Macintosh

The Macintosh (/ˈmækᵻntɒʃ/ MAK-in-tosh; branded as Mac since 1997) is a series of personal computers (PCs) designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. Steve Jobs introduced the original Macintosh computer on January 24, 1984. This was the first mass-market personal computer featuring an integral graphical user interface and mouse. This first model was later renamed to "Macintosh 128k" for uniqueness amongst a populous family of subsequently updated models which are also based on Apple's same proprietary architecture. Since 1998, Apple has largely phased out the Macintosh name in favor of "Mac", though the product family has been nicknamed "Mac" or "the Mac" since the development of the first model.

The Macintosh, however, was expensive, which hindered its ability to be competitive in a market already dominated by the Commodore 64 for consumers, as well as the IBM Personal Computer and its accompanying clone market for businesses. Macintosh systems still found success in education and desktop publishing and kept Apple as the second-largest PC manufacturer for the next decade. In the 1990s, improvements in the rival Wintel platform, notably with the introduction of Windows 3.0, then Windows 95, gradually took market share from the more expensive Macintosh systems. The performance advantage of 68000-based Macintosh systems was eroded by Intel's Pentium, and in 1994 Apple was relegated to third place as Compaq became the top PC manufacturer. Even after a transition to the superior PowerPC-based Power Macintosh (later renamed the PowerMac, in line with the PowerBook series) line in 1994, the falling prices of commodity PC components and the release of Windows 95 saw the Macintosh user base decline.

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is an American animated television series created by Craig McCracken for Cartoon Network Studios. The series, set in a world in which imaginary friends coexist with humans, centers on an eight-year-old boy, Mac, who is pressured by his mother to abandon his imaginary friend, Bloo. After Mac discovers an orphanage dedicated to housing abandoned imaginary friends, Bloo moves into the home and is kept from adoption so long as Mac visits him daily. The episodes revolve around Mac and Bloo as they interact with other imaginary friends and house staff and live out their day-to-day adventures, often getting caught up in various predicaments.

McCracken conceived the series after adopting two dogs from an animal shelter and applying the concept to imaginary friends. The show first premiered on Cartoon Network on August 13, 2004, as a 90-minute television film. On August 20, it began its normal run of twenty-to-thirty-minute episodes on Fridays, at 7 pm. The series finished its run on May 3, 2009, with a total of six seasons and seventy-nine episodes. McCracken left Cartoon Network shortly after the series ended.

Mac (rapper)

McKinley Phipps (born July 30, 1977), better known as Mac, is an American rapper and songwriter from New Orleans' 3rd Ward, and would grow to be one of the most critically acclaimed on Master P's No Limit Records, both as a solo rapper and as a member of the super group 504 Boyz. He also collaborated with rapper B.G. on the album Chopper City released in 1996.

Early Music career

Mac was born Mckinley Phipps in New Orleans, Louisiana. He started his music career as a kid rapper in the year 1990. At 13 years old he made his solo debut album under the name of "Lil Mac", called The Lyrical Midget. The album was one of the earliest commercial hip-hop albums to come out of New Orleans, and featured some production from New Orleans producer Mannie Fresh. It was not very successful though Lil Mac would not be heard from for another 7 years.

Late 1990s: No Limit Records, Shell Shocked, and World War III

Family name

A family name (in Western contexts often referred to as a surname or last name) is typically a part of a person's personal name which, according to law or custom, is passed or given to children from one or both of their parents' family names. The use of family names is common in most cultures around the world, with each culture having its own rules as to how these names are formed, passed and used. But the practice is not universal, with some cultures not using family names (See mononym). Also, in most Slavic countries and in Greece, for example, there are different family name forms for male and female members of the family. Issues of family name arise especially on the passing of a name to a new-born child, on the adoption of a common family name on marriage, on renouncing of a family name and on changing of a family name.

Suikoden (video game)

Suikoden (Japanese: 幻想水滸伝, Hepburn: Gensō Suikoden,  listen ) is a role-playing game published by Konami as the first installment of the Suikoden series. Developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, it was released initially in 1995 for the PlayStation in Japan. North American and British releases followed one year later, and a mainland European release came the following March. The game was also released for the Sega Saturn in 1998 only in Japan, and for Microsoft Windows in 1998 in Japan. On December 22, 2008, Suikoden was made available on the PlayStation Store for use on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable consoles.

The game centers on the political struggles of the Scarlet Moon Empire. The player controls the son of a Scarlet Moon Empire general who is destined to seek out 108 warriors (referred to as the 108 Stars of Destiny) in order to revolt against the corrupt sovereign state and bring peace to a war-torn land. The game is loosely based on the Chinese novel Shui Hu Zhuan, and features a vast array of characters both controllable and not, with over ninety characters usable in combat and many more able to help or hinder the hero in a variety of ways.

Apple wine

Apple wine can mean:

Yabloko

The Russian United Democratic Party "Yabloko" (Russian: Росси́йская объединённая демократи́ческая па́ртия «Я́блоко» Rossiyskaya obyedinyonnaya demokraticheskaya partiya "Yabloko"; (Russian: Я́блоко – "Apple") is a Russian social liberal party founded by Grigory Yavlinsky and currently led by Emilia Slabunova. The party logo consists of a red circle and a green isosceles triangle, suggesting an apple in a constructivist style.

History

The party dates back to early 1990s. The immediate predecessor of the Yabloko party was the electoral cartel Yavlinsky-Boldyrev-Lukin, formed for the legislative elections of 1993. "Yabloko" is an acronym of the names of its founders: "Я" (Ya) for Grigory Yavlinsky; "Б" (B) for Yuri Boldyrev, and "Л" (L) for Vladimir Lukin, the name meaning "apple" in Russian. The party stands for free markets and civil liberties in Russia, better relations with the United States and membership in the European Union. The party opposed president Boris Yeltsin's and his prime ministers' policies, earning the reputation of a determined opposition movement that nevertheless was devoted to democratic reforms (in contrast, most of the opposition was communist or neo-fascist at that time). Similarly, it has continued to oppose Vladimir Putin for what they see as his increasing authoritarianism and has called for the removal of his elected government "by constitutional means."