Leyte is an island in the Visayas group of islands in the Philippines. It is the seventh largest island in the Philippines by land area; the island was known to 16th-century Spanish explorers as Tandaya. Its population grew after 1900 in the Leyte and Ormoc valleys. In World War II, U. S. forces landed on Leyte, after the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Japanese were expelled. Since the accessibility of land has been depleted, Leyte has provided countless number of migrants to Mindanao. Most inhabitants are farmers. Fishing is a supplementary activity. Rice and corn are the main food crops. There are some manganese deposits, sandstone and limestone are quarried in the northwest. Politically, the island is divided into two provinces: Southern Leyte. Territorially, Southern Leyte includes the island of Panaon to its south. To the north of Leyte is the island province of Biliran, a former sub-province of Leyte; the major cities of Leyte are Tacloban, on the eastern shore at the northwest corner of Leyte Gulf, Ormoc, on the west coast.

The island was once the location of Mairete, a historic community, ruled by Datu Ete. Before being colonized by Spain, the island was once home to indigenous animist Warays to the east and other indigenous animist Visayan groups to the west. Leyte today is notable for the geothermal electric power plants near Ormoc. However, Leyte is most famous for its role in the reconquest of the Philippines in World War II. On 20 October 1944, General Douglas MacArthur waded ashore on Leyte, saying, "I have returned", but the Japanese did not give up so as the ensuing Battle of Leyte proved; the convergence of naval forces resulted in the four-day Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history. The island measures about 65 kilometres at its widest point. In the north it nearly joins the island of Samar, separated by the San Juanico Strait, which becomes as narrow as 2 kilometres in some places; the island province of Biliran is to the north of Leyte and is joined to Leyte island by a bridge across the narrow Biliran Strait.

To the south, Leyte is separated from Mindanao by the Surigao Strait. To the east, Leyte is somewhat "set back" from the Philippine Sea of the Pacific Ocean, Samar to the northeast and the Dinagat Islands to the southeast forming the Leyte Gulf. To the west is the Camotes Sea. Leyte is heavily forested and mountainous, but the Leyte Valley in the northeast has much agriculture; the Leyte provincial capitol is the seat of the provincial government where there is a mural depicting the First Mass in the Philippines, believed to have happened in Limasawa, the landing of General Douglas MacArthur. The MacArthur Landing Memorial National Park in Red Beach, marks the 1944 landing by the American liberation forces, it has a lagoon where a life-sized statue of Gen. MacArthur stands. Lake Danao is a violin-shaped lake hemmed by cloud-capped mountain ranges. Kalanggaman Island in Palompon, Leyte is a virgin island with pure white sand; the ecological atmosphere of the island had been preserved by the municipality.

The Sto. Nino Shrine and Heritage Museum boasts the painting of the fourteen stations of the cross done by Filipino artists and a bas-relief of the legend of the first Filipino man and woman; the San Juanico Bridge is the longest bridge in the Philippines. Leyte Island is the birthplace of the Tinikling dance, popular throughout the Philippines. On Friday, 8 November 2013, Super Typhoon Yolanda destroyed 70-80% of the structures in its path on Leyte province. An estimated 10,000 people up to 620,000 people were displaced across the region. Leyte Tide Embankment Project was conceptualized as part of the program on rehabilitation from the aftermath of the strongest typhoon, to build safer cities/communities; the flood control shall cover a length of about 27.3 kilometers stretching from the shoreline of Barangay Diit, Tacloban City passing through the entire shoreline of the Municipality of Palo and ending up to Barangay Ambao of Tanauan, Leyte. The 1959 Japanese film Nobi, though filmed in Japan, is set in Leyte in 1945.

The film was remade in 2014 under the same name. Media related to Leyte at Wikimedia Commons Leyte Island travel guide from Wikivoyage Leyte Island - TA.com

Michael Verdu is a video game executive and entrepreneur. Verdu is best known for his tenure as Zynga's Chief Creative Officer, for co-founding Legend Entertainment with Bob Bates in 1989, for serving as Executive Producer and product lead for the PC real-time strategy games Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II at Electronic Arts. Verdu designed and produced the PC video game Mission Critical and co-designed/co-produced the PC video games Frederik Pohl's Gateway and Gateway II. In addition to his stints at Legend, EA, Zynga, Verdu served as President of Studios and Chief Creative Officer for Kabam, joining Kabam through the acquisition of TapZen in 2015, he returned to EA in 2017, is SVP of EA Mobile overseeing many of the company's mobile game studios. Verdu's career began in the U. S. defense industry when he started Paragon Systems Development Corporation in 1985 to create software for the military and sold the company to American Systems Corporation two years later.

Verdu and Bob Bates co-founded Legend Entertainment in 1989 to create PC text adventure games, filling a gap in the market left behind by the collapse of Infocom. Verdu was credited as producer on a number of Legend's games starting with the PC adventure game Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls in 1990. Verdu's first game design credit was for Frederik Pohl's Gateway in 1992, followed by Gateway II in 1993 and Mission Critical in 1995. Legend was acquired by GT Interactive in 1998. In 2002 Verdu joined Electronic Arts to work on Command & Conquer: Generals, taking a two level demotion from studio chief to Senior Producer, he was credited as a Senior Producer on The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth. Verdu took over the EA RTS business in 2005 and led the teams building The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, the expansion pack The Rise of the Witch King, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, the C&C3 expansion pack Kane's Wrath, he became General Manager of the EA Los Angeles in 2007.

Verdu jumped from EA to Zynga in 2009 as VP of Games. During his three-and-a-half year tenure at Zynga, he rose to President of External Studios and became the company's Chief Creative Officer, he oversaw the development and operations of Zynga Facebook games including FrontierVille, CastleVille, Empires & Allies. In 2012 Verdu left Zynga to start his own mobile gaming company TapZen, Inc.. TapZen released the mobile game This Means WAR! in early 2014 and was subsequently acquired by Kabam in 2015. Verdu served as President of Chief Creative Officer at Kabam. In 2017 Verdu went back to EA as SVP of EA Mobile, with responsibility for several EA mobile game studios including Capital Games, TrackTwenty, PopCap, Red Crow

A Hegman gauge, sometimes referred to as a grind gauge, grind gage, or grindometer, is an instrument which indicates the fineness of grind or the presence of coarse particles and agglomeration in a dispersion. It is used to determine how finely ground the particles of pigment dispersed in a sample of paint are; this is important because many types of solid materials must be ground into finer particles in order to be dispersed in liquids. The resulting properties of the dispersion vary based on the size of individual particles and the degree which they are dispersed; the Hegman gauge consists of a steel block with a series of small parallel grooves machined into it. The grooves decrease in depth from one end of the block to the other, according to a scale stamped next to them. A typical Hegman gauge is 170mm by 65mm by 15mm, with a channel of grooves running lengthwise, 12.5mm across and narrowing uniformly in depth from 100 μm to zero and used to determine particle size. A Hegman gauge is used by puddling a sample of paint at the deep end of the gauge and drawing the paint down with a flat edge along the grooves.

The paint fills the grooves, the location where a regular, significant "pepperyness" in the appearance of the coating appears, marks the coarsest-ground dispersed particles. This is the point where oversized particles start to appear in high density and determines the rating for that material; the reading is taken from the scale marked next to the grooves, in dimensionless "Hegman units" and/or mils or micrometres. Hegman units are defined in terms of an inverted size scale as shown below: A lesser-used scale, North, is occasionally employed in the paint industry. Like the Hegman scale, this is inverted compared to the value in microns: Determining the fineness of a paint's grind is important, because too coarse a grind may reduce the paint's color uniformity and opacity; the Hegman gauge is used for this purpose because it requires minimal skill and only a few seconds' work. Grind gauges are used including. In all of these fields, grind gauges are utilized to produce and apply dispersion products.

Hegman gauges are available in the following ranges: 0 to 100 micrometres, 0 to 50 micrometres, 0 to 25 micrometres, 0 to 15 micrometres, 0 to 10 micrometres. Koleske. Paint and coating testing manual: fourteenth edition of the Gardner-Sward handbook. ASTM. ISBN 0-8031-2060-5