Friday, January 31, 2020

Consequences of Indecisions Essay Example for Free

Consequences of Indecisions Essay Consequences of Indecisions The characters are affected by their mistakes in Feed by M.T. Anderson because these characters are all caught up in their indecision to choose what they want to do with their lives. Violet’s father is all caught up in protecting his daughter, Violet the main character, from the negative affects of the feed and how people take advantage of it in a poor manner. He didn’t want that to happen to Violet. The Feed is a device that people in the novel use in their everyday lives. The Feed is a computer chip that gets installed into the brain allowing internet access where ever they are, exposing people to unlimited knowledge. This chip also allows them to have the internet as a part of them so it becomes a part of the brain thus making them all in some since, part robot. He never wanted to get Violet the Feed because he thought it would be terrible for her. He then realized that she needed it in order to have a productive future and live a decent life. The outcome of his delayed decision of installing the Feed caused negative affects on Violet. Violet has similar to her father’s thinking when it comes to the Feed. She can’t decide if she does or doesn’t want to be a part of society. She claims that she loves the Feed because of the knowledge that it has to offer. Violet wants the feed because she also yearns to be accepted into society. She then turns around and says that the Feed is a horrible thing because it separates people from the real world causing them to become unaware of what’s really happening in the world. She also malfunctions in result of being hacked. This is the major issue that Violet and her father come across. Since these characters can’t choose what they actually want with society and the Feed only ends up leading them to their destruction. Violets father’s distraction with his thoughts is caused by his indecision on society with how people act. Many people would think that Violets father was doing the right thing by limiting his daughter to the technology, and they are wrong. If he was so against society then he should have left with Violets mother or just leave in general to get away. If they moved away and he never got her the Feed and she would have never gone to the moon. Apparently those thoughts never occurred to him. So he is living in a society that he strongly dislikes and refuses to become fully part of. His  problem with picking what he wants influenced him to get the Feed installed into her daughter’s brain late, because he realized that she would need it in order to live there and have a successful life. He realized this after he went to a job interview and he still didn’t have the Feed so he couldn’t get the job. This hesitation that he had was because he wanted his daughter to have real knowledge that you actually had in your head from memory and education. Not lazy artificial knowledge that she didn’t need to think to know something. He was being stubborn and thought he was doing something good for her. Many people would say that he just wanted to protect her. Well if he really wanted to protect her then why didn’t he just take her and leave that place? At the same time he wants to be around this great technology with its unlimited opportunities. Since he couldn’t choose a side that he wanted to be on he ran into issues because he cou ldn’t choose one or the other. Sadly Violet acts similar to her father. when it comes to Violet , it’s obvious that she is different from everyone else. She knows more then other people do because she had time to think and learn before she got the Feed, along with homeschooling. She has a larger vocabulary then the people that she lives around. Violet also doesn’t have as wide of a vocabulary as her father. She isnt as intelligent as her father either. She is lonely to the point that she makes announcements into a trash can just to hear the echo of her own voice. She has no real close friends because of homeschooling, making her less exposed to other people in the world. Violet has similar indecisions as her father, being against the society and with it at the same time just doesn’t work. it has to be one or the other. If not then they will have plenty of issues, because when they go against the way how things function and try to change it only caused them problems that they have to pay for all on there own. Violets individuality and intelligence made her get into problems because she wanted to see if she could trick the Feed to prove that technology cant over power humans. As Violet goes to the mall to create another profile on her Feed it only backfires. She called this her project. Her project was to create an account that the Feed could not give options to for items that she may like. She tried creating this account by looking at random and odd things at the mall  that had nothing to do with each other, pretending to like them so that the Feed would think she takes an interest in them. This makes the Feed think that she would consider purchasing these items. Violets project backfired because she never bought anything that she made the Feed think she liked. The Feed was offering her these items, expecting her to buy some of them. When she never did apply to purchasing anything, Violet got hacked everything started to malfunction and her father couldnt pay for the care and FeedTech had no interest in helping her because she wasnt a good investment to society. No one from FeedTech or the inverters of FeedTech wanted to sponsor for her health needs be cause of her poor shopping records. These records stated, that she had looked up information on items and she didnt purchase any of them. Violets project was a horrible idea because her father couldnt afford to pay for all the tests that she needed. The warranty had also expired years ago. There is nothing that they can do for her now but wait as her father regrets not getting Violets Feed late. When Violet got hacked, it somehow damaged her Feed and no one was sure why. While she was in the hospital she was told by the doctors that her Feed should stabilize over time, it never did. Her Feed only progressed to worsen as time went on. Even when she was working on her project in the mall Violet didnt consider how her actions would affect her . She knew that attempting to mess with the Feed wasnt supposed to be done and that didnt stop her . She went and did it anyway, her indecision to go against the Feed failed because she only got worse in the end. Her body slowly stopped working over time. In the beginning she was losing all feeling in her foot. Similar to having a foot fall asleep. Of course this turned into her whole limbs losing feeling. This resulted in her losing all feeling in both of her legs causing her to fall down the stairs when she was home alone. FeedTech didnt want to help her because she made a record that stated how she doesnt buy anything that she takes int erest in. All because she couldnt make up her mind on what she wanted to do. She attempted to trick the Feed. Then she changed her mind when she was weak and tried getting help from FeedTech after she attempted to mess up the whole system. Since these characters can’t choose what they actually want with society. The Feed only ends up leading them to destruction. Violet and her father made so many mistakes that it came to the point where they couldn’t save her. They refused to cooperate with FeedTech so FeedTech wouldn’t pay for her repairs. When it came to her malfunctioning. They also refused to cover the cost because she messed up her Feed during her project at the mall when she was trying to trick the Feed so that it couldn’t predict or tell her what she would like. Since Violets father was so caught up in protecting his daughter he was protecting her to the point where his choices killed his daughter, destroying everything he has ever worked for because Violet is his life. Violet is all he has left because Violets mother ran away to Africa to escape the society that they claim to hate. When it turned out that them staying is a place that they dislike was all a mistake on its own. If they where going to stay they should have accepted the way things are. Violet and her father should have just given into the way of the Feed if they wanted to stay.

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Journey into Self in Nicola Griffith’s Ammonite and Nancy Springer’s L

Journey into Self in Nicola Griffith’s Ammonite and Nancy Springer’s Larque on the Wing   Ã‚  Ã‚   Let your soul roam free. Discover your true self.   Play with your inner child.   Share the memories of your ancestors.   Understand your parents.  Ã‚   Have total self control. Open yourself up and peer inside.   These are accomplishments most humans will never achieve, but Nicola Griffith’s Marghe from her novel Ammonite and Nancy Springer’s Larque from her novel Larque on the Wing are able to do all of these things and more. They are accomplished not simply through careful, quiet reflection, but from action, adventure and danger which drive them to the point at which they must adapt and grow or lose themselves forever.   Both women are fully grown at the time of their respective adventures, both have struggled through puberty and young adulthood, and have already â€Å"come of age† in so many words,   and both are strong individuals who seem relatively happy with their work and their lives.   However, because of the conflicts they are thrown into, they receive the chance to understand themselves more fully.   Marghe and Larque’s adventures and misadventures open up possibilities for them to look deep within themselves and discover who they truly are-to remember their pasts, gain insights into their personalities, and to fully realize their potential as human beings.   All of these things combine to paint exciting stories which give the reader greater insight into the human mind and a chance to explore gender roles in ways unavailable to us in our day to day life.   Ã‚  Ã‚   For Marghe, her stay on Jeep was supposed to be short, a trip to study the people and their society, but once she realized that she would be spending the rest of her life there, sh... ...natural and healthy.   Both authors have presented a view of gender in which having specific â€Å"male,† or â€Å"female† qualities is unimportant, and what matters is exploring all of your potentially human qualities.   Ã‚  Ã‚   Marghe and Larque unexpectedly embark on quests to learn more about themselves, and what they discover is more than they had ever thought possible.   They connect with their pasts, discover hidden desires, and gain insights and abilities which cause them to grow exponentially.   They discover who they truly are.   Truth with a capital â€Å"T.†Ã‚  Ã‚   As Lark proclaims near the end of the novel as she battles her mother in a battle of the wills heightened by their psychokinetic powers, â€Å"I am ME!†Ã‚  Ã‚   (Springer, 1994)    Works Cited Griffith, Nicola. Ammonite. Toronto: Ballantine Books, 1992. Springer, Nancy.   Larque on the Wing. New York: Avon Book, 1994.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Financial Analysis Coca-Cola and PepsiCo Essay

We will be comparing two companies; both are strong and have great credibility. Ideally with a solid competitor we want to show differentials and make a solid contrast. In this case we want to compare at least two years of financial data. A great way to exemplify this is to compare Coke to Pepsi. To say which one is better to drink is debatable, but what we are looking at is which is better to invest in. We will analyze the information provided in the appendixes and make a conscience decision as to which company is stronger, therefore a smarter investment choice. After all, I wouldn’t want you to throw your money down the drain. The three main characteristics used to determine a company’s success are liquidity, solvency, and of course profit. The aspects, when analyzed, can help you decide which is more successful and financially honored as a better investment. This can also help someone decide which is more successful and financially stable. While we look at these statements I would like to keep in mind how good it is to look at trend over time. This opens our next concept which is vertical and horizontal analysis. By taking a step back and going over the ratio analysis which is composed of the three main characteristics, we are able to see what has happened during the time period we compare with. Hence us making our intelligent investment decision. Going back, ratio analysis is where we divide two numbers in order to get a percentage which we will compare to the competitor. First characteristic is liquidity. This is where we see the company paying their debts, and on time. This is very similar to an individual person’s credit score. Are they paying their bills? This shows financial responsibility and that is a very important component in investments. The information is typically shown as a ratio or percentage of the liquid assets. The higher the ratio the bigger the safety margin is in which the corporation will fulfill their debts. You wouldn’t rent a home to someone with bad credit. Nor would you loan someone money if they had a bad tendency to not be responsible with money. Going back to business mind state, we can look at the potential ability to turn a good or service into profit. This is crucial to investing. It’s also crucial to compare companies within the same industry. It seems logical initially but there are ratios and formulas that are used that operate most efficiently when comparison is done within similarities. So, let’s get on with the fun stuff already! PepsiCo’s Balance Sheet and Liquid Ratio (Remember, we are dividing the current asset with the liabilities for both years, not dividing the annual comparison. Meaning; do not divide the two numbers next to each other. This is the essential difference between horizontal and vertical analysis. ) Current ratio 2005=10,4549406=1.11 Current ratio 2004= 86396752=1.28 Just to make a quick observation before we move on the ratio of 2005 is 1.11:1 and in 2004 it is 1.28:1. We now have the ratios; let’s get the percentage of total assets from cash and equivalents. Then we will do Coca-Cola’s and compare. Percentage of cash for 2005=1716 (cash and equiv)10454 (total assets)= .1641 Percentage of cash for 2004=12808639= .1481 That’s 16.41% for 2005 and 14.81% for 2004. This is solid statistic and I don’t really see much room for improvement based on the information found. It seems to be a solid bet, but we are far from done. Coca-Cola’s Balance Sheet and Liquid Ratio (Again, remember to divide the total asset with total liability.) Current ratio 2005=10,2509,836=1.042 Current ratio 2004=12,28111,133=1.103 So the ratio is 1.042:1 for 2005 and 1.103:1 for 2004. Don’t feel discouraged, we will take this information and further discuss. I would like to mention that liability ratio lowering isn’t a bad thing and can mean potential growth. That being said, I sense improvement. Now that we have our ratio numbers for both companies and both years we will determine the percentage of total assets from cash and the equivalents. Now we will get the percentages of total assets and compare with PepsiCo. Percentage of cash for 2005=4701 (cash and equiv)29427(total assets)= .1598 Percentage of cash for 2004=670731441= .2133 That’s 15.98% for 2005 and 21.33% for 2004. I’m not sure about you, but if my percentage of cash went down 5.35% I would fret. Now, that’s not to say I wouldn’t invest just yet, but it does raise concern. Unless this cash is being used to pay off debts or re-invest into the company however, one should raise concern. Now that we have our calculations let’s make our comparison. In 2004 PepsiCo’s ratio was 1.28:1 then in 2005 it was 1.11:1. Whereas Coca-Cola had 1.103:1 for 2004 and 1.042:1 in 2005. We can divide the total current assets and of the liabilities for the two years giving us the increase or decrease for the same company. Simply divide the total current asset or liabilities for the two different years. We can find the increase or decrease for asset or liabilities. This furthers our comparisons. Let’s get back to solvency. It is a comparison of current assets and current liabilities. It is determined by dividing one with another. This gives an investor a ratio, which is explained earlier, that provides the investor with good information. That being, how does the company do with long-term responsibility? Also how likely will it act in the future with obligations and goals? The lower the ratio is, the less likely they are to have the follow through we are looking for. A high ratio provides the investor with an imminent outlook on the corporation being free of debt and how the company chooses to re-invest its profit. Profitability can allow an investor to monitor the corporation’s ability to produce assets in comparison to the expenses they must pay off. To put it bluntly, if a company has a higher profit ratio or margin than another company than they are doing better. We can do the same thing with profit that we did with liquidity as far as percentages and ratios go. When looking at profits we must be sure to compare annually because many companies have a season where they are selling more product. What the intended affect would be is to get the average and avoid the fluke statistics. When investing, it is a good idea to take a good step back. Like looking through the window of a candy shop. One candy might look good but you take a step back you can admire the entire display and see what is really going on. The big picture. Horizontal analysis can be utilized to provide the investor with the corporation’s financial data over a monthly or annual progression. It can be expressed using a balance sheet, an income statement, or retained earnings statement. When an investor evaluates the horizontal analysis they can determine the stability of the corporation, giving them solid insight. First we will apply horizontal analysis to PepsiCo’s assets and liabilities. We start by dividing the difference of total current assets between 2004 and 2005. As I have provided the spreadsheet earlier with the information it won’t be necessary to repeat. We are still dealing with those highlighted numbers; this will make it easier to locate the correct statistics. 10454 assets of 2005 – 8639 (assets of 2004)8639 (assets of 2004) = .210 We can then turn this into percentage which would be 21% (technically 21.01%) total current asset increase from one year to the next. Now we’ll do the same with liabilities. 9406 liabilties of 2005- 6752 (liabilties of 2004)6752 (liabilties 2004)= .393 Let’s do this in percentage form, 39.3%. That’s increase of liabilities during the time span of 2004 to 2005. By analyzing this information we are provided with the fact that there is an increase in current assets. This can be done by obtaining loans and gaining credibility as a corporation. On the counterpoint here there is a possibility that debt has increased. Keep in mind that while numbers are increasing and numbers don’t lie, it’s the person analyzing them that puts things in perspective. Let’s make a comparison now with Coca-Cola. 10250 assets of 2005- 12281 (assets of 2005)31441 assets 2004= -.064 We made the horizontal analysis to see if Coca-Cola has gone through increase or decrease with assets and liabilities between the two years of information we were given. When we translate our answer from decimal to percentage we get -6.4% which is a decrease. Let’s divide liabilities for Coca-Cola now. 9836 liabilities of 2005- 11133 (liabilities of 2004)11133 (liabilties of 2004)= -.116 This gives us -11.6% decrease in liabilities from 2004 to 2005. Translating that to English, this means that while assets were low it seems they were clearly paying off debts. This is a responsible and promising thing for a corporation to act on. A good investor will recognize debts being paid off and see that they are making profits and creating a solid foundation for the future. By judging the company’s percentage of growth we can easily separate the stronger competitor. Now, let’s do PepsiCo’s vertical analysis. Year 2005=1716(cash and equiv)31727 (total asset)= .054 Year 2004=1280 (cash and equiv)27987 total asset= .046 In 2005 the percentage is 5.4% while in 2004 it was only 4.6%. Let’s now figure out how much of the assets are currently in possession of the company, first with 2005. Oh, and imagine how nice it would be if we could do that with people we’ve loaned money to. Year 2005=10454 (current asset)31727 (total asset)= .3295 Year 2004=8639 (current asset)27987 (total asset)= .3087 So, we have 32.95% in 2005 and 30.87% in 2004. Meaning that PepsiCo’s assets in possession went up 2.08% in a year. Promising, right? Well, what about Coca-Cola’s? Year 2005=4701 (cash and equiv)29427 total asset= .160 Year 2004=6707 (cash and equiv)31441 (total asset)=.213 In 2005 the percentage is 16% while in 2004 it was 21.3%. Interesting, huh? Let’s figure out the assets Coca-Cola owned in possession. This is where investor’s ears perk up and we can get to some real solid numbers that will eventually define our final decision. Year 2005=10250 (current asset)29427 (total asset)= .348 Year 2004=12281 (current asset)29427 (total asset)= .391 In 2005 the percentage is 34.8% while in 2004 it was higher with a 39.1%. One can easily come to the conclusion that Coca-Cola may have fewer assets in possession, but keep debts in mind. Investors are looking for exactly this. Sure, they own less but they are also being financially responsible. In conclusion with all that has been said and analyzed I would like to conclude this intense and considerate examination. Many statistics were provided by the appendix and several calculations were made to come to a logical and sound conclusion. By viewing over the ratios and percentages we can determine that Coca-Cola is a stronger company. With the fact they do have low assets, we consider how many debts are being paid off due to the profits that are made. The CEO clearly had a strong head on their shoulders and even though these numbers are but six years old, I can only imagine their consistence has stayed the same. Reason being, the corporation has remained out of debts and re-invested th eir profits into future proceedings which allow a positive outlook for investors. Resources: Hill, M.G (2009). Financial Accounting

Monday, January 6, 2020

Evolution Of Religions Free Essay Example, 2000 words

Man’s capacity to communicate highlighted the need for survival in groups, and, therefore, cultural transmission emerged (Sosis 319). These adaptation models and need to survive in groups led to the emergence of religion. Various concepts have emerged, in an endeavor to explain the challenges of the evolution of religion. Commitment theory, initiated by Robert Frank and developed by Richard Sosis attempts to answer questions regarding the origin of religions (Sosis 319). To begin with, the Commitment theory underlines that various religions are both rational and irrational. The justification of the fact that religion is rational is that it attempts to bring individuals together, and cooperate towards the achievement of dissimilar endeavors. The irrationality of various religious beliefs lies in the fact that such beliefs are based on unverifiable paranormal beings and forces (Sosis 319). The theory highlights the notion that people irrationally commit themselves to unverifiable truths. These truths are crucial in creating trust among members of such groups. The concept states that trust is a predicament to individuals, owing to its creation of a platform that individuals may employ to deceive others (Sosis 321). We will write a custom essay sample on Evolution Of Religions or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now As such, individuals may desert the logic, and endeavor to pursue irrational beliefs, an action that may compel other individuals to follow his or her course. However, religious organizations are perceived to have a higher internal teamwork and have successful endeavors as compared to their non-religious counterparts. As such, Commitment theory emphasizes that a religion evolves to sustain the benefits of group collaboration while attaching individuals to empirically subjective structure of faiths (Sosis, 328). These commitments lead to a conducts boosts mutual aid. Besides, because religion is also a culture in itself, studies associate modern industrial cultures with longevity and health. Individuals may also view the rationality of religion in an economic perspective. Religions have also evolved over time to promote closeness. One may experience the psychological benefits of religion since it serves as a cohesive family. Some cult-like religions may highlight the need of closeness, to the point of imposing taboos that deter involvement of members with the extended society. Cognitive theory also attempts to explain the origin of religions (Sosis 320). The cognitive theory also endeavors to underscore the rationale behind the popularity and wide acceptance of diverse religions globally.