99 Words

Jai Alai

supportresort — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:40:03 +0000

Jai Alai, earned its moniker as the fastest game on earth by the Basques. A variant of pelota, jai alai is played on a three-walled court (cancha) with a goatskin ball (pelota) that bounces off ruthlessly. The ball is caught with a hook-shaped baskets (cestas) and hurled against the wall in one smooth motion. If the team cannot catch the ball, the point goes to the opponent. The first to score seven to nine (7 to 9) points is declared the victor. In some countries, Jai Alai is considered as a gamble by parimutuel betting. Jai Alai is popular in Mexico and in Florida, USA.

Supernova

supportresort — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:17:18 +0000

Supernova, an exploding star, illuminates the galaxy as it spews out stellar materials at a pace one-tenth the speed of light. Such massive force sends out a shock front into interstellar space within the boundary. Even if the explosion is not for long, some supernovae emits more energy than the sun could radiate. When a massive star wears out, its stops releasing energy from nuclear fusion. Sudden disruption of gravitational force creates great gravitational field that heats up the stars external layers. Thus, most supernovae become blackholes. The expelled stellar matter swirls around the outer space and eventually become new stars in the long run.

Seoul

supportresort — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:28:28 +0000

Seoul is South Korea’s capita. Seoul was on the list of top twenty richest cities of the world. Colorful metropolitan Seoul is teeming with business establishments. Skyscrapers dominate the city’s skyline. Seouls’s booming economy and sophisticated lifestyle has earned its rank as the fifth most expensive city worldwide as of 2008 survey. Multinational companies: LG, Hyundai, and Samsung are based on the city. Temples and shrines also dot the city. Downtown Seoul is a major shopping district were you can find fashion boutiques and art galleries that sells traditional and modern Korean artworks.

Steven Spielberg

supportresort — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:54:50 +0000

Steven Spielberg is no doubt one of the best movie directors of all time. Premiere magazine hailed him as the most prominent icon in the movie industry. Spielberg is often a household name as his movies are quite popular. His award-winning movies include E.T.. the Extraterrestrial, Indiana Jones series, Schindler’s List, Jaws, and Saving Private Ryan.

Born and raised in Ohio to a Jewish parents, Spielberg had showed promise in film making in his childhood. He made amateur movies and won awards for it. At present he has won the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, the Emmy Awards, and the BAFTA Award for Best Film to name a few. He also co-founded the Starlight Children’s Foudation, a non-profit organization helping children with chronic illnesses.

Himalayas

supportresort — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:15:15 +0000

Himalayas is a complex of over a hundred mountains in Asia that divides the Tibetan Plateau and the Indian subcontinent. Such sizable the Himalayan mountain range is that it branches out to six countries namely Tibet, India, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan, and Pakistan. Himalayas is also a great watershed to three of the world’s major river systems: the Yangtze, Ganga-Brahmaputra, and Indus. In Sanskrit, Himalaya means is a collective meaning for “an abode of snow”. The rugged Himalayas has abundant lakes, grasslands, glaciers, and permanent ice caps. It is also the habitat of the endangered snow leopard. As a great physical barrier, remote villages on the Himalayas has less contact with outsiders thus they have well-preserved their customs and traditions.

Digital Audio Player

supportresort — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:38:27 +0000

Digital Audio Player or popularly called as MP3 has become more than a consumer gadget but also an urban lifestyle. It plays, organizes, and stores music file in WAV file, mp3, or others. Conveniently, with an MP3, you can take your favorite music anywhere with you and listen to it with an earphones or its built-in speakers. Top of the line audio players are called portable media players as it can support video and image files. Some can even store non-media files like from word processors. Audio waves are transfigured into binary number serial codes so it can be stored in digital format. Such process is called digital sampling. Now a days, almost each consumer electronic brand has its own line of digital audio players. One of the most popular is the Apple iPod.

Surface Tension

supportresort — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:14:08 +0000

Surface Tension is what makes tiny insects “walk” over the water. Fine needles and pins, tin foil sheets, and other miniature objects float on water because of surface tension. Liquid’s surface has a physical property that makes it seem like an elastic film. One by one, water molecules pull each other at the same direction in equal net force of zero. The phenomenon makes the molecules at the water’s surface be drawn inwards by the water molecules inside the liquid. The asymmetrical forces of intermolecular forces among the water’s surface cause it to stretch, attempting to minimize the surface area, thereby creating a thin and elastic membrane. Surface tension is what make water droplets have its almost-spherical shape, too. The stretching of the liquid is evident on a falling drop of water.

[Origin: 1875–80]

Traffic Light

supportresort — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:45:30 +0000

Traffic light was designed in such a way that people who are colorblind can still see the signals and promote street safety. Every pedestrian crossings and intersections have a stop light with its universal colors of red-yellow-green. The red light has traces of orange on its hue. At the same time, green has traces of blue. This color pattern reinforces people who are color blind with the red and green. Some traffic lights have special provisions for people with such - the signals come in specially-shaped lights to aid color blind pedestrians.

Parthenon

supportresort — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:20:16 +0000

Parthenon is perhaps one of the best examples of Greek Classic architecture. The marble temple, built with peripteral or single row Doric columns, was constructed in honor of the goddess Athena. Historians point out that Parthenon literally means “temple of the virgin goddess” hence the temple used to house a statue of Athena Parthenos. Elaborate sculptures decorate its frieze and metope. But by the 6th century AD, the Parthenon was made into a Christian Church consecrated to Mary. Then during the Ottoman conquest, it transmutated into a Moslem mosque complete with a minaret. As Venice bombed Athens in 1687, the incident damaged the Parthenon severely. Today, Greece went at lengths to reconstruct the massive structure. The chryselephantine sculpture of Athena Parthenos is no longer existent.

Kohl

supportresort — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:57:05 +0000

Kohl was used by ancient African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian women to blacken their eyelids long before the commercial eyeliners were developed. Kohl is prepared by mixing soot with other ingredients and then applied carefully to the eyes. Aside from its aesthetic value, kohl was also applied to the eyes to supposedly ward off evil spirits causing eye ailments. Some kohl preparations are harmless while others are toxic as it contains galena or lead sulfide. Galena poisoning might have caused the prevalent iron deficiency anemia common among Middle Eastern women who use kohl. Today, cosmetics with kohl on the ingredients is prepared differently to meet health standards.