223) Sir Edwin Lutyens

Sir Edwin Lutyens, in full Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens (born March 29, 1869, London, England—died January 1, 1944, London), English architect noted for his versatility and range of invention along traditional lines. He is known especially for his planning of New Delhi and his design of the Viceroy’s House there.

After studying at the Royal College of Art, London, he was articled in 1887 to a firm of architects but soon left to set up in practice on his own. In his early works (1888–95) he assimilated the traditional forms of local Surrey buildings. Lutyens’ style changed when he met the landscape gardener Gertrude Jekyll, who taught him the “simplicity of intention and directness of purpose” she had learned from John Ruskin. At Munstead Wood, Godalming, Surrey (1896), Lutyens first showed his personal qualities as a designer. This house, balancing the sweep of the roof with high buttressed chimneys and offsetting small doorways with long strips of windows, made his reputation. A brilliant series of country houses followed in which Lutyens adapted varied styles of the past to the demands of contemporary domestic architecture.

About 1910 Lutyens’ interest shifted to larger, civil projects, and in 1912 he was selected to advise on the planning of the new Indian capital at Delhi. His plan, with a central mall and diagonal avenues, may have owed something to Pierre-Charles L’Enfant’s plan for Washington, D.C., and to Christopher Wren’s plan for London after the Great Fire, but the total result was quite different: a garden-city pattern, based on a series of hexagons separated by broad avenues with double lines of trees. In his single most important building, the Viceroy’s House (1913–30), he combined aspects of classical architecture with features of Indian decoration. Lutyens was knighted in 1918.

After World War I Lutyens became architect to the Imperial War Graves Commission, for which he designed the Cenotaph, London (1919–20); the Great War Stone (1919); and military cemeteries in France. His vast project for the Roman Catholic cathedral at Liverpool was incomplete at his death.

Hi,

#3821. Solve:
2x + y - 3 = 0,
2x - 3y - 7 = 0.

Hi,

#6240. Evaluate:

Hi,

#6695. What is 'xenoglossophobia'?

#6696. What is 'ranidaphobia'?

Hi,

Good attempt, Monox D. I-Fly!

#3819. A 16 meter deep well with diameter 3.5 meter is dug up and the earth from it is spread evenly to form a platform 27.5 meter by 7 meter. Find the height of the platform,

Hi,

The solution #3817 is correct. Neat work, Monox D. I-Fly!

#3818. A card is drawn at random from a pack of 52 cards. Find the probability that the card drawn is neither a red card nor a queen.

Hi,

#6238. If

Hi,

#1129. Name the Medical term : A permanent shortening of a muscle or joint. It is usually in response to prolonged hypertonic spasticity in a concentrated muscle area, such as is seen in the tightest muscles of people with conditions like spastic cerebral palsy.  They are essentially muscles or tendons that have remained too tight for too long, thus becoming shorter.

Hi,

#6237. If

220) Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Computers with Steve Wozniak. Under Jobs' guidance, the company pioneered a series of revolutionary technologies, including the iPhone and iPad.

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world? [Jobs inviting an executive to join Apple]” - Steve Jobs

Synopsis

Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco, California, on February 24, 1955, to two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave him up for adoption. Smart but directionless, Jobs experimented with different pursuits before starting Apple Computer with Steve Wozniak in 1976. Apple's revolutionary products, which include the iPod, iPhone and iPad, are now seen as dictating the evolution of modern technology, with Jobs having left the company in 1985 and returning more than a decade later. He died in 2011, following a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

Early Life

Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco, California, to Joanne Schieble (later Joanne Simpson) and Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave their unnamed son up for adoption. His father, Jandali, was a Syrian political science professor, and his mother, Schieble, worked as a speech therapist. Shortly after Steve was placed for adoption, his biological parents married and had another child, Mona Simpson. It was not until Jobs was 27 that he was able to uncover information on his biological parents.

The infant was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs and named Steven Paul Jobs. Clara worked as an accountant and Paul was a Coast Guard veteran and machinist. The family lived in Mountain View, California, within the area that would later become known as Silicon Valley. As a boy, Jobs and his father worked on electronics in the family garage. Paul showed his son how to take apart and reconstruct electronics, a hobby that instilled confidence, tenacity and mechanical prowess in young Jobs.

While Jobs was always an intelligent and innovative thinker, his youth was riddled with frustrations over formal schooling. Jobs was a prankster in elementary school due to boredom, and his fourth-grade teacher needed to bribe him to study. Jobs tested so well, however, that administrators wanted to skip him ahead to high school—a proposal that his parents declined.

A few years later, while Jobs was enrolled at Homestead High School, he was introduced to his future partner Steve Wozniak, who was attending the University of California, Berkeley. In a 2007 interview with PC World, Wozniak spoke about why he and Jobs clicked so well: "We both loved electronics and the way we used to hook up digital chips," Wozniak said. "Very few people, especially back then, had any idea what chips were, how they worked and what they could do. I had designed many computers, so I was way ahead of him in electronics and computer design, but we still had common interests. We both had pretty much sort of an independent attitude about things in the world. ..."

Apple Computer

After high school, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Lacking direction, he dropped out of college after six months and spent the next 18 months dropping in on creative classes at the school. Jobs later recounted how one course in calligraphy developed his love of typography.

In 1974, Jobs took a position as a video game designer with Atari. Several months later he left the company to find spiritual enlightenment in India, traveling further and experimenting with psychedelic drugs. In 1976, when Jobs was just 21, he and Wozniak started Apple Computer. The duo started in the Jobs family garage, funding their entrepreneurial venture by Jobs selling his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak selling his beloved scientific calculator.

Jobs and Wozniak are credited with revolutionizing the computer industry by democratizing the technology and making machines smaller, cheaper, intuitive and accessible to everyday consumers. Wozniak conceived of a series of user-friendly personal computers, and - with Jobs in charge of marketing - Apple initially marketed the computers for $666.66 each. The Apple I earned the corporation around $774,000. Three years after the release of Apple's second model, the Apple II, the company's sales increased by 700 percent to $139 million. In 1980, Apple Computer became a publicly traded company, with a market value of $1.2 billion by the end of its very first day of trading. Jobs looked to marketing expert John Sculley of Pepsi-Cola to take over the role of CEO for Apple.

Departure from Company

However, the next several products from Apple suffered significant design flaws, resulting in recalls and consumer disappointment. IBM suddenly surpassed Apple in sales, and Apple had to compete with an IBM/PC-dominated business world. In 1984, Apple released the Macintosh, marketing the computer as a piece of a counterculture lifestyle: romantic, youthful, creative. But despite positive sales and performance superior to IBM's PCs, the Macintosh was still not IBM-compatible. Sculley believed Jobs was hurting Apple, and the company's executives began to phase him out.

Not actually having had an official title with the company he co-founded, Jobs was pushed into a more marginalized position and thus left Apple in 1985 to begin a new hardware and software enterprise called NeXT, Inc. The following year Jobs purchased an animation company from George Lucas, which later became Pixar Animation Studios. Believing in Pixar's potential, Jobs initially invested $50 million of his own money in the company. The studio went on to produce wildly popular movies such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles; Pixar's films have collectively netted $4 billion. The studio merged with Walt Disney in 2006, making Steve Jobs Disney's largest shareholder.

Reinventing Apple

Despite Pixar's success, NeXT, Inc. floundered in its attempts to sell its specialized operating system to mainstream America. Apple eventually bought the company in 1996 for $429 million. The following year, Jobs returned to his post as Apple's CEO.

Just as Steve Jobs instigated Apple's success in the 1970s, he is credited with revitalizing the company in the 1990s. With a new management team, altered stock options and a self-imposed annual salary of $1 a year, Jobs put Apple back on track. His ingenious products (like the iMac), effective branding campaigns and stylish designs caught the attention of consumers once again.

Pancreatic Cancer

In 2003, Jobs discovered that he had a neuroendocrine tumor, a rare but operable form of pancreatic cancer. Instead of immediately opting for surgery, Jobs chose to alter his pesco-vegetarian diet while weighing Eastern treatment options. For nine months, Jobs postponed surgery, making Apple's board of directors nervous. Executives feared that shareholders would pull their stock if word got out that their CEO was ill. But in the end, Jobs' confidentiality took precedence over shareholder disclosure. In 2004, he had a successful surgery to remove the pancreatic tumor. True to form, in subsequent years Jobs disclosed little about his health.

Later Innovations

Apple introduced such revolutionary products as the Macbook Air, iPod and iPhone, all of which have dictated the evolution of modern technology. Almost immediately after Apple releases a new product, competitors scramble to produce comparable technologies. Apple's quarterly reports improved significantly in 2007: Stocks were worth $199.99 a share - a record-breaking number at that time - and the company boasted a staggering $1.58 billion profit, an $18 billion surplus in the bank and zero debt.

In 2008, iTunes became the second-biggest music retailer in America - second only to Walmart, fueled by iTunes and iPod sales. Apple has also been ranked No. 1 on Fortune magazine's list of "America's Most Admired Companies," as well as No. 1 among Fortune 500 companies for returns to shareholders.

Personal Life

Early in 2009, reports circulated about Jobs' weight loss, some predicting his health issues had returned, which included a liver transplant. Jobs had responded to these concerns by stating he was dealing with a hormone imbalance. After nearly a year out of the spotlight, Steve Jobs delivered a keynote address at an invite-only Apple event September 9, 2009.

In the early 1990s, Jobs met Laurene Powell at Stanford business school, where Powell was an MBA student. They married on March 18, 1991, and lived together in Palo Alto, California, with their three children.

Death

On October 5, 2011, Apple Inc. announced that its co-founder had passed away. After battling pancreatic cancer for nearly a decade, Steve Jobs died in Palo Alto. He was 56 years old.

Books and Biopics

A number of books have been written on Jobs' life and career, including an authorized 2011 general biography by Walter Isaacson, a 2012 young adult biography by Karen Blumenthal, and yet another title, 2015's Becoming Steve Jobs by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli. The Isaacson work was critiqued for the depiction of its main subject by Apple's chief executive Tim Cook, who succeeded Jobs.

Biopics inspired by the computer icon's life have been released as well - namely the critically panned Jobs (2013), starring Ashton Kutcher, and Steve Jobs (2015), starring Michael Fassbender and directed by Danny Boyle.

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#6236. If

219. Éleuthère Irénée du Pont

Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours (24 June 1771 - 31 October 1834), known as Irénée du Pont, or E. I. du Pont, was a French-American chemist and industrialist who founded the gunpowder manufacturer E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. His descendants, the Du Pont family, have been one of America's richest and most prominent families since the 19th century, with generations of influential businessmen, politicians and philanthropists.

Early life and family

Du Pont was born 24 June 1771, in Paris, the son of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours and Nicole-Charlotte Marie-Louise le Dée de Rencourt. His father was a political economist who had been elevated to the nobility in 1784 by "letters patent" granted by King Louis XVI, allowing him to carry the honorable de Nemours suffix. Growing up on his father's estate, "Bois des Fossés", near Égreville, young du Pont was enthusiastic about his studies in most subjects, and showed particular interest in explosives. Du Pont married Sophie Dalmas (1775 - 1828) in 1791, and they had eight children.

Du Pont sailed before his family and landed at Rhode Island on 1 January 1800, along with his father and his brother's family. By 1802, he had established both his business and his family home, Eleutherian Mills, on the Brandywine Creek in Delaware. 1 January is the anniversary of the arrival of the du Pont family in America, and this date is still celebrated by its descendants.

Career in France

In the fall of 1785, du Pont entered the Collège Royal in Paris. Two years later, he was accepted by the friend of his father and noted chemist Antoine Lavoisier as a student in the Régie des poudres, the government agency responsible for the manufacture of gunpowder. It was from Lavoisier that he gained his expertise in nitrate extraction and manufacture. He studied "advanced explosives production techniques".

After a brief apprenticeship, he took a position at the government powder works in Essones but quit after Lavoisier left. In 1791, du Pont began to help his father manage their small publishing house in Paris, where they published a republican newspaper in support of governmental reforms in France. Despite being a soft-spoken chemist, he also had a strong sense of social order. Du Pont was a member of the pro-Revolution national guard and supported the Jacobins. However, on 20 August 1792, both du Pont and his father participated in protecting the escape of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette when the Tuileries Palace was stormed. His father riled up fellow revolutionaries by refusing to go along with the guillotine execution of Louis XVI, and the two men's moderate political views proved to be a liability in revolutionary France.

His father was arrested in 1794, only avoiding execution because of the end of the Reign of Terror. In September 1797, du Pont and his father spent a night in La Force prison while their home and presses were ransacked. These events led his father to lose hope in the political situation in France, and so he began making plans to move their family to America and aspired to create a model community of French émigrés. On 2 October 1799, the du Pont family sold their publishing house and set sail for the United States. They reached Rhode Island on 1 January 1800 and began to settle in the home the eldest du Pont had secured in Bergen Point, New Jersey.

They soon set up an office in New York City to decide what their new line of business would be, but ironically mild-mannered and introverted Éleuthère Irénée was not included in much of these plans. However, he would soon begin to realize the possibilities that his childhood apprenticeship with Lavoisier would allow him and his family in America.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company

Du Pont had no thought of becoming involved with gunpowder manufacture again upon his arrival in the United States, but he brought with him an expertise in chemistry and gunpowder making, during a time when the quality of American-made gunpowder was very poor. Delaware legend holds that he decided to go into the gunpowder business during a fateful hunting trip with Major Louis de Tousard, a former French artillery officer then employed by the United States Army to procure gunpowder supplies. Du Pont's gun misfired as he attempted to shoot a bird, which caused him to reflect on his powder-making apprenticeship with Lavoisier as a youth in France. Du Pont commented on the inferior quality of the American-made powder they were using for hunting despite its high price.

At his request, Tousard arranged a tour of an American powder plant. He quickly deduced that the saltpeter being used was of good enough quality, however, the American refining process was poor and inefficient compared with the techniques he had learned in France. He began to think that he could use his experience from France to manufacture gunpowder of a higher quality in the United States and reform the current industry standard for refinery. With his father's blessing, he began to assemble capital for the construction of the first powder mills, and returned to France in the beginning of 1801 to procure the necessary financing and equipment.

The act of association was signed on 21 April 1801, and the company was christened E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company since it was its namesake's ingenuity that had created this venture. His gunpowder company was capitalized at $36,000 with 18 shares at $2,000 each. He purchased a site on Brandywine Creek for $6,740. There were several small buildings and a dam with foundations for a cotton-spinning mill which had been destroyed by fire. The first gunpowder was produced in April 1804.

Death

Du Pont died on 31 October 1834 in Philadelphia. The cause of death was unspecified, due to "conflicting reports of either cholera or a heart attack." He was buried in the Du Pont de Nemours Cemetery on the family property in Wilmington.

Legacy

The company he founded would become one of the largest and most successful American corporations. By the mid-19th century it was the largest supplier of gunpowder to the U.S. military, and supplied as much as 40 percent of the powder used by the Union Army forces during the Civil War. His sons, Alfred V. du Pont (1798 - 1856) and Henry du Pont (1812 - 1889), managed the plant after his death, assisted by his son-in-law, Antoine Bidermann. His grandson Lammot du Pont I (1831 - 1884) was the first president of the United States Gunpowder Trade Association, popularly known as the Powder Trust.