In another cutscene a human ship with Master Chief,Johnson and Cortana aboard follows the covenant ship through the portal to the new Halo. The player must now take control of Chief as he battles to stop the Covenant from firing the ring. Eventually the player kills the Prophet of Regret, a Covenant leader, and stops the Halo from being fired. Unfortunately before the player can recover the Index, the control for firing the Halo, they are captured by the leader of the Flood, known as "the Gravemind". In a cutscene we see the new Arbiter sent down to the Halo to recover the Index before Chief can destroy it. When he arrives though, he and his followers are betrayed and their former allies begin to attack. Here the player must control Arbiter and his followers as they attempt to escape the betrayal and ambush. The arbiter is eventually also captured by the Gravemind and meets up with Master Chief. The two of them break free of Gravemind, whose Flood followers have now taken over a huge Covenant ship called "High Charity". Arbiter and Chief, now controlled by the player again, race to the Halo control to stop the Covenant from firing the ring one last time. They are successful in stopping the Covenant, but the Prophet of Truth, the last of their leaders escapes on a spacecraft unharmed. Chiefs AI companion Cortana stays behind on the Halo, promising to destroy it if any Covenant ever return. Chief and the Arbiter part ways with Chief hiding out on a fleeing Covenant ship and the Arbiter and his followers returning to "High Charity" in an attempt to save it from the Flood.
"Halo 2" was officially announced in 2002. A gameplay video was shown at E3 2003. The video showed new features in the game such as dual wielding and the improved graphics. According to Bungie, the cliffhanger ending of the games story was not originally intended but was a result of the rush to get the game out on time.
Halo 2 was first released in North America and Australia on November 9, 2004. It was launched in Europe a day later on November 10. Demand was high for the game and over 1.5 million copies were sold on pre-orders alone. It was the highest earning entertainment product launch of all time in the US, earning $125 million in its first 24 hours. It held this record until the release of its sequel Halo 3. Halo 2 has sold over 8 million copies in the US making it the best selling original Xbox game of all time.
From the day of its release until 2006, 2 years later, Halo 2 was the most played game on Xbox Live. It was eventually beaten by the Xbox 360 game Gears of War.
The game was reviewed as excellent by most of the media. The sound work such as the dialogue and soundtrack was often praised.
The game received an average score of 95% on Metacritic, a website that puts together many reviews from different sources. The games multiplayer was often seen as a good point, making full use of the then new Xbox Live service. Bad aspects pointed out included the short length of the story mode and the cliffhanger ending.
Actuary
Actuaries are people who are experts in mathematics, probability, economics, and finance who figure out how much money businesses should charge for making promises to pay for something that may or may not happen.
Hundreds of years ago, when people got sick or died, it cost a lot of money to take care of them or bury them. People had the idea of joining their money together to help each other out. This was called pooling. Eventually, people started to make a business out of collecting enough money to help people who had big problems.
Figuring out how much money needed to be collected from people to be used if problems happened was not easy. Over hundreds of years, the math needed for this was developed by many people from all over the world.
Today, actuaries use computers to figure out problems that were too difficult before.
Actuaries now work in many places. Most work for insurance companies, but others work in all kinds of finance companies. Actuaries still figure out how much money needs to be paid for life insurance, as well as other kinds of money promises, like pensions, car insurance, house insurance, and similar.
Actuaries also work with companies to figure out if making certain business deals are a good idea, since actuaries work with figuring out what the probabilities are of different business situations happening.
People who want to be actuaries need to take many tests. The tests are not the same in different parts of the world.
Thesaurus
A thesaurus is a dictionary of synonyms (words that have the same or similar meaning). Thesauruses (or thesauri) often include related words that mean almost the same thing. Some thesauruses also include antonyms (words that have the opposite meaning).
For example, by looking up the word "big" in a thesaurus, someone would find a list of other similar words such as "huge" and "massive". If the thesaurus also has a list of antonyms, the user could also find words which mean the opposite, like "small" and "tiny".
Many students and writers use a thesaurus to help them find words when they are writing. Using a thesaurus can help a person to improve their vocabulary (the number of words that they know).
Boom
A boom can mean different things:
Rumble
Rumble can mean different things:
Bass (fish)
Bass is the name of some species (types) of fish that are often caught for food or sport. There are freshwater bass (that live in rivers and lakes) and saltwater bass (that live in the ocean). Many bass live in or near North America. Bass are from the order of Perciformes or "perch-like fish". Their name comes from the word for perch.
Some well-known bass species are:
Many other species are also called basses, such as:
Roxette
Roxette is a Swedish pop music group formed in 1986. The band had 2 members, Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson. Their song "It Must Have Been Love" was one of the most sold singles by the duo. It was released first as a Christmas song in 1987 and then as an "ordinary song" in 1990. In 1991, Roxette release the very popular album "Joyride". For this album, they went on tour worldwide, playing 107 concerts. "The Look" and "Listen To Your Heart", are other popular songs by Roxette. They are very popular in South America and Europe.
They had released 8 studio albums and 9 compilation albums. One album, "Baladas En Español", was sung in Spanish.
The band ended in December 2019 after Fredriksson died of brain cancer.
Hindu scripture
The Hindu scriptures are a number of books and other texts which tell about Hinduism and Hindu mythology. They are sacred literature for Hindus. Important Hindu scriptures include the following:
Two epics (very important pieces), the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, are also important Hindu scriptures.
All above sacred literature or scriptures are written in Sanskrit language.
Besides the above, there are several other works that are sacred literature of Hindus. Many of them are written in other languages of India such as Tamil and Hindi.
Aum
Om (also spelled Aum), is the most sacred symbol in Hinduism. Hindu scriptures tell many things about this symbol. In Hinduism, Om is like calling god's name towards you. This name is generally said three times, before chanting any prayers. Om is usually related to the Hindu God Shiva, who is the destroyer god.
Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island (Norfuk: Norfuk Ailen) is a territory of Australia. It is in the South Pacific Ocean between Australia, New Zealand, and New Caledonia. It was one of the first British settlements in the Pacific. Twice it was used as a penal colony. People from Pitcairn Island were moved to Norfolk Island. It is now a popular place for holidays.