Discussion 7 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Discussion 7 - Essay Example eeds in response to minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual and auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign† (1). In other words the real and the virtual worlds have now merged. The term avatar comes from Hindu religious philosophy and means passing across or through, standing for the descent of a deity into the mortal world (2). Second Life is an interactive Web portal that allows you to create an avatar of your self to pass across into a virtual world. The avatar you create of yourself can have the go of yourself and indulge in activities that your real life person does not permit you to enjoy. So fly in the Second Life, if you are scared of heights in the real world. You are not limited by the limitations of your real person in the virtual world of the Second Life. You do not have to stir from your house for crossing over to the virtual. It is just mouse clicks away from the personal computer or lap tap that you possess. Enrol and leave the real world into the virtual world for as long as you want. Interact with other individuals in the virtual world. Join or form groups with same interests. Star your own business organization, buy and sell real estate. The market is ever expanding, with a constant migration of individuals from the real world to the virtual world of Second Life. Let your imagination fly in the virtual world for the virtual world is not constrained by the limitations of the real world. All this has become possible from the convergence of advances in audio and visual technologies, through innovations of technology in the field of information and communication technology (3). Second Life sounds great and is a precursor of potential virtual applications through advances in video, audio, and communication technologies and their convergence, in a similar manner as photography triggering a revolution in the reproduction in visual mediums including art works. This convergence

Short Stories in the Gothic Horror Tradition Essay Example for Free

Short Stories in the Gothic Horror Tradition Essay The genre of short stories in the nineteenth century began to attract a wider audience all over the world. A very important factor in the growing popularity of short stories was the vast interest in magazines and journals. The market in short stories was also expanding due to the easy money available to young writers. Through the nineteenth century there was significant improvement in the printing technology which gave more variety to magazines. The nineteenth century was a time without television or radios, which meant that reading out loud was a good form of entertainment. Gothic horror is a story, which usually contains murders and torture in many forms such as supernatural, mental or physical. A supernatural example would be like the film Chukkie, that is where two dolls roam around Los Angeles killing people. Much gothic horror came in the nineteenth century written by Bram Stoker, one of his most famous novels was Dracula. Gothic horror is also a form of statues, which represent a more terrifying look in a very distinctive style.  I will be comparing two stories The Kit-Bag and The Judges House.  The author of the horrifying tale of The Judges House was the magnificent Bram Stoker and the author of The Kit-Bag was Algeron Blackwood. The Judges House is about a student, Malcolm Malcomson, wanting to get away from the pressures of every day life. While Malcolm was wandering about looking for accommodation, he finds this peculiar looking house with the cleaner working inside. After renting the strange house he got down to studying. When Malcomson had been there for a couple of days, he spotted a huge rat in the corner of the room as he was looking at some strange paintings. The next day he asked Mrs Witham, the cleaner, to dust the huge paintings on the wall as dust and grime obscured them. Malcomson gets back from another hard day of studying and discovers the picture behind the grime. It is a judge sitting in a huge chair, with a weird looking rope behind him. Later that night a huge rat with baleful eyes enters the room and sits on the huge chair with a rope behind it. Malcomson thought this was familiar. He looked at the painting and realised that it was the judges chair and that he was standing in the room the judge was sat in. He also noticed the judge was no longer in the painting. Malcomson slowly turned round and there on the great high-backed carved oak chair was the judge wearing his robes of scarlet and ermine, with his baleful eyes glaring vindictively. The judge then stood right up and pulled down the rope from the alarm bell and walked past Malcomson as if tempting him to do something. Mrs Witham and village people broke into the judges house and at the end of the rope of the great alarm bell hung the body of the young student, Malcomson, and on the face of the judge in the painting was a malignant smile. The Kit-Bag is about a man called Johnson who has just dealt with a major murder inquiry.  Johnson, a young man of about twenty-six, had a delicate face like a girls. As he was leaving the office, after hard days worked, he turned and said to his employer I knew there was something to ask you, would you mind if I could use one of your kit-bags? His boss replied Of course, Ill send Harry over with it Once Johnson had the Kit-Bag, he packed it straight away as he was going on holiday the very next day. While he was packing, he heard loud footsteps on the stairs below him. He thought it must be Mrs. Monk with his post, but the footsteps ceased. Ten minutes passed and the footsteps were getting louder and closer. Johnson decided to check what was going on. While he was there, he saw a strange figure dash into his room. Johnson could not believe what had just happened. When he was walking back into his room, the Kit-Bag made a sudden move for the door and John Turk, the murderer appeared. Johnsons heart was pounding. John Turk was looking at Johnson as if wanted something from him .He said, Its my bag and I want it now. Johnson then collapsed and lay unconscious for a long time. After he had woken up, Mrs. Monk came into his room. She told him that someone was down stairs and needed to see him before he left. It was Henry with a nice clean Kit-Bag. He told Johnson that he gave him the wrong Kit-Bag. Henry had given him the bag from the murder scene and he told him the news that John Turk had killed himself last night in his cell at ten oclock. Bram Stokers writing involves a lot of Gothicism. He wrote many novels and short stories and amongst them The Judges House.  Already two paragraphs into the story Bram Stoker is doing what he does best, being gothic, it says it was an old rambling, heavy built house of the Jacobean style, with heavy gables and windows, unusually small, and over higher than was customary in such houses, and was surrounded with a high brick wall massively built, so already we can imagine that there is this huge eighteenth century house that hasnt been touched for decades and is suitable for some strange goings on.

Aztec Civilization Essay -- essays research papers

The Aztec Indians created a great civilization in Central Mexico, reaching its peak in the 1500’s. Being late arrivals to the area, and because of their strong neighboring nations, they were forced to live in the swampy western areas of the Lake Texcoco. Because of the swampy surroundings, the Aztecs used mud to create miniature islands in the swamps. These islands are called chinampas, or “floating gardens,'; and were used as farming lands. On these fertile islands they grew corn, squash, vegetables, and flowers. Being an agriculturally dependant empire, the Aztec’s religion was based highly on the forces of nature and worshipped them as gods. The god of war, Huitzilopochtli, was the most important deity. They had many other important gods, such as Tlaloc, the god of rain, Quetzalcoatl, the god of wind and of learning, and Tenochtitlan, the sun god. The Aztecs believed in order to appease these and many other gods that they needed to perform human sacrifices. The main purpose of the great Aztec pyramids was, in fact, human sacrifices. They also believed that there were “lucky'; and “unlucky'; days for baptism and to declare war on, which were decided by a priest. Most art and architecture in the Aztec civilization was based on their religion. There are many brightly colored murals and paintings on walls and on bark which depict religious ceremonies, along with large idols of gods. One of the most amazing and famous of the...

What Is the Future of Social Media

What is the future of social media? In research for this discussion, I came up with a few insights on what I foresee coming up next in the world of social media. †¢ The physical and digital worlds will be more highly connected than ever before – already today we are able to run in the park and track our progress online while sharing it with our friends or track our weight loss, or even our ovulation (well, some of us, that is) with iPhone apps that connect to our Facebook and twitter profiles and enable us to keep track of our progress as well as share the data with our friends. Facebook, Twitter and other major social networks will become increasingly what Fred Wilson coins â€Å"Social Dashboards†. In essence, Facebook and Twitter are social channels on which other companies can grow and develop their own technologies and businesses. Both Facebook and Twitter have created economies far larger than many nations. †¢ Until now, brands have been very concerned w ith bringing as many people as possible to their pages. Consumer brands can now finally reap the fruits and build social commerce stores where Facebook users (all 700 Million of them) can purchase products on their favorite social network without needing to go to any destination site. Facebook will become one of the major channels of future online shopping. †¢ Companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon are currently collecting information about each and every one of us: Our likes and dislikes, our interests and disdains. Soon in an age of Web 3. 0, an age of Semantic Web, we will no longer need to search for information on the Web as information will find us based on all this data which companies are collecting. The right information will be served to the right people at the right time, saving us all a lot of time, effort and energy. †¢ Mobile technology will become more dominant and NFC technology will be developed further enabling it to offer us special promotions, coupons and ips based on our geographical location and the interest graph. †¢ Human Relationships will no longer be as physically dependent and we will befriend and hang out with people from all over the world and all walks of life, all ethnicities and all beliefs, creating a worldwide melting pot. †¢ We will no longer be passive media consumers. Media will interact with us in dynamic ways on all platforms. Just like gamers playing WOW today, we will all become a part of a virtual world unknown to us yet where we will all be avatars in the game of life. †¢ As the Web is overloaded with more information, the content that we are exposed to will become more and more customized to our needs as companies will large sums of money to companies like Facebook and Google, making sure that the information we are exposed to is highly targeted to our interests. Rather than experiencing information overload, we will actually experience the opposite effect. †¢ Companies will understand better how to measure the ROI of social media and realize that social media is not about the number of people brands have in their communities but rather the amount of engagement that they see on their page and the overall online sentiment they faced this month as opposed to the last. †¢ Services will become increasingly crowd sourced. Whether it be the way that we get from point A to point B (Waze), the way that we find answers to our questions (Quora), the manner in which we test our Websites (uTest), the way that we get things done (Fiverr) or the way that we share information (Wikipedia). Source: www. http://thenextweb. com http://blog. hubspot. com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/7850/What-Is-the-Future-of-Social- Media-Marketing-Marketing-Cast. aspx http://www. slideshare. net/derickson/the-future-of-social-media-marketing http://irclay. hubpages. com/hub/The-Future-of-Social-Media-for-Hotel-Marketing-Travel-and-Tourism

Niccolo Machiavelli: About Liberal Countries

Italian philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli in Chapter V of his writing speculates upon political backgrounds of governing the empires and expresses his opinion about the most effective way to rule such parts of the empire, which previously were living under own system of laws and regulations. In Machiavelli’s opinion, the best political strategy to govern such principalities or cities would be establishing the system of strict control of the ruler and making new colonies obey the laws which were already existing in the empire. In case if by some reason it is impossible to hold the new colonies in bondage, the best and the safest way, according to Machiavelli, would be destroying such former liberal regions. He supports this idea with a number of specific historical examples that illustrate the truthfulness of his hypothesis. Ancient city of Sparta gained control of several colonies, including the cities of Thebes and Athens, but could not dominate there for some long period of time and eventually lost these cities, because the old order and laws were not abolished. However, the Roman Empire was following another tactic: in such colonies of the Romans as Numantia, Capua and Carthage the old system of laws and social order were dismantled and new regions were totally placed under the command of the Emperor. That is how the Romans succeeded in keeping those colonies under control for centuries. According to Machiavelli, this phenomenon can be explained by the necessity to suppress liberal thoughts and love to freedom of newly acquired colonies, because otherwise the spirit of liberty will cause the attempts to obtain independence or revenge. The philosopher also points on some advantages and benefits of being governed by some ruler for the colonies. First of all, the experienced head of the empire can establish political and economic order in a colony much easier and more effectively. Besides, the ruler can provide higher national security and protect the nation from possible civil misunderstandings, rebellions or military attacks, and so on.

QUESTION 1 Essays - Economy, Business Economics, Accounting

QUESTION 1 Essays - Economy, Business Economics, Accounting QUESTION 1 ICPAK NATURE OF ICPAK The Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK) was set up in 1978. The Institute is an individual from the Pan-African Federation of Accountants (PAFA) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), the worldwide umbrella body for the bookkeeping calling. The Vision of the Institute is 'A world class proficient bookkeeping organization', while the Mission is 'To create and advance globally perceived bookkeeping calling that maintains open enthusiasm through powerful control, researc h and development'. The Institute is guided by the accompanying center esteems: Credibility, Professionalism and Accountability. The Institute draws its command from the Accountants Act (no 15 of 2008). The Act endorses the accompanying as the elements of the Institute: To advance benchmarks of expert ability and practice among individuals from the Institute To advance research into the subject of bookkeeping and fund and related issues, and the production of books, periodicals, diaries and articles in association therewith; To advance the global acknowledgment of the Institute. To prompt the Examination Board on issues identifying with examinations guidelines and strategies; To exhort the Minister on issues identifying with monetary responsibility in all parts of the economy; To do some other capacities endorsed for it under any of alternate arrangements of this Act or some other composed law and To do anything accidental or helpful for the execution of any of the previous capacities. Role of ICPAK The Accountants Act No 15, 2008 endorses the accompanying as the elements of the Institute: To advance gauges of expert ability and practice among individuals from the Institute To advance research into the subject of bookkeeping and back and related issues, and the production of books, periodicals, diaries and articles in association therewith; To advance the worldwide acknowledgment of the Institute. To exhort the Examination Board on issues identifying with exa minations norms and strategies; To prompt the Minister on issues identifying with monetary responsibility in all divisions of the economy; To complete some other capacities recommended for it under any of alternate arrangements of this Act or some other composed law and To do anything coincidental or helpful for the execution of any of the former capacities. Nature of IFAC IFAC is the overall association for the bookkeeping calling. Established in 1977, the association is contained 164 individuals and partners in 125 nations and pu rviews, speaking to additional than 2.5 million bookkeepers utilized out in the open practice, indus try and trade, government, and academe. Role of IFAC IFAC's part is triple: to build up and elevate adh erence to great global models, to encourage coordinated effort and collaboration with part bodies, and to fill in as representative for the worldw ide calling on applicable open approach issues. IFAC's part is triple: to set up and elevate adherence to amazing universal measures, to encourage coordinated effort and participation with part bodies, and to fill in as representative for the worldwide calling on important open approach issues. IFAC's sheets se t the accompanying principles: Intern ational Standards on Auditing, Affirmation Engagements and Related Administrations Inte rnational Standards on Quality Control In ternational Code of Ethics for Proficient Accountants Int ernational Education Standards International Public Sector Bookkeeping Standards Nature of IASB IASB was previously known as the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) until April 2001, when it became the IASB. The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) is an autonomous, private-part body that creates and endorses International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs). The IASB works under the oversight of the IFRS Foundation. The IASB was framed in 2001 to supplant the International A ccounting Standards Committee. As of now, the IASB has 14 individuals. Role of IASB Under the IFRS Foundation Constitution, the IASB has finish obligation regarding every specialized matter of the IFRS Foundation including: full circumspection in creating and seeking after its specialized motivation, subject to certain conference prerequisites with the Trustees and people in general the planning and issuing of IFRSs (other than Interpretations) and presentation drafts, following the due procedure stipulated in the Constitution the endorsement and issuing of Interpretations created by the IFRS Interpretations Committee. B.) Importance of Accounting Standards Acknowledgment: How resources, liabilities, incomes, and costs are perceived on monetary proclamations Estimation: How

Evolution of the Fight or Flight Response

Evolution of the Fight or Flight Response The goal of any individual living creature is to ensure the survival of its species into future generations.  It is why individuals reproduce. The whole purpose is to make sure the species continues long after that individual has passed away. If that individuals particular genes also can be passed on and survive into future generations, that is even better for that individual.  That being said, it makes sense that, over time, species have evolved different mechanisms that help make sure that individual will survive long enough to reproduce and pass down its genes to some offspring that will help make sure that the species continues on for years to come. Survival of the Fittest The most basic survival instincts have a very long evolutionary history and many are conserved between species. One such instinct is what is referred to as fight or flight. This mechanism evolved as a way for animals to become aware of any immediate danger and to act in a way that will most likely ensure their survival. Basically, the body is at a peak performance level with sharper than usual senses and an extreme alertness. There are also changes that happen within the bodys metabolism that allow the animal to be ready to either stay and fight the danger or run away in flight from the threat. So what, biologically, is actually happening within the animals body when the fight or flight response has been activated?  It is a part of the autonomic nervous system called the sympathetic division that controls this response. The autonomic nervous system is the part of the nervous system that controls all unconscious processes within the body. This would include everything from digesting your food to keeping your blood flowing, to regulating hormones that move from your glands, to various target cells  throughout your body. There are three main divisions of the autonomic nervous system.  The parasympathetic division takes care of the rest and digest responses that happen when you are relaxing. The enteric division of the autonomic nervous system controls many of your reflexes.  The sympathetic division is what kicks in when major stresses, like an immediate threat of danger, are present in your environment. Adrenalines Purpose The hormone called adrenaline is the main one involved in the fight or flight response. Adrenaline is secreted  from  glands on top of your kidneys called the adrenal glands. Some things adrenaline does in the human body include making heart rate and respiration faster, sharpening senses like sight and hearing, and even sometimes stimulating sweat glands.  This prepares the animal for whichever response- either staying and fighting the danger or fleeing away quickly- is the appropriate one in the situation it finds itself in. Evolutionary biologists believe that the fight or flight response was crucial for the survival of many species throughout Geologic Time. The most ancient organisms were thought to have this type of response, even when they lacked the complex brains that many species have today. Many wild animals still use this instinct on a daily basis to make it through their lives. Humans, on the other hand, have evolved beyond that need and use this instinct in a much different way on a daily basis. How Daily Stress Factors Into Fight or Flight Stress, for most humans, has taken on a different definition in modern times than what it means for an animal trying to survive in the wild. Stress for us is related to our jobs, relationships, and health (or lack thereof).  We still use our fight or flight response, just in a different way. For instance, if you have a big presentation to give at work, most likely you will become nervous.  The sympathetic division of your autonomic nervous system has kicked in and you may have sweaty palms, a faster heart rate, and more shallow breathing.  Hopefully, in that case, you would stay to fight and not turn and run out of the room in fear. Once in awhile, you may hear a news story about how a mother lifted a large, heavy object- like a car- off her child. This is also an example of the fight or flight response. Soldiers in a war would also have a more primitive use of their fight or flight response as they try to survive in such horrific circumstances.