Wednesday, December 18, 2019

The Case Against Perfection Ethics And The Problems That...

Adrian Calvache May 4, 2015 POL 270 Term Paper The birth of a child is supposed to be a time of joy, the uncertainty of life leads to this one point in time. Will she or he be the next president, a star athlete, a genius or just fall into the crowd as another citizen. With recent advancements in science, this uncertainty has become a thing of the past. The human being is now seen as a commodity and no more is valued in the uncertainty of individuality. The parent can now choose how they want their child to come out or develop into. Sandel’s book The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Case of Modern Eugenics is a well researched look into examples of modern eugenics and the problems that arise from it. These topics range from the ethics of cloning, athletes using performance enhancing drugs, and other practical uses in everyday life. Sandel’s argument is that there is value in human nature (even with all its flaws), and genetic engineering will forever change human nature. Destroying the very essence o f what it is to be human and scarring humanity. The main features of human nature that will be altered: are responsibility, humility and solidarity. No more are the days of an parent in the waiting room, waiting to hear if there child is born with a disability, for a hefty fee the baby can be genetically altered to come out perfect in a sense. The wealthy can pick almost everything down to the hair and eye color, the time of uncertainty is over for those who are wealthy.Show MoreRelatedThe Morality Of Genetic Enhancement884 Words   |  4 PagesEnhancement The morality of genetic enhancement (GE) differs from person to person. The stance Michael J. Sandel’s takes is that eugenics and GE has no morality. He states in his work, â€Å"The case against Perfection†, that manipulating ones genes makes one less human; since, humans are not perfect which is what makes one human and by designing a perfect person one is taking away their humanity. 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The U.S. Melting Pot1707 Words   |  7 Pages Canada is internationally recognized as a culturally diverse nation that emphasizes the concept of â€Å"The Mosaic†. No other country in the world encompasses inhabitants from so many different backgrounds who exhibit strong loyalty towards Canada, while still preserving their cultural heritage. This is contrasted to the American ideal of the quot;Melting Potquot;, which a ttempts to shape all of their citizens into a set mold. Canada’s philosophy is believed to be more effective and respectful thanRead MoreThe Canadian Mosaic vs. the U.S. Melting Pot1710 Words   |  7 PagesCanada is internationally recognized as a culturally diverse nation that emphasizes the concept of The Mosaic. No other country in the world encompasses inhabitants from so many different backgrounds who exhibit strong loyalty towards Canada, while still preserving their cultural heritage. 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But most monastic celibacy implies a devaluing, and hostile attitude towards the world, life, the body, sex, and the oppositeRead MoreEthical Issues Faced By Brazil And Japan1809 Words   |  8 Pagesmembers of associations such as the International Franchise Association or the British Franchise Association which both have a code of ethics in place. (Ethical Franchising, 2013). It is made up of codes to ensure franchises that they are working with respectable sources. When code of ethics are developed by franchises, they cannot cover every situation that will arise, but are in place to be a baseline for resolving issues when they come up (Ethical Franchising, 2013). There are several compliance

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

E-commerce Implementation in Amazon

Question: Discuss about the E-commerce Implementation in Amazon. Answer: Introduction Purpose The report depicts the importance of implementing Electronic Commerce solution in business organizations. After introducing the concept of E-commerce, the revenue of the organizations will automatically increase due to the presence of certain promising features. The purpose of the report is to represent a clear view on E-commerce marketing strategies and its positive impact on organizations. Apart from this, it is also found that, social media also plays important role in organizational development. In order to prepare this report, three organizations such as Amazon, ebay and Lazada are selected. The social media is one of the most rapidly growing phenomenon and they have the deepest in the business organizations. This report demonstrates the business review given by the consumers of the organizations and their future trends as well. On the other hand it is also found that certain issues are also associated to E-commerce implementation. In order to mitigate these issues, recommendati ons are also served in this report. Background of the chosen organizations Amazon: Amazon.com is an online shopping cart based on 500 ecommerce companies throughout the world. WA.Amazon is the first organizations that become famous for selling products over internet channel (Flanagin et al., 2014). In the year of 1994, the organization was founded by Jeff Bezos. The business initially started as an online bookstore and gradually converted to a multi store by adding different items such as clothing, kitchen appliances, home appliances, accessories, electronic goods and cosmetics. The online shopping cart was launched in 1995 and in 1999, in Time Magazine an article was launched on the success story of Amazon as an online shopping cart. Ebay: In the year of 1995, ebay was founded by Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll.The Customer to Customer (C2C) Ecommerce business model is utilized by ebay for their shopping cart. Ebay was the first organization that was using the concept of C2C business. In this shopping cart, the seller and buyers both are referred to as consumers. The first thing sold in this shopping cart is the broken laser pointer of Omidyar in $14. Even, this portal is concern about the consumer security. The confidential information of the consumer is kept secured and none of the external users could hack those without the permission of the customers. Lazada: Lazada is one of the leading online shopping and selling destination of Malaysia. This online shopping portal mainly operates in the southeastern Asia. The portal is secured and user friendly thus, the consumers feel free to get connected with this shopping portal. The products served by the company include different categories such as health and beauty products, home and living appliances, electronic gadgets and different kitchen appliances also. In the year of 2011 this privately owned organization was founded by Rocket internet. Business review Number of followers and like for the organizations Number of followers and likes for Amazon Name of the social media Likes till January 2017 Followers Facebook 23 million - Twitter - 108 million followers Instagram - - Pinterest - - Number of followers and likes for ebay Name of the social media Likes till January 2017 Facebook 83% Twitter 1.7 % Pinterest 1.95% Others 6.1 Number of followers and likes for Lazada Name of the social media Likes till January 2017 Followers Facebook 16,290,280 - Twitter - 1,358 Instagram - 4,979 Pinterest - 19 Posts that are engaging and promote positive attitudes to the organizations The intension of the consumers is to save money always and the promotional post served by Amazon helps the consumers to take effective decision regarding the shopping and a particular product. The consumers always look for the entire range of promotional offerings. In order to make the promotional program effective, Amazon advertises their products with the help of sufficient value and favorable influences (Ritala, Golnam Wegmann, 2014 ). The policy and the restrictions are defined by the terms and condition framed by the organization itself. The eligibility criteria include eligibility, exclusion, return and cancellation, purchase requirement and other rules and the shipping eligibility. The current promotional post of Amazon is advertised in television and different social networking media such as facebook and twitter. The promoting listening capability of ebay helps to boost up the visibility. The promoted listening is available in all the active stores of ebay situated in Germany, Australia, UK and US. This is the most recent and promising promoting aspect used by ebay. This is a risk free and one of the smartest way to get the item as per the user requirement (Varia Mathew, 2014). This approach is exposed by almost 30 percent and it helps to put the seller merchandise in front of more active shoppers. Te promotional listening could pay after the selling of the item and it could also success the monitor. It provides various discount codes for the consumers. From the promotional campaign and condition it has been found that Lazada intensify the promotion that is present in the major cities of Indonesia. The organization is under the fourth year of its operation and the regional giant of E-commerce used by Lazada is focusing to expand its business and grab more number of consumers throughout southeastern Asia (Jennings, 2014). The goals of the privately owned organization are to built and expand its business and it has become the southeastern version of Amazon.com. In order to grab huge number of consumers currently the organization is using facebook, twitter, Pinterest and many other social media (Aversa et al., 2015). The E-commerce market forecast implies that, due to the promotional activities the organizations has reached $25 billion from $8 billion. Number of user generated reviews and ratings The customer review is generated from the consumers itself and it is based on their feeling after using or buying that particular product. Amazon uses the reviews in terms of star rating and the rating is in between 1 to 5. If the consumers are very much satisfied with the product then he or she provides 5 out of 5 (Kantor Streitfeld, 2015). On the other hand, if the consumers are not satisfied with any particular product then he or she will provide lesser review rate. Over the changing year the growth of the review rate is increasing very fast. After analyzing the collected data set it has been found that, Amazon has got over 1.2 million of review ratings for their products. The review rate for the electronic goods served by Amazon is the best on the other hand for garments and other product categories the review rate is also very good. Moreover the rate of the distributive review on the electronic product is increasing at a rapid rate. After analyzing the price of the product it has been found that for same product the price range varies at a vast rate (DaSilva Trkman, 2014). It is determined that the relationship between the product and the average length of the review fr the product is quite surprising in case of Amazon. Ebay serves a C2C ecommerce business process, where the previous consumer plays the role of a buyer. For the ebay community feedback is referred to as one of the most important things. After understanding the number of stars the organization will be able to get the number of consumer review (Laroche, Habibi Richard, 2013). Even in the feedback profile, the feedback of the consumers in terms of star rating is the most important thing. As in case of ebay one consumer can serve sell their products to another consumer. It means if a consumer feel satisfied with the product then he or she will give star rating based on their satisfaction level. The online cart gives opportunity to both the seller and the buyer. The seller will get star rating and depending on the number of star the color of the star will also change. Even, different promotional activities are also served by ebay and they also use advertisement for organizational promotion. Lazada serves their products mainly in southeastern Asia and to maintain the reputation the promotional activities of Lazada are taking place in facebook, twitter, Google and in many other social media (Brovman et al., 2016). It also has 5 stars rating and based on the quality of the product, the consumers give their view in terms of tar rating. If the rating is above 2.8 then it will be termed as acceptable and of the rating s less than that then it will not be accepted by the company (Wamba Carter, 2016). Though, from the consumer review status it has been found that, with the return policy used by the organization the consumers are not all satisfied. Even the behaviors of the staffs are also quite unprofessional and due to that reason the time frame of delivery is not at all as per the desire of the consumers. Though, for refund of the returned items the customer rating is very much satisfactory. The online social networks that encourages the sharing opinions Online social networks encourage the sharing opinion of all the shopping portals including the Amazon, Lazada and ebay. It has been found that there are many products those have not got any consumers review. Apart from the insightful comments helpful comments in the common platform will be referred to as more helpful for the online shopping cart to improve their business revenue (Maria, Kindangen Rumokoy, 2016). Both the best and even the worst product review are served by the social networks. Based on the product quality, price, quantity classification, the user generated reviews are provided. The official Web Pages of all the three organizations are connected to the social networks such as facebook, twitter, Instagram etc. The social media always influences the behavior of the online shopping. In order to read the review and to stay connected with the most recent fashion trends the number of digital buyers is increasing at a rapid rate. In the year of 2015, from a survey on online shopping it has been found that social media plays the most important role that influences the behavior of both the buyers and the seller (Wijayanto, 2017). The review rating helps the buyer to make an idea about the quality of the products. If they found that for a particular product the review is not satisfactory then the demand of that product will gradually decrease. In order to get consumer for that product the company is required to concentrate on the quality maintenance. Basically the review rating helps the consumers to get idea about the products (Hidayanto et al., 2014). This approach is known as electronic marketing, where the consumers could buy products and even pay for that product through online. Discussion on the ways through which the organizations interact and respond along to the consumers The norms and values are different for different organizations. It states that the consumers interaction is different for these three organizations though, the basic concept is same (Budi indrawati et al., 2016). Amazon uses 10 various ways through which they could transfer information to the consumer. For Amazon, Lazada and ebay the interaction approach are as follows: The proliferation of the customer review: This approach is strictly associated to the consumer rating. The review rating given by the customers are shared with others with the help of the social media (Jiang, et al., 2014). Depending on those ratings, the new consumers could make their decisions for product risk and their efficiency as well. A real time recommendation engine: Amazon is referred to as the king of cross selling approach. Based on the generated reviews and ratings certain recommendations are also served for the consumers. It helps to enhance the brand value and in store interaction (Evans Erkan, 2014). In addition to this, a toll free number is also available in the official website of the online shopping organizations through which the consumers can easily interact along with the service providers. Streamline checkout: One of the best and user friendly service is served. An automatic population shipping address, payment processing with needful security by maintaining the brand value, is another positive approach served by these organizations. Strategic shipping support: The most important thing that Amazon serves for its consumers is reliability (Horng, Wu Liang, 2016). After the order entry Amazon keeps appropriate track on the process flow. The positive and Professional Company Responds From the user review it has been found that except Lazada the other two organizations are very positive and professional as well from the aspect of consumer respond. Due to lack of reliability, Lazada fails to meet the requirement of the consumers from all the aspects. Amazon provides the most reliable and flexible consumer services to the consumers (Zhang Pennacchiotti, 2013). If any customer wants to return their products then, Amazon serves this very efficiently considering the brand value and belief of the consumers as well. Future Trends Analyzing the Future Direction Nowadays, consumers are getting more attracted towards online shopping while different physical retailers are closing down and underperforming in a wide range. A digital intelligence approach is using by these organizations to develop the business strategies. Amazon is using the intelligence gleaned from the digital operation in order to understand the requirement of the consumers (Das Sarma et al., 2014). This is leading towards a strategic principle which is growing part of the business process served by Amazon. The components served by Amazon include job posting, customer intelligence, operation intelligence and performance intelligence as well. However, Lazada needs to develop their customer care service to improve their business revenue. The C2C business strategy serves by ebay is quite effective but to gain more business revenue certain broad aspect are required to be considered by the organization. Recommendation In order to develop the business growth, some recommendations are provided that might help o overcome the business growth. For maintaining the business sustainability certain recommendations are provided to the organizations. These are as follows: Adaptation of demand driven planning: Based on the demand of the consumers the business organizations must develop the business planning. Adaptive supply chain management system: Proper supply chain managements system is required to be adapted by the organizations to improve the growth revenue. Optimization of the product design supply: The traditional product design approach is needed to be changed by adapting different technology based advantages. It will help to achieve the business sustainability of the business organizations. Technical development: Different technical advances are required to be adapted by the organizations to improve the production and business application as well. Conclusion From the overall discussion it can be concluded that all three organizations are very much successful in their business domain but still certain issues are also associated to this online shopping cart. These issues are continuously affecting the organizational fluent business progress. While analyzing different business aspects it has been found that the time required to prepare this report is lesser and due to lack of time proper information are not been collected from the resources. In order to understand the components those are needed to be maintained for business sustainability are also lagging. On the other hand due to lack of budget, proper review tools are not been used and thus proper information are not generated that are required to represent the report. In order to mitigate these challenges certain recommendations are provided. References Aversa, P., Haefliger, S., Rossi, A., Baden-Fuller, C. (2015). From business model to business modelling: Modularity and manipulation. InBusiness models and modelling(pp. 151-185). Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Brovman, Y. M., Jacob, M., Srinivasan, N., Neola, S., Galron, D., Snyder, R., Wang, P. (2016, September). Optimizing Similar Item Recommendations in a Semi-structured Marketplace to Maximize Conversion. InProceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems(pp. 199-202). ACM. Budi indrawati, D. W. I., Nur Latifah Umi Satiti, M. A., Rinasari Kusuma, M. I. (2016).Consumer Trust To Online Shop Seller Reputation (Quantitative Research about Relationship of Consumer trust to Online Shop Seller Reputation in Social Media at Economy Management Student of UMS 2012th Generation)(Doctoral dissertation, Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta). Das Sarma, A., Parikh, N., Sundaresan, N. (2014, April). E-commerce product search: personalization, diversification, and beyond. InProceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web(pp. 189-190). ACM. DaSilva, C. M., Trkman, P. (2014). Business model: What it is and what it is not.Long range planning,47(6), 379-389. Evans, C., Erkan, I. (2014). The impacts of electronic word of mouth in social media on consumerspurchase intentions. Flanagin, A. J., Metzger, M. J., Pure, R., Markov, A., Hartsell, E. (2014). Mitigating risk in ecommerce transactions: perceptions of information credibility and the role of user-generated ratings in product quality and purchase intention.Electronic Commerce Research,14(1), 1-23. Hidayanto, A. N., Herbowo, A., Budi, N. F. A., Sucahyo, Y. G. (2014). DETERMINANT OF customer trust on e-commerce and its impact to purchase and word of mouth intention: a case of indonesia.Journal of Computer Science,10(12), 2395. Horng, S. M., Wu, C. L., Liang, T. P. (2016). How behaviors on social network sites and online social capital influence social commerce: the case of facebook. Jennings, S. (2014). How To Dominate Sales On EBay And Amazon With No Inventory: Start An Online Business Using Dropshipping Method (How To Sell On EBay And Amazon With No Inventory)-Volume 1. Jiang, G., Ma, F., Shang, J., Chau, P. Y. (2014). Evolution of knowledge sharing behavior in social commerce: an agent-based computational approach.Information Sciences,278, 250-266. Kantor, J., Streitfeld, D. (2015). Inside Amazon: Wrestling big ideas in a bruising workplace.New York Times,15, 74-80. Klaus, P. (2013). The case of Amazon. com: towards a conceptual framework of online customer service experience (OCSE) using the emerging consensus technique (ECT).Journal of Services Marketing,27(6), 443-457. Laroche, M., Habibi, M. R., Richard, M. O. (2013). To be or not to be in social media: How brand loyalty is affected by social media?.International Journal of Information Management,33(1), 76-82. Maria, K. D., Kindangen, P., Rumokoy, F. S. (2016). THE EFFECT OF ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH ON CONSUMER BUYING DECISION IN LAZADA.JURNAL RISET EKONOMI, MANAJEMEN, BISNIS DAN AKUNTANSI,4(1). Ritala, P., Golnam, A., Wegmann, A. (2014). Coopetition-based business models: The case of Amazon. com.Industrial Marketing Management,43(2), 236-249. Varia, J., Mathew, S. (2014). Overview of amazon web services.Amazon Web Services. Wamba, S. F., Carter, L. (2016). Social media tools adoption and use by SMEs: An empirical study. InSocial Media and Networking: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications(pp. 791-806). IGI Global. Wijayanto, A. (2017). The Impact of Interactions between Retailers and Consumers in Social Media toward Consumers Loyalty and Sales Performance. Zhang, Y., Pennacchiotti, M. (2013, October). Recommending branded products from social media. InProceedings of the 7th ACM conference on Recommender systems(pp. 77-84). ACM.

Monday, December 2, 2019

Margaret Thatcher has been one of the most influen Essays

Margaret Thatcher has been one of the most influential figures of the British politics. Not only she was the first and only elected female British prime minister, she was also the longest continuously serving British prime minister of the 20th century. As a British leader she transformed the political scene in many ways and set the tone , not only for the years of her government, but her legacy can be observed in the British politics until this very day. Margaret Thatcher was born on October 13, 1925 as Margaret Hilda Roberts into a family of grocer Alfred Roberts. She studied chemistry in Oxford, however when the Labour Party won the post-war general election and established the Welfare State, it was an impulse for her to pursue her political interests. In 1951 she married a businessman Denis Thatcher, which enabled her to fully focus on succeeding in her political career. Thatcher ' s way into the House of Commons was complicated. She tried to enter th e parliament already in 1950 and 1951 yet she did not succeed. It was only when Conservatives under Harold Macmillan won the election in 1959 when she won the seat as member of parliament in traditionally conservative constituency: Finchley. After several years serving in low position in the Conservative party, she acquired the position of Minister of Education in 1970, when Conservatives under Edward Heath won the election. Willie Whitelaw, Leader of the House of Commons, warned Heath: Once she's there we'll never get rid of her " . Back in the day he probably did not know how right he actually was. Thatcher was never a fan of the political rule of Edward Heath, mainly due to his indecisiveness and weakness when dealing with the trade unions. Once he lost the election she used the opportunity to her advantage and challenged him for the leadership of the Conservative party and succeeded. In 1979 she led Tories to a decisive victory and became the first British female Prime Minister. Her success was is attributed to the period before election labeled as " Winter of Discontent " . As the name implies the population of the United Kingdom was not content as their Labour government failed to make such needed changes in Britain, while the feeling of failed prevailed. Thatcher coming into power ended a long time of British political consensus which started already in the Second World War. This policy of unwritten agreement on the centrist approach of the two British main political parties was, according to Thatcher, the reason that hold Britain from utilising its full potential. Thatcher growing during the Second World War was very much influenced by Churchill speeches which saw Britain still as a great power. This was the view on Britain Thatcher cherished and tried to preserved which explains a significant amount of measures taken by her. Another element which was greatly reflected in her policies, was the influence of her father and h is business. He was the perfect example of an individual being economically or otherwise responsible for his own happiness and life, which created one of the main pillars of her policy. There were several ways how Thatcher changed the British political outlook. Firstly she brought the Conservatives back to the right side of the political spectre by introducing several traditional rightist policies. These policies involved the privatization of the state-owned businesses, closing unprofitable mines, selling public houses, drastic cuts on the state expenditure, curbing the power of Trade Unions and general shift of the British economy towards principles of monetarism. Despite the fact, that in long term these economic measures are seen as beneficiary for the British economy, in that time they made her deeply unpopular among the British citizens. The closing down of mines and privatisation brought enormous wave of unemployment which by 1986 reached more than three millions. This public opinion however changed before her second term and she won the election by a landslide. Traditionally, it is credited to two main events: The Falkland War and the issue of a new radical manifesto of the Labour Party. The Falklands War, not only brought the Thatcher the merits for making people in Britain feel like winners,

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

The Biography and Inventions of Inventor Thomas Edison

The Biography and Inventions of Inventor Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio; the seventh and last child of Samuel and Nancy Edison. When Edison was seven his family moved to Port Huron, Michigan. Edison lived here until he struck out on his own at the age of sixteen. Edison had very little formal education as a child, attending school only for a few months. He was taught reading, writing, and arithmetic by his mother, but was always a very curious child and taught himself much by reading on his own. This belief in self-improvement remained throughout his life. Work as a Telegrapher Edison began working at an early age, as most boys did at the time. At thirteen he took a job as a newsboy, selling newspapers and candy on the local railroad that ran through Port Huron to Detroit. He seems to have spent much of his free time reading scientific, and technical books, and also had the opportunity at this time to learn how to operate a telegraph. By the time he was sixteen, Edison was proficient enough to work as a telegrapher full time. First Patent The development of the telegraph was the first step in the communication revolution, and the telegraph industry expanded rapidly in the second half of the 19th century. This rapid growth gave Edison and others like him a chance to travel, see the country, and gain experience. Edison worked in a number of cities throughout the United States before arriving in Boston in 1868. Here Edison began to change his profession from telegrapher to inventor. He received his first patent on an electric vote recorder, a device intended for use by elected bodies such as Congress to speed the voting process. This invention was a commercial failure. Edison resolved that in the future he would only invent things that he was certain the public would want. Marriage to Mary Stilwell Edison moved to New York City in 1869. He continued to work on inventions related to the telegraph, and developed his first successful invention, an improved stock ticker called the Universal Stock Printer. For this and some related inventions, Edison was paid $40,000. This gave Edison the money he needed to set up his first small laboratory and manufacturing facility in Newark, New Jersey in 1871. During the next five years, Edison worked in Newark inventing and manufacturing devices that greatly improved the speed and efficiency of the telegraph. He also found time to get married to Mary Stilwell and start a family. Move to Menlo Park In 1876 Edison sold all his Newark manufacturing concerns and moved his family and staff of assistants to the small village of Menlo Park, twenty-five miles southwest of New York City. Edison established a new facility containing all the equipment necessary to work on any invention. This research and development laboratory was the first of its kind anywhere; the model for later, modern facilities such as Bell Laboratories, this is sometimes considered to be Edisons greatest invention. Here Edison began to change the world. The first great invention developed by Edison in Menlo Park was the tin foil phonograph. The first machine that could record and reproduce sound created a sensation and brought Edison international fame. Edison toured the country with the tin foil phonograph  and was invited to the White House to demonstrate it to President Rutherford B. Hayes in April 1878. Edison next undertook his greatest challenge, the development of a practical incandescent, electric light. The idea of electric lighting was not new, and a number of people had worked on, and even developed forms of electric lighting. But up to that time, nothing had been developed that was remotely practical for home use. Edisons eventual achievement was inventing not just an incandescent electric light, but also an electric lighting system that contained all the elements necessary to make the incandescent light practical, safe, and economical.    Thomas Edison Founds an Industry Based on Electricity After one and a half years of work, success was achieved when an incandescent lamp with a filament of carbonized sewing thread burned for thirteen and a half hours. The first public demonstration of the Edisons incandescent lighting system was in December 1879, when the Menlo Park laboratory complex was electrically lighted. Edison spent the next several years creating the electric industry. In September 1882, the first commercial power station, located on Pearl Street in lower Manhattan, went into operation providing light and power to customers in a one square mile area; the electric age had begun.    Fame Wealth The success of his electric light brought Edison to new heights of fame and wealth, as electricity spread around the world. Edisons various electric companies continued to grow until in 1889 they were brought together to form Edison General Electric. Despite the use of Edison in the company title however, Edison never controlled this company. The tremendous amount of capital needed to develop the incandescent lighting industry had necessitated the involvement of investment bankers such as J.P. Morgan. When Edison General Electric merged with its leading competitor Thompson-Houston in 1892, Edison was dropped from the name, and the company became simply General Electric. Marriage to Mina Miller This period of success was marred by the death of Edisons wife Mary in 1884. Edisons involvement in the business end of the electric industry had caused Edison to spend less time in Menlo Park. After Marys death, Edison was there even less, living instead in New York City with his three children. A year later, while vacationing at a friends house in New England, Edison met Mina Miller and fell in love. The couple was married in February 1886 and moved to West Orange, New Jersey where Edison had purchased an estate, Glenmont, for his bride. Thomas Edison lived here with Mina until his death.    New Laboratory Factories When Edison moved to West Orange, he was doing experimental work in makeshift facilities in his electric lamp factory in nearby Harrison, New Jersey. A few months after his marriage, however, Edison decided to build a new laboratory in West Orange itself, less than a mile from his home. Edison possessed the both the resources and experience by this time to build, the best equipped and largest laboratory extant and the facilities superior to any other for rapid and cheap development of an invention. The new laboratory complex consisting of five buildings opened in November 1887. A three story main laboratory building contained a power plant, machine shops, stock rooms, experimental rooms and a large library. Four smaller one story buildings built perpendicular to the main building contained a physics lab, chemistry lab, metallurgy lab, pattern shop, and chemical storage. The large size of the laboratory not only allowed Edison to work on any sort of project, but also allowed him to work on as many as ten or twenty projects at once. Facilities were added to the laboratory or modified to meet Edisons changing needs as he continued to work in this complex until his death in 1931. Over the years, factories to manufacture Edison inventions were built around the laboratory. The entire laboratory and factory complex eventually covered more than twenty acres and employed 10,000 people at its peak during World War One (1914-1918). After opening the new laboratory, Edison began to work on the phonograph again, having set the project aside to develop the electric light in the late 1870s. By the 1890s, Edison began to manufacture phonographs for both home, and business use. Like the electric light, Edison developed everything needed to have a phonograph work, including records to play, equipment to record the records, and equipment to manufacture the records and the machines. In the process of making the phonograph practical, Edison created the recording industry. The development and improvement of the phonograph was an ongoing project, continuing almost until Edisons death.    The Movies While working on the phonograph, Edison began working on a device that, does for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear, this was to become motion pictures. Edison first demonstrated motion pictures in 1891, and began commercial production of movies two years later in a peculiar looking structure, built on the laboratory grounds, known as the Black Maria. Like the electric light and phonograph before it, Edison developed a complete system, developing everything needed to both film and show motion pictures. Edisons initial work in motion pictures was pioneering and original. However, many people became interested in this third new industry Edison created, and worked to further improve on Edisons early motion picture work. There were therefore many contributors to the swift development of motion pictures beyond the early work of Edison. By the late 1890s, a thriving new industry was firmly established, and by 1918 the industry had become so competitive that Edison got out of the movie business all together.    Even a Genius Can have a Bad Day 1890s greatest failure    A Profitable Product alkaline battery . By 1911, Thomas Edison had built a vast industrial operation in West Orange. Numerous factories had been built through the years around the original laboratory, and the staff of the entire complex had grown into the thousands. To better manage operations, Edison brought all the companies he had started to make his inventions together into one corporation, Thomas A. Edison Incorporated, with Edison as president and chairman. Aging Gracefully In the 1915, Edison was asked to head the Naval Consulting Board. With the United States inching closer towards the involvement in World War One, the Naval Consulting Board was an attempt to organize the talents of the leading scientists and inventors in the United States for the benefit of the American armed forces. Edison favored preparedness, and accepted the appointment. The Board did not make a notable contribution to the final allied victory, but did serve as a precedent for future successful cooperation between scientists, inventors and the United States military. During the war, at age seventy, Edison spent several months on Long Island Sound in a borrowed navy vessel experimenting on techniques for detecting submarines. Honoring a Lifetime of Achievement Edisons role in life began to change from inventor and industrialist to cultural icon, a symbol of American ingenuity, and a real life Horatio Alger story. In 1928, in recognition of a lifetime of achievement, the United States Congress voted Edison a special Medal of Honor. In 1929 the nation celebrated the golden jubilee of the incandescent light. The celebration culminated at a banquet honoring Edison given by Henry Ford at Greenfield Village, Fords new American history museum, which included a complete restoration of the Menlo Park Laboratory. Attendees included President Herbert Hoover and many of the leading American scientists and inventors. The last experimental work of Edisons life was done at the request of Edisons good friends Henry Ford, and Harvey Firestone in the late 1920s. They asked Edison to find an alternative source of rubber for use in automobile tires. The natural rubber used for tires up to that time came from the rubber tree, which does not grow in the United States. Crude rubber had to be imported and was becoming increasingly expensive. With his customary energy and thoroughness, Edison tested thousands of different plants to find a suitable substitute, eventually finding a type of Goldenrod weed that could produce enough rubber to be feasible. Edison was still working on this at the time of his death. A Great Man Dies During the last two years of his life Edison was in increasingly poor health. Edison spent more time away from the laboratory, working instead at Glenmont. Trips to the family vacation home in Fort Myers, Florida became longer. Edison was past eighty and suffering from a number of ailments. In August 1931 Edison collapsed at Glenmont. Essentially house bound from that point, Edison steadily declined until at 3:21 am on October 18, 1931 the great man died.

Saturday, November 23, 2019

The Terza Rima Style of Poetry

The Terza Rima Style of Poetry Terza rima is poetry written in three-line stanzas (or â€Å"tercets†) linked by end-rhymes patterned aba, bcb, cdc, ded, efe, etc. There is no specified number of stanzas in the form, but poems written in terza rima usually end with a single line or a couplet rhyming with the middle line of the last tercet. Dante Alighieri was the first poet to use terza rima, in his Divine Comedy, and he was followed by other Italian poets of the Renaissance, like Boccaccio and Petrarch. Thomas Wyatt and Geoffrey Chaucer brought terza rima into English poetry in the 14th century, Romantic poets including Byron and Shelley used it in the 19th century, and a number of modern poets from Robert Frost to Sylvia Plath to William Carlos Williams to Adrienne Rich have written terza rima in English- all these despite the fact that English doesn’t offer nearly as many rhyming possibilities as Italian. That is why Robert Pinsky used near-rhymes and slant rhymes in his 1994 translation of The Divine Comedy, to reproduce Dante’s terza rima in English without the sing-song effect of strict repeating rhymes. Meter is not specified in terza rima, although most English poets using the form have done so with lines in iambic pentameter. Examples: We have two poems written in standard terza rima in English in our library here at About Poetry: Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1820)â€Å"Acquainted with the Night† by Robert Frost (1923) And we also have as  example of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s use of a modified terza rima in which all three lines of each stanza rhyme: The Two Voices (1842) See our terza rima links to read more poems written in English using terza rima around the Web.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Predictably irrational Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Predictably irrational - Essay Example As a result of these accounts of conscious perceptions, we often assume that the experiences constitute a single fundamental reality. Based on this broad judgment, Venkat further reaffirms that, â€Å"the imperative nature of consciousness is practically beyond logical doubt and rather evident through predictable behavior.† (n.pag). Many make the assumption that, they are actually settling for rational and smart choices, without taking into consideration the possibility that their behavior is actually predictable. After reading Ariely’s book, I came to realize that I am also predictably irrational, especially in my life as a student, as shown by analogies drawn hereunder between the authors’ illustrations and incidents in my life. According to Ariely, it is rather intriguing to note that, human expectations, societal norms and emotions, among other undermined aspects of life, which ordinarily seem illogical, often control our capability to reason. This is a concl usion that the author draws from the fact that people astoundingly make simple mistakes, yet repeat the same types of faults daily. The author’s line of thought begins when he asks â€Å"Do our first impressions and decisions become imprinted?† (25). He goes on to elaborate that we usually overpay for certain items when shopping, we also underestimate expenses and keep procrastinating duties we are supposed to carry out eventually. The author is keen to note that these misguided doings are not random, and neither are they senseless. Apparently, these actions are logical and foreseeable, as illustrated by the experiment showing how students’ social security numbers influenced their bids for wine (Ariely 28). This possibility is explicated by Ariely in various chapters of his book, as well as, in Plato’s â€Å"Allegory of the Cave†, as discussed in subsequent paragraphs. In chapter six of his book, â€Å"Predictably Irrational†, Ariely focuses on the crucial aspects of self-control and procrastination (Ariely 109-119). Through a comprehensive experiment, the author realizes that his students tend to perform better in class assignments, when deadlines for work submission are spaced all through the semester, than when the deadline is set on the final day of the school term. This is an aspect he attributes to the tendency of learners to postpone work, when they think that they have sufficient time to finish writing the assignments, prior to the semester’s end. In the long run, students rush during the last minute only to do unsatisfactory work and, consequently, acquire poor grades. In contrast, spacing out deadlines and imposing potential grade or financial penalties, in addition to simplification of tasks, makes it easy for students to deal with their assignments early enough. This is because such efforts inspire self-control among students and lower incidents of procrastination. The occurrence of procrastination a mong individuals is also supported by O’Donoghue and Rabin, who suggest that â€Å"people may occasionally purchase items with high prices based on the notion that the price is