The Mentors Last Words Essay Example For Students

The Mentors Last Words Essay The Mentors Last WordsAnother one got caught today, its all over the papers. Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal, HackerArrested after Bank Tampering Damn kids. Theyre all alike. But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950stechnobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker?Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shapedhim, what may have molded him?I am a hacker, enter my world We will write a custom essay on The Mentors Last Words specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Mine is a world that begins with school Im smarter than mostof the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me Damn underachiever. Theyre all alike. Im in junior high or high school. Ive listened to teachersexplain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. Iunderstand it. No, Ms. Smith, I didnt show my work. I did it inmy headDamn kid. Probably copied it. Theyre all alike. I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, thisis cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, itsbecause I screwed it up. Not because it doesnt like me Orfeels threatened by me Or thinks Im a smart ass Or doesntlike teaching and shouldnt be here Damn kid. All he does is play games. Theyre all alike. And then it happened a door opened to a world rushingthrough the phone line like heroin through an addicts veins, anelectronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-dayincompetencies is sought a board is found. This is it this is where I belongI know everyone here even if Ive never met them, never talkedto them, may never hear from them again I know you all Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. Theyre all alike You bet your ass were all alike weve been spoon-fed baby foodat school when we hungered for steak the bits of meat that youdid let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. Weve beendominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few thathad something to teach found us willing pupils, but those feware like drops of water in the desert. This is our world now the world of the electron and the switch,the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service alreadyexisting without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasntrun by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. Weexplore and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, withoutnationality, without religious bias and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, andlie to us and try to make us believe its for our own good, yetwere the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime isthat of judging people by what they say and think, not what theylook like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something thatyou will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop thisindividual, but you cant stop us all after all, were all alike. The Mentors Hacker Manifesto The Mentors Last Words Essay Example For Students The Mentors Last Words Essay The Mentors Last Words Essay Another one got caught today, its all over the papers. ;Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal;, ;Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering; Damn kids. We will write a custom essay on The Mentors Last Words specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Theyre all alike. But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950s technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him? I am a hacker, enter my world Mine is a world that begins with school.. . Im smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me Damn underachiever. Theyre all alike. Im in junior high or high school. Ive listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. ;No, Ms. Smith, I didnt show my work. I did it in my head. ..; Damn kid. Probably copied it. Theyre all alike. I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, its because I screwed it up. Not because it doesnt like me.. . Or feels threatened by me Or thinks Im a smart ass.. . Or doesnt like teaching and shouldnt be here Damn kid. All he does is play games. Theyre all alike. And then it happened a door opened to a world.. . rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addicts veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought a board is found. ;This is it. .. this is where I belong; I know everyone here. .. even if Ive never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again I know you all. .. Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. Theyre all alike.. . You bet your ass were all alike weve been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak.. . the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. Weve been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert. This is our world now.. . the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasnt run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias. .. and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe its for our own good, yet were the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you cant stop us all after all, were all alike. The Mentors Hacker Manifesto .

The eNotes Blog Top 10 True Confessions of Professors and Other LiteraryTypes

Top 10 True Confessions of Professors and Other LiteraryTypes If you have ever felt badly for not having read one classic work of literature or another, heres a dirty little secret that we professorial types are generally loathe to confess: no matter how well-read one is, there are always gaps in our reading. It simply isnt possible to have read everything ever printed, even if you just limit your wish list to the classics. So, if anyone ever gives you the stink eye at a cocktail party because you confess to not having read, say, James Joyces Ulysses, know that you are in good company. In a recent highly unscientific query of my friends and colleagues who are either literature professors, literary editors, or voracious readers, every single one of them copped to not having read a work that is generally considered required reading for our ilk. Here are the tearful (okay, literary license) confessions of the most widely unread classics that they promise (promise I tell you!) are definitely on the list: 1. Ulysses by James Joyce Here is Marilyn Monroe pretending to read Ulysses, just like 9 out of 10 people who claim to have read it. One person we know actually swears he has read it, but we do not like him very much. 2. Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre. Perhaps, like us,   you always find some reason to avoid contemplating the futility of life and your own meaningless existence in the universe. Understandable. After all, you need to catch up on all the episodes of Mad Men you missed last season. So do we. 3.   Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller If your only knowledge of this novel comes from The Librarian episode of Seinfeld, then you probably know it was a naughty book that Jerry checked out as a teenager, lent to George, who never returned it. Most of us havent read it either. We have been too busy arranging our other books into proper Dewey Decimal system order. Just thinking about it makes usdewey. 4. Hard Times by Charles Dickens Hard times? Slogging through this bleak, slow moving book is hard indeed for many confessors. For as many people who adore Dickens, just as many think hes a snore. If you fall into the latter camp, know that many professors anonymously agree with you. 5. Middlemarch by George Eliot If you ask a professor what he or she thinks of Middlemarch, prepare for a lot of hemming and hawing and words about its grand achievement and other vague niceties. If you are at the home of the professor, excuse yourself to the restroom. Wander about until you find which door it is propping open. At 1,751 pages, it does a fine job. 6. Gravitys Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon How do you suck the joy and light out of something as beautiful and ephemeral as a rainbow? Stick it in the hands of Thomas Pynchon. Like with Joyces Ulysses, few who claim to have read and understood Pynchon have read it, much less understood it. And if they have, we resolve to not like them very much either. 7.   Moby Dick by Herman Melville Ask professors to quote the first line of   Moby Dick and they will immediately respond, Call me Ishmael, even if they are in a coma. However, youd get the same results by asking them to identify which movie the line, Were gonna need a bigger boat, comes from. If pressed, youd probably get the whole plot and character sketches from Jaws, but precious little else about the intricacies of Moby Dick. 8. The Brothers Karamavoz by Fyodor Dostoevsky Most American academics will reluctantly admit that their knowledge of literature other than British or American is woefully inadequate. Most of us intend to rectify that situation, but, we are, after all, Americans, and our favorite subject is ourselves. (Is it telling that the spell-checker here does not recognize either Karamavoz or Fyodor) Anyway, for good party fun, ask a professor or other literary type to pronounce Dostoevsky after a couple of glasses of Pinot. 9. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Ask your favorite book snob to really detail the plot and themes of Cervantes masterpiece and you are likely to get a quixotic look. If youre lucky, though, he or she might show you the ticket stubs to the Broadway production of Man of LaMancha, you lucky devil! 10. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy I dont know about you, but as a child I was under the impression that War and Peace was the longest novel ever written, and to get through it was a feat not to even be attempted, like trying to eat one of those five pound burritos in order to get your meal for free. Whatever the reason, most of us havent read it, but it is on our shelf of good intentions.

Technology and Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Technology and Business - Essay Example These features make the Blu-ray discs capable of storing not only data intensive, high intensive movies, but also endow them with the ability for more special features (Crompton. 2008). The Blu-ray discs are more expensive than the standard DVDs and require special Blu-ray players, which are also expensive, at almost $400 a player. Yet the feature packed Blu-ray disc is expected to garner a large portion of the $1.1 billion high-definition movie market this year. Competition for Blu-ray was expected to come from the HD DVD format being developed by Toshiba Corporation. However, in February 2008 Toshiba Corporation announced the termination of the competing HD DVD format. This announcement is believed to stem from the inability of the HD DVD format to match the features offered by the Blu-ray discs. This has left Blu-ray discs as the only format for high-definition movies, enabling the companies involved in the manufacture of Blu-ray discs to exploit the large high-definition movie market (Crompton.

Company law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Company law - Essay Example In Salomon’s case, Lord Halsberury stated that â€Å"once the company is incorporated it must be treated like any other independent person with rights and liabilities appropriate to itself†. This means that the company as independent person has rights and obligations which are not the same as the rights and obligations of its member. This the fundamental attribute of corporate personality. Incorporation has both economical and social consequences on a company after being registered. For instance, the company has a perpetual life existence as its life does not depend on the life of its members. The company’s membership changes in a definite order prescribed by the company’s article and subject to changes indefinite period of time until the company’s liquidation. The membership is transferable from one member to another as long as the entity is a going concern. Corporate corporata also means that the member’s liabilities are limited by shares or liability. The liability of members is either limited to the amount that has remained unpaid, if any, on the shares held by then or to the amount the members have undertaken to contribute on the assets of the company incase its wound up or liquidated. This means that the debts of the company are not the debts of the shareholders as illustrated by the facts of and decision in Salomon v Salomon & co. ltd in which it was held that Salomon as a member was not under an obligation to pay the company’s debts. Thus the company’s creditors cannot institute legal proceedings against a member in order to recover the amount owed to them by the company. The member does not become his debtor merely because the company is his debtor, as in the case of unincorporated entities. A registered company has also the legal capacity to sue and be sued in its own name, which act as its seal. That is the company is the proper plaintiff and neither the directors nor shareholders can sue on its behalf to redress a wrong done to the company. This is illustrated by the facts of and the decision in, Foss v Harbottle. A limited company has also the capacity and the ability to buy, own or sale property in its own name, thus the company’s property does not belong to the members as per the case of Macaura v Northern Assurance Company. Thus, if the directors or the shareholders take the company’s money to purchase personal effect or discharge personal liability will be liable to the company for conversion. This is explained in the case of A L Underwood Ltd v Bank of Liverpool. The directors only hold the money in trust on behalf of the company due to fiduciary relationship. Thus incorporation renders a company a distinct and separate legal entity unlike unincorporated entities such as sole proprietorship or partnership. This principle is what is referred to as, in common parlan ce, as corporate shield or veil of incorporation between the company and its members. Unveiling the corporate veil is the identification of the company with its members to hold individual members liable to their own acts for assistance of the authority or court to compel corporate legal entity to look unto real beneficial owners. The court may lift and/ or unveil where its essential to secure justice where deemed necessary but the rule of separate legal entity still remains the general principal except in exceptional cases. There are some instances under statutory provision or

Legal Aspects of E-commerce Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Legal Aspects of E-commerce - Essay Example Responsibility and privacy are issues that touch on the law, though they are perhaps best characterized as aspects of common sense conduct. The political response to ecommerce, particularly its expression in regulatory and taxation policies, is a further source of potential uncertainty for the ecommerce player. The ease of finding and copying information on the web leads many users think that the copyright is unsustainable in the wired world, though this has been a false impression. Works published on the web enjoy the same rights as other forms of publication. The world intellectual property organization (WIPO) copyright treaty and performances and Phonograms Treaty of 1996 extended the Berne convention on the copyright to include digital applications. Arguably, copyright is easier to defend online, as it is simple for a comply to run a regular search on its own content to see if it appears in unexpected place. Intellectual property unique to the ecommerce arena include domain names and business process patents On the firmer ground of patent law, ecommerce has created something of a stir. Patents are being granted for a range of business process that are, in the opinion of many, generic ecommerce techniques. However, Jay Walker, founder of Priceline.com, who pursues intellectual property break through his walker Digital Company, believes the novel modes of commercial practice in ecommerce channels can amount to legitimate innovations. "Walker Digital is about reengineering the DNA of the future of business" Walker declares. "What we hope is that a group of thoughtful people can together reinvent whole sectors of the global economy. And not only can we reinvent them, we can own those inventions." 1 Of course, reengineering is itself the bane of all attempts to protect intellectual property. Ecommerce patents currently remain unchallenged, but the generic nature of many of them may enable competitors to formulate alternatives that achieve similar ends without infringements. In any case; interest in filing business process patents certainly forces companies to spend on patent lawyers rather than on software and service development. This may help the image of a startup, however, the ability to prove early and continuos commercial use of technology is likely to be important Meanwhile the cost of defending a claim of intellectual property infringement will often be more than the cost of paying royalties to the claimant. Smaller companies have long complained that larger companies restrict their movements with walls of patents." As always, the cost of litigation is a form of social tax on business. Responsibility and Privacy. The abstract quality of the web and its apparent autonomous existence as a medium of communication and business often cause uncertainty about personal and corporate ownership of the acts committed through it. Responsibility for content and transactions is not always as clear as in the traditional commercial world, where formal and informal codes of conduct have consolidated over many generations of use. Reliance on electronic communications mediated by network and machines whose functions are mysterious to the majority of users raises suspicion about privacy and its accidental or malicious betrayal. In one sense, the internet is the ultimate bureaucracy- a faceless solicitor,

Homosexuality is abnormal.

Homosexuality is abnormal.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Have you ever seen gay or lesbian people in public; in other words homosexuals? If you have, what is your opinion on the issue? Do you feel it is something normal or abnormal? Michael Levin strongly believes that homosexuality is an act that is absurd and abnormal. He states that homosexuality is abnormal and therefore it is unfavorable. He defends his opinion with several different arguments. In his first argument, he states that same sex intimacy is a misuse of sexual organs. Then he goes on to say that homosexuality causes unhappiness. In conclusion, he states that the act of homosexuality should never be taken into consideration to become legalized since it is something against human nature. I strongly agree with Levin on his point of view about homosexuality. In this essay, I will be discussing Levins arguments for the view that homosexuality is abnormal. What Levin means by the word abnormal is something that is biologically unnatural or in other words, against human nature. He doesnt mean that homosexuality is immoral or sinful; but for purely mechanical reason; it is a misuse of bodily parts. In his first argument, he states that misusing the bodys sexual organs could frustrate the intention of some purposeful agent. What Levin means by this is that if one is not heterosexual, he/she would be damaging their sexual organs which causes frustration and therefore, decreases happiness. He also points out that homosexuals are much unhappier than heterosexuals. His main argument on the misuse of body parts is on grounds of natural selection, which he believes is also connected to the unhappiness of homosexuals. Levin argues that a man and a womans private parts are made for each other. To prove his point true, he gives an example about a person named Mr. Jones wearing his teeth as a necklace around his neck instead of using his teeth for the use of chewing. In other words, his teeth are being used for ornamentation. Another example was about a man named Mr. Smith; he used his teeth for playing music; something I personally find troublesome to imagine! He concludes from these two examples that individuals who dont use their teeth for the reason of chewing will be selected out of the natural selection. In this example, he is comparing people who dont use their teeth for chewing to homosexuals; what he is trying to make clear is that homosexuals may be eliminated in the future from natural selection due to their misuse of their sexual organs. In other words, nature has created a specific job or function for every single body part. Therefore, the accurate use of body parts leads to happiness and the opposite is also true. In my opinion, this is obviously common sense. Levin states the example that the male sex organ is used to ejaculate semen into the female sex organ; by doing this, more offspring are produced and ther efore the family tree expands. So when a homosexual uses his sexual organ in a way to insert his penis into another males anus, no desires will be fulfilled, and no offspring will be produced; this causes unhappiness. The same is true for heterosexuals; but they wont be as unhappy as homosexuals. After this statement he says, There are after all genuinely jolly fat men. What he means by this phrase is that there really are fat people in this world that are extremely happy and have no problem with being obese. He is comparing this example to homosexuals and heterosexuals. For example, a lazy person might be happy at some point in his life to a certain standard, but he is likely to be less happy than someone otherwise like him who exercises. Levin believes that calling homosexuality involuntary does not place it outside the scope of evolution. Victims of homosexuality are not blameworthy, but it is absurd to pretend that nothing is wrong with them! Homosexual activists believe that ge netic causes exempt homosexuals from blame. What he means by this is that maybe homosexual people are born with traits that make them so. But this fact doesnt make this normal; there is still something wrong with them and in this case it is something absurd and against human nature. He believes that people should try to solve this problem or illness and should unquestionably defy this so called anomaly. This is why Levin strongly believes that homosexuality is abnormal. After Levin proved all his statements, he concluded that since the misuse of body parts is abnormal and will lead to unhappiness, then homosexuality can also be considered abnormal and that it leads to unhappiness as well. Therefore, we as a society should oppose homosexuality. Levin feels that if performing an action that is very likely to lead to unhappiness, then the state should not legitimize that action by granting a right to perform that act. The state should have no business encouraging actions that lead to unhappiness by creating rights or protections related to those them. Therefore, the state should not legitimize homosexual actions by granting a right to perform homosexual acts. Levin recognizes that even if there is a correlation between homosexuality and unhappiness, it does not follow that homosexuals should be denied rights under the law. However, Levin does worry that laws granting homosexuals the right to engage in sodomy (or to marry) would actually encourage homosexuality and thus those laws would increase unhappiness. He says that a state that suddenly grants a right to homosexuals might as well legitimize homosexual actions and thus encourage them. Its like saying lets make taking drugs legal. It causes unhappiness, suicides health pro blems, death and so on. Why would a government make something so bizarre legal? This is how Levin feels about the matter of homosexuality. One crucial test on Levins account is his prediction that homosexuals will continue to be unhappy even if people altogether abandon their prejudice against homosexuality. My opinion on this issue is very similar to Levins attitude. I personally believe that homosexuality is against human nature and should not be an act that is accepted in todays society. It is true that God made man for woman. The sexual organs of a male should only be inserted to the sexual organs of a female. If homosexuality was something normal, then God would have allowed offspring to be born from two male or two female partners. But as you can see, this is not true. Therefore, it is wrong and deviant. I disagree with the fact that homosexual people were born with homosexual genes which make them so. There is no such thing. They are just people that are confused or have mental problems. No one is born with genes that make them gay or lesbian and I strongly believe this. There may be people born with sexual deficiencies but this does not mean that homosexuality is an alternative solution for them. Levin is right to state that it causes unhappiness because that is true; but that sh ould not be the reason why homosexuality should be viewed as abnormal. Recently, the American Psychiatric Association announced Surely the time has come for psychiatry to give up the archaic practice of classifying the millions of men and women who accept or prefer homosexual object choices as being by virtue of that face alone, mentally ill. The fact that their alternative life-style happens to be out of favor with current cultural conventions must not be a basis in itself for a diagnosis. In my opinion, this is the beginning of a disaster in todays society. When this association announces something like this, its like they are saying that this is something that is normal and accepted in todays society and that the government should support this and give homosexuals rights just like the rest of the population. Some people may be wondering as to why I am making such a big deal about this matter. The reason I am so concerned is because this issue will have a negative effect on our ch ildren and our future society. By people accepting this would be a way of admitting that there is not a problem with being homosexual. Even though people may think that homosexuality is harmless, it actually is in fact extremely detrimental.

Title IX and the Expansion of Educational Rights for Women :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

Title IX and the Expansion of Educational Rights for Women Title IX legislation, passed in 1972, expanded the rights of an individual in ed ucational opportunities. It equalized academic prospects for individuals by ensuring that males and females must have equal access to educational possibilities. Title IX is traditionally attributed to the growth of athletic programs for women by demanding that programs for women are given the same amount of money and attention as men's teams. However, Title IX has dealt with a plethora of equality issues in education that have been overshadowed, for the most part, by the legislation's impressive impact on women in sports. Title IX is attributed to have an important effect on the number of women in higher education. Richard W. Riley, former U.S. Secretary of Education, asserted that, "The great untold story of success that resulted from the passage of Title IX is surely the progress that has been achieved in education. In 1971, only 18 percent of all women, compared to 26 percent of all men, had completed four or more years of college. This education gap no longer exists. Women now make up the majority of students in America's colleges and universities in addition to making up the majority of recipients of master's degrees. Indeed, the United States has become a world leader in giving women the opportunity to receive a higher education." (25 Years of Progress, The U.S. Department of Education, p.online). Many universities and colleges did not allow women entrance before the legislation (The Legislative Road to Title IX, The U.S. Department of Education, p. online). Title IX has had a huge positive outc ome on the availability of higher educational opportunities for women by making sure that women are given equal opportunities to men that help them graduate from and achieve academic success past secondary levels of schooling. This has logically resulted in an increased number of women in more specialized and higher paid jobs. Title IX is effectually changing the face of the American workplace by giving women the opportunity to learn, compete, and surpass men. Title IX also increased the opportunity of women to be free from sexual harassment in schools. It made sure that, "A high school student who was alleged ly subjected to sexual harassment and abuse by her coach-teacher could seek monetary damages against a school district under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972" (Wooster, "Sexual Harassment of Students under Title IX," p.

Having Read Of Mice Men Essay

What have you learnt about the life of a ranch worker in 1930’s America? The book Of Mice and Men is set in California, at the time of the Great Depression. The American stock market had collapsed, and left the country in a state of economic disarray. This affected the two main characters George and Lennie who have to work on ranches because there was a need for people to work on the land and not much work elsewhere. Georges dream is to own a farm or a ranch of his own so he could be his own boss and wouldn’t have to be pushed round by other ranch owners who he works for now. This is the American dream George and Lennie aren’t alone in their dream. He says to Lennie, â€Å"We’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Because of this dream George resents authority, when he first meets Curley (the ranch owners son) he spoke to him in an ‘insulting manner’ and refuses to give Curley a straight answer. The life of the ranchers is very hard, they works every day except Sunday and only gets fifty dollars a month. All week the farm workers would toil the land for the ranch owners and would be paid a tiny percentage of the profit. They were very lonely people, with only their colleagues at the ranch and the women at the local ‘cat house’ for company, no wife, children and no family. George recognizes this and I think this is why he travels with Lennie, George says, this makes them different from all the ranch workers who travel around on their own. George says to Lennie that â€Å"Guys like us who work on ranches are the loneliest guys in the world.† George thinks that when he fulfils his dream he wont be lonely any more, he maybe would ‘get a girl’ and he would be his own boss. George also dreams of a better place for Lennie who is mentally about 6 years old. George takes it on himself to look after Lennie and rescue him when he gets in trouble, which is very often. When Lennie had just ‘accidentally’ killed Curley’s wife whilst stroking her hair to hard in the barn, George decides he has to shoot Lennie. Just before he does he tells Lennie: â€Å"Ever’bodys gonna be nice to you. Ain’t gonna be no more trouble. Nobody gonna hurt anybody nor steal from ’em.† This is Georges dream for Lennie, that he would be better cared for and nobody would be horrible to him and he wouldn’t get into any more trouble. That people would take time to understand him like he did. George’s dream reflects the time the book is set at, because if that were now Lennie would be better cared for by social services and other organizations like that. Also George and the other ranch workers would have had better rights on the ranch, they would have either had less hours work or more pay for the work they did. George might have been able to get his dream for a ‘few acres’ and a ‘girl’ pigs, cows and rabbits. 1 Candy’s dream is to have security. Security in his job, that he wont be ‘canned’ because he’s getting too old, or because he’s useless, because he’s only got one hand, this normally wouldn’t affect someone now but in the time the book was set Candy’s chance of getting a job if he was sacked from the ranch would be minute. Because of this insecurity Candy is very scared of Curley and the boss. In the book when Candy first meets George he speaks nicely about the boss and said that at Christmas he gave them whisky. I think he lied to George about the boss in case George told the boss what he had said which would have been true but nasty. When the boss comes into the room Candy quickly makes up and excuse why he’s talking to George and Lennie and gets back to work. He did this because he doesn’t want to get in any trouble with the boss because the boss might sack him. Then Candy will have no job and will be too old to get another one and he cant retire and he doesn’t have any family to go to he’ll probably have to live on the streets. When Candy overhears about George’s dream Candy wants to go along and be involved to. Candy offers three hundred and fifty dollars to help George get his dream farm and so that Candy can leave the farm and look after himself, his attitude towards Curley, the ranch and Curley’s wife changes after this. When Curley is starting on Lennie, Candy quickly rushes to his defence’ â€Å"Glove fulla Vaseline,† he said disgustedly’ referring to the glove Curley wears on his hand full of Vaseline, to keep ‘soft’ for his wife. Candy is not scared of Curley and the boss anymore because if he gets sacked he can just move on to George’s dream farm. With Candy’s newfound confidence he starts sharing his views and sticking up for other people such as Crooks the black stable buck. Curley’s wife is verbally attacking Crooks, telling him how she can get him killed if she wanted too. Candy retaliates by saying, â€Å"If you was to do that, we’d tell†¦ We’d tell about you framing Crooks.† He sticks up for Crooks, which shows he wasn’t racist and that he also had a dream for a better society. Where is you have worked and are getting old you would have money, a pension, and that everyone is treated equally like him and Crooks. This shows that the book reflects the time its set because Candy would probably have a pension and wouldn’t have been able to get sacked without out a just cause. Crooks dream is to be treated like a human and be accepted. Because he’s black he’s always been bullied and picked on by the other people in the ranch. He is never allowed to go out with the other people in the ranch and has to stay in his own room in the barn, he hates everyone at the ranch because they treat him badly, he says to Lennie, â€Å"They play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black. They say I stink. Well, I tell you, you all stink to me.† Because Crooks is so lonely he reads a lot, in his library he owns the book California Civil code 1905. I think he has this because he wants to find out the rights he has and if there is anything he can do to be accepted. While talking to Lennie, Crooks reminisces about his childhood; how his father owned a chicken ranch and the white children used to come and he would play with them, and how most of them didn’t care about the colour of his skin and that they were nice to him. How instead of sleeping alone as he does now (he recalls), he used to sleep with his two brothers: â€Å"They was always near me, always there. Used to sleep right in the same room, right in the same bed-all three.† He was happy in the past and dignified, because he wasn’t alone then and had been treated equally. 2 Curley’s dream is to become a champion boxer. He was in a boxing tournament and he got into the finals, he keeps the newspaper clippings. He hates big men because he’s short, he wants to be tall and big, I think he wants this because he wants people to be more scared of him. He’s always picking on the workers because they can’t fight back because they’ll get sacked. He seems to be obsessed by beating people up and ‘sorting them’ out. Curley’s wife tells George, Lennie and Candy what he says. â€Å"†One-Two,† he says. â€Å"Jus’ the ol’ one-two an’ he’ll go down.† In the whole novel we never hear Curley’s wife’s name, she is always referred to as ‘Curley’s wife’. This makes her sound like Curley’s property, like Curley’s shoes or Curley’s horse. It also says that maybe she doesn’t deserve one, that when she married Curley she got a name. This reflects on her dream of equal rights for women. She is a very lonely person; she has no one to talk to except the men on the ranch who don’t really listen to her. So to make them listen to her, or pretend to in most cases, she dresses provocatively to get attention. However Candy and Whit see her as a ‘tart’ and ‘jail-bait’ and she’s always giving the ‘eye’. Even Curly doesn’t notice her; he still goes out to the ‘cat houses’ with the other ranch workers, instead of staying with his wife. She seems to be hurt by this, she says. â€Å"Think I don’t know where they all went? Even Curley. I know where they all went.† Curley’s wife’s dream is to be a star. When she was young, she was asked to go on a show, but she says her mother wouldn’t let her. Film work was one of the few types of work you could get as a woman, it was every girls dream, but it was often only a scam to take advantage of young women. Curley’s wife remembers how a man in the ‘pitchers’ said he was going to write to her about being in the movies. But she says her mother stole the letter when it came, when really it didn’t come at all. When Lennie killed her Steinbeck says. â€Å"The meanness and†¦.. the ache for attention were all gone from her face.† This means that she didn’t have to try anymore and life wasn’t just one long struggle for recognition. She had been released and was now more beautiful and alive than ever. Maybe it also means that she would get the attention now, she would be known as the woman who got killed by a mad man. Steinbeck draws attention to the idea that there is more to the American dream than just having a place of your own. The characters have dreams of an equal society. George describes to Lennie, â€Å"The place no-one’s gonna hurt you.† This reminds me of heaven where people would understand, listen and accept other people’s right to a dignified and free life. Although we have more of a life like this now, that is very different from the inequality of the time of ‘Mice and Men’, we still have a long way to go to achieve Steinbeck’s dream.

Controls for Differentiated Strategies Essays

Controls for Differentiated Strategies Essays Controls for Differentiated Strategies Essay Controls for Differentiated Strategies Essay Controls for Differentiated Strategies Different strategies influence management control processes, internal and external factors like size, environment, technology, interdependence and strategies forge together to what researchers call as the contingency theory. These strategies and their influences in management control systems are tendencies, not hard and fast rules. Linking controls to strategies is based on various thinking: (1) Different organizations operate in different strategic context, (2) Different strategies require different tasks, success factors, perspective and behaviour, (3) Controls are systems that influence the people behind the activities being measured and (4) Behaviour induced by the system is consistent with the strategy. Corporate Strategies Corporate strategy is about being in the right mix of businesses. It addresses are the definition of businesses where they compete and the deployment of resources to these businesses. Three categories classify companies in their corporate strategies: (1) Single industry, a firm operating one line of business, (2) Related Diversified operates in several industries with common core competencies and (3) Unrelated Diversified operates various businesses without connection except financial. Different corporate strategies imply different control structures based on organizational structures. Single industries would be functionally organized, related diversified will be structured as business units while unrelated diversified would be structured as a holding company. Corporate management’s familiarity with range from high to low from single industry to unrelated diversified. Functional background of corporate management starts from relevant operating experience from single industry to mainly finance for unrelated diversified. Decision making authority as a single industry is more centralized to a more decentralized authority on unrelated diversified. Corporate staff size, Reliance on internal promotions and Use of lateral transfers are high on single industries to low on unrelated diversified. Corporate culture ranges from strong on single industries to weak on unrelated diversified companies. Implications on management control also flow in relation to single industry to unrelated diversified. Strategic planning-wise single industries perform vertical-cum-horizontal planning while unrelated diversified are generally vertical only. Control of budget manager on budget formulation and importance to meeting the budget is low on single industries to high on unrelated diversified companies. Importance of transfer pricing on the other hand is high among single industry businesses and low among unrelated diversified. Sourcing flexibility for single industries are constrained while unrelated diversified gets arm’s length market pricing. Bonus criteria on single industries are both financial and non-financial while on unrelatedly diversified companies its primarily financial. Bonus determination is also highly subjective for single industries while more formula based for unrelated diversified. The bonus basis is based on both business unit and corporate performance on single industries and gravitates toward business unit performance-based for unrelated diversified companies. Business Unit Strategies Business strategy is about how to compete. With two interrelated aspects: its mission (four types: build, hold, harvest and divest) and competitive advantage (two ways: cost leadership and differentiation). The missions also constitute a continuum, pure build on one end to pure harvest on the other. Congruence between mission chosen and types of control used leads to effective implementation. Different missions also require different management control systems. Mission and Uncertainty are also correlated, build units face greater uncertainty versus harvest due to several reasons: (1) Build are usually done at the growth stage while of the product life cycle while harvest happens at the maturity stage. (2) Build units are targeted to increase market share wherein it is highly cutthroat in terms of competition versus harvest. 3) Build is also more dependent on external input and outputs, the more external dependencies the higher risk since these are outside ones control and (4) build are often in new and evolving industries where managers have less experiences. Build to Harvest strategies also is a choice of Time-span, short-term versus long-term trade-offs. Build managers are tuned at future profits while harvest managers are more concentrated on maximizing short term gains. In t erms of control systems differing across missions: The Importance of strategic planning is relatively high on build and relatively low on harvest. Capital Expenditure Decisions are less formal on build while more formal on harvest. Capital Expenditure Evaluation criteria for build units are more emphasized on non-financial data while Harvests have more emphasis on financial. Discount rates are low on build while high on harvest’s but conversely for project approval limits at the business unit level its high for build and low for harvest. Capital investment analysis is more subjective and qualitative on build and it moves up becoming more objective and quantitative for harvest businesses. Implications of different strategic missions on budget are as follows: the role of budget on build is more of a short-term planning tool while for harvest it is a control tool. Business manager;s influence on budget preparation and control limit used on evaluation against budget are high on build and low on harvest. Budget revisions are easy for build while more difficult for harvest. Informal reporting is more frequent on policy issues and less on operating issues for build and while it is the opposite when you go towards harvest. Feedback on performance versus budget is less often on build but more often for harvest. Importance to meeting the budget is also low for build but high for harvest. Behaviour control is also more emphasized in build while output control is more prevalent on harvest businesses. Strategic missions implications on incentive compensation are as follows: percent compensation as bonus is high on build and low for harvest. Bonus criteria for build is on non-financial while its more financial on harvest. Bonus is determined more subjectively for build and more formula based for harvest. The frequency for bonus payments for build is less compared to harvest where it is more frequent. Competitive Advantage can be achieved thru differentiation or low cost approaches. Differentiation is considered to be more uncertain than low cost for the following reasons: (1) Product Innovation is very critical in differentiation, it increases uncertainty due to its emphasis in producing new and unproven products. (2) Low cost have narrow lines and minimizes inventory versus broader line of differentiation to create uniqueness – the more the products, the more complex the higher the uncertainty. And (3) low cost produce simple products that are priced lower than competing products, while differentiated products are complex with more myopic approach to consumers perception that are more difficult to predict thus making it more uncertain. Top Management Style Management control is heavily influenced by the management and managers manage differently. Each manager’s management style is influenced by his background like age, education, experience and his personality such as risk appetite and tolerance for ambiguity. Management style significantly influences the operation of control systems. The executive’s preference for use of information and performance review meetings, personal and impersonal controls is also a variable of managerial style. The importance of formal budgets and reports versus informal conversations are highly dependent on the type of leadership. Some are more quantitative while others are more qualitative. The attitude of managers towards reports affect the amount of detail that they want, frequency, graphs versus tables or words, thus its best that designers of management control systems also identify these preferences and accommodate them. A manager’s style also influences the degree of tightness or looseness of controls. This degree is also correlated to style of the manager’s superior. The degree of looseness also increases at higher levels of hierarchy but might not also be generalized dependent on the style of the CEO. The style of the CEO has a great impact on management control, and as each senior manager changes so does the system change accordingly.

Human Ingenuity as my Area Essays

Human Ingenuity as my Area Essays Human Ingenuity as my Area Paper Human Ingenuity as my Area Paper I have chosen Human Ingenuity as my Area of Interaction because it is an interesting topic to learn about. I also chose world records because I love to have a challenge in my life, and seeing other people hold weird and wacky records is very interesting to me. Even before I had the idea of trying to beat a record, I thought it was such thrills watching other people reach their achievements and goals of beating a world record. Ever since seeing those people, Ive always wanted to beat a world record. World records fit in with Human Ingenuity because its how people try and achieve their goals to make their dreams come true. This year we learned about human achievements and it interested me a lot. This is why I decided to do World Records for my personal project. This topic interests me because world records are very cool and challenging. World records have always interested me, because it is cool how people can beat these records for crazy and interesting things at any time. World records, such as sword swallowing and another, most scorpions held in mouth. For my project I decided to try and break the world record for most straws in your mouth at once. The current record is 400 straws at once, and held there for 10 seconds. My goal was to beat this world record and have Guinness world records put me in the record book. I picked this goal at first because it was at 256 but went up quite a bit in a month. This made my goal all the more challenging to beat the record, but as I like a challenge I decided to continue on with the goal to beat that record. It turned out to be a very challenging record. This shocked me but also made me want to do it more. It made me feel this way because I love having a challenge in my life and thats one of the reasons I chose world records in the first place. It took me a while to but I finally decided on this world record because I figured I could accomplish it. This influenced me to make decisions on stuff like: how to loosen my lips so I could hold that many straws in my mouth, what type of straws to get, how to record it if I beat the record to get it to Guinness world records, who would by my witness for beating this goal, and how could I make a good attempt to beat this goal. I had to create solutions for these such as: stretching my lips to try and fit around all the straws, just regular soda straws, just take photos of me beating the record (if I beat it), get someone either friend or family to watch me do it, and just go for it without thinking about the pain in my lips from the hundreds of straws stretching my lips. Throughout the process of this I had to learn to understand the connection between these things and the goal of my project and how to keep these things in mind. It was very challenging at times to remember these steps and I would start complaining because my lips hurt from all the straws or that I kept thinking I couldnt do it because I was running out of room for straws in my mouth. It was really hard to convince myself to keep putting more straws in and keep going on. I would feel incredible pain in and around my lips and lose my concentration and the straws would fly out of my lips, because my mouth would slip off of the straws. In my research along the way I looked at lots of records and changed my mind quite a few times before deciding to try and break the record for most straws held in your mouth at once. Lots of the world records I looked at seemed rather easy but they turned out to be rather hard and a lot more difficult than I expected. For example: I looked at the world record for fastest time to eat 3 soda crackers which seemed rather easy, but it was actually rather challenging as soda crackers are really salty and are hard to chew fast and swallow fast too. Then I tried doing the record for most Ferrero Rocher eaten and unwrapped in 1 minute which was 8. This also seemed easy, but it was also very challenging as the chocolates were hard to unwrap and the little nuts in them made them hard to chew and swallow very fast. Then I had a brilliant idea, start a new world record! That way I would be guaranteed a spot in Guinness World Records. But, the more I looked into it the more complex I realized it was. First the Guinness team had to review and debate the submission, deciding if it was record material or not. Then they would have to interview eye witnesses about whether or not you actually did it (applies to all records, but Guinness is especially strict about new records). So I kept that idea for a while and thought of things that I could do but they either turned out to be too hard to do, or turned out that Guinness would not accept it as a record, therefore I wouldnt be accomplishing my goal. I would just be doing something crazy for the heck of it, which wasnt the point of my goal.

Ethnic Difference in Quality of Life in Adolescent Essay

Ethnic Difference in Quality of Life in Adolescent - Essay Example It is the assessment of physical, mental and social well-being and for informed healthcare decision making (Wee, 2007). Singapore is a multi-ethnic city-state, with a resident population of 3.26 million persons in 2000 of which 76.8% are Chinese, 13.9% Malays and 7.9% Indians (Leow, 2001). Singapore is wholly urban, and has undergone rapid economic and demographic transitions over the last 40 years, from a poor country with a high fertility rate, to a rich one with one of the lowest fertility rates in Asia and a rapidly aging population. This paper describes self-rated health in Singapore, and examines the socio-economic factors and health behaviors associated with poor health ratings. It concludes by discussing the public health implications of the findings. In this article, focus is on transitions during adolescent where individuals are more of experimental nature and want to try new stuffs which encompass risk and addiction behaviors such as consumption of tobacco, alcohol use along with various conditions of violence, accidental injury and suicide. The article is based on the questionnaire which focuses on health-related quality of life in adolescents. The QOL is same what so ever cultural values are present. There are various factors governing the influence of ethnicity on health and health related quality of life, this encompass biological, demographic, psycho-social, behavioral and environmental factors. The article emphasizes that to observe ethnic differences, cultural differences would be excluded and socio-economic and health status is considered. The article has taken cross- national differences in adolescent QOL. Method Random selection of 1397 early and mid-adolescents of the age group 10- 15 years was made in two stages from 40 schools. The first stage encompassed random selection of schools out of 341 schools (primary, government, primary government aided, secondary government, secondary government aided, secondary school independent and full primary and secondary schools). The study made in the article is base on the questionnaire from Japanese researcher but a few (39) questions were eliminated with a thought that they were beyond the understanding of the participants. These were related with sexual subjects, work, mobility and personal beliefs. This is controversial with the assumptions that authors have made about the adolescents in introduction part stating that children over 9-10 years age are able to report on subjective concepts such as behavior or self-esteem (Landgraf, 1996, Stone, 1990). The article has incorporated some additional questions based on school life and peer relationships. The QOLQA then comprised of 70 items and pre-tested on 77 subjects. The questionnaire was translated in the Chinese which was not required as the ethnic differences were observed in Singapore where the primary language of instruction is English. This was not required, moreover 70 items in the questionnaire was divided into five domains, physical (8 items) encompassing pain, discomfort, energy and fatigue, sleep and rest; psychological (33 items) encompassing positive feelings, self esteem, body image and appearance, negative feelings; independence (6 items): activities of daily living,

International Business and Global Strategy Coursework

International Business and Global Strategy - Coursework Example Electrolux gains the position of the world leader through the process of continuous innovation rendered in the products and processes of production. The activity of spontaneous innovation is practiced in the company however keeping an eye on changing consumer needs. Electrolux group operates based on popular brands like Electrolux, Eureka, AEG and Frigidaire. A current estimate released in 2010 reflects that the group recorded total sales of electronic products amounting to 106 billion in Swedish currency and a total number of human resources of 52,000 people (Electrolux, 2011). Company’s mission statement The mission of Electrolux as a company working on innovation and consumer needs is to help make life easier, enjoyable and innovative through the production of specialised products dedicated to such ends. The company in regards to its internal environment focuses on rendering respect and honour to the issues pertaining to workplace diversity and also in making the work envir onment bind on ethical regulations. Integrity being rated high on the company’s mission and value statement the company also works in creating a safer and sustainable work environment for its people. The above aspects help in enhancing the motivation of the people to work more productively in the innovative and empowered work atmosphere. Electrolux in addition to the above aspects also works in rendering both financial and infrastructural help to the larger social communities both regional and international and also in regards to helping the employees for their financial and other needs (Electrolux-a, n.d.). Company’s business-level and corporate-level strategy Business Level Strategy Speaking on Electrolux’s strategy at the business or tactical level it is worth mentioning that the company conducts a large amount of market research along different global regions to understand the changes in the level of consumer needs. This practice helps the company in designi ng its products accordingly to help meet local, regional and international consumer tastes. Again the company working on the aspect of innovation also focuses in keeping the cost of manufacturing of the products low to help gain competitive advantage. Thus the business strategy focuses on production of around 55 percent of its different products in such regions of the world having large availability of resources thus helping in keeping the costs of manufacturing low. Corporate Level Strategy The Corporate Level strategy of the company renders a bird’s eye view to the strategic activities carried out by the company in the tactical level. The management body of the company works to render salient characteristics to the product mix of the company by enhancing the parameters of innovation thus helping the consumers save on energy consumption. Innovative designs are rendered to the products by the company to help carve out a premium brand amidst the other international electronic brands in the global marketplace. Strategies like acquiring and consolidating other small electronic companies in different regions also