MATRIX

Archive for January, 2010

Money has inspired many songs and innumerable statements. “Money makes the world go round.” “Money talks.” “It’s all about the money.” Money does play a very integral role in our day-to-day lives. Think about our three basic necessities of food, clothing, and shelter, and you know that there is a fourth basic necessity which precedes these three. And that, my friend, is money. We may abuse it. We may associate it with criminal activities. We may call it the curse of modern life. But, whatever we may say, the fact remains that we cannot live without money.

Money has undergone many changes. It displaced the barter system in the ancient times. Then currency took over to provide for the many transactions that had to take place. We have changed a great deal from the days of metal currency in gold, silver, bronze, and copper. The coins of today are not pure metal; they are made of cheap alloys. The currency these days consists of paper that costs a lot less than its face value. Slowly, this paper currency is being subordinated to the power of plastic. Credit cards have staked their hold on the world economy. They are rapidly gaining in popularity and are quickly becoming the new face of money.

The days of worrying about carrying large stashes of cash in flimsy briefcases are gone. With the virtual world taking over our twenty-first century reality, even money is becoming a virtual entity. People today, no longer feel the compulsion to have tangible forms of money. Just the knowledge that that rectangular piece of plastic is comfortably seated in our wallets is assurance enough. Earlier on, people were hesitant to avail of credit cards because of the feeling of being indebted. However, these days, with the rise of things like cash back credit cards and 0% balance transfers, people have gained a new perspective on credit cards.

It is no wonder that credit cards are slowly taking over from the paper currency that had been the standard till very recently. With living standards rising globally, and with the rising demand for instant gratification, people have begun to flock to credit card companies. It is rapidly becoming the rule to roam around with multiple credit cards while most of our cash remains in the banks.

Football is undoubtedly one of the most famous and most celebrated team game the world over, with a maximum number of countries participating in it. A football shirt is a part of the official kit of the football club, and is attractively designed in colorful prints and exciting designs.

Originally the football shirt was quite ordinary, buy with the onset of professionalism it has been made to guarantee the maximum amount of satisfaction to the players. The modern day football players wear shirts made of polyester mesh with the rather special quality that they do not trap the body heat and the sweat of the players in the same manner as the shirts made of natural fibers do.

And now that many companies are sponsoring the more famous teams, the fronts of those football shirts house the logos of those sponsors, which results in a significant level of income for that sponsoring house. Some competitions like the famous Premier League require players to wear patches on their sleeves which depict the logo of the competition.

The number of the player is mostly printed on the shirt’s back. Originally the players were given a number serially from 1 to 11 which corresponded to their playing position, but, in professional games, this numbering has generally been superseded by squad numbering. Numbers are allocated to each player in a squad. It has been noted that many players are superstitious and they prefer to have a particular number.

These numbers are said to be lucky numbers by the players. Argentina’s Diego Maradona is one such example and his preferred number is 10. Similarly different players of different countries are shown to have certain affinity to these numbers.

The colors of the football shirts are strongly individual and hence at once recognizable as belonging to a particular team or a club. Generally these colors correspond with the national flag colors, but there are a few exceptions where the choice of the football shirt’s colors is dictated by some other factor.

In 1975, the Leeds United club changed from their traditional blue and gold kit to an all white kit which could be sold to the crowd in the form of replica kits. This set a pattern for other clubs also to gain a huge amount of revenue by selling the replica kits of their club’s official football shirt.

The design of these football shirts are driven today by the fact that the fans should look good when wearing them. Thus, these football shirts are acting as style statements with increasingly complex designs and color combinations incorporated on them. Recently, in 1996, the team Manchester United introduced a notorious grey kit visualizing that it would look good when worn along with jeans. But, later on it was abandoned because the manager Alex Ferguson said that the reason that their team lost was because the players could not see each other during the game.

New technology is now making it possible for viewers to record and store high definition programming onto DVDs. Blu-ray Disc is one method of recording HD content onto an optical disc. A blue-laser optical disc (MPEG-2 or MPEG-4) is used. Systems that use this technology will be able to play traditional DVDs, but the goal of Blu-ray is to create an image that’s as close to the HD format as possible. The name Blu-ray comes from the blue laser that decodes and copies information to each disk. Blu-ray technology may very well revolutionize the world of high definition programming. The Blu-ray disc format offers greater potential for storage, usually 25 gigabytes, which exceeds that of a standard DVD (15 gigabytes). One single-layer Blu-ray disk can hold about four hours of high definition content. A two-layer disk can contain eight hours of HD content. Four- and eight-layer disks are now in the works. These disks would have storage capabilities of 100 and 200 gigabytes. The Blu-ray recording system utilizes a shorter wavelength for recording information than traditional CDs and DVDs, and this is part of what allows it to hold more content on a single disk.

Blu-ray has also influenced the computer industry, specifically in terms of data storage capability. A number of major companies have come out in support of Blu-ray, including Apple, Dell, Hitachi, Pioneer, and Sony. Hewlett Packard plans to market desktop computers and laptops that utilize Blu-ray technology. Sony has announced that it will introduce a Blu-ray component in PlayStation 3, which is expected to appear in November of this year. Microsoft has also said that it may add a Blu-ray component to its Xbox 360. Currently, Blu-ray is only available in Japan, but it will appear in the United States in May, in video games and a DVD system that recreates a high definition effect on a viewer’s TV.

Many movie studios have Blu-ray films planned for future release. In 2005, Sony Pictures cornered the market on the first Blu-ray feature-length movie disk, which was none other than Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. Studios that support the technology include Walt Disney and Twentieth Century Fox.

Competing with Blu-ray in the area of HD storage is HD DVD. HD DVD disks have less storage capability, but they’re cheaper to produce. Other big-name companies are showing their support for this option, including Microsoft, Intel and Toshiba, as well as Universal Studios. In what may be the smartest move, some companies are backing both types of technology, ensuring that their products support both Blu-ray and HD DVD. These companies include Samsung, Paramount and Warner Brothers.