Avatar Essays

Avatar Essays Avatar Paper Avatar Paper Essay Topic: Film The film Avatar is about an American corporation that is mining rare mineral called unobtainium that can only be found in Pandora. Jake Sully, a handicapped ex-Marine, has to operate an avatar and act as a bodyguard because his twin brother who was trained to operate an avatar was killed. Soon after, Jake was told to persuade the Native inhabitants of Pandora, the Navi, to move out of the way so that the corporation could mine the huge unobtainium deposit located under their home. After many experience living as a Navi, Jake managed to become one of their people. The corporation moved in to destroy the Navis home because Jake took too long. Once the Navis home was destroyed, Jake realized how evil the corporation was and rebels against the corporation. In the end, the Navi and Jake manage to gain victory over the Marines and the evil corporation. Many have criticized this film as racist because of the male protagonist being a white man. I dont think Avatar is a racist film at all. Personally I didnt feel offended that there were no Asians or African Americans in the film. If the Jake was played by a black man like Will Smith or Denzel Washington, then the ending would be spoiled because we watched enough Will Smith movies to know that he will save the Navi and end up being the hero. Using a not-so-well-known actor would question how the film would end. Also, Jake is not the only one who decides to change sides. The operations leader, Selfridge, also learns that what hes doing is wrong. The Vatican commentators gave Avatar negative comments, saying that the film gets dragged down by a spiritualism linked to the worship of nature. In this case, the Navi worship a goddess named Eewa. They are very religious beings that live in a gigantic tree. (LOsservatore Romano). I dont think the film was in any way offensive towards religion. The Navi were representatives of the Natives in our time, who were also very in touch with nature. The conservatives in the US claim that the movie is anti-American and anti-capitalist in its portrayal of humans as greedy creatures. I disagree with the conservatives. Greed is one of the true natures of humans. We are naturally greedy and want more then what we have already. James Cameron wasnt trying to offend the citizens of the United States but just trying show the nature of humans. The doctor in the film, Grace, was shown to be smoking throughout the entire movie. Smoke Free Movies, a campaign, took offence to this act. James Cameron states that he was making the character look evil. I agree with James Cameron when he responded to this comment by saying that we need to get used to modern times. If smoking is bad and shouldnt be shown in movies, then wouldnt that mean stealing and murder shouldnt be shown as well because its bad. The Marine Corps accused Avatar of stereotyping members of the Marines. I think that Avatar does stereotype members of the Marines. All the Marines in the movie kill the creatures and Navi without hesitation. When the Hometree was being bombarded, none of the ships backed out or even thought about disobeying except the girl. This shows how ruthless and greedy these men are. I would have made it so that more than just the girl back off from the attack just to show how sympathetic they are. All those people who wish Pandora is real are total losers. Its a science-fiction movie for goodness sakes. How can you criticize a movie by saying the alien planet doesnt exist. Some person even said he wanted to live like a Navi. I definitely disagree with their criticism towards Avatar. I cant believe people would actually become depressed because Pandora doesnt exist. Thats just plain stupid. All those people who wish Pandora need to go experience the world more. Besides, even if Pandora was real, Im sure theyd end up going there and getting killed.

6 Tips for Writing About Live Events

6 Tips for Writing About Live Events Writing about live events like meetings, forums and speeches can be tricky for newbie reporters. Such events are often unstructured and even a bit chaotic, so its up to the reporter to give the story structure and order. Here are tips for doing just that. 1. Find Your Lede The lede of a live event story should focus on the most newsworthy and/or interesting thing that occurs at that event. Sometimes thats obvious: If Congress votes to raise income taxes, chances are thats your lede. But if its not clear to you whats most important, interview knowledgeable people after the event to see what they think is most important. 2. Avoid Ledes That Say Nothing Ledes that say nothing go look like this: A) The Centerville city council met last night to discuss the budget. Or B) A visiting expert on dinosaurs gave a talk last night at Centerville College. Neither of these ledes tells us much beyond the fact that the town council and the dinosaur expert talked about something. This leads to my next tip. 3. Make Your Lede Specific and Informative Your lede should give readers specific information about what happened or was said at the event. So instead of the say-nothing ledes, we wrote above, get specific: A) Members of the Centerville town council argued last night over whether to slash the budget or raise taxes for the coming year. B) A giant meteorite was probably responsible for the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago, an expert said last night. See the difference? 4. Don't Write About Events Chronologically This is the classic mistake made by newbie reporters. They cover an event, say a school board meeting, and write about it in chronological order. So you end up with stories that read something like this: The Centerville School Board held a meeting last night. First, board members said the pledge of allegiance. Then they took attendance. Board member Janice Hanson was absent. Then they discussed how cold the weather has been lately, and.... See the problem? No one cares about all that stuff, and if you write the story that way youll bury your lede in the 14 paragraph. Instead, put the most interesting and newsworthy stuff at the top of your story, and the less interesting stuff lower down- no matter what order it occurs in. 5. Leave Out the Really Boring Stuff Remember, youre a reporter, not a stenographer. Youre under no obligation to include in your story absolutely everything that happens at the event youre covering. So if theres something boring that youre pretty sure your readers wont care about- like the school board members discussing the weather- leave it out. 6. Include Plenty of Direct Quotes​ This is the other mistake made by new reporters. They cover meetings or speecheswhich are basically about people talkingbut then turn in stories with few if any direct quotes in them. This makes for stories that are just plain boring. Always liven up event stories with plenty of solid, direct quotes from the people who are speaking.

1. Building Shared Values, 2. Values in Organisations Assignment

1. Building Shared Values, 2. Values in Organisations - Assignment Example Every organizational leader must be responsible in ensuring that an organization achieves its value within a dynamic environment in a timely manner that is beneficial to both the society and the company itself (Fleisher& Blenkhorn, 2003). Therefore, several strategies have been designed to match the values with the organizational requirements towards the realization of better returns. The main strategies are as follows Integration is the first step in building share value to the organization. It entails addressing the concern about the need for value based organization, the expected benefits and what is required of the organizational leaders to build up such values (Fleisher& Blenkhorn, 2003). According to the concept of integration, organizational values should commence on changing the society into the organizational concepts for a clear transition of both material and freedom values. As a human resource manager, one should consider incorporating organizational culture and values through the transition system because it helps in reinforcing the security customs (Viinamà ¤ki, 2012). The above stage calls for a critical understanding of the organizational culture as an important source of the organizational ethics thus the need to endorse good morals into the organizational. Since culture and values are distinct concepts, human resource manager is, therefore, responsible for modeling the behavior of the members through provision of policies and practices that reinforces trust towards the organizational success. The above strategy requires leaders to demonstrate values and morals as part of the organizational commitment (Viinamà ¤ki, 2012, Shockley et al. 2010)). Majority of the organizational leaders’ tend to view the value rhetorically and with very minimal factual consideration. With respect to the above, leaders should

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

Summary - Essay Example While Pennsylvania showed average tuition and fee charges as $8410 in 2005-2006, it was $3100 in Florida and $6910 in South Carolina. In fact, there was notable difference in charges as well as in the student enrollment in various institutions. A number of reasons are pointed out as the factors driving tuition charges. Dennis Jones suggests tuition setting in public institutions as closely related to the health of other institutional revenues. Apparent influences of a variety of political factors in postsecondary policy making at the state level has been observed. Various examinations revealed relationships between indicators of educational structure and indicators of political influence. Descriptive representation compares the similarities in background between elected officials and their constituents. On the contrary, substantive representation refers to the interests elected officials serve. There are various opinions on the enhancement of substantive representation and various mo dels are also developed. The model named ‘presence’ assumes minority representatives to act as stronger advocates for minority constituents (McLendon et al, 6). The panel-data model implies that pricing behavior of universities is heterogeneous and is difficult to be captured using available data (McLendon et al, 15).

Tcp Congestion Control Methods Tutorial Information Technology Essay

Tcp Congestion Control Methods Tutorial Information Technology Essay Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the two core protocols of the Internet protocol suite. Together with IP, they constitute the backbone stack of many internet applications like the World Wide Web, the e-mail and file transfer (FTP). Its main function is to provide a reliable stream service utilizing an unreliable packet delivery system inherited by its underlying IP layer. By the term reliable, we mean the reliable ordered delivery of a stream of bytes from one peer to another that runs the same TCP protocol stack. To add this substantial functionality and reliability, TCP imposes complexity. It is a much more complex protocol than its underlying IP protocol. The main mechanism TCP uses to offer reliability is the positive acknowledgement and retransmission scheme. Transmitted segments must be acknowledged and if there is a loss, a retransmission takes place. To make the network utilization more efficient, instead of transmitting each segment only after reception of an acknowledgement for the previously transmitted segment, TCP uses the concept of a window. The window includes all those segments that are allowed to be sent without waiting for a new acknowledgment. TCP allows end to end adjustment of the data flow a sender introduces to the network by varying the window size. How can a sender know what is the suitable window size? A receiver indicates it in a window advertisement which comes to the sender as part of the acknowledgment. Since modern internet applications are hungry for bandwidth, there is a high possibility that network becomes congested at some time. Routers have a finite storage capacity for handling IP packets. If the packet flow rate becomes excessive, routerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s queue buffers will become full and their software will start to discard any new packets arrived. This has a negative impact in the TCP operation and performance in general. Increased delays and losses will impose retransmissions and hence increased traffic. In its turn, increased traffic will make congestion more severe and in this way, Internet will experience what is known as congestion collapse, exhibiting a performance fall of several orders of magnitude. To overcome this problem, TCP uses many mechanisms-algorithms to avoid congestion collapse and achieve high performance. The main idea behind these algorithms is to control the rate of data entering the network and keep it below a threshold rate. If this threshold we re to be crossed, a new collapse phase could be triggered. Data senders can infer from an increasing number of delays that the network is congested and so adjust the flow in order to mitigate the phenomenon and give the network the necessary time to clear the queues and recover from congestion. TCP Congestion Algorithms RFC5681 describes four congestion control algorithms. Slow start, congestion avoidance, fast retransmit and fast recovery. All these algorithms work with the admission that sender infers network congestion by observing segment losses. As mentioned above, in TCP, receiverà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s buffer capability can be advertised backwards in the acknowledgement messages. This helps the sender to adjust its window size. Congestion algorithms introduce a second limit which is named congestion window. This new window is used for restricting the data flow of sender below the limit that main window determines. Actually, in a congested phase, the TCP window size used is the minimum value between the normal and congestion windows sizes. Reducing the congestion window reduces the injecting data flow to the network. Congestion avoidance algorithm reduces the congestion window by half upon each segment loss. For those segments that remain in the window, it also backs off the retransmission timer exponentially. In this way, quick and significant traffic reduction is achieved. Upon loss of successive segments, the algorithm uses an exponential rate to drop the data flow and increase the retransmission timers. This gives enough time for the network to recover and become stable again. Slow start algorithm is used when the network has recovered from the congestion and the windows start to increase again. To prevent oscillation between network congestion and normal conditions coming immediately after recovery, slow start indicates that congestion window must start at the size of a single segment and increase by one segment for each acknowledgement arrived. This effectively doubles the transmitted segments during each successive round trip time. To avoid increasing the window size too quickly, once congestion window reaches one half of its size prior to congestion, TCP enters a congestion avoidance phase and the rate of increment is abruptly slowed down. During this phase, congestion window increases by just one segment and only after all segments in the current window have been acknowledged. Upon detection of a duplicate acknowledgment, sender cannot deduce if there was a loss or a simple delay of a segment. If ordinary out-of-order conditions are present, one or two duplicate acknowledgements are typically expected. If however, sender receives three or more acknowledgements, it can infer that there is loss of segments due to congestion and so it retransmits the segment (indicated by the position of the acknowledgement in the byte stream) without waiting for the retransmission timer expiration. This constitutes the fast retransmit algorithm. Fast recovery follows fast retransmit algorithm and in the real TCP implementations these two algorithms are usually working together. Since reception of duplicate acknowledgements is a clear sign that data is still flowing in the receiver, fast recovery algorithm puts the sender in the congestion avoidance phase instead of the slow start phase. Therefore, if losses are not due to congestion, there will be a faster recovery of data flow without the penalty experienced by the use of slow start. However, fast recovery only works well for moderate congestion conditions. Newer algorithms Although the aforementioned four algorithms offer substantial congestion control, newer techniques have emerged in the bibliography as a result of extensive research in this specific area. These new algorithms try to build upon the old methods, enhancing TCP performance and increasing the responsiveness to congestion. One limitation of normal TCP operation is that if a transmitted segment is lost but subsequent segments in the same window are delivered normally, the receiver cannot send acknowledgements for these last segments. The reason for this is that receiver can acknowledge only contiguous bytes that it has received. Sender will be forced, once retransmission timer for the lost segment expires, to resend not only the lost segment, but all subsequent segments in the window too. This was identified as a potential case for improvement which led to the creation of the selective acknowledgments (SACK) algorithm (Jacobson and Braden, Oct. 1988). The algorithm helps to reduce the number of unnecessary retransmissions by allowing the receiver to send some feedback to the sender about the contiguous byte stream blocks it has already received. In order to take advantage of the new technique though, the two TCP endpoints must agree on using SACK upon negotiation (by using the option field of the TCP he ader). Two TCP original software implementations in the BSD Unix environment were named Tahoe and Reno. Tahoe includes the slow start, congestion avoidance and fast recovery algorithms whereas Reno includes all four basic algorithms described in the second section of this tutorial. NewReno is a slight modification of the Reno implementation and aims in boosting the performance during the fast retransmit and fast recovery phases. It is based on the notion of partial acknowledgements. In the case where multiple segments are dropped from a single window, sender enters fast retransmit phase and gets information about the retransmitted segments in terms of the first acknowledgment it gets. If only a single segment was dropped, then the acknowledgment will probably contain all segments previously transmitted before entering fast retransmit phase. If on the other hand, there were losses of multiple segments, the acknowledgment will be partial and will not contain all segments transmitted prior to fast retransmit phase entry. Using partial acknowledgements, fast recovery performance is enhanced as described in RFC2582. NewReno also improves round-trip and back-off timer calculations. In the literature, it is found that its main drawback is the poor performance in bursts of losses of segments within the same window (Wang and Shin, 2004). Non-TCP congestion control There are also some non-TCP techniques that can indirectly affect congestion control performance of TCP. These methods are not directly implemented in TCP software. The most popular technique of this kind is Random Early Detection (RED). In order to understand the method, one first has to consider what is called the global synchronization problem (D. Comer, 2000). Routers in the global Internet use the tail-drop policy for handling datagrams. When their input queue is full, any incoming datagram is discarded. Since datagrams are usually multiplexed in the Internet, severe problems can occur regarding congestion. Instead of dropping many segments of one TCP connection, tail-drop router policy actually causes single segment drops from many TCP connections. This, in turn, put the senders of these connections in slow start mode at almost the same time causing the global synchronization problem, which degrades performance considerably. To overcome this problem, RED (which is implemented in router software) defines two different thresholds that are associated with its internal queue, Tmin and Tmax. The following three rules govern the operation of RED It the queue size is less that Tmin, add any new incoming datagrams to it If the queue size is bigger that Tmax, drop any new incoming datagrams If the queue size is between Tmin and Tmax, randomly discard incoming datagrams with the help of a probability p. The main reason for this approach is to drop datagrams as congestion increases so as to avoid a queue overflow and a subsequent transition of many TCP connections to the slow start phase. As it is obvious, success of RED algorithm is based upon careful selection of the two thresholds Tmin and Tmax along with the probability p. Tmin must ensure high network utilization whereas Tmax must take into account the TCP round trip time so that it can accommodate the increase in queue size. Usually, Tmax is at least twice large as Tmin, or otherwise the same global synchronization problem may occur. Probability p computation is a complex task that is repeated for every new datagram. Non-linear schemes are used for this calculation in order to avoid overreacting to short bursts and protect TCP from unnecessary discards. These schemes usually take into account a weighted average queue size and use that size for determining the probability p. Details of RED are described in (S. Floyd and V. Jacob son, Aug. 1993). Research simulations show that RED works pretty well. It successfully handles congestion, eliminates the global synchronization problem that results from tail-drop policy seen before, and manages to allow short bursts without the need for extensive discards that could compromise TCP performance. When implemented by routers together with the TCP congestion control methods already built in the various network software implementations, it provides the necessary protection for network performance, securing its high utilization. Conclusions TCP performance is essential for providing true experience to single users, enterprises and everyone connected to the global Internet. One of the biggest challenges TCP faces as years come by, is congestion control (along with security which is another hot topic for TCP and other protocols). The original TCP standards described four methods that succeeded to almost eliminate congestion. As Internet increases in size and applications are becoming bandwidth hungry, new techniques that enhance inherent limitations of the four original algorithms are introduced and overall performance is kept in acceptable levels. Ongoing TCP research still focuses on congestion control and many new methods or variations are coming to fill any gaps that are gradually discovered by the ever-increasing Internet utilization.

Assignment About Google Essay

The question requires the student to evaluate how successful Nintendo Wii has been in meeting the needs of today’s gaming through new product development. The answer here is dependent on the student’s ability to analyse and evaluate the case study. The students are expected to make reference to retail marketing mix in their answer. Students’ answer should include the following or other equivalent answers: – Considerations when developing new product strategy: i. Ongoing Corporate Planning ii. Ongoing Market Planning iii. Ongoing Technology Management iv. Opportunity Analysis/Serendipity . Market Penetration vi. Market Development vii. Product Development viii. Diversification Application of Pearson’s Uncertainty Map: i. Exploratory Research ii. Development Engineering iii. Applications Engineering iv. Combining Market Opportunities Question 2 Based on the case study, how can Nintendo Wii better manage innovation as a competitive tool in the field of developmental gaming? Answer: The question requires the student to identify organization characteristics and further recommend organization changes to facilitate innovation process within Nintendo Wii. The answer here is dependent on the student’s ability to analyse and give reason for choosing any relevant issues. The organization characteristics that facilitate the innovation process, students’ answer should include the following or other equivalent answers: – i. Growth orientation ii. Vigilance and external links iii. Commitment to technology and R&D intensity iv. Acceptance of risks v. Cross function cooperation and coordination within the organization structure vi. Receptivity to change vii. Space for creativity viii. Strategy towards innovation ix. Diverse range of skills Question 1 | Percentage| | Background of the case should be clearly discussed. | 15%| 2| Feasible application should be discussed in depth| 15%| 3| Identify the multi-dimensional concept of float glass technology. | 10%| 4| Use of proper language, grammar, referencing, and acknowledgement of external sources| 10%| | | | | Total| 50%| | | | Question 2 | | 1| Explain the dilemma, recog nize the difficulties of managing uncertainty. | 20%| 2| Answers should be justified and must be logical and critical. | 20%| 3| Use of proper language, grammar, referencing, and acknowledgement of external sources| 10%| | Total| 50%| Marking Scheme

Fear in the Things They Carried

Tim O’Brien’s decision to go to Vietnam was out of the fear from disappointing his family and community. How does shame affect and play a role in the life of the soldiers in The Things They Carried? The Things They Carried is a book set in Massachusetts but the core of the book is based in Vietnam. A group of Soldiers go to war and Tim O’Brien decides to document the true effects of war but beneath his words, there were a lot of factors and double meaning to them.The motif ‘Shame† played a huge part in every character in this book as it was a trait they all shared in common Shame in this context is not necessarily a bad thing as with the power of hindsight, we found it to have been a motivating factor for them during the war in more ways than one. They could decide to inflict injury on themselves as a way to get discharged from their military service but the fear of shame further guided them to be heroes for their country. The interesting thing about this book is that shame was a common factor shared by all men.Their fear of shame and weakness propelled them to act braver than they were. It is not a secret knowing that the soldiers were a little bit afraid of the war but they all did a good job in masking their shame and fears. In The Things They Carried, â€Å"They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture† (77).In analyzing this quote, their instinct to run or hide had to be restrained due to fear of being made fun of by colleagues and being called a coward. The chapter â€Å"On the Rainy River† summarizes Tim’s moral fight against being drafted into an unjust war. The Vietnam War was one he strongly opposed and his decision to fight is not down to his bravery or him being a patriot, but that of the ‘fear of sh ame’ and being tagged a coward. Therefore he succumbed to the pressure. â€Å"I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward. Related essay: Shame is Worth a TryI went to the war† (79). This statement is an example of how shame had him motivated. Him calling himself a coward was the fear of ‘shame’ out powering his principles. He initially thought of running off to Canada after being drafted but was scared that if he did not acknowledge the draft, he would be ridiculed/punished and that would be him disappointing his community and family. In order to avoid this shame facing him, he decided to be brave and go to war and fight for his country. He ended up going and survived the ains of the war due to shame being his motivating factor in his decision. Additionally, looking at Curt Lemons in â€Å"The Dentist†, shame was an igniting force leading to some of the characters bravery and heroism. Curt Lemon suffered an embarrassing fate in this chapter where he fainted before being observed by the visiting dentist. In fear of social acceptance and how the soldiers in the platoon would look at him, he decided to face his fears and shame by having his tooth removed although there was nothing wrong with it.One can attribute the survival of some of the soldiers to shame as it gave them the needed extra incentive to survive. With his renewed ego, this would make him feel stronger and ready for the worst (increasing his bravery while mitigating his shame). Shame, no matter how negative the definition seems to be, the characters in The Things They Carried made the most out of it by making it an unorthodox form of motivation for going to war and trying to survive it. Safe to say O’Briens characters (soldiers) value pride more than their life. Olumide Shodipo