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"Sony Corporation" redirects here. For the U.S. subsidiary, see Sony Corporation of America. For other uses, see Sony (disambiguation).
Sony Group Corporation (ソニーグループ株式会社, Sonī Gurūpu kabushiki gaisha SOH-nee), commonly known as Sony and stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Kōnan, Minato, Tokyo, Japan.[7] As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional electronic products, the largest video game console company and the largest video game publisher. Through Sony Entertainment Inc, it is one of the largest music companies (largest music publisher & second largest record label) and the third largest film studio, making it one of the most comprehensive media companies. It is the largest technology and media conglomerate in Japan. At the same period, it is also recognized as the most cash-rich Japanese company, with its net cash reserves of ¥2 trillion.[8][9][10][11]
Sony, with its 55 percent market share in the image sensor market, is the largest manufacturer of image sensors, the second largest camera manufacturer, and is among the semiconductor sales leaders.[12][11][13] It is the world's largest player in the premium TV market for a television of at least 55 inches (140 centimeters) with a price higher than $2,500 as well as second largest TV brand by market share and, as of 2020, the third largest television manufacturer in the world by annual sales figures.[15][16][17]
Sony Group Corporation is the holding company of the Sony Group (ソニー・グループ, Sonī Gurūpu), which comprises Sony Corporation, Sony Semiconductor Solutions, Sony Entertainment (Sony Pictures, Sony Music), Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Financial Group, and others.
The company's slogan is We are Sony. Their former slogans were The One and Only (1979–1982), It's a Sony (1981–2005), like.no.other (2005–2009),[18] make.believe (2009–2013)[19] and Be Moved (2013–2021).
Sony has a weak tie to the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) corporate group, the successor to the Mitsui keiretsu.[20] Sony is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (in which it is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX Core30 indexes) with an additional listing in the form of American depositary receipts listed in the New York Stock Exchange (traded since 1970, making it the oldest Japanese company to be listed in an American exchange), and was ranked 122nd on the 2020 Fortune Global 500 list.[21]
Sony began in the wake of World War II. In 1946, Masaru Ibuka started an electronics shop in Shirokiya,[22] a department store building in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo. The company started with a capital of ¥190,000[23] and a total of eight employees.[24] On 7 May 1946, Ibuka was joined by Akio Morita to establish a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (東京通信工業, Tōkyō Tsūshin Kōgyō) (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation).[25] The company built Japan's first tape recorder, called the Type-G.[25][26] In 1958, the company changed its name to "Sony".[27] The name derives from "sonus", the latin word for sound.[28]
When Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo was looking for a romanized name to use to market themselves, they strongly considered using their initials, TTK. The primary reason they did not is that the railway company Tokyo Kyuko was known as TTK.[25] The company occasionally used the acronym "Totsuko" in Japan, but during his visit to the United States, Morita discovered that Americans had trouble pronouncing that name. Another early name that was tried out for a while was "Tokyo Teletech" until Akio Morita discovered that there was an American company already using Teletech as a brand name.[29]
The name "Sony" was chosen for the brand as a mix of two words: one was the Latin word "sonus", which is the root of sonic and sound, and the other was "sonny", a common slang term used in 1950s America to call a young boy.[30] In 1950s Japan, "sonny boys" was a loan word in Japanese, which connoted smart and presentable young men, which Sony founders Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka considered themselves to be.[30]
The first Sony-branded product, the TR-55 transistor radio, appeared in 1955, but the company name did not change to Sony until January 1958.[31]
At the time of the change, it was extremely unusual for a Japanese company to use Roman letters to spell its name instead of writing it in kanji. The move was not without opposition: TTK's principal bank at the time, Mitsui, had strong feelings about the name. They pushed for a name such as Sony Electronic Industries, or Sony Teletech. Akio Morita was firm, however, as he did not want the company name tied to any particular industry. Eventually, both Ibuka and Mitsui Bank's chairman gave their approval.[25]
According to Schiffer, Sony's TR-63 radio "cracked open the U.S. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics."[32] By the mid-1950s, American teens had begun buying portable transistor radios in huge numbers, helping to propel the fledgling industry from an estimated 100,000 units in 1955 to 5 million units by the end of 1968.[citation needed]
Sony co-founder Akio Morita founded Sony Corporation of America in 1960.[24] In the process, he was struck by the mobility of employees between American companies, which was unheard of in Japan at that time.[24] When he returned to Japan, he encouraged experienced, middle-aged employees of other companies to reevaluate their careers and consider joining Sony.[24] The company filled many positions in this manner, and inspired other Japanese companies to do the same.[24] Moreover, Sony played a major role in the development of Japan as a powerful exporter during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.[33] It also helped to significantly improve American perceptions of "made in Japan" products.[34] Known for its production quality, Sony was able to charge above-market prices for its consumer electronics and resisted lowering prices.[34]
In 1971, Masaru Ibuka handed the position of president over to his co-founder Akio Morita. Sony began a life insurance company in 1979, one of its many peripheral businesses. Amid a global recession in the early 1980s, electronics sales dropped and the company was forced to cut prices.[34] Sony's profits fell sharply. "It's over for Sony", one analyst concluded. "The company's best days are behind it."[34]
Around that time, Norio Ohga took up the role of president. He encouraged the development of the compact disc (CD) in the 1970s and 1980s, and of the PlayStation in the early 1990s. Ohga went on to purchase CBS Records in 1988 and Columbia Pictures in 1989, greatly expanding Sony's media presence. Ohga would succeed Morita as chief executive officer in 1989.[35][citation needed]
Under the vision of co-founder Akio Morita[36] and his successors, the company had aggressively expanded into new businesses.[33] Part of its motivation for doing so was the pursuit of "convergence", linking film, music and digital electronics via the Internet.[33] This expansion proved unrewarding and unprofitable,[33] threatening Sony's ability to charge a premium on its products[36] as well as its brand name.[36] In 2005, Howard Stringer replaced Nobuyuki Idei as chief executive officer, marking the first time that a foreigner had run a major Japanese electronics firm. Stringer helped to reinvigorate the company's struggling media businesses, encouraging blockbusters such as Spider-Man while cutting 9,000 jobs.[33] He hoped to sell off peripheral business and focus the company again on electronics.[36] Furthermore, he aimed to increase cooperation between business units,[36] which he described as "silos" operating in isolation from one another.[37] In a bid to provide a unified brand for its global operations, Sony introduced a slogan known as "make.believe" in 2009.[35][citation needed]
Despite some successes, the company faced continued struggles in the mid- to late-2000s.[33] In 2012, Kazuo Hirai was promoted to president and CEO, replacing Stringer. Shortly thereafter, Hirai outlined his company-wide initiative, named "One Sony" to revive Sony from years of financial losses and bureaucratic management structure, which proved difficult for former CEO Stringer to accomplish, partly due to differences in business culture and native languages between Stringer and some of Sony's Japanese divisions and subsidiaries. Hirai outlined three major areas of focus for Sony's electronics business, which include imaging technology, gaming and mobile technology, as well as a focus on reducing the major losses from the television business.[38]
In February 2014, Sony announced the sale of its Vaio PC division to a new corporation owned by investment fund Japan Industrial Partners and spinning its TV division into its own corporation as to make it more nimble to turn the unit around from past losses totaling $7.8 billion over a decade.[39] Later that month, they announced that they would be closing 20 stores.[40] In April, the company announced that they would be selling 9.5 million shares in Square Enix (roughly 8.2 percent of the game company's total shares) in a deal worth approximately $48 million.[41] In May 2014 the company announced it was forming two joint ventures with Shanghai Oriental Pearl Group to manufacture and market Sony's PlayStation games consoles and associated software in China.[42]
It was reported in December 2016 by multiple news outlets that Sony was considering restructuring its U.S. operations by merging its TV & film business, Sony Pictures Entertainment, with its gaming business, Sony Interactive Entertainment. According to the reports, such a restructuring would have placed Sony Pictures under Sony Interactive's CEO, Andrew House, though House wouldn't have taken over day-to-day operations of the film studio.[44][45][46] According to one report, Sony was set to make a final decision on the possibility of the merger of the TV, film, & gaming businesses by the end of its fiscal year in March of the following year (2017).[44]
In 2017, Sony sold its lithium-ion battery business to Murata Manufacturing.[47][48][49]
On 1 April 2020, Sony Electronics Corporation was established as an intermediate holding company to own and oversee its electronics and IT solutions businesses.
On 19 May 2020, the company announced that it would rename Sony Group Corporation as of 1 April 2021. Subsequently, Sony Electronics Corporation would be renamed to Sony Corporation.[52] On the same day the company announced that it would turn Sony Financial Holdings (currently Sony Financial Group), of which Sony already owns 65.06% of shares, to a wholly owned subsidiary through a takeover bid.[53]
On 1 April 2021, Sony Corporation was renamed Sony Group Corporation. On the same day, Sony Mobile Communications Inc. absorbed Sony Electronics Corporation, Sony Imaging Products & Solutions Inc., and Sony Home Entertainment & Sound Products Inc. and changed its trade name to Sony Corporation.[54]
Sony has historically been notable for creating its own in-house standards for new recording and storage technologies, instead of adopting those of other manufacturers and standards bodies, while its success in the early years owes to a smooth capitalization on the Compact Cassette standard introduced by Philips,[55] with which Sony went on to enjoy a decades-long technological relationship in various areas. Sony (either alone or with partners) has introduced several of the most popular recording formats, including the 3.5-inch floppy disk, Compact Disc and Blu-ray Disc.[56]
Sony introduced U-matic, the world's first videocassette format, in 1971, but the standard was unpopular for domestic use due to the high price.[57] The company subsequently launched the Betamax format in 1975.[58] Sony was involved in the videotape format war of the early 1980s, when they were marketing the Betamax system for video cassette recorders against the VHS format developed by JVC.[59] In the end, VHS gained critical mass in the marketbase and became the worldwide standard for consumer VCRs.[59]
Betamax is, for all practical purposes, an obsolete format. Sony's professional-oriented component video format called Betacam, which was derived from Betamax, was used until 2016 when Sony announced it was stopping production of all remaining 1/2-inch video tape recorders and players, including the Digital Betacam format.[60]
In 1985, Sony launched their Handycam products and the Video8 format.[61] Video8 and the follow-on hi-band Hi8 format became popular in the consumer camcorder market. In 1987 Sony launched the 4 mm DAT or Digital Audio Tape as a new digital audio tape standard.[62]
Sony introduced the Triluminos Display, the company's proprietary color reproduction enhancing technology, in 2004, featured in the world's first LED-backlit LCD televisions.[63] It was widely used in other Sony's products as well, including computer monitors, laptops, and smartphones.[64] In 2013, Sony released a new line of televisions with an improved version of the technology, which incorporated quantum dots in the backlight system. It was the first commercial use of quantum dots.[65][66]
In 2012, the company revealed a prototype of an ultrafine RGB LED display, which it calls the Crystal LED Display.[67]
First Sony Walkman TPS-L2 from 1979 (Expo in Sony Building at Ginza, Chuo-Ku, Tokyo)
Sony used the Compact Cassette format in many of its tape recorders and players, including the Walkman, the world's first portable music player.[68] Sony introduced the MiniDisc format in 1992 as an alternative to Philips DCC or Digital Compact Cassette and as a successor to the Compact Cassette.[69] Since the introduction of MiniDisc, Sony has attempted to promote its own audio compression technologies under the ATRAC brand, against the more widely used MP3. Until late 2004, Sony's Network Walkman line of digital portable music players did not support the MP3 standard natively.
In 2004, Sony built upon the MiniDisc format by releasing Hi-MD. Hi-MD allows the playback and recording of audio on newly introduced 1 GB Hi-MD discs in addition to playback and recording on regular MiniDiscs. In addition to saving audio on the discs, Hi-MD allows the storage of computer files such as documents, videos and photos.
In 1993, Sony challenged the industry standard Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound format with a newer and more advanced proprietary motion picture digital audio format called SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound).[70] This format employed eight channels (7.1) of audio opposed to just six used in Dolby Digital 5.1 at the time.[70] Ultimately, SDDS has been vastly overshadowed by the preferred DTS (Digital Theatre System) and Dolby Digital standards in the motion picture industry. SDDS was solely developed for use in the theatre circuit; Sony never intended to develop a home theatre version of SDDS.[71][72]
Sony and Philips jointly developed the Sony-Philips digital interface format (S/PDIF) and the high-fidelity audio system SACD. The latter became entrenched in a format war with DVD-Audio. Still, neither gained a major foothold with the general public. CDs had been preferred by consumers because of the ubiquitous presence of CD drives in consumer devices until the early 2000s when the iPod and streaming services became available.[73]
In 2015, Sony introduced LDAC, a proprietary audio coding technology which allows streaming high-resolution audio over Bluetooth connections at up to 990 kbps at 32 bit/96 kHz. Sony also contributed it as part of the Android Open Source Project starting from Android 8.0 "Oreo", enabling every OEM to integrate this standard into their own Android devices freely. However the decoder library is proprietary, so receiving devices require licenses. On 17 September 2019, the Japan Audio Society (JAS) certified LDAC with their Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification. Currently the only codecs with the Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification are LDAC and LHDC, another competing standard.
Sony demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in 1977 and soon joined hands with Philips, another major contender for the storage technology, to establish a worldwide standard.[74] In 1983, the two company jointly announced the Compact Disc (CD). In 1984, Sony launched the Discman series, an expansion of the Walkman brand to portable CD players. Sony began to improve performance and capacity of the novel format. It launched write-once optical discs (WO) and magneto-optical discs which were around 125MB size for the specific use of archival data storage, in 1986 and 1988 respectively.[75]
In the early 1990s, two high-density optical storage standards were being developed: one was the MultiMedia Compact Disc (MMCD), backed by Philips and Sony, and the other was the Super Density Disc (SD), supported by Toshiba and many others. Philips and Sony abandoned their MMCD format and agreed upon Toshiba's SD format with only one modification. The unified disc format was called DVD and was introduced in 1997.
Sony was one of the leading developers of the Blu-ray optical disc format, the newest standard for disc-based content delivery. The first Blu-ray players became commercially available in 2006. The format emerged as the standard for HD media over the competing format, Toshiba's HD DVD, after a two-year-long high-definition optical disc format war.
Sony's laser communication devices for small satellites rely on the technologies developed for the company's optical disc products.[76]
In 1983, Sony introduced 90 mm micro diskettes, better known as 3.5-inch (89 mm) floppy disks, which it had developed at a time when there were 4" floppy disks, and many variations from different companies, to replace the then on-going 5.25" floppy disks. Sony had great success and the format became dominant. 3.5" floppy disks gradually became obsolete as they were replaced by current media formats. Sony held more than a 70 percent share of the market when it decided to pull the plug on the format in 2010.[77][78]
In 1998, Sony launched the Memory Stick format, the flash memory cards for use in Sony lines of digital cameras and portable music players. It has seen little support outside of Sony's own products, with Secure Digital cards (SD) commanding considerably greater popularity. Sony has made updates to the Memory Stick format with Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick Micro. The company has also released USB flash drive products, branded under the Micro Vault line.[79]
Sony introduced FeliCa, a contactless IC card technology primarily used in contactless payment, as a result of the company's joint development and commercialization of Near-Field Communication (NFC) with Philips. The standard is largely offered in two forms, either chips embedded in smartphones or plastic cards with chips embedded in them. Sony plans to implement this technology in train systems across Asia.[80]
In 2019, Sony launched the ELTRES, the company's proprietary low-power wide-area wireless communication (LPWAN) standard.[81]
In 2021, the WIPO's annual review of the World Intellectual Property Indicators report ranked Sony's as 9th in the world for the number of patent applications published under the PCT System. 1,793 patent applications were published by Sony during 2020.[82] This position is up from their previous ranking as 13th in 2019 with 1,566 applications.[83]
Best known for its electronic products, Sony offers a wide variety of product lines in many areas. At its peak, it was dubbed as a "corporate octopus", for its sprawling ventures from private insurance to chemicals to cosmetics to home shopping to Tokyo-based French food joint, let alone its core businesses such as electronics and entertainment.[36] Even after it has unwound many business units including Sony Chemicals and Vaio PC, Sony still runs diverse businesses.
As of 2020, Sony is organized into the following business segments: Game & Network Services (G&NS), Music, Pictures, Electronics Products & Solutions (EP&S), Imaging & Sensing Solutions (I&SS), Financial Services, and Others.[84] Usually, each business segment has a handful of corresponding intermediate holding companies under which all the related businesses are folded into, such as Columbia Records being part of Sony Music Group, a subsidiary and, at the same time, a holding company for Sony's music businesses, along with SMEJ.
Sony Corporation (Sony Electronics Corporation until 1 April 2021[85]) is the electronics business unit of the Sony Group. It primarily conducts research and development (R&D), planning, designing, manufacturing and marketing for electronics products. Sony Global Manufacturing & Operations Corporation (SGMO) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation and responsible for managing manufacturing operations both in Japan and overseas, through its own factories as well as third party contract manufacturers.
In 1979, Sony released the world's first portable music player, the Walkman, bundled with the MDL-3L2 headphones. This line fostered a fundamental change in music listening habits by allowing people to carry music with them and listen to music through lightweight headphones.[68][86] Originally used to refer portable audio cassette players, the Walkman brand has been widely adopted by the company to encompass its portable digital audio and video players as well as a line of former Sony Ericsson mobile phones. In the case of optical disc players, the Discman brand was used until the late 1990s. In 1999 Sony's first portable digital audio players were introduced; one was a player using Memory Stick flash storage created by the Walkman division, and the other was a smaller pen-sized player with embedded flash storage created by the Vaio division; both accompanied with Sony's OpenMG copyright protection technology and PC software for music transfer.[87][88] Sony continue to develop Walkman digital audio players.
Sony is a major audio products manufacturer and one of the active noise control technology leaders.[89][90]
Sony produced the TV8-301, the world's first all-transistor television, in 1959.[91] In 1968, the company introduced the Trinitron brand name for its lines of aperture grille cathode ray tube televisions and afterwards computer monitors. Sony stopped production of Trinitron for most markets, but continued producing sets for markets such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and China. Sony discontinued its series of Trinitron computer monitors in 2005. The company discontinued the last Trinitron-based television set in the US in early 2007. The end of Trinitron marked the end of Sony's analog television sets and monitors.
Sony used the LCD WEGA name for its LCD TVs until summer 2005. The company then introduced the BRAVIA name. BRAVIA is an in-house brand owned by Sony which produces high-definition LCD televisions, projection TVs and front projectors, home cinemas and the BRAVIA home theatre range. All Sony high-definition flat-panel LCD televisions in North America have carried the logo for BRAVIA since 2005. In 2006, Sony lost its decades-long No.1 market share in the global television market. In November 2007, the Sony XEL-1, the first OLED television, was released and manufactured for two years. Later in 2013, Sony demonstrated the first 4K OLED television.[92][93] As of 2012, Sony was the third-largest maker of televisions in the world and the business unit had been unprofitable for eight consecutive years.[94]
From 2011, Sony started restructuring of its loss-making television business, mainly by downsizing business units and outsourcing the manufacturing of display panels to the companies like Sharp Corporation, LG Display, and Samsung Electronics.[95] In December 2011, Sony agreed to sell all stake in an LCD joint venture with Samsung Electronics (S-LCD) for about $940 million.[96] On 28 March 2012, Sony and Sharp announced that they have agreed to further amend the joint venture agreement originally executed by the parties in July 2009, as amended in April 2011, for the establishment and operation of Sharp Display Products Corporation ("SDP"), a joint venture to produce and sell large-sized LCD panels and modules.[97] The agreement was eventually terminated as Sony parted ways.[98] Sony's small-sized LCD business subsidiary and medium-to-large-sized OLED display business unit were spun off and became part of Japan Display and JOLED, respectively.[99]
Also, Sony has sold a range of tapes, discs, recorders and players for videocassette, DVD, and Blu-ray formats for decades.
Sony offers a wide range of digital cameras. Its point-and-shoot models adopt the Cyber-shot name, while digital single-lens reflex models are branded using Alpha. It also produces action cameras and camcorders, with the company's cinema-grade products being sold under the CineAlta name.
Sony demonstrated a prototype of the Sony Mavica in 1981 and released it for the consumer market in 1988. The first Cyber-shot was introduced in 1996. Sony's market share of the digital camera market fell from a high of 20% to 9% by 2005.[101][37]
Sony entered the market for digital single-lens reflex cameras in 2006 when it acquired the camera business of Konica Minolta. Sony rebranded the company's line of cameras as its Alpha line. Sony is the world's third largest manufacturer of the cameras, behind Canon and Nikon respectively.
In 2010, Sony introduced their first mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras, which were the NEX-3 and the NEX-5. They also started a new lens mount system, which was the E-mount. There were quite a few NEX models out there, when Sony decided to melt the NEX series into the Alpha series. The first Alpha MILC was the α3000, which was introduced in August 2013. It was followed by the Full-Frame α7 and α7R in October, then the successors of the NEX-5, the NEX-6 and NEX-7, the α5000 and the α6000 in 2014. The α6000 became the most popular MILC ever and Sony became the largest MILC manufacturer.
Sony produced computers (MSX home computers and NEWS workstations) during the 1980s. The company withdrew from the computer business around 1990. Sony entered again into the global computer market under the new VAIO brand, began in 1996. Short for "Video Audio Integrated Operation", the line was the first computer brand to highlight visual-audio features.[37]
Sony faced considerable controversy when some of its laptop batteries exploded and caught fire in 2006, resulting in the largest computer-related recall to that point in history.[102][103][104]
In a bid to join the tablet computer market, the company launched its Sony Tablet line of Android tablets in 2011. Since 2012, Sony's Android products have been marketed under the Xperia brand used for its smartphones.[105]
On 4 February 2014, Sony announced that it would sell its VAIO PC business due to poor sales[106] and Japanese company Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) will purchase the VAIO brand, with the deal finalized by the end of March 2014.[107] As of 2018, Sony maintained a 5% stake in the new, independent company.
Sony has targeted medical, healthcare and biotechnology business as a growth sector in the future. The company acquired iCyt Mission Technology, Inc. (renamed Sony Biotechnology Inc. in 2012), a manufacturer of flow cytometers, in 2010 and Micronics, Inc., a developer of microfluidics-based diagnostic tools, in 2011.
In 2012, Sony announced that it would acquire all shares of So-net Entertainment Corporation, the largest shareholder of M3, Inc., an operator of portal sites (m3.com, MR-kun, MDLinx and MEDI:GATE) for healthcare professionals.
On 28 September 2012, Olympus and Sony announced that the two companies will establish a joint venture to develop new surgical endoscopes with 4K resolution (or higher) and 3D capability.[108] Sony Olympus Medical Solutions Inc. (Sony 51%, Olympus 49%) was established on 16 April 2013.[109]
On 28 February 2014, Sony, M3 and Illumina established a joint venture called P5, Inc. to provide a genome analysis service for research institutions and enterprises in Japan.[110]
In 2000, Sony was a marginal player in the mobile phone market with a share of less than 1 percent. In 2001, Sony entered into a joint venture with Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson, forming Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications.[111] Initial sales were rocky, and the company posted losses in 2001 and 2002. However, Sony Ericsson reached a profit in 2003. The company distinguished itself with multimedia-capable mobile phones, which included features such as cameras. These were unusual at the time. Despite their innovations, Sony Ericsson faced intense competition from Apple's iPhone, which was released in 2007. From 2008 to 2010, amid a global recession, Sony Ericsson slashed its workforce by several thousand. In 2009, Sony Ericsson was the fourth-largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world (after Nokia, Samsung and LG).[112] By 2010, its market share had fallen to sixth place.[113] Sony acquired Ericsson's share of the venture in 2012 for over US$1 billion.[111] Sony Mobile focuses exclusively on the smartphone market under the Xperia brand.
In 2013, Sony contributed to around two percent of the mobile phone market with 37 million mobile phones sold.[114] Sony Mobile's sales reached a peak in 2014 with 40 million handsets, the volume has since decreased. Sony shipped 13.5 million phones in 2017, 6.5 million in 2018, and 2.9 million handsets in FY 2020.[115]
Since the late 1990s, Sony has released numerous consumer robots, including dog-shaped robots called AIBO, a music playing robot called Rolly, and a humanoid robot called QRIO. Despite being a pioneer in the field, Sony had ceased robotics-related operations for 10 years due to financial difficulties, until it decided to revive them in 2016.[116]
In 2015, Sony partnered with an autonomous driving startup ZMP INC. to establish an aerial surveillance and reconnaissance drone manufacturer named Aerosense.[117] At the CES 2021, Sony unveiled a drone with the brand Airpeak, the smallest of its kind that can incorporate a Sony Alpha camera according to the company, entering the drone business on its own for the first time.[118]
Sony traces its roots in the semiconductor business back to 1954, when it became the first Japanese company to commercialize the transistor, invented and licensed by Bell Labs, whilst some of the biggest and well-established names in Japan at the time like Toshiba and Mitsubishi Electric initially stuck with vacuum tubes they had been thriving on; despite being an expert on the vacuum tube himself, Ibuka saw potential of the novel technology and had Morita negotiate the terms for licensing, making Sony into one of the earliest and the youngest licensees of the transistor, together with Texas Instruments.[119][120][121] In 1957, Sony employee Leo Esaki and his colleagues invented a tunnel diode (usually referred to as Esaki diode) by which they discovered the quantum tunneling effect in solids, for which Esaki received the Nobel prize in Physics in 1973.[122] Sony has commanded a dominant share in the charge-coupled device market.[123]
As of 2020, Sony is the world's largest manufacturer of CMOS image sensors as its chips are widely used in digital cameras, tablet computers, smartphones, drones and more recently, self-driving systems in automobiles.[124]
As of 2020, the company, through its chip business arm Sony Semiconductor Solutions, designs, manufactures, and sells a wide range of semiconductors and electronic components, including image sensors (HAD CCD, Exmor), image processors (BIONZ), laser diodes, system LSIs, mixed-signal LSIs, emerging memory storage, emerging displays (microLED, microOLED, and holographic display), multi-functional microcomputer (SPRESENSE), etc.[125]
In 2020, Sony has launched the first intelligent vision sensors with AI edge computing capabilies.[126]
Sony Interactive Entertainment (formerly Sony Computer Entertainment) is best known for producing the popular line of PlayStation consoles. The line grew out of a failed partnership with Nintendo. Originally, Nintendo requested Sony to develop an add-on for its SNES that would play Compact Discs. In 1991 Sony announced the add-on, as well as a dedicated console known as the "Play Station". However, a disagreement over software licensing for the console caused the partnership to fall through. Sony then continued the project independently.
Launched in 1994, the first PlayStation gained 61% of global console sales and broke Nintendo's long-standing lead in the market.[127] Sony followed up with the PlayStation 2 in 2000, which was even more successful. The console has become the most successful of all time, selling over 150 million units as of 2011. Sony released the PlayStation 3, a high-definition console, in 2006. It was the first console to use the Blu-ray format, and was considerably more expensive than the competitors Xbox 360 and Wii due to the Cell processor.[37]
Early on, poor sales performance resulted in significant losses for the company, pushing it to sell the console at a loss.[128] The PlayStation 3 sold generally more poorly than its competitors in the early years of its release but managed to overtake the Xbox 360 in global sales later on.[129] It later introduced the PlayStation Move, an accessory that allows players to control video games using motion gestures.
Sony extended the brand to the portable games market in 2004 with the PlayStation Portable (PSP). The console has sold reasonably, but has taken a second place to a rival handheld, the Nintendo DS. Sony developed the Universal Media Disc (UMD) optical disc medium for use on the PlayStation Portable. Early on, the format was used for movies, but it has since lost major studio support. Sony released a disc-less version of its PlayStation Portable, the PSP Go, in 2009. The company went on to release its second portable video game system, PlayStation Vita, in 2011 and 2012. Sony launched its fourth console, the PlayStation 4, on 15 November 2013, which as of 31 December 2017 has sold 73.6 million units globally.[130]
On 18 March 2014, at GDC, president of SCE Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida announced their new virtual reality technology dubbed Project Morpheus, and later named PlayStation VR, for PlayStation 4. The headset brought VR gaming and non-gaming software to the company's console. According to a report released by Houston-based patent consulting firm LexInnova in May 2015, Sony is leading the virtual reality patent race. According to the firm's analysis of nearly 12,000 patents or patent applications, Sony has 366 virtual reality patents or patent applications.[131] PlayStation VR was released worldwide on 13 October 2016.[132]
On 31 March 2019, the successor to the PlayStation 4 was announced and on 12 November 2020, the PlayStation 5 was released in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. PlayStation has confirmed that the console will launch in Indonesia on 22 January 2021. Upon completion of the fiscal quarter, Sony sold 4.5 million PlayStation 5 consoles, keeping pace with the best selling console of all time, the PlayStation 2.[133]
Sony Entertainment has two divisions: Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Music Group (Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Music Publishing). Sony USA previously owned and operated Sony Trans Com: a technology business that provided in-flight entertainment programming as well as video and audio playback equipment for the airline industry. Sony had purchased the business from Sundstrand Corp. in 1989 and subsequently sold it to Rockwell Collins in 2000.[134][135]
In 2012, Sony rolled most of its consumer content services (including video, music and gaming) into the Sony Entertainment Network, the predecessor of PlayStation Network.
Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (SPE) is the television and film production/distribution unit of Sony. With 12.5% box office market share in 2011, the company was ranked third among movie studios .[136] Its group sales in 2010 were US$7.2 billion.[137][138] The company has produced many notable movie franchises, including Spider-Man, The Karate Kid and Men in Black. It has also produced the popular television game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.
Sony entered the television and film production market when it acquired Columbia Pictures Entertainment in 1989 for $3.4 billion. Columbia lives on in the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of SPE which in turn owns Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures among other film production and distribution companies such as Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. SPE's television division is known as Sony Pictures Television.
The main entrance to the Sony Pictures Entertainment studio lot in Culver City
For the first several years of its existence, Sony Pictures Entertainment performed poorly, leading many to suspect the company would sell off the division.[139] In 2006 Sony started using ARccOS Protection on some of their film DVDs, but later issued a recall.[140]
In late 2014, Sony Pictures became the target of a hack attack from a clandestine group called Guardians of Peace, weeks before releasing the anti-North Korean comedy film The Interview.[141]
Sony Music Entertainment (also known as SME or Sony Music) is the largest global recorded music company of the "big three" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony.
In one of its largest-ever acquisitions, Sony purchased CBS Record Group in 1988 for US$2 billion.[142] In the process, Sony partnered and gained the rights to the ATV catalogue of Michael Jackson, considered by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the most successful entertainer of all time. The acquisition of CBS Records provided the foundation for the formation of Sony Music Entertainment, which Sony established in 1991.
In 1968, Sony and CBS Records had formed a 50:50 joint-venture CBS/Sony Records, later renamed CBS/Sony Group, in Japan. When CBS Records was acquired, a 50% stake in CBS/Sony Group owned by CBS was also transferred to Sony. In March 1988, four wholly owned subsidiaries were folded into CBS/Sony Group and the company was renamed as Sony Music Entertainment Japan (SMEJ). It operates independently of Sony Music as it is directly owned by Japanese Sony.
In 2004, Sony entered into a joint venture with Bertelsmann AG, merging Sony Music Entertainment with Bertelsmann Music Group to create Sony BMG. In 2005, Sony BMG faced a copy protection scandal, because its music CDs had installed malware on users' computers that was posing a security risk to affected customers.[143] In 2007, the company acquired Famous Music for US$370 million, gaining the rights to the catalogues of Eminem and Akon, among others. Sony bought out Bertelsmann's share in Sony BMG and formed a new Sony Music Entertainment in 2008. Since then, the company has undergone management changes.
Sony purchased digital music recognition company Gracenote for US$260 million in 2008.[144] Tribune Media Company acquired Gracenote from Sony in 2014 for $170 million.[145]
Besides its record label, Sony operates other music businesses. In 1995, Sony merged its publisher with Michael Jackson's ATV Music Publishing, forming Sony/ATV Music Publishing. At the time, the publishing company was the second largest of its kind in the world. The company owns the publishing rights to over 4 million compositions, including The Beatles' Lennon-McCartney catalogue, Bob Dylan, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, and Taylor Swift.
In 2012, Sony/ATV acquired a majority stake in EMI Music Publishing, becoming the world's largest music publishing company. In 2018, Sony bought the rest of the shares in the publisher, making it a wholly owned subsidiary.[146][147] Since 2016, Sony owns all of Sony/ATV.[148]
Sony's entering into the Japanese animation, or anime, business happened in 1995 when a group company Sony Music Entertainment Japan (SMEJ) established Aniplex as its subsidiary managing creative productions, which founded A-1 Pictures, the first anime studio of Sony, ten years later. Since then, through group-wide and international ventures,[149] Sony has solidified its position in the industry, elevating the business to what is called the "fourth pillar of its entertainment portfolio" according to The Nikkei.[150]
The anime business operations of Sony are scattered around the group, mainly in its Pictures and Music units, as follows: SMEJ's notable related businesses include Aniplex and its subsidiaries CloverWorks and A-1 Pictures while Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan (SPEJ) operates anime-oriented TV channels like Animax, Kids Station; Aniplex and U.S.-headquartered Sony Pictures Television (SPT) co-own online anime distributing company Funimation Global Group acquired in 2017 of which worldwide subsidiaries now include Wakanim and Madman Entertainment.[151]
In December 2020, SPT announced that it will buy AT&T's animation business Crunchyroll for $1.175 billion, which will help the company to compete more globally with entertainment giants such as Netflix.[152] This acquisition was completed in August 2021.[153]
Sony Financial Group is a holding company for Sony's financial services business which includes Sony Life (in Japan and the Philippines), Sony Assurance, Sony Bank, etc. The unit proved to be the most profitable of Sony's businesses in FY 2005, earning $1.7 billion in profit.[36] Sony Financial's low fees have aided the unit's popularity while threatening Sony's premium brand name.[36]
A company behind the commercialization of lithium-ion battery,[154] Sony had been exploring the possibility to manufacture the batteries for electric vehicles.[155][156][157] In 2014, Sony participated within NRG Energy eVgo Ready for Electric Vehicle (REV) program, for EV charging parking lots.[158] However, the company then decided to sell its lithium-ion battery business to Murata Manufacturing in 2016.[159]
In 2015, Sony invested $842 thousand in ZMP INC., drawing speculations that it is contemplating developing self-driving cars.[160] In January 2020, Sony unveiled a concept electric car at the Consumer Electronics Show, named Vision-S, designed in collaboration with components manufacturer Magna International.[161] At the occasion, Sony also stated its goal of developing technology for the automotive sector, especially concerning autonomous driving, sensors, and in-car entertainment.[162]
Sony is a kabushiki gaisha registered to the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Japan and the New York Stock Exchange for overseas trading. As of 31 March 2020, the largest shareholders of Sony are as follows:
As of July 2020, Sony, one of the largest Japanese companies by market capitalization and operating profit, was valued at over $90 billion. At the same period, it was also recognized as the most cash-rich Japanese company, with its net cash reserves of ¥1.8 trillion.[164]
The company was immensely profitable throughout the 1990s and early 2000s in part because of the success of its new PlayStation line. The company encountered financial difficulty in the mid- to late-2000s due to a number of factors: the global financial crisis, increased competition for PlayStation, and the devastating Japanese earthquake of 2011. The company faced three consecutive years of losses leading up to 2011.[165] While noting the negative effects of intervening circumstances such as natural disasters and fluctuating currency exchange rates, the Financial Times criticized the company for its "lack of resilience" and "inability to gauge the economy," voicing skepticism about Sony's revitalization efforts, given a lack of tangible results.[165]
In September 2000 Sony had a market capitalization of $100 billion; but by December 2011 it had plunged to $18 billion, reflecting falling prospects for Sony but also reflecting grossly inflated share prices of the 'dot-com bubble' years.[166] Net worth, as measured by stockholder equity, has steadily grown from $17.9 billion in March 2002 to $35.6 billion through December 2011.[167] Earnings yield (inverse of the price to earnings ratio) has never been more than 5% and usually much less; thus Sony has always traded in over-priced ranges with the exception of the 2009 market bottom.
On 9 December 2008, Sony announced that it would be cutting 8,000 jobs, dropping 8,000 contractors and reducing its global manufacturing sites by 10% to save $1.1 billion per year.[168]
In April 2012, Sony announced that it would reduce its workforce by 10,000 (6% of its employee base) as part of CEO Kaz Hirai's effort to get the company back into the black. This came after a loss of 520 billion yen (roughly US$6.36 billion) for fiscal 2012, the worst since the company was founded. Accumulation loss for the past four years was 919.32 billion-yen.[169][170] Sony planned to increase its marketing expenses by 30% in 2012.[171] 1,000 of the jobs cut come from the company's mobile phone unit's workforce. 700 jobs will be cut in the 2012–2013 fiscal year and the remaining 300 in the following fiscal year.[172] Sony had revenues of ¥6.493 trillion in 2012 and maintained large reserves of cash, with ¥895 billion on hand as of 2012. In May 2012, Sony's market capitalization was valued at about $15 billion.[173]
In January 2013, Sony announced it was selling its US headquarters building for $1.1 billion to a consortium led by real estate developer The Chetrit Group.[175]
On 28 January 2014, Moody's Investors Services dropped Sony's credit rating to Ba1—"judged to have speculative elements and a significant credit risk"—saying that the company's "profitability is likely to remain weak and volatile."[176]
On 6 February 2014, Sony announced it would trim as many as 5,000 jobs as it attempts to sell its PC business and focus on mobile and tablets.[177]
In 2014,[178] Sony South Africa closed its TV, Hi-Fi and camera divisions[179] with the purpose of reconsidering its local distribution model and, in 2017, it returned[180][181] facilitated by Premium Brand Distributors (Pty) Ltd.
In November 2018, Sony posted its earning report for the second quarter showing it has lost about US$480 million in the mobile phone division,[183] prompting another round of downsizing in the unit, including the closure of a manufacturing plant and halving of its workforce.[184][185]
In November 2011, Sony was ranked 9th (jointly with Panasonic) in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics.[186] This chart grades major electronics companies on their environmental work. The company scored 3.6/10, incurring a penalty point for comments it has made in opposition to energy efficiency standards in California. It also risks a further penalty point in future editions for being a member of trade associations that have commented against energy efficiency standards.[187] Together with Philips, Sony receives the highest score for energy policy advocacy after calling on the EU to adopt an unconditional 30% reduction target for greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Meanwhile, it receives full marks for the efficiency of its products.[187] In June 2007, Sony ranked 14th on the Greenpeace guide.[188] Sony fell from its earlier 11th-place ranking due to Greenpeace's claims that Sony had double standards in their waste policies.[189]
As of May 2018 Greenpeace's 2017 Guide to Greener Electronics rated Sony approximately in the middle among electronics manufacturers with a grade of D+.[190]
Since 1976, Sony has had an Environmental Conference.[191] Sony's policies address their effects on global warming, the environment, and resources. They are taking steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that they put out as well as regulating the products they get from their suppliers in a process that they call "green procurement".[192] Sony has said that they have signed on to have about 75 percent of their Sony Building running on geothermal power. The "Sony Take Back Recycling Program" allow consumers to recycle the electronics products that they buy from Sony by taking them to eCycle (Recycling) drop-off points around the U.S. The company has also developed a biobattery that runs on sugars and carbohydrates that works similarly to the way living creatures work. This is the most powerful small biobattery to date.[193]
In 2000, Sony faced criticism for a document entitled "NGO Strategy" that was leaked to the press. The document involved the company's surveillance of environmental activists in an attempt to plan how to counter their movements. It specifically mentioned environmental groups that were trying to pass laws that held electronics-producing companies responsible for the cleanup of the toxic chemicals contained in their merchandise.[194]


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Home » » Interview - CIANIDE - Live your own life, be honest with yourself and life-type shit really just gets easier. Trust me…
Interview - CIANIDE - Live your own life, be honest with yourself and life-type shit really just gets easier. Trust me…
Interview with legendary death doom metal band from USA - CIANIDE.
Answered Mike Perun, thank you!
Translated Duzl, thank you!
Questions prepared Jakub Asphyx.
Recenze/review - CIANIDE - Unhumanized (2019):
https://deadly-storm.blogspot.com/2019/12/recenzereview-cianide-unhumanized-2019.html
Ave CIANIDE! Greetings to the Chicago Catacombs! When I was preparing for this interview, I found all the albums I have from you over the weekend. I found out that the first record that came to us was record "A Descent Into Hell" from 1994. Do you know what is interesting? I haven't found a weak record in your entire discography. How is it possible? Do you have a recipe for that? So many years to keep the bar of quality so high?
That is a bit strange as our debut album The Dying Truth is the one people are still the most familiar with, even to this day. Thanks for the compliment on the "no weak records" thing though. The answer is both simple and complicated. Simple in the fact that we write songs that WE want to hear first and foremost. It's gotta be a song/album that I/we would enjoy listening to as much as playing live. I obviously know quite a few people in bands and through talking to them, it comes across that they are NOT actual "fans" of their own music. Which is goofy to me. How can you not be a fan of your own shit? The complicated side of that, since we are fans of our own stuff, we're our own harshest critics, which is why it takes us for-fucking-ever to complete writing a new song. Maybe to some people I guess they're simple "caveman" songs or whatever, but every note, every bend, every pause, every drum hit MEANS SOMETHING to us – and ultimately to the song itself. All killer, no filler. I dunno, to do it any other ways is well, just not CIANIDE…
We had to wait for the last EP "Unhumanized" for eight long years. In the meantime you released a split with NEKROFILTH, which by the way was released on vinyl by Czech DOOMENTIA RECORDS, but I have to admit that I was very eager. Why did it take you so long? Was money the reason? Or time?
Definitely not the money. These are just the songs we had written and completed up until this point. As I said above not only does it take us forever to finish a song, we are also not a "serious" band in the sense that we don't have any reason to commodify our music. This is not our bread and butter. We don't need to play to eat. We still like to jam once a week or so, but "real life" does happen and get in the way. Even more so, when you get up into our vintage. Next thing you know, 8 months will fly by and we haven't touched our gear. Then a "must play" show offer will come our way, so there's another 2-3 months of prepping for that. Then a month break afterwards turns to 3, and then the cycle repeats all over again…
Anyway, the EP "Unhumanized" is out and immediately become my most played albums. While listening, one feels that it has returned on the timeline back to the 1990s. It's excellent! How was it created? And how does CIANIDE create new material?
There's not really any set pattern except that it all starts with The Almighty Riff. Then we just build the song from there. We'll dissect it every different way, slower, faster, switch parts around, usually just to come full circle back to where we originally started from in the first place. We'll record the raw versions ourselves and further scrutinize from there after a good listen. Because at least to us, the playback "listen" is a completely different experience than just playing and hashing it out live. Then I'll take those recordings and "John Tardy" vocal patterns over it until I get one that sounds the best, and then compose lyrics on top of that…
I always liked the sound of your albums. "Unhumanized" is no exception. If I'm not mistaken, you recorded with Jack Controla at his Enormous Door Studios. How did you get such a dense sound? Seems to me as if it was recorded in analogue way or am I wrong? The sound of the record seems to me similar like the sound of previous album "Gods of Death. Do you talk a lot about how the record should sound or do you leave it to the sound masters?
It actually was recorded by Sanford Parker at Decade Studios in Chicago March 2019. We always wanted to work with Sanford and that is where he is currently working out of right now. This has been the first time we went to a "real" studio since Divide and Conquer which was our last "pro" studio outing. We recorded Hells Rebirth and Gods of Death ourselves in the basement (Slaughtersound Studios) so we felt we perhaps needed a different take on our music. We know what we are capable of when we do the recording ourselves, but with our current resources/equipment we probably reached the absolute best we could ever sound studio wise. It was time to take it to another level, and it shows since this is the best we've ever fucking sounded I think. Another reason is we would've taken way much longer if we recorded ourselves. With Sanford we knew we could get this done is less than a week. He did the mix on his own without much input from us. Little tweaks here and there but that's it. We were like, "Here you go dude, have fun with the mix and shoot us some files when you got it down". Fucking rules! I don't think we could ever go back to recording ourselves anymore now. This shit spoiled us....
I am an old school fan and I really like the covers of the albums. "Unhumanized" is signed by a person named "Nev". I found out that it should be an artist named Michael Nevler. The theme is so great for me that I put it on my desktop as wallpaper. But I didn't find more information about Michael. How did you get together and how was the cover for the album created?
Nev Michael @ Gruesome Graphx is mutual metal mutant freak pal of ours (not to mention fellow Godzilla nerd) I don't really know his real name and it doesn't really matter. When I saw this piece that he did, I knew instantly that was for us. I was like – "Well there's our next album cover… Dude you gotta let us use that." Nev was stoked and the rest is history. He did all the inner sleeve artwork and the lyrics too. Keep it all uniform. Nev rules!!!
You have played since 1988 and you have a relatively stable line-up. Respectively you (Mike) and Scott have been in CIANIDE from the beginning. This is not very common. Have you never had a submarine disease? Did you had different opinions, how should your music sound? You know, someone prefers blondes, another brunette. Then a few sharper words are enough. Someone once wrote that the band is like a family. What about CIANIDE?
Correct. After all this time, at this point we are all more like family than mere friends. We all have keys to each other's houses and considered family to each other's families and shit, but we can also go a couple of months without any communication with each other at all. We pick up right where we all left off once we start jamming again. The "family" extends to our former members Jeff Kabella (drums on TDT and DIH) and Jim Bresnahan (guitars on DD&D and D&C now the main KOMMANDANT). Do not fuck with any of us or our own…
Today is good in having the Internet. At least I can remotely look at your concerts. Although it is not perfect, because the sound on you-tube is always weird, but according to all available information - you perform mainly in Chicago? I'll write it straight, I'd really like to see you live, but there's no opportunity. Aren't you going on tour? I could imagine you, MASTER and maybe you can take AUTOPSY then my dream would come true. Well, seriously - what about CIANIDE and concerts? What would you say on a trip to Europe with a stop in our country?
Nope. Touring is out of the question for us. We're not road dogs and never will be. Andy and Scott are my brothers but being cooped up in a van with those assholes for a month or more just to play some toilet show for 50 dollars a night sounds like a version of hell I don't ever, ever, ever, want to inhabit. More power to all bands that do that shit though. Go get em! I'll be on my couch…
Just yesterday, I had a conversation with a friend in the pub about how everything has gone crazy over the past years. Everyone has the internet in the pocket, young people are more influenced by pictures and videos than by music and lyrics. Nobody reads much, we agreed that a lot of things are more superficial. Maybe it is different in America, but in the Czech Republic I see it every day. Music is not different. How do you perceive changes in society as a musician? We have a lot of new technologies, recording studios are better equipped, ideas can be sent over the Internet.
Christ, it's worse in USA, we created this shit after all. But also being a "weirdo" makes you oblivious to all the bullshit. I know it's a cliché but honestly I don't give a fuck what anyone says, thinks or does anymore. Live your own life, be honest with yourself and life-type shit really just gets easier. Trust me…
Another is the world, also in terms of labels, publishing. CIANIDE is a band which for me is synonymous for underground death metal. We have band-camp, you-tube, labels can spread your music faster and reach more people. But you know, vinyl is vinyl, cassette tape and CD also has its magic. Did you had to change your approach to publishing your music? Or do you still drive old school way and the no novelties don' t bother you?
We had to go through publishing and signing agreements for our first two albums, but like you said it was a different time. Even stupid Displeased records tried pulling some shit with us to sign over our demo rights to them. Hilarious. At the end of the day, this is still underground metal. Nobody's getting rich off this shit. Are you gonna get some high priced lawyer to represent your case to sue us for you losing money on your hobby label? Good luck Champ. See you in court…
You founded the band in 1988. You were actually at the beginning of something new. I love Chicago's deadly school. I like it because it sounds dirty, raw. What was actually the 1990s in Chicago? Please remember for us. Which bands do you like to go to see? Who were your idols? Feel free to add some cheerful story, surely you have a lot of them.
This question seems to come up in every single interview and each time it gets more difficult to answer. Those days were great but they're gone. I guess maybe younger metal heads sort of "romanticize" that era, but to be honest during that time, we were interested in doing our own thing. There was no magic except for living in the moment. We were just young metalheads who happened upon the coolest underground music going. Just a lot of drinking and listening to tapes and records in my bedroom. Being from Chicago, Paul Speckman is personal hero. Worship every band he does. DEVASTATION, TERMINAL DEATH, SINDROME, TROUBLE, ZOETROPE were also big stars in my world as well.
I ask this question to every band and your opinion really interesting me a lot. What does death metal really mean to you? How would you define it? You can hear a lot on the CIANIDE records that you put everything in your music that it is played by the heart. I see it as a fan. So what death metal means to you…?
I don't think it is anything that could be put into words and explained in that sort of sense. Just like with everything that comes naturally. You either have it or you don't. Having an overall metal attitude of FUCK OFF AND DIE to the rest of the world. Says it all really…
Finally, a classic but important question. What are CIANIDE preparing in the near future? Can we look forward to a new album? Alternatively, and I firmly believe in this, will we finally see you somewhere on a club tour in Europe?
Well once this Coronavirus shit ends hopefully we can start jamming again and take it from there. Feeling the urge to write some new shit! Unless we get offered crazy money, no tours for our old asses…
Thank you very much for the interview. I really appreciate it. I'm an old CIANIDE fan and actually one of my dream come true. I wish you a lot of sold out concerts, so that the fans will tear your hands off with merchandise and I will enjoy more of your music. Hopefully I'll see you live. Good luck in your personal lives. CIANIDE RULES!
Thanks Jakub! METAL NEVER BENDS!!!!
about CIANIDE on DEADLY STORM ZINE / o CIANIDE na DEADLY STORM ZINE:
Recenze/review - CIANIDE – Death, Doom and Destruction (2015):
https://deadly-storm.blogspot.com/2015/08/recenzereview-cianide-death-doom-and.html
order here:
https://shop-hellsheadbangers.com/cianide-unhumanized.asp
https://cianide.bandcamp.com/
https://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-descent-into-hell
https://www.facebook.com/Cianide-459566090733436/
https://cianide-chicago.blogspot.com/
https://shop-hellsheadbangers.com/
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https://www.instagram.com/deadlystormzine/
https://cs-cz.facebook.com/deadlstormzine
https://cs-cz.facebook.com/JakubAsphyx
https://www.facebook.com/groups/DEADLY.STORM.PROMOTION/
https://twitter.com/deadlystormzine

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


NBN Co Limited (nbn™) has signed Design and Construction Master Agreements (DCMA) with three delivery partners to design and build approximately 525, 000 premises with Fibre to the Curb (FttC) technology. in Sydney and Melbourne.
The new FTTC DCMA agreements are with Downer EDI Limited; Fulton Hogan Construction; and Service Stream.
In a company statement, nbn said "the partners were selected based on performance metrics, ability to mobilise and support scale, and their design and construction capability."
"The FTTC DCMAs aim to incentivise delivery partners to meet time and cost targets. This is designed to encourage ongoing performance improvements, through innovation and program management."
"The new agreements will support our world-leading FTTC technology. Importantly, we have the flexibility to deploy other technologies easily over time. The design and construction framework is intended to enable a faster rollout, by providing end-to-end accountability for the footprint", said Mr Ryan.
Downer has revealed their contract is valued at approximately $200 million over 30 months (to June 2019) and will will see them deliver services to approximately 230,000 premises in the Sydney metropolitan region.
The Chief Executive Officer of Downer, Grant Fenn, said "We are delighted to win this new contract which is another step toward helping nbnTM achieve its goal of delivering fast and reliable broadband to eight million homes by 2020," said Mr Fenn.
Downer has existing contracts with nbn™ including "the Multi-technology Integrated Master Agreement (MIMA) under which Downer is delivering Fibre to the Node, Fibre to the Premises and Hybrid Fibre Coaxial services in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia."
Service Stream's Fixed Communications division will be responsible for the design and construction of broadband infrastructure to approximately 130,000 premises in the eastern regions of Melbourne.
Service Stream also announced works under the contract are valued at approximately $120 million over the 2.5 year term.
Managing Director, Leigh Mackender said "Being awarded this DCMA for the new Fibre-to-the-Curb is another vote of confidence by nbn in Service Stream's capabilities and recognition of Fixed Communications' positive performance under the Multi-technology Integrated Master Agreement (MIMA) with nbn which has seen the business successfully construct Fibre-to-the-Node services for approximately 40,000 premises across Eastern Victoria so far in the past year."
More to come when Fulton Hogan announces the details of their nbn contract win.


The Central Valley Region Climate Change Work Plan (Work Plan) is being prepared to present current and proposed initiatives that the Central Valley Water Board is undertaking in response to climate change. Key focus areas for the Work Plan include addressing impacts due to drought and flooding, issues related to groundwater quality, changes in surface water flow and water supply, and impacts on facilities with National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits and Waste Discharge Requirements (WDR) permits. The Work Plan also focuses on disadvantaged communities, which are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change because of aging infrastructure and a reliance on shallow domestic supply wells. The Work Plan presents an approximate timeline for the implementation of major Central Valley Water Board initiatives. The ultimate goal of the Work Plan is to develop programmatic priorities and an overall framework that promotes resiliency in response to climate change.
The full Proposed Climate Change Work Plan and supporting documents can be found on our 7-8 December 2017 Board Meeting Agenda Items page.
The following proposed Resolution will be considered for adoption by the Board at its December 7-8, 2017 meeting. Comments on the proposed Resolution will be accepted no later than 5:00 p.m. on November 30, 2017. You may submit your comments to RB5S-Climate-Change-Comments@waterboards.ca.gov.
The Central Valley Water Board's Climate Change Work Plan will be considered for adoption by the Board at its December 7-8, 2017 meeting. Comments on the Work Plan will be accepted through November 20, 2017. You may submit your comments to RB5S-Climate-Change-Comments@waterboards.ca.gov.
On the morning of October 6th the Central Valley Water Board held a half day meeting to discuss and gather input on the Draft Climate Change Work Plan for the Central Valley Region.
On the morning of June 1 the Central Valley Water Board held a half day workshop to discuss, and gather input on, the Draft Climate Change Work Plan for the Region. This workshop specifically focused on Region 5 program responses to anticipated climate change impacts to the Central Valley.
On the morning of March 28th the Central Valley Water Board held a half day meeting to kick off our efforts to develop a climate change work plan for the Central Valley Region. This was the first in a series of stakeholder meetings which will inform the ultimate work plan which will be presented to our Board for approval by the end of 2017. At this workshop, we presented our initial ideas for the format and content of the work plan and began the process of gathering input on the plan.


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Q: Move the first list item to the bottom in an unordered list when browsing in tablet/mobile screen size I have an unordered list like this -

Item 1

Item 2

Item 3

Item 4

I would like the first item of the list be automatically moved to the last when the website is being browsed in tablet/mobile screen view, and automatically moved back to the top when changing back to desktop screen view, i.e. responsive.  The output in tablet/mobile screen view should be like this -

Item 2

Item 3

Item 4

Item 1

May I know it this can be achived by using JavaScript/CSS?  Thank you.

A: Use order properties to achieve this

@media(max-width: 991px){ /*you can change width according to your requirement*/
  ul {
    display: flex;
    flex-direction: column;
  }
  ul li:first-child {
    order: 4;
  }
}

1

2

3

4

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA--(Marketwired - November 09, 2015) - AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE: AU) delivered another solid operating and financial performance for the third quarter, with production and costs both better than guidance, a marked reduction in debt levels, and strong cash flows despite a 12% decrease in the gold price year-on-year.
"These results show relentless cost discipline and continued delivery on our strategic commitments," Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan, Chief Executive Officer of AngloGold Ashanti, said. "We've used self-help steps to significantly lower debt and interest, which will improve our cash-flow generation capacity."
AngloGold Ashanti has responded decisively to a sharp drop in gold prices in recent years, slashing overhead expenditure by two thirds, introducing two new, low-cost mines, cutting debt significantly to help withstand market volatility and, most recently, by selling its Cripple Creek & Victor (CC&V) mine and deploying the proceeds to reduce its interest bill by more than a quarter. The Company has also reached conditional agreement to partner with Randgold Resources Limited to redevelop the Obuasi gold mine in Ghana as a mechanised, productive long-life operation.
Production was 974,000oz at a total cash cost of $735/oz in the three months through 30 September 2015, compared with 1.128Moz at $820/oz in the third quarter of last year. The result compared with guidance of 900,000oz to 950,000oz at a total cash cost of $770-$820/oz. The operating performance was assisted by especially strong showings from the company's mines in South America, the Geita operation in Tanzania, and Tropicana in Australia. The cost improvement was due to the P500 cost-saving initiative, which continues to show particular benefit across AngloGold Ashanti's international mines, and also lower oil prices and weaker currencies in South Africa, South America and Australia.
AngloGold Ashanti's international operations continued to deliver cost reductions during the quarter, with all-in sustaining costs 14% lower year-on-year at $826/oz. This performance helped offset lower output and higher costs from South Africa, which continued to face safety-related stoppages, and lower production from the Obuasi mine, which moved to limited operations mode at the end of last year.
The Company reported an adjusted headline loss of $52m, or 13 US cents per share, in the three months to 30 September 2015, compared with adjusted headline earnings (AHE) of $2m in the third quarter of last year. AHE was $18m, or 4 cents per share, after normalising for deferred taxation translation, indirect tax and environmental rehabilitation and other provisions, and inventory movements and write-offs.
The overall levels of borrowing have also been reduced by a quarter, in line with the company's strategy. At 30 September, net debt was $2.319bn compared to $3.076bn at 30 June. This was due to the successful repurchase of $779m of the 8.5% high yield bonds, which mature in 2020 and originally had a principal amount outstanding of $1.25bn. This tender for the company's highest-cost debt, using cash from the sale of CC&V, will lower the overall interest burden by about $66m a year.
Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Adjusted EBITDA) was $291m, compared with $383m in the third quarter of 2014, mainly due to the 12% decline in the realised gold price. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 1.56 times at the end of the quarter, well below the banking covenant limit of 3.5 times, and close to the company's targeted level of 1.5 times through the cycle.
Regrettably, five operating fatalities were recorded during the quarter in the South Africa region. Falls-of-ground remain the cause of most of these incidents, with seismicity an ongoing challenge. The Company continues to focus on improving compliance to procedures in order to prevent these incidents, and also to employ technical measures, such as netting and bolting in stopes and development areas to reduce falls of ground. Despite these safety challenges, which are receiving the highest priority, the All Injury Frequency Rate -- the broadest measure of progress -- was 6.48 per million hours worked for the quarter, a 17% improvement from the same quarter last year.
Gold production for the fourth quarter of 2015 is estimated to be between 900koz to 950koz, which will result in annual production of between 3.8Moz to 4.0Moz. Total cash costs for the fourth quarter are estimated at $720/oz to $770/oz.
Both production and cost estimates assume neither labour interruptions, power disruptions or changes to asset portfolio and/or operating mines. Other unknown or unpredictable factors could also have material adverse effects on our future results.
As in prior years, the fourth quarter earnings will be distorted by year-end accounting adjustments such as reassessment of useful lives and carrying value of mining tangible assets, inventory stockpile and investments, reset of environmental rehabilitation provisions, redundancy provisions, direct and indirect and deferred taxation provisions.
* Assuming average exchange rates of ZAR13.60/$, BRL3.80/$, $0.70/A$ and AP9.70/$. Brent Crude Oil at $48/bl average for the quarter. Outlook data is forward looking information, which is further discussed at the end of this release.
** Assuming average exchange rates of ZAR12.60/$, BRL 3.32/$, $0.75/A$ and AP9.15/$. Brent Crude Oil at $53/bl average for the year. Outlook data is forward looking information, which is further discussed at the end of this release.
AngloGold Ashanti is a global gold mining company with a geographically diverse, world-class portfolio of operations and projects. Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, AngloGold Ashanti is the world's third-largest gold mining company, measured by production.
AngloGold Ashanti produced 4.4 million ounces of gold in 2014, generating US$5.2 billion in gold income, utilising US$1.2 billion in capital expenditure. All-in sustaining costs, which capture direct operating costs and sustaining capital, as well as corporate overheads and exploration, fell 13% to US$1,026 per ounce in 2014 compared with US$1,174 per ounce in 2013. All-in costs, which also include capital expenditure on projects, fell 22% over the same period, to US$1,148 per ounce from US$1,466 per ounce the previous year. These production, capital expenditure and operating costs cost figures include CC&V. As at 31 December 2014 (before the sale of CC&V) AngloGold Ashanti had an attributable Ore Reserve of 57.5 million ounces of gold and an attributable Mineral Resource of 232.0 million ounces of gold. For the year ended 31 December 2014 incurred interest costs of US$278 million.
Certain statements contained in this document, other than statements of historical fact, including, without limitation, those concerning the economic outlook for the gold mining industry, expectations regarding gold prices, production, cash costs, all-in sustaining costs, all-in costs, cost savings and other operating results, return on equity, productivity improvements, growth prospects and outlook of AngloGold Ashanti's operations, individually or in the aggregate, including the achievement of project milestones, commencement and completion of commercial operations of certain of AngloGold Ashanti's exploration and production projects and the completion of acquisitions, dispositions or joint venture transactions, AngloGold Ashanti's liquidity and capital resources and capital expenditures and the outcome and consequence of any potential or pending litigation or regulatory proceedings or environmental health and safety issues, are forward-looking statements regarding AngloGold Ashanti's operations, economic performance and financial condition.
These forward-looking statements or forecasts involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause AngloGold Ashanti's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance or achievements expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements. Although AngloGold Ashanti believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements and forecasts are reasonable, no assurance can be given that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Accordingly, results could differ materially from those set out in the forward-looking statements as a result of, among other factors, changes in economic, social and political and market conditions, the success of business and operating initiatives, changes in the regulatory environment and other government actions, including environmental approvals, fluctuations in gold prices and exchange rates, the outcome of pending or future litigation proceedings, and business and operational risk management.
For a discussion of such risk factors, refer to AngloGold Ashanti's annual reports on Form 20-F filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. These factors are not necessarily all of the important factors that could cause AngloGold Ashanti's actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements. Other unknown or unpredictable factors could also have material adverse effects on future results. Consequently, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. AngloGold Ashanti undertakes no obligation to update publicly or release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except to the extent required by applicable law. All subsequent written or oral forward-looking statements attributable to AngloGold Ashanti or any person acting on its behalf are qualified by the cautionary statements herein.


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Thanks for a Successful PGA Show!
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About the PGA Merchandise Show: Since its inception in 1954, the PGA Merchandise Show has become the world's most influential golf trade show and the global summit for the business of golf. In January 2013, the PGA Merchandise Show will once again welcome more than 40,000 industry professionals from some 75 countries to uncover the latest trends, source the newest golf merchandise, test the latest equipment, enhance careers, learn proven business best practices, network among peers and grow the business of the game. Nearly 1,000 golf companies and brands, representing every business sector of golf from market leaders to start-up companies, will display and demonstrate hundreds of thousands of golf merchandise that will appear in golf shops and retail stores throughout the 2013 golf season. For more information, visit www.pgashow.com. The PGA Merchandise Show and PGA Expo are organized in partnership with The PGA of America.
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Read Bob Saget's 1979 letter to Las Cruces: 'I wasn't exactly welcomed with open arms' at NMSU
Lucas Peerman | Las Cruces Sun-News
TV star Bob Saget found dead in Orlando hotel room
Bob Saget, famous for his roles on "Full House," "America's Funniest Home Videos" and "How I Met Your Mother," passed away in his Florida hotel room.
USA TODAY, Wochit
LAS CRUCES - Comedian Bob Saget wrote a letter to the student newspaper at New Mexico State University following a 1979 performance at the Pan American Center in which he was purportedly booed off stage.
Saget, who would go on to enjoy an illustrious acting and stand-up comedy career beginning in the mid 1980s, died Sunday. He was 65.
Before he became the star of TV's "Full House" and host of "America's Funniest Home Videos," Saget was a touring stand-up comedian trying to make a name for himself.
On March 21, 1979, Saget, who would've been 22 years old at the time, landed a gig at NMSU's Pan Am Center as one of two opening acts for the hard rock band Head East.
Bob Saget tributes: Jimmy Kimmel gets emotional remembering 'the sweetest man'
Following the show, Saget submitted a letter to the editor of The Round Up, which was published March 26, 1979.
The letter begins: "I'd like to go on the record for saying that I actually do like your school, even though I wasn't exactly welcomed with open arms … It's a shame that 1,900 students had to ruin it for the other 100."
Saget goes on to thank his fans and then promises, "I will not slander your school or town on the Tonight Show this summer."
He continues: "After my 'show,' I went to Lamar's with a few people from your programming committee and eventually forgot that I had performed. You've got a nice town and school. Don't burn it down."
Saget ends his letter by stating: "I wish to sincerely thank those of you who tried to hear my act and enjoyed it," and then he offers to get "free water" for anyone who visits him at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles.
Embedded content: https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/01/13/PNM2/7faa9a1f-0d0a-492f-a3ae-dee8daa11931-Bob_Saget_letter.JPG
'Bob Saget, rumored to be a comedian, also showed up'
Pat Wier reviewed the show for The Round Up. He writes: "Head East hit the stage with that hunger Wednesday night in Pan Am and ate up the crowd with some hard punching rock and roll."
Wier talked to Hard East bassist Dave Birney after the show, who was quoted in the review as saying, "The crowd was small but they really were having a good time and that's when we have a good time and try to give it all we've got."
The review ends with this paragraph: "Richie Liccea soloed as the warm-up act and was well received. Bob Saget, rumored to be a comedian, also showed up."
Marina Nickerson also attended the show and had a vastly different take. She wrote a guest review for The El Paso Times.
Nickerson's review begins: "Had I headed any direction but west Wednesday evening, I would have been more entertained than I was listening to Head East concert …. However, among the 3,000 exuberant fans who verified that hard rock music is alive and well, I suffered alone."
The review ends: "The concert's one redeeming feature was a comedy act by Los Angeles singer Bob Saget. Here again, my reaction represents a majority of one."
Remembering Bob Saget: 'Full House,' 'America's Funniest Home Videos' star dies at 65
Recollections of Bob Saget appearance at NMSU's Pan Am Center vary
Did Wier and Nickerson see the same show? What prompted Saget to write a letter to The Round Up? The Sun-News spent much of the week trying to find someone who was at the show who would go on record but to no avail. If you were at the show, please email News Director Lucas Peerman at lpeerman@lcsun-news.com.
Barbara Hubbard, the longtime special events director for NMSU who is now retired, said she didn't remember the concert and was sure she didn't go to Lamar's with Saget after the show. "I think I would have remembered that," Hubbard laughed.
David Ysias, the news editor of The Round Up when Saget's letter published, said he attended "virtually every on-campus concert" in 1979 and recalled the Head East performance. "Sadly, I did not attend that show," he said.
One Round Up staffer from 1979 who was at the show but didn't want to go on record wrote about Saget's performance on Facebook: "I think he was booed off the stage. I recall one drunk screaming "YOU SUCK!" A girl near me barfed … As he left the stage, he said something close to: 'I'm going to be on Johnny Carson and I'm going to tell the whole country what a shithole Las Cruces is."
According to Saget's IMDB page, he didn't perform on 'The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" until 1987, the first year of "Full House."
Saget's first TV appearance did air in the summer 1979. It was a stint on the show "Make Me Laugh," in which comedians try to make contestants crack a smile. Saget would appear on several talk shows early in his career including "The Merv Griffin Show" in 1981 and "Late Night with David Letterman" in 1986.
Lucas Peerman can be reached at lpeerman@lcsun-news.com or @LittleGuyInATie on Twitter.
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Power restored after morning outages affect 3,800 in Las Cruces


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Nigerian Startup, Digital Nation launches short link service
Just on the back of an announcement by search giants, Google that it will end support for its short link service – Goo.gl on March 30, 2019, there is now a rapid response from a Nigerian tech startup. No doubt, Google would be leaving shoes to fill by whoever has the guts, and everyone is in this race. Hence, Digital Nation has taken the initiative to set up a new URL shortening service called Varsus.
According to Paul Abioro, the chief operating officer of Digital Nation, who made a statement available said that the company's short link platform offers similar services as Google's. But they are coming with more enhanced features not seen on Google.
"Varsus is a URL shortener service packed with many unique features. It has been built with performance in mind. Some of the features include Direct, Frame, Splash, Overlay shortening with powerful dashboard and a detailed analytics for each link. Moreover, with our overlay, you can add advertisements to all short links using a feature from your dashboard."
Their bet is that Varsus, as a function of its features, would help you in understanding your users and customers, and also increase your conversion. A great feature as described by the website says, "Our system allows you to track everything. Whether it is the amount of clicks, the country or the referrer, the data is there for you to analyze it."
The chief operating officer further notes that the service will be updated periodically in order to meet the demands of users. We now wait to see if they'll fill the shoes as expected.
Tags: Digital Nationgoogleshort link
Team Startup Lagos
Startup Lagos is a leading Nigerian media and information platform, known for its end-to-end coverage of the Nigerian startup ecosystem. Starting 5 years ago, Startup Lagos has now become the gateway to the Nigerian startup ecosystem.
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I was recently introduced to a new culture that has a finite view of life; after a birth, humans reincarnate a set number of times, which is equal for everyone, and then reaches enlightenment. In this religion the universe has no creator and requires no creator; it simply always exists. In this religion, the human soul is visiting Earth in order to be changed.
The Mayans had two kinds of soul. The first was called Sak Nik Nahal, or "The white conscience of flowering," and was based on their belief that man is not a self-sufficient creature existing and functioning with an independent body and soul. Rather, man is an extension of the universe around him; just part of the pattern in the tapestry of creation. In other words, man is dependent in action and composition. Therefore, the soul is seen as a person's tangible bonds to the world. How the world reacts to you is literally your soul.
Mayan researcher Erik Velasques Garcia explains that, "The belief of souls and of the spirit is linked to the idea of the dream, of the conscience, of the perception, and this theme belongs to a broader one that is integrated with the concept of the body that the Mesoamerican indigenous people have." The Mayans saw their souls as material stuff no different from their bodies or other natural matter.
The second conception of the soul is the huay soul, which often appears as an animal like a deer, monkey or dog. Each person has a strong link to their huay spirit creature, and the situation of one always impacts the other. One's birthdate was used to determine a huay, but they could also be discovered later in life. Sounds a bit like a guardian angel. Kings and Shamans were known to be able to transform into their huay and even take on other forms altogether with masks of animals, plants and gods.
There is some speculation on the relationship of blood and sacrifice to the soul. The heart was considered the vessel of the soul and, as the blood-pumping organ, blood was considered to be infused with some of that same energy, which was thought to nourish the gods. Often balls of copal incense were burned to represent a human heart and small amounts of blood-soaked paper were added to entice the gods. Despite this link, it was not blood but breath that was thought to link the living world and the supernatural world.
The Maya believed in an afterlife. One source claims the "common people buried their dead inside their homes, under the floor; that way, their ancestors could keep an eye on them." They also felt that those with bad luck in life would receive great rewards in the afterlife to maintain a sort of karmic balance.
Friar Diego de Landa mentions that the Mayans, "…believed in the immortality of the soul, more than many other nations, although they were not so civilized." He goes on to observe that the Mayans divided the everlasting into polar opposites in the same manner as Christianity's concepts of Heaven and Hell. It appears that the arrival of Christianity began to change the Mayan perspective toward the afterlife. Keep in mind, De Landa was the fanatical Catholic who incinerated every native relic and record he got his hands on in attempt to spread Christendom, so his pronouncement of great similarities between Mayan and Christian religiosity is self-serving to say the least. Still it's one of the few records available. He asserts that the immortal damned were banished to a place of torment known as Mitnal and punished by a demon called Hunhau. De Landa makes one final note on the subject of souls, which is that those who died by their own hand were thought to be saved by Ixtab, God of the Noose, who would spirit them away to paradise. One source goes a step further here, claiming that heaven was reserved for those who were hanged, sacrificed or died in childbirth with everyone else destined for varying degrees of suffering in Xibalba. That must have shocked the friar, who then blames this belief for a high number of preventable suicides.
Xibalba was only referenced in one source in relation to the soul's journey and the afterlife, but we'll explore that subject more in another article.
Sources include the link below as well as Fray Diego de Landa's "An Account of the Things of Yucatan" and "The Mayan Gods" published by Editorial Dante.


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Home Oxycodone Addiction Dangers of Injecting Oxycodone
Dangers of Injecting Oxycodone
The following is an overview of oxycodone, how to inject oxycodone, and the dangers of injecting oxycodone.
By The Recovery Village
Editor Camille Renzoni
Reviewer Wendy Weber
Updated on12/19/19
Oxycodone is a part of the class of drugs known as opioids. Typically these drugs are taken, whether by legitimate prescription or when they're abused, as oral tablets. Some people, however, abuse them in other ways, including by injecting them.
When people are looking for information on how to inject oxycodone, it's important that they're aware of the risks of doing so. Abusing oxycodone through any route of administration is dangerous, but the dangers of injecting oxycodone are even greater.
Injecting Oxycodone
If you haven't heard of it before, you might be wondering why anyone would want to learn how to inject oxycodone, or what the benefits of injecting oxycodone are.
First, can you inject oxycodone?
Yes, you can, but with caveats that are detailed below. Generally, when people want to shoot up oxycodone, they will crush and dissolve the tablets in water, creating a solution that can be intravenously injected.
Some people learn how to shoot oxycodone because it provides them with a faster effect. When any drug is injected, and this includes shooing up oxycodone, it reaches the brain more quickly and the high people feel may also be more powerful.
There are a few things to think about if you're wondering can you inject oxycodone, however.
First, oxycodone doesn't necessarily provide the strong rush that other drugs do when it's injected. Also, the extended-release version of oxycodone is prescribed now in a tamper-proof form.
When someone attempts to inject current versions of extended-release oxycodone, it turns into a gel when they try to crush it. That makes extended-release oxycodone impossible to snort, but it doesn't always derail people who want to inject it.
What Are the Risks of Shooting Oxycodone?
If someone is shooting oxycodone, there are many risks that wouldn't be present even when just taking the drug normally.
First, if you're shooting oxycodone in an extended-release form, the effects of all of the medicine are hitting your system at once, leaving you at a much higher risk of an overdose. It's very possible if you're shooting extended-release oxycodone that you will suffer from respiratory depression and potentially overdose or die.
Injecting any opioid is also more addictive because more of the drug reaches the brain faster.
If you're a regular injector of oxycodone, the withdrawal you experience when you stop using opioids will also be more difficult, with possible symptoms including nausea, vomiting, depression, insomnia, anxiety and more.
Finally, as with any drug that you're injecting, when you're shooting oxycodone you're also at a higher risk of contracting certain diseases including HIV and hepatitis. Injecting drugs can also damage the veins, cause blood clots, and lead to infections in the heart and lungs.
When you inject anything, it can cause problems with blood circulation, leading to the death of tissue as well.
So, can you inject oxycodone? Yes, theoretically you can, but if you choose to inject oxycodone, you're at risk of not only the standard dangers of opioids such as addiction and overdose but these risks are even higher.
If you or a loved one live with addiction or are using drugs recreationally and want to stop, The Recovery Village® can help. Reach out to one of our representatives today to learn how you can start on your path to recovery.
Signs, Symptoms & Side Effects
Withdrawal & Detox
Oxycodone Addiction Treatment & Rehab
Oxycodone FAQs
Speak to an Intake Coordinator now.
352.771.2700What to expect when I call?
Your call is confidential, and there's no pressure to commit to treatment until you're ready. As a voluntary facility, we're here to help you heal -- on your terms. Our sole focus is getting you back to the healthy, sober life you deserve, and we are ready and waiting to answer your questions or concerns 24/7.
Speak to an Intake Coordinator now.352.771.2700
What Happens When You Get Caught with Oxycodone?
Mixing Oxycodone and Alcohol
How Do I Know If Someone is On Oxycodone?
How Long Does Oxycodone Stay In Your System?
Does Oxycodone Make You Itch?
More About Oxycodone
Oxycodone and Drug Mixing
Oxycodone and Mental Health Disorders
Oxycodone and Anxiety
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