Polo is a sport. It is played between two teams of 4 s on horses, which are called polo ponies. The players try to score goals (points) by putting the ball in the goal. They use long mallets (long sticks). It is the state sport of Ancient Manipur.
According to the Guinness Book of Records, polo traces its origin to the Ancient Manipur, where it was played as the ""Sagol Kangjei"" (, ) right from 3100 BC.
Various forms of Polo, and similar sports, have been long played, traditionally, throughout a wide range covering Assam and Manipur areas of India, Kashmir, Nepal and Tibet, and the Northern valleys of Pakistan such as Gilgit, Hunza Valley, Baltistan and Chitral District and parts of Central Asia as well. In ancient Persia, "Chavgan", another form of Polo, was also played. It was only in the mid-19th century that colonial officers in British India began to play this sport and imported it to Britain, where the formal Hurlingham Rules were then laid down. Later, in the 1890s, Polo was also introduced to the United States.
There are two teams both with 4 players. They play on a field which is 300 yards long (about 275 meters) and 160 or 200 yards wide (about 146 and 183 meters). There are goalposts (long sticks in the ground) 8 yards (7.32 meters) apart at each end of the field. To score, the ball has to go between the other team's goalposts, which is called a goal.
The game is 4, 6 or 8 periods (units of time) of 7 minutes, which are called "chukkas". Between chukkas, players change ponies.
In a game there are 2 umpires on horses and a referee on the side.
Players are given a foul if they break the rules. These rules keep the horses and riders safe. One rule in polo is called the "line of the ball" or just the "line". The "line" is an invisible line between the ball and the player that has the ball. A player has the ball if they are the closest to make a play on the ball. The "line" is in the same direction as this player is traveling and extends as far as the player is able to safely stop their horse. If another player crosses the "line" (that is, if another player runs in front of the player who has the ball), they will receive a foul. This is a common foul because it is sometimes difficult for a player to tell where the invisible "line" is.
A common defensive play in polo is called "hooking". A player may hook an opponent by using their mallet to block an opponent's mallet while the opponent tries to hit the ball. Sometimes it is unsafe for a player to hook their opponent. As an example, reaching over or under the opponent's horse to make a hook is considered unsafe. An unsafe hook will cause the player to foul. If a player cannot safely hook their opponent, they may instead use a different defensive play called a "ride-off". A "ride-off" happens when a player uses their horse to push an opponent's horse away from the "line". This makes it difficult for the opponent to make a play on the ball. If the player crosses the line while trying to ride off their opponent, they will receive a foul.
If a player makes a foul, the opponent may get a penalty shot. Penalty shots are made near the goal and other players cannot block the penalty shot.
Each player has certain responsibilities:
The ponies are 14.2 to 16 hands (1 hand equals 4 inches or 10.16 centimetres). They weigh between 900 and 1100lbs-pounds- (about 408 and 499 kilos). Ponies can be ridden to play from the age of 5 up to 18 or even 20 years old sometimes. Polo ponies are not actually ponies because they are full-sized horses. Thoroughbreds are a common horse breed to use as polo ponies because they are fast and agile.
The players have a helmet (hard hat), riding boots, white trousers, a shirt with the player's number on. Sometimes players also have one or two gloves, knee-pads and a whip.
The ball is made of plastic. Before, it was made of wood. The ball is about 3¼ inches (8.3 centimetres) in diameter and weighs about four ounces (113.4 grams).
Polo saddles are English-style, similar to jumping saddles.
Polo mallets are used to hit the ball. Their shape is similar to normal mallets, but they are much longer. The shaft of the mallet is usually made of bamboo and the head is usually made of wood. Players hit the ball with the side of the mallet rather than the front.
Polo is not always played on ponies. Canoe polo, cycle polo, camel polo, elephant polo, golf cart polo, Segway polo, BMX polo, yak polo and water polo also exist. However most of these forms are not played at a professional level.
Word processor
A word processor is a computer program (often a text editor) or a special computer intended to edit texts with colours and different font sizes and styles, or texts which will be printed.
Most such programs now have helpful instruments (tools) to make good texts. Important instruments include spelling & grammar checker, word count (this also counts letters and lines). Moreover, with such programs one can make attractive documents, add pictures into documents, make webpages, graphs etc. Also, they show synonyms (similar words) of words and some can read the text aloud. Many word processors, similar to many new programs, have configurable printing facilities. Some of the more versatile ones are called Desktop publishing programs.
Examples include:
Atari Jaguar
The Atari Jaguar was a video game machine released by Atari in 1993. It was not a successful product and was Atari's last console. It also had a CD-based accessory called the Atari Jaguar CD.
The Atari Jaguar was sold at about the same time as the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64, but it was not very popular as it did not have as many popular games as these other consoles. The graphics of Atari Jaguar games look a lot like the Sega Genesis, Sega Mega Drive or SNES games as it did not run 3D games as well as the Sega Saturn or PlayStation.
Google Picasa
Picasa is a software application for organizing and editing photos. It was first created by Idealab. The name "Picasa" is a blend of the last name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the phrase "mi casa" for "my house" and "pic" for pictures. In July 2004, Google purchased Picasa and began offering it as a free download.
There was a version for Windows XP and Windows Vista, as well as a version for Linux. For Windows 98 and Windows Me, only an older version was available. There was also an iPhoto plugin or program for uploading photos available for Mac OS X 10.4 and later.
On February 12, 2016, Google announced it was "Moving on from Picasa" and the Picasa desktop application would be discontinued on March 15, 2016. Google stated that the primary reason for retiring Picasa was that it wanted to focus its efforts "entirely on a single photos service" the cross-platform, web-based Google Photos.
Picasa Web Albums (PWA) was a photo-sharing web application created by Google and was similar to websites such as Flickr and . Picasa Web Albums was first announced on June 6, 2006. When introduced, it came with 250 MB free space. On March 7, 2007, it was upgraded to 1GB.
Users with accounts at Google could store and share 1GB of photos for free. Users were able to purchase more storage space with these plans:
Users could upload pictures and videos by using either a web interface, through Picasa 2.5.0 or later on Microsoft Windows, using the Exporter for iPhoto, the Aperture to Picasa Web Albums plug-in, or Uploader on Mac OS X, or F-Spot on Linux.
No ads were shown on Picasa Web Albums in either the free or paid accounts. The Terms of Service allowed Google to use the uploaded photos and videos to display on the website or via RSS feeds, and also for promoting Google services without needing to pay the users.