Pharaoh

Pharaoh

Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. In antiquity this title began to be used for the ruler who was the religious and political leader of united ancient Egypt.

This was true only during the New Kingdom, specifically during the middle of the eighteenth dynasty. For simplification however, there is a general acceptance amongst modern writers to use the term to relate to all periods.
Pharaoh meaning "Great House", originally referred to the king's palace but by the reign of Thutmose III (ca. 1479-1425 BCE) in the New Kingdom had become a form of address for the person of the king.

The Egyptian term for the ruler himself was nsw(t)-bjt(j) (rendered in Babylonian as insibya; Egyptological pronunciation "Nesu(t)-Bit(i)"), "King of Upper and Lower Egypt", literally "he of the sedge and the bee" (properly nj-sw.t-bj.t)), the sedge and the bee being the symbols for Upper and Lower Egypt, respectively. Also nsw.t-t3wj "King of the Two Lands".
This double kingship was expressed in the Pschent, the double crown combining the red crown of Lower Egypt (Deshret) and the white crown of Upper Egypt (Hedjet).
Initially the rulers were considered the sons of the cow deity Bat and eventually Hathor and they occupied her throne to rule the country and officiate in religious rites.

There is evidence that the ruler may have been sacrificed after a certain period of time in the earliest rituals but soon was replaced by a specially selected bull. The pharaohs were believed later in the culture to be the incarnations of the deity Horus in life and Osiris in death.

Once the cult of Isis and Osiris became prominent, pharaohs were viewed as a bridge between the god Osiris and human beings; and after death the pharaoh was believed to unite with Osiris. The royal line was matriarchal and a relationship with the royal women through birth or marriage (or both) determined the right to rule.

The royal women played important roles in the religious rituals and governance of the country, sometimes participating alongside the pharaoh.
The term pharaoh ultimately was derived from a compound word represented as pr-`3, written with the two biliteral hieroglyphs pr "house" and `3 "column". It was used only in larger phrases such as smr pr-`3 'Courtier of the High House', with specific reference to the buildings of the court or palace itself. From the twelfth dynasty onward the word appears in a wish formula 'Great House, may it live, prosper, and be in health', but again only with reference to the royal palace and not the person.
The earliest instance where pr-`3 is used specifically to address the ruler is in a letter to Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) in the mid-eighteenth dynasty (1550-1292 BC) which is addressed to 'Pharaoh, all life, prosperity, and health!.

This may be contrasted with Hatshepsut, who ruled before him in the same eighteenth dynasty, who never had pr-`3 among her titles.
From the nineteenth dynasty onward pr-`3 on its own was used as regularly as hm.f, 'His Majesty'.

The term therefore evolved from a word specifically referring to a building to a respectful designation for the ruler, particularly by the twenty-second dynasty and twenty-third dynasty. By this time, the Late Egyptian word is reconstructed to have been pronounced *par-ʕoʔ whence comes Ancient Greek φαραώ pharaō and then Late Latin pharaō. From the latter, English obtained the word "Pharaoh". Over time, *par-ʕoʔ evolved into Sahidic Coptic prro ⲡⲣ̅ⲣⲟ and then rro (by mistaking p- as the definite article prefix "the" from Ancient Egyptian p3).
A similar development, with a word originally denoting an attribute of the ruler eventually coming to refer to the person, can be discerned in a later period with the Arabic term Sultan.
Following unification, the ruler of Egypt wore a double crown, created from the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and the White Crown of Upper Egypt. In certain situations, the pharaoh wore a blue crown of a different shape.

Typically, all of these crowns were adorned by a uraeus, which was doubled during the twenty-fifth dynasty.
After the third dynasty, the pharaoh also wore a striped headcloth called the nemes, which may be the most familiar pharaonic headgear. The nemes was sometimes combined with the double crown, as it is on the statues of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel.
The pharaoh often was depicted as wearing a false beard made of goat hair during rituals and ceremonies.
Egyptologist Bob Brier has noted that despite its widespread depiction in royal portraits, no ancient Egyptian crown ever has been discovered. Tutankhamun's tomb, discovered largely intact, did contain such regal items as his crook and flail, but not a crown. It is presumed that crowns would have been believed to have magical properties. Brier's speculation is that there were religious or state items a dead pharaoh could not retain as a personal possession which, therefore, had to be passed along to a successor.

Glass

A glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline) solid material. Glasses are typically brittle, and often optically transparent. Glass is commonly used for windows, bottles, or eyewear and examples of glassy materials include soda-lime glass, borosilicate glass, acrylic glass, sugar glass, Muscovy-glass, or aluminium oxynitride.

The term glass developed in the late Roman Empire. It was in the Roman glassmaking center at Trier, now in modern Germany, that the late-Latin term glesum originated, probably from a Germanic word for a transparent, lustrous substance.
Strictly speaking, a glass is defined as an inorganic product of fusion which has been cooled through its glass transition to the solid state without crystallising.Many glasses contain silica as their main component and glass former.

The term "glass" is, however, often extended to all amorphous solids (and melts that easily form amorphous solids), including plastics, resins, or other silica-free amorphous solids. In addition, besides traditional melting techniques, any other means of preparation are considered, such as ion implantation, and the sol-gel method.

Commonly, glass science and physics deal only with inorganic amorphous solids, while plastics and similar organics are covered by polymer science, biology and further scientific disciplines.
Glass plays an essential role in science and industry.

The optical and physical properties of glass make it suitable for applications such as flat glass, container glass, optics and optoelectronics material, laboratory equipment, thermal insulator (glass wool), reinforcement fiber (glass-reinforced plastic, glass fiber reinforced concrete), and art.

Glass ingredients

Pure silica (SiO2) has a "glass melting point"— at a viscosity of 10 Pa·s (100 P)— of over 2300 °C (4200 °F).

While pure silica can be made into glass for special applications (see fused quartz), other substances are added to common glass to simplify processing. One is sodium carbonate (Na2CO3), which lowers the melting point to about 1500 °C (2700 °F) in soda-lime glass; "soda" refers to the original source of sodium carbonate in the soda ash obtained from certain plants. However, the soda makes the glass water soluble, which is usually undesirable, so lime (calcium oxide (CaO), generally obtained from limestone), some magnesium oxide (MgO) and aluminium oxide (Al2O3) are added to provide for a better chemical durability.

The resulting glass contains about 70 to 74% silica by weight and is called a soda-lime glass.Soda-lime glasses account for about 90% of manufactured glass.

As well as soda and lime, most common glass has other ingredients added to change its properties. Lead glass, such as lead crystal or flint glass, is more 'brilliant' because the increased refractive index causes noticeably more "sparkles", while boron may be added to change the thermal and electrical properties, as in Pyrex.

Adding barium also increases the refractive index. Thorium oxide gives glass a high refractive index and low dispersion, and was formerly used in producing high-quality lenses, but due to its radioactivity has been replaced by lanthanum oxide in modern eye glasses.

Large amounts of iron are used in glass that absorbs infrared energy, such as heat absorbing filters for movie projectors, while cerium(IV) oxide can be used for glass that absorbs UV wavelengths (biologically damaging ionizing radiation).
Two other common glass ingredients are calumite (an iron industry by-product) and "cullet" (recycled glass).

The recycled glass saves on raw materials and energy.

However, impurities in the cullet can lead to product and equipment failure.
Finally, fining agents such as sodium sulfate, sodium chloride, or antimony oxide are added to reduce the bubble content in the glass.Glass batch calculation is the method by which the correct raw material mixture is determined to achieve the desired glass composition

Manchester United F.C.

Manchester United Football Club is an English Premier League football club who play at Old Trafford in Greater Manchester. The club was formed as Newton Heath in 1878, joined the Football League in 1892 and has played in the top division of English football since 1938 with the exception of the 1974–75 season. Average attendances at the club have been higher than any other team in English football for all but six seasons since 1964–65.
Manchester United are the reigning English champions, having won the 2008–09 Premier League. The club is one of the most successful in the history of English football and has won 22 major honours since Alex Ferguson became manager in November 1986. In 1968, they became the first English club to win the European Cup, beating Benfica 4–1. They won a second European Cup as part of a Treble in 1999, and a third in 2008, before finishing runner-up in 2009. The club holds the joint record for the most English league titles with 18 and also holds the record for the most FA Cup wins with 11.
Since the late 1990s, the club has been one of the richest in the world with the highest revenue of any football club, and is currently ranked as the richest and most valuable club in any sport worldwide, with an estimated value of around £1.136 billion (€1.319 billion / $1.870 billion) as of April 2009. Manchester United was a founding member of the now defunct G-14 group of Europe's leading football clubs, and its replacement, the European Club Association.
Alex Ferguson has been manager of the club since 6 November 1986, joining from Aberdeen after the departure of Ron Atkinson. The current club captain is Gary Neville, who succeeded Roy Keane in November 2005

LCD TV vs. Plasma

Which is better, LCD TV or Plasma?

This is a much debated topic and a fun one.

When choosing between plasma and LCD TVs, you're actually selecting between two competing technologies, both of which achieve similar features (i.e., ,bright crystal-clear images, super color-filled pictures) and come in similar packages (i.e., 1.5 to 4 inch depth flat screen casing).

To complicate the decision-making process further, price and size are two previous considerations that are rapidly becoming non-issues as LCD TVs are now being made in larger sizes and at competing prices with plasma.

Despite their similarities, the two technologies are very different in the way they deliver the image to the viewer.

Plasma technology consists of hundreds of thousands of individual pixel cells, which allow electric pulses (stemming from electrodes) to excite rare natural gases-usually xenon and neon-causing them to glow and produce light.

This light illuminates the proper balance of red, green, or blue phosphors contained in each cell to display the proper color sequence from the light.

Each pixel cell is essentially an individual microscopic florescent light bulb, receiving instruction from software contained on the rear electrostatic silicon board.

Look very closely at a plasma TV and you can actually see the individual pixel cell coloration of red, green, and blue bars. You can also see the black ribs which separate each.
Whether spread across a flat-panel screen or placed in the heart of a projector, all LCD displays come from the same technological background. A matrix of thin-film transistors (TFTs) supplies voltage to liquid-crystal-filled cells sandwiched between two sheets of glass. When hit with an electrical charge, the crystals untwist to an exact degree to filter white light generated by a lamp behind the screen (for flat-panel TVs) or one projecting through a small LCD chip (for projection TVs). LCD monitors reproduce colors through a process of subtraction: They block out particular color wavelengths from the spectrum of white light until they're left with just the right color. And, it's the intensity of light permitted to pass through this liquid-crystal matrix that enables LCD televisions to display images chock-full of colors-or gradations of them.
LED TVs are a new form of LCD Television. The panel on an LED TV is still an LCD TV panel and operates the with the same twisting crystals matrix. The backlight is the difference - changing from flourescent to LED (light emitting diode) based backlighting.

PRICE AND VALUE

Plasma TVs have generally enjoyed lower pricing per size vs. LCD TVs. While LCDs have nearly caught up with plasma in the 42" size, plasma still dominates in the larger size ranges. When comparing comparable Tier 1 Quality LCD with Tier 1 Plasma, the larger the size, the more the price savings by purchasing plasma. In the 46" size range a plasma currently sells for a 30% to 40% discount, while a 58" plasma may yield between 40% to 50% discount savings. Resolution is no longer an issue due to the fact that most all TVs 46" and larger are full HD 1920 X 1080 (1080p) resolution

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that entered the mainstream in the 1960s.

Elvis Presley

It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, rhythm and blues, country music and also drew on folk music, jazz and classical music.
The sound of rock often revolves around the guitar back beat laid down by a rhythm section of electric bass guitar, drums, and keyboard instruments such as organ, piano, or, since the 1970s, synthesizers. Along with the guitar or keyboards, saxophone and blues-style harmonica are sometimes used as soloing instruments. In its "purest form", it "has three chords, a strong, insistent back beat, and a catchy melody."
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, rock music developed different subgenres. When it was blended with folk music it created folk rock, with blues to create blues-rock and with jazz, to create jazz-rock fusion. In the 1970s, rock incorporated influences from soul, funk, and Latin music. Also in the 1970s, rock developed a number of subgenres, such as soft rock, glam rock, heavy metal, hard rock, progressive rock, and punk rock.

Rock subgenres that emerged in the 1980s included new wave, hardcore punk and alternative rock. In the 1990s, rock subgenres included grunge, Britpop, indie rock, and nu metal.
A group of musicians specializing in rock music is called a rock band or rock group. Many rock groups consist of an electric guitarist, lead singer, bass guitarist, and a drummer, forming a quartet. Some groups omit one or more of these roles or utilize a lead singer who plays an instrument while singing, sometimes forming a trio or duo; others include additional musicians such as one or two rhythm guitarists or a keyboardist.

More rarely, groups also utilize stringed instruments such as violins or cellos, woodwind instruments such as saxophones, and brass instruments such as trumpets or trombones.
More recently the term rock has been used as a blanket term including forms such as pop music, soul music, and sometimes even hip hop, with which it has often been contrasted through much of its history.

Rock and roll originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to much of the rest of the world. Its immediate origins lay in a mixing together of various popular musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues, gospel music, and country and western.In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, and is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music.

There is much debate as to what should be considered the first rock and roll record. One leading contender is "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (in fact, Ike Turner and his band The Kings of Rhythm), recorded by Sam Phillips for Sun Records in 1951.

Four years later, Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" (1955) became the first rock and roll song to top Billboard magazine's main sales and airplay charts, and opened the door worldwide for this new wave of popular culture.. Some music historians[who?] have suggested that "The Fat Man" by Fats Domino, released as a single in 1949, deserves the title of the first rock and roll record, as it features a rolling piano and Domino's prominent wah-wah vocals

Pop music

Pop music is a music genre that developed from the mid-1950s as a softer alternative to rock 'n' roll and later to rock music.

It has a focus on commercial recording, often oriented towards a youth market, usually through the medium of relatively short and simple love songs.

While these basic elements of the genre have remained fairly constant, pop music has absorbed influences from most other forms of popular music, particularly borrowing from the development of rock music, and utilizing key technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.

The main medium of pop music is the song, often between two and a half and three and a half minutes in length, generally marked by a consistent and noticeable rhythmic element, a mainstream style and a simple traditional structure.

Common variants include the verse-chorus form and the thirty-two-bar form, with a focus on melodies and catchy hooks, and a chorus that contrasts melodically, rhythmically and harmonically with the verse.

The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment.The lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions.
According to Simon Frith pop music is produced

"as a matter of enterprise not art...is designed to appeal to everyone" and "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste.

" It is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward...and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative.

" It is "provided from on high (by record companies, radio programmers and concert promoters) rather than being made from below...Pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged

Dinosaur

Dinosaurs were the dominant terrestrial vertebrate animals for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period (about 230 million years ago) until the end of the Cretaceous period (about 65 million years ago), when the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event caused the extinction of most dinosaur species.

The fossil record indicates that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs during the Jurassic period, and most paleontologists regard them as the only clade of dinosaurs to have survived until the present day.
Dinosaurs were a varied group of animals. Paleontologists have identified over 500 distinct genera and more than 1,000 different species of dinosaur, and remains have been found on every continent on Earth.Some dinosaurs were herbivorous, others carnivorous.

Some were bipedal, others quadrupedal, and others were able to shift between these body postures.

Many species developed elaborate skeletal modifications such as bony armor, horns or crests. Although generally known for their large size, many dinosaurs were human-sized or even smaller.

Most major groups of dinosaurs are known to have built nests and laid eggs, suggesting an oviparity similar to that of modern birds.
The term "dinosaur" was coined in 1842 by Sir Richard Owen and derives from Greek δεινός (deinos) "terrible, powerful, wondrous" + σαῦρος (sauros) "lizard". Through the first half of the twentieth century, most of the scientific community believed dinosaurs to have been sluggish, unintelligent cold-blooded animals.

Most research conducted since the 1970s, however, has indicated that dinosaurs were active animals with elevated metabolisms and numerous adaptations for social interaction.
Since the first dinosaur fossils were recognized in the early nineteenth century, mounted dinosaur skeletons have been major attractions at museums around the world, and dinosaurs have become a part of world culture.

They have been featured in best-selling books and films such as Jurassic Park, and new discoveries are regularly covered by the media.

As a result, the word "dinosaur" has entered the vernacular, although its use and meaning in colloquial speech may be inconsistent with modern science.

In English, for example, "dinosaur" is commonly used to describe anything that is impractically large, slow-moving, obsolete, or bound for extinction.

General description

Using one of the above definitions, dinosaurs (aside from birds) can be generally described as terrestrial archosaurian reptiles with limbs held erect beneath the body, that existed from the Late Triassic (first appearing in the Carnian faunal stage) to the Late Cretaceous (going extinct at the end of the Maastrichtian).

Many prehistoric animals are popularly conceived of as dinosaurs, such as ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs, and Dimetrodon, but are not classified scientifically as dinosaurs.

Marine reptiles like ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, and plesiosaurs were neither terrestrial nor archosaurs; pterosaurs were archosaurs but not terrestrial; and Dimetrodon was a Permian animal more closely related to mammals.

Dinosaurs were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates of the Mesozoic, especially the Jurassic and Cretaceous.

Other groups of animals were restricted in size and niches; mammals, for example, rarely exceeded the size of a cat, and were generally rodent-sized carnivores of small prey.

One notable exception is Repenomamus giganticus, a triconodont weighing between 12 kilograms (26 lb) and 14 kilograms (31 lb) that is known to have eaten small dinosaurs like young Psittacosaurus.
Dinosaurs were an extremely varied group of animals;

according to a 2006 study, over 500 dinosaur genera have been identified with certainty so far, and the total number of genera preserved in the fossil record has been estimated at around 1850, nearly 75% of which remain to be discovered.

An earlier study predicted that about 3400 dinosaur genera existed, including many which would not have been preserved in the fossil record.

As of September 17, 2008, 1047 different species of dinosaurs have been named.Some were herbivorous, others carnivorous. Some dinosaurs were bipeds, some were quadrupeds, and others, such as Ammosaurus and Iguanodon, could walk just as easily on two or four legs.

Many had bony armor, or cranial modifications like horns and crests. Although known for large size, many dinosaurs were human-sized or smaller. Dinosaur remains have been found on every continent on Earth, including Antarctica.No dinosaurs are known to have lived in marine or aerial habitats, although it is possible some feathered theropods were flyers.