text:
Talk:Space Invaders

RE: Pop culture references
Just a minor thing, but the characters Ignignokt and Err (Aqua Teen Hunger Force) are directly derived from this game (moreso the 2600 version, but still...). If someone more familiar with the editing process wants to add that morsel to the article, it seems to me it would be justified, esp. considering the Lite Brite Mooninite bomb scare of a while back.

GoForthAndDie (talk) 19:57, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you have a source, like a magazine or news article, or ATHF production interview that states they are derived from the game? (Guyinblack25 talk 20:05, 9 October 2008 (UTC))

Hmm...Nothing that explicitly says "They are based on Atari 2600 Space Invaders", no (didn't look too long though, it isn't that big a deal to me). This site states they are representative of Atari 2600-era graphics (ATHF article, Mooninites sub-section), as do others. Sound effects associated with them come directly from the game. And, well, they look like Atari 2600 Space Invaders.

If you want to phrase it "appear to be based on ..." or somesuch, that's fine. If that's still pushing it, just forget it, I'll live.

GoForthAndDie (talk) 11:09, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

 * Given the lack of a reliable source, I think it's better to err on the side of caution and not include it. Otherwise it could be construed as original research. If you do happen to find a source, let use know so we can check it out. (Guyinblack25 talk 15:32, 11 October 2008 (UTC))

Another one: don't forget about music video from Royksopp 'Happy up here'. 95.25.137.139 (talk) 18:45, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

idle curiosity!
Anyone know if the reason for the invaders getting steadily faster as you destroyed them was actually because the CPU was working at full tilt to display them all, so the refresh rate was actually going up simply because there were less invaders to draw vs a fixed rate of invader drawing? (which may have either been fully intentional, or a mistake during development that they liked and decided to keep, or simply because there wasn't enough space in the code or leftover cycles to implement a decent constant-speed delay loop)

Totally apocryphal so far for me - it was something my dad, allegedly reformed arcade-Invaders (and two-button Breakout) addict, told me... 193.63.174.210 (talk) 19:15, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

This is a myth. SI code has intentional timing to control the speed of the aliens. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.117.174.82 (talk) 22:12, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Space Invaders: The Original Game
No mention of the Space Invaders that was recently released on the Wii's Virtual Console? Cooljeanius (talk) (contribs) 22:07, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * To my knowledge, that version is the SNES port of the arcade game. That'll have its own article. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 15:57, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Pacman 2600 orignal releace date
To my knolage Pacman was first releaced on the Atari 2600 in 1980, but for some reason or another, it says on gamespot that it was first releaced 1978. This is the kind of senario that either wiki or gamespot is wrong, there should be a investgation. mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool (talk) 21:43, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

acording to the label on the cartigue game for the atari 2600 it was released in 1981. this game was such a hot seller that 7 million copys were sold. no other atari 2600 game was this mass produced even the other games for atari 2600 produced fewer quantites. because there was 7 million copies sold this got the video game makers into a new phase called video game sqeuls where they make follow up games in a series. for instance the next game was Mrs pac man ,also Pac Man junior and mrs pacman had a re-make for the 7800 console. so it just goes to show if one game is a hugh sucess what they usally do next is exspand on its world in seqeal games. 69.208.10.149 (talk) 01:17, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

More on cultural imact
I remember a song back in the early 80's by an Aussie band called Player One, called "Space Invaders", obviously written to cash in on the craze at the time, and with some success too - it was No.1 on the charts for some time. Does anyone reckon its worth incuding in the article, perhpas under Popular Culture? Matto paedia  Have a yarn  04:37, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe. I stumbled across similarly titled songs, but couldn't find any sources that said they were inspired by the game. If you have a reliable source for saying the game inspired the song and others, then we can add it in. (Guyinblack25 talk 14:10, 19 March 2009 (UTC))
 * Someone cite the video that went with the song. It shows some of the game elements - demonstrating that it was definitely inspired by the video game. Even the lyrics show it. IIRC correctly it was the number four song in Australia for the year 1980. It didn't get to number one during the year nationally because Victoria didn't hear it at the same time as the rest of Australia. At state level it was certainly number one for several weeks. Hope this isn't regarded as original research. 58.164.108.209 (talk) 10:18, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Does anyone have a youtube video or webpage with the lyrics? If the connection is blatantly obvious, we can cite the original source rather than an independent third-party one. (Guyinblack25 talk 22:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC))
 * Here. It doesn't use the actual graphics from the game, but creates lookalikes that may as well be.  It also clearly uses samples from the game. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 23:36, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That song was... something else... or something. :-p
 * I'll try to add the content this week. I found an article about one of the artists that we can use to source the statement instead of the song.
 * While we're on the topic, a few more songs (I'm sure there's plenty out there) that we can properly source would be good to add. (Guyinblack25 talk 15:03, 25 August 2010 (UTC))

David Yuh
Where is the mention of the teenage prodigy David Yuh who programmed the game? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.229.151.58 (talk) 20:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, Tomohiro Nishikado created the game. I did not come across any programmer named David Yuh in my research of the game. (Guyinblack25 talk 21:09, 2 June 2009 (UTC))
 * Yah, I just did a quick check as well. Only came up with a bunch of links and blogs quoting back to David Yuh here.  And that article looks like its ripe for deletion due to lack of citations and notability.  I managed to track him down at Johns Hopkins (btw none of his bios mention anything about this), and sent him an email to get a direct answer.  I'll post the response here if he actually responds.  If it turns out he says he was involved, I'll be requesting an interview and putting it up at cg.com for a future reference. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 21:27, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Marty, you read my mind about deletion; never really dealt with an AfD for a biography before though. I guess we'll wait until you hear back from him. (Guyinblack25 talk 21:44, 2 June 2009 (UTC))

Did you ever hear back about this? I heard the David Yuh reference again: https://twitter.com/#!/robot_MD/status/63388268766564353 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.126.77.164 (talk) 02:26, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sent him an email, never heard back from him. His page here was deleted as predicted as well. I highly doubt it unless some significant evidence can be given to back up the claim. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 03:19, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

So I worked with Dr. Yuh at Yale University, he said he's idea was the source for the development of the game, he also played a big part in the design. He also said he donated all royalties to the Homeless Shelters for Kids of NYC, a year after the go-live of the game.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nurse2IT (talk • contribs) 13:50, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Coins
The "100 yen" coin shortage - urban myth. Please check the Japanese 100 yen coin mintages on a year by year basis. 91.85.186.195 (talk) 20:58, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The "fact" is repeated all over the net but I did find this comment: The bit about space invaders causing a shortage of 100Yen coins is an urban myth. Besides the sheer implausibility, it didn't cost 100Yen to play. At the time in Japan, 100 yen bought what about $10 buys today.
 * --Alastair Rae (talk) 14:20, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * A commentary is not a reliable source. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 15:40, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I didn't say it was but I haven't seen a properly cited primary source. Just because the myth is all over the net and is repeated by journalists does not make it true.
 * --Alastair Rae (talk) 16:14, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * A few things:
 * Flipping the coin to the other side (no pun intended (well, maybe a litte) ), just because someone calls it a myth doesn't make it so. Is there a reliable source stating that the shortage is a myth?
 * 100 yen in the late 70s was the equivalent of about US$.50, a number which sounds about right for an arcade game to me.
 * Per WP:PSTS, "Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources." In addition to the Game Informer and The Observer journalists, that piece of information is cited in the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2008. And Guinness World Records is typically known for its fact checking before handing out world records.
 * Unless a reliable source for it being a myth is presented, I'm inclined to leave the content in the article as is. (Guyinblack25 talk 17:11, 23 November 2009 (UTC))
 * The relentless quest for truth continues :) According to Krause 1995 (quoted here) the mintages were:
 * 1970 237M
 * 1971 481M
 * 1972 469M
 * 1973 680M
 * 1974 660M
 * 1975 437M
 * 1976 323M
 * 1977 440M
 * 1978 292M
 * 1979 382M
 * 1980 588M
 * 1981 348M
 * 1982 110M
 * 1983 50M
 * 1984 42M
 * 1985 58M
 * I'm not a statistician but I don't see a Space Invaders peak there, particularly compared to 73 and 74. --Alastair Rae (talk) 11:49, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Per your blog source - "So if there was an increase in 100 yen coin production, it was from an unusually low baseline, and surely not a tripling of production as sometimes claimed. If it was a low-mintage year, it might not have taken much of a demand shock to cause local shortages. There did seem to be a period of higher mintages in the 1979-1981 period. I wonder if that had anything to do with the video game craze or if it was just a coincidence..." Which gives reasons why there could still have been a Space Invaders peak. In fact, the numbers actually show *why* there was a shortage - '78 was an unusally low mintage year. Space Invaders was released in June '78 there and took several months to catch on, so we're talking Sept.-Oct. before it took up steam, which means the temporary shortage would have been sometime that fall, already at the end of the minting year. For 1979, we see almost a 100% increase in production. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 14:10, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
 * One thing I think is causing all this confusion is that this Space Invaders yen shortage does not have a date. As Marty points out, the Space Invaders phenomenon was not instantaneous. The first 2-3 months disappointed Taito. But eventually, they released 100,000 cabinets in Japan over a number of years. The 1980 spike could have been the result of Space Invaders. When compared to the the 1979 and 1978 numbers, that is an increase, which is what three reliable sources said occurred.
 * While I agree that the information in the article is scarce on details, I still have not seen any reason to doubt it. (Guyinblack25 talk 16:54, 24 November 2009 (UTC))

Image
Wouldn't this be a better image to use for the infobox? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I think either one is fine. I used the current one because it's of the Japanese version. (Guyinblack25 talk 21:20, 19 April 2010 (UTC))

The music?
It's been a long time since I played this game, so I can't remember if it had music, or only sound effects. If it did have music, do we have any idea who wrote it? I'm always wanting to know who composers for video games, movies, and shows are. I don't think an article (on a subject that has music) is completely worthy of being featured unless it has a composer in its main infobox. dogman15 (talk) 00:12, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * No music as such, just a drum beat (well a low pitch beep) when the invaders move a step, which increases in tempo along with the speed increase of the invaders. This adds a nice bit of tension. As well as a nigh pitched shooting sound when the player fires their cannon and a warble as the bonus points UFO flies overhead. 118.210.29.123 (talk) 15:52, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Impact and legacy
In the second paragraph of this section, the word "game" appears four times in the first sentence. Also, the opening sentence of that section ("Space Invaders is considered one of the most successful arcade shooting games") and the section of the lede which mirrors this ("When first released, Space Invaders was very successful and popular") seems superfluous, especially since the article then goes on to describe all the things that made it successful.

Been a couple of years since it was promoted, so maybe a copyedit wouldn't go amiss?

Theme for Space invaders
Yellow Magic Orchestra- about 1979?

IceDragon64 (talk) 20:29, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

what is the name of the alien race in space invaders?
id like to know what the name for the alien race for space invaders was called. if no one can find it on the internet some one should Email the games creater Mr.Tomohiro Nishikado the museum of video games needs this information its critical to exspanding the knowlegde of the atari universe and the names of its alien inhabitants. some one contact him before he acidentaly dies of a heart attack or something then no one will ever now for sure. 69.208.10.149 (talk) 01:25, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * They were just called Invaders, there was no name or storyline at the time. And it was at Taito, has nothing to do with Atari. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 03:13, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think they were Americans: http://www.wordloosed.com/space-invaders — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.153.176 (talk) 07:36, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Space Invaders Sound
AFAIK, it's a combination of the 76477 and custom analog sound circuits according to the schematics. The 76477 appears to be marked for the Saucer sound and other sounds are marked at separate circuits. That also appears to be backed up by this Space Invaders sound repair guide. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 00:32, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, still means the 76477 should be mentioned in the article. Indrian (talk) 00:52, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * We still need a source for the content though. Would the schematics suffice? I've never cited such documents before. (Guyinblack25 talk 13:35, 31 October 2011 (UTC))
 * I imagine it would. If you prefer a secondary source, System 16 also acknowledges the sound chip. Indrian (talk) 17:12, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Schematics would suffice and should be referenced in the same manner as referencing a manual (since the schematics were usually included with the machine or with the machines' manual. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 17:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The bonus spaceships' scoring system
The bonus spaceships at the top of the screen were not at all random, but were completely deterministic, both as to how many points they would give, and to which side of the screen they would start from.

The controlling factor was the number of shots fired by the player since the start of a screen, or the start of a life, whichever was shorter. I only remember the figures for getting the maximum 300 point score, but I'm sure there must be a more detailed description somewhere.

(From memory) First, the player fires 21 shots then waits for the spaceship. If the 22nd shot hits the spaceship, then the player is rewarded with 300 points. Thereafter, the player should shoot 14 shots and hit the spaceship on the 15th, for the 300 point spaceships. Note: it is irrelevant whether or not the shots fired hit an enemy or not, and indeed it was very common for experts such as myself to fire at the defense bunkers, in order to be able to get the next spaceship sooner. If the player was diligent (and accurate), then a new, 300 point spaceship would appear for every 15 shots fired, and this fact was used by those wanting to set the really high high scores in the game.

Use this technique to discover if a port of the game is true to the original or not: some ports use a random number generator to generate the spaceship scores, so the technique will not work for them.

OldManLink (talk) 23:47, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Infobox image (reprise)
Is it possible to get something less blurry for its main image? This is a featured article in an encyclopedia. Any ideas where to look? czar ♔  21:59, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It was deleted per your request, which is why I had to immediately upload an image of a promotional Space Invaders flyer. The new image is "less blurry," proper, and has a "non-free use rationale" template. Oh, by the way: Hi, my name is "Mr. Gonna." IX | (C"<)  19:54, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Origin of the name
I'd be interested in any source that could be cited about the origin of the name of the game. The David Bowie song Moonage Daydream (1971 and 1972) contains the prominent lyric "I'm a space invader", for what it's worth. Tarcil (talk) 07:57, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

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Featured article in need of review
This is a 2000s promotion that needs to be check by current FA standards. 👨x🐱 (talk) 21:39, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Prose suffers from awkward sentences
 * "that move horizontally back and forth across the screen as they advance toward the bottom of the screen."
 * "The game's inspiration is reported to have come from varying sources, including an adaptation of the mechanical game Space Monsters released by Taito in 1972, and a dream about Japanese school children who are waiting for Santa Claus when they are attacked by invading aliens.[18][22] Nishikado himself has cited Atari's arcade game Breakout as his inspiration." So if there's varying reports, why is this sentence giving Breakout as the most-likely true inspiration? Possible undue weight. Also, who had that Santa Claus dream?
 * "Early enemy designs for the game included tanks, combat planes, and battleships.[21] Nishikado, however, was not satisfied with the enemy movements; technical limitations made it difficult to simulate flying"
 * "Humans would have been easier to simulate," NPOV issue
 * Music section is one long quote, and only two opinions are represented
 * First para of "Rankings" section isn't about rankings, and the second para is mostly an indiscriminate list of ratings with no attempt at summarizing retrospective opinions
 * Reception: There are ratings of reviews that are never covered in prose.
 * References suffers from questionable sources (What is The Arcade Flyer Archive?, Game Maestro?, NOTsoNOISY?, members.cox.net?, Warp Zoned?, Discogs is unreliable), and some citations are incomplete. Ref 2 is just a list of Bare URLs

DOS Version
Could someone (a) clarify whether there was a DOS version of it and (b) in which year this happened? I came to find out but the current wikiepdia article does not mention this. 2A02:8388:1604:F600:6D3E:54F:D1:F386 (talk) 16:20, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Should artefact be changed to artifact?
I know artefact is british english and is still correct, but I think it would benifit more people if it was artifact, since it is the more accepted version of the word. Hpnzii (talk) 19:18, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

I dispute that the invaders respond to player input
"with the enemies responding to the player-controlled cannon's movement".

I am not aware of this happening. Their movements are strictly determined by the distance between leftmost and rightmost invader (when they move down a notch and switch direction), and the remaining number of invaders (speed).

Unless they're talking about which invaders shoot, but then it should clearly state that.

Almo2001 (talk) 04:53, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Dreamworks Spielberg and Waithe dreamworks adaptation source?
Where is the source that said that Spielberg and Waithe had made a space invaders adaptation?

I looked around and I couldn't found any immediate evidence. This sounds made up or is a rumor or something. 98.97.85.163 (talk) 07:08, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for pointing it out. I've removed this nonsense from the article. --Krótki (talk) 08:49, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 04:53, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Space Invader.svg

Space Invaders Frenzy Release
Hello y'all, I have noticed there seems to be inconsistency on Wikipedia over the release month of Space Invaders Frenzy: this page states it was April 2017, while the page on Space Invaders itself claims it was instead in January 2017. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Space_Invaders_video_games) It being January actually has a source but I wanted to check before I change anything on one page or the other. - Cheers, YellowpowR 2601:180:8200:5480:555:8CBF:A4A:B511 (talk) 05:44, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Horizontal laser?!
The laser cannon might move horizontally, but the actual laser is fired vertically. Janneman27 (talk) 10:50, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

 * I recommend adding the word "cannon" after "laser" into the leading section. Janneman27 (talk) 10:54, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, that would be a good idea. It would clear any ambiguity and/or confusion.—Bde1982 (talk) 13:46, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 January 2024
Please change:

and a so-called "cocktail-table" cabinet;

to

and a so-called "cocktail-table" cabinet;

Fixing link to section 92.30.149.54 (talk) 16:42, 26 January 2024 (UTC) — Urro[ talk ] [ edits ] 17:04, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Space Invaders


text:
Globe

A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but, unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model globe of Earth is called a terrestrial globe. A model globe of the celestial sphere is called a celestial globe.

A globe shows details of its subject. A terrestrial globe shows landmasses and water bodies. It might show nations and major cities and the network of latitude and longitude lines. Some have raised relief to show mountains and other large landforms. A celestial globe shows notable stars, and may also show positions of other prominent astronomical objects. Typically, it will also divide the celestial sphere into constellations.

The word globe comes from the Latin word globus, meaning "sphere". Globes have a long history. The first known mention of a globe is from Strabo, describing the Globe of Crates from about 150 BC. The oldest surviving terrestrial globe is the Erdapfel, made by Martin Behaim in 1492. The oldest surviving celestial globe sits atop the Farnese Atlas, carved in the 2nd century Roman Empire.

Terrestrial and planetary
Flat maps are created using a map projection that inevitably introduces an increasing amount of distortion the larger the area that the map shows. A globe is the only representation of the Earth that does not distort either the shape or the size of large features – land masses, bodies of water, etc.

The Earth's circumference is quite close to 40 million metres. Many globes are made with a circumference of one metre, so they are models of the Earth at a scale of 1:40 million. In imperial units, many globes are made with a diameter of one foot (about 30 cm), yielding a circumference of 3.14 feet (about 96 cm) and a scale of 1:42 million. Globes are also made in many other sizes.

Some globes have surface texture showing topography or bathymetry. In these, elevations and depressions are purposely exaggerated, as they otherwise would be hardly visible. For example, one manufacturer produces a three dimensional raised relief globe with a 25 in diameter (equivalent to a 200 cm circumference, or approximately a scale of 1:20 million) showing the highest mountains as over 1 in tall, which is about 57 times higher than the correct scale of Mount Everest.

Most modern globes are also imprinted with parallels and meridians, so that one can tell the approximate coordinates of a specific location. Globes may also show the boundaries of countries and their names.

Many terrestrial globes have one celestial feature marked on them: a diagram called the analemma, which shows the apparent motion of the Sun in the sky during a year.

Globes generally show north at the top, but many globes allow the axis to be swiveled so that southern portions can be viewed conveniently. This capability also permits exploring the Earth from different orientations to help counter the north-up bias caused by conventional map presentation.

Celestial

Celestial globes show the apparent positions of the stars in the sky. They omit the Sun, Moon and planets because the positions of these bodies vary relative to those of the stars, but the ecliptic, along which the Sun moves, is indicated. In their most basic form celestial globes represent the stars as if the viewer were looking down upon the sky as a globe that surrounds the earth.

History

The sphericity of the Earth was established by Greek astronomy in the 3rd century BC, and the earliest terrestrial globe appeared from that period. The earliest known example is the one constructed by Crates of Mallus in Cilicia (now Çukurova in modern-day Turkey), in the mid-2nd century BC.

No terrestrial globes from Antiquity have survived. An example of a surviving celestial globe is part of a Hellenistic sculpture, called the Farnese Atlas, surviving in a 2nd-century AD Roman copy in the Naples Archaeological Museum, Italy.

Early terrestrial globes depicting the entirety of the Old World were constructed in the Islamic world. During the Middle Ages in Christian Europe, while there are writings alluding to the idea that the earth was spherical, no known attempts at making a globe took place before the fifteenth century. The earliest extant terrestrial globe was made in 1492 by Martin Behaim (1459–1537) with help from the painter Georg Glockendon. Behaim was a German mapmaker, navigator, and merchant. Working in Nuremberg, Germany, he called his globe the "Nürnberg Terrestrial Globe." It is now known as the Erdapfel. Before constructing the globe, Behaim had traveled extensively. He sojourned in Lisbon from 1480, developing commercial interests and mingling with explorers and scientists. He began to construct his globe after his return to Nürnberg in 1490.

China made many mapping advancements such as sophisticated land surveys and the invention of the magnetic compass. However, no record of terrestrial globes in China exists until a globe was introduced by the Persian astronomer, Jamal ad-Din, in 1276.

Another early globe, the Hunt–Lenox Globe, ca. 1510, is thought to be the source of the phrase Hic Sunt Dracones, or "Here be dragons". A similar grapefruit-sized globe made from two halves of an ostrich egg was found in 2012 and is believed to date from 1504. It may be the oldest globe to show the New World. Stefaan Missine, who analyzed the globe for the Washington Map Society journal Portolan, said it was "part of an important European collection for decades." After a year of research in which he consulted many experts, Missine concluded the Hunt–Lenox Globe was a copper cast of the egg globe.

A facsimile globe showing America was made by Martin Waldseemüller in 1507. Another "remarkably modern-looking" terrestrial globe of the Earth was constructed by Taqi al-Din at the Constantinople observatory of Taqi ad-Din during the 1570s.

The world's first seamless celestial globe was built by Mughal scientists under the patronage of Jahangir.

Globus IMP, electro-mechanical devices including five-inch globes have been used in Soviet and Russian spacecraft from 1961 to 2002 as navigation instruments. In 2001, the TMA version of the Soyuz spacecraft replaced this instrument with a digital map.

Manufacture
Traditionally, globes were manufactured by gluing a printed paper map onto a sphere, often made from wood.

The most common type has long, thin gores (strips) of paper that narrow to a point at the poles, small disks cover over the inevitable irregularities at these points. The more gores there are, the less stretching and crumpling is required to make the paper map fit the sphere. This method of globe making was illustrated in 1802 in an engraving in The English Encyclopedia by George Kearsley.

Modern globes are often made from thermoplastic. Flat, plastic disks are printed with a distorted map of one of the Earth's hemispheres. This is placed in a machine which molds the disk into a hemispherical shape. The hemisphere is united with its opposite counterpart to form a complete globe.

Usually a globe is mounted so that its rotation axis is 23.5° (0.41 rad) from vertical, which is the angle the Earth's rotation axis deviates from perpendicular to the plane of its orbit. This mounting makes it easy to visualize how seasons change.

In the 1800s small pocket globes (less than 3 inches) were status symbols for gentlemen and educational toys for rich children.

Examples
Sorted in decreasing sizes:

 * The Unisphere in Flushing Meadows, New York, at the Billie Jean King USTA Tennis Center, at 120 ft in diameter, is the world's largest geographical globe. This corresponds to a scale of about 1:350 000. (There are larger spherical structures, such as the Cinesphere in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, but this does not have geographical or astronomical markings.)
 * Wyld's Great Globe, located in London's Leicester Square from 1851-1862, was a hollow globe 60 feet 4 inches (18.39 m) in diameter designed by mapmaker James Wyld. Visitors could climb stairs to view a plaster of Paris model of the Earth's surface, complete with mountains and rivers to scale.
 * Eartha, the world's largest rotating globe with a diameter of 41 ft, located at the DeLorme headquarters in Yarmouth, Maine. This corresponds to a scale of about 1:1.1 million. Eartha was constructed in 1998.
 * The P-I Globe, a 13.5-ton  30-foot (9.1 m) neon globe with rotating "It's in the P-I" words and an 18-foot eagle, was made in 1948 for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's headquarters. It was moved to the newspaper's new location in 1986.
 * The Great Globe at Swanage is a stone sphere that stands at Durlston Castle within Durlston Country Park, England. Measuring 10 feet (3.0 m) in diameter and weighing 40 tons, this intricately carved globe showcases the continents, oceans, and specific regions of the world. Crafted from Portland stone, it spans about 3 meters (10 ft) in diameter.

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

title: Globe


text:
SWOT analysis

SWOT analysis (or SWOT matrix) is a strategic planning and strategic management technique used to help a person or organization identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats related to business competition or project planning. It is sometimes called situational assessment or situational analysis. Additional acronyms using the same components include TOWS and WOTS-UP.

This technique is designed for use in the preliminary stages of decision-making processes and can be used as a tool for evaluation of the strategic position of organizations of many kinds (for-profit enterprises, local and national governments, NGOs, etc.). It is intended to identify the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving the objectives of the venture or project. Users of a SWOT analysis often ask and answer questions to generate meaningful information for each category to make the tool useful and identify their competitive advantage. SWOT has been described as a tried-and-true tool of strategic analysis, Examples of the "tried-and-true" trope: but has also been criticized for its limitations, and alternatives have been developed.
 * See also.

Overview
The name is an acronym for the four components the technique examines:

 * : characteristics of the business or project that give it an advantage over others
 * : characteristics that place the business or project at a disadvantage relative to others
 * : elements in the environment that the business or project could exploit to its advantage
 * : elements in the environment that could cause trouble for the business or project

Results of the assessment are often presented in the form of a matrix, or simply as paragraphs.

Internal and external factors
Strengths and weaknesses are usually considered internal, while opportunities and threats are usually considered external. The degree to which the internal strengths of the firm matches with the external opportunities is expressed by the concept of strategic fit.

Internal factors are viewed as strengths or weaknesses depending upon their effect on the organization's objectives. What may represent strengths with respect to one objective may be weaknesses (distractions, competition) for another objective. The factors may include personnel, finance, manufacturing capabilities, and all of the marketing mix's 4Ps.

External factors include macroeconomics, technological change, legislation, and sociocultural changes, as well as changes in the marketplace.

A number of authors advocate assessing external factors before internal factors.

Use
SWOT analysis has been used at different levels of analysis in many arenas, not just in profit-seeking organizations. Examples include non-profit organizations, governmental units, and individuals. SWOT analysis may also be used in pre-crisis planning and preventive crisis management. SWOT analysis may also be used in creating a recommendation during a viability study/survey.

Strategy building
SWOT analysis can be used to build organizational or personal strategy. Steps necessary to execute strategy-oriented analysis involve identification of internal and external factors (often using the popular 2 × 2 matrix), selection and evaluation of the most important factors, and identification of relations existing between internal and external features.

For instance, strong relations between strengths and opportunities can suggest good conditions in the company and allow using an strategy. On the other hand, strong interactions between weaknesses and threats could be analyzed as a potential warning and advice for using a strategy.

One form of SWOT (TOWS) matrix combines each of the four components with another to examine four distinct strategies:
 * WT strategy (mini–mini): Faced with external threats and internal weaknesses, how to minimize both weaknesses and threats?
 * WO strategy (mini–maxi): Faced with external opportunities and internal weaknesses, how to minimize weaknesses and maximize opportunities?
 * ST strategy (maxi–mini): Faced with internal strengths and external threats, how to maximize strengths and minimize threats?
 * SO strategy (maxi–maxi): Faced with external opportunities and internal strengths, how to maximize both opportunities and strengths?

Matching and converting
One way of using SWOT is matching and converting. Matching is used to find competitive advantage by matching the strengths to opportunities. Another tactic is to convert weaknesses or threats into strengths or opportunities. An example of a conversion strategy is to find new markets. If the threats or weaknesses cannot be converted, a company should try to minimize or avoid them.

Corporate planning
As part of the development of strategies and plans to enable an organization to achieve its objectives, that organization will use a systematic/rigorous process known as corporate planning. SWOT alongside PEST/PESTLE can be used as a basis for the analysis of internal and environmental factors.

Corporate planning includes steps such as:
 * Setting objectives—defining what the organization is going to do
 * Environmental scanning
 * Internal appraisals of the organization—an assessment of the present situation as well as a portfolio of products/services and an analysis of the product/service lifecycle
 * Analysis of existing strategies—this should determine relevance from the results of an internal/external appraisal, and may include gap analysis of environmental factors
 * Defining strategic issues—key factors in the development of a corporate plan that the organization must address
 * Developing new/revised strategies—revised analysis of strategic issues may mean the objectives need to change
 * Establishing critical success factors—the achievement of objectives and strategy implementation
 * Preparation of operational, resource, and projects plans for strategy implementation
 * Monitoring all results—mapping against plans, taking corrective action, which may mean amending objectives/strategies

Marketing
In competitor analysis, marketers build detailed profiles of each competitor in the market, focusing especially on their relative competitive strengths and weaknesses using SWOT analysis. Marketing managers will examine each competitor's cost structure, sources of profits, resources and competencies, competitive positioning and product differentiation, degree of vertical integration, historical responses to industry developments, and other factors.

Marketing management often finds it necessary to invest in research to collect the data required to perform accurate marketing analysis. Accordingly, management often conducts market research (alternately marketing research) to obtain this information. Marketers employ a variety of techniques to conduct market research, but some of the more common include:
 * Qualitative marketing research such as focus groups
 * Quantitative marketing research such as statistical surveys
 * Experimental techniques such as test markets
 * Observational techniques such as ethnographic (on-site) observation

Marketing managers may also design and oversee various environmental scanning and competitive intelligence processes to help identify trends and inform the company's marketing analysis.

Below is an example SWOT analysis of a market position of a small management consultancy with a specialism in human resource management (HRM).

In community organizations
The SWOT analysis has been used in community work as a tool to identify positive and negative factors within organizations, communities, and the broader society that promote or inhibit successful implementation of social services and social change efforts. It is used as a preliminary resource, assessing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in a community served by a nonprofit or community organization.

(internal factors within an organization):
 * Human resources—staff, volunteers, board members, target population
 * Physical resources—the organization's location, building, equipment
 * Financial—grants, funding agencies, other sources of income
 * Activities and processes—programs delivered, systems employed
 * Past experiences—building blocks for learning and success, the organization's reputation in the community

(external factors stemming from community or societal forces):
 * Future trends in the organization's field or the society
 * The economy—local, national, or international
 * Funding sources—foundations, donors, legislatures
 * Demographics—changes in the age, race, gender, culture of those in the organization's service area
 * Physical environment—Is the building in a growing part of town? Is the bus company cutting routes?
 * Legislation—Do new government requirements make the work harder or easier?
 * Local, national, or international events

Although the SWOT analysis was originally designed as an organizational method for business and industries, it has been replicated in community work as a tool for identifying external and internal support to combat the internal and external opposition. Understanding the particular community can be helped via public forums, listening campaigns, and informational interviews and other data collection. The SWOT analysis provides direction to the next stages of the change process. It has been used by community organizers and community members to further social justice in the context of social work practice.

Limitations and alternatives
SWOT analysis is intended as a starting point for discussion and cannot, in itself, show managers how to achieve a competitive advantage, particularly in a rapidly changing environment.

In a highly cited 1997 critique, "SWOT Analysis: It's Time for a Product Recall", Terry Hill and Roy Westbrook observed that one among many problems of SWOT analysis as it is often practiced is that "no-one subsequently used the outputs [of SWOT analysis] within the later stages of the strategy". Hill and Westbrook, among others, also criticized hastily designed SWOT lists. Other examples of potential pitfalls in practice are: preoccupation with a single strength, such as cost control, leading to a neglect of weaknesses, such as product quality; and domination by one or two team members doing the SWOT analysis and devaluing possibly important contributions of other team members. Many other limitations have been identified.

Michael Porter developed the five forces framework as a reaction to SWOT, which he found lacking in rigor and too.

Business professors have suggested various ways to remedy the common problems and limitations of SWOT analysis while retaining the SWOT framework.Some examples of publications that suggest remedies for common problems and limitations of SWOT analysis:

SOAR
SOAR (strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results) is an alternative technique inspired by appreciative inquiry. SOAR has been criticized as having similar limitations as SWOT, such as "the inability to identify the necessary data".

SVOR
In project management, the alternative to SWOT known by the acronym SVOR (Strengths, Vulnerabilities, Opportunities, and Risks) compares the project elements along two axes: internal and external, and positive and negative. It takes into account the mathematical link that exists between these various elements, considering also the role of infrastructures. The SVOR table provides an intricate understanding of the elements hypothesized to be at play in a given project:

Constraints consist of: calendar of tasks and activities, costs, and norms of quality. The "k" constant varies with each project (for example, it may be valued at 1.3).

History
In 1965, three colleagues at the Long Range Planning Service of Stanford Research Institute—Robert F. Stewart, Otis J. Benepe, and Arnold Mitchell—wrote a technical report titled Formal Planning: The Staff Planner's Role at Start-Up. The report described how a person in the role of a company's staff planner would gather information from managers assessing operational issues grouped into four components represented by the acronym SOFT: the "satisfactory" in present operations, "opportunities" in future operations, "faults" in present operations, and "threats" to future operations. Stewart et al. focused on internal operational assessment and divided the four components into (satisfactory and fault) and  (opportunity and threat), and not, as would later become common in SWOT analysis, into  (strengths and weaknesses) and  (opportunities and threats).

Also in 1965, four colleagues at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration—Edmund P. Learned, C. Roland Christensen, Kenneth R. Andrews, and William D. Guth—published the first of many editions of the textbook Business Policy: Text and Cases. ( was a term then current for what has come to be called strategic management. ) The first chapter of the textbook stated, without using the acronym, the four components of SWOT and their division into internal and external appraisal:

"Deciding what strategy should be is, at least ideally, a rational undertaking. Its principal subactivities include identifying opportunities and threats in the company's environment and attaching some estimate of risk to the discernible alternatives. Before a choice can be made, the company's strengths and weaknesses must be appraised."

Looking back from three decades later, in the book Strategy Safari (1998), management scholar Henry Mintzberg and colleagues said that Business Policy: Text and Cases "quickly became the most popular classroom book in the field", widely diffusing its authors' ideas, which Mintzberg et al. called the "design school" model (in contrast to nine other schools that they identified) of strategic management, "with its famous notion of SWOT" emphasizing assessment of a company's internal and external situations. However, the textbook contains neither a 2 × 2 SWOT matrix nor any detailed procedure for doing a SWOT assessment. Strategy Safari and other books identified Kenneth R. Andrews as the co-author of Business Policy: Text and Cases who was responsible for writing the theoretical part of the book containing the SWOT components. More generally, Mintzberg et al. attributed some conceptual influences on what they called the "design school" (of which they were strongly critical) to earlier books by Philip Selznick (Leadership in Administration, 1957) and Alfred D. Chandler Jr. (Strategy and Structure, 1962), with other possible influences going back to the McKinsey consulting firm in the 1930s.

By the end of the 1960s, the four components of SWOT (without using the acronym) had appeared in other publications on strategic planning by various authors, and by 1972 the acronym had appeared in the title of a journal article by Norman Stait, a management consultant at the British firm Urwick, Orr and Partners. By 1973, the acronym was well-known enough that accountant William W. Fea, in a published lecture, mentioned "the mnemonic, familiar to students, of S.W.O.T., namely strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats". An early example of a 2 × 2 SWOT matrix is found in a 1980 article by management professor Igor Ansoff (but Ansoff used the acronym T/O/S/W instead of SWOT).

In popular culture

 * Television: In the 2015 Silicon Valley episode "Homicide" (Season 2, Episode 6), Jared Dunn (Zach Woods) introduces the Pied Piper team to SWOT analysis. Later in that episode Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) and Gilfoyle (Martin Starr) employ the method when deciding whether or not to inform a stunt driver that the calculations for his upcoming jump were performed incorrectly.

title: SWOT analysis


text:
Frederick Mitchell

Frederick, Freddie, or Fred Mitchell may refer to:

Arts and entertainment

 * Fred Mitchell (artist) (1923–2013), American abstract expressionist, New York School artist
 * William Frederick Mitchell (1845–1914), British naval painter
 * Fred Mitchell (Neighbours), fictional character on the Australian soap opera Neighbours
 * Freddie Mitchell (EastEnders), a character on EastEnders

Sports

 * Fred Mitchell (baseball) (1878–1970), American baseball player and manager
 * Freddie Mitchell (born 1978), American football player
 * James Mitchell (footballer, born 1897) (1895-1975), England international footballer, also known as Fred

Others

 * Frederick Mitchell (bishop) (1901–1979), Anglican bishop in the Church of Ireland
 * Frederick Gilbert Mitchell (c. 1885–1962), Chairman of Mitchell Construction
 * Frederick John Mitchell (1893–1979), Canadian politician
 * Fred Mitchell (politician) (born 1953), foreign minister of the Bahamas
 * Fred Tom Mitchell (1891–1953), President of the Mississippi State College

title: Frederick Mitchell


text:
Molecular assembler

A molecular assembler, as defined by K. Eric Drexler, is a "proposed device able to guide chemical reactions by positioning reactive molecules with atomic precision". A molecular assembler is a kind of molecular machine. Some biological molecules such as ribosomes fit this definition. This is because they receive instructions from messenger RNA and then assemble specific sequences of amino acids to construct protein molecules. However, the term "molecular assembler" usually refers to theoretical human-made devices. Beginning in 2007, the British Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has funded development of ribosome-like molecular assemblers. Clearly, molecular assemblers are possible in this limited sense. A technology roadmap project, led by the Battelle Memorial Institute and hosted by several U.S. National Laboratories has explored a range of atomically precise fabrication technologies, including both early-generation and longer-term prospects for programmable molecular assembly; the report was released in December, 2007. In 2008, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council provided funding of £1.5 million over six years (£1,942,235.57, $2,693,808.00 in 2021 ) for research working towards mechanized mechanosynthesis, in partnership with the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, amongst others.

Likewise, the term "molecular assembler" has been used in science fiction and popular culture to refer to a wide range of fantastic atom-manipulating nanomachines. Much of the controversy regarding "molecular assemblers" results from the confusion in the use of the name for both technical concepts and popular fantasies. In 1992, Drexler introduced the related but better-understood term "molecular manufacturing", which he defined as the programmed "chemical synthesis of complex structures by mechanically positioning reactive molecules, not by manipulating individual atoms".

This article mostly discusses "molecular assemblers" in the popular sense. These include hypothetical machines that manipulate individual atoms and machines with organism-like self-replicating abilities, mobility, ability to consume food, and so forth. These are quite different from devices that merely (as defined above) "guide chemical reactions by positioning reactive molecules with atomic precision".

Because synthetic molecular assemblers have never been constructed and because of the confusion regarding the meaning of the term, there has been much controversy as to whether "molecular assemblers" are possible or simply science fiction. Confusion and controversy also stem from their classification as nanotechnology, which is an active area of laboratory research which has already been applied to the production of real products; however, there had been, until recently, no research efforts into the actual construction of "molecular assemblers".

Nonetheless, a 2013 paper by David Leigh's group, published in the journal Science, details a new method of synthesizing a peptide in a sequence-specific manner by using an artificial molecular machine that is guided by a molecular strand. This functions in the same way as a ribosome building proteins by assembling amino acids according to a messenger RNA blueprint. The structure of the machine is based on a rotaxane, which is a molecular ring sliding along a molecular axle. The ring carries a thiolate group, which removes amino acids in sequence from the axle, transferring them to a peptide assembly site. In 2018, the same group published a more advanced version of this concept in which the molecular ring shuttles along a polymeric track to assemble an oligopeptide that can fold into an α-helix that can perform the enantioselective epoxidation of a chalcone derivative (in a way reminiscent to the ribosome assembling an enzyme). In another paper published in Science in March 2015, chemists at the University of Illinois report a platform that automates the synthesis of 14 classes of small molecules, with thousands of compatible building blocks.

In 2017, David Leigh's group reported a molecular robot that could be programmed to construct any one of four different stereoisomers of a molecular product by using a nanomechanical robotic arm to move a molecular substrate between different reactive sites of an artificial molecular machine. An accompanying News and Views article, titled 'A molecular assembler', outlined the operation of the molecular robot as effectively a prototypical molecular assembler.

Nanofactories
A nanofactory is a proposed system in which nanomachines (resembling molecular assemblers, or industrial robot arms) would combine reactive molecules via mechanosynthesis to build larger atomically precise parts. These, in turn, would be assembled by positioning mechanisms of assorted sizes to build macroscopic (visible) but still atomically-precise products.

A typical nanofactory would fit in a desktop box, in the vision of K. Eric Drexler published in Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing and Computation (1992), a notable work of "exploratory engineering". During the 1990s, others have extended the nanofactory concept, including an analysis of nanofactory convergent assembly by Ralph Merkle, a systems design of a replicating nanofactory architecture by J. Storrs Hall, Forrest Bishop's "Universal Assembler", the patented exponential assembly process by Zyvex, and a top-level systems design for a 'primitive nanofactory' by Chris Phoenix (director of research at the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology). All of these nanofactory designs (and more) are summarized in Chapter 4 of Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines (2004) by Robert Freitas and Ralph Merkle. The Nanofactory Collaboration, founded by Freitas and Merkle in 2000, is a focused, ongoing effort involving 23 researchers from 10 organizations and 4 countries that is developing a practical research agenda specifically aimed at positionally-controlled diamond mechanosynthesis and diamondoid nanofactory development.

In 2005, an animated short film of the nanofactory concept was produced by John Burch, in collaboration with Drexler. Such visions have been the subject of much debate, on several intellectual levels. No one has discovered an insurmountable problem with the underlying theories and no one has proved that the theories can be translated into practice. However, the debate continues, with some of it being summarized in the molecular nanotechnology article.

If nanofactories could be built, severe disruption to the world economy would be one of many possible negative impacts, though it could be argued that this disruption would have little negative effect, if everyone had such nanofactories. Great benefits also would be anticipated. Various works of science fiction have explored these and similar concepts. The potential for such devices was part of the mandate of a major UK study led by mechanical engineering professor Dame Ann Dowling.

Self-replication
"Molecular assemblers" have been confused with self-replicating machines. To produce a practical quantity of a desired product, the nanoscale size of a typical science fiction universal molecular assembler requires an extremely large number of such devices. However, a single such theoretical molecular assembler might be programmed to self-replicate, constructing many copies of itself. This would allow an exponential rate of production. Then, after sufficient quantities of the molecular assemblers were available, they would then be re-programmed for production of the desired product. However, if self-replication of molecular assemblers were not restrained then it might lead to competition with naturally occurring organisms. This has been called ecophagy or the grey goo problem.

One method of building molecular assemblers is to mimic evolutionary processes employed by biological systems. Biological evolution proceeds by random variation combined with culling of the less-successful variants and reproduction of the more-successful variants. Production of complex molecular assemblers might be evolved from simpler systems since "A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. . . . A complex system designed from scratch never works and can not be patched up to make it work. You have to start over, beginning with a system that works." However, most published safety guidelines include "recommendations against developing ... replicator designs which permit surviving mutation or undergoing evolution".

Most assembler designs keep the "source code" external to the physical assembler. At each step of a manufacturing process, that step is read from an ordinary computer file and "broadcast" to all the assemblers. If any assembler gets out of range of that computer, or when the link between that computer and the assemblers is broken, or when that computer is unplugged, the assemblers stop replicating. Such a "broadcast architecture" is one of the safety features recommended by the "Foresight Guidelines on Molecular Nanotechnology", and a map of the 137-dimensional replicator design space recently published by Freitas and Merkle provides numerous practical methods by which replicators can be safely controlled by good design.

Drexler and Smalley debate
One of the most outspoken critics of some concepts of "molecular assemblers" was Professor Richard Smalley (1943–2005) who won the Nobel prize for his contributions to the field of nanotechnology. Smalley believed that such assemblers were not physically possible and introduced scientific objections to them. His two principal technical objections were termed the "fat fingers problem" and the "sticky fingers problem". He believed these would exclude the possibility of "molecular assemblers" that worked by precision picking and placing of individual atoms. Drexler and coworkers responded to these two issues in a 2001 publication.

Smalley also believed that Drexler's speculations about apocalyptic dangers of self-replicating machines that have been equated with "molecular assemblers" would threaten the public support for development of nanotechnology. To address the debate between Drexler and Smalley regarding molecular assemblers Chemical & Engineering News published a point-counterpoint consisting of an exchange of letters that addressed the issues.

Regulation
Speculation on the power of systems that have been called "molecular assemblers" has sparked a wider political discussion on the implication of nanotechnology. This is in part due to the fact that nanotechnology is a very broad term and could include "molecular assemblers". Discussion of the possible implications of fantastic molecular assemblers has prompted calls for regulation of current and future nanotechnology. There are very real concerns with the potential health and ecological impact of nanotechnology that is being integrated in manufactured products. Greenpeace for instance commissioned a report concerning nanotechnology in which they express concern into the toxicity of nanomaterials that have been introduced in the environment. However, it makes only passing references to "assembler" technology. The UK Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering also commissioned a report entitled "Nanoscience and nanotechnologies: opportunities and uncertainties" regarding the larger social and ecological implications of nanotechnology. This report does not discuss the threat posed by potential so-called "molecular assemblers".

Formal scientific review
In 2006, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences released the report of a study of molecular manufacturing (not molecular assemblers per se) as part of a longer report, A Matter of Size: Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative The study committee reviewed the technical content of Nanosystems, and in its conclusion states that no current theoretical analysis can be considered definitive regarding several questions of potential system performance, and that optimal paths for implementing high-performance systems cannot be predicted with confidence. It recommends funding for experimental research to produce experimental demonstrations in this area:

"Although theoretical calculations can be made today, the eventually attainable range of chemical reaction cycles, error rates, speed of operation, and thermodynamic efficiencies of such bottom-up manufacturing systems cannot be reliably predicted at this time. Thus, the eventually attainable perfection and complexity of manufactured products, while they can be calculated in theory, cannot be predicted with confidence. Finally, the optimum research paths that might lead to systems which greatly exceed the thermodynamic efficiencies and other capabilities of biological systems cannot be reliably predicted at this time. Research funding that is based on the ability of investigators to produce experimental demonstrations that link to abstract models and guide long-term vision is most appropriate to achieve this goal."

Gray goo
One potential scenario that has been envisioned is out-of-control self-replicating molecular assemblers in the form of gray goo which consumes carbon to continue its replication. If unchecked, such mechanical replication could potentially consume whole ecoregions or the whole Earth (ecophagy), or it could simply outcompete natural lifeforms for necessary resources such as carbon, ATP, or UV light (which some nanomotor examples run on). However, the ecophagy and 'grey goo' scenarios, like synthetic molecular assemblers, are based upon still-hypothetical technologies that have not yet been demonstrated experimentally.

title: Molecular assembler


text:
Andreas Schroeder

Andreas Schroeder (b. Hoheneggelsen, West Germany 26 November 1946) is a German-born Canadian poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer who lives in the small town of Roberts Creek, British Columbia.

Career
Schroeder is the author of some 23 books, including fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, translations and criticism. For many years he appeared on the CBC radio show Basic Black as its "resident crookologist", presenting a segment on some of the world's most outrageous and humorous crimes and criminals.

He served a term as Chair of the Writers' Union of Canada (1976/77), at which time he took over the Union's crusade for Public Lending Right. When that program was finally achieved, in 1986, he became its founding Chair, and served as the Union's PLR representative on the Public Lending Right Commission until 2008.

Schroeder teaches Creative Non-Fiction in the University of British Columbia's Creative Writing program, where he holds the Rogers Communications Chair in Creative Nonfiction.

Schroeder has been shortlisted for a Governor-General's Award (Nonfiction: Shaking It Rough) in 1977, the Sealbooks First Novel Award (1984), an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Nonfiction (1997), The Stephen Leacock Award for Humor (1997) and the Malahat Review Novella competition (1998). He has won the OLA's Red Maple Award for Young Adult Nonfiction twice (2005; 2007), has received several National Magazine Awards, and won the Canadian Association of Journalists' "Best Investigative Journalism" award in 1990. He is a member of the New Democratic Party and describes himself as a "non-observant Mennonite".

He is married to Sharon Brown; the couple have two daughters.

Poetry

 * The Ozone Minotaur – 1969
 * File of Uncertainties – 1971
 * Universe: The Burden of Performance is on the Rider – 1977

Nonfiction

 * Shaking it Rough: A Prison Memoir – 1976
 * The Mennonites: A Pictorial History of their Lives in Canada – 1990
 * Carved From Wood – A History of Mission, BC. – 1991
 * Scams, Scandals, and Skulduggery – 1996
 * Cheats, Charlatans, and Chicanery – 1997
 * Fakes, Frauds, and Flimflammery – 1999
 * Scams! (Young Adult Nonfiction) – 2004
 * Thieves! (Young Adult Nonfiction) – 2005
 * Auf der Flucht mit Mona Lisa. Von Meisterdieben und charmanten Schwindlern.. Transl. Walter Goidinger. Droemer Knaur, Munich 1998
 * Duped! (Young Adult Nonfiction – 2011
 * Robbers! (Young Adult Nonfiction) – 2012

Fiction

 * The Late Man – 1972
 * Toccata in 'D': A Micro Novel – 1984
 * Dust-Ship Glory – 1976
 * The Eleventh Commandment – 1990
 * Renovating Heaven – 2008

title: Andreas Schroeder


text:
Shyam Selvadurai

Shyam Selvadurai (born 12 February 1965) is a Sri Lankan Canadian novelist. He is most noted for his 1994 novel Funny Boy, which won the Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction.

Background
Selvadurai was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka to a Sinhalese mother and a Tamil father—members of conflicting ethnic groups whose troubles form a major theme in his work. Ethnic riots in 1983 drove the family to emigrate to Canada when Selvadurai was nineteen. He attained a BFA at York University for Theatre in 1989, then achieved an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia in 2010. Selvadurai recounted an account of the discomfort he and his partner experienced during a period spent in Sri Lanka in 1997 in his essay "Coming Out" in Time Asia's special issue on the Asian diaspora in 2003.

Writing career
Selvadurai published Funny Boy in 1994, and followed up in 1998 with the novel Cinnamon Gardens.

In 2004, Selvadurai edited a collection of short stories: Story-Wallah: Short Fiction from South Asian Writers, which includes works by Salman Rushdie, Monica Ali, and Hanif Kureishi, among others. He published a young adult novel, Swimming in the Monsoon Sea, in 2005. Swimming won the Lambda Literary Award in the Children's and Youth Literature category in 2006. He was a contributor to TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 1.

In 2013, he released a fourth novel, The Hungry Ghosts. In 2013 Selvadurai's Funny Boy was included in the syllabus under marginalized study and gay literature of the under graduate English Department of The American College in Madurai. In 2014, he was presented the Bonham Centre Award from The Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto, for his contributions to the advancement and education of issues around sexual identification.

In 2020, Deepa Mehta released the film Funny Boy, an adaptation of Selvadurai's novel. At the 9th Canadian Screen Awards in 2021, Mehta and Selvadurai won the award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

In 2022, he released  Mansions of the Moon, a historical novel about the Buddha’s wife, Yasodhara.

Personal life
He currently lives in Toronto with his partner Andrew Champion.

In 2016, a species of spider was named after Selvadurai called Brignolia Shyami, a small goblin spider which is a pale yellow colour and between 1.4mm and 1.5mm in length.

Works

 * Funny Boy. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1994. ISBN 0-7710-7950-8 (and others). Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Male Novel, and Smithbooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award for 1994
 * Cinnamon Gardens. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1998. ISBN 0-7868-6473-7
 * Swimming in the Monsoon Sea. Toronto: Tundra, 2005. ISBN 0-88776-735-4. Lambda Literary Award in the Children's and Youth Literature category in 2006
 * Story-Wallah: Short Fiction from South Asian Writers. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. ISBN 0-618-57680-0 (editor)
 * The Hungry Ghosts (novel). Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2013. ISBN 0-3856-7066-4
 * Many Roads Through Paradise: An Anthology Of Sri Lankan Literature. London: Penguin Books Limited, 2014. ISBN 0-1434-2303-7 (compiler and translator)
 * Mansions of the Moon. 2022.

title: Shyam Selvadurai


text:
Mr. Personality

Mr. Personality is an American reality television series broadcast by the Fox Broadcasting Company (Fox). The five-episode series premiered on April 21, 2003 and concluded on May 19, 2003. Filmed in Malibu, California, the series followed Hayley Arp, a 26-year-old stockbroker, as she selected a suitor among a group of twenty men. In an effort for Arp to select her suitor solely based on personality, all of the men were required to wear color-coded latex masks throughout the competition. Arp eliminated a predetermined amount of suitors each week until only one remained; upon selection of a final suitor, Arp was allowed to remove his mask and see his appearance. The series was hosted by American media personality Monica Lewinsky.

Mr. Personality was a part of Fox's intent to capitalize on the burgeoning success of the reality television genre. The series received unfavorable reviews from television critics, who derided the series' concept and the network's choice of casting Lewinsky as the host. The series premiered with strong ratings, however, they waned over the course of the season; the two-hour finale was condensed into a one-hour episode as a result of the series' subpar ratings. Since the series' end, several producers and contestants have voiced their regret over Mr. Personality.

Format
Set on an estate in Malibu, California, the series depicted a competition among a group of 20 men who attempted to court Hayley Arp, a 26-year-old stockbroker from Georgia. Through a series of dates and social interactions, Arp was required to select a suitor among the group of men solely on the basis of their personality. In order to conceal their appearance, the men were required to wear color-coded latex masks, in which only their eyes and mouths remained visible. The men additionally were prohibited from discussing their job titles or financial status. Arp had the opportunity to get a feel for the men's appearances during one-on-one dates set in "the dark room"; on these dates, the man removed his mask in the pitch-black room and Arp was permitted to feel his face. Arp eliminated a predetermined amount of contestants from the competition every week until only one man remained. Upon elimination, the men removed their masks and revealed their appearances to Arp. The series was hosted by American media personality Monica Lewinsky.

Production
Mr. Personality was filmed in Malibu, California, over the course of three weeks in March and April 2003. Fox searched for men between the ages of 24 and 40 to be suitors while they searched for a leading woman age 25 to 35, all of whom were required to be unmarried and childfree. Approximately 1,000 men were interviewed for a role in the series; the process included two interviews in addition to psychological, medical, and general background screening. Co-casting director Katy Wallin claimed that the appearance of the men was not a large consideration for producers when casting; rather, the producers sought men who had similar interests and priorities as Arp. Lewinsky, who had become well known due to the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal, was asked by Fox to host the series in hopes that she would attract more viewers. According to series creator Bruce Nash, "The combination of Monica Lewinsky with a concept like Mr[.] Personality will result in a big tune-in".

The masks were designed by American costume designer Tina Haatainen-Jones. The network asked Haatainen-Jones to create a mask devoid of any personality that still allowed the men the ability to easily speak. Haatainen-Jones believed the show sounded "stupid", although she accepted the work due to her status as a freelance artist. In an effort to make the masks unique, Haatainen-Jones crafted them to be reminiscent of a sculpture with a beaten metal appearance. Haatainen-Jones crafted a total of 40 masks, 30 of which were metallic and 10 of which were various colors. The network additionally asked Haatainen-Jones to craft a "chastity mask", which was bound by leather straps and a padlock. As a result, the mask could only be removed with a key that the network entrusted Haatainen-Jones with. The contestants did not know about the masks until they arrived in Malibu for filming; contestant Brian Karalus stated that he believed the masks were "ridiculous". Contestant Michael claimed that many of the men wore Maxi Pads underneath their masks in order to alleviate pressure on the bridge of the nose and to absorb sweat. Will Dyck, a real estate investor, won the competition and utilmately proposed to Arp.

Reception
Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times claimed that the series was "interesting", although she criticized its underlying appeal of "snobbism and class tension." Lisa de Moraes of The Washington Post called the show's star a "chick who swallowed a large dose of Stupid Pills." In 2009, Time cited Mr. Personality as one of the top ten skanky reality television series.

Ratings
Mr. Personality premiered to over 12 million viewers; at the time, it was 2003's highest viewed premiere of a new reality television show. The premiere placed second in its time slot, although it succeeded in the 18-to-49-year-old demographic. The premiere aired after an episode of American Idol, which assisted in boosting its viewership.

title: Mr. Personality


text:
Aileen Stanley

Aileen Stanley, born Maude Elsie Aileen Muggeridge (March 21, 1893 – March 24, 1982), was one of the most popular American singers of the early 1920s.

Early life
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Stanley was the youngest of four children of English parents Robert S. and Maria (née Capewell) Muggeridge who had immigrated from England in 1887. Her sister Elsie Muggeridge, died of typhoid in August 1892, passing it on to their father who died of the disease seven months before Aileen's birth. Her widowed mother resided in Chicago along with her surviving siblings, brothers Stanley and Robert Jr.

Performances and recordings
From childhood, she sang and danced in vaudeville with her older brother Stanley as Stanley and Aileen, with the encouragement of their widowed mother. After her brother left the act, Aileen started performing solo, forming her stage name by reversing the name of the old family billing.

Stanley performed in vaudeville and cabarets. In 1920 she was a hit in New York City in the revue show Silks And Satins and made the first of her numerous recordings the same year. The majority of her records in the '20s were for the Victor Talking Machine Company, but she also recorded with other labels with recording studios in the New York City area, including Edison, Pathe, Okeh, Brunswick, Vocalion, Gennett and others. On some of her early recordings she was accompanied by Rosario Bourdon's Orchestra. Many of her records sold well at the time. According to Joel Whitman, her most successful early recordings included "My Mammy" (1921), "Sweet Indiana Home" (1922), both written by Walter Donaldson; she also recorded other Walter Donaldson songs including "My Little Bimbo Down on a Bamboo Isle" (1920), "Dixie Highway" (1922), "Carolina in the Morning" (1922), "Back Where The Daffodils Grow" (1924), and "Don't be angry with me" (1926).

Between 1922 and 1924, and again in the late '20s, Victor Records produced a popular series of records pairing Stanley with singer Billy Murray. One of Stanley's 1925 Victor recordings, "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street", in which she shared the vocal with newcomer Gene Austin, helped launch Austin's illustrious career. She recorded J. Russel Robinson and Con Conrad's 1920 jazz standard "Singin' the Blues", released as Victor 18703. She recorded the Paul Whiteman and Fred Rose composition "Flamin' Mamie" on October 5, 1925, and released it as Victor 19828-A accompanied on ukulele by Billy "Uke" Carpenter who provided "jazz effects".

Stanley also recorded for Black Swan Records, a label purportedly devoted only to African-American artists, under the pseudonyms Mamie Jones and Georgia Gorham. Her handling of blues material was similar to that of some of the northern black vaudeville singers of the time. Her stage appearances billed her as "The Phonograph Girl" and "The Girl With The Personality." In later life she was overheard to say that the song "I'll Get By" was written for her.

Later life
Stanley was said to have invested heavily in the stock market and was one of the many who lost most of their life's savings in the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Around 1931 Stanley moved to London, where she made more records for HMV from 1934 through 1937, and once confided "strictly entre nous" that she unwittingly ended her own romance when she introduced Wallis Simpson to Edward, Prince of Wales, at the home of Thelma, Lady Furness. In her later years she worked as a singing teacher and vocal coach.

She died in 1982 in Los Angeles, California, aged 89, and was buried (under the name Aileen Stanley Muggeridge) at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.

title: Aileen Stanley


text:
DragonFly BSD

DragonFly BSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system forked from FreeBSD 4.8. Matthew Dillon, an Amiga developer in the late 1980s and early 1990s and FreeBSD developer between 1994 and 2003, began working on DragonFly BSD in June 2003 and announced it on the FreeBSD mailing lists on 16 July 2003.

Dillon started DragonFly in the belief that the techniques adopted for threading and symmetric multiprocessing in FreeBSD 5 would lead to poor performance and maintenance problems. He sought to correct these anticipated problems within the FreeBSD project. Due to conflicts with other FreeBSD developers over the implementation of his ideas, his ability to directly change the codebase was eventually revoked. Despite this, the DragonFly BSD and FreeBSD projects still work together, sharing bug fixes, driver updates, and other improvements.

Intended as the logical continuation of the FreeBSD 4.x series, DragonFly has diverged significantly from FreeBSD, implementing lightweight kernel threads (LWKT), an in-kernel message passing system, and the HAMMER file system. Many design concepts were influenced by AmigaOS.

Kernel
The kernel messaging subsystem being developed is similar to those found in microkernels such as Mach, though it is less complex by design. DragonFly's messaging subsystem has the ability to act in either a synchronous or asynchronous fashion, and attempts to use this capability to achieve the best performance possible in any given situation.

According to developer Matthew Dillon, progress is being made to provide both device input/output (I/O) and virtual file system (VFS) messaging capabilities that will enable the remainder of the project goals to be met. The new infrastructure will allow many parts of the kernel to be migrated out into userspace; here they will be more easily debugged as they will be smaller, isolated programs, instead of being small parts entwined in a larger chunk of code. Additionally, the migration of select kernel code into userspace has the benefit of making the system more robust; if a userspace driver crashes, it will not crash the kernel.

System calls are being split into userland and kernel versions and being encapsulated into messages. This will help reduce the size and complexity of the kernel by moving variants of standard system calls into a userland compatibility layer, and help maintain forwards and backwards compatibility between DragonFly versions. Linux and other Unix-like OS compatibility code is being migrated out similarly.

Threading
As support for multiple instruction set architectures complicates symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) support, DragonFly BSD now limits its support to the x86-64 platform. DragonFly originally ran on the x86 architecture, however as of version 4.0 it is no longer supported. Since version 1.10, DragonFly supports 1:1 userland threading (one kernel thread per userland thread), which is regarded as a relatively simple solution that is also easy to maintain. Inherited from FreeBSD, DragonFly also supports multi-threading.

In DragonFly, each CPU has its own thread scheduler. Upon creation, threads are assigned to processors and are never preemptively switched from one processor to another; they are only migrated by the passing of an inter-processor interrupt (IPI) message between the CPUs involved. Inter-processor thread scheduling is also accomplished by sending asynchronous IPI messages. One advantage to this clean compartmentalization of the threading subsystem is that the processors' on-board caches in symmetric multiprocessor systems do not contain duplicated data, allowing for higher performance by giving each processor in the system the ability to use its own cache to store different things to work on.

The LWKT subsystem is being employed to partition work among multiple kernel threads (for example in the networking code there is one thread per protocol per processor), reducing competition by removing the need to share certain resources among various kernel tasks.

Shared resources protection
In order to run safely on multiprocessor machines, access to shared resources (like files, data structures) must be serialized so that threads or processes do not attempt to modify the same resource at the same time. In order to prevent multiple threads from accessing or modifying a shared resource simultaneously, DragonFly employs critical sections, and serializing tokens to prevent concurrent access. While both Linux and FreeBSD 5 employ fine-grained mutex models to achieve higher performance on multiprocessor systems, DragonFly does not. Until recently, DragonFly also employed spls, but these were replaced with critical sections.

Much of the system's core, including the LWKT subsystem, the IPI messaging subsystem and the new kernel memory allocator, are lockless, meaning that they work without using mutexes, with each process operating on a single CPU. Critical sections are used to protect against local interrupts, individually for each CPU, guaranteeing that a thread currently being executed will not be preempted.

Serializing tokens are used to prevent concurrent accesses from other CPUs and may be held simultaneously by multiple threads, ensuring that only one of those threads is running at any given time. Blocked or sleeping threads therefore do not prevent other threads from accessing the shared resource unlike a thread that is holding a mutex. Among other things, the use of serializing tokens prevents many of the situations that could result in deadlocks and priority inversions when using mutexes, as well as greatly simplifying the design and implementation of a many-step procedure that would require a resource to be shared among multiple threads. The serializing token code is evolving into something quite similar to the "Read-copy-update" feature now available in Linux. Unlike Linux's current RCU implementation, DragonFly's is being implemented such that only processors competing for the same token are affected rather than all processors in the computer.

DragonFly switched to multiprocessor safe slab allocator, which requires neither mutexes nor blocking operations for memory assignment tasks. It was eventually ported into standard C library in the userland, where it replaced FreeBSD's malloc implementation.

Virtual kernel
Since release 1.8 DragonFly has a virtualization mechanism similar to User-mode Linux, allowing a user to run another kernel in the userland. The virtual kernel (vkernel) is run in completely isolated environment with emulated network and storage interfaces, thus simplifying testing kernel subsystems and clustering features.

The vkernel has two important differences from the real kernel: it lacks many routines for dealing with the low-level hardware management and it uses C standard library (libc) functions in place of in-kernel implementations wherever possible. As both real and virtual kernel are compiled from the same code base, this effectively means that platform-dependent routines and re-implementations of libc functions are clearly separated in a source tree.

The vkernel runs on top of hardware abstractions provided by the real kernel. These include the kqueue-based timer, the console (mapped to the virtual terminal where vkernel is executed), the disk image and virtual kernel Ethernet device (VKE), tunneling all packets to the host's tap interface.

Package management
Third-party software is available on DragonFly as binary packages via  or from a native ports collection – DPorts.

DragonFly originally used the FreeBSD Ports collection as its official package management system, but starting with the 1.4 release switched to NetBSD's pkgsrc system, which was perceived as a way of lessening the amount of work needed for third-party software availability. Eventually, maintaining compatibility with  proved to require more effort than was initially anticipated, so the project created DPorts, an overlay on top of the FreeBSD Ports collection.

CARP support
The initial implementation of Common Address Redundancy Protocol (commonly referred to as CARP) was finished in March 2007. As of 2011, CARP support is integrated into DragonFly BSD.

HAMMER file systems
Alongside the Unix File System, which is typically the default file system on BSDs, DragonFly BSD supports the HAMMER and HAMMER2 file systems. HAMMER2 is the default file system as of version 5.2.0.

HAMMER was developed specifically for DragonFly BSD to provide a feature-rich yet better designed analogue of the increasingly popular ZFS. HAMMER supports configurable file system history, snapshots, checksumming, data deduplication and other features typical for file systems of its kind.

HAMMER2, the successor of the HAMMER file system, is now considered stable, used by default, and the focus of further development. Plans for its development were initially shared in 2012. In 2017, Dillon announced that the next DragonFly BSD version (5.0.0) would include a usable, though still experimental, version of HAMMER2, and described features of the design. With the release after 5.0.0, version 5.2.0, HAMMER2 became the new default file system.

devfs
In 2007 DragonFly BSD received a new device file system (devfs), which dynamically adds and removes device nodes, allows accessing devices by connection paths, recognises drives by serial numbers and removes the need for pre-populated  file system hierarchy. It was implemented as a Google Summer of Code 2009 project.

Application snapshots
DragonFly BSD supports Amiga-style resident applications feature: it takes a snapshot of a large, dynamically linked program's virtual memory space after loading, allowing future instances of the program to start much more quickly than it otherwise would have. This replaces the prelinking capability that was being worked on earlier in the project's history, as the resident support is much more efficient. Large programs like those found in KDE Software Compilation with many shared libraries will benefit the most from this support.

Development and distribution
As with FreeBSD and OpenBSD, the developers of DragonFly BSD are slowly replacing pre-function prototype-style C code with more modern, ANSI equivalents. Similar to other operating systems, DragonFly's version of the GNU Compiler Collection has an enhancement called the Stack-Smashing Protector (ProPolice) enabled by default, providing some additional protection against buffer overflow based attacks. , the kernel is no longer built with this protection by default.

Being a derivative of FreeBSD, DragonFly has inherited an easy-to-use integrated build system that can rebuild the entire base system from source with only a few commands. The DragonFly developers use the Git version control system to manage changes to the DragonFly source code. Unlike its parent FreeBSD, DragonFly has both stable and unstable releases in a single source tree, due to a smaller developer base.

Like the other BSD kernels (and those of most modern operating systems), DragonFly employs a built-in kernel debugger to help the developers find kernel bugs. Furthermore,, a debug kernel, which makes bug reports more useful for tracking down kernel-related problems, is installed by default, at the expense of a relatively small quantity of disk space. When a new kernel is installed, the backup copy of the previous kernel and its modules are stripped of their debugging symbols to further minimize disk space usage.

Distribution media
The operating system is distributed as a Live CD and Live USB that boots into a complete DragonFly system. It includes the base system and a complete set of manual pages, and may include source code and useful packages in future versions. The advantage of this is that with a single CD users can install the software onto a computer, use a full set of tools to repair a damaged installation, or demonstrate the capabilities of the system without installing it. Daily snapshots are available from the master site for those who want to install the most recent versions of DragonFly without building from source.

Like the other free and open-source BSDs, DragonFly is distributed under the terms of the modern version of the BSD license.

title: DragonFly BSD


text:
Talk:Mr. Personality

Copyright violation? http://www.newsnet5.com/entertainment/2153151/detail.html -- Bill 20:12, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Mr. Personality


text:
User:Darwindecks/Linux

This is my Linux page.

I run Linux on a 2nd PC which I bought cheaply from an auction site.

The system specs are:
 * 400Mhz P3 CPU (100Mhz system bus)
 * 256Mb RAM
 * 4Gb HDD

I currently am running Mandrake 9.1, using the K Desktop Environment (KDE).

title: User:Darwindecks/Linux


text:
Van Dyke Records

Van Dyke Records was a budget American record label which operated in 1929 and 1930. Van Dyke was a subsidiary of Grey Gull Records of Boston, Massachusetts and releases duplicated material found on the parent label. Despite claims of quality found on the label, the record was cheaply manufactured, and marketed to record dealers as a budget record with a high profit margin for the dealer. Accordingly the playing surface is noisy, and the recordings are often over-modulated.

Other than jazz by Clarence Williams and Cliff Jackson, most Van Dyke records were dance band numbers by Grey Gull's house band, which included Mike Mosiello, Andy Sannella, and Charles Magnante.

The text on the label of Van Dyke 78 discs proclaimed "Each Record a Masterpiece". An unusual feature of the Van Dyke label was that the four-digit matrix number was split between two lines on the left side. Initially the Van Dyke catalog number mirrored the Grey Gull catalog number, with an added "7" or "8" appended to the beginning. By its second year of existence the couplings no longer matched the parent company, and there was no relation between Van Dyke's numbering (now divided into several separate numbering blocks) and Grey Gull's. Nonetheless, all material continued to originate from Grey Gull. There was some effort made to obscure the origins of Van Dyke.

When Grey Gull ceased operations in 1930, Van Dyke records also were no longer produced. However, substantial quantities of the product were exported to England over the next few years, by an unknown distributor.

title: Van Dyke Records