Beaufort scale

The Beaufort scale /ˈboʊfərt/ is an empirical measure that relates wind speed to observed conditions at sea or on land. Its full name is the Beaufort wind force scale.

History

The scale was devised in 1805 by Francis Beaufort (later Rear Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort), an Irish Royal Navy officer, while serving in HMS Woolwich. The scale that carries Beaufort's name had a long and complex evolution from the previous work of others (including Daniel Defoe the century before) to when Beaufort was a top administrator in the Royal Navy in the 1830s when it was adopted officially and first used during the voyage of HMS Beagle under Captain Robert FitzRoy, later to set up the first Meteorological Office (Met Office) in Britain giving regular weather forecasts. In the early 19th century, naval officers made regular weather observations, but there was no standard scale and so they could be very subjective – one man's "stiff breeze" might be another's "soft breeze". Beaufort succeeded in standardizing the scale.

Mario Party

Mario Party (Japanese: マリオパーティ, Hepburn: Mario Pāti) is a party video game series featuring Mario franchise characters in which four human- or computer-controlled characters compete in a board game interspersed with minigames. The series was developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo; the arcade version was developed by Capcom. The series is known for its party game elements, including the often-unpredictable multiplayer modes that allow play with up to four (and sometimes eight) human players.

After the development of Mario Party 8, several of Hudson Soft's key designers left to work for Nintendo subsidiary Nd Cube, developers of Wii Party. Starting in 2012 with Mario Party 9, Nd Cube has taken over development of the series from Hudson Soft. The latest title in the series, Mario Party 10 was released worldwide in March 2015 on Wii U.

The series currently holds the record for the longest-running minigame series. As of December 2014, Nintendo reported cumulative worldwide sales of 39.6 million game copies in the Mario Party franchise.