Asia

Asia is the world's biggest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area (or 29.4% of its land area) and, with almost 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's present human population.

Chiefly in the eastern and northern hemispheres, Asia is conventionally defined as part of the landmass of Africa-Eurasia – with the western portion of the latter occupied by Europe – lying east of the Suez Canal, east of the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and Black Seas. It is surrounded to the east by the Pacific Ocean, to the south by the Indian Ocean, and to the north by the Arctic Ocean.
Given its size and diversity, Asia – a toponym dating back to classical antiquity – is more a cultural concept incorporating a number of regions and peoples than a homogeneous, physical entity.

Apple Computer

Apple Computer, Inc. NASDAQ: AAPL is a Silicon Valley company based in Cupertino, California, whose core trade is computer technologies. Apple helped start the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II microcomputer and has since further shaped it with the Macintosh. Apple is known for its innovative, well-designed hardware, such as the iPod and iMac, as well as software offerings exemplified through iTunes as part of the iLife suite and Mac OS X, its flagship operating system.

They were hand-built in Jobs' parents' garage, and it was first shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club. Fifty units were sold to The Byte Shop at $500 each. In 1977 Apple released the Apple II; it was accessible to the public at the first West Coast Computer Faire on April 16 and 17, 1977. By the 1980s, Apple faced rising competition in the personal computing business due to IBM's open hardware standard created with the IBM PC, which bundled Microsoft's MS-DOS. As a result Apple released the Apple III, a large failure for the company, and in 1983 released their second attempt at a business-oriented computer, the Apple Lisa.

The Apple Macintosh was launched in 1984 with a now prominent Super Bowl advertisement based on George Orwell's novel 1984, declaring, "On January 24, Apple Computer will launch Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984'" — the implication being that the Mac's new, "user friendly" graphical user interface would revolutionize and liberate computing and information from the elite of large corporations and technocrats. Macintosh also spawned the concept of Mac evangelism which was pioneered by Apple employee, and later Apple Fellow, Guy Kawasaki.

Vegetable

Vegetable is a culinary term which usually refers to an edible part of a plant. The definition is traditional rather than scientific and is somewhat capricious and subjective. All parts of herbaceous plants eaten as food by humans, entire or in part, are normally considered vegetables. Mushrooms, though belonging to the biological realm fungi, are also commonly considered vegetables. In general, vegetables are thought of as being savory, and not sweet, even though there are many exceptions. Nuts, grains, herbs, spices and culinary fruits (see below) are usually not considered vegetables.