Instant

An instant is an infinitesimal moment in time, a moment whose passage is instantaneous.

The continuous nature of time and its infinite divisibility was addressed by Aristotle in his Physics, where he wrote on Zeno's paradoxes. The philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell was still seeking to define the exact nature of an instant thousands of years later.

In physics, a theoretical lower-bound unit of time called the Planck time has been proposed, that being the time required for light to travel a distance of 1 Planck length. The Planck time is theorized to be the smallest time measurement that will ever be possible, roughly 10⁻⁴³ seconds. Within the framework of the laws of physics as they are understood today, for times less than one Planck time apart, one can neither measure nor detect any change. It is therefore physically impossible, with current technology, to determine if any action exists that causes a reaction in "an instant", rather than a reaction occurring after an interval of time too short to observe or measure.

MissingNo.

MissingNo. (Japanese: けつばん, Hepburn: Ketsuban), or MissingNO, is an unofficial Pokémon species found in the video games Pokémon Red and Blue. Standing for "Missing Number", MissingNo. are used as error handlers by game developer Game Freak; they appear when the game attempts to access data for a nonexistent Pokémon species. Due to the programming of three in-game events, players can encounter MissingNo. via a glitch. The species was first documented by Nintendo in the May 1999 issue of Nintendo Power.

Encountering MissingNo. causes graphical errors and the mass replication of the sixth item in the player's item menu; the latter effect resulted in the glitch's coverage by strategy guides and game magazines. IGN has noted MissingNo.'s appearance in Pokémon Red and Blue as one of the most famous video game glitches. Fans of the series have attempted to rationalize MissingNo. as part of the games' canon, and sociologists have studied its impact on players.

History

Developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo, the Pokémon series began in Japan in 1996. The player assumes the role of a Pokémon Trainer whose goal is to capture and train creatures called Pokémon. Players use the creatures' special abilities to combat other Pokémon, and certain abilities also grant new ways to navigate the game's world, such as instantaneous travel between two areas.

Pokémon

Pokémon (ポケモン, Pokemon, /ˈpoʊkeɪˌmɒn/ POH-kay-mon) is a media franchise owned by The Pokémon Company, and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1995. It is centered on fictional creatures called "Pokémon", which humans known as Pokémon Trainers catch and train to battle each other for sport.

The franchise began as a pair of video games for the original Game Boy, developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo. The franchise now spans video games, trading card games, animated television shows and movies, comic books, and toys. Pokémon is the second-most successful and lucrative video game-based media franchise in the world, behind only Nintendo's Mario franchise.

The franchise celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2006. Cumulative sales of the video games (including home console games, such as Hey You, Pikachu! for the Nintendo 64) have reached more than 200 million copies. In November 2005, 4Kids Entertainment, which had managed the non-game related licensing of Pokémon, announced that it had agreed not to renew the Pokémon representation agreement. Pokémon USA Inc. (now The Pokémon Company International), a subsidiary of Japan's Pokémon Co., now oversees all Pokémon licensing outside of Asia. As of 2013, the Pokémon media franchise has grossed revenues of ¥4 trillion worldwide (equivalent to US$37.76 billion). The brand earned $2 billion in 2014 alone.

Matt Hollywood

Matt Hollywood (born June 11, 1973) is an American indie rock guitarist and singer. He was a founding member and leader of the Portland-based indie rock band The Out Crowd, as well as a founding member of the psychedelic rock band The Brian Jonestown Massacre. He currently fronts the drone rock band The Rebel Drones.

He was born in Syracuse, New York in 1973. He grew up in and around Ventura, California, and now resides in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Imajinary Friends

Hollywood had been involved with the neo-psychedelic/surrealist rock band, The Imajinary Friends, that spawned from the original line-up of The Brian Jonestown Massacre in 1993. The band consisted of Travis Threlkel, Ricky Maymi (both from The BJM), Matt Hollywood, Graham Bonnar (of Swervedriver) and Tim Digulla (later of Tipsy). The band recorded its debut album Lunchtime In Infinity on Bomp! Records in 1994. Hollywood left the band due to his full-time commitment to The BJM and was replaced by Jeremy Davies (brother of founding BJM-member Jeff Davies).

Glitch

A glitch is a short-lived fault in a system. It is often used to describe a transient fault that corrects itself, and is therefore difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, and in circuit bending, as well as among players of video games, although it is applied to all types of systems including human organizations and nature.

Etymology

Some reference books, including Random House's American Slang, claim that the term comes from the German word glitschen ("to slip") and the Yiddish word gletshn ("to slide or skid"). Either way it is a relatively new term, as on July 23, 1965, Time Magazine felt it necessary to define it in an article: "Glitches—a spaceman's word for irritating disturbances." In relation to the reference by Time Magazine, the term has been believed to enter common usage during the American Space Race of the 1950s, where it was used to describe minor faults in the rocket hardware that were difficult to pinpoint.