1.
Hanna-Barbera
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Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated American television animation for over three decades in the mid 20th century. In late 1966, it was sold to Taft Broadcasting and spent two decades as its subsidiary and it is officially considered the very first major animation studio to successfully produce cartoons exclusively for television. For their achievements, Hanna and Barbera together won seven Academy Awards, eight Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, the pair was also inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1993. Hanna-Barberas fortunes declined in the mid-1980s when the profitability of Saturday morning cartoons was eclipsed by weekday afternoon syndication, in late 1991, the animation studio was purchased from Taft by Turner Broadcasting System, who used much of its back catalog to program its new channel, Cartoon Network. After Turner purchased the company, Hanna and Barbera continued to serve as creative consultants, Turner merged with Time Warner in 1996 and the studio became a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Animation, into which Hanna-Barbera was absorbed after Hanna died in 2001, Cartoon Network Studios continued the projects for the channels output. Barbera went on to work for Warner Bros, Animation until his death in 2006. As of 2017, the studio exists as a unit used to market properties and productions associated with the Hanna-Barbera library. Melrose, New Mexico native William Hanna and New York City-born of Italian heritage Joseph Barbera first met while working at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio in 1939. Their first directorial production and collaboration was the Academy Award-nominated Puss Gets the Boot, Hanna and Barbera served as directors of the shorts for over 20 years, with Barbera in charge of the stories and pre-production and Hanna in charge of supervising the animation. Hanna also provided the screams, yelps and yells for Tom Cat, in addition to the series being nominated for twelve more Oscars, seven of the cartoons won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject between 1943 and 1953. The trophies were awarded to their producer Fred Quimby, who was not involved in the development of the shorts. In addition to their work on the cartoons, the two men moonlighted on outside projects, including the title sequences and commercials for the CBS sitcom I Love Lucy. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer decided in early 1957 to close its cartoon studio, as it felt it had acquired a reasonable backlog of shorts for re-release, Hanna and Barbera, contemplating their future while completing the final Tom and Jerry cartoons, began producing animated TV commercials. During their last year at MGM, they developed a concept for an animated TV program about a dog, a coin toss determined that Hanna would have precedence in the naming the new studio. Harry Cohn, president and head of Columbia Pictures, took an 18 percent ownership in Hanna and Barberas new company, H-B Enterprises, Screen Gems became the new studios distributor and its licensing agent, handling merchandizing of the characters from the animated programs. Sidney and several Screen Gems alumni became members of the board of directors. H-B Enterprises was one of the first American cartoon studios to produce cartoons specifically for TV broadcast
2.
Christmas
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In several countries, celebrating Christmas Eve on December 24 has the main focus rather than December 25, with gift-giving and sharing a traditional meal with the family. Although the month and date of Jesus birth are unknown, by the fourth century the Western Christian Church had placed Christmas on December 25. Today, most Christians celebrate on December 25 in the Gregorian calendar and this is not a disagreement over the date of Christmas as such, but rather a preference of which calendar should be used to determine the day that is December 25. Although it is not known why December 25 became a date of celebration, December 25 was the date the Romans marked as the winter solstice, the shortest, and therefore darkest day of the year. Jesus was identified with the Sun based on an Old Testament verse, the date is exactly nine months following Annunciation, when the conception of Jesus is celebrated. Finally, the Romans had a series of pagan festivals near the end of the year, so Christmas may have been scheduled at this time to appropriate, or compete with, one or more of these festivals. The celebratory customs associated in various countries with Christmas have a mix of pre-Christian, Christian, the economic impact of Christmas has grown steadily over the past few centuries in many regions of the world. Christmas is a form of Christs mass. It is derived from the Middle English Cristemasse, which is from Old English Crīstesmæsse, crīst is from Greek Khrīstos, a translation of Hebrew Māšîaḥ, Messiah, meaning anointed, and mæsse is from Latin missa, the celebration of the Eucharist. The form Christenmas was also used, but is now considered archaic and dialectal, it derives from Middle English Cristenmasse. In addition to Christmas, the holiday has been known by other names throughout its history. The Anglo-Saxons referred to the feast as midwinter, or, more rarely, Nativity, meaning birth, is from Latin nātīvitās. In Old English, Gēola referred to the corresponding to December and January. Noel entered English in the late 14th century and is from the Old French noël or naël, itself ultimately from the Latin nātālis, the canonical gospels of Luke and Matthew both describe Jesus as being born in Bethlehem in Judea, to a virgin mother. In the Gospel of Luke account, Joseph and Mary travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census and it says that angels proclaimed him a savior for all people, and shepherds came to adore him. In the Matthew account, magi follow a star to Bethlehem to bring gifts to Jesus, King Herod orders the massacre of all the boys less than two years old in Bethlehem, but the family flees to Egypt and later settles in Nazareth. The Nativity stories of Matthew and Luke are prominent in the gospels, the first recorded Christmas celebration was in Rome in 336. Christmas played a role in the Arian controversy of the fourth century, the feast regained prominence after 800, when Charlemagne was crowned emperor on Christmas Day
3.
Snowplow
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A snowplow is a device intended for mounting on a vehicle, used for removing snow and ice from outdoor surfaces, typically those serving transportation purposes. In other cases, pickup trucks and front end loaders are outfitted with attachments to fulfill this purpose, some regions that do not frequently see snow may use graders to remove compacted snow and ice off the streets. Snowplows can also be mounted on cars or locomotives to clear railway tracks. A snowplow works by using a blade to push snow to the side to clear it from a surface, modern plows may include technology to make it easier to perform the work and stay on the road. These include Global Positioning System receivers, head-up displays and infrared cameras, large custom snowplows are commonly used at major airports in North America. These plows have oversized blades and additional equipment like a rotating sweeper broom, for sidewalks and narrow lanes small tractor plows are often used within Canada and the United States. When snowfall accumulates above a height, snowplow operators may be seen clearing the main arteries first. The first snow plows were horse-drawn wedge-plows made of wood, with the advent of the automobile, a number of inventors set about to improve existing snow plows. In the US, the snow-clearer is said to have been patented as early as the 1840s, the first snow plow ever built specifically for use with motor equipment was in 1913. It was manufactured by Good Roads Machinery in Kennett Square, PA. and was designed to meet the requirements outlined by engineers of the New York City Street Cleaning Bureau. Good Roads patented the first four-wheel grader in 1889 thus making it the first pull grading apparatus patented in the United States. Unlike most early snow plow manufacturers, Good Roads continues to manufacture snow removal equipment today under the name Good Roads Godwin, now located in Dunn, North Carolina. In the early 1920s Good Roads often advertised in The American City magazine that. three out of every four snow plows in use throughout the whole United States are Good Roads Champions. By the mid-1920s Good Roads was manufacturing snow plows of various shapes and sizes for use on a variety of motorized equipment. Other snow plow manufactures began to follow suit as motorized plows were proven more efficient than other methods of snow removal, in 1923, the brothers Hans and Even Øveraasen of Norway constructed an early snowplow for use on cars. This proved to be the start of a tradition in snow-clearing equipment for roads, railways and airports, carl Frink of Clayton, New York, USA was also an early manufacturer of automobile-mounted snowplows. His company, Frink Snowplows, now Frink-America, was founded by some accounts as early as 1920, today snow plows are produced by numerous companies around the world and available for different kinds of vehicles such as service trucks, pickup trucks, SUVs and ATVs. They are installed using model specific or universal hardware and mount to the frame of the vehicle to ensure durable connection, there are manual, power and hydraulic operating snow plows
4.
Avalanche
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An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a sloping surface. Avalanches are typically triggered in a zone from a mechanical failure in the snowpack when the forces on the snow exceed its strength. After initiation, avalanches usually accelerate rapidly and grow in mass, if the avalanche moves fast enough some of the snow may mix with the air forming a powder snow avalanche, which is a type of gravity current. Slides of rocks or debris, behaving in a way to snow, are also referred to as avalanches. The remainder of this article refers to snow avalanches, the load on the snowpack may be only due to gravity, in which case failure may result either from weakening in the snowpack or increased load due to precipitation. Avalanches that occur in this way are known as spontaneous avalanches, Avalanches can also be triggered by other loads such as skiers, snowmobilers, animals or explosives. Seismic activity may trigger the failure in the snowpack and avalanches. A popular myth is that avalanches can be triggered by loud noise or shouting, Avalanches are not rare or random events and are endemic to any mountain range that accumulates a standing snowpack. Avalanches are most common during winter or spring but glacier movements may cause ice, there is no universally accepted classification of avalanches—different classifications are useful for different purposes. Avalanches can be described by their size, their potential, their initiation mechanism, their composition. Most avalanches occur spontaneously during storms under increased load due to snowfall, the second largest cause of natural avalanches is metamorphic changes in the snowpack such as melting due to solar radiation. Other natural causes include rain, earthquakes, rockfall and icefall, artificial triggers of avalanches include skiers, snowmobiles, and controlled explosive work. Avalanche initiation can start at a point with only an amount of snow moving initially. A snowpack will fail when the load exceeds the strength, the load is straightforward, it is the weight of the snow. However, the strength of the snowpack is much more difficult to determine and is extremely heterogenous and it varies in detail with properties of the snow grains, size, density, morphology, temperature, water content, and the properties of the bonds between the grains. These properties may all metamorphose in time according to the humidity, water vapour flux, temperature. The top of the snowpack is also influenced by incoming radiation. One of the aims of research is to develop and validate computer models that can describe the evolution of the seasonal snowpack over time
5.
Figure skating
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Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, duos, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport included in the Olympics, in 1908, the four Olympic disciplines are mens singles, ladies singles, pair skating and ice dancing. Non-Olympic disciplines include synchronized skating and four skating, the blade has a groove on the bottom creating two distinct edges — inside and outside. Judges prefer that skaters glide on one edge of the blade, during a spin, skaters use the sweet spot of the blade, which is the roundest portion of the blade, just behind the pick and near the middle of the blade. Skates used in single and pair skating have a set of large, toe picks are mainly used for the take-off on jumps. Ice dancing blades are an inch shorter in the rear and have smaller toe picks, Figure skaters compete at various levels from beginner up to the Olympic level at local, regional, national, and international competitions. The International Skating Union regulates international figure skating judging and competitions and these include the Winter Olympics, the World Championships, the World Junior Championships, the European Championships, the Four Continents Championships, and the Grand Prix series. The sport is also associated with show business, major competitions generally conclude with exhibition galas, in which the top skaters from each discipline perform non-competitive programs. Many skaters, both during and after their careers, also skate in ice shows which run during the competitive season. The term professional in skating refers not to level but competitive status. Figure skaters competing at the highest levels of competition are not professional skaters. They are sometimes referred to as amateurs, though some earn money, professional skaters include those who have lost their ISU eligibility and those who perform only in shows. They may include former Olympic and World champions who have ended their career as well as skaters with little or no international competitive experience. In languages other than English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian, Polish and Russian, the most visible difference in relation to ice hockey skates is that figure skates have a set of large, jagged teeth called toe picks on the front part of the blade. The toe picks are used primarily in jumping and should not be used for stroking or spins, if used during a spin, the toe pick will cause the skater to lose momentum, or move away from the center of his/her spin. Blades are mounted to the sole and heel of the boot with screws, typically, high-level figure skaters are professionally fitted for their boots and blades at a reputable skate shop. Professionals are also employed to sharpen blades to individual requirements, Blades are about 3/16 inch thick. When viewed from the side, the blade of a figure skate is not flat and this curvature is referred to as the rocker of the blade
6.
Ice fishing
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Ice fishing is the practice of catching fish with lines and fish hooks or spears through an opening in the ice on a frozen body of water. Ice fishermen may fish in the open or in heated enclosures, some with bunks, longer fishing expeditions can be mounted with simple structures. Larger, heated structures can make multiple day fishing trips possible, a structure with various local names, but often called an ice shanty, ice shack, fish house, shack, bobhouse, or ice hut, is sometimes used. These are dragged or towed onto the lake using a vehicle such as a snowmobile, the two most commonly used types are portable and permanent. The portable houses are made of a heavy material that is usually watertight. The two most common types of houses are those with a shelter that flips behind the user when not needed. The permanent shelters are made of wood or metal and usually have wheels for easy transport. They can be as basic as a heater and holes or have satellite television, bathrooms, stoves, full-size beds. In North America, ice fishing is often a social activity, some resorts have fish houses that are rented out by the day, often, shuttle service by Snow Track or other vehicles modified to drive on ice is provided. In Finland, solitary and contemplative isolation is often the object of the pastime, in Finland, fish houses are a rare occurrence, but wearing a sealed and insulated dry suit designed with space-age fabric is not. In North America, portable houses appear to create a city at locations where fishing is best, Ice fishing gear is highly specialized. An ice saw, auger or chisel is used to cut a circular or rectangular hole in the ice, the size of the hole depends on the type of fish sought, generally suggested is 8 inches. If these tools are not available, an axe may be used to chop the hole, a skimmer, a large metal spoon with holes in it, is used to remove new ice as it forms and to clear slush left from making the hole. During colder periods most ice anglers choose to carry a heater of some type, the heater is not only for warmth but it also for keeping an anglers fishing hole from freezing. When temperatures fall to -20 °F or colder it becomes hard to keep a fishing hole open. Three main types of fishing occur, the first is using a small, light fishing rod with small, brightly coloured lures or jigs with bait such as wax worms, fat heads or crappie or shiner minnows. The angler sits at the hole in the ice and lifts the pole every now and then, producing the jig effect. The second is using tip-ups, which are made of wood or plastic, black line is put on the spool and a swivel is placed at the end of the black line
7.
Santa Claus
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Some maintain Santa Claus also absorbed elements of the Germanic god Wodan, who was associated with the pagan midwinter event of Yule and led the Wild Hunt, a ghostly procession through the sky. This image has been maintained and reinforced through song, radio, television, childrens books, films and he accomplishes this feat with the aid of his elves, who make the toys in his workshop at the North Pole, and his flying reindeer, who pull his sleigh. He is commonly portrayed as living at the North Pole and saying ho ho ho often, Saint Nicholas of Myra was a 4th-century Greek Christian bishop of Myra in Lycia, a province of the Byzantine Empire, now in Turkey. Nicholas was famous for his generous gifts to the poor, in presenting the three impoverished daughters of a pious Christian with dowries so that they would not have to become prostitutes. He was very religious from an age and devoted his life entirely to Christianity. In continental Europe he is portrayed as a bearded bishop in canonical robes. The remains of Saint Nicholas are in Italy, in 1087, the Italian city of Bari mounted an expedition to locate the tomb of the Saint. The reliquary of St. Nicholas was conquered by Italian sailors, a basilica was constructed the same year to store the loot and the area became a pilgrimage site for the devout. Sailors from Bari collected just half of Nicholas skeleton, leaving all the fragments in the grave. These were collected by Venetian sailors during the First Crusade and taken to Venice, where a church to St. Nicholas, the patron of sailors, was built on the San Nicolò al Lido. This tradition was confirmed in two important scientific investigations of the relics in Bari and Venice, which revealed that the relics in the two Italian cities belong to the same skeleton. Saint Nicholas was later claimed as a saint of many diverse groups, from archers, sailors. He is also the saint of both Amsterdam and Moscow. During the Middle Ages, often on the evening before his day of 6 December. So Saint Nicholas changed to Santa Claus, martin Luther first suggested the Christkind as the bringer of gifts. But Nicholas remained popular as gifts bearer for the people, Father Christmas dates back as far as 16th century in England during the reign of Henry VIII, when he was pictured as a large man in green or scarlet robes lined with fur. He typified the spirit of good cheer at Christmas, bringing peace, joy, good food and wine, as England no longer kept the feast day of Saint Nicholas on 6 December, the Father Christmas celebration was moved to 25 December to coincide with Christmas Day. The Victorian revival of Christmas included Father Christmas as the emblem of good cheer, in the Netherlands and Belgium the character of Santa Claus has to compete with that of Sinterklaas, Santas presumed progenitor
8.
VHS
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The Video Home System is a standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes. Developed by Victor Company of Japan in the early 1970s, it was released in Japan in late 1976, from the 1950s, magnetic tape video recording became a major contributor to the television industry, via the first commercialized video tape recorders. At that time, the devices were used only in professional environments such as television studios. In the 1970s, videotape entered home use, creating the video industry and changing the economics of the television. The television industry viewed videocassette recorders as having the power to disrupt their business, in the 1980s and 1990s, at the peak of VHSs popularity, there were videotape format wars in the home video industry. Two of the formats, VHS and Betamax, received the most media exposure, VHS eventually won the war, dominating 60 percent of the North American market by 1980 and emerging as the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period. Optical disc formats later began to better quality than analog consumer video tape such as standard. The earliest of these formats, LaserDisc, was not widely adopted, however, after the introduction of the DVD format in 1997, VHSs market share began to decline. By 2008, DVD had replaced VHS as the preferred method of distribution. After several attempts by other companies, the first commercially successful VTR, at a price of US$50,000 in 1956, and US$300 for a 90-minute reel of tape, it was intended only for the professional market. Kenjiro Takayanagi, a broadcasting pioneer then working for JVC as its vice president, saw the need for his company to produce VTRs for the Japan market. In 1959, JVC developed a video tape recorder. In 1964, JVC released the DV220, which would be the companys standard VTR until the mid-1970s, in 1969 JVC collaborated with Sony Corporation and Matsushita Electric in building a video recording standard for the Japanese consumer. The effort produced the U-matic format in 1971, which was the first format to become a unified standard, U-matic was successful in business and some broadcast applications, but due to cost and limited recording time very few of the machines were sold for home use. Soon after, Sony and Matsushita broke away from the collaboration effort, Sony started working on Betamax, while Matsushita started working on VX. JVC released the CR-6060 in 1975, based on the U-matic format, Sony and Matsushita also produced U-matic systems of their own. In 1971, JVC engineers Yuma Shiraishi and Shizuo Takano put together a team to develop a consumer-based VTR, by the end of 1971 they created an internal diagram titled VHS Development Matrix, which established twelve objectives for JVCs new VTR. These included, The system must be compatible with any television set
9.
DVD
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DVD is a digital optical disc storage format invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. The medium can store any kind of data and is widely used for software. DVDs offer higher capacity than compact discs while having the same dimensions. Pre-recorded DVDs are mass-produced using molding machines that physically stamp data onto the DVD, such discs are a form of DVD-ROM because data can only be read and not written or erased. Blank recordable DVD discs can be recorded using a DVD recorder. Rewritable DVDs can be recorded and erased many times, DVDs containing other types of information may be referred to as DVD data discs. The OED also states that in 1995, The companies said the name of the format will simply be DVD. Toshiba had been using the name ‘digital video disk’, but that was switched to ‘digital versatile disk’ after computer companies complained that it left out their applications, Digital versatile disc is the explanation provided in a DVD Forum Primer from 2000 and in the DVD Forums mission statement. There were several formats developed for recording video on optical discs before the DVD, Optical recording technology was invented by David Paul Gregg and James Russell in 1958 and first patented in 1961. A consumer optical disc data format known as LaserDisc was developed in the United States and it used much larger discs than the later formats. CD Video used analog video encoding on optical discs matching the established standard 120 mm size of audio CDs, Video CD became one of the first formats for distributing digitally encoded films in this format, in 1993. In the same year, two new optical disc formats were being developed. By the time of the launches for both formats in January 1995, the MMCD nomenclature had been dropped, and Philips and Sony were referring to their format as Digital Video Disc. Representatives from the SD camp asked IBM for advice on the system to use for their disc. Alan E. Bell, a researcher from IBMs Almaden Research Center, got that request and this group was referred to as the Technical Working Group, or TWG. On August 14,1995, an ad hoc group formed from five computer companies issued a release stating that they would only accept a single format. The TWG voted to both formats unless the two camps agreed on a single, converged standard. They recruited Lou Gerstner, president of IBM, to pressure the executives of the warring factions, as a result, the DVD specification provided a storage capacity of 4.7 GB for a single-layered, single-sided disc and 8.5 GB for a dual-layered, single-sided disc
10.
Animation
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Animation is the process of making the illusion of motion and the illusion of change by means of the rapid display of a sequence of images that minimally differ from each other. The illusion—as in motion pictures in general—is thought to rely on the phi phenomenon, animators are artists who specialize in the creation of animation. Animation can be recorded with either analogue media, a book, motion picture film, video tape, digital media, including formats with animated GIF, Flash animation. To display animation, a camera, computer, or projector are used along with new technologies that are produced. Animation creation methods include the traditional animation creation method and those involving stop motion animation of two and three-dimensional objects, paper cutouts, puppets and clay figures, Images are displayed in a rapid succession, usually 24,25,30, or 60 frames per second. Computer animation processes generating animated images with the general term computer-generated imagery, 3D animation uses computer graphics, while 2D animation is used for stylistic, low bandwidth and faster real-time renderings. An earthen goblet discovered at the site of the 5, 200-year-old Shahr-e Sūkhté in southeastern Iran, the artifact bears five sequential images depicting a Persian Desert Ibex jumping up to eat the leaves of a tree. They may, of course, refer to Chinese shadow puppets, in the 19th century, the phenakistoscope, zoetrope and praxinoscope were introduced. A thaumatrope is a toy with a small disk with different pictures on each side. The phenakistoscope was invented simultaneously by Belgian Joseph Plateau and Austrian Simon von Stampfer in 1831, the phenakistoscope consists of a disk with a series of images, drawn on radi evenly space around the center of the disk. John Barnes Linnett patented the first flip book in 1868 as the kineograph, the first animated projection was created in France, by Charles-Émile Reynaud, who was a French science teacher. Reynaud created the Praxinoscope in 1877 and the Théâtre Optique in December 1888, on 28 October 1892, he projected the first animation in public, Pauvre Pierrot, at the Musée Grévin in Paris. This film is notable as the first known instance of film perforations being used. His films were not photographed, they were drawn directly onto the transparent strip, in 1900, more than 500,000 people had attended these screenings. Stuart Blackton, who, because of that, is considered the father of American animation, in Europe, the French artist, Émile Cohl, created the first animated film using what came to be known as traditional animation creation methods - the 1908 Fantasmagorie. The film largely consisted of a figure moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects. There were also sections of live action in which the hands would enter the scene. The film was created by drawing each frame on paper and then shooting each frame onto negative film, the author of the first puppet-animated film was the Russian-born director Wladyslaw Starewicz, known as Ladislas Starevich
