.
The game was displayed at the PlayStation Expo '96 in Tokyo. There it was shown off alongside another vertically scrolling shooting game, "" by developer Santos.
The game was released in Japan for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn on December 15, 1995.
The game was released in North America as "Mobile Light Force" for the PlayStation. All in-game plot in this version, including the game's ending, was removed and character names were changed to those of XS Games employees. The game featured a "Charlie's Angels"-style cover picture, completely unrelated to the original characters or the game's theme. The original's fan art gallery was also removed from the game, although the directories are still intact on the disc if inserted into a PC.
"Gunbird Special Edition" was a version of the game was based on an arcade version, and included the sequel, "Gunbird 2". It was released only for the PlayStation 2 in 2004–2005.
Gunbird was included in "Psikyo Collection Vol. 1" along with "Strikers 1945", "Samurai Aces" and "Sol Divide".
Reception.
In Japan, "Game Machine" listed "Gunbird" on their November 15, 1994 issue as being the ninth most-successful table arcade unit of the year.
"Gunbird" received mostly positive reviews. "Weekly Famitsu" gave the PlayStation version a 29 out of 40 score. An import version for the Sega Saturn earned good scores of 82% from and 80% from French magazines "Consoles +" and "Mega Force". The three reviewers from the Japanese "Sega Saturn Magazine" rated it 6, 8 and 9 out of 10.


Andreas Roller

Andreas Leonhard Roller (Russian: Андреас Леонгард Роллер, also known as "Андрей Адамович Роллер"; 8 January 1805, Regensburg – 20 June 1891, St. Petersburg) was a German-born Russian landscape painter and theatrical set designer, who served as a Professor at the Imperial Academy of Arts.
Biography.
His father was a theatre mechanic and his uncle was a concertmaster. All of his siblings became involved in the theatre in some creative capacity. At the age of five, his family moved to Vienna , where he later studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. Before and during that time, he also studied the construction of theatrical machinery with his father, and set painting with ; among others.
He began working as a decorator and engineering assistant to his father in 1821. The following year, he became Chief Engineer at the Theater in der Josefstadt. After leaving that post, around 1830, he worked at theatres throughout Germany and Austria; also travelling to England, Scotland, and France. While in Berlin, he worked with the architect and designer, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, who has a lasting influence on his work.
In 1833, he was invited to St. Petersburg to become a decorator and Chief Engineer for the Imperial Theatres: a position he held until 1879, when illness forced him to resign. During those years, he designed some of the most significant productions in his adopted country, including the premier of "A Life for the Tsar", by Mikhail Glinka, one of the first Russian operas, at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre. His technical contributions included the introduction of moving scenery and the so-called "ruin effect", where the stage set appears to collapse. In 1862, he created a version of "La Forza del Destino", by Verdi, with thunder and the illusion of rain.
He was eventually involved in over 200 plays, operas and ballets, as well as producing over a thousand tableaux vivants. He also painted curtains and created a panorama of the city of Palermo that was displayed near the Mikhailovsky Manezh, but was destroyed by fire a mere two years later, in 1852. Several reconstruction projects made use of his expertise; notably those at the Winter Palace (1836) and the Hermitage (1856). That same year, he was named a Professor of perspective at the Imperial Academy. He became a Russian citizen in 1873.


Group of Eight (music)

The Group of Eight (also known by its Spanish name ) was a group of Spanish composers and musicologists, including Jesús Bal y Gay, Ernesto Halffter and his brother Rodolfo, Juan José Mantecón, Julián Bautista, Fernando Remacha, Rosa García Ascot, Salvador Bacarisse and Gustavo Pittaluga. The group, loosely modelled on Les Six and The Five (similar nationalist coalitions of composers), was formed in 1930 to oppose musical conservatism in Spain. Its members, who were closely allied to the literary movement Generation of '27, met in Madrid's Residencia de Estudiantes to perform avant-garde works and discuss the aesthetics of music. The group came to an end with the Spanish Civil War and the ensuing Francoist State when most of its members left Madrid or went into exile abroad.


My Baby (series)

My Baby are a series of single-player virtual life simulation video games developed by French studios Dancing Dot Studio and Nobilis Games.
Games.
My Baby Girl/My Baby Boy.
"My Baby Girl" and "My Baby Boy" are Nintendo DS video games released in North America on November 4, 2008 and in Europe on November 28, 2008. The games teach players the skills of parenting (the player can choose to be a daddy or a mommy) and to the experience of raising a daughter or son in the months that they spend as an infant.
The player can choose a nationality for their child in addition to their eye color. Players must create a given name (up to eight letters) to his or her character before beginning the actual game. However, there is no need to insert either a middle name or a surname because of memory constraints.
Two developmental challenges (i.e., teaching the baby how to speak or teaching the baby how to crawl) must be passed before the baby is allowed to grow by one month. Using the microphone to expand the baby's vocabulary and the stylus to put on new clothes for them helps provide the challenges that new parents face with their infants every day. Babies must be given baby formula in a bottle and the game is similar to the Tamagotchi devices of the mid 1990s. There was originally an option to create a "My Baby" game combining two genders in one cartridge but the idea was funneled off into two different cartridges.
One of the other mandatory features of the game include flatulence, cooing, and the changing of the diaper when the baby urinates or has a bowel movement.
My Baby First Steps.
"My Baby First Steps", known in Europe as "My Baby 2", is a video game for the Nintendo DS and Wii. The player's son or daughter has grown out of infancy and into toddlerhood. As a virtual parent, the player gets to control the character until he or she turns three years old (and approaches childhood). The baby will discover his or her entire environment, walk, babble, and even speak (saying either mommy or daddy depending on the gender of the player). Three-dimensional animations makes baby look more lifelike and an improved artificial intelligence makes the virtual baby act like the player's actual son or daughter. Babies will grow from a physical and a psychological view. The player can choose between having a boy or a girl in a single cartridge unlike the prequels.
A shopping mall is introduced to purchase possessions for the baby and the home featuring generic clothing that doesn't have any fashion designer's name branded on them.
The game has a realistic nurse and pediatrician that teaches the player how to take care of their son or daughter.
My Baby 3 & Friends.
"My Baby 3 & Friends" is a 2010 Nintendo DS game developed by Dancing Dots and published by Majesco Entertainment. As a toddler, the player's son or daughter is exposed to activities like swimming, the swing set at the local playground, and even a playground slide for stimulation and development. Players are also expected to allow their babies to socialize with either another baby or with a puppy. The timeline of the baby's development starts the baby off at 15 months (1 year and three months) and ends it at 30 months (2 years and six months). Thirty new skills can be developed in a non-linear fashion; making the parenting aspects of the game more in tune with the child's actual development.
Critical reception.
IGN awarded "My Baby Girl" 5.0 out of 10 (equivalent to 50% or a F letter grade), finding the graphics to be adequate but criticized the slow pacing, underwhelming music, and lack of actual gaming content. An issue was raised with the nudity and urination, which the reviewer felt might be uncomfortable for non-parents.


Tehkan World Cup

 originally released as in Japan, is an association football video game released to arcades in 1985 by Tehkan, the former name of Tecmo. It features multiplayer gameplay and trackball controllers. It was released in both upright and table arcade cabinets, but was most commonly released in a cocktail cabinet form factor. Its arrival coincided with the buildup to the 1986 FIFA World Cup. It featured the then colors of several of the world's top teams such as West Germany, Argentina and Brazil, although it did not mention any team by name.
The game uses a bird's-eye view, with the trackball controls allowing game physics such as controlling both the direction and speed of the shot. The gameplay format was adapted from the American football game "Gridiron Fight", developed by the same team and released earlier in the year, for an association football game, but with the controls simplified down to a trackball and single action button. It became a major success in arcades, and was a landmark title for association football games upon release. While "Tehkan World Cup" was not officially ported to home systems at the time, its gameplay format was later adapted by Sensible Software to develop the home computer game "MicroProse Soccer" (1988) and provided the basis for later association football games such as the "Sensible Soccer" series in the early 1990s. "Tehkan World Cup" was later ported to the PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles as Tecmo Cup in the 2000s.
Gameplay.
Graphically, it offered a two-dimensional bird's-eye view of the field that was unique for its time. It has multi-directional scrolling, with only a portion of the field visible on screen at any time.
Its trackball control system contributed significantly to its gameplay which was relatively speedy and exhibited a fluidity something akin to ice hockey, with as little as 3 seconds required to score from kick-off. Two-player action could be highly competitive, with players facing each other across the game space while using sweeping arm movements reminiscent of table tennis.
There was a single fire button along with the trackball. The game physics allowed the trackball to control both the direction and the velocity of the shot. There is also a mini-map, displaying the positions of all the players.
Development.
"Tehkan World Cup" was developed by Tehkan, the former name of Tecmo. It was developed shortly after the American football game "Gridiron Fight", released earlier the same year, with several of the same team members working on "Tehkan World Cup". The game was planned and designed by Shinichiro Tomie with Kazutoshi Ueda (who previously worked on titles such as "Space Panic", "Lady Bug", "Mr. Do!" and "Bomb Jack"). It was programmed by Michishito Ishizuka, while character design and background graphics were handled by his wife Rie Ishizuka (also known as Rie Yatomi), cabinet design by Kohji Okada, and illustrations by Hideyuki Yokoyama.
Tomie, who had previously designed "Gridiron Fight", was a big soccer fan, so he wanted to adapt the gameplay format of "Gridiron Fight" for a soccer game. "Gridiron Fight" used similar trackball controls, but was more complex. The team decided to simplify the controls, so that the player can run with the trackball and press one button to kick.
Reception.
The game was a major arcade hit. In Japan, "World Cup" was listed by ' magazine as the seventh top-grossing arcade game of November 1985. ' magazine later listed "World Cup" on their February 15, 1986 issue as being the third most successful table arcade cabinet of the month. It went on to be Japan's fourth highest-grossing table arcade game in the second half of 1986, according to "Game Machine".
Mike Roberts of "Computer Gamer" magazine gave "Tehkan World Cup" a generally favorable review upon release, noting the "very good graphics" and trackball controls.
Legacy.
Shinichiro Tomie, who was a big soccer fan, went on to develop Tecmo's "Captain Tsubasa" series of association football games, based on the popular sports manga and anime series.<ref name="Famitsu">


Teeuwynn Woodruff

Teeuwynn Woodruff is a writer and game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games, TV writing and interviewing, and trading card games.
Freelancer.
Teeuwynn Woodruff was introduced to role-playing games at an early age, playing her first game of "Dungeons & Dragons" when she was 11, according to Woodruff. In an interview with internet podcast called "Midnight Express", Woodruff said that after college, she met some employees of TSR while attending a games convention in 1992, which led to the idea of a career as a freelance fantasy writer; subsequently she sent some material to TSR and one of her monster designs appeared in the "AD&D" adventure "Assault on Raven's Ruin," while her adventure "A Way with Words", co-authored with Tim Beach, appeared in "Dungeon" magazine in its May/June 1993 issue. Woodruff also wrote for West End Games, including the "Galitia Citybook" for "Masterbook: Bloodshadows" and "Indiana Jones and the Tomb of the Templars" for the "Indiana Jones" RPG.
White Wolf and WotC.
Woodruff said in an internet podcast interview that she was hired by White Wolf in 1993 as their first female game designer. While there, she wrote "World of Darkness: Gypsies" and contributed to White Wolf's , , and lines.
In 1995, she moved to Seattle to join the staff of Wizards of the Coast (WotC), and claims to have been their first female game designer. Woodruff was part of the design team on a multitude of projects including "BattleTech", "Netrunner", "" (7th edition), "Duelmasters", "Dreamblade", and "Pokémon Trading Card Game". After WotC bought TSR in 1997, she also contributed to several "D&D" projects including "Masters of the Wild". Woodruff was on the design team with Wolfgang Baur and Mike Selinker for a role-playing game based on "Magic: The Gathering", but Wizards cancelled this project in 1996. She was also on the design team for "Betrayal at House on the Hill".
Lone Shark.
In 2005, she left WotC to form Lone Shark Games. Lone Shark also specialized in creating giant puzzles at events like Gencon, Microsofts annual three-day employee picnic, and other industry events such as the launch party for "."
While working at Lone Shark, Woodruff continued to freelance, interviewing participants and producers of various reality shows such "The Amazing Race" and "Survivor", then publishing articles for now defunct RealityNewsOnline.
Female game designer.
Woodruff's presence in the male-dominated games industry was mentioned by a columnist Nicole Brodeur in the Local News section of the "Seattle Times", who wrote, "Woodruff brings a female sensibility [...] to the male-dominated world of games and puzzles. And that is rare. [Co-founder of Lone Shark Games Mike] Selinker couldn’t name five female game designers, something he blames on 'institutional biases,' and the belief that women 'can’t handle' mathematics." In the article, Woodruff commented that "'Women "do" play games [...] They’re just not games that men count.'"
Reception to her works.
Galitia Citybook: In the March 1995 edition of "Dragon" (Issue 215), Rick Swan reviewed Woodruff's book "Galitia Citybook" (written for West End Game's "Bloodshadows" RPG), and commented that "most of it's interesting, but there's nothing noteworthy." He gave the book an average rating of 3 out of 6, saying, "The lack of an adventure and the awkward narrative [...] make this an iffy buy."
Star Sisterz: Kidzworld reviewed Woodruff's collectible charm game and gave it a rating of four out of five stars, praising the game's bracelet charms and cards, but stating that the game needed multiple players to be fun and that "some of the card challenges are really lame".


Fletcher Pratt

Murray Fletcher Pratt (25 April 1897 – 10 June 1956) was an American writer of history, science fiction, and fantasy. He is best known for his works on naval history and the American Civil War, and for fiction written with L. Sprague de Camp.
Life and work.
According to de Camp, Pratt was born near Tonawanda, New York. The son of Robert M. and Alice Horton Pratt, he attended public schools in Buffalo and graduated from high school in 1915 at the Griffith Institute in Springville, New York, where his father operated a trucking delivery service between Springville and Buffalo.
Following high school he attended Hobart College in Geneva, New York for one year. In February 1916 the Associated Press reported that he had been arrested for burglary in Geneva after a series of midnight cash drawer robberies that allegedly netted him less than $25. He was reported to have told police that his father did not supply him with enough funds to survive at Hobart. On February 23 the "Buffalo Enquirer" reported: "Pratt's father came on from Springville yesterday and it was practically decided to send the youth to the State Hospital for the Insane at Willard, pending an investigation of his case by the grand jury. It is thought that he may be mentally unsound."
In May 1918 the "Washington Star" reported that the staff at the camp library at the Army's Camp Meade in Maryland had been strengthened by the addition of "Murray F. Pratt, who recently came here from the Buffalo, N.Y., Public Library".
After a stint at the "Buffalo Courier-Express" he settled in New York City in 1920 and worked for a Staten Island newspaper before turning to freelance writing in 1923. In 1926, he married Inga Stephens, an artist. According to de Camp she was his second wife. In the late 1920s he began selling stories to pulp magazines, primarily the science fiction magazines published by Hugo Gernsback. Many of these stories were either written with a collaborator or were translations from French and German sources.
When a fire gutted his apartment in the early 1930s, according to de Camp's memoir, he used the insurance money to study at the Sorbonne for a year. After his return from France he was a staff writer for "American Detective", a true crime magazine, and began writing histories. His short history of the Civil War, "Ordeal by Fire", was published to critical acclaim in 1935 and became a bestseller.
During World War II Pratt was a military analyst for the "New York Post" and for "Time" magazine (whose obituary described him as "bearded, gnome-like" and listed "raising marmosets" among his hobbies), and later was a regular reviewer of historical nonfiction and fantasy and science fiction for the "New York Times Book Review".
Following World War II the Pratts came into possession of a rambling 31-room Victorian mansion overlooking the Atlantic Ocean at Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, purchased by Inga Stephens Pratt's wealthy mother for use as a summer place. Whimsically dubbed The Ipsy-Wipsy Institute, the house became a watering hole for Fletcher's literary friends at an unending succession of marathon weekend house parties. A number of writers moved into one of the mansion's many bedrooms and spent entire summers there. Frequent guests and residents at Ipsy-Wipsy included William Lindsay Gresham, John Ciardi, William Sloane, Basil Davenport, Lester del Rey, Ted Sturgeon, Esther Carlson, Fred Pohl, John D.
Clark, Willy Ley, Judith Merrill, Eugenie Clark, L. Sprague de Camp, and many others. Laurence Manning, Pratt's old writing partner from the 1930s, purchased part of the property and moved in next door. The Pratts simultaneously maintained a large apartment in Midtown Manhattan near Central Park, where they hosted meetings of the Hydra Club.
Pratt was the inventor of a set of rules for naval wargaming, which he created before the Second World War. This was known as the "Fletcher Pratt Naval War Game" and it involved dozens of tiny wooden ships, built on a scale of one inch to 50 feet. These were spread over the floor of Pratt's apartment and their maneuvers were calculated via a complex mathematical formula. Noted author and artist Jack Coggins was a frequent participant in Pratt's Navy Game, and de Camp met him through his wargaming group.
Pratt established the literary dining club known as the Trap Door Spiders in 1944. The name is a reference to the exclusive habits of the trapdoor spider, which when it enters its burrow pulls the hatch shut behind it. The club was later fictionalized as the Black Widowers in a series of mystery stories by Isaac Asimov. Pratt himself was fictionalized in one story, "To the Barest", as the Widowers’ founder, Ralph Ottur.
He was also a charter member of The Civil War Round Table of New York, organized in 1951, and served as its president from 1953-1954. In 1956, after his death, the Round Table's board of directors established the Fletcher Pratt Award in his honor, which is presented every May to the author or editor of the best non-fiction book on the Civil War published during the preceding calendar year.
Aside from his historical writings, Pratt is best known for his fantasy collaborations with de Camp, the most famous of which is the humorous Harold Shea series, eventually published in full as "The Complete Compleat Enchanter" (1989, ). His solo fantasy novels "The Well of the Unicorn" and "The Blue Star" are also highly regarded. Pratt's story "Dr. Grimshaw's Sanitarium" was adapted for radio drama by George Lefferts, and broadcast twice: first on "Dimension X" (September 22, 1950) and then on X Minus One (July 14, 1955).
Pratt wrote in a markedly identifiable prose style, reminiscent of the style of Bernard DeVoto. One of his books is dedicated "To Benny DeVoto, who taught me to write."
Several of Pratt's books were illustrated by Inga Stephens Pratt, his wife.


Boileau-Narcejac

Boileau-Narcejac is the "nom de plume" used by the prolific French crime-writing duo of Pierre Boileau (28 April 1906 – 16 January 1989) and Pierre Ayraud, aka Thomas Narcejac (3 July 1908 – 7 June 1998). Their successful collaboration produced 43 novels, 100 short stories and 4 plays. They are credited with having helped to form an authentically French subgenre of crime fiction with the emphasis on local settings and mounting psychological suspense. They are noted for the ingenuity of their plots and the skillful evocation of the mood of disorientation and fear. Their works were adapted into numerous films, most notably, "Les Diaboliques" (1955), directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, and "Vertigo" (1958), directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Biography.
Pierre Louis Boileau was born on 28 April 1906 in Paris, the son of Léon and Maria Boileau (n"é"e Guillaud). His studies prepared him for a career in commerce, but he had been passionate about detective fiction since childhood. He changed several occupations while also contributing short stories and novellas to various newspapers and magazines. Then he wrote a series of novels about André Brunel, a dapper private detective specialized in difficult cases. Boileau's novel "Le repos de Bacchus" was awarded the prestigious Prix du Roman d'Aventures in 1938. He was drafted during World War II, taken prisoner in June 1940, and spent two years in a stalag, where he met Jean-Paul Sartre. Boileau was released from the camp due to his medical condition. He returned to Paris in 1942, and enlisted as a social worker for the Secours National, an organization helping the disadvantaged. His work involved visiting penal colonies and interviewing criminals. He resumed his writing career in 1945 with the novel "L'Assassin vient les mains vides", and scripting a couple of successful radio series in 1945–1947.
Pierre Ayraud was born on 3 July 1908 in Rochefort-sur-Mer to a family of seamen. He lost one eye in a childhood accident, which prevented him from going into a seafaring business. In his youth, he used to go fishing on the Charente river near two hamlets called St. Thomas and Narcejac, and he remembered them when picking his pen name – "Thomas Narcejac". He studied at the universities of Bordeaux, Poitiers and Paris where he received degrees in literature and philosophy. He moved to Nantes in 1945, where he became a professor of philosophy and literature at the Lycée Georges-Clemenceau, and held this position until his retirement in 1967.
Narcejac began writing pastiches of various crime fiction authors which were published in the collections "Confidences dans ma nuit" (1946) and "Nouvelles confidences dans ma nuit" (1947). At the same time, he wrote his first crime novel "L'Assassin de minuit" (1945). Narcejac also partnered with Serge Arcouët, who used the pseudonym "Terry Stewart", to produce a series of novels imitating American thrillers. They were published under the joint pen name "John-Silver Lee".
In 1947, Narcejac also published an essay titled "L'esthétique du roman policier" ("The Esthetics of the Crime Novel") which drew Pierre Boileau's attention. The two writers began to correspond and finally met at the awards dinner in 1948, where Narcejac was receiving the Prix du Roman d'Aventures for his novel "La mort est du voyage". Two years later, they began writing together, with Boileau providing the plots and Narcejac the atmosphere and characterisation, not unlike Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee ("Ellery Queen").
Their first collaborative effort, "L’ombre et la proie" (1951), published under the name "Alain Bouccarèje" (the anagram of Boileau-Narcejac), went largely unnoticed. Their second novel "She Who Was No More" (1952), signed "Boileau-Narcejac", became their breakthrough, and was later filmed by Henri-Georges Clouzot as "Les Diaboliques". Their success was further sealed when Alfred Hitchcock adapted "The Living and the Dead" (1954) as "Vertigo" in 1958.
Boileau and Narcejac also worked as screenwriters, most notably on the adaptation of the novel "Les yeux sans visage" by Jean Redon into the horror movie known in English as "Eyes Without a Face" (1960).
Their works often flirted with the fantastic and the macabre, erupting full-blown in their novel "Et mon tout est un homme" (published in English as "Choice Cuts") which received the Grand Prix de l’Humour Noir in 1965.
In 1964, they published "Le Roman policier," a theoretical study of the crime genre.
In the 1970s, Boileau and Narcejac received the permission from the Maurice Leblanc estate to write new adventures of Arsène Lupin. They also wrote the "Sans Atout" series for younger readers, about a boy detective.
Their collaboration ended with Boileau's death on 16 January 1989 in Beaulieu-sur-Mer. The last novel containing his contribution was "J'ai été un fantôme" ("I was a ghost") published later that year. Narcejac continued writing alone, still signing his works as "Boileau-Narcejac". He died on 7 June 1998 in Nice.
Personal life.
Boileau was married in 1939 to Josette Baudin.
Narcjeac was married twice--in 1930 to Marie Thérèse Baret, with whom he had two daughters, Annette et Jacqueline, and in 1967 to Renée Swanson.
Writing style.
Narcejac, who was the team's stylist and theoretician, wrote: "I felt that the best kind of detective novel could not be written by any one person, since it involved the improbable blending, in a single individual, of two opposite personalities: the technician’s and the psychologist’s." He pointed out that the success of their collaboration lies in the fact that Boileau "was interested in the 'hows' and I was interested in the 'whys' of a story."
Boileau and Narcejac were exponents of what they termed "le roman de la victime" ("the victim novel") which may be defined as a suspense novel that adopts the victim's point of view. "Boileau-Narcejac characters typically have character traits which make them susceptible and vulnerable, and they find themselves in situations under pressure. The more they resist, the greater the pressure, and the more inevitable their eventual fate. The situation in question may take the reader into the realms of the fantastic or supernatural before a final twist reveals the workings of some criminal machination. By which time it may be too late for the victim, and the reader should have been drawn into a climate of unease, disorientation, and angst. This is a constant in Boileau-Narcejac’s work, a formula which realizes suspense through the rhythmic combination of retention and release…"
François Guérif notes that the team's brand of psychological suspense was inspired by Cornell Woolrich but remarks that the latter's victim characters are always sympathetic which is not always the case with Boileau-Narcejac.
The editors of "World Authors, 1950-1970" wrote that Boileau-Narcejac's novels "reflect Narcejac's admiration for Simenon in their compelling use of atmosphere but have none of the scrupulous naturalism of the Maigret stories." They also said that the duo's work "at least in translation, is stylistically undistinguished, but for most critics this fact is outweighed by the ingenuity of their plots and their power to involve the reader in the mood of doubt and mounting fear that they so skillfully evoke."
Legacy.
While their contemporaries in the late 1940s and 1950s were fascinated by an imaginary America, Boileau and Narcejac are credited with having helped to form an authentically French subgenre of crime fiction. They emphasized local settings and stressed the psychological dimension of coolly calculated and diabolically engineered crimes, revolving around greed, corruption, and what they called "the dark side of reason." "Boileau and Narcejac thus provided an indigenous French equivalent to the American film noir, but without having to detour through a reference to the USA".
Michel Lafon and Benoît Peeters praised Boileau and Narcejac for the renewal of the crime novel in the 1950s by finding "the third way between the English-style whodunit and the North American hard-boiled novel."
Only two English translations of their novels are currently in print and their reputation in the English-speaking world has been largely superseded by the film adaptations made by Hitchcock and Clouzot. Robin Wood wrote about "The Living and the Dead": "The drab, willful pessimism of "D’entre les morts" is an essentially different world from the intense traffic sense of "Vertigo", which derives from a simultaneous awareness of the immense value of human relationships and their inherent incapability of perfect realization." Christopher Lloyd made a similar comment about "She Who Was No More": "Many spectators and readers would probably agree that Clouzot’s film outclasses the original novel both in terms of creating horror and suspense, and in displaying an insouciant disregard for implausibilities of plot." He also remarked: "If Boileau-Narcejac are genuine innovators in detective fiction, then, it is certainly not because of their psychological realism or sociological perspicacity, but essentially because of their reconfiguration of plot and the conflictual relations between characters."
A street in Nantes was named after Thomas Narcejac in 2010.
Bibliography.
Only a handful of Boileau-Narcejac works have been translated into English, and most of these translations are out of print.
Boileau-Narcejac also wrote the "Sans Atout" juvenile fiction series. They relate the adventures of a young boy detective.
The pair also added five authorized sequels to Maurice Leblanc's series about gentleman thief Arsène Lupin.


Chris Gorak

Chris Gorak is an American film director who started as an art director and production designer. He directed the 2006 film "Right at Your Door" and the 2011 film "The Darkest Hour". Gorak began working in the film industry in the 1990s as an art director. In the 2000s, he worked on several films as a production designer before becoming a film director.
Background.
Gorak attended Tulane University where he earned an architecture degree. He changed his career to film and worked as an art director for directors like David Fincher, the Coen brothers, and Terry Gilliam. When Gorak worked as production designer on the 2004 film "The Clearing", he expressed afterward to its producers interest in film direction. They challenged him to provide something viable, and he wrote a script for an intended short film titled "Right at Your Door". He eventually directed the 2006 feature thriller film "Right at Your Door", which he said was reflective of authorities being impotent in a world after the September 11 attacks. He had initially worried about his film being too similar to "28 Days Later" but found inspiration in filming on a low budget. After "Right at Your Door", he planned to write and direct a cop drama titled "SIS". The film was not realized, and Gorak instead directed the alien invasion film "The Darkest Hour", released in 2011. In October 2013, Paramount Pictures bought Gorak's science fiction spec script "Attach" and began to develop a film, which Gorak is attached to direct. By February 2017, "Attach" was no longer under Paramount, and actor Alex Russell was cast to star in the film.
Gorak is a member of the Art Directors Guild.


Vasik Rajlich

Vasik Rajlich (born 1971 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an International Master in chess and the author of Rybka, previously one of the strongest chess playing programs in the world. Rajlich is a dual Czechoslovakian-American citizen by birth; he was born in the United States of America to Czech parents, at that time graduate students, but grew up in Prague. He later spent years in the United States as a student, graduating from MIT.
He married Iweta (née Radziewicz) on 19 August 2006. Iweta, who is also an International Master in chess, helps him with the development of Rybka as its tester. In April 2012, the couple was living in Budapest, Hungary and had one child, a son.
In April 2012, Rajlich participated in an April Fools' Day prank on ChessBase—claiming by using Rybka he had proven to a "99.99999999% certainty" that the accepted King's Gambit is a draw for White, but only after 3. Be2. Rajlich later admitted on ChessBase, that, "we're still probably a good 25 or so orders of magnitude away from being able to solve something like the King's Gambit. If processing power doubles every 18 months for the next century, we'll have the resources to do this around the year 2120, plus or minus a few decades".
Rajlich's handle on the Internet Chess Club is "vrajlich".
WCCC disqualification and banning.
On 28 June 2011, the International Computer Games Association (ICGA) determined that Rajlich had plagiarized two other chess software programs: Crafty and Fruit. The ICGA sanction for Vasik Rajlich and Rybka was the disqualification from the World Computer Chess Championship (WCCC) of 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Vasik Rajlich is banned for life from competing in the WCCC or any other event organized by or sanctioned by the ICGA. Rajlich had already responded to these charges with an e-mail to David Levy, president of the ICGA, in which he stated:


Open Infrastructure Architecture method

The Open Infrastructure Architecture method, or OIAm, is an open standard for the application of architecture to infrastructure.
OIAm and the community.
The development of the method has from its early inception been published on the Internet under a Creative Commons license, using a Semantic MediaWiki based wiki for publication of standard content - originally the "DYA|Infrastructure Repository" (DIR),
currently the "Open Infrastructure Architecture repository" (OIAr). As a result of this, a community evolved consisting of architects and other people working with, or being interested in, the method. This community mainly revolves around the aforementioned OIAr, a LinkedIn group named Open Infrastructure Architecture, and a semi-annual community meeting.
Modelling infrastructure under OIAm.
Modelling infrastructure is done under OIAm using


The Ebony Hillbillies

The Ebony Hillbillies is an old-time string band based in NYC, New York City.
A recording of their music is held in the archives of the Smithsonian Institution's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
History.
During the 1980s Henrique Prince began putting together a band due to "an idea of specializing in dance music, because I really liked the idea of the violin as a dance instrument." He also wanted to make "music African Americans used to perform and dance to before they found the blues and jazz and the other stuff became associated with grizzled mountain white guys". Based in New York City, The Ebony Hillbillies began performing on New York subway platforms. As the band continued to perform they were invited to perform in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center, Washington state's Wintergrass Festival, and the Kennedy Center.


Kara Saun

Kara Saun is an American fashion and costume designer and CEO of Kara Saun LLC, an LA-based fashion and costume design house. She was the costume designer on Disney Channel’s "Descendants" franchise.
Saun launched a teen-oriented lifestyle brand "The Fashion FairyGodmother".
Saun appeared on Season 1 of the series, "Project Runway". She was the costume designer on MTV’s "America's Best Dance Crew" (1-5), NBC's "The Sing-Off" (1-3). She also designed “Make and "Jabbawockeez M.U.S.I.C.” show in Las Vegas.


Ximenes (crossword compiler)


Roff (software)

roff is the first Unix text-formatting computer program, and a predecessor of the nroff and troff document processing systems.
It was a Unix version of the runoff text-formatting program from Multics, which was a descendant of RUNOFF for CTSS (the first computerized text-formatting application).
History.
CTSS.
"roff" is a descendant of the RUNOFF program by Jerry Saltzer, which ran on CTSS. Douglas McIlroy and Robert Morris wrote codice_1 for Multics in BCPL based on Saltzer's program written in MAD assembler. Their program in turn was "transliterated" by Ken Thompson into PDP-7 assembler language for his early Unix operating system, circa 1970.
When the first PDP-11 was acquired for Unix in late 1970 (a PDP-11/20), the justification cited to management for the funding required was that it was to be used as a word processing system, and so "roff" was quickly transliterated again, into PDP-11 assembly, in 1971.
"roff" printed the man pages for Versions 1 through 3 of Unix, and when the Bell Labs patent department began using it, it became the first Unix application with an outside client. Dennis Ritchie noted that the ability to rapidly modify "roff" (because it was locally written software) to provide special features was an important factor in leading to the adoption of Unix by the patent department to fill its word processing needs. This in turn gave UNIX enough credibility inside Bell Labs to secure the funding to purchase one of the first PDP-11/45s produced.