Monday, August 27, 2007
Currency
In general usage, currency at times refers to only paper money, as in "coins and currency", but this is confusing. Coins and paper money are both forms of currency.In most cases, each country has control over the supply and manufacture of its own currency.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Count wheel
Monday, August 13, 2007
Harrington jacket
The initial Harrington-style jackets were made by British clothing company, Baracuta, in the 1930s; the company is still making the same model, the G9. This style of jacket got the nickname Harrington because it was worn by the personality Rodney Harrington (played by Ryan O'Neal) in the 1960s television program Peyton Place; John Simmons, who opened 'The Ivy Shop', Richmond, London, claims to have coined this explanation.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Toothbrush
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Electrostatic
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Web portal
Friday, July 13, 2007
Pollarding
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Deadheading is the act of removing spent flowers or flowerheads for aesthetics, to prolong bloom for up to several weeks or endorse rebloom, or to put off seeding.Deadheading is beneficial to most herbaceous ornamental plants. It can get better overall look of a plant, give a fresh new look to an otherwise finished or even distracting item, and can promote vegetative and root increase rather than seed production and help retain the plant's healthy appearance.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Bean
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Solar System
In wide terms, the charted regions of the Solar System consist of the Sun, four terrestrial inner planets, an asteroid belt composed of small rocky bodies, four gas giant outer planets, and a second belt, called the Kuiper belt, collected of icy objects. Beyond the Kuiper belt lies the scattered disc, the heliopause, and eventually the hypothetical Oort cloud.
In sort of their distances from the Sun, the planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Six of the eight planets are in turn orbited by natural satellites, usually termed "moons" after Earth's Moon, and each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other particles. All the planets apart from Earth are named after gods and goddesses from Greco-Roman mythology. The three dwarf planets are Pluto, the largest known Kuiper belt object; Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt; and Eris, which lies in the scattered disc.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Butterfly Koi
Butterfly Koi originated in the mid 20th century as a result of an effort to increase the hardiness of traditional koi. Japanese breeders interbred wild Indonesian Longfin river carp with traditional koi. The resulting fish had longer fins, long barbells, pompom nostrils, and were hardier than koi. These were known in Japan as “onagaoi” or "hire naga koi", or translated in English “long tail koi”. Randy LeFever, the son of Wyatt LeFever, a noted breeder of koi, is credited with suggesting they looked like butterflies, a trait for which the breed is named. They are also sometimes referred to as Dragon Koi.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Blue rose
Blue roses conventionally signify mystery or attaining the impossible. They are supposed to be able to grant the owner youth or grant wishes. This symbolism derives from the rose's meaning in the language of plants common in Victorian times.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Star
Astronomers can establish the mass, age, chemical composition and many other properties of a star by observing its spectrum, luminosity and motion through space. The total mass of a star is the principal determinant in its development and eventual fate. Other individuality of a star that is determined by its evolutionary history includes the diameter, rotation, movement and temperature. A plot of the temperature of many stars against their luminosities, known as a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (H-R diagram), allows the current age and evolutionary state of a particular star to be determined.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Shrimp fishery
A number of the larger species, including the Atlantic white shrimp (Penaeus setiferus), are caught commercially and used for food. Recipes utilizing shrimp form part of the cuisine of many cultures: examples include jambalaya, okonomiyaki, poon choi, bagoong, Kerala and scampi.Preparing shrimp for consumption usually involves removing the shell, tail, and "sand vein". As with other seafood, shrimp is high in calcium, protein and low in food energy.Shrimp and prawns are versatile ingredients, and are often used as an accompaniment to fried rice. Common methods of preparation comprise baking, boiling and frying. As stated in the movie Forrest Gump
Sunday, May 27, 2007
The key benefit of RAM
Because of this speed and consistency, RAM is used as 'main memory' or primary storage: the working area used for loading, displaying and manipulate applications and data. In most personal computers, the RAM is not an essential part of the motherboard or CPU—it comes in the easily upgraded form of modules called memory sticks or RAM sticks about the size of a few sticks of chewing gum, which can be quickly detached and replaced when they become damaged or too small for current purposes. A smaller amount of random-access memory is also integrated with the CPU, but this is usually referred to as "cache" memory, rather than RAM.
The disadvantage of RAM over physically moving media is cost and the loss of data when power is turned off. For these reasons, almost all PCs have disc storage as "secondary storage". Small PDAs and music players (up to 8 GiB in Jan 2007) may allot with disks, but rely on flash memory, to retain data between sessions of use.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Moore machine
The name Moore machine comes from that of its supporter, Edward F. Moore, a state-machine pioneer who wrote "Gedanken-experiments on Sequential Machines".
Most digital electronic systems are designed as clocked sequential systems. Clocked sequential systems are a limited form of Moore machine where the state changes only when the global clock signal changes. Typically the current state is stored in flip-flops, and a global clock signal is connected to the "clock" input of the flip-flops. Clocked chronological systems are one way to solve met stability problems.
A typical electronic Moore machine includes a combinatorial logic chain to decode the current state into the outputs. The instant the current state changes, those changes ripple through that chain, and almost instantaneously the outputs change. There are design techniques to ensure that no glitches occur on the outputs during that brief period while those changes are rippling through the chain, but most systems are designed so that glitches during that brief transition time are ignored or are irrelevant. The outputs then stay the same indefinitely, until the Moore machine changes state again.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Sunglass
Many people find direct sunlight too bright to be comfortable, particularly when reading from paper on which the sun directly shines. In outdoor activities like skiing and flying, the eye can receive more light than usual. It has been recommended to wear these kinds of glasses on sunny days to protect the eyes from ultraviolet radiation, which can lead to the development of a cataract. Sunglasses have also been linked with celebrities and film actors mainly due to the desire to mask identity, but in part due to the lighting involved in production being typically stronger than natural light and uncomfortable to the naked eye.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Vehicle
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
History of Postage Stamp
The world's initial stamp was the Penny Black the adhesive postage stamp and the uniform postage rate were devised in Great Britain by James Chalmers around 1834. The same ideas were brought forward by Lovrenc Kosir, a Slovenian postal clerk at the Viennese court in 1835, but did not meet a positive reply. Later, the concept of the adhesive postage stamp was published by Rowland Hill, in Postal Reform: its Importance and Tractability in 1837. In it he argued that it would be better for the sender to pay the cost of release, rather than the addressee who could refuse the letter if they could not or did not want to pay, as sometimes happened at the time. He also argued for a uniform rate of one penny per letter, no matter where its destination. Accounting costs for the government would thus be cut; postage would no longer be charged according to how far a letter had traveled, which required each letter to have an individual entry in the Royal Mail's accounts. Chalmers' ideas were lastly adopted by Parliament in August, 1839 and the General Post Office launched the Penny Post service the next year in 1840 with two prepaid-postage pictorial envelopes or wrappers: one valued at a penny and one valued at two pence.
Three months shortly the first prepaid-postage stamp, known as the Penny Black was issued with the profile of Queen Victoria printed on it. Because the United Kingdom issued the first stamps, the Universal Postal Union grants it an exception from its rule that the recognition of the issuing country must appear on a stamp in Roman script for use in international mails. Previous to joining the U.P.U. many countries did not do this; there are very few violations of the rule since this time, though one example is the U.S. Pilgrim Tercentenary series, on which the country designation was involuntarily excluded. Because of this the numerous early issues of China and Japan often confound new collectors unfamiliar with Oriental scripts. A stamp must also show a face value in the issuing country's currency. Some countries have issued stamp with a letter of the alphabet or designation such as "First class" for a face value. Because of the U.P.U. rules their use is constrained to domestic mail, but breach of this rule is often tolerated. Exceptions to this are the British "E" stamp and the South African "International Letter Rate" stamp.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Tourism
Tourism has become an enormously popular, global activity. As a service industry, tourism has frequent tangible and intangible elements. Major tangible elements include transportation, accommodation, and other apparatus of a hospitality industry. Major intangible elements relate to the purpose or inspiration for becoming a tourist, such as rest, relaxation, the opportunity to meet new people and experience other cultures, or simply to do something different and have an adventure.
Tourism is crucial for many countries, due to the income generated by the expenditure of goods and services by tourists, the taxes levied on businesses in the tourism industry, and the prospect for employment and economic advancement by working in the industry.