Biography



Biography (from the Greek words bios meaning "life", and graph in meaning "write") is a type of literature and further forms of media such as film, based on the written accounts of individual lives. While a biography may focus on a subject of fiction or non-fiction, the term is frequently in reference to non-fiction. Pat Shipman however, says "I think a good biographer has to write fiction some of the time to make apparent a significant event in someone's life." This is sometimes debated. As opposed to a profile or curriculum vitae, a biography develops a complex analysis of personality, highlighting different aspects of it and including intimate details of experiences. A biography is more than a list of distant facts like birth, education, work, relationships and death. It also delves into the emotions of experiencing such events.

Ancient Greeks developed the biographical tradition which we have inherited, although until the 5th century AD, when the word 'biographic' first appears, in Damascus' Life of Isodorus, biographical pieces were called simply "lives" ("bioi"). It is quite likely that the Greeks were drawing on a pre-existing eastern tradition; certainly Herodotus' Histories contains more exhaustive biographical information on Persian kings and subjects than on anyone else, implying he had a Persian source for it.

Groundwater


100 Groundwater is water flowing within aquifers below the water table. Within aquifers, the water flows through the pore spaces in unconsolidated sediments and the fractures of rocks. Groundwater is recharged from, and ultimately flows to, the surface naturally; natural discharge often occurs at springs and seeps and can form oases or swamps. Groundwater is also often withdrawn for agricultural, municipal and industrial use through man-made wells. The study of the giving out and movement of groundwater is hydrogeology.


Relative groundwater travel times, click to view full size Groundwater can be a long-term 'reservoir' of the natural water cycle, as opposed to short-term water reservoirs like the atmosphere and fresh surface water. The figure shows how deep groundwater can take a very long time to complete its natural cycle. Groundwater is naturally replenished by surface water from precipitation, streams, and rivers when this recharge reaches the water table. It is estimated that the volume of groundwater is fifty times that of surface freshwater; the icecaps and glaciers are the only larger reservoir of fresh water on earth.

Usable groundwater is contained in aquifers, which are subterranean areas of permeable material that channel the groundwater's flow. Aquifers can be confined or unconfined. If a confined aquifer follows a downward grade from a recharge zone, groundwater can become pressurized as it flows. This can create artesian wells that flow freely without the need of a pump. The top of the upper unconfined aquifer is called the water table or paretic surface, where water pressure is equal to atmospheric pressure.

Mobile phone


A mobile phone or cell phone is an electronic telecommunications device. Most current mobile phones connect in its place to the network using a wireless radio wave transmission technology. These mobile phones communicate via a cellular network of base stations, which is in turn connected to the conventional telephone network. In the late 1970s and early 1980s the car phone was the only mobile phone available.In addition to the standard voice function of a telephone, a mobile phone can support many additional services such as SMS for text messaging, packet switching for access to the Internet, and MMS for sending and receiving photos and video.Some of the world's largest mobile phone manufacturers include Alcatel, Audiovox, Fujitsu, Kyocera, LG, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Panasonic, Philips, Sagem, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Siemens, SK Teletech, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba.There are also specialist communication systems linked to, but distinct from mobile phones, such as satellite phones and Professional Mobile Radio. Mobile phones are also separate from cordless telephones, which generally operate only within a limited range of a specific base station.

Freeway

A freeway is a multi-lane highway designed for high-speed travel by large numbers of vehicles, and having no traffic lights, stop signs, nor other regulations requiring vehicles to stop for cross-traffic.
In general Design features
Freeways have high speed limits and multiple lanes for travel in each direction. The number of lanes may vary from four or six in rural areas to as high as sixteen or eighteen in certain global cities.
A median or central reservation separates the lanes traveling in opposite directions. Partition may be achieved through distance or through the use of high crash barriers like cable barriers and Jersey barriers.
Crossroads are bypassed by grade division using underpasses and overpasses. In addition to the sidewalks attached to roads that go over or under a freeway, nearly all countries also supply specialized pedestrian bridges and underground tunnels. Such structures enable pedestrians and cyclists to cross the freeway without having to make a long detour to the nearest road for which a grade separation has been provided.
Freeway entrances and exits are limited in number, and are designed with special onramps and off ramps, so as to ensure that vehicles do not disrupt the main flow of traffic as they enter or leave the freeway. In some countries, the exits are numbered. Exit numbering may be by mile or kilometer, or in a simple chronological fashion.

Lighting rod


A lightning rod is a metal narrow piece or rod, typically of copper or similar conductive material, used as part of lightning security to guard tall or isolated structures from lightning damage. Its formal name is lightning finial. Sometimes, the system is informally referred to as:

A lightning conductor,
A lightning arrester, or
A lightning discharger.
However, these terms really refer to lightning guard systems in general or specific mechanism within them.

Lightning rod dissipaters make a structure less nice-looking by which charges can flow to the air around it. This then reduces the voltage between the point and the storm cloud, making a strike less likely. The most common charge dissipaters appear as slightly-blunted metal spikes sticking out in all information from a metal ball. These are mounted on short metal arms at the very top of a radio antenna or tower, the area by far most likely to be struck. These devices diminish, but do not eradicate, the risk of lightning strikes.

Arrestors
A lightning arrestor is a mechanism that shunts or diverts the huge voltage and electrical current of a lightning hit to an earthed ground. Electrical equipment can be protected from lightning by an arrester, a device that contains one or more gas-filled spark gaps between the equipment's cables and earth. An arrester is designed to handle much higher jolts of electricity than a surge protector, which cannot handle a direct strike at all.
When lightning exceeds the arrestor's breakdown voltage, the currents arcs to the ground and prevents arcing around inside sensitive electronic equipment joined further down line. The glimmer gap may be filled with a noble gas, or with air. Other types may work by overcrowding normal irregular current, but allowing the direct current from a lightning discharge.
Lightning arrestors are normally installed on electric power broadcast lines, and on radio tower feed lines between the radio antenna and spreader. Smaller ones can also be installed on the mains electricity service coming into a building, just before the circuit breaker panel. Telephone wires also have fusible links sometimes where they enter a building, joined by carbon which will vaporize with very high current.