High roller

A high roller is a gambler who wagers large amounts of money. High rollers often receive lavish "comps" from casinos to lure them onto the gambling floors, such as free private jet transfers, limousine use and use of the casinos' best suites. Casinos may also extend credit to a player to continue betting, offer rebates on betting turnover or losses, and salaries of employees may also contain incentive arrangements to bring in high rollers.

The definition of a high roller varies. At Crown Casino in Australia, for example, it involves bringing between A$50,000 and $75,000 to the table. High roller players often have very high table limits allowing the high roller exclusive use. Casinos compete on bet limits. In Australia limits of A$300,000 are common, in Las Vegas they are between US$150,000 and $300,000, and in Macau they are up to US$500,000. Only casinos with "substantial financial firepower" can accommodate high-stakes gambling due to the "volatility" of results.

High rollers may also be subject to exceptions from various rules and regulations; for example the high roller rooms at Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia are the only licensed venue in the state not subject to a ban on smoking.

Whale (computer virus)

The Whale virus is a computer virus discovered on July 1, 1990. The file size, at 9,216 bytes, was for its time the largest virus ever discovered. It is known for using several advanced "stealth" methods.

Description

After the file becomes resident in the system memory below the 640k DOS boundary, the operator will experience total system slow down as a result of the virus' polymorphic code. Symptoms include video flicker to the screen writing very slowly. Files may seem to "hang" even though they will eventually execute correctly. This is just a product of the total system slow down within the system's memory.

It was reported that one infected program displayed the following message when run:

THE WHALE IN SEARCH OF THE 8 FISH
I AM '~knzyvo}' IN HAMBURG addr error D9EB,02

See also

References

Whale (sculpture)

Whale is an outdoor wooden sculpture of a whale, located in Cannon Beach, Oregon, United States.

Description

Whale is a 9-foot (2.7 m) cedar sculpture installed at, and the namesake of, Whale Park (or Hemlock Street Park), located at the north end of downtown Cannon Beach. The sculpture commemorates the visit by members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition's Corps of Discovery in January 1806, including William Clark and Sacagawea, who explored the area to investigate reports of a beached whale. It measures 4 feet (1.2 m) x 3.5 feet (1.1 m) x 10 feet (3.0 m) and is positioned horizontally on top of two metal posts anchored in a concrete base which is 2 feet (0.61 m) tall. The whale's head and tail are elevated. The underside of its proper right flipper contains an unintelligible signature by the artist which may read "Harturck" or "Hartwick".

History

The sculpture's condition was deemed "treatment needed" by the Smithsonian Institution's "Save Outdoor Sculpture!" program in November 1993. It was administered by the City of Cannon Beach at that time.Whale has been included in at least one published guided tour, called "Oregon's Coast, Mountains, Columbia River Gorge and Wine".

Oil!

Oil! is a novel by Upton Sinclair published in 1927 told as a third person narrative, with only the opening pages written in the second person. The book was written in the context of the Harding administration's Teapot Dome Scandal and takes place in Southern California. It is a social and political satire skewering the human foibles of all its characters.

The main character is James Arnold Ross Jr., nicknamed Bunny, son of an oil tycoon. Bunny's sympathetic feelings toward oilfield workers and socialists provoke arguments with his father throughout the story.

The novel served as a loose inspiration for the 2007 film There Will Be Blood.

Characters

Oil

An oil is any neutral, nonpolar chemical substance that is a viscous liquid at ambient temperatures and is both hydrophobic (immiscible with water, literally "water fearing") and lipophilic (miscible with other oils, literally "fat loving"). Oils have a high carbon and hydrogen content and are usually flammable and slippery.

The general definition of oil includes classes of chemical compounds that may be otherwise unrelated in structure, properties, and uses. Oils may be animal, vegetable, or petrochemical in origin, and may be volatile or non-volatile. They are used for food, fuel, lubrication, and the manufacture of paints, plastics, and other materials. Specially prepared oils are used in some religious ceremonies as purifying agents.

Etymology

First attested in English 1176, the word oil comes from Old French oile, from Latin oleum, which in turn comes from the Greek ἔλαιον (elaion), "olive oil, oil" and that from ἐλαία (elaia), "olive tree", "olive fruit". The earliest attested forms of the word are the Mycenaean Greek 𐀁𐀨𐀺, e-ra-wo and 𐀁𐁉𐀺, e-rai-wo, written in the Linear B syllabic script.

Oil (film)

Oil is a 2009 documentary film directed by Massimiliano Mazzotta. It explores the Italian energy provider Saras S.p.A., operating in the area of oil refining and the production of electricity, located in the island of Sardinia, near Cagliari and the impact of oil development on the land and lives of the local population.

Awards

External links