Internet and Modern Life
The Internet has already entered our ordinary life. Everybody knows that the Internet is a global computer network, which embraces hundred of millions of users all over the world and helps us to communicate with each other.
The history of Internet began in the United States in 1969. It was a military experiment, designed to help to survive during a nuclear war, when everything around might be polluted by radiation and it would be dangerous to get out for any living being to get some information to anywhere. Information sent over the Internet takes the shortest and safest path available from one computer to another. Because of this, any two computers on the net will be able to stay in touch with each other as long as there is a single route between them. This technology was called packet switching.
Invention of modems, special devices allowing your computer to send the information through the telephone line, has opened doors to the Internet for millions of people.
Most of the Internet host computers are in the United States of America. It is clear that the accurate number of users can be counted fairly approximately, nobody knows exactly how many people use the Internet today, because there are hundred of millions of users and their number is growing.
Nowadays the most popular Internet service is e-mail. Most of the people use the network only for sending and receiving e-mail messages. They can do it either they are at home or in the internet clubs or at work. Other popular services are available on the Internet too. It is reading news, available on some dedicated news servers, telnet, FTP servers, etc.
In many countries, the Internet could provide businessmen with a reliable, alternative to the expensive and unreliable telecommunications systems its own system of communications. Commercial users can communicate cheaply over the Internet with the rest of the world. When they send e-mail messages, they only have to pay for phone calls to their local service providers, not for international calls around the world, when you pay a good deal of money.
But saving money is only the first step and not the last one. There is a commercial use of this network and it is drastically increasing. Now you can work through the internet, gambling and playing through the net.
However, there are some problems. The most important problem is security. When you send an e-mail, your message can travel through many different networks and computers. The data is constantly being directed towards its destination by special computers called routers. Because of this, it is possible to get into any of the computers along the route, intercept and even change the data being sent over the Internet. But there are many encoding programs available. Notwith-standing, these programs are not perfect and can easily be cracked.
Another big and serious problem of the net is control. Yes, there is no effective control in the^Internet, because a huge amount of information circulating through the net. It is like a tremendous library and market together. In the future, the situation might change, but now we have what we have. It could be expressed in two words— an anarchist's dream.
Chess
Chess is an indoor competitive game played between two players. It is being played in tournaments, online or at home. The origin of chess is traced to India, approximately to the 6th century. The military had four divisions known as "infantry", "cavalry", "elephant" and "chariot." These names are represented in the chess game as: pawn, knight, bishop and the rook respectively. In the 9th century, the game was introduced to Western Europe and Russia.
The chess board is made up of 64 squares (eight rows and eight columns) and the colors of the squares alternate (dark and light squares). The pieces which are comprised of a king, a queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns are in sets black and white. To start the game, white moves first. The pieces are moved one at a time to an occupied square by an opponent's piece, thereby removing it from play or to a square that is not occupied. However, two pieces are moved simultaneously when castling.
Each chess piece has its own style of moving. The pawn moves one or two steps forward to an unoccupied square but one forward diagonal step to an occupied square. The knight moves in "L" pattern. The bishop moves diagonally. The rook moves horizontally or vertically with as many steps as possible. The queen moves in all directions covering as many squares as possible. And the king moves one step at a time in all directions.
To win the game, the opponent must be checkmated. Checkmate is when king is in check has there is no way to escape. There are occasions that the chess games do not end with a checkmate. Other way the game ends are: draw by agreement, stalemate, threefold repetition of a position, and the fifty-move rule.