Monday, August 24, 2020

To what extent does political participation reflect a bias in favor of Essay

Whatever degree does political interest mirror a predisposition for the special - Essay Example This is especially reflected in political interest. Intrinsic Inequality Ideally, political exercise is available to all. The constitution and the aggregate laws of any law based government guarantee this. Here, a great many people are qualified to look for open office or be associated with choosing individuals for open positions. For certain networks, even the individuals who don't have the foggiest idea how to peruse and right are not rejected to take an interest. Tragically, the appointive procedure in majority rule governments today is described by rivalry, wherein political investment is â€Å"circumscribed by inconsistent access to the two assets and the dynamic process.†1 Equality would have been simpler to rehearse in the brand of direct vote based system received in Greece, wherein all residents are entitled a voice in policymaking. Be that as it may, the situation today †one about political investment through portrayal †is fundamentally unique. The standard s and elements of picking agents are no longer as direct as those previously. Assets are required so as to get spoke to and this perspective inclines the equalization to the individuals who have more than others. This is featured by the prevalence of people and private ventures in political activities with their capacity to impact all strategy systems. Elitism In the United States, political portrayal is particularly one-sided towards the world class. The way where people are chosen, shows a procedure wherein the special appreciate outrageous bit of leeway. For instance, there are no laws that direct private uses for divided political purposes. The framework as of now treats private financing in the American races as a feature of the populist estimation of opportunity to help the up-and-comer of one’s decision. The contention is that when one limits the utilization of cash, it is commensurate to confining the rights to freedom and free discourse. This is exhibited in the mann er up-and-comers in the US can purchase promoting broadcast appointment in the media. Private cash in this occurrence is converted into a significant political asset, seriously disadvantaging those people and gatherings that don't have the methods or can't bring them up in time. Chapman characterized the special between the financial tip top and the political tip top. She clarified that the last tend be overwhelmed by the previous and that in most probability property, pay, occupation and instruction are those that would render individuals from this class bound to enter politics.2 Another variable that underscore the predisposition of the current popularity based political interest in the US is the traditionalist view on governmental issues. This is showed best by the American Electoral College framework, wherein famous vote is dismissed for specific gatherings and people. The Founding Fathers of the American Constitution were known to have noticed the whimsicalness and childishness of the majority and, henceforth, depended the ability to choose the American President in the possession of the scholarly and the competent. This is defended, composed Sullivan, Piereson and Marcus, by the possibility that general change of human instinct is an excessive amount to expect and that political portrayal ought to be offered uniquely to the ethical or the â€Å"more profoundly taught and increasingly capable fragments of the public.†3 And so when Al Gore won the famous political decision, George W. Hedge was chosen

Saturday, August 22, 2020

The Salem Witch Hysteria Essays - Salem Witch Trials,

The Salem Witch Hysteria The Salem Witch Hysteria Explicit reason: To advise my crowd about the Salem witch preliminaries Postulation Statement: The Salem witch preliminaries were a progression of occasions that lead up to the hanging of 19 man and ladies in Salem Mass. I. Presentation A. - The year, 1692. The spot, Salem Mass. Envision yourself a lady at home preparing supper for your family. You peer out the window and discover your significant other wrapping up his days work in the field while your youngsters skip about as the sun sets behind them. Or then again envision yourself a man. Cleaning the perspiration from your forehead as you briskly wrap up a long days work with expectation of supper with the family. Presently your during supper , opposite your significant other or spouse. You examine the climate, how the day went , and the Reverend's latest Sunday message. Out of nowhere, there's a thump on your entryway. It's the town justice with a warrant for your capture. You are accused of the wrongdoing of black magic, analyzed , then saw as blameworthy . On the off chance that you admit, you spend a lifetime in jail. On the off chance that you keep up your blamelessness, you're hung. This is like a typical situation of what occurred at the Salem witch prelim inaries. B-The Salem witch preliminaries were a progression of occasions that in the end lead to the hanging of 19 people. They occurred in Salem Mass. in the year 1692. C-Who were the informers? Who where the individuals being charged? What were the out happens to the preliminaries and why ? We should begin with how everything started. II How did everything start?- A - Rev. Samuel Parriss' little girl Elizabeth, age 9, and niece Abigail Williams, age 11, had a slave that thought about them : TITUBA B - Tituba recounts story from local land C - Girls romantic tales and begin playing with it. Joined by different young ladies around. D-On Jan. 16, 1692, began to have fits , seizures , and daze - like scenes. Not long after that the remainder of the young ladies did as well. E-Rev. Parriss got Dr. William Griggs who could analyze no clinical purpose behind young ladies conduct. Finished up young ladies under impact of Satan. F-Pray administrations and network fasting held by Rev. in trusted of transferring the detestable powers that tormented them. In endeavors to uncover the witches John Indian prepared a witch cake with rye supper and the distressed young ladies pee. G-Pressured to recognize the witches, young ladies named 3 lady. Tituba, Sarah Goode, and Sarah Osborne. H-Goode and Osborne kept up their guiltlessness while Tituba admitted to seeing the fallen angel. Furthermore, vouched for a witch scheme in Salem. I-Judges John Hawthorne and Jonathan Corwin inspected the 3 ladies. By and by just Tituba admitted to rehearsing black magic. J-Over the following scarcely any weeks, an ever increasing number of individuals approached with allegations III - Who were these new informers? - A - Most of the new informers identifies with the Putman family B - Ann Putnam Jr. - one of the beset kids Age 12, blamed an aggregate for 62 individuals of being witches. C - Thomas Putnam - Chief filer of grumblings in the Town of Salem. Helped Anne Jr. In her allegations by prosecuting her. D - Her mom Anne Putnam SR in court as much as little girl with allegations. Incidentally in court, would get burdened. E - Mercy Lewis-Servant to Putnam's 17 years of age. Additionally on of the distressed young ladies F - Mary Walcot-Ann jr. Closest companion. Harrowed young lady. G - All 5 young ladies, Ann Jr., Mercy, Mary, Abigail, and Elizabeth were associated with Tituba's narrating, voodoo rehearsing, and fortune telling IV Who were the individuals being charged ? A - The first individuals blamed for black magic were Tituba, Sarah Goode and Sarah Osborne. Indeed , Tituba admitted, while Sarah Goode Osborne despite everything kept up there guiltlessness. B - Sarah Goode-a prime case of what caused a great deal of the allegations. She was seen as socially unwanted. Sarah 's activities and disposition caused erosion among other network individuals and it was no big surprise she was denounced. C - The close to be sentenced was Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse. Both were upstanding individuals from the network. Continuously

Saturday, July 25, 2020

Crittercism

Crittercism INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are in San Francisco with Crittercism. Andrew, who are you and what do you do?Andrew: So I am the co-founder of the company. I lead strategy and basically handle all outward facing activities and I also work with the team on product strategy and roadmap.Martin: How did you come up with this business idea?Andrew: Basically, I have an engineering background. A Long time ago I was doing data warehousing at HP so big data type engineering work. I left there when I got into Y Combinator, a startup incubator based out here in the Valley for a different company. There we were working on a project, it’s a data pipeline that analyzes tweets to be able to target advertising. We are quite passionate about ad tech space so we ended up shutting down that company. It was my first start-up after college I was working on but I met up with a coworker at HP and we started building mobile apps together. Our apps, they had a bunch of performance problems, we had one st ar reviews, we had people complaining. We just found out it was very difficult to get a handle on what that end user experience was like. We ended up building some tools to help ourselves and we spoke at bunch of mobile meetups and realized that this was a widespread problem.The apps we have used ourselves were not that actionable. I am sure you’ve read that before, they say, “This app sucks. It’s not working.” Ok, it doesn’t help me recreate the problem and even if you could get in touch with the consumer, they just aren’t knowledgeable to help you understand and recreate exactly what happened and what happened under the hood. That’s what the company is for, we solve problems, scratch your own edge is the phrase. So we are building apps back in 2010 and we ended up incorporating this company in January of 2011 so actually comes up on our 5 anniversary now.Martin: Did you have some kind of initial customers before you incorporated the company and this made you see that there might be some business potential? Or did you first incorporate it and then went looking for customers?Andrew: It’s a great question because after Y Combinator we got a little bit of money from there but we were bootstrapping and my fiancée at that time was buying groceries which was great, she was being very supportive, but we wanted to make sure that the next company that I build, that there was something there, that there was a real problem, a ‘hair on fire’ problem that needed to be solved. After we’re building those mobile apps we almost didn’t start this company. But we felt like there was something there and so what we did was we set up a sign up list, like a beta list, put up a landing page and that was just a way for us to gauge demand . And in addition to that we did get software out in the hands of a few startups, a few other developers that we knew in the community. We just saw that there was enough demand and we actually took that and applied to a diffe rent incubator called Angel Pad which is founded by a bunch of ex-googlers who are now based in New York. We got into that program. So we had the social proof and social validation through that. Plus we had that sign up list of potential clients and so we said, “We have to do this. We are on to something.”BUSINESS MODEL OF CRITTERCISMMartin: Let’s talk about the business model of Crittercism. What is actually the value proposition that you are delivering to your customers?Andrew: It’s actually fairly straightforward which I think when you work on something, can you explain it to your grandma that’s kind of a test, right? Basically everyone has used a mobile app that hasn’t worked correctly, maybe it was slow or laggy, maybe tried to buy something and it didn’t work. So what Crittercism does is that it attract that user journey while they are using a mobile app. It sees where you struggle and we collect diagnostic data under the hood, to help companies find and fix tho se issues that customers are running into.I guess a bit of a deeper explanation of what we do is to really provide actual intelligence by taking operational and behavioral data. So behavioral data is what buttons the user is tapping on, what screens they are on. And then the operational data that we overlay on top of it is code defects â€" things like crashes and errors, networking issues, not only carrier performance but we track all the cloud services and APIs that a mobile app is interacting with. And we tie it back of course with code defects because they can be related. We look at important transactions or workflows in the app so if you are trying to log in or update your profile or check out, we take that and we track all these critical events and help you understand its taking too long to complete an action and if there is some failure that occurred along the way.Martin: When you are talking of user behavior tracking is it that the company or your customer is actually definin g the workflow or is It like generic like maybe Google Analytics maybe just add the Crittercism snippet and that’s it?Andrew: It’s similar to google analytics. We have an SDK piece of software that you embed into an app. We automate a lot of these events that we collect and a lot of the performance issues that a customer may run into. We do an optional logging so you can send us additional data and also we let you define what those important workflows are. Our clients know better than us where does logging start and end so they can define that and we will automatically track all these critical events, user behavior and operational data along the way.Martin: Are you having an API so your customer has access to all the people data as well?Andrew: Yes, we have an API for all virtual data and our best clients will hook us up into their operation centers. The product managers will have real time view especially around releases. The develper team will have a separate dashboard, seeing what the code defects are like and how well they are doing.Martin: Are there any specific customer segments that you are having or is it just everybody who has a mobile app?Andrew: So we operate across verticals, across industries. We operate at a tremendous scale. We process over a hundred billion application launches every month. This is a across three of the five top global media companies, two of the top three hotel chains in the world, two of the top three credit card processors and so it’s not every single vertical. We do have major presence in retail. I’d anyone that’s building a mission critical or revenue critical mobile application falls under our purview. And it’s in a variety of use cases, and it is not necessarily who thinks of the consumer apps when you download apps at the app store, that is the majority of our business but a lot of companies are also publishing internal mobile applications to their employeesto improve a business process.So an example would b eâ€" we have a very large retailer who has applied apps to the employees in the warehouses so they can track inventory.There is another one that we work with, and you have seen point of sale devices being done by smart phones or tablets, but they actually will even do something like take a smartphone and hook it up to a printer and reprint price tags when people return items to the store. So we are seeing more and more of that, all these business processes are being moved onto smartphones and tablets because of the efficiency gains that they get from it.Martin How is your revenue model working?Andrew: So we charge based on how many users an app has. Specifically, monthly active users. If you install and never use the app we won’t charge the company that’s supporting the app for that user. But it makes sense because we collect more data the more customers that client ends up having.Martin: And how did you define the price point or is it really like customer specific?Andrew: It to ok us a while to get to something that worked because there wasn’t a great analogy in the beginning. It wasn’t like we can look at what was happening on the web world, because mobile is just different beast. And so we just experimented and over time found a price point that worked.Martin: Ok, cool. Are there any options to extending this kind of model because if you are first on the mobile and you have all the behavioral data so to speak where can identify wether an app crashed or some system information and etc. what you are currently doing. Are there any other applications that can build on top of that or actually you are already doing?Andrew: Sure. You are right, we collect a lot of rich data. In fact, we started publishing some of this in the forms of reports in The Health of the Industry, as iOS and Android is doing. In fact, we’ve got data.crittercism.com, we have some live benchmarks there. So we will continue to invest in the data intelligence aspect of it.But we have our customers using us in a variety of ways, ways we couldn’t even imagine when we first built the company. At the end of the day it’s all about customer experience and companies want to make sure that no matter what channel their users are going through to access their service that they have that amazing experience. And of course there is revenue involved to make sure that everything goes smoothly.So an example that would be obviously around connected devices and IOT, we are in some major watch applications, as an example we have just seen Apple revamp its TV offering. So these are platforms that we’ve started to work on and we plan to support all of them because they actually look and feel and smell very similar to smartphone and tablets and there really you are dealing with embedded software. And the important thing to keep in mind is when working on embedded software is customer experience is very tightly coupled with performance because everything is combined into one. Yo u don’t have that client â€" server separation of the web. And companies just struggle to keep up because the ecosystem is moving so quickly, there is not enough engineering talent out there, they can’t even hire fast enough. They have caught up somewhere, on the traditional mobile side but now you have this explosion of brand new devices coming out and it’s another challenge. Our software helps them tackle those challenges so their customers are successful .Martin: You are covering one and one hundred billion app loads a month. Can you give us insights on the main reasons why an app is crashing?Andrew: Sure. And when you say crash, you know people use this term for variety of things. When you look at an app crashing, it could be just close but what happens if you try to buy something and it’s sitting there and spinning and you say screw that and hit the home button some people might call it a crash even though technically there is a word for it.When it comes down to it, itâ €™s actually related to why mobile is different. If you can answer that question, you can answer what causes apps to fail the most. When you look at it, you look at all the devices out there, you have heard a lot about device fragmentation, thousands and thousands Android devices. Even on iOS , you see they have a lot more devices than they used to. You see a lot of operating system pushes so we just had iOS9, Marshmallow is having a roll out right now. And each new iOS release can cause problems, each new device that comes out. You have carriers and a lot of people think carriers are dumb pipes but they can actually mess with the data, they can do package shaping we have seen one that have changed JPEGs to PNGs as an example. You have geopolitical issues like the firewall in China, you have major countries just shutting down internet access during conflicts. These are all things you just didn’t even have to imagine in the previous world. But of course the sensors available to the se devices are new. And so we added all up, it is impossible to test every possible use case and even if you could that new Samsung device comes out and suddenly things start breaking again. Having that visibility, it is a vague answer but that’s the number one reason why applications fail. It’s just that there are peculiarities; whether it’s the device, the OS, the location that cause some of them to occur or some code to be executed that you just didn’t test for. That’s what ends up causing a lot of headaches especially for companies that that are not using our software.Martin: Are you aware of the Safe Harbour Act? I think some weeks ago it was refusedâ€"Andrew: Last week. Yes, The European High Court nullified it.Martin: Your company is based in the US. Do you see any impact on the Safe Harbour on your business?Andrew: So Europe has been important for us from day one. In fact, our first paying customer was in Europe which a lot of people don’t know. Even though we ar e 60 person company we have a European data center. We leverage Amazon’s Frankfurt Instance and that has data isolation so the data does not leave the EU. In fact, it doesn’t leave Germany, it’s based there. We were Safe Harbour certified before the European Court did that annulment, by the way we are paying close attention because they are going to give new guidelines to US companies, kind of like a Safe Harbour 2.0.But data privacy and security has always been important to us, it’s always been a question that has been raised. Especially because we are embedded in people’s apps and so by default we don’t collect any personal identifiable information. In fact, we have turned a lot of capabilities off by default in our SDK and companies can chose to turn things on, depending on if they are comfortable with it or not. You have to deal with mobiles that can be used by children, especially children under 13 and there is a law against collecting data there.So we have made sur e to be compliant across the spectrum in the US and overseas as well. So I think other companies that maybe don’t have a European data center are probably pretty worried because when they sell to a company in Europe, that was one of the certification they would show to make them feel more trusted an feel better by using their product but for us, we have that capability available so there is less of an impact for us.Martin: Just checking if I got it right, in the US you are not allowed to track the behavior of people of 13 years and below?Andrew: There is a specific rule called Code of Compliance. There are specific rules around collecting anything that might be considered as person identifiable. We don’t collect that by default anyway but there is a gray area in terms of what you consider person identifiable and so we have made sure that we architected ourselves both in terms of our product but also in terms of the legal documents that we handle.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM ANDR EW LEVY In San Francisco (CA), we meet Co-Founder of Crittercism, Andrew Levy. Andrew talks about his story how he came up with the idea and founded Crittercism, how the current business model works, as well as he provides some advice for young entrepreneurs.INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are in San Francisco with Crittercism. Andrew, who are you and what do you do?Andrew: So I am the co-founder of the company. I lead strategy and basically handle all outward facing activities and I also work with the team on product strategy and roadmap.Martin: How did you come up with this business idea?Andrew: Basically, I have an engineering background. A Long time ago I was doing data warehousing at HP so big data type engineering work. I left there when I got into Y Combinator, a startup incubator based out here in the Valley for a different company. There we were working on a project, it’s a data pipeline that analyzes tweets to be able to target advertising. We are quite passionate about ad tech space so we ended up shutting down that company. It was my first start-up after college I was working on but I met up with a coworker at HP and we started building mobile apps together. Our apps, they had a bunch of performance problems, we had one star reviews, we had people complaining. We just found out it was very difficult to get a handle on what that end user experience was like. We ended up building some tools to help ourselves and we spoke at bunch of mobile meetups and realized that this was a widespread problem.The apps we have used ourselves were not that actionable. I am sure you’ve read that before, they say, “This app sucks. It’s not working.” Ok, it doesn’t help me recreate the problem and even if you could get in touch with the consumer, they just aren’t knowledgeable to help you understand and recreate exactly what happened and what happened under the hood. That’s what the company is for, we solve problems, scratch your own edge is the phrase. So we ar e building apps back in 2010 and we ended up incorporating this company in January of 2011 so actually comes up on our 5 anniversary now.Martin: Did you have some kind of initial customers before you incorporated the company and this made you see that there might be some business potential? Or did you first incorporate it and then went looking for customers?Andrew: It’s a great question because after Y Combinator we got a little bit of money from there but we were bootstrapping and my fiancée at that time was buying groceries which was great, she was being very supportive, but we wanted to make sure that the next company that I build, that there was something there, that there was a real problem, a ‘hair on fire’ problem that needed to be solved. After we’re building those mobile apps we almost didn’t start this company. But we felt like there was something there and so what we did was we set up a sign up list, like a beta list, put up a landing page and that was just a w ay for us to gauge demand . And in addition to that we did get software out in the hands of a few startups, a few other developers that we knew in the community. We just saw that there was enough demand and we actually took that and applied to a different incubator called Angel Pad which is founded by a bunch of ex-googlers who are now based in New York. We got into that program. So we had the social proof and social validation through that. Plus we had that sign up list of potential clients and so we said, “We have to do this. We are on to something.”BUSINESS MODEL OF CRITTERCISMMartin: Let’s talk about the business model of Crittercism. What is actually the value proposition that you are delivering to your customers?Andrew: It’s actually fairly straightforward which I think when you work on something, can you explain it to your grandma that’s kind of a test, right? Basically everyone has used a mobile app that hasn’t worked correctly, maybe it was slow or laggy, maybe tried to buy something and it didn’t work. So what Crittercism does is that it attract that user journey while they are using a mobile app. It sees where you struggle and we collect diagnostic data under the hood, to help companies find and fix those issues that customers are running into.I guess a bit of a deeper explanation of what we do is to really provide actual intelligence by taking operational and behavioral data. So behavioral data is what buttons the user is tapping on, what screens they are on. And then the operational data that we overlay on top of it is code defects â€" things like crashes and errors, networking issues, not only carrier performance but we track all the cloud services and APIs that a mobile app is interacting with. And we tie it back of course with code defects because they can be related. We look at important transactions or workflows in the app so if you are trying to log in or update your profile or check out, we take that and we track all these cr itical events and help you understand its taking too long to complete an action and if there is some failure that occurred along the way.Martin: When you are talking of user behavior tracking is it that the company or your customer is actually defining the workflow or is It like generic like maybe Google Analytics maybe just add the Crittercism snippet and that’s it?Andrew: It’s similar to google analytics. We have an SDK piece of software that you embed into an app. We automate a lot of these events that we collect and a lot of the performance issues that a customer may run into. We do an optional logging so you can send us additional data and also we let you define what those important workflows are. Our clients know better than us where does logging start and end so they can define that and we will automatically track all these critical events, user behavior and operational data along the way.Martin: Are you having an API so your customer has access to all the people data as well?Andrew: Yes, we have an API for all virtual data and our best clients will hook us up into their operation centers. The product managers will have real time view especially around releases. The develper team will have a separate dashboard, seeing what the code defects are like and how well they are doing.Martin: Are there any specific customer segments that you are having or is it just everybody who has a mobile app?Andrew: So we operate across verticals, across industries. We operate at a tremendous scale. We process over a hundred billion application launches every month. This is a across three of the five top global media companies, two of the top three hotel chains in the world, two of the top three credit card processors and so it’s not every single vertical. We do have major presence in retail. I’d anyone that’s building a mission critical or revenue critical mobile application falls under our purview. And it’s in a variety of use cases, and it is not necessarily who thinks of the consumer apps when you download apps at the app store, that is the majority of our business but a lot of companies are also publishing internal mobile applications to their employeesto improve a business process.So an example would beâ€" we have a very large retailer who has applied apps to the employees in the warehouses so they can track inventory.There is another one that we work with, and you have seen point of sale devices being done by smart phones or tablets, but they actually will even do something like take a smartphone and hook it up to a printer and reprint price tags when people return items to the store. So we are seeing more and more of that, all these business processes are being moved onto smartphones and tablets because of the efficiency gains that they get from it.Martin How is your revenue model working?Andrew: So we charge based on how many users an app has. Specifically, monthly active users. If you install and never use the app we won’t char ge the company that’s supporting the app for that user. But it makes sense because we collect more data the more customers that client ends up having.Martin: And how did you define the price point or is it really like customer specific?Andrew: It took us a while to get to something that worked because there wasn’t a great analogy in the beginning. It wasn’t like we can look at what was happening on the web world, because mobile is just different beast. And so we just experimented and over time found a price point that worked.Martin: Ok, cool. Are there any options to extending this kind of model because if you are first on the mobile and you have all the behavioral data so to speak where can identify wether an app crashed or some system information and etc. what you are currently doing. Are there any other applications that can build on top of that or actually you are already doing?Andrew: Sure. You are right, we collect a lot of rich data. In fact, we started publishing some of this in the forms of reports in The Health of the Industry, as iOS and Android is doing. In fact, we’ve got data.crittercism.com, we have some live benchmarks there. So we will continue to invest in the data intelligence aspect of it.But we have our customers using us in a variety of ways, ways we couldn’t even imagine when we first built the company. At the end of the day it’s all about customer experience and companies want to make sure that no matter what channel their users are going through to access their service that they have that amazing experience. And of course there is revenue involved to make sure that everything goes smoothly.So an example that would be obviously around connected devices and IOT, we are in some major watch applications, as an example we have just seen Apple revamp its TV offering. So these are platforms that we’ve started to work on and we plan to support all of them because they actually look and feel and smell very similar to smartphone an d tablets and there really you are dealing with embedded software. And the important thing to keep in mind is when working on embedded software is customer experience is very tightly coupled with performance because everything is combined into one. You don’t have that client â€" server separation of the web. And companies just struggle to keep up because the ecosystem is moving so quickly, there is not enough engineering talent out there, they can’t even hire fast enough. They have caught up somewhere, on the traditional mobile side but now you have this explosion of brand new devices coming out and it’s another challenge. Our software helps them tackle those challenges so their customers are successful .Martin: You are covering one and one hundred billion app loads a month. Can you give us insights on the main reasons why an app is crashing?Andrew: Sure. And when you say crash, you know people use this term for variety of things. When you look at an app crashing, it could be just close but what happens if you try to buy something and it’s sitting there and spinning and you say screw that and hit the home button some people might call it a crash even though technically there is a word for it.When it comes down to it, it’s actually related to why mobile is different. If you can answer that question, you can answer what causes apps to fail the most. When you look at it, you look at all the devices out there, you have heard a lot about device fragmentation, thousands and thousands Android devices. Even on iOS , you see they have a lot more devices than they used to. You see a lot of operating system pushes so we just had iOS9, Marshmallow is having a roll out right now. And each new iOS release can cause problems, each new device that comes out. You have carriers and a lot of people think carriers are dumb pipes but they can actually mess with the data, they can do package shaping we have seen one that have changed JPEGs to PNGs as an example. You have geopolitical issues like the firewall in China, you have major countries just shutting down internet access during conflicts. These are all things you just didn’t even have to imagine in the previous world. But of course the sensors available to these devices are new. And so we added all up, it is impossible to test every possible use case and even if you could that new Samsung device comes out and suddenly things start breaking again. Having that visibility, it is a vague answer but that’s the number one reason why applications fail. It’s just that there are peculiarities; whether it’s the device, the OS, the location that cause some of them to occur or some code to be executed that you just didn’t test for. That’s what ends up causing a lot of headaches especially for companies that that are not using our software.Martin: Are you aware of the Safe Harbour Act? I think some weeks ago it was refusedâ€"Andrew: Last week. Yes, The European High Court nullified it.Martin: Y our company is based in the US. Do you see any impact on the Safe Harbour on your business?Andrew: So Europe has been important for us from day one. In fact, our first paying customer was in Europe which a lot of people don’t know. Even though we are 60 person company we have a European data center. We leverage Amazon’s Frankfurt Instance and that has data isolation so the data does not leave the EU. In fact, it doesn’t leave Germany, it’s based there. We were Safe Harbour certified before the European Court did that annulment, by the way we are paying close attention because they are going to give new guidelines to US companies, kind of like a Safe Harbour 2.0.But data privacy and security has always been important to us, it’s always been a question that has been raised. Especially because we are embedded in people’s apps and so by default we don’t collect any personal identifiable information. In fact, we have turned a lot of capabilities off by default in our SDK an d companies can chose to turn things on, depending on if they are comfortable with it or not. You have to deal with mobiles that can be used by children, especially children under 13 and there is a law against collecting data there.So we have made sure to be compliant across the spectrum in the US and overseas as well. So I think other companies that maybe don’t have a European data center are probably pretty worried because when they sell to a company in Europe, that was one of the certification they would show to make them feel more trusted an feel better by using their product but for us, we have that capability available so there is less of an impact for us.Martin: Just checking if I got it right, in the US you are not allowed to track the behavior of people of 13 years and below?Andrew: There is a specific rule called Code of Compliance. There are specific rules around collecting anything that might be considered as person identifiable. We don’t collect that by default anyw ay but there is a gray area in terms of what you consider person identifiable and so we have made sure that we architected ourselves both in terms of our product but also in terms of the legal documents that we handle.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM ANDREW LEVYMartin: What type of advice could you give to first time entrepreneurs who would just come to you and say, “Andrew, I want to start a company but I am not sure what to do and how to do it correctly”?Andrew: There are many pieces of advice I could give. I would say for one thing when we were trying to start a company before I think we were going about it in the wrong way and kind of sitting in a room brainstorming about, “Hey, what should we work on”. But when it really came down to the most successful one we were leaning on our own experiences in what pains we did encounter, what inefficiencies that we did see. It is hard to start a company when you are not intimately familiar, you don’t have the main knowledge. If you are a software developer and you want to create software for medical profession but you don’t have any medical background it’s tough, you need to find a co-founder that could fill that slot for you.But beyond that, I think one thing that helped was as we started the company, one of the mantras that you hear quite frequently is fail fast. And even after we started this company we had what we thought was one product line but it was actually two and we begin quickly deprecating and getting rid of one of them because it wasn’t going as quickly. We wanted to really focus our time so I think it is important that we did that. Over time we have continued to make sure we stay focused and get rid of projects that are not on our core.Another piece of advice that I’d give is that you are very scrappy at the beginning and you don’t have a lot of money and it really forces you to make decisions in the right way and to move quickly. So another piece of advice I’d give is as you raise m oney from investors and you start to grow the company is you keep that mentality. If you do raise some money don’t overspend, make sure you validate your sales model. Don’t go out and hire a hundred sales people before you have done that. The analogy might be some people say, “If you build it, they will come”. But what you should do is to let some clients come and then build a little bit more. Don’t burry your head in the sand and build something for a year and hope that you will be successful. You need to quickly iterate and that’s not just in software development but that’s also on your business model and go to market plans.Martin: Andrew, thank you so much for your time. It was very nice and interesting.Andrew: Thanks. It was nice meeting you.Martin: And if you have an app and you want to really understand why it fails or where you can improve it on your workflow maybe you can just install and buy Crittercism.

Friday, May 22, 2020

City Schools And The American Dream Reclaiming The...

Pedro Noguera, a phenomenal urban sociologist and a professor at New York University confronts the problems which exist in our nation’s education system in his book, City Schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education. Noguera describes what he views to be the main problems facing urban education and suggests strategies for improvement. From years of experience as a teacher and school board member, he reflects on what he believes to be the real problems. Noguera blames the school’s failures on students, parents, and teachers which leads to blame local government officials or policymakers. Noguera states in City Schools and the American Dream, â€Å"The central argument of this book is that until there is a genuine commitment to address the social context of schooling — to confront the urban condition — it will be impossible to bring about significant and sustainable improvements in urban public schools† (pg.6). Noguera b elieves that we must address the central problem to make any type of solutions for improvement. In chapter one and two Noguera talks about how urban schools are failing and how there is educational and achievement gaps. Noguera talks about Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond, and San Francisco and uses examples from these cities to show readers how poverty, influence, and lack of support impacts children s educations. Noguera provided a very good chart on pg. 29 in the book. The chart shows the economic profile of all four cities inShow MoreRelatedEconomics and Urban Education678 Words   |  3 Pages Education is a quality in which all learning should be given under unconditional pretenses. The opportunity to be privileged with higher learning and creative diversities places an extraordinary value in which all children should achieve. However, when economic and ethnic demographics supersedes integrity, equality, fairness, and entailing security for all students. The modern issues of the urban education confronts our society with alarming facts that students are failing not only under theRead MoreReading Obam Dreams, Hope, And The American Political Tradition1433 Words   |  6 PagesAmy Rel Professor Richard Garcia History 3553 American Intellectual History 16 March 2015 Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition The main focus of the intellectual biography, Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition by James T. Kloppenberg, is on President Obama s ideas, how he thinks, but also his views on American politics. Kloppenberg describes in detail the events throughout Obama s life that have influenced his thinking and molded him intoRead MoreMulticultural Education in a Pluralistic Society21691 Words   |  87 PagesPowell, 2000 ISBN: 0-536-29978-1 Multicultural Education in a Pluralistic Society, Seventh Edition, by Donna M. Gollnick and Philip C. Chinn. Published by Prentice-Hall/Merrill. 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Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 Pages—San Diego State University Timothy A. Judge —University of Notre Dame i3iEi35Bj! Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Upper Saddle River Amsterdam Cape Town Dubai London Madrid Milan Munich Paris Montreal Toronto Delhi Mexico City Sao Paulo Sydney Hong Kong Seoul Singapore Taipei Tokyo Editorial Director: Sally Yagan Director of Editorial Services: Ashley Santora Acquisitions Editor: Brian Mickelson Editorial Project Manager: Sarah Holle Editorial Assistant: Ashlee Bradbury

Friday, May 8, 2020

A Unified Standard For Classification Of Reality Tv...

Nowadays, reality TV programmes appear on the television screen with varied types and mixed styles. It is difficult to find out a unified standard for classification of reality TV programmes’ types. In western countries, the most frequently mentioned types of reality TV programme by different scholars are infotainment, docu-soap, lifestyle, reality gameshows, talent competitions, relationship reality TV shows, etc. According to these different classifications and from differences of diverse shows’ content and formats, reality TV can be divided into following eight types: Outdoors â€Å"Survivor†-style This type is always one of the major types of reality TV. CBS’s Survivor is the most typical programme. There were 16 participators from different social backgrounds, occupations. They were taken to a remote isolated location and given the most primitive tools to live in this environment about one month. The whole precess used elimination system. The final survivor will win 1 million dollars. The main feature is that participates will be arranged in a harsh environment and complete hard tasks with the help of limited conditions. After continuous eliminations, determine the winner. Experience of situation This type’s programmes arrange participators into a sealing environment and recode their state of living and changes of interpersonal relationships. Participators’ daily life, especially individual privacy, will be exposed in front of audiences. 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Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Storm Born Chapter Twenty-Seven Free Essays

string(35) " You sent us here without thought\." Traveling in spirit is a lot different than traveling in the body. The body gives you more strength – and more risk – but the spirit can see things beyond normal physical senses. As I rose up and up from the Otherworld, I saw it in all its beauty and power. We will write a custom essay sample on Storm Born Chapter Twenty-Seven or any similar topic only for you Order Now People and objects were ringed in light, some brighter than others – like Dorian, who shone like a small sun. All around him and the others, the Alder Land glittered with its own aura, an aura that called out to me in a funny way. Leaving it felt strange, like part of me was being abandoned back there. As for me, my soul grew wings as I crossed into the Underworld. I was dark, nearly black, and wore a graceful, avian shape. I was the Dark Swan, my totem, the shape my spirit naturally traversed the worlds in. I hadn’t had to use this shape in some time. I’d first developed the ability to move my spirit into the Otherworld wearing a shape nearly identical to my physical presence; I’d later learned to go over entirely in my own body. But this was not the Otherworld, and I needed the protection of my swan shape. The land of death did not like to give back its souls, and the closer I got, the more risk I faced. I could only pray Kiyo hadn’t fully entered it yet. Feeling him was easy. My physical body was still close to his, and he and I had enough of a mental and spiritual bond that I could track him. But, as it turned out, he was far ahead of me. Too far. He had crossed the black gate. If I wanted to follow, I would have to enter the land of death in earnest. My return was doubtful. And yet†¦I couldn’t just let him go. Not yet. Not when he’d died because of me. Not when he’d still followed, despite my rejection of him. Not after what we’d shared together. Onward I flew, my wings sweeping over currents of power. I saw no gate per se, but I felt when I crossed it. The connection to my physical body trembled, and I knew I had just endangered it. Too much time here, and it would sever altogether. With that knowledge came another sensation as I crossed over, one so sharp and sudden that I might as well have been slapped in the face. It felt like a belly flop into a freezing pool – remarkable considering the soul did not feel physical sensations. Well, at least that was what I’d been taught. I’d never known any shaman who crossed over and survived to tell about it. Once I actually entered the world, I was suddenly awash in tactile feelings. Warmth swirled around, mixed with those streaks of icy cold. For just an instant, I saw a world so beautiful, it made me ache inside. Color and light and wonder. Glimpsing it, I felt my connection to something much greater than myself, something I had never understood in the worlds of the living. I was drowning in it, in that burning bliss that made the euphoria of magic seem trivial. And just for a second, I nearly grasped all the meaning to life and death. Then, in a blink, it was all gone, and I was plunged into darkness. I silently cried out, longing for the return of that beauty. Where had it gone? Why wouldn’t it come back? A voice answered me, vaguely female. It spoke in my mind, reverberating through me and my being. This world becomes what you bring to it. What do you bring? The blackness shifted and became solid. I saw no light source, yet I could just barely make out the area in front of me. Ground appeared, cold and dead. Black rocks jutted out at odd angles, sharp and ugly. A chill wrapped me up. My field of vision was limited in that weird illumination. Everything beyond it was unfathomable darkness. In front of me, I made out a deeper blackness, surrounded by a faint gray outline. A doorway or a tunnel. Was this what I was? Had I shaped my surroundings into cold darkness? The voice spoke again: This world is what you make it. Inside the tunnel, I could feel Kiyo. With no more thought, I took flight again, moving forward. The darkness swallowed me once more. Then I emerged into an empty clearing. It looked like I was in a cave, surrounded by that same cold stone. An indeterminable source illuminated the room with stark light. There was no way out. I felt Kiyo ahead still but saw no way to get to him. Behind me, the path I’d come from was gone. And then I wasn’t alone anymore. Shapes materialized around me. I recognized almost every one of them. The keres. The fachan. Finn. Some of the yeshin. An assortment of spirits. Countless other monsters. Countless gentry. Every being I had ever banished to this world. They filled almost every inch of space in the enclosure, crowding around me. Their faces were horrible. Twisted reflections of what I used to know. They opened their mouths, screaming their terror and pain, reliving when I had killed or banished them. The group closed in, hands reaching out. They clawed at me, trying to gouge me and scrape away my skin. Skin? The feathers were gone. I stood in my human form, quite ordinary-looking in casual clothes. The hands and faces closed in tighter, and I screamed as the mob tore me apart. Agony shot through every part of me, a terrible and consuming pain. I sank to the floor, trying to ward them off. What will you give us? they seemed to ask as one. What will you give us to let you pass? â€Å"What do you want?† You sent us here without thought. You ripped our essence out of one world and into another. Do you know what that is like? To have your essence torn asunder? â€Å"Show me,† I whispered. They did. It started inside of me. Like a small spark, noticeable only by a faint twinge. Like getting shocked with static electricity. Then it grew, spreading out like a mass of wriggling worms, eating me from the inside out. Only it was more than physical. It was like†¦a spiritual cancer. I could feel everything about me disintegrating. First, all the superficial things. My love of pajamas and Def Leppard. This was followed by the removal of things that identified me, that made me unique: my physical abilities, my shamanic powers, even my newfound magic. Next, my emotional connections were stripped away, making me forget everyone I knew or loved. My parents, Kiyo, Dorian, Tim, Lara†¦they all vanished, their memories blown to the wind. Finally, my base essence disappeared. Me as a physical and mental being. Eugenie Gwen Markham. A woman. Half human, half shining one. It was all gone, and I was nothing. I wanted to scream but had no means of doing so. And then, I was back. I sat huddled in a ball, alone in the cavern. Unfolding myself, I saw that I was whole. My self-knowledge had returned. Still shaking, I looked up and saw that a doorway had appeared. It was a way out, a way toward Kiyo. I walked into the next tunnel, again entering the darkness. When I emerged, I found myself in a cavern exactly like the other. Only this time, I wasn’t alone. A man stood on the far side, his back to me as he studied the wall. Sensing my presence, he turned around. He had reddish hair, streaked with silver and just barely touching his shoulders. The features of his face were striking, a square jaw and sharp angles. Handsome in a harsh sort of way. He wore clothes like the gentry, most of him covered by a sweeping cloak as rich as anything Dorian might own. Rich purple velvet. Jewels worked into the edges. A crown sat on his head, made of a gleaming metal too bright to be silver. Platinum, I thought. It was a masterpiece of metalworking, all scalloping and flowing edges, like a circle of entwined clouds. The edges of it met in a small point at the top of his forehead, like a faux widow’s peak. Diamonds and amethysts set among the lacy curves glittered in the weird lighting. But it was his eyes that really seized me. They would not hold one color. They shifted, like clouds on a windy day. Azure blue. Silvery gray. Rich violet. â€Å"Hello, Father,† I said. The eyes held at a steady, deep blue as he looked me over. â€Å"You are not what I expected.† â€Å"Sorry.† â€Å"No matter. You will do. In the end, you’re only a vessel anyway. Your magic will grow, and those around you will eventually see that what needs to be done is accomplished, once your child is born.† I shook my head. â€Å"I’m not going to have your heir.† â€Å"Then you will not pass. You will die here.† I didn’t say anything. Anger hardened his already fierce features, and whatever attractiveness I’d noted before vanished. I remembered my mother’s reaction, her pure and unwavering hatred for him. His eyes flickered again, turning from blue to a gray so dark it almost looked black. â€Å"You are a stupid, foolish girl who has no idea what you’re doing. The fate of the worlds hinges upon you, and you are too ignorant and too weak to do anything about it. No matter. You are not the only one who can carry on the dream.† â€Å"What, you mean Jasmine?† He nodded. â€Å"She lacks your power and war instincts, but again, she is only a vessel. More important, she is willing. Aeson made sure of that. He visited her years before finally taking her. She knows her duty. She will see it through.† A cold, heavy lump settled in my stomach. I had gone out of my way to avoid pregnancy, but Jasmine would not. She would be seeking it, purposely trying to have Storm King’s heir. All my smug contraceptive practices would mean nothing. Storm King read my thoughts. â€Å"Maybe if you were the one, you could control the situation. Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad if you were the heir’s mother. If your sister is the one, there will be no reprieve.† â€Å"Don’t fuck with me just to get your way. It won’t work.† The eyes darkened further. â€Å"Whatever you want, then. It makes no difference if you die here and stay with me.† I stared at the far, blank wall, willing the stone to open. Beyond it I could feel Kiyo slipping away from me. My heart – if I had one in this form – beat more rapidly. I closed my eyes. â€Å"What do you want me to do?† Hands reached around from behind me, closing around my waist. â€Å"Submit just once,† Aeson said in my ear. â€Å"Submit just once to me, and you can pass on.† His hands pulled me against him, and I tried to squelch my rising nausea. Some reasonable part of me said it didn’t matter. None of this mattered. I wasn’t here in body. I couldn’t get pregnant. This wasn’t actually happening. Yet†¦it seemed so real. And for all intents and purposes, it was. His hands upon me. His breath against my neck. It felt exactly as it would in physical form, as I knew it was intended to. I opened my eyes and saw my father watching me. Beyond him, Kiyo moved farther away. â€Å"All right,† I said, barely recognizing my own voice. Aeson turned me around and kissed me, harsh and bruising, uncaring that my lips stayed inert and did not kiss him back. He pulled me down, putting my back against the sharp planes of the stone. The last thing I saw before all went to blackness was Storm King looking down at me, face cold and uncaring. I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the mental and physical hurt. When I let myself see again, I sat on the ground, palms down against the hard surface. Just like before, I felt no more pain, and I could tell my clothes were whole once more. Another illusion†¦one my body had no memory of but which would stay etched in my mind for some time, I suspected. Standing up, I moved forward, on toward Kiyo. Someone else was waiting for me in the next chamber, a man I’d never seen before. He was slim and small, dressed in scarlet velvet bordering on outlandish. He held a small cloth-wrapped bundle in his hands and paced around nervously. When he caught sight of me, his face brightened with relief. â€Å"There you are, your majesty!† he exclaimed. â€Å"I’ve been waiting.† â€Å"Waiting for what?† He proffered the bundle before me. â€Å"To give you your crown. You have to put it on.† I eyed the bundle nervously and then looked at the smooth, blank wall between Kiyo and me. â€Å"Is that what I need to do to get through? Put on the crown?† He nodded, shifting from foot to foot. â€Å"Hurry. We’re running out of time.† I knew what the crown was for. I knew what Dorian had done outside of Aeson’s fortress. Somehow, some way, I had gained the Alder Land. I had become its queen. I sure as hell didn’t want it, though. If I made it away from here alive, I’d definitely rectify the problem. But if wearing the crown here was what it took to pacify this next sadistic torment, then I would do it. It was a whole lot easier than everything else I’d been through. â€Å"Fine. Give it to me.† He handed me the bundle. I unwrapped and nearly dropped it when I saw what lay inside. Aeson had worn a gold circlet. Dorian’s crown, which he rarely wore, was similarly simple. It resembled a ring of leaves, beaten out in different metals: silver, gold, and copper. Presumably Maiwenn and the rest of the Otherworldly monarchs wore similar items. But this†¦this was not a simple circlet. It was heavy and platinum, an intricate swirl of metal set with diamonds and amethysts. Storm King’s crown. Only it was smaller. A bit more delicate. Designed for a woman. â€Å"What is this?† I exclaimed. The man gave me a puzzled look. â€Å"Your crown.† â€Å"This isn’t the Alder Land’s crown. This is my father’s crown.† â€Å"What else would you wear, your majesty?† I tried handing it back to him, but he stepped away from it. â€Å"I don’t want it. I won’t wear it.† â€Å"You have to. It’s the only way.† He looked at me pleadingly, almost like he wanted me to move on to the next stage of this game as much as I did. I didn’t need his entreaty. I wanted to move on too. Badly. Badly enough to finally lift the crown up with shaking fingers and rest it on my head. Instantly, I no longer stood in the chamber. I was on a high, cragged peak, overlooking vast sweeping plains. The sky was dark and heavy with clouds, and lightning danced among them. Below, on the plains, armies stretched as far as the eye could see. Armies of gentry and spirits and the myriad creatures living in the Otherworld. The crown felt heavy on my head yet did a poor job of holding down my hair as the wind whipped it around. A gown of indigo velvet embraced my body, and a black and silver fur cloak draped my shoulders. In my left hand, I held my wand, and in the crook of my other arm, I held a baby. It was wrapped up in white blankets, its eyes closed. A fine haze of hair, its color indistinct, swept over its head. I had no idea who its father was – I didn’t even know if it was a boy or girl – but some instinctual part of me knew it was mine. Tentatively, I reached out with my fingers and touched that fine hair. It felt like down, like the softest, finest silk imaginable. The baby stirred slightly at the touch, snuggling against me, and something inside of me stirred as well. I jumped as a hand encircled my waist, and a warm body moved next to mine. Dorian. A sword hung at his side, and a new crown sat on his head, more elaborate than his former circle of leaves. It was made of thick gold, heavy with jewels and dazzling to behold. But it wasn’t as big as mine. â€Å"They’re waiting for your order,† he said. I followed his gaze out to the fields of people and saw that they were all on their knees before me, heads touching the earth. Above them, thunder rumbled as the storm swirled restlessly. â€Å"I don’t know what to do,† I told him. â€Å"What you have to do.† As though moving of its own accord, the hand holding my wand rose into the air. The armies rose with it, like I was a puppeteer pulling marionettes to life. A great roar sounded among them, swords banging on shields and magic flaring in salute. One downward motion, and I knew they would march. One motion from me, and I would unleash hell itself. The roar intensified. Dorian’s body shifted closer. The baby stirred again. My hand felt heavy and started to fall†¦. I stood alone in the stone chamber. No man. No crown. The doorway had appeared, and I lunged for it. The darkness engulfed me, and I swear the tunnel had grown more narrow than before. Still I moved onward. I could feel Kiyo growing closer and closer. I ran, needing to find him, needing to reach out to him, needing to – And there he was. He lay on a small dais in this new chamber, wearing his human shape. He was on his back, whole and perfect, his hands clasped on his chest like a sleeping fairytale princess. I moved toward him, and a woman moved in front of me. I didn’t know how I hadn’t seen her before. She had just appeared. I looked at her and squinted, trying to focus, but had trouble. Her appearance kept shifting. One instant she was golden and lovely, honey-blond hair pouring to her ankles. The next she was pale as death, black hair sweeping behind her like a funeral shroud, yet still beautiful in a frightening sort of way. Persephone herself blocked my path, and I knew there was no way I could go through her. â€Å"Let me have him. Please. I’ve passed all the tests, just like you wanted.† What I wanted? It was the same voice I’d heard before, only now amusement tinged its edges. None of that mattered to me. They were not my tests. This world is what you bring to it. Most of the dead bring guilt or regret. You brought your fears. I peered beyond her to Kiyo, my soul screaming out to his. â€Å"What do you want? What do I need to do to take him?† What makes you think I’ll give him to you? He’s mine. I received him fairly. The dead do not leave my realm. I racked my brain, turning over every story or myth I’d ever heard. â€Å"What about Orpheus? You let him take Eurydice.† But in the end, she did not leave. He was not strong enough. She stayed. â€Å"You don’t need him, especially since I’ve sent you so many other souls.† Was it truly for me? Or your own ends? â€Å"Does it matter?† Perhaps not. But now I have two more, and I do not have to give them up. â€Å"Then do it as a favor,† I begged. A favor? Her amusement grew. Why would I do that? â€Å"Because I’ve served you faithfully. And because we’re the same. I’m trapped in two worlds too, and I don’t think I can get out of that. I’m torn in two forever now.† I touched the butterfly tattoo on my arm, half black and half white. Just like Persephone, who spent half her existence as a goddess of springtime and half as a ruler of death. Just like me, half human and half gentry. Half lover, half killer. In Swan Lake, Odile is the dark swan and Odette is the light swan, yet both are played by the same dancer. She only stared, and I desperately tried to think of something. â€Å"You said this world is what we bring. I brought love too. Doesn’t that count for anything?† She considered. That depends. Will you give up your love? Sacrifice it to me? Promise you will stay away from him forever, that you will forsake your love. I stared at Kiyo’s inert form, thinking how it would be to never see him again. Something inside of me died at that thought, but I didn’t hesitate. â€Å"All right. I agree.† Persephone stared at me a moment, then Kiyo vanished. It is done. â€Å"You sent his soul back? He’ll live?† If his body is healed soon, then yes, he’ll live. She continued staring at me, and I realized I’d made no such guarantees for my own return. In fact, I could no longer feel that glittering connection to my own body. You are trapped here, she affirmed. â€Å"I know. It’s okay. It’s worth it.† And I meant it. Kiyo’s life meant more than my own. Her blue-to-black-to-blue eyes held me. Then, as improbable as it seemed, she sighed. Go back. Go back to your dual existence. I will see you again someday, and then you will stay. Her fingers touched my forehead, and a searing pain ran through me. My form disappeared in a flurry of feathers and black wings, and I felt myself being pulled out of this world. Just before I left completely, she spoke again. Her voice was tired and maybe just a little sad. Keep your love. I have no use for it anymore. An instant later, I woke up in my physical body, gasping and choking for air as I returned to life. How to cite Storm Born Chapter Twenty-Seven, Essay examples

Monday, April 27, 2020

Tomboy free essay sample

The elder sister, Laure, is a little â€Å"different†. Not much attention is given to her at first until her â€Å"differences† start to cause problems in the neighborhood, and for the family. Laure is a tomboy, which by definition is: â€Å"an energetic, sometimes boisterous girl whose behavior and pursuits are considered more typical of a boy than a girl†. Laure is not only like this with her behavior, but also with her appearance! If the information of her being female was not splayed to the viewer in the film, it wouldn’t be apparent she was a girl. At first, it seems as though she sees herself as a female, but dresses and acts like a boy. But, once the neighborhood kids mistake her for a boy, she fills the role and does everything in her power to make sure it stays that way, whether it be by lying, hiding, changing her name, altering her body, or mimicking the behavioral or realational values of a male. We will write a custom essay sample on Tomboy or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page A main point in the film is that Laure made a friend, a female friend named Lisa, and nobody thought, not even Laure, that she’d ever have a female companion besides her little sister. Laure walked, talked, and dressed like a boy, and told everybody she had a boy’s name. It was pretty obvious that everybody took a liking to â€Å"him†. Childhood love soon bloomed, but, let’s not forget the fact that Laure is actually a girl. Laure has a loving family. At the age of six, Jeanne, Laure’s younger sister is dragged into the situation. She is wildly confused by her sister’s behavior, it seems at one out, but unusually accepting of it at the same time. When the odds of her deceiving behavior stack against her, Laure finds herself having to face her peers, and a bewildered mom who asks her, â€Å"Why did you tell everyone in the neighborhood you were a boy? †, and a frazzled and upset Laure just looks up at her mom and says, â€Å"I don’t know†. In a child’s mind, what could they be thinking? She is only ten, in yet, has spun herself into something so complicated that even adults, cultures, and societies still cannot grasp it. My inquiry is: What compels Laure to do this? Why would she pretend to be a boy? The world today has many contemporary issues. Many times in the movie the issue of sexuality is breached. In â€Å"Tomboy†, it is highly implied that the main character, Laure, may be a closeted transgender boy; She, of course ,does not understand this. In the film, when the way she thinks and feels is challenged by her peers and family, Laure becomes very upset. My point being that something so complex to understand, and then be able to put it on a big screen, had to take some amazing actors. The majority of the cast were children, and I could honestly say the thespians of the screenplay were so superb with their acting, that this movie could be mistaken for a visual documentary instead of a fiction film. The setting is summertime in modern day France right outside of Paris in a small neighborhood. This setting is so fitting for this type of heart-warming drama. Summer in France is fun and festive, and it enjoys pleasantly hot temperatures, and experiences occasional rain showers in the night. Expect to see beautiful flowers blooming and exquisite gardens. In the film, the child would roam about the woods near the home, giving the viewer multiple chances to see the beautiful trees, and weather of France! When watching this display of gorgeous visuals and the seemingly relaxed atmosphere, it gives you the illusion that the small area of complexes holds no secrets, and the summer is lazy, serene and full of fun! Like the children in the movie, after seeing the scenery, all I wanted to do was go down to the creek, and bask in the warm afternoon sun. Like the director’s debut film, â€Å"Water Lilies†, â€Å"this film deals with early formative concepts of gender in a truly beautiful, emotive, captivating and accurate way†. Both films were also primarily about females. Although the films were similar on the storyline concept, they were also very different. In the film â€Å"Tomboy†, it was implied that the main character, Laure, had done some similar behavior as such before, as her little sister, Jeanne, threatened to tell their mom that Laure was â€Å"acting like a boy†. The main female character in the film â€Å"Water Lilies†, was friends with her companions in the film for years, it was portrayed as it was because they’d been on a competing swim team together. Her exploration of this concept seemed to be totally new, and very much unintended. Overall, I liked â€Å"Tomboy† better as a movie, because it was just so tender and warming, whereas â€Å"Water Lilies† was, in a way, awkward. The movie definitely puts an interesting aspect on a troublesome issue in society, international film critic, John Frosch, states, â€Å"Brisk, Precisely observed, and bracingly non-preachy in its examination of a very tricky subject. I couldn’t have agreed more with his statement, simply because this is a very slippery subject. New York Times critic, Manohla Dargis, disagrees on the films superb approach, â€Å"The story that emerges in programmatic and largely unsurprising, but these children give it messiness, joy, and life. I can’t say I agree with her whole statement, but at least she acknowledges that the children did a phenomenal job with acting. The film to me is beautifully and daringly crafted because it implies that sometimes these things are judged in ways they shouldn’t be when it is not fully understood. Laure cannot comprehend the â€Å"troubles† society and her culture may give her, she doesn’t even understand why she acted this way. So, how can anyone judge her actions? Furthermore, I want to say again that the story, acting, and setting of this film was marvelous, and the film is an absolute must see for anyone who understands the value of the simplicity of childhood.