Friday, November 26, 2010

Sindhi Topi Day


The Sindhi Topi and Ajrak Day is observed on December 6. The day is celebrated by the people of Sindh, province of Pakistan to express their loyalty to the Sindhi culture and it's thousands of year old cultural symbols, the traditional Sindhi Cap and Ajrak cloth.
The day was first conceived by the a Sindhi television channel KTN in November 2009 in response to a television anchors condemnation of President Asif Ali Zardari's wearing of the traditional Sindhi cap and shawl (representing Pakistan) on his state visit to attend the ceremony of swearing in of Hamid Karzai as President of Afghanistan for a second term.

The comments which were made on November 21, 2009 in the current affairs show Meray Mutabiq by Shahid Masood. The anchor's condemnation caused a wave of fury through out the province with the local language media calling for protests and apology. Then the sindhi media channel KTN gave a formal call for the day to be observed on first Sunday of December. The call was subsequently endorsed by all the parties of Sindh except the Pakistan Muslim League.

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Saturday, November 20, 2010

Samsung PX2370 LED Monitor


LAS VEGAS--Anyone who has paid any attention to my recent monitor reviews knows I have a certain affinity for the Samsung SyncMaster XL2370.

So you can probably imagine my delight when on Wednesday Samsung announced what seems to be a followup to the XL2370, the PX2370.

At first glance the PX2370 looks similar to the XL2370, albeit with what may be a thicker profile. I'll be able to confirm this on Thursday when I get a good up-close-and-personal look at it from the show floor.

One of the most unique features is the proximity sensor, which automatically turns the monitor off when no one is near it. Kind of creepy, but cool.

Some of the other key specs of the PX2370.


  • 18mm design
  • 5,000,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio (Static Contrast Ratio 1000:1)
  • 2ms (GTG) video response time
  • Analog RGB/DVI/HDMI inputs
  • 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution


The PX2370 will be available in April from Samsung resellers at a price of $369.

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Monday, November 15, 2010

Happy Eid-ul-Adha

Eid al-Adha or "Eid-u'z-Zuha" "Festival of Sacrifice" or "Greater Eid" is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Isma'il) as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a ram to sacrifice instead. The meat is divided into three equal parts to be distributed to others. The family retains one third of the share, another third is given to relatives, friends and neighbors, and the other third is given to the poor & needy.

Eid al-Adha is the latter of two Eid festivals celebrated by Muslims, whose basis comes from Sura 2 (Al-Baqara) ayah 196 in the Qur'an. Like Eid ul-Fitr, Eid al-Adha begins with a Wajib prayer of two Raka'ah followed by a sermon (khuṭbah).
The word "Eid" appears in Sura al-Mai'da ("The Table Spread," Chapter 5) of the Qur'an, meaning 'solemn festival'.

Eid al-Adha is celebrated annually on the 10th day of the 12th and the last Islamic month of Dhu al-Hijjah (ذو الحجة) of the lunar Islamic calendar. Eid al-Adha celebrations start after the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia by Muslims worldwide, descend from Mount Arafat. The date is approximately 70 days (2 Months & 10 days) after the end of the month of Ramadan, i.e. Eid-ul-Fitr. Ritual observance of the holiday lasts until sunset of the 13th day of Dhu al-Hijjah.

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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Imran Khan Niazi


Imran Khan Niazi was born 25 November 1952. He is a retired Pakistani cricketer who played international cricket for two decades in the late twentieth century and has been a politician since the mid-1990s. Currently, besides his political activism, Khan is also a charity worker and cricket commentator.
Khan played for the Pakistani cricket team from 1971 to 1992 and served as its captain intermittently throughout 1982-1992. After retiring from cricket at the end of the 1987 World Cup, he was called back to join the team in 1988. At 39, Khan led his teammates to Pakistan's first and only World Cup victory in 1992. He has a record of 3807 runs and 362 wickets in Test cricket, making him one of eight world cricketers to have achieved an 'All-rounder's Triple' in Test matches. On 14 July 2010, Khan was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
In April 1996, Khan founded and became the chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice), a small and marginal political party, of which he is the only member ever elected to Parliament. He represented Mianwali as a member of the National Assembly from November 2002 to October 2007. Khan, through worldwide fundraising, helped establish the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre in 1996 and Mianwali's Namal College in 2008.

Imran Khan was born to Shaukat Khanum (Burki) and Ikramullah Khan Niazi, a civil engineer, in Lahore. A quiet and shy boy in his youth, Khan grew up in a middle-class Niazi Pathan family with four sisters. Settled in Punjab, Khan's father descended from the Pashtun (Pathan) Niazi Shermankhel tribe of Mianwali in Punjab . Imran's Mother Shaukat Khanam (Burki's) family includes successful hockey players and cricketers such as Javed Burki and Majid Khan. Khan was educated at Aitchison College, the Cathedral School in Lahore, and the Royal Grammar School Worcester in England, where he excelled at cricket. In 1972, he enrolled to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Keble College, Oxford, where he graduated with a second-class degree in Politics and a third in Economics.

On 16 May 1995, Khan married English socialite Jemima Goldsmith, a convert to Islam, in a two-minute Islamic ceremony in Paris. A month later, on 21 June, they were married again in a civil ceremony at the Richmond register office in England, followed by a reception at the Goldsmiths' house in Surrey. The marriage, described as "tough" by Khan, produced two sons, Sulaiman Isa (born 18 November 1996) and Kasim (born 10 April 1999). As an agreement of his marriage, Khan spent four months a year in England. On 22 June 2004, it was announced that the Khans had divorced because it was "difficult for Jemima to adapt to life in Pakistan".
Khan now resides in Bani Gala, Islamabad, where he built a farmhouse with the money he gained from selling his London flat. He grows fruit trees, wheat, and keeps cows, while also maintaining a cricket ground for his two sons, who visit during their holidays.

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Monday, November 8, 2010

Barack Hussein Obama II


Barack Hussein Obama II was born in August 4, 1961. He is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned after his election to the presidency in November 2008.
A native of Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.

Obama served three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid against a Democratic incumbent for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he ran for United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Democratic primary and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 general election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009.

As president, Obama signed economic stimulus legislation in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009. Other domestic policy initiatives include the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – a major piece of health care reform legislation which he signed into law in March 2010 – and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which forms part of his financial regulatory reform efforts, which he signed in July 2010. In foreign policy, Obama gradually withdrew combat troops from Iraq, increased troop levels in Afghanistan, and signed an arms control treaty with Russia. On October 9, 2009, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

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Saturday, November 6, 2010

World Trade Center


The World Trade Center (WTC) was a complex of seven buildings in Lower Manhattan in New York City that were destroyed in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with six new skyscrapers and a memorial to the casualties of the attacks.
The original World Trade Center was designed by Minoru Yamasaki in the early 1960s using a tube-frame structural design for the twin 110-story towers. In gaining approval for the project, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed to take over the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad which became the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH). Groundbreaking for the World Trade Center took place on August 5, 1966. The North Tower (1) was completed in December 1970 and the South Tower (2) was finished in July 1971. The construction project involved excavating a large amount of material which was used in making Battery Park City on the west side of Lower Manhattan.

The complex was located in the heart of New York City's downtown financial district and contained 13.4 million square feet (1.24 million m²) of office space. The Windows on the World restaurant was located on the 106th and 107th floors of 1 World Trade Center (the North Tower) while the Top of the World observation deck was located on the 107th floor of 2 World Trade Center (the South Tower). Other World Trade Center buildings included the Marriott World Trade Center; 4 World Trade Center; 5 World Trade Center; 6 World Trade Center, which housed the United States Customs. All of these buildings were built between 1975 and 1981. The final building constructed was 7 World Trade Center, which was built in 1985. The World Trade Center experienced a fire on February 13, 1975 and a bombing on February 26, 1993. In 1998, the Port Authority decided to privatize the World Trade Center, leasing the buildings to a private company to manage, and awarded the lease to Silverstein Properties in July 2001.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda-affiliated hijackers flew two 767 jets into the complex, one into each tower, in a coordinated terrorist attack. After burning for 56 minutes, the South Tower (2) collapsed, followed a half-hour later by the North Tower (1), with the attacks on the World Trade Center resulting in 2,752 deaths. 7 World Trade Center collapsed later in the day and the other buildings, although they did not collapse, had to be demolished because they were damaged beyond repair. The process of cleanup and recovery at the World Trade Center site took eight months. The first new building at the site was 7 World Trade Center which opened in May 2006. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), established in November 2001 to oversee the rebuilding process, organized competitions to select a site plan and memorial design. Memory Foundations, designed by Daniel Libeskind, was selected as the master plan, which included the 1,776-foot (541 m) One World Trade Center, three office towers along Church Street and a memorial designed by Michael Arad.

Construction of World Trade Center:
In March 1965, the Port Authority began acquiring property at the World Trade Center site. Demolition work began on March 21, 1966 to clear thirteen square blocks of low rise buildings in Radio Row for construction of the World Trade Center. Groundbreaking for the construction of the World Trade Center took place on August 5, 1966.
The site of the World Trade Center was located on landfill with the bedrock located 65 feet (20 m) below. To construct the World Trade Center, it was necessary to build a "bathtub" with a slurry wall around the West Street side of the site, to keep water from the Hudson River out. The slurry method selected by Port Authority’s chief engineer, John M. Kyle, Jr., involved digging a trench, and as excavation proceeded, filling the space with a "slurry" mixture composed of bentonite and water, which plugged holes and kept groundwater out. When the trench was dug out, a steel cage was inserted and concrete was poured in, forcing the "slurry" out. It took fourteen months for the slurry wall to be completed; it was necessary before excavation of material from the interior of the site could begin. The 1.2 million cubic yards (917,000 m3) of material excavated were used to expand the Manhattan shoreline across West Street to form Battery Park City (along with other fill and dredge material).
In January 1967, the Port Authority awarded $74 million in contracts to various steel suppliers, and Karl Koch was hired to erect the steel. Tishman Realty & Construction was hired in February 1967 to oversee construction of the project. Construction work began on the North Tower in August 1968; construction on the South Tower was underway by January 1969. The original Hudson Tubes, carrying PATH trains into Hudson Terminal, remained in service as elevated tunnels during the construction process until 1971 when a new PATH station opened.
The topping out ceremony of 1 WTC (North Tower) took place on December 23, 1970, while 2 WTC's ceremony (South Tower) occurred later on July 19, 1971. The first tenants moved into the North Tower in December 1970; the South Tower accepted tenants in January 1972. When the World Trade Center twin towers were completed, the total costs to the Port Authority had reached $900 million. The ribbon cutting ceremony was on April 4, 1973.

On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and crashed it into the northern facade of the north tower at 08:46, impacting between the 93rd and 99th floors. Seventeen minutes later, a second team of terrorists crashed the similarly hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 into the south tower, impacting between the 77th and 85th floors. The damage caused to the north tower by Flight 11 destroyed any means of escape from above the impact zone, trapping 1,344 people. Flight 175 had a much more off-centered impact compared to Flight 11, and a single stairwell was left intact; however, only a few people managed to successfully pass through it before the tower collapsed. Although the south tower's floors of impact were lower, a smaller number, less than 700, were killed instantly or trapped. At 9:59 a.m., the south tower collapsed due to fire, which caused steel structural elements, already weakened from the plane impact, to fail. The north tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m., after burning for approximately 102 minutes.
At 5:20 p.m. on September 11, 2001, 7WTC started to collapse with the crumble of the east penthouse, and it collapsed completely at 5:21 p.m. due to uncontrolled fires causing structural failure. 3WTC, a Marriott hotel, was destroyed during the collapse of the two towers. The three remaining buildings in the WTC plaza sustained heavy damage from debris and were ultimately demolished. The Deutsche Bank Building across Liberty Street from the World Trade Center complex was later condemned due to the uninhabitable toxic conditions inside; it is undergoing deconstruction. The Borough of Manhattan Community College's Fiterman Hall at 30 West Broadway was also condemned due to extensive damage in the attacks and is slated for deconstruction.


Destruction of World Trade Center:
In the aftermath of the attacks, media reports suggested that tens of thousands might have been killed in the attacks, as on any given day upwards of 50,000 people could be inside the towers. Ultimately, 2,752 death certificates were filed relating to the 9/11 attacks, including one filed for Felicia Dunn-Jones, who was added to the official death toll in May 2007; Dunn-Jones died five months later from a lung condition linked to exposure to dust during the collapse of the World Trade Center. Two other victims were then added to the official death toll by the city medical examiner's office: Dr. Sneha Anne Philip, who was last seen the day before the attacks, and Leon Heyward, a man who developed lymphoma and subsequently died in 2008 as a result of dust ingestion during the events following the attacks to the Twin Towers. Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., an investment bank on the 101st–105th floors of One World Trade Center, lost 658 employees, considerably more than any other employer, while Marsh & McLennan Companies, located immediately below Cantor Fitzgerald on floors 93–101 (the location of Flight 11's impact), lost 295 employees, and 175 employees of Aon Corporation were killed. As well, 343 deaths were New York City firefighters, 84 were Port Authority employees, of whom 37 were members of the Port Authority Police Department, and another 23 were New York City Police Department officers. Of all the people who were still in the towers when they collapsed, only 20 were pulled out alive.

Rebuilding of World Trade Center:
The process of cleanup and recovery continued 24 hours a day over a period of eight months. Debris was transported from the World Trade Center site to Fresh Kills on Staten Island, where it was further sifted. On May 30, 2002, a ceremony was held to officially mark the end of the cleanup efforts. In 2002, ground was broken on construction of a new 7WTC building located just to the north of the main World Trade Center site. Since it was not part of the site master plan, Larry Silverstein was able to proceed without delay on the rebuilding of 7 World Trade Center, which was completed and officially opened in May 2006; this had been considered a priority since restoring the Consolidated Edison Cos. electrical substation in the building's lower floors was necessary to meet power demands of Lower Manhattan. A temporary PATH station at the World Trade Center opened in November 2003; it will be replaced by a permanent station designed by Santiago Calatrava.
With the main World Trade Center site, numerous stakeholders were involved including Silverstein and the Port Authority, which in turn meant the Governor of New York State, George Pataki, had some authority. As well, the victims' families, people in the surrounding neighborhoods, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and others wanted input. Governor Pataki established the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) in November 2001 as an official commission to oversee the rebuilding process. The LMDC held a competition to solicit possible designs for the site. The Memory Foundations design by Daniel Libeskind was chosen as the master plan for the World Trade Center site. The plan included the 1,776 feet (541 m) Freedom Tower (now known as One World Trade Center) as well as a memorial and a number of other office towers. Out of the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition, a design by Michael Arad and Peter Walker entitled Reflecting Absence was selected in January 2004.
On March 13, 2006, workers arrived at the World Trade Center site to remove remaining debris and start surveying work. This marked the official start of construction of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, though not without controversy and concerns from some family members. In April 2006, the Port Authority and Larry Silverstein reached an agreement in which Silverstein ceded rights to develop the Freedom Tower and Tower Five in exchange for financing with Liberty Bonds for Towers Two, Three, and Four. On April 27, 2006, a ground-breaking ceremony was held for the Freedom Tower.
In May 2006, architects Richard Rogers and Fumihiko Maki were announced as the architects for Towers Three and Four, respectively. The final designs for Towers Two, Three and Four were unveiled on September 7, 2006. Tower Two, or 200 Greenwich Street, will have a roof height of 1,254 feet (382 m) and a 96 feet (29 m) tripod spire for a total of 1,350 feet (410 m). Tower Three, or 175 Greenwich Street will have a roof height of 1,155 feet (352 m) and an antenna height reaching 1,255 feet (383 m). Tower Four, or 150 Greenwich Street, will have an overall height of 946 feet (288 m). On June 22, 2007 the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced that JP Morgan Chase will build Tower 5, a 42-story building on Site 5 currently occupied by the Deutsche Bank Building, and Kohn Pedersen Fox was selected as the architect for the building.

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The Snooker


Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a large green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regular (full-size) table is 12 × 6 ft (3.7 × 1.8 m). It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white cue ball, 15 red balls worth one point each, and six balls of different colours: yellow (2 points), green (3), brown (4), blue (5), pink (6) and black (7). A player (or team) wins a frame (individual game) of snooker by scoring more points than the opponent(s), using the cue ball to pot the red and coloured balls. A player wins a match when a certain number of frames have been won.
Snooker, generally regarded as having been invented in India by British Army officers, is popular in many of the English-speaking and Commonwealth countries, with top professional players attaining multi-million pound career earnings from the game. The sport is particularly and increasingly popular in China.

It is commonly accepted that snooker originated in the later half of the 19th century. Billiards had been a popular activity amongst British Army officers stationed in India, and variations on the more traditional billiard games were devised. One variation, devised in the officers' mess in Jabalpur during 1874 or 1875, was to add coloured balls in addition to the reds and black which were used for pyramid pool and life pool. The word snooker also has military origins, being a slang term for first-year cadets or inexperienced personnel. One version of events states that Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain of the Devonshire regiment was playing this new game when his opponent failed to pot a ball and Chamberlain called him a snooker. It thus became attached to the billiards game now bearing its name as inexperienced players were labelled as snookers.
The game of snooker grew in the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, and by 1927 the first World Snooker Championship had been organised by Joe Davis who, as a professional English billiards and snooker player, moved the game from a pastime activity into a more professional sphere. Joe Davis won every world championship until 1946 when he retired. The game went into a decline through the 1950s and 1960s with little interest generated outside of those who played. In 1959, Davis introduced a variation of the game, known as snooker plus, to try to improve the game's popularity by adding two extra colours. However, it never caught on.

A major advance occurred in 1969, when David Attenborough, who was then a top official of the BBC, commissioned the snooker tournament Pot Black to demonstrate the potential of colour television, with the green table and multi-coloured balls being ideal for showing off the advantages of colour broadcasting. The TV series became a ratings success and was for a time the second most popular show on BBC Two. Interest in the game increased and the 1978 World Championship was the first to be fully televised. The game quickly became a mainstream sport in the UK, Ireland and much of the Commonwealth and has enjoyed much success in the last 30 years, with most of the ranking tournaments being televised. In 1985 a total of 18.5 million viewers watched the concluding frame of the world championship final between Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis. In recent years the loss of tobacco sponsorship has led to a decrease in the number of professional tournaments, although some new sponsors have been sourced; and the popularity of the game in the Far East and China, with emerging talents such as Liang Wenbo and more established players such as Ding Junhui and Marco Fu, bodes well for the future of the sport in that part of the world.

The object of the game is to score more points than the opponent by potting object balls in a predefined order. At the start of a frame, the balls are positioned as shown and the players take it in turns to hit a shot in a single strike from the tip of the cue, their aim being to pot one of the red balls and score a point. If they do pot at least one red, then it remains in the pocket and they are allowed another shot – this time the aim being to pot one of the colours. If successful, then they gain the value of the colour potted. It is returned to its correct position on the table and they must try to pot another red. This process continues until they fail to pot the desired ball, at which point their opponent comes back to the table to play the next shot. The game continues in this manner until all the reds are potted and only the 6 colours are left on the table; at that point the aim is then to pot the colours in the order yellow 2, green 3, brown 4, blue 5, pink 6, black 7. When a colour is potted in this phase of a frame, it remains off the table. When the final ball is potted, the player with the most points wins.
Points may also be scored in a game when a player's opponent fouls. A foul can occur for numerous reasons, such as hitting a colour first when the player was attempting to hit a red, potting the cue ball, or failing to escape from "a snooker" (a situation where the previous player finished their turn leaving the cue ball in a position where the object ball cannot be hit directly). Points gained from a foul vary from a minimum of 4 to a maximum of 7 if the black ball is involved.
One game, from the balls in their starting position until the last ball is potted, is called a frame. A match generally consists of a predefined number of frames and the player who wins the most frames wins the match overall. Most professional matches require a player to win five frames, and are called 'Best of Nine' as that is the maximum possible number of frames. Tournament finals are usually best of 17 or best of 19, while the World Championship uses longer matches – ranging from best of 19 in the qualifiers and the first round proper, up to 35 frames in length (first to 18), and is played over two days.
Professional and competitive amateur matches are officiated by a referee who is the sole judge of fair play. The referee also respots the colours on to the table and calls out how many points the player has scored during a break. Professional players usually play the game in a sporting manner, declaring fouls the referee has missed, acknowledging good shots from their opponent, or holding up a hand to apologise for fortunate shots.
Other terminology used in snooker includes a player's break, which refers to the total number of consecutive points a player has amassed (excluding fouls) when at one visit to the table. A player attaining a break of 15, for example, could have reached it by potting a red then a black, then a red then a pink, before failing to pot the next red. The traditional maximum break in snooker is to pot all reds with blacks then all colours, which would yield 147 points; this is often known as a "147" or a "maximum".

Accessories used for snooker include chalk for the tip of the cue, rests of various sorts (needed often, due to the length of a full-size table), a triangle to rack the reds, and a scoreboard. One drawback of snooker on a full-size table is the size of the room (22' x 16' or approximately 5 m x 7 m), which is the minimum required for comfortable cueing room on all sides.[20] This limits the number of locations in which the game can easily be played. While pool tables are common to many pubs, snooker tends to be played either in private surroundings or in public snooker halls. The game can also be played on smaller tables using fewer red balls. The variants in table size are: 10' x 5', 9' x 4.5', 8' x 4', 6' x 3' (the smallest for realistic play) and 4' x 2'. Smaller tables can come in a variety of styles, such as fold away or dining-table convertible.

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Friday, November 5, 2010

LiveView Sony Ericsson


Take control of your phone without ever taking it out. With LiveView™. It's wearable and wireless. And you can customise it with applications. Discover your new best buddy - LiveView™.
Don't miss out!
Tony tattled on Twitter™. John texted you the address to tonight’s party. Sarah updated her Facebook™ status. Get instant notifications. And stay updated 24/7. With LiveView™.

Live your music.
Wanna rock? Tap play and start headbanging. Feel like escaping to the Caribbean? Skip tracks and chill out with some reggae. Go ahead. And control your music with LiveView™ Wireless micro display.

You choose - Android Market™
Download any compatible application you want from Android Market™ and customise your LiveView™ to make it exclusively yours.

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Thursday, November 4, 2010

William Henry "Bill" Gates III


William Henry "Bill" Gates III was born on October 28, 1955. He is an American business magnate, philanthropist, author and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder with more than 8 percent of the common stock. He has also authored or co-authored several books.
Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Although he is admired by many, a number of industry insiders criticize his business tactics, which they consider anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts. In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.
Bill Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January 2000. He remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect. In June 2006, Gates announced that he would be transitioning from full-time work at Microsoft to part-time work and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie, chief software architect and Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer. Gates' last full-time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He remains at Microsoft as non-executive chairman.

Gates was born in Seattle, Washington, to William H. Gates, Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates, of English, German, and Scottish-Irish descent. His family was upper middle class; his father was a prominent lawyer, his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and the United Way, and her father, J. W. Maxwell, was a national bank president. Gates has one elder sister, Kristi (Kristianne), and one younger sister, Libby. He was the fourth of his name in his family, but was known as William Gates III or "Trey" because his father had dropped his own "III" suffix. Early on in his life, Gates' parents had a law career in mind for him.
At 13 he enrolled in the Lakeside School, an exclusive preparatory school. When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy an ASR-33 teletype terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the school's students. Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC and was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. He wrote his first computer program on this machine: an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer. Gates was fascinated by the machine and how it would always execute software code perfectly. When he reflected back on that moment, he commented on it and said, "There was just something neat about the machine." After the Mothers Club donation was exhausted, he and other students sought time on systems including DEC PDP minicomputers. One of these systems was a PDP-10 belonging to Computer Center Corporation (CCC), which banned four Lakeside students—Gates, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Kent Evans—for the summer after it caught them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer time.

At the end of the ban, the four students offered to find bugs in CCC's software in exchange for computer time. Rather than use the system via teletype, Gates went to CCC's offices and studied source code for various programs that ran on the system, including programs in FORTRAN, LISP, and machine language. The arrangement with CCC continued until 1970, when the company went out of business. The following year, Information Sciences, Inc. hired the four Lakeside students to write a payroll program in COBOL, providing them computer time and royalties. After his administrators became aware of his programming abilities, Gates wrote the school's computer program to schedule students in classes. He modified the code so that he was placed in classes with mostly female students. He later stated that "it was hard to tear myself away from a machine at which I could so unambiguously demonstrate success." At age 17, Gates formed a venture with Allen, called Traf-O-Data, to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor. In early 1973, Bill Gates served as a congressional page in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Gates graduated from Lakeside School in 1973. He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT and enrolled at Harvard College in the autumn of 1973. While at Harvard, he met Steve Ballmer, who later succeeded Gates as CEO of Microsoft. In his sophomore year, Gates devised an algorithm for pancake sorting as a solution to one of a series of unsolved problems, presented in a combinatorics class by one of his professors. Gates' solution, which was later formalized in a published paper in collaboration with Harvard computer scientist Christos Papadimitriou, held the record as the fastest version for over thirty years; its successor is faster by only one percent Gates did not have a definite study plan while a student at Harvard and spent a lot of time using the school's computers. He remained in contact with Paul Allen, joining him at Honeywell during the summer of 1974. The following year saw the release of the MITS Altair 8800 based on the Intel 8080 CPU, and Gates and Allen saw this as the opportunity to start their own computer software company. He had talked this decision over with his parents, who were supportive of him after seeing how much Gates wanted to start a company.

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Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Ferrari Luxury Car


The Enzo Ferrari is a 12 cylinder mid-engine berlinetta named after the company's founder, Enzo Ferrari. It was built in 2002 using Formula One technology, such as a carbon-fibre body, F1-style electrohydraulic shift transmission, and Carbon fibre-reinforced Silicon Carbide (C/SiC) ceramic composite disc brakes. Also used are technologies not allowed in F1 such as active aerodynamics and traction control. After a downforce of 775 kg (1,709 lb) is reached at 355.6 km/h (221 mph) the rear wing is actuated by computer to maintain that downforce.
The Enzo's V12 engine is the first of a new generation for Ferrari. It is based on the architecture of the V8 found in sister-company Maserati's Quattroporte, using the same basic architecture and 104 mm (4.1 in) bore spacing. This design will replace the former architectures seen in V12 and V8 engines used in most other contemporary Ferraris. The 2005 F430 is the second Ferrari to get a version of this new powerplant.

The Enzo was initially announced at the 2002 Paris Motor Show with a limited production run of 349 and at US $659,330. The company sent invitations to existing customers, specifically, those who had previously bought the F40 and F50. All 349 cars were sold in this way before production began. Later, after numerous requests, Ferrari decided to build 50 more Enzos, bringing the total to 399. Before being unveiled at the Paris Motor show, the Enzo (that was used in the show) was flown from Italy to California to be filmed in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. It was driven on a beach by actress Demi Moore. After filming was complete, the Enzo was flown to France to be in the Motor Show. Enzos are listed as being built in 2003.

Ferrari built one more Enzo — the 400th car — and it was auctioned by Sotheby's Maranello Auction on June 28, 2005, to benefit survivors of the 2004 Tsunami for €950,000 (US$1,274,229), almost twice its list price. This sum was presented to Pope Benedict XVI, while former Ferrari Formula One driver Michael Schumacher gave the pope a steering wheel to commemorate the donation. This wheel included a plaque which read, "The Formula 1 World Champion's steering wheel to His Holiness Benedict XVI, Catholicism's driver."
The Enzo Ferrari typically trades above $1,000,000 (£500,000) at auction.
Three prototype "mules" were built, M1, M2, and M3. Each was bodied to look like a 348, even though the mules were built in 2000. The third mule was offered for auction alongside the 400th Enzo in June, 2005, bringing €195,500 (US$236,300).

As the result of the Enzo, Ferrari has decided to use some of the technology developed for it in a small-scale program to get more feedback from certain customers for use in future car design as well as their racing program. The core of this program is the Ferrari FXX. It is loosely based on the Enzo's design with a highly-tuned 6.3 litre version of the Enzo's engine putting out roughly 800 PS (590 kW; 790 hp). The gearbox is new as well as the tires (custom-designed for this car by Bridgestone) and the brakes (developed by Brembo). In addition, the car is fitted with extensive data-recording and telemetry systems to allow Ferrari to record the car's behavior. This information will be used by Ferrari to develop their next sports car.
Like the Enzo, the car was sold to specially selected existing clients of Ferrari only; the initial price was €1.3 million. Unlike the Enzo, the clients did not take delivery of the car themselves. Rather, it is maintained by Ferrari and available for the client's use on various circuits as arranged by Ferrari and also during private track sessions. The car is not expected to be street-legal or suitable for road use.

The Ferrari FXX program will continue until 2008/2009 with the Ferrari FXX Evoluźione. The car will continue to be improved under the Evolution kit, which will continually adjust specifics to create more power, change gearing, and remove drag. The 6262 cc V12 engine will be pushing out 860 PS (630 kW; 850 hp) at 9500 rpm. There will be gearbox changes so that shift time will be reduced to 60 milliseconds per shift, a reduction of 20 milliseconds. The car will also undergo aerodynamic changes and improvements to the traction control system. Its top speed is 227 miles per hour (365 km/h).

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Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Justin Bieber


Justin Drew Bieber was born March 1, 1994. He is a Canadian pop-R&B singer. Bieber was discovered in 2008 by Scooter Braun, who happened to come across Bieber's videos on YouTube and later became his manager. Braun arranged for him to meet with Usher in Atlanta, Georgia, and Bieber was soon signed to Raymond Braun Media Group (RBMG), a joint venture between Braun and Usher, and then to a recording contract with Island Records offered by L.A. Reid.

His debut single, "One Time", was released worldwide during 2009, and charted within the top 30 in over ten countries. It was followed by his debut release, My World, on November 17, 2009, which was certified platinum in the United States, making him the first artist to have seven songs from a debut album chart on the Billboard Hot 100. His first full studio release, My World 2.0, was released on March 23, 2010 and has since received similar success; it debuted at number one and within the top ten of several countries and was certified platinum in the United States. It was preceded by the worldwide top-ten single, "Baby," in January 2010. Bieber is considered a teen idol.

While searching for videos of a different singer, Scooter Braun, a former marketing executive of So So Def, clicked on one of Bieber's 2007 videos by accident. Impressed, Braun tracked down the theater Bieber was performing in, located Bieber's school, and finally contacted Mallette. Mallette was reluctant; she remembered praying, "God, I gave him to you. You could send me a Christian man, a Christian label!" However, after praying with her church elders and receiving their encouragement, she permitted Braun to fly Bieber, then 13, to Atlanta, Georgia, to record demo tapes. A week after arriving, Bieber sang for R&B singer/songwriter Usher. Bieber was soon signed to Raymond Braun Media Group (RBMG), a joint venture between Braun and Usher. Justin Timberlake was also reportedly in the running to sign Bieber, but lost the bidding war to Usher. Usher then arranged an audition with Antonio L.A. Reid of Island Def Jam Music Group, who signed Bieber to Island Records in October 2008 (resulting in a joint venture between RBMG and Island Records). At that point, Bieber and his mother moved to Atlanta, also the home of Usher and Braun, to base his career. Braun became Bieber's manager.

Bieber's first single, "One Time", was released to radio while Bieber was still recording his debut album.[18] The song reached number 12 on the Canadian Hot 100 during its first week of release in July 2009,[9] and later peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100. During fall 2009 it had success in international markets. The song was certified Platinum in Canada and the U.S. and Gold in Australia and New Zealand. Bieber's first album My World, was released on November 17, 2009. Three consecutive singles, "One Less Lonely Girl", "Love Me", and "Favorite Girl", were released exclusively on the iTunes store and charted within the top forty of the Billboard Hot 100.[19] "One Less Lonely Girl" was later also released to radio and peaked within the top fifteen in Canada and the U.S., being certified Gold in the latter. My World was eventually certified Platinum in the U.S. and Canada and Silver in the UK. To promote the album, Bieber performed in several live shows such as mtvU's VMA 09 Tour, European program The Dome, YTV's The Next Star, The Today Show, The Wendy Williams Show, Lopez Tonight, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, It's On with Alexa Chung, Good Morning America, Chelsea Lately, and BET's 106 & Park with Rihanna. Bieber also guest starred in an episode of True Jackson, VP in late 2009.
Bieber performed Stevie Wonder's "Someday at Christmas" for U.S. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama at the White House for Christmas in Washington, which was broadcast on December 20, 2009, on U.S. television broadcaster TNT. Bieber was also one of the performers at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest on December 31, 2009. Bieber was a presenter at the 52nd Grammy Awards on January 31, 2010. He was invited to be a vocalist for the remake of We Are The World for its 25th anniversary to benefit Haiti after the earthquake. Bieber sings the opening line, which was sung by Lionel Richie in the original version. On March 12, 2010, a version of K'naan's "Wavin' Flag" recorded by a collective of Canadian musicians known as Young Artists for Haiti was released. Bieber is featured in the song, performing the closing lines.
"Baby", the lead single from the second half of his debut album, which features Ludacris, was released in January 2010 and became his biggest hit thus far, charting at number five in the U.S. and reaching the top ten in seven other countries. Two digital singles, "Never Let You Go", and "U Smile" were top thirty hits on the U.S. Hot 100, and top twenty hits in Canada. According to review aggregator Metacritic, the album has received "generally favorable reviews". It debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, making Bieber the youngest solo male act to top the chart since Stevie Wonder in 1963. My World 2.0 also debuted at number one on the Canadian Albums Chart, Irish Albums Chart, and Australian Albums Chart, and the New Zealand Albums Chart[19] and reached the top ten of fifteen other countries. To promote the album, Bieber appeared on several live programs including The View, the 2010 Kids Choice Awards, Nightline, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Dome and 106 and Park. On April 10, 2010, Bieber was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. On July 4, 2010, Bieber performed at the Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular in New York City. The second single from My World 2.0, "Somebody to Love", was released in April 2010, and a remix was released featuring Bieber's mentor Usher. In June 2010, it reached 15 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Bieber has often been criticized for looking and sounding younger than his age and his effeminacy, teen pop music, image, and frequent media attention.[59] He has been a frequent target for internet bloggers and message board posters —notably by users of internet message board 4chan, users of YouTube, and various Facebook groups. Pranks have included a successful campaign to push "Justin Bieber Syphilis" to the top of the Google Trends Hot Searches list; hacked YouTube videos that were altered so as to redirect users to adult websites or trigger pop-up messages saying that Bieber had been killed in a car accident; his Last.fm photograph being changed to pornographic images; various rumors circulated, from rumors that Bieber had died, joined a cult, or even that his mother was offered $50,000 to pose topless in Playboy magazine—none of which were true. This all forced the affected companies to update their security protocols to reverse the damage, and Bieber himself tweeted to fans reassuring them that he was still living and that false rumors about his mother "just grossed and weirded me out."
Most notable was the campaign to send Bieber to North Korea as part of his world tour (entitled My World Tour). This was carried out in part by 4chan users voting for the country on the tour's website, for the free competition to nominate a bonus country for the tour—the second-placed country being Israel, which presumably was voted for by Israelis genuinely wishing to attend the concert. It is highly unlikely that Bieber would actually have been given permission by the North Korean government, or concert organizers and management, to enter the country. Universal Music Group has denied any involvement in a poll that became the target of an online prank. A spokesperson for UMG told BBC News that it was a "hoax" but declined to give any further comment.
Notable parodies of Bieber include part of Michael Bublé's music video for "Hollywood" and Galo Frito's parody of "Baby", which won the 2010 MTV Video Music Brazil Web Hit award.
Nick Collins of The Daily Telegraph speculated that "Bieber's character also appears to strike a particularly sour note with his Internet critics, with many remarks commenting on his youthful appearance, his teen-pop songs, his image as a heart-throb to young teenage girls and his manner of speech.

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Monday, November 1, 2010

MP4 Player


The name MP4 player is a marketing term for portable media players that comply with certain standards and formats. The name itself is a misnomer, since most MP4 players are incompatible with the MPEG-4 Part 14 or the .mp4 container format. Instead, the term symbolizes their status as successors of MP3 players. In this sense, in some markets like Brazil, any new function added to a given media player is followed by an increase in the number, despite there being no corresponding MPEG-5 standard (as of 2010, the current standard, still being developed, is MPEG-4).

The MTV video format (no relation to the cable network) consists of a 512-byte file header that operates by displaying a series of raw image frames during MP3 playback. During this process, audio frames are passed to the chipset's decoder, while the memory pointer of the display's hardware is adjusted to the next image within the video stream. This method does not require additional hardware for decoding, though it will lead to a higher amount of memory consumption. For that reason, the storage capacity of an MP4 player is effectively less than that of a player that decompresses files on the fly.

The instruction manuals usually contain the basic information to operate and use the devices, but sometimes lack further detail. They are often translated into pinyin English or mistranslated into English.

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