Wednesday, October 30, 2019

U choose a topic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

U choose a topic - Essay Example Advantages and Disadvantages of Specialization in U.S Firms Specialization is incorporating workers to do specific roles and tasks in their daily activities in a business establishment (Morroni 45). This is done with the aim of realizing maximum output hence maximum profits. There are various merits that may accompany specialized job designs if incorporated by United States of America Firms. Specialization saves a lot of time for both the business establishment and the workers. An employee does not waste time because they do not keep moving from one task to another since they are used to one process. As an employee continues to work on one process, they learn to perform their tasks faster, hence saving a lot of time. Specialization is also advantageous since firm will spend less in training. For example, if Firms such as General Motors incorporate specialization employees will be used to performing specific tasks hence they will perfect their skill requiring no training. On disadvant age that might face United State of America firms in the automobile industry is that it results in increased cost for the firms. The firm has to employ many workers to carry out the various specific duties in the business establishment which will result in the firms incurring a lot of operation costs hence reducing their profits. Specialization may also lead to employee demotivation hence reducing the firm’s income. ... is a long chain of command, and as the company grows so does management while a flat organization structure is where there are few levels of management where every level of management controls a huge group of workers (Jain p29). A tradition United States of America firm usually employs the tall organization structure. By analyzing the organization structure of automobile firms such as General Motors, one can see how traditional united States of America firm use tall organization structure. Management in such firms is designed in a way that there is a lot of hierarchies like in the military. There is superior management, which runs down vertically depending on the size of the firm. Characteristics that accompany this structure is that there is minimal relationship between the management of the firm and its workers. This causes problems in the company since employees are not able to relate freely with their supervisors. On the other hand, flat organization structure is applied in Japan ese firms. For example, Honda has put up a plant in Ohio U.S.A where t use non traditional methods of management where employees are allowed to question their managers or supervisors during their daily operations in the firm (384). This organization structure is beneficial to such companies since it allows for innovation since employees are free to do what is best for the company. This model allows for employee motivation of employees since they feel they are part of the organization since they relate to managers and supervisors as team leaders hence they do not have the fear that comes with a management style that represents authority. Culture and Relationship Coordination Japanese firms such as Toyota use relationship and relationship as a coordination mechanism to ensure that the firm

Monday, October 28, 2019

Start of experiment Heat Essay Example for Free

Start of experiment Heat Essay Prediction I predict that whenever there is a temperature difference , ehat energy will be transferred by conduction, convection or radiation fro the hotter to the cooler place. This increases the internal enrgy , which is the sum of the kinetic energy and the molecular potential energy of each molecule in an object, of the cooler atoms raising the temperature , and dreases the energy of the hotter atoms , lowering theirs. It continues until the temperature is the same across the region. Conductivity or thermal conductivity is a measure of how good a conductor a material is. The rate of heat energy transfer through an object depends on the conductivity of the material and the temperature gradient. Temperature = t2 -t Gradient X t1, t2+ temps at point 1 and 2 X=distance This is the temperature change with distance along the material . The higher the conductivity and the steeper the gradient, the faster the energy transfer. Heat transfer to polystyrene cup Convection is a way in which heat energy is transferred in liquids and gases. If a liquid or a gas is heated it expands, becomes less dense and rises. Cooler, denser liquid or gas then sinks to take its place. Thus convection current is set up. Coastal breezes used to explain convection currents We use leslies cube in my preliminary work to measure radiation, radiation is a way in which heat energy is transferred from a hotter to a cooler place without the medium, ehich is any substance through which a physical effect is transmitted. This can occur through a vacuum unlike the other two forms of heat transfer. Leslies cube is used to compare powers of radiation We did our own test with the Leslie cube in class here are our results. Start of experiment Heat lost during experiment. Matt black 92 degrees 34 degrees 68 degrees 26 degrees Shiny black 92 degrees 32 degrees 68 degrees 23 degrees Shiny white 92 degrees 29 degrees 68 degrees 19 degrees These results sow that the side, which retains the most heat radiation energy, is the shiny white side and then the shiny black and then the matt black. This is why we will be using a shiny white polystyrene cup for the actual and preliminary work. Factors which affect different types of heat flow are, with radiation and conduction the type of material it is trying to transfer its heat energy to. This is because they all have different atom arrangements which affects how well they are able to conduct heat energy, e. g. Metal conduct heat better than stone does. Convection can be affected by what types of material it is convecting through . e. g. Oil would convect differently with water. Different gases would also be differenyt and affect the rate of convection. To help make the table clearer and to finalise the actual test I decided to do some preliminary testing which would help me to understand things like if the cup I am using would work better with or without a lid. Equipment used Polstyrene cup,thermometer, card board lid ( second test only ),kettle , stop watch and measuring cylinder. I measured out 100cm cubed of water , made sure that the thermometer was at the correct temperature therefore making sure that the water was. I used a polystyrene cup with out a lid on in my first test and with a lid on in my second, this was to see if I would get better results with or without it. These are the rwaults which I gained. Heat energy lost Heat energy lost With out lid With out lid With lid With lid 70 degrees and above 25. 5 degrees. Average 21. 33 degrees 18. 0 degrees Average 18. 0 degrees 16. 0 degrees 18. 5 degrees 22. 5 degrees 17. 5 degrees 50 degrees and above 8. 0 degrees Average 17. 25 degrees 10. 0 degrees Average 10. 5 degrees 10 degrees 10. 0 degrees 16. 5 degrees 11 degrees 30 degrees and above 8. 0 degrees Average 7. 33 degrees 5. 5 degrees Average 5. 5 degrees 11. 0 degrees 5. 0 degrees 3. 0 degrees 6. 0 degrees From this chart you can see that without the cardboard lid the results atre very random and this means that the heat is able to fluctuate greatly as you can tell from my results. I have therefore decided to have a lid on the cup as the results with the lid on seem a lot more constant and the heat isnt allowed to fluctuate as much. I suspect that I will find that heat energy will be lost mostly conductivity and convection rather than radiation as I have tried to reduce the effects of this to as little as possible . For my acual test I will change the integers at which heat is lost from e. g. instead of going 70 degrees and above to 50 degrees and above I will try to have exactly 70 degrees and exactly 65degrees, I will then be able to draw more accurate results from this.

Saturday, October 26, 2019

The Reality of Reality Television Essay -- Media Reality Television Pa

The Reality of Reality Television "The winner of the first Survivor competition is...Rich." It was the name heard 'round the country the night of August 23, 2000, as 51 million television viewers tuned in to the finale of Survivor. The questions, the predictions, the bets, and the reality rested on that one name. For three months, America watched and wondered. Who could it be? Who is the ultimate survivor? With the unveiling of that single, now infamous, name, you could almost feel the country erupt with emotion. The collective gasp of the shocked was shrouded by the cheers and hollers of all the Richard Hatch fans scattered across the country's living rooms and sports bars. But just how real is this reality tv? The idea of a "reality tv" show was first presented by MTV in the early 90's. The concept of the show was to place seven strangers in a common house for six months, all the while recording their social interactions. The intention was to observe the social dynamic and development of the housemates as they (according to the show's opening slogan) "stop acting polite and start getting real." The Real World debut was a major success for the network, especially in attracting a large teenage audience. Set in New York City, the show thrived by airing the housemates adventures both in and out of the house. From downtown raves to bedroom battles to intimate encounters, every move the housemates made was seen by the curious eyes of the American public. The Real World, now in its 10th season, has become a mainstay for the MTV network. Changing cities each season, the show constantly explores the issues and problems that young people face in today's society. In this way, the show tends to reach only a sp... ...F? Who Wants to Divorce Their Ungrateful Spouse? Survivor: In Space? Well, once again I am shocked by the newspaper headlines. Released to the press (I kid you not) on September 12, 2000: "NBC strikes deal for 'Survivor' show in space." How on earth could that possibly happen? How real can that actually be? I'm sure they have it all figured out. We instead should ask ourselves, does the degree of reality determine the quality of the entertainment? Maybe a better question is, should the degree of reality determine the quality of the entertainment? The decision lies in the viewer's hand, which grasps that all-powerful television remote. Many fates are determined by the simple click of a button. As for me, you can bet I'll be the first one watching as that lucky winner is launched into the stratosphere during the most exciting live broadcast in TV history.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Steve Jobs : Book Review

STEVE JOBS BY WALTER ISAACSON Dear all dignitaries and peers present here, Welcome to this hall, where we are all presented with the rarest opportunity on hearing about various respected and popular members of this world. On given an opportunity, I wondered what should be the theme of my speech. Should I go for the Nobel laureates or the most popular figurines or people who changed this world? Nobel laureates are historic, and popular people as noted are already quite popular. So, let’s hear about a person who changed the way we look at technology now. The way he drove a multibillion dollar company, the way he became a symbol of youth GOD!Yes, I’m here to talk about the authorised biography, the i-bio of the master, STEVE JOBS by Walter Isaacson. ‘Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography' was one of the most eagerly awaited books of the year 2011. The book is a journey into the life of a legend who revolutionized the way people saw technology. Walter Issacson brings to life, the innovator, the dreamer and the devil within Steve Jobs. An absolutely must read! In my mind the sole purpose of reading non-fiction is to learn, and if you learn something, by definition you will be changed. So, what did I learn from this book? 1.I have a better understanding of Apple products and understand why they enjoy premium pricing. 2. Jobs ability to focus on only 2-3 things at once with absolute intensity. I, like many, have too many interests and hobbies and could benefit from a tighter focus on just a few. 3. Jobs was able to get the most from his employees, but sometimes with tactics that I wouldn’t be comfortable using, including intimidation and tearing down of others. 4. His goal was to surround himself with  Grade A minds. Surrounding yourself with the best is not a bad motto. 5. Life is short-treat time with your family as if you are aware of your short time on earth.So, How does the author portray the genius Was he unbiased? Well, to the authorà ¢â‚¬â„¢s credit, Walter Issacson  is a biographer and a writer. He is also the director of Aspen Institute and has been the Managing Editor of TIME. Issacson has previously written the biographies of Henry Kissinger and Albert Einstein. As a  biographer of Albert Einstein  and Benjamin Franklin, Mr. Isaacson knows how to explicate and celebrate genius: revered, long-dead genius. But he wrote â€Å"Steve Jobs† as its subject was mortally ill, and that is a more painful and delicate challenge. He had access to members of the Jobs family at a difficult time.Mr. Isaacson treats â€Å"Steve Jobs† as the biography of record, which means that it is a strange book to read so soon after its subject’s death. Some of it is an essential Silicon Valley chronicle, compiling stories well known to tech aficionados but interesting to a broad audience. Some of it is already quaint. Mr. Jobs’s first job was at Atari, and it involved the game Pong. (â€Å"If youâ€⠄¢re under 30, ask your parents,† Mr. Isaacson writes. ) Some, like an account of the release of the  iPad  2, is so recent that it is hard to appreciate yet, even if Mr. Isaacson says the device comes to life â€Å"like the face of a tickled baby.    And some is definitely intended for future generations. â€Å"Indeed,† Mr. Isaacson writes, â€Å"its success came not just from the beauty of the hardware but from the applications, known as apps, that allowed you to indulge in all sorts of delightful activities. † One that he mentions, which will be as quaint as Pong some day, features the use of a slingshot to launch angry birds to destroy pigs and their fortresses. So â€Å"Steve Jobs,† an account of its subject’s 56 years (he died on Oct. 5), must reach across time in more ways than one. And it does, in a well-ordered, if not streamlined, fashion.It begins with a portrait of the young Mr. Jobs, rebellious toward the parents who raised him a nd scornful of the ones who gave him up for adoption. (â€Å"They were my sperm and egg bank,† he says. ) Although Mr. Isaacson is not analytical about his subject’s volatile personality (the word â€Å"obnoxious† figures in the book frequently), he raises the question of whether feelings of abandonment in childhood made him fanatically controlling and manipulative as an adult. Fortunately, that glib question stays unanswered. As far as the making of the book, that in itself is a wondrous story.During the summer of 2009, Walter Isaacson got a phone call from Steve Jobs. It so turned out that Jobs wanted Isaacson to write a biography of him. After  Steve Jobs  anointed  Walter Isaacson  as his authorized biographer in 2009, he took Mr. Isaacson to see the Mountain View, California, house in which he had lived as a boy. He pointed out its â€Å"clean design† and â€Å"awesome little features. † He praised the developer, Joseph Eichler, who bu ilt more than 11,000 homes in California subdivisions, for making an affordable product on a mass-market scale. And he showed Mr.Isaacson the stockade fence built 50 years earlier by his father, Paul Jobs. â€Å"He loved doing things right,† Mr. Jobs said. â€Å"He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn’t see. † Mr. Jobs, the brilliant and protean creator whose inventions so utterly transformed the allure of technology, turned those childhood lessons into an all-purpose theory of intelligent design. He gave Mr. Isaacson a chance to play by the same rules. His story calls for a book that is clear, elegant and concise enough to qualify as an iBio. Mr. Isaacson’s â€Å"Steve Jobs† does its solid best to hit that target.Mr. Jobs promised not to look over Mr. Isaacson’s shoulder, and not to meddle with anything but the book’s cover. (Boy, does it look great. ) Steve Jobs asked for no right to read it before it was published and had no control over what was being written before it was published. He also encouraged people to speak honestly. In the book Jobs sometimes speaks brutally and candidly about the people he worked along with and also his competitors. And he expressed approval that the book would not be entirely flattering. But his legacy was at stake. And there were awkward questions to be asked.At the end of the volume, Mr. Jobs answers the question â€Å"What drove me? † by discussing himself in the past tense. His friends, colleagues and foes offer an unparalleled view of the perfectionism, passion, artistry, obsessions, compulsions and devilry that shaped his approach to the innovative products and business that resulted. Within hours of Steve Jobs's death in October, impromptu shrines began to appear outside Apple Stores – flowers, half-eaten apples and iPhones and iPads with images of flickering candles. The man whose company had always attracted a cult following was fast becoming a saint.But, no more than a day later, the backlash began. Jobs was not a saint or even a genius, just, in the words of AN Wilson, ‘a clever backroom boy who got lucky'. What Walter Isaacson's masterful biography reveals is that both the true believers and the cynics got Jobs wrong. In a warts-and-all portrait that continually had this reader recoiling in disgust at the petulant pioneer's behaviour, he shows that Apple's co-founder was very far from being a saint. As a teenager, he browbeats his kindly parents into sending him to a college they cannot afford – then drops out after a year. After teaming up with the rilliant but naive engineer Steve Wozniak he cheats him out of his share of a bonus they get for designing a game. ‘Ethics matter to me,' the always tolerant Wozniak tells the author, ‘but, you know, people are different. ‘ And as a tyrannical leader, he is either screaming at Apple staff about their appalling inadequacies or stealing their ideas and taking the credit for them before an adoring public. Throughout, we see the cranky food habits, the misguided belief that a fruit diet means you only need to shower once a week and an almost wilful disregard for the feelings of others, including those of his family.But, hey, Henry Ford was not the world's nicest man and Thomas Edison was apparently a ruthless egomaniac. Those who aspire to change the world are almost always difficult people, and Isaacson, while obeying the instructions of Jobs's wife not to whitewash his life, presents a compelling case for his genius. Yes, he was a magpie, snatching the idea for the graphical user interface from Xerox Parc, the iPod concept from other MP3 players, the iPad from Microsoft's tablet computer. But, as he said: ‘Picasso had a saying – â€Å"good artists copy, great artists steal† – and we've always been shameless about stealing great ideas. It was what he did with those ideas that proved his genius f or spotting where technology might head next and shaping it to his will. The perfectionism meant driving his executives to distraction with constant demands for tiny adjustments – a different font, a paler shade of green – before anything could be shipped. Jobs was not a quarter the engineer that Wozniak was or as gifted artistically as Jony Ive, the designer whose close but somewhat tortured relationship with his boss is an interesting subplot in the latter half of the book.But his creative imagination changed a series of industries – computers, mobile phones, music and, with Pixar, the movie business. His greatest creation, though, was Apple itself, a company that always wanted to be about more than technology. ‘It is in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough,' he said at the unveiling of the iPad 2. ‘We believe that it's technology married with the humanities that makes our hearts sing. ‘ Cynics would say that it has been not the hu manities or the arts but a ruthless attention to marketing and margins that has enabled Apple to put more than $70bn in the bank.But the Jobs strategy of management remained pretty constant throughout his career, and it was always centred on product not profit. At its core was complete control over hardware and software and of every stage of the product's life cycle, from conception through to the retailer. We see that strategy triumph as early Apple products define home computing, then fail as Microsoft's rival philosophy of licensing its software prevails. Then in 1996, with Apple on the ropes, its co-founder returns.This amazing book takes you on a rollercoaster ride into the ferociously intense personality of a passionate and creative entrepreneur whose powerful drive and vision revolutionized six industries: music, personal computers, phones, animated movies, digital publishing and tablet computing. Steve Jobs also re-imagined and tried to revamp retail stores, but it did not t urn out to be as revolutionary. Instead, he paved the way for an entirely new market for app based digital content. This is a book that's mainly about innovation.Steve Jobs stands tall as the sole icon of imagination, sustained innovation and inventiveness. His vision was very clear; if you want to create value in the industry, connect technology with creativity. A company called Apple was built on this vision, which changed the entire face of technology with its imagination blended with remarkable feats of engineering. Often driven by his demons, Jobs could make those around him lurch in despair and fury. His products and personality were interrelated and his life was cautionary and instructive at the same time.Apple's rise to that position has been characterised by a management style that is now right out of fashion – the egomaniac CEO, the obsessive secrecy, the total disregard for market research, the suspicion of collaborative ventures. Walter Isaacson has written an ent hralling history of the birth of our modern digital world and the company that may have done more than any other to shape it. And, in his obnoxious, smelly, ranting, impatient, intuitive, creative and inspirational Steve Jobs, he has presented us with the greatest business genius of the past 30 years. Mr.Jobs, who founded  Apple  with Stephen Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976, began his career as a seemingly contradictory blend of hippie truth seeker and tech-savvy hothead. â€Å"His Zen awareness was not accompanied by an excess of calm, peace of mind or interpersonal mellowness,† Mr. Isaacson says. â€Å"He could stun an unsuspecting victim with an emotional towel-snap, perfectly aimed,† he also writes. But Mr. Jobs valued simplicity, utility and beauty in ways that would shape his creative imagination. And the book maintains that those goals would not have been achievable in the great parade of Apple creations without that mean streak.Mr. Isaacson takes his reade rs back to the time when laptops, desktops and windows were metaphors, not everyday realities. His book ticks off how each of the Apple innovations that we now take for granted first occurred to Mr. Jobs or his creative team. â€Å"Steve Jobs† means to be the authoritative book about those achievements, and it also follows Mr. Jobs into the wilderness (and to NeXT and Pixar) after his first stint at Apple, which ended in 1985. With an avid interest in corporate intrigue, it skewers Mr. Jobs’s rivals, like John Sculley, who was recruited in 1983 to be Apple’s chief executive and fell for Mr.Jobs’s deceptive show of friendship. â€Å"They professed their fondness so effusively and often that they sounded like high school sweethearts at a Hallmark card display,† Mr. Isaacson writes. Of course the book also tracks Mr. Jobs’s long and combative rivalry with Bill Gates. The section devoted to Mr. Jobs’s illness, which suggests that his canc er might have been more treatable  had he not resisted early surgery,  describes the relative tenderness of their last meeting. â€Å"Steve Jobs† greatly admires its subject. But its most adulatory passages are not about people. Offering a combination of tech criticism and promotional hype, Mr.Isaacson describes the arrival of each new product right down to Mr. Jobs’s theatrical introductions and the advertising campaigns. But if the individual bits of hoopla seem excessive, their cumulative effect is staggering. Here is an encyclopedic survey of all that Mr. Jobs accomplished, replete with the passion and excitement that it deserves. Mr. Jobs’s virtual reinvention of the music business with iTunes and the  iPod, for instance, is made to seem all the more miraculous (â€Å"He’s got a turn-key solution,† the music executive Jimmy Iovine said. ) Mr. Isaacson’s long view basically puts Mr.Jobs up there with Franklin and Einstein, even if a tiny MP3 player is not quite the theory of relativity. The book emphasizes how deceptively effortless Mr. Jobs’s ideas now seem because of their extreme intuitiveness and foresight. When Mr. Jobs, who personally persuaded musician after musician to accept the iTunes model, approached Wynton Marsalis, Mr. Marsalis was rightly more impressed with Mr. Jobs than with the device he was being shown. Mr. Jobs’s love of music plays a big role in â€Å"Steve Jobs,† like his extreme obsession with Bob Dylan. (Like Mr. Dylan, he had a romance with Joan Baez.Her version of Mr. Dylan’s â€Å"Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word† was on Mr. Jobs’s own iPod. ) So does his extraordinary way of perceiving ordinary things, like well-made knives and kitchen appliances. That he admired the Cuisinart food processor he saw at Macy’s may sound trivial, but his subsequent idea that a molded plastic covering might work well on a computer does not. Years from now , the research trip to a jelly bean factory to study potential colors for the  iMac  case will not seem as silly as it might now. Skeptic after skeptic made the mistake of underrating Steve Jobs, and Mr.Isaacson records the howlers who misjudged an unrivaled career. â€Å"Sorry Steve, Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work,† Business Week wrote in a 2001 headline. â€Å"The iPod will likely become a niche product,† a Harvard Business School professor said. â€Å"High tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product,† Mr. Sculley said in 1987. Mr. Jobs got the last laugh every time. â€Å"Steve Jobs† makes it all the sadder that his last laugh is over. Perhaps the funniest passage in Walter Isaacson's monumental book about  Steve Jobs  comes three quarters of the way through.It is 2009 and Jobs is recovering from a liver transplant and pneumonia. At one point the pulmonologist tries to put a mask over his face when he is deeply s edated. Jobs rips it off and mumbles that he hates the design and refuses to wear it. Though barely able to speak, he orders them to bring five different options for the mask so that he can pick a design he likes. Even in the depths of his hallucinations, Jobs was a control-freak and a rude sod to boot. Imagine what he was like in the pink of health. As it happens, you don't need to: every discoverable fact about how Jobs, ahem, coaxed excellence from his co-workers is here.As Isaacson makes clear, Jobs wasn't a visionary or even a particularly talented electronic engineer. But he was a businessman of astonishing flair and focus, a marketing genius, and – when he was getting it right, which wasn't always – had an intuitive sense of what the customer would want before the customer had any idea. He was obsessed with the products, rather than with the money: happily, as he discovered, if you get the products right, the money will come. Isaacson's book is studded with mome nts that make you go â€Å"wow†. There's the  Apple  flotation, which made the 25-year-old Jobs $256m in the days when that was a lot of money.There's his turnaround of the company after he returned as CEO in 1997: in the previous fiscal year the company lost $1. 04bn, but he returned it to profit in his first quarter. There's the  launch of the iTunes store: expected to sell a million songs in six months, it sold a million songs in six days. When  Jobs died, iShrines popped up all over the place, personal tributes filled Facebook and his quotable wisdom – management-consultant banalities, for the most part – was passed from inbox to inbox. Thisbiography  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ commissioned by Jobs and informed by hours and hours of interviews with him – is designed to serve the cult.That's by no means to say that it's a snow-job: Isaacson is all over Jobs's personal shortcomings and occasional business bungles, and Jobs sought no copy approval (though, typic ally, he got worked up over the cover design). But its sheer bulk bespeaks a sort of reverence, and it's clear from the way it's put together that there's not much Jobs did that Isaacson doesn't regard as vital to the historical record. We get a whole chapter on one cheesy ad (â€Å"Think Different†). We get half a page on how Jobs went about choosing a washing machine – itself lifted from an interview Jobs, bizarrely, gave on the subject to  Wired.Want to know the patent number for the box an iPod Nano comes in? It's right there on page 347. Similarly, the empty vocabulary of corporate PR sometimes seeps into Isaacson's prose, as exemplified by the recurrence of the word â€Å"passion†. There's a lot of passion in this book. Steve's â€Å"passion for perfection†, â€Å"passion for industrial design†, â€Å"passion for awesome products† and so on. If I'd been reading this on an  iPad, the temptation to search-and-replace â€Å"passionâ €  to â€Å"turnip† or â€Å"erection† would have been overwhelming.Isaacson writes dutiful, lumbering American news-mag journalese and suffers – as did Jobs himself – from a lack of sense of proportion. Chapter headings evoke Icarus and Prometheus. The one on the Apple II is subtitled â€Å"Dawn of a New Age†, the one on Jobs's return to Apple is called â€Å"The Second Coming†, and when writing about the origins of Apple's graphical user interface (Jobs pinched the idea from Xerox), Isaacson writes with splendid bathos: â€Å"There falls a [sic] shadow, as TS Eliot noted, between the conception and the creation. † But get past all that pomp and there's much to enjoy.Did you know that the Apple Macintosh was nearly called the Apple Bicycle? Or that so obsessed was Jobs with designing swanky-looking factories (white walls, brightly coloured machines) that he kept breaking the machines by painting them – for example bright bl ue? As well as being a sort-of-genius, Jobs was a truly weird man. As a young man, he was once put on the night-shift so co-workers wouldn't have to endure his BO. Jobs was convinced his vegan diet meant he didn't need to wear deodorant or shower more than once a week. His on-off veganism was allied to cranky theories about health.When he rebuked the chairman of Lotus Software for spreading butter on his toast â€Å"Have you ever heard of serum cholesterol? â€Å", the man responded: â€Å"I'll make you a deal. You stay away from commenting on my dietary habits, and I will stay away from the subject of your personality. † That personality. An ex-girlfriend – and one, it should be said, who was very fond of him – told Isaacson that she thought Jobs suffered from narcissistic personality disorder. Jobs's personal life is sketchily covered, but what details there are don't charm.When he got an on/off girlfriend pregnant in his early 20s, he cut her off and aggres sively denied paternity – though he later, uncharacteristically, admitted regretting his behaviour and sought to build a relationship with his daughter. Jobs himself was adopted, and seems to have had what Americans call â€Å"issues around abandonment†. He cheated his friends out of money. He cut old colleagues out of stock options. He fired people with peremptoriness. He bullied waiters, insulted business contacts and humiliated interviewees for jobs.He lied his pants off whenever it suited him – â€Å"reality distortion field† is Isaacson's preferred phrase. Like many bullies, he was also a cry-baby. Whenever he was thwarted – not being made â€Å"Man of the Year† by Time magazine when he was 27, for instance – he burst into tears. Nowadays we are taught that being nice is the way to get on. Steve Jobs is  a  fine counter-example. In 2008, when  Fortune magazine  was on the point of running a damaging article about him, Job s summoned their managing editor to Cupertino to demand he spike the piece: â€Å"He leaned into Serwer's face and asked, ‘So, you've uncovered the fact that I'm bad.Why is that news? ‘† Well.. that’s the story. Sorry if I had given out a few spoilers on the book.. but they were essential to bring out the nature of an awesome personality! The book is well written and an easy read. To tell the story of Jobs’ complete life, the cast of characters is large. Mr Isaacson identifies the importance of those he included and what influence they had on Jobs. So, in a nut shell, this book, to use a few words from Job’s dictionary, is a ‘Must read! ’

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Single Sex Are Better For All Students Essay

Single sex schools will help students improve in a majority of things. Single sex schools are better for all students because they improve the students’ behavior, grades and health. Single sex schools are better for students because they are not surrounded by students who pick on the opposite sex constantly. The students would not have to worry about being shy because the opposite sex does not attend to the school. At certain ages, opposite sex in the same class can be a distraction. The students seem to relieve more pressure with the other gender not being there and that helps them more than people actually think. Few educators are formally trained to use gender-specific teaching technique. However, it is no secret that experienced teachers usually understand gender differences and accommodating a variety of learning styles in the mixed-gender classrooms. This is that the students actually behave with the other gender not being in the same room Educating single-sex schools limit their opportunity to work cooperatively and co-exist successfully with members of the opposite sex. Students are able to cooperate more without the opposite sex being in the same classroom. Secondly, the grades of the students are very important. The grades are important because in some cases, it could help the student get an acceptance letter to a good college. This is why students should keep grades above average and also get involved sports. Test scores would be higher and the school’s academic success would be increased by being in a single sex school. Students would stay in school rather than drop out because they feel like someone cares about their education. Single sex schools would have better connection with their students. Students would also have high class grades because they can focus more without the other gender.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Unimolecular Solvolysis essays

Unimolecular Solvolysis essays The speed that a reaction takes place is important in chemistry because it provides necessary information about reactant mechanism or the path over which reactants travel on their way to becoming products. The rate data interpretation depends on knowledge of known factors that influence rate. These factors are: The Structure of the Compound or Compounds entering the reaction. The Concentrations of the Reacting Species The Type of Solvent that the Reaction is being carried out in. Unimolecular Solvolysis or also known as SN1, is a process in organic chemistry that can show the effects of these factors. In order to understand unimolecular solvolysis, one must understand nucleophilic substitutions. Nucleophilic substitutions usually have the form shown below: Nucleophiles want to react with a carbon because opposites attract. A nucleophile is a species that is attracted to positive charges, and oftentimes it may even have a full negative charge. The leaving group draws electrons from the carbon it is attached to, it gives the carbon a partially positive charge or +, making it a candidate for nucleophilic substitution. An SN1 reaction involves both a substrate, like tert-butyl chloride and a nucleophile. Tert-butyl chloride, while being a terrible substrate for an SN2 reaction reacts well in the SN1 reaction. With the SN1 reaction, tert-butyl chloride reacts quickly with a nucleophile to form the substitution product. In the SN1 reaction, the concentration of the substrate effects the reaction rate, but changing the concentration of the nucleophile has no effect on the rate. The SN1 reaction follows the following rate equation: Rate = kr[substrate]. Because the nucleophile is not involved in the rate determining step, the concentration or the nucleophilicity of the nucleophile has no effect on the reaction rate. Thus, poor nucleophiles such as ...

Monday, October 21, 2019

Reserved Words in Java

Reserved Words in Java Reserved words are words that cannot be used as object or variable names in a Java program because theyre already used by the syntax of the Java programming language. If you ttempt to  use any of the words below as identifiers in your Java programs, youll get an error like the one below. List of Reserved Java Keywords abstract assert boolean break byte case catch char class const continue default double do else enum extends false final finally float for goto if implements import instanceof int interface long native new null package private protected public return short static strictfp super switch synchronized this throw throws transient true try void volatile while *The  strictfp  keyword was added to this list in Java Standard Edition version 1.2,  assert  in version 1.4, and  enum  in version 5.0. Even though goto and const are no longer used in the Java programming language, they still cannot be used as keywords. What Happens If You Use a Reserved Word? Lets say you try to create a new class and name it using a reserved word, like this: // you cant use finally as its a reserved word! class finally {   Ã‚  Ã‚  public static void main(String[] args) {   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  //class code..   Ã‚  Ã‚  } } Instead of compiling, the Java program will instead give the following error: expected

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Countries, Nationalities and Languages in English

Countries, Nationalities and Languages in English Sometimes people say, She speaks France. or I am from French. This is an easy mistake to make as countries, nationalities, and languages are very similar.  The chart below shows the Country, Language and Nationality of many major countries from around the world. You will also find sound files to help with correct pronunciation.   Countries and Languages are both nouns. Example - Countries Tom lives in England.Mary travelled to Japan last year.Id love to visit Turkey. Example - Languages English is spoken around the world.Mark speaks fluent Russian.I wonder if she speaks Portuguese. Important Note:  All countries and languages are always capitalized in English.   Nationalities are adjectives used to describe where a person, type of food, etc. is from. Example - Nationalities He drives a German car.We went to our favorite Japanese restaurant last week.The Swedish prime minister is coming next week. Click on the link below to hear the correct pronunciation of each group of nationalities. Each group of words are repeated twice. Important Note: Unlike other adjectives, all nationalities used as adjectives are capitalized in English. Important Notes All country names are unique. They are not similar to language or nationality names.Language and nationality names are often, but not always similar. For example: French - the language, and French the nationality are the same in the case of France.. However, English - the language, and American - the nationality are not the same in the case of The United States.All countries, languages and nationalities are always capitalized in English. This is because country, language and nationality names are proper names of countries, languages and nationalities. Pronunciation Files for the Chart Its important to learn the correct pronunciation of countries, languages and nationalities. People need to know where you are from! For help with pronunciation, click on the links below for different groupings of countries, nationalities and languages.   One SyllableEnds in ishEnds in ishEnds in ian or ean Pronunciation Chart Pronunciation File Country Language Nationality One syllable France French French Greece Greek Greek ends in -ish Britain English British Denmark Danish Danish Finland Finnish Finnish Poland Polish Polish Spain Spanish Spanish Sweden Swedish Swedish Turkey Turkish Turkish ends in -an Germany German German Mexico Spanish Mexican The United States English American ends in -ian or -ean Australia English Australian Brazil Portuguese Brazilian Egypt Arabic Egyptian Italy Italian Italian Hungary Hungarian Hungarian Korea Korean Korean Russia Russian Russian ends in -ese China Chinese Chinese Japan Japanese Japanese Portugal Portuguese Portuguese Common Mistakes People speak Dutch, but live in Holland or BelgiumPeople live in Austria, but speak German. A book written in Vienna is Austrian, but written in German.People live in Egypt, but speak Arabic.People in Rio have Brazilian customs, but speak Portuguese.  People in Quebec are Canadian, but they speak French.

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Interpretation of Hamlet Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Interpretation of Hamlet - Term Paper Example So, Hamlet becomes the object of counter revenge, Laertes seeking requital for the murder of his father. By the last act of the play, after his adventures at sea, Hamlet is utterly convinced of the rightness of his cause and necessity of killing Claudius, whom he describes as a cancer in society. He himself sees as a humble instrument of heaven, and to fail his duty in removing that cancer would be at the peril of his own soul. Hamlet ends in Victory and failure. The possibility that a man has been picked out to do a deed which society condemns but which a higher, divine authority sanctions is balanced against the possibility that Ghost led Hamlet into delusion and error, and bewildered him till he died. Shakespeare’s Hamlet falls in the category of revenge play. It is called so as he has to avenge the death of his father whom he believes, has been murdered. This seems to be confirmed by the ghost as well. Is the presence of Ghost a hallucination or reality, it could never be confirmed but ghost gives Hamlet a motive, motive to avenge for his father’s death. His father’s death is a shock to him, when he arrives home he finds his mother already married to Claudius, his uncle and assuming the Thorne. Everything appears fishy to Hamlet .He is unable to understand this fact how his own mother could haste into new marriage bed when his father’s funeral ground is still fresh .There is no one to tell him the truth he cannot trust anyone even his own mother. Hamlet has no other way to extract the truth but to feign madness. A theme is defined as a central idea, which a literary works convey. There are various themes that run in Hamlet. The first theme that is found in this work of Shakespeare is the Revenge. Hamlet is at the core a revenge tragedy. It is his desire for the vengeance that leads to his down fall. The revenge tragedy was first introduced in Greece and on Elizabethan revenge tragedies we find large influence of Seneca, a Roman P laywright. A revenge play revolves around the crime committed. The crime is essentially committed but the culprit is unpunished by the standard laws of justice. Now, someone needs to take this responsibility and when Ghost of the king confirms Hamlet about the unjust happening, Hamlet rouse up for vengeance. Another theme is the complexity of action. The action is present in every revenge play but in Hamlet it becomes intricate because the protagonist undergoes a series of thought before performing any action. He is affected by rational and emotional considerations. He thinks too ethically and he broods on the consequence of his action. But when he prefers to act he does it blindly and recklessly .His dilemma is to be or not to be (Act III, Scene II).It is this impasse that makes him a greatest tragic hero. The third theme that Hamlet deals with is the mystery of Death. Throughout the play Hamlet ponders on the idea of death. He thinks about death and the spiritual aftermath. He is so preoccupied with the entire idea that he starts thinking about his own death. He is frustrated of the world around him and ponders suicide but what stops him is this question-Is suicide legitimate in Christianity? He fears if he commits suicide then he would be condemned to eternal sufferings of the hell. His misery is that he is unable to reconcile with his father’s sudden death, his mother’s indifference and his uncle’s apathy. His sufferings are endless. Theme of corruption is

Main Themes Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Main Themes - Assignment Example The most important theme of Acuna’s book is to view the Mexican history in complete isolation and to understand their individuality that has been influenced by foreign elements but not completely dominated by them. The Spanish invasion expanded from Mexico to various parts of southwest America, including Texas. With their ever-increasing influence, the indigenous population was then relegated to the status of slaves and the changing roles women were also attributed to the reforms brought about by Spanish invaders, who slowly dominated almost every aspect of their life. The invaders exploited the resources that the region was abundantly endowed with. (Acuna, 2010) The resistance from the Natives then provides an explanation for the friction between the communities that has been reported in the subsequent years. The Mexican population has suffered from great discrimination and was vastly marginalized in the society. This is the main purpose behind Acuna’s writings that aims to highlight the fact that Mexican population once reigned over the region where they are treated more or less like second rate citizens. Acuna has tried to breakdown the misconceptions that were exploited by the colonizers to brand their race as inferiors. The chapters provide a sound historical background, but on a personal level I feel intrigued by the evolution of Mexican culture that took place as a result of these

Friday, October 18, 2019

Essay on strategy Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

On strategy - Essay Example es have been developed and researches have been conducted to explore the socioeconomic phenomena on the concrete foundations of in-depth observation and existing realities. The global corporate culture has been adopting and following the Five Factors Model presented by famous theorist and strategic analyst Michael E. Porter in 1980. The theorist submits to state that since the contemporary era experiences the state of perfect competition in the wake of tremendous technological advancement, five-factor model is vehemently supportive in developing their strategic schemes and revising them according to the fast changing market situation. â€Å"The strategic business manager seeking to develop an edge over rival firms can use this model to better understand the industry context in which the firm operates.† (learnmarketing.net) Porter has described the following five factors as the part of his strategic model: Porter views these five factors to be regulating the future of a product as well as the organisation producing the product. Porter declares competitive rivalry between the firms as the most dynamic factor, which explains that the easier the entry in a business or industry, the higher the level of competition in that business area. Since such products are similar to one another in respect of characteristics, formulae and even outlook, the probabilities of their availability are also almost one and the same. Consequently, it is also flexible for the customers and consumers to switch from one product to its rival brand. For example, KFC is offering almost the same fast food items as being produced by McDonalds; the same is the case with Coca-Cola, RC Cola and Pepsi, where only few people are brand conscious and take these drinks as the substitute of one another. Thus, consumers take advantage of such a state of affairs, and the companies have to devise innovative plans and strategies i n order to combat with the situation of perfect competition. Porter also views

Reflection Paper Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 8

Reflection Paper - Assignment Example Finally, the instructor was accommodative and ready to explain points that were challenging, and hence, the course was both educative and entertaining. There are several lessons I learned about myself. I learnt the need to set achievable goals and mark major milestones in my life. It is essential to set achievable goals, achieve the goal, and strive to achieve the next goal. I set up the goals because it is easy to succeed when one knows where they are from and where they are heading. I have learned that I am self-conscious health wise and focus on living a healthy life. In addition, I am considerably responsible at a personal level and make service an essential part of everyday life. Responsibility is essential because it enhances positive relationships with others at both a personal and a professional level. Through this, I gained new ideas and modified some of my existing concepts on leadership. I have learned that I am a credible person. There are some basic things I have learnt about leadership that have helped me hone my leadership skills. It is necessary to maintain credibility with people. Credibility ensures that followers believe in a person and believe what they say. Without credibility, it is difficult to attract honesty from other people. Although it is often a challenge to keep promises and maintain credibility, credibility is one of the qualities that confirm great leadership. At a personal level, it makes one a better person, while on a professional level, it enhance trustworthiness and improves interpersonal relationships in a work place. I plan to use the information I have gained in this course in my life. I intend to enhance my quality of life and further sharpen my skills on leadership through practical training. I will do this through working on my talents in various fields, and enhancing an identity that enables me to discover other talents. This personal development is also useful at the professional level because it can enable me

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Denial of service issues and solutions Dissertation

Denial of service issues and solutions - Dissertation Example (Chau) The real intent of those attacks is to shut down a site and not to penetrate it. Purpose may also be vandalism, extortion or social action including terrorism. (Crocker, 2007) 1.3 How DoS works The nature of DoS can be explained using Figure 1.1. In the figure, Bob is the authentic user of the system and he sends messages using the insecure Internet to the server. Darth, the attacker interfere the services offered by server and make the genuine user, Bob, invisible to server. In a normal connection, users transmit a message to the server to get authentication from the server. Then, the server returns a message to authenticate to the user as a genuine user of the system. Also, from the user side, the acknowledge message is sent back to approve the server and the connection between the user and the server is established. Figure 1.1 Denial of Service (Stallings, 2006) When a denial of service attack is taken place, the server receives several authentication requests, seemingly ca me from the authentic users, which have false return addresses. The server fails to successfully locate the user while trying to return the authentication acknowledgement. Then, the server waits so that it can authenticate the user before stopping the connection. In most DoS attacks, the attackers flood the servers with forged requests and make servers delayed. 1.4 Types and Generation of DoS Attacks Generally, there are three major classifications of DoS attacks depending on the victims targeted by attackers—users, hosts or networks though there are several types of DoS attack prevalent on Internet. US Cert advisory suggests that the three main types of DoS attacks are bandwidth, protocol and software vulnerability attacks. The major aspects that most DoS attacks are focusing on are bandwidth, CPU time and memory. Most common DoS attacks can be summarized as the following. 1.4.1 TCP SYN Flood Attack Flood type attacks are the first known form of a DoS attack and their attack ing mechanism of is quite simple – attackers send more traffic to a server than it can handle. (Georgieva, 2009) SYN Flood attack is a protocol type and exploits the weakness of TCP/IP protocol. US CERT advisory defines SYN flood as â€Å"an asymmetric resource starvation attack in which the attacker floods the victim with TCP SYN packets and the victim allocates resources to accept perceived incoming connections†. In TCP SYN flood attack, the legitimate users are ignored when the attacker initiates a TCP connection to the serve with a SYN. The victim server responds to the request with spoofed IP address and waits for ACK from the client side. Then, the connection table of the server is filled up and it neglects all new connections from legitimate users. This phenomenon can be clarified using Figure 1.2. Figure 1.2 Comparison of Normal TCP 3 ways Handshake and TCP SYN Flood attack demonstration (cisco.com) Flood type attacks are so common and powerful. Georgieva (2009 ) suggests that â€Å"even if a webmaster adds more bandwidth, this still is not a sufficient protection against a flood attack†. Because of the bandwidth insufficiency, even the normal volume of legitimate requests may appear as flood attacks. 1.4.2 Ping of Death Attack The Ping of Death or POD attack is another DoS attack with simple principle. It exploits software vulnerab

To what extent does inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) alleviate Essay

To what extent does inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) alleviate poverty in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) - Essay Example Although SSA has relatively poor economic conditions, FDI inflows has significantly risen from $5 billion to $18 billion in the year 1995 to 2005 respectively (World Bank, 2003, p.92). The FDI inflows have played significant roles in the SSA economy because it has contributed to increased world trade, which has also contributed major changes including increases in employment opportunities and economic growth. This is relevant as they are among the key determinants for poverty alleviation in the SSA economy. Many Sub-Saharan countries including Angola, Uganda, Niger and Botswana, among others, have significantly benefited from FDI inflows - many of these countries have increased their GDP per capita performance. Although poverty is still a major problem in most of the SSA countries, many of them have highly benefited from inward FDI flows; thus reducing poverty levels. Effects of Inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) In SSA Economy Positive Effects FDI flow has played significant rol es of contributing to increased technology advancement, access to new technologies, the creation of new knowledge and the transfer of existing foreign technology (Asiedu, 2006, p. 65). One of the positive effects is the increased use of technology; that has enabled the developing nations improve productivity and innovative commodities, which are of high demand in the global market. It is less costly to learn to utilise existing technology than generating a new one; thus developing nations have the potential of growing at a faster rate. However, the convergence prospective is restricted on the level of human capital in the state. This is especially labour force quality, accumulated experience, knowledge and economic ability to create new ideas. Besides, progress in education system and human capital are fundamental for adaptingoverseastechnological know-how; thus generating sustainable long-run fiscalexpansion.The significant vehicle for international technology transfer is FDI; thus multinational companies undertake significant part in controlling most of the global advanced technology. For instance, when a multinational company sets up a foreign affiliate, the associates receive some amount of proprietary technology. This may constitute the parent’s firm particular advantage, which enables the company to compete favourablywith other local industries, which have superior knowledge of consumer preferences, local markets and business practices. Therefore, this contributes to geographical diffusion of technology; thus contributing to increased technology advancement. Secondly, FDI has contributed to increased domestic employment opportunities as a result of the development of new industries, which require labour to reach its maximum potential and goal. The construction of new companies in a country is believed to improve economic welfare and the living standards of people, through the creation of domestic employment opportunities.Many scholars have attempt ed to address the way FDI plays significant and key elements in the global economy. Anyanwu (2012, p.425) argues that FDI is the

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Denial of service issues and solutions Dissertation

Denial of service issues and solutions - Dissertation Example (Chau) The real intent of those attacks is to shut down a site and not to penetrate it. Purpose may also be vandalism, extortion or social action including terrorism. (Crocker, 2007) 1.3 How DoS works The nature of DoS can be explained using Figure 1.1. In the figure, Bob is the authentic user of the system and he sends messages using the insecure Internet to the server. Darth, the attacker interfere the services offered by server and make the genuine user, Bob, invisible to server. In a normal connection, users transmit a message to the server to get authentication from the server. Then, the server returns a message to authenticate to the user as a genuine user of the system. Also, from the user side, the acknowledge message is sent back to approve the server and the connection between the user and the server is established. Figure 1.1 Denial of Service (Stallings, 2006) When a denial of service attack is taken place, the server receives several authentication requests, seemingly ca me from the authentic users, which have false return addresses. The server fails to successfully locate the user while trying to return the authentication acknowledgement. Then, the server waits so that it can authenticate the user before stopping the connection. In most DoS attacks, the attackers flood the servers with forged requests and make servers delayed. 1.4 Types and Generation of DoS Attacks Generally, there are three major classifications of DoS attacks depending on the victims targeted by attackers—users, hosts or networks though there are several types of DoS attack prevalent on Internet. US Cert advisory suggests that the three main types of DoS attacks are bandwidth, protocol and software vulnerability attacks. The major aspects that most DoS attacks are focusing on are bandwidth, CPU time and memory. Most common DoS attacks can be summarized as the following. 1.4.1 TCP SYN Flood Attack Flood type attacks are the first known form of a DoS attack and their attack ing mechanism of is quite simple – attackers send more traffic to a server than it can handle. (Georgieva, 2009) SYN Flood attack is a protocol type and exploits the weakness of TCP/IP protocol. US CERT advisory defines SYN flood as â€Å"an asymmetric resource starvation attack in which the attacker floods the victim with TCP SYN packets and the victim allocates resources to accept perceived incoming connections†. In TCP SYN flood attack, the legitimate users are ignored when the attacker initiates a TCP connection to the serve with a SYN. The victim server responds to the request with spoofed IP address and waits for ACK from the client side. Then, the connection table of the server is filled up and it neglects all new connections from legitimate users. This phenomenon can be clarified using Figure 1.2. Figure 1.2 Comparison of Normal TCP 3 ways Handshake and TCP SYN Flood attack demonstration (cisco.com) Flood type attacks are so common and powerful. Georgieva (2009 ) suggests that â€Å"even if a webmaster adds more bandwidth, this still is not a sufficient protection against a flood attack†. Because of the bandwidth insufficiency, even the normal volume of legitimate requests may appear as flood attacks. 1.4.2 Ping of Death Attack The Ping of Death or POD attack is another DoS attack with simple principle. It exploits software vulnerab

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Political Issue Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Political Issue - Essay Example Because of the Cold War period and the uncertainties it brought to the American citizens, the administrations supposed it was essential to stiffen down and take control (Hoffman, 2012). To do this, they called for more controls to the executive subdivision. The political ideology of the Americans vary on the classical liberalism; consequently, the ideas in most cases are alike. For instance, a bigger population of the United States believes in limited government, the perfect market, and individual freedom. On particular occasions, the two major political parties in the United States tend to have a controversial opinion from one another whereby one tend to lean to the right while the other lean to the left. There can also be a case in which the issues emanate in a particular party, for instance, the Democrat party having the problem amongst its members. In America, political scientist organizes the political ideologies with respect to how they affect the political government in the country. The liberalism and the conservatives always represent the two ends of the political situations in America. American liberalism posits that the state is supposed to act so as to bring the equality amongst the citizens. Traditionally, the liberal clust er has been working towards the civil rights of the Americans and the minority group. Conservatives have always come out stronger in defending the government than the liberalism. However, in the late twentieth-century liberalism and conservatism in strengthening the military status of American and more often than not, they got involved in the war. For instance in 1960s, the American president, John F. Kennedy increased the spending so as to strengthen the security while Lyndon Johnson on the other side of the ideology played a significant role in Vietnam War. The American conservatism contends that the primary duty of the

Monday, October 14, 2019

Human - Meaning of life Essay Example for Free

Human Meaning of life Essay ?I really have to give credit for my religion beliefs for my search on the meaning of life. I’m a fully baptized Catholic, and a part of God’s Church. 17 years of being a Catholic and in search of the meaning of life, I have always thought it is about the Call to Holiness. My religion taught me that being a part of God’s Church is no accident, but because God wanted to share in His own blessed life, and in doing so He wanted me to desire serve Him freely by following His will. And by following his will, God will grant me eternal happiness which will lead to my salvation. All Catholics knew that God sent His son, Jesus, to set an example for us. Jesus showed the perfect example answered the call to Holiness. He showed us that we should love our neighbors as God showed His love for us; and that is what the Call to Holiness is. In search for the true meaning of life, it will take plenty of years, but for now I plan to stick with what my religion has taught me. Carl Rogers Carl Rogers emphasized focused on self-actualization. He believed that a person should develop his/her potential to the fullest, and in good condition. In doing so, the environment of a person should be inherently good. A person will only stop developing if constraints block the development. A fully developed person shows that he/she achieved the highest level of being a right fully-functioning human being. Mahatma Gandhi Mahatma Gandhi, which means â€Å"great soul,† was an ideologist during the Independent movement of India from the British. As an ideological leader he believed violence should never be an answer to fight for his people’s rights, and should never take discrimination. He also believed that harmony, truth equality exists between all religions. With these 2 influential personas, I have noticed similarities between them. They both talk about human beings having a common good inside of them. They emphasized that all humans were born good, but because of destructive environment, they tend to turn their backs on what is right. Sources: http://www. simplypsychology. org/carl-rogers. html http://www. ask. com/question/what-were-gandhi-s-beliefs.

Sunday, October 13, 2019

The Death Penalty :: Cause and Effect Capital Punishment

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Valuable insight can be gained by understanding how the death penalty evolved and by understanding why many countries have abandoned capital punishment, while others still retain it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Historically the death penalty has been around a long time. Many countries including the United States have some kind of death sentencing. From around the sixteen hundreds is when the death penalty started to take place. The first man to be killed by the penalty was Daniel Frank, put to death in 1622 for some crime of theft. Since then the death penalty has almost always been a feature of the criminal justice system. Many states after a while outlawed the death penalty. To this day only a few remain outlawed but most have some kind of death sentencing.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One cause of having the death penalty would be regarding legal issues. Many people know that if you break a law by means of stealing or killing you will be punished. In most countries that have capital punishment, it is used to punish only murder or war-related crimes. In some countries, like the People's Republic of China, some non-violent crimes, like drug and business related crimes, are punishable by death. In the eighteenth century, England would punish by death for pick pocketing and petty theft. And in other countries you even got your hand cut off. People steal from others everyday and the only way to reduce the number of people who steal is to set a law stating its consequences. If we did not have laws set forth for shop lifting, robbing banks, or killing someone then if no one got a consequence then it many crimes would take place each day. Many people do not steal because the fear of going to jail or having to pay large fines. Also if we didn’t h ave a law keeping people from killing others then many people would kill when ever and what ever they want. The Death Penalty :: Cause and Effect Capital Punishment   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Valuable insight can be gained by understanding how the death penalty evolved and by understanding why many countries have abandoned capital punishment, while others still retain it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Historically the death penalty has been around a long time. Many countries including the United States have some kind of death sentencing. From around the sixteen hundreds is when the death penalty started to take place. The first man to be killed by the penalty was Daniel Frank, put to death in 1622 for some crime of theft. Since then the death penalty has almost always been a feature of the criminal justice system. Many states after a while outlawed the death penalty. To this day only a few remain outlawed but most have some kind of death sentencing.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One cause of having the death penalty would be regarding legal issues. Many people know that if you break a law by means of stealing or killing you will be punished. In most countries that have capital punishment, it is used to punish only murder or war-related crimes. In some countries, like the People's Republic of China, some non-violent crimes, like drug and business related crimes, are punishable by death. In the eighteenth century, England would punish by death for pick pocketing and petty theft. And in other countries you even got your hand cut off. People steal from others everyday and the only way to reduce the number of people who steal is to set a law stating its consequences. If we did not have laws set forth for shop lifting, robbing banks, or killing someone then if no one got a consequence then it many crimes would take place each day. Many people do not steal because the fear of going to jail or having to pay large fines. Also if we didn’t h ave a law keeping people from killing others then many people would kill when ever and what ever they want.

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Friends Essay -- Television Shows Entertainment Papers

Friends Welcome to "New York," where the folks are friendly, the buildings never falter, and all quarrels end with a quip. Not to be found on the East Coast, this Burbank, California-based "New York" is the setting of "Friends," the popular situation comedy that first aired on NBC in 1994. With roughly sixteen million households tuning in each week, not to mention syndication of re-runs, "Friends" has become a cultural icon. "Friends" is more than just a sit-com that begins on Thursday at eight o'clock and ends at eight-thirty. It is a living, breathing, fictional reality like a second home that isn't lived in, but lived through. Many viewers talk about the characters on "Friends" as if they were, in fact, close personal friends. They remember specific lines from episodes that aired years ago; they know each character's life history, personality traits, compulsions, strengths, weaknesses, idiosyncrasies; they even remember the names of minor characters who have appeared in only o ne or two episodes (Simon B4). The show is about six singles who "hang out in a New York City apartment, drink coffee, and make jokes" (Chidley 48). Although this simple premise borders on boredom, don't be fooled. NBC has shown us through shows such as "Seinfeld," which paraded itself as "a show about nothing," that less equals success, as far as ratings and viewer approval are concerned. The key to "Friend's" success, however, is not the inherent mediocrity of the premise. Rather, the simplicity of the premise redirects creative energy toward crafting incredibly well written dialogue to be superbly performed by a quirky, energetic, and charming cast. The humorous dialogue, the chemistry between the actors, and the charisma that emanate... ...ood Library. 18 March 2002. "A Cultural Touchstone." People 31 Dec. 2001: 68. Academic Search Elite Full Text. Palni SiteSearch. Goshen College Good Library. 18 March 2002. "The Girl Friend." Rolling Stone 7 Mar. 1996: 34. Academic Search Elite Full Text. Palni SiteSearch. Goshen College Good Library. 18 March 2002. Rice, Jim. "With 'Friends' Like These." March 31, 2002. http://www.sojo.net/magazine/index.cfm/action/sojourners/issue/soj9605/article/960541d.html Simon, Richard Keller. "Much Ado About 'Friends': What Pop Culture Offers Literature." Chronicle of Higher Education. 16 June 2000: B4. Academic Search Elite Full Text. Palni SiteSearch. Goshen College Good Library. 18 March 2002. Wild, David. "Six Lives on Video Tape." Rolling Stone 18 May 1995: 62. Academic Search Elite Full Text. Palni SiteSearch. Goshen College Good Library. 18 March 2002.

Friday, October 11, 2019

Madame Bovary and Techniques in Fiction

1. Conceptions: The Origin of a Story Gustave Flaubert in all probability got the idea for Madame Bovary when he and Louise Colet became lovers, in which the novel was written at the time of the affair. When Flaubert and his mistress first started to have the affair, they wrote love letters to each other as any other lover would. The letters that Flaubert would write were similar to the journals the authors use to help stimulate ideas for their novel. (TIF, 10) Flaubert in all wanted to expose the whole aspect of having affairs and encompassing mistresses. Putting the setting at his birthplace made him more comfortable with the area allowing him to have the full coverage of the city such as knowing all the streets and the back roads that Madame Bovary uses. (Flaubert, 261) The more familiar the area is the more realistic it would seem, such as where the houses were located. The whole aspect of the city is not imaginative but more practical. The characters in Madame Bovary resemble Flaubert and his family in many ways, for instance the elder Mrs. Bovary as Flaubert's mother. They both have are widows in their future life, and they have the sense of protectiveness of their children. Since Flaubert's father is a doctor, he had to incorporate that characteristic in Charles Bovary. However, I think the greatest resemblance between the characters of the novel and Flaubert's family is Flaubert and Madame Bovary because they both have nostalgia for Paris. As Flaubert places himself in a woman's place you can see his true self coming out. As they both want the pleasurable sensual feeling of love and to some extent, becomes a drug, where they are addicted and cannot find the end. Madame Bovary and Flaubert both have two lovers. Madame Bovary's downfall was the amount she spent on her lovers which leads her into debt and Flaubert engaged in his studies and focused on his writing. 2. Beginnings The beginning of the novel Charles is in school but is held back. It is not if it is the most horrific, or a quiet pleasurable moment in his life, but it would be the most rememberable moment in his life because he is at a school away from his family and he would be ridiculed consistently. At first, it seems as if Flaubert is starting from the beginning of Charles life because all the focus is on him but once he marries Emma, it is all about her. I do not understand why Flaubert started out this way because Charles is not the main character but is only an unimportant character that is just here from the beginning to the end. It does not seem as if the novel was placed in such historical or momentous occasion because the author does not insinuate anything. All he does say that Emma admires Joan of Arc and worships Mary of Scots. (Flaubert, 32) In most part, the reason why the novel is not based off an important event is that the characters have nothing to do with the occurrence. It all has to do with the characters, their emotions, and their daily wrong doings. The novel is not like Ann Frank, where the whole story is based off a historical incident but it is more like the novel itself has its own history. The â€Å"envelope† now makes the beginning of the novel more understandable. It is as if he is there from the beginning until the end. Although he is in every one of the life situations, it does not directly involve him. Through all the pain and heartache, Charles remains the same. The book Techniques in Fiction explains why Flaubert included the early years of Charles and why they prolonged the ending. It was so show Charles stupidity from the beginning to the end and he still wonders why life has put him through all this. He still is unable to acknowledge that his wife has put him through all this pain and that â€Å"Only fate is to blame†. (Flaubert, 302) Charles as a schoolboy is not any different from Charles as an adult. Both have the sense of idiocy all through out the novel. As the other school children ridicule him, it has not changed in his adult years. Emma is derides Charles not in his face as the school children did but in a secretive sort of way by having an affair with other men and by breaking the sacred vows of marriage. I would have to say that the novel is low beginning because it makes us more comfortable to get into the story and it does not have an intense moment where it makes us uneasy such as a melodramatic storm. (TIF, 50) Having included Charles and his early school years makes us at ease and more familiar to the story line on what is going to happen when. 3. Style and Speech â€Å"Every writer, by the way he uses the language, revels something of his spirit, his habits, his capacities, his bias.† (TIF, 55) The way Flaubert wrote reveled himself, the good and the bad, through the characters and events. He depicted himself through Madame Bovary, showed the world his real self and not just a faà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ade. His need for love, compassion and the fond of the arts were shown to the readers as Madame Bovary. The uses of metaphors are in the most common way unlike Alexander Theroux's novel The Wogs where he uses a profuse amount of metaphors in one paragraph. Flaubert uses the metaphors to clarify or to detail something, â€Å"we would throw them [caps] under the bench so hard that they struck the wall and raised a cloud of dust†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (MB, 2) To make the scene seem more interesting Flaubert would transition very well from writing without any literary devices to adding metaphors without a notice. This did not make the novel seem award at all but make it flow through very nicely. The way Flaubert added any dialogue made it as if any person would say such thing or he would make it seem so poetic it would seem so romantic. Flaubert made Charles' dialogue seem so dull like his character and Emma is so versatile. She would speak one way to Charles and another way to the pharmacist. Flaubert would make each of the characters had their own way of speaking as if the characters were alive and had their own personality and style. Flaubert follows the outline in Techniques in Fiction not perfectly but it does seem as if he tried. I know the outline was not used when Flaubert wrote this novel but it just shows how well of an author he is. The principles stated in the Techniques in Fiction are followed by Flaubert in Madame Bovary. There maybe a slight exception but that is very rare and most of the time the outline is followed. The manner in which Flaubert uses attribution is as the book puts it, where each character should have its own way of talking. The dialogue is not he said, she said because the dialogue is with emotion, â€Å"she exclaimed in surprise.† (MB, 120) 4. Characterization The characters display a certain consistency, even thought hey are subject to change. Like Charles is the kind of character that remains the same throughout the entire novel, unlike Emma who is the kind of character that is all innocent in the beginning and then come to a bigger city, becomes brash. Only Emma is the character that changes but the rest of the minor characters remain the same. The way the characters are depicted in the novel is not that descriptive but they are portrayed in the way they talk amongst themselves or by the way the other characters see them. The way Emma is first described for the first time when Charles first sees her. â€Å"Her hair was divided into two sections by a fine part running down the middle of her head; †¦Ã¢â‚¬  (MB, 13) Charles is described by the author as â€Å"a country boy, about fifteen, taller than all of us†. (MB, 1) When the characters meet each other the description runs in the thought of their heads. The use of expression, habits, gestures and movements are used very selectively for each character to make them seem alive. â€Å"†¦ he had outbursts of anger, followed by plaintive moans of infinite sweetness and the notes that pored from his bare throat were full of sobs and kisses.† (MB, 193) The expressions are used mostly describe the feelings for each other and their passionate quarrel or when Emma gets annoyed of Charles. Just off the dialogue, the behavioral status of the characters can be shown such as Emma and her attitude towards her husband Charles. â€Å"Ah, he carries a knife in his pocket, like a peasant.† (MB, 88) It can also show the love for the lovers in the affair. Just of the dialogue the characters show if they respect and love the other person or if they just show off as if they actually do care but they really do not. The way each of the characters speak is as if they have a mind of their own. Flaubert would make each of the characters had their own way of speaking as if the characters were alive and had their own personality and style. Emma would talked is hate to Charles and Berthe but with respect and compassion to the apothecary, the pharmacist and especially the men she is fond of, Rodolphe and Leon. They each have a different personality so it would just make sense if they talked differently. The attitude that each character has towards themselves is honorable. Emma has that sense of respect but also an impression of arrogance, the way she would end up in debt even after the bills had been loaned to her. They do not quarrel but they get along by going to their neighbors houses at night after dinner, or in Emma's case, to her lover's house. They way she has to go to his house secretly by following â€Å"the walls that ran along the water's edge†. (MB, 141) The character past comes in the beginning of the novel to show us what their personality is going to be like when they are introduced. 5. Point of View The point of view tells us from which perspective is the story being told. There may be ten different characters that means there would be ten different perceptions. The author has to decide in which perspective they would like the story to told from because each of the characters has a different outlook and opinion on the predicament. There might be a character that is almost invisible that can see everything, feel the characters emotions and clarify those sensations into the story, like the narrator in Madame Bovary. 6. Background; Setting; Place; Milieu As the story is placed in France during time that Gustave Flaubert is in, makes the story seem more reasonable since that Flaubert actually knows what is happening during the time. It is as if he has had some personal experiences. At first Charles is in a school because the country did not have the education that his parents wanted. It went on from there, the setting is still in France but it went from the country to a city back tot the country and back to the city. Once Charles got his professional degree, he moved in to a village sort of place, Tostes, where he married an old widow. Then he goes to a farm where Emma lives. They marry and stay at Tostes until there is a proposition in Rouen. The couple only stays in Tostes for about 2 years. That is where the rest of the story is, where Emma transforms from an innocent farm girl to a lust driven woman. 7. Narrative Style: Time and Pace in Fiction Flaubert told the story in a very reasonable fashion. He did not speed up quickly and leave out details nor did he go to slow and let each scene drag on. Each scene was perfectly proportional to the amount of dialogue and the narration. Each scene shows what is happening and is not leaving anything out like behavior, attitude, ect. Each scene coincides with each other; it does not seem out of place compared to the other. Flaubert also does not have the narrator state something and the character does it, but he lets the readers find out eventually. It doe not seem as if Flaubert made a plan or had a certain strategy on how to write the novel. Out of the four techniques that most authors use to sum up the storyline, Flaubert uses several separate scenes with narration going along with it. Having too much dialogue would dull the novel a little because the novel is mostly about Emma and the emotion she has. Time is very effective in the novel because it flashbacks in the beginning of the novel not confusing the readers and each time Emma remembers her life in Les Bertaux but as a mere remembrance. (MB, 44) The time scale is very effective in the sense that the story takes place in many years and it is not all cluttered up in to one day like Classical Literature. Having the time in that way helps build up the story and make it go on easily without any gawkiness. The novel is written in a present past tense, where the action has already taken place when the narrator is describing the scene, â€Å"But Charles replied that they were leaving the following day†. (MB, 198) if it was all in present tense it would not make sense because the setting and time is in the past around the late 19th century. Having it in the present past makes it seem more like a movie in the reader's mind, making the story more imaginative. 8. Plot and Story Some people would say that the plot and the story are interchangeable but the plot is the only thing the readers are interested in because it brings in suspense while the story is the whole account where it has all the minor details and a whole cluster of facts. The classical approach to writing a plot is to have description and background information, then to have the rising action in which the problem will derive from and after all that, the crisis. From there the character realizes there is a problem and then the catastrophe. Now here is the Madame Bovary plot summery in the classic approach. Emma is country born but reared in the city. She later marries a prosperous doctor but the only problem is that she does not love him. They move to Rouen and his practice is even more affluent. She realizes that she has feeling for her neighbor's younger roommate. One day she meets a very charming man and soon they start to have an affair. Things get to intense and he leaves. She secretly has an affair with her neighbor's roommate. She spends more and more money on him and their â€Å"home†. Soon she is too in debt and she must pay it all back to the â€Å"loan officer†. She does not have enough money by the deadline so she decides to k ill her self. Now the practical solution for a plot seems more reasonable than the classic approach that Aristotle had conceived. There is a problem, the crisis deepens, then the problem is recognized and after that, the world is changed, for the better or for the worse. It is somewhat ironic that Emma has cheated on her husband and she has hit a dead end, she has nowhere to go and her status has been stripped from her, no wonder she decided to kill herself. There is no explanation for Charles to treat her like a goddess even what she has put him though. When Emma first felt something for Leon, which was the first sign that something was going to happen. Whenever Charles gives something to her, she acts as if it is not good enough for her but she keeps on spending money on herself and not anyone else, even her own daughter. When Madame Bovary dies, it was a bit of a shock because she wanted to live in riches and show Rouen what she really is about, but after her scandal came public, that must have put a deep hole in her reputation. There was not a real surprise end because Charles says numerous times that he could not live with out Emma and when he did die of grief, it was sad for them to leave their daughter as an orphan. This novel definitely had a double plot because of the affairs and the debt she keeps digging deeper into. When she had her first affair with Rodolphe, I was sure that she was going to get caught but she was saved. That did not stop her though. She had feelings for Leon and she made sure that they would spend time together at least once a week. Each time she lied, she had to lie again to cover up the previous lies and all she ended up in was a huge web of lies that she got confused in. Flaubert did not complete all of the checkpoints in Techniques in Fiction because they all do not apply to every novel but they include every novel. Each novel has a different genre and each genre has different expectations. In each genre, there are sub genres and they require to have certain things. 9. Organic Form and Final Meaning Flaubert is an emotional person who does not give a care about the world and what they think about him and his novel. He never wrote the book for the shameless readers but the idealists who have the sense of modernization. His views of the â€Å"modern† world are quite different from the idealist that the world really was not modern but it was only in our heads and that technology has increased world knowledge. His writing techniques and the need for perfection; The methods in which he reaches perfection is not of normal people, he boasts out loud for hours until is sounds the way he needs it to sound. He wanted to be known for his perfection and not how he modernized the world. Gustave Flaubert is a realist who is infatuated with perfection and style. Flaubert wanted to show society what hey were really about but he did not want to make it complicated by explaining it so he showed it through his characters. He wanted to make an impacted on culture and not just another reading book. One of the reasons why this novel is faithless is because he grew up at the height of the romance movement and that is how the people of civilization behaved. Gustave believed that the personality and style of the author must vanish into the book and the book must not lose its originality. He deemed that style was impersonal and it is unique in the sense that expressing things are intensified in color. Who would think that to take the dreariest setting, the prettiest characters, and the most common to would make a masterpiece? All of theses symbols: the knife, the silly cap, cigar case, all encompassed who Charles really was, a lowly doctor with no individuality. The way Flaubert included the â€Å"small, ignoble Venice† of the river in Rouen and the pimples on his first wife's face was like † the budding of spring† made the scene more interesting making his style more impressive and ideal. The way Emma sees Charles as the dorky village doctor, and how the children say as unromantic, clearly shows the lack of respect the she has for him, his entire life is devoted to her. To show that even cared he forgave her lover saying that it was destiny that choose its path. The way Flaubert embraced Charles and his affection to his daughter Berthe has included a bit of himself and his care for his motherless niece. Madame Bovary is a historicist fallacy because the readers judge the book because of the time it was written in and what the time and setting is. Flaubert did not want dell with the lawsuits and the modernization of France. All he wanted to do was put out in words what societies doing. His need for perfection really made him strive for the perfect sound. He would work for hours on days until he could find that one word that drove him crazy.

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Competencies in HR

Core competencies an essential method for the company. It helps to develop the competitive advantage over other companies. The actual sources of advantage are to be found in the management’s capability to combine business varied technologies and production skills onto competencies that authorize and enable individual businesses to adapt rapidly to shifting opportunities. In short, core competencies are the combined learning in the organization, particularly how to organize various production skills and participate numerous streams of technology to accomplish interactions and generate unexpected products (Prahalad, and Hamel, 1990, p. 9-90). In other words, by selecting and focusing on an organization’s core competences, the management is talented to take significance which empowers the organization to attain a greater productivity. The preferred outputs for an organization are increased profits and revenues. The output for an army organization is mission achievement in battle fighting, solidity operations, or homeland protection. Senior management will consequently be judged on their capability to recognize, encourage, and exploit core competencies that create achievement potential progress and revenue for an organization; efficiency and mission success for a military. While great republics usually tend to develop large, all-purpose forces to cover all possibilities and army characters, smaller republics, with both smallest citizens and resources or budgets must consider what core competencies they should emphasis in order to deliver worth additional contributions as association followers, peacekeeping contributors, and ad-hoc partners. These competencies can suggest concentrating on sure position competences. for Volume 9, 2007 Baltic Security & Defence Review 222 What is Competency? Competencies are the fundamental elements of talent management practices. They are the demonstrable and assessable knowledge, skills, behaviors, individual characteristics that are allied with or predicative of excellent job performance. There are two types of competencies: 1) technical competencies and, 2) behavioral competencies. Why competencies importance: The first point is to link the competencies model with business or organizational strategies that make the managements understand and define the skills, attributes, attitude and knowledge leads to high performance. Through competencies model the organization sends a consistent message to the workforce about what it takes to be successful in the job. The importance of competencies matrix helps employees realize what helps drive successful performance. It is an approach concentrate on the â€Å"how† of the job. It means the competency model is behavioral rather than functional concentrate on the people rather than jobs. Moreover, competency models consider as an outcome driven rather than activities, for instance, the job description focus on activities while the competencies matrix focus on outcomes. Integrates HR strategy with organizational strategy both focus of outcomes. The competencies framework set in the heart of HR, it serves as the basis upon which all employees processes are constructed (Berger and Berger, 2011). On the other word, competencies model provides an organization with a common language and a consistent and measurable platform on which Human Resource systems can be based. In addition, the competencies model is important because it: †¢Defining the factors for success in jobs and work roles. Assessing the current performance and future development needs of persons holding jobs and roles. †¢Mapping succession possibilities for employees. †¢Selecting applicants using competency based interviewing & assessment techniques. †¢Designing and determining training solutions. The competency Model: The competency model classifies usually three clusters of competencies: 1-Core competencies: reflect the set of critical competencies required throughout t he company to shape the organizational abilities and culture required to accomplish the strategic goals. Time management, communication and result orientation are an example of core competencies. 2-Leadership competencies: this type of competencies designed for the managerial position of several level for selection, succession planning and development purpose. An example of leadership competencies are Conflict management, leadership skills and strategic thinking. 3-Functional or technical competencies: consider as a special type use specifically for each job family. For example budgeting and forecasting, policies and procedure and payable are an examples of technical competencies.

Classical Economics Essay

The neo-classical economics movement has been touted as the replacement to classical economics movement as it appeared to have been presented as an improvement to the beliefs and ideologies of that of the classical economics movement. Not many people agree with this fact as it stands though. While some think that the neo-classical movement represents an evolution of economic theory from the early and probably flawed version which was the classical economic theory to a more advanced, sophisticated and improved theory, others believe that the neo-classical movement represents the birth of an entirely new discipline that had decided to abandon a lot of the questions and issues that the classical economic movement had been riddled with instead of trying to find a better approach to arriving at reasonable solutions for those issues. As a result of these contrasting views, it is necessary to delve into the origins of both movements, carry out a thorough analysis of the modus operandi and arrive at a reasonable conclusion by taking a subjective stance on the matter. In doing this, some of the issues that will be addressed include: the specific issues that the neo-classical economic movement and the classical economic movement really address, how much overlap there is between the named set of issues, the kinds of analytical methods used in both economic movements, and whether the neo-classical analytical method is more effective at accomplishing its own goals as well as that of the classical economic methods (even better than the classical economists themselves). Classical Economics The birth of the classical economics movement is largely attributed to Adam Smith as a result of his 1776 publication titled The Wealth of Nations, although Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo, Robert Thomas Malthus and John Stuart Mill (over a period of about hundred years) are all seen as the major contributors to the development of the movement (Evans & Phillips, 2006). Adam Smith laid emphasis on the fact that a perfect economy is self-regulatory in the sense that the needs of the population present in that economy are automatically satisfied. He coined the term ‘invisible hand’ as a mechanism that is responsible for the propelling of the populace to pursue their individual self-interests which indirectly promotes the general improvement of the society (Evans & Phillips, 2006). This emphasis served as the basic foundation of the classical economic movement. David Ricardo on the other hand, stressed that profits and wages were drastically affected by increase in the price of rent. The increase in rent according to Ricardo was as a result of the increasing population which is a consequence of the fixed availability of land (Evans & Phillips, 2006). Reverend Robert Thomas Malthus in his suggestion averred that unemployment in a market economy is caused by the economy being frugal with spending. However, he was more famous for his population theory that explains that food production increased at an arithmetical progression while population increased at a geometrical progression (Evans & Phillips, 2006). This implies that with time, the population will soon outgrow food supply and the limited amount of available which will result in diminishing returns to labor (Evans & Phillips, 2006). The diminishing returns to labor in turn leads to a radical reduction in the standard of living as a result of the low wages that workers are paid. John Stuart Mill’s proposition took into consideration, the fact that resource allocation and income distribution, which happened to be the two major roles of the market system were distinctive from each other and that the market may not be efficient enough to perform both roles therefore, the involvement of the society is required to compliment the inefficiencies (Evans & Phillips, 2006). The term ‘classical economists’, was first used by the father of communism, Karl Marx to describe the group of economists that shared the same beliefs regarding the labor theories of value. At a time when capitalism was gaining grounds at the expense of feudalism, and when the industrial revolution was rapidly restructuring the society, it was necessary to re-examine and re-define the status quo by ensuring that the nation’s economic interests as a whole lies in and is determined by market forces instead of the autocratic and individualistic determinants that were formerly widespread (Evans & Phillips, 2006). Since then, various classical economists, such as Samuelson Paul, Hollander Samuel, John Hicks, Kaldor Nicholas, and Luigi Pasinetti, have thoroughly studied how the wealth of a nation grows and how policies need to be implemented so that the nation’s wealth continually grows. In doing this, the aforementioned economists (Samuelson et al. ) basically presented various recognized models so as to define their own analysis of classical economics. A major contribution of the classical economists was the development of the labor theories of value whereby the market values of commodities are associated to the various labor efforts that is needed to produce them. These theories of value were largely attributed to William Petty, Adam Smith, and David Ricardo who were acclaimed to have developed them so as to suitably look into economic dynamics. In order to properly make the representation of the regularities found in prices easy, the classical economists brought about a basic distinction between market price which is largely affected by many short-lived influences which are not easily put forward at the theoretical level and natural prices of commodities which are responsible for taking into consideration, the continual forces that are operating at a given point in time (Evans & Phillips, 2006). As far as the labor theories of value are concerned (as seen especially by Adam Smith), when an individual purchases a commodity, the real value of that commodity as far as the individual is concerned, is the practical sum total of the exertion that the individual underwent in purchasing the commodity. In other words, the actual value of a commodity (from the consumer’s angle) lies in the labor that is expended in the acquisition process of the commodity. Also, the value of a commodity from a producer’s angle is the total stress or trouble that has been experienced in order to arrive at the finished product. This also implies that the actual value of a commodity (from the manufacturer’s perspective) lies in the labor that is expended in the production process of the commodity. The labor described above depicts that which does not involve a pleasurable experience in the sense that the individual (consumer or producer) does not conveniently or pleasantly go through the experience of acquiring or manufacturing the commodity. In this case, labor is seen as opposing to utility. As a result of this, the natural price of a commodity is determined by the summation of profits, wages and interests (from Adam Smith’s proposition), although this view differs between the classical economic thinkers’ community because David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, and Robert Thomas Malthus all had varying concepts (though similar to an extent) about labor value of theory. The classical economic movement also addressed the issue of comparative advantage, especially David Ricardo. The principle of comparative advantage suggests that each nation should specialize in the production of the particular commodities that it can efficiently produce (Evans & Phillips, 2006). It should then seek to import every other commodity it needs. The implication of this is that the total output of the nations of the world would be more than if the nations decided to be more self-sufficient. This theory served as the foundation of the theory of international trade and immensely influenced the free-trade doctrine aspect of classical economic thought (Evans & Phillips, 2006). Classical economists also addressed the issue of the theory of distribution which proposed that the national product is divided between laborers, capital owners, and landlords. These three social classes share national products in the form of wages, profits, and rents, i. e. wages in the case of laborers, profits in the case of capital owners, and rents in the case of landlords (Evans & Phillips, 2006). It is therefore possible for one of the above-mentioned social class to achieve a superior allocation of the national product over the other social classes. There is hardly any common characteristic between the above mentioned issues that were addressed by the classical economists. The theory of comparative advantage is not related to the theory of distribution as well as the labor theories of value. Therefore, the issues cannot be said to be overlapping. The analytical method utilized by classical economists involves the historical-deductive method (Evans & Phillips, 2006). The economists that belong to the classical economic movement actually observe real life situations and then from their observations, they propose solutions to economic problems. The solutions arrive largely as a result of the fact that the observer has noticed a pattern and can then deduce a likelihood of such pattern occurring again based on the tendency of the pattern to repeat itself as had already been observed. A typical example of the historical-deductive analysis employed by classical economists is the input-output analysis. The technique behind this method involves viewing the raw materials of a production process as an input while the semi-finished or finished product is seen as the output (Evans & Phillips, 2006). Such semi-finished or finished product may be used as an input to another process which will result in a different output. In other words, the output of one industry is the input if another industry and this happens over and again when the economy is concerned as a whole. Neoclassical Economics The â€Å"Marginalist Revolution† was responsible for the introduction of the neoclassical economic movement. It was as a result of the theories of William Stanley Jevons, Carl Menger and Marie-Esprit-Leon Walras. Jevons reflected this theory in his 1871 publication titled Theory of Political Economy, Menger in his 1871 publication titled Principles of Economics, and Walras in his 1874 publication titled Elements of Pure Economics (Evans & Phillips, 2006). William Jevons’ concept of utility was largely influenced by the utilitarian principles of John Stuart Mill and that of Jeremy Bentham because of the integration of their hedonic conception in his works (Evans & Phillips, 2006). However, his view was different from those of Mill and Bentham on the grounds that value depends on utility among other things. He opined that the contentment or satisfaction derived from goods and services will always tend to reduce at the margin. For instance, the more cups ice cream an individual takes, the less pleasure such an individual derives from the last cup of ice cream until finally, the individual stops taking the ice cream. This principle is otherwise explained as the theory of diminishing returns. He also modeled his theories after mathematical principles found in mechanics thereby incorporating mathematics into economics. Carl Menger on the other hand, failed to agree with Jevons’ notion and did not embrace the hedonic conception that Jevons added in his own works. Instead, he tried to explain diminishing marginal utility in terms of an individual prioritization of the possible usefulness or uses of a commodity (Evans & Phillips, 2006). In other words, Menger posits that consumers will always act in a way that ensures that their satisfaction is maximized in all inclinations. In other words, consumers will always apportion their money in such a way that the last component of a good or service that they purchased generates no more satisfaction than the last component of another good or service that they purchased (Evans & Phillips, 2006). He also failed to embrace the incorporation of mathematics into economics as observed in the case of Jevons. Walras conversely was more focused on the market interactions within an economy and also had similar views with Menger on the concept of diminishing marginal returns. He was of the opinion that as small as the change in a consumer’s preference for a particular commodity might be, it would always affect the producer’s predilection to adjust production of such a commodity. For instance, a shift in the consumer’s preference from land phones to mobile phones results in the reduction in the price of land phones and a corresponding increase in the price of mobile phones. The producer or manufacturer as the case may be would shift production to mobile phones which will lead to increase in market supply thereby setting a new price equilibrium between both commodities. Although the trio of Jevons, Menger, and Walras were responsible for the originating the Marginalist concept of economics which birthed neoclassical economics, their works were not so popular until it they were popularized by Francis Edgeworth, Alfred Marshall, Philip Henry Wicksteed and Lionel Robbins (Evans & Phillips, 2006). These set of economists were called the consolidators while Jevons, Menger, and Walras were known as the revolutionaries. Although not very common, a few economists have been referred to as the main proto-marginalists. These less-notable economists include Antoine Augustin Cournot (1838), Jules Dupuit (1844), Johann von Thunen (1850) and Heinrich Gossen (1854) (Evans & Phillips, 2006). Their era preceded that of the revolutionaries, but it was not until when Jevons, Menger and Walras published their own works that the Marginalist concept came into the economics public enlightenment. Also, the popularity of the Marginalist theory did not end with the consolidators; there was this group of economists known as the Revivalists who further incorporated the Marginalist theories into their own work, thereby leading to further popularization of the concept (Evans & Phillips, 2006). The economists that belong to the ‘Revivalist movement’ include: John Hicks (1939, 1934), Harold Hotelling (1938), Oskar Lange (1942), Maurice Allais (1943), and Paul Samuelson (1947) (Evans & Phillips, 2006). In one way or the other, all the above mentioned economists had a major role to play in the origin of the neoclassical economic movement. Another peculiarity of the neoclassical community of economics is that there appears to be factions or different ‘schools of thought’. This was as a result of the independent nature of the pioneers. That is, Jevons was writing in England, Menger from Austria, and Walras from France. They were not aware of each other as at that time and as a result; different schools of thought developed thereby presenting the neoclassical economic movement as an embodiment of different schools. These schools include the Lausanne School, Vienna School, Paretian School, Cambridge School, to mention but a few (Evans & Phillips, 2006). The neoclassical movement as a whole tends to address the issue of marginal utility. Marginal utility refers to the ‘utility’ that is derived from an increase in the consumption of a particular good or service. It could also refer to the ‘utility’ lost from a decrease in the consumption of a particular good or service. It results in the concept of diminishing marginal utility previously described, that is, more utility is obtained during the first consumption of the unit of a particular commodity than is obtained during the second consumption and this occurs in subsequent consumptions. It is basically what the Marginalist revolution was about. While consumers of a commodity strive to maximize the utility derived from the commodity, the producers or manufacturers of the community also tend to maximize profit in the process. Apart from maximizing utility and profits, the neoclassical economic movement also addressed the issue of rational preferences. Every human behavior is guided by a rational reasoning. This implies that an individual will always tend to select that which appears to be appropriate as far as satisfying his or her needs is concerned. As a result, such an individual develops a preference for that good or service that would suitably be of benefit to them by comparing the costs and benefits of their actions. Another issue that was addressed by the neoclassical economists was the question of how people act on the â€Å"basis of full and relevant information† (Evans & Phillips, 2006). It was proposed that an individual acted independently on this basis because the more relevant information such an individual had on a particular product, the better the chances of maximizing utility. From the mentioned issues, it is evident that there is a kind of overlap between them. For instance, an individual that has a relevant information on a particular good or service is then provided with the choice of comparing the costs and benefits of acquiring such product or service. After comparing the costs and benefits, the individual chooses to either develop a preference for that product or some other favorable product in order to maximize utility. The analytical method utilized by neoclassical economists involves the hypothetical-deductive methods (Evans & Phillips, 2006). This method is more mathematical in nature thus leading to the neoclassical economists being accused of â€Å"mathematicalizing† economics. In order to observe the economic system for the sake of analysis, neoclassical economists strive to develop various tools that will aid them in analyzing the system. These tools are developed with from mathematical models and are then used to hypothetically deduce an explanation or solution to the defined problem. A typical example of this method of analysis is the marginal revenue that is usually used to calculate the extra income that will be gained from selling an additional unit of a particular commodity. Mathematically, it is described as the rate of change of total revenue per change in the number of units sold and can be expressed as From the relation above, TR is the total revenue, P is the price of the commodity and Q is the quantity demanded. When the price does not change with quantity, then meaning that the marginal revenue is equal to the price of the commodity (Evans & Phillips, 2006). To address the main purpose of this essay, which is to know whether neoclassical economics represents an evolution of economic theory from an early, flawed version (Classical Economics) to a more advanced, improved theory or rather represents the birth of a new discipline that decided to abandon many of the questions and issues that had troubled Classical Economics instead of trying to offer a better way to address them, it can be inferred from the above discussion of both economic theories that contrary to the popular views of people that neoclassical economic theory evolved from classical economic theory so as to amend its flaws, the opposite (not reverse) is the case, that is, the neoclassical economic theory actually evolved from the classical economic theory but it addressed a complete set of totally different issues. The reason for this assumption is evident. The classical economic theories as earlier discussed mainly addressed the issues concerning the labor theories of value, theories of distribution, and that of comparative advantage while the neoclassical economic theories essentially address the issue of marginal utility, rational preferences, and the predilection of individuals to act on the basis of full and relevant information. Placing these issues side-by-side, one would observe that they are quite different and do not seem to overlap. This means that as much as it is that the neoclassical economists evolved from the classical economists, their views are entirely different and do not seem to correlate. For instance, the theories of distribution which emphasize that national the national product is divided between the laborer, capital owner and the landlord, is not in any way applicable to any of the issues attended to by the neoclassical economists. Similarly, the theory of marginal utility as an issue addressed by the neoclassical economists is not applicable in either the labor theory of value, comparative advantage principle or the theory of distribution. What this spells out is that the neoclassical economic movement represents the birth of an entirely new discipline that has decided to abandon many of the questions and issues that had troubled classical economics instead of trying to offer a better way to address them. Instead of improving on the issue of labor theory of value, it chose to adopt a totally new issue which it termed theory of marginal utility thereby creating difficulties when it comes to finding a correlation between both economic movements. Also, when considering the analytical tools employed by both economic movements, it is apparent that there are conflicting issues as well which further buttress the point that is being made here. While the neoclassical economists are hypothetically or mathematically inclined, the classical economists are historically inclined. Generally speaking, most scholars who have studied both methods of analyzing the economy would stick with the classical because it is believed that economics as a social science is more accurately gauged by the historical approach than mere mathematical models which failed to address the issues surrounding the great depression in the 1920s when it occurred. Subjectively speaking therefore, the neoclassical economic movement does not improve on classical economics as claimed by many but instead, it addressed a brand new project. Finally, given the methods of economic analysis employed by both, it is evident that the neoclassical analytical method is not as effective at addressing its goals as much as the classical analytical method is at addressing its own goals which still points out the point that has been made by this essay. References Evans, B. , & Phillips, S. (2006). Comprehensive History of Economics (4th ed. ). Pretoria: Brayton Publishers.