MS Symphony of the Seas - The biggest ship in the world

MS Symphony of the Seas

Symphony of the Seas is an Oasis-class cruise ship owned and operated by Royal Caribbean International. She was built in 2018 in the Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France, the fourth in Royal Caribbean's Oasis-class of cruise ships

Construction started: 29 October 2015

Launched: 9 June 2017

Draft: 9.32 m

Builder: Chantiers de l'Atlantique

Classes: Oasis-class cruise ship

Symphony Of The Seas' current location is at the northwest Atlantic Ocean (coordinates 25.91481 N / -79.71895 W) cruising at speed of 10.4 kn (19 kph/ 12 mph) en route to MIAMI. The AIS position was reported 4 minutes ago.

Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas offers guests quite a bit to see and do onboard, and the ship itself is a marvel when you consider just how large it is and how much work and coordination is required to make it run flawlessly. Here are some fun facts about Symphony of the Seas that put into perspective the sheer scale of everything on this ship.

Fast Facts

At 1,188 feet long, Symphony is twice as high as the Washington Monument

Weighs 228,081 gross registered tons (GRT), which is more than 17,000 African elephants

Symphony is made up of 500,000 individual parts

5,518 guests (double occupancy) and 2,200 crew representing more than 70 different nationalities

18 total decks (16 guest decks)

2,759 staterooms, including 188 suites and 28 more balconies than the next largest ship in the fleet (Harmony of the Seas)

Approximately 5,200 restaurant seats across 23 dining venues

7 distinct neighborhoods: Boardwalk, Central Park, Entertainment Place, Pool, and Sports 

Zone, Youth Zone, Royal Promenade, Vitality Spa and Fitness Center

Symphony’s Central Park has more than 20,700 lush tropical plants

25 pools, whirlpools, FlowRider surf simulators, and waterslides are on board

Art

The signature, high-tech Royal Theater seats more than 1,400 guests

New, original production “Flight: Dare to Dream” includes an impressive replica of the historic 

Wright Brothers plane with a 22-foot wingspan and the first replica of the International Space Station used on stage

The AquaTheater has a secret level, deck 4.5, where performers and divers access the depths of the theater; those same high-diving acrobats use two 10-meter, Olympic-height diving boards

More than 13,347 pieces of artwork on board, including Paradox Void, a 3-ton steel sculpture with 2,100 mirrors and 200 LED lights that interact with its surroundings, and Big Wonder, a color-changing art installation that spans 2,594 square feet in the adults-only Solarium

Food

12 specialty restaurants with more than 350 different dishes served daily, including more than 40 created specifically with kids in mind

More than 200 candies at Sugar Beach sweets and ice cream shop on the reimagined Boardwalk

Playmakers Sports Bar & Arcade lets guests cheer on their home team at sea across any one of 31 big-screen TVs and play out their competitive spirit at the arcade

The Bionic Bar can serve up to 1,000 drinks per day with 21 mixers and 30 spirits from 2 robot bartenders

42 bars and lounges where bartenders can mix and mingle 124 specialty cocktails, including 195 spirits

There are more than 120 different kinds of fruit and vegetables served weekly

On a typical 7-night cruise, an average of 32,000 lbs. of tortillas 15,000 lbs. of beef, 9,700 lbs. of chicken, 5,000 dozen fresh eggs, 100 gallons of ice cream, 2,100 lbs. of lobster tail, and 2,500 lbs. of fresh salmon are used onboard

1,500 lbs. of coffee are made weekly – that’s 6 million coffee beans

There are 1,085 culinary staff of 51 different nationalities

Activities & Things To Do

The Ultimate Abyss, the tallest slide at sea, is a duo of racing slides where adventure-seekers spiral down a 92-foot drop in about 13 seconds

The slide is 10 stories high, towering 150 feet above sea level (45.7 meters)

About 300 LED lights shine overhead in the slide, adding to the thrill factor

The zipline crosses the open-air Boardwalk neighborhood at nine decks high

2 signature rock-climbing walls flank the AquaTheater, standing at 43 feet tall (13.1 meters)

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Most Important facts about Google that many people do not know

The most important fact about Google people should know.

Google LLC is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, a search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware.

CEO: Sundar Pichai (2 Oct 2015–) Trending
Founded: 4 September 1998, Menlo Park, California, United States
Headquarters: Mountain View, California, United States
Revenue: 18,169 crores USD (2020)
Subsidiaries: YouTube, Fitbit, Firebase, Google AdMob, Kaggle, MORE
Founders: Larry Page, Sergey Brin
Parent organization: Alphabet Inc.

Did you know that Google was originally called Backrub or that Yahoo had the opportunity to acquire its technology and turned it down?

As the web giant marks its 20th birthday (on 27 September) here are 20 facts you might not know about it:

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have respective net worths of $54.4bn and $53bn according to Forbes. Parent company Alphabet, which also owns YouTube and all other former Google subsidiaries, reported revenue of $110.9bn in 2017 and net income (profit) of $12.6bn.

“Google” was included in the Oxford English Dictionary from June 2006 as a verb meaning: “Search for information about (someone or something) on the Internet using the search engine Google.”

Page and Brin found each other obnoxious when they met in 1995 at Stanford University on a campus tour.

Brin was a second-year student when Page started his studies at the university. Google started as a PhD project when Page started collecting links on the Web in 1995. As the son of a computer science professor, he knew that links worked like citations, giving a web page greater authority.

By combining their maths and computer science expertise, the Google co-founders created the PageRank algorithm which led to search engine optimization. SEO arrived with the Google toolbar which allowed webmasters to compare how Google saw their sites. Companies then found ways to manipulate the rankings.

The first version of Google was named “Backrub” and was released on Stanford’s website in August 1996.

They renamed the search engine “Google” in 1997, which is a play on the word “googol” coined by a mathematician and meaning the number one followed by 100 zeros.

Google.stanford.edu was the first version of Google the search engine and would regularly crash Stanford’s internet connection.

They set up their first office in Susan Wojcicki’s garage in Menlo Park, California. She later became CEO of YouTube under Google’s ownership and Brin married Susan’s sister Anne.

The first Google Doodle was a Burning Man figure, an “out-of-office” to let everyone know that Page and Brin were at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert in August 1998.

Also in 1998 Google received its first substantial funding –  $100,000 from the co-founder of Sun Microsystems.

Google pitched its technology to search engines Excite, Yahoo, and Altavista between 1998 and 1999 for $1m but was rejected by all three.

Google News was launched in September 2002.

Google Analytics was launched in November 2005, it tracks and reports on website traffic.

YouTube was bought for $1.65bn and was the largest purchase Google had made up till then. It was seen as a move to buy users rather than tech.

Google bought Android in 2005 for $50m and the first Android device was launched in 2008. Some 88% of all smartphones sold to end-users in 2018 were phones with the Android operating system, according to data on Statista.

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Most Important Facts About The Great Pyramid of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza Tomb in Egypt

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the pyramids in the Giza pyramid complex bordering present-day Giza in Greater Cairo, Egypt. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact.

Located in: Giza Necropolis

Address: Al Haram, Nazlet El-Samman, Al Giza Desert, Giza Governorate, Egypt

Height: 138 m

Materials: Limestone, Granite, Basalt, Mortar

Architectural style: Ancient Egyptian architecture

Function: Tomb, Monument

Burials: Khufu

UNESCO World Heritage Site inscription: 1979

Ten Facts on the Ancient Egyptian Pyramids

‘Beautiful sunrise in the faraway mountains, painting the wide horizon with vibrant warm colors, among the chill from the morning breeze.’ Luis Marques, author of Asetian bible

The Egyptian pyramids are ancient pyramid-shaped masonry structures. They are some of the most impressive man-made structures in history. Their huge scales reflect the importance that the king or pharaoh played in ancient Egyptian society. Approximately 118 or 138 Egyptian pyramids have been identified as of November 2008. In this article, we will explore ten unique facts on the spectacular Ancient Egyptian Pyramids 

The Great Sphinx of Giza is among the world’s largest sculptures

Located in Al Giza Desert, Giza Governorate, Egypt.

The Great Sphinx of Giza measures 240 feet long and 66 feet high. The sculpture features a lion’s body and a human head adorned with a royal headdress. A single piece of limestone was carved to create this wonderful sculpture. There is some leftover pigment residue suggesting that the Sphinx was painted.

The Ancient Egyptians aligned their pyramids with the stars!

The pyramids were built by the Ancient Egyptians who used two constellations to align their pyramids in the north-south direction. The pyramid's alignments with the stars are incredibly precise. The north-south positions are within an accuracy of up to 0.05 degrees. 

The Pyramid of Khafre 

The Pyramid of Khafre is the second-largest and second tallest of the three Ancient Egyptian pyramids of Giza. The structure is made of limestone blocks that weigh more than two tons each.

The statue of the Pharaoh Khafre was carved for the Pharaoh’s valley temple; the Pyramid of Khafre

Statues of Pharaohs were often placed inside Egyptian tombs located within the pyramids. They serve an important role as they are a resting place for the spirit of the Pharaoh after death. 

The Pyramids are designed to tell the time

The structure of the pyramids acts as an enormous sundial, with its shadow telling the hour by falling on marks made in stone. 

The Egyptian Pyramid construction is still a mystery!

A mystery lies in which construction techniques were used by the Ancient Egyptians to produce the wonderful pyramids. Over two million granite blocks and limestone were used to build the Great Pyramid of Giza!

Most of the Pyramids were built west of the River Nile 

The river Nile is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. Historically the river Nile was considered the longest river in the world. Placed on the west of the river Nile, this ensured that the Pharaoh's souls could enter into the afterlife and begin their journey. The souls of the pharaohs were said to connect with the rising sun in the morning. 

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Most Important facts about the one of the seven wonder of the world- Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the southern bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to house the tomb of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal; it also houses the tomb of Shah Jahan himself. Wikipedia

Address: Dharmapuri, Forest Colony, Tajganj, Agra, Uttar Pradesh 282001

Architect: Ustad Ahmad Lahori, Construction started: 1631, Height: 73 m,  Opened: 1648, Architectural style: Mughal architecture,  built for Mumtaz Mahal, Function: Monument, Mausoleum, Tomb

Most Important Facts about The Taj Mahal:-

It was built to honor the favorite wife of Shah Jahan

Like many of his predecessors, Shah Jahan married several wives throughout his adult life. Though Shah Jahan spread his heart around, none of these ladies found quite the same favour as his third wife (but first love), Arjumand Banu Begum, more famously known as Mumtaz Mahal. Their union lasted 19 years and led to the birth of 14 children. Complications during the birth of the final child led to Mahal’s untimely passing at the age of 39. Shah Jahan was so stricken by the loss of his longtime companion that he decided to memorialize Mahal with a spectacular tomb. Construction on the Mahal and its surroundings began in 1632, one year after her death, and continued for just over two decades.

It has Islamic calligraphy inscriptions all over

The Calligraphic inscriptions in Arabic are texts from the Quran, and they are beautifully inscribed in various places. The most prominent inscription might be the one on the great gate which says “O soul, you are at rest. Return to the Lord in peace with him, and he at peace with you.”

The Calligrapher also left a very humble signature that can be translated as “Written by the insignificant being, Amanat Khan Shirazi”.

The Taj Mahal is one of the Seven Wonders of the World

In 2007, people from all over the world voted the Taj Mahal as one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. It was an initiative that was started because all of the listed wonders of the world, except the Cheops Pyramid, had been destroyed.

The architecture of the Taj Mahal is a combination of Islamic, Persian, and Indian style

If I have to choose one building in the world with the most impressive architecture and details, it would undoubtedly be the Taj Mahal. In pictures, it looks grand and beautiful, but it’s way beyond that when seeing it in real life.

You will immediately start to question how can humans build such a beautiful place, and why don’t we build places like this anymore. It is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world and there are no words that can describe the true beauty of the Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal’s calligrapher signed his work with a self-deprecating title

Countless beautifully printed lines of Muslim scripture line the walls of the Taj Mahal, each of which was transcribed from the Quran under the supervision of head calligrapher Abd-al Haqq, known professionally as Amanat Khan Shirazi. Abd-al Haqq also received attribution for his calligraphy, an exceptionally rare opportunity for the era. Ever the humble gentleman, Abd-al Haqq inlaid his John Hancock with the humble, “Written by the insignificant being, Amanat Khan Shirazi” at the base of the interior dome.

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The Longest River In The World - Nile ( Egypt )

The Nile is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The longest river in Africa, it has historically been considered the longest river in the world, though this has been contested by research suggesting that the Amazon River is slightly longer.

Length: 6,650 km

Discharge: 2,830 m³/s

Mouth: Mediterranean Sea

Sources: Blue Nile River, White Nile, Atbara

Countries: Egypt, Sudan 

The Nile River’s basin spans across the countries of Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania. The Nile is composed of two tributaries: the White Nile and the Blue Nile. The White Nile, which is the longer of the two, begins at Lake Victoria in Tanzania and flows north until it reaches Khartoum, Sudan, where it converges with the Blue Nile. The Blue Nile begins near Lake Tana in Ethiopia. The Nile River empties into the Mediterranean Sea in northern Egypt.

Blue Nile River, Arabic Al-Nīl Al-Azraq or Al-Baḥr Al-Azraq, Amharic Abāy, headstream of the Nile River and source of almost 70 percent of its floodwater at Khartoum. It reputedly rises as the Abāy from a spring 6,000 feet (1,800 meters) above sea level, near Lake Tana in northwestern Ethiopia. The river flows into and out of the lake, runs through a series of rapids, and then drops into a gorge. It flows through a deep canyon southeast and west around the Choke Mountains and then turns northwest through Sudan to join the White Nile at Khartoum. Its length is about 907 miles (1,460 km). By far the greater part of the Blue Nile’s waters come from such tributaries as the Dinder and Rahad rivers, which rise in the Ethiopian highlands. The Al-Ruṣayriṣ and Sannār dams in Sudan irrigate 1,000,000 acres (400,000 hectares) in the plain of Al-Jazīrah (Gezira) between the Blue Nile and White Nile rivers; the Sannār Dam also produces hydroelectric power.

The name Nile is derived from the Greek Neilos (Latin: Nilus), which probably originated from the Semitic root naḥal, meaning a valley or a river valley and hence, by an extension of the meaning, a river. The fact that the Nile—unlike other great rivers known to them—flowed from the south northward and was in flood at the warmest time of the year was an unsolved mystery to the ancient Egyptians and Greeks. The ancient Egyptians called the river Ar or Aur (Coptic: Euro), “Black,” in allusion to the color of the sediments carried by the river when it is in flood. Nile mud is black enough to have given the land itself its oldest name, Kem or Kemi, which also means “black” and signifies darkness. In the Odyssey, the epic poem written by the Greek poet Homer (7th century BCE), Aigyptos is the name of the Nile (masculine) as well as the country of Egypt (feminine) through which it flows. The Nile in Egypt and Sudan is now called Al-Nīl, Al-Baḥr, and Baḥr Al-Nīl or Nahr Al-Nīl.

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05 Most Interesting Facts About The Biggest Country In The World - Russian Federation

05 Most Interesting Facts About The Biggest Country In The World - Russian Federation 

Vodka and bears on the streets are what most people think when Russia comes to mind. But there are many more interesting facts about Russia that might challenge the more obvious associations. Here are 05 facts you might not – but should – know about Russia.

1-Russia’s cats have jobs…

Hermitage museum is a national treasure of Russia, and cats are a treasure of the Hermitage. These guardians protect priceless works of art from rats and are valued by the whole staff. Each cat even has a personal passport with a photo and receives a regular salary.

2-Russia is basically a massive forest

Russian territory is huge, and the majority of it is Siberia. In other words, Russia is 60% forest. What’s more interesting, half of that forest is totally uninhabited by humans.

3-The coldest inhabited town on Earth is in Russia

The town of Oymyakon, in the Yakutia region, Siberia, is considered to be one of the coldest inhabited towns on Earth. The coldest temperature was recorded in 1938 at a jaw-dropping -77.8°C (-108°F). The average temperature in December and January is not much warmer at -50°C (-58°F).

4-The longest railway in the world is in Russia

The Trans-Siberian Railroad is the longest in the world; its length is 9,289 kilometers (5,772 miles) and crosses eight time zones. To travel the whole railroad, you would need to spend around a week on a train.

5-The biggest fortress in the world is in Russia

Moscow’s Kremlin is the biggest active medieval fortress in the world. Its territory spans more than 27 hectares (67 acres). The walls are over 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) long. Twenty towers are sprinkled across the grounds, each with its own personal name (apart from two anonymous towers).

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Bank Of All Banks - World Bank

Bank Of All Banks - World Bank

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects.

Headquarters: Washington, D.C., United States

President: David Malpass

Founded: July 1944, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States

What Is the World Bank?

The World Bank is an international organization dedicated to providing financing, advice, and research to developing nations to aid their economic advancement. The bank predominantly acts as an organization that attempts to fight poverty by offering developmental assistance to middle- and low-income countries.

Currently, the World Bank has two stated goals that it aims to achieve by 2030. The first is to end extreme poverty by decreasing the number of people living on less than $1.90 a day to below 3% of the world population. The second is to increase overall prosperity by increasing income growth in the bottom 40% of every country in the world.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The World Bank is an international organization that provides financing, advice, and research to developing nations to help advance their economies.

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)—founded simultaneously under the Bretton Woods Agreement—both seek to serve international governments.

The World Bank has expanded to become known as the World Bank Group with five cooperative organizations, sometimes known as the World Bank.

The World Bank Group offers a multitude of proprietary financial assistance, products, and solutions for international governments, as well as a range of research-based thought leadership for the global economy at large.

The World Bank's Human Capital Project seeks to help nations invest in and develop their human capital to produce a better society and economy.

Examples of What the World Bank Does

The World Bank provides financing, advice, and other resources to developing countries in the areas of education, public safety, health, and other areas of need. Often, nations, organizations, and other institutions partner with the World Bank to sponsor development projects.

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