Passa ai contenuti principali

Post

Visualizzazione dei post da 2017

Alexander Mosaic

The Alexander Mosaic is a Roman floor mosaic from the House of the Faun in Pompeii. It was made in 100 BC and the author is anonymous. It shows a battle between the armies of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia. It measures 2.72 x 5.13m. The originalm is at the Naples National Archeological Museum. The mosaic is based on a 3rd-century BC Hellenistic painting, by Philoxenos of Eretria. The mosaic shows a battle between Alexander and Darius. Alexander won the Battle of Issus. Alexander won again two years later at the Battle of Gaugamela. The work shows the Battle of Issus. The two main figures are easy to see. Darius has a worried expression on his face. The Persian soldiers have a stem look. The mosaic was found again on October 24, 1831 in Pompeii. It was moved to Naples in Septmber 1843. It is in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale.

Prince Philip to step down from carrying out royal engagements.

The Duke of Edinburgh is retiring from royal duties this autumn, Buckingham Palace has announced. The decision was made by Prince Philip himself and is supported by the Queen, a palace spokesman said. The duke, who turns 96 next month, will attend previously scheduled engagements between now and August but will not accept new invitations. The Queen "will continue to carry out a full programme of official engagements", the palace said. The duke carried out 110 days of engagements in 2016, making him the fifth busiest member of the royal family, according to Court Circular listings. He is patron, president or a member of more than 780 organisations and will continue to be associated with them, but "will no longer play an active role by attending engagements", Buckingham Palace said. In the statement, the spokesman said the duke "may still choose to attend certain public events from time to time".

Confessions of a tweeter.

This is an article of The New York Times where Larry Carlat talks about his experience with Twitter . He says that he started to tweet in 2008, and before long he started to post 20 to 30 times a day, and soon his life was based on tweeting. He says that it became an obsession: for example, when he was out with his friends, he used to go into the bathroom with his iPhone. He also posted when he was asleep, using a web site that let him tweet. After, he lost his job, but, after a year, he got a job at men's magazine, but his boss told him that someone in H.R.* had found his tweets and was shocked, because they were a violation of the company's socialmedia policy. He had a choice: to delete the account or face termination . He decided to leave . He also separated from his wife, but, finally, he decided to stop posting, and now that compulsion has gone.

Exercise is contagious because of social media

A new study has shown that physical activity and exercise are 'contagious' because of social media. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) discovered that people who post details of their exercise patterns and achievements on social media sites motivate and encourage other people to be more active. Researchers tracked the exercise routines of 1.1 million runners over a period of five years. They looked at the geographic location of the runners, their social network use, distance, time, pace and the calories they burned. The researchers concluded that sharing personal exercise data via social media can inspire others to exercise more, exercise harder and do so more competitively. The journal 'Nature Communications' has published the research. The study includes detailed accounts of how inspiring it can be to read about a friend's physical activity. Researchers said: "On average, an additional kilometre run by friends can inspire someone

The Physician's Tale

This is a domestic drama about the relationship between a daughter and her father and it is one of the earliest poems in English about such subjects and relationships. Virginius, a nobleman of Rome, has a beautiful, fourteen-year-old daughter. She is spotted one day by a judge, Appius, who decides he must have her and forms a plan. His accomplice, a "churl" by the name of Claudius, claims in court that Virginia is his run-away slave and Appius decrees that her real father must relinquish her to the court. Virginius goes home and tells his daughter he must kill her to protect her honour. She resigns herself to her fate and swoons, and he cuts her head off. He takes her head to the court and when Appius demands his exucution for murder, the populace instead rises up and deposes the corrupt official. Appius kills himself in jail, but Virginius spares Claudius' life and condemns him to exile instead.  The Physician's Tale is usually regarded as an early work of Chauce

International Women's Day

It is celebrated on March 8 every year. It commemorates the movement for women's rights. The earliest Women's Day observance was held on February 28, 1909 in New York and organized by the Socialist Party of America. On March 8, 1917, in the capital of the Russian Empire, Petrograd. a demonstration of women textile workers began, covering the whole city. This was the beginning of the Russian Revolution. Seven days later, the Emperor of Russia Nicholas II abdicated and the provisional Government granted women the right of vote. March 8 was declared a national festivity in Soviet Russia in 1917. The day was predominantly celebrated by the socialist movement and communist countries until it was adopted in 1975 by the United Nations. Women's demonstration for bread and peace - March the 8th, 1917, Petrograd, Russia.

Bio-terrorism could kill 30 million people in a year!

The former head of Microsoft, Bill Gates, has warned that the world could be in great danger from bio-terrorism. He said the world could face a catastrophe from a virus made by terrorists that could kill 30 million people in less than a year. Mr Gates was speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany. He said there was a "reasonable" chance that a bio-terrorist could act in the next 10 to 15 years. He added that world leaders aren't prepared for such an attack. He expressed his surprise that very few leaders were even aware of it. He asked for global "health security" to become a major part of government discussions and policies.

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British politician and author, best known as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War.  Churchill was famous for his stubborn resistance to Hitler during the darkest hours of the Second World War. Winston was born at Blenheim Palace, Woodstock near Oxford to an aristocratic family.  He wasn’t the best student, having a rebellious nature and was reportedly slow to learn; but Churchill excelled at sports and joined the officer cadet corps, which he enjoyed.  On leaving school, he went to Sandhurst to train as an officer. After gaining his commission, Churchill sought to gain as much active military experience as possible. He used his mothers connections to get postings to areas of conflict. The young Churchill gained postings to Cuba, and North West India. He also combined his military duties with working as a war correspondent.  In 1899, he resigned from the military and pursued his career as

Instagram

It is an online mobile photo-sharing site that allows its users to share pictures and videos on the app, as well as through a variety of other social networking platforms. Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and launched in October 2010 as a free mobile app.  T he service rapidly gained popularity, with over 300 million users as of December 2014. The service was acquired by  Facebook  in April 2012 for approximately  US$1 billion in cash.  Users can upload photos and short videos (for a maximum of 1 minute), follow other users' feeds and geotag images with longitude and latitude coordinates, or the name of the location.