Reasons for Returning to College Essay -- Personal Narrative, Admissi

Returning back to class was an extremely characteristic choice for me. It was by all accounts the following legitimate advance in my own and vocation objectives. My definitive objective is to be cheerful and sound and be a decent supplier and good example. With that put in a safe spot for the present, my next objective is to be monetarily steady and ready to accommodate my family in manners that my family couldn't accommodate me. I certainly hope to work for what I need and acquire all of it. The latest spark was that my organization was eager to contribute a gigantic piece of the yearly educational cost, in this manner expelling some money related weight. This causes me to feel like they genuinely care about my future and they truly need to see me succeed. I have a few individual explanations behind coming back to class. I pay attention to my own objectives very. Some may state that I am my own most exceedingly awful pundit and I am challenging for myself. I just feel that I can and will improve and I don't agree to anything besides the best out of myself. Eventually, I need to live with myself and the choices I make regularly for an amazing remainder. I should satisfy my very own objectives else I am not offering myself to others totally. I have clear and explicit individual objectives. To start, I need to be monetarily steady. By having my degree, I need to have the option to show signs of improvement work through an advancement in this manner getting more cash. I need to have the option to enable my kid to pay for school so he doesn?t need to battle as hard as I did to get myself through school. In addition, m...

My Dropout Boyfriend Kept Dropping in Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

My Dropout Boyfriend Kept Dropping in - Essay Example experiencing the phases of a Goth, a revolutionary, and a Marxist. The creator possibly doesn't completely comprehend what her beau, Terry, accepts is the motivation behind why he needs to do this. After Conell subtleties Terry’s thinking behind this decision, she reacts by occupying the subject. Rather than inquiring as to why he wants to live out in the forested areas, Conell answers that she prefers his condo. Terry’s choice to live like a vagrant has nothing to do with his condo so the creator is remove the consideration from living in the forested areas and concentrating more on what he is surrendering. Possibly he may have adjusted his perspective on the off chance that she had given some legitimate reasons why he ought not live that way. Since the creator didn't manage the issue at the outset organizes, this wacky thought was permitted to run and prosper to its regular decision. Besides, Conell appears to by and by negate herself when she makes reference to a con versation with a young lady from her residence. She starts the discussion by giving her anxiety for his prompt wellbeing, however after her candid companion determinedly excuses the thought, Conell attempts to go to bat for her sweetheart. Her thinking is that he will set aside a great deal of cash and that he will feel near nature. This implies Conell has weakness issues since she isn't excessively enamored with the thought herself, yet when another person participates in assaulting Terry, she quickly recovers her up and protects him like there’s no tomorrow. Affirming her previous stun at Terry’s choice to decide to live like this, Conell makes reference to a book that he gave her on Valentine’s Day, Into the Wild. In this book, a youngster starves to death in the Alaskan wild. Her admonition ringers ought to have been blazing when this happened on the grounds that it's anything but a standard event to give somebody a book like this on Valentine’s Day, which is a day about adoration and bliss. With all due respect, she concedes this ought to understand and that she didn't plan for this choice just as she could have. Conell gives us extraordinary knowledge into Terry’s propensities and character when she portrays the time she initially met him. She concedes that he was an insubordinate individual, in spite of the fact that she yields that she was pulled in to this. The explanation behind this was she felt a similar path as he did about numerous things and this permitted her to communicate her own sentiments. She gives the case of Terry wearing eyeliner and connecting a security pin through his eyebrow; these are exemplary admonition indications of somebody who is inclined to avoiding the pattern. The one distinction between these two is that the two of them act their sentiments out in various manners. Conell states how Terry is additionally cordial, while she is a greater amount of the modest kind. This implies perhaps these two are not appropriate for one another. Conell neglects to make reference to how this difference in their conduct influenced their relationship. Later on, Conell makes reference to that Terry dropped out of school just months into his first year. The main explanation that she gives for this choice is that he was discontent with school, yet maybe it was something more profound; something that Conell appears to forget about so without any problem. She utilizes the word â€Å"defended† when gotten some information about this bizarre choice by her companions. This shows Conell isn't really in full concurrence with his decision on the grounds that else she would have said that she

Answers for ESL Learners

Answers for ESL Learners What are Adjectives? Descriptive words will be words that depict items, individuals and spots. She has a quick vehicle. - Fastâ describes the car.Susan is wise.- Intelligentâ describes Susan.Thats a delightful mountain. - Beautiful depicts mountain. As it were, descriptive words depict qualities of various things.  There are nine sorts of descriptive words which are clarified beneath. Each sort of descriptor incorporates a connect to additionally subtleties of the specific sentence structure utilization. Graphic Adjectives Graphic descriptive words are the most well-known kind of modifier and are utilized to depict a specific quality, for example, huge, little, costly, modest, and so on of the article. When utilizing more than one elucidating descriptive word, it is critical to ensure that they are put in the correctâ adjective request. Jennifer has a troublesome job.That miserable kid needs some ice cream.Susan bought a costly vehicle. Legitimate Adjectives Legitimate descriptive words are determined fromâ proper nounsâ and should consistently be promoted. Appropriate descriptive words are regularly used to show the inception of something. Appropriate descriptors are additionally regularly the name of a language or a people.â French tires are excellent.Italian food is the best!Jack favors Canadian maple syrup. Quantitative Adjectives Quantitative descriptive words give us what number of something is accessible. As it were, numbers are quantitative descriptive words. In any case, there are other quantitative descriptors such asâ several, many, a great deal ofâ which are likewise known asâ quantifiers. There are two flying creatures in that tree.She has numerous companions in Los Angeles.I check sixteen mix-ups on your schoolwork. Inquisitive Adjectives Inquisitive descriptive words are utilized to pose inquiries. Inquisitive descriptive words incorporate which and what. Basic expressions utilizing inquisitive modifiers include: Which type/sort of and what type/sort of in addition to a noun.â Which sort of vehicle do you drive?What time would it be advisable for me to come?What kind of dessert do you like? Possessive Adjectives Possessive adjectivesâ are like subject and article pronouns, however they show possession. Possessive modifiers incorporate my, your, his, her, its, our, and their.â My home is on the corner.I welcomed their companions to dinner.Her hound is neighborly. Possessive Nouns Possessive things act like possessive descriptive words however are framed by utilizing a noun. Possessive things are made by adding a punctuation to a thing to demonstrate ownership, for example, theâ cars shading, or theâ friends get-aways. Toms closest companion is Peter.The books spread is misleading.The houses garden is lovely. Predicate Adjectives Predicate descriptors are put toward the finish of a sentence or condition to depict the thing toward the start of a sentence. Predicate modifiers are regularly utilized with the action word to be. His activity is stressful.The get-away was enjoyable.It most likely isnt simple. Articles Unmistakable and inconclusive articlesâ can be thought of as a kind of modifier since they portray the thing as one of numerous or a particular occurrence of a specific object.  A and an are uncertain articles,â theâ is the distinct article. Tom might want an apple.She composed the book that is on the table.I requested a glass of brew. Illustrative Pronouns Illustrative pronounsâ show which objects (thing or thing phrase) is implied. Definite pronouns includeâ this, that, these and those. This and that are solitary decisive modifiers, while these and those are plural. Definite pronouns are additionally known asâ determiners. I might want that sandwich for lunch.Andrew carried these books for everybody to read.Those trees are lovely! Modifiers Quiz Locate the modifier andâ identify its structure. Browse: elucidating adjectiveproper adjectivequantitative adjectiveinterrogative adjectivepossessive nounpredicate adjectivedemonstrative pronoun I gave the ball to her cousin.Education is important.They have a lovely daughter.Which sort of vehicle did you choose to purchase yesterday?Those vehicles have a place with Peter.She has a great deal of companions in China.Chicago is amazing!Jennifer proposed a rich answer for the problem.What sort of evaluations did you get?Helens house is situated in Georgia. Italian food is the best!Holidays can be exhausting at times. Alex has three books.Its a hot day.Our companion didnt answer the inquiry. Answers: her - possessive adjectiveimportant - pronominal adjectivebeautiful - elucidating adjectivewhich sort of - inquisitive adjectivethose - expressive pronouna parcel of - quantitative adjectiveamazing - pronominal adjectiveelegant - graphic adjectivewhat sort of - inquisitive adjectiveHelens - possessive nounItalian - appropriate adjectiveboring - pronominal adjectivethree - quantitative adjectivehot - unmistakable adjectiveour - possessive descriptor

Massively multiplayer online game Essay

Before PC games thrived through the past periods, patintero, sungka, tumbang-preso, tumba-lata, tagu-taguan and sipa were one of the most foreseen open air games inside our nation. Encountering these sorts of games engraves nearly our half life and we can’t have a total youth experience without getting tapped hard on the back, been hit by a flying shoe for it missed the objective, playing with shells, shouting and cheering over your colleagues, hopping over an individual and abstaining from getting hit its body part, and stowing away and cover in a spot to keep from being the ‘it’ of the game. Take a stab at asking a kid what was his preferred youth experience, and would tell either scratched his knee from fleeing from his rival or been chided by mother in light of returning home late because of surpassing assigned time of playing outside games. What's more, have a go at asking a kid from the current century what he has been doing recently, and might find a solution playing tekken with PSP, or Super Mario or Pacman with Nintendo or Xbox. Contrast spotted? At the point when a youngster is in the peak of playing and been paying attention to the game, he doesn’t need to be upset for in some occurrence may free on his adversary and can’t advance to the following redesigns. A typical response got by guardians when they call their youngsters to assemble around while their children were occupied with proceeding joysticks and consoles and faces were simply centimeters from the screen would be â€Å"Mom! Can’t you hold up in light of the fact that I’m as of now on my approach to bring down Bowser! † And two probabilities may occur after: either the guardians would begin shouting and rehash on advising to put aside their caring devices or the kids would get disturbed on the blasting uproarious voices and begin storming off and lock themselves in a room where they could keep lauding themselves for they have vanquished the ‘boss’ in the game. With the assistance of cutting edge mechanical development that has spread far and wide, the start of 3D and multi-player web based gaming (MMORPG) have surfaced and snared kids the most. Youngsters fell into the gaming scene, investing more energy in virtual as opposed to in genuine, which sooner goes to be their life. Like, youngsters must have a degenerate youth like these; playing PCs during their extra time and messing around with his co-gamers. They have an inclination that they can play whenever any of the freshest discharged games go on without consummation, they proceed perpetually, and they can get any character they needed on the virtual world. On the off chance that a youngster began to feel in contact more with gaming, he will invest more energy in single isolation. It is hard for certain teenagers (especially male youths) who are powerless against the territory of inclined to video game enslavement since it may be straightforward to state how well known gaming is in offspring everything being equal, which results to for the most part negative outcomes. A report like found in Elyria, Ohio, where a multi year-old kid named Daniel Petric shot his folks in the head after they reallocated his duplicate of ‘Halo 3. ‘ His mom was slaughtered and his dad injured because of the discharges, and the upset high schooler fled the homicide scene with exclusively one thing in his ownership: the ‘Halo 3’ game (Ridgefield, 2009). A comparative report flashed on TV says that a youngster has incidentally murdered his mate, cut with a blade after mate got a higher score on the game Flabby Bird and now been sent under the consideration of DSWD. A few reports like this have rang the ears of the mass since the impact of gaming has gotten increasingly genuine. Everything began from playing guiltlessly, never knew gradually by gradually they are being eaten with inebriation of gaming and now gulped of gaming compulsion. Results like slaughtering have been a genuine admonition to the individuals who are shockingly enjoyed playing, however regularly simply overlooked. The computer games are basic to be accused, which we disregard the way that some may have done wrongdoings since they are frequently being dismissed by guardians. Originating from a solitary parent family isn’t a factor, yet how a parent sees after his youngster while developing. A long way from my insight, it is the obligation of the guardians to care for their children when connected with into various parts of genuine and virtual life. Yet, most kids set out to state that they’ve been controlled over their life, treated like human robots; like advised to eat appropriately, rest on schedule, do school assignments and how to invest their energy basically. Be that as it may, no one orders them whenever they found the opportunity to get hold of gaming materials, in light of the fact that in there, they consider themselves the â€Å"Thug Lords of Gaming†. Affectionate to their name, with seething adrenaline surge can't get away from the virtual life. Limiting children from playing won’t help to drive the compulsion either, for having is impact of our youth. The more we drag them away, the more they rebel and truly decided into coexisting with playing. Specifically, existence with no play is all around terrible. Who wouldn’t like to encounter playing sipa, tumbang preso, luksong-baka and patintero? Who wouldn’t like to meet a beloved companion? None right? Those probably won't be like the games inside the PC world, yet those are the fundamental establishment of gaming not until the late hundreds of years where computer games were designed. With expanding level of last sides of gaming, a few guardians are over-defensive over their children to the degree that they lock their offsprings into a prison a far distance from their alleged fun adolescence. They never got the opportunity to have ‘real’ companions. In some case, a kid who has this experience growing up social event decorations for their folks is the main thing imparted in their psyches. On opposite, a youngster who invested more energy in playing grows up stopping practically 70% of his public activity. This may lead into a few genuine impacts like having a mental issue because of over the top glitch of the cerebrum. Also, here’s the dubious and hazardous part: they are the ‘unhappy teenagers’ which later have a developing rate in the globe. They have lost their trust in conveying and brought down their confidence. They’ve invested the entirety of their energy associating in a virtual world and are amazingly awkward when managing genuine individuals continuously. So as to recover the piece of them which just got lost, they look for consideration from others. Or on the other hand a likelihood that they would drive all away from himself and simply have an existence with the unbelievable, which may prompt genuine slaughtering violations like what we’ve been dreading to occur. Being a gamer isn’t risky. It is making some hard memories kicking the propensity who’s the genuine adversary. It's anything but a disappointment to play PC games, however be cautious about getting dependent. Reconsider before connecting entirely, for everything that is over the top can cause horrible impacts, twofold the damage we figure it would cause to us. We, similar to the most clients of techno-gaming, are the ones responsible for what may happen when we are suffocated in the pool of virtual scenes. What's more, as a gamer, as well, having has quite recently been impact of my life. It is exactly how we balance our time among genuine and virtual space. Indeed, even up to this degree, I would be upbeat whenever given a rest time and going through it playing with my preferred PC games and would even set out to challenge my kin into a multi-player game by and by. Be that as it may, my recess has constrains as well, and I’m the person who restrains myself from the red line before venturing into it. References: Ridgefield, A. (2009). Computer game Addiction. Adolescent Ink. Recovered April 23, 2014, from http://www. teenink. com/supposition/movies_music_tv/article/82305/Video-Game-Addiction/.

KAAZING

KAAZING INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hey today we are in San Jose with Kaazing and John. John, who are you and what do you do?John: My name is John Fallows and I am the CTO and co-founder here at Kaazing.Martin: Great. What did you do before you started this company?John: Well, prior to Kaazing I was working at Oracle Corporation. I was one of the architects that were responsible for webifying many of Oracle’s applications in their E-business, so during that time our whole team became very familiar with the challenges of building modern web application software at the time. That was around the time that Ajax was incredibly popular and we were responsible for building technologies that made it easier for application developers to take advantage of Ajax without getting caught up in all the technical challenges that that presented.Martin: And how did you make the move from being an employee at Oracle to start your own company? And how did you find your team members?John: So at the time my colleague an d I, Jonas Jacobi who later became my co-founder, we had written a book about the technology that I had been working on. And so by writing this book, we were able to travel the globe, talking at many different developer conferences about technology and so we built up a fairly strong personal brand, the two of us. Being well renowned in the industry for things related to Ajax and other technologies, at the time called Comet that we were responsible for pushing information towards the browser, almost sending information in the wrong direction. So gaining personal brand was very helpful in transitioning to the next phase of creating a corporate brand. So when Jonas and I founded Kaazing, we continued down this path of attending developer conferences and continued to talk about the challenges that were still present in web architecture and many of the solutions that we were able to bring to the table with Kaazing. And the personal brand that we had already build up, pretty much just tra nslated over into Kaazing directly. And this is also a great mechanism to reach the community at large and find people who were interested in joining our mission.Martin: Did you find this idea of Kaazing while you were working at Oracle or, I mean, part time? Or did it just happen when you left Oracle and then said, ‘This is some interesting problem that we should work on’.John: Yeah so actually, we took a little bit of a break in between working in Oracle and starting Kaazing, even spend another brief time at another company in between, both of us. So, this is something that was stemming from this idea of pushing information almost in the wrong direction into browsers and at the time we were getting such a compelling response to attending the various talks that we were providing in these conferences that we felt that the market was having some demand. We even had on several occasions, someone come up to us after our presentation where we would do demos and they would say, ‘I would like to buy your demo’ and of course it’s just demo so you don’t really want to sell it, but it gives you an indication of how compelling this was and how interesting it was to other people.Martin: Did you bootstrapp until some specific point or did you raise external funding for the building the company?John: We raised money from angel investors in the early days to help us get started. And then we used that to continue to fund the company, to build up product line and then to segway into institutional funding afterwards. So now, NEA is a investor in the company, CNTP is an investor in the company and we get a lot of guidance from them from the board membership that they have and helping us steer the company forward.BUSINESS MODELMartin: John, let’s talk about the business model. So can you give us a brief overview in terms of what customers are you serving, what type of value proposition, and what is the pricing structure behind it?John: Certainly. So fundamentally, when we started the company we were about making the web much more interactive, much moreâ€"we’d say real time back then, real time web fully interactive. And so various different markets have different needs in that space. The market that we got interested in tapping early on was the financial services industry. So, they have a requirement to build training applications and so they needed a better latency over the web, they needed the centralized deployment so they needed to use web technology and they were able to use our solution to achieve that. Now, financial services companies, banks and so forth are especially back then, very keen on the perpetual license. And here we were we were a new company, we were providing revolutionary technology and we knew that we wanted to do the subscription model approach but we found it very challenging to break into the financial services with subscription. So in the early days we actually moved to change our approach, our original thinking a nd we moved to perpetual for the early days and that allowed us to land us some fairly sizable accounts in financial accounts in financial services but it was perpetual license with maintenance and upgrades and yearly maintenance after that. So if you fast forward a little bit to more recent times, we found it easier to transition into the subscription model which is incredibly valuable to our company health, corporate health. And it also allows people to try and not necessarilyâ€"they can try things out and see how much they want to buy into and automatically scale up, pay more instantly, things like that. So our subscription model still applies to own premise, it also applies to the cloud like Amazon where elastic scalability is so important for our demand scaling. We have also found that it’s important from an investment thesis standpoint, valuation of a company is deemed more valuable, the more recurring revenue you have that you don’t have to spend more money to get the sam e amount of return the following years, so that’s valuable as well.Martin: So you started with a financial industry and then you added other verticalsJohn: Yeah, so we found that beyond financial services whoâ€"they have a large volume and rate of information to deal with weve certainly being highly relevant to other spaces that are parallel to that such as: online gaming or online betting is very popular in Europe; and also transportation and logistics for information that is highly relevant in the moment, whether it’s gate changes or whether it’s tracking assets like trucks delivering packages, knowing where the trucks are and knowing where the packages are, rerouting the trucks, things like that. These are all recurring style used cases that we found many customers want to use.Martin: And what does your software really do? Imagine, I am logistic company and you come to me, pitch and tell me what is your software solving?John: So, the simplest way to put it I would say is, we’re getting the web out of the way. So if you look back, and I mentioned early where we came from in terms of the architecture strategies that are in place, we are making the web feel more interactive, feel more real time. A lot of energy typically gets put into building prototypes for web applications and whenever the prototypes are finished there are necessary additional steps to go beyond the prototype to get to high availability, disaster recovery, scaling out across the globe for example. With traditional style architecture as you go from one step to the other, you typically are invalidating some design choices that you made in the previous step, so it becomes increasingly more complicated. So what we are really doing is we’re taking advantage of all the pain that we’ve already felt and understood and we’ve moved a lot of the complexities involved kind of underneath the line. So when you finish developing your prototype, the incremental effort to go all the way to hig h availability, disaster recovery, and global scale out, these are all very large benefit’s but small steps in terms of effort because of where you started, so it becomes much easier in terms of value proposition. And what we what found is that that’s all very easy to do and the reason why people want to do it is because what they end up with is simpler more cost-effective architectures that can do more than what they can do before. So we see that, applications that people are building, you hear a lot about things like internet of things, internet of everything, but what it really comes down to is that we are living in a much more connected world. And just as in real life, we are reacting to one another with stimulus, just as you are asking me a question, I am providing you an answer and this is continuing, this is how the applications are evolving. So applications in general, they are becoming more closely modeled to real life because they are interacting with us more and more and the information that they provide that allows us to make good decisions or interact with the world we live in, needs to be done in a more timely way. And there are no rules about what direction the information needs to go in so the concept of a client or a server is very blurred. This concept of only getting a response when you make a request is a little updated now to be able to satisfy the need of that. So, we make all of this interaction very possible. And the other part about these architecture is that they are spread out over the web at large. So they are very geographically distributed, the pieces of the architecture are spread out; the people are spread out; the things are spread out, the data centers, the services inside the data services, they are all spread out from one another. So typically, the web is in the way for some number of these connections that are present in the logical flow of information. So what we are really doing then is we’re getting the web out of the way so that it’s just as easy to architect those kinds of solution as it would be if you are running every inside of your own data center whether there is no web in line.Martin: Imagine, I am a developer of a website or a specific mobile program. I totally understand that once I have developed this and used this service that I can scale more easily without changing very much on the code that I have written. Is there anything else? Because this is something like a server company who is providing some kind of addition backend structure which helps me scale.John: Well, a lot of times people are building applications that when it’s time to scale and the solution is just more hardware added. What we are really talking about is getting more out of the underlying hardware. So, we are eliminating parts of the architecture where people would write application code to glue two of the layers together. Those are the places where the scalability is challenged typically, so we are address ing that eliminating the need for the glue code and creating a fabric that permeate everywhere. That allows us to optimize all the pieces where the is no need to have true application code as they used to and just have the services on the edges and the application user experience on the edges and everything is interacting in a very efficient way. So, if I am building new application then I need to think about it in a different way, I can’t just think about it as a go make a request and I get a response. That type of thinking comes from the days in which the web was born. The web was born as a way to share research papers between university professors and there were much slower networks back then and so there was a heavy emphasis of caching to not waste the network and make it unbearably slow and the rate of change of that information is quite slow, so compared to today’s standard. So as you fast forward and continue to try to use that same tool for the job it has it’s very str ong strengths related to being able to fetch documents and cache them effectively but it may not as be as well suited for these new styles of interaction pattern that we need.CORPORATE STRATEGYMartin: Let’s talk about corporate strategy. What do you perceive Kaazing’s competitive advantage?John: As we compare ourselves in the market place, the way we think about solving these technical challenges is that we tend to divide the product up into layers. So just like good engineering we use the right tool for the job, we put the solution in the right layer of the architecture, having this all layered out nicely gives us unexpected benefits whenever we find that we can out these layers together in new and interesting way. And so I think our competitive advantage on the product line is, we have a high emphasis on performance and scalability and security, starting out in financial services that is not the easiest market to break into. We had a real value to real pain point that they nee ded a solution for but being successful in there really forces you to have a very strong performance scalability, have a very strong security story. And so, starting in that market was difficult but coming from there and coming into other markets we are very naturally strong by definition of where we came from. So, that’s a good competitive edge for us in the market place. The way we think about this stuff, making it possible to put in layers together in different way is also very powerful. For example, we have a feature that we call enterprise shield and that lets us shut down all the firewall ports between the DMZ and the internal trusted network so that no inbound communication is permitted. Now, there are many ways you could try to approach that technically but what we’ve done is we’ve really just changed what’s happening in the lower most layer where connectivity is being established and everything on top is blissfully unaware that that has happened underneath. So this is what I mean by, we are solving it in a layered way but we don’t require, this reaching in across the layers to solve these problems in an efficient manner, we have isolated it to the right layers. That’s from a product standpoint. But I also think that from a philosophical standpoint, the way that we approach things is that we, we tend to not rush into the simplest shortest term win. We tend to want to always understand where our compass is pointing to know where we will likely end up base on what we know now. And so whenever we make a step forward, we generally do that with the intention of aiming it towards a goal that may be 5 or 6 steps farther ahead. Now at the same time, as you make these steps you don’t know what you are going to learn until you’ve try them. And so, whenever we’re moving forward we are also very keen to iterate on learning on what we’ve done and see if it affects where we want to end up. So it’s based on what we’ve learnt and the sum of all of our knowledge so far which is including the experience on the journey towards where we had planned to go. So that’s baked into the DNA of Kaazing and also I would say that within the organization, whenever we talk about things, we don’t come out of a perspective that it’s right or wrong because of who says it. It is very much a way of thinking about things out loud, it’s a safe environment to disagree but it is very important that when you disagree you are able to articulate why. And that gives the conversation an opportunity to spiral upwards towards a common solution that everyone can get behind and not only that but it’s justified and so now we have a very clear understanding of where we are going and why and now it’s clearer how to take the first step and why.Martin: So rational decision-making.John: Yeah, absolutely.Martin: Like we learned it at the universityJohn: Absolutely, absolutely. I applied it in the business context and you know I’ve been in other sit uations where that doesn’t get applied because you can take the logic all the way up to the finish line and say, ‘Well actually we’re going to do something else based on other criteria. And I think it’s very valuable to sort of fold that into the decision-making process and then trust the outcome.MARKET DEVELOPMENTMartin: When you think about the market development, related to what you call glue, so it’s something that has some kind of scalability but it’s not directly connected to the server and what trends can you identify? Can you give us some sort of overview of how the market works, in terms of growth and size as well?John: Well I think, there is these reports about 60 billion connected devices by 2020 and that is talking about the internet of things. But the thing that will make internet of things a reality are the applications that can be built to connect all of those pieces together and so if developers want to move quickly and they want to be able to create thes e new breeds of applications, they need stuff that’s not going to get in their way when they are trying to tie it all together. So that’s why we think that this concept of glue code is really something that really needs to go away and naturally falls away. It’s good to be able to think of architecture in a simpler way. When we talk about those kind of applications, there’s also more modern trends about how to describe the nature of those applications so we tend to think about these applications now as what we call reactive applications, there’s even a reactive manifesto that’s out there.Martin: What’s that?John: It’s trying to describe the context in which an application is running; trying to describe the characteristics of an application that is reacting to stimulus and made up of many disparate pieces; it’s likely message-driven so that it’s responding to stimulus and producing stimulus; and this is all distributed, elastically scalable, and so forth. So this i s an interesting way of thinking about application design and application architecture so that you can evolve these applications over time without being able to turn the whole thing off and switch it on again. You need the ability to evolve the pieces independent of the whole. So this all makes a lot of sense but it hasn’t been how web application development have been thought of historically. So we obviously see a lot of value in this direction and we anticipate that it will continue, to be honest it feels a lot like the early days of Ajax at the moment with reactive applications.Martin: Okay, great.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS In San Jose (CA), we meet CTO co-founder of KAAZING, John Fallows. He shares his story how he co-founded this startup and how the current business model works, as well as what the current plans for near future, and some advice for young entrepreneurs.The transcription of the interview is uploaded below.INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hey today we are in San Jose with Kaazing and John. John, who are you and what do you do?John: My name is John Fallows and I am the CTO and co-founder here at Kaazing.Martin: Great. What did you do before you started this company?John: Well, prior to Kaazing I was working at Oracle Corporation. I was one of the architects that were responsible for webifying many of Oracle’s applications in their E-business, so during that time our whole team became very familiar with the challenges of building modern web application software at the time. That was around the time that Ajax was incredibly popular and we were responsible for building technologies that made it easier for application developers to take advantage of Ajax without getting caught up in all the technical challenges that that presented.Martin: And how did you make the move from being an employee at Oracle to start your own company? And how did you find your team members?John: So at the time my colleague and I, Jonas Jacobi who later became my co-founder, we had written a book about the technology that I had been working on. And so by writing this book, we were able to travel the globe, talking at many different developer conferences about technology and so we built up a fairly strong personal brand, the two of us. Being well renowned in the industry for things related to Ajax and other technologies, at the time called Comet that we were responsible for pushing information towards the browser, almost sending information in the wrong direction. So gaining personal brand was very helpful in transitioning to the next phase of creating a corporate brand. So when Jonas and I founded Kaazing , we continued down this path of attending developer conferences and continued to talk about the challenges that were still present in web architecture and many of the solutions that we were able to bring to the table with Kaazing. And the personal brand that we had already build up, pretty much just translated over into Kaazing directly. And this is also a great mechanism to reach the community at large and find people who were interested in joining our mission.Martin: Did you find this idea of Kaazing while you were working at Oracle or, I mean, part time? Or did it just happen when you left Oracle and then said, ‘This is some interesting problem that we should work on’.John: Yeah so actually, we took a little bit of a break in between working in Oracle and starting Kaazing, even spend another brief time at another company in between, both of us. So, this is something that was stemming from this idea of pushing information almost in the wrong direction into browsers and at the time we were getting such a compelling response to attending the various talks that we were providing in these conferences that we felt that the market was having some demand. We even had on several occasions, someone come up to us after our presentation where we would do demos and they would say, ‘I would like to buy your demo’ and of course it’s just demo so you don’t really want to sell it, but it gives you an indication of how compelling this was and how interesting it was to other people.Martin: Did you bootstrapp until some specific point or did you raise external funding for the building the company?John: We raised money from angel investors in the early days to help us get started. And then we used that to continue to fund the company, to build up product line and then to segway into institutional funding afterwards. So now, NEA is a investor in the company, CNTP is an investor in the company and we get a lot of guidance from them from the board membership that they have and helping us steer the company forward.BUSINESS MODELMartin: John, let’s talk about the business model. So can you give us a brief overview in terms of what customers are you serving, what type of value proposition, and what is the pricing structure behind it?John: Certainly. So fundamentally, when we started the company we were about making the web much more interactive, much moreâ€"we’d say real time back then, real time web fully interactive. And so various different markets have different needs in that space. The market that we got interested in tapping early on was the financial services industry. So, they have a requirement to build training applications and so they needed a better latency over the web, they needed the centralized deployment so they needed to use web technology and they were able to use our solution to achieve that. Now, financial services companies, banks and so forth are especially back then, very keen on the perpetual license. And here we were w e were a new company, we were providing revolutionary technology and we knew that we wanted to do the subscription model approach but we found it very challenging to break into the financial services with subscription. So in the early days we actually moved to change our approach, our original thinking and we moved to perpetual for the early days and that allowed us to land us some fairly sizable accounts in financial accounts in financial services but it was perpetual license with maintenance and upgrades and yearly maintenance after that. So if you fast forward a little bit to more recent times, we found it easier to transition into the subscription model which is incredibly valuable to our company health, corporate health. And it also allows people to try and not necessarilyâ€"they can try things out and see how much they want to buy into and automatically scale up, pay more instantly, things like that. So our subscription model still applies to own premise, it also applies to th e cloud like Amazon where elastic scalability is so important for our demand scaling. We have also found that it’s important from an investment thesis standpoint, valuation of a company is deemed more valuable, the more recurring revenue you have that you don’t have to spend more money to get the same amount of return the following years, so that’s valuable as well.Martin: So you started with a financial industry and then you added other verticalsJohn: Yeah, so we found that beyond financial services whoâ€"they have a large volume and rate of information to deal with weve certainly being highly relevant to other spaces that are parallel to that such as: online gaming or online betting is very popular in Europe; and also transportation and logistics for information that is highly relevant in the moment, whether it’s gate changes or whether it’s tracking assets like trucks delivering packages, knowing where the trucks are and knowing where the packages are, rerouting the tr ucks, things like that. These are all recurring style used cases that we found many customers want to use.Martin: And what does your software really do? Imagine, I am logistic company and you come to me, pitch and tell me what is your software solving?John: So, the simplest way to put it I would say is, we’re getting the web out of the way. So if you look back, and I mentioned early where we came from in terms of the architecture strategies that are in place, we are making the web feel more interactive, feel more real time. A lot of energy typically gets put into building prototypes for web applications and whenever the prototypes are finished there are necessary additional steps to go beyond the prototype to get to high availability, disaster recovery, scaling out across the globe for example. With traditional style architecture as you go from one step to the other, you typically are invalidating some design choices that you made in the previous step, so it becomes increasingly m ore complicated. So what we are really doing is we’re taking advantage of all the pain that we’ve already felt and understood and we’ve moved a lot of the complexities involved kind of underneath the line. So when you finish developing your prototype, the incremental effort to go all the way to high availability, disaster recovery, and global scale out, these are all very large benefit’s but small steps in terms of effort because of where you started, so it becomes much easier in terms of value proposition. And what we what found is that that’s all very easy to do and the reason why people want to do it is because what they end up with is simpler more cost-effective architectures that can do more than what they can do before. So we see that, applications that people are building, you hear a lot about things like internet of things, internet of everything, but what it really comes down to is that we are living in a much more connected world. And just as in real life, we are reacting to one another with stimulus, just as you are asking me a question, I am providing you an answer and this is continuing, this is how the applications are evolving. So applications in general, they are becoming more closely modeled to real life because they are interacting with us more and more and the information that they provide that allows us to make good decisions or interact with the world we live in, needs to be done in a more timely way. And there are no rules about what direction the information needs to go in so the concept of a client or a server is very blurred. This concept of only getting a response when you make a request is a little updated now to be able to satisfy the need of that. So, we make all of this interaction very possible. And the other part about these architecture is that they are spread out over the web at large. So they are very geographically distributed, the pieces of the architecture are spread out; the people are spread out; the things are spread out, the data centers, the services inside the data services, they are all spread out from one another. So typically, the web is in the way for some number of these connections that are present in the logical flow of information. So what we are really doing then is we’re getting the web out of the way so that it’s just as easy to architect those kinds of solution as it would be if you are running every inside of your own data center whether there is no web in line.Martin: Imagine, I am a developer of a website or a specific mobile program. I totally understand that once I have developed this and used this service that I can scale more easily without changing very much on the code that I have written. Is there anything else? Because this is something like a server company who is providing some kind of addition backend structure which helps me scale.John: Well, a lot of times people are building applications that when it’s time to scale and the solution is just more hard ware added. What we are really talking about is getting more out of the underlying hardware. So, we are eliminating parts of the architecture where people would write application code to glue two of the layers together. Those are the places where the scalability is challenged typically, so we are addressing that eliminating the need for the glue code and creating a fabric that permeate everywhere. That allows us to optimize all the pieces where the is no need to have true application code as they used to and just have the services on the edges and the application user experience on the edges and everything is interacting in a very efficient way. So, if I am building new application then I need to think about it in a different way, I can’t just think about it as a go make a request and I get a response. That type of thinking comes from the days in which the web was born. The web was born as a way to share research papers between university professors and there were much slower netw orks back then and so there was a heavy emphasis of caching to not waste the network and make it unbearably slow and the rate of change of that information is quite slow, so compared to today’s standard. So as you fast forward and continue to try to use that same tool for the job it has it’s very strong strengths related to being able to fetch documents and cache them effectively but it may not as be as well suited for these new styles of interaction pattern that we need.CORPORATE STRATEGYMartin: Let’s talk about corporate strategy. What do you perceive Kaazing’s competitive advantage?John: As we compare ourselves in the market place, the way we think about solving these technical challenges is that we tend to divide the product up into layers. So just like good engineering we use the right tool for the job, we put the solution in the right layer of the architecture, having this all layered out nicely gives us unexpected benefits whenever we find that we can out these layers together in new and interesting way. And so I think our competitive advantage on the product line is, we have a high emphasis on performance and scalability and security, starting out in financial services that is not the easiest market to break into. We had a real value to real pain point that they needed a solution for but being successful in there really forces you to have a very strong performance scalability, have a very strong security story. And so, starting in that market was difficult but coming from there and coming into other markets we are very naturally strong by definition of where we came from. So, that’s a good competitive edge for us in the market place. The way we think about this stuff, making it possible to put in layers together in different way is also very powerful. For example, we have a feature that we call enterprise shield and that lets us shut down all the firewall ports between the DMZ and the internal trusted network so that no inbound communication is permitted. Now, there are many ways you could try to approach that technically but what we’ve done is we’ve really just changed what’s happening in the lower most layer where connectivity is being established and everything on top is blissfully unaware that that has happened underneath. So this is what I mean by, we are solving it in a layered way but we don’t require, this reaching in across the layers to solve these problems in an efficient manner, we have isolated it to the right layers. That’s from a product standpoint. But I also think that from a philosophical standpoint, the way that we approach things is that we, we tend to not rush into the simplest shortest term win. We tend to want to always understand where our compass is pointing to know where we will likely end up base on what we know now. And so whenever we make a step forward, we generally do that with the intention of aiming it towards a goal that may be 5 or 6 steps farther ahead. Now at the same time, as you make these steps you don’t know what you are going to learn until you’ve try them. And so, whenever we’re moving forward we are also very keen to iterate on learning on what we’ve done and see if it affects where we want to end up. So it’s based on what we’ve learnt and the sum of all of our knowledge so far which is including the experience on the journey towards where we had planned to go. So that’s baked into the DNA of Kaazing and also I would say that within the organization, whenever we talk about things, we don’t come out of a perspective that it’s right or wrong because of who says it. It is very much a way of thinking about things out loud, it’s a safe environment to disagree but it is very important that when you disagree you are able to articulate why. And that gives the conversation an opportunity to spiral upwards towards a common solution that everyone can get behind and not only that but it’s justified and so now we have a very clear unde rstanding of where we are going and why and now it’s clearer how to take the first step and why.Martin: So rational decision-making.John: Yeah, absolutely.Martin: Like we learned it at the universityJohn: Absolutely, absolutely. I applied it in the business context and you know I’ve been in other situations where that doesn’t get applied because you can take the logic all the way up to the finish line and say, ‘Well actually we’re going to do something else based on other criteria. And I think it’s very valuable to sort of fold that into the decision-making process and then trust the outcome.MARKET DEVELOPMENTMartin: When you think about the market development, related to what you call glue, so it’s something that has some kind of scalability but it’s not directly connected to the server and what trends can you identify? Can you give us some sort of overview of how the market works, in terms of growth and size as well?John: Well I think, there is these reports about 60 billion connected devices by 2020 and that is talking about the internet of things. But the thing that will make internet of things a reality are the applications that can be built to connect all of those pieces together and so if developers want to move quickly and they want to be able to create these new breeds of applications, they need stuff that’s not going to get in their way when they are trying to tie it all together. So that’s why we think that this concept of glue code is really something that really needs to go away and naturally falls away. It’s good to be able to think of architecture in a simpler way. When we talk about those kind of applications, there’s also more modern trends about how to describe the nature of those applications so we tend to think about these applications now as what we call reactive applications, there’s even a reactive manifesto that’s out there.Martin: What’s that?John: It’s trying to describe the context in which an applicat ion is running; trying to describe the characteristics of an application that is reacting to stimulus and made up of many disparate pieces; it’s likely message-driven so that it’s responding to stimulus and producing stimulus; and this is all distributed, elastically scalable, and so forth. So this is an interesting way of thinking about application design and application architecture so that you can evolve these applications over time without being able to turn the whole thing off and switch it on again. You need the ability to evolve the pieces independent of the whole. So this all makes a lot of sense but it hasn’t been how web application development have been thought of historically. So we obviously see a lot of value in this direction and we anticipate that it will continue, to be honest it feels a lot like the early days of Ajax at the moment with reactive applications.Martin: Okay, great.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURSMartin: John, imagine if a friend comes to you and asks you , ‘John, what should and shouldn’t I do when I start a company?’. What would you recommend to him?John: I think the first thing I would say isâ€"I think it was Guy Kawasaki said this, ‘Scratch your own itch’. So the whole concept of finding something that is a problem for you personally that you really want to solve, so solve for yourself. So in our case, we had been going at these web architectures and constantly fighting against the challenges and the constraints in which success was defined based on those available choices. And we finally said, Let’s challenge the own concept and turn it on it’s head and introduce the new standard that we needed up helping to create called web socket; let’s create full duplex by directional communication over the web; lets use it as a foundational layer to service all the layer above; and really stop adding all these work arounds where we are trying to retrafit old techniques to new problem and space. So I think that would be the first thing as to what to do.What not to do, I think it’s important to have a balanced approach so in the sense that technical innovation is important, your go to market strategy is also important. Some companies may heavily emphasize on one or the other. I think, I would recommend not over extending either one and having a much more balanced approach to knowing how customers are actually going to achieve value from what you are doing. So clearly, there can be technical optimizations in any solution. It is possible to market something very successfully and then possibly not be defensible technically. So I think it’s very important to have a good balance of both of those.Martin: What mistakes have you made over the last 3 ro 4 years and what have you learnt?John: Oh, That could take a long time. Let’s see, I would say early on we did it the hard way. So many companies whenever they approach these opportunities they my create an open source project and they might create a lot of market awareness through that. I think that’s an excellent way to achieve a lot of people being familiar with your approach to things. I also think, we went the route of defining a new standard which has been successful in terms of being picked up by all the major browser vendors; they all have websocket in there now. And so we are very honored to being a part of that process to help create the websocket standard, but that takes a while. So that takes a while in terms of business, in terms of a young company, sustaining themselves while that’s playing out, to put themselves in a strong position for being so highly relevant as that plays out. So there maybe other better ways to do that more efficiently and in a more timely manner. But I think that having come through it and now being on the other side of it obviously, it’s a great place to be now, it just takes some time.Martin: Okay. John, thank you very much for your time. And next time you want to start a company try to res olve your biggest pain because I am pretty sure thousands of other people will have the same problem and might be willing to pay for it. Thank you very much. Thank you, John.John: You’re welcome.

3 Formats for GMAT Inequalities Questions You Need to Know

As if solving inequalities wasn’t already hard enough, sometimes the way a GMAT  question is framed will make us wonder which answer option to choose, even after we have already solved solved the problem. Let’s look at three different question formats today to understand the difference between them: Must Be True Could Be True Complete Range Case 1: Must Be True If |-x/3 + 1| 2, which of the following must be true? (A) x 0 (B) x 8 (C) x -4 (D) 0 x 3 (E) None of the above We have two linked inequalities here. One is |-x/3 + 1| 2 and the other is the correct answer choice. We need to think about how the two  are related. We are given that |-x/3 + 1| 2. So we know that x satisfies this inequality. That will give us the universe which is relevant to us. x will take one of those values only. So let’s solve this inequality. (We will not focus on how to solve the inequality in this post it has already been discussed here. We will just quickly show  the steps.) |x/3 1| 2 (1/3) * |x 3| 2 |x 3| 6 The distance of x from 3 is less than 6, so -3 x 9. Now we know  that every value that x can take will lie within  this range. The question now becomes: what must be true for each of these values of x? Lets assess each of our answer options with this question: (A) x 0 Will each of the values of x  be positive? No   x could be a negative number greater than -3, such as  -2. (B) x 8 Will each of the values of x  be less than 8? No x could be a number between 8 and 9, such as 8.5 (C) x -4 Will each of the values of x be more than -4? Yes! x will take values ranging from -3 to 9, and each of the values within that range will be greater than -4. So this must be true. (D) 0 x 3 Will each of these values be between 0 and 3. No since x can take any of the values between -3 and 9, not all of these will be just between 0 and 3. Therefore, the answer is C (we dont even need to evaluate answer choice E since C is true). Case 2: Could Be True If −1 x 5, which is the following could be true? (A) 2x 10 (B) x 17/3 (C) x^2 27 (D) 3x + x^2 −2 (E) 2x – x^2 0 Again, we have two linked inequalities, but here the relation between them will be a bit different. One of the inequalities is   −1 x 5 and the other will be the correct answer choice. We are given that -1 x 5, so x lies between -1 and 5. We need an answer choice that  Ã¢â‚¬Å"could be true†. This means only some of the values between -1 and 5 should satisfy the condition set by the correct answer choice all of the values need not satisfy. Lets evaluate our answer options: (A) 2x 10 x 5 No values between -1 and 5 will be greater than 5, so this cannot be true. (B) x 17/3 x 5.67 No values between -1 and 5 will be greater than 5.67, so this cannot be true. (C) x^2 27 x^2 27 0 x 3*√(3) or x -3*√(3) √(3) is about 1.73 so 3*1.73 = 5.19. No value of x will be greater than 5.19. Also, -3*1.73 will be -5.19 and no value of x will be less than that. So this cannot be true. (Details on how to solve such inequalities  are discussed here.) (D) 3x + x^2 −2 x^2 + 3x + 2 0 (x + 1)(x + 2) 0 -2 x -1 No values of x will lie between -2 and -1, so this also cannot be true. (E) 2x – x^2 0 x * (x 2) 0 x 2 or x 0 If -1 x 5, then  x could lie between -1 and 0 (x 0 is possible) or between 2 and 5 (x 2 is possible). Therefore, the correct answer is E. Case 3: Complete Range Which of the following represents the complete range of x over which x^3 – 4x^5 0? (A) 0 |x|  ½ (B) |x|  ½ (C) - ½ x 0 or  ½ x (D) x - ½ or 0 x  ½ (E) x - ½ or x 0 We have two linked inequalities, but the relation between them will be a bit different again. One of the inequalities is   x^3 4x^5 0 and the other will be the correct answer choice. We are given that x^3 4x^5 0. This inequality can be solved to: x^3 ( 1 4x^2) 0 x^3*(2x + 1)*(2x 1) 0 x   1/2 or -1/2 x 0 This is our universe of the values of x. It is given that all values of x lie in this range. Here, the question asks us the complete range of x. So we need to look for exactly this range. This is given in  answer choice C, and therefore C is our answer. We hope these practice problems will help you become able to distinguish between the three cases now. Getting ready to take the GMAT? We have  free online GMAT seminars  running all the time. And, be sure to follow us on  Facebook,  YouTube,  Google+, and  Twitter! Karishma, a Computer Engineer with a keen interest in alternative Mathematical approaches, has mentored students in the continents of Asia, Europe and North America. She teaches the  GMAT  for Veritas Prep and regularly participates in content development projects such as  this blog!

Compare the Functionalist and Marxist Perspective on Society

COMPARE THE FUNCTIONALIST AND MARXIST PERSPECTIVE ON SOCIETY INTRODUCTION â€Å"Lotto a ticket to your dreams† Vote Lucky Five and give yourself a chance fi step up inna life†. These slogans represent the societal belief of the Jamaican people that there are means by which one individual can move from one stratum of the Jamaican society to another. In some societies ones position in society is ascribed and fixed as in many Asian societies. These systems reinforce the idea of inequality and social change is nearly impossible. There are many different sociological theories that attempt to explain how society or aspects of society work together. Different theories try to understand social behaviour at different levels of investigation. There are†¦show more content†¦Marxism In Contemporary Sociological Theory, Wallace and Wolf define Marxist theory as a sociological theory that identifies economic factors as the fundamental determinant of social structure and change (Wallace and Wolf 78-79). According to Marxist theory, economics shapes our society and determines our interests. As a result of economic factors, classes are formed and conflicts arise, this the theorists contends happens because one class cannot make economic gains without exploiting another class. When the exploitation becomes evident, the classes will struggle for power. The Marxist theory explains social structure through class struggle. One class exploits the product of the labor of another class in order to prosper. This prediction that the â€Å"exploited masses† would increase and defeat the capitalist system has not happened yet, but the prediction and the senses behind it are adequate knowledge to union leaders and business societies alike. Any infirmity or ineffectiveness in the functioning of these simple mechanisms aid in accounting for difficulty and disequilibrium or the end of order. â€Å"Marxist analysis starts with the essential theory that people must produce in order to live†. Individual societies can be seen as subsystems working within an â€Å"increasingly interconnected global system of transnational economic, legal institutions, and politics†. CONCLUSION Functionalism and Marxism are both knownShow MoreRelatedCompare and Contrast the Functionalist and Marxist views on the Family1508 Words   |  7 Pagesï » ¿Compare and Contrast the Functionalist and Marxist views on the Family Functionalists argue that societies consist of inter-related social institutions such as schools, mass media, political systems, the Church and the family each of which contribute positively to the maintenance of stability of society as a whole. 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Critical Analysis of Leadership of Steve Jobs - 3952 Words

critical analysis of the leadership style of Steve Jobs Author’s Last Name, First name, year of submission, title, degree, institution’s name, and location of the institution Introduction The aim of this work is analytical consideration of leadership style of Mr. Steve Jobs, co-founder and later the Chairman and CEO of Apples Computers Incorporated, a most successful businessman today. The challenge of the times The times are upon us when brilliant management and leadership are confounded. In the times of global technical breakthroughs and revolutionary transformations, as the power of â€Å"know-how† and the say-so of â€Å"vision† have joined their hands in leading organizations across sudden gulfs of learning, discoveries, necessitating†¦show more content†¦Apple Incorporated products are well-known and easily recognizable across the whole world in line of personal computers, iphones, ipods and IPads. As of September 25, 2010, the Company had opened a total of 317 retail stores, including 233 stores in the United States and 84 stores internationally (The New York Times, 2011). Reminiscence of the past With a little reminiscence of the past, the company was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and his partner Steve Wozniak only to see Mr. Jobs vacate the premises due to a fall-out with Mr. Sculley in 1985, â€Å"hand-picked CEO, recruited from Pepsi† (Owen W. Linzmayer, 1999). This was an extremely humbling experience, which often shapes leadership providing the mold for them tried with the times of being downcast. As Apple’s product Newton failed under governance of Mr. Sculley, the company could not compare to Microsofts Windows operating system, having become the mainstay of computer standards. (Owen W. Linzmayer, 1999, P. 60) In 1997 upon return of Mr. Jobs, 12 years later, the company finally began to see the light at the time when Mr. Dell was building his own computer empire, saying: â€Å"Apples smartest move would be to shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.† (New York Times, 2001 updated). However, such a stance into future possibilities was not daunting for Mr. Jobs at all. The same goes for anyShow MoreRelatedCritical Analysis Of Steve Jobs Leadership1224 Words   |  5 Pagesessay is to critically analyse Steve Jobs leadership style and power relations experienced within Apple under Jobs’ leadership. Many argued the way Jobs led Apple Inc. had a positive effect on the business to reach its goals while others believed that some of Jobs’ actions could potentially have destructive consequences suggesting he was having a negative effect on the business. The essay will draw on the literature of power politics and leadership to analyse whether Jobs was a Transformational or ToxicRead MoreSteve Jobs as a Visionary and Transformational Leader1165 Words   |  5 Pagesï » ¿Introduction Steve Jobs unique approach to leadership and visionary approach to creating, producing and selling innovative products, combined with his innate ability to orchestrate increasingly complex companies have earned him many accolades. Fortune Magazine named him the best leader of the Decade and countless other publications, colleges and universities have given him many accolades and honorary degrees. All these external measures of success reflect who Steve Jobs is on a daily basis,Read MoreLeadership Steve Jobs Essay1004 Words   |  5 Pages Steve Jobs Outline Michael Spellberg Critical Thinking amp; Problem-Solving August 10, 2014 Professor Ketsia Mcclease DeVry University Steve Jobs Outline I.Introduction   The greatest visionary and leader the late Steve Jobs, he revolutionized the world with his innovations and leadership, he was the leader who brought PC to the mass business sector, then happened to make music players and cell telephones that consumer cherished. His small telephones were packed with so much processingRead MoreThe Social Responsibility Of Apple Inc.1687 Words   |  7 Pagesconsumer software, the organization produces the iOS and macOS, iWork, Safari, ad iTunes media player. In terms of the online services, the organization is known to provide the iTunes Store, Apple Music, and iCloud, to mention a few. Since Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne brought the company to life in April of 1976, it has had just one major objective that the organization was made for included to help with developing and selling of personal computers. Although after being operationalRead MoreThe Importance Of Putting The Right Person1339 Words   |  6 Pagesrepresents a strategic tool to assist with evaluating a company’s internal resources and capabilities as a way to provide a competitive advantage (Jurevicius, 2013). This tool can provide insight into the critical nature an organization assumes with identifying, sourcing and attracting new leadership. Leaders drive organizations, set the tone, establish culture and are ultimately accountable for organizational performance. People lead the way to successful operations. Without the right people a businessRead MoreSteve Jobs And His Leadership Style2256 Words   |  10 Pages The report is about Steve Jobs and his leadership style in the contemporary world. He is the founder of Apple and later again rejoined the company in 1997 and led to the massive turnaround of Apple to become the technology giant. During his tenure, he made the company into the most profitable technology company of the world. Organisations which began their operations before Apple were left behind. This happened due to the charismatic and transformational leadership of Jobs which made the companyRead MoreTransformational Leadership s Influence On Employee Engagement And Organisational Performance1573 Words   |  7 PagesEver since its conceptual introduction by Burns (1978), transformational leadership has been applied by numerous leaders over the years. It was later on developed by various academics, notably Bass (1985) with his presentation of the four pillars of transformational leadership – the four I’s – idealised influence/charisma, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualised consideration. Observations have been made across these many studies about the transformational leadership’sRead MoreInnovation Strategy Development1605 Words   |  7 PagesDeveloping an Innovation Strategy Frame Work The Innovative ideas and strategy plans and developments can only take valuable shape and growth with the right leadership and driving force. Therefore with the discussions developed and generated, I have come to an understanding that successful innovation strategy is determined by the true leadership of an innovative leader with an innovative mindset who wants to achieve success for his organization, employees and himself. Instead of being comfortable andRead MoreThe Challenges Of The Contemporary Business Environment1461 Words   |  6 Pagesstructure, incentives, culture, and even design. Strange enough, these organizations also encounter enormous barriers in their quest to overcome the aforementioned challenges. Owing to the above alluded facts, this paper seeks to establish a critical analysis of operational barriers to success based upon the operational framework of an American company by the name Apple. Tools that an Organization Might use to Help Identify Barriers There are various tools that an organization can use to ascertainRead MoreEssay about Case Analysis Of Apple1186 Words   |  5 Pagesï » ¿Case analysis of â€Å"Apple Inc. in 2012† This is an individual submission. Submissions may be up to 1,250 words. For this write-up, please answer the following questions. Your answers should be derived from the material presented in the case, so you should not require outside sources in order to prepare your response. Please pay attention to the value of each question when determining how much effort to expend on answering it. Citations from the case may be simply a page number [e.g., Apple was

An Analysis of Mary Shellys Frankenstein Essay - 1196 Words

Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein in a time of wonder. A main wonder was whether you could put life back into the dead. Close to the topic of bringing life back into the dead was whether you could create your own being, like selective breeding however with more power. Perhaps she chose to write this story opposing to one of a Ghost as she felt it was more relevant to her era and wanted to voice her own opinions and concerns to what the future may hold. Playing God, pinching corpses, pretention is this a morally justified thing to do? These are all traits of Victor Frankenstein. Was this morally right for a Georgian man? Would this even be right for a modern day man? What was Mary Shelley trying to say? What was the â€Å"monster† like and†¦show more content†¦Maybe her message was to be careful of what we would be able to achieve, to know where it is right to stop; and perhaps if it is right to meddle with mother nature? Like Shakespeare Mary Shelley uses the weather an awful lot to set the mood and give clues to what is about to happen. In the start of chapter 5 the first thing that she refers to is the weather (a typical brit!) and says it is â€Å"dreary† and continues to explain how the â€Å"rain pattered dismally against the pains† which immediately suggests that something damaging and ruinous is about to happen. She uses a lot of symbolism within chapter 5 and actually throughout the whole novel. She continues to say things such as â€Å"my candle was nearly burnt out† , the candle symbolising life and could therefore mean he was in bad health and about to die. Then again it could also suggest that his goodness may be going or that he is physically exhausted or in fact that all good may be wiped out as the ‘monster’ was about to be born. It is a complete contrast to the previous chapter(s) when Victor was so hooked and excited on creating the ‘monster’ that he wiped all worries from his mind. He thought that he would be a creature of beauty as he handpicked the individual features himself. But as soon as the creature is brought to life it changes and he describes it as a â€Å"catastrophe† and his eyes as â€Å"dull†. His words are very harsh and the first thing he does is run. The creation of the ‘monster’ affectedShow MoreRelatedMary Shellys Frankenstein and the Consideration of Psychological Traumas Women Face in the Lack of Control Over Their Reproductive Organs1798 Words   |  7 Pagesï » ¿Mary Shellys Frankenstein and the Consideration of Psychological Traumas Women Face in the Lack of Control Over Their Reproductive Organs I. Objective The objective of this study is to examine Mary Shellys work Frankenstein and to consider the psychological traumas women face in the lack of control over their reproductive organs. II. Introduction Women throughout the world have experienced psychological trauma over the lack of control over their reproductive organs and whether this traumaRead MoreAnalysis of Frankenstein From Shelleys Novel to Branaghs Film563 Words   |  3 PagesAnalysis of Frankenstein From Shelleys Novel to Branaghs Film Branaghs adaptation of Mary Shellys novel was fairly good with significant changes to Shellys text; however this was done to illuminate what he considers to be the major themes of the novel, eg the dangers of the relentless pursuit of science and Victors relationships. Victors love interest with Elizabeth in the film is much more intense compared to what is described in the novel as communication isRead MoreFrankenstein Character Analysis831 Words   |  4 Pages The novel Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, is a gothic novel about a creature that achieves humanity through his emotional feelings and intellectual thoughts. Throughout the novel, Shelly demonstrates that the goodwill of a person dominates his or her overall disposition. The reader feels sympathy for the characters when they suffer through hardships and tragedies because of their redeeming qualities that reflect a positive light on mankind. Shelly develops the novel by portraying the charactersRead MoreSigmund Freud s Frankenstein 1299 Words   |  6 Pagesrelation of the uncanny to May Shelley’s Frankenstein, the monster that was created by the character named Victor Frankenstein was greeted with fear by the people he meets. The monster’s treatment of fear put him under the category of Sigmund Freud’s The Uncanny. we see a point of commonality where the relation of the Freudian theory and Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is implying towards to each other. This implication reveals The Uncanny and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to fear itself as it shows the theoryRead MoreEssay on Frankenstein is Not a Natural Philosopher1238 Words   |  5 PagesSmith’s article ‘Frankenstein and natural magic’ takes a literary approach to the analysis of ‘Frankenstein’ although this is supported by some background scientific knowledge. Through the article, Smith describes the impacts science has made on Frankenstein’s life . Smith plays close attention to Frankenstein’s childhood, where he discovered the ancient philosophers, and his Ingolstadt years. It is in these periods where Smith argues that Frankenstein is not a natural philosopher but a natural magicianRead MoreSigmund Freud s Frankenstein 1361 Words   |  6 Pagesrelation of the uncanny to May Shelleyâ €™s Frankenstein, the monster that was created by the character named Victor Frankenstein who was greeted with fear by the people he meets. The monster’s treatment of fear put him under the category of Sigmund Freud’s The Uncanny. We see a point of commonality where the relation of the Freudian theory and Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is implying towards to each other. This implication reveals The Uncanny and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein how fear itself show the theory ofRead MoreThe Downfall of Victor Frankenstein1877 Words   |  8 Pages2010 The Downfall of Victor Frankenstein In many situations today, the children most common problem can be trace back to their family issue. Without a strong bond of relationship between their parents can consequently cause a destruction of children’s future. Even more, the children grow up unsteadily with aggressive behavior and the sign of depression. This has come to be a controversial issue and as well the depth of the story that is contain in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. To many misinterpretationsRead MoreAnalysis Of Mary Shelley s Frankenstein And Judith Guest s Ordinary People1842 Words   |  8 PagesNia Gordon June 10th, 2015 English 10/ G Band Ms. Kaufman Don’t Leave Me This Way: The Analysis of Abandonment in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and Judith Guest’s Ordinary People Both Mary Shelley s Frankenstein and Judith Guest’s Ordinary People display the consistent theme of abandonment by guardians. Both protagonists, the Creature and Conrad, experience rejection from their parents and constantly try to search for love and attention in different aspects of society since they unfortunately canRead More Comparing the Duty of the Physician in Dracula, Frankenstein, and Awakenings3438 Words   |  14 Pages   Through close analysis of the respective physicians illustrated within Bram Stokers Dracula, Mary Shellys Frankenstein, and Oliver Sacks Awakenings, one is able to comment upon their respective duties. The duty of the doctor, as portrayed in these texts, can be seen to be highly varied and immensely diverse. Bram Stokers Dracula deals with the role and duty of the doctor, and with the relationship between them and their patient extensively. Stoker, from a medical family himselfRead More Science, Technology, and Morality as Perceived in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein1967 Words   |  8 Pages   Ã‚   In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley challenges the motives and ethical uncertainties of the scientific developments of her time. This critique has become increasingly relevant as modern scientists endeavor into previously unimagined realms of the natural world through the use of cloning and genetic engineering. Through careful analysis, we can see how the novel illustrates both the potential dangers of these exploits and the irony of the conflicts between science and creationism.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Prior

Market Structures Of The Market - 1198 Words

INTRODUCTION Market Structures are classified in term of the presence or absence of competition. When competition is absent, the market is said to be concentrated. There is a spectrum, from perfect competition to pure monopoly. Market structure is the physical characteristics of the market within which firms interact. It involves the number of firms in the market and the barriers to entry. Perfect competition, with an infinite number of firms, and monopoly, with a single firm, are polar opposites. In standard usage of the term, competition may also imply certain virtues. Markets are the heart and soul of a capitalist economy, and varying degrees of competition lead to different market structures, with differing implications for the outcomes of the market place. This entry will discuss the following market structures that result from the successively declining degrees of competition in the market for a particular commodity. These elements are perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly. Based on the differing outcomes of different market structures, economists consider some market structures more desirable, from the point of view of the society, than others. Market Structure: Monopoly, Oligopoly, Monopolistic and Perfect Competition An oligopoly is a market form in which a market or industry is dominated by a small number of sellers. Oligopolies can result from various forms of collusion which reduce competition and leadShow MoreRelatedThe Market Structures Of A Market Structure962 Words   |  4 Pagesfour market structures that function in the worldwide market. Each of these market structures correlates with one another to create the demand and supply of the market. However, these market structures have some unique traits that no other theory can have alike. Therefore, a comparison and contrast is necessary to distinguish each of these theories from one another. These market structures of the economy are perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly. These market structuresRead MoreMarket Structure Of The Market Structures1779 Words   |  8 Pagesmayor to look at various market structures. I plan to provide excellent information and answer all the questions that will help the mayor understand the market structures of many of the businesses in his city. According to Arthur Levitt, the tension between centrality, on the one hand, and competition, on the other, is probably the oldest of all market structure issues (Levitt, n.d.). Market structures are being used daily to help foster companies. Describe each market structure discussed in the courseRead MoreThe Market Structures853 Words   |  4 PagesThe four defined market structures include perfect competition, monopoly, monopolist, and oligopoly. Although firms within these four different structures compete within the economic market together, each have their distinct characteristic. Perfect competition includes producers who all produce the same good. When looking at perfect competition you will see that both the buyers and sellers are price takers. The agricultural market is one of the few perfectly competitive markets. A monopoly consistRead MoreMarket Structures2710 Words   |  11 PagesKenya Institute of Management Diploma Course in Management Economics Work Based Assignment Done By: Daniel Mwathe Mugo Student No: NRB-44592 Table of Contents Question 2 Market Structures 3 Monopoly 3 Equilibrium Price and Output 3 Price Discrimination 5 Advantages of Monopoly 5 Disadvantages of Monopoly 6 Monopolistic Competition 6 Characteristics of Monopolistic Competition 6 Equilibrium level 6 Oligopoly 7 Features of Oligopoly 8 Competition and Collusion 8 Duopoly:Read MoreMarket Structure : A Competitive Market1359 Words   |  6 PagesMarket structure is about the number of competition that exists in a market among producers. The level of competition can be thought of as a continuous sequence with very competitive market at one end and the other end consist of market in which no competition exists. Market structure is important because of the implications it has for conduct and performance and the fact that it has an impact upon the strategic possibilities which faces the organization. Perfect competition This market structureRead MoreMarket Structures1479 Words   |  6 PagesBetween Market Structures ECO/365 April 13, 2015 Benjamin Zuckerman Differentiating Between Market Structures Coca-Cola Company is one of the world’s leading soft drinks manufacturers. Since its creation, the company has been growing constantly. Today Coca-Cola manufactures more than 500 brands of products sold in more than 200 countries all over the world. Coca-Cola’s main competitor is Pepsi. Therefore, the two companies make up a duopoly where only two companies dominate the market. BothRead MoreMarket Structures1503 Words   |  7 PagesMarket Structures The purpose of this paper is to provide of different types of market structures as well as pricing and non-pricing strategies used in the various market structures. First, the team explores the pure competition market structure through the analysis to Fiji Water Company. Second, the oligopoly market structure with LOreal Group Cosmetic and Beauty Company. Third, explain the monopolistic competition market structure with Campbells Soup Company. Last, the team explains how QuasarRead MoreMarket Structure1104 Words   |  5 PagesI. MARKET STRUCTURE We can classify firms by the roles they play in the target market: leader, challenger, follower, or nicher. Suppose a market is occupied by the firms shown in Figure 1.1. Forty percent of the market is in the hands of a market leader; another 30 percent is in the hands of a market challenger; another 20 percent is in the hands of a market follower, a firm that is willing to maintain its market share and not rock the boat. The remaining 10 percent is in the hands of market nichersRead MoreMarket Structure2924 Words   |  12 PagesForms of Industrial Organization, Market Structure, and Pricing Karl University MBA 501 Abstract The team will identify the four market structures, Pure Monopoly, Oligopoly, Monopolist Competition and Pure Competition in the forms of industrial organization. Pure Monopoly is one firm or company that controls the whole market whether there may not or may be substitutes. Oligopoly is a market dominated by a few large producers of a homogeneous or differentiated product. MonopolisticRead MoreAnalysis Of Different Market Structures Of A Market Structure2335 Words   |  10 PagesDifferent Market Structures Student s name Course name and number Instructor s name Date submitted Analysis of Different Market Structures 1. Introduction The small number of market structure consultancies across the globe shows that the market structure concept is itself considerably new. Clearly, various market structure components have been widely studied over the years: derivatives, exchange, trading, and clearing. Even then, there has been no holistic examination of the whole market structure

Thorn Queen Chapter Eleven Free Essays

Along with Ysabel, Dorian sent me back with some shipments of food on credit. I almost would have thought he was trying to soften the blow of me being stuck with her, except Dorian was the type who would actually enjoy the thought of us having an uncomfortable trip. He would get a kick out of knowing how irritated I was and probably regretted he couldn’t be there to witness our interactions. We will write a custom essay sample on Thorn Queen Chapter Eleven or any similar topic only for you Order Now Nonetheless, I mitigated the discomfort by riding at the head of my group, sticking Ysabel all the way in the back behind my guards and Dorian’s servants. Shaya was understandably surprised when we arrived back. I left her to distribute the food and deal with Ysabel. â€Å"Put her somewhere. Anywhere,† I said. â€Å"It doesn’t matter to me.† â€Å"But why†¦why is she even here? That’s Dorian’s mistress.† â€Å"Oh, yes,† I said, watching as a scowling Ysabel stepped aside for the rest of the entourage spilling into my castle. I kind of took offense at the sneer she gave my residence, despite the fact that I knew it was in disarray compared to those of other monarchs. â€Å"Believe me, I know she is.† Shaya seemed mollified and distracted enough by Dorian’s gifts that I was able to slip away without too much argument. I made the crossing back to my world, not even bothering to change clothes before I went. When I finally got back to my own house, I had the pleasant surprise of finding Kiyo lying on the couch. Three cats slept on the couch’s back while one rested on its arm. The fifth lay sprawled across Kiyo’s stomach. â€Å"That,† he said, â€Å"is a great dress. Smells a little like horse, though.† I glanced down at the purple silk dress, which was holding up remarkably well considering all the dust and sweat it had been subjected to today. â€Å"It was part of a diplomatic outreach.† â€Å"Dorian, huh?† â€Å"What was your first clue?† â€Å"The slit.† I headed across the living room, toward the hall that led to the other side of the house. â€Å"I’m hitting the shower. You want to go to Texas with me afterward?† Kiyo straightened up, spooking a couple of the cats. â€Å"Is that like a new restaurant? Or do you mean the state?† â€Å"State. I have to go talk to those two shamans that Roland told me about.† I glanced at a clock. â€Å"We’d probably have to stay overnight.† He considered. â€Å"If we can be back by noon tomorrow, I’ll do it.† I assured him we could and then left to shower away the day’s dirt. Miraculously-and a little disappointingly-Kiyo didn’t come harass me while I cleaned up. He had a tendency to show up while I was showering and offer to â€Å"help† clean me off. Conscious of our time, he let me be, and a half-hour later, we were ready to hit the road. Yellow River was just over the Texas border, making it about a four-hour drive if we kept a little over the speed limit. Kiyo liked to drive-I think it was some manly instinct-so I let him. We stuck to casual topics, which allowed my mind to wander to the Otherworldly affairs on my plate. The whole stress of running and caring for a kingdom still weighed upon me, but I had the comfort of knowing I’d done what I could and that Shaya would manage the rest. That was her job. We both knew it, and she would perform her duties excellently. I needed to stop stressing about that. The missing girls†¦well, those were my problem. At least, I’d made them my problem. Meeting with these shamans in Yellow River would hopefully shed light on that situation, so until I saw them, there was no point in worrying about that either. Ysabel†¦yes, well, that was something worth worrying about. I’d just let a viper into my household and took some comfort in realizing that my reluctance to stay the night in my castle would probably save me from being smothered in my sleep. If I’d had my way, I would package her up and send her straight back to the Oak Land. My stupid promise bound me. Maybe she did have something useful to teach me, but I had no evidence that she’d actually try to be helpful. She’d probably just glare the whole time, no doubt paranoid I wanted to move in on Dorian†¦. Dorian. I sighed. He was a problem, one I kept thinking would go away but didn’t. I needed him, and we both knew it. So long as I did, he was going to use that as leverage to keep seeing me and taunting me. For the most part, that annoyed me. I hated being part of his games. Yet, at the same time, there was always something irresistible about Dorian, something that made me laugh in spite of the exasperation he so often caused. And, yeah†¦I hated to admit it, but no matter how much I loved Kiyo, and no matter how much I’d washed my hands of the romance between Dorian and me, there was still a part of me that would probably always be attracted to him. Our night together still haunted my dreams. His hand on me earlier today had woken a lot of those feelings, and I couldn’t help but imagine again how easy it would have been for him to slide that hand up my leg†¦. â€Å"Eugenie?† â€Å"Huh?† Kiyo’s voice startled me out of my indecent thoughts. â€Å"What are you thinking about? You have the weirdest look on your face.† â€Å"Oh, well, I†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I was totally astonished when the next words burst out of my mouth. â€Å"How come we never have any foreplay?† Kiyo’s hold on the steering wheel momentarily faltered, and I feared we’d run off onto the shoulder. He quickly regained control. â€Å"What are you talking about? Of course we have foreplay. Remember that thing I did with the honey last week?† â€Å"Yeah, I guess. But that’s more the exception than the norm. We always just kind of jump right into it.† â€Å"You never really seem to mind.† He had a point. â€Å"No†¦I mean, it’s always good. It’d just be nice to†¦I don’t know. Expand our horizons.† â€Å"I’m okay with that,† he said after several thoughtful moments. â€Å"I’m up for anything. It’s just my†¦well, instincts, I guess, that tend to drive me right toward the main attraction.† I knew what he meant. The problem with spending part of your life as an animal was that you picked up some of their traits. Foxes in the wild didn’t really devote a lot of time to foreplay. â€Å"I don’t really mind. I’m just saying that I’d like to shake it up.† He fell silent for a while. Finally, he asked, â€Å"Does this have anything to do with Dorian?† â€Å"Why do you say that?† I asked blandly. â€Å"I don’t know. More instinct.† His dark eyes narrowed as they focused on the road. â€Å"I’m not stupid, you know. I know you slept with him.† I jerked my head in surprise, unable to attempt any sort of denial. I’d never technically lied to Kiyo about what had happened with Dorian, but seeing as we’d been broken up at the time, I’d never really felt the need to go into detail. â€Å"How do you†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I couldn’t finish the question. Kiyo gave me a rueful smile. â€Å"Dorian used to watch you like a starving man who wants meat. Now he looks at you like he wants seconds.† I didn’t say anything. No response came to mind. â€Å"It’s okay,† continued Kiyo almost amiably. â€Å"I know it happened when we were apart. What’s past is past-so long as it doesn’t mess with our present.† It was rather magnanimous of him, and I felt both grateful and guilty. â€Å"It’s in the past,† I agreed. â€Å"It has nothing to do with anything anymore.† The first shaman Roland had directed us to was a guy named Art. Like Roland and me, Art lived in his own piece of suburbia, in a large house that hardly looked like it belonged to someone who battled spirits and gentry. The sides were painted a sunny yellow, and the yard-which bore the signs of daily tending-was even ringed with a white picket fence. I could hear children playing down the street. In fact, Art himself was out in the yard, weeding flower beds as the afternoon light turned orange. I pegged his age around thirty or so. A red snake tattoo coiled around one of his arms while a stylized raven showed on the other. No doubt there were more under his shirt. He glanced up and smiled when we stopped beside him on the house’s sidewalk. â€Å"You must be Eugenie,† he said, standing up. He brushed dirt off his gloves and looked apologetic. â€Å"I’d shake hands, but†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I smiled back. â€Å"No problem. This is Kiyo.† The two men exchanged nods of greeting, and Art directed us around the side of the house. â€Å"Roland said you wanted to chat, right? How about we sit down in the back? Let me clean up, and I’ll go get us something to drink.† Kiyo and I followed his direction and found ourselves sitting at a cute, umbrella-covered table in a backyard even more lush than the front. Though a bit more humid, Yellow River’s climate wasn’t that far off from Tucson’s, so I could only imagine the amount of water and labor it took to maintain this greenery. A funny thought came to me, and I couldn’t help but laugh. â€Å"What?† asked Kiyo. He’d been watching a hummingbird dance around a red-flowered bush that flanked the house. â€Å"I was thinking I need Art to come do landscaping in the Thorn Land.† â€Å"I think that might blow your cover.† â€Å"Likely. I don’t even know if he crosses over very much.† â€Å"If he does, it’s probably only a matter of time before he finds out and tells Roland. Actually, it’s only a matter of time before anyone does that.† I made a face. Roland knew a lot of shamans, all around the country. â€Å"Yeah, I know.† Art stepped out through the back patio, gloves gone and a new shirt on. He set down a small cooler, carefully sliding the glass and its screen shut again. The drapes hanging on the other side of the patio were blue and purple watercolors laced with silvery threads that I envied after my own had been ripped up by a storm I’d inadvertently caused. Between his excellent decor and yard, I was feeling like a lame homeowner. He opened the cooler. â€Å"I didn’t know what you wanted, so I brought some options.† The cooler revealed an assortment of pop and beer. Kiyo opted for the latter; I took the former. The hot summer afternoon had cooled down to a pleasant temperature, and the shadows cast by the trees helped too. The memory of the hot journey to Dorian’s was still with me, though, and I drank my Coke gratefully. â€Å"This is a great yard,† I said. â€Å"Wish I had the patience. Mine’s kind of a rock garden.† Art grinned, crinkling up the lines around his eyes. They were an azure blue that stood out against his sun-weathered skin. â€Å"But that’s fashionable up there, isn’t it?† â€Å"Yeah, kind of. But there’s a fine line between a fashionable arrangement of sand and rocks, and, well†¦just a pile of sand and rocks.† He laughed again. â€Å"Well, I’m sure you have better things to do. Roland tells me you’re keeping busy now that he’s retired.† â€Å"‘Retired’ is a dubious term. It’s hard for him to sit still, knowing I’m out there doing business by myself.† â€Å"And I hear you’ve got some business questions to ask me?† Right to the point. I liked that. â€Å"You’ve got a big crossroads here.† â€Å"I do,† he agreed. â€Å"Keeps me busy.† â€Å"You get a lot of gentry crossing over?† He took a long sip of his beer and considered. â€Å"Well, there are always gentry crossing over.† â€Å"Has there been an unusual amount lately? Girls in particular?† His eyebrows rose in surprise. â€Å"Not that I’ve noticed. Why do you ask?† â€Å"Following up on a job,† I said vaguely. â€Å"Women cross over all the time, of course,† he mused. â€Å"But men outnumber them. Seeing a surge would be noticeable. Most of my time lately has been spent on exorcisms.† I nodded. Until gentry and Otherworldly creatures had decided they wanted to father my child, spirits had made up the bulk of my business too. That was a normal shaman workload. â€Å"Sorry I can’t be of more help,† added Art kindly. I must have looked disappointed. â€Å"You should check with Abigail, though.† â€Å"She’s the other one here, right?† â€Å"Yup. We work together sometimes. Maybe she’s noticed something I haven’t.† I thanked Art for the info, and we spent the next hour or so chatting about assorted things. Art asked questions about Kiyo’s background. Roland could sense Kiyo’s Otherworldly nature, but Art’s blandly polite style made me suspect it wasn’t a talent he possessed. Art also wanted to know about my jobs, no doubt curious about my interest in gentry girls. I kept my answers vague, in no way coming close to the fact that I was protecting my subjects. After making our good-byes, we headed off to the second address Roland had given me. Abigail lived in an apartment in downtown Yellow River, very different from Art’s homey location. The downtown area was actually more thriving than I would have expected. Yellow River was a small town at the end of the day, but it still had an assortment of interesting shops and restaurants. Abigail’s apartment was above an antiques store, and we climbed two flights of rickety stairs to get to her. The mysterious, dusty nature of it all was much more in line with stereotypical shaman images. Indeed, when she answered the door, I suspected she would have met most people’s visions of a shaman. She was an older woman, gray hair styled into a long braid down her back. Her loose peasant blouse was patterned in mauve and yellow flowers, and crystal beads hung around her neck. She broke into a beatific smile when she saw us. â€Å"Eugenie! So nice to finally meet you.† She ushered us inside, and I introduced Kiyo. The apartment was beautifully constructed and nicer than its outside suggested-but cluttered with candles and assorted statuary. It made me feel better after Art’s immaculate home. The apartment was also filled with cats. I counted at least seven, and all of them looked up at Kiyo’s entrance. Four of them got up and rubbed against his legs. â€Å"You’ve certainly got a way with animals,† noted Abigail. â€Å"I’m a vet,† he explained, giving her a winning smile that tended to make women weak in the knees. Like Art, Abigail sat us down and forced beverages on us, this time in the form of herbal tea. We started with the usual small talk. Abigail was a big fan of Roland and couldn’t say enough nice things about the work he did. I couldn’t help feeling a little bit of stepdaughterly pride. When we finally got to the issue of gentry girls, though, Abigail didn’t have much more to offer than Art had. â€Å"Most of my work is actually along the lines of healing and spirit retrievals,† she explained. Spirit retrieval was itself a form of healing, often done when some entity was plaguing a human in a possession sort of way. I’d done it a few times but was no expert. â€Å"I don’t do much in the way of casting out. That’s Art’s specialty, but that crossroads is so big that he sometimes gets more than he can handle. So, I help out every once in a while.† â€Å"But you haven’t noticed a surge of gentry girls?† Abigail shook her head, making the crystal beads click together. â€Å"No, but like I said, I’m not out in the field enough to say for sure. And gentry usually aren’t so difficult to cast out†¦. Art tends to handle those on his own and call me in for the entities that are harder for him to get rid of.† She gave me a rueful grin. â€Å"Neither of us is as strong as you or Roland.† I played with my tea bag, wondering how to parse this new information. Was my theory about gentry girls sneaking over here a total bust? Or were they being crafty enough to avoid detection? I usually ended up casting out gentry because they did something troubling that put them on my radar. Gentry girls slipping in among humans wouldn’t necessarily attract a lot of attention. We thanked Abigail when we finished our tea and left for our hotel. I’d booked one that sat just on the edge of town. As we walked toward where we’d parked my car on the street, Kiyo declared that he wanted to take it over to a gas station on the corner for both gas and air for the tires. I told him I would walk down there and meet him. I wanted to browse a few of the shops before we called it a night. Poking my head in the little stores gave me a chance to get my mind off the gentry girls and today’s disappointing intel. Most of the shops were what you’d expect for a small town. Antiques. Vintage clothing. Crafts. One, however, was a sex-toy shop, and I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrows at that. It was surprising in this town. Equally surprising was that I went in and bought something. I met Kiyo at the gas station shortly thereafter. â€Å"Not much in the way of information,† he said as we drove out to the hotel. â€Å"Yeah. I want to check out the crossroads in the morning before we go.† That was the main reason I’d chosen to actually come out to Yellow River in person, rather than simply call with my questions. â€Å"If that doesn’t yield anything, we might just have to give this theory up.† Kiyo shook his head, a small smile curling his lovely lips. â€Å"I don’t know what to think of you sometimes. You’re so annoyed about this whole queen thing, yet here you are, going to a lot of trouble to help these girls.† We reached the hotel and found a parking spot. He turned off the car. â€Å"And let me guess. You want me to stay away from it all?† â€Å"Only inasmuch as it’ll keep you safe. But truthfully? What you’re doing is great.† The look he gave me showed just how great he thought it was-and how great he thought I was. There was admiration there in his eyes, underscored with something heated and dangerous and wonderful. I might make jokes about his animal intensity, but when channeled into sex and passion†¦well, there was nothing to laugh about. My whole body felt the heat of his gaze, every nerve coming to life. â€Å"Let’s go inside,† I said softly. â€Å"Yeah,† he agreed. â€Å"No place I’d rather be.† His hands were on me as soon as we cleared the hotel room’s door, reminding me of the first night we’d spent together. He pushed me onto the bed, tearing off my clothes as he did. I wanted to sprawl right there and let him take me-but just barely had enough presence of mind to wriggle away. â€Å"Did you mean what you said earlier?† I asked, my breathing hard. His dark eyes were hungry and impatient. â€Å"If it gets the rest of your clothes off right now, then yes, I stand by whatever I said earlier.† â€Å"About expanding our horizons?† This gave him pause. â€Å"What did you have in mind?† I slipped away from him-no small feat-and produced my purse and the purchase I’d hidden in it: the bag from the sex-toy store. I pulled out a pair of handcuffs. â€Å"Are you serious?† Kiyo asked, not sounding particularly opposed so much as curious. â€Å"That headboard’s got a nice spot to lock your wrists in.† I might dream of Dorian restraining me, but right now, it was the thought of me being Kiyo’s captor that aroused me. â€Å"Me?† This was a surprise to him too. He hesitated only a moment, though. There was desire and lust radiating from him, and while he might have preferred simply jumping in and having his way with me like usual, the bottom line was that he wanted me, period. One way or another. â€Å"Okay.† He pulled off the rest of his clothes and lay back against the bed’s covers, hands stretched up. I paused to admire his body, filled with such strength and power. After removing my own clothing, I leaned over him and fastened one wrist to the headboard. I heard his breath catch as I did, my breasts only a few inches from his face. His other hand immediately went out to my hip and ran up along the side of my body. I pulled away, out of reach. â€Å"Not allowed,† I warned. â€Å"You don’t get to call the shots here.† He gave me a saucy grin. Being tied down wasn’t in his nature, but he felt bolder with only one hand bound. He was still able to feel in control. â€Å"I’ve got another hand and two feet,† he pointed out. I smiled sweetly and reached back into the bag. I pulled out three more pairs of handcuffs. His smile faded to astonishment. â€Å"Don’t worry,† I said. â€Å"I’ve got it covered.† I made sure all his hands and feet were locked into place, putting him at my mercy and ensuring he wouldn’t do anything I didn’t want him to. And as I lowered my hips down near his face, spreading my thighs so that the warmth of his mouth and tongue had no choice but to lick and suck as long as I wanted, I felt smug satisfaction in knowing for certain that I would be the one who got off first tonight. How to cite Thorn Queen Chapter Eleven, Essay examples