Analysis Of Alfred Hitchcock s I Confess - 1542 Words

I believe that in I Confess, the first four minutes is not only the most important, but it also relates back to the rest of the film perfectly. In the beginning of I Confess the audience is shown several shots of the beautiful povince of Quebec to emphasize the location and then we see a murder and a confession occur in the same night. In this essay, I m going to be analyzing the mise-en-scene, cinematography, and sound of the cinematic masterpiece I Confess by Alfred Hitchcock. Father Michael Logan is an extremely holy character in I Confess as he discovers one night during an out of the ordinary confession that one of his parishioners (Otto Keller) has murdered a wealthy member of the community (Vilette). Keller is a desperate German†¦show more content†¦They are greeted with musical stabs each time they appear and add suspense as the audience wonders that the signs are pointing at. The fourth time the direction sign shows up, the camera pans to the right and looks into a window. The open window reveals Vilette s dead body and the music escalates very quickly. The suspense in the first 45 seconds of this film is expertly crafted and although the murderer is revealed directly after, it leaves the audience curious. Beside the corpse is the murder weapon (a blunt instrument) and you can clearly see Vilette s head bleeding at the top, revealing how he was murdered. From the image of Vilette s body, the camera pans to the doorway where the beaded curtain is left swinging showing the audience that someone has just left the crime scene. Next, the audience sees a man in a priest s clothes hurrying down the sidewalk late at night. The lighting is very important in this shot as it sets a very serious, ominous tone. The character also looks over his shoulder hastily as if he s worried someone might see him. The camera goes to a wide shot to show that two young girls are right behind Keller as he briskly walks away from his crime. Then the shot fades into Kelle r walking towards the camera down an alleyway. The lighting is still extremely gloomy and shadowy as he takes off into a dark corner. The next shot has a revealing as Keller takes off his priest clothing and he looks around suspiciously.

America’s Role in Egypt’s Democracy Free Essays

In an online article entitled Aiding and Abetting Egyptian Repression, Shadi Hamid, the author, discussed how the United States is able to influence the state of democracy in Egypt. According to this article, the U. S. We will write a custom essay sample on America’s Role in Egypt’s Democracy or any similar topic only for you Order Now with its foreign aid has long been funding President Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Being America’s closest ally in the Middle East, Egypt is actually the second-largest recipient of U. S. aid (Hamid, 2007). However, since January of 2007, Mubarak has been making serious assaults against opposing political parties, particulary the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the largest opposition group in Egptian parliament (Hamid, 2007). This crackdown on opposition party members and organizations strongly contradicts the idea of democracy. In this article, Hamid calls for the U. S. Congress to consider reducing its aid to Egypt or making aid conditional. He points out that the Bush administration has been generous to autocrats for too long and it should start taking serious measures in addressing this threat to democracy (Hamid, 2007). This article can be interpreted in numerous of ways depending on which perspective a reader may be coming from. Based on various analysis tools and different paradigms, a reader can develop his or her own opinion about the article that may agree or disagree to what the author is saying. The author presents a very compelling argument. Although he is clearly not in favor of the Bush administration, this article discusses the issue in Egypt objectively. However, by exposing practices of neglect by the Bush administration, this article may indirectly influence its reader’s view of the said administration. Personally, I agree with Hamid. If the U. S. claims to be at the vanguard in upholding democracy, then it should not sit idly while its closest ally and second-largest recipient of its aid curtails the democratic rights of its ctitizens. Regardless whether a person is a republican or a democrat, a person who believes in human rights would never allow such practices of repression should to be tolerated. How to cite America’s Role in Egypt’s Democracy, Papers

Google Cloud Computing for Developing Distributed Applications

Question: Describe about the Benefits of Using Google Cloud Computing for Developing Distributed Applications? Answer: Introduction: Assemblage in the contemporary computing is looked upon as an important aspect. Among all computing stories, cloud computing has gained a lot of attention by all the IT sectors. By Cloud computing, we mean that using the internet to store information in a third party device. Google cloud computing features also are easy to use and make work easier. The development of Actor Network Theory was mainly due to a sociology of technology and science. ANT helps to describe how actors form an alliance with the nonhuman factors and strengthen it. ANT has four translation processes. The four processes are problematization, Intersegment, enrollment and mobilization. We use the Actor Network Theory to analyze the cloud computing process of Google and ERP cloud based solution evolvement The two cloud computing story that is taken in the paper is Google, an internet firm service provider. The paper discusses how cloud computing of Google has evolved. In the next part of the paper, we learn how ERP cloud computing has made a remarkable place in many small and big firms. Computing Story 1: Google Cloud Computing: Google is a US based company established in the year 1998. The primary aspect of Google is their search engine service. Google now happens to be the biggest search engines provider in the world. Google now offers a range of services like YouTube, Android Operating Systems, Google earth and cloud services. The Google API has caused the development of the Google cloud services. The main reason to develop Google API is to increase the traffic in the website so that the advertisers can advertise on the Google websites. The cloud-based services that are developed by Google are Google document, Google spreadsheet, Google Finance, Google APE Evolution of Googles Cloud Platform: The developers they use the Googles cloud platform to build and test their application. The Googles infrastructure is highly reliable and scalable. It provides a host of services like computing, application services, backend solution and storage. The Google infrastructure is remarkable (Baun, 2011). The infrastructure helps in millions of searches, YouTube video streaming of more than 6 billion hours and storage facilities to the users of Gmail (Scheid et al., 2012). Network: The network of Google is very advanced, and this is among one of the largest. The backbone network of Google has fiber optic cable that is spread over thousands of miles. Google uses advance networking software and new caching edge technology that help in the faster deliverability, scalable and consistent performance. It has also put fiber optic cable under the Pacific Ocean (Crookes, 2012). Redundancy: There is a strong redundancy due to the presence of multiple points across the globe. Data is available in storage devices that are easy to access from a multiple locations. Google has not only involved in the innovation of hardware infrastructure but also involved in the development of the software infrastructure like the big table, map reduces and Dremel. On the cloud-based platform of Google, one can use the Googles innovation technologies at very faster way (Isak Shabani and Amir Kovai and Agni Dika, 2015). Products can be easily monitored: Without any hassle faced by the system administration, one can develop, deploy and iterate applications. For managing our database, storage servers and application we do not have to take that burden, it is Google that takes care of. Better managed services: While writing a code, one need not worry about the administration of the database, the configuration of the server, load balancing, and sharding, as all this is looked after Google. The company integrates with development tools like Eclipse and provides API to clients libraries so that they can build the way they want to. A single console may be used to manage and see all the applications that are being used. (Kim and Yoon, 2012) A very user-friendly interface helps in the management of the billing procedures and accounts performance. Cloud platform of Google helps the user by letting them pay only to what they use. The applications scale up when the demand for the work is more and scales down when the traffic is low. The services like the App Engine or cloud data store help applications to grow with the increased number of users (Mahmood, 2013). There are mixed bags of services that are provided by the Google cloud platform that are needed in our application architecture.. The services are virtual machines, database as MySQL, Data store as NoSQL, analytics such as big data analytics, etc (Vimalkumar, 2012). Environment-Friendly Cloud Services: Google provides the most environment-friendly storage of data in the world. The data are stored, and codes are run using the most efficient energy. The data centers of Google are built to save both electricity and water. The data centers they use only 50% of energy to process the data. This helps in lessening the impact on the environment. The company uses high certified standards like the ISO 14001, ISO 50001 and OHSAS 18001 to meet the energy and environment management standards. From the year 2007 Google happens to be carbon neutral. The company has made huge investment in the energy projects that are renewable (Marks and Lozano, 2010). It has been using renewable sources of energy to conduct their operations. The company is also thinking of investing in the solar and wind energy projects as well (Shroff, 2010)l. Google offers support for all the services that it provides. There is also community based support that is provided at free of cost. The customers they can access the resources, the contents of training and the documentation.Google can be reached using the social media platforms like Twitter and Google+. Computing Story 2: Cloud ERP Software: The cloud ERP software uses the third party storage of information in providing flexibility to the business. The ERP facility helps in business to manage the purchases and inventories. It can also hold modules for the management of finances and human capital of a business. The ERP system helps assimilating the information that is internal and external to the company. The assimilation of information means sales, customer relationship management, processes of manufacturing and accounting (Weinman, 2012). The system of ERP leads to the flow of information between the business functions that are performed outside as well as inside. In case of a cloud-based model the vendor of the software manages the software and the buyers they pay a subscription fee to use the software. This may be used on a monthly or an annual basis. The business owner so does not face the difficulty of maintaining and hosting the software in the system. There should not be any confusion made with the web-based softw are (Rountree and Castrillo, 2014). The system can access the data online through the online capable devices. According the experts in the industry, it will provide business an opportunity change the way the technology uses and pays. An ERP solution causes the operational expenditures of a business to lessen. According to research conducted by Forrester it was expected that the expenditure on the ERP solution would be increased by 21% in the year 2015. Facilities that a Cloud ERP solution provides: 1. Low initial investments: The old ERP solutions required purchasing, housing and maintenance of the server. The cloud ERP solutions have no initial cost of investment. The solution provider handles the maintenance and keeping the solution up to date (Sarna, 2011). 2. Low technical staff requirement: The ERP solution has easy installation procedure, so the company using it does not need to hire a technical staff to show the installation process. 3. The return on investment is higher: In case of the day to day activity the cloud ERP system helps in easy integration and implementation. 4. Enhance scalability: The business requirements are met by the easy scalability of the cloud-based ERP. The seasonal activity entrepreneurs they benefit quickly with the functions of this systems. 5. Benefits of subscription: There are no costs that are unexpected because all SaaS services are given on subscription. In this way the customer knows the amount they need to pay on monthly basis. This will also help the small firms because they have the limited amount of funds for investment in IT. The prices if they increase they do not do by a greater amount (Singh, 2013). 6. Quick Implementation: The vendor does all the installation processing. There are some parts in the system that is already pre-configured in the system. This leads to the faster processing and higher returns on the investments. 7. Less cost for initialization: The maintenance cost of SaaS system is very low. The vendors of ERP can use more users to the system without any additional usage of technology. 8. Less responsibility on the customers: When there is an in-house system there may arise a problem of trouble shooting but in case of cloud ERP solution it is only the responsibility of the vendors to cater all the problems of the may accrue to the customer. 9. Focus on the business: As the vendors they provide all the back up for the customers so that the customer does not face any difficulty. This has helped the customers to focus on their business that will help them earn the profit. Different Modules of Cloud ERP: An organization implements the modules that are technically feasible and economical for the organization: Module for Finance: All sizes of organization require the use of financial module of ERP. Among the entire ERP systems financial module happens to be the core one. It helps in generating the financial reports of many functional departments. Module for Production: A planning in the production will help in the optimizing the process of production. ERP solutions help in the smooth production planning (Sosinsky, 2011). Module for Human Resource: ERP solutions helps in maintain the employee database, details of salary, attendance etc. Module for Purchase: This module helps in keeping the records of raw material purchases, inventory of the firm. Module for Inventory: This module helps in keeping a check on the stocks that are in the ware houses. Module for CRM: customers form an integral part of any business. The system helps in the maintenance the customers data for the present as well as the past. Conclusion: In this modern technology where the contemporary computing is seen as an assemblage in many of the IT companies. The services of cloud computing is helping the IT companies to overcome their complexities and also helping in meeting the technology requirements of the present generation. The cloud computing vendors are Plex systems, Epicor, ORACLE, Infor, SAP, Microsoft etc. There is an immense competition among these vendors to provide the best ERP solutions. To lessen the limitations and to provide more assemblage computing technological services need to be improved. References Baun, C. (2011). Cloud computing. New York: Springer. Crookes, D. (2012). Cloud computing in easy steps. Leamington Spa, UK: Computer Step. Isak Shabani, and Amir Kovai and Agni Dika, (2015). The Benefits of Using Google Cloud Computing for Developing Distributed Applications. Journal of Mathematics and System Science, 5(4). Kim, S. and Yoon, A. (2012). Do I trust google? An exploration of how people form trust in cloud computing. Proc. Am. Soc. Info. Sci. Tech., 49(1), pp.1-3. Mahmood, Z. (2013). Cloud computing. London: Springer. Marks, E. and Lozano, B. (2010). Executive's guide to cloud computing. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. Rountree, D. and Castrillo, I. (2014). The basics of cloud computing. Waltham, Mass.: Syngress. Sarna, D. (2011). Implementing and developing cloud computing applications. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Scheid, E., Minato, L., Stein, B. and Charo, A. (2012). Cloud computing with Google Apps for education: An experience report. Journal of Applied Computing Research, 2(2). Shroff, G. (2010). Enterprise cloud computing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Singh, G. (2013). A Study Of Impact Of Erp And Cloud Computing In Business Enterprises. Saarbrucken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing. Sosinsky, B. (2011). Cloud computing bible. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley. Vimalkumar, P. (2012). Implementation of Erp in Business Process Based On Cloud Computing. IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 3(1), pp.45-50. Weinman, J. (2012). Cloudonomics. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.

The Assumption and Limitation of CAPM Essay Example

The Assumption and Limitation of CAPM Paper There are numerous assumptions behind the Capital Asset Pricing Model. Firstly, every single investor aims at maximising the economic utility. In other words, investors make as much as money they can. Its because different investors have different preferences for the risk. Some would have preferences for a larger risk and some for a smaller risk. Therefore, the preference of investors for risk return would be taken in to account. The second assumption is that the investors would get all available information with no cost and no loss of time. In other words, information is available to all investors at the same time. If the information cannot be got at the same time by investors, different conclusions would be drawn. However, in fact, real markets contain information asymmetry, which means some people may get more information than others. Thirdly, the assumption is that there are no taxes or transaction costs. In reality, the composition of the optimum portfolio will be changed by taking taxes and transaction costs into account since both of them have an influence on real financial products. Last but not least, the assumption is that investors can borrow and lend unlimited money under the risk free rate of interests. Yet, in fact, every single investor has a credit limit. Thus, they cant borrow or lend money as much as they want. The assumptions are drawn because the CAPM cannot be worked efficiently and precisely without the assumptions. Limitation In CAPM, there are several limitations. Firstly, the risk free rate of return is hard to be estimate by CAPM under different economic environment. Secondly, the CAPM is impossible to be used for a project which last for more than one year as CAPM is a single period model. Firstly, investors cannot always foresee that return of assets precisely as its limitation. We will write a custom essay sample on The Assumption and Limitation of CAPM specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The Assumption and Limitation of CAPM specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The Assumption and Limitation of CAPM specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Its because all data about the share prices and the market portfolio investors have are past data. Therefore, to estimate the betas which are used to forecast future returns, investors can use the historical data only. It is acceptable that the future risk is measured based on historical beta if the betas are stable over time. However, the betas of individual securities are not stable over time, which has shown by researches. Thus, historical betas are not a good indicator of the future risk. Secondly, CAPM is based on unrealistic assumptions which are just mentioned above. In reality, it is hard to reach all assumptions. For example: the assumption of the equality of the lending and borrowing rates is not correct. In fact, the rates would be different or hard to be the same. Therefore, the market indices may not well vary or investors may not hold highly diversified portfolios. By these reasons, CAPM cannot explain the investment behavior of investors precisely and betas cannot capture the risk of investment. Thirdly, the risk free rate of return is hard to be estimate by CAPM under different economic environment and lastly the CAPM is impossible to be used for a project which last for more than one year as CAPM is a single period model. The Use of CAPM CAPM is used to look for explaining the relationship between risk and return in a rational equilibrium market. By doing that, there are many uses of CAPM. Firstly, investors can determine if the portfolio should be undertaken or not by analysing the CAPM. Secondly, it can give the idea for investors what decision they should make if the securitys risk versus expected return is plotted below or above the SML in the graph. For example: if a stock is plotted well below the SML, the investor should not buy it because the investor can get the higher expected return by investing half their money in Treasury bills and half in the market portfolio. Thirdly, in dividend valuation models, an asset is valued with the provision of an appropriate discount rate. Such valuation is obtained with the help from CAPM which indicates the expected or required rates of return on risky assets. Comparisons can be made between the two rates implied by CAPM with a result of over or under valuation. Thus, investors can determine the decision conveniently. Conclusion To conclude, Capital Asset Pricing Model is an easy and sensible theory which can explain the behavior of security profitability. It is very popular nowadays because this model is built on modern portfolio theory and it can distinguish between systematic risk and non-systematic risk easily. Therefore, people can understand and make the financial decision easily. However, CAPM is quite controversial in some circumstances because it is hard to recognize the market portfolio and the return and besides, betas are not easy to be estimated. Without the details of the return and betas, the decision of investors cannot be drawn easily or precisely. Therefore, sufficient information is needed in CAPM.

Medina Surname Origin and Meaning

Medina Surname Origin and Meaning The surname Medina, which ranks 30th among  most common Hispanic last names,  has several possible origins: Dweller at or near the market; one who had returned from the marketA locational or geographical name originating from the city of Medina in western Saudi Arabia, the second most holy city of Islam, or from one of the other places called Medina. According to the Instituto Genealà ³gico e Histà ³rico Latino-Americano, the Medina surname originated principally in the Spanish areas of Burgos and Andalusia. Today, the Medina surname is most frequently found in use in Argentina and Spain according to the World Names Public Profiler. Because most last names originate in multiple areas, the best way to learn more about your Medina last name is to research your own specific family history. If you are new to genealogy, try the steps to begin tracing your family tree. If youre interested in learning more about the Medina Family Crest, then learn more about how the family coat of arms arent what you think.Surname Origin:  Spanish, PortugueseAlternate Surname Spellings:  MEDENA, DE MEDINA, DE MEDENA Famous People With the Medina Last Name Gabriel Medina - Brazilian professional surferBenny Medina - Music producer and record executiveAnn Medina - American-born, Canadian television journalistJosà © Medina (Josà © Alfredo Medina Andrade) - Olympic track and road cyclist from ChileHenrique Medina de Barros - Portuguese painter Genealogy Resources for the Medina Last Name 50 Common Hispanic Surnames Their MeaningsGarcia, Martinez, Rodriguez, Lopez, Hernandez... Are you one of the millions of people sporting one of these top 50 common Hispanic last names? The Medina last name ranks 30th on this list. How to Research Your Hispanic Family TreeLearn how to start your Hispanic research at home, and then branch out to research in country-specific records, organizations, and other resources for Spain, Latin America, Mexico, Brazil, the Caribbean, and other Spanish speaking countries. The Medina DNA ProjectThis Y-DNA testing project is open to all families with the Medina last name and variations, from all locations. The purpose of the project is to help members use a combination of  yDNA  testing, paper trails, and additional research to identify common Medina ancestors. Medina Family Genealogy ForumSearch this popular genealogy forum for the Medina last name to find others who might be researching your ancestors, or post your own Medina query. FamilySearch - Medina GenealogySearch and access records, queries, and lineage-linked online family trees posted for the Medina surname and its variations. FamilySearch features almost 2 million results for the Medina last name. Medina Surname Family Mailing ListsRootsWeb hosts several free mailing lists for researchers of the Medina surname. DistantCousin.com - Medina Genealogy Family HistoryExplore free databases and genealogy links for the last name Medina. References Cottle, Basil. Penguin Dictionary of Surnames. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1967. Hanks, Patrick and Flavia Hodges. A Dictionary of Surnames. Oxford University Press, 1989. Hanks, Patrick. Dictionary of American Family Names. Oxford University Press, 2003. Smith, Elsdon C. American Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Company, 1997.

The Snake Cult of False Prophet Alexander of Abonoteichus

The Snake Cult of False Prophet Alexander of Abonoteichus It turns out that modern America isnt the only place suffering from scary and bizarre cults. Meet Alexander of Abonoteichus, who used a hand puppet to create his own cult centered on a snake. Alexanders story comes to us from the Greek satirist Lucian, who weaves a fascinating tale of faith and scams. External sources corroborated the existence of a Glycon cult, and even one of Lucians more spurious claims - that Alexander slept with married ladies - seems to have been possible, if not terribly likely. Early Life Alexander hailed from Abonoteichus, a hot-spot in Paphlagonia on the Black Sea. But  the story of this  Alexander,  Lucian says, is no mean feat to tell; Lucian might as well be speaking of Alexander the Great! As Lucian quips, The one was as great in villainy as the other in heroism. As a youth, Alexander was a prostitute. One of his  clients was a snake oil salesman/doctor, a quack, one of those who advertise enchantments, miraculous incantations, charms for your love-affair. This guy recognized trained him in the ways of trickery and selling scams. There was a long tradition of wandering scholars/magicians in this part of the world at the time, as Lucian attests: Alexanders master once followed the famed mystic Apollonius of Tyana. Sadly for Alexander, his master died when he hit his teens, so he formed a partnership with a Byzantine writer of choral songs to go around the countryside practicing quackery and sorcery. Alexander and his partner Cocconas followed one of their best clients home to Pella in Macedon.   At Pella, Alexander got the idea for his greatest  scheme yet, one that allowed him to  become the Professor Marvel of the ancient Mediterranean.  He bought one of those pet snakes and, having realized that people who provided hope to their worshippers earned a  lot of money in tribute and offerings, decided to  found his own snake cult based around prophecy. Serpents had  long been associated with foreknowledge in ancient Greece, so that was a no-brainer. A False Prophet Is Born Alexander and Cocconas started in Chalcedon, where they went to the temple of Asclepius, a healing deity and son of prophecy god Apollo. In that sanctuary, they buried tablets that foretold the coming of Asclepius to Alexander’s hometown of Abonoteichus. Once people â€Å"discovered† these texts, every mystic headed straight there to build a temple to Asclepius.   Alexander went home dressed as a prophet descended from Perseus (even though everyone who knew him from home was aware his parents were Average Joes). In order to keep up the pretense of prophecy, Alexander chewed soapwort root to fake fits of madness. He also created a snake hand puppet made from linen that â€Å"would open and close its mouth by means of horsehairs, and a forked black tongue ... also controlled by horsehairs, would dart out.† Alexander even stashed an extra snake egg near the temple in Abonoteichus; muttering words in Hebrew and Phoenician – which seemed like magical gibberish to his listeners – he scooped up the snake and said Asclepius had arrived! Alexander then snuck in a tame snake he bought from Pella and swapped it out for the baby serpent, telling everyone it grew up super-fast, thanks to magic. He also put tubes into his snake puppet and had a friend speak through them to allow Asclepius to prophesize. As a result, his snake, Glycon, was turned into a god. To interpret prophecies, Alex told supplicants to write down their questions on scrolls and drop them off with him; he secretly read them after removing their wax seals with a hot needle, then prepped his answers before they returned. He banned others from sex with young boys, but allowed himself to molest choirboys who served him. This fraud set a high price for his prophecies and sent people abroad to stir up good PR for him. Word reached as far as Rome, from which rich but gullible Rutilianus came to visit; the false prophet even manipulated this guy into marrying Alexanders own daughter. This helped Alexander establish a spy network in Rome and create  mystery rites  for his cult,  like those of Demeter or Dionysus. So great was Alex’s influence that he convinced the emperor to change the name of Abonoteichus to Ionopolis (perhaps after another of Apollo’s mythical sons, Ion); the emperor also issued coins with Alexander on one side and the snake Glycon on the other! Alexander once prophesied he’d live until 150, then get struck by lightning, but his real death was less dramatic. Before he turned 70, one of his legs rotted all the way to his groin; only then did people notice he wore a wig to look young.

Media production Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Media production - Essay Example On the other hand, in the process of presentation of radio news, some radio stations have some scripts of the communication that happened in the course of the coverage in the scene of the event while others present news in a properly elaborated manner without scripts. This makes the difference between the various radio stations because they show these diverse styles of presenting information to the people so that the audience can understand the events (Gunter, 2012, p.7). Some of the radio broadcasting stations that provide news about events that happen in the world in different ways include the BBC, Classic FM UK and the Real Radio Scotland. The three radio stations have various styles of presenting news to the people in order to reach to the people who receive their news from different physical areas as well as who represents cultural diversities. BBC radio, Classic FM and Real Radio Scotland have a common way of presenting their news to their audience in that they focus have a spe cific language they use in the presentation. The languages through which these radio stations communicate to the audience depend on the people that they target so that they can ensure that they are able to understand the news the present to them. For example, BBC radio uses British English because it was first established in the England and it focused on the people within the country and even when it expanded to other countries, it continued the use of the language. Classic FM radio broadcasts its news in British English considering the fact that it serves a section of the citizens of UK living in North West of England. This means that the people are able to understand the language of the communication through which presenters broadcast news to them and this is a similar case for Real Radio Scotland that uses English language to communicate to the public. This means the three radio stations i.e. BBC, Classic FM and Real Radio Scotland use English in the their presentation of news to their target audience in different parts of the world (Hohn, 2007, p.37). In presentation of the news, these radio stations have both time for giving headlines and some other time allocated where they report the events in details. This means that these radio stations allocate time when they present news in short and another time when the information is given in more details and this is done according to the programmes of these radio stations. Through this style of presentations of news, the audience remain updated on the events that occur in various parts of the world and the details of the events are offered in specific news bulletins hours. These radio stations therefore, have different sessions for long and short news bulletins in different times of the day to ensure they communicate to the audience on as much events as possible of what happens around them (Chantler and Stewart, 2009, p.75). Because of the different times of presentations, the companies present information as sh ort packages so as to reduce the length of time to present the information to the audience. For example, the BBC, Classic FM and Real Radio present news in short packages at different times in the course of the day with some at the beginning of the hour and others at the half hour mark or other designated times in the cour

Summative Written Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Summative Written - Assignment Example The paper will explore the legal principles involved in the case with the aim of offering a legal advice to the employee. Facts of the case Mathew, an employee of pharmaceutical company, Medx ltd, was recently involved in an accident. He has worked as a warehouse operative for the pharmaceutical company for over 20 years. The company deals in and store heavy boxes containing its goods. Based on the scope of its operations, the company’s policy is that its employees are supposed to wear protective helmets while on duty. In December 2011, Mathew who was in good health and had never been involved in an accident leading to any injury was involved in an accident while on duty at the pharmaceutical company. A heavy box from an overhead wooden pallet rack fell and hit him to unconsciousness. He sustained several injuries including bruises on his face, a cut on his head, which left a permanent scar, dislocation of his right shoulder, and injuries to his leg. Mathew has been forced out of work for four months and medical report indicates that he may not be able to work for another six months. He also suffers continuous headache. He has a family with a running mortgage to finance. Legal issue Obligations under law of contract One of the essential legal elements in the case is the existence of a legal relationship between Mathew and MedX as defined by his employment contract. His relationship with MedX Ltd falls within the scope of an employment contract. Pozgar and Santucci defines an employment contract as an â€Å"agreement between an employee and an employer† in which special terms such as remuneration, the scope of work and working hours are defined (Pozgar and Santucci, 2009, p. 61). The agreement is therefore regulated by the law of contract under contract of service (Pozgar and Santucci, 2009, p. 61). A contract is an agreement, between parties, that legally enforces their rights and obligations. When parties enter into a contract, they expressly cre ate conditions and warranties that regulate their relationship by laying down responsibilities and obligation of each party. Essential elements of a valid contract as defined through agreement, consideration, and intention to create legal obligations further binds parties to a contract to implied conditions in their trade. Contracts are therefore subject to legislations such as labour law statutes (Goldman and Sigismond, 2010, p. 123). Employee’s safety at workplace Implied conditions in contracts of service impose a responsibility on employers to ensure safety of their employees while at the work place. The occupational safety and health act is an example of such legislations that aims at ensuring welfare of employees. One of the provisions of the act is that an employer has the duty to minimize and possibly mitigate any health hazard within the work place. These threats can either be biological leading to illnesses or physical, leading to injuries. Failure to take necessary measures makes an employer liable to his or her employee for any injury or sickness suffered because of conditions at the work place. The act , with this respect, empowers government agencies to facilitate its implementation as was observed in the case of Donovan v Dewey, 452 U.S 594, 101 s. Cr 2534 (1981) (Ullmann, 2004, p. 339). Further, employers are charged with the responsibility of not only ensuring safety of their

The Changing Urban Geography of the Inner East End and the City of London Essay Example for Free

The Changing Urban Geography of the Inner East End and the City of London Essay Tower Hamlets have been inhabited for 2000 years, with a detailed history going back to the Roman invasion of 43AD. The world famous Tower of London stands on the River Thames on the western boundary of the borough. It dates from the reign of William the Conqueror in the 11th century and in the past 900 years it has been used as a fortress, royal palace, zoo and state prison. Much of borough was marshland at this time. As London expanded and the pressure for development intensified, the land was gradually drained and reclaimed. A cluster of small communities was established, known locally as the hamlets around the tower which is the origin of the boroughs name. The areas population spread south from Spitalfields and Whitechapel as works to prevent flooding of the Thames allowed many new houses and wharves to be built at Blackwall, Poplar, Shadwell and Wapping. These areas grew as centres of shipbuilding and repair. Lime kilns to make mortar for the building industry were established, giving their name to Limehouse. The construction of Bow Bridge over the River Lee in Henry 1s reign improved access to the tide mills on the east bank. It wasnt until the 16th century that the area really began to thrive. During that century Whitechapel was a bustling suburb of London, becoming a centre for trades, such as metalworking, brick making and tanning, not allowed in the City because of danger, noise and smell. The dissolution of the monasteries by 1536 freed land for building and London grew rapidly. The split between east and west London became marked with the west attracting courtiers, gentry and professional classes and the east the trades, industry and commerce. Shipbuilding spread rapidly along the riverside and became concentrated on the Isle of Dogs. Some say it was so named because Henry VIII exercised his hunting dogs there but it may well have originated from Isle of Docks. Factories and rows of terraced houses consumed the rural landscape of the 18th century, except for pockets of land saved for parks and gardens, in particular, Victoria Park, Stepney Green, Bethnal Green Gardens and Island Gardens, which remain to this day. The maritime character of the hamlets around the Tower was transformed in appearance during the 19th century, with the building of huge warehouses and high walled docks. The West India Dock, which opened in 1802, was the first enclosed dock built on the Thames for cargo handling and within 26 years the East India, London and St. Katharine Docks were all working. As the workshops, docks and factories of East London made a major contribution to the development of London as world trading centre, it was very much at the expense of workers who endured damaging working conditions. Two famous East London strikes played an important part in organising unskilled workers into unions. In 1888, Annie Besant led the match girls at Bryant and Mays factory in Bow, in their fight for better conditions. The following year saw Ben Tillet, Tom Mann and John Burns lead the dockers strike to raise wages to 5d per hour, less than 3p in todays currency. Philanthropists of every description were drawn to the East End. Dr Barnardo trained at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel and founded his first home for orphans in Hope Place, Stepney in 1866. The first Ragged Day School was set up in canal-side warehouses at Mile End and is now a museum about the East End and the lives of its children. Salvation Army founder William Booth began preaching on the Mile End Waste in 1865. In 1869 the Baroness Burdett-Coutts built a gigantic covered market called Columbia, in Bethnal Green. Of the many political figures in the boroughs history, George Lansbury Councillor, Mayor of Poplar, Member of Parliament and Leader of the Labour Party from 1931 to 1935 did much to try and improve conditions for local people. Sylvia Pankhurst headed the militant East London branch of the Suffragette movement based on Old Ford Road. The borough is historically famous for providing refuge to those fleeing persecution. In the 18th century, the area was occupied by the silk weavers largely descended from the Huguenot refugees (French Protestants escaping from Catholic persecution in France). A hundred years later, Jews fleeing the pogroms in Eastern Europe founded a thriving community. At the same time, a Chinese community was established in Limehouse as a result of merchant trading. Throughout its history, Tower Hamlets has continued its trend of welcoming people of different faiths and cultures. During the 20th century newcomers from Bangladesh settled in Spitalfields and the surrounding areas, along with Somali and Vietnamese refugees. With its culture and cuisine, the predominant Bangladeshi community gives such life and vitality to the area that it has been dubbed Banglatown. This is in stark contrast to the mid 20th century period when much of the area was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War. The borough suffered more than any other part of London during the war twenty four thousand homes and much of its industry were destroyed. The post war period was also a difficult time as the traditional dock industries fell into rapid decline, leaving substantial areas of land and buildings vacant and derelict. But Tower Hamlets has a history of responding to the demands of time. After several decades of failed schemes and plans, part of the borough (all of the Isle of Dogs and most of Wapping) was designated an economic development zone. As a result the years since 1980 have seen massive expansion of new industries and employment, and an extraordinary landscape-changing transformation has taken place. Empty warehouses have been converted and derelict sites have been replaced by towering office blocks and contemporary housing complexes, many with award-winning glass and steel designs. The borough has altered greatly over the centuries, but much of its history survives today in the original street patterns, place names, architectural heritage and the absorption of people from many different backgrounds into todays growing community. The Tower hamlets were built in 1963 when the boroughs of Stepney, Poplar and Bethnal Green were merged together. This area is nowadays known as the East End of London. The fresh Docklands and Riverside developments are slowly changing the area away from being just a working-class area. For the last 400 years the residents in this area have generally been craftsmen, labourers and those who worked for the richer city dwellers. The Tower Hamlets became an extremely important industrial area, in the unloading, storing and processing of goods coming into London. However the working conditions in these areas have traditionally been very appalling. The major industry during the Second World War in this area was the docks, but the Tower Hamlets were extremely badly damaged during the Blitz. This had a disastrous effect on the docks, and this saw the decline of them. The London City Council produced a post-war rebuilding scheme, even after a huge amount of people had migrated out of the area. This resulted in the area becoming more residential than industrial. The area in the borough contained post-war Edwardian and Victorian terraces, and at this time it was not very aesthetically pleasing, and did not attract a great deal of visitors to the area. The Tower of London however, is a huge place in Britains history dating back to 1067, and holds the Crown Jewels. The Tower Bridge is continually refurbished for the reason that it attracts a huge number of tourists the whole year round. After the closing of the docks, a enormous urban generation took place, which meant that some of the area was rebuilt completely and to a very high standard, an example of this being Canary Wharf, which holds numerous high rise office buildings. There are now also attractive housing developments and a much better service and leisure infrastructure. Spittalfields Spitalfields lies at the heart of the East End of London and is famous for its bustling street markets. Many people are drawn to Spitalfields for the wide variety of eateries found around the markets. Brick Lane is known for its curry restaurants, and with its predominant Bangladeshi community. The area is historically famous for providing refuge to those fleeing persecution. In the 18th century, the area was occupied by the silk weavers largely descended from the Huguenot refugees (French Protestants escaping from Catholic persecution in France). A hundred years later, jews fleeing the pogroms in Eastern Europe, founded a thriving community. Nowhere is the unique history of the area better depicted than in the history of the local mosque. The mosque in Brick Lane has been a place of worship for different faiths for hundreds of years. It was first built as church by the Huguenots but changed use to become a synagogue when a jewish community replaced the protestant population. This shows how the immigrants who came into this area has changed considerably. First it was the Hugenos who came in 1700s to Fournier Street and brought the silk industry with them. They came due to the persecution of French protestants in France in the late 1600s. The Eastern European Jews who migrated in the 1881 due to persecution changed the area to a synagogue, while the Bangladeshis built it into a mosque in the 1950s. By the middle of the 20th century the jewish community had mostly moved on and the building was converted again, this time into a mosque to serve the Bangladeshi community. With its culture and cuisine the Bangladeshi influence gives a cosmopolitan feel to Spitalfields. The influence is so striking that the area has been dubbed Bangla Town. Architecturally, the narrow lanes and alleyways of Spitalfields typify the bustling street life of Charles Dickens London. Spitalfields covered market was built in 1682 and is a fine example of the hamlets architecture. It now houses a lively crafts and antique market with an international and organic The nearby Brick Lane Market developed during the 18th century for farmers selling their livestock and produce outside the city boundary. Today the market offers wide array of fruit and vegetables, clothes and household goods. Petticoat Lane Market is renowned for its clothing and leather goods. To the south of Spitalfields is Whitechapel Road, which is world famous as the only East End street on the Monopoly board. More locally the road is famous for the East London Mosque, The Royal London Hospital and museum and the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. However on the topic of housing, Spitalfields is not of very high standard. The inner city, which is predominantly Bangladeshi, has a very low owner occupation rate, but this has increased dramatically in the last 30 years, showing how much it has come forward in the last few decades in terms of both size and standard. A reason for this is the law introduced which allowed people to buy from the council, which allowed the houses to be refurbished through gentrification. Despite this, Spittalfields is still a rather poor area, with high housing densities, no central heating and other serious characteristics of deprivation. Former Bishops Gate goods yard is a very rundown area and shows the great decline in the area. It has been in decline for the last 25 years and is now used as a car park, which is typical for areas around the area. The new Church on Commercial Street is a strong reflection of the change in land use of the area as a large majority of churches were bombed during the Second World War and this is being redeveloped. As we go further into the city of London away from the East End we see that there are increasing more new office blocks being developed with 10 -12% in Canary Warf and many in Exchange Square. The reason for this is because companies save a lot of money, over 100% in fact making Exchange Square a popular area. Also, because of limited space, the law has come out allowing only British based companies to buy shares so many companies move to London and so land values are increased. Also an illustration of change in land use is Devonshire Square where East India Company Warehouses, which was a major trade company, are being converted into offices. This is unusually not near the docks but reason for its placement is due to the large space available. Also the buildings have had conversion to higher ceilings for air conditioning and cables for IT which again highlights the modernisation of the area. The Guild Hall is the heart of Londons government. It has had a lot of refurbishment since the 12th century and is the wealthiest local authority in Britain. It receives à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½6 million per annum from Natwest Bank from tax. It has responsibility for numerous things such as many open spaces around London (e.g. Burnham Beeches), for hygiene in markets, control of London University and controls part of London and Heathrow. These reasons show how this area of London is so significant and important. A very important wealthy area is the area of Guild Hall. The Big Bang attracted many foreign companies, which brought more wealth into the London economy. Over $450 billion a day pass through London in the foreign exchange which is obviously a huge amount of money, showing London is a very important city of the world. This proves the fact that London is the worlds second largest economic city, and earns $1.8 trillion in stocks shares. One of the reasons for this is because London is in the centre of the worlds time zones, so it open when other leading cities are open, such as New York and Tokyo, which is very advantageous. As well as that, London is the centre of the car manufacturing, which is the world largest manufacturing industry. The stocks and shares began in the Mansion Square, and the Bank of England is also located here. The London Mayors Office is also situated here. We appreciate how much the land use and people in London have changed over time, and the reasons for this actually occurring.

Ciceros De Amicitia Essay -- Friendship Death Love Essays

Cicero's De Amicitia Cicero’s De Amicitia brings a unique perspective to the topic of friendship and how it relates to death. The word amicitia comes from the Latin root word amor which is translated to mean â€Å"love†. In this day and age the word friendship has taken on a slightly different meaning from the ancient meaning. Cicero’s De Amicitia seeks to define what friendship is, its characteristics and principles. He has challenged us to reconsider what constitutes a true friend. Upon observing a typical friendship it becomes clear to us that this relationship is actually devoid of true love; the love in which Cicero speaks of. A genuine friendship is a rare and beautiful thing; a mutual relationship formed between two virtuous people of the same sex in which both individuals love the other as much if not more than themselves. â€Å"In the face of a true friend a man sees as it were a second self.† To love another person as much as you love yourself, to give without the expectation of receiving something in return is indeed an amazing concept. It is sometimes hard to comprehend its existence in this world where friendship is more for utility; â€Å"serve for particular ends - riches for use, power for securing homage, office for reputation, pleasure for enjoyment, health for freedom from pain and the full use of the functions of the body. But friendship embraces innumerable advantages.† The structural foundation upon which a friendship is built is a key determining factor concerning the quality, life and longevity of a friendship. When this foundation is weak and built on the selfish desires of those individuals, that friendship is ultimately put to the test. A utility based friendship is impermanent; giving way to the changing circumstances it faces over time as Cicero stated â€Å"For if it were true that its material advantages cemented friendship, it would be equally true that any change in them would dissolve it.† It does not have the qualities to endure and will fail to thrive in the face of such trials and tribulations as â€Å"conflicting interest; differences of opinion in politics; frequent changes in character, owing sometimes to misfortunes, sometimes to advancing years.† In this type of friendship the individual takes pleasure in each other’s company only in so far they have hopes of gaining an advantage from it. For Cicero, true friendship can only be achie... ...h act. â€Å"I am disposed to think, therefore, that in his case mourning would be a sign of envy rather than of friendship. If, however, the truth rather is that the body and soul perish together, and that no sensation remains, then though there is nothing good in death, at least there is nothing bad.† This statement shows a certain level of jealousy for you envy the freedom your friend has now achieved in death whereas you are still encased in your human form, your soul trapped and yearning for knowledge and wisdom. Feelings of joy would wash over the surviving friend if indeed their friendship were true. Feeling joyful that this person he has loved with all his heart and soul has moved on to a beautiful place, free from the human condition. Reading Cicero’s work has helped validate that which I have always felt to be true; not just of friendship but of death. I conclude with a passage in which Cicero touches on the purpose of forming friendships; †For it is not so much what one gets by a friend that gives one pleasure, as the warmth of his feeling.† One day I hope to understand through first hand experience rather than just through speculation and dissection of Cicero’s writing.

The Da Vinci Code Chapter 18-20

CHAPTER 18 Fache sprinted down the Grand Gallery as Collet's radio blared over the distant sound of the alarm. â€Å"He jumped!† Collet was yelling. â€Å"I'm showing the signal out on Place du Carrousel! Outside the bathroom window! And it's not moving at all! Jesus, I think Langdon has just committed suicide!† Fache heard the words, but they made no sense. He kept running. The hallway seemed never-ending. As he sprinted past Sauniere's body, he set his sights on the partitions at the far end of the Denon Wing. The alarm was getting louder now. â€Å"Wait!† Collet's voice blared again over the radio. â€Å"He's moving! My God, he's alive. Langdon's moving!† Fache kept running, cursing the length of the hallway with every step. â€Å"Langdon's moving faster!† Collet was still yelling on the radio. â€Å"He's running down Carrousel. Wait†¦ he's picking up speed. He's moving too fast!† Arriving at the partitions, Fache snaked his way through them, saw the rest room door, and ran for it. The walkie-talkie was barely audible now over the alarm. â€Å"He must be in a car! I think he's in a car! I can't – â€Å" Collet's words were swallowed by the alarm as Fache finally burst into the men's room with his gun drawn. Wincing against the piercing shrill, he scanned the area. The stalls were empty. The bathroom deserted. Fache's eyes moved immediately to the shattered window at the far end of the room. He ran to the opening and looked over the edge. Langdon was nowhere to be seen. Fache could not imagine anyone risking a stunt like this. Certainly if he had dropped that far, he would be badly injured. The alarm cut off finally, and Collet's voice became audible again over the walkie-talkie. â€Å"†¦ moving south†¦ faster†¦ crossing the Seine on Pont du Carrousel!† Fache turned to his left. The only vehicle on Pont du Carrousel was an enormous twin-bed Trailor delivery truck moving southward away from the Louvre. The truck's open-air bed was covered with a vinyl tarp, roughly resembling a giant hammock. Fache felt a shiver of apprehension. That truck, only moments ago, had probably been stopped at a red light directly beneath the rest room window. An insane risk, Fache told himself. Langdon had no way of knowing what the truck was carrying beneath that tarp. What if the truck were carrying steel? Or cement? Or even garbage? A forty-foot leap? It was madness. â€Å"The dot is turning!† Collet called. â€Å"He's turning right on Pont des Saints-Peres!† Sure enough, the Trailor truck that had crossed the bridge was slowing down and making a right turn onto Pont des Saints-Peres. So be it, Fache thought. Amazed, he watched the truck disappear around the corner. Collet was already radioing the agents outside, pulling them off the Louvre perimeter and sending them to their patrol cars in pursuit, all the while broadcasting the truck's changing location like some kind of bizarre play-by-play. It's over, Fache knew. His men would have the truck surrounded within minutes. Langdon was not going anywhere. Stowing his weapon, Fache exited the rest room and radioed Collet. â€Å"Bring my car around. I want to be there when we make the arrest.† As Fache jogged back down the length of the Grand Gallery, he wondered if Langdon had even survived the fall. Not that it mattered. Langdon ran. Guilty as charged. Only fifteen yards from the rest room, Langdon and Sophie stood in the darkness of the Grand Gallery, their backs pressed to one of the large partitions that hid the bathrooms from the gallery. They had barely managed to hide themselves before Fache had darted past them, gun drawn, and disappeared into the bathroom. The last sixty seconds had been a blur. Langdon had been standing inside the men's room refusing to run from a crime he didn't commit, when Sophie began eyeing the plate-glass window and examining the alarm mesh running through it. Then she peered downward into the street, as if measuring the drop. â€Å"With a little aim, you can get out of here,† she said. Aim? Uneasy, he peered out the rest room window. Up the street, an enormous twin-bed eighteen-wheeler was headed for the stoplight beneath the window. Stretched across the truck's massive cargo bay was a blue vinyl tarp, loosely covering the truck's load. Langdon hoped Sophie was not thinking what she seemed to be thinking. â€Å"Sophie, there's no way I'm jump – â€Å"Take out the tracking dot.† Bewildered, Langdon fumbled in his pocket until he found the tiny metallic disk. Sophie took it from him and strode immediately to the sink. She grabbed a thick bar of soap, placed the tracking dot on top of it, and used her thumb to push the disk down hard into the bar. As the disk sank into the soft surface, she pinched the hole closed, firmly embedding the device in the bar. Handing the bar to Langdon, Sophie retrieved a heavy, cylindrical trash can from under the sinks. Before Langdon could protest, Sophie ran at the window, holding the can before her like a battering ram. Driving the bottom of the trash can into the center of the window, she shattered the glass. Alarms erupted overhead at earsplitting decibel levels. â€Å"Give me the soap!† Sophie yelled, barely audible over the alarm. Langdon thrust the bar into her hand. Palming the soap, she peered out the shattered window at the eighteen-wheeler idling below. The target was plenty big – an expansive, stationary tarp – and it was less than ten feet from the side of the building. As the traffic lights prepared to change, Sophie took a deep breath and lobbed the bar of soap out into the night. The soap plummeted downward toward the truck, landing on the edge of the tarp, and sliding downward into the cargo bay just as the traffic light turned green. â€Å"Congratulations,† Sophie said, dragging him toward the door. â€Å"You just escaped from the Louvre.† Fleeing the men's room, they moved into the shadows just as Fache rushed past. Now, with the fire alarm silenced, Langdon could hear the sounds of DCPJ sirens tearing away from the Louvre. A police exodus.Fache had hurried off as well, leaving the Grand Gallery deserted. â€Å"There's an emergency stairwell about fifty meters back into the Grand Gallery,† Sophie said. â€Å"Now that the guards are leaving the perimeter, we can get out of here.† Langdon decided not to say another word all evening. Sophie Neveu was clearly a hell of a lot smarter than he was. CHAPTER 19 The Church of Saint-Sulpice, it is said, has the most eccentric history of any building in Paris. Built over the ruins of an ancient temple to the Egyptian goddess Isis, the church possesses an architectural footprint matching that of Notre Dame to within inches. The sanctuary has played host to the baptisms of the Marquis de Sade and Baudelaire, as well as the marriage of Victor Hugo. The attached seminary has a well-documented history of unorthodoxy and was once the clandestine meeting hall for numerous secret societies. Tonight, the cavernous nave of Saint-Sulpice was as silent as a tomb, the only hint of life the faint smell of incense from mass earlier that evening. Silas sensed an uneasiness in Sister Sandrine's demeanor as she led him into the sanctuary. He was not surprised by this. Silas was accustomed to people being uncomfortable with his appearance. â€Å"You're an American,† she said. â€Å"French by birth,† Silas responded. â€Å"I had my calling in Spain, and I now study in the United States.† Sister Sandrine nodded. She was a small woman with quiet eyes. â€Å"And you have never seen Saint- Sulpice?† â€Å"I realize this is almost a sin in itself.† â€Å"She is more beautiful by day.† â€Å"I am certain. Nonetheless, I am grateful that you would provide me this opportunity tonight.† â€Å"The abbe requested it. You obviously have powerful friends.† You have no idea, Silas thought. As he followed Sister Sandrine down the main aisle, Silas was surprised by the austerity of the sanctuary. Unlike Notre Dame with its colorful frescoes, gilded altar-work, and warm wood, Saint- Sulpice was stark and cold, conveying an almost barren quality reminiscent of the ascetic cathedrals of Spain. The lack of decor made the interior look even more expansive, and as Silasgazed up into the soaring ribbed vault of the ceiling, he imagined he was standing beneath the hull of an enormous overturned ship. A fitting image, he thought. The brotherhood's ship was about to be capsized forever. Feeling eager to get to work, Silas wished Sister Sandrine would leave him. She was a small woman whom Silas could incapacitate easily, but he had vowed not to use force unless absolutely necessary. She is a woman of the cloth, and it is not her fault the brotherhood chose her church as a hiding place for their keystone.She should not be punished for the sins of others. â€Å"I am embarrassed, Sister, that you were awoken on my behalf.† â€Å"Not at all. You are in Paris a short time. You should not miss Saint-Sulpice. Are your interests in the church more architectural or historical?† â€Å"Actually, Sister, my interests are spiritual.† She gave a pleasant laugh. â€Å"That goes without saying. I simply wondered where to begin your tour.† Silas felt his eyes focus on the altar. â€Å"A tour is unnecessary. You have been more than kind. I can show myself around.† â€Å"It is no trouble,† she said. â€Å"After all, I am awake.† Silas stopped walking. They had reached the front pew now, and the altar was only fifteen yards away. He turned his massive body fully toward the small woman, and he could sense her recoil as she gazed up into his red eyes. â€Å"If it does not seem too rude, Sister, I am not accustomed to simply walking into a house of God and taking a tour. Would you mind if I took some time alone to pray before I look around?† Sister Sandrine hesitated. â€Å"Oh, of course. I shall wait in the rear of the church for you.† Silas put a soft but heavy hand on her shoulder and peered down. â€Å"Sister, I feel guilty already for having awoken you. To ask you to stay awake is too much. Please, you should return to bed. I can enjoy your sanctuary and then let myself out.† She looked uneasy. â€Å"Are you sure you won't feel abandoned?† â€Å"Not at all. Prayer is a solitary joy.† â€Å"As you wish.† Silas took his hand from her shoulder. â€Å"Sleep well, Sister. May the peace of the Lord be with you.† â€Å"And also with you.† Sister Sandrine headed for the stairs. â€Å"Please be sure the door closes tightly on your way out.† â€Å"I will be sure of it.† Silas watched her climb out of sight. Then he turned and knelt in the front pew, feeling the cilice cut into his leg. Dear God, I offer up to you this work I do today†¦ . Crouching in the shadows of the choir balcony high above the altar, Sister Sandrine peered silently through the balustrade at the cloaked monk kneeling alone. The sudden dread in her soul made it hard to stay still. For a fleeting instant, she wondered if this mysterious visitor could be the enemy they had warned her about, and if tonight she would have to carry out the orders she had been holding all these years. She decided to stay there in the darkness and watch his every move. CHAPTER 20 Emerging from the shadows, Langdon and Sophie moved stealthily up the deserted Grand Gallery corridor toward the emergency exit stairwell. As he moved, Langdon felt like he was trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle in the dark. The newest aspect of this mystery was a deeply troubling one: The captain of the Judicial Police is trying to frame me for murder â€Å"Do you think,† he whispered,† that maybe Fache wrote that message on the floor?† Sophie didn't even turn. â€Å"Impossible.† Langdon wasn't so sure. â€Å"He seems pretty intent on making me look guilty. Maybe he thought writing my name on the floor would help his case?† â€Å"The Fibonacci sequence? The P. S. ? All the Da Vinci and goddess symbolism? That had to be my grandfather.† Langdon knew she was right. The symbolism of the clues meshed too perfectly – the pentacle, TheVitruvian Man, Da Vinci, the goddess, and even the Fibonacci sequence. A coherent symbolic set, as iconographers would call it. All inextricably tied. â€Å"And his phone call to me this afternoon,† Sophie added. â€Å"He said he had to tell me something. I'm certain his message at the Louvre was his final effort to tell me something important, something he thought you could help me understand.† Langdon frowned. O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint! He wished he could comprehend the message, both for Sophie's well-being and for his own. Things had definitely gotten worse since he first laid eyes on the cryptic words. His fake leap out the bathroom window was not going to help Langdon's popularity with Fache one bit. Somehow he doubted the captain of the French police would see the humor in chasing down and arresting a bar of soap. â€Å"The doorway isn't much farther,† Sophie said.† Do you think there's a possibility that the numbers in your grandfather's message hold the key to understanding the other lines?† Langdon had once worked on a series of Baconian manuscripts that contained epigraphical ciphers in which certain lines of code were clues as to how to decipher the other lines. â€Å"I've been thinking about the numbers all night. Sums, quotients, products. I don't see anything. Mathematically, they're arranged at random. Cryptographic gibberish.† â€Å"And yet they're all part of the Fibonacci sequence. That can't be coincidence.† â€Å"It's not. Using Fibonacci numbers was my grandfather's way of waving another flag at me – like writing the message in English, or arranging himself like my favorite piece of art, or drawing a pentacle on himself. All of it was to catch my attention.† â€Å"The pentacle has meaning to you?† â€Å"Yes. I didn't get a chance to tell you, but the pentacle was a special symbol between my grandfather and me when I was growing up. We used to play Tarot cards for fun, and my indicator card always turned out to be from the suit of pentacles. I'm sure he stacked the deck, but pentacles got to be our little joke.† Langdon felt a chill. They played Tarot? The medieval Italian card game was so replete with hidden heretical symbolism that Langdon had dedicated an entire chapter in his new manuscript to the Tarot. The game's twenty-two cards bore names like The Female Pope, The Empress, and The Star.Originally, Tarot had been devised as a secret means to pass along ideologies banned by the Church. Now, Tarot's mystical qualities were passed on by modern fortune-tellers. The Tarot indicator suit for feminine divinity is pentacles, Langdon thought, realizing that if Sauniere had been stacking his granddaughter's deck for fun, pentacles was an apropos inside joke. They arrived at the emergency stairwell, and Sophie carefully pulled open the door. No alarm sounded. Only the doors to the outside were wired. Sophie led Langdon down a tight set of switchback stairs toward the ground level, picking up speed as they went. â€Å"Your grandfather,† Langdon said, hurrying behind her,† when he told you about the pentacle, did he mention goddess worship or any resentment of the Catholic Church?† Sophie shook her head. â€Å"I was more interested in the mathematics of it – the Divine Proportion, PHI, Fibonacci sequences, that sort of thing.† Langdon was surprised. â€Å"Your grandfather taught you about the number PHI?† â€Å"Of course. The Divine Proportion.† Her expression turned sheepish. â€Å"In fact, he used to joke that I was half divine†¦ you know, because of the letters in my name.† Langdon considered it a moment and then groaned. s-o-PHI-e. Still descending, Langdon refocused on PHI.He was starting to realize that Sauniere's clues were even more consistent than he had first imagined. Da Vinci†¦ Fibonacci numbers†¦ the pentacle. Incredibly, all of these things were connected by a single concept so fundamental to art history that Langdon often spent several class periods on the topic. PHI. He felt himself suddenly reeling back to Harvard, standing in front of his† Symbolism in Art† class, writing his favorite number on the chalkboard. 1. 618 Langdon turned to face his sea of eager students. â€Å"Who can tell me what this number is?† A long-legged math major in back raised his hand. â€Å"That's the number PHI.† He pronounced it fee. â€Å"Nice job, Stettner,† Langdon said. â€Å"Everyone, meet PHI.† â€Å"Not to be confused with PI,† Stettner added, grinning. â€Å"As we mathematicians like to say: PHI is one H of a lot cooler than PI!† Langdon laughed, but nobody else seemed to get the joke. Stettner slumped.† This number PHI,† Langdon continued,† one-point-six-one-eight, is a very important number in art. Who can tell me why?† Stettner tried to redeem himself. â€Å"Because it's so pretty?† Everyone laughed.† Actually,† Langdon said,† Stettner's right again. PHI is generally considered the most beautiful number in the universe.† The laughter abruptly stopped, and Stettner gloated. As Langdon loaded his slide projector, he explained that the number PHI was derived from the Fibonacci sequence – a progression famous not only because the sum of adjacent terms equaled the next term, but because the quotients of adjacent terms possessed the astonishing property of approaching the number 1. 618 – PHI! Despite PHI's seemingly mystical mathematical origins, Langdon explained, the truly mind-boggling aspect of PHI was its role as a fundamental building block in nature. Plants, animals, and even human beings all possessed dimensional properties that adhered with eerie exactitude to the ratio of PHI to 1. â€Å"PHI's ubiquity in nature,† Langdon said, killing the lights,† clearly exceeds coincidence, and so the ancients assumed the number PHI must have been preordained by the Creator of the universe. Early scientists heralded one-point-six-one-eight as the Divine Proportion.† â€Å"Hold on,† said a young woman in the front row. â€Å"I'm a bio major and I've never seen this Divine Proportion in nature.† â€Å"No?† Langdon grinned. â€Å"Ever study the relationship between females and males in a honeybee community?† â€Å"Sure. The female bees always outnumber the male bees.† â€Å"Correct. And did you know that if you divide the number of female bees by the number of male bees in any beehive in the world, you always get the same number?† â€Å"You do?† â€Å"Yup. PHI.† The girl gaped. â€Å"NO WAY!† â€Å"Way!† Langdon fired back, smiling as he projected a slide of a spiral seashell. â€Å"Recognize this?† â€Å"It's a nautilus,† the bio major said. â€Å"A cephalopod mollusk that pumps gas into its chambered shell to adjust its buoyancy.† â€Å"Correct. And can you guess what the ratio is of each spiral's diameter to the next?† The girl looked uncertain as she eyed the concentric arcs of the nautilus spiral. Langdon nodded. â€Å"PHI. The Divine Proportion. One-point-six-one-eight to one.† The girl looked amazed. Langdon advanced to the next slide – a close-up of a sunflower's seed head. â€Å"Sunflower seeds grow in opposing spirals. Can you guess the ratio of each rotation's diameter to the next?† â€Å"PHI?† everyone said.† Bingo.† Langdon began racing through slides now – spiraled pinecone petals, leaf arrangement on plant stalks, insect segmentation – all displaying astonishing obedience to the Divine Proportion. â€Å"This is amazing!† someone cried out. â€Å"Yeah,† someone else said,† but what does it have to do with art?† â€Å"Aha!† Langdon said. â€Å"Glad you asked.† He pulled up another slide – a pale yellow parchment displaying Leonardo Da Vinci's famous male nude – The Vitruvian Man – named for Marcus Vitruvius, the brilliant Roman architect who praised the Divine Proportion in his text De Architectura. â€Å"Nobody understood better than Da Vinci the divine structure of the human body. Da Vinci actually exhumed corpses to measure the exact proportions of human bone structure. He was the first to show that the human body is literally made of building blocks whose proportional ratios always equal PHI.† Everyone in class gave him a dubious look. â€Å"Don't believe me?† Langdon challenged. â€Å"Next time you're in the shower, take a tape measure.† A couple of football players snickered. â€Å"Not just you insecure jocks,† Langdon prompted. â€Å"All of you. Guys and girls. Try it. Measure the distance from the tip of your head to the floor. Then divide that by the distance from your bellybutton to the floor. Guess what number you get.† â€Å"Not PHI!† one of the jocks blurted out in disbelief. â€Å"Yes, PHI,† Langdon replied. â€Å"One-point-six-one-eight. Want another example? Measure the distance from your shoulder to your fingertips, and then divide it by the distance from your elbow to your fingertips. PHI again. Another? Hip to floor divided by knee to floor. PHI again. Finger joints. Toes. Spinal divisions. PHI. PHI. PHI. My friends, each of you is a walking tribute to the Divine Proportion.† Even in the darkness, Langdon could see they were all astounded. He felt a familiar warmth inside. This is why he taught. â€Å"My friends, as you can see, the chaos of the world has an underlying order. When the ancients discovered PHI, they were certain they had stumbled across God's building block for the world, and they worshipped Nature because of that. And one can understand why. God's hand is evident in Nature, and even to this day there exist pagan, Mother Earth-revering religions. Many of us celebrate nature the way the pagans did, and don't even know it. May Day is a perfect example, the celebration of spring†¦ the earth coming back to life to produce her bounty. The mysterious magic inherent in the Divine Proportion was written at the beginning of time. Man is simply playing by Nature's rules, and because art is man's attempt to imitate the beauty of the Creator's hand, you can imagine we might be seeing a lot of instances of the Divine Proportion in art this semeste r.† Over the next half hour, Langdon showed them slides of artwork by Michelangelo, Albrecht Durer, Da Vinci, and many others, demonstrating each artist's intentional and rigorous adherence to the Divine Proportion in the layout of his compositions. Langdon unveiled PHI in the architectural dimensions of the Greek Parthenon, the pyramids of Egypt, and even the United Nations Building in New York. PHI appeared in the organizational structures of Mozart's sonatas, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, as well as the works of Bartok, Debussy, and Schubert. The number PHI, Langdon told them, was even used by Stradivarius to calculate the exact placement of the f-holes in the construction of his famous violins. â€Å"In closing,† Langdon said, walking to the chalkboard,† we return to symbols† He drew five intersecting lines that formed a five-pointed star. â€Å"This symbol is one of the most powerful images you will see this term. Formally known as a pentagram – or pentacle, as the ancients called it – this symbol is considered both divine and magical by many cultures. Can anyone tell me why that might be?† Stettner, the math major, raised his hand. â€Å"Because if you draw a pentagram, the lines automatically divide themselves into segments according to the Divine Proportion.† Langdon gave the kid a proud nod. â€Å"Nice job. Yes, the ratios of line segments in a pentacle allequal PHI, making this symbol the ultimate expression of the Divine Proportion. For this reason, the five-pointed star has always been the symbol for beauty and perfection associated with the goddess and the sacred feminine.† The girls in class beamed. â€Å"One note, folks. We've only touched on Da Vinci today, but we'll be seeing a lot more of him this semester. Leonardo was a well-documented devotee of the ancient ways of the goddess. Tomorrow, I'll show you his fresco The Last Supper, which is one of the most astonishing tributes to the sacred feminine you will ever see.† â€Å"You're kidding, right?† somebody said. â€Å"I thought The Last Supper was about Jesus!† Langdon winked. â€Å"There are symbols hidden in places you would never imagine.† â€Å"Come on,† Sophie whispered. â€Å"What's wrong? We're almost there. Hurry!† Langdon glanced up, feeling himself return from faraway thoughts. He realized he was standing at a dead stop on the stairs, paralyzed by sudden revelation. O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint! Sophie was looking back at him. It can't be that simple, Langdon thought. But he knew of course that it was. There in the bowels of the Louvre†¦ with images of PHI and Da Vinci swirling through his mind, Robert Langdon suddenly and unexpectedly deciphered Sauniere's code. â€Å"O, Draconian devil!† he said. â€Å"Oh, lame saint! It's the simplest kind of code!† Sophie was stopped on the stairs below him, staring up in confusion. A code? She had been pondering the words all night and had not seen a code. Especially a simple one. â€Å"You said it yourself.† Langdon's voice reverberated with excitement. â€Å"Fibonacci numbers only have meaning in their proper order. Otherwise they're mathematical gibberish.† Sophie had no idea what he was talking about. The Fibonacci numbers? She was certain they had been intended as nothing more than a means to get the Cryptography Department involved tonight. They have another purpose? She plunged her hand into her pocket and pulled out the printout, studying her grandfather's message again. 13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5 O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint! What about the numbers? â€Å"The scrambled Fibonacci sequence is a clue,† Langdon said, taking the printout. â€Å"The numbers area hint as to how to decipher the rest of the message. He wrote the sequence out of order to tell us to apply the same concept to the text. O, Draconian devil? Oh, lame saint? Those lines mean nothing. They are simply letters written out of order.† Sophie needed only an instant to process Langdon's implication, and it seemed laughably simple. â€Å"You think this message is†¦ une anagramme?† She stared at him. â€Å"Like a word jumble from a newspaper?† Langdon could see the skepticism on Sophie's face and certainly understood. Few people realized that anagrams, despite being a trite modern amusement, had a rich history of sacred symbolism. The mystical teachings of the Kabbala drew heavily on anagrams – rearranging the letters of Hebrew words to derive new meanings. French kings throughout the Renaissance were so convinced that anagrams held magic power that they appointed royal anagrammatists to help them make better decisions by analyzing words in important documents. The Romans actually referred to the study of anagrams as ars magna – â€Å"the great art.† Langdon looked up at Sophie, locking eyes with her now. â€Å"Your grandfather's meaning was right in front of us all along, and he left us more than enough clues to see it.† Without another word, Langdon pulled a pen from his jacket pocket and rearranged the letters in each line. O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint! was a perfect anagram of†¦ Leonardo Da Vinci! The Mona Lisa!

Organizational Ethics Essay

My intent in writing this paper is to describe how ethical principles can address organizational issues. The organization that I have chosen to explore is the Boeing Company specifically and the aerospace manufacturing industry as a whole, more generally. I will cover the role that external social pressures play in influencing the industry in both their compliance with government and professional ethics. I will also endeavor to highlight how the pressures brought to bear on the industry by the public and the government is relevant to their decisions both corporately and individually by their employees. Finally, I will share my thoughts on the relationship between legal and ethical issues with regard to the industry. To begin then, let’s explore what role external social pressures have in influencing the Boeing Company and by extension, the aerospace industry’s organizational ethics. The level of trust that must be present by the public in the company that builds the airplane they fly in is best described in the words of the Boeing employee code of conduct â€Å"†¦must not engage in conduct or activity that may raise questions as to the company’s honesty, impartiality, or reputation or otherwise cause embarrassment to the company.† (Boeing, 2014) Boeing and the entire aerospace industry are hyper aware of their image and the perceptions of the flying public. When social pressure is brought to bear the entire industry takes notice and works to renew and enhance the public’s trust. For example, last year Boeing experienced a public relations nightmare when their new 787 Dreamliner aircraft experienced problems with Lithium Ion Batteries. An aircraft caught fire while waiting to be refueled and prepared for its next use. When news of the incident became known it was received with widespread fear and seeded mistrust of the airframe in the pu blic, in the airline customer and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The entire 787 worldwide fleet was grounded until resolution could be  made to ensure public and aircraft safety. The speed with which Boeing and the FAA dealt with the problem shows beyond any doubt that social pressure influences Boeing and the entire aerospace industry. Aerospace companies are constantly working to keep and enhance the trust of the public and to remain in compliance with the strictest government standards. The Core Values of the Boeing Company are Integrity, Quality, Safety, Diversity and Inclusion, Trust and Respect, Corporate Citizenship and finally Stakeholder Success. (Boeing, 2014) It is interesting to me that stakeholder success is the last item on the list. Boeing sees their public owners as being lowest on their corporate priority list with regard to ethics. In other words they see the need to be ethical as higher than being profitable. The need to be perceived in the public arena as ethical and trustworthy while also remaining in compliance with very lofty government standards demonstrates how Boeing and the aerospace industry strive to perform at a level which helps to mitigate the need for public or social pressure to influence their decisions. The issues the aerospace industry routinely deals with remain relevant and continually influence the decisions made and direct the way the companies involved expect their employee’s personal decisions to be made. Everything Boeing and its employees do have the potential to impact the public trust. In a broader sense the organizational ethics of the aerospace industry are determined by multiple factors. As already mentioned the flying public’s trust is a major factor but added to that are the airlines which operate the aircraft, the government agencies who retain oversight on the industry as a whole and the corporate citizens who build the aircraft. A great deal of effort goes into ensuring each of these levels of influence are balanced and mesh as seamlessly as possible with the core values mentioned above. As I have discovered, the aerospace industry is heavily influenced by many government agencies. Through regulation and legislation these agencies impact the aerospace industry’s relationship with both the public and its stakeholders. The relationship which exists between these entities creates in many instances a legally mandated set of codes which govern the way the aerospace industry conducts business. In the United States the FAA has the ability and, arguably, the responsibility to mandate that certain rules and standards are met in the construction and operation of airplanes. Whether the airplanes are used to transport the flying public  or are designated experimental and only flown under strictly controlled circumstances makes no difference. The ability of a government agency to enforce rules or a code at a level as invasive as exists in the entire aerospace industry creates a question of whether the ethics embraced by the aerospace industry would be at the level they currently enjoy if the amount of regulation was not the same. In a more direct fashion the question then begs itself; given the influences of the public, the airline operators, and the government agencies with oversight, is the aerospace industry as a whole independently ethically responsible or are they forced to be so? When I attempted to determine if there is a clear definition of what ethically responsible means I fell short. The definition is subjective at best and invariably indistinct. I can therefore only use my personal definition to gage what I can research and see for myself to make a determination much as you the reader must do. As I stated my intent in writing this paper was to describe how ethical principles can address organizational issues. Strictly speaking, I may have drifted afield of a clear presentation of that description. However, the role that external social pressures play in influencing the aerospace industry in both compliance with government and professional ethics was demonstrated throughout as well as how the pressures brought to bear on the industry by the public and government is relevant to their decisions both corporately and individually by their employees. Last but certainly not least, I sought to determine the relationship between legal and ethical issues in reference to the aerospace industry which left me with an unanswered and perhaps unanswerable question. Works Cited Boeing Company. (2014). Boeing.com. Retrieved Dec 1, 2014, from Boeing Ethic Home Page: http://www.boeing.com/boeing/companyoffices/aboutus/ethics/

Try These Spooky Halloween Science Projects

Try These Spooky Halloween Science Projects Are you ready for some spooky science? These projects and experiments are just right for Halloween. Make your holiday educational as well as fun! Mad Scientist Party - Are you throwing a Halloween bash? Why not give it a mad science theme? Make Spooky Fog - Fog is a great spooky effect. Find it naturally while trick-or-treating or make your own for a party.Creepy Halloween Jack-o-Lantern - Creepy tendrils of fog flow from the carvings of this jack-o-lantern.Green Fire Halloween Jack-o-Lantern - This Halloween jack-o-lantern is filled with green fire.Glowing Pumpkin - A glowing pumpkin is a little more ghastly and creepy than your typical orange pumpkin. This is an easy project that yields a great result.Glowing Hand of Doom Punch - A glowing hand rises from the fog of this bubbling punch. Its the perfect party drink!Glowing Slime - Make glowing slime for a haunted house, a Halloween party, or just because glowing slime is cool.Water into Blood Demonstration - Learn about pH indicators or just use this as a cool trick.Laundry Detergent Glowing Skull - Make a glowing skull decoration using laundry detergent.Homemade Face Paint - Make your own non-toxic Halloween face paint. The base paint is white, though you can customi ze it to be any color you like. Make Fake Blood ... or fake snot, vomit, wounds, or glass.Fake Blue or Green Blood - Blood isnt always red. Spiders, for example, have blue blood. If your Halloween adventure includes blood from another species, you might like this edible blue or green fake blood.Glowing Ink can be used to write eerie glowing messages.Make Colored Fire - Fire is fun, but colored fire can be spooky. Try adding a bit of color to your jack-o-lantern flame.Make a Fizzy Potion - Halloween drinks can bubble and fizz like something a mad scientist might drink.Dry Ice Crystal Ball - All you need is dry ice and bubble solution to create an eerie, long-lasting bubble that resembles a cloudy crystal ball.Halloween Reaction - This clock reaction makes a spectacular Halloween demonstration since the colors change from orange to black. This demo is for the chemistry lab rather than home.Smoke Bomb Jack-o-Lantern - Lighting a homemade smoke bomb inside of a jack-o-lantern is a lot of fun, plus it produces a ton of smoke. Glowing Ice Crystal Ball - This glowing crystal ball is the perfect addition to any Halloween punchbowl, especially if you add a little dry ice, too.

Starting Your Novel Start Your Author Platform Now - Freewrite Store

Starting Your Novel Start Your Author Platform Now - Freewrite Store Today’s guest post is by Zara Altair  (@ZaraAltair), writer of The Argolicus Mysteries set in ancient Italy.  Zara also coaches budding writers to create winning stories as  The Story Bodyguard  from her home near Portland, Oregon. It’s Never Too Early To Build and Promote In the world of publishing you as an author become a brand. You become a business, an author business, and you need to enter a business mindset. To promote your new author brand, you need a place to do that- your author platform. If you are starting a new novel and you think your fabulous, creative, innovative, engaging, exciting story will sell itself, welcome to reality. It won’t sell itself. You may dream of people reading your book and sharing their enjoyment with others. Before that happens, readers need to know about your novel. The best way to get started letting others know about your novel is through your author platform. Your book will compete with thousands of other books. You need to entice and win your readers to select your book out of the thousands of books out there. If you write in a popular genre, you need to differentiate your story from your competitors. Your author platform is the way you connect with your readers and fans. Provide information about you, the author, and your books on your platform. Why Now? First, if you wait until your novel is completed, or even later until it is published, you miss the chance to connect not only with readers, but with people in the publishing world. Agents want to see your platform before they represent your book. Many agents will not accept a book unless you have a platform designed and in place. You will co-promote with a traditional publisher. The reason the agent wants to see your author platform is that publishers want to know you put energy into promoting your book(s). If you are self-publishing, you will spend time weekly if not daily promoting your work. Creating your author marketing platform takes time. As you grow in experience with your platform, you’ll tweak and tweak again to create the most concise and enticing connection with you, the author. How To Start Your Author Platform The best way to start is with you, the author. You’ll need several author bios to distribute and a professional portrait. These bios will go on your website, social media introductions, press releases, digital publishing author pages (Amazon, Nook, iBooks, etc.), inside your book, on your dust jacket. You’ll need them handy whenever you promote yourself and your books. Book Description Write a description of your book. You will probably revise this many times, but write one. Pretend you are writing the blurb for the back cover. Your book description is not a synopsis of the story. You want targeted readers of your genre to want to buy your book and read it. Tell potential readers the genre up front. Zombie Apocalypse readers won’t read your sweet romance.   Focus on the main character and their challenge. Load your book description with emotional phrases that entice readers to buy your book. Think of your book description as a sales tool to get your readers to connect. Your Author Biographies Yes, you’ll need at least three author bios. Also, you’ll find yourself editing these bios for guest posts, author interviews, and other publicity. Start witha short one, 25-30 words, to post at the end of articles or on social media that does not allow for a long description, like Twitter. Then write at least two more, a 100-word bio and a 300-word bio. If you hire a publicist, or do your own publicity, you may want a 1000 word biography. You will rewrite these many times, but start with something now. A Photo: Your Professional Image Create a formal portrait of yourself both color and black and white. You can do this yourself with a plain background or hire a professional photographer. A formal portrait has a plain background with no distractions, so the focus is on you. Cover Image for Your Book Your book cover and book description are two key elements in book sales. You may think it’s too early to create a cover image, but it will be part of your promotion. Even before the book is out, you’ll want to entice readers.You’ll want this for your website and any promotions you may do. Don’t do this yourself. Your book cover is one of the strongest selling elements. Hire a professional book cover designer. Your cover design can range in price from pre-made where your insert your author name and book title for $25-$50 to a high-end professional who may charge $500 or more. Don’t skimp. Save your pennies to get the best designer you can afford. This is one reason to start early. You’ll spend time finding the right designer for your book cover. Create A Free Giveaway Create a giveaway for readers who join your email list. This can be a short novella, a chapter from your book, background about the theme of your story, or a biography of the main character. Use your imagination to create something special for your followers. Reward them for following you. Create Your Author Website Your author website is your home base. If Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or your publisher go out of business, you’ll still own your website. You can use free website services like WordPress.com or Weebly to get started. Or you can go one step up with a paid service like Squarespace. If you have time and resources, you can become more involved and intricate with a self-hosted website using WordPress.org. You will need to monitor and update the self-hosted website for updates or hire someone to manage the site for you. If you have a large budget, you can hire a website designer to create the site for you. Make sure you have access to add and change text. Basic pages for your website: An introduction to you as an author. Your bio and some words about why you are writing the book. A page just for the book. Give potential readers a taste of the book with the book description and a short excerpt. Once your book is published, you will add links to where readers can buy your book. A blog page. Most free and paid website services include a blog page. Update this with articles regularly, at least once a month if not more. The key is to consistently communicate with readers. Email - The Way to Stay in Touch with Readers However much you may like social media and hate a full email inbox, email is the number one way to stay in touch with your readers. Email is not dead. You’ll communicate in a personal way and respond to questions. So, set up your email functionality now. Even if the first subscribers are your mom and your best friend. Getting your email service set up now will save you time in the future as your list grows. There are several services (autoresponders) that provide email list services. To begin, you can start with a free service like MailChimp. As your list grows, consider a paid service such as AWeber. Set up your email list. Add yourself to the list to check that all your emails go out. Write a sequence of welcoming emails for your autoresponder. Create your invitation to join the list (landing page). Entice people to join with your free giveaway you created. Keep it simple and direct. Write Your Friendly Email Sequence Create a sequence of emails to go to people who join your list. Write a sequence of welcoming emails for your autoresponder. Here’s a sample email welcome sequence and timing: Day One: Thank your new subscriber. Introduce yourself and your books. Link to the free giveaway. Three days after previous: Did you miss the download? Insert the link to your free giveaway again. Keep it short and sweet. Three days after previous. More about how you wrote the book(s). Add your social media connection links and Amazon Author page and website. Invite your subscribers to follow you. One week after previous. A bit about you. Personal what I do. Pets. Activities, Photos of life. Invitation to read one of your books with link. One week after that. Invitation for free books forever by joining the beta readers group, advanced readers. Set up a separate email list for them and put the link in this message. Once again, set up your autoresponder with at least one welcoming message thanking them for their enthusiasm and telling them they will be receiving their advance copy when it is ready. You know how to do this now. Your Author Newsletter Use your email service to send out a newsletter to your fans regularly. Set a schedule and stick to it. Some authors write every day others send out the newsletter once a month. The frequency isn’t as important as the consistency. Each issue of your newsletter keeps your fans engaged. Most email services have an RSS feed service to bring your blog posts into your newsletter. If you write a regular blog, your subscribers will have a link to all the blog posts since your last newsletter. Start your newsletter right away, even if it’s only your mom and best friend on your list. Get yourself in the habit of creating and sending your newsletter. Set your newsletter writing date on your calendar. Set your publication date on your calendar. You’ll develop the habit of consistent communication. Social Media Social media is a great way to increase your exposure. Each platform like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, and others each has a distinct audience. To avoid author overwhelm, choose one social media vehicle as your main interaction focus. You can post on several but focus the majority of your posting and interaction on one. Spend time engaging with others, commenting on their posts, and interacting and sharing new content. Let your personality shine. To set up your social media account, you’ll use the bio, author portrait, and book cover you created in earlier steps. Educate Yourself About Author Marketing Author marketing is a skill set. Read various author help sites like this one. Take notes, test an action to see if it works for you. Then implement the actions that fit with your personal style. You’ve committed to your business as an author; this is your Research and Development. You’ll resonate with some advice and feel uncomfortable with some. If it feels uncomfortable, think about whether it’s because you need to learn a new skill set or if it doesn’t fit you and your readers. If it is a fit, learn the new skill set and incorporate it into your author platform. Successful Authors Manage Writing and Promotion Time The skill you learn from setting up your author platform is the ability to manage writing and promotion time. To be a successful author you need to practice both consistently. You’ll build your audience of readers long before your first novel is finished. They will help you kick start your book launch. Your career as an author is a business. Develop your business skills with your consumers, your readers, by communicating with them. Don’t be afraid to learn as you go. Starting early gives you the opportunity to fine tune before you complete your novel. If all of these activities to set up your author platform seem like work, they are. If you are serious about your novel, you want to give it the most attention you can through your author platform. When you start now, while you are writing your first novel and work on your author platform in tandem with your writing, you will be well positioned to create a successful book launch. New author, tell me your opinion! Have you started your platform? Are you hung-up with keeping it going? What’s your biggest challenge? Tell me in the comments!    Zara Altair  (@ZaraAltair) writes The Argolicus Mysteries set in ancient Italy featuring patrician Argolicus and his lifelong tutor, Nikolaos: The Used Virgin, The Peach Widow, and The Roman Heir. She writes for the web as a semantic copywriter and is working on a book for writers: SEO for Authors.  Zara also coaches budding writers to create winning stories as The Story Bodyguard from her home near Portland, Oregon.