Monday, August 06, 2007

The computer

A computer is a machine for manipulate data according to a list of commands known as a program. Computers are tremendously adaptable. In fact, they are universal information-processing machines. According to the Church–Turing theory, a computer with a positive minimum entrance capability is in principle capable of performing the responsibilities of any other computer. Therefore, computers with capability ranging from those of a personal digital supporter to a supercomputer may all achieve the same tasks, as long as time and memory capacity are not consideration. Therefore, the same computer design may be modified for tasks ranging from doling out company payrolls to controlling unmanned spaceflights. Due to technical progression, modern electronic computers are exponentially more capable than those of preceding generations. Computers take plentiful physical forms. Early electronic computers were the size of a large room, while whole modern embedded computers may be lesser than a deck of playing cards. Even today, huge computing conveniences still exist for focused scientific computation and for the transaction processing necessities of large organizations. Smaller computers designed for personage use are called personal computers. Along with its convenient equivalent, the laptop computer, the personal computer is the ubiquitous in order processing and communication tool, and is typically what is meant by "a computer".

However, the most general form of computer in use today is the embedded computer. Embedded computers are usually comparatively simple and physically small computers used to control one more device. They may control equipment from fighter aircraft to industrial robots to digital cameras. In the beginning, the term "computer" referred to a person who performed numerical calculations, frequently with the aid of a mechanical calculating device or analog computer. In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard made an improvement to the presented loom designs that used a series of punched paper cards as a program to weave involved patterns. The resulting Jacquard loom is not considered a true computer but it was an essential step in the growth of modern digital computers.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Compact Disc

A Compact Disc or CD is an optical disc meant to store digital data, initially developed for storing digital audio. The CD, obtainable on the market in late 1982, remains the standard physical medium for commercial audio recordings as of 2007. An audio CD includes one or more stereo tracks stored using 16-bit PCM coding at a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz. Standard CDs include a diameter of 120 mm and can hold about 80 minutes of audio. There are also 80 mm discs, occasionally used for CD singles, which hold around 20 minutes of audio. Compact Disc technology was afterward modified for use as a data storage device, known as a CD-ROM, and it consist of record-once and re-writable media (CD-R and CD-RW respectively). CD-ROMs and CD-Rs stay widely used technologies in the Computer industry as of 2007.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Humans

The term "conception" commonly refers to fertilization, but is sometimes defined as implantation or even "the point at which human life begins," and is thus a subject of semantic arguments about the beginning of pregnancy, within the abortion deliberate. Gastrulating is the point in development when the implanted blast cyst develops three germ layers, the endoderm, the exoderm and the mesoderm. It is at this point that the inherited code of the father becomes fully occupied in the development of the embryo. Until this point in development, twinning is probable. Additionally, interspecies hybrids which have no chance of growth survive until gastrulation. However this stance is not entirely necessary since human developmental biology literature refers to the "concepts" and the medical literature refers to the "products of conception" as the post-implantation embryo and its surrounding membranes. The term "conception" is not generally used in scientific literature because of its variable definition and suggestion.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Petal


A petal from Ancient Greek petalon leaf, thin plate, regarded as a highly customized leaf, is one member or part of the corolla of a flower. The corolla is the name for all of the petals of a flower; the internal perianth whorl, word used when this is not the same in appearance (color, shape) as the outermost whorl (the calyx) and is used to attract pollinators based on its bright color. It is the inner part of the perianth that comprises the germ-free parts of a flower and consists of inner and outer tepals. These tepals are frequently differentiated into petals and sepals. The term tepal is usually useful when the petals and sepals are alike in shape and color. In a typical flower the petals are showy and colored and enclose the reproductive parts. The number of petals in a flower (see merosity) is analytic of the plant's classification: eudicots (the largest group of dicots) having typically four or five petals and monocots and magnoliids having three, or some multiple of three, petals.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Wakeboard

Wakeboard Boats have a device that creates a huge wake for a skier to jump the wakes from face to face doing aerial tricks. Wakeboard complete boats are Drive boats. This means they are an inboard boat among the engine place backwards in the nurture of the boat. Some wakeboard detailed boat models are direct drive boats where the engine is in the center of the boat. Most wakeboard boats will have some features that help to make large wakes. Ballast, lodge, and hull technology. Most new wakeboarding boats come usual with some sort of regular ballast. Generally, these ballast tanks are placed inside of the hull of the boat and can be crowded and empties by switches situated in the drivers area. The ballast weights the boat down, creating a larger wake when in proposition. The Wedge is a machine that helps shape the wake. It is a metal structure situated behind the propeller that helps the driver fine melody the wake for the athlete. Hull technology is the innovation and R&D that the manufacturers put into their boats to make sure the best stock wake possible. Many boarders use after market ballast and guide to further weight down their boats for very huge wakes or for sports such as wake surfing.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Pontoon

A pontoon is a flat-bottomed boat or the floats used to support an arrangement on water. It may be simply constructed from closed cylinders such as pipes or barrels or made-up of boxes from metal or concrete. These may be worn to support a simple platform, creating a raft. A raft supporting a house-like structure is single form of houseboat.
Pontoon boats usually run slower and are less likely to cause harm to themselves or other vessels, and are thus less luxurious to insure. As such, they are the most admired vessel style for rental operations. They also present the largest value in terms of capacity to price.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Dugout

A dugout is a boat which is essentially a hollowed tree trunk; other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. Monoxylon (Pl: monoxyla) is Greek -- mono (single) + xylon (tree) -- and is frequently used in classic Greek texts.
Dugouts are the oldest boats archaeologists contain found. Within Germany they are called Einbaum (English translation: One tree). Einbaum dug-out boat finds in Germany day back to the limestone Age. The length of bark and hide canoes, these dugout boats were used by American Indians. This is probably because they are made of enormous pieces of wood, which tend to preserve better than, e.g., bark canoes.
Construction of a dugout begins with the collection of a log of appropriate dimensions. Sufficient wood needed to be removed to make the vessel comparatively light in weight and buoyant, yet still strong enough to support the crew and cargo. Particular types of wood were often favorite based on their strength, durability, and weight. The shape of the boat is then fashioned to reduce drag, with sharp ends at the bow and stern.
First the bark is detached from the exterior. Before the exterior of metal tools, dugouts were then hollowed-out using controlled fires. The burnt wood was then detached using an adze. Another method using tools is to chop out parallel notches crossways the interior span of the wood, then split out and remove the wood from between the notches. Once hollowed out, the core was dressed and smoothed out with a knife or adze.
For traveling the rougher waters of the ocean, dugouts can be fitted with outriggers. One or two smaller logs are mounted parallel to the major hull by long poles.

Monday, May 28, 2007

Ketch

A ketch is a marine craft with two masts: a main mast, and a shorter mizzen mast abaft (rearward of) the main mast. Both masts are rigged mostly fore-and-aft. From one to three jibs may be approved forward of the main mast when going to windward. If a ketch is not rigged for jibs is known as cat ketch, sometimes called per auger. On older, larger ketches the major mast may in addition carry one or more square rigged topsails, alike to a sloop. A ketch may also carry further sails, see below.

The lowest fore-and-aft sail on the major mast is called the mainsail, while that on the mizzen is called the mizzen sail. These may be any kind of fore-and-aft sail, in any grouping. The Scots Zulu, for example, had a dipping lug main with a position lug mizzen.
The ketch is popular among long distance cruisers as the additional sail allows for a better balance, and a smaller more simply handled mainsail for the same overall sail area. It also allows sailing on mizzen and jib only without introducing extreme lee helm, and in an emergency can be quite well steered without use of the rudder.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Kerala houseboats

The houseboats in Kerala, south India, are huge, slow-moving, foreign barges used for leisure trips. They are a reworked model of Kettuvallams (in the Malayalam language, Kettu means "tied with ropes", and vallam means "boat"), which, in earlier times, were used to carry rice and spices from Kuttanad to the Kochi port. Kerala houseboats were measured a suitable means of transportation.
The fame of Kettuvalloms has returned in the function as major tourist attractions. Many come across the Kettuvallom an ideal means of explore the beauty of the Kerala backwaters.
Such a houseboat is about 60 to 70 feet (about 18 to 21 meters) long and concerning 15 feet (about 5 meters) wide at the middle. The hull is made of wooden planks that are detained together by ropes of coconut fiber; the usual wood is 'Anjili'. The roof is completed with bamboo poles and palm leaves. The exterior of the boat is tinted with protective coats of cashew nut oil.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Cigarette boat

The cigarette boat or go-fast boat is a high performance boat of a feature design. Originally designed for his offshore racing team by Donald Aronow, the fast, powerful boats became infamous as the drug smuggling boat of choice in many parts of the world in the 1990s and first years of the 21st century.
In harmony with their pure racing heritage, the accommodations on these boats are minimal, and they are built to hold 5 or more passengers. While most do have some cabin under the foredeck, it is low and much smaller than a characteristic motor yacht of similar size. Apart from the racing market, most buyers of these boats purchase them for the mystique; the mixture of the racing and smuggling connections, plus the immense power and high top speeds make these boats popular as ostentatious displays of wealth.
These boats are hard to detect by radar except on flat calm seas or at close range. The United States Coast Guard and the DEA establish them to be stealthy, fast, seaworthy, and very complicated to intercept using conventional craft. Because of this, Coast Guards contain developed their own high-speed craft and also use helicopters. The helicopters are prepared with Anti-materiel rifles which can be used to disable the motors of the go-fast boat. The Coast Guard go-fast boat is a rigid hulled inflatable boat RHIB ready with radar and powerful engines. The RHIB is armed with quite a few types of non-lethal weapons and M240 GPMG.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Ship transport

Ship transport is the progression of moving people, goods, etc. by barge, boat, ship or sailboat over a sea, ocean, lake, canal or river. This is normally undertaken for purpose of commerce, recreation or military objectives.
A hybrid of ship transport and road transport is the significant horse-drawn boat. Hybrids of boat transport and air transport are kite surfing and parasailing.
Ship transport is finished on ships and other vessels. These can be famed by propulsion, size or cargo type.
Recreational or educational craft still use wind power, while some smaller craft use internal burning engines to drive one or more propellers, or in the case of jet boats, an inboard water jet. In shallow draft areas, such as the Everglades, some craft, such as the hovercraft, are propel by large pusher-prop fans.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Quadriga
A chariot is a two-wheeled, horse-drawn means of transportation. In Latin they say biga is a two-horse chariot, and quadriga is a four-horse chariot. It was used for very old warfare throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages, and constant to be used for travel, processions and in games after it had been superseded militarily. Early forms may also have had four wheels, even though these are not usually referred to as chariots. The serious creation that allowed the construction of light, horse-drawn chariots for use in battle was the spoked wheel. In these times, most horses could not support the weight of a man in battle; the unique wild horse was a large pony in size. Chariots were efficient in war only on fairly flat, open terrain. As horses were slowly bred to be larger and stronger, chariots gave way to cavalry. The earliest spoke-wheeled chariots date to ca. 2000 BC and their usage peaked approximately 1300 BC (see Battle of Kadesh). Chariot races sustained to be popular in Constantinople until the 6th century. In modern warfare, the planned role of the chariot is played by the tank or the armored personnel carrier. In World War I, just before the opening of the first tanks, motorcycles with machine-guns mounted on a sidecar and armoured cars constitute mechanized versions of the chariot. It might be said that the Russian tachanka for a short time re-introduced horse-drawn chariots, armed with machine-guns but these were much more a light version of the horse artillery which had been a feature of European battlefields for well over a hundred years.
Charabanc

A charabanc (pronounced sha-ra-bang) is a kind of open-topped bus common in Britain throughout the early part of the 20th century. It was particularly popular for "works outings" to the country or the seaside that businesses would hold once a year. The name derives from the French char à bancs ("carriage with wooden benches"), where it originates in the early 19th century.
It is mentioned in Ian Anderson's song, "Wondering Again" from the Jethro Tull compilation Living in the Past, as well as imaginatively in The Decemberists' song "The Legionnaire's Lament". From what is gathered from the context of the song, a charabanc ride is nothing but a joy-ride for the nothing-to-dos, and finds use in guiding tourists approximately a town or city. Also mention in the Stranglers song Peaches.
The charabanc travel around is also the (admittedly vague — see The Beatles Anthology, episode 6) premise of The Beatles' 1967 television film supernatural Mystery Tour, in which a group of characters (Spotlight 'oddities', 'lovelies' and The Beatles themselves) toured Southern England in a mix of music hall tunes or comedy, contemporary psychedelia, and musical set pieces by the Fab Four.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Mausoleum of Maussollos

In 377 BC, Halicarnassus was capital of a small kingdom along the Mediterranean coast of Anatolia. It was in that year the ruler of this land, Hecatomnus of Mylasa, died and left control of the kingdom to his son, Mausolus. Hecatomnus, a local satrap to the Persians, had been ambitious and had taken control of several of the neighboring cities and districts. Next to Mausolus and Artemisia he had several other sons and daughters: Ada, Idrieus, and Pixodarus. Mausolus in his time extended the territory even further so that it finally included most of southwestern Asia Minor. Maussollos, with his queen and sister Artemisia, ruled over Halicarnassus and the surrounding territory for 24 years. Maussollos, though he was descended from local people, spoke Greek and admired the Greek way of life and government. He founded many cities of Greek design along the coast and encouraged Greek democratic traditions.

Maussollos decided to build a new capital, a city as hard to capture as it was magnificent to look at. He chose the town Halicarnassus. If Mausolus' ships blocked a small channel, they could keep all enemy warships out. He started making Halicarnassus a fit capital for a warrior prince. His workmen deepened the city's harbor and used the dredged up sand to make protecting arms in front of the channel.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Fraternal twins

Fraternal twins usually occur when two fertilized eggs are implanted in the uterine wall at the same time. The two eggs form two zygotes, and these twins are therefore also known as dizygotic as well as "biovular" twins. When two eggs are independently fertilized by two different sperm cells, fraternal twins result.

Dizygotic twins, like any other siblings, have a very small chance of having the exact same chromosome profile, but most likely have a number of different chromosomes that distinguish them. Like any other siblings, fraternal twins may look very similar, particularly given that they are the same age. However, fraternal twins may also look very different from each other. They may be a different sex or the same sex. Mixed-race twins, or twins born to parents of mixed racial origin, can vary considerably in their skin colouration and other features.

Monday, January 01, 2007

Cellular differentiation

Cellular differentiation is a concept from developmental biology describing the process by which cells acquire a "type". The morphology of a cell may change considerably during differentiation, but the genetic material remains the same, with few exceptions.

A cell that is able to differentiate into many cell types is known as pluripotent. These cells are called stem cells in animals and meristematic cells in higher plants. A cell that is able to distinguish into all cell types is known as totipotent. In mammals, only the zygote and early embryonic cells are totipotent, while in plants, many differentiated cells can become totipotent with simple laboratory techniques.

In most multicellular organisms, not all cells are alike. For example, cells that make up the human skin are different from cells that make up the inner organs. Yet, all of the different cell types in the human body are all derived from a single fertilized egg cell through differentiation.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Composing music

People who perform composition are called composers. Useful skills in composition include writing musical notation, instrumentation, and handling musical ensembles. The definition of composition has broadened to include extensive techniques such as improvisation, musical montage, preparing instruments, using non-traditional objects or methods of sound production, and make music from silence, as John Cage famously did.

Compositional techniques are the methods used to create music. In discussing the structure or association of a musical work, the "composition" of that work is generally called its musical form. These techniques draw a parallel to art's formal elements. Sometimes, the entire form of a piece is through-composed, meaning that each part is different, with no repetition of sections; other forms include strophic, rondo, verse-chorus, etc. Some pieces are composed around a set scale, where the compositional technique might be measured the usage of a particular scale. Others are composed during performance; techniques are sometimes used, however, in this case also.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Avalanche

An avalanche is a slide of a large snow down a mountainside, caused when a buildup of snow is released downward a slope, and is one of the major dangers faced in the mountains in winter. An avalanche is an example of a gravity present consisting of granular material.

In an avalanche, lots of material or mixtures of dissimilar types of material fall or slide rapidly under the force of gravity. Avalanches are often classified by what they are made of, for example snow, ice, rock or soil avalanches. A combination of these would be called a debris avalanche.

A large avalanche can run for many miles, and can create massive demolition of the lower forest and anything else in its path. For example, in Montroc, France, in 1999 300,000 cubic meters of snow slid on a 30 degree slope, achieving a speed of 100 km/h. It killed 12 people in their chalets under 100,000 tons of snow, 5 meters deep. The Mayor of Chamonix was convicted of second-degree murder for not evacuating the area, but received a suspended sentence.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Meteorology

Meteorology is the scientific study of the atmosphere that mainly focuses on weather processes and forecasting. Meteorological phenomena are observable weather events which light up and are explained by the science of meteorology. Those events are bound by the variables that exist in Earth's atmosphere. They are temperature, pressure, water vapor, and the gradients and relations of each variable, and how they change in time. The majority of Earth's observed weather is situated in the troposphere.

Meteorology, climatology, atmospheric physics, and atmospheric chemistry are sub-disciplines of the atmospheric sciences. Meteorology and hydrology comprise the interdisciplinary field of hydrometeorology. Although the term meteorology is used today to explain a sub discipline of the atmospheric sciences, Aristotle's work is more general. The work touches upon much of what is known as the earth sciences. In his own words: All the affections we may call common to air and water, and the kinds and parts of the earth and the affections of its parts. One of the most impressive achievements in Meteorology is his description of what is now known as the hydrologic cycle.

Now the sun, moving as it does, the set up processes of change and becoming and decay, and by its agency the finest and sweetest water is every day carried up and is dissolved into vapor and rises to the upper region, where it is condensed again by the cold and so returns to the earth.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and of the Lazio province, as well as the country's major and most crowded comune, with concerning 2.5 million residents. It is situated in the central-western portion of the Italian peninsula, where the river Aniene joins the Tiber. As one of the prime cities in the European Union, the Comune di Roma has a gross domestic creation of €97 billion in the year 2005, equal to 6.7% of Italy's GDP the highest quantity of GDP produced by any single Italian comune. The current Mayor of Rome is Walter Veltroni.

According to fairy tale, the city of Rome was founded by the twins Romulus and Remus on April 21, 753 BC. Archeological proof supports claims that Rome was inhabited since the 8th century BC and earlier. The city was the support of Roman civilization that shaped the largest and longest-lasting empire of classical antiquity that reached its maximum extent in 117. The city was essential and in charge for the spread of Greco-Roman culture that endures to this day. Rome is also recognized with Christianity and the Catholic Church and has been the Episcopal seat of the Popes since the 1st century. The State of the Vatican City, the monarch territory of the Holy See and smallest nation in the world, is an enclave of Rome.