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Fantasy football (gridiron)

Fantasy football is a game in which the participants serve as owners and general managers of virtual gridiron football teams. The competitors select their rosters by participating in a draft in which all relevant National Football League (NFL) players are available. Fantasy points are awarded in weekly matchups based on the actual performances of football players in real-world competition. The game typically involves the NFL, but can also involve other leagues, such as the Canadian Football League or NCAA.

There are three main types of fantasy football:
 * Traditional (redraft) – Leagues in which the competition can run for an entire season, normally culminating in playoffs. Participants engage in a draft once yearly and emerge with completely new teams.
 * Keeper or dynasty leagues – These leagues are initially drafted in the same fashion as a traditional season-long league, however, each team in a keeper league is able to retain a certain number of players from one year to the next, and in a dynasty league, each team retains all players who have not retired. All subsequent drafts solely involve rookie players who are joining the NFL for the first time.
 * Daily – Daily fantasy sports are accelerated versions of the traditional fantasy format in which contests are conducted over shorter periods, such as a week or a single day. Online daily fantasy football is typically managed by companies running widespread betting pools that can involve thousands of players. In the United States, the two largest daily fantasy firms are DraftKings and FanDuel.

Fantasy football is often played in small groups of mutually familiar individuals who may or may not be playing for money. However, online fantasy contests, particularly those run by daily fantasy companies, regularly involve large groups of people who otherwise do not know each other contributing to a shared betting pool. The structure of these games has led some jurisdictions to characterize and regulate online fantasy contents as a form of gambling.

History
Modern fantasy football can be traced back to Wilfred "Bill" Winkenbach, an Oakland, California businessman and limited partner in the Oakland Raiders. In a New York City hotel room during a 1962 Raiders cross-country trip, Winkenbach, along with Raiders public relations employee Bill Tunnel and Oakland Tribune reporter Scotty Stirling, developed the rules that would eventually be the basis of modern fantasy football.

The inaugural league was called the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League (GOPPPL), and the first draft took place in Winkenbach's home in Oakland in August 1963. The league consisted of eight members, made up of administrative affiliates of the American Football League, pro football journalists, and individuals who had purchased or sold 10 season tickets for the Raiders' 1963 season. Each roster consisted of two quarterbacks, four halfbacks, two fullbacks, four wide receivers or tight ends, two return specialists, two kickers, two defensive backs or linebackers, and two defensive linemen. The scoring system was entirely dependent on real-life scoring. The original system rewarded 25 points for a touchdown pass, rush, or reception, 25 for a field goal, 10 for an extra point, and 200 for a kickoff, punt, or interception that was returned for a touchdown. As of 2015, the GOPPPL was still active and had maintained the original scoring system.

In 1969, Andy Mousalimas, an original creator of GOPPPL and participant in the inaugural draft, brought the game to his Oakland sports bar, the King's X, where the first public fantasy football league was founded. From this point onward, the idea spread by word of mouth when the patrons of other Bay Area bars visited the King's X for trivia contests.

Fantasy football slowly spread across the country in the following decades. Early leagues whose existence has been documented were typically founded by groups of friends attending school together. Examples include leagues founded at DePaul University of Chicago, Illinois in 1978, Case Western Reserve University of Cleveland, Ohio in 1980, and Marist School of Atlanta, Georgia in 1983. Each of these leagues maintained continuous operation for several decades after their founding.

In 1985, the Grandstand Sports Services launched the first nationally available fantasy football leagues online through Q-Link (later America Online). In 1987, Fantasy Football Index, the first national magazine dedicated to fantasy football, was launched by Ian Allan and Bruce Taylor.

The first national newspaper fantasy football competition was Pigskin Playoff, developed by Robert Barbiere, Lee Marc, and Brad Wendkos. The weekly game was launched in 1990 in a number of newspapers throughout the United States, including the Arizona Republic, the Detroit Free Press, the Los Angeles Times, and the Miami Herald. Players chose their teams by calling a toll-free phone number and entering four-digit codes for each of their selections. Pigskin Playoff served as an early version of today's daily fantasy football by rewarding each week's highest-scoring participant with a trip to Hawaii.

In 1997, CBS launched an online fantasy football competition, with other sports networks and websites quickly following suit. Yahoo was the first site to launch a free competition, giving it an advantage over its industry competitors. The NFL launched its own official game on the league's website in 2010. Online growth has fueled both the fantasy football industry and interest in the NFL itself. As of 2017, 59.3 million people played fantasy sports in the United States and Canada, per the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association, and around four out of five fantasy participants played fantasy football.

On May 27, 2022, Cincinnati Reds player Tommy Pham slapped Joc Pederson of the San Francisco Giants in the face prior to a game; he would later receive a three-game suspension and a $5,000 fine. Pham said that the slap was prompted by his belief that Pederson had broken the rules of a fantasy football league in which they had both participated during the previous football season. Pham said that he did not regret the slap, stating: "It's a matter of principle, man."

League types
A fantasy football league may be organized in a variety of ways. The most popular league type is head-to-head, in which each team is matched up against an opponent each week, with the team that scores the most fantasy points earning a win in the standings. A less common form of league is a total points league, in which the league standings are determined by the number of points each team scores over an entire season. In addition to scoring variations, league organization may also differ based on the structure of each team's roster.

Competition variations

 * In head-to-head leagues, a fantasy team matches up against a different fantasy team from the league each week. The team that receives the most points of the two receives a win for that week, while the other team receives a loss. Points are dictated by a common scoring system that can be adjusted in a variety of ways (see Scoring configurations). A team's total is the sum of all points accumulated by players who were placed in a starting slot by the team owner for the day they were playing (as opposed to being on the bench, in which any points gained would not count). Teams with the best win–loss record may advance to the playoffs in the final weeks of the season. If two teams have the same record, playoff qualification tiebreakers are employed based on league preference.
 * Total points leagues are leagues in which teams accumulate points on an ongoing basis. The league standings are determined by the teams' total points. Total points leagues are often also best ball leagues, in which owners do not need to set a starting lineup, as their weekly point totals automatically reflect their highest-scoring players at each position. Other forms of roster management, such as player trades and the waiver wire, are traditionally eliminated in best ball leagues. This is often the structure on platforms such as DraftKings and Underdog.
 * All-play leagues are leagues in which all teams play each other each week. For example, if there are 14 teams in the league, the highest-scoring team in each week would post a 13–0 record, the next highest-scoring team would post a 12–1 record, and so on.
 * Pirate leagues are leagues in which a winning owner gets to choose a player from his or her opponent's roster.
 * In guillotine leagues, the lowest scoring team is eliminated from the league each week. All of the players on the eliminated team's roster become free agents and may be subsequently added to any remaining team. This process continues until only one team remains and is crowned the league winner.

Roster variations

 * Keeper leagues allow teams to keep a set number of players on their roster from one year to the next and sometimes assign them contracts for a certain number of years. In the first season of a keeper league, the draft is performed the same as any other standard league draft would be performed. At the end of each season, each roster is cut down to a predetermined limit. Teams in keeper leagues can retain as few as one player or as many as every player on the roster except one, though generally the number of retained players is five or fewer.
 * In dynasty leagues, a team keeps all players from one year to the next and replenishes rosters through rookie drafts. Unlike keeper leagues, each team's roster limit is unchanged during the offseason, though it may increase temporarily to allow the addition of rookies.
 * Developmental or devy leagues are dynasty leagues in which owners are allowed to draft college players in addition to the standard pool of NFL players.
 * Campus 2 Canton (c2c) leagues are a form of devy league in which each owner controls two teams. One team is composed of college players (Campus) and the other NFL players (Canton). The teams score points independently of each other, which creates two separate leagues running simultaneously. Once the college players graduate, they are eligible to be used on the Canton team.
 * Salary cap leagues implement a salary cap, which also exists in the NFL. Each player has an associated salary, and the combined salary of each roster may not exceed the predetermined cap.
 * Superflex leagues are leagues in which teams can start a quarterback in the flex position, which is normally limited to running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends. The superflex slot may exist on its own or in addition to a traditional flex position.
 * In two-quarterback leagues, each team has the ability to start two quarterbacks in their weekly lineup, rather than one, thus creating a premium on value at the quarterback position. Along with superflex, both of these roster variations are particularly popular in dynasty leagues.
 * Individual Defensive Player (IDP) leagues are leagues in which teams draft defensive players as individuals, rather than as an entire unit. In rare cases, it is also possible to draft individual players at other positions that are not typically included on fantasy rosters, such as offensive linemen, punters, and return specialists.
 * In empire leagues, teams compete in a dynasty format, with each year's winner receiving a portion of that year's entrance fees. The rest of the fees go into a special pot known as the empire pot. Once an owner wins the league two years in a row, he or she wins the empire pot.

Draft
Before each season, fantasy football leagues hold a draft in which each team drafts NFL players or, in the case of dynasty leagues, NFL rookies. These players are kept on the roster of the team that drafted them unless they are traded for other players or dropped, whereby they enter a pool of unowned players that any team may claim. The order of draft picks may be determined randomly or by the league standings from the previous year, in which the team with the worst record picks first, followed by the team with the second-worst record, etc. In some cases, owners retain the same draft position in each round. In contrast, in a traditional "serpentine" or "snake" draft, owners draft players in a "snake" method, in which the owner who picks first in the odd rounds picks last in the even rounds, the owner who picks second in the odd rounds picks second to last in the even rounds, etc. in the interest of fairness. In an auction draft, each owner has a budget which he or she must use to purchase all of his or her players in an auction format. Owners take turns nominating players for open bid, and the owner who bids the highest on each player receives that player, reducing his or her remaining budget accordingly. One proposed advantage of auction drafts is their ability to offer every owner equal access to every player, whereas in a traditional format, a certain owner's desired player may be selected by another team before his or her turn to pick.

Drafts can be conducted in "live" or "auto" formats. Live drafts involve team owners selecting players in real time, while auto drafts are those in which selections are made automatically by computer based on pre-draft rankings set by each owner. Often, owners who are not present at the chosen time of the draft will "auto-draft" while the rest of the league makes their selections live. Whether live or auto, the vast majority of fantasy football drafts take place online, but some leagues hold in-person drafts in which selections are made on computers or physical draft boards.

A variety of strategies may be employed by owners when making their selections. Fantasy football websites routinely release projections for the number of points each player will score during an upcoming season. The concept of value-based drafting entails comparing the projected fantasy point value for a given player and comparing this value to those of other players at his position. A player with a high value and a low average draft position (ADP) is likely to be undervalued by fantasy owners; the concept of value-based drafting is designed to find such players. Some positions are considered more valuable than others, with running backs, wide receivers, and quarterbacks often selected in early rounds and team defenses and kickers almost always selected in late rounds. The type of league may also influence draft strategy. In leagues with points per reception (PPR) scoring, running backs who often catch passes are considered more valuable than they would be in a league with standard scoring.

Team rosters
Each team is allowed a set number of players on each roster, as well as a specified number of starters at each position that can be used in a matchup. Each week, owners determine which players will start and which will be "benched." Just like in real football, players who are usually benched can become starters for various reasons: due to a starting player's injury, poor performance, or if the starter's NFL team has a bye that week. Whether to sit or start a player is also based on strategic considerations, such as the player's past and expected performance, defensive matchups, and the team he is playing that week.

Starters
Each team owner must designate which players from the overall roster will be starters each week. Only players in the starting lineup may earn fantasy points. The following is a standard starting lineup configuration and is used as the default setting on NFL.com, ESPN, and Yahoo except where noted:

 * 1 Quarterback (QB)
 * 2 Running backs (RB)
 * 2 Wide receivers (WR)
 * 1 Tight end (TE)
 * 1 Flex (RB, WR, or TE)
 * 1 Placekicker (K)
 * 1 Team defense/special teams unit (D/ST)
 * 6 Bench players (BN)

There exist numerous possible variants of the traditional roster alignment. The number of starter, bench, and injured reserve slots can be altered. Sleeper, a recent upstart fantasy football platform, defaults to two flex spots. The eligible positions for the flex slot are variable. For example, in leagues with a superflex position, any offensive player, including quarterbacks, may fill the slot. Other leagues have a two-quarterback requirement for each starting lineup. In individual defensive player (IDP) leagues, the defensive portion of rosters is composed of individual players from various teams rather than an entire NFL team's defensive and special teams unit.

Scoring configurations
League managers earn fantasy points based on the performance of their starting players' performances in NFL games. Players accumulate points based purely on their statistical output. This means that, for example, each real-life yard gained or touchdown scored correlates to a certain number of fantasy points. On the other hand, yards lost and turnovers result in negative fantasy points as well.

While rare, it is possible for players to earn points for plays not traditionally associated with their position. For example, a wide receiver who completes a pass would earn the same number of points as a quarterback completing the same pass.

Standard and PPR scoring
A key distinction in scoring systems is between standard and points per reception (PPR) scoring. Leagues with standard scoring award no points for receptions, though players still earn points for receiving yards gained. PPR leagues award one point for each reception, while half-PPR leagues award half a point. PPR leagues are higher-scoring and place a greater emphasis on wide receivers, tight ends, and running backs who catch a large number of passes, while half-PPR leagues attempt to provide more balance between rushing and receiving. The majority of leagues employ either PPR or half-PPR scoring. Many major fantasy football websites use PPR as their default setting, including ESPN and NFL.com.

The following is the default scoring system on NFL.com and is identical to the default scoring systems of ESPN and Yahoo except where noted. Negative points are awarded for yards lost at the same rate that positive points are awarded for yards gained.

 * 1 point for every 25 passing yards
 * 1 point for every 10 rushing or receiving yards
 * 1 point for each reception
 * 4 points for each passing touchdown
 * 6 points for each rushing or receiving touchdown
 * 6 points for each fumble recovered for a touchdown by the offense
 * 2 points for each passing, rushing, or receiving two-point conversion
 * -2 points for each interception thrown or fumble lost
 * 1 point for each extra point made
 * 3 points for each 0-49 yard field goal
 * 5 points for each 50+ yard field goal
 * 1 point for each sack by the defense
 * 2 points for each interception or fumble recovered by the defense
 * 2 points for each safety by the defense
 * 6 points for each touchdown scored by the defense
 * 6 points for each touchdown scored by a player returning a kickoff or punt

A team defense can also gain or lose fantasy points based on the number of real-life points that they allow. The following is the default defensive scoring system on NFL.com and Yahoo.

 * 10 points for a shutout
 * 7 points for allowing 1-6 points
 * 4 points for allowing 7-13 points
 * 1 point for allowing 14-20 points
 * 0 points for allowing 21-27 points
 * -1 point for allowing 28-34 points
 * -4 points for allowing 35+ points

Pure-scoring and pure-yardage leagues
A pure-scoring system awards fantasy points based solely on touchdowns, field goals, and extra points scored by a team's players. Many of the original fantasy football leagues were pure-scoring leagues as this provided for easier tracking of team points throughout the season. As the game matured and moved online, tracking yardage became easier and more sophisticated scoring configurations were adopted. In pure-yardage leagues, points may only be scored by accumulating passing, rushing, or receiving yards.

Individual defensive player (IDP)
An alternative method for scoring defense is individual defensive player (IDP) scoring. Rather than awarding points for the on-field actions of entire defensive units, IDP scoring awards points for plays made by individual players. Such plays may include tackles, sacks, interceptions, quarterback hits, safeties, and other defensive statistics.

Additional customization
Most fantasy websites allow leagues to customize their own scoring options. Some leagues award bonus points to players for exceptional performances. For example, NFL.com allows leagues to customize scoring to award bonus points for a player who passes for over 300 yards in a game or scores a touchdown of over 40 yards, among others. NFL.com also allows players to earn points in statistical categories that are not traditionally a part of fantasy scoring, such as pass attempts or yards gained on kickoff and punt returns. In addition to earning or losing fantasy points based on real-life points allowed, team defenses may also earn or lose points based on real-life yards allowed. ESPN even allows custom scoring for punting yards, touchbacks, and punting average. Sleeper offers similar customization options, but also allows the commissioner to adjust the number points awarded from a reception based on position.

Demographics
According to the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association (FSGA), of the 59.3 million people who played fantasy sports in the US and Canada in 2017, 43.2 million were American adults. In 2019, 45.9 million American adults participated. The FSGA estimated that 19% of American adults played fantasy sports in 2019, compared to 13% in 2014. A 2019 FSGA survey found that 81% of fantasy sports players were male, 50% were between the ages of 18 and 34 (with an average age of 37.7), 67% were employed full-time, and 47% made more than $75,000 per year. A 2015 analysis found that 89.8% were white and 51.5% were unmarried.

Effect on American economy
Many fantasy leagues require an entry fee that is given to or used to fund prizes for the top player or players in the league. Daily fantasy platforms, such as FanDuel, manage games with thousands of players and collect a percentage of each entry fee before distributing winnings. For example, FanDuel's revenue includes 10% of its entry fee intake.

Fantasy players also contribute to the economy via spending on industry products and services, such as advanced scouting reports and player rankings. In 2012, an estimated $1.67 billion was spent on fantasy sports in the United States and Canada, not including league entry fees. In 2019, the size of the American and Canadian fantasy sports industry was estimated at more than $7 billion by the FSGA.

Ad revenue
Advertising is one of the largest sources of fantasy football revenue. Many sports websites that offer free entry into leagues use advertising to support their fantasy offerings. Though difficult to quantify, revenue generated by ads on fantasy football programming is estimated at $2 to $5 billion annually. This form of revenue can be especially lucrative because fantasy team managers are often frequent Internet users. On average, fantasy players generated four times more page views and spent six times as long on NFL.com than non-fantasy players in 2012.

Complementary and derivative industries
Fantasy football has given rise to a number of complementary and derivative industries. Subscription-based information sites, such as Rotoworld, offer advanced data and player rankings marketed as providing an informational advantage. Fantasy-specific escrow companies, such as LeagueSafe, may hold league entry fees in secure accounts until the end of the season. Other websites offer the ability to have disputes between players solved by a third party via fantasy football arbitration.

The rise of fantasy football has contributed to a rise in interest in applying high-level mathematics and computer science to the fantasy industry. A small number of fantasy players, usually with advanced degrees in mathematics, statistics, or computer science, apply algorithms and advanced statistics in order to hypothesize the best possible lineup for a given week or season. These advanced players are often far more successful than casual fans; a 2015 study found that 91% of daily fantasy baseball profits over the first half of the season were won by the top 1.3% of players.

Popular culture
Fantasy football has occasionally featured as a theme or plot point in popular media. The FX show The League, once described as a prime example of "fantasy football hooliganism," depicts six friends competing in a fantasy football league. The show ran for seven seasons from 2009 to 2015 and featured frequent cameos from then-current and former NFL players.

In 2019, For The Win profiled a pair of exclusive and highly competitive celebrity leagues, Bloodsport and the AGBO Superhero League. Both leagues were created by figures associated with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and counted numerous actors, including Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, and Tom Holland, as members. In the AGBO league, each participant played for a share of $100,000 to be donated to the charitable organization of their choice.

Gambling
Fantasy sports are generally considered to be a form of gambling, though they are far less strictly regulated than other forms of sports betting. In the United States, Montana is the only state with a prohibition against online fantasy sports that is codified in statute. Louisiana and Arizona, states with bans previously not explicitly outlined by law, launched online fantasy offerings in their states in 2021. In contrast, as of May 2023, only 33 US states have operational legalized sports betting. Unlike traditional sports betting, fantasy football is generally viewed as a "game of skill," rather than a "game of chance," thus exempting it from gambling bans and regulations in many jurisdictions.

As of May 2023, daily fantasy sports operate in 45 US states, as well as in several other countries around the world.

According to a 2019 study by the FSGA, 19% of American adults participate in sports betting, and the same percentage of American adults participate in fantasy sports.

Effect on spectatorship
Fantasy football affects viewership for the NFL, as fantasy owners have rooting interests that go beyond those of traditional fans. While most individuals will follow a specific team, fantasy players follow the entire league due to the nature of the game, in which players on their roster may play for any team in the NFL. Despite leading to some conflict of interests between rooting interests and fantasy success, fantasy football has been shown to have a positive impact on NFL spectatorship.

NFL executives have recognized the importance of fantasy football's success to the league. A 2019 survey found that people who had played fantasy football were more than twice as likely to follow the NFL "very closely" or "somewhat closely" than those who had not. Nearly a quarter of fantasy players reported that the primary reason that they watched NFL games was to keep up with their fantasy teams. Fantasy participants are also reported to attend 0.22 to 0.57 more NFL games in person per season than non-fantasy players. The NFL entered into a reported five-year, $600 million deal with Sprint in 2006 that was driven at least in part by fantasy sports, allowing subscribers to draft and monitor their teams using their cellphones. In 2011, the NFL directed teams to show fantasy statistics during games on stadium video boards.

NFL players have displayed mixed reactions on the impact of fantasy football on fans' habits and preferences. In 2006, then-Denver Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer told ESPN, "I think it's ruined the game" due to fan allegiance shifting away from teams and towards individual player performance. Then-New York Giants running back Tiki Barber said that "in a game solely designed around the team concept, it's nice to have some individual recognition every now and then. Fantasy football does that." Fans frequently ask players on their fantasy rosters to score more often; Peyton Manning reported that only autograph requests exceeded fan requests for "more fantasy touchdowns" from him. Several NFL players have stated that they play fantasy football as well.

A key component of fantasy football team management is tracking player injuries throughout the season. Critics charge that this leads to fantasy players being more concerned with the amount of game time missed by an injured player than the nature or extent of the injury. David Chao said that when he was team doctor for the San Diego Chargers, "The first 10 to 12 years, I would be asked 'Is LT (LaDainian Tomlinson) healthy?' to help our team win this Sunday. The last five years there, the question would be 'Is (Antonio) Gates healthy? He’s on my fantasy team!'"

Wasted productivity
While its precise impact is difficult to quantify, estimates of American workplace productivity lost due to fantasy football range from $6.5 billion to $17 billion annually. As of 2019, an estimated 7.5 million Americans play fantasy football at work. However, according to John Challenger, an executive at a research firm that produces an annual report on the subject, measuring the precise impact of fantasy football on employers is difficult because "there is no way to determine how many people are managing their teams from work or how long they are spending on these activities."

Researchers have noted that fantasy football's benefits towards motivation and workplace culture may offset these losses. "It might cost employers a little bit in lost productivity, but we think it makes up for it in spades in terms of building up the culture in an organization," said Andrew Challenger, whose firm estimated in 2019 that fantasy football cost employers $9 billion. "It helps transform jobs that have become more and more transactional into communities."

title: Fantasy football (gridiron)


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Horse's neck

A horse's neck is an American cocktail recognised by the International Bartenders Association (IBA), identifiably sporting a long, curling strip of lemon rind.

Mixture
It is made with brandy (or sometimes bourbon) and ginger ale, with a long spiral of lemon peel draped over the edge of an old fashioned glass or a highball glass. A similar Canadian drink, the rye and ginger, is made with Canadian whisky and ginger ale.

History
Dating back to at least the 1900s, it was a non-alcoholic mixture of ginger ale, ice and lemon peel. By the 1910s, brandy, or bourbon would be added for a "horse's neck with a kick" or a "stiff horse's neck." The non-alcoholic version was still served in upstate New York in the late 1950s and early 60s, but eventually it was phased out. IBA classifies this drink as a long drink.

Franklin Roosevelt occasionally consumed this drink in its non-alcoholic form. According to the head of FDR's Secret Service personal protection detail, “Whenever he [the President] was in a gathering where there was prolonged drinking he would ask for a ‘horse’s neck,’ a drink made of ginger ale, lemon peel, and no alcohol.”

Horse's neck in popular culture
In the 1934 film The Captain Hates the Sea, Alison Skipworth's character craves a horse's neck, when Fred Keating's character tries to stop her, she says, "...I'm a lone wolf and it's my night to howl" then tells the waiter "...be sure to add a big horse, Charley". The disgruntled bartender then takes a lemon and begins to peel it, muttering "...around, and around, and around, for that cock-eyed Horse's Neck."

In the 1935 musical film Top Hat, Madge (Helen Broderick) tries to order a drink in Italian but gives up and says "horse's neck".

In the 1935 film No Limit, starring George Formby as George Shuttleworth, George accidentally orders a horse's neck at the bar in the steam packet ferry en route to the Isle of Man. He originally tries to order a lemonade but becomes confused and begins to repeat the orders of other passengers in a bid to be noticed by the barman who is studiously ignoring George at the busy bar.

In the 1937 crime-adventure novel Challenge featuring gentleman adventurer Bull-Dog Drummond, Drummond's friend Algy Longworth – suffering from a hangover –  requests a breakfast cocktail of his butler: "Beneath this outer husk, conditions are poor--very poor... I could do with a horse's neck."

The non-alcoholic version of the drink is referenced in at least two film noir movies from 1950: In a Lonely Place with Humphrey Bogart, in which Martha Stewart—playing the hat-check girl—states that adding a twist of lemon to ginger ale is called a "horse's neck"; and Outside the Wall, in which Dorothy Hart tells Richard Basehart the two ingredients that compose the cocktail.

The horse's neck became popular in the wardrooms of the Royal Navy in the 1960s, displacing Pink Gin as the officers' signature drink. An early reference to this is made in the 1957 film Yangtse Incident, in which a naval officer is shown drinking a horse's Neck in 1949. At naval cocktail parties (CTPs), it used to be served by the mess stewards ready-mixed in glass jugs, alongside similar jugs of mixed gin and tonic, with the request "H-N or G&T, sir?"

In the 1980s British Series "Partners in Crime" based on the Agatha Christie Tommy and Tuppence mysteries, in the episode "The Crackler," Tuppence is particularly eager to try the Horse's Neck, and has several.

At the end of the 1988 film Return of the Living Dead Part II, the character Doc Mandel asks the pre-teen character Jesse Wilson if he has ever had a horse's neck, to which he replies "No."

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

title: Horse's neck


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Wood carving

Wood carving is a form of woodworking by means of a cutting tool (knife) in one hand or a chisel by two hands or with one hand on a chisel and one hand on a mallet, resulting in a wooden figure or figurine, or in the sculptural ornamentation of a wooden object. The phrase may also refer to the finished product, from individual sculptures to hand-worked mouldings composing part of a tracery.

The making of sculpture in wood has been extremely widely practised, but does not survive undamaged as well as the other main materials like stone and bronze, as it is vulnerable to decay, insect damage, and fire. Therefore, it forms an important hidden element in the art history of many cultures. Outdoor wood sculptures do not last long in most parts of the world, so it is still unknown how the totem pole tradition developed. Many of the most important sculptures of China and Japan, in particular, are in wood, and so are the great majority of African sculpture and that of Oceania and other regions. Wood is light and can take very fine detail so it is highly suitable for masks and other sculpture intended to be worn or carried. It is also much easier to work on than stone and can be carved more thinly and precisely due to its fibrous strength.

Some of the finest extant examples of early European wood carving are from the Middle Ages in Germany, Russia, Italy and France, where the typical themes of that era were Christian iconography. In England, many complete examples remain from the 16th and 17th century, where oak was the preferred medium.

The oldest wood carved sculpture, the Shigir Idol carved from larch, is around 12,000 years old.

Methods and styles

 * Chip carving
 * Relief carving
 * Scandinavian flat-plane
 * Lovespoon
 * Treen
 * Whittling
 * Chainsaw carving
 * Florentine carving

Techniques
Pattern, Blocking, Detailing, Surfacing, and Smoothening

Selection
The nature of the wood being carved limits the scope of the carver in that wood is not equally strong in all directions: it is an anisotropic material. The direction in which wood is strongest is called "grain" (grain may be straight, interlocked, wavy or fiddleback, etc.). It is smart to arrange the more delicate parts of a design along the grain instead of across it. Often, however, a "line of best fit" is instead employed, since a design may have multiple weak points in different directions, or orientation of these along the grain would necessitate carving detail on end grain, (which is considerably more difficult). Carving blanks are also sometimes assembled, as with carousel horses, out of many smaller boards, and in this way, one can orient different areas of a carving in the most logical way, both for the carving process and for durability. Less commonly, this same principle is used in solid pieces of wood, where the fork of two branches is utilized for its divergent grain, or a branch off of a larger log is carved into a beak (this was the technique employed for traditional Welsh shepherd's crooks, and some Native American adze handles). The failure to appreciate these primary rules may constantly be seen in damaged work, when it will be noticed that, whereas tendrils, tips of birds beaks, etc., arranged across the grain have been broken away, similar details designed more in harmony with the growth of the wood and not too deeply undercut remain intact.

Probably the two most common woods used for carving in North America are basswood (aka tilia or lime) and tupelo; both are hardwoods that are relatively easy to work with. Chestnut, butternut, oak, American walnut, mahogany and teak are also very good woods; while for fine work Italian walnut, sycamore maple, apple, pear, box or plum, are usually chosen. Decoration that is to be painted and of not too delicate a nature is often carved in pine, which is relatively soft and inexpensive.

Sculpture
A wood carver begins a new carving by selecting a chunk of wood the approximate size and shape of the figure he or she wishes to create or if the carving is to be large, several pieces of wood may be laminated together to create the required size. The type of wood is important. Hardwoods are more difficult to shape but have greater luster and longevity. Softer woods may be easier to carve but are more prone to damage. Any wood can be carved but they all have different qualities and characteristics. The choice will depend on the requirements of carving being done: for example, a detailed figure would need a wood with a fine grain and very little figure as a strong figure can interfere with 'reading' fine detail.

Once the sculptor has selected their wood, he or she begins a general shaping process using gouges of various sizes. The gouge is a curved blade that can remove large portions of wood smoothly. For harder woods, the sculptor may use gouges sharpened with stronger bevels, about 35 degrees, and a mallet similar to a stone carver's. The terms gouge and chisel are open to confusion. Correctly, a gouge is a tool with a curved cross-section and a chisel is a tool with a flat cross-section. However, professional carvers tend to refer to them all as 'chisels'. Smaller sculptures may require the woodcarver to use a knife, and larger pieces might require the use of a saw. No matter what wood is selected or tool used, the wood sculptor must always carve either across or with the grain of the wood, never against the grain.

Once the general shape is made, the carver may use a variety of tools for creating details. For example, a "veiner" or "fluter" can be used to make deep gouges into the surface, or a "v-tool" for making fine lines or decorative cuts. Once the finer details have been added, the woodcarver finishes the surface. The method chosen depends on the required quality of the surface finish. The texture left by shallow gouges gives 'life' to the carving's surface and many carvers prefer this 'tooled' finish. If a completely smooth surface is required general smoothing can be done with tools such as "rasps," which are flat-bladed tools with a surface of pointed teeth. "Rifflers" are similar to rasps, but smaller, usually double-ended, and of various shapes for working in folds or crevasses. The finer polishing is done with abrasive paper. Large grained paper with a rougher surface is used first, with the sculptor then using finer grained paper that can make the surface of the sculpture slick to the touch.

After the carving and finishing is completed, the artist may seal & colour the wood with a variety of natural oils, such as walnut or linseed oil which protects the wood from dirt and moisture. Oil also imparts a sheen to the wood which, by reflecting light, helps the observer 'read' the form. Carvers seldom use gloss varnish as it creates too shiny a surface, which reflects so much light it can confuse the form; carvers refer to this as 'the toffee apple effect'. Objects made of wood are frequently finished with a layer of wax, which protects the wood and gives a soft lustrous sheen. A wax finish (e.g. shoe polish) is comparatively fragile though and only suitable for indoor carvings.

title: Wood carving


text:
Talk:Blazar

grammar
"In astronomy, blazar, also known as BL Lac Objects or BL Lacertaes, are bright, starlike objects that can vary rapidly in their luminosity." ???

There is a verb missing, probably it's "change"=

BL Lac
Wait, isn't BL-Lacertae a subtype of Blazar... so the two terms are not equivalent, right? 132.205.45.148 01:15, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC) vary is the verb — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:BC44:B160:88DC:F2F4:4834:AFE1 (talk) 17:24, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

BL Lac vs Blazar
BL Lac and Blazar are not the same things. BL Lac objects are specific types of active galaxies, while Blazars are a grabbag of several different kinds of active galaxies, including BL Lac objects, and some subtypes of quasars, amongst others.

This article needs to be separated into Blazar and BL Lac, and cleaned up to separate the content properly.

132.205.15.4 03:37, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

made some major changes
I added a great deal of new information to this article, and will be adding more (along with some images) soon. Hopefully by the end of today.

The new changes emphasize that blazars are composed of two groups OVV quasars and BL Lacertae objects, the relativistic model (and therefore the unified model connected blazars with radio galaxies) is by far the best overall model. Also more specific details on the structure of a Blazar (basically the generic structure of an AGN).

I am working on adding a more comprehensive history connected the first qusars with blazars (3C 273 is a blazar, BL Lac identified in the 70s), and will mention more details about jet emission (synchrotron, inverse-Compton, and also the "blue bump" and emission lines in quasars). Also, not least, will tack on relevant references.

I also added a couple of short references like "host galaxy," and will treat the "relativistic jet" entry as another big one.

I used to do research in this topic (during the 90s), but that seems like another lifetime ago so it is quite possible I have screwed up by omission or stupidity. By all means feel free to check this all out.

Mrbrak (real_mrbrak@yahoo.com)

Added more stuff - on relativistic beaming
I added a section on relativistic beaming, I'll stick some of the math (for a simple optically thin, synchrotron blob model of a jet) in a different article.

Time Dilation contributed a factor of D+1. This effect speeds up the apparent release of energy. If the jet emits a burst of energy every minute in its own rest frame this may be observed on Earth as being a much faster release, perhaps one burst every ten seconds. ??????????????????????????????????? Is this right? If two burst are separated by one minute in the local rest frame of the jet, the time separation would be larger than one minute to an observer on Earth, due to the time dilation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.104.17.55 (talk) 13:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

 * What IS the speed of a typical electron or proton in the jet? Is the typical speed relative to the bulk speed of the jet; higher?, lower?, variable?, constant? ... in other words ... it would be interesting to learn more regarding the relationship you are describing between the bulk speed of the jet and the speed of its constituents. This relationship is currently unclear. Thanks for your work on this article, it's very well written.

Copyright Violation

Please delete these images. I do not have permission of all of the authors of the original scientific article they were published in to publish them here.

Mr Brak 20:40, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Sources?
I'd like to see some sources listed for this article. Not only because it's good for the wiki, but I also have to write a bit about blazars for a course project and I don't want to quote the wiki without having something to back me up =) --19:18, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

blazar = gamma ray quasars?
According to this (NASA), blazars are gamma ray emitting quasars... 70.55.85.134 (talk) 07:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

External links modified
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Relativistic Beaming - matter or energy?
This article contains the phrase "Relativistic beaming of electromagnetic radiation from the jet..". But according to the Relativistic beaming article, the term relativistic beaming refers to emitted matter, not energy.165.225.38.226 (talk) 13:38, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Update in order
On January 22, 2020 the article still states “As of 2003, a few hundred BL Lac objects are known.”

Can anyone find an updated number? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacobus.nl (talk • contribs) 23:06, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

About the roots of the relativistic jets
It's been theorized that the roots (not the whole jet) of the relativistic jets is inflationary state of spacetime. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2149:878D:1400:B8D4:98F9:900A:F12B (talk) 11:32, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Blazar


text:
Amborella

Amborella is a monotypic genus of understory shrubs or small trees endemic to the main island, Grande Terre, of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific Ocean. The genus is the only member of the family Amborellaceae and the order Amborellales and contains a single species, Amborella trichopoda. Amborella is of great interest to plant systematists because molecular phylogenetic analyses consistently place it as the sister group to all other flowering plants, meaning it was the earliest group to evolve separately from all other flowering plants.

Description
Amborella is a sprawling shrub or small tree up to 8 m high. It bears alternate, simple evergreen leaves without stipules. The leaves are two-ranked, with distinctly serrated or rippled margins, and about 8 to 10 cm long.

Amborella has xylem tissue that differs from that of most other flowering plants. The xylem of Amborella contains only tracheids; vessel elements are absent. Xylem of this form has long been regarded as a primitive feature of flowering plants.

The species is dioecious. This means that each plant produces either male flowers (meaning that they have functional stamens) or female flowers (flowers with functional carpels), but not both. At any one time, a dioecious plant produces only functionally staminate or functionally carpellate flowers. Staminate ("male") Amborella flowers do not have carpels, whereas the carpellate ("female") flowers have non-functional "staminodes", structures resembling stamens in which no pollen develops. Plants may change from one reproductive morphology to the other. In one study, seven cuttings from a staminate plant produced, as expected, staminate flowers at their first flowering, but three of the seven produced carpellate flowers at their second flowering.

The small, creamy white flowers are arranged in inflorescences borne in the axils of foliage leaves. The inflorescences have been described as cymes, with up to three orders of branching, each branch being terminated by a flower. Each flower is subtended by bracts. The bracts transition into a perianth of undifferentiated tepals. The tepals typically are arranged in a spiral, but sometimes are whorled at the periphery.

Carpellate flowers are roughly 3 to 4 mm in diameter, with 7 or 8 tepals. There are 1 to 3 (or rarely 0) well-differentiated staminodes and a spiral of 4 to 8 free (apocarpous) carpels. Carpels bear green ovaries; they lack a style. They contain a single ovule with the micropyle directed downwards. Staminate flowers are approximately 4 to 5 mm in diameter, with 6 to 15 tepals. These flowers bear 10 to 21 spirally arranged stamens, which become progressively smaller toward the center. The innermost may be sterile, amounting to staminodes. The stamens bear triangular anthers on short broad filaments. An anther consists of four pollen sacs, two on each side, with a small sterile central connective. The anthers have connective tips with small bumps and may be covered with secretions. These features suggest that, as with other basal angiosperms, there is a high degree of developmental plasticity.

Typically, 1 to 3 carpels per flower develop into fruit. The fruit is an ovoid red drupe (approximately 5 to 7 mm long and 5 mm wide) borne on a short (1 to 2 mm) stalk. The remains of the stigma can be seen at the tip of the fruit. The skin is papery, surrounding a thin fleshy layer containing a red juice. The inner pericarp is lignified and surrounds the single seed. The embryo is small and surrounded by copious endosperm.

History
The Cronquist system, of 1981, classified the family:
 * Order Laurales
 * Subclass Magnoliidae
 * Class Magnoliopsida [=dicotyledons]
 * Division Magnoliophyta [=angiosperms]

The Thorne system (1992) classified it:
 * Order Magnoliales
 * Superorder Magnolianae
 * Subclass Magnoliideae [=dicotyledons]
 * Class Magnoliopsida [=angiosperms]

The Dahlgren system classified it:
 * Order Laurales
 * Superorder Magnolianae
 * Subclass Magnoliideae [=dicotyledons],
 * Class Magnoliopsida [=angiosperms].

Modern classification
Amborella is the only genus in the family Amborellaceae. The APG II system recognized this family, but left it unplaced at order rank due to uncertainty about its relationship to the family Nymphaeaceae. In the more recent APG systems, APG III and APG IV, the Amborellaceae comprise the monotypic order Amborellales at the base of the angiosperm phylogeny.

Phylogeny
Currently plant systematists accept Amborella trichopoda as the most basal lineage in the clade of angiosperms. In systematics the term "basal" describes a lineage that diverges near the base of a phylogeny, and thus earlier than other lineages. Since Amborella is apparently basal among the flowering plants, the features of early flowering plants can be inferred by comparing derived traits shared by the main angiosperm lineage but not present in Amborella. These traits are presumed to have evolved after the divergence of the Amborella lineage.

One early 20th century idea of "primitive" (i.e. ancestral) floral traits in angiosperms, accepted until relatively recently, is the Magnolia blossom model. This envisions flowers with numerous parts arranged in spirals on an elongated, cone-like receptacle rather than the small numbers of parts in distinct whorls of more derived flowers.

In a study designed to clarify relationships between well-studied model plants such as Arabidopsis thaliana, and the basal angiosperms Amborella, Nuphar (Nymphaeaceae), Illicium, the monocots, and more derived angiosperms (eudicots), chloroplast genomes using cDNA and expressed sequence tags for floral genes, the cladogram shown below was generated.

This hypothesized relationship of the extant seed plants places Amborella as the sister taxon to all other angiosperms, and shows the gymnosperms as a monophyletic group sister to the angiosperms. It supports the theory that Amborella branched off from the main lineage of angiosperms before the ancestors of any other living angiosperms. There is however some uncertainty about the relationship between the Amborellaceae and the Nymphaeales: one theory is that the Amborellaceae alone are the monophyletic sister to the extant angiosperms; another proposes that the Amborellaceae and Nymphaeales form a clade that is the sister group to all other extant angiosperms.

Because of its evolutionary position at the base of the flowering plant clade, there was support for sequencing the complete genome of Amborella trichopoda to serve as a reference for evolutionary studies. In 2010, the US National Science Foundation began a genome sequencing effort in Amborella, and the draft genome sequence was posted on the project website in December 2013.

Genomic and evolutionary considerations
Amborella is of great interest to plant systematists because molecular phylogenetic analyses consistently place it at or near the base of the flowering plant lineage. That is, the Amborellaceae represent a line of flowering plants that diverged very early on (more than 130 million years ago) from all the other extant species of flowering plants, and, among extant flowering plants, is the sister group to the other flowering plants. Comparing characteristics of this basal angiosperm, other flowering plants and fossils may provide clues about how flowers first appeared—what Darwin called the "abominable mystery". This position is consistent with a number of conservative characteristics of its physiology and morphology; for example, the wood of Amborella lacks the vessels characteristic of most flowering plants. The genes responsible for floral traits like scent and colors in other angiosperms, have yet to be found. Further, the female gametophyte of Amborella is even more reduced than normal female angiosperm gametophyte.

Amborella, being an understory plant in the wild, is commonly in intimate contact with shade- and moisture-dependent organisms such as algae, lichens and mosses. In those circumstances, some horizontal gene transfer between Amborella and such associated species is not surprising in principle, but the scale of such transfer has caused considerable surprise. Sequencing the Amborella mitochondrial genome revealed that for every gene of its own origin, it contains about six versions from the genomes of an assortment of the plants and algae growing with or upon it. The evolutionary and physiological significance of this is not as yet clear, nor in particular is it clear whether the horizontal gene transfer has anything to do with the apparent stability and conservatism of the species.

Ecology
Amborella is typically dioecious, but has been known to change sex in cultivation. Amborella has a mixed pollination system, relying on both insect pollinators and wind.

Conservation
The islands of New Caledonia are a biodiversity hot-spot, preserving many early diverging lineages of plants, of which Amborella is but one. This preservation has been ascribed to climate stability during and since the Tertiary, stability that has permitted the continued survival of tropical forests on New Caledonia. In contrast, drought conditions dominated the Australian climate towards the end of the Tertiary. Current threats to biodiversity in New Caledonia include fires, mining, agriculture, invasion by introduced species, urbanization and global warming. The importance of conserving Amborella has been dramatically stated by Pillon: "The disappearance of Amborella trichopoda would imply the disappearance of a genus, a family and an entire order, as well as the only witness to at least 140 million years of evolutionary history." Conservation strategies targeted on relict species are recommended, both preserving a diversity of habitats in New Caledonia and ex situ conservation in cultivation.

title: Amborella


text:
Talk:Brown rat

Alberta
see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File_talk:Brown_rat_distribution.png#Alberta as well as even older "HOAX map removed" discussion on this page
 * also see the comments on the edits and reverts in https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brown_rat_distribution.png

Is it a Social Animal?
The intro does not describe it as a social animal. The article spends a lot of time discussing social behavior, but also calls it a territorial animal, which doesn't sound social to me. (But then, I'm not a biologist.) The article could use a sentence or two resolving this apparent contradiction. MiguelMunoz (talk) 22:52, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

what's the 'benefit' of spreading these worldwide?
or negative consequences, as many of those areas surely most had their native rats, or similar rodents, not to 'need' new ones? 12.146.12.12 (talk) 05:18, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Berkenhout
that is an interesting point. You are correct that Berkenhout does not use the genus name Rattus at all in this work, and classifies the species as Mus norvegicus instead. This both contradicts the text currently int he article (Berkenhout gave the brown rat the binomial name Rattus norvegicus, believing it had migrated to England from Norwegian ships in 1728) and the universal usage of Rattus norvegicus (Berkenhout, 1769) in all databases. I have no idea what to make of that. In the absence of a clear explanation, maybe pointing out this mismatch in the text would be useful. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 12:02, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I didn't notice that the name was also discussed in the text. From what I can see, Berkenhout can't have introduced the name Rattus norvegicus as he didn't use that name, as currently stated in the text. He may have introduced the norvegicus part. --Stefan2 (talk) 14:33, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Brown rat


text:
New Jersey Route 208

Route 208 is a state highway in the northern part of New Jersey in the United States. It runs 10.07 mi from an interchange with Route 4 and County Route 79 (CR 79, Saddle River Road) in Fair Lawn northwest to an interchange with Interstate 287 (I-287) in Oakland. The route runs through suburban areas of Bergen and Passaic counties as a four- to six-lane divided highway. The route runs through the communities of Fair Lawn, Glen Rock, Hawthorne, Wyckoff, and Franklin Lakes along the way, interchanging with CR 507 in Fair Lawn and CR 502 in Franklin Lakes.

What is now Route 208 was initially planned as Route S4B in 1929, a spur of Route 4 that was to run from Fair Lawn northwest to the New York border in Greenwood Lake, where it would eventually connect to New York State Route 208 (NY 208). This route replaced what was planned as a part of Route 3 in 1927 between Paterson and Greenwood Lake. By the time the route was renumbered to Route 208 in 1953 to match NY 208, only a portion of the route in Fair Lawn from Route 4 to Maple Avenue had been built. Route 208 was completed west to U.S. Route 202 (US 202) in Oakland by 1960 as a two-lane undivided road; it would be built into its present configuration in later years. A Route 208 freeway was planned across the Ramapo Mountains from Oakland to connect to a proposed NY 208 freeway at Greenwood Lake; however, it was never built. After I-287 was extended from Montville to the New York border in 1993, it took over the alignment of Route 208 between US 202 and the route’s current northern terminus. The last traffic signal along Route 208 at McBride Avenue was removed in 1995 and the interchange with Route 4 and Saddle River Road was reconstructed in 2002.

Route description
Traffic moves in at least two lanes in each direction for the road's entire length of 10.07 mi, widening briefly to three lanes next to a commercial area in Fair Lawn and near its northern terminus.

The road originates as a four-lane arterial road at an interchange with Route 4 in Fair Lawn, Bergen County that also includes ramps for CR 79 (Saddle River Road), heading to the west near residential areas. Shortly after beginning, a ramp from southbound Route 208 provides access via Virginia Drive to westbound Route 4. The next exit is a partial interchange with CR 78 (Morlot Avenue), followed by a full interchange with Plaza Road. Past the latter, the route passes over NJ Transit's Bergen County Line and comes to a southbound exit and entrance with Berdan Avenue. From here, the road turns to the northwest, passing near more neighborhoods before coming to an interchange with CR 76 (Fair Lawn Avenue). Past this interchange, the northbound direction of Route 208 widens to three lanes and it continues into commercial areas, with some driveways along the road and an intersection with McBride Avenue. At this point, the highway passes an industrial park. A short distance later, the road reaches the interchange with CR 507 (Maple Avenue) and CR 127 (Harristown Road). Past this interchange, the road becomes a four-lane freeway and enters Glen Rock and has a northbound exit and entrance with De Boer Drive before crossing over NJ Transit's Main Line. Route 208 then heads through wooded residential areas prior to a northbound interchange with CR 653 (Lincoln Avenue), where it enters Hawthorne, Passaic County. CR 653 and Route 208 are connected by a short segment of CR 664 (Rea Avenue).

The highway has turnoffs in each direction for Utter Avenue before passing beneath the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway's (NYSW) New Jersey Subdivision line prior the interchange with CR 659 (Goffle Road). Past here, the highway turns north and climbs a hill, passing the Hawthorne Gospel Church on the right. It re-enters Bergen County in Wyckoff, just before the Grandview Avenue interchange. From here, Route 208 largely resembles a wooded parkway, although there are a few driveways off the road. The road turns northwest and interchanges with CR 93 (Cedar Hill Avenue) before passing near more homes and coming to an interchange with CR S93 (Russell Avenue). The road continues into Franklin Lakes and interchanges with CR 502 (Ewing Avenue) before turning west-northwest and coming to an exit for CR S89 (Summit Avenue). Past Summit Avenue, the road has two interchanges providing access to the Becton Dickinson headquarters campus, where the road carries three lanes in each direction. It narrows back to two lanes in each direction before coming to the interchange with CR 117 (Colonial Road) and CR 89 (High Mountain Road). The final exit heading northbound is for I-287 north, an interchange that includes another crossing of the NYSW line. After passing the exit, Route 208 northbound merges into I-287 southbound at the Franklin Lakes and Oakland border.

History
Route 208 was first plotted in 1929 as Route S4B, a spur of Route 4 that was to run from Fair Lawn northwest through Ringwood, and West Milford to the New York border near Greenwood Lake. This route was to replace what was to be a portion of Route 3 between Paterson and the New York border that was designated in the 1927 New Jersey state highway renumbering. The road was projected to continue into New York and continue through Sterling Forest and Monroe, New York, where it would join NY 208 at its intersection with NY 17. By 1953, the portion of Route S4B between Route 4 and Maple Avenue in Fair Lawn was completed; that same year, it was renumbered to Route 208 in order to match NY 208. By 1960, the road was extended to a northern terminus at US 202 and West Oakland Avenue in Oakland, where traffic could exit and continue over Skyline Drive to Ringwood. When first constructed, this portion of Route 208 was a two-lane undivided road. By 1969, the portion between Maple Avenue and Goffle Road was widened to a divided highway with the entire route built into a multi-lane divided highway by the 1980s.

Meanwhile, plans still existed to build Route 208 past Oakland to the New York border. Passaic County called for a divided highway to bypass Skyline Drive, and in 1967 the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) proposed a Route 208 freeway through the Ramapo Mountains that would run from Oakland to the New York border in Greenwood Lake, where it would connect to a proposed NY 208 freeway (called the Orange Expressway) that would continue north to I-84 in Maybrook, New York. This freeway, which was to cost $66.3 million, was to improve traffic in the resort areas of the Ramapo Mountains and also connect to the proposed Route 94 freeway leading to Warren County and the proposed Route 178 freeway leading to Morris County. In 1975, this proposed freeway was recommended by the Tri-State Regional Planning Commission to be completed by 2000. However, it was never built.

When I-287 was extended from Montville to the New York border in 1993, it took over the alignment of Route 208 between US 202 and the current northern terminus of Route 208. In 1995, the last traffic signal along Route 208 at McBride Avenue was turned off. In 2002, construction was completed on a $32 million project that improved the interchange with Route 4 in Fair Lawn. This interchange saw improvements of the ramps and bridges, including the Route 208 bridge over Saddle River Road. Route 208, like many other highways in New Jersey, once had solar powered emergency call boxes every 1.0 mi; however with the advent of cell phones the usage of these call boxes became extremely limited. To save on maintenance costs, the NJDOT removed these call boxes in 2005.

title: New Jersey Route 208


text:
Signal

Signal refers to both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology.

In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing includes audio, video, speech, image, sonar, and radar as examples of signals. A signal may also be defined as observable change in a quantity over space or time (a time series), even if it does not carry information.

In nature, signals can be actions done by an organism to alert other organisms, ranging from the release of plant chemicals to warn nearby plants of a predator, to sounds or motions made by animals to alert other animals of food. Signaling occurs in all organisms even at cellular levels, with cell signaling. Signaling theory, in evolutionary biology, proposes that a substantial driver for evolution is the ability of animals to communicate with each other by developing ways of signaling. In human engineering, signals are typically provided by a sensor, and often the original form of a signal is converted to another form of energy using a transducer. For example, a microphone converts an acoustic signal to a voltage waveform, and a speaker does the reverse.

Another important property of a signal is its entropy or information content. Information theory serves as the formal study of signals and their content. The information of a signal is often accompanied by noise, which primarily refers to unwanted modifications of signals, but is often extended to include unwanted signals conflicting with desired signals (crosstalk). The reduction of noise is covered in part under the heading of signal integrity. The separation of desired signals from background noise is the field of signal recovery, one branch of which is estimation theory, a probabilistic approach to suppressing random disturbances.

Engineering disciplines such as electrical engineering have advanced the design, study, and implementation of systems involving transmission, storage, and manipulation of information. In the latter half of the 20th century, electrical engineering itself separated into several disciplines: electronic engineering and computer engineering developed to specialize in the design and analysis of systems that manipulate physical signals, while design engineering developed to address the functional design of signals in user–machine interfaces.

Definitions
Definitions specific to sub-fields are common:
 * In electronics and telecommunications, signal refers to any time-varying voltage, current, or electromagnetic wave that carries information.
 * In signal processing, signals are analog and digital representations of analog physical quantities.
 * In information theory, a signal is a codified message, that is, the sequence of states in a communication channel that encodes a message.
 * In a communication system, a transmitter encodes a message to create a signal, which is carried to a receiver by the communication channel. For example, the words "Mary had a little lamb" might be the message spoken into a telephone. The telephone transmitter converts the sounds into an electrical signal. The signal is transmitted to the receiving telephone by wires; at the receiver it is reconverted into sounds.
 * In telephone networks, signaling, for example common-channel signaling, refers to phone number and other digital control information rather than the actual voice signal.

Classification
Signals can be categorized in various ways. The most common distinction is between discrete and continuous spaces that the functions are defined over, for example, discrete and continuous-time domains. Discrete-time signals are often referred to as time series in other fields. Continuous-time signals are often referred to as continuous signals.

A second important distinction is between discrete-valued and continuous-valued. Particularly in digital signal processing, a digital signal may be defined as a sequence of discrete values, typically associated with an underlying continuous-valued physical process. In digital electronics, digital signals are the continuous-time waveform signals in a digital system, representing a bit-stream.

Signals may also be categorized by their spatial distributions as either point source signals (PSSs) or distributed source signals (DSSs).

In Signals and Systems, signals can be classified according to many criteria, mainly: according to the different feature of values, classified into analog signals and digital signals; according to the determinacy of signals, classified into deterministic signals and random signals; according to the strength of signals, classified into energy signals and power signals.

Analog and digital signals

Two main types of signals encountered in practice are analog and digital. The figure shows a digital signal that results from approximating an analog signal by its values at particular time instants. Digital signals are quantized, while analog signals are continuous.

Analog signal
An analog signal is any continuous signal for which the time-varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. For example, in an analog audio signal, the instantaneous voltage of the signal varies continuously with the sound pressure. It differs from a digital signal, in which the continuous quantity is a representation of a sequence of discrete values which can only take on one of a finite number of values.

The term analog signal usually refers to electrical signals; however, analog signals may use other mediums such as mechanical, pneumatic or hydraulic. An analog signal uses some property of the medium to convey the signal's information. For example, an aneroid barometer uses rotary position as the signal to convey pressure information. In an electrical signal, the voltage, current, or frequency of the signal may be varied to represent the information. Any information may be conveyed by an analog signal; often such a signal is a measured response to changes in physical phenomena, such as sound, light, temperature, position, or pressure. The physical variable is converted to an analog signal by a transducer. For example, in sound recording, fluctuations in air pressure (that is to say, sound) strike the diaphragm of a microphone which induces corresponding electrical fluctuations. The voltage or the current is said to be an analog of the sound.

Digital signal
A digital signal is a signal that is constructed from a discrete set of waveforms of a physical quantity so as to represent a sequence of discrete values. A logic signal is a digital signal with only two possible values, and describes an arbitrary bit stream. Other types of digital signals can represent three-valued logic or higher valued logics.

Alternatively, a digital signal may be considered to be the sequence of codes represented by such a physical quantity. The physical quantity may be a variable electric current or voltage, the intensity, phase or polarization of an optical or other electromagnetic field, acoustic pressure, the magnetization of a magnetic storage media, etc. Digital signals are present in all digital electronics, notably computing equipment and data transmission.

With digital signals, system noise, provided it is not too great, will not affect system operation whereas noise always degrades the operation of analog signals to some degree.

Digital signals often arise via sampling of analog signals, for example, a continually fluctuating voltage on a line that can be digitized by an analog-to-digital converter circuit, wherein the circuit will read the voltage level on the line, say, every 50 microseconds and represent each reading with a fixed number of bits. The resulting stream of numbers is stored as digital data on a discrete-time and quantized-amplitude signal. Computers and other digital devices are restricted to discrete time.

Energy and power
According to the strengths of signals, practical signals can be classified into two categories: energy signals and power signals.

Energy signals: Those signals' energy are equal to a finite positive value, but their average powers are 0;

$$0 < E = \int_{-\infty }^{\infty } s^2(t)dt < \infty $$

Power signals: Those signals' average power are equal to a finite positive value, but their energy are infinite.

$$P = \lim_{T\rightarrow \infty} \frac{1}{T} \int_{-T/2 }^{T/2} s^2(t)dt $$

Deterministic and random
Deterministic signals are those whose values at any time are predictable and can be calculated by a mathematical equation.

Random signals are signals that take on random values at any given time instant and must be modeled stochastically.

Even and odd
An even signal satisfies the condition $$x(t) = x(-t)$$

or equivalently if the following equation holds for all $$t$$ and $$-t$$ in the domain of $$x$$:
 * $$x(t) - x(-t) = 0.$$

An odd signal satisfies the condition $$x(t) = - x(-t)$$

or equivalently if the following equation holds for all $$t$$ and $$-t$$ in the domain of $$x$$:
 * $$x(t) + x(-t) = 0.$$

Periodic
A signal is said to be periodic if it satisfies the condition:

$$x(t) = x(t + T) $$ or $$x(n) = x(n + N) $$

Where:

$$T$$ = fundamental time period,

$$1/T = f $$= fundamental frequency.

A periodic signal will repeat for every period.

Time discretization

Signals can be classified as continuous or discrete time. In the mathematical abstraction, the domain of a continuous-time signal is the set of real numbers (or some interval thereof), whereas the domain of a discrete-time (DT) signal is the set of integers (or other subsets of real numbers). What these integers represent depends on the nature of the signal; most often it is time.

A continuous-time signal is any function which is defined at every time t in an interval, most commonly an infinite interval. A simple source for a discrete-time signal is the sampling of a continuous signal, approximating the signal by a sequence of its values at particular time instants.

Amplitude quantization
If a signal is to be represented as a sequence of digital data, it is impossible to maintain exact precision – each number in the sequence must have a finite number of digits. As a result, the values of such a signal must be quantized into a finite set for practical representation. Quantization is the process of converting a continuous analog audio signal to a digital signal with discrete numerical values of integers.

Examples of signals
Naturally occurring signals can be converted to electronic signals by various sensors. Examples include:
 * Motion. The motion of an object can be considered to be a signal and can be monitored by various sensors to provide electrical signals. For example, radar can provide an electromagnetic signal for following aircraft motion.  A motion signal is one-dimensional (time), and the range is generally three-dimensional.  Position is thus a 3-vector signal; position and orientation of a rigid body is a 6-vector signal. Orientation signals can be generated using a gyroscope.
 * Sound. Since a sound is a vibration of a medium (such as air), a sound signal associates a pressure value to every value of time and possibly three space coordinates indicating the direction of travel. A sound signal is converted to an electrical signal by a microphone, generating a voltage signal as an analog of the sound signal. Sound signals can be sampled at a discrete set of time points; for example, compact discs (CDs) contain discrete signals representing sound, recorded at 44,100 Hz; since CDs are recorded in stereo, each sample contains data for a left and right channel, which may be considered to be a 2-vector signal. The CD encoding is converted to an electrical signal by reading the information with a laser, converting the sound signal to an optical signal.
 * Images. A picture or image consists of a brightness or color signal, a function of a two-dimensional location. The object's appearance is presented as emitted or reflected light, an electromagnetic signal. It can be converted to voltage or current waveforms using devices such as the charge-coupled device.  A 2D image can have a continuous spatial domain, as in a traditional photograph or painting; or the image can be discretized in space, as in a digital image.  Color images are typically represented as a combination of monochrome images in three primary colors.
 * Videos. A video signal is a sequence of images. A point in a video is identified by its two-dimensional position in the image and by the time at which it occurs, so a video signal has a three-dimensional domain. Analog video has one continuous domain dimension (across a scan line) and two discrete dimensions (frame and line).
 * Biological membrane potentials. The value of the signal is an electric potential (voltage).  The domain is more difficult to establish.  Some cells or organelles have the same membrane potential throughout; neurons generally have different potentials at different points.  These signals have very low energies, but are enough to make nervous systems work; they can be measured in aggregate by electrophysiology techniques.
 * The output of a thermocouple, which conveys temperature information.
 * The output of a pH meter which conveys acidity information.

Signal processing

Signal processing is the manipulation of signals. A common example is signal transmission between different locations. The embodiment of a signal in electrical form is made by a transducer that converts the signal from its original form to a waveform expressed as a current or a voltage, or electromagnetic radiation, for example, an optical signal or radio transmission. Once expressed as an electronic signal, the signal is available for further processing by electrical devices such as electronic amplifiers and filters, and can be transmitted to a remote location by a transmitter and received using radio receivers.

Signals and systems
In electrical engineering (EE) programs, signals are covered in a class and field of study known as signals and systems. Depending on the school, undergraduate EE students generally take the class as juniors or seniors, normally depending on the number and level of previous linear algebra and differential equation classes they have taken.

The field studies input and output signals, and the mathematical representations between them known as systems, in four domains: time, frequency, s and z. Since signals and systems are both studied in these four domains, there are 8 major divisions of study. As an example, when working with continuous-time signals (t), one might transform from the time domain to a frequency or s domain; or from discrete time (n) to frequency or z domains. Systems also can be transformed between these domains like signals, with continuous to s and discrete to z.

Signals and systems is a subset of the field of mathematical modeling. It involves circuit analysis and design via mathematical modeling and some numerical methods, and was updated several decades ago with dynamical systems tools including differential equations, and recently, Lagrangians. Students are expected to understand the modeling tools as well as the mathematics, physics, circuit analysis, and transformations between the 8 domains.

Because mechanical engineering (ME) topics like friction, dampening etc. have very close analogies in signal science (inductance, resistance, voltage, etc.), many of the tools originally used in ME transformations (Laplace and Fourier transforms, Lagrangians, sampling theory, probability, difference equations, etc.) have now been applied to signals, circuits, systems and their components, analysis and design in EE. Dynamical systems that involve noise, filtering and other random or chaotic attractors and repellers have now placed stochastic sciences and statistics between the more deterministic discrete and continuous functions in the field. (Deterministic as used here means signals that are completely determined as functions of time).

EE taxonomists are still not decided where signals and systems falls within the whole field of signal processing vs. circuit analysis and mathematical modeling, but the common link of the topics that are covered in the course of study has brightened boundaries with dozens of books, journals, etc. called "Signals and Systems", and used as text and test prep for the EE, as well as, recently, computer engineering exams.

title: Signal


text:
Ring modulation

In electronics, ring modulation is a signal processing function, an implementation of frequency mixing, in which two signals are combined to yield an output signal. One signal, called the carrier, is typically a sine wave or another simple waveform; the other signal is typically more complicated and is called the input or the modulator signal. A ring modulator is an electronic device for ring modulation. A ring modulator may be used in music synthesizers and as an effects unit.

The name derives from the fact that the analog circuit of diodes originally used to implement this technique takes the shape of a ring: a diode ring. The circuit is similar to a bridge rectifier, except that instead of the diodes facing left or right, they face clockwise or counterclockwise.

Ring modulation is quite similar to amplitude modulation, with the difference that in the latter the modulator is shifted to be positive before being multiplied with the carrier, while in the former the unshifted modulator is multiplied with the carrier. This has the effect that ring modulation of two sine waves having frequencies of 1,500 Hz and 400 Hz will produce as output signal the sum of a sine wave with frequency 1,900 Hz and one with frequency 1,100 Hz. These two output frequencies are known as sidebands. If one of the input signals has significant overtones (which is the case for square waves), the output will sound quite different, since each harmonic will generate its own pair of sidebands that won't be harmonically-related.

Simplified operation
Denoting the carrier signal by $$c(t)$$, the modulator signal by $$x(t)$$ and the output signal by $$y(t)$$ (where $$t$$ denotes time), ring modulation approximates multiplication:

 * $$y(t)=x(t) \; c(t).$$

If $$c(t)$$ and $$x(t)$$ are sine waves with frequencies $$f_c$$ and $$f_x$$, respectively, then $$y(t)$$ will be the sum of two (phase-shifted) sine waves, one of frequency $$f_c+f_x$$ and the other of frequency $$f_c-f_x$$. This is a consequence of the trigonometric identity:

 * $$\sin(u) \, \sin(v)=\frac{1}{2}\left(\cos(u-v)-\cos(u+v)\right).$$

Alternatively, one can use the fact that multiplication in the time domain is the same as convolution in the frequency domain.

Ring modulators thus output the sum and difference of the frequencies present in each waveform. This process of ring modulation produces a signal rich in partials. As well, neither the carrier nor the incoming signal are prominent in the output, and ideally, not present at all.

Two oscillators, whose frequencies were harmonically related and ring modulated against each other, produce sounds that still adhere to the harmonic partials of the notes but contain a very different spectral makeup. When the oscillators' frequencies are not harmonically related, ring modulation creates inharmonics, often producing bell-like or otherwise metallic sounds.

If the carrier signal is a square wave of frequency $$f_c$$, whose Fourier expansion contains the fundamental and a series of reducing-amplitude odd harmonics:

 * $$c(t) = \sin f_ct + \frac 1 3 \sin 3f_ct + \frac 1 5 \sin 5f_ct + \frac 1 7 \sin 7f_ct + \ldots$$

and the carrier frequency $$f_c$$ is at least twice the maximum frequency of the modulating signal $$x(t)$$, then the resulting output is a series of duplicates of $$x(t)$$ at increasing regions of the frequency spectrum. For example, let $$x(t)$$ represent a sine wave at 100 Hz, and the carrier $$c(t)$$ be an ideal square wave at 300 Hz. The output will then include sine waves at 100±300 Hz, 100±900 Hz, 100±1500 Hz, 100±2100 Hz, etc., at decreasing amplitudes according to the Fourier expansion of the carrier square wave. If the carrier frequency is less than twice the upper frequency of the signal then the resulting output signal contains spectral components from both the signal and the carrier that combine in the time domain.

Because the output contains neither the individual modulator or carrier components, the ring modulator is said to be a double-balanced mixer, where both input signals are suppressed (not present in the output)—the output is composed entirely of the sum of the products of the frequency components of the two inputs.

History
The ring modulator was invented by Frank A. Cowan in 1934 and patented in 1935 as an improvement on the invention of Clyde R. Keith at Bell Labs. The original application was in the field of analog telephony for frequency-division multiplexing for carrying multiple voice signals over telephone cables. It has since been applied to a wider range of uses, such as voice inversion, radio transceivers, and electronic music.

While the original Cowan patent describes a circuit with a ring of four diodes, later implementations used FETs as the switching elements.

Circuit description
The ring modulator includes an input stage, a ring of four diodes excited by a carrier signal, and an output stage. The input and output stages typically include transformers with center-taps towards the diode ring. It is important to note that while the diode ring has some similarities to a bridge rectifier the diodes in a ring modulator all point in the same clockwise or counterclockwise direction. (See the schematic of a ring modulator in the upper right.)

The carrier, which alternates between positive and negative current, at any given time makes one pair of diodes conduct, and reverse-biases the other pair. The conducting pair carries the signal from the left transformer secondary to the primary of the transformer at the right. If the left carrier terminal is positive, the top and bottom diodes conduct. If that terminal is negative, then the side diodes conduct, but create a polarity inversion between the transformers. This action is much like that of a DPDT (double pole, double throw) switch wired for reversing connections.

A particular elegance of the ring modulator is that it is bidirectional: the signal flow can be reversed allowing the same circuit with the same carrier to be used either as a modulator or demodulator, for example in low-cost radio transceivers.

Integrated circuit methods of ring modulation
Some modern ring modulators are implemented using digital signal processing techniques by simply multiplying the time domain signals, producing a nearly-perfect signal output. Intermodulation products can be generated by carefully selecting and changing the frequency of the two input waveforms. If the signals are processed digitally, the frequency-domain convolution becomes circular convolution. If the signals are wideband, this will cause aliasing distortion, so it is common to oversample the operation or low-pass filter the signals prior to ring modulation.

The SID chip found in the Commodore 64 allows for triangle waves to be ring modulated. Oscillator 1 gets modulated by oscillator 3's frequency, oscillator 2 by oscillator 1's frequency, and oscillator 3 by oscillator 2's frequency. Ring modulation is disabled unless the carrier oscillator is set to produce a triangle wave, but the modulating oscillator can be set to generate any of its available waveforms. However, no matter what waveform you set the modulating oscillator to, the ring modulation will always have the effect of modulating a triangle wave with a square wave.

On an ARP Odyssey synthesizer (and a few others from that era as well) the ring modulator is an XOR function (formed from four NAND gates) fed from the square wave outputs of the two oscillators. For the limited case of square or pulse wave signals, this is identical to true ring modulation.

Analog multiplier ICs (such as those made by Analog Devices) would work as ring modulators, of course with regard to such matters as their operating limits and scale factors. Use of multiplier ICs means that the modulation products are largely confined to sum and difference frequency of inputs (unless the circuit is overdriven), rather than the much more complicated products of the rectifier circuit.

Limitations
Any DC component of the carrier will degrade the suppression of the carrier and thus in radio applications the carrier is typically transformer- or capacitor-coupled; in low frequency (e.g., audio) applications the carrier may or may not be desired in the output.

Imperfections in the diodes and transformers introduce artifacts of the two input signals. In practical ring modulators, this leakage can be reduced by introducing opposing imbalances (e.g., variable resistors or capacitors).

Radio communications
Ring modulation has also been extensively used in radio receivers, for example, to demodulate an FM stereo signal, and to heterodyne microwave signals in mobile telephone and wireless networking systems. In this case, the circuit is sometimes called a ring demodulator, one of many possible chopper circuits. A ring modulator can be used to generate a double-sideband suppressed-carrier (DSB-SC) wave used in radio transmission.

Music and sound effects
One of the earliest musical instruments utilizing a ring modulator was the Melochord (1947) built by Harald Bode. It was a two-tone melody keyboard instrument with foot controllers and later added a second keyboard for timbre control, featuring a white-noise generator, envelope controller, formant filters and ring modulators for harmonics. The early Melochord was extensively used by Werner Meyer-Eppler in the early days of the electronic music studio at Bonn University. Meyer-Eppler mentioned the musical application of ring modulator in his book Elektrische Klangerzeugung, published in 1949.

Meyer-Eppler's student Karlheinz Stockhausen used ring modulation in 1956 for some sounds in Gesang der Jünglinge and his realization score for Telemusik (1966 ) also calls for it. Indeed, several entire compositions by Stockhausen are based around it, such as Mixtur (1964), one of the first compositions for orchestra and live electronics; Mikrophonie II (1965), where the sounds of choral voices are modulated with a Hammond organ; Mantra (1970), where the sounds from two pianos are routed through ring modulators; and Licht-Bilder (2002) from Sonntag aus Licht (2003), which ring-modulates flute and trumpet. Other Stockhausen pieces employing ring modulation include Kontakte (1960), Mikrophonie I (1964), Hymnen (1969), Prozession (1967), and Kurzwellen (1968).

A ring-modulator was the major component used in Louis and Bebe Barron's music for the film Forbidden Planet (1956). One of the best-known applications of the ring modulator may be its use by Brian Hodgson of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to produce the distinctive voice of the Daleks in the television series Doctor Who, starting in 1963.

One of the first products dedicated for music was the Bode Ring Modulator developed in 1961 by Harald Bode. Also in 1964 he developed the Bode Frequency Shifter, which produced a clearer sound by eliminating a side band. These devices were designed to be controlled by voltage, compatible with modular synthesizer architecture also advocated by him, and these modules were licensed to R.A. Moog for their Moog modular synthesizers started in 1963–1964. In 1963, Don Buchla included an optional ring modulator in his first modular synthesizer, the Model 100. Also Tom Oberheim built a ring modulator unit for his musician friend in the late 1960s, and it became an origin of Oberheim Electronics Music Modulator and Maestro Ring Modulator, one of the earliest ring modulator effect products for guitarists. The EMS VCS3, Synthi A, ARP 2600, Odyssey, Rhodes Chroma and Yamaha CS-80 synthesizers also featured built-in ring modulators.

John McLaughlin employs the ring modulator heavily in the 1974 Mahavishnu Orchestra album Visions of the Emerald Beyond, especially on the track "On the Way Home to Earth". On Miles Davis' 1975 live album Agharta, guitarist Pete Cosey ran the sounds he played through a ring modulator. Deep Purple's Jon Lord fed the signal from his Hammond through a Gibson Ring Modulator unit live on stage, which he described in 1989. Founding member of Hawkwind, Dik Mik, a self-confessed non-musician, used a ring modulator as his main instrument during his time with the band (1969-1973).

Vangelis used a ring modulator with his Yamaha CS-80 to improvise his 1978 avant-garde-experimental album Beaubourg. The music on the album is often atonal, with the ring modulator converting the synthesizer's sound into complex metallic timbres. It remains the most experimental released work by the artist, with reviewers calling it "difficult listening at best".

Ring modulation is used in the piece Ofanim (1988/1997) by Luciano Berio, and in the first section is applied to a child's voice and a clarinet: "The transformation of the child voice into a clarinet was desired. For this purpose, a pitch detector computes the instantaneous frequency $$f_0 (n)$$ of the voice. Then the child voice passes through a ring modulator, where the frequency of the carrier $$f_c$$ is set to $$f_0 (n)/2$$. In this case odd harmonics prevail which is similar to the sound of a clarinet in the low register."

Analogue telephone systems
An early application of the ring modulator was for combining multiple analog telephone voice channels into a single wideband signal to be carried on a single cable using frequency-division multiplexing. A ring modulator in combination with carrier wave and filter was used to assign channels to different frequencies.

Early attempts at securing analog telephone channels used ring modulators to modify the spectrum of the audio speech signals. One application is spectral inversion, typically of speech; a carrier frequency is chosen to be above the highest speech frequencies (which are low-pass filtered at, say, 3 kHz, for a carrier of perhaps 3.3 kHz), and the sum frequencies from the modulator are removed by more low-pass filtering. The remaining difference frequencies have an inverted spectrum: high frequencies become low, and vice versa.

title: Ring modulation