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Tim Rice

Sir Timothy Miles Bindon Rice (born 10 November 1944) is an English lyricist and author. He is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote, among other shows, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Evita; Chess (with Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA); Aida (with Elton John); and for Disney Aladdin (with Alan Menken), The Lion King (with John), both the stage adaptation of Beauty and the Beast and the live-action film adaption (with Menken). He also wrote lyrics for the Alan Menken musical King David, and for DreamWorks Animation's The Road to El Dorado (with John).

Rice was knighted by Elizabeth II for services to music in 1994. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is a 1999 inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and is the 2023 recipient of its Johnny Mercer Award, is a Disney Legend recipient, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors. In addition to his awards in the UK, he is one of nineteen artists to have won an Emmy, Oscar, Grammy and Tony in the US.

Rice twice hosted the Brit Awards (in 1983 and 1984). The 2020 Sunday Times Rich List values Rice's wealth at £155m; the 21st-richest music millionaire in the UK.

Early life
Rice was born at Shardeloes, a historic English country house near Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England that was requisitioned as a maternity hospital during the Second World War. His father, Hugh Gordon Rice (1917–1988), served with the Eighth Army and reached the rank of major during the Second World War, and afterward worked for the de Havilland Aircraft Company, becoming Far East representative, and for the Diplomatic Service, including as adviser to the Ministry of Overseas Development at Amman, Jordan. Rice's mother, Joan Odette (née Bawden; 1919–2009), daughter of an entrepreneur in the London fashion trade, served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) as a photographic interpreter, and in her eighties became known as a writer on the publication of her wartime diaries.

Education
Rice was educated at three independent schools: Aldwickbury School in Hertfordshire, St Albans School and Lancing College. He left Lancing with GCE A-Levels in History and French and then started work as an articled clerk for a law firm in London, having decided not to apply for a university place. He later attended the Sorbonne in Paris for a year.

Music industry
After studying for a year in Paris at the Sorbonne, Rice joined EMI Records as a management trainee in 1966. When EMI producer Norrie Paramor left to set up his own organization in 1968, Rice joined him as an assistant producer, working with, among others, Cliff Richard and The Scaffold.

Musical theatre
Rice became famous for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cricket, The Likes of Us, and additional songs for the 2011 West End production of The Wizard of Oz. Joseph and Superstar were additionally known as two of the first hit musicals that drew their sound from the rock and pop music that became embedded in culture in the 1960s.

For The Walt Disney Company, Rice has collaborated individually with Alan Menken and Elton John, creating productions including Aladdin (winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song, Golden Globe and Grammy Award for Song of the Year for "A Whole New World" in 1992) and The Lion King (winning an Academy Award and Golden Globe for "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" in 1994).

In 1996, his collaboration with Lloyd Webber for the film version Evita won Rice his third Academy Award for Best Original Song with the song "You Must Love Me". Rice has also collaborated with Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA on Chess and with Rick Wakeman on the albums 1984 and Cost of Living. In 2009, he wrote the lyrics for Andrei Konchalovsky's critically panned reimagining of The Nutcracker, set to the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Rice reunited with Andrew Lloyd Webber in 2011 to pen new songs for Lloyd Webber's newest production of The Wizard of Oz which opened in March 2011 at the London Palladium. Rice has since, however, rejected working with Lloyd Webber again, claiming their partnership has run its course, and they are "no longer relevant as a team".

Media
On 9 November 1979, Rice hosted a highly publicised edition of Friday Night, Saturday Morning on the BBC which had a heated debate on the newly released film Monty Python's Life of Brian, a film that had been banned by many local councils and caused protests throughout the world with accusations that it was blasphemous (as the lyricist of Jesus Christ Superstar, Rice himself had been accused of blasphemy a decade before). To argue in favour of this accusation were veteran broadcaster and noted Christian Malcolm Muggeridge, and Mervyn Stockwood (the Bishop of Southwark). In defence of the film were two members of the Monty Python team, John Cleese and Michael Palin.

Rice has also been a frequent guest panellist for many years on the radio panel games Just a Minute and Trivia Test Match. Rice also made an appearance in the film About a Boy. The film includes several clips from an edition of the game show Countdown on which he was the guest adjudicator. His other interests include cricket (he was president of the MCC in 2002) and maths. He wrote the foreword to the book Why Do Buses Come In Threes by Rob Eastaway and Jeremy Wyndham, and featured prominently in Tony Hawks's One Hit Wonderland, where he co-wrote the song which gave Hawks a top twenty hit in Albania. On 2 December 2010 he addressed the eighth Bradman Oration in Adelaide. In October 2011, and November 2016 to February 2017, Rice was guest presenter for the BBC Radio 2 show Sounds of the '60s, standing in for regular presenter Brian Matthew who was unwell.

Beginning in the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in partnership with Broadway Podcast Network, Rice has presented Get Onto My Cloud, a podcast retrospective of his career. A number of episodes feature verbatim excerpts of his autobiography, and all include various recordings of his, and other associated musicians', work.

Literature
He released his autobiography Oh What a Circus: The Autobiography of Tim Rice in 1998, which covered his childhood and early adult life until the opening of the original London production of Evita in 1978. He also took part in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project Sixty Six Books for which he wrote a piece based upon a book of the King James Bible.

Rice was the president of The London Library, the largest independent lending library in Europe from 2017–2022.

Publishing
Along with his brother, Jo, and the radio presenters Mike Read and Paul Gambaccini, he was a co-founder of the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles and served as an editor from 1977 to 1996. In September 1981, Rice, along with Colin Webb and Michael Parkinson, launched Pavilion Books, a publishing house with a publishing focus on music and the arts. He held it until 1997.

Patronage
Rice is a patron of the London-based drama school, Associated Studios and was for several years, a patron of Thame Players Theatre along with Bruce Alexander.

Honours
Rice was made a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994 (entitling him to the address "Sir Tim Rice" or "Sir Tim"), was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1999, and was named a Disney Legend in 2002.

In 2008, Rice received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

He is a fellow member of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.

Personal life
On 19 August 1974, Rice married Jane Artereta, daughter of Colonel Alexander Henry McIntosh, OBE, and former wife of producer and talent agent Michael Whitehall, the couple having met while working at Capital Radio. The marriage unravelled in the late 1980s after the British tabloid newspapers revealed that he had been conducting an affair with the singer Elaine Paige. Jane retains the title Lady Rice as, despite obtaining a divorce decree nisi, the couple never made it absolute and therefore they remain technically married.

Lady Rice manages the family's 33,000-acre Dundonnell estate which Sir Tim Rice bought in 1998 for £2 million. She has won awards for her conservation work with red squirrels. They have two children, Eva Jane Florence, a novelist and singer-songwriter, and Donald Alexander Hugh, a film director and theatre producer who also helps to run Dundonnell. Eva, who was named after Eva Perón, is the author of the novel The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets, which was a finalist for the British Book Award Best Read of the Year.

Rice has a second daughter, Zoe Joan Eleanor, from a relationship with Nell Sully, an artist. He has a third daughter, Charlotte Cordelia Violet Christina, from a relationship with Laura-Jane Foley, a writer. He has seven grandchildren.

Despite having no familial or personal ties to the club, Rice has been a fan of Sunderland AFC since his early childhood.

Politics
Rice was a supporter of the Conservative Party, but in 2007 stated that the Conservatives were no longer interested in him and that his relationship with the party had "irrevocably changed." Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, both supporters of Margaret Thatcher, attended her funeral in 2013.

Rice raised funds for the Euro No campaign in 2000. In 2014 he was a donor to the UK Independence Party. In May 2016, he told The Spectator that he would vote for Brexit in the following month's referendum on the issue, saying: "It would be good to spend one's final years as part of a truly independent nation once more." He said he had voted to remain in the European Economic Community in 1975 "from a standpoint of ignorance".

Religion
Describing his religion, Rice stated in a 1982 interview, "Technically I'm Church of England, which is really nothing. But I don't follow it. I wouldn't say I was a Christian. I have nothing against it." Conversely, he also stated that he adapted the Biblical stories of Joseph and Jesus to musicals because "I'd always rather take a true story over an untrue one."

Wealth
According to The Sunday Times Rich List of the UK's richest millionaires, Rice is worth £155 million as of 2020.

In 2015, Rice expressed his indebtedness to the journalist Angus McGill as "the man responsible for Andrew Lloyd Webber and I having our first song recorded". Speaking at McGill's funeral, Rice told a tale from his days at EMI about trying to rig the results of the London Evening Standard Girl of the Year competition in 1967. As "glorified office boy", Rice was writing songs with Lloyd Webber and desperate to find anybody to record one of their songs. Rice and colleagues filled in 5,000 entry forms overnight voting for the contestant who was a singer, and delivered them to McGill, who supervised the competition. Rice said it was "a disgraceful act of dishonesty on my part... without actually breaking the rules". As a result, the Standard proclaimed two Girls of the Year and Rice's choice, Rosalind ("Ross") Hannaman, was signed to EMI, where she made her first record. Rice said at the funeral: "I owe [Angus] an awful lot, which is just one of the reasons why I'm here today."

Musical theatre

 * 1968 – Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
 * 1970 – Jesus Christ Superstar with music by Lloyd Webber
 * 1976 – Evita with music by Lloyd Webber
 * 1983 – Blondel with music by Stephen Oliver
 * 1984 – Chess with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus
 * 1986 – Cricket with music by Lloyd Webber
 * 1992 – Tycoon with music by Michel Berger (English-language adaptation of the 1979 French musical Starmania, with original French lyrics by Luc Plamondon)
 * 1994 – Beauty and the Beast with music by Alan Menken for 9 new songs; remaining songs feature the lyrics of Howard Ashman, as written for the 1991 film.
 * 1996 – Heathcliff with music by John Farrar
 * 1997 – The Lion King with music by Elton John
 * 1997 – King David with music by Menken
 * 2000 – Aida with music by Elton John
 * 2005 – The Likes of Us with music by Lloyd Webber (written in 1965, but first staged at the Sydmonton Festival on 9 July 2005 )
 * 2011 – The Wizard of Oz with music by Lloyd Webber for 6 new songs; also additional lyrics for 4 songs with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg. The remaining 13 songs are solely by Arlen and Harburg.
 * 2011 – Aladdin with music by Menken and additional lyrics by Ashman and Chad Beguelin. Based on the film.
 * 2013 – From Here to Eternity with music by Stuart Brayson, based on the James Jones novel of the same name

Film and television work
In addition to adaptations of his theatrical productions, Rice has worked on several original film and television projects:
 * 1983 – Octopussy; theme song "All Time High" with music by John Barry and sung by Rita Coolidge
 * 1992 – Aladdin with music and score by Alan Menken; completed work begun by Howard Ashman
 * 1994 – The Lion King with music by Elton John, score by Hans Zimmer
 * 2000 – The Road to El Dorado with music by Elton John, score by Hans Zimmer and John Powell
 * 2009 – The Nutcracker in 3D with music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and score by Eduard Artemyev
 * 2017 – Beauty and the Beast with music and score by Alan Menken; additional three songs
 * 2019 – Aladdin with music and score by Alan Menken; new compositions with Pasek and Paul
 * 2019 – The Lion King with music by Elton John and score by Hans Zimmer

Lyricist

 * ”Christmas Dream”, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and sung by Perry Como for The Odessa File (1974).
 * "It's Easy for You", recorded by Elvis Presley on his album Moody Blue.
 * "Legal Boys", recorded by Elton John on his album Jump Up!
 * 1981 concept album 1984 composed by Rick Wakeman and inspired by the George Orwell novel of the same name.
 * "The Second Time", "The Last One to Leave", "Hot As Sun" and "Falling Down to Earth" on Elaine Paige's 1981 self-titled album
 * "All Time High", the theme tune to the James Bond film, Octopussy, written with John Barry and sung by Rita Coolidge (1983).
 * "A Winter's Tale", written with Mike Batt and recorded by David Essex (1982).
 * "The Fallen Priest" and "The Golden Boy" for Freddie Mercury's 1988 album Barcelona.
 * "The Monkey And The Onion" with music by Graham Gouldman performed as 10cc on their final album Mirror Mirror (1995)
 * "Warthog Rhapsody" and a reworking of "Hakuna Matata" (both written with Elton John) for Rhythm of the Pride Lands (1995).
 * "That's All I Need", written with Elton John, for The Lion King 1½ (2004). Snippets of songs originally written by the pair for The Lion King also feature in the film.
 * "Peterloo", was requested by Sir Malcolm Arnold's estate to write lyrics to the Peterloo Overture [commemorating the horrific St Peter's Fields Massacre and maiming of men, women and children at a meeting in Manchester in Aug 1819]. There was in mind to use it in 2012 for the Olympics or for the Queen's Jubilee celebrations [60 years on throne] but instead it had its premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in London at 'The Last Night of the Proms' on Saturday 13 September 2014 which was broadcast on BBC television.
 * "A Matter of Love" Lyrics written by Tim Rice for Taiwanese Prince of Ballads Jeff Chang (January 2021)

Other work

 * From 1979 to 1982, Rice was co-host of the BBC2 chat show Friday Night, Saturday Morning.
 * Made a rare appearance in an acting role as a newscaster reporting a plane crash in the 1981 Australian horror film The Survivor.
 * Co-produced the 1986 London and 1988 Broadway productions of Chess as a partner in 3 Knights Ltd with Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.
 * Co-produced the 1989 London production of Anything Goes as a partner in Anchorage Productions with Elaine Paige.
 * Co-produced, with Andrew Powell, Elaine Paige's 1981 self-titled album
 * Occasional panellist on the BBC Radio 4 panel game Just a Minute
 * Appears as host of the BBC Radio 2 weekly series Tim Rice's American Pie which explores the music and musicians of each state in the USA.

title: Tim Rice


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BattleBots

BattleBots is an American robot combat television series and company. The show is an adaptation of the American Robot Wars competitions hosted in the mid–late 1990s by Marc Thorpe, in which competitors design and operate remote-controlled armed and armored machines designed to fight in an arena combat elimination tournament. The same competitions inspired the British TV program Robot Wars, which acquired the name in 1995.

Legally barred from the name "Robot Wars", American robot combat aficionados created a new company, BattleBots, under the ownership of Greg Munson and Trey Roski. The first official BattleBots event was hosted at the Long Beach Pyramid in Long Beach, California in August 1999, while a second event in Las Vegas was used to pitch the competition to television networks. For five seasons, BattleBots aired on the American Comedy Central and was hosted by Bil Dwyer, Sean Salisbury, and Tim Green. Comedy Central's first season premiered on August 23, 2000, and its fifth and last season ended on December 21, 2002. While small untelevised competitions continued to be run under the BattleBots name, the show was on hiatus until it was revived on ABC in 2015.

A six-episode revival series premiered on ABC on June 21, 2015, to generally favorable reviews and ratings. Additionally, ABC renewed BattleBots for a seventh season, which premiered on June 23, 2016. In February 2018, Discovery Channel and Science picked up the show for an eighth season, which premiered on May 11, 2018. A ninth season of BattleBots premiered on Discovery Channel on June 7, 2019, the tenth season premiered on December 3, 2020, the eleventh season on January 6, 2022, and the twelfth season on January 5, 2023.

Two spin-off competitions have debuted on Discovery+. The first spin-off, BattleBots: Bounty Hunters, premiered on January 4, 2021 on Discovery+. A second spin-off premiered on August 5, 2022, under the name BattleBots: Champions.

Early competitions
BattleBots is an offshoot of the original Robot Wars tournaments, the brainchild of Marc Thorpe. Robot Wars had financial backing from Sm:)e communications, a New York record company. The Thorpe partnership broke up in 1997, starting many years of legal wrangling between Thorpe and Profile Records (the former Sm:)e Communications). Profile licensed Robot Wars to a UK production company''. Robot Wars'' ran from 1998 to 2004 as a popular television program in the UK, with a short-lived revival from 2016 to 2017.

The robot builders left behind in San Francisco formed BattleBots, Inc. and began a series of larger competitions. The first was held in Long Beach, California in August 1999 and streamed online, attracting 40,000 streams. Lenny Stucker, a television producer known for his work on telecasts of professional boxing, was in attendance and showed interest in being involved with BattleBots—believing the concept of robot combat was "hip" and have shown an interest in technology. Stucker made changes to the competition's format and presentation to make it more suitable for television, including elements reminiscent of boxing (such as a red and blue corner) and shifting to a single-elimination format. The creators tried selling the competition as a television series to networks such as CBS, NBC, HBO, and Showtime, but none picked it up. A second event was held as a pay-per-view in Las Vegas in 1999, the PPV was in turn, used as a pilot to pitch the show again, with a higher rate of success.

Comedy Central seasons (2000–2002)
Among the networks interested was Comedy Central, who ultimately picked up the program. Debbie Liebling, the network's Senior Vice President of original programming and development, felt that the concept would appeal to the network's young adult demographic, explaining that "it was really funny and really nerdy. The Internet was not a big thing yet, so the nerd culture wasn't so celebrated. It was sports for the nerdy person, I guess." Co-creator Greg Munson viewed the deal as a double-edged sword; it gave BattleBots an outlet and a larger budget, but the network insisted on the addition of comedic aspects to BattleBots as a program, such as sketches involving contestants. However, the competition itself was not affected by this mandate; Liebling described the final product as being "a parody of a sports show without being a parody". Munson lamented that the network had also ignored his suggestion for the co-host role to be filled by "attractive geek girls" with sufficient knowledge to speak with builders, having elected to "[keep] throwing bigger and better hot babes at it", such as Carmen Electra.

Despite this, viewership and awareness of BattleBots grew progressively over time; contestants Christian Carlberg and Lisa Winter were invited to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, BattleBots beat South Park as Comedy Central's highest-rated program for a period during Season 3, competitor interest grew and licensing deals also emerged. The success of BattleBots, however, resulted in competition from other broadcasters; TLC introduced a competing program, Robotica, while other channels imported episodes of the British Robot Wars series. By 2002, the program had begun to face further difficulties; Munson felt that the bouts had become "homogenized" because the participants had "perfected" the sport of robot fighting, leading to a lack of innovation in robot designs and strategies. Furthermore, BattleBots had sued Anheuser-Busch and its advertising agency for producing and airing a commercial during Super Bowl XXXVII that parodied the program and featured a robot greatly resembling one from BattleBots (this lawsuit, however, was dismissed in 2004, after a judge ruled that the ad was a parody protected by fair use). In September 2002, Comedy Central cancelled BattleBots after its fifth season, BattleBots 5.0. Viacom acquired full control of the network in April 2003; Stucker believed that Comedy Central had become "tired" of the program, and Roski stated that Viacom had wanted to shift Comedy Central back towards traditional comedy programming.

Between August 21 and 26, 2009 a BattleBots-branded event was held and filmed in California. Three competitions were held: The High School Championship, Collegiate Championship and Pro Championship. Competitors included a mix of Comedy Central stars and newcomers who would return to the reboot. CBS sport originally agreed to air the Collegiate Championship before dropping out due to lack of commercial interest. A deal with Fox was later signed before also falling apart for unknown reasons. The pilot episode of the Collegiate Championship was released onto the official BattleBots YouTube Channel on the 17th of September 2010.

ABC/Discovery Channel revival (2015–present)
In December 2014, ABC announced that it had picked up a six-episode revival of BattleBots, produced by Whalerock Industries, to premiere in June 2015. Roski and Munson served as executive producers, joined by Lloyd Braun. The 2015 revival drew an average viewership of 5.4 million in its Sunday-night timeslot, with a 1.9 share in the 18-49 demographic. In November 2015, ABC announced that it had renewed the BattleBots revival for the seventh overall season of the series. The 2016 competition expanded to a 56-team field.

After ABC declined to renew the revival for a subsequent season, the series was picked up by Discovery Channel and sister network Science. In April 2018, the networks announced that a new season would premiere that year: May 11 on Discovery and May 16 on Science Channel. The announcement reported that among the returning bots would be favorites Tombstone, Minotaur, Chomp, Witch Doctor, Bronco, Bombshell, Bite Force, and Yeti. Chris Rose and Kenny Florian return to call the action, provide background information about the bots and teams, and offer commentary. Jessica Chobot served again as the sideline reporter. Faruq Tauheed returned as the ring announcer.

BattleBots returned for another season on June 5, 2019, on Discovery and Science Channel. Chris Rose and Kenny Florian returned as hosts with a new sideline reporter, Jenny Taft, interviewing all of the BattleBots competitors in the workshop. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the tenth season premiere on Discovery, planned for May 2020. Filming finally occurred October 10–21 for the season 10 premiere on December 3, 2020. An eleventh season ran from January 6 to April 7, 2022, establishing a permanent base for production at Caesars Entertainment Studios in Las Vegas. A twelfth season—marketed as "World Championship VII"—ran from January 5 to May 25, 2023.

Apart from the televised competitions, BattleBots has hosted several untelevised shows in Las Vegas. In 2019 and 2022, minor tournaments were hosted in collaboration with re:MARS, a technology conference run by Amazon. The re:MARS competition on June 6, 2019 was won by Witch Doctor (out of ten competitors), while the competition on June 23, 2022 was won by HyperShock (out of eight competitors). A live show, 'BattleBots: Destruct-A-Thon', was presented four days a week from February to May 2023. 'Destruct-A-Thon' exhibited unscripted fights between replicas of classic and reboot BattleBots competitors. The replica bots, or 'ShowBots', were built and driven by a production crew with guidance from the original teams who designed them. Starting May 2023, the production space was utilized for another live show, 'BattleBots Proving Ground', which involved fights between newly designed or untested bots from newcomers or unproven teams.

Personalities
For the first five seasons, BattleBots was hosted by Bil Dwyer, Sean Salisbury, and Tim Green. Correspondents included former Baywatch actresses Donna D'Errico, Carmen Electra, and Traci Bingham, former Playboy Playmate Heidi Mark, comedian Arj Barker and identical twins Randy and Jason Sklar. Bill Nye was the show's "technical expert". The show's match announcer was longtime boxing ring announcer Mark Beiro.

The 2015 edition was hosted by Molly McGrath, with Chris Rose and former UFC fighting legend Kenny Florian as commentators. The battle arena announcer was Faruq Tauheed, and Alison Haislip conducted interviews on the sidelines and behind the scenes. The judges were engineer and NASA astronaut Leland Melvin, Nerdist News anchor Jessica Chobot and visual effects artist, and former competitor, Fon Davis.

For the 2016 season, Samantha Ponder was added as host, replacing Molly McGrath. The returning judges were Fon Davis, Jessica Chobot, and Leland Melvin, as well as celebrity guest judges actor Clark Gregg, MythBusters host and former Battlebots builder Adam Savage, NFL tightend Vernon Davis, and YouTube star Michael Stevens a.k.a. Vsauce.

For the 2018 season, Rose, Florian, and Tauheed all returned in their roles, with Rose and Florian taking over as the primary hosts of the show. Chobot and Haislip switched their roles, with Chobot becoming the new sideline reporter and Haislip one of the rotating judges. Other judges include former Battlebots competitors Lisa Winter, Derek Young, Grant Imahara and Mark Setrakian.

For the 2019 season, Chobot was replaced with Jenny Taft as a sideline reporter, and the judging panel was fixed to Winter, Young, and former competitor Jason Bardis instead of rotating as it had done in previous seasons.

For the 2020 season, former builder Peter Abrahamson was added as a ringside "bot whisperer" who provided technical details and in-depth analysis of matchups, robots, and damage.
 * Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage (creators of heavyweight Blendo), and Grant Imahara (creator of middleweight Deadblow) of Discovery Channel's MythBusters are former competitors. Deadblow sometimes appeared as a "guest MythBuster", assisting Grant with various experiments including "Driving In The Dark".
 * Will Wright, the creator of SimCity and other Sim games, as well as Spore, was a long-time contestant. He competed with middleweight Chiabot in Seasons 1–5, multibot RACC along with Mike Winter in Long Beach 1999, and lightweight The Aggressive Polygon in Season 1. His daughter Cassidy competed with middleweight Misty the WonderBot in Seasons 4–5.
 * Michael Loren Mauldin, founder of Lycos, entered multiple bots over the series, competing with Team Toad.
 * One of the founders of BattleBots, Trey Roski, is the son of Edward Roski Jr., one of the owners of the STAPLES Center sports arena in Los Angeles.
 * Jay Leno appeared with a novelty BattleBot, Chinkilla – a lift-type robot, Chinkilla did not comply with the competition rules and only competed in special exhibition matches at BattleBots events.
 * Mark Setrakian, builder/creator of the fighting robots and control suits used on Robot Combat League, is known for his visually appealing robots such as Mechadon and Snake. He has also worked on control technology used for films like Men In Black, The Grinch, and Hellboy. Whilst Setrakian did not compete in the ABC revival series, he built Axis, a claw-like podium that rotated the Giant Nut on top of it while it was on display.
 * Gary Coleman, in promotion with UGO.com, joined Jim Smentowski on Team Nightmare for BattleBots Season 5.
 * Dan Barry, retired NASA astronaut and Survivor: Panama contestant, competed in BattleBots Season 7 with Black Ice.

Weight classes
Robots at BattleBots tournaments were separated into four weight classes in seasons 1–5. The weight limits increased slightly over time. At the final tournaments, the classes were:

 * Lightweight – 60 pounds (27 kilograms)
 * Middleweight – 120 pounds (54 kilograms)
 * Heavyweight – 220 pounds (100 kilograms)
 * Superheavyweight – 340 pounds (154 kilograms)

Starting in season 6, there were no longer separate weight classes, while the weight limit for heavyweights was increased from 220 to 250 pounds.

"Walking" robots (stompbots) propelled by means other than wheels were initially given a 50% weight bonus. The rules changed following the victory of a heavyweight stompbot (Son of Whyachi) at BattleBots 3.0. For BattleBots 4.0 and beyond only a 20% weight bonus was given to walkers and the technical rules specified that walking mechanisms do not use cam operated walking mechanisms as they were functionally too similar to wheel operation. Since the rules change, walking robots have entered the competition, but none has achieved any success beyond preliminary rounds. As of 2020, true walkers are given a 100% weight bonus, allowing the only competing walker, Chomp, to weigh 500 pounds.

Matches
Matches are three minutes long. During a match, two robots do their best to destroy or disable each other using whatever means available. The match begins with a series of lights that flash from yellow to green. The original Comedy Central version used a standard Christmas tree as seen in the sport of drag racing; the ABC revival uses just one box of lights that flash yellow three times, and then flash green.

If a robot pins or grabs an opposing robot by any means, the aggressor can hold the defender for up to 30 seconds before needing to release, though they are allowed to attempt another pin/grab after releasing, thereby granting another 30 seconds. Robots that are unable to release their opponent or otherwise become entangled may cause the match to be paused, allowing BattleBots technicians to enter the BattleBox and attempt to separate them. If they are able to be separated, the match restarts with the remaining time on the clock. If unable, the match will be ended prematurely and sent to the judges.

If a robot is unable to move for ten seconds, because it is too badly damaged or it is stuck in some manner (e.g., ensnared in an arena-trap), it is declared knocked out. In the Comedy Central version, the driver could also call a "tap-out" to forfeit the match if his or her robot is about to be destroyed. This ends the match ten seconds later; the opposing driver is "asked" (but not instructed) not to attack during the ten-second count.

If both robots survive the three minutes, or if the match is prematurely halted, a panel of judges distribute a total of 33 points (11 points a judge) over three categories: Damage, Aggression, and Control. Damage is weighted more heavily with five possible points, while Aggression and Control account for three each. Judges are provided with detailed guidelines for scoring, but in general terms, Damage points are awarded for how much non-cosmetic damage is inflicted to both robots either directly by their opponent and/or by arena hazards, Aggression refers to how much each robot engaged or avoided the other, and Control points are awarded based on how skillfully the drivers either evaded their opponents' attacks or positioned their own for maximum effectiveness. The robot with the higher score wins. Starting in Season 7, competitors who disagreed with the judges' decision may file an appeal, prompting a closer look at the fight and potentially overturning the decision. If this appeal fails, that team loses the ability to challenge further rulings that season.

At the end of the tournament, a series of 'rumbles' or 'melee rounds' is typically held in each weight class, allowing robots that survived the main tournament to fight in a 'free for all' in a 5-minute match. Occasionally, there are too many robots for one rumble, and multiple rumbles are held with the top surviving bots competing in a final event. During the Season 5 Heavyweight rumble (the first rumble of that competition), a sheared-off robot part went through the Lexan arena roof and fell (harmlessly) into the audience. Because of this, the rest of the rumbles were canceled due to safety concerns.

Arena
The BattleBox is a 48' x 48' square arena designed to protect the drivers, officials, and audience from flying debris and charging bots. It was originally designed by Pete Lampertson. As of the 2015 season, Pete was still overseeing the box with the help of Matt Neubauer. It has a steel floor and steel-framed walls and roof paneled with thick, bulletproof polycarbonate plastic. The teams bring their robots in through doorways, which are sealed after all humans have exited. The drivers control their machines from outside the sealed arena.

Arena booby-traps are intended to make fights more interesting and unpredictable and to reward drivers who can avoid the traps while pushing or carrying their opponent into them.

Prizes
Besides the Giant Nut trophy awarded to the winning team of the championship tournament, there are cash prizes for all robots that compete in combat at the tournament. In the second season of the ABC revival series, the winner of the championship tournament finals was awarded a cash prize of US$25,000. During Season 10, the prize was US$10,000.

Additionally, the Giant Bolt trophies are awarded to teams based on their robot’s design and operation, regardless of their performance in the tournament. The awarded categories are: Most Destructive Robot, Best Design, and the Founder’s Award (which celebrates those that "best represent the spirit and values" of BattleBots). Following the death of longtime competitor Grant Imahara in 2020, the Best Designer award was renamed to the Grant Imahara Award for Best Design in his honor.

BattleBots: Bounty Hunters
On December 3, 2020, a spin-off streaming series was announced, titled BattleBots: Bounty Hunters. The streaming series was filmed concurrently with the 2020–2021 season and aired from January 4 to March 18, 2021 on Discovery+.

BattleBots: Bounty Hunters is a six-episode series involving 48 bots in total. Each episode is themed around a "bounty" placed on the heads of six destructive veteran bots: Bronco, Icewave, Tombstone, Beta, Witch Doctor, and Son of Whyachi. In each episode, eight bots (including newcomers) fight through a single-elimination tournament for the chance to fight in a bounty match against the veteran bot in question. Whichever team wins the bounty match earns US$25,000.

BattleBots: Champions
On July 19, 2022, a second spin-off, titled BattleBots: Champions, was announced. The streaming series aired from August 4 to September 8, 2022 on Discovery+. BattleBots: Champions is a sequel to BattleBots: Bounty Hunters, filmed concurrently with the 2022 season.

BattleBots: Champions is a six-episode series involving 48 bots in total. In each of the first five episodes, eight bots fight through a single-elimination tournament, called the "Sin City Slugfest". Each winner of the Sin City Slugfest then battles a winner of a BattleBots: Bounty Hunters bounty match. The victor progresses to the Golden Bolt tournament. The sixth episode is the Golden Bolt tournament, where the five surviving bots face off against each other and three current or former BattleBots champions (for 2022, Tombstone, End Game, and Tantrum). The overall winner of BattleBots: Champions is awarded the Golden Bolt.

From October 5 to November 9, 2023, a second season of BattleBots: Champions, titled BattleBots II: Sin City aired on Discovery Channel and streamed on MAX. The format was similar to the earlier series, eschewing the bounty match battle and replacing Tombstone with SawBlaze as an automatic Golden Bolt qualifier. It was filmed concurrently with the 2023 BattleBots World Championship VII (season 12).

Currently, End Game is the reigning champion with two consecutive wins.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: BattleBots


text:
Zoltán Kodály

Zoltán Kodály (, ; Kodály Zoltán, ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, music pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music education.

Life
Born in Kecskemét, Hungary, Kodály learned to play the violin as a child. In 1900, he entered the Department of Languages at the University of Budapest and at the same time Hans von Kössler's composition class at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music. After completing his studies, he studied in Paris with Charles Widor for a year.

In 1905 he visited remote villages to collect songs, recording them on phonograph cylinders. In 1906 he wrote a thesis on Hungarian folk song, "Strophic Construction in Hungarian Folksong". At around this time Kodály met fellow composer and compatriot Béla Bartók, whom he took under his wing and introduced to some of the methods involved in folk song collecting. The two became lifelong friends and champions of each other's music.

All these works show great originality of form and content, a blend of highly sophisticated mastery of the western European style of music, including classical, late-romantic, impressionistic and modernist traditions, and on the other hand a profound knowledge and respect for the folk music of Hungary (including the Hungarian-inhabited areas of modern-day Slovakia and Romania, as those territories were part of Hungary). Partly because of the Great War and subsequent major geopolitical changes in the region, and partly because of a naturally rather diffident temperament in youth, Kodály had no major public success until 1923. This was the year when one of his best-known pieces, Psalmus Hungaricus, was given its first performance at a concert to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the union of Buda and Pest (Bartók's Dance Suite premiered on the same occasion.)

Kodály's first wife was Emma Gruber (née Schlesinger, later Sándor), the dedicatee of Ernő Dohnányi's Waltz for piano with four hands, Op. 3, and Variations and Fugue on a theme by E.G., Op. 4 (1897). Emma died in November 1958, after 48 years of marriage.

Thirteen months later, in December 1959, Kodály married Sarolta Péczely, his 19-year-old student at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music with whom he lived happily until his death in 1967 at the age of 84 in Budapest.

In 1966, Kodály toured the United States and gave a special lecture at Stanford University, where some of his music was performed in his presence.

Kodály methodology of musical education
Throughout his adult life, Kodály was very interested in the problems of many types of music education, and he wrote a large amount of material on teaching methods as well as composing plenty of music intended for children's use. Beginning in 1935, along with his colleague Jenő Ádám (14 years his junior), he embarked on a long-term project to reform music teaching in Hungary's lower and middle schools. His work resulted in the publication of several highly influential books.

The goals of the Kodály method can summarized into the following points:

 * Music is for everyone.
 * Music teaching should be sequential and begin with the child in mind.
 * Children should be taught music from an early age.
 * The sequence should be logical and follow the same process children learn language.
 * Music classes should be enjoyable and engaging.
 * Singing is the first and most valuable tool for learning musical concepts.
 * Teachers should pull from quality folk song materials in the "mother tongue" of the students.

The Hungarian music education program that developed in the 1940s became the basis for the Kodály Method. Although Kodály himself did not write down a comprehensive method, he did establish a set of principles to follow in music education, and these principles were widely taken up by pedagogues (above all in Hungary, but also in many other countries) after World War II. His practices also have evolved Kodály hand signs.

In the motion picture Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a visual learning aid distributed to members of a conference of ufologists was named the Kodály Method and referenced musical notes as hand signals.

Legacy and memorials
The city of Pécs commissioned a life-sized bronze statue, located in Szent István square, in his honour in 1976. The sculptor, Imre Varga, positioned the statue so that its back is to the Cathedral and it faces a former children's playground, reflecting the central importance to Kodály of musical education for children. He is depicted as an aged man, walking among horse-chestnut trees.

At one point during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the Workers Councils proposed to form a government with Kodály as president "because of his great national and international reputation."

Selected works

 * Stage works
 * Háry János, Op. 15 (1926)
 * Székelyfonó (The Spinning Room) (1924–1932)

 * Orchestral
 * Idyll Summer Evening (1906, revised 1929)
 * Háry János Suite (1926)
 * Dances of Marosszék (1929; orchestration of the 1927 piano set)
 * Theatre Overture (1931) (originally intended for Háry János)
 * Dances of Galánta (1933)
 * Variations on a Hungarian folk song (Fölszállott a páva, or The Peacock Roared, 1939)
 * Concerto for Orchestra (1940)
 * Symphony in memoriam Toscanini (1961)

 * Chamber or instrumental
 * Adagio for Violin (or Viola or Cello) and Piano (1905)
 * Intermezzo for String Trio (1905)
 * Seven Pieces for Piano, Op. 11 (1918)
 * String Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 2 (1909)
 * Cello Sonata, Op. 4 (1910)
 * Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7 (1914)
 * Sonata for Solo Cello, Op. 8 (1915)
 * String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10 (1916–1918)
 * Szerenád (Serenade) for 2 Violins and Viola, Op. 12 (1920)
 * Marosszéki táncok (Dances of Marosszék, piano, 1927)
 * Organ Prelude Pange lingua (1931)
 * Organoeida ad missam lectam (Csendes mise, organ, 1944)
 * Epigrammak (1954)

 * Choral
 * Este (Evening) (1904)
 * Psalmus Hungaricus, Op. 13 (1923)
 * Mátrai képek (Mátra Pictures) for choir a cappella (1931)
 * Jézus és a kufárok (Jesus and the Traders) for choir a cap (1934)
 * Ének Szent István királyhoz (Hymn to St Stephen) (1938)
 * Te Deum for Buda Castle (1936)
 * Te Deum of Sándor Sík for choir a cappella (1961)
 * Missa brevis for choir and Organ (1942, orchestrated 1948)
 * Laudes organi for choir and Organ (1966)
 * Adventi ének (Veni, veni, Emmanuel) for choir a cappella

 * Organ
 * Introitus - Kyrie
 * Gloria
 * Credo
 * Sanctus
 * Benedictus
 * Agnus Dei
 * Ite missa est
 * 114. Genfi zsoltár
 * Pangue lingua
 * Laudes Organi

title: Zoltán Kodály


text:
Carmelita, Belize

Carmelita is a rapidly-expanding village in the Orange Walk District of the nation of Belize. According to the 2010 census, it had a population of 1,474 people. It lies along the New River. Carmelita has the country's only toll booth at the New River bridge on the Northern Highway where the village begins. Beside the bridge lies an access point for boat tours to the Maya historic site, Lamanai.

Carmelita was the inland village featured in the documentary Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee where John McAfee built multiple properties including a police station (which has since been converted into a house).

title: Carmelita, Belize


text:
User:WikiDave

I know a little bit about a lot of things, and a lot about a few things. Where I have what I think is interesting or useful information, I'm happy to share it.

title: User:WikiDave


text:
Guinea Grass

Guinea Grass is a village in the Orange Walk District of the nation of Belize. It is 38 metres (127 feet) above sea level. According to the 2000 census, Guinea Grass had a population of 2,510 people; by 2010 the census figures showed a population of 3,500. The population is made up of mostly Mestizos, Creoles, and East Indians. There are a number of Mennonites, Taiwanese and other Central American immigrants living near or immediately in the village.

Origin of Name
There are two stories which explain the origin of the village's name. The first is that, after the emancipation of slavery in the British Caribbean, indentured labourers from India, known as "East Indians," settled in the area and began to plant and cultivate bananas for a British estate. The locals knew banana as "Guineo," and from there it morphed into "Guineal" and the then settlement became known as "Guinea Grass." The other version is that there was an Englishman an agent for the Belize Estate Company known as "Chichiri" Price, relative to the Rt. Hon. George Price who lived on a farm on the northern outskirts of the village and raised livestock. In order to feed the livestock he had grass imported from England and Mexico. The grass that he imported was Guinea Grass, (Megathyrsus maximus). The locals then began to call the community Guinea Grass after the imported grass scattered and spread beyond the farm and in to the community. The grass can still be seen on the outskirts of the village's main road towards the Philip Goldson Highway.

History
The area presently Known as Guinea Grass village limits, Tower hill area, and the San Juan Corridor were inhabited by the Maya through a number of linked Mayan settlement known as " Posito" or wells because of the vast amount of wells build by the Mayas on the area especially by the San Juan Corridor and along the river bank of the New River by the Guinea Grass main road. Some wells can still be seen up to today and are used by farmers to water crops. Villagers of Guinea Grass have also spotted a tunnel made by the Mayas which runs from near the Catholic Church to a hilltop going to Ship Yard village by where the Pech family resides. As in most cases after the Europeans came to the Americas the population of the indigenous people declined and many settlements were abandoned which is exactly what happened in Posito.

Based on Oral History passed on by the older generations. The village started when a few runaway slaves from Crooked Tree and Belize River Valley and many light skinned (red skinned) who were half British and children of slave owners or daughter of English men ran away with black slaves or workers and settled by a stem of the New River not the main river which is presently Guinea Grass Village to not be found as marriage with a dark skinned person was not allowed. They settled in the community with the remaining Mayas of the area returning to the location. Later on came the Waiika and Mosquito people from the British Owned Nicaraguan Coast and a few families settled in the village along with a British farmer from the Belize Estate to cultivate the land.

Then in the 1800s after slavery was abolished in the British West Indies the British recruited indenture servants from China and India to come and work in agriculture at British Honduras. Then a British man opened a banana plantation and brought a couple of Indian labourers to cultivate and work on the plantation at Guinea Grass. After a short period of time in 1847 came the Mestizos (mixture of Spanish and Maya), the Yucatec Mayas and the Yucatecos (Spaniards born in Yucatán Mexico to Spanish Parents or grand parents from both sides) to the north of Belize escaping La Guerra de Castas (the Caste War) of Yucatán, Mexico. The settlement composed with different ethnicity and different language speakers had to find ways of communication and soon used English creole as a means to communicate with different ethnic groups.

The mestizo population soon grew and outnumber the other cultures through intermarriages and high fertility rate. Although presently the number of households is lower in the village the Mestizo population is still the largest ethnic group followed by those identifying as mixed race. The community had no law officials or form of governance so justice was taken by their own hands and many white Spanish "Yucatecos" were feared because of that and many altercations with the wiika population arose due to cultural and economic differences.

Colonial Days, WW1 AND WW2
In the mid 1880s the Settlement was officially recognized by the colonial Governor of British Honduras as Guinea Grass and a representative of the crown, Mr. Price and Belize estate, the Ayuso and Disus family were relocated in the village along with a militia Edward Alamilla from Corozal and a Primary School along with a catholic church with a teacher Mr. Martinez a carib/ Garifuna from Silk Grass were established. The villagers did subsistence farming in order to have food on the table as they were only paid BZD $10- $12 per month as chicleros and log wood cutters and had to camp in the Yalbac Hills for months. The job and ways to have an income were based on a complex scheme as in order to use the lands for living and farming they had to pay taxes to the crown, in order to afford and maintain the household and be able to pay taxes they had to get a job it was a complex scheme used by the colony's government in British Honduras as subjects were always in debt with leased land in order to be eligible to get a salary and do subsistence farming. Mr. Desiderio Perez clearly describes his time working on the forest and while at camp they received weekly rations by the coronel; 7 quarts of flour and four pounds of pork meat.

The river served as the main rout for exporting and importing thing from and to the village. The colonial area of the village was only three blocks from the river bank in size. Going through the lush forest especially at night was dangerous as wild animals such as jaguars and pumas and snakes roamed freely. On the northern side of the village was a banana plantation owned by an American Mr. Mason. On the southern end of the village lived the east Indians and the Waiikas who after working on the banana farm would collect cohune nuts to make cohune oil. There was a small Cohune Oil factory with an industrial machine, Mr. Florencio Garcia and Mr. Donatilo Bustillos recall that at the small plant, the East Indians crushed the kernel and extracted the oil to be sent to Belize City for exportation. The plant was later abandoned and the piles of metal ruins were removed and used by Mennonites from Shipyard in the 1960's.

After World War One tragedy struck the village, the Yellow Fever and influenza epidemic struck the north of Belize which wiped out 2/3 of the then Orange Walk District capital San Esteban and due to that the District Capital was relocated to Present day Orange Walk Town. Many people were killed by the disease and the death rate out numbered the pace of coffin making hence a big hole was dug to place in the dead. Many count the times when they were playing with their friends and then they dropped dead in the middle of the game with their ears, nose and mouth bleeding. Many women while cooking dropped dead on the floor and infants while being breast fed started bleeding and died. It was a catastrophe in the community and across Belize. This along with the devaluation of the Belize Dollar in 1949 after WWII and the scarcity of food caused by the war delaying food product shipments to British Honduras and the rest of the West Indian territories brought in economic distress and greater dependencies to self sustainment as England was going through an economic crisis. In the 1950s a new set of people came to Belize running from religious persecution the Mennonites whom after various consultations and agreements with the Governor had their first settlement approved and it was in Shipyard Village about 4–5 miles away from the village which brought employment to the people of Guineas Grass.

After Hurricane Hattie hit Belize many Belizeans were granted residency to the United States and many people from Guinea Grass migrated to the US along with many other Belizeans back in the 60s and 70s In the 1960s during the rebuilding of the colony Guinea Grass was finally constructed a road connecting it to the presently Philip Goldson Highway. In the early 1980's Guinea Grass along with San Felipe, August Pine Ridge and San Lazaro got electricity thanks to the newly elected Area Representative Hon. Onesimo Pech who resided in the village at the time.

Language
The village is predominantly a Mestizo community. About 80% of the population are Mestizo and Hispanic Belizeans, hence Spanish followed by English are the predominant languages of the community with Spanish and 'Spanglish' spoken mostly at home and English taught at the primary schools, used to access public services and when watching Television. English Creole is used for trading with locals and other Belizeans so is Spanish. 89- 92% of Guinea Grass residents can have an understandable conversation in Spanish with you but may tend to add English words along with it.72% can have an understandable conversation in English with you while 80% of the population understands English. 52% of the population understand or can speak English Creole. It is a language on the rise in the village specially among the Younger Population. Spanglish is probably the most widely spoken language in the village a combination of Spanish and English mix on a conversation.

EXAMPLE:

 * Excuse me, where is the police station located?- Scuse, donde esta located el police station?
 * what was your grade on the spanish test ?-  Que fue tu grade en el Spanish test?
 * what time does the bank open? I want to make a loan appointment. - Que time hace open el bank, porque quiero hacer un loan.

More than half of toddlers born from 2008 to 2018 can understand both Spanish and English before entering school.

Profession
The people of Guinea Grass once survived by practicing subsistence farming and working in the chicle industry as chicleros and cutting mahogany and logwood for the timber industry owned by the British Honduras Estate which changed to the Belize Estate in the early 1970's just a couple of years before Belize gained independence from the United Kingdom. Since the early 1970s, most of the people in the north, including Guinea Grass, turned to the sugar industry as a factory was opened in Libertad Village and then at Tower Hill. According to the Sugar Cane Farmers Association Act of 2000 on the Orange Walk District Divisional Association Guinea Grass falls under the following district branch: Guinea Grass, Tower Hill, Shipyard, Chan Pine Ridge, Carmelita and Tiger Creek branch.

In the late 1980s after independence, with a wave of infrastructural development carrying across Belize, many labourers from the village learnt trades in masonry, carpentry, electricity and plumbing and most of the male labour force aged 35–50 are still in those trades. Many younger people now have office jobs, work with government and even have their own businesses. Many young adults who can not afford a higher education work in the tourism and hospitality industry.

Nowadays many women also work and have a professional job, something that was rarely seen 20 years ago and many house holds are now double income household. About 45% of all household are double income households as both men and women work.

Climate
Guinea Grass has a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen: Am).

Population & Culture
At the time of the 2010 census, Guinea Grass had a population of 3,500. Of these, 87.9% were Hispanic this includes the 79.9% of Mestizo and the estimated 12% of Central American immigrants and refugees residing in the village, 6% Mixed, 3.7% Creole, 1% white includes Mennonite and Caucasian,0.8% Mopan Maya, 0.3% Ketchi Maya, 0.2% Asian and 0.1% Yucatec Maya.

The village of Guinea Grass is mostly a Mestizo-dominated society, hence heavily influenced by Spanish culture and tradition. Families are mostly patriarchal and the father gives or buys a piece of lot for his children before they become independent adults, previously only Sons were eligible for this but it changed by the mid 20th century making daughters eligible as well. The Spanish language in the village has also been modified by the village's long history and influence of the Mayan and English Creole language. The village lifestyle has also been heavily influenced by American, Jamaican and Mexican culture in the way of dressing, standard of living, music etc. The most notable Mestizo tradition can be found on the food. Most typical foods from Guinea Grass are Mestizo foods such as salbutes, tamales, escabeche, chirmole, caldo (chicken soup), Tamalitos/ Dukunu. The village is also heavily influenced by Caribbean and creole culture also seen through many typical cuisines such as the national dish Rice & Beans, Boil up, Serre, Cow foot soup, creole bread, meat pies, Journey Cake, fry jack, Dumplings etc. We can wrap up by saying that the village has a Latin-Caribbean Mestizo culture. The traditional Yucatec Mayan dishes are also a unique blend to the diverse cuisine of the village with notable foods like Pibil, caldo,Perix P'aak, Pibil Ka’ax and Pozole.

Some of the most festive times of year in the village are Easter in which the village council does many family activities by the river side at the New River Park, followed by the September Celebrations which starts by commemorating the Battle of St George's Caye. Then by a beauty Queen pageant contest for Miss Guinea Grass on the 20th of September who will parade the village streets on independence day followed by a motorcade going to Orange Walk town to watch the flag raising ceremony and fireworks display. The independence day parade and celebration is on the 21st of September just after 1:00 PM. After this the villagers go to Orange Walk Town to see the Independence Carnival Parade. The biggest festivity of the year is Christmas in which from the 24th Christmas Eve families gather to make traditional foods and pastries for Christmas. Many attend church that night and on the 25th People have food, drinks and pastries to share with neighbours, family and friends. It's a long lasting tradition of sharing in the village. The last festivity in the village is New Year's Eve Where the traditional tamales can be found on every home on New Year's Eve. Many churches across the village have New Years Programmes and many families host New Year's Eve Parties.

There is a sizeable population of Guinea Grass Villagers living on the diaspora about 100-350, Mainly to the United States (California, Miami, Texas, Illinois), Mexico, United Kingdom ( East London, Edinburgh), Canada and the Anglo-Caribbean islands.

Housing and Infrastructure
In the 1880's houses were made in a primitive style. they were constructed from pimento stems (tasiste) in Spanish and the roof were thatched with cohune palms, some houses were also made with palm tree logs. To keep the inside homes always cool they plastered the walls with white marl. Mr. Castillo father of one of Belize's most affluent families, Mr Santiago Castillo and family which own the biggest import and whole sale company in Belize lived in Guinea Grass and had one of the best looking houses. Him along with Mr. Gregorio Ayuso were the first to own and build a house with zinc or sheet metal roof back in the 20th century Mr. Ayuso was also the first one to open a shop in Guinea Grass. in the 1940's and the golden era of the sugar cane industry colonial styled wooden houses similar to those in Belize city started to be built by affluent families. Many can still be seen in the colonial area of the village and on the main road. After the 1960's Hurricane concrete houses with flat top and concrete bungalow houses began to be built. Zinc or sheet metal houses are also commonly seen in resent day Guinea Grass as they are more economic to build but are not strong enough to last a category 2 hurricane.

The 1960's were the glory days of the Sugar Industry in Belize and the District of Orange Walk and Corozal had a way higher standard of living because of it. People stopped doing subsistent farming, and dedicated to the sugar industry and infrastructure. It was during that time that indoor plumbing was being introduced to communities and townships out of the capital colonial city of Belize, Belize City. People imported trucks, vehicles from Germany, the United Kingdom and the US, travelling and going on international flight was also a new thing for the villagers, by the blink of an eye the way of life of simple countryfolks changed. Although much more development is still needed in the village due to many years of a stagnant economy the village is now growing and striving once again.

Politics
The Village was involved in the George Price Movement on the right to vote and have a voice after the 1949 devaluation of the Belizean Dollar. As only whites and selected coloureds (who owned land) could vote or take part in Government. in 1950 when the People's United Party was formed, the Village supported the party especially since the Rt. Hon. George Price lived in the village for a short period of time back in his tween years. They remained loyal to the Party until the late 1980s when Onesimo Pech the first person from the village decided to run for Area Representative of Orange Walk South for the United Democratic Party. Since then the village has been a strong hold for the United Democratic Party and has the biggest number of registered voters for the Orange Walk South Constituency.

The UDP has had the lead on village council election over the PUP, but in 2013 for the first time in the village history a newly formed third party won the village council elections The United Community Association of Guinea Grass (UCA) winning over the 3 consecutive reelected UDP council. On that election the PUP had no candidates to run for the village council.

The village council was previously formed by a full UDP slate with a woman being elected as the Chair-Lady for the Second time Mrs Myrna Santos. The first elected woman as Chair-Lady was Mrs Estella Perez-Santos. In 2019 after more than 20 years the PUP finally won the Village Council elections full slate with Benito Uk becoming the new appointed chairman. The PUP is a left-center party and one of the two major parties in the country.

In regards to the national elections, the village of Guinea Grass is a key village to win an elected seat in the house of representatives as the village has the biggest number of voters for the Orange Walk South constituency so winning that village indicates a high possibility for a political party to have a winning area representative in the north and a seat in parliament.

Religion
89% of the Populations identifies with the Christian faith while the other 11% have no religious affiliation. The high influence of Christianity was influenced by the strong Spanish and Mestizo culture. Specially to Catholicism. Until the late 1950s British and American missionaries along with Belizeans of Creole descent brought to the village the Protestant Christian movement under the religious Organization Full Gospel church of God which stills stands today and is the Oldest Evangelical denomination in the village. Soon after the Seven DAY Adventist came to establish a church in the village. On the early 1970s the full gospel church split.

A new Evangelical church and mission was established in the village called Pentecostal Church of God "Rock Of Ages" This was the pioneer church for the PCG World mission in Central America, Belize specifically its church in Guinea Grass is the mother Church of the PCG denomination in Central America and Parts of the English West Indies. Although P.C.G started in 1957 in Belize it was not until the late 1960's to early 1970's that its first official church was established in Belize at Guinea Grass.Back then the country was called British Honduras and changed its name to Belize in 1973. Just until recently the evangelic churches which are presently 7 congregations have grown to the extent that 1 out of 2 villagers is either a Roman Catholic or Evangelical Christian.

Education
70% have a Primary School education; of the other 30% that did not finish primary school, about 70% can read and write in both English and Spanish. The other 10% are illiterate. 45% have a secondary education, which has tripled in one decade as only ~12% of the population had a secondary education in the 1990s. 30% have a tertiary education and a hand full have graduate degrees.

As the official Language of the country is English, All Primary schools in Belize teach with a full English curriculum. Hence, the same thing applies to Guinea Grass from infant division to Upper School (Standard 5 & 6) teaching is done in English but are not limited to use different languages for better illustration and understanding of the subject specially helpful for foreigners and those whose first language is not English such as Spanish or Low German.

The village has two primary schools, namely Guinea Grass Pentecostal Primary School and Guinea Grass Roman Catholic Primary School.

Over the past 13 years the Guinea Grass Pentecostal School has ranked amongst the Top 25 schools nationwide and has consecutively ranked among the top 3 schools in the District, the categories vary each year due to the number of standard six students enrolled. (Each year they are on either the 25-35 categories or the 50- above category)

Public Services and Recreation Centres
The village hosts two Public schools one under the Roman Catholic and Ministry of Education Administration and one under the Pentecostal Church of God Belize and Ministry of Education Administration. Their is one Private School that opened in 2023 administered by the Apostolic Church; there are no government schools in the village but all schools must teach the Ministry of Education curriculums and must use Standard Caribbean or UK English as the means of education and instruction. The village holds a functioning Community Health clinic and a Community Police Station on the Marcus Canul Area of the village, beside it is the village's football field. The village has 3 parks one located in the north east part of the village which also hosts the village library and Community Centre, the other park is located by the river bank of the new river hence the name New River Park beside it is also a football/ cricket/ softball field, the third park is located in the Felix Estate area and is mostly a big empty field. There is also a host of Supermarkets, corner shops, restaurants, smoothy bars and small food stalls, barber shops, nail salons, small boutiques and Second hand clothing stores.

Telecommunication and Internet
Digi(formally known as Belize Telemedia Limited), Centaur Communications Corp. Ltd. and Smart, are the 3 largest internet service providers in the village, with Digi and Smart being the only telecommunication service in the village and the rest of the country.

Radio stations
The village has one Bilingual (English and Spanish) Christian internet radio, Stereo Luz Belize and shares an FM radio with Shipyard Village a Christian bilingual ( Plautdietsch and English) radio Station called De Stemm Radio fa Belize 93.3 FM. other AM and FM radios that can be listened through the areas frequencies are those from Orange Walk Town namely:
 * Kairos Belize Radio 89.7
 * Sugar City Radio Station (Orange Walk) (103.1 FM) SCRS.bz
 * Home station of the UDP in Orange Walk.
 * Fiesta FM (Orange Walk) (106.7 FM)
 * See Centaur Cable Network.
 * Power FM 95.5
 * East Radio 104.9 FM
 * KREM Radio 91.1
 * Estereo Amor 95.9
 * Love FM Orange Walk Repeater 98.1
 * More FM 107.1

title: Guinea Grass


text:
King Tubby

Osbourne Ruddock (28 January 1941 – 6 February 1989), better known as King Tubby, was a Jamaican sound engineer who influenced the development of dub in the 1960s and 1970s.

Tubby's studio work, which saw him elevate the role of the mixing engineer to a creative fame previously only reserved for composers and musicians, would prove to be influential across many genres of popular music. He is often cited as the inventor of the concept of the remix that later became ubiquitous in dance and electronic music production. Singer Mikey Dread stated, "King Tubby truly understood sound in a scientific sense. He knew how the circuits worked and what the electrons did. That's why he could do what he did".

Career
King Tubby's first interaction with the music industry came in the late 1950s with the rising popularity of Jamaican sound systems, which were to be found all over Kingston and which were developing into enterprising businesses. As a talented radio repairman, Tubby soon found himself in great demand by most of the major sound systems of Kingston, as the tropical weather of the Caribbean island (often combined with sabotage by rival sound system owners) led to malfunctions and equipment failure. Tubby owned an electrical repair shop on Drumalie Avenue, Kingston, that fixed televisions and radios. It was here that he built large amplifiers for the local sound systems. In 1961–62, he built his own radio transmitter and briefly ran a pirate radio station playing ska and rhythm and blues which he soon shut down when he heard that the police were looking for the perpetrators. Tubby eventually formed his own sound system, Tubby's Hometown Hi-Fi, in 1958. It became a crowd favourite due to the high quality sound of his equipment, exclusive releases and Tubby's own echo and reverb sound effects, at that point something of a novelty. The sound also launched the career of U-Roy, its featured toaster.

Remixes
Tubby began working as a disc cutter for producer Duke Reid in 1968. Reid, one of the major figures in early Jamaican music alongside rival Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, ran Treasure Isle studios, one of Jamaica's first independent production houses, and was a key producer of ska, rocksteady and eventually reggae recordings. Before the advent of dub, most Jamaican 45s featured an instrumental version of the main song on the flipside, which was called the "version". When Tubby was asked to produce versions of songs for sound system MCs or toasters, he initially worked to remove the vocal tracks with the faders on Reid's mixing desk, but soon discovered that the various instrumental tracks could be accentuated, reworked and emphasised through the settings on the mixer and early effects units. In time, Tubby began to create wholly new pieces of music by shifting the emphasis in the instrumentals, adding sounds and removing others and adding various special effects, like extreme delays, echoes, reverb and phase effects. Partly due to the popularity of these early remixes, in 1971, Tubby's soundsystem consolidated its position as one of the most popular in Kingston and Tubby decided to open a studio of his own in Waterhouse in 1971, initially using a 4-track mixer purchased from Byron Lee's Dynamic studio.

Dub music production
King Tubby's production work in the 1970s made him one of the best-known celebrities in Jamaica, and generated interest in his production techniques from producers, sound engineers and musicians across the world. Tubby built on his knowledge of electronics to repair, adapt and design his own studio equipment, which made use of a combination of old devices and new technologies to produce a studio capable of the precise, atmospheric sounds which would become Tubby's trademark. With a variety of effects units connected to his mixer, Tubby "played" the mixing desk like an instrument, bringing instruments and vocals in and out of the mix to create an entirely new genre known as dub music. By the end of 1971 he was already providing dub mixes for producers such as Glen Brown and Lee "Scratch" Perry.

Using existing multitrack master tapes—his small studio in fact had no capacity to record session musicians—Tubby re-taped, or "dubbed", the original after passing it through his 12-channel, custom-built MCI mixing desk, twisting the songs into unexpected configurations which highlighted the heavy rhythms of their bass and drum parts with minute snatches of vocals, horns, piano and organ. These techniques mirrored the actions of the sound system selectors (reggae disc jockeys), who had long used EQ equipment to emphasise certain aspects of particular records, but Tubby used his custom-built studio to take this technique into new areas, often transforming a hit song to the point where it was almost unrecognisable from the original version. One unique aspect of his remixes or dubs was the result of creative manipulating of the built-in high-pass filter on the MCI mixer he had bought from Dynamic Studios. The filter was a parametric EQ which was controllable by a large knob—a.k.a. the "big knob"—which allowed Tubby to introduce a dramatic narrowing sweep of any signal, such as the horns, until the sound disappeared into a thin squeal.

Tubby engineered/remixed songs for Jamaica's top producers such as Lee Perry, Bunny Lee, Augustus Pablo and Vivian Jackson, that featured artists such as Johnny Clarke, Cornell Campbell, Linval Thompson, Horace Andy, Big Joe, Delroy Wilson and Jah Stitch. In 1973, he added a second 4-track mixer, and built a vocal booth at his studio so he could record vocal tracks onto the instrumental tapes brought to him by various producers. This process is known as "voicing" in Jamaican recording parlance. It is unlikely that a complete discography of Tubby's production work could be created based on the number of labels, artists and producers with whom he worked, and also subsequent repressings of these releases sometimes contained contradictory information. His name is credited on hundreds of B-side labels, with the possibility that many others were by his hand yet uncredited, due to similarities with his known work. Several albums of Tubby's dub mixes were released, among the earliest the Perry-produced Blackboard Jungle and Bunny Lee's Dub from the Roots (both 1974).

His most famous dub and one of the most popular dubs of all time was "King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown" from 1974. The original session was for a Jacob Miller song called "Baby I Love You So", which featured Bob Marley's drummer Carlton Barrett playing a traditional one drop rhythm. When Tubby completed the dub, which also featured Augustus Pablo on melodica, Barrett's drums regenerated several times and created a totally new rhythm which was later tagged "rockers". This seminal track later also appeared on Pablo's 1976 album King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown.

By the later part of the 1970s, King Tubby had mostly retired from music, still occasionally mixing dubs and tutoring a new generation of artists, including King Jammy and perhaps his greatest protege, Hopeton Brown a.k.a. Scientist. In the 1980s, he built a new, larger studio in the Waterhouse neighbourhood of Kingston with increased capabilities, and focused on the management of his labels Firehouse, Waterhouse, Kingston 11, and Taurus, which released his productions of Anthony Red Rose, Sugar Minott, Conroy Smith, King Everald and other popular musicians.

Death
King Tubby was shot dead on 6 February 1989, outside his home in Duhaney Park, Kingston, upon returning from a session at his Waterhouse studio. His untimely death was believed to be the outcome of a robbery.

With Augustus Pablo

 * Ital Dub (1974, Starapple/Trojan Records)
 * King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown (1976, Yard Music/Clocktower Records)
 * Original Rockers (1979, Rockers International/Greensleeves Records/Shanachie Records)
 * Rockers Meets King Tubbys in a Firehouse (1980, Yard Music/Shanachie)

With The Aggrovators

 * Shalom Dub (1975, Klik)
 * Dubbing in the Backyard (1982, Black Music)

With Prince Jammy

 * His Majestys Dub (1983, Sky Juice)

With Prince Jammy and Scientist

 * First, Second and Third Generation of Dub (1981, KG Imperial)

With Lee "Scratch" Perry

 * Upsetters 14 Dub Blackboard Jungle (a.k.a. Blackboard Jungle Dub) (1973, Upsetter Records)
 * King Tubby Meets the Upsetter at the Grass Roots of Dub (1974, Fay Music/Total Sounds)

With Bunny Lee

 * Dub from the Roots (Total Sounds, 1974, Total Sounds)
 * Creation of Dub (1975, Total Sounds)
 * The Roots of Dub (a.k.a. Presents the Roots of Dub) (1975, Grounation/Total Sounds)

Other collaborations

 * Niney the Observer – Dubbing with the Observer (1975, Observer/Total Sounds)
 * Harry Mudie – In Dub Conference Volumes One, Two & Three (1975, 1977 & 1978 Moodisc Records)
 * Larry Marshall – Marshall (1975, Marshall/Java Record)
 * Yabby You – King Tubby's Prophecy of Dub (a.k.a. Prophecy of Dub) (1976, Prophets)
 * Roots Radics – Dangerous Dub (1981, Copasetic)
 * Waterhouse Posse – King Tubby the Dubmaster with the Waterhouse Posse (1983, Vista Sounds)
 * Sly & Robbie – Sly and Robbie Meet King Tubby (1984, Culture Press)

Compilations

 * King Tubby & The Aggrovators – Dub Jackpot (1990, Attack)
 * King Tubby & Friends – Dub Gone Crazy - The Evolution of Dub at King Tubby's 1975-1979 (1994, Blood & Fire)
 * King Tubby & The Aggrovators & Bunny Lee – Bionic Dub (1995, Lagoon)
 * King Tubby & The Aggrovators & Bunny Lee – Straight to I Roy Head 1973–1977 (1995, Lagoon)
 * King Tubby & Scientist – At Dub Station (1996, Burning Sounds)
 * King Tubby & Scientist – In a World of Dub (1996, Burning Sounds)
 * King Tubby & Glen Brown – Termination Dub (1973-79) (1996, Blood & Fire)
 * King Tubby & Soul Syndicate – Freedom Sounds In Dub (1996, Blood & Fire)
 * King Tubby & Friends - Crucial Dub (2000, Delta)
 * King Tubby & The Aggrovators – Foundation of Dub (2001, Trojan)
 * King Tubby – Dub Fever (2002, Music Digital)
 * African Brothers Meet King Tubby – In Dub (2005, Nature Sounds)
 * King Tubby - Hometown Hi-Fi (Dubplate Specials 1975-1979) (2013, Jamaican Recordings)

title: King Tubby


text:
Trial Farm

Trial Farm is a village near Orange Walk Town in the Orange Walk District of the nation of Belize. According to the 2000 census, it had a population of 3,443 people. It is located at 29 metres above sea level.

Trial Farm is a very vivid and warm village. Villagers are kind and always willing to lend a hand.

Operation New Horizons 2007 commanded by the Louisiana Army National Guard built two additional rooms on to the school at Trial Farm between 17 March - 12 May 2007.

Demographics
At the time of the 2010 census, Trial Farm had a population of 4,264. Of these, 82.7% were Mestizo, 7.1% Creole, 5.3% Mixed, 2.1% Garifuna, 0.8% Mennonite, 0.5% Asian, 0.4% Mopan Maya, 0.3% Ketchi Maya, 0.3% East Indian, 0.2% Yucatec Maya, 0.1% Caucasian and 0.1% others.

title: Trial Farm


text:
Radiosonde

A radiosonde is a battery-powered telemetry instrument carried into the atmosphere usually by a weather balloon that measures various atmospheric parameters and transmits them by radio to a ground receiver. Modern radiosondes measure or calculate the following variables: altitude, pressure, temperature, relative humidity, wind (both wind speed and wind direction), cosmic ray readings at high altitude and geographical position (latitude/longitude). Radiosondes measuring ozone concentration are known as ozonesondes.

Radiosondes may operate at a radio frequency of 403 MHz or 1680 MHz. A radiosonde whose position is tracked as it ascends to give wind speed and direction information is called a rawinsonde ("radar wind -sonde"). Most radiosondes have radar reflectors and are technically rawinsondes. A radiosonde that is dropped from an airplane and falls, rather than being carried by a balloon is called a dropsonde. Radiosondes are an essential source of meteorological data, and hundreds are launched all over the world daily.

History

The first flights of aerological instruments were done in the second half of the 19th century with kites and meteographs, a recording device measuring pressure and temperature that was recuperated after the experiment. This proved to be difficult because the kites were linked to the ground and were very difficult to manoeuvre in gusty conditions. Furthermore, the sounding was limited to low altitudes because of the link to the ground.

Gustave Hermite and Georges Besançon, from France, were the first in 1892 to use a balloon to fly the meteograph. In 1898, Léon Teisserenc de Bort organized at the Observatoire de Météorologie Dynamique de Trappes the first regular daily use of these balloons. Data from these launches showed that the temperature lowered with height up to a certain altitude, which varied with the season, and then stabilized above this altitude. De Bort's discovery of the tropopause and stratosphere was announced in 1902 at the French Academy of Sciences. Other researchers, like Richard Aßmann and William Henry Dines, were working at the same times with similar instruments.

In 1924, Colonel William Blaire in the U.S. Signal Corps did the first primitive experiments with weather measurements from balloon, making use of the temperature dependence of radio circuits. The first true radiosonde that sent precise encoded telemetry from weather sensors was invented in France by. Bureau coined the name "radiosonde" and flew the first instrument on January 7, 1929. Developed independently a year later, Pavel Molchanov flew a radiosonde on January 30, 1930. Molchanov's design became a popular standard because of its simplicity and because it converted sensor readings to Morse code, making it easy to use without special equipment or training.

Working with a modified Molchanov sonde, Sergey Vernov was the first to use radiosondes to perform cosmic ray readings at high altitude. On April 1, 1935, he took measurements up to 13.6 km using a pair of Geiger counters in an anti-coincidence circuit to avoid counting secondary ray showers. This became an important technique in the field, and Vernov flew his radiosondes on land and sea over the next few years, measuring the radiation's latitude dependence caused by the Earth's magnetic field.

In 1936, the U.S. Navy assigned the U.S. Bureau of Standards (NBS) to develop an official radiosonde for the Navy to use. The NBS gave the project to Harry Diamond, who had previously worked on radio navigation and invented a blind landing system for airplanes. The organization led by Diamond eventually (in 1992) became a part of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. In 1937, Diamond, along with his associates Francis Dunmore and Wilbur Hinmann, Jr., created a radiosonde that employed audio-frequency subcarrier modulation with the help of a resistance-capacity relaxation oscillator. In addition, this NBS radiosonde was capable of measuring temperature and humidity at higher altitudes than conventional radiosondes at the time due to the use of electric sensors.

In 1938, Diamond developed the first ground receiver for the radiosonde, which prompted the first service use of the NBS radiosondes in the Navy. Then in 1939, Diamond and his colleagues developed a ground-based radiosonde called the “remote weather station,” which allowed them to automatically collect weather data in remote and inhospitable locations. By 1940, the NBS radiosonde system included a pressure drive, which measured temperature and humidity as functions of pressure. It also gathered data on cloud thickness and light intensity in the atmosphere. Due to this and other improvements in cost (about $25), weight (> 1 kilogram), and accuracy, hundreds of thousands of NBS-style radiosondes were produced nationwide for research purposes, and the apparatus was officially adopted by the U.S. Weather Bureau.

Diamond was given the Washington Academy of Sciences Engineering Award in 1940 and the IRE Fellow Award (which was later renamed the Harry Diamond Memorial Award) in 1943 for his contributions to radio-meteorology.

The expansion of economically important government weather forecasting services during the 1930s and their increasing need for data motivated many nations to begin regular radiosonde observation programs

In 1985, as part of the Soviet Union's Vega program, the two Venus probes, Vega 1 and Vega 2, each dropped a radiosonde into the atmosphere of Venus. The sondes were tracked for two days.

Although modern remote sensing by satellites, aircraft and ground sensors is an increasing source of atmospheric data, none of these systems can match the vertical resolution (30 m or less) and altitude coverage (30 km) of radiosonde observations, so they remain essential to modern meteorology.

Although hundreds of radiosondes are launched worldwide each day year-round, fatalities attributed to  radiosondes are rare. The first known example was the electrocution of a lineman in the United States who was attempting to free a radiosonde from high-tension power lines in 1943. In 1970, an Antonov 24 operating Aeroflot Flight 1661 suffered a loss of control after striking a radiosonde in flight resulting in the death of all 45 people on board.

Operation
A rubber or latex balloon filled with either helium or hydrogen lifts the device up through the atmosphere. The maximum altitude to which the balloon ascends is determined by the diameter and thickness of the balloon. Balloon sizes can range from 100 to 3000 g. As the balloon ascends through the atmosphere, the pressure decreases, causing the balloon to expand. Eventually, the balloon will expand to the extent that its skin will break, terminating the ascent. An 800 g balloon will burst at about 21 km. After bursting, a small parachute on the radiosonde's support line may slow its descent to Earth, while some rely on the aerodynamic drag of the shredded remains of the balloon, and the very light weight of the package itself. A typical radiosonde flight lasts 60 to 90 minutes. One radiosonde from Clark Air Base, Philippines, reached an altitude of 155092 ft.

The modern radiosonde communicates via radio with a computer that stores all the variables in real time. The first radiosondes were observed from the ground with a theodolite, and gave only a wind estimation by the position. With the advent of radar by the Signal Corps it was possible to track a radar target carried by the balloons with the SCR-658 radar. Modern radiosondes can use a variety of mechanisms for determining wind speed and direction, such as a radio direction finder or GPS. The weight of a radiosonde is typically 250 g.

Sometimes radiosondes are deployed by being dropped from an aircraft instead of being carried aloft by a balloon. Radiosondes deployed in this way are called dropsondes.

Routine radiosonde launches
Radiosondes weather balloons have conventionally been used as means of measuring atmospheric profiles of humidity, temperature, pressure, wind speed and direction. High-quality, spatially and temporally “continuous” data from upper-air monitoring along with surface observations are critical bases for understanding weather conditions and climate trends and providing weather and climate information for the welfare of societies. Reliable and timely information underpin society’s preparedness to extreme weather conditions and to changing climate patterns.

Worldwide, there are about 1,300 radiosonde launch sites. Most countries share data with the rest of the world through international agreements. Nearly all routine radiosonde launches occur one hour before the official observation times of 0000 UTC and 1200 UTC to center the observation times during the roughly two-hour ascent. Radiosonde observations are important for weather forecasting, severe weather watches and warnings, and atmospheric research.

The United States National Weather Service launches radiosondes twice daily from 92 stations, 69 in the conterminous United States, 13 in Alaska, nine in the Pacific, and one in Puerto Rico. It also supports the operation of 10 radiosonde sites in the Caribbean. A list of U.S. operated land based launch sites can be found in Appendix C, U.S. Land-based Rawinsonde Stations of the Federal Meteorological Handbook #3, titled Rawinsonde and Pibal Observations, dated May 1997.

The UK launches Vaisala RS41 radiosondes four times daily (an hour before 00, 06, 12, and 18 UTC) from 6 launch sites (south to north): Camborne, (lat,lon)=(50.218, -5.327), SW tip of England; Herstmonceux (50.89, 0.318), near SE coast; Watnall, (53.005, -1.25), central England; Castor Bay, (54.50, -6.34), near the SE corner of Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland; Albemarle, (55.02, -1.88), NE England; and Lerwick, (60.139, -1.183), Shetland, Scotland.

Uses of upper air observations
Raw upper air data is routinely processed by supercomputers running numerical models. Forecasters often view the data in a graphical format, plotted on thermodynamic diagrams such as Skew-T log-P diagrams, Tephigrams, and or Stüve diagrams, all useful for the interpretation of the atmosphere's vertical thermodynamics profile of temperature and moisture as well as kinematics of vertical wind profile.

Radiosonde data is a crucially important component of numerical weather prediction. Because a sonde may drift several hundred kilometers during the 90- to 120-minute flight, there may be concern that this could introduce problems into the model initialization. However, this appears not to be so except perhaps locally in jet stream regions in the stratosphere. This issue may in future be solved by weather drones, which have precise control over their location and can compensate for drift.

Lamentably, in less developed parts of the globe such as Africa, which has high vulnerability to impacts of extreme weather events and climate change, there is paucity of surface- and upper-air observations. The alarming state of the issue was highlighted in 2020 by the World Meteorological Organisation which stated that "the situation in Africa shows a dramatic decrease of almost 50% from 2015 to 2020 in the number of radiosonde flights, the most important type of surface-based observations. Reporting now has poorer geographical coverage". Over the last two decades, some 82% of the countries in Africa have experienced severe (57%) and moderate (25%) radiosonde data gap. This dire situation has prompted call for urgent need to fill the data gap in Africa and globally. The vast data gap in such a large part the global landmass, home to some of the most vulnerable societies, the aforementioned call has galvanised a global effort to “plug the data gap” in the decade ahead and halt a further deterioration in the observation networks.

International regulation
According to the International Telecommunication Union, a meteorological aids service (also: meteorological aids radiocommunication service) is – according to Article 1.50 of the ITU Radio Regulations (RR) – defined as ''"A radiocommunication service used for meteorological, including hydrological, observations and exploration." Furthermore, according to article 1.109 of the ITU RR: "A radiosonde is an automatic radio transmitter in the meteorological aids service usually carried on an aircraft, free balloon, kite or parachute, and which transmits meteorological data. Each radio transmitter shall be classified by the radiocommunication service in which it operates permanently or temporarily."

Frequency allocation
The allocation of radio frequencies is provided according to Article 5 of the ITU Radio Regulations (edition 2012).

In order to improve harmonisation in spectrum utilisation, the majority of service-allocations stipulated in this document were incorporated in national Tables of Frequency Allocations and Utilisations which is with-in the responsibility of the appropriate national administration. The allocation might be primary, secondary, exclusive, and shared. However, military usage, in bands where there is civil usage, will be in accordance with the ITU Radio Regulations.
 * primary allocation: is indicated by writing in capital letters (see example below)
 * secondary allocation: is indicated by small letters
 * exclusive or shared utilization: is within the responsibility of administrations

 * Example of frequency allocation:

title: Radiosonde


text:
San Estevan, Belize

San Estevan was the first town in the Orange Walk District of the nation of Belize but later became a village due to migration of villagers to other parts of the country during a great epidemic. According to the 2010 census, it had a population of 1,573 people. The village is approximately 6 miles northeast from Orange Walk Town.

Most villagers rely on sugar cane as a source of income to their families. As much as 90% of the villagers own a parcel of sugar cane and are very active cane farmers. The village is the number one producer of sugar cane in the entire two divisions which are Corozal and Orange Walk. San Estevan is surrounded by thousands of acres of lush cane plantations. The New River passes through the left side of the village and the river is still used for transportation of sugar through barges up to Belize City where it is sent abroad.

Sugarcane is cultivated all year long and harvested from November to June. Cane is delivered to BSI (Belize Sugar Industries) which is located in Orange Walk on the Tower Hill Area.

San Estevan Archaeological Site

title: San Estevan, Belize


text:
Talk:Tarocchini

Untitled
I’d recommend a different approach to the Tarocchini rules. What you have now is an edited copy of the class notes I put together for a class on teaching Partita. Partita is a fairly obscure game, and there are many other sets of rules for Tarot Cards Games.

I’m not sure how my notes became an article. I don’t mind them being used, but they are not the best starting point. I would like the entry to be of higher quality.

This article would better servered as a general guide to the Tarot Card Games, perhaps with links-to and/or copies of different games. The Card-Game site is probably the most definitive collection of rules; and has the following link for tarot card games: http://www.pagat.com/tarot/index.html.

Michael McKay, seaan@concentric.net

To add
Distinguish Italian decks:
 * Tarocco Piemontese -- a 78-card deck:
 * used to play
 * Scarto
 * Four Handed Tarocchi
 * Mitigati
 * Tarcocco Siciliano - 64 card deck
 *
 * trumps: 1 to 20 plus the additional Miseria and Fuggitivo
 * each suit has king (re), queen (donna), cavalier (cavallo), jack (fante) ace (asso) and pip cards from 5 to 10
 * AND the 4 and ace, in only the suit of coins.
 * Italian Tarocco Bolognese
 * 62 card deck
 * Minor Arcana consist of an ace, cards numbered from six to ten, and the four classic royal suits
 * The Major Arcana are similar to the ones in the Tarot of Marseilles.
 * used to play
 * Ottocento
 * Terziglio
 * Millone
 * Mattazza

 * which decks have which cards (which decks are subsets of other decks)

brain (talk) 02:01, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Fotograph infobox
Hi all, the foto in the infobox shows austrian Tarock-cards, which are quite different from italian cards. Therefore I shall remove them. Best greetings from Vienna -- 85.127.105.129 (talk) 20:40, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Partita
I have removed references to Partita to avoid confusion. Partita can refer to many tarocchi games played in Piedmont or Bologna. It originated in Bologna where it had several incarnations but these games aren't really played anymore. Piemontese Partita survives and its rules are simpler than tarocchini. Naturally, in Piedmont they play it with the Tarocco Piemontese but treat the lower trumps as equals like the moors of Tarocco Bolognese and remove six pip cards from each suit for a total of 54 cards. Piemontese Partita rules can be found here and here.--Countakeshi (talk) 11:37, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

title: Talk:Tarocchini