Thursday, May 31, 2007

Mango

The mango is a tropical fruit of the mango tree. Mangoes belong to the genus Mangifera which consists of about 30 species of tropical fruiting trees in the flowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The exact origins of the mango are unknown, but most believe that it is native to Southern and Southeast Asia including the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Burma, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh owing to the wide range of genetic diversity in the region and fossil records dating back 25 to 30 million years.
Mangos retain a special significance in the culture of South Asia where they have been cultured for millennia. It has been the national symbol of the Philippines. Reference to mangoes as the "food of the gods" can be found in the Hindu Vedas and the leaves are ritually used for floral decorations at Hindu marriages and religious ceremonies.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Swan

Swans are large water birds of the family Anatidae, which also includes geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the intimately related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometimes, they are considered a distinct subfamily, Cygninae.

Swans typically mate for life, though "divorce" does sometimes occur, mainly following nesting failure. The number of eggs in each clutch is between 3–8.
The word is derived from Old English swan, akin to German Schwan, in turn derived from Indo-European root *swen (to sound, to sing), whence Latin derives sonus (sound). Young swans are known as cygnets, from the Latin word for swan, cygnus. An adult male is a cob, from Middle English cobbe; an adult female is a pen .

Monday, May 21, 2007

Money

Money is any good or token that functions as a medium of exchange that is generally and legally accepted in payment for goods and services and in settlement of debts. Money also serves as a standard of value for measuring the relative worth of different goods and services. Some authors openly require money to be a standard of deferred payment.Money is one of the most central topics studied in economics and forms its most cogent link to finance.

In common usage, money refers more specially to currency, particularly the many circulating currencies with legal tender status conferred by a national state; deposit accounts denominated in such currencies are also considered part of the money supply, although these characteristics are in the past comparatively recent. Money may also serve as a means of rationing access to scarce resources and as a quantitative measure that provides a common standard for the comparison and valuation of quality as well as quantity, such as in the valuation of real estate or artistic works.

The use of money provides an easier option to barter, which is considered in a modern, complex economy to be incompetent because it requires a coincidence of wants between traders, and an agreement that these needs are of equal value, before a transaction can occur. The efficiency gains through the use of money are thought to encourage trade and the division of labour, in turn increasing productivity and wealth.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

ARM

The ARM architecture (Advanced RISC Machine or Acorn RISC Machine) is a 32-bit RISC processor architecture developed by ARM Limited that is widely used in a number of embedded designs. Due to their power saving features, ARM CPUs are dominant in the mobile electronics market, where low power consumption is a critical design goal.

Today, the ARM family accounts for over 75% of all 32-bit embedded CPUs, making it one of the most prolific 32-bit architectures in the world. ARM CPUs are found in all corners of consumer electronics, from portable devices to computer peripherals. Important branches in this family include Marvell's XScale and the Texas Instruments OMAP series.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

The religion of the ancient Tamils directly followed Hinduism.although persisting with its roots of nature worship. The most popular deity was Murugan, who has from a very early date been recognized with Karthikeya, the son of Siva. Muruga might have been a different deity at first stemming from a local deity. According to the noted expert on Tamil culture Kamil V. Zvelebil, "Subrahmanya-Murugan is one of the most complicated and baffling deities for analysis". The worship of Amman or Mariamman, consideration to have been derived from Kotravai, an ancient mother goddess, also was very common. Kannagi, the heroine of the Cilappatikaram, was worshipped as Pathini by many Tamils, particularly in Sri Lanka. There were also many temples and devotees of Thirumaal, Siva, Ganapathi, and the other common Hindu deities.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Egyptian chairs

The chair is of extreme antiquity, although for many centuries and certainly for thousands of years it was an article of state and dignity rather than an article of ordinary use. “The chair” is still extensively used as the emblem of authority in the House of Commons and in public meetings. It was not, in fact, until the 16th century that it became common anywhere. The chest, the bench and the stool were awaiting then the ordinary seats of everyday life, and the number of chairs which have survived from an earlier date is exceedingly limited; most of such examples are of ecclesiastical or seigneurial origin. Our knowledge of the chairs of remote antiquity is derived almost entirely from monuments, sculpture and paintings. A few definite examples exist in the British Museum, in the Egyptian museum at Cairo, and elsewhere.
Egyptian chairs
In ancient Egypt chairs appear to have been of great richness and splendour. Fashioned of ebony and- ivory, or of carved and gilded wood, they were enclosed with costly materials and supported upon representations of the legs of beasts or the figures of captives. An arm-chair in fine preservation found in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings is astonishingly similar, even in small details, to that "Empire" style which followed Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt. The first monuments of Nineveh represent a chair without a back but with attractively carved legs ending in lions’ claws or bulls’ hoofs. Others are supported by figures in the nature of caryatides or by animals.

Friday, May 04, 2007

Columbia River, Revelstoke, BCColumbia Lake forms the Columbia's headwaters in the Canadian Rockies of southern British Columbia. The river then flows through Windermere Lake and the town of Invermere, then northwest to Golden and into Kinbasket Lake. The river then turns south all the way through Revelstoke Lake and the Arrow Lakes to the BC–Washington border.The river then flows throughout the east-central portion of Washington State. The last 300 miles of the Columbia form the Washington-Oregon border line. The river goes into the Pacific Ocean at Ilwaco, Washington and Astoria, Oregon.For its first 200 miles the Columbia flows northwest; it then bends to the south, crossing from Canada into the United States, where the river meets the Clark Fork. The Clark Fork River begins near Butte, Montana and flows through western Montana before entering Pend Oreille Lake. Water demanding from the lake forms the Pend Oreille River, which flows across the Idaho panhandle to Washington's
northeastern curve where it meets the northern Canadian fork.Columbia River Gorge, Oregon or South SideThe River then runs southsouthwest through the Columbia Plateau, changing to a southeasterly direction near the Columbia Basin, where the magnificent Gorge at George is situated. The Gorge Amphitheater, which looks out over the gorge, is a spectacular 40,000 person concert venue.